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Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Edge
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‘So what move did Hoad take?'
‘The letter itself was torn into sixteen pieces, as if in angry denial, but the itemised phone bill I requested for Fordham Manor records a two-minute conversation with a Bristol number on the following day. This proves to be for Fallon's personal line. A short enough conversation to be a summons to meet, but not long enough to go fully into the matter and receive assurances that all was well.'
‘Interesting indeed. So did they meet? And when?'
‘That remains to be discovered. But other correspondence might also be germane to the investigation. A letter from Mrs Anna Plumley, Hoad's mother-in-law, who apparently kept regularly in touch. Computer-printed, so perhaps the envelope was too; so that unless the postmark gave it away, no other member of the family need have known the correspondence existed.'
‘She spoke of him as “poor Freddie”. More sympathy there than for her own daughter.'
‘I think he kept her abreast of family matters, and even welcomed her advice.'
‘An
éminence grise.
What a formidable lady. But that explains something I was puzzled by: how she was aware of what friends Daniel had. Hoad may not have been a blood relation, but he sounds like that rarity, a good family man.'
Yeadings nodded. ‘I trust your visit was profitable.'
‘Certainly interesting,' and he outlined it to the superintendent, ending, ‘So tomorrow we take a walk in the woods.'
‘Very refreshing.'
‘You're wondering to what purpose. So, frankly, am I, but my question about superstition took that turn. I am simply going with the flow.'
‘Uniform Branch reported there was nothing of interest there, but I doubt if they penetrated far. According to the Ordnance Survey map the wood's quite extensive. Nothing significant marked there.'
‘We shall see. I just hope the weather stays fair. I have an urban horror of rain.' He looked rueful. ‘Also of cow pats and midges, if it comes to that.'
‘See Z about borrowing some wellies, just in case.'
‘Rubber boots? Ah, yes. Thank you.'
‘As for the forecast,' Yeadings warned him, ‘it's for showers and intermittent sunshine, with heavy winds rising to gale force by evening, blowing out overnight.'
‘Oh dear,' said Abercorn, deflated. ‘I wish I'd had advance knowledge.'
They had been lucky so far with the rain, but the wind had strengthened earlier than anticipated. Their jackets, unbuttoned for the climb, flapped behind them like broken wings. Anna strode stoutly uphill in mountain boots and with a shepherd's forked staff, observing how in silhouette a distant string of thorn trees toiled up the edge of the hill like bent and wizened crones.
My mind already exercised by covens, she thought dryly.
Rosemary Zyczynski lagged behind with the breathless Dr Abercorn, having kitted him out with wellies on loan from a strapping WPC who took size nines.
‘I'll be glad,' puffed the little man, ‘when we reach the shelter of the trees.'
Z smiled encouragement, thinking it might not be much better then. The tops of the nearest clump of ashes were rolling about as if in helpless merriment. Every gust brought a flurry of autumn leaves and the ground was already slippery with them.
They reached comparative calm in the darker depths of the wood, striking through to a clearing from which paths meandered in three directions. ‘Do we take one each?' asked Abercorn.
‘The left one's fairly fresh, little more than trodden undergrowth,' Anna pointed out. ‘We could run into Huggett's latest traps that way. Let's stay together and tackle the other two in turn.'
After fifty yards of twisting, the central path ran straight except for circling a stagnant pond where two half-submerged logs lurked like wary crocodiles. A few minutes later it suddenly dropped away, zigzagging down a steep escarpment planted with pines and spruces. As the trees thinned they glimpsed patchwork fields in the valley below, its straggling lanes dotted with whitewashed cottages.
‘Are we still on Hoad's property?' Abercorn asked.
‘On the edges, I think,' Anna said. ‘Just before the trees thinned there were the remains of an old fence. I imagine it was kept in proper repair when there were still gamekeepers. Shall we
make our way back and take the other path? From here it looks as though that's the gentler side of the hill and the woods extend farther that way.'
They retraced their steps in silence, Abercorn easing his collar but making no complaint. Their second path was anything but straight, meandering between ancient beeches and eventually curving right, back towards the direction of the Manor, then plunging away left and opening out just above Fordham village.
‘This could be the way the daily staff used to come on foot,' Abercorn surmised. ‘I'm surprised it hasn't grown over, since the advent of bicycles and cars.'
‘Maybe it's still used for picnics,' Anna suggested. ‘And dalliance, of course.'
‘Back to the clearing?' Z invited. ‘Then do we call it a day or try the newish track?'
