Time's Legacy (52 page)

‘Abi?’ Mat groped his way towards the great barn doors. ‘Abi is that you? Are you OK?’

‘Mat! Thank God!’ He heard the desperation in her voice. ‘Kier locked me in!’

‘OK. Wait while I see how to get you out of there.’

‘The door is round the side.’ She sounded husky. She must have been shouting for hours he realised as he made his way around the stone wall, following the dimming beam of his torch until he found the door. Swearing in frustration as he pushed it, he shone the torch around the frame and then she heard an exclamation of anger as he rattled the padlock. Then his voice came close to the door again. ‘Hold on. This is all pretty rotten. I’ll see if I can find something to lever it off with.’ For agonising moments she could only listen as she heard rattling and scraping and banging and then at last the splintering of wood. Moments later the door scraped open with a theatrical squeak.

‘Mat!’ Abi fell into his arms. Tears were pouring down her face. ‘Thank God! I thought I would be there forever.’

‘Are you all right?’ The dogs shot in past them and raced over to the corner where Abi had been sitting. Abi smiled weakly. ‘I think they are going to eat my supplies. Good luck to them. They’ve earned it. Oh Mat, how did you find me?’

‘Kier told us he had locked you up somewhere. The man is insane. Greg and Ben went rushing back to confront him. We’ve been searching for hours, but in the end it was Pym and Thiz. They heard something. It must have been you shouting.’

‘Or the CD. That was how he lured me here. I heard monks singing, the sound was drifting across on the wind. I thought it was ghosts.’ She gave a wan smile.

‘And of course you had to come.’ He shook his head. ‘You idiot! My God, I’d have run in the opposite direction if I’d heard that! You’re just too damn brave for your own good! Come on, we must get you home. There are people searching for you up and down the county.’

‘Thank you, Mat. I don’t think I could have borne another minute in here.’ She was still clinging to his hand. ‘In spite of my prayers, I was so afraid. Afraid of Kier, and, yes, afraid of,’ she shrugged, ‘the ghosts.’

He nodded. ‘I know the feeling. I’m just so glad I felt I had to go on looking. I couldn’t just wait at home.’

‘You and the dogs.’ She smiled. ‘They’ve gone awfully quiet. Where are they?’ She turned back towards the darkness of the barn.

‘Justin?’ Cal’s voice seemed to come from very far away. ‘Justin? Ben just rang. Kier told them he has poisoned Abi’s food.’ Her voice broke into a sob. ‘He’s disappeared. They think he might be on his way back here.’

Justin stopped drumming. He felt the echoes fall away, the pictures faded. He stood up slowly and looked round. Even in the dark he could see the tears of worry and exhaustion running down Cal’s face. He pulled her to him gently and held her close. ‘Abi’s not dead, Cal. I would have sensed her out there. Whatever has happened, she is still OK.’

‘How can you be sure?’ She pulled away sharply.

‘I just can. You have to believe me.’ He glanced round. ‘Which isn’t to say we are not very exposed here if that man is around. Is Mat back?’

She shook her head miserably.

‘Then let’s get you back into the house and I will go and look for him.’ He tucked his drum into his bag and slung it onto his shoulder. The past could wait.

They made their way back to the house and into the kitchen where she made her way wearily to the fireplace and stooped to throw on some logs. No Mat and no dogs. The house felt empty and cold. Then behind them the door opened.

Cal’s face turned from misery to incredulous joy. ‘Mat! Abi! Oh God, are you all right?’

‘We’re fine.’ Mat ushered Abi in. The dogs followed them. ‘He’d locked her in the old barn down on Parkin’s Field.’

‘And you’re OK?’ Cal seized Abi’s hands and looked at her hard. ‘You didn’t eat anything?’

‘Eat?’ Abi stared from Cal to Justin.

‘Kier said he’d poisoned the food he’d left for you.’

Abi gasped. ‘No. No, I didn’t eat anything. He left me some food, but, I never got round to it.’

‘The dogs wanted to,’ Mat said, suddenly very sober. ‘Luckily the food was all in a cold box.’

‘The utter bastard,’ Abi said faintly. ‘How could he! I can’t believe he would actually try and kill me.’

‘And I don’t suppose he did,’ Mat said thoughtfully. ‘It was probably all a bluff, but we can’t afford to take risks. He is obviously so dangerously unstable there is no knowing what he might do next.’

