Shepherd's Cross (27 page)

‘Patience, Reuben. There is plenty of
time for that. It is equally as important not to be too early as it is to be
too late. Why don’t you check on the girl one final time? She should be waking
soon. In the meantime, the rest of us will wait here and enjoy a final glass of
wine. When you return, we will proceed to the Round Room as you suggest.’

‘Very well.’

Jennings reacted with lightning-quick
speed, springing away from the door and signalling to Cara and Ben to follow
him. As quietly as he could, he ushered them hurriedly to a nearby door and
held it open for them to walk through. He managed to close it behind them in
the nick of time; the sound of the double doors opening behind him coinciding
with the sound of his own door as he closed it. ‘She’s here,’ he whispered,
retrieving a torch from his belt and illuminating the otherwise pitch-black
room. ‘I heard them talking – King is going to check on her now. I need to
follow him to wherever it is he’s going.’

‘And the others?’ asked Cara. ‘Did you
hear them?’

‘Yes. I’m afraid they’re all in on it.’

‘In on what, exactly?’ asked Ben. ‘And
what’s it got to do with Chloe?’

‘I’m not sure, but it doesn’t sound
good. It sounds like they’re planning some kind of ceremony.’

‘In that case, I’m coming with you,’
said Ben.

‘Me too, Sarge,’ said Cara. ‘I can’t let
you go alone.’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he replied,
looking at both of them in turn. ‘You must stay here and listen out for the
others. Wherever King’s going, he’s going alone. You’ll be of more use keeping
an eye on the others while I try and take him by surprise. Listen, we’ll talk
later…I’ve got to go or I’ll lose him. If you get into any bother, shout as
loud as you can, okay? Remember, we’re the ones with the truncheons.’

‘Yes, Sarge,’ replied Cara. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks. You too.’ He smiled at her. ‘I
bet you didn’t think you’d be seeing this kind of action in little old Shepherd’s
Cross, eh?’ Without waiting for an answer, he switched off his torch, opened
the door, and headed off down the corridor in pursuit of King.

Ben turned to Cara, who had already
turned on her own torch. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We do as he said and stay put. We don’t
do anything unless we hear those doors open.’

‘And if they do?’

‘And if they do, we’ll decide what to do
then. Don’t worry, Ben, Sergeant Jennings has been around the block a few
times. He knows what he’s doing.’

‘What do you think he meant by ‘ceremony’?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she lied. There were
still plenty of unanswered questions, but the broader picture was becoming
increasingly clear - the inverted cross on Wilf Blackett’s farm, the murder of
Reverend Jackson – the signs all pointed towards Blackmoor and King.

She remembered the first time she and
Jennings had visited Fellside Hall, the first time she had encountered Blackmoor.
The experience hadn’t lasted long, and since then her mind had worked hard to
convince her that it was nothing, but she couldn’t deny the hypnotic effect he’d
had on her. That strange, even erotic way he’d made her feel. It reminded her
of a time when she was eighteen, when she had dated a physics student called
Jeff Hanson. One Friday night, Jeff had taken her to a show at his Student
Union bar that involved some hypnotist called ‘Marvin the Mind Magician.’ Over
the years, she’d forgotten all about Jeff, but the memory of that night with
Marvin had stayed with her. He’d somehow managed to convince certain members of
the audience that they were chickens that had lost their heads, and that the
only way for the chickens to be reunited with their heads was to run around the
stage squawking like…like headless chickens. At first, Cara had thought that it
was all just a conspiratorial stitch-up; that the so-called audience volunteers
were secretly in league with Marvin. Most likely they’d been promised a few
free beers as a result of their cooperation. However, as the evening had
progressed, it had become clear that it couldn’t have been a trick. Talking to
a few of the headless chickens at the bar, they’d sworn blindly that they
couldn’t remember a thing about what had happened to them. Furthermore, the
unlucky chap who’d been made to walk around the stage with his trousers around
his ankles, while at the same time singing
Relax
by ‘Frankie Goes to
Hollywood’, had, upon seeing pictures of himself that his friends had kindly
taken, proceeded to confront Marvin as he was loading his gear into his car
outside, and had laid into him with a nearby traffic cone. Hardly the actions
of a willing accomplice.

