Part 36 (1/2)

Even today the myth of Baby Bones endures as a children's spook story to be told at night round a cracklingfire when the moon rides high and the owl hoots. But, with the exception of the youngest child, who believes that dark forces can reach out, demand 'treats' from us, then, if we should ignore the demands, punish us with 'bad luck?'

The last paragraph had been crossed out, and in the margin a single fiercely scribbled word:Wrong!

So, Herbert Kelly learned the hard way, too. Like the doomed Benjamin Greensmith in 1850, who'd killed the orphan boy, Jess Bowen. Now the ghosts of these former residents of the Water Mill who'd received the sinister demands were beginning to line up behind the present owner, John Newton.

Perspiration stuck his hands to the paper. He needed a drink like crazy, but he knew he had to go through the files from beginning to end. All this made a terrible sense now. But a bleak foreboding hung over him. As if a storm was building over the house that would soon break with devastating results.

Inside the study the temperature rose as the sun climbed higher, subjecting Skelbrooke to its naked heat.

John read the seventy-year-old files, searching, he hoped, for an answer to his own dilemma.

Much of the files consisted of typewritten notes (clearly written in a hurry: John imagined Kelly furiously hammering at the typewriter keys; sometimes with a force so great that the typeface had punched right through the paper, leaving holes through which daylight pa.s.sed); the notes revealed Kelly's sudden obsession for researching superst.i.tion. They echoed John's own notes of just a day ago. Likewise, Kelly devoted pages on how to protect yourself from ill luck. John scanned the list: Planting holly bushes.

Burying a c.o.c.kerel in the foundations of a house.

Throwing salt over your left shoulder into the eyes of the devil.

Cold iron is a powerful defense against witches and demons, particularly in the form of horseshoes.

Good G.o.d. Herbert Kelly had been laboring to find a weapon to use against whatever force sent the letters! He'd also made sure that his work would be preserved so that people who came after him could pick up where he left off.

The overwhelming conclusion John reached was that Kelly had run out of time. He'd tried to discover some supernatural protection for his family, and perhaps Skelbrooke in general, but he'd failed. Beaten by the ticking clock.

He must have packed up his notes into a variety of bags before handing them to people he could trust to preserve them. Ten-year-old Stan Price had been one such person. Now Stan had pa.s.sed Kelly's notes to John to continue the work.

As John flicked through a bulky file a piece of paper slipped out, a pencil drawing made by a child. At the top of the picture stood a house. The perspectives and proportions were skewed but he recognized it as the Water Mill in which he now sat. The distinctive roof shape was there, while a series of straggling lines depicted the millstream running beneath the house itself. In the foreground were four figures. The tallest wore a hat, the next wore a long skirt, the third had pigtails, and the fourth was the smallest, holding a doll. In a child's hand beneath the figures were the words PLEASE LORD, PROTECT OUR HOME AND OUR FAMILY. AMEN. Then a drawing of a sad face with tears forming pear shapes on the cheeks. A note on the reverse of the drawing ran: I write this in haste. Mummy and Dianne. I will miss you very much, but Daddy says we must leave at this very moment. If we do not bad things will happen to our family and our neighbors. Please hug Teddy for me. I love you all. Mother, I always tried to be a good girl and make my bed every morning and keep the sink clean. I am crying now. Daddy promises we are leaving for a finer place.

Mary Kelly, aged nine.

To try and ease some of the sting of leaving in secret, Herbert Kelly had suggested that Mary write a farewell letter to her mother and sister. She had, only for some reason he'd never posted the letter to the family he'd left behind in Skelbrooke. Now here it was: in the hands of the wrong person, seventy years too late.

John glanced at his watch. It was now noon, Friday. The latest letter demanded that he leave Elizabeth in the graveyard at midnight on Sat.u.r.day.

That didn't give him long. It didn't give him long at all.

3.

Stan Price sat in the shade of a tree.

Robert Gregory glared at him from across the lawn. Why wouldn't the old man die? This heat alone should be enough to kill him. But no, Stan Price sat lost in his senile day dreams, smiling to himself-actually smiling, d.a.m.nnit! Gregory hated everything about his father-in-law. The old man hands that were liver spotted claws, the ridiculous straw hat, that scrawny turkey neck.

