Hungry Moon (16 page)

^{Craig heard their voices swallowed by the creaking of the lift, then the hush closed round him. He took two more pills as soon as he dared, and reached for the controls of the bedside radio. He'd forgotten the evangelical station, but in fact even that wasn't coming through. All he could hear, until he turned off the radio and lay back, was static that sounded unpleasantly like dry, inhuman laughter.}

^{TWENTY FOUR}

^{Monday was half over before Diana managed to contact Nick. He sounded delighted to hear from her. 'Are you in town? Free for dinner? How are things in that town of yours with the strange name?'}

^{'What name is that?' she said, trying to sound casual.}

^{'To tell you the truth, I can't remember. Blame last night's heavy drinking. I remember you, though. I was sorry you had to dash off last time.'}

^{'So was I, Nick. But listen, you asked how were things here. I'm afraid they're getting worse.'}

^{'In what way?'}

^{She closed her eyes and took a breath and willed him not to be incredulous. 'Moonwell's supposed to be a tourist town, a centre for hikers, right? But the only visitors the town has had for months are the people who Godwin Mann sent ahead. And what worries me even more is that nobody seems to have noticed.'}

^{'Moonwell, that's the name, of course. So are you saying this is Mann's fault somehow?'}

^{What else could she claim that he might even consider trying to slip into print? 'It sounds that way, doesn't it? Even I didn't notice until yesterday. Whatever's happening is getting to me too.'}

^{'Some kind of mass hypnosis, religious hysteria, that kind of thing, you mean? If you're being affected by it you should get out straight away. I can put you up if you like.'}

^{He was making a play for her. In other circumstances she might have responded. 'I can't just leave all those children in the midst of it, with nobody to care how it may be affecting them,' she said, and suppressed the thought, which would neither define itself nor go away, that she was here for another purpose entirely. If she left she might forget the town, just as Nick had forgotten the name. She mustn't brood about staying and being forgotten. 'I have to see what happens tomorrow. Mann's going to do what he came to do,' she said.}

^{'Let me know what happens, or if you change your mind about leaving,' he said, and she realized he was more anxious about her than eager for a story. 'I wish I could promise you some coverage.'}

^{'Aren't you still in touch with that radio station?'}

^{'They closed it down last week.' He was silent. Then he said, 'If you're as worried as you sound and won't leave, I should at least come and take a look.'}

^{'Oh, would you?' Perhaps he'd notice the effect that had on him. 'When?'}

^{'I'll have to let you know. Not for a few days, but soon. It's your turn to buy dinner,' he said, and more seriously, 'Remember, call me any time you feel you need to.'}

^{At least someone else knew now, she told herself, even if she'd had to blame Mann in order to convince him. Being alone in her knowledge had dismayed her, especially when the Booths had told her they were moving to Wales. If only she could talk to someone less sceptical than Nick - and then, slapping herself on the forehead, she realized that she could. She went out at once, to the church.}

^{Sunlight flickered on the thick walls and seemed to shrink the gargoyles. Mistletoe gleamed like scales on the trunk of an oak among the headstones. Father O'Connell was praying silently in front of the altar. When he stood up, dusting the knees of his cassock, she went along the aisle to him. 'Why, it's Diana,' he said, and took her hands. 'Have you come to swell my dwindling flock?'}

^{'Not exactly, Father O'Connell, I'm afraid. 1 just wanted a word with you.'}

^{'Always glad to see you. And listen, call me Bob so you don't have to put on such a glum, respectful face. Come with me now and we'll have ourselves a pot of the Earl Grey you like so much.'}

^{He ushered her across the High Street to the presbytery, a cottage where an Alsatian dozed on the hall carpet and pricked up her ears as the door opened. 'Are fewer people coming to church, then?' Diana said.}

^{'Fewer of my congregation since I told them what I thought of what happened at the bookshop. Some of Mann's flock stray in now and again, but they always seem to find it wanting.' He patted the dog absent-mindedly. 'Good girl, Kelly. Still, if I'm to tell the truth, maybe they've reason to have their doubts about the church. Seems as if it may have a bit of a Celtic fort in its foundations.'}

^{'I thought you believed taking over traditions was one of the strengths of your church.'}

^{'Yes, but there's traditions and traditions. I found out that when they built the fort they may have buried a child in the foundations - supposed to make it impregnable, you see. But you don't want to hear such things about children. Go in the front now and sit down, and when I've made tea, we'll talk.'}

^{Diana sat in the front room and glanced about at Irish landscapes, a family album on a table next to the electric fire, a Morris West novel sprawled on a chair. Kelly padded in and laid her head on Diana's lap, nuzzled her hand until Diana stroked her. By the time the priest wheeled in the trolley, Diana was impatient to talk. 'I've been looking into our traditions too,' she said.}

^{She told him how Lutudarum had vanished from the map, how the same was beginning to happen to Moon-well. 'When I first came here the streets were full of hikers and tourists like myself, but where are they this year? The streets are full of new faces, and maybe that's one reason we didn't notice, but they aren't tourists.' His eyes were telling her to go on, and so she said, 'I think Godwin Mann has stirred it up, whatever's making the outside world forget about us. And another thing it can do is prevent us from noticing.'}

