She had tried to wake him to break the awful cycle of memories but when his eyes opened, Ryan had looked straight through her. Then, he had been angry and irritable. Instead of finding comfort in each other, he had pulled away from her to roam downstairs for the remaining hours of the night.
She said nothing of that to Mark.
“I don’t understand the mentality,” she picked up the thread of their conversation. “I don’t understand why people would chant and do unspeakable acts of violence in the name of – what? Satan?”
Mark watched the confusion, the yearning to understand, and wished that he could help her.
“People have committed all kinds of unspeakable acts over the centuries, in the name of one religion or another.”
Anna frowned.
‘You think the Circle considered their cult to be a religion of some kind?”
“The press seems to think they’re pagans, without a religion,” was all he said.
“You and I both know that’s a generalisation.” As a historian specialising in pagan history, she knew better than most that it was misleading to apply such a vague label, especially in relation to contemporary practices.
Mark shrugged.
“I suppose it’s true, in a technical sense. If by ‘pagan’, they mean anyone who does not follow the orthodox, usually Christian viewpoint, then you could say that the Circle on Holy Island was pagan.”
“You’re saying they were ‘unorthodox’?” Anna laughed. “Surely, that’s an understatement. There are perfectly harmless groups of neo-Pagans all around the country who dance and sing to the solstice, hoping for a good yield. The men and women who comprised the Circle were mentally unstable.”
“Lucky, then, that it’s been disbanded.”
“I’m not sure that it has been,” she spoke seriously again.
Mark raised his eyebrows.
“What makes you say that?”
Anna locked her warm brown eyes onto his and he felt the usual pull in return.
“You said yourself, the dates are significant,” she avoided answering the question fully, once again conscious that she was not at liberty to discuss the ritual markings found on Claire Burns’ body.
“That could easily be a question of chance,” he said reasonably.
She tucked her feet up beside her on the sofa opposite him, unconsciously returning to the foetal position as she thought of her misgivings yesterday.
“I know you’re right,” she said, trying to project an air of confidence. “I think I’m getting paranoid in my old age.”
She offered a weak smile but he was unconvinced.
“Anna, you know how much I care about you,” he said earnestly, thinking that she had no conception of how much he cared. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, I will.”
She shook her head.
“No, really. I’m being silly. I’m probably tired, after one or two late nights.”
They began to talk of other things; of history, of the places they had visited around the world and the countries yet to see. All the time, Mark remained painfully aware of the subordinate position he occupied in her life and, try as he might, he could not help resenting it.
Keir Edwards completed a new personal best in abdominal crunches and was pleased with the results when he surveyed himself critically in the short panel of reflective Perspex, which passed for a window. The six-pack he had been so proud of was developing into a ridge of eight now. That was one of the few good things about spending long hours with only himself for company: he could devote himself to … himself.
Chuckling, he angled himself to check the time on the white clock hanging at the end of the hallway. It was nearly time for his regular eleven-fifteen telephone call.
He checked and re-checked the corridors for signs of life, but heard only the usual ranting and shouting from the solitary cells around him.
When he was satisfied that he would not be disturbed by a wayward guard, he tugged the metal bed away from the wall and with extreme care, removed a corner of one of the breeze-blocks which lined the walls. Inside the cavity, there was a grey sock, inside of which rested a pay-as-you-go mobile phone with the ringer muted.
He tugged it free and waited for the call to come.
He spent a few minutes discussing recent developments and then replaced the phone inside the hollowed space, happy with the day’s entertainment so far. He considered topping it off with a phone call to one or other of the pathetic women who wrote to him almost daily, vowing undying love and affection, but the thought of having to feign interest bored him before he had even begun.
Perhaps, on a slow day, he’d get around to it.
At the same time that Mark Bowers left Anna’s cottage, Ryan found MacKenzie at her desk in CID Headquarters.