Halfway there it grew darker and began to rain. They heard more than felt it pattering on the foliage above. There seemed no point in breaking cover yet to get soaked.
‘We might as well push on,' Anna decided. So they turned into the least trodden track, Anna clearing the way ahead with her forked stick. After some twenty paces or more she stopped.
‘I was wrong. It's an old path, but grown over. Look, there are even flints tamped in underneath. This was certainly well used at some period in the past.'
Now and again they passed the shrivelled remains of wild raspberries, the canes dried brown and tangled like old brambles. The trees here were all deciduous and mature; no filling in with rapid-growth evergreens.
Anna halted again and produced her torch from a capacious pocket.
‘What is it?' Z demanded.
‘I thought so. A little way back I noticed something too. Wait till I scratch it off.' She bent and picked at the broad blade of a dock leaf.
‘There. Tell me what that is.'
Abercorn peered close, touched the shiny surface. ‘Wax?'
‘Candle wax. Now why walk in a wood with a lighted candle
when there are more convenient ways of picking out your path? I begin to think there really was a coven, or some kind of arcane gathering. The start of the path was deliberately concealed.'
 
That morning, just before eleven, Camilla's Toyota had slewed to a stop by the front door, throwing up gravel as she braked. Daniel, ready, waiting and stagy in an ankle-length black coat and leather riding boots, golden hair loose under a wide-brimmed felt hat, was taken aback to find three passengers grinning in the rear seats.
‘Thought we'd make up a party,' Camilla said. ‘You know Louise and Harry. That's Jack in the middle, playing dormouse.'
Daniel took the free front seat, disconsolate. The others' presence meant he couldn't demand to drive. It soured the day, because he'd hoped Camilla would be specially nice to him, out of sympathy.
They avoided the market-day crowds in Fordham and the narrow wriggle of Wendover's main street. Past World's End, straight roads opened up with boring shorn hedges and glimpses of corn stubble beyond. Camilla was being wary of the speed cameras, which irked him. The traffic grew denser and the pace ever slower.
‘Right,' Daniel challenged, ‘Let's get cracking. There was an old man of St Ives … You next, Camel.'
‘Um', said Camilla. ‘All right, then. Whose moggy had used up eight lives.'
There was a pause. ‘Louise, we're waiting,' Danny sang over his shoulder. ‘It's easy-peasy; yours doesn't have to rhyme.'
‘One day it went mousing …'
‘In inner-city housing …' That was Harry's uncertain effort.
The others all groaned. ‘Doesn't rhyme,' Camilla damned it. ‘You've changed to a hard s.'
‘Leaving me with the abominable last line,' Jack complained, wedged in the centre of the back seat. ‘Hives, arrives, drives …
‘No, I've got it. And ended on juveniles' knives.'
There was a horrified silence. Even a dumbo like Jack must have realised …
‘Not one of our best,' Daniel said defiantly. For God's sake, hadn't they warned the idiot, don't mention the war!
Trying for cool, he felt sudden nausea, wanted to climb out and start trudging back home. No, not home. The way they'd come, that's all.
‘Marked at two out of ten,' Camilla decreed, rushing into the breach. ‘What's happening up front?'
Those in the rear craned forward. There was a tailback. At least twenty cars queued ahead, nose to tail. Red rear lights lit the darkening noon.
‘Flock of sheep,' Louise guessed. But it was something more. An approaching siren demanded road clearance. Camilla ran the car on to the nearside verge. ‘Oh Lord, we could be here for hours. And I'm ravenous.'
A second warbling note joined the other. Paramedics first, then Fire Service. Next there'd be police.
‘OK. Looks like I get to start another,' Harry claimed sourly. ‘A nautical traveller called Claud …'
‘Spoke only English abroad …'
‘Flawed, fraud, sawed,' Louise muttered under her breath.
‘Shush, we're not there yet.'
‘And we shan't be for a bloody long time,' Daniel growled. He'd reckoned on an hour for the journey, say one and a half for a meal. Now it could string out until dark. So much for his brilliant idea for when they reached a decent-sized town.
They edged slowly forward, only three or four car-lengths at a time with long pauses between, eventually reaching a narrow space past the emergency vehicles. As a fireman in a luminous jacket waved them over, Camilla ran the Toyota up on the grass verge, skimming the lopped branches of a giant oak that stretched across all lanes of the road. Its massive root ball reared over the far bank.
