Guardians Of The Haunted Moor (13 page)

“
No, she...” Gideon flinched as Lee dropped to his knees by the
fence. “I can’t talk to you about it now. I have to get him
home.”

“
Right. I’ll, er... I’ll go fetch my car, shall I?”

First bloody useful suggestion you’ve made all day.
“Please. Bring her all the way up the lane, as
close as you can.”

Lee was
done for. Gideon measured his exhaustion in his lack of protest at
being hoisted up, his passive acceptance of an arm around his waist
to help him across the field. If Pendower hadn’t been there, busily
parking his patrol car, opening doors and vaulting back over the
stile, Gideon would have cashed in on the situation and lifted him
bodily, carried him off the battlefield like the soldier he was.
Damn Pendower anyway, the pen-pushing little bookworm—what could he
ever know about the risks and rewards of clairvoyance?

Two
years ago, Gideon had known nothing about them either. Except that
he hadn’t been sufficiently open-minded to write down Lee’s
pronouncements in a book. He’d called him a charlatan and warned
Sarah Kemp not to give him any money up-front. He accepted
Pendower’s help to steady Lee over the stile and into the back seat
of the patrol car, where he curled up. He was shivering in spite of
the warm breeze. Gently Gideon closed the door behind
him.

“
Is he okay?”

Gideon
turned to face Pendower. The sergeant was too old and solid a man
to be suspected of a crush, but Gideon knew the look—an idol
turning out to be human, just as nerve-strung and fallible as
himself. “I don’t know. That was hard for him.”

“
Yes, I can see that. Sergeant Frayne...” Pendower adjusted his
cap nervously. “Can I ask you something? As a fellow officer, I
mean, someone I can trust even if I don’t really know
you...”

“
You’re going to ask if Lee’s for real. If he has a genuine
gift.”

“
Yes.”

Gideon
lowered his voice. “Let me tell you about his gift. If it was a bad
tooth or a tumour or something I could get taken out of him, I’d do
it tomorrow. It rips him to shreds. So just be grateful for
anything he shows us, and don’t ever set another trap for
him.”

“
I’m sorry. I... Can I give you both a lift home?”

“
That would be good. Thanks.”

Chapter Six

“
Sergeant Pendower,” Lee said fervently, as soon as the door
was shut behind him, “is a pain in the arse.”

“
I couldn’t help noticing that myself. It’s a shame
you
don’t like him,
though—he thinks the sun shines out of yours.”

“
That’s just where you’re wrong. He thinks I want the world to
believe it does, but really I’ve got a torch rammed up there to
fool them. He wants to get in there—dissect me, if necessary—and
find the torch.”

Distracted by the imagery, it took Gideon a moment to catch
on. “If you mean he thinks you’re a fake, he’s had his convictions
seriously rattled.”

“
Still. He
wants
me to be one.”

“
I don’t think so. He’s your biggest fan.”

“
Nope. He’s just impressed by how well I hide my torch, and my
amazing remote-control system for switching it on and off. And the
ironic thing is, I know all this because I
am
a genuine psychic and can read his
tiny mind like a very short book.”

Gideon
checked the lock. Their home was a much-besieged castle, and their
guard dog was on secondment to the Kemp house. He was glad Lee was
talking, but his colour didn’t match the vigour of his words, and
Gideon wanted him off his feet and securely in bed. “All right, Mr
Tiger. Go lie down, and I’ll bring you a cup of tea and a
sandwich.”

“
I don’t need to lie down.” He shuddered. “Couldn’t manage the
sarnie yet, either. What time is it?”

“
Just after one.”

“
Jesus. We haven’t even managed a whole day yet without
her.”

Gideon
reeled him in. He pressed his mouth to the top of his skull. “Tell
you what,” he said after a moment, almost managing to smooth the
rasp of pain from his voice. “If I took my lunch break now, and
hopped into bed with you and shared the sarnie, would you
submit?”

