
© 2003
"The world is deep: deeper than day can comprehend"
Friedrich Nietzsche in "Thus Spake Zarathustra".
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Struggling against the near-horizontal, freezing-cold rain, Karen Hill walked down Dean Street towards the place where she usually caught her taxi home. Holding her gaze downwards, she ignored the occasional leering and commenting from passing drunks. The fact that she was wearing a very short skirt and an absurdly small top did not go unnoticed by many of these ale-addled minds. It was late on a Friday evening, in mid November, in the north eastern English city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. There were many people in the city centre starting to make their way home after a night of drinking and socialising. Karen, who had recently turned twenty years of age, was mildly affected by the four bottles of alcoholic soda that she had consumed that evening. As a result, she felt slightly euphoric, and began thinking about the Christmas shopping trip that had been planned with friends for the following day.
After about five minutes into her walk home, the rain began to pour down even more heavily. Karen hunched up her shoulders, and with a noticeable scowl on her face, began to walk faster down the long sloping street that had a taxi rank at its end. It was as if she felt that having a bearing like this could somehow lessen the effect on her of the rain, the wind and the cold. The inadequacy of her clothing, however, was beginning to take its toll. Together with countless other young people in this city, she had insisted on dressing as if it was a balmy summer's evening. They had all agreed to this pretence, and to dress otherwise, even on a night like this, would be to invite peer derision. The men wore short-sleeved shirts or tee shirts, and women wore light or short dresses together with summer tops. But now, rain-lashed and engulfed by the numbing coldness, Karen began to feel miserable.
The temperature hovered slightly above two degrees Celsius, but it actually felt very much colder because of the dampness that imbued the night air. A dampness that seemed not only to come from the falling rain, but which also seemed to rise up from beneath the wet glistening pavement stones, and to exude from the cold stone walls of the splendid Georgian buildings which ran uninterrupted down Dean Street.
In the yellow rain-strewn light surrounding the street lamps, she could see further down the street a group of young men eating takeaway food near to the entrance of an Indian restaurant. Steam could be seen coming out of their opened Styrofoam packages of ethnically contorted food. The group ate voraciously, no doubt to satisfy a beer-induced hunger, and peppered their late supper with succinct but loud conversation delivered in the local Geordie dialect. Karen decided to cross over to the other side of the street to avoid them. The street was wide and she passed by on the other side without ever being noticed. Even the rain was not able to dampen out the aroma of curry that drifted across the street. This evening, however, she did not feel like buying anything to eat, and just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. Her arms, legs and face were now anaesthetised with the cold, and her body was so soaked with the rain that the top she was wearing had nearly become translucent.
Soon, she approached a part of Dean Street where there was an old stone staircase, called Dog-Leap Stairs, which led up to ruins of the city's ancient defensive walls built nearly one thousand years ago. This part of the street was relatively quiet, and was even more so because of the foul weather and the fact that it was now rather late. Despite the distraction of her extreme discomfort, Karen managed to recall that her great grandfather had once owned the old shop that stood at the foot of this staircase. He had been a cobbler, but the building was now a shop selling storage chests and suitcases called The Cargo Cult. There had once been direct access to this part of the street from the river Tyne, which now lay some fifty yards away. The staircase had become known as Dog-Leap Stairs because apparently dogs were apt to leap on to the staircase from docking sea vessels. The recollection of this fact was the last thing Karen Hill ever thought. She never saw her murderer, and never felt the lurking presence as she passed by the staircase. It was all over in an instant. And she never heard a voice call out from some point nearby shortly afterwards: "Snaz, are you there? I'm back again. Come on, we've only got ten minutes to catch it."
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Wet Rain Hill is a small village in the north east of England. It is situated roughly five miles east of the Northumbrian market town of Hexham, and about eighteen miles west of the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The village is built on top of a relatively large hill, and represents a perfect vantage from which the windswept and rainfed beauty of the surrounding landscape can be seen. Vestiges of Hadrian's Wall, also known as the Roman Wall, can be seen to the north just beyond the Tyne Valley. This wall, built around two thousand years ago, marked for a time the northernmost boundary of Roman Britain. Most of the stones used in the original wall, however, have long since been removed and recycled into the many dry stone walls, which for centuries have been used as lines of demarcation in this agricultural landscape. Land used for grazing sheep and cattle together with ploughed arable land combine to form a patchwork of field colours and textures.
The layout of Wet Rain Hill is much like any other of the picturesque and quiet villages in this area. It has a wide main street, simply called Main Street, along which most of the original village dwellings lie. These include a sprinkling of small stone cottages and a few larger stone houses. On the north side of Main Street there is also a public house called the Blackbird, together with a general store and a post office. In between the Blackbird and the general store lies the small village green and war memorial. Visible behind a stone wall at the back of the village green and accessible only via a lich gate situated on Church Lane lying slightly further to the west and running approximately northwards off Main Street, is the village church of St George's. The church lies almost in the middle of a large graveyard, surrounded for the most part by a stone wall. Sections of the church, including the belfry, date at least as far back as the early seventeenth century and possibly even earlier. The village church was the scene of a recorded clash between the Scottish Covenanters and King Charles 1's Royalist forces during the First English Civil War of the early 1640's.
On the south side of Main Street, together with a row of stone cottages, is a small school building that is still in use as the village primary school. The oldest part of the school, as indicated by a stone inscription above the main doorway, dates back to sixteen forty-nine, the year of King Charles 1's execution. To the rear of the school there is a large yard surrounded by an imposing tall stone wall. This wall serves to protect the children playing in the yard from the cold winds that sweep across the land for most of the year. It also blocks the view down to the foot of the southern side of the hill, stretching for roughly one mile. This particular hillside is locally referred to as Wet Rain Hill, though strictly speaking the name also applies to the entire hill on which the village is built. The southern aspect of the hill would seem to be thus named because, given the slight declination of the village towards the south, much of the surface rainwater drains down this part of the hill into the valley below. A small stream, or burn as they are called in northern England and Scotland, called Liz's Burn flows through this valley. One explanation for the name is that the word Liz is used in reference to a woman's name. But as to whom the Elizabeth in question might be, or why she had this modest flow of water named after her, is not known and not recorded anywhere. Liz's Burn then runs into the river Tyne, which flows eastward, through the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, into the North Sea.
Apart from providing the name for the village, another notable feature of Wet Rain Hill is a large, almost anvil-shaped, sandstone crag protruding from its side. This large rocky outcrop is situated nearly at the foot of the hill close to Liz's Burn. It is known as Liz's Rock, and stands alone, a relic of the glacial activity that gouged out the valley and the surrounding countryside during the last ice age. Carved patterns in the form of concentric circles, cup-shaped depressions and a series of chiselled markings are found on its upper and relatively flat surface. These ancient man-made markings are thought to be around five thousand years old. It has been suggested that they may represent some form of primitive Neolithic pictograms or script, though this has not yet been established; their meaning has long been lost in the mists of time. What has been established, however, is that to produce the markings would have required a great deal of skill, patience and motivation. The markings were very important for some people in the past, and had great significance and meaning for them.
Liz's Rock represents one of the three significant features of the village and the hill mentioned in most tourist guidebooks. The second feature is a deep cave or pothole on Wet Rain Hill, just above Liz's Burn, called Bell Hollow. It has been given the name Bell Hollow according to one tradition because some villagers during the First English Civil War of 1642 to 1646, motivated perhaps by the religious tides of the period, tried to hide the village church bell inside the cave. By the same tradition, it is said that the cave accepted the bell so to speak, but because of its depth and inaccessibility, never returned it. Innumerable efforts to locate and retrieve the bell were, it seems, not successful. For over one hundred and fifty years, the church of St George's was without a large bell in its belfry until a new one was cast and installed in the early nineteenth century. This same bell is the one currently in the village church. The church of St George's, and its replacement bell, represents the third significant feature mentioned in most tourist guidebooks.
That Bell Hollow is a dangerous place to enter is emphasised by a prominent warning sign placed by the local council around the cave entrance on the north bank of Liz's Burn. The sign points out the dangers of approaching too close to Bell Hollow, and strongly advises against using the cave for potholing explorations. The sign explains that Bell Hollow is known to consist of a main chamber approximately two-hundred-and-seventy metres in depth falling vertically with an average diameter of about four metres. At least one smaller subterranean passageway, and occasional underground stream, is believed to branch out from the chamber at a lower depth. The cave is generally considered to be an anomalous feature of the landscape, and its geological mode of formation is not yet fully understood. Apart from the extreme danger and difficulty of trying to enter the cave, the sign also warns of the risk of drowning inside the cave as a result of sudden flooding. On those days that it rains, which a cynical observer might consider to be every other day in this part of the world, the proximity of the entrance of Bell Hollow to Liz's Burn leaves it particularly exposed to over spill and hence flooding. For this reason especially, Bell Hollow remains unexplored and largely unknown, neglected even by the most foolhardy.
The entrance to Bell Hollow is visible from across the opposite side of Liz's Burn. It is possible to ford the burn at several places or to use a small wooden footbridge near to Bell Hollow. Standing high up on the other bank, the entrance to Bell Hollow resembles a dark unblinking eye gazing upwards to the top of the opposite hill, known locally as Menzie's Hill. Lying on Menzie's Hill, approximately two miles south of the village, is a deserted and derelict dry stone shepherd's hut, referred to accordingly as Menzie's Hut. The eponymous Menzie was a local shepherd who, slightly more than a century ago, tended his sheep on the surrounding hills. Menzie apparently went mad and abandoned his home and possessions, including the sheep in his charge, and fled the area never to be seen again. And such was the impact on the local imagination of the shepherd's abrupt and mysterious departure that the old name of the hill, Scaly Peak, was forgotten and the hill renamed after him. From the top of Menzie's Hill, looking northwards, the village of Wet Rain Hill stands out against the backdrop of the Cheviot Hills where at some point decided by man England meets Scotland.
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It was late in the afternoon on a blustery Saturday afternoon in mid November. The clocks in the village of Wet Rain Hill had not yet reached five, but the day had already yielded to nightfall. Following the heavy rain that had fallen much of the previous night, strong winds had arrived earlier in the morning like an extreme antidote. All visible traces of the rainfall in the village had now been blown away. And the buildings, the leafless trees and the few people on the streets reeled under the onslaught of the wind.
"Not bad. Not bad at all," remarked Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford, sitting watching the soccer-results being announced on television. "Better than last week's performance, anyway," he said, commenting on the favourite local team's performance to his son who was also watching beside him. David Crawford nodded in agreement and continued viewing the results. "And at least they didn't loose again," added Alan Crawford.
"But Sunderland won!" noted his son with artificial bitterness, referring to Newcastle United's local rivals. "No! I don't go in for this rivalry; they're both local teams and I'm glad to see both of them do well," countered his father. Checking the soccer results was a ritual they followed most Saturday evenings during the soccer season.
They were sitting in the cottage belonging to Alan Crawford's mother, situated next to the primary school on Main Street. Together with his wife and son, Alan Crawford visited his mother every weekend, except for the occasions when his work schedule did not allow for it. His mother, Elsie Crawford, was seventy-nine years of age and had lived in Wet Rain Hill first as a child, and after living elsewhere for most of her adult life, had returned to the village around five years ago. She had decided to buy the old stone cottage, which was up for sale at the time she was looking to move back into the village, the moment she first set eyes upon it. The cottage faced onto Main Street; whilst from the back, there was a splendid view of both Wet Rain Hill and Menzie's Hill. It had a living room, which led off into a small kitchen at the side. The original cottage bedroom and bathroom opened onto the living room. The cottage also had two extra, relatively modern, dormer bedrooms built into the roof, accessed by a wooden staircase that led up from a small hallway by the front door. It was in these dormer bedrooms that Alan Crawford and his family stayed during their weekend visits. Elsie Crawford preferred to use the bedroom downstairs in order to avoid the stairs during the night. She was still agile and in good health, particularly for a woman of her age; but of course she was no longer the same young girl who had once played on and run down Wet Rain Hill.
The afternoon television sports programme finished and was followed by the early evening national news. Following this, there was a local news programme that began with the report of a murder of a young woman in Newcastle-upon-Tyne the previous night. Alan Crawford shook his head in dismay on hearing this news. He worked for Durham Constabulary: the police force that covered the county directly to the south of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. But he was sure to know some of the people who would be involved in the murder investigation. "God what a shame," sighed Rhoda, Alan Crawford's wife. "A young girl, not much older than you are, David."
"Will they catch him?" asked David looking at his father.
"I suppose that they will catch him eventually," replied Alan Crawford. "But these murder cases can sometimes drag on for years. It's getting better, nevertheless, with the use of new technology such as DNA testing and the increasing exchange of information between different police forces over the Internet. It's much easier to solve these cases, however, when the suspect knew the victim, which is in the majority of cases. Otherwise it's old-fashioned detective work, eyewitnesses, clues and the like. Of course, some of our eyewitnesses these days are not human. There are security cameras posted all over the city. Some are put there by the police as a very effective crime prevention measure, whilst others are private security cameras that the police can also use. In fact, the centre of Newcastle-upon-Tyne is at the moment the most closely monitored city centre in all of Britain."
"But haven't all these security measures just pushed the crime elsewhere?" suggested his wife.
"Yes, I suppose so. There is some evidence that crime rates in rural places, away from the conurbation, have increased, especially in relatively isolated places such as..."
"Don't say Wet Rain Hill!" interrupted his mother. "You wouldn't want to frighten me, staying here all by myself during the week, would you?"
"No mother, I wasn't going to say Wet Rain Hill in particular, just rural Northumberland in general. This is particularly true for the crimes of house breaking when the premises are unoccupied. But thankfully, violent crime, including murder, is very rare. And did you know that England has one of the lowest murder rates in the world, including in comparison to France and Germany? Believe me, I don't think you have anything to worry about here, mother. Nothing remarkable ever happens in Wet Rain Hill anymore."
"Well I hope so. But mind you, I was speaking to Esther Williams at church last week, and she reckons that someone has taken her cat."
"How does she know that it's been stolen?" asked David, appearing slightly amused by this particular example of rural crime. "Maybe it just got bored and ran away," he suggested. "That cat certainly wouldn't run away," contended Elsie Crawford. "She's had it for years. And besides, she told me that another friend of hers who lives in the Forestry Flats also lost her cat recently." The Forestry Flats was a small local-authority housing estate situated in the village and located behind the northern part of Main Street, not far from the village church of St George's. The forestry commission had originally built the homes for their workers over half a century ago. "How many cat owners are there in the village?" asked Alan Crawford.
"I'm not sure, but there won't be many cats left at this rate," responded his mother, adding: "Maybe it's something you could get the police to look into, Alan."
"Well, if it turns out that there is a problem, kids being cruel to animals, or something like that, I could get on to my colleagues in the Hexham Constabulary about it, and maybe they can get the RSPCA involved," suggested Alan Crawford.
"Or ask them to keep a look out for any would-be cat burglars, or should I say cat thieves!" his son said, grinning.
"No jokes either, please, about it raining cats and dogs last night," added Alan Crawford.
"Come on, let's eat. Everything is ready and the tea is made," interrupted his wife.
The Crawford family sat around a table at the back of the cottage living room taking their meal. Thick wool curtains were drawn over the patio doors, which led out into the back garden. The cottage was centrally heated. Most of the windows were double-glazed; the patio doors, however, were not. The coldness outside penetrated the cottage more easily at this point, with whispers of cold air finding unseen gaps around the edges of the windowpanes. The patio doors rattled and shook as the wind blustered and howled. The conversation at the meal table ranged once again over the previously discussed topics: the soccer results, the murder the previous evening in the city and the disappearance of some cats in the village.
When staying in the village at weekends, Alan Crawford and his wife usually visited the Blackbird public house across the road for a few drinks on a Saturday evening. They were just about to get up from the table in order to start getting ready to go out, when a knock was heard at the cottage door. At first, it was thought that it might just be the wind, which seemed to be growing increasingly more ferocious by the minute. But the knocking persisted, and appeared to be deliberate. It was Alan Crawford who eventually stood up and went to the door. As he opened the door, a strong gust of wind suddenly seized it and attempted to push him back against the coat hangers attached to the wall behind. "Alan, we're really sorry to bother you, but we wanted to catch you just before you went out," exclaimed a familiar voice from the doorstep. It was Jack Hume from the cottage next door. Standing with him was his beautiful, pleasant and ever-smiling Thai wife, Nok. "Please come in, both of you!" ordered Alan Crawford enthusiastically. "Glad to see you both," he added, as they entered into the warmth of the cottage. Jack and Nok Hume gave a collective sigh of relief when the door was finally closed behind them. "What a night!" exclaimed Jack Hume.
"Terrible, isn't it?" agreed Alan Crawford. "I just hope this wind doesn't take any tiles off the roofs. Can I take your coat, Nok?" he added. Even for the short distance of a few yards from her home to Elsie Crawford's cottage, Nok Hume needed to be wrapped up warmly. She had only been in Britain for about three months and had even found summer to be at times unbearably cold. Autumn in Northumberland was indeed beautiful, with the ever-changing brown hues of the trees and fields. But an outsider, especially one from considerably warmer climes, could surely never get used to the unrelenting cold and dampness and could not but be perturbed at the looming prospect of even more severe weather during the winter months.
Nok Hume retrieved four small packages from her evidently large pockets before handing over her coat to Alan Crawford. The two guests were then led into the living room. The rest of the Crawford family had already heard the sound of the familiar voices in the hallway. Elsie Crawford beamed with delight when Nok Hume appeared in the living room, and immediately went forward to greet her with a warm hug. "How are you, flower?" she asked. "It's lovely to see you."
"I'm very well, thank you. I hope we not disturb you," replied Nok in her perfectly understandable, but grammatically imperfect English. "Not at all! How can you ever disturb me, petal?" replied Elsie Crawford. "And Jack, it's wonderful to see you as well! Isn't there a terrible gale blowing outside? But at least it's not raining again. Then again, on second thoughts, I think that I might after all prefer the rain; especially if this wind starts removing tiles off the roofs."
"It is extraordinarily bad," agreed Jack Hume. "We even found it an effort to walk the few yards from next door. But these cottages have withstood a fair few onslaughts from the British weather in their time, I dare say, and they are still standing. Let's hope that tonight proves to be no exception."
Jack Hume was a balding and pleasant featured man of almost indeterminate age. He could be aged anywhere from thirty-five years to fifty-five years of age. In fact, his age was exactly in the middle of that range: he was forty-five years old. His wife, Nok, was evidently younger than he was. And based on appearance, it might similarly be difficult to precisely determine her age. In fact, she was twenty-nine. Though, she could still easily pass for someone who had not yet reached twenty-one years of age.
Room was made for the visitors to sit on the large sofa facing the gas fire in the living room. The gas fire beamed warmth across the room from within an old slate fireplace, which at one time had burned wood and coal. Without being prompted, David reduced the sound volume on the television set, and shifted his position to an old oak armchair that had once belonged to his grandfather who had died nearly six years ago. This diminution in sound from the television appeared to amplify, or emphasise, the noise of the wind raging outside the cottage. Not only could the wind be heard impressing itself upon the windows and doors of the cottage, but it also howled rather eerily down the old chimney shaft.
But before anyone had the chance to make any comments about the gale blowing outside, Nok Hume handed one of the packages that she had brought to each of her four hosts. "It's something from my country, Thailand," she explained. "I hope you like it," she added hopefully. "Oh you shouldn't have bothered, sweetheart," protested Elsie Crawford receiving her gift. "Nevertheless, pet, it's very kind of you."
"It's to express our thanks for the help you gave us," explained Jack Hume.
"Yes, you help us last week. You help us a lot," explained Nok, referring to the help given one week ago to the Humes in unloading and unpacking the tea chests of belongings that had arrived by delivery van at their cottage. The shipment had arrived from Thailand six weeks later than had been originally promised, and the Humes were now pursuing an explanation from the shipping company for the lateness in delivery. "No need to say thank you," responded Alan Crawford. "We are the ones who should be thanking both of you for being such wonderful neighbours to Elsie. We appreciate that very much."
"Yes, lovely people," added Elsie Crawford in response to her son's comments. "I really couldn't ask for better and kinder neighbours." Nok Hume's face flushed slightly at this complement.
Alan Crawford was the first of the four recipients to remove the wrapping paper. "Why this is very nice; a silk tie from Thailand! I shall certainly wear this tonight," he declared, placing the tie against his chest. "And thank you very much as well! This is really beautiful," said Rhoda Crawford, unfurling a brightly coloured Thai raw silk shawl. "This will also be worn tonight. But really, both of you shouldn't have gone to all this trouble for us. Christmas seems to have come rather early."
Elsie Crawford received a similarly styled Thai shawl and expressed her thanks by giving Nok another warm embrace. David was the last person to open his present. It turned out to be one of the most unusual presents he had ever received. At first, he wasn't quite sure what to make of the small stuffed crocodile he was now holding, measuring no more than one foot in length. "Thank you very much, both of you," he said, as he ran his hand over its hard, squat, and scaly body and tail. He turned the reptile so that it eyed him straight in the face. The raised eyes were dark and soulless like obsidian glass. Its jaw was fixed in a permanent gape, revealing a set of numerous white razor-sharp teeth and a fleshy white interior that was the mouth. All of this gave the impression that the crocodile was smiling at him, albeit rather unpleasantly. "Don't worry David, it's not an endangered species," announced Jack Hume. "Thousands like it are reared in crocodile farms in Thailand for their meat. The Chinese enjoy crocodile meat because they believe it will make them strong and fearless just like a crocodile. We packed it together with the rest of our stuff that came last week. In fact, its mother is next door."
"The crocodile's mother?" queried David.
"Well not really its mother," corrected Nok Hume. "You saw last week, David, the wooden carvings that we shipped over from Thailand. You remember that one of them was a big crocodile?"
"Yes, I remember it. Anyway, once again, it's great. I really appreciate it. Thanks very much," he responded. He had noticed that there were traces of a fine white dust or powder lodged between its scales. And in a slightly exaggerated gesture of concern for the sheen of the reptile's skin, and also perhaps wishing to further demonstrate his appreciation of the gift, he licked his index finger several times and polished the scaly specimen as if it was in fact a crocodile shoe.
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Later that same evening, Alan Crawford sat together with his wife in the Blackbird public house. They had managed to brave the strong winds and to make the short journey down Main Street on foot. At a table in the corner of the main lounge of the public house, with a pint of his favourite Cuthbert's ale, he recalled what Jack Hume had said to him earlier in the evening. Not long after the Humes had finished distributing their gifts, two essentially separate conversations had developed in the cottage living room. One of these involved Alan Crawford and Jack Hume, and the other the ladies. Nok Hume had occasionally turned aside to speak to David, probably because it took a great deal of concentration on her part to follow in detail what was being said by the ladies spoken in what was not always standard English, not to mention the speed of the delivery. David Crawford, for his part, had sat mainly in silence watching the television.
"I don't know if you overheard, dear, but whilst you ladies were talking amongst yourselves, Jack Hume had something rather interesting to say to me," said Alan Crawford.
"Oh, what was that?" inquired his wife.
"Basically, he told me that he was worried about Nok's safety."
"Nok's safety? What's happened?" responded Rhoda Crawford. But before her husband had a chance to reply, she continued: "Alan, this village is not on your beat. We come here to visit your mother, and that's all. We like it here because you don't have to be a detective sergeant or a policeman. There's no one here to bother or observe us. We can go out for a drink, just like we are doing now, without worrying if there is some undesirable in the vicinity who recognises you or knows you. You know how difficult it is for a copper and his wife to have a decent social life. We all care about Nok, but if there's a problem, Jack should get the local police force in Hexham involved with it."
"Steady on, dear! If you will listen, he doesn't want me to do anything. He just asked for some advice."
"Advice about what?"
"Well, apparently there's a man in the village who's been giving Nok some, we could say, unwelcome attention. In fact, it's the strange character my mother has mentioned to me a few times before. He moved into the village about a couple of months ago, and lives in a small rented flat just before the Forestry Flats, on Church Lane. My mother saw him snooping around behind her cottage a few days ago. Well, apparently Nok also saw him behind the Humes' cottage last night. Naturally, she was very scared."
"What was he doing?"
"He was just hanging around, as if he wanted to see inside the cottage. And it's not the first time this has happened, either. Jack also told me that on one occasion, this character came into their takeaway when only Nok was around, and said some strange things."
About two months ago, Jack and Nok Hume had opened a small Thai takeaway restaurant in the village. It was located in a small enclosure of shops within the Forestry Flats. The same premises had previously been used as a Chinese takeaway, but the Humes had taken out a new lease, and after some minor renovations had opened a takeaway restaurant called the Siam Kitchen. The menu they offered included traditional Thai dishes such as Thai green curry and Tom Yam Gung. In addition, they offered the perennial local favourite Asian dish: chips with spicy gravy sauce. The takeaway restaurant was only open in the evenings except on Saturdays when it was also open at lunchtime. Despite the smallness of the village, it was thought that the restaurant could still operate as a viable business because in addition to the villagers, there was extra custom from visitors, particularly people with cars living in the nearby villages and homesteads. To assist them, the Humes had recently employed an assistant and a cook, effectively relieving themselves from the day-to-day responsibilities for food preparation.
Alan Crawford took a drink from his pint of Cuthbert's ale and then continued: "I saw him last weekend across the road from the Humes' cottage. He was observing them taking delivery of their shipment from Thailand."
"I didn't notice him when we were helping the Humes," commented his wife.
"He was only there for a few minutes," explained Alan Crawford. "I made a point of stopping what I was doing in order to glare at him. As soon as he saw that I had noticed him lingering, he walked away up Church Lane to presumably where he lives."
