The Magus of Hay(152)

‘They still out there?’

‘Oh, they’re still there, but in what form? I don’t know. These training camps – it’s a possibility, but if you were to raid one all you’d find would be a smallholding with a rather eccentric library. To go back to old Brace and his grandson – I can tell you something. Usual rules.’

‘Of course.’

‘This might be urban mythology. Only the lawyers know the truth but, given the transparent lunacy of it and Charles Brace’s obsession with breeding suitably Aryan descendants… there was talk of a Secret Trust. Do you know what that is?’

‘No. Don’t make me ask Uncle Ted.’

‘Let’s say that Brace leaves a sum of money – say a few million – to a particular person, who is then trusted to turn most of the money over to the grandson when the grandson meets certain conditions. In this case, it might be – I’m speaking hypothetically here – the production of a properly Aryan child. Boy serves up a sprog who looks like bloody Boris Johnson and he’s quidsin. Once the child’s been verified as his, of course, and the mother’s credentials have been approved.’

‘Who’s the trustee?’

‘I don’t know, it’s a bloody secret, isn’t it? But you can imagine the appalling George perpetually on the lookout for a suitable carrier for his sperm. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, I—’

So when a lovely young woman arrives in the very shop, at the foot of the castle where Gore’s parents had performed their seminal sacrifice…

Look at me, de Braose. I’m a blonde from the north, my ancestors were probably Vikings.

A young woman who’d thought she was under observation, whose image had been captured in front of the castle.

This was, of course, insane. So much here that would never be understood, and some of it had only ever existed in people’s skewed minds.

‘And the mother’s alive?’ Miss White said.

‘They pulled her out of the Wye. She’s in hospital, under guard. Refusing to say anything. Told me a few things, one to one, but… her word against mine.’

‘Don’t be naive, Watkins. You’re a minister of the Church. She left you with a serious wound.’

‘You know too much, Athena.’

‘Or she might do away with herself while on remand. You can but hope.’

Merrily said nothing. Only one issue remained.

‘Who killed Peter Rector?’ Miss White’s face was serious and, without the Alice Cooper eye make-up, appeared guileless. ‘Did you ask Claudia Cornwell, whom I gather you encountered?’

‘May have. In a roundabout way.’

‘She tell you nobody killed him? That they simply… attended his demise, if you like.’



‘You going to explain that, Athena?’

‘Oh, Athena, is it?’

‘Whatever you want.’

‘I want somebody to relieve me of the responsibility of finding someone to accept his legacy. All right… I surmise – and will go no further than that – that Peter Rector was worried on a number of fronts. One, that he might be losing his faculties. Not so much his mind as his capacity for… using it… and other functions… for a particular purpose.’

‘The last redemptive project.’

‘If you like. He could always detect shadows. A few of which we’ve just discussed. He thought – I surmise – that it was time to go. For… some of him to go. In a purposeful way.’

Maybe she didn’t need to know this.

‘You’ve doubtless read of the elderly male witch who volunteered for a sacrificial death by hypothermia on a beach on the south coast during the war. Part of a ritual to prevent a German invasion. The psychic Home Guard. You have read about that, I suppose?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Peter loved that story.’

‘I don’t think I like where this is going.’

‘Where do you see it going?’

‘He wants to make himself part of the… the project?’

‘He can only do this for a time. When the physical body dies, the astral body may remain extant for some time. Longer, if sustained by… shall we say the energies of others. And, when necessary, it may be able to function… through… living persons. Requires someone… receptive. You should be able to work this out for yourself, so I’ll say no more. But it might be seen to be assisted by a ceremonial departure.’

‘I see,’ Merrily said. At last, she felt a kind of smile coming. ‘Tell me when I go wrong.’

She sat, straight-backed, on the bottom corner of the bed, placing her hands in her lap and closing her eyes.