The Devils of D-Day (15 page)

I bought tickets, and we waited nervously in line for twenty
minutes before our Citroen was waved down the metal ramp into the bowels of the
ship. We parked the car in a jam pack of Mercedes and Audis and Renaults, and
then climbed to the upper decks to wait out the three-and-a-half hour journey.

The trip across the Channel to Newhaven is one of the
dullest sea voyages there is.

We went into the ferry’s restaurant, and ate leek soup and
veal with congealed gravy, while the ship’s engines drummed and the sea rose
and tipped outside the salt-stained windows.

Madeleine said: ‘You’re very quiet.’

I mopped up soup with a piece of stale French bread. ‘I was
thinking about last night.’

‘Was it really terrible?’

‘I was scared stiff, if that’s what you mean.’

She looked out of the window. ‘Do you think we can exorcise
it? Do you think there’s any way?’

‘Well, maybe the Reverend
Woodfall
Taylor will know the answer to that – if the Reverend
Woodfall
Taylor’s still alive.’

‘Oh, God, I hope so ‘

They brought the meat and a selection of overcooked
vegetables. At least they had a decent wine – a bottle of rich, heady
Margaux
that almost sent me to sleep with its fumes. I ate
because I was hungry, but every mouthful was like balsa wood.

Madeleine said: ‘Couldn’t we simply throw the trunk over the
side?’

I sipped my wine. ‘I suppose we could do. But I don’t think
devils drown, do you? And what if he killed us before we could throw him over?
Or after?
And apart from any of those problems, the ship’s
crew would probably stop us. I shouldn’t think they’re very keen on people
tossing strange boxes into the Channel.’

She put down her fork, although she had hardly touched her
veal.

‘Dan,’ she said, ‘I’m frightened.’

‘You have every right to be.’

‘No, Dan, I mean really frightened.
Like
something awful is going to happen.’

I looked at her over the rim of my wine glass, and there was
nothing I could say. I couldn’t pretend that things were going to get better,
because it looked as if they were going to get worse. I couldn’t even pretend I
had a plan to get us out of trouble.

All I was doing was playing for time, with the terrible
knowledge that
Elmek
was probably going to sacrifice
both of us to
Adramelech
in any case. Why should he
keep his bargain, if he could cut us to shreds by magic at any time he chose,
and we were powerless? The ship rolled steadily, and the cutlery and cruets and
glasses and ashtrays all rattled and jingled and vibrated in a ceaseless
cantata.

Later, we stood by the rail and watched the whitish smudge
of England appear on the port side – the seven chalk cliffs they call the Seven
Sisters, sloping gradually down on the westward side towards Seaford beach and
Newhaven
harbour
. The ferry turned herself round to
back stern-first into the narrow
harbour
entrance,
and a barely intelligible French voice told us over the intercom to return to
our cars.

We were both depressed and fearful as we went down the
stairs to the car decks and unwillingly rejoined our hellish charge. Neither of
us spoke as we sat waiting for the stern doors of the ship to open up, and
neither of us looked around at that dark medieval trunk in which the devil
nestled. I felt unbearably claustrophobic inside that ship, as if tons of metal
were pressing down on me from up above.

At last, the crew waved us out of the ferry and up the ramp
to the dockside. It was one of those bright, grey afternoons, with a damp
sea-breeze blowing. A cheerful-looking customs official beckoned us towards a vacant
inspection bay, and we drove in and stopped.

Madeleine opened her window, and the customs official leaned
in. He had that relentless urbanity that always disturbs me in British
excise
officers – a little different from the laconic
gum-chewing lady in the fur coat who always insists you open up all your bags
at JFK. He said: ‘How long do you plan to stay in Britain, sir?’

‘I don’t know.
About a week.
Maybe two.’

‘Holiday?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

He shaded his eyes against the reflection from our window glass,
and peered into the back of the car. Then he walked all the way around, and
came up to m> window.

