Pax Britannia: Human Nature (16 page)

There were worse things than rabbit holes on Ghestdale that might endanger the unwary explorer, of course. First there were the peat-steeped pot holes, sucking hollows of saturated peat-mud, perfectly blended into the surrounding landscape thanks to the rafts of sphagnum moss and grasses that anchored their roots in the rich loam, insubstantial as water and yet with all the lethal clinging might of quicksand. Any who stumbled into one of them had better have some means of getting themselves out again or they would be swallowed up within a matter of minutes, drowning in the soupy mud.

And then there were the abandoned mine-workings that riddled the rocks beneath Ghestdale. Whitby and its immediate environs possessed some of the finest deposits of jet in, not only the British Isles, but the whole of the empire of Magna Britannia and, in fact, the world. A black, fossilized wood, jet could be intricately carved and given a superb polish which made for some fabulous pieces of jewellery and other trinkets. The stuff had been mined in the region for centuries and during the mid-nineteenth Whitby supported a very successful jet industry, the interest from the royal family at the time helping it become highly fashionable.

Although the manufacture of jet jewellery and the like still took place in the town, it was nowhere near the peak it had enjoyed a hundred years before. The mines, however, remained, many of them worked out completely, treacherous tunnels left neglected, pit-props left to rot, galleries becoming water-logged by the run-off that was once pumped out, so that now many tunnels were unsafe, or flooded, or had collapsed under the weight of rock and earth above them.

Ulysses was roused from his distracted musings by the cry of a woman.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, turning to his companion.

"Yes, sir, I did."

"Unless I'm very much mistaken, that sounded like a damsel in distress," Ulysses said, his pace already quickening to a run, forcing Nimrod to lengthen his strides to keep up.

Running as fast as he could, almost entirely heedless now of any potential pitfalls that might catch him out, Ulysses sprinted for the defile hidden between the gorse, from where he was certain the cry had come.

And as he ran, so his mind raced too, as - adrenalin flooding his system - he began to imagine what might await them. The first thought that came into his head was that the woman had been attacked; the next moment his mind was flooded with images of savaged bodies, like those unfortunate wretches that had been found dead here on the moors, carcasses slashed open, gutted by gouging claws, arms and legs bent at unnatural angles, looking like so many discarded ragdolls. Suddenly his comment about there being a damsel in distress seemed in terribly bad taste.

Reaching the top of the defile, he flung himself through a tangled thicket of thorns, tearing the lining of his cape open as he ran, stumbling down over the tumbled stones at his feet. He rounded a spur in the defile, half-expecting to see the body of a young woman lying there, gutted and jointed like a Sunday roast, some monstrous hellhound - all black fur and glowing-coal eyes - standing over its trophy, blood dripping from its cruel jaws; so much so, that he stumbled to an abrupt halt in surprise when that wasn't what confronted him in the hollow at all.

Sitting rather uncomfortably on the damp ground, with her back to him, was indeed a young woman, her taut figure hidden beneath a well-tailored Harris tweed jacket and knickerbockers of the same material, long woollen socks covering the shapely curve of her well-toned calves, with practical walking boots on her feet and her long blonde hair carefully plaited and tied up in a bun beneath her hat. And rather than further cries of pain or terror, Ulysses could hear her berating herself.

"You fool girl," she said, "you've been out on these moors a hundred times and look at you, caught out by a rabbit hole! You can be such an idiot!"

The expectant look of horror on Ulysses' face turning to one of curious delight, he picked his way across the floor of the shallow gorge that he might come to the aid of his damsel in distress.

His highly developed sixth sense flared, shaking him out of his ever-so slightly lecherous reverie, with white hot awareness. He already had his hands up to defend himself as the animal launched itself at him, yapping furiously.

Hearing the noise, the woman's head suddenly snapped round, and for a moment, Ulysses fancied he could see the image of the devil dog reflected in the pupil's of her wide brown eyes, behind the lenses of her round, wire-rimmed glasses, as if she too were half-expecting to see the same thing that his imagination had conjured. And then, with a blink, the imagined monster was gone, as was the brief grimace of terror, to be replaced by a pink-cheeked look of embarrassment.

"Rover!" she barked at the terrier now leaping up and down in front of Ulysses. "Leave the poor gentleman alone. Now, Rover! Heel!"

"Oh, don't mind him," Ulysses said, keeping his hands out low at his waist, just in case, "he's only looking out for his mistress."

"That's very gracious of you, Mr...?"

"Quicksilver, Miss, but call me Ulysses, please."

For a moment something like recognition or curiosity flashed across the young woman's features. Her clear complexion and soft, yet firm skin gave her the natural, understated beauty of an English Rose. Ulysses judged that she couldn't have been older than thirty and was most likely still in her mid-to late twenties.

"But his mistress should be looking out for herself, the silly thing," she said crossly. It took Ulysses a moment to realise that the 'silly thing' she was referring to was herself and not the terrier, which was now prancing around the young woman, watching Ulysses intently and giving off the occasional small growl to remind this interloper who the alpha male was around here.

Ulysses knelt down beside her, meeting her worried, embarrassed look with a kind smile. "Now, what seems to be the problem, Miss...?"

"Haniver. Jennifer Haniver."

"Haniver," Ulysses repeated. There was something strangely familiar about that name. Now, where had he heard it before?

Ulysses offered her his hand and she took it, surprising him with the firmness of her shake.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Haniver," unable to be anything other than utterly charming, finding himself in the company of another attractive young woman. There was a tired sigh from Nimrod behind him and Ulysses could imagine his manservant's eyebrows raised in disapproval and exasperation.