‘Justin!’ Cal turned to her brother-in-law. ‘Take Abi back to Wales. She’ll be safe there. He would never find her. Leave us to deal with Kier. Ben and Greg have called the police and it is only a matter of time before they catch him, but until then let’s get Abi right away from here.’

‘No way!’ Abi shook her head vehemently. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘You know,’ Justin said, ‘it might make sense.’

‘I said no! I have to know what’s happening here.’

‘And you will know. For the present day news there is the telephone,’ Justin smiled gravely. ‘And for the rest of the story, you can follow it to its end wherever you are. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be here.’

‘But I do! This is where it happened. This is where Cynan and Rom died.’

‘Rom?’ Justin stood up. ‘The boy in the orchard?’ He stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Cal is right. You would be safer away from here. Only for a day or two until Kier has been reined in.’ He smiled at her gravely. ‘He is distracting us all from what needs to be done, Abi. Which is to bless the boy and Cynan and set their souls free. You must see it makes sense. You and I between us can work better away from here. Place is no more a tie than time. You must realise that by now.’

Abi returned his look. ‘And we can find out what happened to Mora?’

Justin nodded. ‘And we can help to put things right.’

‘How?’ she challenged. She held his gaze firmly.

‘I will show you.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘There are many places our callings touch and overlap, Abi. We can gain strength in finding what they are.’

‘In your cottage.’

‘In my cottage would be a good place to start.’ His grin broadened. ‘If only because we know we won’t be interrupted. I am going to step out into the orchard for a few minutes while you get ready. Just to bless it and promise we will return. Then we’ll leave. OK?’ He smiled.

Somehow she didn’t have the strength to argue any more.

As he climbed out of the car Kier nervously scanned the lower slopes of the distant Tor, now wreathed in mist and almost invisible in the moonlight, and he shivered. Leaving the car in the lay-by, he climbed the fence and walked out across the levels, trying to keep his courage up as he found himself picking his way through a waist-high layer of damp white fog. The night was very quiet, the moon distant and hazy. He shivered, forcing himself to keep going as his terror mounted. He shouldn’t have left her out here all alone. What if something had happened to her? It seemed an age before he saw the dark silhouette of the barn in the distance, though it couldn’t have taken him more than twenty minutes to walk there. It appeared to be floating in a sea of mist. He stopped in his tracks, peering towards it down the torch beam. The door was open. He closed his eyes for a moment in fury and frustration, trying to rein in his emotions, then he moved cautiously onward. No, his eyes had not deceived him. The door was open and she had gone. He studied the splintered wood. Someone had found her, then. He walked in and stared round, then he went over to the corner where he had left her the blankets and food. She had unfolded the blankets. He could see the imprint of her body on the sleeping bag. The radio had been switched off and had fallen on its side. The food box still had its lid in place. He pulled it off and looked inside. The sandwiches and fruit and samosas he had left there were all untouched. He threw down the lid and turned to look for the Bible. It was where he had left it, unopened. But then of course she would not have been able to read it in the dark. He had pictured her spending the night in prayer. Only in the morning when the light had begun to filter through the roof and round the doors would she have been able to see well enough to read.

He wandered across the floor, his shoes echoing on the hollow boards and suddenly he stopped. A gaping hole opened at his feet where the rotten boards had fallen in. He saw a new gash in the wood where someone had pulled up some more of the flooring and then, in his torch beam he saw the horse’s skull lying on the ground. For several seconds he stared at it, taking in the long cranium, the huge teeth, the deep eye sockets, seeing the shadows begin to shiver and dance as his hand started to shake.

The scream started low down in his belly. He could feel it rising and there was nothing he could do to stop it! Throwing down the torch he turned for the door and fled out into the night. ‘Sorceress! Witch! Enchantress!’ The words spun out under the clouds and were lost in the damp tendrils of mist lying across the levels. Behind him the torch rolled across the floor and came to rest with the beam shining onto a wall laced with spiders’ webs.

