‘That’s right.’ Roy Burley’s eyes relaxed. ‘I’ve always thought that. There’s a bit of science in that, it makes sense. Not like some of the things these spiritualists try to sell.’
Tony opened his mouth to head him off from the next anecdote: too late. ‘We had one of them down here, trying to tell us about Ploughman’s Path. A spiritualist or a medium, same thing. Came expecting us all to be yokels, I shouldn’t wonder. The police weren’t having any, so he tried it on us. Murder brings these mediums swarming like flies, so I’ve heard tell.’
‘What murder?’ Tony said, confused.
‘I thought you read about it.’ His eyes had narrowed again. ‘Oh, you read the book. No, it wouldn’t be in there, too recent.’ He gulped beer; everything is beautiful, the radio sang. ‘Why, it was just about the worst thing that ever happened at Ploughman’s Path. I’ve seen pictures of what Jack the Ripper did, but this was worse. They talk about people being flayed alive, but ‘ Christ. Put another in here, Bill.’
He half-emptied the refilled glass. ‘They never caught him. I’d have stopped him, I can tell you,’ he said in vague impotent fury. ‘The police didn’t think he was a local man, because there wasn’t any repetitions. He left no clues, nobody saw him. At least, not what he looked like. There was a family picnicking in the field the day before the murder, they said they kept feeling there was someone watching. He must have been waiting to catch someone alone.
I’ll tell you the one clever suggestion this medium had. These picnickers heard the scream, what you called the recording. He thought maybe the screams were what attracted the maniac there.’
Attracted him there. That reminded Tony of something, but the beer was heavy on his mind. ‘What else did the medium have to say?’
‘Oh, all sorts of rubbish. You know, this mystical stuff. Seeing patterns everywhere, saying everything is a pattern.’
‘Yes?’
‘Oh yes,’ Roy Burley said irritably. ‘He didn’t get that one past me, though, If everything’s a pattern it has to include all the horror in the world, doesn’t it’ Things like this murder’ That shut him up for a bit. Then he tried to say things like that may be necessary too, to make up the pattern. These people,’ he said with a gesture of disgust, ‘you can’t talk to them.’
Tony bought him another pint, restraining himself to a half. ‘Did he have any ideas about the screams?’
‘God, I can’t remember. Do you really want to hear that rubbish’ You wouldn’t have liked what he said, let me tell you. He didn’t believe in your recording idea.’ He wiped his frothy lips sloppily. ‘He came here a couple of years after the murder,’ he reluctantly answered Tony’s encouraging gaze. ‘He’d read about the tragedies. He held a three-day vigil at Ploughman’s Path, or something. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that much time to waste’ He heard the screams, but ‘ this is what I said you wouldn’t like ‘ he said he couldn’t feel any trace of the tragedies at all.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, you know these people are shupposed to be senshitive to sush things.’ When he’d finished laughing at himself he said, ‘Oh, he had an explanation, he was full of them. He tried to tell the police and me that the real tragedy hadn’t happened yet. He wanted us to believe he could see it in the future. Of course he couldn’t say what or when. Do you know what he tried to make out’ That there was something so awful in the future it was echoing back somehow, a sort of ghost in reverse. All the tragedies were just echoes, you see. He even made out the place was trying to make this final thing happen, so it could get rid of it at last. It had to make the worst thing possible happen, to purge itself. That was where the traces of the tragedies had gone ‘ the psychic energy, he called it. The place had converted all that energy, to help it make the thing happen. Oh, he was a real comedian.’
‘But what about the screams?’
‘Same kind of echo. Haven’t you ever heard an echo on a record before you hear the sound’ He tried to say the screams were like that, coming back from the future. He was entertaining, I’ll give him that. He had all sorts of charts, he’d worked out some kind of numerical pattern, the frequency of the tragedies or something. Didn’t impress me. They’re like statistics, those things, you can make them mean anything.’ His eyes had narrowed, gazing inward. ‘I ended up laughing at him. He went off very upset. Well, I had to get rid of him, I’d better things to do than listen to him. It wasn’t my fault he was killed,’ he said angrily, ‘whatever some people may say.’
‘Why, how was he killed?’
‘Oh, he went back to Ploughman’s Path. If he was so upset he shouldn’t have been driving. There were some children playing near the path. He must have meant to chase them away, but he lost control of the car, crashed at the end of the path. His legs were trapped and he caught fire. Of course he could have fitted that into his pattern,’ he mused. ‘I suppose he’d have said that was what the third scream meant.’
Tony started. He fought back the shadows of beer, of the pub. ‘How do you mean, the third scream?’
‘That was to do with his charts. He’d heard three screams in his vigil. He’d worked out that three screams meant it was time for a tragedy. He tried to show me, but I wasn’t looking. What’s the matter’ Don’t be going yet, it’s my round. What’s up, how many screams have you heard?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tony blurted. ‘Maybe I dreamt one.’ As he hurried out he saw Roy Burley picking up his abandoned beer, saying, ‘Aren’t you going to finish this?’
It was all right. There was nothing to worry about, he’d just better be getting back to the cottage. The key groped clumsily for the ignition. The rusty yellow of Camside rolled back, rushed by green. Tony felt as if he were floating in a stationary car, as the road wheeled by beneath him ‘ as if he were sitting in the front stalls before a cinema screen, as the road poured through the screen, as the blank of a curve hurtled at him: look out! Nearly. He slowed. No need to take risks. But his mind was full of the memory of someone watching from the trees, perhaps drawn there by the screams.
Puffy clouds lazed above the hills. As the Farmer’s Rest whipped by Tony glimpsed the cottage and the field, laid out minutely below; the trees at Ploughman’s Path were a tight band of green. He skidded into the side road, fighting the wheel; the road seemed absurdly narrow. Scents of blossoms billowed thickly at him. A few birds sang elaborately, otherwise the passing countryside was silent, deserted, weighed down by heat.
The trunks of the trees at the end of Ploughman’s Path were twitching nervously, incessantly. He squeezed his eyes shut. Only heat-haze. Slow down. Nearly home now.
He slammed the car door, which sprang open. Never mind. He ran up the path and thrust the gate back, breaking its latch. The door of the cottage was ajar. He halted in the front room. The cottage seemed full of his harsh panting.
Di’s typescript was scattered over the carpet. The dark chairs sat fatly; one lay on its side, its fake leather ripped. Beside it a small object glistened red. He picked it up, staining his fingers. Though it was thick with blood he recognised Di’s wedding ring.
When he rushed out after searching the cottage he saw the trail at once. As he forced his way through the fence, sobbing dryly, barbed wire clawed at him. He ran across the field, stumbling and falling, towards Ploughman’s Path. The discoloured grass of the trail painted his trouser-cuffs and hands red. The trees of Ploughman's Path shook violently, with terror or with eagerness. The trail touched their trunks, leading him beneath the foliage to what lay on the path.
It was huge. More than anything else it looked like a tattered cut-out silhouette of a woman’s body. It gleamed red beneath the trees; its torso was perhaps three feet wide. On the width of the silhouette’s head two eyes were arranged neatly.