then climbed into the cab beside Markov. As it drove away, both men waved. Curiouser and curiouser, Lindsay thought, driving home.
Mindful of Jippy’s words, and still haunted by his expression, she checked her fax and her answering machine immediately she entered her apartment. Her hopes, which had risen high on the drive back here, now fell. No faxes; no messages; the machine’s unwinking red light mocked her. During her absence, no-one had called her—from Yorkshire, or indeed from elsewhere.
IV
T OWARDS MIDNIGHT, THE SAME night, Rowland McGuire put down the book he had been reading, rose, and threw another log on the fire. He pulled on the green sweater Lindsay had given him the previous Christmas, and moved quietly past the table where his friend Colin Lascelles was contriving to smoke two cigarettes at once and exude desperation. He opened the door.
This rented cottage was set high on the north Yorkshire moors. Until his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness beyond, Rowland could see nothing. He drew the door half shut behind him, looked out and waited. After a while, he began to see the tussocky shapes of heather and gorse, the broken suggestions of crags on the horizon and, thrown out across the blackness above him, a glittering profusion of stars.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going out now ?’ Colin called. ‘You’re mad. It’s All Souls’ Night—the night of the dead. The hobgoblins will get you. I’ll find you in the morning, stretched out, stone cold, with your teeth bared in a vampiric smile…’
‘I’ll risk it; just for a while. I like walking at night. It would be quite pleasant to breathe. You’ve smoked two hundred cigarettes this evening…’
‘Two hundred and two .’ Colin’s voice rose in a wail. ‘I need your advice, Rowland. I’m going insane…’
‘You’ve had my advice. I’ve been giving you advice for three days.’
‘I need counselling . I need therapy. Jungian analysis might help…’
‘You have a point there.’
‘Rowland, I’m having communication difficulties; severe ones. That bloody man’s unavailable; he’s not taking calls. And my fax machine won’t feed ; it’s making these puking noises, Rowland, every time I redial…’
‘Tough,’ said Rowland, and closed the door.
Ignoring the primal, plaintive cries this action provoked, Rowland crossed the cottage’s small untended garden, opened its reluctant gate, breathed in the freshness of the air and began to walk up the steep track beyond.
Somewhere below him, hidden by the curvature of the hills, lay the cluster of church and farms which comprised the only settlement resembling a village for many miles. From that hamlet, as he walked, came the sound of a church bell tolling midnight. An infinitesimal pause on each stroke, before the clapper struck bronze; the turning of a day, the turning of a month; not a night of ill-omen, Rowland thought, increasing his pace, but, rightly, a night when the dead were remembered or placated, and prayers were said for the salvation of their souls.
It was not the dead, but the living who were on his mind as he walked. As soon as he was alone, he felt the touch of a hand, heard the whisper of a voice; since the hand and the voice belonged to a woman now the wife of another man, and mother to that man’s child, he tried at once to push her away and drown all remembrance of her. He had tactics for this process; sooner or later, they usually succeeded. It was harder here, in this isolated place, than it was in London, where he could be distracted by the hurly-burly of work, but even so the exorcism could be achieved.
Facts, and the contemplation of facts, helped; it was also useful to have problems that needed solving. Lacking now the enjoyable immediate difficulties he could rely on in London—investigations, deadlines, departmental politicking, the constant pursuit of news—he turned his mind instead to his friend Colin Lascelles’s current difficulties, which
Mindful of Jippy’s words, and still haunted by his expression, she checked her fax and her answering machine immediately she entered her apartment. Her hopes, which had risen high on the drive back here, now fell. No faxes; no messages; the machine’s unwinking red light mocked her. During her absence, no-one had called her—from Yorkshire, or indeed from elsewhere.
IV
T OWARDS MIDNIGHT, THE SAME night, Rowland McGuire put down the book he had been reading, rose, and threw another log on the fire. He pulled on the green sweater Lindsay had given him the previous Christmas, and moved quietly past the table where his friend Colin Lascelles was contriving to smoke two cigarettes at once and exude desperation. He opened the door.
This rented cottage was set high on the north Yorkshire moors. Until his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness beyond, Rowland could see nothing. He drew the door half shut behind him, looked out and waited. After a while, he began to see the tussocky shapes of heather and gorse, the broken suggestions of crags on the horizon and, thrown out across the blackness above him, a glittering profusion of stars.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going out now ?’ Colin called. ‘You’re mad. It’s All Souls’ Night—the night of the dead. The hobgoblins will get you. I’ll find you in the morning, stretched out, stone cold, with your teeth bared in a vampiric smile…’
‘I’ll risk it; just for a while. I like walking at night. It would be quite pleasant to breathe. You’ve smoked two hundred cigarettes this evening…’
‘Two hundred and two .’ Colin’s voice rose in a wail. ‘I need your advice, Rowland. I’m going insane…’
‘You’ve had my advice. I’ve been giving you advice for three days.’
‘I need counselling . I need therapy. Jungian analysis might help…’
‘You have a point there.’
‘Rowland, I’m having communication difficulties; severe ones. That bloody man’s unavailable; he’s not taking calls. And my fax machine won’t feed ; it’s making these puking noises, Rowland, every time I redial…’
‘Tough,’ said Rowland, and closed the door.
Ignoring the primal, plaintive cries this action provoked, Rowland crossed the cottage’s small untended garden, opened its reluctant gate, breathed in the freshness of the air and began to walk up the steep track beyond.
Somewhere below him, hidden by the curvature of the hills, lay the cluster of church and farms which comprised the only settlement resembling a village for many miles. From that hamlet, as he walked, came the sound of a church bell tolling midnight. An infinitesimal pause on each stroke, before the clapper struck bronze; the turning of a day, the turning of a month; not a night of ill-omen, Rowland thought, increasing his pace, but, rightly, a night when the dead were remembered or placated, and prayers were said for the salvation of their souls.
It was not the dead, but the living who were on his mind as he walked. As soon as he was alone, he felt the touch of a hand, heard the whisper of a voice; since the hand and the voice belonged to a woman now the wife of another man, and mother to that man’s child, he tried at once to push her away and drown all remembrance of her. He had tactics for this process; sooner or later, they usually succeeded. It was harder here, in this isolated place, than it was in London, where he could be distracted by the hurly-burly of work, but even so the exorcism could be achieved.
Facts, and the contemplation of facts, helped; it was also useful to have problems that needed solving. Lacking now the enjoyable immediate difficulties he could rely on in London—investigations, deadlines, departmental politicking, the constant pursuit of news—he turned his mind instead to his friend Colin Lascelles’s current difficulties, which
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