I opened it, and sat there with what I hoped was a calm,
obliging smile. I probably looked like Sylvester the cat when
Tweety
-Pie’s bulldog pal suddenly appears in the garden –
all clenched teeth and sick grin.

The customs official said: ‘Do you know that it is a serious
offence to try to smuggle live animals into the United Kingdom, sir?’

I nodded like an idiot. ‘Yes, I knew that.
Something to do with rabies, right?’

‘That’s right, sir. Now, would you care to tell me what you
have in that box?’

‘Box?
Oh, you mean that trunk.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, that’s just a few odd bits and pieces. I collect
antiques. I have a few books in there, a couple of statuettes.
Bits and pieces.’

The customs official made a note on his clipboard. Then he
pointed with his
ballpen
to a side bay where a couple
of Germans were already having their Mercedes thoroughly searched. He was just
about to say something when he frowned, and looked back at me, and then looked
around as if he’d lost something.

I said, ‘Is everything all right?’

He shook his head, as if it was foggy.
‘Yes,
sir.
I just had the feeling I was going to say something. I can’t
remember what it was.’

I licked my lips tensely, and glanced over at Madeleine.
Neither of us said a word.

The customs official said: ‘Very good, sir. Have a pleasant
time,’ and stuck a label on the Citroen’s windshield. I started the engine up,
and we drove out of the docks and into the town. It was only when we were out
of sight of the cranes and the ships that I let out a long whistle of relief.

Madeleine whispered: ‘The devil must have known what was
going to happen! Did you see what it did to that man’s mind? It wiped him
clean.’

I took a quick look round at the dull lead-
coloured
trunk. I was beginning to feel so nervous about it
now that I kept imagining itches on my skin, and my right eye flickered with a
tic that I couldn’t control. I didn’t dare try to imagine what that thing
inside it really looked like. I had seen enough in the darkness of Father
Anton’s bedroom, and heard enough of its rustling body and scratching claws and
its husky, evil voice.

We drove aimlessly around the town of Newhaven, which wasn’t
much more salubrious than Dieppe.
Mean,
red-roofed
houses with primrose-painted gates.

Warehouses and shops.
Madeleine
said, ‘What are we going to do now?’ v •

‘I don’t know. Find a place to stay, I guess.’

She checked her watch. ‘I think we ought to try to find where
the Reverend Taylor lives before we do that. The pubs are open now. Let’s have
a drink and something to eat, and then we can go to the local library. They
have a clerical directory called
Crockford’s
in
England, and if he’s still alive, we’ll find his name in there.’

We parked the Citroen in a municipal car park, and crossed
the road to a big, dingy Victorian pub called The Prince of Wales, which
smelled of spilled beer and cooking fat. We sat by the engraved-glass window
drinking some tepid
Skol
lager, and eating cold
sausage rolls with no sausage in them. Gastronomically speaking, England is
always a miserable experience after France. Mine host behind the bar was a fat
fellow with a check shirt and walrus moustache, who kept pulling pints of beer
for himself and discussing the relative merits of the A23 and the A24, which
turned out to be roads. One of the Englishman’s greatest obsessions, after
cricket scores, is route-planning; and when you see the roads you know why.

After our drink, we went in search of the library. It turned
out to be a small brick building not far from the car park, where a spinster in
a pale-blue cardigan and upswept glasses was almost ready to close for the
night. She found a copy of
Crockford’s
Clerical
Directory for us, and brought it over to the checking-out table with a face as
long-suffering as a Rhesus monkey with a mouthful of vinegar. We flicked
through the pages as quickly as we could, while she pulled on her coat, and
huffed, and tugged on her gloves, and huffed again, and switched off all the
lights at the far end of the room.

But after a quick search through the directory, we found
what we were looking for.

Taylor, Percy
Woodfall
.
The vicar of St Katherine’s, in the village of
Strudhoe
,
near Lewes.

