Janie whirled on Peter the moment they were alone, her voice an angry low hiss which she hoped would not carry upstairs. 'Damn you, if you hadn't gone off and got back too late to pick him up from school this would never have happened!'
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Hell, what was the point in going into details, explanations? There was nothing to be gained by telling her about the hoax hospital call. She was leaving anyway. Perhaps it was best that way; at least he wouldn't be worrying the whole time about what fresh horrors his wife and son might be subjected to.
'Maybe Ruskin wasn't so far from the truth in what he said to Gavin.' She poured two mugs of coffee, slopping them because her hand shook.
'Don't be ridiculous, I've never heard such poppycock in all my life. I don't think even Gavin believes it. He's just upset about what's happened to his rabbit.'
'You're not just insensitive, you're damned well bund!' Her eyes flashed angrily. 'You're so wrapped up in yourself that it takes me to notice things. Thatthatwhat happened tonight, didn't you notice anything? You had your torch on it for long enough.'
'What the hell are you talking about? Whoever it was stole that rabbit from its hutch, tied it to the stone andand gutted it.'
'I don't mean the rabbit. God that was bad enough'there was a condescending note in her tone now'I mean the stone it was lashed to.'
'What about the stone?' He stared at her blankly.
'Simply this.' Janie took a sip of coffee. 'That stone is the very same one that was there thousands of years ago, hauled up that slope in the days before mechanical pulleys by those vile priests for a specific purpose. It's a sacrificial stone and Gavin's rabbit was sacrificed on it!'
11
In a way it was a relief to be without Janie and Gavin, Peter decided. At least he did not have to worry for their safety.
He turned back into the cottage after the lanes had swallowed up the Mini, and told himself that his book was now a priority; he must just ignore everything and everybody else.
By mid-morning he was finding it difficult to settle down at his typewriter. That was strange because for the first time in his life he had all the peace and quiet for which he craved. No distractions. Yet it was hard going and he still had not solved the concluding paragraph to chapter one and was having no small amount of trouble coping with chapter two.
He found himself sitting there staring out of the window, his thoughts drifting away from the book. Truth is stranger than fictiona hackneyed phrase down the years, but it was true. These happenings at Hodre were somehow making his own plot slight, a fantasy that was beyond belief because the reader would say it couldn't happen. Just what he'd say about the Hodre events: the product of an over-fertile imagination. Unless you happened to be there.
The cloud was definitely coming down again, an unfriendly opaqueness that had an air of permanency about it. Hodre, land of everlasting fog. It was depressing, and seemed worse now that he was alone. If Janie had just gone to her parents for the day and Gavin was at school, Peter probably wouldn't have even noticed it. Suddenly everything was different; a creeping loneliness seemed to eat into his soul, a feeling that bred despair and hopelessness. Maybe he should pack up and go too; at this rate he was getting nowhere with his book. No, that wasn't just why he was staying. As he had told Janie, he had a score to settle. Against whom? The Wilsons? Bostock and Peters? Ruskin? Whoever was responsible for these outrages, they'd pay for it. He'd get back at them in some way.
Subconsciously his hearing had picked up the distant drone of an engine. He didn't take any notice of it until it cut out and made him aware of the sudden silence again.
Peter got up from his desk. Another excuse to get away from his book for a few minutes; he was clutching at any legitimate means of procrastination. The vehicle had stopped a little way down the road. On a clear day he would have been able to see it from the garden gate. With the thickening fog he'd have to walk down the road for a hundred yards or so. He didn't have any reason to, it was none of his business. But he'd do it all the same.
He shrugged on his duffle coat and went outside. God, it was much colder than yesterday. Another drop of a few degrees and the fog would be freezing.
It was so silent that he felt like going back indoors in case he made a noise. He was a trespasser in this empty world, an intruder who slunk along furtively glancing back into the mist, ready to flee at any second. From what? Peter didn't know; that was the worst part. The fear of the unknown.
A raven was croaking somewhere. Peter found himself peering into the gloom trying to spot it. Maybe it was the same one that had fed on the mutilated flesh of the cat, perhaps even before the creature was dead.
Surely he must come upon the parked vehicle soon. The damned fog cloaked all sound. It could only be a few yards ahead, its occupants sitting there listening. Waiting. For what? He shivered.
Then without warning he came upon it. One second there was nothing but a wall of damp grey opaqueness in front of him, the next a square bulky thing parked up on the verge at an angle, almost threatening to topple over.
A Land Rover\ Peter caught his breath and took a step backwards, icy fingers seeming to caress his back. His mouth was suddenly dry, his eyes straining, attempting to see inside the vehicle. A brief feeling of relief when he saw that it was empty, just a bale of hay in the back. Then the uneasiness returned. Where were the occupants, what had they stopped for, and what were they doing, cloaked by the elements?
It was Ruskin's Land Rover all right, the one that had nearly piled into the Saab yesterday morning. What the hell was he doing here? He'd no business on Hodre ground, and that was surely where he was.
Peter did not hesitate. Ruskin had obviously climbed over the remnants of a stile in the hedge and followed an old winding sheep track that led upwards ... in the direction of the stone circle.
Peter felt his pulses begin to race. Maybe Tim Ruskin had some insidious motive; to remove the dead rabbit, destroy the evidence? Or perpetrate further atrocities?
Peter moved quickly, angry now, wanting to confront his neighbour at the earliest opportunity. There were a lot of questions the other had to answer, like not phoning back last night to enquire whether or not Gavin had turned up safely. And all this bullshit he'd fed the boy about druid ghosts and blood sacrifices.
The circle couldn't be far away, Peter knew, but he'd lost all sense of direction in the fog. The raven was croaking angrily now, the way it had when he had disturbed it from its feed on feline carrion. Maybe its feast of rabbit flesh had been interrupted too. By Ruskin. The bastard wasn't far away.
Then Peter saw the trees, grotesque caricatures in the gloom like a child's impression of something beyond adult comprehension. Dead yet alive, seeing him. Reaching out for him. Malevolent.
Something moved, making Peter's heart thump madly. A shape that became human, walking on dead ash, kicking up clouds of it as it moved, the sole survivor after the apocalypse when the earth had burned and cooled to a dead world.
'What the hell d'you think you're doing, Ruskin?' Peter shouted, his words seeming to be blanketed and robbed of their venom by the fog. 'Come to take that rabbit away, have you?'
The man turned slowly, his aquiline face a mask of predatory anger. Showing no surprise, the deep-set eyes hooded and fixed steadily on Peter. In the grey light the lone hair and flowing beard seemed pure white, an aged reincarnation of ancient evil rising up out of the ashes to reclaim its domain of past centuries. A druid priest returned from the dead.
'I happen to be looking for some stray ewes.' A cultured, dominant voice that brooked no interference. 'A task which I am perfectly entitled to carry out.'