The Fetch (22 page)

‘I think I’d like to paint in the colours,’ Carol said.

It was a moment of agony for the archaeologist in Richard Whitlock.

‘Don’t you think it’s very pretty just the way it is?’

Carol stared at the shell, her brow furrowing. Then she said, ‘The horses are very small. They don’t look like real horses.’

‘That’s true. They don’t. Why don’t you paint them on a piece of paper?
Imagine
what colour they were. See if it looks right.’

‘That’s what real artists do,’ Susan said helpfully, and this simple statement was enough to resolve the doubt in the girl’s mind. She seemed delighted with the suggestion. Richard was relieved.

The children went to bed, suppered, scrubbed, cleaned, happy. Richard was tired and Michael was given a teaser for the big story the next day, and he seemed to accept this, understanding that his father was tired and that guests were coming. For the boy, the simple pleasure of Richard’s delight had been enough to send him scampering to the sheets, to dream of shields and wooden watching-men.

Jenny and Geoff Hanson were coming round for a meal, by prior arrangement, and Richard was certainly now in the mood to celebrate,
so they had decided not to cancel the evening.

As Michael washed and dressed for bed, prior to his brief goodnight story, Richard searched through the rest of the contents of the cauldron.

The cauldron itself was iron, very old, much used, and patterned with a simple design. It had been crushed from one side, and the handle was missing. The crushing looked new – a probable consequence of its fetching – but the loss of the handle seemed to be a part of its history.

It was a votive-offering collection vessel. It had probably been carried during a migration, or perhaps kept in a shrine. The shell would have been something inherited, if it was as old as he suspected, since the iron cauldron couldn’t have dated from much before the first millennium BC.

The Minoan egg and the silver statue fragment would have been the accumulated wealth of a clan accustomed to raiding to the south of their tribal lands.

Much of what was in the cauldron was fragmentary: gold, silver, faïence, amber, some jade (which was beautiful), much bronze, more shell, very broken, and an astonishing little carving in jet of a hare on the run.

The total worth of the haul was hard to estimate: but many thousands, if Goodman’s contacts were as effective as they had been up to now.

Richard quickly drove to the local off-licence and bought two bottles of cheap champagne. By the time Jenny and Geoff arrived, their hosts were practically dancing on the table and the chicken had begun to burn.

At the beginning of the spring, Richard was requested to travel north again, to the site of the Iron Age
crannog
. The excavation had been re-started three weeks before, and
almost immediately – prompted by Richard’s earlier communication – a satellite hut had been found. This building had been constructed apart from the main village platform but still within the lakes, and was probably reached by a bridge. It was a shrine hut, and as such was both rare and the signifier that this particular village was a tribal centre, perhaps the settlement of a king.

Richard’s job was again to photograph the confusion of objects and building materials that were emerging from the peat.

Among them were the fragmentary remains of a large oak statue, male, a deity. It was broken in many places, and much was lost. All the signs suggested that it had been shattered in antiquity by an act of appalling violence. Parts of the effigy appeared to be scattered over several yards. As if – as one student remarked – as if someone had set a bomb off below its sprawling legs.

Had a shield been discovered among the litter of this destructive act? Richard asked.

A shield? No. Why should there be a shield?

Richard walked over to the deep cut in the peat and stood on the planking, thinking about a lake and a small enclosure in the middle of the silent water, reached by a walkway, or perhaps isolated from the main village, its concealed god accessible only by canoe. Had Michael been there in his dreams? Had he snatched that shield into a time still in his own future?

It was a strange and thrilling sensation, imagining that event. But how had Michael dreamed of the place? Had he focused his mind through his father’s own senses? Had he followed his father to the North, demonstrating a greater attachment than even Richard had been aware of?

There were too many questions, too many confusions, and he returned to the Portakabin where he kept his camera equipment.

The flight from Orly
airport was
delayed
by fog and didn’t set down in Gatwick until after midnight. Françoise Jeury, tired, restless and distracted, was furious with the hold-up, made a fuss at the flight desk and insisted on the airline paying for a taxi to take her to London. The visit to her home, in Brittany, had been distressing; memories of her first husband were always strongest at this time of the year, when autumn was freezing rapidly into winter.