Madeleine breathed: ‘That’s it! That’s him! He’s still
alive!’

I looked up, and called to the lady librarian: ‘Excuse me,
ma’am. Can you tell me where Lewes is? Is it near to here?’

She huffed and sniffed and looked at me as if I was mentally
defective. ‘
It’s
eight miles up the road. You can’t
miss it. It has a ruined castle.’

And
Strudhoe
.’

‘Well, oh dear, that’s even closer.
Three
miles along the Lewes road, on the right.

Between the main road and the river.’

I turned to Madeleine and I guess I was as pale as she was.
If the Reverend Taylor lived that close, and if he knew where the twelve
brother devils of
Elmek
were, then we could have this
whole grotesque business finished by tonight.

I
n
winter, the valley of the Sussex
Ouse
is grey with
mist, and you can hardly see the long backs of the Downs that surround it on
both sides. At the head of the valley, you can make out the cluttered rooftops
of Lewes, with its dark tumble-down castle, and from there the river
Ouse
flows indifferent and
colourless
between raised banks, sliding towards the sea. As we drove out of Newhaven and
headed north along the west bank of the river, it was almost too dusky to see
anything, but we could make out blotted clumps of trees, and patches of
half-melted snow on the fields.

I kept the window of the car open. The English countryside
in winter has a distinctive flat smell to it, mingled with the sharp aroma of
woodsmoke
from log fires; whereas French fields always
smell of dung and frost. Madeleine strained her eyes to catch the road-sign for
Strudhoe
, and kept reminding me nervously to drive on
the left. IP the back, the copper-and-lead chest rattled softly and ominously
against the side of the car as we bounced over the twisting roads.

‘There!’ said Madeleine. ‘That’s it!
Next
on the right!’

I saw the sign flash past in the light of my yellow French
headlamps, and I put on the brakes. The turning was almost hidden by
overhanging branches and narrow flint walls, and when I negotiated the Citroen
across the main road and down towards the village, I felt as if we were
disappearing down a rabbit-hole.

We drove slowly past whitewashed houses with ancient
clay-tile roofs; tiny walled gardens and narrow brick pavements. The village
was only twenty or thirty houses, all of them hundreds of years old, and I
almost drove right through it and down to the fields before I
realised
that we’d arrived. I stopped the car, and pulled
on the handbrake.

Madeleine said, ‘I wonder where the vicarage is.’

‘I don’t know. I guess it’s going to be easier to get out
and look for it on foot.’

She reached over and held my hand tightly. ‘Oh, God, Dan,
I’m scared.’

I switched off the engine. It was only then that we heard
the soft, subtle noises from the trunk at the back. We sat tense and silent in
our seats, staring at each other in horror, and then we heard
Elmek’s
dreadful whispering voice again.

‘We are near, aren’t we?’

I said nothing.

Elmek
insisted:
‘
We
are near, aren’t we?’

Madeleine nodded at me, encouraging me to answer, and I said
in a taut, strained voice: ‘Yes. Yes, we’re near.’

‘ You
have done well. You have
found the Reverend Taylor quickly. I will reward you, you know. I will give you
the power to snap a man’s neck, if that is what you want. Or to thrust knives
and razors into a girl’s sex.
You ‘d
enjoy that,
wouldn’t you?’

I closed my eyes in desperation, but Madeleine squeezed my
hand and whispered
,
‘Agree, Dan. All
you have to do is agree.’

I said loudly: ‘Yes,
Elmek
. I’d
enjoy that.’

Elmek
laughed. Then it said: ‘Are
you going to find the Reverend Taylor now? I can feel him! He’s close by!’

‘Yes, we’re going to find him.’

‘And you won’t do anything foolish, will you? I am sure that
the Reverend Taylor’s house contains as many knives as Father Anton’s. Just
remember Antoinette. Didn’t she scream! Didn’t those knives and skewers hurt
her!
’

I swallowed, painfully. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They did. They hurt
her very much.’