Sympathy for the Devil (43 page)

Tudor was smiling slightly. ‘It wasn’t exactly the same, just the same place, the same costume. It was all odd stuff. It was a study into some cult from way back.’

Huw had half risen to get a better look around. He crouched down again uneasily.

‘Okay,’ Catrin said, ‘I get it. So this cult they studied, the one into all this weirdness, it was the one here in the Seventies. Jones’s group?’

The old man turned, his eyes hidden from them both, as he watched the trees. ‘They may have had older roots.’

‘How do you mean?’

He stared out between the branches. ‘The author of the article claimed their leader to have been a member of an occult order founded a couple of hundred years back.’

Catrin thought through what this could mean. Most organised occult groups had died out long before the war, but perhaps this one had carried on in isolation, avoiding publicity up until the point the academics studied them. If Jones had been the group’s leader, and the group had other influential members, in politics maybe or the criminal justice system, this could explain why Jones had been protected all the years until his arrest and then released. But where did Face fit in? And Rhys? Something was warning her not to write off other explanations yet.

‘That article give the cult leader’s name? Jones, Serafim, Molloch or any of Jones’s aliases?’

‘Penrhyn.’

She turned to Huw. ‘That’s the name of a man who along with his eldest son was accused of witchcraft out here in the nineteenth century. Another alias, maybe.’ She tried to catch the old man’s eye. ‘Any other details about him?’

She caught the stale scent of the old man’s breath as he moved closer. ‘Not much. All it said was that he came from an old family from this area. One of his ancestors had been a radical figure in the occult revival of the nineteenth century. His group was expelled from the main occult movement.’

The darkness of the place was like a fist closing around her. ‘And the reasons for this?’

‘It didn’t say. It seems this group viewed Crowley and the other Satanists as mere showmen. Its members focused on going back to the roots of witchcraft in the old Celtic religion and in shamanism. After they were expelled from the occult movement, they went further underground.’

‘So what happened when the academics came here?’ Huw asked, his voice barely a whisper.

‘It’s not very clear, the study was never completed.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Some of the academics were threatened. Dead animals were left at their homes along with photos of their children. They backed off.’

Catrin followed the old man’s eyes out to the clearing. Nothing was moving there, the shapes lying still in the tall grass. The moon had gone in between the low clouds, the ridge above barely visible now. Lights were threading through the trees towards them. Moments later they had disappeared, and everything was dark again.

She felt her stomach clench, her legs tensing, the sweat cold on her shoulders. Her hand reached out, scraping over a trunk’s rough surface as she steadied herself. We are close now, she thought, and I need to stay clear, strong.

It seemed as if the lights in the trees were moving towards them, but then they turned and started to gain altitude. Whoever was carrying the lights was ascending the slope, heading for the escarpment. Huw stared intently after them, trying to make out the path they were taking.

Catrin put her hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘That track up there where we can see the lights, it leads to the top of the ridge?’

‘Yes, but there’s nothing up there, just the woods.’

Huw seemed in no hurry to get up. He was crouching against the bank. The leaves around them were quivering, but the wind had dropped. As Catrin rose, she felt Huw’s hand on her arm. She pulled her arm away, stood up. For the moment, she felt no fear.

‘No,’ he said, ‘we can’t just go up there blindly. There’s no mobile coverage, no chance to call for help. Much better we try to get back, contact the police.’

She could see the anxiety on his face. He touched her arm again, more gently this time, but again she pushed him away.

‘In case you’ve forgotten, I am the police.’ She was angry now. ‘I’ll go alone. Do you know where the path up the hill starts?’

‘I do.’ The old man spoke quietly.

‘If you can point me in the right direction I’d be grateful.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Tudor got up, stiffly shaking his long legs.

Huw was standing back from them. Behind him, Catrin heard a rustling, close in the branches. Something was moving towards them through the trees from where the lights had been.