Lee met
his eyes. He dredged up a pallid smile. “That does put a different
complexion on it, yes.”

They’d
been planning to stop for groceries on their way home from Drift.
That, together with so many other small daily intentions, had gone
to hell. Gideon did the best he could with the end of a loaf,
cheese and pickle. By the time he’d made tea and carried everything
through on a tray, Lee had obediently got beneath the duvet. He’d
showered the Carnysen barley-dust out of his hair, and borrowed the
dressing-gown Gideon had left in the bathroom. He looked good
enough to eat, but for once Gideon wasn’t hungry either, not in
that way. He hoped he hadn’t made his bedroom lunch break sound too
seductive. “It’s all right,” Lee said, holding out a hand to him.
“I couldn’t manage the afternoon delight either, not now. Just come
here.”

Gideon
set the tray down, kicked his shoes off and crawled in under the
quilt. As often when he’d thought Lee too worn out to offer
comfort, he found a strong arm extended to pull him in. He subsided
with a faint moan. To breathe his own scent mixed with Lee’s
through the dressing gown’s fabric was a primal reassurance. He
closed his eyes on Lee’s shoulder and listened to the thump of his
heart. “How are you feeling?”

“
Better now. Sorry for the performance.”

“
We should make you a hospital appointment, get you caught up
with your scans. That looked more like a seizure
than...”

“
Than my usual fit of the vapours? Yeah, it felt like one. But
I don’t think it was anything to do with me, if you know what I
mean. It came from whatever happened in that field.” He ruffled
Gideon’s hair. “And I know I have to start trying to untangle
whatever did happen from the wolves and the lambs in my brain,
but...”

“
It’s okay. Don’t rush it.”

“
Did you really threaten me with Flyin’ Flynn Summers as a
punishment for not waking up?”

“
Not exactly a punishment. More an inducement.”

“
I’ll say.”

Gideon
slid a hand into the dressing gown, smiled as a warm nipple
tightened against his palm. Just an autonomic response, but he and
Lee had raised one another from the dead before. “You’re
disgusting. And Summers is as married as you are, so forget him.
Did you see the guy he brought with him to the services benefit
night?”

“
What, the ex-army doctor, all brooding good looks and haunted
past? Can’t say as I noticed him, no.”

“
Whatever.”

“
Whatever. Stop distracting me. You know I’ve got to try and
get something out of all this before it fades. Do you remember
anything I said?”

“
Pretty much all of it. You said, very clearly, that the lamb
will devour the wolf, and he slew John Barleycorn.”

“
The lamb
will
devour the wolf? Not that he’s already done it?”

“
No. You said
will
.”

“
That’s important. Be careful, Gid—the lamb hasn’t finished his
work.”

“
And it’s a he, this lamb? A person?”

“
I want to say yes. But when I think about it, I’m getting a
sense of division—two people, maybe, or one and... something else.
Tell me, love—as sensible men, you a copper and me just a deckhand
and a bartender when I’m not making creepy pronouncements in
cornfields—do we believe in the Bodmin Beast?”

Gideon
let the sunlight filter through his eyelashes. Beyond these
self-made rainbows lay the moor at its sunniest best. Tourists came
for hundreds of miles to walk its shining expanse. It was peaceful,
benign, devoid of any creatures larger than the ponies that cropped
the turf around the Hurlers. “As sensible men who lived through the
Lorna Kemp case... I don’t know. Is that important too? Something
to do with the rest of your vision?”

“
There was more?” Lee gave a shiver of disturbance. “I really
went to town, didn’t I?”

“
You talked about the moor going dark. Everything turning
black, and losing the trees and the water. Don’t you
recall?”

“
Yes, I do. I just... didn’t realise I’d said any of it. I
thought it was just a projection of how I was feeling.”

It took
Gideon a second to understand. Then he sat up, disentangling
carefully. “About Tamsyn? That’s how you feel inside?”

“
Oh, Gid. I’m trying my best, and I know you are too,
but...”

