“Does it? Looks like an ordinary bungalow to me.”
“Probably because you don’t know its history.” Gideon made the sharp left-hand turn into the lane that wound up and around the hill. “Back in the 1960s, when there was a bit of a witchcraft craze around these parts—”
“Of course I know that story. Everyone does. A middle-aged couple called the Nancarrows started holding rituals here, and one night—Halloween, naturally—something went wrong. Their bodies were found in the living room, horribly disfigured, as if some kind of beast had torn them apart.”
He’d told the sanguinary tale with some satisfaction. Gideon, who somehow didn’t care for beast stories nowadays, gave him a sidelong look. “I suppose you think they deserved it.”
“Of course not. What do you think I am? The only point I would make is that, if you live by the sword, there’s at least an even chance that you’ll die by it too. So if a set of devil-worshippers happened to call up some kind of devil...”
His stone-eagle face was a mask of absolute mischief. Gideon broke into frustrated laughter. “You do it on purpose, don’t you? You know full bloody well that if these Nancarrows were genuine witches, the last thing they’d worship is the devil. Because—”
“Because Satan’s a Christian concept. Yes, little brother, I know.”
Gideon shook his head. He drove on in silence. The lane was narrowing further still, claws of cobwebbed bramble squeak-scratching along the flanks of the car. The angle was pretty steep, too: Jack must have struggled to get the broadcast van along here. He needed a moment or two to process what Zeke had just called him. He didn’t want to be moved by it, but his sinuses were prickling. If not for Lee, he and his brother would have passed on their separate, endlessly lonely paths of life, and probably never connected again on this side of the grave. “And speaking of graves...”
“Which we weren’t.”
“Are the Nancarrows buried here? I can see it would be convenient, but it seems a bit brutal.”
“No. Their relatives whisked what was left of them off for nice modern cremations in Falmouth.”
“Good. I’d have preferred that, too.”
“I’ll try and bear it in mind.”
“This whole place just looks... wrong.” At last Gideon negotiated the last twist of the lane. He brought the car to a bumping halt on the driveway outside the bungalow. “And why is it called Underhill? It’s right at the top.”
“I’m more concerned that it’s in darkness. Didn’t Lee say he’d wait for you here?”
“Yes. The van’s gone, too—I guess he might have left with Anna and Jack after all.”
“Not without letting you know.”
“No, but if we can’t get a mobile signal, I doubt he could either. Come on, Zeke. I don’t like the look of this at all.”
Chapter Three
Lee sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head. He hadn’t fallen far—not as deep as Ray Tregear’s pit of a house had pulled him down, but he’d still landed hard. Once more he was in a cellar of some kind. And, inexplicably, sitting on a packing crate a few feet away was Bill Prowse.
“You know,” Lee said, when he’d coughed his throat free of enough dust, “it’s a bloody funny thing, but in all my time with Gideon, whenever anything weird’s been going on, somewhere in the background there’s been Darren. Or you.”
“Don’t you talk to me about that little shit,” Bill said gloomily. “Gone off and left me, he has.”
Lee grabbed a packing crate of his own. There were three of them, set out in a rough semicircle as if for conversation, a nice cosy get-together down in this dank and miserable hole. Cautiously he sat down and looked around him. Ruddy light was coming from somewhere, though he couldn’t identify the source. The effect was like being inside a photographer’s development room. He could see no trace of the hole or door through which he must have fallen. When Lee had time to worry about that, he would worry very sharply indeed.
Bill looked worse than usual in this light. His vast bulk was slumped disconsolately on the crate, enough of it hanging off the edges that he seemed to be melting. “You didn’t give Darren much reason to stay,” Lee said, pity touching him in spite of all the dirt, drug-dealing and bigotry Bill had brought to the village over the years. “I’m sorry, though. You must’ve been lonely.”
“Ah, well. Screw him.”
“What was all that business about joining up with Kernow Glan, though? Those were kids they were trying to murder over in Falmouth that day.”
“Screw Kernow Glan. Bloody Tregear, leaving my name on his damn phone like that! Got me in trouble, he did.”
“Not much. Gideon and the police went easy on you, because of your age and your...” Uneasily Lee surveyed him. His face was mottled grey in the red light, his eyes hollow. “Your health.”
“Screw the police. Screw Tregear, and Gideon too, and you as well, while I’m at it.”
“That’s all very well, Bill, but here we are in this cellar. You’re here for a reason, and I’m guessing you’ve dragged me down with you for a reason too. It’s Halloween, and I want to get home to my kid. What’s going on?”
“I didn’t drag you.”
“Oh, all right. Pull me, trap me, whatever you want to call it.”
“I didn’t bring you at all. And it’s not a bloody cellar.”
Of course not. Underhill had been built on the site of a church. Lee swallowed down his fear of what being buried in a crypt with Bill Prowse might mean. “If you didn’t bring me, who did?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who brought me. I fell asleep in my armchair at home, and... I woke up here.”
“Come off it. Are you and your mates up to some kind of Halloween wind-up?”
Something rustled in the shadows overhead. Bill gave a kind of squawk and threw his arms up to shield his face. But all that fluttered down from the ceiling was a single sheet of paper.
It landed at Lee’s feet. He picked it up. He’d already seen the first side. Now the back of it bore two lines of typescript too, ferociously imprinted into the page. Overwhelmed by his guilt, the fat old idler resolved to tell Tyack the terrible truth about this presence here!
Lee pursed his lips. Wordlessly he held the sheet out to Bill.
“Oh, Christ! She’s here!” To Lee’s astonishment, Bill leapt off his packing crate and lumbered across the flagstones towards him. He seized Lee’s shoulder and did his best to squeeze himself to invisibility behind him. “Keep her away from me!”
“Keep who away?”
“Her! That... that woman!”
“There’s nobody else down here. I know you don’t think much of me and my so-called gifts, but I’d be aware if there was any presence—”
“Oh, right! You would, would you? What about that one, then?”
He poked a finger over the top of Lee’s head. Lee blinked. On the third packing crate, a small white-haired woman was perched. Her feet were clad in sheepskin slipper-boots. A woollen dressing gown was buttoned up to her chin, and striped pyjama trousers encased her skinny legs. A less threatening apparition Lee had never seen.
Appearances could be monstrously, mortally deceiving. “Good evening,” he said, reaching inside himself for his shields. Each one had Gideon’s stamp on them in some way—had been forged by him, or strengthened, or lovingly fastened into place. “Are you the lady who left the note for me upstairs?”
She ignored him. Her attention was fixed on a midair point at waist height in front of her. As Lee watched, she extended one little finger and lowered it. The index finger of her other hand drifted thoughtfully to the right. Then both hands leapt into a blur of motion.