With windows lowered to gawk, they smelled dank earth and sap, heard the snarl of a chainsaw as it bit into the obstruction. Beyond it oxy-cetylene flared where a group of firefighters cut into the distorted hatchback of a small car crushed underneath. The entire front half, barely visible under the trunk's main
weight, was staved in like a crumpled beer can. Paramedics from two ambulances sat strung out along the bank, useless as yet.
Without warning Daniel slid sideways. His head hit the window frame and he vomited over the seat.
Camilla drove on tight-lipped, the car lurching again from grass on to tarmac. ‘Once we're free of this traffic,' she threatened, ‘next pub we come to, all out and clean up the mess.'
 
Farther into the left-hand path through Fordham Woods less care had been taken to disguise the track. White scars showed where undergrowth had been recently slashed back. The path widened as though here people had walked two or three abreast. It ended in a second clearing with patches of scorched earth positioned in a large circle.
‘Five stations,' Abercorn counted. They stood silently taking it in.
‘Five,' Anna repeated. ‘Isn't there something sinister about a pentagram?'
‘Perhaps just the sum of those willing to take part,' the psychologist suggested.
‘Take part in what?' Z demanded.
There was no clue to that beyond more heavily trodden patches, and a hole six or seven inches deep inside each of the scorch marks.
Z thought of the book Beaumont had caught Anna reading, about the Manson multiple murders and his reputation as a wizard. How soon had Anna caught on to the idea of witchcraft being practised in this place? If Ben Huggett's gossip about the wood had been the first she knew, how was it she already had the book with her, well thumbed and with her initials on the title page?
‘Where do you think this path ends?' Abercorn wondered aloud. ‘Shall we press ahead and see?'
They hadn't much farther to go, but without Anna's torch sweeping from side to side of the track they would have missed the hut, so overgrown was it with brambles, and Old Man's Beard hanging over the door like a misty curtain.
A contrived curtain, Z decided. The place was as deliberately hidden as the start of the track had been. Her curiosity quickened as Abercorn, token male of the party, tried the door and found it securely locked. ‘It's solidly built,' he gave as his opinion. ‘But quite old.'
‘So what is it for?' Z asked.
‘Not is, but was,' Anna decided. ‘The family Freddie bought the estate from used to raise their own game birds. This would be where the eggs were incubated and the chicks fed before they were loosed in the woods. There are still a lot of pheasant here but now they're all wild. It's several years since Freddie gave big shooting parties, although he'd take out a gun and bag a brace or two when they were in season.'
‘And still they keep it secured,' Z reflected. ‘I'd say that lock's been renewed in recent months.'
‘Quite shiny,' Anna agreed.
‘Any chance we'll find the key handily slipped under a stone nearby?' Abercorn hoped aloud.
‘No harm in searching,' Anna encouraged. ‘Meanwhile I'll see if I can tickle it open.' She delved into the satchel hung from one shoulder and after scrabbling a moment produced what Z recognised as a picklock. It seemed the lady's skills knew no bounds.
‘Perhaps, Sergeant, you would kindly direct some light on the operation?' Anna handed over the torch.
With such candour in acknowledging a police presence, how could Z refuse? And Anna was no novice at burglarious entry. Abercorn was still poking about in the undergrowth when the old lady's jubilant cry came. ‘Oh look, it's come open!'
Not only was the lock new, but the door's hinges were oiled. It opened without the least rheumatic creaking. They filed in, located a battery-operated lantern, and at once the isolated hut was transformed into a cosy interior with two rattan sofas, a card table and several cushioned chairs. Walls and the sole window were covered by dark drapes, behind one of which they found a set of shelves holding cardboard cartons. The first, close to hand, contained wine glasses and two slender carafes; the next held a
number of wire hangers holding black gowns, a box of candles, coloured chalks, masks, and at the bottom a pack of large, square Tarot cards.
On the floor under the shelves lay a bundle of broom handles, each marked with soil at the base, and at the upper end an iron sconce packed with a pungent mass of material making it resemble a medieval torch.
‘The games room,' Anna declared sardonically.
Abercorn was in his element. ‘Not only a trysting place, but a theatre for witchcraft. So how serious did it get?'
‘At least there are no chains or thumb racks.'
But the psychologist had moved on to other boxes on the floor. ‘Plenty of ropes, though and — by George! — a rhino whip. Seen some like this in South Africa. Not so innocent after all. And a petrol can, half full. Now what's this little lot? Animal masks in papier mâché. Wolf, ram, serpent, cat, goat, eagle. Six creatures for five places. So one of them is special. I'm afraid it's the goat. Rather over the top, isn't he?'

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