"You were being a copper as usual!" accused his wife.
"But he didn't give the appearance of being particularly fazed by my noticing him. I don't think he knows that I'm a copper. I thought perhaps he was just being nosy, and I didn't think anything of it at the time."
"What sort of advice does Jack Hume want from you, Alan?"
"He just asked me about the laws on stalking. It's something that's often in the news these days, particularly with regard to celebrities. But of course the law doesn't just apply to celebrities. I asked Jack if this character, let's call him Mr X because none of us know his real name, had said anything to Nok in the way of threats or even racial abuse."
"And had he?"
"No, he hadn't. But there was something slightly unusual about the language he used."
"Language?" queried Rhoda Crawford.
"Yes, language; you see, he spoke to Nok in fluent Thai."
"He spoke in Thai! How come a weirdo like that can speak Thai?"
"I've no idea. Maybe he spent some time working there, just like Jack did."
"Wasn't it just a greeting, something perhaps that he had memorised from a holiday phrase book?" asked Rhoda Crawford, before continuing: "Because, funny enough, I just read in a newspaper last week that at an international forum the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, astonished the Thai Prime Minister by asking in perfect Thai where the toilet was! Apparently the Blairs spent their honeymoon in Bangkok, and Tony Blair could still remember how to ask that question in Thai."
"Well, this character didn't ask Nok where the toilet was. He asked her: when was she going to start selling Crocodile soup?"
"Crocodile soup!"
"Yes, crocodile soup. You remember what Jack said earlier in the evening about the Chinese in Thailand enjoying that particular delicacy? Anyway, Nok said that Mr X's spoken Thai was more than merely good: it was, in fact, excellent. Jack went on to explain to me that Thai is an extremely difficult language for a non-Thai to learn to speak, or more precisely, to pronounce correctly. Speaking that language fluently and correctly is, by any means, a tremendous achievement. Something about having to get the tones exactly right when you pronounce the words. What seems to us to be the same word, but pronounced with a slight change in intonation, renders a completely different meaning. Nok said that he spoke the language almost like a native speaker, or at least like someone who had resided in Thailand for a very long time."
"Is that all he said on that occasion: asking when Nok was going to start selling crocodile soup?" asked Rhoda Crawford.
"He also made a few other incidental comments in Thai, about how pretty she was and the like. But he seemed to think that his comment about the crocodile soup was particularly funny, because as he was finally leaving the restaurant he laughed and mentioned that in future he would be calling round for some Crocodile soup."
"How did Nok respond?" asked Rhoda Crawford.
"According to Jack, she just dismissed it as a crude double entendre. But before he left the restaurant, she asked him how come he could speak such good Thai, suggesting that it was perhaps because he had a Thai wife or had once lived in Thailand. But he never answered her question in a meaningful way, and instead only made a joke about it being a gift from God or Buddha. His impudence aside, you might expect that someone who could speak her native tongue so well would impress Nok. But according to Jack, she felt very bad about her encounter with him. Using a Thai idiom, she explained that she felt that this Mr X had a black heart."
It was nearly nine thirty, and the Blackbird public house was so full that it was now standing room only. Every time someone entered through the main door at the front, an unwelcome gust of cold air swept through the establishment. Amongst the crowd in the pub, Alan Crawford noticed the vicar from St George's pushing his way towards the bar. The vicar was wearing a leather bomber jacket, which Alan Crawford found slightly incongruous given his profession. It had been a few years since Alan Crawford had set foot in the village church. Even then, he had only gone as a sightseer, particularly interested to see the church belfry famous for the absence of the original church bell removed during the First English Civil War. He had on other occasions walked around the church graveyard and read some of the inscriptions on the ancient headstones that lent forwards as if they themselves were also finally about to fall over and die. At the time, he had thought that the condition of the stones was a sort of metaphor for the second stage of someone's death: when there is a total obliteration of even the record of that person's existence.
He recognised the vicar because there had been occasions when the vicar had called round at his mother's cottage. His mother was a regular churchgoer, but Alan Crawford was not at all religious; at least, not so in the normally accepted or ritualistic understanding of the word. This had something to do with his feelings about the presence of evil in the world. Because of his job as a policeman, particularly as a detective sergeant, there were occasions when he had to come face to face with something that was perhaps best described simply as evil, albeit manifested through the deeds of men. If there was an omnipotent God, a master of the universe capable of controlling all things, he could not understand why there had to be evil in the world.
Alan Crawford's musings were interrupted by a further question from his wife. "Alan, has this Mr X, as you call him, ever spoken to Jack? After all Jack worked in Thailand for many years. That's where he met Nok."
"No, he's never spoken to Jack. And moreover, Jack can't speak Thai very well."
"But presumably they can both speak English!"
"What I meant was that Mr X has never in Jack's presence struck up a conversation with Nok in Thai, or in any other language for that matter. Apparently when Jack and Nok were both working in the takeaway restaurant, before they employed the new assistant and cook, Mr X's behaviour was restrained or normal whenever he came in to buy something."
"So Jack didn't ask him any questions along the lines of how come he could speak Thai or what he did for a living in the village?" asked Rhoda Crawford.
"No. There were other people in the takeaway at the time, and Jack said that it didn't feel appropriate. The few words that were exchanged only related to the food being ordered."
"So, Jack suspects that this Mr X has taken an unwelcome fancy to his wife. And given that this Mr X has perhaps lived in Thailand before and can speak the language, this is probably the real reason for his interest in Nok. Apart from the fact that she is obviously a very attractive lady," summarised Rhoda Crawford, before adding: "If I was Jack, I would go and have a private word with this rat bag, and tell him to back off." Alan Crawford nodded in agreement with his wife's words. He then picked up his now three-quarters empty glass and took a large draught. "By the way, how old would you say was this Mr X?" asked Rhoda Crawford.
"He seems to be in his late thirties to early forties."
"And no one in the village has any idea what he is doing here?"
"No. The landlord doesn't live in the village. Maybe he's unemployed, or an author, or is running an Internet business from his small flat. Who knows?"
The vicar had by now returned from the bar with a pint of beer. He had taken up a position by one of the pillars in the main lounge, and looked slightly awkward standing alone. Alan Crawford continued: "Taking a fancy to his wife is one thing, albeit unwelcome, but prowling outside their house in the dark like a peeping Tom is altogether more sinister. Goodness knows what his intentions are. Obviously Jack is very worried about Nok's safety, particularly when he is not around. I told him that at the moment there wasn't much we could do, but that if they caught him prowling again they should call the police without hesitation. I'll also give the same advice to my mother. The local constabulary might be able to do something that will frighten this character off."
Alan Crawford drained off the remainder of his beer, and his wife similarly finished her glass of rum-and-Coke. On his way to the bar to buy another round of drinks, Alan Crawford passed by the vicar who nodded at him in recognition. Alan Crawford responded with a nod and a smile. He then had to push his way through a group of about ten young men in their late teens or early twenties who were standing drinking near to the bar. He guessed that most of them were from the Forestry Flats in the village. Alan Crawford cringed at the banality and obscenity of their conversation. He overheard a remark about the vicar being a 'poof waiting for his boyfriend'. When this remark was followed up by one of the group mincing in the general direction of the vicar, the whole group erupted in hysterical laughter. As he waited for his drinks to be served, Alan Crawford wondered whether he should exercise his authority as a policeman. The vicar was now standing with his back to the group. Alan Crawford was unsure as to whether the vicar was unaware of what was happening or had simply chosen to ignore it. By the time Alan Crawford had paid for his drinks, the loutish group seemed to have moved on to another topic of conversation. Alan Crawford decided to say nothing and moved away from the bar carrying his drinks.
On returning back to his seat, Alan Crawford mentioned to his wife that the vicar was standing alone looking somewhat out of place in the pub. She immediately suggested that they invite him over to their table. Alan Crawford was reluctant at first, because he didn't want to get into an embarrassing conversation on the reasons why he didn't go to church or what he thought about God. But he also felt some sympathy, especially after what he had just witnessed at the bar. And after catching the vicar's eye once again, he relented and beckoned to him to come over and join them, which he did with alacrity. "Good evening Mrs Crawford and good evening Mr Crawford," said the vicar pulling up a chair to the Crawford's table. He was slightly built, almost gaunt, and appeared to be aged somewhere between thirty and forty years. He had long, unkempt hair, which he unconsciously ran his hands through after sitting down. "Good evening," responded Alan Crawford and his wife, more or less in unison. Then Alan Crawford started the conversation: "I'm sorry vicar, but I must confess that I've forgotten your name, even though we've been introduced at my mother's place on a few occasions."
"Oh, it's Geoffrey, Geoffrey Adams," replied the vicar.
"Yes, sorry, I recall it now. I'm Alan, as you may already know, and this is my wife, Rhoda."
"Yes, your mother often mentions the both of you; she thinks the world of you. I think she's a wonderful lady. I do hope she's fine."
"She is indeed very well, thank you. She's back at the cottage watching television with my son," said Alan Crawford.
"Is she coming to the service tomorrow morning?" asked the vicar smiling. Alan Crawford gripped the beer glass he was holding even more tightly. He was convinced that the reason why the Crawford family didn't attend church was also sure to be questioned. "As far as I know, vicar, she is going to church tomorrow," replied Alan Crawford taking another sip of his pint and bracing himself for what he thought was the inevitable. But it didn't come. Instead, the vicar made a general comment about the rowdy group standing at the bar. Alan Crawford agreed that their behaviour was unacceptable, but did not mention specifically what he had overheard a few minutes earlier. He wasn't sure whether the vicar had raised the subject because it was considered a suitable topic of conversation for a policeman or because he expected Alan Crawford to go over to the bar and sort them out. Rhoda Crawford, however, seemed to both sense and to resent that her husband was close to being corralled into acting the policeman. But before Alan Crawford could respond further to the vicar's line of conversation, his wife blurted out what sounded in the situation like a rather silly question. "Do you like Thai or Chinese food, Mr Adams?"
The vicar arched his eyebrows and smiled, before replying: "Are you referring specifically to our village takeaway, Mrs Crawford?"
"I meant Asian food in general. But since you've mentioned it, have you ever been to the Siam Kitchen?" asked Rhoda Crawford.
"Well, I do like Asian food. I enjoy Indian curries and Chinese dishes, particularly sweet and sour dishes; all of which I occasionally enjoy cooking myself. But I'm not really into the idea of takeaway food. I'm in no way, of course, decrying the cuisine on offer by the lovely couple, namely your mother's neighbours, who manage the takeaway in the village. I should add, however, that I do have a slight problem with the Monosodium Glutamate, which I believe most Chinese takeaways use in their dishes. It makes everything taste great, but it has some unwelcome side effects," explained the vicar.
"So you haven't been to the Siam kitchen yet?" Rhoda Crawford asked the vicar again.
"Not yet; but maybe I'll make an exception and try it tonight. That is if I can manage not to get blown down the street by the wind, and if I can make a special request not to have any MSG added," he replied.
"Now that you mention it, I must ask Jack about this MSG stuff," stated Alan Crawford. "I've heard some bad things about it. The Humes, however, are no longer preparing the food themselves in the takeaway. They've now employed some staff to take care of that."
There was a brief lull in the conversation. Everyone sat pensively, as if searching either for a suitable addendum to the current topic of conversation or for a new subject that they could broach. It was the vicar who broke the silence: "Actually MSG is probably the least of their problems with regard to what some people in the village say is going into the dishes."
"What do you mean?" asked Alan Crawford, surprised by the vicar's words.
"Oh, it's something I've picked up from some members of my congregation," replied Geoffrey Adams. "The Hume couple have become the victims of some rather malicious gossip regarding the disappearance of cats in the village."
"Jesus, not that old chestnut again!" growled Alan Crawford, temporarily forgetting the inappropriateness of using religious oaths in his present company. "I just heard about the disappearance of cats in the village from my mother tonight. But she didn't mention that there were any rumours linking the disappearances with the Hume's takeaway. I suppose it's just that she didn't want to give them any credence. She knows that the Humes are not likely to substitute pork and chicken for cat meat."
"I'm sure the Humes are not stealing the cats," emphasized the vicar. "But whoever is responsible is apparently not just stealing cats. Sheep from fields around the village have also been going missing in significant numbers according to an article I read last week in the Hexham Courant newspaper. It quoted a sheep farmer from one of the outlying homesteads who complained that he had lost ten sheep alone in the past month grazing on Wet Rain Hill and Menzie's Hill."
"What were we just saying earlier this evening, Alan, about crime now being displaced into rural areas?" noted Rhoda Crawford. Her husband responded with a wry smile of acknowledgement.
The vicar continued: "The newspaper article reminded us how, in times past, sheep rustling had been a big problem in this part of the world: the borders between England and Scotland. And now it looks like history is repeating itself again."
"Hopefully, we won't have history repeating itself in other respects. After all, we don't want the village church to be occupied again by Scottish zealots," said Alan Crawford in an attempt at levity, referring to an event that had apparently occurred during the First English Civil War. But once again, Alan Crawford became conscious that he may have said something not suitable for the company of a vicar. Geoffrey Adams, however, just smiled and made a comment about not having any plans to hide the current church bell down Bell Hollow.
The conversation swung back to the Humes. Rhoda Crawford remarked how difficult it must have been for Nok Hume to come and live in the village. It was a move that represented a drastic change in culture, not to mention a severe change in climate. The unpleasant rumours surrounding the Humes would surely compound these difficulties. Rhoda Crawford was also mindful of the problem the Humes had been experiencing with the strange newcomer to the village, but chose not mention this. On a more positive note, she noted that most people seemed to have come to accept the Humes as very much part of the village. Many people in the village spoke of Nok's evident warmth and charm. Alan Crawford mentioned that his mother thought the world of her, and had come to regard her almost as a daughter. In return, Nok had done a lot to assist old Mrs Crawford. She lent a helping hand whenever necessary, and had even begun to introduce Mrs Crawford to Thai cooking, which the latter had taken up with enthusiasm.
The topic of conversation then moved onto the less weighty issue of the day's soccer results. In the midst of this, Alan Crawford happened to notice a figure hastily entering the pub, and gently drew his wife's attention to the fact by gently nudging her leg. The Crawfords concealed their interest in this new arrival from the vicar who was sitting with his back to the door, and was not able to see the comings-and-goings from the pub without turning around. Mr X. was visible standing just inside the entrance of the pub. He appeared shocked and disoriented, and seemed to look straight though the crowded bar as if he was transfixed and still viewing something that had previously passed before his eyes. "I believe it's our man: Mr X. Let's see if I can get a good look at this fellow," thought Alan Crawford to himself. "Please excuse me a moment," he announced, standing up from the table and giving the impression that he wished to visit the gents'.
\*\* (5) \*\*
David Crawford and his grandmother sat together watching television. The programme they were watching was a drama based on the events in a hospital somewhere in London. There were several threads to the storyline, but the main thing seemed to be that there were a lot of agitated and unstable people in the hospital. This included the doctors and nurses who worked there, and the patients and their family members who visited them. There was also an obvious attempt in the drama to educate the viewers against certain evil practices; these included visiting the accident and emergencies department with a minor ailment, and taking illicit drugs. The possible consequences of both these actions were exemplified with considerable effect in the drama. Strangely enough, David was beginning to feel not quite himself. He didn't exactly feel unwell: it was just that something was not quite right. His head felt slightly lighter than normal. He considered the possibility that he might be going down with the flu. Some of his friends had been absent from the sixth-form college he attended for over a week with this ailment. There was also the possibility that it might be the result of the almost overwhelming warmth and stuffiness of the cottage living room. His grandmother needed extra warmth because of her age, and so the gas fire was as usual turned up to its maximum level.
When the episode of the drama they had been watching ended, his grandmother went to the kitchen. She reappeared again about five minutes later with two mugs of hot chocolate. "You look a bit flushed, pet. Is the fire too hot for you?" she inquired with concern in her voice. "No, I'm okay Gran. Thanks," he replied, taking one of the mugs of hot chocolate from her. He knew that his grandmother would prioritise his comfort above hers if he indicated that the room was indeed too hot. Besides, he could go and stand in the kitchen for a few minutes to cool off, and open the kitchen door to clear his head. In the meantime, he blew across the surface of the steamy, creamy hot chocolate and then took a sip. His grandmother sat back down and glanced at the evening news that was now on the television. For her, the news these days seemed to cover mainly incomprehensible events in far-off locations. Apart from the fact that the events were invariably distressing, the places in which many of them took place seemed so totally alien and unrecognisable. Where were these places when she was younger? Were people actually living peaceably in Kosovo, or in East Timor, or in any of the other current hot spots all those years ago when she was still a young woman? Or did these places and their tormented inhabitants just suddenly appear one day as if out of nowhere, possibly sometime after the introduction of decimalization? The international news was followed by the local news, which once again had an item on the murder of the young woman in Newcastle-upon-Tyne the previous night. This reminded her that terrible things also happened to innocent people much nearer home. On the report, the police appealed for witnesses to come forward. The police admitted that they had nothing much to go on so far. Police security cameras did not cover the relatively secluded part of the city where the murder had apparently taken place. They did, however, have some grainy footage of her walking alone down Dean Street. After a few moments, the young women stepped out of the range of the security cameras and then no doubt in a few terrible moments more stepped off the world. Elsie Crawford sighed and felt consumed by grief. She also felt angry and helpless. Then she looked at her grandson and wondered what type of world he would eventually live in when she had gone.
In an attempt to lighten up her mood, she decided to speak to her grandson. "It's strange that Paul Jackson hasn't come over to see you this evening," she pointed out, referring to a friend of her grandson who lived in the cottage directly across the road. "Yes, I thought he might drop by," replied David. "Maybe he's gone out with some other friends." This was his indirect way of saying that Paul Jackson had gone out with his girlfriend. At seventeen years of age, Paul Jackson was one year older than David Crawford. "I expect I'll see him tomorrow," he added.
"I can't imagine him walking around the village on a night like this. Listen to that wind!" commented his grandmother, as the windows in the cottage shuddered under the strain of a particularly strong gust. "Why don't you give him a call? Invite him over here, if you wish. You can both watch 'Match of the Day' later on," she suggested, referring to the popular television programme that covered the highlights of the day's main soccer matches. Right on cue, as if part of a contrived scene in a stage play, there was a sudden knock on the front door of the cottage. "That's probably him," David said, standing up to answer the door.
"Hello, Paul," said Elsie Crawford as Paul Jackson entered the living room. "Are you okay pet? You look upset," she said noticing the uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. "I'm okay, thanks, Mrs Crawford," answered Paul Jackson, and then added: "But my cat, Katy, is missing. We haven't seen her for three days. When she didn't return last night we were concerned. But not turning up today means that surely something is seriously wrong with her."
"Wow, that is weird!" hollowed David. "And the funny thing is we were just talking earlier this evening about the disappearance of cats from the village." He now felt that the malaise he had experienced earlier in the evening begin to lift. This seemed to follow the breath of cold fresh air taken when answering the door. Yes, he now definitely felt much better, maybe even slightly elated. But surely this could not be attributed to some sort of schadenfreude at hearing of his friend's distress. Perhaps he was just galvanized by the excitement of realising that there was evidently a real mystery in the village, even if it was perhaps, at least to someone who didn't own a cat, a relatively trivial one.
David's grandmother, however, nodded as if acknowledging some awful truth. She once again mentioned the case of her friend's missing cat, without recounting the spiteful remarks that had been made about the cats possibly being used as meat by the Thai takeaway. Her friend's remarks on this matter had annoyed and upset her, and she didn't want to be a party to the rumours now spreading around the village. Elsie Crawford knew that Jack and Nok Hume couldn't possibly have had anything to do with these disappearances. It was probably some youths from the Forestry Flats playing cruel pranks. Then suddenly, a childhood memory pushed its way unexpectedly into her consciousness. The recollection was both profound and slightly disconcerting. It was something that was not part of those thoughts and experiences frequently recalled because of their importance and links with the present. Nor was it one of those strange and unimportant memories that for some unfathomable reason the mind sees fit to retain and recycle for evermore. This was a package of events and feelings experienced, stored and then almost lost. She was a young girl again in the village of Wet Rain Hill and her cat, her darling little cat, with its insatiable appetite for salmon and trout heads was missing. It had been missing for a whole day. She was crying and sobbing uncontrollably as she walked around the village calling out its name: "Katy, Katy ... Katy". Yes, strangely she had also called her cat Katy rather than something like: Kitty. She had wanted her cat to be known by a less common appellation. Then she was lying in bed at night trying to come to terms with this new and unwelcome emotion: profound sadness. Her parents had promised to get her a new cat, which was surely a sign that they thought her cat would never return home again. She never did see Katy again.
"Gran, are you okay?" boomed a young, familiar and anxious voice.
"Yes, I'm okay. Don't worry about me, pet," she replied, bringing herself back to the present. "Just now, you looked so strange. Are you sure everything is okay Gran?" asked her grandson with concern. "Everything is fine. I was just thinking about the cat, that's all," she replied. Then she turned to Paul Jackson, and asked: "Aren't you staying Paul?" She was referring to the fact that he had still not taken off his coat. "I was only going to stay for a couple of minutes Mrs Crawford," he replied. "I need to continue looking for Katy. I've only looked around the village, including the graveyard because she sometimes plays in there. I think I'll go and have a wander down Wet Rain Hill."
"It's no ..." She was going to say that it was no use, but instead said: "It's no night to be wandering around the hill. You'll get blown away." Paul Jackson smiled at her, but did not otherwise respond. Then he pulled out a torch from the inside of his pocket and began to fidget with it. This indicated that, despite Mrs Crawford's advice and the foul weather outside, he did intend to continue his search for his missing cat. "What a poor thing," sighed Elsie Crawford. This was a statement that could apply either to the cat or to Paul Jackson. "Gran, I'm going out to help Paul look for his cat. I need to clear my head as well. Don't worry, we'll stay near to the cottage," said David going out to the hallway to collect his coat. His grandmother looked concerned. "Why don't you just look over into Wet Rain Hill from the garden at the back? Paul has a torch," she suggested as he reappeared with his coat. "You don't need to go charging down the hill in the dark tonight." The sudden recollection that she had seen a figure snooping around the back of the cottages a few days ago increased her anxiety. "And David, please only stay out for five or ten minutes. What will your father and mother say to me if anything happens to you?" she asked.
"Nothing is going to happen, Gran. We're only looking for a cat, not an escaped convict!" said her grandson in reassuring tones. "And besides, just as Dad said this evening, nothing ever happens in Wet Rain Hill anymore."
"Except the disappearance of its cats," countered Elsie Crawford.
As he opened the door and stepped out from the kitchen into the darkness of the garden at the back of the cottage, David had the sensation of crossing a threshold into a different realm. For a start, there was an abrupt change in the temperature. The cloying heat of the cottage was replaced by the raw coldness of the night. The cottage itself and the stone wall surrounding the garden seemed to have little or no effect in offering any form of shelter from the wind. The turbulence of the night air made him momentarily gasp for breath. It was like wading into a deep, tempestuous and invisible ocean. The wind tried furiously to wrest the door from his grip and to send it crashing back into his companion's face. David held onto the door handle with all his strength until the burden was taken over by his friend coming behind him. Then the two young men struggled along the short garden path towards the wall, which faced onto the hill. A myriad of stars peppered the bible black moonless night sky above.
Leaning forwards on the stone garden wall, they gazed into the darkness that engulfed the hillside before them. All that could be seen in the distance were isolated spots of light coming from a few homesteads to the east and west, or lights from the occasional vehicle on Boldlaw Road to the west. For a while, they did not speak to each other, and only listened to the strange tune that was being played this particular evening by the wind. Everything above the ground seemed to be vibrating, shuddering, clashing, hissing and whistling. An empty overturned metal bucket waltzed erratically around the small patio in one corner of the garden, only its weight prevented it from being lifted over the wall and flung down the hill.
Paul Jackson took out his torch and shone it down the hillside. The beam illuminated tufts of grass amidst bare patches of rocky earth nearby the cottage. The steep curvature of the hill created a horizon, below which, the torchlight could not reach. As he swept the beam to the left, a group of sheep was caught by it huddled up against the high stone wall of the village school next door. Startled by the torchlight, their shallow caprine eyes gazed back in fear and incomprehension at the source. Then the sheep jostled each other in panic and eventually shuffled away out of sight. Paul Jackson then directed the beam to the right towards that part of the hill behind the Humes' cottage. Almost immediately, a light came on in the kitchen at the back of the cottage. "Switch it off," gasped David. "They'll think someone's snooping around their cottage again." Paul Jackson switched off his torch. Unlike the living room at the back of the Humes' cottage, the curtains in the kitchen were not drawn. Nok Hume could be seen taking something from the refrigerator. She evidently, however, could not see the two figures leaning over the garden wall next door. A few moments later the kitchen light was switched off and the sound of the audience laughing on the television programme the Humes were watching could be heard as Nok Hume returned back into the living room of her cottage.
"It's hopeless, isn't it?" gulped Paul Jackson, barely audible as the wind grabbed his words and scrambled them into the valley below. "There's no way we're going to find her out there tonight." David responded with a non-committal nod of his head. There was no gate leading out from the garden onto the hill, only a ledge in the form of a large flat stone projecting out from both sides of the wall that made climbing over it easier. Paul Jackson stepped up onto this ledge and switched on his torch again. Then he clambered completely onto the top of the stone wall and began shining his torch down the hill. From this elevated position, he was able to see further down the hill than before. But for some reason, David felt slightly irritated by this manoeuvre. Perhaps it was because he felt that his friend was being slightly presumptuous in clambering around property that was not his own. And maybe it was also because he didn't like being looked down upon, not to mention being left in the dark.