She heard the branches cracking, a sweeping sound low along the ground. Huw had heard it too and turned back to look.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘This way.’ She reached out and tried to pull Huw back, but he lifted the branches and then she couldn’t see him any more. The air was filled with a sudden screeching, and a rushing as a dark shape swept past. She ran straight into the branches where Huw had disappeared, the wet leaves brushing over her eyes. In the blackness she sensed the movements of feathers all around her and at the edge of her vision lights were flickering. She shouted out Huw’s name but there was no answer.

Something was pulling her back. She turned and saw Tudor’s face behind her. ‘This way, quickly,’ he said. ‘It’s too late for him now.’

The old man pulled her after him into the deeper brush. They made their way on hands and knees through cover so thick that there was no knowing what lay above or beneath. She was surprised by the muscles bunching up beneath her grasp on Tudor’s arm and the ease with which he moved. His strength seemed that of a much younger man, as he led her upwards.

Through the trees a single path ahead led up the steep face of the escarpment. This was where the lights had been moving. A crude gangway had been built from black-painted planks, clinging to the edge of rocks higher up. Over the planks a length of rope hung, frayed and loose, shuddering in the wind.

The sounds were heading this way, not back towards the clinic. Whoever had closed in around Huw, they were somewhere ahead. There was still a chance he was alive. He was strong, resilient, she had not heard him cry out. She sensed his presence up ahead, silently calling to her.

The blurry form of a mound was occasionally visible through the mist. The trees were dark walls on either side, many dead, their branches black and rotting. They climbed into a hollow, a dark, hunched thing that merged with the dimness. In the moon’s weak light, a muddy path led on, bordered with what might have once been hedgerows but were now overgrown and shapeless.

The old man had begun to move on into the trees, but Catrin stopped him. Ahead was a steep leaf-covered slope, patches of frost glistening on the surface of the grass, and beyond it lay a blackness that could have been rock or the mouth of a cave. The place looked familiar. Catrin thought of the old print of the witch at the mouth of the cave. She thought of the scene in the first film of the approach to the tunnel, the person behind the camera half stepping, half gliding down towards the blackness of the tunnel’s entrance.

Beyond the fallen rocks and tall grasses she saw a heavy stone lintel over a rusted hatch. The rocks were covered with thick moss and weeds and overgrown. The place looked long-abandoned.

As she moved up to the hatch, she thought she could make out the scent of Huw’s expensive cologne. She pushed on the metal, but it didn’t move. She stood back. Deeper under the lintel she could make out a sill, covered with cobwebs, over it an ancient length of chain-link wire. It looked like it had once been an opening of some sort.

Climbing onto the ledge under the door, she peered down but could see nothing within. Her fall was broken by something soft and smelling of mildew. As her eyes adjusted she saw the floor was covered with feed sacks that had once contained straw. In the corner was a rack of old, rusted farm implements, hoes and scythes. As Tudor landed beside her dust rose into the air. In the beam of his torch she saw a low passage ahead, broken plaster and brickwork.

She pulled a scythe from the wall, held it ahead of her in the darkness. Calling out for Huw would only reveal their position. Better, she thought, to get a sense of the place first, to find out where the others were and create a diversion. The torch lit up the walls of the passage. On the ground below were shallow puddles of rainwater, some black feathers floating on their surface.

Tudor was beside her now, and they had reached a rotten wooden door. Behind it were no sounds or lights. The space seemed shallow like a cupboard. Catrin could hear hangers along an empty rail, as he felt his way inside. He brought out a long, pointed object and set it down slowly on the floor. He moved the beam along its length, revealing a black mask that would cover all the face. From the back, strands of raffia sprouted in a stylised imitation of feathers, while the front formed a long beak.

As he lifted the mask to eye level, the buckle on the chin-strap made a muted tinkling sound, and the mask’s shadow suddenly reared up on the wall behind him. For a moment Catrin felt she was back there again in that room, in the shuttered half-light, the web of the mask over her eyes. She saw the two perching shapes on either side, their feathers shifting, spreading. She felt a sweat over her neck, down her back. Her nerves were tingling, alert to the slightest move in the air.