She sat in silence for the hour’s drive to
her flat in Clapham, fending off the attempts at conversation by the driver, and not complaining at all when he set the radio to play midnight jazz. She hardly noticed the journey, the streaming lights of the motorway, the darkness of the land beyond.

At two o’clock she found Lee curled on the sofa in his dressing-gown, reading. The flat was freezing.

‘I thought you’d be in bed.’

The man looked tired, unshaven and slightly irritated. ‘A friend of yours has been calling.’

‘A friend? Which one?’

‘They’ll call again.’ Lee Kline stood, kissed Françoise, then shivered. ‘Electric fire, I think.’

‘Electric fire, I
know
,’ she said. ‘How can you sit in this cold?’

‘Saving money.’

‘We don’t need to save money.’

‘There’s a recession looming.
Didn’t you know?’

‘There’s always a recession looming in this wretched country. Which friend? I’m not in the mood to talk.’

‘Nor is he. Not to me, anyway.’

‘Aha!’ she laughed and pinched Lee through his robe. ‘Now I understand. The man is jealous because it’s my other lover calling me to whisper sweet nothings to me.’

‘Since when did you start dating children?’

She frowned. ‘A child?’

‘A child who whispers down the phone.’

‘A child who whispers down the phone … ?’

‘A child who calls you “Frances”.

‘A child who calls me
Frances?
’

‘Who tap dances.’

‘Who
tap dances …!?
’ she broke off, frowning. ‘Is this a joke?’

Lee was laughing.

‘Don’t joke. I’m tired. I’m not feeling well.’

‘I’ll get some tea. Then bed. We could always take the phone off the hook.’

As if to counter that, the phone rang, unnervingly loudly in the still, cold night. Françoise carried it to the fire, sat down on the floor and lifted the receiver.

‘Who is this?’ she asked.

There was the sound of sea, like rushing waves. Then the sound died away and a voice hissed, ‘It’s Chalk Boy. Are you Frances?’

‘Françoise. Is that you, Michael?’

‘Michael’s sleeping,’ whispered the eerie voice. ‘This is Chalk Boy. I want to see you.’

Françoise was confused, the tiredness in her head not fully evaporating as she tried to work out what was going on. Why was Michael playing this funny game? And so late at night! It was a year or more since she had seen him in London. Again, Susan had put a barrier between her son and the
other woman.

‘It
is
you, isn’t it, Michael?’

‘Michael’s sleeping. I told you. Come to me now. I want to talk to you.’

‘Michael – Chalk Boy, I mean: it’s very late, and I’m very tired.’

It was as if fury possessed the figure at the other end. The sea surged, the waves crashed, Françoise could hear pebbles, or … the boy making sounds
like
the sea. He was very good. As the sea-sounds stopped, so the voice hissed again, ‘You said you wanted to talk to me. You told Michael you wanted to talk to me.’

‘I haven’t forgotten. But Michael never called me when you were around.’

‘Daddy …’

‘Daddy? What about Daddy?’

‘Michael’s Daddy,’ said the voice, ‘didn’t think he should. But you must come and talk to me. Come to the castle.’

‘I’ll come tomorrow,’ she said wearily. ‘Have you got something to show me?’

‘Come
now
. Come
now.
’

‘It’s a long way to drive, Chalk Boy. It will take me two hours.’

‘Come anyway. Come to the castle. I’ll wait for you at the castle.’

‘And Michael?’

‘I told you. Michael is sleeping. This is Chalk Boy. You said you wanted to see me. Now you can.’

‘All right. Two hours.’

‘In the castle.’

‘In the castle.’

The line went dead.

Lee tried to be firm with her, but failed. ‘You’ll crash. You’re in no state to drive.’

She shrugged him off. Her mind was full of images: of Michael Whitlock, of his father,
of their house, of the chalk pit, of a gold mask on a wooden knife. Something in the boy’s tone – and she was in no doubt at all that it was Michael who had called, even if he was playing the pretend game – something in his tone had communicated genuine urgency, genuine need. He had rung six times during the late evening and early morning, whispering from the hallway of his house, a boy terrified, freezing, alone in his mind, alone in his castle. Françoise felt for him. He was in trouble. She
had
to respond to his call.