"Wow, you should see this, Dave! Liz's Rock really looks weird there in the distance," Paul Jackson said turning towards David. At that very moment, the torch beam strayed slightly from its original direction and for an instant caught something moving down the hill. Only David was looking in that direction and only he saw it. Frozen, he was unable to respond to his friend's comments in any meaningful way. Instead, he stood in a trance trying to come to terms with what he had apparently just seen on the hill. It was either the most remarkable trick his imagination had ever played on him, or it was something that absolutely did not fit into the world or scheme of things that he had been living in up to that very moment. He was just about to try to communicate to Paul Jackson about what he had just seen when something else distracted the both of them. It was the sound of someone shouting. "What the hell is going on?" exclaimed Paul Jackson, using his torch to search the darkness for the source of the noise. Cries of hysteria, of terror, were borne out of the darkness by the wind. For a few seconds the torch beam could not locate anything moving on the hill, then suddenly Paul Jackson yelled out: "Look Dave, it's that weird guy who's lives alone in Church Lane!"
A figure could be seen running along the hill from the general direction of Liz's Rock towards Boldlaw Road. He was evidently unconcerned by the torchlight emanating from somewhere above him. His clearly had other more pressing concerns at present. Nothing, however, could be seen following him on the hill. As far as they could see, he was alone, and eventually ran to a point someway down the hill where he reached the dry stone wall dividing Wet Rain Hill from Boldlaw Road. Then, he flung himself over the wall onto the road and disappeared from sight.
"Please don't tell my Gran that we've seen someone snooping around out there; it'll frighten her to death," demanded David Crawford in a firm but hushed tone, as they both returned back into the kitchen a few minutes later. "I won't say a word," agreed Paul Jackson, and then he continued: "but I think this guy must be some sort of pervert: a peeping Tom."
"Well, I overheard this evening that some guy in the village has got the hots for Nok next door, and he has been making a nuisance of himself," said David. "I wouldn't be surprised if that was him."
"Crikey! But I'd like to know why he is running around screaming and shouting like someone demented. He's not going to get much peeping done at that rate. I reckon he must have been high on LSD or something like that."
"I don't know. Maybe he saw something that scared him," suggested David thoughtfully. He decided not to mention to his friend anything about what he believed he had seen moments before.
"Anyway, please, not a word," pleaded David once again as they both entered the living room. The television program: 'Match of the Day' had already begun.
\*\* (6) \*\*
David Crawford slept poorly that night. The little sleep he managed to get was filled with strange and violent dreams. In one of them, he was chased by a pack of preternatural cats across the slopes of Wet Rain Hill. Then, in a manner possible only within the terrible logic of a nightmare, the fearsome cats were transmogrified into a pack of fast-moving jaw-snapping crocodiles. Racing across the inclines of Wet Rain Hill, exhausted and terrified, he struggled to flee from the terrible reptilian horde that pursued him. But as he sensed that the creatures were close on his heels he found himself, oblivious of the unrealistic discontinuity in his situation, suddenly standing in the graveyard of St George's church helping his friend Paul Jackson look for his lost cat. The cat then appeared before them, standing by an old moss-covered gravestone. But when Paul Jackson approached this spot to try to retrieve the cat, the earth around the gravestone opened up and swallowed him screaming into its depths. His last memory of this alternative ontological realm was that of fleeing in blind panic from the graveyard, out through the lich gate onto Church Lane, only to encounter an equally hysterical Mr X running towards him.
Sunday morning was bright and bitterly cold. The high winds had now completely died down. David Crawford awoke with a start. His heart pounded, and his body was convulsed with pain: a residue of the terror of his nightmare. It seemed to take several minutes for these feelings to finally subside. He lay in bed thinking about what he could have possibly seen the previous evening. These thoughts simultaneously terrified and fascinated him. But even now, so soon after the event, it had already begun to feel much less real. The boundary between reality and imagination or dreams had become confused and indistinct.
The Crawford family took Sunday lunch just after noon, which was their usual time. There was, however, one change to the normal proceedings on this day. Professor Brock, who owned the cottage situated one up from of the village school, had been invited to have lunch with them. He did not normally reside in the village and usually only spent weekends in Wet Rain Hill. For the rest of the time he stayed in Durham, which was about a forty-minute drive away by car. Professor Brock was a professor of archaeology at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was in his mid-fifties, and had lived alone ever since his wife died in a freak accident in their home three years ago. It was not long after that time that Professor Brock had bought his cottage in the village. He had stated at the time that the visits to the cottage gave him an opportunity to recover from his sudden bereavement. Moreover, the location of the village of Wet Rain Hill gave him a base from which he could carry out some archaeological research in the area.
Professor Brock's local archaeological interest was the gathering of evidence about the settlements that had been at Wet Rain Hill in prehistoric times. Predating the village's medieval origins, and like many similar highpoints in the surrounding countryside, there was some evidence that the hill would have been used by the Romans as a hilltop fort around two thousand years ago. At an earlier date, around two thousand five hundred years ago, there was a strong likelihood that the hill would have been an iron-age fort. Once again, this supposition could be supported by comparison with similar hilltop settlements in the region. But what particularly interested Professor Brock were the inhabitants of Wet Rain Hill stretching even further back into prehistory. The markings on Liz's Rock were evidence of stone-age inhabitants living around five thousand years ago. But non-monument-building nomadic tribes were known to be active in Northumberland as far back as at least eight thousand ears ago. Shortly after this time, relatively speaking, the ice sheets of the last great ice age had withdrawn from Britain.
The local press had simplified and popularised some of Professor Brocks' work on the prehistory of the region. Consequently, he was well on his way to becoming something of a minor local celebrity. Television and local radio appearances were becoming increasingly frequent for him. There was, however, one aspect of his work considered by some to be rather controversial. It was also probably one reason why the local press had picked up on him and his work in the first place. Within the discipline or science of archaeology, he had become an expert in the study of the use of hallucinogenic substances by prehistoric man. His work emphasised their use in ancient shamanistic ceremonies, and the role that they may have even played in the evolution of human intelligence. Some popularised presentations of his work had conjured up silly descriptions of cavemen getting high whilst eating magic mushrooms and drinking deer urine. He had also been criticised because some people believed that if not advocating then at least he was glorifying the use of drugs. These were charges that he vehemently denied, countering them by saying that they were simple-minded and offensive.
In his most recent research, which had not yet been reported by the press, he had been involved in something much less controversial. He had been making an attempt to decipher and interpret the ancient markings on Liz's Rock. He had recently published a research paper on this subject in a respected scientific journal. In this research paper, he had postulated that the markings on Liz's Rock were inextricably linked to the presence of Bell Hollow nearby. He had also suggested that there would need to be an exploration of this cave in order to obtain a further understanding of the ancient markings. In fact, Professor Brock had made plans to organise a university expedition to the cave. This would be the first recorded exploration of Bell Hollow, at least in modern times.
Professor Brock had taken lunch with the Crawfords at the cottage on several occasions before. Although he was an academic, he did not appear to have the arrogance and overweening sense of self-importance that some of his kind possess. He was willing, and able, to express his work clearly to non-experts without being patronising or abstruse. He originated from the north east of England, and had what is generally known as a working-class background. After passing through the English comprehensive system, he had gone on to study anthropology and archaeology at the University of Durham, which was a world-renowned centre for this subject. The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne where he now worked had in fact, up until it gained its independence in nineteen sixty-three, been a college of the University of Durham. Further graduate study at the University of Durham had resulted in Samuel Nazarene Brock obtaining a Ph.D. in anthropology and archaeology. The title of his research thesis was Sacrificial Murder in pre-Roman Britain. His later pioneering work in the study of the use and role of hallucinogens in prehistoric society had earned him the title of professor.
As usual, the conversation at the Sunday lunch table ranged over a variety of disparate subjects. The local football results were discussed at first. And then the murder of the young women in Newcastle-upon-Tyne was mentioned. Professor Brock explained that he had first heard of the murder on the radio when driving to Wet Rain Hill on Saturday morning. He was naturally shocked and slightly concerned for the safety of his students who were approximately the same age as the victim, and who also liked to socialise in the city centre. Following the subject of the murder, recent happenings in the village were discussed, particularly the disappearance of cats and sheep. Alan Crawford, however, did not feel it was appropriate to mention the rumours circulating the village connecting the Humes' takeaway with the disappearance of the cats. He did not initiate any discussion of the individual, known by the Crawford family simply as Mr X. Elsie Crawford made no mention of the fact that she had seen a stranger prowling nearby her cottage. And neither Alan Crawford nor his son mentioned their observations from the previous evening. David, however, had already told his father late last night how he and Paul Jackson had seen Mr X frantically running and screaming across the hill. Alan Crawford had already connected this with Mr X's arrival in the Blackbird public house the previous evening in a distressed state.
Then out of a mixture of politeness and genuine interest, Alan Crawford turned the conversation towards Professor Brock's work. Professor Brock mentioned his latest research concerning Liz's Rock, which had been accomplished mostly on his weekend trips to Wet Rain Hill. Alan Crawford asked Professor Brock to explain in layman's terms how he generally went about his work. Professor Brock began by trying to draw similarities between his modus operandi and that of a detective at a crime scene. Evidence had to be sought, gathered and sifted through meticulously. Great care had to be taken to ensure that something apparently insignificant and irrelevant, but which was in fact vital to a complete understanding, was not overlooked or discarded. Considering the analogy between archaeology and detective work, Alan Crawford interrupted Professor Brock to suggest that perhaps one major difference, however, was the lack of eyewitnesses. Witting or unwitting, crimes often had eyewitnesses. In prehistorical research, however, there would seem to be no credible eyewitnesses of which to speak of; no written records or testimonies. Professor Brock agreed, and pointed out that this was in fact the very definition of prehistory: namely, that which relates to the period before written records. He then explained that despite all these difficulties it was still possible to make some progress in this field. New technology and computers had brought particularly new and exciting possibilities for this work. Computers could tirelessly and faultlessly process and analyse data. Mathematical algorithms could be used to crack codes and translate languages. Images of objects could be enhanced and improved. Samples of materials could be digitally sniffed and identified. A variety of possible historical scenarios could be modelled and simulated. Records could be compared and exchanged over the Internet, and so on. The list of possibilities was forever expanding. Alan Crawford pointed out that much of what the professor had just said could also now be applied to police work and crime solving. The use of computers and new technology had also revolutionised the world of crime solving.
"And as in the case of solving a crime, establishing a motive is also important in my work," said Professor Brock, as desert was being served.
"But in the case of some crimes surely the motive is not always apparent," remarked Rhoda Crawford. "Take for example the senseless murder of that poor girl on Friday evening. The murderer gained nothing. He was simply evil, and was probably high on drugs as well." Professor Brock nodded gravely in response to these comments. It was possibly the mention of drugs and the controversy surrounding this subject in connection with his work that made him momentarily hesitate. He had often repeated and emphasised that he himself had never ever used any drugs: soft or hard. And that despite his insight into the subject, the closest he had ever come to directly experiencing the effects of such drugs had been to read Thomas De Quincey's nineteenth-century classic: Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Eventually, Professor Brock replied grimly: "I think you'll find there's probably a motive of sorts there as well. However base it may be."
Alan Crawford steered the discussion away from the murder and back towards Professor Brock's work. "What would you say was the motive in the case of the markings on Liz's Rock?" he asked.
"Primarily, the motivation I would say was religious. Compared to us, the people who made the markings and carvings on Liz's Rock had a very different mental outlook on the world in which they found themselves. The world of dreams, of trances and of visions would have been to them a real and undifferentiated part of their existence. They would have seen and felt spirits all around them, in the rocks and trees, in the streams and rivers, and in the animals they hunted such as deer and goats. The spirits of the dead would return in dreams and trances to advise, warn or chastise them. We generally use the term shamanism to classify this type of early religion. Some people in the group or tribe, the shamans, would have been regarded as having special powers that gave them access to the spirit world. In my opinion, the markings on Liz's Rock appear to be an attempt to communicate with the spirit in the rock," answered Professor Brock.
"And they must have truly believed that there was a big spirit in Liz's rock to do all that work on it," suggested Alan Crawford.
"Yes, indeed. And they may have gone to all that trouble, because they were either asking for a very big favour or they had a very big problem. I believe that they were, in effect, asking the rock to move onto the top of Bell Hollow. They wanted to block the entrance of Bell Hollow, but didn't have the manpower or the technology to move the huge stone. They believed that moving it would offer them the protection they were seeking," explained the professor.
"But protection from what?" asked Alan Crawford.
"I don't know for sure. But clearly they were seeking protection from something they perceived to be potentially baleful or harmful. Maybe it was from something they thought was causing sickness or disease to the people in the area. There are other possible explanations as well. Maybe they wanted protection from unhappy spirits of the departed. Or maybe they were seeking protection from unfriendly strangers or wild animals that were making incursions into their territory to steal food and animals. But based on my study of the markings, whatever was the cause of their fear had I believe a definite link with Bell Hollow."
There was a brief pause in the conversation at this point. Alan Crawford was tempted to interject a mildly jocular remark, but decided that to do so would be unbecoming. It was his son who, instead, uttered more or less the same remark that he had in mind. "The Stone Age inhabitants of Wet Rain Hill were probably tired of having all their cats disappear. And probably supposed that they were jumping down Bell Hollow," said David, very conscious that fortunately Paul Jackson wasn't around to hear this slightly cruel joke. "Well, I can certainly rule cats out of the picture," said Professor Brock responding quickly with a degree of earnestness that might not have been expected in the circumstances. "You see, the first domestic cat didn't appear in Britain until after the first Crusades to the Middle East about nine hundred years ago. But sheep were domesticated thousands of years earlier, and they may have been kept by, as you put it, the Stone Age inhabitants of Wet Rain Hill. So, it may have been the case that they were indeed loosing their sheep down Bell Hollow."
Elsie Crawford, who had been listening quietly to the discussion, asked to be excused from the table in order to go into the kitchen. The professor thanked and complimented her on the delicious lunch before continuing: "Anyway, I hope to do some exploration of Bell Hollow sometime early next year with a team from my university. This might give us some extra insight. It would be really exciting if proof of a link between Liz's Rock and Bell Hollow could be established. There's also the exciting prospect of finding something of archaeological interest in Bell Hollow: maybe bones, animal and human, as well as tools."
"Finding the old church bell would be something," suggested David.
"Yes, it would. Finding the church bell from St George's would be something of a coup. But I'm also hoping for something more ancient than that."
After desert had been eaten, Professor Brock together with Alan Crawford and his son remained sitting at the table. In the cottage, the division of labour on the occasion of Sunday lunches still followed traditional lines: Rhoda Crawford had now joined Elsie Crawford in the kitchen in order to wash the dishes and clean up. Continuing the discussion, Alan Crawford broached the subject of drugs, specifically Stone Age drugs. He was well aware of the effects that the taking of certain types of drugs had on some people nowadays. It started with a desire to escape for a brief period of time into an alternative, perhaps ecstatic, state of reality, whether it was simply a pleasurable high or something akin to the Stone Age shaman entering the alternative realm of the spirits. This was inevitably followed by a return to the humdrum reality of everyday life. But for some, the urge to return again and again to this altered state was compelling. Inconveniently, this addiction needed to be financed, and crime would invariably be the financier. Within this diabolical spiral of cause and effect, the drugs themselves would make people more willing to take risks in the thefts and robberies that they carried out, and would even make some more unconscionable in the use of violence to perpetrate these crimes.
"The substances these ancient shamans used to enter into the realm of the spirits would have included some of the plants, shrubs, tree barks, and fungi growing naturally around them," explained Professor Brock. "It is perhaps a surprise for many people to learn that several common or garden plants and herbs can cause extreme hallucinogenic effects when prepared and taken in the right way; for example, certain types of sage or mint. The ancient botanists would have learned this by trial and error over time."
"And what about deer pee: is it true they drank that?" asked David gleefully.
"Yes, there probably is some truth in it. But the deer urine would only be effective if the deer had been nibbling on certain mushrooms and plants beforehand and had then processed their constituents."
"Don't tell me they found that one out by trial and error," said Alan Crawford smirking.
"Well, now you understand why Santa Clause's reindeer were able to fly," said the professor laughing. He continued: "The substances would not have been as socially destabilising as they are nowadays. Knowledge of these substances would have been held only by a select few: the Shamans, as I mentioned before. Their usage would have been also restricted to this select group. The revelations that these substances were capable of producing would have been too much for those that did not have the special knowledge to interpret them correctly. Anyone taking these substances would enter a world where they could see, hear and smell things that were not accessible to others. They would also be able to glimpse usually hidden aspects of apparently inanimate objects. For example, a simple stick lying on the ground when seen through these new eyes might become a giant snake, or a rock a giant salamander lizard."
"Hence the name Liz's Rock?" suggested David seizing on this allusion, and then added: "Maybe the rock on Wet Rain Hill had a tendency to turn into a lizard in the eyes of someone under the influence of such a drug."
Professor Brock paused for a moment, and then responded with a smile: "I wasn't specifically referring to Liz's rock in that final example. Interesting, however, you made that link, David. But if Liz is indeed an abbreviation of Lizard, which I believe is itself an English word with Latin roots, the current name of the rock couldn't possibly have originated from the period in question. This was a time when a long forgotten language would have been used, one that could have had no connection whatsoever with the relatively modern language of Latin, brought to these islands by the Romans about two thousand years ago. It could be argued, however, that the underlying meaning of the name may have been preserved. Perhaps it was called something equivalent to Liz's or Lizard's rock in some long lost ancient tongue, and this name was effectively translated at various times and carried down through the ages. In my opinion, that would be unlikely in this case, because over the ages such an association of the rock with a lizard would have required a constant reinforcement of the idea. For example, people in this area would still have had to have seen a lizard in the rock during the Middle Ages when shamanistic practices or the use of hallucinogens were far from the norm. I believe that Liz, simply as the diminutive of the name Elizabeth, has been suggested as the most likely source of the rock's name. Nevertheless, David, I agree with the approach of looking for meaning and explanation in the names of things and places. Sometimes familiarity with a particular name dulls our perception to this principle. I have a colleague who has lived for a few years in a town called Morpeth, which is just north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The name had always struck him as rather curious, until one day he found out that Morpeth was in fact a contraction of Murder Path. This was a reference to the place's reputation in the past as a dangerous spot for highwaymen and brigands. The past history of the town, or the surrounding area, was in fact encapsulated in its name."
Elsie and Rhoda Crawford reappeared from the kitchen after completing their chores. Overhearing the tail end of Professor Brock's discussion on the significance of place names, Rhoda Crawford asked about the background to the name of the village of Wet Rain Hill. But before the professor could respond to this, Elsie provided the generally accepted reason, explaining how the inclination of the land meant that a large amount of the rainwater falling onto the village drained down the hill behind her cottage into Liz's Burn. This particular hillside was the actual Wet Rain Hill. The name of the village followed straight from this.
"How long have you lived in Wet Rain Hill, Mrs Crawford?" asked the professor. "Oh, well I lived here as a child, but not in this same cottage. Then when I got married, I moved out with my husband to Hexham. That was where Alan was born and brought up. Then, five years ago I moved back into the village and into this cottage. So my life started in this village, and I dare say that it will end in this village as well," replied Elsie Crawford. "You must have some fond memories about life in the village. What was it like living here as a child?" continued the professor.
"It was wonderful. My father was a forester, and my mother was a domestic servant. I know that life was sometimes difficult for my parents, but life for me as a child in Wet Rain Hill was simply wonderful. I remember that we seemed to have such warm summers. There were hills to run down, streams to ford and trees to climb. And even for a girl, so many adventures to be had. As children, we used to imagine that witches and warlocks lived in Bell Hollow. I can still remember looking down with fascination into the darkness of the cave, and wondering where it ended. I can also particularly recall one day, whilst playing with friends that we thought we heard a noise coming out of the cave. It was like a groan coming from deep within the earth. Then screaming with terror and perhaps some excitement as well, we ran as quickly as we could back up the hill to the safety of the village. My parents were furious with me because they had repeatedly warned me against playing beside the cave. They told me that if I fell inside the cave I would never be able to see them again. That really scared me. But as a child, of course, I was naturally very curious about things. In addition, we were all aware of the story of Menzie, the shepherd, who had gone mad up on the hill opposite to Wet Rain Hill. At that time, there were one or two old people still alive in the village that had known him. They said he had gone mad because one day, whilst tending his sheep, he heard something in Bell Hollow. And after having gone to investigate, thinking perhaps that someone had fallen into the cave, he had seen something terrible either inside the cave or coming out of it. Anyway, that's what they say. One old lady said that Menzie must have seen Old Nick, the Devil himself, coming up from hell," recounted the old lady.
"Did you ever see anything odd, Gran?" asked David urgently.
"No. I never saw Old Nick or anything else. Nor did anyone I knew personally see anything odd. And as far as I know, the shepherd who eventually replaced Menzie on the hill never saw anything strange. He certainly never ran away, and spent all of his remaining life in the village. Though he didn't stay in Menzie's Hut, but lived somewhere in the village instead."
"What about the bell, Elsie, which is supposedly still in Bell Hollow. Were there any particular stories about it?" asked Rhoda.
"The generally accepted tale, as you perhaps already know, is that the villagers tried to hide it there during the First English Civil War," explained Elise. "There is a picture in one of the stained glass windows in St George's church showing the villagers lowering a bell into the cave using ropes and pulleys. But no one is really sure why the villagers needed to hide the church bell in the cave. Maybe they considered it to be precious, and didn't want one side or the other in the civil war to take it. I can't ever recall, however, coming across a similar story like this one taking place anywhere else in England. But now that I think of it, I can also remember hearing a tale that in fact gave an alternative explanation as to why the bell was placed inside Bell Hollow. In this particular story, the villagers had actually used the church bell as a large sacred object in order to ward off the Devil, whom they believed lived in Bell Hollow. I was reminded of this when I listened to what Professor Brock said just before lunch about Liz's Rock. It strikes me that what those people might have been trying to do thousands of years ago sounds very similar to what the villagers were trying to do a few hundred years ago; that is if this tale is in fact true. By placing the church bell inside Bell Hollow, the villagers believed they could block the Devil's very passage out from hell. They were trying to protect themselves from what they imagined to be an evil influence."
"That's a very interesting parallel, Mrs Crawford. I wasn't aware of that interpretation, but I'm very glad to have heard it," responded the professor, genuinely impressed by what he had just heard. He then continued: "I made the point earlier that the mental world of the people who made the markings on Liz's Rock was very different to ours. Something similar can be said of the people who lived during the religious convulsions of the seventeenth century. They saw and interpreted things very differently to what we do now. They were deeply superstitious, and dare I say it, very parochial. For them, it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that the Devil lived in Wet Rain Hill. Or at least that he took a sojourn there."
Professor Brock looked at his watch, and after thanking the Crawfords once again for the enjoyable lunch and discussion, explained that he would have to return back to his cottage in order to attend to some work he had brought with him for the weekend. But just before the professor left, David Crawford managed to insert one further question into the proceedings: "Professor Brock, if someone living in these parts thousands of years ago saw a crocodile, how do you think would they describe it?"
The professor hesitated for a moment, slightly confused by the question, which seemed on the face of it to be something of a non sequitur. But he responded: "I would be surprised, David, if someone in ancient Britain had ever seen a crocodile, especially just after the last ice age, long before the Romans came. After all, crocodiles are cold-blooded reptiles, and don't live in these climes. Their metabolism needs warmth and sunshine, so it wouldn't happen. But if by whatever reason they managed to see one, I suppose they would think it was like a lizard; a giant lizard, certainly."
"And people living around the seventeenth century?" asked David.
"The same, I suppose: a lizard. For them, it would be the nearest approximation that they could call upon," replied the professor. "Are you suggesting that 'Crocodile Rock or Croc Rock' would have been a more apt name?" he added smiling whilst forming a mental picture of Elton John, dressed flamboyantly and wearing oversized spectacles, uproariously singing and playing his song bearing the same name on the hill behind the cottage. David Crawford smiled politely, but made no reply.
\*\* (7) \*\*
The scope of the investigation into the murder of the young women that had taken place the previous week in Newcastle-upon-Tyne had widened. The Durham Constabulary were now also involved. The location, where the victim's had been found, was within ten minutes' walk of the city's Central Railway Station. Film footage taken from security cameras showing passengers arriving at the station to catch late-evening trains was examined for possible clues. Apart from local trains running at the time, there was also a train running late in the evening to London's King Cross Station that made a scheduled stop at Durham station approximately fifteen minutes after departure from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Two figures immediately stood out from the other passengers waiting to board this particular train, in that they appeared to run into the station just before the train departed, and only managed to board with seconds to spare. It was not possible, however, to immediately make what would be easily identifiable photo-fits of the two figures from the rather grainy footage. Alan Crawford had been assigned to examine the film taken from a security camera at Durham station on the evening in question. Unfortunately, the security camera at Durham turned out to be faulty, and so provided no useful record of activity at that station. It was therefore impossible to determine from the available film alone if the two people in question had used the London service to make the relatively short train journey to Durham, or whether they had travelled further south. Examining film records from all stations en route, including the train's destination, King's Cross, would be a formidable task; if it was at all possible. Considerable effort in tracing and interviewing the passengers on the train would be required to this end. The film taken at Newcastle-upon-Tyne's Central Railway Station would also need to be enhanced if the two figures were to become recognisable to anyone. And even then, this might turn out to be a false lead. By Wednesday afternoon, because of other commitments, Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford was no longer even partly involved in the murder case.
