Curse of Weyrmouth Read online

  “Oh, just a little thing,” he said, taking a seat without being asked. “It's about the Antiquarian Society, and Professor Maspero's last paper.”

  “You want to see it,” said Louise flatly.

  You never stop ferreting around, she thought. Always sticking your nose in. Always interfering.

  “Ideally, yes,” said Park smoothly. “Apart from its intrinsic interest, I thought it might make a nice memorial tribute to poor Rufus. Perhaps a little booklet if–”

  “No need to explain,” interrupted Louise, opening a drawer in her desk. “I have a copy here.”

  Park hesitated before taking the photocopied sheets, looked at the first page for a moment, then folded Maspero's paper and put it into his pocket.

  “You've read it?” he asked.

  “I've glanced at it, but found it a tad dense,” Louise admitted. “The professor was one of those thinkers who always seem to go the extra mile and leave the rest of us gasping by the roadside.”

  “Quite,” said Park, standing up. “I don't suppose any of us will get much out of it. The average person wouldn't get past the first paragraph, hmm?”

  “Well, I hope my new deputy director will get a little further,” said Louise.

  Park froze, and Louise had to suppress a laugh.

  He looks like a stick insect that's just crapped its pants.

  “Miss Cale has a copy?” Park asked, with a catch in his voice.

  “Yes, as Maspero used some of our archived material it's something she should be aware of,” explained Louise. “Besides, the history of Weyrmouth is bound up with the cathedral, so the sooner she focuses on it, the better. Don't you agree?”

  Park nodded dumbly.

  “Would Miss Cale be back at her hotel now?” he asked.

  Louise shrugged.

  “I assume so, if she's not out having lunch somewhere. Why do you–”

  Before she could complete the question, Park had gone.

  “Didn't even say goodbye,” mused Louise. “How heartbreaking.”

  She was about to return to routine admin work, but Park's attitude worried her. After half a minute's hesitation, she called Erin's number. After a few rings, it went to voicemail. Louise left a vague message asking Erin to call her when she had the time.

  ***

  “I don't get it,” said Carr. “Melody's not coming back to work?”

  “Taking sick leave,” replied Jen. “She might be back in a week or two, but she'll be on maternity leave soon after.”

  Carr looked taken aback.

  Well, she thought, let's see how far he wants to push it.

  “What's the matter?” asked Jen. “Didn't your mum tell you about the birds and the bees?”

  “Very amusing,” grumbled Carr. “But what about the file?”

  “She deleted it,” replied Jen. “And I think she was right.”

  She nodded at Maspero's laptop, which lay on the desk between them.

  “There's something weird going on, John,” she went on. “And that file is linked to it. The prof, then his daughter, and now Melody. Some kind of – oh, I don't know what to call it! Some weird juju is linked to that file.”

  Carr laughed, then apologized.

  “Sorry, Jen, but come on! We're cops not psychic investigators. If we eliminate natural causes and foul play by humans, we're left with a mystery, sure. But why bring in ghosts?”

  Jen made an irritable gesture.

  “You're an outsider, John, you still don't get this town.”

  It was Carr's turn to frown.

  “Is this more bollocks about the Curse of Weyrmouth? Jesus, Jen, that's a story people used to tell their kids to make 'em behave!”

  “You don't know!” Jen snapped. “Anyway, it's cased closed, all three cases in fact. So why go on about it?”

  Carr smiled. Jen had seen that smile before.

  Oh crap, he's had one of his ideas. Hope it's a bad one this time.

  “You're overlooking an obvious point,” he said. “Maspero was going to present this paper to that society, right?”

  “Right,” she said, heart sinking. She had already guessed where Carr's reasoning had taken him.

  “So,” he said, turning the laptop around and grasping the mouse. “Stands to reason he would want a hard copy printed out. Now I didn't see a printer in that study, did you?”

  Jen shook her head.

  Damn, she thought. He's right. So obvious.

