Beneath the Tor (34 page)

thirty-three

sabbie

We
still
had
our
arms around each other when I came round. We were lying like lovers, Ricky and me, at the very edge of the Tor.

I eased myself away, lifting and resting his arms. They were limp. He didn't stir. I could see his chest rise and fall and wondered if he was rousable. I went to shake him, but thought better of it. Maybe his exhausted mind had closed right down. I had no idea how he would respond to being woken.

At was midnight dark on the Tor. I stood, almost stumbling, half in and half out of the otherworld, trying to make sense of where I had been.

“S'ruth! What's been happening here?”

Shadows moved, close to the tower. Someone arriving from the footpath that led up to the top. I knew it was Anag because the voice was resonant of crocodile wrestling and barbecued steaks. I moved away from Ricky's body to meet him at the centre of the summit. Shell was with him. She'd found her clothes and pulled them on, but I could hear how bad her breathing was. She leant heavily on Anag's arm. I reached them and she fell into me. I hugged her. She'd been brave to bring Anag back here. “Are you okay, Shell?”

“She can't talk, Sabs. Sort of hoarse. Came hobbling down the hill just as I'd got fed up waiting and started the climb. Saw her stumble, fit to faint, went to help. Couldn't make head or tail, 'cept that Ricky had done it to her and she thought you were up shit creek.”

“Never mind me. I think Ricky's had a sort of seizure.”

“Sure thing.” He pointed through the night. “Where is he?”

I ran to where Ricky had lain. The edge sheered away precipitously. It was like looking into the shaft in my journey, where the black steps led into the Hollow Hill.

Anag arrived next to me. “Where's the bugger gone?”

“He's a danger. I told you, didn't I, when we were waiting in the lane.”

“Too right. The guy's a psycho.”

“Ricky needs a doctor, fast.”

“Doc? The boys in blue is what we need.”

Ricky could be in any state of mind. He could he lying low in the bracken on the sides of the Tor, waiting to strike. He'd used stones, bricks, and sticks, to attack his victims in the past and the three of us were standing here, unguarded, unprotected.

I heard a dry, grunting croak and swung round. In the darkness I picked out Shell's pale face against the indigo sky. She was leaning dangerously over the edge, her arm outstretched. We ran to her.

Ricky was careening down the slope, impossibly fast, his feet going from under him. He rolled, clawed the grass, picked himself up.

Shell raised her ruined voice. “Ricky!”

He didn't look up. He was too far into his own anguish to hear any of us. He began a crablike crawl around the side of the hill.

“He's heading for the Egg Stone,” I said.

Shell tore herself out of my grasp and dropped over the edge in pursuit. Almost instantly, she lost her footing on the precipitous hillside and hurtled away.

“It's quicker to take the path around the Tor!” I started running. I looked behind. Anag had gone over the edge closer to the Egg Stone. “RICKY! MATE!” I heard him yell. His voice carried over the valley and single crow, disturbed from its roost, cawed and flapped once.

I let myself slide down onto the first terrace and moved around the curve of the hill.

At last, I saw Ricky. He was balanced on a tiny ledge, perhaps nothing more than clump of grass. He swayed to keep his balance. Shell was an arm's length above Ricky's head. Directly below him, bright in the moon's glow, was the Egg Stone.

Shell reached out with one hand. The hillside was so steep, it seemed she was clinging to the side of a wall. “Ricky,” she said, her voice husky and breaking. “Ricky, my love …”

Her fingers swiped at the shoulder of his long black coat. She must have hoped he would clutch at her fingers, but he made no response, except to sob, once.

“We can sort it, love …”

It had been so wrong of me to take my eyes off him for even a second as we'd returned from the otherworld. I'd wanted to believe that Morgan had gone—if only temporarily—from Ricky's mind. In reality, I had no idea what I was dealing with.

I heard the sob again, and then Ricky began to speak. “Just a push. That's all.” In the silence of the night, his words carried clear on the air. “A leap. That's right. That's good. That's The Good. Life from life. From life!”

Almost in slow motion, he swayed out at an impossible angle. He was clutching at weeds and air. For a second he seemed suspended—head, shoulders, hips—hanging there as if he was ready to fly. Then the roots of the weeds came bursting out of the dry soil and he did fly; he soared, out and down.