Throughout the week, Alan Crawford had kept Jack Hume's concerns about the man he referred to as Mr X in mind. He was also slightly worried about the safety of his own mother. But up to now, Mr X had not actually broken any laws. The closest he had come to doing anything that could invite the attention of the police was to be seen late in the evening behind the cottages at the top of Wet Rain Hill. Elsie Crawford had been told that she must inform the police if Mr X. was seen acting suspiciously again. Before returning home on Wednesday evening, Alan Crawford decided to talk to a contact in the Northumbrian Police Force in Hexham. He made a telephone call and asked for information about crimes or anything unusual that had been reported in Wet Rain Hill recently. In making the inquiry, he gave the impression that it might be connected with the murder investigation with which he had had some brief involvement. His Hexham contact promised to make some inquiries for him, saying he would call back in around half-an-hour.
Twenty-five minutes later, Alan Crawford received his return telephone call. His contact said that one thing out of the ordinary, but apparently only trivial, was that the police had been repeatedly receiving calls from a couple of villagers. The callers were beginning to be regarded as something of a nuisance because they were trying to involve the police in the disappearance of their pet cats, and had been told that this was not something precious police time could be spent upon. Slightly more seriously, the Northumbrian police force had increased their vigilance in the area around Wet Rain Hill in an effort to solve the reported cases of sheep rustling. One farmer living in an isolated farm about two miles outside the village had reported loosing several sheep recently. However, no other significant crimes at all had been reported in the village itself for at least the past three months.
Alan Crawford asked for one more favour. Before leaving the village on Sunday evening and returning home, he had made a point of noting down the address of Mr X's flat. He asked his contact if he could find out anything about the person who lived in Flat 2B, Church Lane. A few minutes later, thinking that if at all anything he would not get any information until the following day, Alan Crawford was all set to go home when his telephone rang again. He was told that following a new development, which his contact had not been aware of during the previous call, Hexham police were now themselves interested in the occupant of Flat 2B, Church Lane, Wet Rain Hill.
Hexham police had suddenly become interested in the resident of Flat 2B, Church lane, after being contacted by his landlord concerning his disappearance. The landlord had arrived at the premises earlier in the afternoon to make a spot check, only to find that his tenant was not at home. Claiming that he had not planned to enter the flat without the permission of his tenant, but after looking inside through a window, the landlord had been disturbed by what he had seen. Chairs were overturned, and what looked like the remains of a meal was strewn all over the floor. And even though it was mid afternoon at the time, many of the lights had been left turned on. Following this observation, the landlord had let himself into the flat using his own key, and began looking around. The tenant was nowhere to be seen, but there were indications that he had left the flat in a hurry and perhaps in an agitated state. In the only bedroom, dressing table draws were pulled out and lying on the floor. Dirty clothes lay scattered around. The bathroom was also in a terrible condition. Parts of the floors and walls were splattered with vomit. The landlord had also noticed a small polythene bag partially filled with some kind of white powder lying in the washbasin. It was at this point that he had called the police.
The downstairs flat, converted from one floor of an original two-storey house, had been let out to a man who went by the name of William Avon. The landlord owned several properties in the region, most of them in the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. And because of his experience in letting out properties to overseas students in the city, he had a habit of asking for photocopies of all his tenant's passports. The photocopy of Avon's passport revealed that he was aged forty-three years. The passport in question was a replacement passport, issued by the British Embassy in Bangkok over two years ago. Avon had not been able to provide a previous address within the United Kingdom for the past ten years to his landlord, and had explained that he had lived in Thailand during this period. The departure stamp on his passport from Bangkok Airport revealed that he had left Thailand and presumably entered the United Kingdom around two-and-a-half months ago. His passport also revealed non-tourist visa stamps that gave him permission to remain in Thailand legally up to the time of his departure. There was, however, no indication in the passport of his occupation or profession in Thailand. Also, the section in the back of his passport for providing emergency contacts had been left empty.
After surveying the flat and removing the polythene bag found in the washbasin for analysis, the police had made some initial inquiries with the neighbours. William Avon's immediate neighbour in the flat above was an elderly lady. She was asked if she had seen him recently, and had replied that she had not done so since last week but remembered hearing him inside his flat very late on the previous Saturday evening. He had been heard speaking very loudly, even shouting, but she hadn't heard any other people in the flat. The neighbour thought that Avon might have been on the telephone at the time. Later, she could recall hearing doors being clashed and what sounded like furniture being knocked over. This type of thing had never happened before, and she had supposed he was drunk. Normally, he was reasonably quiet and quite reserved, generally keeping himself to himself. The neighbour eventually fell asleep that night, and since then hadn't heard anything more from him. Similar stories emerged from the few other neighbours who were in at the time the police made their inquiries in the late afternoon.
Alan Crawford now felt that it was his duty to disclose to the Hexham police what he knew about the tenant of Flat 2B, Church Lane. He mentioned that William Avon had been observed behaving suspiciously on Wet Rain Hill. He also explained how his mother's next-door neighbours were particularly anxious about Avon's behaviour. Finally, Detective Crawford told Hexham police that he himself had seen Avon late on Saturday evening entering the Blackbird public house in Wet Rain Hill in what appeared to be a distressed state.
At home that evening, Alan Crawford telephoned his mother in Wet Rain Hill. He wanted to check if everything was okay. She confirmed that everything was fine. He confirmed with her that the family would be visiting at the weekend as usual. After this, he telephoned Jack Hume, and told him about William Avon and the circumstances surrounding his disappearance from the flat in Church Lane. And with the understanding that the information was confidential, he also told Jack Hume that a polythene bag filled with what was suspected to be an illicit substance had been removed from the flat for analysis by the police laboratories. It appeared to be that Avon was a user of drugs, and a social misfit who may have formed some interest in Jack Hume's wife because of the Thailand connection. In Alan Crawford's mind, nevertheless, it seemed to be a disturbing coincidence that Avon had been in Thailand when the Humes had lived there, and that after they had moved, he had effectively followed them back to Wet Rain Hill.
\*\* (8) \*\*
December finally arrived. Night seemed to be almost continuous, interrupted begrudgingly by a few hours of cold grey daylight. Icy rains fell. Easterly winds blew across the stark dormant landscape where two thousand years ago men from warmer lands had been here to witness this lowest ebb of the seasons. Cursing and complaining, they had stamped their feet to keep warm on the ramparts of the hilltop fort. They had watched vigilantly over this northern frontier of civilisation, searching for any signs of the approach of their implacable foes. Foes who, apparently against the normal run of nature, thrived in this damp and chilled land. Off duty, these soldiers of Rome had warmed their hands over campfires and had written letters back home to loved ones. They had told of how much they missed the comforts and pleasures of home, and of how they counted the days to the time when they could leave this alien and uncomfortable outpost of the known world. Some also spoke of their fears of a strange cave situated down the hill from the fort and within sight of the great rock that the Brigantes called the Table of the Lizards. A cave rumoured to be an entrance to the lower world: the darkened place where Pluto ruled over the shades of the dead.
Back in the present, in the season of darkness, the countdown had begun to the celebration of that ancient festival of light. Christmas decorations of every description, and degrees of garishness, could be seen in almost every home in the village of Wet Rain Hill. Doorways, windows and even gardens were decorated. A large Christmas tree with large bulbous fairy lights had been placed on the village green. The village church notice board was covered with a poster that laid claim to this festival of light. 'Thank God for Christmas' said the poster. But even the guardians of the hilltop fort would have recognised aspects of what was taking place. This had been, after all, originally their festival of light and of feasting, which they called Saturnalia, after Saturn, father of Pluto.
Flat 2B, Church Lane, Wet Rain Hill, however, was devoid of Christmas decorations. It stood cold and empty. Its former occupant had not been seen or heard of since his disappearance about two weeks earlier. The white powder in the polythene bag taken from the flat by the police had now been analysed, and had been found to be an extremely potent and as yet unnamed hallucinogen made from types of plant fungus. The hallucinogen was similar in many respects to the commonly known Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD. It was known that such types of drugs were generally not physiologically addictive and usually not a drug of choice for dealers. Nevertheless, given the extraordinary potency of the drug, the police were still concerned about finding it in rural Northumberland.
Efforts by the police were underway to find William Avon. The possibility that he had left the country, and even returned to Thailand, was being considered. The British embassy in Bangkok had been contacted, and had agreed to approach the Thai immigration authorities to see if they could check their records for his entry into the country. But on a national scale of criminal investigation, and even more so on an international scale, the search was considered a matter of relatively low priority. The tracing of terrorists, murderers, swindlers, child-molesters and the whole motley bunch of miscreants who flit back and forth across international borders had a higher priority. And even when the relevant authorities were eventually motivated into action, there could be no doubt that the procedure would take some time.
In the period leading up to Christmas, the Crawford family continued to make their weekend visits to Elsie Crawford's cottage in Wet Rain Hill. And every Saturday evening, David Crawford made a point of spending some time in his grandmother's garden looking down Wet Rain Hill. But he never saw or heard again anything out of the ordinary. He had never confided with anyone the strange sighting from the previous month. Within the relatively short time that had elapsed, he had even begun to view what he thought he had seen as perhaps no more than a figment of the imagination. But in his dreams, mostly unremembered on waking, the image he had seen would once more pass before his eyes. On one occasion whilst asleep in his grandmother's cottage, he awoke suddenly as if from a nightmare. And switching on his bedside lamp, the first thing he noticed was the stuffed crocodile Nok Hume had given to him as a present. It was poised on top of the small wardrobe in his dormer bedroom. Its squat scaly form provided ample inspiration for every manner of imagined horrors in the stillness of the night and the partial illumination of the bedroom. On that particular occasion, he got out of bed and had reached up and pushed the crocodile away out of sight.
Christmas day finally arrived. For the first time in about twenty years there was truly a white Christmas. A deep soft white blanket of snow had covered the village and the surrounding hills. Low in the sky, the sun shone bright but cold. The Crawfords ate a hearty traditional Christmas lunch together in the cottage. Because he lived alone, Professor Brock had been asked to join them for Christmas lunch, but had declined the invitation. Instead, he had stayed in Durham for Christmas with a friend.
After lunch, Jack and Nok Hume briefly visited the Crawfords to exchange Christmas gifts. For Nok Hume, the concept of Christmas was something with which she was vaguely familiar. It was, however, essentially a Western tradition that lay well outside her cultural framework. She enjoyed the evident high spirits and heightened sense of friendliness found in people. But the festivities were something that she could really only relate to as an observer and not as a participant. For her, there was no emotional involvement. Christmas brought no rekindling of childhood nostalgia, except that in some respects it reminded her of a corresponding festival from her own cultural and religious background. As a result, it engendered in her a deep and almost despairing sadness at the fact that she was currently separated from her parents, her younger sister and her former friends.
Whilst everyone else was busy talking in good cheer, Nok Hume walked over to the patio doors in Elsie Crawford's cottage and pushed her face against the cold glass. She gazed out onto the snow-covered hills behind the cottage. In the rapidly failing light of late afternoon, the view resembled that of the landscape of an alien planet whose desolate surface was sparingly warmed by a dim and distant sun. Up until a few days ago, she had never encountered snow first hand, though she had long wanted to do so. And now it enveloped and even seemed to define the world in which she found herself. Everything was all so very strange.
Later that evening, David Crawford went across the road to visit Paul Jackson. They exchanged gifts and laughed when they discovered they had given each other gift tokens for exactly the same value and from exactly the same shop. David indicated that he could only stay for a short while. Paul Jackson's girlfriend, Wendy, had also called by. She sat watching the television. David accepted a glass of sherry from Paul Jackson's mother, and proceeded to drink it quickly. The rather quick consumption of the drink had the opposite effect to that which he had intended, which was to finish quickly so that he could leave quickly. Before he had the chance to say that he would now be on his way, Paul Jackson's mother had produced another glass of sherry. She had noted that he evidently had a liking for the spirit. He sipped the second glass of sherry much more slowly. Eventually, he found himself drawn into a conversation with Paul Jackson's girlfriend. They talked about her favourite subjects, which were the supernatural and the unexplained. Holding a dialogue, however, with Wendy Newton was not easy. She was the type of person who tended not to listen and had the habit of talking over her interlocutor. Paul Jackson, as well as his parents, showed no particular interest in what Wendy Newton said; they had probably heard it all before. Instead, they remained absorbed in watching the television. David felt rather irritated by the fact that he wasn't able to manoeuvre himself out of his predicament. And so, for about half-an-hour, as Wendy Newton rode her hobbyhorse, he nodded perfunctorily, making several unsuccessful attempts to break into the monologue.
She had already covered a diverse range of topics, including the efficacy of pyramids as pencil-sharpeners and the truth behind alien abductions, by the time she moved onto the strange experience of her grandmother. As if to back up the story, she produced from her handbag a piece of paper. At this point, Paul Jackson appeared to take some interest in what his girlfriend was saying. "And this is what my grandmother saw in the graveyard of St George's last month," she said handing a folded piece of paper to David. He opened it up and saw upon it a pencil sketch. An icy heat spread through his body. He said nothing as he looked at the sketch, and after a while handed it back to her. "Her grandmother lives in the Forestry Flats," explained Paul Jackson.
"He's already seen it," said Ms Newton gesturing towards her boyfriend.
"Seen what?" gasped David nervously. Wendy Newton looked at David with a mixture of surprise and incomprehension. It was Paul Jackson who spoke next. "I saw her grandmother's sketch a couple of weeks ago. Cool isn't it! She used to work as a graphic artist, didn't she, Wend?"
"That's right. In fact, she used to design Christmas cards."
Paul Jackson grinned. "I'm sure she never put anything like that on one of her Christmas cards," he said.
"I believe that she did see something strange. Anyway, I think it's important to have some mystery in our lives," responded Wendy Newton.
"The disappearance of my cat was enough mystery for me," said Paul Jackson.
"Well, there you have it. Maybe this explains why your cat went missing," suggested Wendy Newton. "Isn't she scared?" asked David.
"My grandmother scared? Not really. You see she has Alzheimer's disease. Bless her. She's probably already forgotten. My parents are at her house right now. We had Christmas dinner together today."
"What about the time when she first saw it?" asked David. Wendy Newton looked at him with renewed interest, evidently impressed by the fact that he seemed to be taking the whole matter rather seriously. "I'm not sure if she was sacred at the time, but I'm sure I would be," responded Ms Newton with sufficient flippancy that suggested, in all truth, she herself didn't take the matter too seriously.
"Show him the others," said Paul Jackson. Wendy Newton pulled some more pieces of paper from out of her handbag. The additional sketches she produced all represented Christmas scenes, but with a difference. On one of the drawings, Father Christmas wore a traditional jovial grin, and carried with him a sack overflowing with skulls and bones instead of the usual toys. In another scene, he was standing nonchalantly by his sleigh watching his reindeer being devoured by a crocodile. And a third scene showed church bells being rung by a grinning crocodile bell-ringer standing upright on longish hind legs, pulling at the bell-ropes with human-like hands on its forelimbs. This representation was similar to that on a wall poster designed for children that he had seen in the waiting room of a dentist's surgery, where a cartoon crocodile stood upright displaying an immaculate set of white teeth whilst holding onto a giant toothbrush. David finally commented that the drawings were impressive, and handed them all back except for the scene with the crocodile campanologist. He asked Wendy Newton if he could borrow it for a few days in order to make a photocopy.
Across Church Lane, only a few minutes' walk through the church graveyard, the vicar Geoffrey Adams was settling down in front of the television in the vicarage with a glass of Irish whiskey. Both the Christmas Eve and the Christmas morning services had been rather poorly attended. There was usually an upsurge in the number of people attending church services around Christmas time, but this year the turnout had been generally rather disappointing. Nevertheless, the sermon and the nativity play had gone without a hitch. Now he could relax. His mother, who was visiting him from Morpeth, passed him a chocolate-coated raisin from a box on her lap and commented about the celebrity who was currently on television. "He's that local lad: Jimmy Nail. Sang that song 'Crocodile Shoes', and made all those detective stories." Geoffrey Adams nodded his head in casual acknowledgement. After a fleeting thought about the oddity of such a surname and a mental picture of the singer wearing some form of reptilian footwear, his thoughts somehow wandered to consideration of the Thai lady, Nok Hume, who lived on Main Street. He had studied comparative religion at college, and supposed that as she came from Thailand, she was probably a Buddhist. The majority of Thais, after all, were Buddhist. What did she, he wondered, make of Christmas? Neither she nor her husband had ever attended one of his church services. If the Thai lady had been present at church, he would certainly have noticed her. After the conversation with Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford in the Blackbird public house last month, he had started to notice her in the village even more. He considered her to be quite the most beautiful woman in the village, if not the county. Then he checked himself before his thoughts ran any further in that direction.
Receiving one more chocolate-coated raisin from his mother, Geoffrey Adams attempted to sublimate his thoughts. He began to wonder if it would be possible to convert Nok Hume to Christianity. It was surely something less controversial or problematic than say converting a Moslem to Christianity. Buddhism was a passive religion, which traditionally made no strenuous efforts at proselytising non-Buddhists, and in some respects could be considered to be more of a philosophy than a religion given the lack of explicit references in its teachings to some type of godhead. Maybe next week he would push through her door one of his new glossy pamphlets showing Christ on the cross, explaining how his crucifixion represented mankind's victory over death. But on second thoughts, he wasn't sure if she would be able to read English sufficiently well enough to understand the pamphlet in detail. Moreover, he would feel uneasy trying to explain the argument in person on her doorstep. Then he thought that maybe he could just invite her to one of the ladies' functions at the church, and get her involved that way. But once again, his thoughts about Nok started to drift in a decidedly un-clerical direction. "More tea vicar?" asked his mother, rescuing him momentarily. She often used this well-worn joke to indicate that she was going into the kitchen to put on the kettle. In response, he held up his unfinished glass of Irish whiskey. "I'm fine, thanks," he announced as his thoughts drifted back to Nok Hume.
Jack Hume poured himself a glass of Scotch whisky. He had received a bottle of whisky as a Christmas present from the Humes. Nok Hume was sitting on the sofa and had been watching television, but was now looking at her husband with the glass of spirit in his hand. As far as she could recall, she had never seen him drink whisky before. "It's Christmas," he said by way of offering an explanation and perhaps an excuse. She smiled, and returned her gaze to the television set. The programme was supposed to be a Christmas ghost story, but much to her disappointment half-an-hour had passed and there still hadn't been any appearance by a ghost: only gusts of wind in corridors, doors being closed by unseen forces and mysterious footsteps in the darkness. If this had been a Thai ghost story, she thought to herself, the ghost would by now have already made numerous appearances hovering in the air and doubtless frightening some people to death.
Jack Hume walked over to the back of the living room with his glass of whisky. Standing by the patio doors were the two large wooden carvings that had been shipped from Thailand. Before returning home from Thailand, he had overseen the packing of the carvings together with the rest of their belongings and had made the arrangements for their transportation. Jack Hume had arrived in Britain about one month before the arrival of Nok Hume. She had been forced to wait in Bangkok until her visa application to enter the United Kingdom had been processed by the British Embassy. During this month, he had been able to prepare the cottage for habitation and had begun the work of opening the Siam Kitchen Thai takeaway in the village.
Jack Hume picked up a long piece of tinsel from the Christmas tree that stood nearby. He then whimsically tied one end of the tinsel around the head of the large wooden carving of a Siamese cat sitting upright. The other end, he placed around the head of a large wooden carving of a crocodile standing unnaturally upright with its front legs outstretched like hands. Nok Hume looked over at him once again, and saw that what he had done was to imitate the Thai wedding tradition where the bride and groom are joined together by a thread to represent the union or binding together of two people in matrimony. They had done exactly the same thing at their wedding. "They are now married," she said smiling, acknowledging the symbolism. "Now they can be happy," she added.
David Crawford had now returned to his grandmother's cottage and was helping to put the refuse out in the back yard when he happened to glance next door. The Humes had not yet closed their curtains. The snow lying on the small lawn and patio in their garden glistened under the light from inside the living room. He noticed the two wooden carvings standing prominently behind the patio doors. On this Christmas evening, a Siamese cat and a crocodile stood gazing out over Wet Rain Hill.
\*\* (9) \*\*
The Huntsman is an upmarket pub located in the basement of the Landmark Plaza, one of the many modern hotel and shopping centre tower complexes along Bangkok's busy Sukhummvit Road. Many of the pub's clientele were Americans and Europeans working in Bangkok. In addition, prosperous Thai businessmen and businesswomen also frequented the bar together with foreign tourists perhaps staying in the towering luxury hotel situated above it. The Huntsman was fitted out and furnished exactly like a traditional British pub. On one side there was a row of sturdy wooden tables and upholstered benches, separated by partitions topped with framed semicircular stained-glass windowpanes. The remaining perimeter space, with the exception of a small stage used by musical performers, was taken up with large easy chairs and low wooden tables. The walls were decorated with framed old black-and-white photographs representing people and events in Britain from the early part of the Twentieth Century. The bar area was located in the centre, and was surrounded by an almost continuous table surface, punctuated by wooden pillars stretching up to about half the height of the ceiling. Here, people sat on high stools, and some gazed up at a television set suspended above the bar. Showing on the television was a live football match from England. The sound on the television had been turned down. The resident Filipino band was just about to begin playing their first song for the last set of the evening. The time was just before ten thirty on a Saturday evening in mid-January.
At one of the partitioned tables in the pub, Mr William Avon sat opposite the managing director of the Lucky Bird Export Company of Bangkok, Thailand. The company's founder and managing director, Mr Somchai Tantaratana, was what is referred to in Thailand as a Chinese Thai. He was in his mid fifties, and relatively light-skinned. He was perhaps more reserved and not so easily given to smiling as the majority of Thais. In fact, the ease and frequency with which most Thais were able to smile had earned the country the well-deserved epithet: the Land of Smiles. On this evening, however, even Mr Somchai Tantaratana was allowing himself the luxury of something approaching a smile. His seat was facing the stage where the Filipino group was about to perform. Like many of the other Thais in the pub, Somchai Tantaratana was rather fascinated by the attractive female Filipino singer. Partly, this was because in many respects she looked quite similar to a Thai lady. It was only when she spoke English with a characteristic Filipino accent, Hispanic-sounding and quite distinct from the singsong tonal Thai rendition of the language, that any doubt could be removed. In addition, the Filipino national psyche is also very different from the Thai. The historical, cultural and religious backgrounds of the two countries are completely different, with Thailand a predominantly Buddhist country and the Philippines, Roman Catholic. Somchai clapped his hands enthusiastically when the Filipino singer announced that the band was about to perform the song known popularly as theme tune from the film Titanic. He continued clapping as the plaintive opening chords of the song rang out.
Avon grimaced at what he perceived to be a lack of sophistication in the musical taste of his companion, but Somchai either did not notice or paid no heed. The loudness of the music now made talking at the table difficult. Looking around in his seat, he noticed the photographs hanging on the wall near to him. One particular photograph caught his eye. It was of two schoolboys standing together in the backyard of a terraced house in London, and was dated nineteen thirty. He was struck, however, not so much by the shabbily dressed and tousle-haired subjects of the photograph, but by the quality of the light in the background. The photograph had been taken late in the afternoon sometime in autumn, as evidenced by a solitary bare tree in the distance. Only in the Northern Hemisphere, in autumn, could one witness such a grey melancholic fading of the day. In tropical Southeast Asia, in contrast, night fell almost instantaneously. The days were almost exactly the same length throughout the year. In his mind, there was no dramatic distinction between the seasons, at least not in the same sense that there were in Britain. There was a hot season, an even hotter season and a hot season with rain. Each day was more or less indistinguishable from the rest. There was nothing really to mark the passage of time, and it was easy to fall under the illusion that time was standing still. He seemed only to experience the passage of time during his occasional trips back to Britain. Otherwise, he felt as if he had been frozen in time during what had actually been a stay of more or less ten years in Thailand.
Most of the expatriates that lived and worked in Thailand, even if for lengthy periods of time, were usually never able to learn to speak the Thai language properly. It was a tonal language that was extremely difficult to learn without a prolonged and sustained effort. And if they could learn to speak some Thai, then it would usually only be sufficient for simple conversation, or to use the much used and generally applicable Thai expression: Mai pen rai. Which is often translated into English as: "It doesn't matter" or: "It's not important" or even: "You're welcome." But perhaps a more insightful rendition of its sense would be something along the lines of: "It won't be very important in the long run, in fact it will be meaningless in the long run, so lets not vex or concern ourselves too much with it right now."
William Avon, however, was an exception to this general rule regarding the mastery of the Thai language. He could both speak the language fluently, and could also read the Sanskrit-derived characters in which the language was written. Admittedly, he had put some effort into learning the language after he came to Thailand ten years ago to teach English at a technical college, but this process had also been assisted by what seemed to be an almost innate ability for the language. The ability to speak both Thai and English fluently had made him a potentially very useful employee. Consequently, he no longer taught English, and had for the past year-and-a-half worked as an agent for the Lucky Bird Export Company of Bangkok.
The Lucky Bird Export Company of Bangkok was a very mysterious entity. For one thing, the wealth it appeared to generate would not appear to be commensurate with the level of services it offered. In addition, the name of the Company would not appear to correspond to the type of services that it proffered: The Company was not at all involved in the exporting of goods. In reality, the Company was involved mainly in overseeing the shipping of personal possessions from Thailand to destinations all over the world, particularly to Europe, and especially to Britain, Germany and Scandinavia. Most of its clients were foreigners who had spent some time living and working in Thailand, and who, for whatever reason, wished to move back again to their country of origin. In this business, it was Avon's job to seek out potential customers, and to persuade them, either directly or through an intermediary, to use the services of the Lucky Bird Export Company. His ability to speak Thai fluently was a considerable boon in this respect, as many of the company's prospective customers would be returning back home with a Thai spouse.