20

In the orchard Justin stood beneath the apple boughs, facing the moon. He raised his arms in supplication and closed his eyes in prayer. ‘Romanus and Cynan, sons of the fen, children, both, of this watery paradise, you died here to protect those you loved. For so long your souls have cried out for justice, but know here and now, that your part in this drama has been recognised, the story will be told. Abi and I will return to bless this orchard, to pray in the church on your island, Cynan, to set right the memories and to tell the world that you saved Yeshua so he could return to his destiny in the Holy Land.’ He paused, listening. A breath of wind rustled the leaves around him and he opened his eyes. A stray moonbeam filtered through the crisp golden leaves on the ancient apple trees, turning them silver and he saw a huge clump of mistletoe shimmering above him in a crook of the gnarled branches. He smiled. It was a sign.

In twenty minutes Abi had grabbed a quick shower, thrown some things into an overnight bag, tucked her Serpent Stone in amongst them and climbed into the car beside Justin. Cal thrust a packet into her hands. ‘Sandwiches. Guaranteed not poisoned. And here’s a Thermos.’ She leaned in and put a basket on the back seat. ‘Phone us when you get there, OK?’

As the car swung out of the gates Justin and Abi both glanced up and down the road. There was no sign of any traffic. He grinned across at her. ‘You’ll be safe at Ty Mawr. Once the others have dealt with Kier and he is safely out of the way we’ll come back and if there are any loose ends, which I doubt, then we’ll follow up Mora’s story? Deal?’

Abi smiled. ‘Deal,’ she said.

Kier flattened himself against the hedge as the car drove past him, heading towards Glastonbury, or possibly the bypass and then who knows where. He had watched Abi climb in, watched them throw her bag onto the back seat, seen Cal pass them a basket, seen Justin fold his tall frame into the driver’s seat, his face illuminated for a moment by the light from the front door and he had felt a sob of despair rising in his throat.

‘The police were less than helpful, as it turns out,’ Ben was explaining to his brother. Cal had brought coffee and biscuits to the table as they sat there with Greg. ‘Because we found Abi and she is safe they seemed to think the whole thing was some kind of “domestic”.’

‘It was the sight of two clergymen and the idea of a third who has gone gaga, and then the magic word bishop that finished them,’ Greg said with a wry laugh. ‘I can just imagine the story they will be telling back at the station.’

‘You told them about the poison?’

Ben nodded. ‘Of course we did. I don’t think they believed us. They said would we bring the suspicious food items into the station tomorrow and they would send it for testing.’

Mat snorted. ‘It sounds as though they were disappointed Abi wasn’t dead.’

‘It would have made a better case.’ Ben shrugged. ‘To do them justice there was all sorts kicking off last night apparently at some pub somewhere in town. Blood and gore and GBH. We heard it on their radios. They needed our story like a hole in the head. No body. No violence. No poisoned sandwiches that we could hand to them and a dippy vicar.’

‘Or three.’ Mat grinned.

‘Perhaps it is better they are not involved,’ Cal said thoughtfully. ‘With David coming. He wouldn’t welcome the publicity for the Church. Can you imagine if the press got hold of this? And Abi is safe with Justin.’

They sat in silence for several minutes, then Mat looked at his watch. ‘I don’t know about you folks, but I might go and get some shut eye. Ben and Greg, you could kip down in the spare rooms. We haven’t any guests at the moment. David’s chauffeur is going to bring him straight here when they arrive, so I suggest we get a bit of rest. Wherever Kier is, he can’t get at Abi, that’s the important thing, and there is nothing else we can usefully do for now. I’ll make sure the place is locked up and we can reconvene for breakfast.’

In the garden Kier watched the lights go out one by one. He saw the figure of Mat through the windows checking the locks were in place in the conservatory, then again in another downstairs window, then the light there too went out and all was silent. He glanced up. The lights upstairs came on briefly, then they also went out one by one. They had gone to bed. He frowned, feeling a constriction round his chest. Had Abi cursed him as she lay in that barn? Had she invoked evil spirits to torment him? He murmured a silent prayer in the dark. Stupid to have lost his torch. He could barely see as he walked across the lawn away from the house. He wasn’t sure where he was going. He couldn’t actually remember where he had left the car. Somewhere on the edge of the road, pulled into a farm gate. He wandered past some shrubs, smelling the damp night-time scents of the garden and came up hard against something which cracked his shin. He let out a cry of pain and leaned forward to feel it. A bench. He sat down heavily and leaning back with a sigh, he saw ahead of him the silhouette of an arch against the sky. Then he heard a woman crying.