^{'Well,' he said, and the doorbell rang. 'Excuse me a minute,' he said.}

^{She could have wept for having been interrupted when she was almost sure he'd been sympathetic. He came back along the hall with someone and put his head round the door. 'You can stay a few more minutes, can't you? I'd like to hear what else you have to say.'}

^{She'd said all she could. Presumably he'd gone up to his study to counsel one of his parishioners, and what she'd told him might fade from his mind. Quite soon, however, she heard him and his visitor on the stairs again. They halted outside the front room, and Father O'Connell pushed the door open. 'Diana, I think you ought to hear this.'}

^{His visitor, a thin, pale, awkward man in his thirties, sidled timidly past him into the room. Diana had seen him before - in the lobby of the hotel, she realized. He looked on the edge of fleeing, even when the priest said, 'Miss Kramer shares your doubts. I'd like you to tell her what you just told me.'}

^{The pinched man only stared at her. 'Delbert here has been watching over the cave on Godwin Mann's behalf,' the priest explained. 'I think you meant to say, Delbert, that he's more worried about what he's up against than he lets on.'}

^{'I didn't mean to say that.' Delbert dragged his chapped fingers through his greying hair. 'He believes he can do anything. He thinks he's been called here as God's champion. He thinks his father playing Satan in that film was a sign to him that he had to stand for God. He's high on faith, gets that way at the rallies. He's even having visions now.'}

^{"Then you're saying,' the priest said with a hint of nervousness, 'you don't think he's equal to whatever task he's set himself.'}

^{'Didn't I already say so? Oh, you want her to hear, as if any of us can do anything now.' He gave Diana a mistrustful sidelong glance. 'I know about these things. I was a Satanist in California until they put me in the bughouse and Godwin brought me out. I'm telling you, what's down there in the cave is older than Satan. It's what cavemen were afraid of in the dark, and it'll turn us into cavemen if he stirs it up, it'll have us how it wants us.'}

^{Something dark pressed against the window, moulded to it like a snail: the shadow of a cloud. 'Does anyone else feel the way you do?' Diana said, and found her voice was stiff.}

^{"They'd rather believe Godwin will save us all. But I'm telling you, I looked down into that cave last night and I heard something laughing. It's ready for him, it's eager to meet him. Maybe it even put the thought in his head to come here in the first place. I told him what I heard down there, and he figured Satan was making me tell him to try to faze him. So now he's even more set on going down there tomorrow.'}

^{'If people could be convinced in time that it's dangerous -'}

^{Delbert interrupted her. 'The more opposition he runs into now, the more he'll be convinced he's right. I told you, there's not a thing anyone can do.'}

^{Deep down she felt he was wrong, but that wasn't reassuring either. 'You said he'd had a vision,' Father O'Connell prompted.}

^{'That's the worst part. He believes everything's a sign he's going to win on God's behalf.' He glared out at the clouds looming behind clouds and muttered, 'He told me he dreams every night of a calendar with a devil's face, a calendar for June. And after tomorrow's date the calendar is dead blank.'}

^{TWENTY FIVE}

^{Someone was knocking at the front door. Brian forced his sticky eyes open and threw off the humid sheets. It must be the police, and all he felt was relief that they'd found out what he'd done to Godwin and the hiker. He swung himself out of bed and stumbled blinking to the window.}

^{He pulled the curtains open and levered up the sash with the heels of his hands. As the sunlight struck his hands, they felt as if they were shrinking. He leaned out of the window, his shoulders bumping the sash. The two people on the path weren't policemen, they were Godwin's messengers.}

^{June was closing the front door. The rattle of the sash made the messengers look up. 'Nearly time,' they called to Brian, smiling brightly, and trotted to the next house to spread the good news. Godwin wasn't dead, then. Brian had only dreamed of disguising the flaw in one of the ropes he'd brought back from Sheffield, and you couldn't be held responsible for dreams.}

^{In the bathroom he bathed and shaved, cutting himself twice because the light over the mirror stung his eyes and skin. Surely it was guilt that made him feel like this, gave him a feverish impression that his body was no longer quite his. Perhaps Godwin wouldn't find the hiker, perhaps she'd fallen farther than Godwin could climb. It wouldn't be fair if helping God and Godwin caused Brian to be found out, to betray himself.}

^{When he was dressed, he ventured downstairs, nervous of encountering Miss Ingham, Andrew's teacher, who was lodging with them now. But she'd gone ahead to help at the cave, leaving June flapping her duster at corners of the front room. He'd never known such a spidery summer, nor had he ever seen five-pointed webs before. June half turned toward him as he came into the room. 'How are you feeling? We were going to let you sleep.'}

^{'What do you mean? There's nothing much wrong with me as I know of.'}

^{'You were tossing and turning half the night. Once I woke up and you weren't even in bed. I'd have come looking for you, but you'd got me so exhausted I just went back to sleep.'}