Somchai clapped his hands appreciatively when the Filipino band finished the song. He then took a sip from the pint beer glass containing imported dark Irish Stout, a speciality of the Huntsman pub, which he had been nursing for the duration of the performance. Avon was drinking Thai 'Singha' beer. Somchai used the brief pause in the entertainment to say a few words to him. "You know, William, I have been England many time on business. But always, I only go London. This first time I will have been to the North England," he said in his Thai-modified English, noticeable for its begrudging use of prepositions. "Oh, you'll love it. It's really wild," replied Avon with a smirk on his face.
"A long time has passed, nearly two month. We should have done this earlier. Or rather, you should have done it. But it seem that your bad habit got in the way," continued Somchai. "I don't have a bad habit," objected Avon. "You know that the stuff I take, I mean took, wasn't addictive. It's not heroin or anything like that. I just got in a bad way because of where the stuff took me. It disturbed me a little; shook me up. But anyway, I'm over it now; recovered from it completely and ready to finish off this job once and for all."
"I already said many time, William, that we have the business of selling goods, not using them. You see how dangerous these drugs are?"
"Well I can assure you after the fright I got last November that I won't be using those goods again. I've never experienced a trip like that one. It really freaked me out; scared the living daylights of me. I'll never be able to understand how realistic it seemed to be at the time. Most times, there is still some part of me that seems to know that whenever I'm on a trip, whatever it is that I'm seeing, hearing, smelling or touching, it just isn't real. For example I once smoked something, sage I believe it was, which took me right back to my old grandmother's house the way it was about thirty years ago. The old furniture, the smell of cooking coming from the kitchen, the old clock ticking loudly on the mantel piece, a dog barking in the street outside: everything exactly the way it was. I could walk around the room, touch things, and look at my grandmother wearing her shawl, standing in the room. But I didn't freak out then and say: "Shit, I'm stuck in 1970." I knew that in a while it would all dissolve before my eyes, and that even though I might then find myself somewhere else removed from the here-and-now, I would eventually find myself back in the present."
"But this time you got really scared, and you run back to Thailand," observed Somchai. "You know everything was going to plan. I had been observing the Humes for a while. I knew what time they and their neighbours usually went to bed. I also knew that the Humes didn't yet have an alarm system fitted in the cottage. In fact, I was all set to lay my hands on those damned wooden animals and complete the job, but then everything went to pieces. I'd only taken a sniff of the stuff to give me some extra strength and courage."
"Seems like you got the opposite," remarked Somchai in Thai.
"Yeah, I've never ran so fast in my life. After scrambling up a dark rocky hill, clambering over a stone wall, and running along a dark country road towards the village, I eventually ended up in the local pub. Not so much to get a drink, but to be reassured by the sight of real people," explained Avon, unconscious of the fact that he had switched back again to using English.
After some delay sorting out song requests from the audience, The Filipino group eventually began the second song of their final performance for the evening: a rendition of Elton John's Crocodile Rock. Somchai had not entirely understood what Avon had just said. "What you mean?" he asked, raising his voice so that he could be heard above a string of la-la-la's from the Filipino singer. "I mean that I pity anybody that has a lick of that stuff," explained Avon in Thai, similarly raising his voice to be heard.
"Tell me again, where are you getting this stuff from?" asked Avon during the next brief interlude in the entertainment. Somchai looked around the room before leaning forward and whispering: "I have a contact on the Thai-Burmese border. He is someone high up in the Thai military. He has a contact on the Burmese side, also a military man. This Burmese gets his supplies from a member of the Karen hill tribes. They manufacture the drug, which if you translate directly into English is called 'Orange Sound', from fungus found on jungle plants. But it's a secret recipe, and they won't tell anyone what it is."
"So, it's a bit like Colonel Saunder's secret recipe for Kentucky fried chicken," said Avon sarcastically in English. Somchai looked at him with incomprehension, and then said: "I must go and make a telephone call to my wife. Please excuse me for a moment. It's too noisy in here for me to use my mobile."
"Yeah, too much orange sound," muttered Avon quickly under his breath as Somchai walked away from the table. He immediately felt pleased at the multiplicity and obscurity of this pun. For it had connotations not only both with noise and the name of a well-known mobile telephone company, but more significantly perhaps, it also made an oblique reference to the Malay/Indonesian word 'orang' meaning 'man', as used in 'Orang Utang', meaning 'man of the jungle'. He also recalled that the novelist Anthony Burgess, a speaker of Malay and who coincidentally had himself once worked in the Far East as an English teacher, had also played with the word 'orang' in the title of his famous novel 'A Clockwork Orange', a similarly obscure pun intended to mean: 'A Clockwork Man'.
After musing briefly on what seemed like a strange, if ineffable, connection between himself and something else, he also realised that the statement: 'Too much orange sound' was more than a mere pun: it seemed to neatly and literally describe the cause of the problem on his last visit to England. He smiled, and whimsically said to himself. "Orange sound: the sound of man".
Somchai Tantaratana returned a few minutes later. "Come on William, let's go somewhere else to eat," he urged. After paying the bill, the two men left the hotel bar together. Once outside the comfort of the air-conditioned environment of the Landmark Plaza, it only took a few minutes before the warmth and humidity of the night began to be felt by both men. They laboured up the steps of one of the many pedestrian footbridges crossing Sukhummvit Road. Walking was by far the quickest mode of transportation. Beneath them, the road traffic was still very busy; even though it was now well after eleven in the evening. Car horns sounded, motorcycle engines roared, and public buses produced clouds of choking black exhaust smoke from their diesel engines each time they managed to shunt forwards. A continuous line of traffic trailed for as far as the eye could see along the road. Above their heads, a sky train rumbled to a halt at Nana station on the raised track of the city's ultra modern public railway system. Around them, the air was filled with the pulsating cacophony of music emanating from the many so-called entertainment establishments in the area. Their gaudy neon lights, together with the lights from the myriad of tall buildings and skyscrapers in this gigantic city, conspired with the noxious traffic fumes, to block out any view of the stars in the night sky.
At ground level, the hundreds of stall-holders along Sukhummvit Road, who sold all types of goods, including clothing, shoes, watches and electronic equipment, all of uncertain provenance, were completing their efforts to pack up for the evening. The streets, however, still thronged with tourists and members of Bangkok's vast army of demimondaine, as well as with homeward-bound office and shop workers. It was eleven-fifteen by the time William Avon and Somchai Tantaratana reached the Kentucky fried chicken restaurant located at the entrance to the huge Ambassador Hotel complex, also on Sukhummvit Road. The fast food outlet had not been Avon's choice as a suitable place to dine, and he wondered whether his earlier quip concerning Colonel Saunder's secret recipe had prompted the idea in Somchai's head as a mild form of revenge. On the way, Somchai had informed him that another employee of the Lucky Bird Export Company would be meeting them later at the restaurant.
In the restaurant, Avon decided not to order anything to eat. Instead, he sat down holding only a Styrofoam cup of hot coffee. Somchai ordered some fried chicken, which in a few minutes he was eating voraciously. The restaurant still had a number of customers, even though it was very nearly closing time. A young assistant was aggressively mopping the floor, whilst another was clearing tables. There were a number of Caucasian men, or 'Farangs' as they are referred to by Thais, paired up and sitting with Thai women at several tables in the restaurant. The men looked, on the whole, to be above fifty years of age, or in one or two cases, even older, whilst most of the women looked considerably younger.
The person they were waiting for still hadn't arrived by the time Somchai finished his last piece of fried chicken and had slung the picked bones back into the cardboard meal container. He then began to clean trapped pieces of meat from his teeth using one end of the plastic stirring-spatula supplied with his companion's coffee. During this unprepossessing activity, he began speaking to Avon in Thai. "You know, William, you fled back here to Thailand from Britain; a journey of over seven thousand miles. It took me three weeks before I could get any real sense out of you. I paid for you to see a traditional healer, and then a doctor, a psychiatrist in fact. They diagnosed you as suffering from stress. But is it really so stressful working for me?"
"Why do you ask? Are you going to fire me?" asked Avon staring across the restaurant at a woman who had suddenly begun smiling at him without any prompting. He noticed that she had been sitting with the Caucasian man who was now standing up and washing his hands in a basin located on the wall of the restaurant. There was a mirror directly above the washbasin, and in it he caught glimpses of the man's face; it was severely pockmarked. He understood the nature of the relationship between the man and the women, and did not feel inclined to respond to her smiles. Somchai answered Avon's question in Thai: "No, William, I'm not going to fire you, even though I was very angry with you at the time. But we have worked together for one-and-a-half years, and I've come to trust you. It is true that you made a mess of this particular job, but I'm sure we can still rectify the situation. Having said that, I do hope that our lovely couple in England haven't found out yet that there is something interesting packed inside their oversized Thai ornaments."
"I'm sure they haven't. I've been monitoring the local press in that part of the world on the Internet, and there has been no mention of anything being discovered in Wet Rain Hill," responded Avon, also in Thai. "Except of course maybe in your apartment, which you left in such a rush," Somchai reminded him.
"True. But I'm sure they've already written me off as a casual drug user, or at worst, a small dealer. The main thing is that there is nothing to link me to the Humes."
"I believe you, William, but nevertheless I no longer wish to take any unnecessary risks."
Somchai's remark perturbed Avon. He half expected at any moment to see an assassin burst into the restaurant in the style of a Hollywood gangster movie, and for his employer to reiterate that he wasn't going to fire him; instead he was going to murder him. Murder related to unsatisfactory business dealings was not uncommon in Bangkok. This unease increased at the site of the man with the pockmarked face returning to his seat, who, as he sat down at the table with his Thai lady friend, seemed to glare malevolently across the room.
"There are no risks. As I said, they don't know I work for the company that shipped their belongings out to Britain. They never saw me in Thailand. All the business in this case was handled by John Wakes," Avon pointed out. John Wakes was the person who it was planned would join them shortly in the fried chicken establishment. Like Avon, he was an Englishman. He had joined the Lucky Bird Export Company five months ago, and had managed to persuade the Humes to use the company for their move back to Britain. He had overseen the removal of their belongings from their home. Then, once the Humes' belongings had been secured in the Company's holding area in Bangkok, Avon had managed what was known euphemistically as the additional packaging. This was an extra service of which the customers were naturally unaware. The company had the services of some corrupt Thai customs officials who ensured that the crates were not inspected during their shipping from Thailand. It was this stage of the operation in Thailand that carried the highest risk for the company. This was because if on arrival at their destination overseas, the crates were opened and inspected by customs and excise, then the company could always plead ignorance and claim that it was their customer who had had the criminal intent.
Once this particular shipment had left Thailand, William Avon had travelled to Britain and awaited its arrival. British customs and excise controls were so strict, however, that it was impossible to get access to such shipments until they had been cleared. A legitimate and wholly unsuspecting third-party company was used for the final delivery within Britain. From the point of view of the Lucky Bird Export Company, the final stage of their service generally involved burglarising the customers' homes in order to reclaim the additional items that had been shipped secretly. This same modus operandi was to have been used in the case of the Humes' shipment, and it was Avon who should have carried out this particular burglary.
Somchai began explaining to Avon, in Thai, his intended safeguards. "Since I am going to Britain with you this time, and because I wouldn't want to see you arrested on arrival in London's Heathrow airport, I have arranged a new identity for you. You will get a new passport obtained with the help of a friend that works in the British Embassy on Wireless Road here in Bangkok. Moreover, the passport has a legitimate Thai visa stamp, so that you won't have to explain a blank passport to the immigration officer at Bangkok's Don Muang Airport when you leave Thailand. The visa stamp was provided with the help of another friend in the Thai Immigration Office."
"When will I be having the plastic surgery?" asked Avon sarcastically.
"No need to change your face. I used one of the passport photographs you once provided me with. Only a change of name has taken place."
"And my new name is?"
"Your new name is John Wakes."
"John Wakes!" exclaimed Avon. "What does John think about that?"
"He doesn't mind. He will arrive any minute now with your new passport. And by the way, it is a replacement passport and not one that has been newly issued. It was easier for my friend in the British Embassy to produce a replacement passport from existing records than to create a completely new and fictitious identity. John still has his original passport, which remains valid. If he needs to leave Thailand quickly before we return here, then he can use one of the land border points into Malaysia, for example, and fly out from there. The system is not computerised at the land crossings, so unlike at Don Muang Airport, the immigration officials will not notice that John Wakes has apparently left the country two times without a single re-entry in between. So you see, William, your new identity has been completely taken care of."
"Well, it seems that anything can be taken care of in this country if you are ready to pay the right price for it," said Avon looking across at the man with the pockmarked face and his lady friend, who were now holding hands. It was evident that the man was extremely self-conscious about his facial disfigurement. He had placed a hand over the lower half of his face in an attempt to partly cover it.
A short time later, Avon saw John Wakes enter the restaurant. One of the assistants mopping the floor also saw him and immediately called out: "Sorry sir, closed now." Before noticing William Avon and Somchai Tantaratana sitting in the corner, Wakes halted momentarily and turned towards the direction of the voice. Then he noticed the man with the pockmarked face. In a voice that was sufficiently loud to make everyone in the restaurant look over, he yelled out: "Bloody hell, Snaz. What are you doing here in Bangkok?"
\*\* (10) \*\*
February had arrived, but the days were still short and the nights still long. Nok Hume was spending her first night alone in the cottage. Her husband had departed earlier in the day for Saudi Arabia, where he was going to work for six weeks on a lucrative short-term contract that involved carrying out inspections for a major oil company on pipelines near Jeddah. At first, Nok had not been enthusiastic about her husband taking this work, but had finally agreed that the extra money would be most welcomed. It would help finance, amongst other things, a holiday for both of them to Thailand later in the year. She was very much looking forward to seeing her family in Thailand once again.
The idea of being left alone in the cottage had been at first a little scary for Nok. She had initially considered travelling with her husband to Saudi Arabia, but had eventually come around to the view that it would be difficult for her to stay in that ultra-conservative desert kingdom, even for a short time.
In staying at home by herself, there was thankfully one less thing for Nok to worry about; namely that the strange Thai-speaking 'farang' was no longer in the village. He had vanished from Wet Rain Hill, and was not thought likely to return. Something else that made her feel better was that the majority of villagers now behaved in a very friendly manner towards her. The Humes were no longer significantly affected by the unpleasant rumours concerning the disappearance of cats in the village. This matter seemed to have vanished from the minds of most people. The Siam Kitchen takeaway restaurant business had been handed over the previous week as a going concern to an Asian family from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the Humes had managed to make some money from this deal.
Nok had also noticed that the vicar from the village church had become particularly warm towards her. He had shown great interest in learning about Lord Buddha and about Thai culture. Though at times, she felt uncomfortable about his evident desire to get her to attend one of his church services.
Then, of course, there was her neighbour: Elsie Crawford. For the few months that Nok Hume had lived in the village, she had grown close to Elsie Crawford. Indeed, she had come to regard the kind old lady as if she was her own grandmother. On hearing that Jack Hume was going to be away for some time, Elsie Crawford had promised to keep Nok company, and to help her in any way that she could. Nok had been invited to drop in next door at any time for a talk, or to watch television together. Elsie Crawford had even offered her the use of one of the unoccupied bedrooms in the cottage, in case she was scared of staying alone in her own cottage. Nok had not, however, taken up this offer.
It was late on a Friday night. Nok Hume looked at the illuminated face of her bedside alarm clock. The time was five minutes before midnight. She began thinking about her husband, who would by now have already arrived in Saudi Arabia. The change in her circumstances was making it difficult for her to fall asleep this night. Finally, however, she drifted off to sleep.
Some time later, she was suddenly awoken. The bedside clock revealed that it was now 2:20 a.m. She lay for a moment trying to collect her thoughts; briefly unable to understand why her husband wasn't in bed beside her. Then the realisation that she was alone in the cottage dawned upon her. She also quickly realised that there was something else: she had been disturbed from her sleep by noises in the cottage. The noises were coming from the living room; from the other side of her bedroom door. There was the sound of furniture being moved and dragged across the parquet floor. Shocked, she immediately sat up in bed. A wave of paralysing terror swept through her body. She could also hear, coming from beyond her bedroom door, sounds resembling a series of hisses. Not being able to imagine what could possibly produce such ghastly sounds, Nok Hume struggled to compose herself and to suppress the urge to scream out in terror. She pinched herself to confirm that she wasn't just experiencing a terrible nightmare. Her heart pounded remorselessly. She took hold of the Lord Buddha medallion around her neck and quietly muttered a prayer, pleading for strength, protection and safe deliverance from this terrible situation.
A short time later, she reached over to take the mobile telephone lying on the bedside table, and with trembling hands switched it on. To her horror, the telephone gave two very loud bleeps as it registered a network connection. Instantly, the noise in the living room stopped completely and everything fell quiet. Feeling unable to use the mobile telephone in the terrifying silence, she lay clutching it with her head pushed back firmly against the headboard of the bed. After a pause lasting several seconds, the noises in the living room resumed once again. For several minutes she listened, not moving, and hardly daring to breathe. Finally, there was what sounded like the crash of a chair falling over, and then everything went silent. The silence continued; a heavy silence, which felt almost as terrible as the commotion that had preceded it. She continued to lie motionless, her hands now grasped tightly together under the bedclothes. The steady pounding rhythm of her over-worked heart resounded in her ears like rapid wave-falls on a beach. Each heartbeat marked the passage of time. Seconds and then minutes passed. Nothing happened. Silence remained sovereign. Then, a sharp ray of light from the illuminated face of her alarm clock caught the medallion she was wearing. Looking down, she saw that Lord Buddha was serene. His countenance remained benevolent and unperturbed. She clasped the medallion tightly and said quietly: "Khorp Khun Ka": "Thank you".
The time was 2:40 a.m. Nok Hume now felt brave enough to climb out of bed. She crept over to the window in her bedroom, facing onto Main Street, and unlocked and unbolted it. Using all her strength, she tried to push the sash window upwards. The frame screeched and momentarily stuck partly open, before finally yielding completely. The rush of cold night made her shudder. She was able to climb through the window and out onto the front driveway of the cottage. Wearing only her nightdress, and still in bare feet, she ran across the small garden at the front, hardly daring to look around. Arriving at Elsie Crawford's front door, she began to knock on it frantically whilst shouting the old lady's name through the small letterbox.
The tumult at her front door quickly awakened Elsie Crawford. Moments later she opened the door, sure from the sound of the voice that it was Nok Hume. At the same time, lights went on in the Jackson's cottage across the road. Nok had evidently also been heard across the road. Elsie Crawford immediately brought her into the living room and tried to establish what had happened. In no time, Paul Jackson's father, Stanley Jackson, had also appeared on the scene. He knocked briefly at the unclosed door and, still wearing his dressing gown, entered Elsie Crawford's living room.
"She heard some intruders inside her cottage," explained Elsie Crawford.
"Have you called the police?" asked Stanley Jackson.
"I'll do that now," responded Elsie picking up her telephone.
"Meanwhile, I'll have a look around the back," announced Stanley Jackson.
"Don't do that. I think dangerous," said Nok looking terrified.
"Don't go there in the dark by yourself, Stanley. Just have a look from over this side," said Mrs Crawford, pointing towards the garden at the back of her cottage. Then she turned towards Nok and tried to comfort her. "Don't worry pet, you're safe now. Everything's going to be fine."
The previous day had been bright and cloudless, and now the night was bitterly cold and still. From where he was standing in Elsie Crawford's garden, partly illuminated by the light from the cottage behind him, Stanley Jackson could see that the glass in both patio doors at the back of the Humes' cottage had been completely broken. The patio doors, however, remained closed. He looked and listened carefully for any indications of those responsible for this deed. But the garden, like the hillside behind it, was silent and still. Then his son suddenly appeared by his side. "What happened, Dad?" asked Paul Jackson breathlessly. "I heard you going out of the house, and followed you across. Mrs Crawford just mentioned something about intruders next door."
"A breakin, I'm sure," replied Jackson senior. "I'm not sure what, if anything at all, is missing. But I bet both the video and television have gone. Thieving scumbags, they make me sick. People work hard for what they buy, and then these blighters think they can come and help themselves to anything they like." Stanley Jackson's face frowned. "Can you catch that awful smell, Paul? I've never smelt anything like that before; it's rank."
"Yes, I can smell it," confirmed his son, noticeably twitching his nostrils. "Doesn't it smell a bit like an animal house in the zoo?"
A few minutes later a police car arrived in front of the Humes' cottage. Elsie Crawford heard it pull up, and went to the door to invite the police into her cottage. There were two police officers: a man and a woman. Elsie brought them into her cottage and explained the situation. The male officer was then directed through the kitchen and into the garden at the back where Stanley and Paul Jackson were looking over into the Humes' cottage. The woman officer remained in the living room with Nok. After trying to give Nok some reassurance about the situation, the woman officer began taking down details in a notepad about the incident.
Outside in the garden, the officer told the Jacksons to remain where they were for the moment. He then climbed over the low wall dividing the two gardens. Using a flashlight, he first carefully inspected the area around the patio doors, speaking into his walkie-talkie as he looked. "This is PC Edminson, at 1 Main Street, in the village of Wet Rain Hill, reporting a forced entry into the said premises. Perpetrators appear to have fled the scene. It is very likely that we are looking at an attempted or actual theft. I'm also noting a very pungent and unusual smell coming from the premises. Requesting backup, over." A squelched, and to the ears of those on the other side of the wall, indistinct reply came back over the walkie-talkie. Then the officer carefully entered the dark living room of the cottage, stepping through the opening of one of the patio doors, taking care to avoid the small, jagged and potentially lethal, shards of glass that still remained attached to the inside of the frame. The beam of his flashlight could be seen moving around the room. Suddenly, he cried out from inside: "What the on earth is this?"
A few seconds later, the officer had apparently located and switched on the light in the Humes' living room. Then peering out through the opening in one of the patio doors, he called out to Stanley Jackson and his son: "Please tell WPC Johnson and the young lady who lives here that I'm sorry, but that they will both need to come here to have a look. There something in here I don't understand. We also need to know if anything is missing from the cottage."
A short while later, Stanley and Paul Jackson crossed over into the neighbouring garden together with Nok Hume and WPC Johnson. They were warned to take great care of the broken glass lying on the floor as they entered the living room. It had not been possible to enter through the front door of the cottage, because it remained locked and Nok Hume's key was still inside.
The strange animal odour was even more apparent inside the living room. As they entered, Stanley Jackson and his son noticed the large wooden carving standing by the side of PC Edminson at the far end of the room; its presence dominated everything. Although the Jacksons were not familiar with the layout of the room, it was apparent that the sofa had been pushed forward from its usual position, and now stood hard up against the mantelpiece. A table had been pushed back against the wall on the opposite side, and two chairs lay overturned. It was as if a passageway had been created in the centre of the room so that something could move through the space created. The television set and video recorder had not been removed, and appeared to be undamaged.
The first thing Nok noticed as she entered the room behind the Jacksons was that the wooden carving of the Siamese cat and the carving of the upright crocodile were no longer behind the patio doors. Then she cried out, shocked at the sight of the carving of the crocodile in its altered location. It now stood gazing out onto Main Street, towards the steeple of St George's church, with a ghastly object stuck between its jaws: the partially skeletal remains of a dead cat. The curtains that had covered the nearby window had been pulled off the runner and lay in a heap on the floor.
"I'm sorry, dear," apologised the PC Edminson looking at the object beside him. "We'll come to this one in a minute. But is there anything that is missing?"
Nok looked around the room in a state of incomprehension. "My Siamese cat carving has gone. It was together with my crocodile statue by the doors here," she said pointing to the patio doors behind her.
"And nothing else missing apart from that?" asked the same officer, before adding: "And can you be sure about, for example, credit cards, bank books and so on?"
"No. Everything valuable, I keep in downstairs bedroom," explained Nok, pointing towards her locked bedroom door.
"Was there an attempt to enter your bedroom?"
"No. They never tried to open the door. But I think they hear me when I switch on my mobile telephone."
"Did you hear any voices?"
"No voices."
"So you have no idea how many people there were in here?"
"No idea. But there were some strange noises."
"Strange noises, like what, dear?" asked WPC Johnson.
"Something like a snake; a big snake," she replied with evident conviction.
"A hissing sound?" asked WPC Johnson. Nok was not familiar with the word, but guessed the meaning from its onomatopoeic qualities.
"Yes," she confirmed.
"It looks like this whole thing involves one or two people with very sick minds," suggested WPC Johnson, gazing at the carving of the crocodile with the dead cat in its jaws. "Sorry to push you on this, Mrs Hume, but do you have any idea why anyone would do something like this?" asked PC Edminson. Nok shook her head; she didn't know. "I think I might have an idea what this means," offered Stanley Jackson. "It's possibly a sick joke directed at Nok, and has some connection with the spate of disappearing cats we had lately in the village. There were some nasty and of course baseless rumours that somehow Nok and her husband were responsible for the disappearances, and that they were using the cat meat in their takeaway. That's my interpretation of this."
"So we might be looking for someone local. This is just a small village. Any ideas who you think could be responsible?" asked PC Edminson.