We were all pushing towards Ricky, but Anag had already dropped down onto the tiny ledge where the Egg Stone lay. He rushed at the falling body, his arms outstretched.

A sharp crack rang out; something colliding, hard and brittle.

They collapsed together on the surface of the Egg Stone, Ricky and Anag, a confusion of arms and legs. Their bodies rolled from the rounded rock and lay still. Ricky was on top of Anag, who had taken the full impact of both the men's weight as they hit the Egg.

Shell and I were held in the starburst of the crash, our mouths ridged and open. Then Shell moved, skidding towards the two men. The hawthorn tree broke her fall, but it clutched at her clothing with its thorns. She broke free. She stood over the two men. She gave a whimper.

I was scrabbling for my torch, buried deep in my pocket. I hadn't thought I'd need it, but now I was glad to feel its weight in my hand. I trained its beam downward. There was blood on the Egg Stone, a smear of maroon.

Ricky's eyes opened. He found Shell's face and screwed his eyes closed again.

“Why can't I die? Why can't
I
be the one?” His voice had lost its robotic feel. He was returning to the apparent world.

By the time I reached them, Shell had her arms around him, whispering his name, pulling at him gently. Ricky struggled upright, his hands pushing against the softness of Anag's prone body. He registered what was beneath him and froze.

“I've killed him. Oh God in heaven. Life … from life. Oh God.”

I dropped onto my knees and rolled Anag as best I could onto his side. I could see the wound at the back of his head. Blood oozed into his hair. I put my hand on his cheek. It felt chilled, but all our faces were cold from the night air.

“Anag? Anag?”

His eyes flickered. He groaned. He groaned louder.

“Anag! You're okay!” It seemed a daft thing to say, but I could think of nothing better.

“Got one hell of a headache.” We eased him into a sitting position.

“You got stunned for a second there,” I said. I thought how lucky he was.

Anag coughed once into his fist. He put his hands to his head and winced. He looked at his hands and jolted to see the sticky red on his fingers. “Fucking fuck me,” he said. “Didn't that go off like a bucket of prawns in the sun?”

I couldn't help but grin. Good on Anag. He'd
manned-up
in the end.

After we'd got down off the Tor, the four of us drove to the police station in my car. By that time, Ricky seemed almost normal. He had walked up to the officer on duty, looked him in the eye, and told him he was guilty of murder—of two murders—his sister Babette Johnson and Martin Macaskill. He had been taken directly into custody. Shell and Anag were examined by the police surgeon and after we had all been interviewed, they were admitted overnight into West Mendip Hospital. By the time I was on my own again, taking the road to Bridgwater, the sun was well up, balanced on the top of the Tor behind me, streaking the black road with rosy light.

I parked up in front of the station and had time to get some lippy on and pull a comb through my hair before Rey came out into the lovely July sunshine. He gave a little start when he saw me leaning against the bonnet of the Vauxhall. It almost seemed too much for him, that I was here, waiting for his release. He got in the car without speaking.

“You're coming to stay with me, Rey,” I said.

I'd indicated and moved off before he'd even given a nod.

There was a vat of silence as I navigated the light traffic. You can't keep chattering if someone doesn't respond. He didn't ask me what had happened to secure his release, and I didn't feel like enlightening him. The memory of Shell, a starfish splayed on a beach, flashed on and off like neon in my head.

I pulled up outside my house. He got out of the car. I locked it and walked round to where he stood.

He was wearing the things he'd worn on Friday morning—best interview suit, tie, polished shoes, newly clipped hair, the lot. Fat lot of good that had done him. He'd been arrested and charged at the end of the interview. As he'd suspected, it hadn't been an interview at all.

“D'you get time off, now?”

“Yep,” said Rey. “A formality, in fact. Special leave. After that, a special sideways promotion, I imagine.”

“Is that a sort of apology?”

“More like a couple of fingers in the air.”

I frowned at him.

“If I retain inspector level I'll be surprised. I might be offered a post somewhere as sergeant. I'll probably have to do some retraining.”

My heart rolled over and over like a child down a hill. “And Pippa?”

