Third Solstice Page 5

“They chose me, Gideon! Chose me to be Lord of Misrule!”

  Gideon couldn’t remember when Darren had ever addressed him by his first name. Constable, yes, even long after he’d been promoted. You interfering bastard a couple of times, and, once, you stupid bloody plod. He sounded like an adult when he said Gideon. He sounded almost sane. “That’s nice,” Gideon replied. “And I don’t want to piss on your chips, but isn’t it done by casting lots?”

  “That’s right. The Montol beans.”

  “Then... didn’t you just pick the right bean?” A terrible thought struck Gideon. “Tell me you didn’t fix the draw.”

  “No, no.” Darren did another twirl, beckoning the semi-legal torchbearers close to him. “Everybody knows you can’t be chosen for Lord unless the old gods want you. Prance about, you lazy sods! Golow ha tewlder! Call back the sun!”

  They were obeying him. The procession must have halted at his command so that he could perform his dance. Gideon supposed there was a place for everyone somewhere in the world. “You’d better get on with misruling, then. Don’t let them bottleneck here for too long, and keep those torches away from the kids.”

  “Er, Gideon?”

  He paused on his way back to the alley. “What?”

  “I’ve got a place on a junior apprentice course in Liskeard. Only they need a reference.”

  “You’ve got a bloody cheek, mate.”

  “I know. But you’re the only one who ever gave a crap about me, really. Aren’t you?”

  Again, that strange adult note. Gideon stared at him. “You can give them my name and address,” he said after a moment. “Take care, Darren.”

  “Don’t worry, Sergeant. Everyone’s becoming what they should be.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “If those kids are coming from out of town, they’ll go to the playing fields.”

  ***

  Everyone’s becoming what they should be. Distractedly Gideon played the words back in his mind. Maybe they were another Montol cry, like golow ha tewlder for light and dark. He was more immediately focussed on the fact that Darren Prowse, juvenile delinquent and jailbait, had given him a tip-off. Maybe not a good one—though if the boy wanted that reference, it had better be—but worth checking out.

  The streets ahead of the procession were quiet. Gideon made quick progress, not yet running. He wanted to be an ordinary man for as long as he could. Smiling and apologising, he dodged through a cluster of drinkers outside the Black Weasel pub. Behind him he could hear Darren’s parade moving on, the cries arising from it filled with excitement and laughter now. If Lee and the baby were down there, they’d be having a good time. Odd to think of leaving anybody safe in Darren’s hands...

  The night hadn’t finished throwing strange encounters into his path. He bumped up against a squat, solid figure, hard enough to rock him back on his heels. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “No need. It was my fault. Where’s my teaser gone?”

  Not squat after all. Gideon looked up through six feet of ragged grey cloak and into the gleaming sockets of a huge horse’s skull. “Bloody hell. Is that Cosmic Ray in there?”

  “Gideon!” A tiny curtain in the creature’s neck flew back. Behind it appeared the rosy, brown-eyed face of Ray Tregear from Kelyndar, wreathed in smiles. “Well, I never. What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same. Don’t tell me you’re the Montol ’Oss.”

  “Oh, no. They’ve got their own chap for that. But I carried Old Penglas here so well at our last Golowan, the Penzance organisers asked me to come and dance around a bit for the kiddies. Who knows? They could end up with a two-’Oss festival, like they have at Padstow.”

  “Maybe they will.” Gideon glanced dubiously up at the wicked old head. “You’ve altered him a bit, haven’t you?”

  “That I have. I got this shoulder-frame made, see, so that he can sit right on top of my head instead of over it, and I can look out of his neck. I’m not the short-arsed Penglas anymore.”

  Everyone’s becoming what they should be. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “And because I didn’t need his eyes, I put some lovely old glass marbles in ’em. All the better to see you with! And I decided to saw through him just there, and attach a pole I can move up and down like this, so...” The hinged jaw swung in Gideon’s direction, snapping ferociously. “So he bites! All the better to eat you with.”

  “Good grief, Ray.” Gideon edged back. “Those are quite some alterations.”

  “I know. Wouldn’t my old man turn in his—well, in his bunk, I suppose, in whatever prison cell he’s in? But I thought, sod him. What does he matter?”