She gripped the scythe tight. The pain focused her, she clung on, waves of anger coursing through her. She let it burn in her now, screwed up her eyes, tried to see what was ahead.

As the beam edged hesitantly forward it picked out another door. Again she thought she could smell Huw’s cologne, fainter this time. She closed her fingers over the scythe and tried to make out any movements or sounds further in, but there was nothing. As the light spread again she got a glimpse of a large cavernous space. From far within she thought she heard the low whining call of ravens. If there are birds here, there must be another route in from outside, she thought, but peering ahead she could see only more blackness.

‘This must be the place the locals used to think was a mouth to hell,’ the old man whispered.

She took a coin from her pocket and threw it out in front of them. There was a dull clattering sound, then absolute silence.

Catrin moved forward slowly now, feeling the ground ahead with her scythe before putting her feet down. On either side the space had broadened significantly and it was impossible to tell how far it extended around them. The beam spun upwards and caught a ceiling covered with tapestries woven with images of the planets and constellations, their colours faded, and the tattered linings hanging down.

Then it illuminated a wall painting, about twenty feet high. In the centre was an oak. On the upper branches were the stars and the planets and a woman with long golden hair.

‘This must be where the occult order met,’ the old man whispered. ‘This is all ancient Celtic imagery. That’s the tree of life, the figure at the top must be the Great Earth Mother Goddess.’ He moved the beam down over the moon and stars. ‘This is the Upper World, realm of stars, celestial beings, the dwelling place of the spirits of the air.’

As the light moved down, abruptly the imagery changed. Catrin saw black tangled roots and flames and strange, distorted faces. Sitting in the centre was a giant with the head of a stag and long curved horns. At his feet were horned beetles and snakes, and on his shoulder a large raven with a crooked beak.

The old man kept the beam on the image of the raven. ‘That figure is the Lord of the Lower World, where much of our imagery for the devil comes from. The raven is his servant, the spirit of the dead.’

The beam moved over the giant horned figure, down to his cloven feet. In the low light she could make out some huddled shapes over against the far wall. The old man was bending over something under the horned figure. It looked at first like a low wooden altar, or shrine. On it were tall vessels resembling censers in a church, their silver dulled by the years.

Catrin ran her hand along the back of the altar. At the bottom of the hollow, her fingers touched pieces of card, some slick and bending, others hard, slightly grainy. She reached in further, and lifted them out.

She nudged Tudor to keep a watch, as she drew them into the light. They were photographs, several dozen of them, and she spread them out in a semicircle on the ground. Most were of figures wearing long, flowing robes, similar to those in the photographs from Rhys’s source. They had joined hands and were dancing in wide circles. All wore hoods, deep hanging cowls that half hid their faces.

Holding the torch closer, she could make out a boy with long curling hair down to his shoulders, his eyes shadowed with kohl. She recognised him immediately as one of the boys in the photographs in Pryce’s room. Another showed a girl of about fifteen squinting in strong summer sunlight. She had long, jet-black hair, just like another of the fans in Pryce’s room.

Catrin pointed at another photo of a young girl, the side of her face emerging from deep shadows. ‘This is one of the nineteen mispers. Her bones were found on rocks up the coast. She also looks like one of the fans in the scene around Owen Face.’ This confirmed to her what she’d already suspected. The early Face fans who’d gone missing and the nineteen youngsters who’d gone missing from the area over the years were all one and the same group of people. The common element was the cult, that’s where the young missing persons had disappeared.

She took the torch from the old man and looked more closely at each of the pictures, shifting them into different combinations, bringing some together then moving them apart. She was seeing echoes between some of the younger faces and those of the figures in robes. It was not the echoes between two ages of the same face, but something vaguer, more like a mirroring of certain inflections in the same features across different faces and ages.