Castles Made of Sand (19 page)

‘Hi. Er, was there a password?’

‘Oh, Fiorinda., I’m fucking glad you’re here. This is bad shit. Really bad, unbelievable.
Dogs can’t jump that high
.’

Unpremeditated, Fiorinda pushed the rifle aside and hugged the woman.

‘Don’t be daft.’

The barmies were in the middle of the trees, ragamuffin men, looking scared, sitting around in a circle. She knew them, at least by sight: they’d all been in Ax and Sage’s guerrilla band, in Yorkshire. They all stood up, clutching weapons.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, to her boyfriends. ‘I had to see for myself.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Ax. ‘Understood.’

They hugged her briefly, first Ax and then Sage. Everybody sat down. Sage’s arm stayed around her—an unusual public display of affection, but she wasn’t complaining. ‘Any new developments?’

‘Well, the farmer’s co-operating,’ said Sage. ‘He admits he’s allowed the wood to be used as a venue for a couple of years. He claims he had no choice, which is probably true, but he’s paid handsomely, anonymous packets of notes. He stays away from there, especially around the big dates, but he knew about the pit. He thought it was for the horse sacrifice. He swears he had no idea about the rest.’

‘He gets a warning. The cars arrive late,’ said Ax. ‘They park in a layby, they leave before dawn. That’s all we’ve got out of him so far, except he confirms the opinion of our experts—’ A few of the barmies cringed at this, like pack members who have been nipped and cuffed by father wolf. ‘He expects them back on Lammas’ Eve, that is tomorrow night.’

‘They’ll be doing a triad,’ offered big Brock, very subdued. ‘They do three sacrifices over a feast like Lammas, an’ keep the bodies displayed if they can get away with it, ter hallow the ground. But I’m talking animals, horses and dogs. Cats, if they are hard up. I’ve never heard of…anything the fuck like that.’

‘I wish to tell you, Fiorinda,’ muttered Fergal Kearney, ‘that this is
not
the ancient ways, this is foul invention. The only meaning it has is for hurrying on the dark, which some bastard fellers think a fine plan—’

‘Yeah,’ Ax cut him off. ‘Right.’ He looked at the sky, reached in his pocket for cigarettes and took one out; but didn’t light it. Last
sawm
he’d given up all drugs for the entire month. He didn’t see himself managing that this year, but he could hang on for half an hour. ‘We’re not talking to the local coppers, for obvious reasons, but we’ve arranged for reinforcements. We’ve called in the West Mid armed response squad, and sent for more barmies.’

‘The farmer and his family are under close guard,’ said Sage, ‘in case they were thinking of giving anyone a call. We can’t be sure we haven’t been spotted and frightened them off, but
if
they come back, we’ll be ready.’

‘Like a night club raid,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Switch on the big lights, close down the exits and move in. Hey, is human sacrifice the new cocaine?’

Her levity did not go down well. Someone whispered, ‘
It wasn’t dogs
.’

Another voice added, in a hollow tone, ‘We were scared before we got near.’

‘An’ that’s not like us, Fiorinda.’

‘There was an aura.’

‘Fuckin’ Pagans. They use dark, inhuman forces.’

Angry glances shot around: there were Pagans in the band. You can believe in the old religion without being a sadistic murderous neo-feudalist.

‘Oh come off it,’ said Fiorinda, briskly. ‘Pagans, Anabaptists, what’s the difference where they go to church? What we have here are some sad bastards whose idea of fun is to watch human beings get ripped apart. There’s nothing unheard of or supernatural in that,
unfortunately
.’

The barmies were not yet convinced. ‘I don’t believe in magic,’ announced Zip Crimson, the sharp-dressing hippy kid who was one of the babies of this gang. ‘It’s fascist mediaeval screw the workers shite, an’ I hate the stuff. But that’s not to say it doesn’t happen.’

‘You could be right. All
I’m
saying is: not this time. I’ve seen the bodies. I know it looks bizarre. I don’t know what the hell is going on, any more than you do. But trust me, there’ll be a natural explanation. It wasn’t
werewolves
.’

‘Thank you, Fiorinda,’ said Ax. ‘I’m glad we can dismiss that option.’ He put the cigarette back into the pack, saved by the realisation that he was starving. ‘Now, can we eat? The sun is finally over the yard arm.’