“Happy as a lark. Already heading up a team and moving on to a recent failed investigation. All she's got to do is come up with some goods and the job—my job—is hers.”

He walked away from me without the least brush of a hand, through my gate and round to the kitchen door. I found him staring out over my vegetable plot.

“Thing is, it won't be round here.”

“Sorry?”

“Whatever I'm offered. It won't be with Avon and Somerset.”

“Oh, Rey!” Just when I thought we were good. When he was agreeing to move in. “How far … how far d'you think?”

“Could be anywhere. Thames Valley, Northumbria …”

“No!”

“I will miss this,” he admitted.

I swallowed. I had to stay positive. “You'll get back. From wherever. Weekends and that?”

There was a tiny pause. “Weekends are when you're at your busiest, Sabbie.”

I'd picked up a bottle of Cava at a
twenty-four
hour petrol station. It was still in the boot. I'd thought this would be a celebration; the charges had been dropped, Rey had been exonerated. I felt a sob work its way up and suppressed it with my fist.

The garden was shadowless and dry with the burning heat. A robin fluted on a telephone wire. I could smell the phlox I'd planted in the spring, a deep, nourishing scent of summer. I was standing right next to him, but still Rey hadn't touched me. He was hardly looking at me.

“I'll miss the hens.” His voice broke a little, as if he'd got out of the habit of using it.

“Will you?”

“You didn't say you had new ones.”

“I don't have new ones.”

“You do,” said Rey. “Babies. There!”

I followed his pointing finger. Picking their way across the back of the lawn were seven pompoms of
fluffed-up
yellow wool. Yellow pompoms on skinny pink legs. They walked in a neat
school-time
line, following a hen who marched ahead, confident of her place in the world as a mother.

“Florence!” I screeched. “Florence, Florence! I thought you were dead!”

She turned her head and observed me with bright, interested eyes. I rushed towards her. She watched my approach and didn't waste a second. She opened her beak and made a strange clucking sound I'd never heard one of my hens make before. She lifted her wings. At the call, the seven yellow pompoms ran under her wings. I was amazed that they could all disappear from sight, but they did. Florence settled down, right there on the grass, as if she didn't have a care in the world—or a chick to her name.

“How did she stay safe from harm?” Rey had come up beside me. I heard him chuckle. I looked up into his face. It was seasoned, like good wood, ready to withstand the brunt of whatever it was exposed to. His eyes were green as bottle glass, but against the sun they'd narrowed and the wrinkles around their edges told a story of all his years of pondering, cogitating, working on hunches. He would be so wasted as a detective sergeant.

I began to laugh with joy and hysterical relief. “Hens are a bloody miracle, that's all I can say.”

“Life's a bit of a miracle,” said Rey. His arm went around me. I warmed in his hold. I knew how Flo's chicks felt—secure. At peace.

“Don't get all philosophical on me.”

“Perish the thought.”

“I've had enough of philosophy.” I kissed him, a peck on the cheek. It opened something in him, took away whatever had been the blockage. He kissed me and kissed me and it was a long time before I could speak again. “Miracles, though … you can never have enough of those.”

thirty-four

laurie

By the following Tuesday
morning, when Laura Munroe arrived for her appointment, I had regained my equanimity. I was ready for her.

“How are you?” I asked as we sat down.

“Okay, ta. I've got lots to tell you about my chick—you know, my animal guide. There's been developments … like you said there would.”

She seemed relaxed, and that was just what I'd hoped for. “The first thing I want to do is to blow your
soul-part
back into you.”

I was tingling with the things I now knew about my client, but there were threads of dread loose at the edges. I would be winging it, but I felt strong enough to fly.

“My
soul-part
? Thank heavens for that.”

“We've learnt so much together, haven't we? You and me both.”

“Yeah.”

I told her about Plato's cave. I kept it simple, kept it factual. I didn't offer any fancy ideas about why anyone should be tied up in a cave and unable to see the sun. I just told the story.

“I've been thinking about the time your panic attacks started,” I said. “When you were in the Royal Navy.”

“Right.”

“I think you were offered a glimpse of the sun and it blinded you.”

