Merrily saw Aphrodite in a miniskirt. Pert, sharp, outrageously clever, consciously mysterious. Even now, that kittenish voice on the phone…
‘Are you… also inheriting whatever it is? His project?’
‘Not your business, Watkins.’
‘He’s not left you everything for old time’s sake, has he?’
No reply.
‘You don’t want it, do you?’
‘How do you know what I want?’
‘You’re afraid, I think,’ Merrily said.
‘I shall never…’ Miss White turning on her so quickly that her dyed black hair danced like a nest of snakes. ‘I shall never be as frightened as you are. In a state of constant terror that your whole life might be a sham. Clutching at delusions of pathetic poltergeists because if they don’t exist how can something as huge as God be more than a fabrication?’
‘Miss White!’
Merrily turned, grateful. A woman in an overall had appeared on the terrace behind them. Looked like Mrs Cardelow, proprietor of The Glades. Athena White ignored her. Mrs Cardelow cupped her hands either side of her mouth.
‘It’s going to rain! Do you need any help?’
Miss White rose up gripping her Zimmer. Held up one hand, displaying a contemptuous middle finger. The woman may have shrugged. She went back into the house.
‘I still don’t really know what you are,’ Merrily said. ‘I don’t know if your peculiar abilities, given the presumed, clandestine nature of your former occupation, amount to nothing more than advanced psychological, manipulative… tricks.’
‘And you never will,’ Miss White said.
She was calm again. The rain was falling in slow, deliberate blobs. The Radnorshire hills had vanished. Merrily didn’t move.
‘I thought it was his profligate imagination,’ Miss White said. ‘Succumbing at last to the pressure. I thought he was deluded, still bent on his rack of self-recrimination. Now I think he might have been right. I think there has been death. Killing.’
‘Where?’
‘Not far away.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘That isn’t much help, Athena.’
‘I don’t know, you silly bitch. I don’t know where or by whom, but I think someone died before the Centre was closed down, and I think he felt responsible for that. And I do not dismiss the possibility that Peter Rector was murdered the other night. Executed. They like to claim certain places, you see. As portals where the energies they’re seeking can be drawn down. Or up. Places of sacrifice.’
‘Do you know who they are?’
‘The Order of the Sun in Shadow? I knew who they were. The leaders, anyway. They weren’t difficult to trace. Virtually advertising for members at one stage. That’s why I can’t see them as involved. But you see it’s a virus. Its adherents are encouraged to seek recruits. Having broken their own barriers, they’re instructed to find others over whom they have dominion, until they too transcend the abhorrent. And so it goes on and on, like some noxious chain letter.’
‘In theory. In fantasy.’
‘Fantasy,’ Miss White said, ‘is a material. I prefer to spell it with a ph… as in phantasm. Phantasy is a material with which magic works. Ponder that, Watkins. Now go and tell your police friend.’
‘He’d think it was bollocks.’
‘Well then…’ Miss White smiled bleakly. ‘There you have the eternal dichotomy.’ She looked up into the rain. ‘We should go in.’
Merrily stood up. Held the Zimmer frame steady.
‘Get away!’
‘Sorry.’
Miss White looked up, her mascara starting to run.
‘That pool… has a reputation. Did you know that?’
‘Has it?’
Merrily zipped up her hoodie over the pectoral cross.
It’s got form, Bliss said in her head.
‘Watkins…’ Bluing knuckles gripping the handles of the Zimmer. ‘Never thought I’d say this, but keep me informed.’
‘Which of us would that help, Athena?’
‘I can’t tell you what you don’t know, but I may be able to confirm what you think you might.’
‘I think I see.’
‘Good,’ Miss White said.
23
Victims
STANDING ALONE IN the centre of his bookstore – his store, for Chrissakes – Robin had a panic attack so sudden it was like an altered state of consciousness. Spinning around on a terrifying carousel of half-filled, crooked shelves, his mouth dry, his brain turned into a wrung-out sponge.
Holy shit, what were they doing? They’d hired a hovel in which to sell their souls.