The Rain-Soaked Bride (24 page)

‘Well, that
was
open to cynicism from the others I’m afraid, purely because they don’t want to believe the possible implications. They think that our assassin made a break for it in the night, killing the officer en route. They think that means we’re safe again. At least for now.’

‘Whereas you think that’s just what someone wants us to believe?’

‘Precisely.’

Toby swung his legs out of the bed. ‘What time is it?’

‘Half past eight. I let you sleep in.’

‘You’re very kind.’

‘No I’m not. Today is going to be hard and I need you sharp. I need to pop out, do a little research, but I’ll be back in an hour and a half or so. Until then, Section 37 is all yours. Maybe it would be worth your hunting down Chun-hee and seeing if you could get him to be a bit more forward.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Alcester. It’s only twenty minutes’ walk over the fields. I need to think.’

‘Good luck.’

b) Alcester, Warwickshire

The walk to Alcester gave Shining exactly the space he needed.

As much as he enjoyed the fact that Section 37 was no longer the one-man band it had been for so many years, the habit of spending all that time alone was hard to break. Over the decades, he had become used to a singular life. Now, effectively trapped in a building crammed full of people, all pulling in different directions, he found himself suffocated. As much as he had tried to preach the positive to Toby, the fact that he was relegated to a dark basement room didn’t help either. He just wasn’t used to being so confined, so restricted.

Being out in the open, buffeted with the winter air, he could feel the oppressive atmosphere of the last twenty-four hours fall away. It was like rinsing off grime beneath an aggressive shower.

Soon he would stroll the quaint streets of what he was sure would be a lovely little market town, the sort of place that had become filled with charity shops, designer pottery outlets and pubs draped in so many hanging baskets they looked like they were growing mould. There would be black and white Tudor buildings and the kind of ancient church that Dennis Wheatley would have had his villains sacrifice virgins and livestock in. It would all be a perfect change of environment that would allow his head to chatter away, processing what it knew and then positing new ideas and plans. Perhaps there would even be an estate agents or three so that he could look in the window, as all British people must when in a strange town.

By the time he reached the outskirts of Alcester, his idyllic plans were already beginning to look fragile. The traffic was heavy and the pavements filled with people.

Instead of the quiet of a winter morning far away from the city’s assault on the senses, he found the streets were filled with dance music, the whoop and holler of fairground rides and a constant undercurrent hum of countless electric generators.

As he walked along the high street, he watched as a giant metal octopus, covered in pulsing light bulbs and filled with screaming children, spun its way between Georgian buildings. A ghost train screamed and cackled through crunchy speakers. Dodgems fizzed and crashed in front of the old church. The air dripped with fried onions and burned sugar.

‘Well,’ he said, to nobody in particular, ‘the quaint English countryside has changed since I last clapped eyes on it.’

‘Mop Fair, innit?’ said a woman trying to force a pushchair through the crowd. ‘Does your head in.’

‘Mop fair?’ he asked, but she’d already gone, fighting her way past the crowds, one bruised ankle at a time.

He looked around, trying to get his bearings. This was hard to do when someone had seen fit to dump a fairground into the mix.

A man was struggling to herd a group of children whose faces were buried in clouds of pink candyfloss.

‘Hope your bloody teeth rot,’ he muttered as he tried to keep them moving.

‘Excuse me?’ Shining asked him. ‘Could you point me towards the Swan Hotel?’

The man sighed as if this really was the last straw, then gestured towards the end of the street. ‘End of the road there. Have a large one for me, would you? I bloody need it.’

‘Bit early for me,’ Shining admitted and began to negotiate his way through the crowds and noise.

By the time he was stood outside the hotel he had ‘accidentally’ found himself in complete ownership of a couple of toffee apples and was trying to get into one of them without showering the pavement with tooth fragments. This was proving beyond him. He was sure that good times lay ahead between him and the treat but in these initial, awkward stages, it was rather like trying to bite a chunk out of a bedpost. He decided to give up for now, promising himself that he would sneak up on it later; hopefully, if he could just catch the damn thing unawares, he might be able to grab an edible chunk. If all else failed, he was fairly sure there was a toolkit in the boot of the car.