"There was that strange guy who once lived in Church Lane," said Paul Jackson looking at Nok. Paul and Nok had never really spoken to each other before except just to say hello. Nok clearly understood the reference, but remained silent. "But he's not in the village any more. He disappeared about two months ago," added Paul Jackson.
The carcass of the dead cat hanging from the mouth of the wooden crocodile made for very unpleasant viewing. It also seemed to have been taken for granted that it was the source of the evil smell that lingered in the room. With its matted dirty fur, exposed patches of bone on both its abdomen and skull, severely decayed shrivelled face and empty eye sockets, the carcass hung precariously from the carving. The slightest disturbance and it would surely drop onto the floor. Looking at the dead cat, Paul Jackson noticed that there was something familiar wrapped around its neck. He moved closer, and immediately recognised the identification tag from his missing cat, Katy. "It's my cat, Katy, which went missing last November," he cried out in astonishment. Everyone watched in stunned silence as Paul Jackson, covering his nose and mouth, took hold of the identification tag and confirmed that the cat was his.
Two more police officers finally arrived on the scene. A thorough check was made of the whole cottage. At the point of entry, the glass in both of the patio doors had been shattered, but no attempt appeared to have been made to force open the locks. The doors remained both closed and locked. The thieves had entered the living room, and had removed the carving of the Siamese cat without opening the doors. "And you never heard the sound of the glass being broken?" asked one of the newly arrived officers.
Nok shook her head. "No. Mrs Crawford didn't hear anything either."
"Coming straight through the glass seems to make some sense if they supposed that the doors would be alarmed," suggested PC Edminson.
"Which it isn't," observed Stanley Jackson. "And all this mischief for a wooden carving and just to do something like that," he added, pointing to the carving of the crocodile. PC Edminson shook his head in despair. He was now standing by the patio doors. Bending down, he partially lifted up a large shard of glass, about a metre in length. "The glass is fairly thick and strong. It would have required the application of a considerable force to break through it," he suggested.
"Judging by the largeness of all the pieces of glass, the force must have been applied quickly and over a large area in each of the doors. It couldn't have been done with something like a hammer, which would have produced some smaller pieces from the point of impact," added Stanley Jackson. The large shards of glass lay on top of a thick rug covering the area of the parquet floor immediately behind the patio doors.
"Are you an expert on glass?" asked PC Edminson.
"I work in the hardware business. I know something about it," replied Stanley Jackson.
"What do you think managed to smash this glass then?" asked PC Edminson.
"Something big, heavy and fast-moving," replied Stanley Jackson.
"Such as?"
"I have absolutely no idea. But the glass was knocked out, and then it must have fallen relatively quietly onto the rug behind. Some further fragmentation may have occurred when the glass was subsequently trodden on."
After completing their investigation, the police finally left. They had promised to keep Nok informed of any progress they made in finding out who was responsible. Even though the incident was bizarre and disturbing, it was a fact that the breakin could not be considered sufficiently serious to warrant the use of a large amount of police time. There would be no photographers recording the scene of the crime, and no forensic scientists in white suits dusting down the door frames and glass shards for possible fingerprints or traces of those responsible.
It was three thirty in the morning when Stanley Jackson went across the road to his home and returned with a toolbox and two wooden panels of approximately the right dimensions for blocking up the patio doors. It was about half-an-hour later by the time he had finished the job of fitting the panels in place. Then, Stanley Jackson finally removed the body of the dead cat from the jaws of the wooden crocodile, and took it home to be buried. Elsie insisted that Nok spend what remained of the night sleeping in her spare bedroom. It was an offer that Nok Hume readily accepted in the circumstances. Even though deeply exhausted by the night's events, Nok was understandably not able to fall asleep immediately. But just as there were the first indications that morning was approaching, such as the sound of a car passing through the village, Nok finally drifted off to asleep.
During her sleep, Nok had one of the most powerful and vivid dreams she had ever experienced. She dreamt that that she was in a large oceanarium, with a huge clear acrylic window that allowed visitors to see fish and other marine life from beneath the surface of the ocean. The daylight that penetrated the depths illuminated a hitherto unseen and strange world. Seaweed and other aquatic plants swayed in turbulent ocean currents that churned up sand, pebbles and sediment on the seabed. Fish of all sizes, types and colours swam in the diffuse aquamarine light. Then she saw what resembled a child suddenly appear and swim right up to the window of the oceanarium. Treading water, and apparently breathing effortlessly as if the sea was its natural environment, it peered through the window at her. The long black hair of the feral sea child drifted upwards in the water. Its nakedness was only partially concealed by the strands of seaweed wrapping themselves around its body. The sea child's face was expressionless, presenting dark eyes powered by an intelligence that did not seem to be human. It made no attempt to communicate, and just continued to tread water and to watch through the window of the oceanarium. Then the sea child suddenly turned and swam away, vanishing into the huge expanse of ocean that lay beyond. Nok marvelled at what she had just witnessed, and for the first time looked around the oceanarium to see if any of the other visitors had witnessed the sea child. But they had evidently not. No one was paying any attention to her section of the window. Then she awoke, and for a few seconds lay in bed convinced of the reality of her dream. Only after the effects of the dream had begun to fade was she able to recall the events of the previous night.
\*\* (11) \*\*
It was the first Saturday in February, the day following the breakin at the Humes' cottage. Professor Brock and a team of postgraduate students were in Wet Rain Hill to carry out their long-planned exploration of Bell Hollow. It was planned to carry out the explorations of the cave over the course of the following week. The exploration represented, as far as they were aware, the first serious attempt to explore the unusual cave. There were ten people in the team, including archaeologists and geologists. An experienced cave explorer would carry out the actual descent into Bell Hollow. A coil of high-tensile cable attached to a harness was to be used to lower the cave explorer into Bell Hollow. He would also be equipped with special climbing shoes, and a safety helmet with a mounted spotlight and a small video camera. The cave explorer would communicate with those on the surface via a throat microphone and set of headphones. He would also wear a small pouch containing instruments for scientific measurement, including a digital thermometer, a hygrometer for measuring humidity, and a manometer for measuring atmospheric pressure. Some other specialised speleological equipment was also on hand.
The electronic equipment was linked to several laptop computers, which were located in a tent set up nearby to the cave entrance. The laptop computers would digitally record the data obtained during the exploration. The video camera, as well as the throat microphone and headphones, were also linked to a laptop computer; these would provided live pictures and sound during the descent and exploration. A small diesel generator would supply the required electrical power. One not so hi-tech, but essential piece of equipment they would be using was a paraffin-heater. This would be used for keeping the inside of the tent warm on this cold February morning.
Professor Brock had used a research fund that had been given jointly to the Departments of Archaeology and Geology by a major international oil-company to buy the equipment. One requirement stipulated by the provider of the funds was that it should be allowed to use any publicity generated by the exploration in possible future advertisements, should anything of interest be discovered. This included film shots inside the cave and interviews with members of the team.
Whilst the professor's interest in the exploration of the cave was principally archaeological, the department of geology hoped to get enough data to construct a topological and geological map of the cave. This would help both in estimating the age and in understanding the origin of this anomalous geological feature. The oil-company had particular interest in the geological aspects of the exploration, even though it was thought unlikely that significant oil deposits would be discovered.
The team had started setting up their equipment from about eight thirty in the morning. And by eleven, everything was ready for the first planned descent into the cave. The day had originally started out bright and cold, but then, almost on cue, the notoriously fickle British weather lived up to its reputation. The sun disappeared behind a huge rolling bank of cloud, and the once bright green hue of the hillside was now dulled by shadow. Rain had become a distinct possibility. Nevertheless, the team decided to go ahead on the day with their first planned descent into Bell Hollow.
Thick brambles surrounded the entrance to Bell Hollow. Some effort had been made by the team to cut a swath through the greenery to a point where the cave explorer, Steve Bone, would start his descent. Ironically, this point was right next to the warning sign, which told people to stay clear of the cave because of the dangers it posed. Steve Bone sat on the lowest edge of the entrance to Bell Hollow with his feet dangling over the side. The upper part of the cave was shaped rather like a periscope. The eye-like entrance directed up onto Menzie's Hill opposite then curved into the near-vertical main chamber of the cave.
The final checks were made to Steve Bone's harness, safety helmet and cable. The cable was attached to the harness, and passed through a series of pegs secured in the ground around the cave entrance. It was supplied by a coil mounted on a stand, which was also securely fixed to the ground and located about three metres from the cave entrance. Two male team members had the job of supplying additional resistive force on the cable, if it was required. Another person had the task of managing the rate at which the cable was paid out according to the instructions given by Steve Bone through his throat microphone. Final tests were also carried to ensure that the small video camera mounted on his safety helmet was correctly sending pictures to a laptop computer, and that the explorer's throat microphone and headphones were functioning correctly. When it was finally confirmed that everything was working correctly, Steve Bone was ready to begin the task of exploring the cave.
He was gingerly lowered over the side of the entrance to Bell Hollow. Then, unable to cling onto the cave wall because of the sheer drop, he dangled for a moment in the air suspended by the cable attached to his harness. He gave instructions through his throat microphone to the cable controllers to begin lowering him into the cave. After a few seconds, he had plunged into a world of absolute darkness. The daylight outside was not able to travel around the bend at the entrance to the cave. There was nothing on the roof of the cave to reflect any light into the cave chamber. The spotlight mounted on his safety helmet lit up the space in front of him. Eventually, and after some difficulty, he was able to manoeuvre himself so that he was facing the wall of the cave. Steve Bone then began what was, in effect, a backward crawl along a solid surface. The cave was almost completely silent, except for the sound of his hands and feet on the rock surface. On occasions, he sent pieces of shale plunging into the dark void beneath him. The sound of the shale hitting the cave floor echoed around him.
Each requested additional length of cable came in units of one metre. Above ground, Steve Bone's progress was monitored from the images supplied to a laptop computer. With the assistance of gravity, together with his skills as an accomplished cave explorer, he descended, without a hitch, to a depth of about two-hundred-and-fifty metres in the space of only a few minutes. At this depth Steve Bone announced that he was now standing on a narrow rock ledge within the cave. It was estimated that the floor of the main cave chamber was still about twenty metres beneath him.
"This place is incredible," enthused Steve Bone, as he slightly edged his way to a place on the small ledge where he could get a more secure foothold. "I'm amazed how regular the features of the cave appear to be; they hardly seem natural. I've never seen a geological structure like this. The cave chamber is like a huge cylinder gouged vertically out of the earth. The rounded wall surface of the cave is almost unreal." On reaching a relatively secure point on the ledge, he began extracting a sample of the sedimentary rock from the surface of the cave using a tool similar to a corkscrew. The sample was then placed inside a small plastic container and stored in the pouch attached around his waist. He then took measurements of the cave diameter using an infrared distance sensor, and also noted the local temperature and humidity.
Without having any prior knowledge of the source of the images appearing on the laptop computer, they would be impossible to comprehend. The fawn-coloured and coarse surface of the sedimentary rock, with scattered pinpricks of reflected light from particles of iron pyrites, looked like an aerial photograph of part of the earth's surface.
"Steve, could you move further around?" asked Professor Brock. "I'd like to see some more of the cave wall."
"I'll try to move as far along this ledge as possible," responded Steve Bone. He passed by a narrow band of moisture, less than a metre in width, which clearly originated from the surface. It reminded him of the potential the cave had for flooding. "We've got some ancient life in here," announced Steve Bone, referring to the moss congregating around the moisture. As he edged around, the ledge became wider, which was welcome. Now he could stand up normally rather than press down heavily on his toes. He was conscious of the possibility of the ledge suddenly giving way. Such an occurrence would be disconcerting rather than dangerous, because the cable to which he was attached had been designed to support at least twice his body weight.
At what appeared to be the widest part of the ledge, Steve Bone stopped and tried to take in the image that now suddenly confronted him. "Take a look at this," he yelled into his throat microphone. Team members above ground gazed excitedly at the laptop screen, and struggled to make sense of the images that were being transmitted by the camera mounted on his safety helmet. "Is this not something special?" he practically screamed.
Set off by the fawn colour of the rock, two animal forms had been painted in various hues of red and black. "This is tremendous, Steve," boomed the professor's voice in Steve Bone's ear, before adding: "Is it going to be another Lascaux?" This question was perhaps rhetorical, and referred to the famous prehistoric cave paintings of hundreds of bulls, deer and horses discovered in south western France.
"At the moment, I can only see these two. I'm now trying to lean back as far as I can in order to make more sense of them. What do you reckon they are Prof?" asked Steve Bone.
"One of them appears very feline," interjected one of the team looking at the image appearing on the laptop screen. "I agree," concurred Professor Brock. "It's a cat, or a lion, lying down with its paws held out in front of its head. And I think the other creature lying beside it is a sheep, or a goat, or maybe a lamb."
For a moment everyone stared in stunned silence at the two unlikely inhabitants of the cave. The images were recognisable, yet somehow alien. Illuminated by the spotlight on Steve Bone's safety helmet, the curves, spaces, colours, shades, and textures cast a strange spell as they emerged from out of the surrounding darkness of the cave. The paintings left no doubt as to the high degree of sophistication of the artist or artists.
Steve Bone began carefully scraping the rock surface to gather small samples of what seemed to be ochre pigment and oil used in the paintings. "How on earth they got down here to do this, and then got back up again safely, is something to be marvelled at," he commented, as he worked away on one small section of the painting. Professor Brock responded: "When you have finished, Steve, can you look to see if there any sockets in the cave wall? I'm thinking about evidence of scaffolding." A few minutes later, Steve Bone began scanning the surrounding area in greater detail. His hands searched the rock surface before him. Eventually, he found a series of holes that seemed to have been bored into the rock face. Then he noticed more some distance above. "I think there's a trail of sockets, probably running all the way up to the surface. I must have missed them in the darkness on the way down to this point."
"How about going further along the ledge, Steve?" asked the professor. "There might be more paintings."
"I can see that the ledge gets narrower and then peters out. But I'll manoeuvre myself further along as far as I can," responded Steve Bone. As he moved towards the end of the ledge, he was informed that it had begun to rain heavily at ground level. "Okay Steve. Things are not looking too bright up here. Let's bring you back up for now," declared Professor Brock. "Wait a minute, Prof," responded Steve Bone suddenly. "There's something else. Look! It's a large niche in the cave wall, and there's something inside."
The image that now appeared on the laptop screen was just as startling as the cave paintings previously witnessed. Lying inside a niche in the rock surface, the nearly skeletal remains of two dead animals could be seen. They were immediately recognised as belonging to a cat and a sheep. There was also what appeared to be a wooden carving lying amongst them. "Looks like a repetition of the cat-and-sheep theme," shouted Steve Bone excitedly into the darkness. "How recent do the remains appear, Steve? You have a better view than we do up here," gasped the professor, with a hint of impending disappointment in his voice.
"They are relatively recent. The remains are certainly not ancient. Both sets are not yet completely skeletal. I know things are going to be preserved a bit longer down here, but even so, I would estimate that these animals must have been placed in here only within the last few months," replied Steve Bone.
The professor sighed audibly. "So when I said Lascaux before, perhaps I should really have said Piltdown Man," he said disappointedly, referring to the great archaeological hoax perpetuated in southern England in the last century. It was at Piltdown where something that was thought to be the skull of the missing link in the chain of human evolution turned out in fact to be a modified ape skull deliberately left at the site of an archaeological dig as a practical joke.
"If the whole thing is just a hoax, then they've gone to considerable pains to carry it out," noted Steve Bone. "This niche has been carved out of solid rock. I'm sure it's not a natural feature."
"I must say also that the cave painting didn't look like a mere daub either; it looked pretty convincing from up here at least" added Professor Brock, less pessimistically than before. "It could be that these dead animals are just someone else's recent contribution to what was originally here."
"What you have just said may also apply to this," said Steve Bone reaching into the niche, and pulling out the carved wooden head of a large-eared cat. "This also clearly belongs to the feline line within the cat-and-sheep theme."
By the time Steve Bone had been raised back up to the surface, the rain had become torrential. The carved wooden head was placed in a plastic bag, and the pigment samples from the cave painting were carefully packed away. As the team scrambled up a wet and slippery Wet Rain Hill towards the shelter and warmth of Professor Brock's cottage, an uncommon series of very loud peals of thunder echoed around the surrounding hills, resounding like the venting of an ancient and primitive rage at the violation that had just taken place in Bell Hollow.
\*\* (12) \*\*
Alan Crawford and his family arrived late in the afternoon in the village of Wet Rain Hill. It was the same Saturday that Professor Brock had begun the exploration of Bell Hollow, and the day following the breakin at the Humes' cottage. The rain was still pouring heavily as Alan Crawford's car pulled up onto the driveway of his mother's cottage. Several cars could be seen parked outside Professor Brock's cottage further down Main Street. Inside Elsie Crawford's cottage, they found Nok helping her in the kitchen. Alan Crawford had already spoken to his mother earlier in the morning on the telephone, and consequently he knew about the breakin next door.
Later that afternoon, the Crawford family had tea together as usual. Nok Hume joined them. No one wanted to broach the subject of the breakin for fear of upsetting Nok. Nevertheless, it turned out that she herself was looking for some kind of explanation, and was eager to discuss the matter. Nok described how she had been awoken suddenly in the early hours of the morning by noises coming from the living room. She went on to describe as best she could in her less than perfect but nevertheless functional English, the details of what subsequently happened. This included the strange hissing sounds, the sound of furniture being moved around the room or pushed over, the terrifying moment when she thought her mobile telephone had given her away to the intruders, and the pungent animal smell that had lingered in the living room afterwards. Finally, she described the horrible sight of the dead cat left in the jaws of the wooden carving of the crocodile, and how the carving had been dragged from its previous position so that it now faced out the front window of the cottage.
Alan Crawford did not say this at the time, but his thoughts immediately turned to Mr William Avon who had fled the village just under three months ago. Avon had shown an interest in the Humes and their cottage. The fact that the only thing that appeared to have been stolen was the wooden carving of the Siamese cat, brought in from Thailand, was surely of significance. Why was it only the wooden carving of the Siamese cat, and nothing else, which had been taken? If they could have done so, would those involved have removed the carving of the standing crocodile as well? Did this not in fact happen because whoever was responsible had been disturbed by the sound of Nok's mobile telephone being switched on, and so were unable to finish what they had intended? But then, what was the significance of moving the crocodile to the front window, and placing the remains of a dead cat in its mouth? Was there some meaning in this gesture? All of these questions passed through Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford's mind as he listened to Nok Hume.
Alan Crawford asked Nok if her husband was now aware of what had taken place in the cottage. She replied that Jack Hume had been told about the breakin when he had telephoned her earlier in the day. He had called to that say he had arrived safely in Saudi Arabia, but on hearing the news had said that he wanted to return home to Britain immediately. Nok, however, had persuaded him that this wouldn't be necessary. Elsie Crawford had also spoken to him, and had promised to get Stanley Jackson, who owned a hardware shop in Hexham, to repair the patio doors permanently and securely, as well as to install an alarm-and-intruder system in the cottage.
After tea, Alan Crawford and his son accompanied Nok next door to her cottage. She had not yet touched the wooden crocodile, which was still standing by the front window. It looked incongruous, standing upright on two short back legs with its front legs outstretched like a pair of stunted arms. "And poor Katy, the Jacksons' cat, was just found hanging out of its mouth?" asked Alan Crawford looking at the carving.
"Yes, I feel very sorry for the Jacksons. It was a very terrible thing for them to see. Very sad," answered Nok.
"Where is the cat now?" asked David.
"Mr Jackson took it home with him. I think he has buried it."
"If you don't mind, Nok, can you tell me something about how you came to buy the two wooden carvings?" inquired Alan Crawford.
"I chose this carving because I like crocodiles. In Thailand we have many crocodiles. Some people think that crocodiles are bad. But you cannot say that they are good or bad; they are just different. They are strong and powerful, but they are also quite shy. In some parts of Thailand there is a tradition that the crocodile can protect you if you learn how to respect it."
"Is that why you originally placed it by the patio doors?" asked Alan Crawford.
"Yes. But it was there together with the Siamese cat. They were like a married couple." Nok Hume bent down and picked up from the floor a fragment of the strip of tinsel that had once symbolically bound the two animals together, and then she continued: "Jack and I saw them both together in a shop in Bangkok. Jack especially liked the crocodile carving and he wanted to buy it immediately. But I also liked the Siamese cat, and told him that we should buy it as well. This was because I remembered a story I had heard as a child. It was about how a cat and a crocodile became good friends. The story goes like this. One day, the cat and the crocodile were walking past a village, when the cat noticed that a thief was stealing gold from a temple. On hearing this, the crocodile chased after the thief and eventually caught him. The crocodile then returned the gold safely to the monks who lived in the temple. The monks were so pleased that they said the crocodile and the cat could live in the temple grounds if they wanted to. The two animals lived there happily together for a while. But one day, a monkey, which the monks had also given permission to live in the temple grounds, played a terrible trick on the crocodile and the cat. Whilst the crocodile was away bathing in the river, the monkey suddenly pounced on the cat and tied it up. It then took the cat to a secret place. When the crocodile returned to the temple, it was told by the monkey that the cat had gone to the river to look it for it, and had not yet returned. The crocodile then returned to the river and searched for the cat. But even after several days, the cat could not be found. Meanwhile, the monkey went back to the place where the cat had been hidden away, and told the cat that the crocodile had now falling in love with its reflection in the river and would never return. And from that story, we can see why cats hate rivers and water and why crocodiles are always found on riverbanks. So, you see, I wanted the cat and the crocodile to be together in my house, happy, just like they were in the temple grounds before the monkey played a trick on them," explained Nok Hume.
"An amazing story, Nok" responded Alan Crawford. "And I would really like to know who the monkey is in this case."
Alan Crawford began examining the wooden carving more closely. There was something on it that had apparently not being noticed before. "I suspect that there is a cavity in this carving," he said, crouching down and pointing at a part of the crocodile's stomach. "Look," he said pointing. "A rectangular chunk has been cut out, thinned right down and then it has been glued back again into place. Its surface is flush with the rest of the carving, but you can see a thin trace of glue all the way around the piece." He ran his finger around the rectangular trace.
"There's another," said his son, pointing to a place on the crocodile's back. "And this one's got a crack in it, and I can see something leaking out." Small traces of a white powder could be seen around the crack. Alan Crawford had immediate suspicions as to what the white powder might be. "Don't touch it, son," he ordered.
"What's wrong?" asked David, as Nok looked on in silence.
"It might be an illegal substance, and I wouldn't be surprised if this animal in fact contained drugs. The Siamese cat that was taken could have packed with them as well." Alan Crawford turned to Nok, and asked: "Nok, what can you remember about the packing and shipping of these wooden carvings from Bangkok?" For a moment, Nok looked at her questioner in stunned silence, as the realisation of what had been discovered dawned upon her.
"Jack took care of the packing and shipping. We used a company that had been recommended to Jack," she answered. "But please believe me. We don't know anything about drugs."
"I do believe you, Nok. But I suspect that someone has been using your possessions to smuggle drugs into this country. I will speak to Jack in Saudi by phone later and will tell him about this. Can I have his number, Nok?"
"Yes, today he gave me a number where I could contact him," responded Nok.
"The Thailand connection with our friend Mr William Avon, formerly of Flat 2B, Church Lane, begins to make a little more sense now," observed Alan Crawford. "I think we can see why he might have decided to come to the village of Wet Rain Hill."
\*\* (13) \*\*
Over the course of the subsequent week, Professor Brock's team continued to explore Bell Hollow. The professor now referred to the cave painting that had been discovered on the first day of exploration, as 'the Lion and the Lamb'. This name came from the familiar pairing of animals in the Old Testament scriptures of Isaiah, which many thought of as symbolising reconciliation between two natural adversaries. One of the team had not so seriously objected to calling the painting 'the Lion and the Lamb' on the grounds that the cat painted in Bell Hollow did not have a mane and was thus not very lion-like. Professor Brock countered this objection by quoting a verse from Isaiah, Chapter 11, which went: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid." He thus showed that the original reference in the Bible was in fact to a leopard. And then pointed out that, allowing for scale, the features of a cat are indistinguishable from those of a leopard, especially a blank panther, which is a leopard with no spots.
The analysis of the ochre pigment and oils that had been used in the painting was not yet fully complete, but the results regarding the dating had been obtained and were very intriguing. The surface pigment of the painting appeared to be very modern, possibly even originating within the last few decades. Further examination of the painting carried out on subsequent visits to Bell Hollow, however, revealed traces of a much older pigment lying beneath the currently visible top layer. The painting appeared to have been touched up at different times, with the older pigment possibly as old as three hundred years.
The discovery of the carcasses of a cat and a sheep inside Bell Hollow had given rise to some wild speculation within the team. The fact that the animal carcasses were clearly not contemporary with the older layers of the cave painting effectively ruled out the possibility that what had been discovered in Bell Hollow was just an elaborate hoax. It had been suggested by some that they might have come across the den of a secret occult group. This outlandish proposal, however, presented some difficulties, because the evidence suggested that such an occult group would have to be Masonic in its span of the centuries.