She frowned, but she was staying calm. I knew she hadn't had a panic attack in the last two weeks and I wanted to keep it that way. I moved steadily forward in my argument.

“I believe you do remember what initiated the first attack. It's in your mind, Laura. It's in your hidden memories.”

“No, it's not.”

“Shall I tell you?”

She looked at me. Her mouth was open, to facilitate her heavy breathing. She closed it and blew took a long breath out. “Okay.”

“Someone kissed you.”

Her mouth clamped together and she shook her head vigorously.

“It was another rating, yes? A girl?”

“I'm not a lesbian!” The shout rang out. “I'm not, I'm not!”

“That's right. You're not.” I grasped her hand and gripped firm. “You're not.”

She swore, like a rating, several times under her breath. Then she looked up. “I do feel better for saying that.”

“Turn your chair towards the desk, Laura, and I'll blow your
soul-part
into you.”

As she scootched round, she did a little
double-take
and shot me a questioning look. The desk was cleared and centrally I'd stood a frame, covered in a black silk scarf, flanked by candles in holders on either side. Also on the desk was a little tin of makeup remover pads, a comb, a box of tissues, and a sharp pair of scissors.

“What is this?”

“I'm going to breathe your
soul-part
into you. After that … once that is done … I'm going to ask you to trust me.”

She thought about this; she thought for several seconds. “I do trust you, Sabbie. I have since the moment we first met.” Even so, she took a cautious moment to settle herself.

I stood behind her, my hands on her shoulders. I summoned Laura's guardian in my mind, being careful to keep a sense of Trendle's presence close to me. I stood on the bank of my little stream and saw Raichu, moving through the air, carrying the netting bundle. Within the otherworld I put up my spirit arm, to direct him to me, but in the apparent world my hands were still on Laura's shoulders. In fact, almost unknown to me, I had begun to massage her shoulders gently. I was in the exact stance I'd take up to do an Indian Head Massage, and I could hardly prevent myself from starting one.

The spirit guardian alighted at my portal. Its height and presence was filled with light. It was taller than Morgan le Fay's malevolent spirit, which I'd confronted only three nights ago.

Trendle spoke for me, spirit to spirit.

“This is Laura's
soul-part
?”

“Yes. It lifted from her at a young age. No one took it; it wasn't stolen away. It lifted in fear and from confusion. It has been unable to reattach itself.”

“Due to continued fear and confusion?”

“Yes. So be wary. She may not be happy to have this part of her returned.”

Trendle looked up at me and his otter eyes blinked once. “Are you prepared to do what is necessary?”

I jerked a nod. I held out my hands and the spirit rolled the netted bundle across to me. My stomach was knotted with the gravity of the burden.

I took several moments to capture this vision properly. As I came back into the room, I discovered I was running my hands over Laura's scalp. I took the image of the netted bundle in my mind and cupped my hands over the top of her head, where her seventh chakra, the Sahasrara or
thousand-petalled
lotus, was located on her subtle body. I blew the bundle through the funnel of my hands, fierce and long, so that the
soul-part
could not dissipate or disappear.

I stepped back, catching my breath.

“Okay. Let that settle. Don't move, Laura, or even try to think about things. Just let it be for a moment.”

I switched on the player. Perhaps she was expecting drumming; she looked up, a flicker of interest on her face. I'd looped a single download onto a CD, running it over and over into a
fifteen-minute
track. The echo of guitar cords came through.

“It's Local Natives,” she said. “‘Shape Shifter.'”

“I love this group now.” I lit the candles and let their flames settle. The lyrics kicked in. The singer's voice was plum rich. I began to sing as well, which probably spoilt the quality, but I couldn't stop myself.

I stood behind her and rested my hands on her scalp, then took her left ear gently between my thumb and forefinger, manipulating the earring, drawing the hoop out. She jumped a little. I'd expected this; I hadn't explained, as I normally would, what I was about to do. The song continued, and I continued singing with it. I opened the ring box and rested the earring on it. I gave her a mirror smile, adding the second earring. The candles made both our faces glow. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Go on. Close your eyes. It'll feel cold, but don't blink.”

Again, she thought for a moment, but she did close her eyes and didn't react as I took a makeup remover pad and wiped off her lipstick. I started on her eyeliner and her lick of mascara, using a separate pad for each eye. “Okay.”

