Guardians Of The Haunted Moor (2 page)

“
There is that. Did Jem Prowse say how he was
doing?”

“
Oh, yes. He nicked the cartridges out of the printers and sold
them on eBay the first afternoon he was there. Jem had to fire
him.”

“
Oh, dear.”

“
Still, he managed to get this little number run off for us.
What do you think?”

Gideon
spread out the romper suit Lee handed him and examined it
critically. It was made out of a fabric that looked ready to catch
light if you so much as looked at it, and would never, if he could
help it, touch his daughter’s skin. Then he got why this had been
the final flourish in Lee’s fashion parade, and nodded solemnly.
“It’s lovely. Tamsyn Elizabeth Tyack-Frayne—don’t know how they
managed to fit all that on such a little thing.”

Mrs Frayne sat up sharply in her chair, almost upsetting her
teacup. “Elizabeth? That’s
my
name, Gideon.”

“
I know, Ma.”

“
You’re giving your baby one of
my
names?”

“
Don’t mind, do you? A great big cumbersome Kernowek-English
name, to go with her huge wardrobe and the five hundred books she
already owns.” Gideon went to sit on the arm of the old lady’s
chair. He passed her a handkerchief and patted her shoulder. Lee
was beaming broadly. “I am right, aren’t I?” Gideon asked him. “We
are just expecting one baby—not the half dozen all this would seem
to imply?”

“
Just one. A very little one, too.”

“
You’d never think it to see the state of our flat, Ma. My
library’s gone. All the things I was going to do in there! Study
for my inspectorate, write my memoirs...”

“
All you’ve done in there so far is read old copies of
Auto Express
.”

“
The cars I could’ve had, Ma! Now I have to drive Lee’s
clapped-out Escort forever, just because I have to keep Princess
Tamsyn Elizabeth in bibs and nappies, and—”

“
Shut up,” Lee interrupted him amiably, lobbing the awful
romper suit at him to catch. “Don’t listen to him, Mrs Frayne. He
wouldn’t rest until we’d cleared every book of mine as well as his
out of his so-called library, so he could strip it down and paint
what he thinks look like ducklings and kittens all over it. Poor
kid’s gonna be traumatised for life, with those hawks and panthers
glaring down at her.”

“
Oh, dear,” the old lady gasped, caught between laughter and
sobs, waving the handkerchief for mercy. “I think I’d better come
and have a look at your arrangements, boys. I
have
done this before.”

“
We were hoping you might.”

“
How is Elowen? I saw her a fortnight ago when your uncle Jago
brought her over for a visit, but things change so fast at this
stage.”

“
She’s fine. Ready to pop any minute, she thinks, though the
docs are still saying New Year.”

“
Well, a woman knows best. My doctor thought you were twins,
Gideon, you were so late and so big. But I knew it was just my
fine, stalwart son on the way. And when you were born,
you...”

“
Please, Ma.” Gideon waved her gently to silence. “Lee doesn’t
need to hear
all
my infant prodigies.”

“
What do you think we’ve been talking about this afternoon?
Besides, you’ll be doing the same thing to Tamsyn Elizabeth in a
few years’ time.”

Gideon
tried to imagine the years. It was difficult, with his little bird
still in the bush, still an abstract baby despite all his efforts
for her in the nursery and his visits to Elowen since she’d
returned from France three months before. Glancing across, he saw
Lee struggling with the concept too—not just the adoption, but the
school days, the thousands of changes and shifting realities of
bringing up Lee’s niece as their own child. He went back to sit
beside him, reaching out a hand. Lee took it, returning his grip
fiercely. Between them they bridged the gap. “That’s right,” Lee
said firmly. “I’ve got a special book I’m gonna write all her
embarrassing anecdotes in, complete with photographic evidence.”
His mobile beeped. “Excuse me a second.” He read the incoming text
with just the slightest increase of his sea-bleached pallor, then
looked up. “That’s Michel. His plane got in on time. He reckons
he’ll be at Drift in an hour or so.”