  “Therefore, Maspero must have used a printer at the university or the museum,” continued Carr. “And that means he had to email the paper – yep, here it is!”

  “Don't open it, John!”

  Jen lunged across the desk and grabbed Carr's wrist. He stared, open-mouthed.

  “Just don't open it,” she insisted. “Please. I care about you. I – care. You know.”

  Carr released the mouse, leaned back in his chair.

  “I know,” he said quietly. “But say you're right. We can't just leave this thing out there. Can we?”

  “You got me,” she said. “You're so bloody annoying when you're right.”

  “Yet undeniably sexy in a weather-beaten sort of way,” he said, with a familiar grin.

  “Don't push your luck,” she warned. “We need to try and work out how far this thing goes.”

  ***

  The children made the room seem smaller. Two were sitting on the bed, one more stood by the window. The other four were close to Erin, standing in a semi-circle, looking up at her. Their faces were partly decayed, incomplete. Their torn brown homespun robes hung loosely, holes revealing exposed ribs, strips of part-rotted cartilage. There was a faint whiff of decay in the air, a hint of barbecued meat left out in the sun.

  “Hello, Erin!” said the tallest child, brightly. “There are some things a woman should not know. And now you know one of them.”

  The leathery scraps of flesh around the entity's mouth twitched upward in a grotesque smile.

  “What – what do you mean?” Erin stammered.

  I'm hallucinating big time, she thought. It's stress, the breakup, fear of going back to the States. It's been building to this for weeks.

  “You're not imagining us, Erin,” said the leader. “But if you think we're not real, why not close your eyes? Maybe we will vanish!”

  This produced a chorus of giggles. The children who had been lounging in the background moved forward, and the whole group closed in on Erin. She reached behind her to open the door, then realized that to do so would mean stepping forward, within touching distance.

  Screw it. They can't be real.

  Taking a deep breath she reached out, fingers extended, to touch the chest of the tall child. The being looked down as her fingertips brushed its threadbare garment. Then her flesh touched its body, and another jolt of energy hit her. It was far stronger than her shock from the hair jewelry or the looking glass at the museum.

  Erin plunged into Hell.

  She was in a confined space under great stone arches. It was night, judging by the blackness beyond the open door. The chamber was lit by a few guttering candles. Children, round-eyed and pale with fear, stood around her. A slender, fair young man in a black robe stood looking on a few yards away. His face might have been considered beautiful by some, but to Erin it seemed inhumanly perfect. It was as if some higher intelligence had tried to fabricate a human and overlooked the flaws, however slight, that any real person must have.

  Erin looked down. She was wearing a drab, rough robe like the children, her feet shod in crude leather sandals. She felt a growling hunger in her belly, itchy cloth, other itching from fleabite, and sinews aching from repetitive labor.

  “You may leave us, Brother,” said the inhuman being in a voice as cold and clear as breaking icicles. “All will be well.”

  “I cannot leave them!” shouted Erin, startled to hear her voice was that of a young man.

  “Defiance?” murmured the fair-haired being. “Consider what you do, monk.”


  She had the nightmare sensation that all this had happened before innumerable times, would happen again and again, until the end of time.

  “Run, boys!” Erin shouted. “Run back to the dormitory, don't stop!”

  As she turned to join the fleeing children, a stunning blow to the back of her head knocked her onto the stone floor. She tried to get up again, failed. She heard the boys start to scream. They were backing away from the door, the smaller boys huddling around the older ones.

  Fingers gripped the back of her neck, the vicious pressure sending unbearable pain through her. She heard the stranger say something about a sacrifice. As she struggled in vain, she saw what might have been dogs loping into the chamber. The creatures moved swiftly, eagerly, their scarlet tongues lolling. The beasts' tiny eyes flashed yellow in the candlelight. Great jaws fell open, far wider than any normal canines could, to reveal saber-like tusks. Clouds of breath jetted from huge nostrils.

  The nearest monster gathered on its haunches, launched itself at the group of children. It was a signal for the rest of the pack to follow suit. An iron scent of blood filled the world as Erin blacked out.