The Swan Hotel was a large pub with a couple of rooms to let. Shining walked up to the bar where a jaded-looking woman was trying to make it look like she was wiping the beer pumps. In reality, Shining suspected she was holding on to them to stop the pub spinning too quickly.

‘Busy night?’ he asked.

She looked at him as if he was the first human being she had ever seen. ‘Mad,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t know why we do it. Pinot Grigio and Waltzers just don’t mix.’

‘Yes, I noticed someone appears to have opened a carnival in your high street.’

‘Mop Fair,’ she said. ‘Happens every year.’

‘And the mops are?’

‘No idea. Never understood it. Years ago it used to be a market for hiring staff. Now we celebrate that glorious tradition with rollercoasters and burgers in polystyrene boxes. World’s gone mad. I’ve got a ghost train outside my bedroom window. A tatty skeleton stares at me while I undress.’

‘Charming. I’d draw the curtains if I were you.’

‘Doesn’t help, the damn thing’s lit up like it’s on fire. I’m hoping it’ll get quiet this afternoon so I can have a kip on the pool table.’

‘Here’s hoping.’

‘Get you a drink?’

‘I’ll have a tomato juice, if I may. I’m actually here to see one of your guests.’

‘No problem, the rooms are up the stairs that way,’ she gestured towards a pair of double doors in the far corner. ‘Just don’t let the landlord see you, he gets funny about visitors.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing like that,’ he assured her.

‘Nah,’ she chuckled, handing him his drink, ‘that’s not what I meant. He charges per person, that’s all, always thinks people are going to ram themselves in his poky little rooms without paying.’

‘Oh no, I won’t be staying long.’

‘Don’t blame you. If I hear that ghost train scream once more, I’ll give them some real dead people to worry about. There’s two rooms and only one’s occupied, you can’t go wrong.’

He paid her for the tomato juice and headed upstairs.

The two rooms faced one another across a wide landing. The door to one was wide open so he knocked on the door of the other. After a moment it opened.

‘Is you,’ said Tamar, stepping aside to let him in. ‘I am thinking you send me to wrong town.’

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been playing on the hoopla, I won’t believe you.’

‘Hoopla? What is a hoopla?’

‘A peculiarly English method of distributing cuddly toys, don’t worry about it. Here,’ he reached into his pocket, ‘I bought you a toffee apple.’

She unwrapped it and sniffed at it. ‘It is like a club made of sugar.’

‘Precisely, you lucky thing. Have you brought the netbook?’

She nodded to where it sat on the bedside table. ‘Is fully charged.’

‘That’s splendid. Sorry to be rude but bear with me while I check my emails, would you?’

Tamar shrugged. ‘I will eat my sugar club for breakfast.’

‘Good-o.’ He logged on to his mail client and scanned through the inbox. There was one from Cassandra:

Hello Charles!

Who isn’t even called Charles but never mind. I think your name is probably Algernon, I don’t know why, you just look like one. An Algernon that is. Don’t tell me if I’m right or not because I won’t even believe you, whatever you say, BECAUSE YOU ARE FULL OF LIES!! But in a really nice way:-)

So, anyway, to business! How is Timothy Who Is Not Timothy? (I think he is called Gary because I once knew a Gary that looked just like him). Has he been talking about me all the time? I bet he has. Poor love. I feel bad for him but he’ll get over me. Until then …

(There followed a gif of a sad-looking kitten.)

August, distracted by a sudden crashing sound, looked up to see Tamar was beating the toffee apple with the butt of her pistol.

‘Do try not to blow your head off for the sake of sweets, old thing,’ he said. ‘I know a man who had a rotten accident with an accidental discharge last night.’

She held up the gun to show she had removed the cartridge. There was a pleasing crack followed by a soft squishing sound. ‘I’ve won your challenge of rock fruits,’ she said with a smile, popping a piece of splintered red toffee into her mouth.

‘Good for you,’ he said, returning his attention to the email. ‘I’ll let you have a pop at mine in a minute, it was quite beyond me.’