The men relaxed, steadied and possibly shamed by Fiorinda’s calm. A vegetable stew, which had been cooking in an ATP haybox stove, was served (the infidel had all waited to eat with Ax). Everyone ate with mechanical fervour, like good soldiers: Fiorinda did the same, because it would please the lads. They drank water—which the barmies carried with them. None of them would touch agribusiness ground-water—; apart from the Irishman, who had his medicinal ration of red wine. Fiorinda’s saltbox was passed around, and even Fergal, who had hardly tasted his stew, made sure he got hold of it. As he dipped his fingers he looked across the shadows, and their eyes met. He put the salt on his tongue, nodded fractionally, and then quickly looked away.

It was late before the Triumvirate escaped to the officers’ bender, set deeper into the trees. Sage and Ax shucked their rifles. Sage took off the mask and lit an ATP globe on the groundsheet floor. They sat around the glow, silent in the sheer relief of getting off stage.

‘How d’you know it wasn’t werewolves, Fiorinda?’ said Sage at last.

‘Of course it wasn’t. Don’t be stupid.’ She untied her scarf and hid behind her hair from that penetrating blue look, the one that said
I am fifty years old, and you are making me tired
. ‘I know. I shouldn’t be here. No girlfriends on manoeuvres.’

Sage had not wanted Fiorinda on this trip at all.

‘Ignore him,’ said Ax, ‘He’s having a male chauvinist pig attack, he can’t help it. I want you with us, even if he doesn’t, and you were right to come out to the camp. You were brilliant with the lads.’

‘Tell me one thing,’ said Fiorinda. ‘Were they alive? When they got torn up?’

‘Brock thinks they’ll have been garotted first,’ said Sage. ‘Or doped, at least. The Celtics don’t like a struggling sacrifice, it spoils the whole effect.’

‘I suppose that’s something. Even if you’re making it up.’

Sage grabbed her, suddenly, in a fierce embrace. ‘Stupid brat, you
terrify
me.
Why
d’you have to go there alone,
what
did you have to look at that for—?’

‘I had to see.’

‘I don’t think we’ve frightened them off,’ said Ax, off on his own angle. ‘I think this is a blank space on the map, far away from the rest of their lives, where they feel completely safe. If they know that
Fiorinda
suddenly decided to visit Wethamcote they won’t have put two and two together. They’re not Reich fans and they’re too arrogant. They’ll be back, and we’re going to bust them.’

‘How many do you think are involved?’

‘Not a huge number.’ Ax finally took out his cigarettes, ‘D’you mind?’ His lovers shrugged: he lit one and pulled on it fervently. ‘Thirty to forty, max, from the traces, far as we’ve analysed the footage Chris took. Which accords with the farmer’s story. He reckons there are around ten or twelve small private cars, some of them the same every time, and a couple of horseboxes—that’s why he thought of the horse sacrifice. He admits he’s sneaked down to the layby to have a look, but his mind’s a blank when it comes to number-plates.’

Fiorinda smiled. ‘Obviously, the horseboxes were for the werewolves.’

‘Yeah.’

The roof and walls of the bender were layers of fine mesh, stretched over a frame of rods and heaped with woodland debris: leaves, earth, twigs, moss. A little green caterpillar came swaying down on an invisible thread, into the light of the globe. Fiorinda caught it and returned it to the roof.

‘What about David Sale?’

Sage shook his head.

‘I can’t reach him,’ said Ax.

‘Oh, God.’

There’d been occasions, over the last months, when the Prime Minister’s Office had seemed unable to find Mr Sale. His staff had covered for him; but it had been awkward enough that the Triumvirate had known there was something wrong. They’d colluded with the cover-up, assuming that the PM was too smashed: wasn’t fit to pick up a phone, make the meeting or whatever. That’s the price you pay, the downside of tearing up the drug laws. Less death, crime and corruption, some vulnerable people going off the rails—

‘I can’t get hold of him, and I daren’t persist because I’ll make it obvious—’

‘You’ve tried your all hours access
red phone
number?’

‘Yeah. Lucky I’ve never needed that, because it doesn’t work.’

‘You think he’s on his way?’

‘That would be one reason why he doesn’t feel like answering his phone.’

‘We don’t
know
he’s involved at all,’ Sage pointed out, weakly. ‘We only have Fergal’s word, and so-called evidence that could still be fake.’

‘Oh, he’ll be here,’ said Ax. ‘This is a set up.’ He stared bitterly at the glowing end of his cigarette. ‘I can believe David Sale is into Celtic blood sacrifice. I believed it the moment Fergal told us—as the Irishman fucking spotted. Sale’s a natural groupie, looking for adventure, he always was. But human sacrifice? No. He’s not a complete monster. He’s been set up, he thinks he’s coming to see a horse tortured to death, prove how wild at heart he is: but he’s going to be here, and we can’t reach him to warn him off. We have to bust these bastards. We have to bust them hard and I can see where it’s heading, you don’t have to tell me. And the Celtic thing will explode too. We’re in over our heads. Fuck.’