  “She is the One Foretold!” gasped a small voice.

  “No, Godwin! A stranger, ignorant of all the great truths? She cannot be the One!”

  “Yet she has the sight, William! The One must live many lives, touch many times!”

  The pain in Erin's neck was fading along with the scent of blood. The stench of the corpse-boys came back to fill the gap, however. Erin almost gagged as she opened her eyes to see the seven standing over her.

  “What if she is the One Foretold?” said one ruined face. “To kill her is to kill all hope!”

  “He will know if we spare her!” said the tall one, the leader.

  “We spared the other woman!” was the retort.

  There was a sudden outbreak of furious, hissing argument, and the beings grew less substantial. Erin could even see a smoke alarm through the head of one. Then something smacked her on the side of the head.

  “Everything will be fine, thank you,” said a posh British voice. “My friend has had a minor seizure; I can help her with the medication.”

  When she looked up again, the children were gone. In their place, a hatched-faced man in late middle age was bending over her. He glanced once at the door, which was now closed again, then took something out of his black overcoat. It was a plain box in brown-marbled lacquer. The man opened it, took out a pinch of some white powder, and sprinkled it over Erin.

  “Hey,” she said feebly as grains adhered to her face.

  “Just sea salt,” said the lankly man. “No biggie, as you would say. But it will keep them off for a little while at least.”

  Erin licked her chin, tasted salt.

  “Who the hell are you,” she demanded, trying to sit up, “and why are you seasoning me, if it's not a state secret?”

  Chapter 8: Patterns, Emerging

  Louise Tarrant sat puzzling over the Maspero paper, wondering what could possibly have agitated Park so much. The man was normally cool to the point of iciness.

  There's nothing here except speculation about medieval architecture, she thought. Maybe that floats Park's boat to an unreasonable degree?

  Sighing, Louise looked out at the city-scape of Weyrmouth. Clouds were blocking the sun now, and the view was mostly in shades of gray. A little color was provided here and there by Christmas decorations in shops and even private homes. Lights flashed and glimmered through the gathering gloom.

  And yet it's still November, she thought. Season starts earlier every year. One day, they'll just combine Halloween, Christmas, and Easter, and be done with it.

  Louise returned to the paper, making marginal notes with a Biro. Gradually, Louise came to grasp Maspero's central point – that Weyrmouth Cathedral's great tower was conventional in construction, but odd in detail.

  'Apart from the recurrence of the quincunx pattern as a motif in the stonework, there are peculiarities in the design of the foundations and the walls. The foundations seem remarkably shallow for such a large structure, while the walls are of significantly variable thickness. More precisely, one wall bulges with a kind of square 'chimney' that is apparently solid and runs from foundations to roof. Its purpose is unclear.'

  Louise frowned, read on. Maspero was suggesting that a more detailed search of medieval records might reveal the reason for the tower's peculiar design. She sighed. If he had delivered this paper, she realized, it would have meant yet more pressure on her to sort out the museum's chaotic archives.

  “She sees too much!”

  Louise looked up quickly, glanced around the room. The urgent, hissing voice had seemed close by her right ear. But there was nobody else in the office. The place was too cluttered with books and files to offer any hiding place.

  Am I hearing things? First sign of going barmy.

  She returned to Maspero's paper. He tentatively suggested that 'further research into the origins of the tower might shed light on certain obscure events that gave rise to the idea of the Weyrmouth Curse–'

  “She must be prevented!”

  Again the small, insistent voice, this time to her left. It was followed by a chorus of whispers that seemed to come from all sides at once. There was a quarrel going on around her, but she could not see any of the arguers.

  “Things have changed!”

  “Yes! The Many Born is here!”

  “We cannot know that for certain!”

  “She must be silenced, regardless!”

  There was a definite tone of menace to the last voice. Louise got up, then found herself bending down to check under the desk.

  Absurd, she thought. Nobody could hide under there.