She was so damned tired!

‘Will you drive me?’

Lee Kline shook his head, picking up a sheet of paper and holding it out to the woman. She had forgotten that he was due in York at noon the next day. It would be an early start for him too.

‘Go in the morning,’ he said. ‘Three hours won’t make any difference.’

‘Maybe not. But if they did, what would I do then? He sounded desperate, Lee. I don’t know if I can help him, but I know he thinks I can. I have to go. I’ll get a taxi.’

‘It’ll cost you a fortune at this time of the morning.’

‘Perhaps I’ll get a valuable present from Chalk Boy,’ she muttered darkly. With that idea came thoughts of Richard Whitlock, and an anger that she remembered feeling two years or more ago, when she had been at the house in Kent.

It made up her mind for her. She called a taxi, and gasped at the quoted fare, but accepted it. Then she searched her records for the Whitlocks’ address before quickly changing her clothes and making a thermos flask of hot, strong coffee.

It was still dark when the taxi reached Ruckinghurst village where the Whitlocks lived. Françoise asked to be driven slowly through the silent
street until she identified the dark shape that was Eastwell House. There were three cars in the drive and a long extension to the side of the property. The Whitlocks were doing well. A hundred yards or so up the road was a narrow lane leading out on to the open farmland. The taxi parked here and Françoise shared her coffee with the driver.

They talked quietly and tiredly about the supernatural, French politics and tennis. Eventually a gleam of light in the distance told of the dawn. For a few minutes Françoise watched the pink become shimmering grey-red as the sun lit up the English Channel, visible over the black ridge of the Downs. Then she settled the account with the taxi driver, wished him a safe journey home, and stepped out of the car into the icy November morning.

Her breath frosting, she huddled into her coat. There was a layer of frozen dew on the field and she walked slowly, not liking the sound that her weight made as she trod down the crisp grass. Why she wanted to stay silent she couldn’t imagine. Perhaps it was that she felt like an intruder in this virgin, silent dawn.

Someone had crossed the field before her, a line of small footprints quite visible on the wettening grass. They came from the Whitlocks’ house and led straight to the quarry.

Françoise followed them.

The light increased and the movement of birds in the winter trees became a distraction. Nevertheless, she was certain she could hear a different sort of movement, farther into the quarry.

She entered Michael’s castle through the old access, and tried to remember how he had drawn the circular passages and high gates that marked each level of defence until the Castle Keep was reached. She couldn’t recall the drawing at all,
and smiled to herself, but even so she couldn’t resist the sound effects of pushing back the great wooden gates, and hauling up the drawbridge single-handedly.

She moved stealthily through the scrub, aware that the open paths were lined purposefully with chalk and flint blocks, and fragments of dulled iron (what was it called? Marcasite, she thought: iron deposits that formed in chalk under pressure, but were often thought to be the remains of past civilizations, or old weapons from life-forms long extinct). These were Michael’s markers and she walked carefully between them, reaching down to touch the iron in several places, feeling for any sign or sense of use by human hand: the iron was cold and dead, however, giving her no ghost-echo at all.

When she emerged and faced the rising wall of chalk she felt uncomfortable. There was something there but not there, a disturbance on the quarry wall that was tickling her senses but not her perception.

She called out for Michael, then corrected herself and tried to summon Chalk Boy.

Daylight, crisp and sharp, crept over the wall and cast stark shadows in the pit. There was a strange line on the sheer rise of chalk, a curving edge, soft and smooth, a ripple like the shadow of a corpse, deepening, lengthening. It seemed to shake, to tremble. Françoise glimpsed it, turned away, glanced up at the azure of the sky, saw birds in dark, dawn flight, felt the tremble of wind in the dying foliage, the flutter of life, the whisper of drying leaves, the movements of life returning from the chill night.

She looked back at the cliff and the shadow had moved. Now it deepened suddenly and abruptly, becoming human-shaped, a tall, slender, elfin shadow that stretched away across the white rock, flowing as it traversed the jagged, uneven
surface.