So perhaps Blackmoor
had
hypnotised her, even if it
was
only for a few seconds. And if he could
have had that effect on her, what was to say he couldn’t have used similar
tactics on Bronwyn and the others? Knowing them as well as she did, especially
Bronwyn, there was no rational explanation as to why otherwise level-headed
people would drop everything and start hanging out with two strangers in a
derelict Hall in the middle of the coldest weekend in years. It just didn’t
make sense for them to be here, unless they’d been tricked into doing so…or
hypnotised. Either way, they were now suspects in a case of kidnapping and
maybe even murder, and it was Cara’s duty to treat them as such.

She looked at Ben and smiled
reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry; you’ll have Chloe back with you in no time.’ Her
smile faded as she thought of her own son Luke, and how she would feel if
something like this happened to him. She admired Ben, both for his patience and
for somehow managing to remain calm. If it had been Luke instead of Chloe, she
couldn’t be sure how she would have reacted.

‘I feel as useless as a condom machine
in the Vatican,’ Ben said, causing Cara to giggle before slapping her hand over
her mouth. Her reaction made him smile: only last night, they’d been enjoying
each other’s company in entirely different circumstances. He sincerely hoped
that they would have that opportunity again.

If he’d still been in earshot of his
friends, there was no doubt that Jennings would have laughed at Ben’s joke too
– that type of 1970’s humour was right up his street – but by now he was well
out of range, shuffling along behind Reuben King as quietly as his out-of-shape
frame would let him. Fortunately for Jennings, he hadn’t needed to stay in
silent pursuit for long; King had only walked past a couple of doors before
turning right into a large, open plan area and stopping right in the middle of
it. Attached at various heights to the walls around him were several warped and
woodworm-riddled worktops and storage cupboards, indicating that this was
probably once the main kitchen. Jennings crouched behind the turning, watching
as King knelt down next to what appeared to be a trapdoor in the middle of the
room and fumbled with a padlock that was fastening it tightly against the
floor.
I wonder what he’s keeping down there,
Jennings thought, watching
as King eventually managed to snap open the padlock and release it from the
clasp. Setting the lock down to one side, he got back up to his feet, bent over
the trapdoor and pulled it up and over, placing it down gently on the other
side. He then reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a torch, flicking
the switch to release a powerful beam of light considering its mediocre size. ‘Anybody
there?’ asked King, peering down into the hole in the floor. ‘Ready or not,
here I come!’ Without waiting for a reply, he shone the torch down into the
darkness and disappeared down some steps below.

Jennings’s heart was beating so
forcefully in his chest that he was certain that somebody would hear it if they
came within six feet of him. As he moved towards the trapdoor,
his thoughts
drifted to the murdered body of Reverend Jackson, hunched naked over his table,
the words ‘DEUS EST MORTUUS’ carved into his back.
God is dead
, he
thought, arriving at the hole in the floor and peering into the darkness below.
Well…as far as I’m concerned, if God allows anything bad to happen to that
little girl, He damn well may as well be
. He removed his torch from his
belt, pausing briefly to compose himself, before taking the first step down to
the room that he figured must be some kind of cellar or underground storeroom.
He took another step, and then another, struggling to keep his concentration as
the images of the Carter boys suddenly decided to flash on and off before his
eyes.

As he descended, he sensed a cold
presence standing behind him; a dark, evil presence that froze the air around
him and chilled him right to his core. Whatever it was, it had crept up on him
as if from nowhere, and he knew without turning around that he was in
danger…grave danger.

An ice-cold shiver shot up his spine as
he felt hands being placed gently but firmly upon his shoulders, slowly moving
up around his neck and tightening their grip; a hard, vice-like grip that could
crush his neck without even trying. Jennings blindly lashed out his arms at the
figure behind him, desperate to breathe again. But it was no use. The lights
were going out; he couldn’t fight back no matter how hard he tried. His vision
blurred, the pain overwhelming him. He closed his eyes, partly in reaction to
the agony, and partly in a frantic attempt to remember happier times. Happier
times that were soon to slip away from his memory forever.

4.00pm:
For the past half hour, The Fallen Angel had been filling up with despondent
villagers, returning in dribs and drabs, tired and downtrodden after hours of
unsuccessful searching. Daylight was fading fast, and the initial enthusiasm
that had swept through Shepherd’s Cross was fading with it. At most, there
remained another thirty minutes of light; and even now, it was almost
impossible to see further than a dozen or so feet away. One by one, the search
parties arrived and made their way across the room to Emily, confirming where
they’d been and what they had, or to be more precise, what they hadn’t found.
Emily’s map was now almost completely covered in red pen…there was nowhere else
left to search.