During subsequent descents into the cave, Steve Bone went beyond the ledge where the cave painting had been found and reached the floor of the main chamber lying at a depth of two-hundred-and-seventy metres. Here, there was a passageway running approximately northwards towards the village and sloping down into the earth at an inclination of approximately forty-five degrees to the vertical. The exploration of the cave had now become potentially much more difficult and dangerous. But even before the exploration of the more constrictive deeper reaches of the cave had begun, another remarkable discovery was made. A cast-iron bell, roughly one metre both in height and base diameter, was found standing upright within the entrance of the narrowing passageway. The positioning of the bell appeared to have been deliberate, because it was impossible to move any further along the passageway without first removing the bell. To the extent that it could be seen, the outer surface of the bell was remarkably clean. There was no moss or dirt, and no significant signs of corrosion on its dull, lustreless surface. If this was the long-lost church bell that had given the cave its name, which was what everyone in the team assumed, then it was clear that it could not have been preserved in its present location for around three hundred and fifty years. The bell would have deteriorated standing alone in such a position, given the passage of time and the tendency for Bell Hollow to flood. The perplexing conclusion that had to be reached was that it had been placed at the entrance to the passageway relatively recently, and now stood like a palladium, a protective deity, a warning against those who would try to venture more deeply into this realm.
The witnessing, via the helmet-mounted video camera, of Steve Bone's discovery of the bell had been a cause for jubilation by the team above ground. That discovery by itself was stunning, but the team had given a collective gasp of astonishment when the spotlight on Steve Bone's safety helmet illuminated one particular feature of the bell: Cast in relief on the surface of the bell was, once again, the lamb lying down with the lion. The cave painting higher up was clearly an imitation of this image on the bell. Furthermore, and only partly visible because of the positioning of the bell at the entrance to the passageway, the image of Christ, the Lamb of God, being crucified on the cross was also cast in relief on the metallic surface.
On the next descent into Bell Hollow following the discovery of the bell, ropes, pulleys and pegs were brought down into the cave. With great care, using force supplied by the team above ground, the bell was dislodged from its position at the entrance to the passageway. It was then relocated a short distance away so that it no longer hindered further exploration of the cave. No attempt was made yet to lift the bell up and out of Bell Hollow.
Crawling on his hands and knees, protected from the jagged rocky interior by gloves and kneepads, Steve Bone proceeded further into the low and narrowing passageway. The space through which he travelled eventually shrunk in cross-sectional area to about one square metre. Then he noticed that just ahead of him, the passageway opened up into a large chamber. But as he moved towards a point from which he would be able to see more clearly what lay beyond, an object in the passageway caught his eye. The object was a rudimentary cross measuring around thirty centimetres in length, with the crossbar measuring about ten centimetres. It appeared to be made of two separate pieces of carved bone bound together by a type of twine. Lying on the floor of the passageway, the white bone cross shimmered in the light of Steve Bone's spotlight.
After some discussion with Professor Brock and the other members of the team on the surface, it was decided not leave the bone cross in situ, but to bring it up to the surface. Steve Bone removed his gloves, and carefully picked it up. The temperature in the cave was around fifteen degrees Centigrade, much higher than was currently being experienced in the cold February day above ground, but the bone cross felt unnaturally cold when touched. After inspecting the cross, he placed it inside a small rucksack that he had brought with him. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, whilst repositioning the rucksack onto his back, he thought he saw something move in the passageway ahead of him. He formed the impression that he had seen a dark form moving across the entrance to the chamber that lay ahead. Fear took immediate control of him. There was now no wish to discover what really lay beyond the point he had reached. He became seized by all the primeval fears of darkness, confinement and the dark terrible unknown that lie submerged beneath the rational conscious mind. To the consternation and bewilderment of the team on the surface, Steve Bone yelled, screamed, into his throat microphone that he was getting out of Bell Hollow immediately. He turned, and began to crawl as fast as he could back through the dark narrow passageway. As he crawled, he knew for sure that there was something behind him. It was following him. Not daring to pause or look back, he used his bare bloodied hands to pull himself even faster out of the passageway, past the bell, and out into the chamber.
He worked frantically to reattach the cable from the surface to his harness in order to begin his ascent. Repeated inquiries from the professor as to what was happening in the cave were responded to with feverish, panicky, unintelligible gasps. Once the cable had been reattached to his harness, Steve Bone pleaded to be lifted back up to the surface at once. A few minutes later, he emerged from the cave, cut, bruised, exhausted and terrified. It was assumed that he had suffered a panic attack, brought on by the claustrophobic conditions within the passageway. From the video and sound feed taken from the cave, there was no immediate indication that anything abnormal had taken place.
Because of Steve Bone's distress, not to mention the minor injuries he had suffered, it was inevitable that the exploration of the cave would have to be suspended for a while. He was taken away for medical attention. Later, a meeting was held in the professor's cottage that same Thursday afternoon. In the discussions, the professor emphasised that as far as possible there was a need to restrict the spread of information about the discoveries made in Bell Hollow. It was expected that the team would carry out further explorations as soon as possible. But in the mean time, attracting unwelcome attention to Bell Hollow before the work had been satisfactorily completed was something to be avoided.
By the following Saturday evening, however, Professor Brock had himself been forced to partially break this code of silence. He had bumped into Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford and his wife in the Blackbird public house. Alan Crawford had mentioned to him the breakin that had taken place over one week ago at the Humes' cottage. Because of Alan Crawford's description of what had been taken from the cottage and how it appeared to have been used in a drug smuggling operation, the professor felt compelled to mention one of the discoveries made in Bell Hollow. He described how a carved head of a large-eared cat had been found inside the cave, and how it appeared to be part of a much larger carving. Later that same evening, the professor showed the discovery to Alan Crawford and Nok Hume where it was confirmed that the carved head did indeed belong to the Siamese cat carving stolen from the Humes' cottage.
\*\* (14) \*\*
Professor Brock did not profess to have any religious beliefs. The death of his wife had, however, made him think once again about what might be called the fundamental questions of human existence. Is there a God? Is there a meaning to life? Is there a life after death? And also, is there, in fact, a meaning to the previous questions? He had felt bitter and angry after the accidental death of his wife three years ago. This bitterness and anger was made all the worse because it did not have a specific object at which it could be directed. There was no one specifically to blame for the death, except perhaps his wife herself for not taking greater care. She had slipped and fallen in the bathroom whilst he had been away at work, and had lain all day in a pool of blood, eventually dying some time during the day from the injuries sustained. He had then come home in the evening from the university to find her dead on the floor.
Negative feelings eventually gave way to resignation, and ultimately to some kind of acceptance of what had happened. Complete acceptance, however, would never come; he was sure of that. She still visited him in his dreams. He could still hear her voice and smell her hair. There were even times when he would still talk to her; perhaps relating to her what he thought was a particularly amusing or curious incident. He had already told his wife about the discovery made in Bell Hollow of the church bell.
The professor was thinking about his wife as he attended the Sunday morning service at St George's in Wet Rain Hill. Doubtless, she would have found it highly amusing to find him sitting in a village church singing, or at least pretending to sing hymns; the likes of which he had not sung for about forty years. Neither of them had been religious. When they had been younger, they had jointly professed a degree of almost militant atheism. This had been tempered in their later years together, to become a sort of tolerant agnosticism. He had even taken to reading the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, which he had come to respect as a majestic and mysterious document, rich in history, folklore and psychology. All of it couched in grand and nebulous language. He had found it inconceivable, however, that the Old Testament represented the word of God.
But the professor was not attending church as the result of a sudden and dramatic road-to-Damascus conversion to Christianity, or indeed out of any other spiritual need. He was here out of curiosity. Something was intriguing him. The discoveries made in Bell Hollow the previous week and the conversation he had had with Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford in the Blackbird public house the previous evening had given him the sense of being caught up in something very strange. He had no clear idea of exactly what it was, except that there were events and circumstances that were displaying a perplexing degree of interconnectedness. Crime, namely drug smuggling, appeared to be one aspect of what was happening. But his discoveries in Bell Hollow suggested that there were other more mysterious aspects as well, and he could not deny that he felt slightly thrilled at the prospect of solving this grand puzzle. At the same time, however, there was a sense of danger ahead. The sign at the entrance to Bell Hollow had, after all, warned of this.
After the church service had finished, the professor hung behind so that he could speak with the vicar. The two men knew each other only by sight. When the congregation had finally all left, the vicar approached the professor who was still inside the church apparently admiring the stained glass windows. "They never fail to fill me with anything but awe," said Geoffrey Adams. "They really are astonishingly beautiful, aren't they?"
"Yes they are," agreed the professor. "I especially like this pastoral scene with the lion and the lamb." Geoffrey Adams looked up at the window to which the professor was pointing and added: "A very moving symbol, don't you agree?"
"Yes. And very vividly represented," replied the professor.
"Anyway, you are very welcome to St George's. I believe this is the first time you have attended a service here?"
"Yes, it is. But I have walked around the church graveyard before. You have had some very interesting history take place within these hallowed grounds."
"Indeed, but not so much prehistorical, which I believe is your field."
"Who knows that for sure?"
"I concede that may be true. It is silly of me to be so presumptive. Anyway, I'm very interested in your work, Professor Brock. I've read some of the things you've written for the local press, and have seen and heard you on television and radio several times."
"Some aspects of my work seem to attract the interest of the media," acknowledged the professor.
"Well, I see that you have had a team from your university on the hill this week, exploring Bell Hollow. I would be fascinated to hear about that."
"Actually vicar, that's precisely the reason I've come here. You see, I've discovered something in Bell Hollow that you will without a doubt be interested to hear about. In confidence, vicar, I need your help."
Geoffrey Adams smiled. "This sounds intriguing. I would be delighted to help in any way I could. As you say, in confidence. I certainly won't go blabbing to the media. You have my word on that."
"Thank you. Being a man of God, I'm sure that I can hold you to that promise. Anyway, I'm meeting Alan Crawford in the Blackbird for a lunchtime pint. I think you know him, and I also believe that you yourself drop into the Blackbird occasionally. If you don't have any objections or other plans, would you care to join us for half-an-hour or so?"
"It would be my pleasure. What time precisely?"
"It's now twelve-thirty. What about one-o-clock?"
"Agreed," said Geoffrey Adams.
Professor Brock looked up once again at the stained glass window he had been admiring earlier. "This one seems to fascinate you," observed Geoffrey Adams.
"Well you could say that the lion and the lamb has been something of a recurring theme for me recently," explained the professor.
\*\* (15) \*\*
The Blackbird public house was usually busy during Sunday lunchtimes and today was no exception. The smell of lamb chops, Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes drifted in from the kitchen. The steady hum of conversation was mixed with the occasional clatter of plates and the tinkle of cutlery. Professor Brock was the first to arrive, followed a few minutes later by Alan Crawford. Finally, about fifteen minutes after the arranged time, the vicar, Geoffrey Adams, appeared.
"Please accept my apologies for being late," said Geoffrey Adams, as he rather awkwardly offered his hand in greeting to both men, before finally sitting down at their table in the corner. "Can I get you a drink?" asked the professor, noting that the vicar had sat down without first buying one. "That's kind of you. An Irish whiskey would be just fine."
A few minutes later, the professor appeared with the vicar's drink. "I was just explaining to Detective Crawford my reasons for being late," said Geoffrey Adams, as he took the drink. "You see, I was quite excited by what you said, Professor Brock, about having made some discoveries in Bell Hollow". Then the vicar hesitated for a moment. He quickly looked around to make sure no one was listening, before continuing in a low voice. "After I spoke to you, Professor Brock, I took the opportunity to look over again some of the old church documents and records that I'd been sorting out for some time because of my own interest in the history of St George's." Once again, Geoffrey Adams paused. In a manner that was decidedly conspiratorial, he looked around the room to see if there had been a response to what he had just said. But no one else in the pub could have possibly heard what he had just said. Moreover, no one was paying the slightest attention to the cabal in the corner. "Have you found the bell?" He blurted the question out in a hushed, but excited voice.
The professor was very mindful of the meeting that had taken place with his research team where it had been agreed not to disseminate information about the discoveries made in Bell Hollow. But subsequently, it had turned out that he had been compelled to tell Alan Crawford not just about the discovery of the wooden Siamese cat head, but of all the other discoveries made in Bell Hollow. After all, some of the discoveries appeared to have a connection with events in the village over the course of the past few months, albeit an unclear one. It was now clear that the vicar would also have to be taken into confidence. As the custodian of St George's church, it was only proper that he should know about the apparent discovery of the long-lost bell.
"Yes, vicar," replied the professor. "But we haven't removed it yet. Here are some pictures." He handed the vicar some enlarged digital photographic stills taken from the video footage of the cave exploration. "Good heavens," responded Geoffrey Adams looking at the photographs. "Well, who would have believed it?" he commented after examining the photographs in detail. "Absolutely incredible," he continued. "This must be the bell. There can be no doubt about it. But to think it has lain there undisturbed for all these centuries, and is still in such a good condition is truly remarkable. It's something of a miracle don't you think? Rather like when they opened the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral several centuries after his death, and found that his body was still perfectly preserved."
"Do you have any records, vicar, describing what the original bell in St George's looked like?" asked the professor.
"Yes. There are some descriptions of the bell amongst the old documents in the church. Although the records in question post-date the removal of the bell by about one-and-a-half centuries, they do give a description of the bell that was either based on older records or on information passed down verbally. That is why I immediately realised that these photographs were indeed of the original church bell. There is a note, dated June 1823, if I remember correctly, which refers to a proposal that the church parish council raise funds to buy a new bell for the church. This same note goes on to say that the new bell should be identical to the old one. It then goes on to describe the old bell as being distinctive in that when it was cast it had designs, set in relief, of a lion and a lamb and of Christ's crucifixion. It seems, however, that the council finally decided upon a simpler, smaller and much cheaper bell. And this is the bell we have had in the church from that time onwards. Instead of purchasing a more expensive bell, the money saved was used as a contribution towards rebuilding the village school, which stands just across the road from where we are now," explained Geoffrey Adams.
"I'm pleased that we have some corroboration that this might be the original long-lost church bell from St George's," noted the professor. "But come to think of it, could it possibly be any other? Most people would say that to loose one bell down Bell Hollow would be an accident, but to loose two bells down there would be very careless. However, I'm certain the bell has not lain in its current position since the time that it was first placed in Bell Hollow. It was evidently placed in its current setting very recently. And with due respect, vicar, I don't think that the reason the bell is in such a good condition is because of a preservation order issued by God. It must have been maintained over the centuries, and protected from the elements, especially moisture."
"Protected by whom?" asked the vicar sounding surprised.
"The honest answer is that I really don't know," replied the professor. "The masons have been mentioned; or what about some other secret fraternity?"
"The secret fraternity of bell polishers, perhaps" responded Geoffrey Adams laughing briefly, before continuing: "I'm not aware of any thing like that going on locally. But then again, perhaps I wouldn't. I'm a relative newcomer, really. Some might say an outsider."
"That applies really to all of us here," suggested Alan Crawford.
"Is there any mention in the church records of a specific connection between the old church bell and Bell Hollow?" asked the professor.
"Yes, in fact there is. A paragraph in a later parish letter, I think dated June 1835, mentions a proposal that an attempt be made to locate and remove the old bell from Bell Hollow, where according to the same note, the bell was placed around two hundred years earlier," explained the vicar.
"But no indication as to why the bell was placed there in the first place?" asked the professor.
"I cannot find the reason for the removal of the bell from the church belfry explicitly recorded in any of the old documents. Maybe it was decided at the time not to write down the reasons for doing it. But, as you may well know, the generally accepted assumption is that the disappearance of the old bell is connected with the First English Civil War in the Seventeenth century. It is said that the villagers wanted to hide the bell. The dates for the removal and disappearance of the bell certainly correspond with that episode," replied the vicar.
"The dates do correspond, and the Civil War story is a very plausible one," agreed the professor, taking a sip from his pint of Cuthbert's ale before continuing. "But you see, I think that the real reason was in fact written down somewhere."
"Where could that be, professor?" asked the vicar.
"On the anvil-shaped stone that we call Liz's rock," answered Professor Brock. "It was written down there approximately six thousand years ago."
On hearing this, the vicar and Alan Crawford both looked perplexed. They tried to take in the meaning of Professor Brock's statement and to resolve the glaring inconsistency in dates that it presented.
"You see, I've analysed the famous markings on Liz's rock," continued Professor Brock. "And as I have explained to Alan in a much earlier conversation, I believe that the ancients tried to use this rock to block the entrance to Bell Hollow. It was too difficult for them to physically move the rock, so they called upon the shamans to try and use their powers to do it. The shamans implored the rock to move as required. But much to their undoubted disappointment, the magic failed. We have no record of the consequences of this failure for all involved. Now move forwards several thousand years. Once again the powers of the supernatural, of divinity, call it what you may, were invoked; this time, in the guise of Christianity, requiring a different set of rituals. An object endowed with religious imagery, and hence blessings, was placed at the entrance to the narrow passageway inside Bell Hollow; a remarkable feat, given the resources at the time. But I think that perhaps we have a general tendency to underestimate the ingenuity and resourcefulness of those who went before us. Anyway, in addition to providing a physical barrier inside the cave, the bell also had on its surface what was to the people at the time that most potent symbol of the victory of good over evil, and of life over death: Christ's crucifixion on the cross. The bell also had on it a symbol that perhaps expressed the desideratum of the villagers: the lion lying down with the lamb. The lamb represented the villagers, and the lion represented that from which they sought protection."
"What do you think it was that they were afraid of?" asked the vicar. In response, the professor shrugged his shoulders, and then replied: "I don't know for sure, but Alan will remember that I once said to him that the reason the ancients might have wanted to block Bell Hollow with Liz's rock was because they perceived it as the source of something bad, something undesirable or harmful. It may also be true that Bell Hollow somehow has the capacity to bring out a kind of irrational or primitive fear in people: fear of the unusual, fear of the unknown, fear of the dark."
The professor thought to himself about the terror Steve Bone had experienced inside Bell Hollow. A levelheaded and usually very rational person had clearly been deeply affected by the place.
"But whatever the reasons, imagined or real, for wanting to block Bell Hollow in the first place, I still find the idea that the bell has been maintained in such a good condition since that time, very significant" said Alan Crawford.
"As I indicated earlier, one is led to the conclusion that the attention given to the bell started centuries ago," responded the professor. "And this is supported by the fact that the cave painting relates to one of the images on the bell. I already know from analysis of the pigments used that the painting of the lion and the lamb was first started at least three hundred years ago."
"Cave painting?" interjected Geoffrey Adams, looking confused.
"Sorry vicar. I was going to tell you about that, but hadn't got around to it yet," explained the professor, handing the vicar some more digital stills taken during the cave exploration. Looking at these photographs, Geoffrey Adams responded: "Now I fully understand your earlier comment about the lion and the lamb theme when you were admiring that stained-glass window in St George's."
"It is also difficult to avoid making a link between this theme and the disappearance of lions and lambs, or to be more precise, cats and sheep in the area," commented Alan Crawford.
"It all seems to be getting 'curiouser and curiouser', to quote the author of Alice in Wonderland," said the professor.
"And didn't Alice's trip to Wonderland start when she climbed down into a hole out of a sense of curiosity?" recalled Geoffrey Adams.
"And they sat that curiosity killed the cat," added Alan Crawford patly.
\*\* (16) \*\*
David Crawford was sitting quietly in the bedroom he used in his grandmother's cottage. He was pondering the discoveries that had been made in Bell Hollow by Professor Brock recently. His father had told him about these discoveries earlier that morning. He had also been told that the head from the wooden carving of the Siamese cat stolen from the Humes' cottage had been found inside Bell Hollow. He also knew that there was an ongoing police investigation into the use of the Humes' wooden carvings to smuggle hallucinogenic drugs from Thailand into Britain. Some people in the village knew that a breakin had taken place over one week ago at the Humes' home. But apart from the Crawfords, the Jacksons, and Professor Brock, no one else apart from the police knew of its possible connection to drug smuggling. Information about a link between the breakin and Bell Hollow was similarly restricted. It was widely known in the village, however, that an exploration of Bell Hollow had been taking place. Those members of the public that had ventured down to take a look at what was going on had been politely requested to stand at some distance away, beyond a cordon that had been placed around the area near to the cave. Professor Brock had told Alan Crawford that he was confident no sightseers were privy to any of the significant findings in Bell Hollow.
David Crawford's mind wandered back to the night in November when he thought he had caught a glimpse of something moving down Wet Rain Hill. He had tried afterwards to convince himself that what he had seen on Wet Rain Hill had been nothing more than shadows and imagination. He recalled how startled he had been later to see the sketches made by Wendy Newton's grandmother and how this had somehow made it all very real once again. Both he himself and Paul Jackson had certainly seen Avon on the hill, on the night in question, in a frightened state. He had clearly been running away from something, imaginary or real. It was plausible that his behaviour was that of someone under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug. It had also since become clear that Avon had a very specific reason for snooping around the Humes' cottage and that there were good grounds for supposing also that he was connected with the recent breakin. But despite all his attempts to the contrary, he could not avoid reaching the conclusion that there was something extraordinary happening in Wet Rain Hill. Events and themes, past and present, seemed in some unfathomable way to be connected.
His mother and grandmother were sitting watching television in the living room. They had just finished doing the kitchen chores after the family's Sunday lunch. He put on his coat and slipped quietly out of the cottage by the front door. A few seconds later he was knocking on the door of the Humes' cottage.
\*\* (17) \*\*
William Avon lay in bed watching television in a hotel room in Hexham. It was Sunday morning. Somchai Tantaratana was in the next room with a woman he referred to as his wife. The women in question was not, however, Somchai's only wife. Avon had met his other wife on several occasions, and she was much older. The wife Somchai had brought with him to Britain on this occasion was a fairly recent acquisition. She was what is known in Thailand as a 'mia noi', or minor wife; and this particular minor wife was aloof and secretive. She clearly enjoyed the wealth and prestige that the position afforded her, but so far had shown little real interest in communicating with Avon during the trip to Britain. Somchai and his minor wife had travelled business class in the flight to London, whilst Avon had travelled on the same flight but in economy class. They had even checked in separately at Bangkok's Don Muang airport. Somchai had insisted upon all of this as a security precaution, much to Avon's annoyance. This extra precaution, which in Avon's opinion was quite unnecessary, had been taken in addition to the fact that he was also travelling under the alias of John Wakes.
On arrival in London, they had hired a car using the name of John Wakes, and had then driven northwards the length of England for over five hours to Hexham, where they had booked into a hotel. In spite of the fact that he was wanted by the Hexham police force, Avon did not feel overly anxious about being in this small Northumbrian town. After all, he was not being sought for murder. There were no wanted-posters pasted around town bearing his face. Moreover, he had been growing a beard in an attempt to make himself less recognisable.
They had now been staying in the hotel for over one week, and had made several reconnaissance trips to nearby the village of Wet Rain Hill. This was in order to check that the Humes still lived in the cottage and that they were still in possession of the wooden carvings. Great care had been taken during these visits to ensure that Avon was not seen and recognised by anyone in the village. For this reason, it had been Somchai who had done most of the footwork. Avon had tended to wait inside the car, which was usually parked in a lay-by just outside the village. From the hillside behind the Humes' cottage, the wooden crocodile was still visible. There was every reason to suppose that the wooden carving of the Siamese cat was also somewhere inside the cottage, and that no one suspected anything. Moreover, they had discovered that Mrs Hume appeared to be living alone at the present time. This would make their task much easier.
Based on these weeklong observations, it had been decided that the plan to remove the wooden carvings would now be implemented. The cottage had not been broken into on Saturday night, because Avon knew from his time in the village that this was when the cottage next door usually had extra visitors. At all other times, an old woman lived there alone.
It was just before midday when Somchai interrupted Avon's television viewing by knocking on his hotel room door. "William, I think we should go to Wet Rain Hill earlier than originally planned, meaning right now," he announced in Thai after the door had been opened. Avon responded with a vexed look on his face. "Earlier? Why? I thought we had already decided to go later tonight."
"It is going to be done tonight. But there is something else we need to do first of all. Something very important, connected with a place I observed when I was walking on the hill behind the cottage a few days ago."
"Important? What is important?" asked Avon, barely able to suppress an annoyed tone in his voice. "It is something that will be of great benefit to us in the future," replied Somchai opaquely.
"I would be grateful if you could tell me what it is you have in mind. It is still broad daylight, and I don't want to be seen creeping about on that hill, especially by her or by her neighbours. According to what I know, they will still be there until about six this evening."
"Don't worry, William, I've taken that into consideration. We will park the car in the usual place, and then walk on the hill opposite the village far enough away from everything so that no one will see or recognise you," explained Somchai using Thai.
"Why didn't you mention this Sunday afternoon stroll to me earlier? And why can't you tell me exactly what it is you need to do?" demanded Avon.
"I just realised this morning it is something we need to do beforehand. It is for reasons I cannot explain to a Westerner, to a 'Farang', like you, William. Please believe me."
"Do you have to be so inscrutable?" complained Avon in English.
"Insclut-able?" repeated Somchai, struggling to pronounce the r-sound.
"Sly," responded Avon in Thai.
No, my dear friend, I'm not being sly; just circumspect as usual," explained Somchai. His minor suddenly wife made an appearance by his side. He in turn looked at her, smiled, and then said: "Why, I haven't even told my wife yet what it is I think we need to do on that hillside. But believe me; it will be very worthwhile for us."
\*\* (18) \*\*
David Crawford stood waiting for Nok Hume to answer the door. Eventually, she appeared, peering warily around the partly open door. He could hear the television on in the background. "Hello Nok. I need to talk with you for a moment; if it's convenient," he said quickly. She smiled. "David! Of course, come in." He entered, and Nok closed the door behind them. "Please sit down," she said, whilst using the remote control to switch off the television. In the silence that followed, he cleared his throat self-consciously, and then sat down still wearing his coat. "Nok, I hope this doesn't upset you, but I'd like to talk about the theft of your wooden carving," he explained.
"No problem," replied Nok, also sitting down.