In other news!

The email continued.

Guess who’s the cleverest girl you know? No! Not her! Me! I’ve found a likely candidate for your curse. It sounds like The Rain-Soaked Bride (cool name for a band, when I finally get this guitar to behave I may use it). It’s Japanese, like all the really fruity stuff. I’ve scanned the relevant pages from a book I found containing the legend (it’s an English translation, don’t worry!). It’s attached. Go and read it now, I’ll still be here when you get back. :P

August opened the attachment, a slightly yellow scan of old pages, and began to read:

Many years ago in the Shinano Province there lived Kōsaka, a girl of great beauty. Her skin was like snow and her hair like woven night with the light from the stars put aside for her eyes. It shone whenever she smiled and all who saw her fell in love.

She was the daughter of a proud but poor family and she spent her days working in the fields, gathering food for the village.

While she worked she sang and those who heard the sound said it was the most beautiful thing they had ever heard.

For all those who loved her, there was only one she loved. Takeda, the son of a neighbouring farmer. They had played since they were children and the older women of the village had known then what the future would hold. Sometimes love is always there.

Kōsaka and Takeda were to get married at the end of the season, once the crops were gathered and the grain stored. They would let their love grow over the winter to keep them warm. In the spring they hoped to make fruit of their own.

The elders of the village warned them that it would be better to marry in spring. Autumn was when the rains came and the plains flooded. The dry riverbeds filled and the waters raged. Autumn was no time for celebration. But Kōsaka and Takeda knew what they wanted: the rain could not wash away their ambitions.

Then, one day, a week before the wedding, a nobleman from Ueda rode through the village on his way to Komoro. He was travelling with only a handful of his retinue, but the villagers recognised the flags that hung about his caravan and bowed their heads as he passed. All except Kōsaka who was singing by the well, the sound of her song and the rushing of the water meant she did not hear the horses.

The nobleman heard her voice and was not angry at her lack of respect. Like all who had seen Kōsaka he found his heart grow hot, like the sun, as he watched her pump the water. He fell in love.

The nobleman was used to having the things he wanted in life. When he saw a painting he liked, he bought it and hung it on his wall. When he heard a Koto player who made him smile, he hired that musician and made them part of his ever-growing ensemble of musicians and entertainers. The nobleman had never once heard the word ‘no’. It was a word that meant nothing to him. It was a word he gave but never received.

That is why, when he told Kōsaka he wished to marry her, he could not understand her reply.

‘But I am rich,’ he told her. ‘I live in the best castles, I eat the finest foods, my life is a paradise and I wish to share it with you. You are lucky to be asked.’

‘I thank you,’ Kōsaka told him, ‘but I am already to be married.’

‘But you are not yet so,’ the nobleman explained, ‘and it is impossible that he could give you a life such as I offer.’

‘Nonetheless,’ she insisted, ‘it is him I wish to marry.’

The nobleman did not understand. He could not see why anyone would choose another over him. Did he not have the best of everything? Was he not an attractive man?

He asked her again. And again. And every time the answer was the same.

In time he grew angry. ‘If this other man was not here,’ he told Kōsaka, ‘you would marry me then, I think.’

‘Maybe so,’ she replied, ‘but he is so I will not.’

Kōsaka was a beautiful soul, she did not understand the effect her words had on the nobleman. She did not know the things that greed and jealousy will make a man do.

He left the village only to return three days later, bringing with him his finest soldiers.

‘Now,’ he told her, ‘I have the strength to make you do as you are told.’

He set his soldiers loose on the village and they bloodied their swords and set fires to burn in the homes of the people who lived there.

Finally, they came for Takeda, who fought to protect both the woman he loved and the people of his village. But eventually he could fight no more.

‘And this is the man you wish to marry?’ asked the nobleman. ‘A man whom I have beaten so easily?’

‘I do not marry him because he is a warrior,’ explained Kōsaka. ‘I marry him because we are in love.’

The nobleman was angered further and ordered Takeda to be staked down in the hard earth of the dry riverbed.