  “He doesn’t matter at all,” Gideon agreed. “Is Kitto here tonight?”

  “Yes, just inside there. He’s meant to be my teaser, dance around in front of Old Penglas, stop me bumping into things. He’s got a new boyfriend, though. He’s oblivious.”

  Gideon glanced through the pub’s open door. On the edge of the scrum by the bar, an exquisitely beautiful curly-haired lad was talking animatedly to a skinny one in glasses. “He looks well.”

  “He’s fine. They’re an odd couple, aren’t they? But Kitto doesn’t see that. It’s like he doesn’t see the outsides of people at all. Hoi, Gwylim! Bring Jem out to say hello to Gideon.”

  “No, leave them. I’ve got to be getting along.”

  “Oh, right. On duty, are you? Me too, I suppose.” He pulled the little curtain across his face and was instantly lost in the majestic, terrifying frame of Old Penglas. When he spoke again, his voice had altered, cheerful Falmouth burr overlain by a sonorous chant. “See me here, Guardian Frayne— a live man in the old death’s head. But that’s the nature of gateway, the solstice door. Life in death, and death in life.”

  “Er... Ray?”

  A shift like changing weather. “Yes?”

  “Was that you, or Old Penglas?”

  “Oh. Did he make another pronouncement? Kitto says I’ve got to learn to control him, but it’s easier said than... Hang on.” The great skull whipped round, narrowly missing the top of Gideon’s. “Isn’t that Jana Ragwen?”

  Something black and swift-moving caught Gideon’s eye, the tail of a raggedy crow disappearing round the corner into Hob Lane. “What—Granny Ragwen from Dark?”

  “Yes, your village witch. Her Madge was in my shop the other day—said she can’t let the old girl out on her own anymore.”

  “She must have slipped Madge’s leash. I’ll go make sure she’s okay.”

  “Right you are, Sergeant! What would any of us do without you? Say hello to Lee and Tamsyn for me.”

  The lane was empty when Gideon turned the corner. A single streetlamp was shedding a cone of light onto the pavement. The alley had an air of a vacated stage, the sea-salt breeze still vibrant, as if he’d just missed the performance. There was no sign of the old lady, although that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. “Mrs Ragwen?” Gideon called. He was beginning to feel foolish. His friends and neighbours had sent him uphill like a pinball in a machine. The houses and shops here had turned their backs to him, tight-drawn curtains shutting him out from the warm indoor world. He could barely hear the music and shouts from the town behind him. He waited, listening to the bump of his own pulse. What had Ray Tregear called him—Guardian Frayne?

  A shriek pierced the night. In his years as a copper, Gideon had heard almost every variation of pain and terror the human throat could produce. This was new. He began his run towards it without questioning the elation shimmering through the sound. The backyard walls were too high for Granny to have climbed them. She had to be up ahead of him, somewhere in the only building she could possibly have accessed from the street.

  A derelict warehouse, once part of Penzance’s lively shipbuilding trade. It was poised on the very crest of Gwidder Hill, the town laid out below it in glimmering gridlines and clusters. The glass was long gone from its windows, the remains of its door kicked wide and sagging from one hinge. Inside it was one huge s
pace, gutted and left empty years ago.

  Nowhere for anyone to hide. Gideon paused in the doorway long enough to make sure. He found a torch in one deep jacket pocket and shone the beam around, but only cobwebs and streamers of dust glowed back at him. He was about to retreat and run on when the conviction seized him that he wasn’t alone. “Mrs Ragwen,” he repeated, quietly this time. “You’re in here, aren’t you?”

  “Why, yes, Constable. How clever of you to know!”

  He jerked the torch beam up. His breath caught in his throat and he had to swallow a cry of fear and laughter mixed. “Dear God. How did you get up there?”

  She sat poised in the middle of a rafter, fifteen feet off the ground, her heels swinging merrily. Her feet were bare, and from somewhere she’d obtained a full-on Halloween witch’s fancy-dress costume, complete with ragged skirts and pointy black hat. “I didn’t think I still could,” she said, grinning down at him. “Screamed like a vixen with her first dog-fox, I did. And you came running.”

  “Yes, I did. You’re going to be all right.”

  “I know I am, dear.”