Robert Gregory hoed the soil, yet all the time his eyes burned into the man. He was still furious about how Stan had laughed at him yesterday. It was all over those stupid letters that had been left in the garden. Clearly they were a wind-up by some kids. The letters had been addressed to Robert personally, but they'd deliberately misspelt his name in a juvenile attempt to bug him.

Dear Robert Greg'ry, I should wish yew put me a pound of chock latt on the grief stowne of Jess Bowena Yeah, and pigs might fly. OK, so the letters had been mildly irritating, but it was the old man's reaction to them, the way he'd laughed and laughed, that had boiled the blood in his veins.

No, it would be Robert Gregory who'd have the last laugh. I've got plans for you, my dear old Dad, just you wait and see.

All he needed was luck, lots of lovely luck, to be on his side.

Robert watched a b.u.t.terfly settle on a leaf, its powder blue wings trembling in the sun. With a surge of savage excitement he plunged the hoe blade down at the insect, cutting it neatly in two.

CHAPTER 32.

John walked the dog.

He intended going only as far as the village pond. But like he'd been drawn there by invisible wires he found himself walking up to the Necropolis.

The sun beat down, cracking the soil into the pattern of reptile scales. Big bloated cemetery flies sat on path. Trees were motionless. No one was about. Nothing moved. The houses in the village were sealed boxes. It was a world holding its breath, waiting to see what happened next. In his pocket was the latest letter. He knew it by heart. Its words went round his head like an evil chant: No soul should exist alonea And I, like all people, desire companions.h.i.+pa Therefore, I will take little Elizabeth Newt'n awaya Yew will leave her in the graveyarda By the sepulchre of Posthumous Ellerbya Where was the grave of Posthumous Ellerby?

h.e.l.l, why should he want to know? It wasn't as if he was going to find it, then what? Chain his nine-year-old daughter to it as midnight approached?

Yeah, smelly old Baby Bonesa in your dreams.

As he crossed the gra.s.s to the gap in the broken fence Sam suddenly stopped, then lay down on his stomach his head lifted up, watching John as he entered the cemetery.

John looked at the dog. ”You're not coming in, are you, boy?”

The dog watched him, his black fur glossy as polished coal in the sun, his tongue hanging down as he panted.

”But it's not too hot in here, is it?” John gave a grim smile. ”It's too cold. Way too cold.” As he stepped over the threshold into the Necropolis a s.h.i.+ver ran through him, and for a second he did feel cold. Uncannily cold.

”You stay here, boy. I won't be long.” The dog remained alert, his ears up sharp. He reminded John of the sacred black jackal Anubis that guarded the tomb of Tutankhamen. If only Sam did have the power to guard their home; to keep away the bad things that circled with all the dark ferocity of sharks circling a sinking s.h.i.+p.

”Wait for me, boy.” He flashed a grin that weirdly felt wild and dangerous. ”But come running if I howl.”

Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the shoulder high weeds that swamped the cemetery in a green ocean. From it sprang thousands of tiny black islands-the stones of the dead. He walked up the hill, stepping over broken vodka bottles, syringes, a blooded tampon that had been torn out in the pa.s.sion of the moment.

From his waist up it was hot as h.e.l.l. But it was cold at his feet, where the gra.s.s held in the shade, and a little of the night. A rotted face peered at him from above the gra.s.s, the gouged eyes locked onto his. Erosion had made a meal of the stone angel. Disfiguring it. Reworking the face into something that oozed sourness. Frost had taken away its wings, too.

Moments later he entered the shadowed world of the Vale Of Tears. Doors of cold iron ran ahead of him at either side of the pa.s.sageway. He walked faster. The tomb walls nearly met overhead. In fact, he'd swear they were closer than the first time he came here. All he could see now was a narrow blue cut of sky. Tree roots that sprang from the roofs of the vaults snaked above him, while all the time the smell of old coffin leaked through holes in the iron doors to worm its way into his nose, then into his throat, lodging there as tightly as a fishbone.

Far away a dog howled. Sam, maybe, mourning the disappearance of his master into this world of rotten wood and moldering bone.

He turned through the maze at random. Straight ahead stood a tomb that was larger than the rest. Moss covered the walls in a greenish goblin fur. This time twin iron doors held fast the dead inside. Above the doors two words were cut deep into the stone.

POSTHUMOUS ELLERBY.

”Oh, Christ,” John murmured. ”Why did I have to see that?”