“
Michel?” Mrs Frayne echoed nervously. “Why is he
coming?”

Gideon
called up a cheerful sergeant’s smile. Both Lee and his mother
looked as though they could use it. “Because he’s a decent bloke,
despite his propensity for knocking up his students. He feels
responsible, and he wants to make sure that Elowen’s
okay.”

“
But if she’s not due until New Year...”

“
He’s got some time off. He’s just over on a visit.” Other than
his belief in Michel’s decency, based on the handful of meetings
they’d had since last June, Gideon didn’t know what was tearing the
French archaeologist away from his latest excavation. “He and
Elowen are bound to have things to talk about. She’s taking up her
job on his team as soon as she can after the baby’s
born.”

An odd
silence descended on the room. The gas fire clicked and rustled in
its imitation hearth. The residents’ lift thumped in the distance,
and then these sounds also seemed to suspend themselves. Lee raised
his head suddenly. “What time is it, Gid?”

“
The time? Er...” Gideon checked his watch. “Ten past five.
Why? You getting hungry?”

“
No. It isn’t that.” He drew in a deep, soft inhalation. “Mrs
Frayne,” he said distantly, “can you be brave?”

The old
lady turned to him. She met his eyes, and her expression of
bemusement firmed up into a resolution Gideon had only seen a few
times in his life before, when her overbearing husband had pushed
her gentle nature past its limits. “Very seldom,” she said, “but
yes, if I have to be. What do you need to tell me,
dear?”

“
It’s the pastor. I’m afraid he’s dead.”

Gideon
almost cracked into laughter. The pastor was sitting bolt upright
in his chair in the corner, unmoved by talk of grandchildren or the
arrival by night of decent, responsible biological fathers. Lee
hadn’t even looked in the old man’s direction. His focus was on Mrs
Frayne, his expression so gentle that Gideon could have died
himself for love of him. Instead he went over and laid two
fingertips to the artery at his father’s wrinkled neck. “Fuck,” he
said, mercifully too softly for Mrs Frayne to catch.

All the
rooms at Roselands were amply provided with emergency cords. They
were large and obvious, their handles made of neon-bright plastic.
It still took Gideon a nightmare ten seconds to locate one and pull
it, the ice of shock slowing his limbs. He darted back to the
pastor’s side—loosened his collar, tipped his head back, made
another, more searching check at his carotid. He was more concerned
for his mother, whose frailty would scarcely withstand this loss,
dropped like a thunderbolt into her tea-time peace...

He need
not have worried. Lee had her. He was kneeling in front of her,
holding her hands and all her attention. Gideon knew from
experience how that grip could block out the world. Lee would offer
no false comfort, deny nothing. He simply parted the waters, like
the pier on a strong granite bridge, and protected the fragile
human souls around him until they’d found their further shore.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You’ll be all right.”

“
Yes. It seems a dreadful thing, though, that he should just
have... slipped away like that.”

“
He had no pain. It was time.”

“
You know that, don’t you? You
know
.”

The
lounge door banged open. Mrs Harle appeared, flanked by two
assistants, and allowed herself one brief shriek of dismay before
snapping on her professional skin. “Oh, dear,” she observed,
running to dislodge Gideon from beside his father’s chair. “Pastor
Frayne... They all have to leave us sometime, but we thought he’d
be with us for longer than this. Oh, Elizabeth, my love, what a
dreadful shock...”

Gideon
yielded the field to her. The doctor would be on his way, and he
knew from his own years of experience that nothing more could be
done. The old man had made his exit swiftly but absolutely. Gideon
backed up, trying not to shudder at the slack mouth, the vacated
features. He’d dealt with dozens of bodies. It shouldn’t be worse
just because it was flesh of his own. He was a copper, for God’s
sake...

“
Yeah, right. Human, too.”

He
gasped in relief as Lee caught him. There would never be another
grip like that, another warmth. “What?”

“
Human first, copper a very close second. I’ve got you,
sweetheart.”