^{'I must have gone to the toilet,' he said hastily, rather than admit that he couldn't remember getting out of bed at all. 'That's where you'd better go now, Andrew, and then we'll be off.'}

^{June went back to peering into corners of the room. Her back to Brian, she murmured, 'You seem very eager to go.'}

^{'Shouldn't I be?' She couldn't know about the cave - there wasn't much to know. 'I thought you'd be glad I'm helping Godwin.'}

^{'Of course I'm glad.' But then she looked straight at him. 'I just wonder why you're suddenly so anxious to please him.'}

^{'Who says I'm anxious? I didn't ask to help, you know. He asked me.' Thank God, here was Andrew to save him from further awkwardness. 'Hurry up, son. You're going to see Godwin Mann climb down the cave.'}

^{'You're not to go anywhere near, Andrew, do you hear?'}

^{'You just keep hold of my hand while we're up there, son,' Brian said with a touch of defiance, and took one clammy hand, thrusting his fingers between Andrew's so that the boy's ragged, bitten fingernails couldn't scratch his skin.}

^{The High Street was crowded with people converging on the paths up to the moor. June caught up with Hazel as they climbed the nearest path, the limestone houses huddling together as the town fell away. Hazel chatted brightly, though she seemed preoccupied, while Benedict wondered aloud if Brian might like a security check at the house or the shop: God had enough to look after without keeping burglars away. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of hammering ahead, and he fell silent as they stepped over the edge of the stone bowl.}

^{Several of Mann's followers were standing just above the cave by two pi tons driven into the rock. Mann was going to abseil down, Brian thought, and felt proud of himself for having helped; he smiled at the sky masked by clouds. He'd already told the police about the hiker, he reminded himself to quell his waves of nervousness. Whatever Godwin found down there, surely it needn't trouble Brian.}

^{All the same, Brian flinched as the crowd in the bowl began cheering. Godwin had arrived. He stood for a few moments on the edge of the stone bowl, hands spread on either side of him. Perhaps they were meant to deprecate the cheers, but they gave him the look of Christ blessing a multitude. Some of the older people in the gathering dabbed at their eyes. The cheering intensified as he came down into the bowl, the gold cross stitched on the front of his overall catching the muffled sunlight, a whistle dangling from a string around his neck. In the midst of the cheers, the screech of a bird somewhere on the moors sounded like laughter.}

^{The cheering faded as Mann reached the pitons. He knelt above the cave and closed his eyes. A wind stirred the ash on the blackened slopes, setting charred stumps of heather trembling. Sunlight fluttered over the landscape and made the mouth of the cave appear to shift, stone lips woiking. Brian saw June grip Andrew's hand with both of hers.}

^{Mann crossed himself eventually and stood up. 'I want to thank you all on God's behalf for coming here today. I guess He thinks of you the same way I do - you're a living act of faith. I can feel your faith giving me the strength to do what I was called here to do.'}

^{Brian willed himself to believe with his entire being. He was sure he could feel what the evangelist felt, the energy of a faith that was urging Godwin to succeed. Brian couldn't be singled out in the midst of that, it couldn't be directed at him to make him speak. Perhaps it was just his restless night that was making him still feel nervous.}

^{The wind caught Mann's voice, swelling it like a voice that was being tuned on a radio. 'You'll pray for me, won't you? I know God wouldn't have sent me here if He didn't think I could do it, but right now, deep down I'm scared. I know I won't be scared if I can hear you all praying and singing God's praises while I climb.'}

^{His voice grew thin as the wind rose. 'Today God will heal this festering wound in the earth,' he said, unfolding one fist toward the cave, 'and then I believe this whole country will begin to turn away from superstition and the occult back to God, when it hears what I'll have to tell.'}

^{Several of his followers brought him his equipment and helped him put it on: a miner's helmet, a kit bag loaded with rope and metal that clinked. Two of them fixed the ropes for him to abseil. He stood on the edge of the cave and glanced up as the sun burst through the clouds. 'I think God wants us to know something,' he said smiling, swung himself out over the edge, and began to walk straight down the wall of rock.}

^{It didn't feel like a good omen to Brian. The light seemed to make the cave gape wider, brought the charred slopes lurching forward as if the low, swollen clouds were forcing them. 'He's going down to pray,' June murmured to Andrew, 'to make this into a holy place.'}

^'Why?'

^{'Because bad people used to use it for evil things. They didn't know any better. They weren't like us. They weren't civilized.'}

^{'Like apemen, Mummy?'}

^{'Something like that. Nobody had told them about God,' she murmured, sharing a smile with Hazel and Benedict at his questions. Brian willed her to shut up so that he could think. Why was the sight of the ropes jerking as Godwin climbed down making him so nervous? Godwin had obviously learned how to climb in preparation for his task, and Brian had put aside the faulty rope. The sun glared down on him like a lamp in an interrogation room. He'd only dreamed of disguising the dangerous rope, he'd actually put it. . . He drew in his breath, a gasp that made his mouth taste ashen. He couldn't recall putting it anywhere.}