‘No luck, chaps?’ asked Emily, knowing
fine well by looking at them what the answer would be. Bill Turner’s group had
just entered the pub after scanning the area down by Bobby’s Brook, and all
five of them looked utterly exhausted and browbeaten. They made their way over
to her control table and slumped onto the cushioned stools that surrounded it.

Wilf Blackett answered her first. ‘We’ve
turned this bloody place upside down,’ he said, accepting a cup of tea from the
tray that Tina Radcliffe had brought over for them. ‘If that lass had been
here, we would have found her by now. If you ask me, there’s not a cat in
hell’s chance of her being in The Cross, or any of the fields surrounding it.’

Emily sighed. ‘I hate to admit it, but I
think you’re right. Which can mean only one thing.’

‘She’s been taken,’ said Blackett. ‘And
if young Liam’s right about the black car he saw earlier, the chances are she’s
been taken to Fellside Hall. Any sign of Brian or Cara?’

‘No,’ replied Emily. ‘Nothing.’

‘Well then, I guess in that case we better
get our arses up there to see if they need our help. What do you reckon, lads?
Are you up for -’

‘Emily! Emily! Are you in here?’ Every
head in the pub turned to see Glen Passmore, one of the church readers, running
into the pub with the urgency of a man who’d been set on fire. Emily stood up,
and as soon as he saw her he came bounding over.

‘What is it, Glen?’ she asked. ‘What’s
wrong?’

‘It’s…Reverend…Reverend Jackson,’ he
stuttered, trying to catch his breath. ‘He’s been murdered!’

You could have heard a pin drop.

‘Murdered? Sit down, Glen,’ Emily said,
offering him her stool. ‘Take some deep breaths and calm yourself down.’

The room remained silent as Passmore did
as she asked, thanking Tina as she handed him a glass of water, lifting it to
his lips and sipping it tentatively as if it might be laced with poison. He set
the glass down on a beermat and began talking. ‘While my group was out
searching for Chloe, we happened to pass by Bill Thompson’s house. As I hadn’t
seen or heard neither hide nor hair of him since he locked himself in the
church earlier this morning, I thought I’d do the neighbourly thing and pop my
head in to check that he was alright. I knocked on his door, but it took him
ages to answer it. No sign of Joan there, either. Anyway, it turns out he’d
been fast asleep in bed, and I have to tell you, he looked awful; like a man
twice his age. He invited me in and made a pot of tea. ‘I know what’s on your
mind,’ he told me. ‘You’re here to find out what it is I saw this morning,
aren’t you?’ I had to confess to him that I was curious – we all were – but
that my main concern was for his wellbeing. I’ve known Bill a long time: too
many years for me to remember; and I didn’t like seeing him this way. He was so
tense and on-edge that I didn’t dare push him on what he saw.’

‘Glen,’ Bill Turner said. ‘I don’t mean
to be rude, but a few of us need to get going. Any chance you could cut to the
chase?’

‘Oh…ermmm…alright then,’ he replied,
unoffended by Turner’s request. ‘As I was saying, we sat together for a while
talking about this and that, but as I’m sure you can appreciate, it was hard
making small talk when there was a galumphing great elephant sitting in the
corner of the room. Nevertheless, I held my tongue and waited to see if he
mentioned it, and sure enough, after a while he came straight out with it;
without even batting an eyelid.’

‘Came out with what, Glen?’ Emily asked.

‘That he’d found Reverend Jackson
sitting stark naked at his desk, his throat cut and blood everywhere. Murdered,
without a shadow of a doubt.’

A communal gasp passed through the room,
made worse by the sound of smashing crockery as Tina’s tray crashed to the
floor. The people in the bar looked at one another, they looked at the floor
and out of the window; but mostly they looked at Glen Passmore; waiting to hear
him answer the question that had suddenly barged its way unapologetically to
the front of the queue.

‘They don’t know who did it,’ he said,
beating them to it. ‘Not yet, anyway. But Sergeant Jennings and Dr Barratt seem
fairly confident it wasn’t suicide…whoever did it apparently carved something
into Reverend Jackson’s back.’

‘Carved what?’ Blackett asked.