  “You need to stay very still.” Gideon lowered the torch so that it wouldn’t dazzle her. “I’m just gonna get my phone out, okay? I can have the fire brigade here in five minutes, and they’ll get you down.”

  She exploded into cackles. “Like a mangy old cat out of a tree! Put your phone away.”

  “I can’t, Mrs Ragwen. You’re in danger, and I have to get help for you.”

  “Don’t. I’ll lose my balance if you make me laugh much more.”

  She began to rock on the beam, and Gideon took a few steps towards her. She was little and frail, and maybe he could catch her, or at least break her fall. He’d worry about how an old lady had got into the roofspace from ground level some other time. “Listen to me. Listen. If you’ve got problems at home, or you’re upset about anything else at all, I’ll help you sort it out. There’s no need for you to—”

  “Oh! Oh, stop. You’re killing me!”

  Literally, any second. He froze, holding his breath. “Please don’t.”

  “All right, all right. Don’t look so scared.” She stopped her terrifying back-and-forth yaw and settled on the beam as casually as if it had been her armchair at home. “Tell me. Who did you see on your way up here?”

  “Why is that important?”

  “Never mind. Humour an old lady.”

  “Well, I... Lots of people. Sarah Kemp and her little girl. Darren Prowse.”

  “No. Who did you see?”

  Gideon stood immobile. The warehouse was very quiet, and his heartrate gradually slowed. Was it just yesterday she’d stood by Tamsyn’s cradle? The solstice gate swings wide for the Frayne brood... He let her question enter his Kernowek marrow, the ancient glitter-spirals of his blood. “I saw,” he said quietly at last, “the Beast, the Lord of Misrule, and Old Penglas.”

  She nodded as if satisfied. “And what did he call you, Constable, that last one? That old death’s head?”

  “He called me... He called me Guardian Frayne.” He must have run up here too fast. The vacant space began to spin around him. He wiped what felt like cobwebs from his eyes. “That’s wrong, though. I’m Gideon.”

  “It isn’t wrong. Do you understand, Guardian Frayne, that this world is stranger than anything you could imagine? That there is no golow ha tewlder, no light and dark?”

  “I’m a policeman. Of course I know that.” Every time he arrested one bad bastard or another for some heinous crime, out would come the story. A rotten childhood, a broken home. A lost job, debt, addiction... All the nuances of twilight that brought decent men from daylight into the dark. “That’s not what you mean, though, is it?”

  “No. Even your preacher brother knows it by now. Think how you’ve protected them—the little girl, the hooligan, the junkie. You don’t mix up the light with goodness, or darkness with the bad. And so the creatures show themselves to you, and so they’ll stay near you—you and the Tyack boy, and your child—like beasts on an old-fashioned shield.”

  Gideon could hear sirens. They brought him to surface, from waters so deep he’d been losing his sense of the shore. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. But one day you will. Oh, in the meantime I have a message from Dev Bowe for you. He told me last time I visited him in hospital. He wants you to have the Lowen house on Morgan hill.”

  “Right.” It was best to keep a suicide talking, no matter how surreal the topic. “Is he gonna buy us some lottery tickets, then?”

  “Oh, there’ll be no need for that. Hadn’t you better go and see what all those sirens are about?”

  “No. I’ve got to stay and look after you.”

  “Well, I promise faithfully to sit here until you get back. Go on, Guardian Frayne. Save the day.”

  Police, fire and ambulance. Gideon knew all their songs. More than one crying out into a Cornish night meant trouble, more than a car prang or childbirth, more than a cat—or an old lady—stuck in a tree. Drawn to their symphony, he took one step and then another towards the empty window frame. The back of the warehouse looked right out over Penzance, all the way to St Michael’s Mount in the east.

  The town was on fire. “Jesus Christ,” Gideon whispered, clambering out through the window. He jumped, and landed hard on the waste ground six feet below. Spinning blue lights were threading the streetlamps and torch flares. They were homing in on Chybucca Square, an open space where the Midwinter Fire procession would stop to watch dance troupes, buy roast chestnuts and sample mulled wine from the stalls. The bank and both buildings flanking it were ablaze, smaller fires breaking out as people backed away in terror, dropping torches in their wake. Out of habit, Gideon scanned the scene for its focal point, the cause of all these effects.