She opened her eyes again, blinking fast. She began to relax into what was happening, singing with me in a low tone. I pulled the silk scarf away, revealing my bedroom mirror.

The candles' flicker made Laura's skin golden in her mirror reflection. I went behind her again and picked up her hair, using my fingers as two fat combs, pulling strands away from her face, then loosening my hold so that, in the mirror, the hair looked shorter. We sang together.

Her eyes were wide. We stood, linked by my hands in her hair, both staring into the mirror.

“What do you think, shape shifter?”

I slid a towel off the back of her chair and draped her shoulders. I held the harmless blades of my scissors in my hands. “Shall I? I don't promise to be an expert.”

For a brief moment, she seemed bewildered, but now I was sure that was only on the surface. Deep down, she knew what was up. Her subtle body had known all along. It was why part of her soul had slid away.

“Your guardian told me something had juddered your soul. I can see that in your face now. Let it go.”

I held thick locks with my left hand and chopped with my right, until all her hair was three or four centimetres long. I tidied the edges—behind the ears, around the nape of the neck.

Mid-blond
hair lay everywhere. I brushed it from her shoulders then squirted a little mousse into my fingers and rubbed it into her scalp, combing down the result. “Short back and sides, I'm afraid, but I'm sure a barber will get it looking good for you.”

I fetched the other chair and sat beside her, both of us taking in the new person in the mirror. Neither of us spoke. I felt the shift inside, and in the mirror, Laura's expression altered, fraction by fraction, from shock to wonder. From fright to expectation.

Laura had gone. Or rather, had been transformed. There was almost nothing left of the girl who had cowered, breathless, on the floor, who had run away from her home. Instead, here was the person who had been hiding inside her, all this time, all the time she had been on this earth. She had even named him, long ago; had conversations with him.

After a moment or two, I held out my hand. “Pleased to meet you, Laurie. You got control. You shifted shape. Welcome to the world.”

I knew Laurie would cry. I'd expected that. I just held him until he'd done.

I knew, and so did Laurie, that this was only a beginning, and, if this had been difficult, with a labour as painful as before any birthing, then the following stages would be harder still.

We talked the rest of the morning. Laurie had a lot to process, but things fell into place faster than I'd imagined.

“There was a fire in me,” he said, “when I saw the boy peeing under the pier. I went home and tried peeing standing up, and my mother caught me with wet pants and gave me a massive telling off.”

“I think when you let your
soul-part
go, the memory lingered. To the extent of hating to play with dolls; cutting up your Barbie.”

We could both see it was more than snipping off a finger. Barbies's little pink appendage made a great penis. “I tried to stick it in place on the doll,” he said, remembering, “but it didn't work, so I hid it in my favourite Pokémon.”

Laurie looked up, as if something had occurred to him. It occurred to me at the same time.

“That was why Raichu came to you at the moment. He understood everything. He was keeping your
soul-part
safe.”

Laurie glanced at his mirror image again. “I did know that I'm a boy. A bloke! I've known it all my life. I've kept it trapped somewhere, that knowledge. It was too difficult to cope with.” He pushed forward, his legs pressed wide against the chair arms, his hands on his knees. “I didn't tell you about my chick.”

“He's grown up, hasn't he?”

“Yes—and how. He's this fantastic crowing cockerel.”

“Raichu said it was the time for both of you to evolve. The thing about chicks is, you can't sex them. You have to be patient, wait for their feathers to grow. Eventually, that's how you find out if you've got a hen or a cock.”

We grinned at each other.

“I'll need to see you a couple more times.”

“I don't want to stop coming, no way. It's massive, going off into this otherworld.”

I suggested that before he left my house, Laurie should ring Daniel. “Daniel's going to be your ally now. He can be there for you when you tell your parents. He'll explain what to do next. He's bound to know where to refer you, who can counsel you. You won't need him as a psychiatric nurse anymore.”

“Nope.” Laurie shrugged on his jacket and, as always, pulled my fee from his back pocket. “I'm cured.”

“You were never ill, Laurie,” I said as we hugged. “Just mispositioned.”