“
You know, when we were up there in the field, Sergeant
Weird-Shit asked me what was wrong, and for some unknowable reason
I told him the truth. I said we’d lost our child. And he asked me
if she’d died.”

“
Oh, Christ.”

“
I know. And I told him she hadn’t, but... in one sense I feel
as if we’re acting like she did. I don’t quite understand why we’re
not on the ferry right now with Ma and Zeke, doing everything we
can to get her back. She didn’t die. A couple of idiots took her
from us.”

Well,
that was off his chest. Gideon waited to feel better. Instead he
watched his lover’s face turn bleak and cold with despair. “I told
you,” Lee said hoarsely. “It’s the wrong thing to do.”

“
Probably, yes. But I still don’t really know why.”

“
You think I’m hanging back on purpose. That it’s because of
Elowen, and I’m... I don’t know—dressing it up as some kind of
vision.”

Gideon got out of bed. He looked out at the smiling,
gorse-shimmered moor. Most likely Lee didn’t remember telling him
he was part of all that beauty either. He turned back to face the
room. “Fuck,” he whispered, running a hand over his hair. “I did
not say
any
of
that.”

“
You wouldn’t, would you? You’re too kind. Don’t worry, I
haven’t been poking around in your mind. It’s just what any sane
man
would
think.”

Gideon
grabbed a fresh shirt out of the wardrobe. He smelled of hard graft
and misery, and he had interviews to conduct. He strode down the
hall to the bathroom: closed the door behind him with great
deliberation, letting the aborted slam ricochet through his
shoulders instead. He pulled his sweat-damped shirt over his head
and stood staring blankly at himself in the mirror. Tears did not
suit him. They contradicted everything about him—his sturdy frame,
the air of calm reassurance he’d cultivated over all his years as a
street bobby until it had become part of him. He evicted a handful
of Tamsyn’s rubber ducks from the sink, turned the tap on hard and
muffled one great sob in the water, splashing it into his
face.

That was
better. He continued the treatment until the surge of grief had
passed. Then he dried off, blew his nose and put on the clean
shirt.

Back in the bedroom, Lee was only a shape beneath the quilt.
Now Gideon had to repress a painful rush of compassion—and, against
all odds and sense, the urge to laugh. The poor sod looked like
Isolde when the world had become too much for her and she’d crept
beneath the sideboard to escape. Cautiously he lifted a corner of
the quilt. He caught a glimmer of silver, and then—his imagination,
surely—the faintest growl. Maybe he
should
call Zeke, who had performed
impromptu exorcism on Lee’s beleaguered spirit before...

No. This was just ordinary human misery, put beyond manners
and even affection. It wasn’t written into their marriage vows, but
it had been one of Gideon’s first assurances to his new lover,
something Lee had desperately needed to hear:
you don’t always have to be nice for me to like
you
. So Gideon went to the telephone table
in the hall, tore off a sheet of notepaper and wrote three
words—the obvious ones, unashamed to be corny and straightforward
in this emergency—and enclosed them in a quick scrawl of a heart.
He folded the paper and slipped it under the duvet. “I’ve got to go
out now,” he said levelly. “I’ll just be around the village if you
need me. I’ll be back by eight.”

***

The door opened before he could turn his key in the lock. Lee
was standing off to one side of it, eyes downcast, the harvest
sunset making a burnished statue of his immobility. He’d turned in
his second huge effort of the day and was dressed in clean jeans
and the same shirt he’d been wearing when Gideon had first set eyes
on him at Sarah Kemp’s. It was an old one, faded with laundering,
and a favourite of Gideon’s because of the associations. Wordlessly
he held up a folded piece of paper. Gideon recognised the note he’d
left. On its blank side Lee had returned him the same message, one
word added at the end.
I love you
too.
“It’s all very well liking me when I’m
not nice,” Lee said quietly, drawing him into the house. “Nowhere
is it written that you have to love me when I’m being a complete
dick.”