"It's my ankle," she explained, rubbing at the joint beneath her sock. "I caught my foot in a rabbit hole - silly old fool - and went over on it. Should've been looking where I was going, rather than for paw-prints, shouldn't I?"

"May I?" Ulysses asked, reaching out towards the young woman's ankle.

"No, please do."

He carefully squeezed the flesh beneath the wool.

"Out doing a bit of hunting, were you?" he asked, innocuously.

"You might say that."

"Partridge? Woodcock, was it?"

The young woman paused for a moment before answering, as if trying to assess how this stranger might take her next remark. "The Barghest Beast, actually."

With a sharp intake of breath Miss Haniver flinched, trying to pull her foot away, which only caused her to actually cry out in pain.

"I'm sorry. I'm being as careful as I can."

"Go on," Jennifer said, holding her leg and biting her lip, in an effort not to jerk her leg away again. "I'll try not to move this time - I promise."

Holding the back of her leg in his right hand, Ulysses tentatively felt the flesh around the ankle itself.

"You say you were following animal tracks," Ulysses commented as he stared into the middle distance, concentrating on his examination.

"Er, yes."

"But I thought you said you were out hunting."

"Well they're one and the same thing really."

"You looking for this Barghest beast of yours?"

"Th-That's right," the young woman replied, tensing again under the ministrations of Ulysses probing fingertips.

"I've never heard of a Barghest before." Ulysses said, remembering full well the reference to the ghostly hound in the newspaper article in which he had read of the recent killings. "Do you mind telling me what it is?"

Jennifer Haniver looked down at the boggy ground, her cheeks flushing pink again.

"You'd probably think me even more foolish than you doubtless already do for having fallen down a rabbit hole."

"Well, when you put it like that," Ulysses said with a grin, "what have you got to lose? You couldn't be any more embarrassed than you already are."

She smiled at him, her warm hazel eyes staring directly into his. And, if anything, the flush in her cheeks deepened.

She came across as so lacking in any kind of egotism or narcissism that her way of not making any effort to draw attention to her own attractiveness simply made her appear all the more appealing.

"I suppose not," she admitted, returning Ulysses' smile for the first time since they had met. "The Barghest is a phantom hound said to haunt the area known as Beast Cliff and the moors beyond."

"Ah, a ghost story," Ulysses said. "I've heard such tales of phantom hounds before."

"Of course, practically every county of the British Isles has its own legends of black dogs or hellhounds as they are also called. East Anglia has its Black Shuck, Cornwall the Shony and even the Channel Island of Jersey has its own Black Dog of Death.

"To most, the Barghest is nothing more than a fanciful phantasm, imagined into existence by less enlightened people from times past who didn't know any better, as they tried to explain away natural phenomena they didn't understand." Jennifer Haniver paused, distracted for a moment by the pain from her ankle.

"To most," Ulysses' attention was fully focused on what the young woman had to say now; he wasn't even examining her ankle any more. "But not, I take it, to you."

"Well, no."

"So what do you know that the rest of us don't," Ulysses asked with a wry grin.

"I am a cryptozoologist, Mr Quicksilver. Investigating the mysteries of the natural world - the supposedly impossible, the unsubstantiated and the allegedly extinct - is what I do. I take it you're not a local man yourself."

"No."

"Then what brings you to Yorkshire?"

"A little hunting myself, actually."

Jennifer smiled.

"So what are you hunting for, Ulysses?" she asked, trying the informal for a change.

"Mermaids, as it happens."

"Mermaids? Up here, on the moors?"

"Now who's feeling embarrassed?"

"Then, have you heard of the recent attacks?"

"I only know what I read in the paper this morning."

"Well, to my mind, these attacks have all the hallmarks of a large dog."

"And the Barghest is, supposedly, just that. A big dog?"

"Exactly, Mr Quicksilver; the biggest." The fading flush returned to her cheeks for a moment. There was something particularly appealing about that. "You don't think me absurd to talk of such things?"

"Not at all," Ulysses admitted. "I have seen too many weird and wonderful things in my life to dismiss anything too readily."

"You don't know what a relief it is to hear you say that," Jennifer gushed.

"Glad to be of service," Ulysses said, his gaze locking with hers again. This time he felt his own cheeks glowing.

"So, doctor, what's your diagnosis?"

"What?" Ulysses shook himself from his pleasant reverie.

"My ankle, Mr Quicksilver. Is it broken?"

"I'm sorry? Your ankle, of course," he said, stumbling over himself, trying to remember what it was that he was supposed to be doing. "Well, I don't think you've broken it, but I would say that it's sprained."

"Silly dithering idiot!" the young woman chided herself again. "Should have been looking where you were going, shouldn't you?"

"Look, I think your hunt for the Barghest is over for the time being, don't you? You're not going to get very far on that ankle by yourself, so is there somewhere that we can help you to. Where are you staying?"

"That's very chivalrous of you," she said, blushing again. "But I feel as though you've done enough for me already."

"But I don't think you're really in a position to refuse us, are you? I mean, it'll be getting dark soon and I'm sure you don't want to be hobbling around out here on your own, with a monster hound on the loose."

"No, of course not. You're quite right," Miss Haniver agreed. "Hunter's Lodge - my father's house; I've lived with him there, since his... retirement."

"What did he do?"

"You might have heard of him; Hannibal Haniver? He was someone, once. A naturalist; a leader in his field."

"Haniver. Hannibal Haniver," Ulysses repeated. "I knew that name sounded familiar. Yes, I've heard of him."

"Well, like I say, he was someone -
once
."

"Give us a hand will you, Nimrod?" Ulysses said, with one arm already around the young woman's waist.

The terrier still skipping and yapping at their heels, Ulysses and Nimrod helped her stand and then, with one either side, her arms across their shoulders, they set off.