  As her face reached the level of her desk drawers, a small, robed figure shuffled forward rapidly on hands and knees. The being's face was mostly bone; its eye sockets empty except for a spider dangling from a shred of dusty cobweb. Lipless, it grinned.

  Reeling backwards, Louise collided with her chair, and fell heavily onto her backside. A stench of rotten meat assailed her nostrils. There was a clicking of bone on bone as the hunched, crawling creature climbed up her body, then lashed out at her eyes with yellow-nailed fingers. Louise screamed for help, trying to protect her face from the clawing talons, kicking out at the monstrous entity. One foot connected with her assailant's thigh and she felt sharp bone give with a crack. The being rolled over, apparently disabled for the moment, and Louise heaved herself upright.

  There were more of the diminutive horrors, standing between her and the door. Again, she heard a colloquy of hissing voices.

  “This is not right!”

  “It must be done!”

  “The Master will know if we fail!”

  The creature she had kicked clawed at her ankles, started to climb her legs. Another, this one taller than the one under the desk, came towards her with arms raised. Two others advanced, more hesitantly it seemed. Louise scrambled onto the desk, sending a lamp and phone flying. She felt a weight land on her back and yellow talons attacked her eyes. Still screaming, eyes shut tight, she hurled herself forward off the desk, rolling at the same time to bring the creature under her. Again, there was a crunch, much louder this time.

  “Louise? What's wrong?” asked a familiar voice.

  The museum director opened her eyes and saw the upside-down face of Saffron. The girl stooped to help her boss to her feet, keeping up a flood of concerned chatter and rapid-fire questions.

  “I don't know what happened,” said Louise, carefully. “Yes, I had better go to the hospital and get checked out. Don't worry about the mess, no, leave it Saffie. Get me a taxi. And the First Aid kit, so I can put some disinfectant on these scratches.”

  Louise, still shaking from her ordeal, stuck close to Saffron while the eager gofer tried to follow all her boss's instructions at once. Eventually they both calmed down and Louise led them back into her office. The chaotic aftermath of the struggle was still
evident, with the phone still intact but Louise's precious lamp smashed. Papers were scattered around the floor, and Saffron began to gather them up.

  “Saffie,” said Louise. “The Maspero paper. Get all the pages and shred them. And don't read them,” she added.

  Saffron looked puzzled.

  “I never read the heavy stuff unless I have to,” she replied.

  “I know,” said Louise, with a slight smile. “But better safe than sorry.”

  Saffron looked as if she was about to recommence her interrogation, but Louise wagged a warning finger at her. The girl left with the paper and after a few seconds, Louise heard the harsh sound of the shredder.

  Used to hate the idea of destroying documents, she thought, sitting down and steering her swivel chair back into place. Never thought I'd find relief in that sound.

  Louise opened the drawer of her desk and took out a half-bottle of Irish whiskey. Unscrewing the cap she took a mouthful, gasped, then took another. Saffron appeared at the door and Louise held out the bottle.

  “No thanks,” said Saffron. “That stuff makes me want to throw up.”

  “Sorry, got no tequila slammers,” smiled Louise. Seeing Saffron's concern, she added, “If I knew what it was, I'd tell you. Believe me.”

  The young woman nodded, looked around the office as if seeking some revelation about what had happened. Then she frowned and said, “Erm, what about Erin?”

  “What about her?” asked Louise.

  “Well,” replied Saffron, “didn't you give her that Maspero thing to read?”

  Before Saffron had finished speaking, Louise had begun scrambling in her bag for her cell. Just as she grabbed it, it rang and she almost dropped it. The call was from Detective Sergeant Carr, who got a much more detailed response to his questions than he was expecting.

  ***

  “You could call me a concerned citizen,” said Park, sitting on the bed without asking. “I am part of a group that tries to keep things running smoothly in the fair city of Weyrmouth.”

  “I've heard that from the bad guy in so many movies,” retorted Erin, leaning against the desk by the window so she could look down at him. “You here to ride me out of town in a rail or something?”