‘I don’t know. Bill didn’t want to tell
me. Either that, or he was too upset. He’s in a bad way; Joan’s with him now,
but I think we need to be careful. That’s why I came here; what with everyone
out looking for Chloe…I just thought it best that you know. There’s going to be
a swarm of Police descending on Shepherd’s Cross just as soon as they can get
through, and I think it’s only right that we all have the same information.’

‘That explains why Sergeant Jennings
seemed so keen for me to try and clear the road to the highway,’ said Blackett.
‘Bloody hell…he must be feeling the strain, poor bloke.’

‘You don’t think that whoever’s killed
Reverend Jackson has also killed Chloe, do you?’ asked Tina, her question
directed to nobody in particular.

Tina’s question hung in the air like a
stale, unwelcome smell. Nobody answered her. The thought was too disturbing to
openly contemplate. After a prolonged pause, it was Bill Turner who spoke first.
‘Okay. This is how it’s going to be. We need to get up to Fellside Hall
immediately – no more messing about. Whoever’s coming needs to meet here in
five minutes, and my advice is to be armed with a stick…at the very least. And
we’ll need torches too. Jack and Wilf have offered to take some of us up, but
if anybody has a vehicle that they are confident will be able to make it up the
lake road, can I suggest that you bring it along. Emily, Tina: please could you
wait here with whoever wants to stay in the village but who may not want to be
alone in their house?’

They nodded.

‘Good,’ Turner said. ‘Right. Five
minutes everybody – quick as you can. If those murderers are up there, we’ll
flush the bastards out.’

They didn’t need asking twice. Bill
Turner didn’t count them as they left, but he guessed that maybe ten or more
villagers, from young farmhands keen to see some action to older but capable
residents who wanted to help in any way they could, rushed through the pub
doors and into the evening air.

‘Right lads,’ Turner said, addressing
the men in his search party. Let’s get ourselves ready.’

‘What about the Police, dad?’ asked
Liam. ‘Shouldn’t they be leading this?’

‘There are no Police, son…apart from
Jennings and Cara. And as far as we know, they could be in a spot of bother
themselves. We can’t sit around doing nothing while they could be in danger up
there…that’s not the way we do things around here.’

‘Your dad’s right, Liam,’ Blackett
added, pulling on his worn overcoat. ‘Folk in The Cross look after their own. They
always have done.’

Emily listened as the men talked and
prepared themselves for the journey to Fellside Hall, but she was only half
paying attention. Her mind was occupied with Reverend Jackson, with the
inverted cross, and most of all, with Chloe Price. Her thoughts drifted back a
day or two to the discussions that she and Bronwyn had enjoyed with Charlotte
Bainbridge and Olivia Falconer, seemingly harmless and good-natured at the
time, but now fraught with preternatural meaning and significance.

‘So it
is
true,’ she said aloud,
although nobody around her could hear her through the sound of hectic activity
and last minute preparations. She looked up and out through a window into the
creeping darkness of the night sky. ‘History is repeating itself…after all this
time.’ She shifted her gaze into the bar and studied the expressions on the
faces of her friends and customers, noticing the panic-stricken look in their
eyes. As she watched them, she couldn’t help but compare them to their
ancestors from times gone by; like them, they would have been excited and
terrified of the witches and devils that terrorised their village, sacrificing
their animals and damaging their buildings with spells and acts of black magic.
Centuries had passed, but the memories had remained fresh; lying under the
surface, waiting patiently to return.

Noticing that Emily was by herself, Tina
moved from the bar and walked over to join her. ‘Emily,’ she said, concerned by
the vacant look on her friend’s face. ‘Emily, are you alright?’

Emily continued to stare at the people
in the room, wrapped up her in her thoughts. At last, she spoke; quietly but
with a self-assured tone. ‘They’ve come back to The Cross,’ she said, turning
to face Tina.

‘Who have, Emily?’ Tina asked. ‘Who have
come back?’

‘The Coven,’ she said, the
matter-of-fact nature of her reply causing every hair on Tina’s arms to stand
up without so much as a warning. ‘The witches, the spirits…the dark hand of
Satan that surrounds us but seldom shows itself. I should never have doubted my
feelings. They’ve come back…I’m sure of it,’ she said, before saying something
that would have floored a less hardy soul than Tina Radcliffe.

‘And they’re not going to stop until
they’ve had their revenge.’