  Yes—there on the seaward side of the square, pouring out of the narrow road that led to the bus station. From this distance he couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if DI Lawrence’s busloads of out-of-town kids had made it to the party after all. They were grabbing torches from the hands of the revellers, chucking the brands into shop doorways and directly into the crowd. And bloody Darren Prowse had sent him off the wrong way.

  Then, if he’d stayed in the streets below, he’d never have seen what was going on. The Beast, the Lord of Misrule, and Old Penglas... Higher and higher, each one of them had brought him, and in the wrong direction, but from here he had a bird’s-eye view. He pulled out his mobile and dialled the inspector’s number. She answered on the first ring, sounding frayed and grim. “They’re coming in from the bus station,” Gideon told her. “You need to send as many lads as you can down to Chybucca Square, and some of the local boys to block off access from station. From here it looks like they’ll need riot gear. I’m on my way down.”

  Shit, he’d forgotten about Granny Ragwen. He ran back to the window, grabbed the ledge and hoisted himself up far enough to shine his torch inside. He’d be lucky to get any kind of rescue team out here to help her now, but...

  His stomach dropped. She was gone. The rafter she’d perched on was vacant but for a huge Penzance seagull, idly preening. Bracing himself to discover her shattered remains, he directed the torch beam to the floor.

  Nothing. His precarious grip on the window ledge failed him, and he half-fell back onto the frosty ground. Righting himself, he reflected that many things inside him had changed. He was puzzled by the old girl’s disappearance but not dismayed. And even a few months ago, his first reflex would have been a frantic call to Lee. As it was, the signal between them lay deep and undisturbed. Gideon knew his man—at the first sign of trouble, he’d have taken Tamsyn and carried her out of harm’s reach. That left Gideon free to do his job and ensure the harm reached no bloody further. The waste ground lay in a broad, tempting sweep all the way back down to Tolver Road. Pocketing his mobile, he began to run.

  A shadow crossed his path, once then again and again. At each pass, an eerie cry rang out. Gideon spared an upward glanc
e. There’d been horror-story news reports all that summer of rogue seagulls landing in babies’ pushchairs, trying to snatch small dogs off the pavements. Had the gull from the warehouse decided to follow him? He paused for a moment on the brow of the hill, sweeping the beam of his torch into the sky.

  A witch on a broomstick strafed him. The seagull’s cry resounded from the heavens once more, cracking into wild, ecstatic laughter. The insane vision stayed with him for a fraction of a second, then a cloud passed over the face of the gibbous moon, and she was gone.

  Gideon stood motionless, trying to catch his breath. There was a kind of kite or remote-controlled model shaped like a witch on her broom. He’d seen it on YouTube. Tamsyn thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen, and Lee had insisted he watch the clip. The model was pretty convincing. People had pointed and shouted, and there’d been a few cries of real fear. Probably that was what he’d just seen. He didn’t know who the hell would be buzzing him up on Gwidder Hill at this hour, but...

  But he didn’t know anything, did he? Not really. His whole night since leaving Lee had been a kind of dream. He’d run from one strange meeting, one mythological encounter, to the next. And these things, these monsters, hadn’t even called him by his right name. He was Gideon Frayne, Gideon—not Guardian. His head spun again and he grabbed at a fence post to stay upright. All his certainties were faltering. What if his connection to Lee wasn’t quiet at all? What if it was gone?

  Fear ate him whole. He tapped up Lee’s number from the phone’s memory, sweat-damped fingertips barely able to manipulate the screen. Still clinging to the fence post with one hand, he listened to the call ring out and out, and finally click to voicemail.

  Chapter Six

  He left a message, barely aware of what he was saying. Get out of the town centre. Take Tamsie back to the police station. I’ll be there soon. Then, after a dry-throated three-second wait—Lee, for God’s sake. Why aren’t you answering?

  There was only one way to find that out. Gideon had almost worn out the rubber track on the police-gym treadmill, had jogged over untold miles of Bodmin moorland, in his efforts not just to get back to his usual form after his injury but to surpass that old standard. He’d discovered and accepted his mortality in his Trelowarren hospital bed, but had decided then and there that he was going to be the best damn mortal the Cornish police force had ever seen. He’d known that one day he would need to run, without fatigue or pause for breath. To run and run...