A death in the family, and my husband here to face it with
me.
Gideon was still getting his head
around the differences between his old life and this new one.
Half-heartedly he resisted. “Stop mind-reading me. Take care of
Ma.”

“
Mrs Harle’s checking her over. Come out of everyone’s way and
sit down.”

Gideon
did as he was told. His heart and lungs seemed to have drifted off
towards the artexed ceiling and he fixed his gaze on Lee, a source
of gravity he could borrow until the earth began to weigh him down
again. “Sorry. We weren’t even close.”

“
Take a deep breath with me. One, two...”

“
For God’s sake, you big New Age yoga freak—”

“
Just do it. One, two, three...”

Helplessly Gideon inhaled, through his nose the way the freak
had taught him, and after retaining the breath for five seconds,
let it go through his mouth, watching Lee mirror and guide him. In,
and hold, and out...

“
That’s the lad. Couple more and you’ll be ready for anything.
In again—one, two...”

Lee’s
smile of approval faded. His focus shifted from Gideon to a point
at once far beyond Roseland’s walls and deep inside. His mouth
opened a little—a look of astonishment Gideon had seen when he’d
bashed himself on the thumbnail with a hammer and not yet found the
breath to start swearing. “Lee? What’s up?”

“
I don’t know. I... absolutely do not know.” He took hold of
the edge of the table. “A pain of some kind, like an indigestion
cramp but a billion times worse.” He shook himself. “Sorry. Great
timing, eh? Shouldn’t’ve had that lunchtime pasty from
Joe’s.”

“
You all right now?”

“
Yeah. It was only there for a second, then... Oh,
Christ
!”

He
doubled up. Gideon forgot his own troubles and sprang to his feet.
His mobile was ringing, and by some weird coincidence so was Lee’s,
but both would have to wait—Lee had flushed as bright a fever-pink
as he’d been pale before, and he was clinging to the table for grim
death. Gideon felt his damp brow. “Bloody hell. What’s the matter,
love? Food poisoning?”

“
Must be. Never felt a pain like it.”

“
Stomach?”

“
Not exactly. Lower, like...” He cut himself off with a
grinding moan that made the care workers and Mrs Harle look up from
their duties in alarm. “Oh, Gid, it feels like my guts are ripping
out, or...” He caught his breath. His colour deepened as he noticed
everyone’s attention. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s gone.”

Gideon hadn’t worked out yet how to set his new mobile handset
so the ringtone wouldn’t get louder and louder when ignored. He
picked up distractedly, listened for twenty seconds to his elder
brother’s voice, distorted as it was almost beyond his recognition
by excitement. Ezekiel—of late months
Zeke
, childhood’s name and some
childhood’s affection restored—never got excited. Never let a phone
line ring and ring. “Okay,” Gideon said, when he found out why.
“We’ll be there.”

Lee was
staring at him. “What?”

Gideon’s
ma couldn’t see him from this angle. He allowed the huge grin to
blaze up, inappropriate as champagne and fireworks in this room of
death. “Oh, mate. I know you pick up on people’s feelings, but do
yourself a favour and don’t let it happen this time.”

“
Oh, my God. Elowen?”

“
They just rushed her into Trelowarren maternity ward. She
couldn’t get hold of either of us, so she phoned
Ezekiel.”

“
Seriously?” Lee straightened up, his smile answering Gideon’s,
releasing another burst of firecracker excitement across the hidden
sky. “Poor Zeke—he’ll be having a litter of his own.”

“
Just as long as
you
don’t.”

“
What—you think that pain was...”

“
A contraction, not a pasty? Only you can know for sure. But
like I say, you might want to try and block it.”

“
You’re not kidding.” Lee gave a low whistle and laid a hand to
his stomach. “How do they stand it?”

“
They’re stronger than we are.” Gideon turned to his mother,
who was pushing up out of her armchair, scenting new developments.
“Aren’t you, Ma?”

“
Oh, yes,” she said solemnly, evading her carer’s grasp. “Very
much stronger. We have to be. Why?”