‘We’ve been in over our heads since Massacre Night, Ax.’

‘Yeah, thanks. The thing that gets me is, whoever, or whatever agency arranged this set piece, what’s the motive? What do they hope will happen? Which way are they trying to make me jump?’

‘Unless Fergal’s genuine,’ suggested Fiorinda. ‘He’s telling the truth, and the people who sent him are friends?’

‘Nice idea.’

The barmies were very quiet: an occasional murmur, a rustle of movement.

‘What about the town?’ asked Sage. ‘Any suspicious characters, Fee?’

One of their fears had been that they’d come up here and find a gathering of media vultures, already circling, already knowing the worst and prepared to pounce. ‘Not when I arrived,’ said Fiorinda. ‘There’s a circus now, a small, dedicated circus: chasing after me. I’m sorry about that, Ax.’

‘No problem. If things go the way I think they might, tomorrow night, a news embargo’s going to be the least of our worries.’

They took off their boots and lay down together, on a heap of green bracken where Sage and Ax’s sleeping bags were unrolled, Ax in the middle, as most in need of comfort: and talked about what might happen tomorrow night, how they would deal with screw-ups, until there was no more to be said.

‘Don’t cry baby,’ said Fiorinda, hugging him. ‘At least it’s not werewolves.’

‘Yeah,’ Ax buried his face in her beautiful soft hair, ‘at least. But you could be wrong. The way things are going, nothing would surprise me.’

Sage got up to put out the lamp. He kissed Fiorinda’s nose, sighed resignedly, and lay down again beside Ax, his arm around them both.

I
will
talk to you, she thought. I promise. As soon as this is over—

Dawn came too soon. Fiorinda and Sage, left alone in the nest, woke to hear their lover’s voice reciting, somewhere close by, the Arabic words that cannot be translated but may be interpreted—

I take refuge with the Lord of the Daybreak,

from the evil of what he has created…

Later, Fiorinda got an escort back to the edge of town.

Preparations for the nightclub raid came together. More barmies skulking through the fields; the police contingent in two methane-burning hippy vans, disguised as travellers. Before dusk the tech was set up and there were close on a hundred armed men (including a few women, as the saying goes), under cover.

The hours passed slowly. At quarter past eleven, Sage, deep in the grove, in the silent cordon surrounding the clearing, heard a tawny owl hoot her question,
too-wit?
, and the male bird answer, from the other side of the wood.
Woo, woo
. Brock would like that. The desert is coming back to life: but oh, at what a price. He kept thinking of Fiorinda, this girl who is more stubborn than God, and seeing in his mind’s eye those carcasses, the sheered planes of flesh, the ropes of blood, the major bones sliced clean through.
What the fuck did that?

Fiorinda says there’s a rational explanation.

And we believe she would know. The lads certainly believe she would know. When did she become our authority on the impossible, and
how dangerous is that
?

Will someone tell me, by the way, what happens if she’s wrong?

Beside him, Fergal shifted uneasily. He was coping well with field conditions, amazingly well, considering his state of health: he had the pickled toughness of a hard-drinking man. The rifle he’d been given—for the look of the thing, since everyone was armed—seemed to bother him. He kept fidgeting with it.

‘You want me to take that? They’re heavy buggers if you’re not used—’

‘Tell the truth,’ whispered Fergal hoarsely, ‘I’m wonderin’ how I’d make out if it came to a firefight. It’s not the first time I’ve had a gun in me hands. I wouldn’t want yez to think that. But… I’ve niver killed a man.’

If it came to it, Fergal would keep his sheet clean. They hadn’t given him live ammunition. There’s too much that doesn’t add up about our Irish ‘defector’.

‘Nobody’s going to do any killing.’

‘Aye, but… How’s yer kid? I niver asked after him yet.’

‘Marlon?’ Sage shrugged. ‘He’s okay.’

‘Marlon Williams, isn’t it? I remember I met him onc’st. Lovely boy. Now that must be a very hard thing, not to have the naming of yer own son.’

‘Knock it off, Fergal. Continue in that line, an’ you’ll annoy me.’

‘Jaysus, there I go. I’ve a big mouth, God help me. I didn’t mean to offend.’