"First of all, I'd like to say that I'm sorry about the theft. I'm sorry that such a terrible thing was done in your home. The sight of the dead cat must have been awful. They suspect it's all to do with drug smugglers," he said, feeling awkward with both his predicament and choice of words. Of course it was awful, and she already knew about the connection with drugs.
"Don't worry, David," she replied staring down at her lap, before adding: "It can't make them happy. Killing poor animals, scaring people and selling drugs is no good; bad karma for them."
He had some idea what Nok meant by karma; it was a concept from Buddhism. His interpretation was that whoever was responsible would get their comeuppance, sooner or later; even if it was on a cosmic time scale. "Nok, how scary was the breakin?" he asked, feeling immediately that he had once again said something that sounded nonsensical, silly, or even childish. But his words had already flown. Nok responded immediately. "I was very scared, David. You know that I was alone. I didn't understand what was going on. I could hear them, dragging things across the floor, and sometimes pushing things over. The noises they made were so strange and terrible."
"I've heard that you said the noises sounded like hissing," he noted. Nok now understood the meaning of that word: hissing. "Yes, the noises they made sounded to me like snakes hissing."
"I also heard something about a strange smell that lingered in the room afterwards."
"Lingered?"
"I mean, the smell, it didn't go away for a long time."
"This is all true. They say it was from the dead cat. Why do you mention that smell, David?"
"Because I've been thinking about something my friend Paul said to me. He came into this room that night with his father, and when he was describing the events to me afterwards, he said that the smell was like the reptile house in a zoo." Nok Hume listened intently, and seized upon the last word. "Yes, like a zoo. But like crocodiles in a zoo. I used to like visiting a crocodile farm in Bangkok. Now, I remember the smell of crocodile farm."
"Then the smell wasn't just from the dead cat."
"No, I think you are correct. It wasn't."
"So whoever broke into your cottage smelt like a crocodile?"
"Yes," said Nok reluctantly, as if she was being led to confirm something that couldn't possibly be. Then after a pause, she added: "I can also remember the noises made by the crocodiles at the crocodile farm in Bangkok."
"What did they sound like?"
"Sometimes they hiss like a snake, and sometimes they shout like this," she said, imitating a roaring sound. Then adding: "But I didn't see anything. So I can't explain what happened that night."
The room felt silent once again. He had something to tell Nok. It was something he hadn't told anyone else yet. He wasn't entirely sure why he should now tell it to Nok, and not to his family, particularly to his father, or to Paul Jackson. Perhaps he wanted to tell her because he felt that they both had something in common: They had both had an encounter, however limited in scope, with that central unarticulated mystery at the heart of what was happening now and what had happened in the past in Wet Rain Hill. He had seen it briefly, whilst Nok had heard and smelt it. Wendy Newton's grandmother had also encountered this mystery. And despite the cruel disorientation and memory loss of Alzheimer's disease, the encounter in the village had made a tremendous impression on her. Her Grand Guignol Christmas cards were a testament to this.
Finally, he began to speak again. "Last November, Nok, I saw that crazy character, the one who had been bothering you before he suddenly disappeared from the village. He was running away from something on Wet Rain Hill. It was a Saturday evening, and I was standing around the back of my grandmother's cottage with Paul Jackson looking for his lost cat. I think this crazy guy had been snooping, or intending to snoop around your cottage, but something must have disturbed him. In fact, I should say it frightened or terrified him." He paused, looking at Nok. She may not have understood every word he had just said, delivered as they were in quick-fire succession, but she understood the essence of what he had just spoken. "Nok, I think I might have seen what that crazy drugged guy was running away from. And however impossible or strange this sounds, I believe that what broke into your cottage was the same as what I saw on Wet Rain Hill that night. I don't think this guy I mentioned just now carried out the breakin at your cottage, though I'm sure my father thinks he did. I haven't told my father, or anyone else, what I have just told you now."
Nok furrowed her brow and asked: "What did you see, David?"
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the photocopy he had made of Wendy Newton's grandmother's sketch of a crocodile, standing upright, and tugging on a bell in a church belfry. After looking at the sketch himself once again, he handed it over to Nok. "This sketch makes it look a bit like a joke, but it isn't," he said as Nok examined it. "Anyway, the person who made this drawing has also seen something like it. I'm sure of that," he added. Without saying anything further, Nok turned and looked towards the patio doors where the wooden carving of the upright crocodile had now been placed back in its original position.
\*\* (19) \*\*
William Avon drove the hire car towards the village of Wet Rain Hill. In his rear-view mirror, he could see Somchai Tantaratana's minor wife in the back seat staring out of the window at the passing Northumbrian countryside. She hadn't spoken a word, even to her husband, since they had left the hotel in Hexham. Whether this was because she didn't have anything to say, or because she had other things on her mind, he wasn't sure. By way of contrast, however, Somchai had talked almost continuously during the entire journey. He had discussed his business in Bangkok, and how he hoped to move into new and profitable areas. He had even mentioned how he had plans to stand for election as a senator in the Thai parliament, explaining that this was because he had desire to serve his country. Avon responded to this possibility with a wry smile. The one thing, however, Somchai studiously avoided talking about during the journey was the reason why they were going to Wet Rain Hill long before nightfall.
Eventually, the car pulled into a lay-by about one mile outside of the village of Wet Rain Hill. Avon turned off the engine of the car and turned to Somchai. "It's still only two-o-clock. There will be another three hours or so of daylight," he commented irritably. "Don't worry, William. This won't take too long," assured Somchai.
From the beginning of their working relationship, Avon had reluctantly decided to tolerate what he perceived as Somchai's eccentricities. This was because he wanted to remain in the employment of the Lucky Bird Export Company. The rewards were certainly more lucrative than working as an English language teacher in Bangkok. He understood that he was working for a man who willingly took advice from street-corner fortune-tellers. And that his boss was someone who made a daily religious offering of a bottle of strawberry-flavoured Fanta together with a bowl of fresh fruit and a clutch of smoking joss sticks to a small plastic deity resembling a bearded China-man who appeared to be living in a birdhouse. But his boss was also a person who had the ability to run a multimillion-dollar operation and who paid his employees reasonably well. It was this last characteristic that Avon appreciated; all his other foibles could be tolerated, even if it was not always easy to do so.
In Avon's mind, there was little doubt that the current visit was being carried out in connection with the performance of some kind of ritual to ward off the evil spirits that had thwarted the last attempt to steal the wooden carvings. He could himself vouch for the presence of evil spirits on the hill that night in November, when he had last come to visit the Humes' cottage. The thing that had suddenly reared up before him had possessed a terrifying verisimilitude. It was a chimerical creature that possessed both reptilian and humanoid characteristics. He recalled the nodule-patterned and crocodile-jawed head with its dark, cold, probing eyes that suggested more than mere reptilian intelligence. At first, he had seen it lying down on all fours, trying to conceal itself amongst the rocky hillside. Then it had stood upright, about the height of a man, displaying a powerful scaly body with a long lizard-like tail. At this point, he had understandably fled from the hill in sheer terror.
In retrospect, he realised that it had been very foolish of him to take the hallucinogen beforehand. He now supposed that the vision that had confronted him on the hill that night had been no more than a mental projection of the form one of the things he had originally set out to steal: a crocodile. And since that incident, he had not taken any more of the potent hallucinogen. Now, he just planned to make a living from transporting and selling this natural herbal remedy for reality, supplied courtesy of some members of the Burmese Karen hill tribe.
After leaving the car, and walking for about half-an-hour, they paused by the ruined dry stone hut on Menzie's Hill, known as Menzie's Hut. From this point, the village of Wet Rain Hill lay about two miles further to the north. The afternoon was dry and bright. In the distance, the cottage that had been the object of their attention for the past week was visible. And although he had not yet said so, the fact that Somchai Tantaratana was carrying a phial of holy water, given to him by a Buddhist monk in Bangkok, seemed to confirm that the purpose of his visit was indeed ritualistic. He had pointed out the cave on the opposite hill as their intended destination, where he evidently believed that the evil spirits living inside it needed to be appeased in order for the mission to run successfully later that night.
During the brief rest by Menzie's Hut, Avon decided that he would try to make some conversation with Somchai's minor wife. "Lek, What do you think about here?" he asked in Thai, leaving it unclear as to whether he meant this particular hillside or England in general. "She's happy to be having a holiday with me here on business," answered Somchai in Thai, before his minor wife was able to respond. She forced a smile on hearing her husband's response. But the smile distinctly lacked any joy or warmth. Then, for a split second, her eyes caught Avon's. She radiated fear. He felt unnerved. "What exactly are we doing here?" he asked Somchai, using slow and deliberate English.
"We are here, William, to get the wooden carvings of both the crocodile and the cat that you failed to get last time from that cottage over there," answered Somchai, also using English with uncharacteristic eloquence, and with a noticeable tone of sarcasm.
Avon now felt a surge of anger well up inside him. "I meant: what are we doing on this hill, this afternoon, long before it is dark, when someone might recognise me? Because if that was the case, it would definitely prevent us from getting the wooden carvings stuffed with your magic powder from that cottage over there," he replied angrily punching out the general direction of the cottage in the air. Somchai responded calmly to this using Thai. "No one will see us, William, and no one will hear us," he declared. "We needed to come out here because I have a feeling about this place, about the cave that I saw some people exploring last week. I think it is a very special place. And if we are to avoid the same problems that you experienced last time, we must ask permission from whatever spirits live in that cave so that we can be on their hill." On hearing this, Avon's eyes rolled upwards in a sign of further exasperation.
"If you are only going to sprinkle some of your holy water into the cave, then why did I need to come along?" asked Avon.
"When you took the Karen hill tribe's medicine, William, you encountered a spirit from the cave. That spirit saw you, and it seems it was displeased with you. You violated its territory. Therefore, it is necessary for you to personally come here to directly ask for permission. I have prepared something that will help." Smiling, Somchai reached out and pulled his minor wife to her feet. Avon made the decision that nothing further could be gained by trying to reason with his employer. "Okay, let's get on with it," he said also standing up.
"It will only take about half-an-hour, and then we can return to the car and prepare for tonight," said Somchai, evidently pleased that Avon was now willing to go along with his plan.
They began walking down the hill away from Menzie's Hut, following a path that led towards Liz's Burn. The dark eye, that was the entrance to Bell Hollow, watched their approach. There were some sheep standing on the small wooden footbridge that spanned Liz's Burn near to Bell Hollow. But as far as they could see, there were no other people around. With the exception of the sound of the occasional car driving by on Boldlaw Road to the west, everything was quiet.
Five minutes after the group had left Menzie's Hut and had walked some distance down the hill, David Crawford and Paul Jackson, who had been crouched up and hiding inside the hut, began to breathe more easily. They had heard and understood parts of what had just been spoken in front of them.
"My God!" exclaimed David. "That was William Avon. He's now grown a beard, but I can still recognise him."
"And he is back here together with a foreign couple. I didn't understand most of what they all said just now, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the couple must be Thai," responded Paul Jackson, peering through a gap in the ruined hut at the three figures walking away down Menzie's Hill.
"When they used English, they said that they were going to steal the two wooden carvings tonight," observed David. "That confirms everything about the drugs."
"Yes, but what is really weird about all of this is that they don't seem to know one of the carvings has already gone missing," noted Paul Jackson.
"Anyway, we can now make sure that they get a good reception when they try to break into the Humes' cottage," said David.
It had been David Crawford's idea this Sunday afternoon to go and search on Wet Rain Hill for undiscovered clues relating to the breakin. After his conversation with Nok, he had gone across the road and asked Paul Jackson to come along. His friend had agreed.
They had already spent some time at Bell Hollow without making any discoveries when David had suggested that they go up Menzie's Hill and explore Menzie's Hut. Without explicitly saying so, he had wanted to view Bell Hollow from this vantage point. He now felt that the tale about Menzie the shepherd had some relevance to his experience. On reaching Menzie's Hut, they had noticed three figures approaching from the distance. Instinctively, they had then concealed themselves behind one of the derelict walls of the ruin, and had remained there unseen and undetected.
Sheep fled across the wooden footbridge at Liz's Burn as William Avon and his two companions approached. A short time later, three figures stood by the entrance to Bell Hollow, inside the cordon left over from Professor Brock's exploration. As they stood looking into the entrance of the cave, Avon's two companions put their hands together in a prayer-like gesture. Then they bowed in unison before Bell Hollow. One of them took something from his pocket, and a moment later could be seen sprinkling liquid into the cave.
After a while, an argument seemed to break out between the Thai man and William Avon. The latter could be seen gesturing furiously and pointing up towards the village. In the mean time, the woman moved away from the others. The Thai man then crouched down on all fours, and appeared to be continuing his ritual at the cave entrance. Avon stood with arms akimbo looking at him. Suddenly, the Thai woman sprang at the unsuspecting Avon. With the lethal speed of a martial arts expert, she struck at him with her arms and feet. He collapsed, lost his balance and fell forwards over the figure crouched down by the cave entrance. A solitary yell accompanied his fall headfirst into Bell Hollow.
David Crawford and Paul Jackson watched in horrified silence, barely able to comprehend what they had just witnessed. They waited, half-expecting William Avon to miraculously reappear from the dark pit into which he had just plunged. The Thai man quickly scrambled to his feet. The couple looked around to see if anyone had witnessed their act of murder. Hand in hand, they began to hurriedly retrace their steps back across the wooden footbridge spanning Liz's Burn, and up along the path that climbed Menzie's Hill towards Menzie's Hut.
David spoke first. "I'll use my mobile to call the emergency rescue services, and then I'll call the police and my father."
"We shouldn't let those two know that we are here," advised his friend after the calls had been made. The mobile telephone was temporarily switched off as the Thai couple approached Menzie's Hut. The murderous duo said nothing as they stumbled quickly past the ruin, not suspecting that their evil deed had been observed, and that the police were now after them.
\*\* (20) \*\*
Alan Crawford had just returned to the cottage from the Blackbird public house when the telephone rang. He listened as his son, calling from just outside Menzie's Hut, described what he had witnessed moments earlier.
Twenty minutes after the call, the emergency rescue services and an ambulance arrived in the village. The police arrived at the same time. Within three-quarters-of-an-hour, a rescue worker was descending into Bell Hollow. David Crawford and Paul Jackson stood by and watched. Alan Crawford had brought Professor Brock down to the scene in case he was able to provide useful information to the rescuers. Everyone knew, however, that the chance of surviving a fall into a cave chamber, as deep as Bell Hollow, was practically zero. But there was still a need to recover the victim's body.
When the rescue worker reached the ledge fifty meters inside the cave, he reported to the surface that he could still see no sign of anyone. He then descended further into the cave and arrived at the lower level of the main chamber. But the anticipated announcement that a body had been discovered did not happen. Instead, the rescue worker reported that a large metallic object appeared to be blocking off a passageway leading away from the main cave chamber. Several of the spectators knew that the metallic object in question was obviously the church bell. One of them, Professor Brock, also knew that when his team had explored Bell Hollow the previous week, the passageway had not been left blocked off. They had repositioned the bell away from the entrance. The professor kept this fact to himself.
Finally, it was decided to call a halt to the search inside the cave. A search of the surrounding area had also turned up nothing. It had been dark for an hour by the time the police and emergency services withdrew for the evening.
The police interviewed David Crawford and Paul Jackson separately. The stories they told were consistent. The police had picked up a Thai couple waiting at a public bus stop on Boldlaw Road a few hours earlier; they had denied any knowledge of a murder on Wet Rain Hill. They had admitted being on the hill for a walk, and going to visit Bell Hollow, but insisted that they were only tourists. They claimed not to know anyone called William Avon. The police were not able to resolve the contradictions between the two very different viewpoints presented to them about what had taken place that afternoon. This was further complicated by the fact that no body had been found, and no one had reported Avon missing. There was, as yet, nothing to back up the extraordinary claims of the two young men.
Finally, the police were forced to release the Thai couple after questioning them for several hours. The couple were able to provide the address of a hotel in Hexham, which the police verified by telephone. In addition, it was established that there was no guest at the same hotel registered under the name William Avon. The police advised the couple that they would need to be interviewed again sometime during the following day, and that they should keep the police informed of their whereabouts.
Later, the police found what appeared to be an abandoned car in a lay-by nearby to Wet Rain Hill. A check revealed that the car was on hire to a Mr John Wakes, with an address in London. By late evening, still no one had come to collect the car. The police had to leave the car unguarded in the lay-by overnight. By morning, however, the car had gone. It seemed that John Wakes had come to reclaim the car during the night.
That Sunday evening, Alan Crawford and his family had stayed on in Wet Rain Hill instead of travelling back home as usual. Despite the fact that there was nothing yet to corroborate their story, Alan Crawford knew that his son and Paul Jackson were telling the truth. It was simply out of the question that they would make up a story like this. Moreover, the presence of a Thai couple near to the village in the middle of February was surely more than coincidental taking into account the origins of the wooden carvings and the background of William Avon.
\*\* (21) \*\*
Monday morning arrived. There was a slight covering of frost on the ground. Still cloaked in darkness, the village gradually began to stir. A man was out walking his dog along Main Street. He turned and walked up Church Lane, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Understandable perhaps, because he wasn't particularly expecting anything out of the ordinary. Moreover, his dog, which was rather old, was only interested in sniffing new scents on the pavements and roads. It was even harder to catch any this cold winter's morning. The milkman had come and gone already, and he had not noticed anything especially different. But then again, his delivery round did not cover the entire village these days. Less and less people took delivery of fresh milk from him. Similarly, the postman had walked his route and made his deliveries, and had not seen anything remarkable.
Soon it was time for the children to start making their way to school. The younger children attended the village primary school, whilst the older ones travelled by bus to the high school in Hexham. This busy period lasted until around nine-o-clock; and nothing out of the ordinary was observed. But of all the mornings of the week, and especially a cold wintry one, it is surely a Monday morning that is the most subdued and least observant. A morning characterised by head-bowed resignation to the start of a new week. It was a time, perhaps, for mulling over of the events of the now expired weekend.
And so it was left to the vicar, Geoffrey Adams, to make the profoundly shocking discovery. Emerging from the vicarage at a quarter past nine, he walked along the path that led to the entrance of the church. On arriving, he unlocked the large doors and entered the church. His footsteps echoed on the old stone floor as he walked up the central aisle towards the altar. In front of the altar, he quickly made the sign of the cross and uttered some brief words of prayer. Then he walked over to the pulpit to look for some papers, including an announcement of the upcoming church gala, which had been left after yesterday's church service. He knew that even if only a minority of the villagers attended his services that at least many more read the church notice board situated by the lich gate facing onto Church Lane. An announcement regarding the event had been made during yesterday's church service, but he had forgotten to place a copy of it on the notice board after being distracted by his talk with Professor Brock. Moreover, after meeting with the professor and Alan Crawford in the Blackbird pub, he had then travelled by car to Morpeth to visit his mother for Sunday tea. The excitement at hearing about the discovery of the bell in Bell Hollow had proved to be something of a distraction for the rest of the day.
Now he found the announcement printed on a piece of green A4-size paper amongst other papers on the pulpit. Holding it, together with some drawing pins, Geoffrey Adams left the church and walked through the graveyard towards the notice board. The frosted gravel crunched underneath his feet. White frost covered the headstones and clung on to the plants and trees around them. The wintry morning sun sat low in the cold blue sky. He felt in good spirits. The return of the lost bell of St George's could be the centrepiece of the church gala. This was something that would surely bring in the crowds. There would be new interest in the church, and possibly in his ministry as well. The discovery of the bell could surely be taken as a sign, an indicator of change; ringing out the old and ringing in the new.
As he approached the notice board, the sight that lay before him stopped him dead in his tracks. Beside it there was the large wooden cross that had been recently installed in preparation for Easter time. But hanging from the cross was a naked and bloodied figure, bearded and Christ-like. Its head drooped forwards; the arms were attached to the cross bar by twine; and the lower legs were bound in a similar fashion to the cross's vertical column.
In response, Geoffrey Adams took to his heels. Shocked, he fled past the figure, through the lich gate and out into Church Lane. Making it to Main Street, he immediately caught site of Detective Sergeant Crawford standing on the driveway of his mother's cottage. With his heart and lungs working away in quite an unaccustomed manner, the vicar yelled at the familiar figure before him: "Murder! Murder! There's been a murder. A crucifixion! A crucifixion!" Alan Crawford looked at the figure approaching him in astonishment, and recognised straightaway that it was the vicar. His first thoughts were that maybe the vicar was putting on some kind of mawkish religious street theatre to impress the village; a 'Passion play' about the crucifixion of Christ. Or maybe he was having some kind of nervous breakdown, induced by religiosity. "Who's been crucified?" asked Alan Crawford as the vicar drew nearer, half expecting him to answer that Christ had been crucified. "I don't know," gasped Geoffrey Adams, steadying himself on the wall at the front of the cottage before continuing: "Someone. It's awful...head and face covered in blood ... in the graveyard!"
Alan Crawford quickly followed the vicar's route back up to the church. Whilst the vicar halted nervously outside the lich gate on Church Lane, Alan Crawford continued into the graveyard, where he was confronted by the apparition that had so shocked the vicar. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed with unintentional irony at the sight of the bloodied and battered figure on the cross.
It was immediately clear that in this particular crucifixion there could be no resurrection. Alan Crawford steeled himself, and walked closer to the cross. Despite the terrible injuries suffered by the victim, he was still able to recognise who it was. He recalled his son mentioning that William Avon had now grown a beard. The figure on the cross clearly hadn't died as the result of being crucified: he had been murdered yesterday after being pushed down Bell Hollow. After his death, the body must have been brought into the graveyard of St George's and displayed on the cross in the manner of the crucifixion.
Alan Crawford quickly returned to his mother's cottage and called the police. He told them that the body they had searched for in vain yesterday had now turned up hanging on a cross in the graveyard of St George's in Wet Rain Hill. Then he returned to the graveyard to find Geoffrey Adams now sitting inside the lich gate, staring vacantly at the ground. "Why don't you go inside where it's warm, vicar? I'll wait here for the police to arrive. I'm certainly not going to allow another Crawford to be embarrassed by the disappearance of this corpse."
\*\* (22) \*\*
Because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body, a post-mortem examination was carried out quickly that very afternoon. It was discovered that Mr William Avon had died as the result of multiple injuries consistent with a fall from a great height onto a rocky surface. The estimated time of death was consistent with the reporting of the murder by David Crawford yesterday. Additional injuries, however, had been inflicted on the body post-mortem, and could be seen around the arms and feet. These clearly resulted from the body having been suspended on the cross from between six to nine hours. Strangely, the body also appeared to have been punctured and clawed by some unknown agent at several places; these injuries were also inflicted post mortem. None of the victim's clothes had yet been found.
Hexham police had already begun a murder investigation. Following the discovery of the body of William Avon, they had immediately tried to take the Thai couple interviewed the previous day back into custody. However, when inquiries were made at the hotel in Hexham where the couple had been staying, the police were told that the couple had already left. According to the staff, three guests had checked out of the hotel together, late last night. These three people were named as a Mr and Mrs Tantaratana, and a Mr John Wakes. One of the hotel staff recalled seeing all three leave together in the same car. Further probing by the police revealed a discrepancy in the description of the Mr John Wakes who had originally checked into the hotel over one week ago compared with that of the Mr John Wakes who had finally checked out. A receptionist described the John Wakes that left the hotel last night as aged around forty-five years, dark-haired but greying, clean-shaven, stocky and of medium height. His namesake that had checked into the hotel was of a similar age and height. But he was described by some of the hotel staff as dark haired and was not noticeably going grey. Moreover, he was said to have had a trimmed beard, and to be more slimly built. The hotel bills had all been paid using cash.
Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford had been given special leave from his usual police duties to assist with the murder case. His knowledge and insight into the case were considered to be important. In addition, he was in the rather unusual position of having a son as one of the chief witnesses in the murder.
A meeting for all the officers involved in the case was held very late in the afternoon. During which, Alan Crawford reviewed what he considered to be the background to the case. He decided to start with how Avon had been overheard just before his death briefly discussing the Humes' wooden animal carvings with the fugitive Thai couple. He explained how the carvings had been shipped from Thailand, and recalled how the theft of one of the wooden carvings, namely the Siamese cat, had taken place over one-week ago. He mentioned how he had then realised that the carvings had probably both been used in drug smuggling, describing how this fact came to light after the remaining carving, namely the crocodile, was found to contain a quantity of a potent hallucinogen packed inside plastic bags. He detailed how the bags of drugs had been removed from the crocodile and taken away for examination; the wooden carving, however, still remained at the Humes' cottage. The discovery of the head of the Siamese cat together with the remains of a real cat and sheep in Bell Hollow was also mentioned as relevant; another bizarre detail in an increasingly strange set of circumstances
Alan Crawford put forward his conviction that the Thai couple were deeply involved in the smuggling, and had for some reason decided to get rid of William Avon. The existence of at least one more probable accomplice in the smuggling operation, namely John Wakes, was also postulated. He also emphasised that it could not be assumed, however, that those involved in the smuggling operation had actually stolen the wooden carving of the Siamese cat. As he pointed out, this had clearly been one-half of their aim. But based on what had been overheard on Menzie's Hill, it appeared that those discussing the planned theft had not been aware that the carving of the Siamese cat had already been removed, and that only the crocodile remained.
Finally, the circumstances surrounding the discovery of William Avon's body on the cross in the graveyard of St George's were discussed. Alan Crawford said that in his opinion it was not likely that the vicar was involved in the murder of Avon or that he had somehow just discovered the dead body and had then arranged a gruesome recreation of the crucifixion. In fact, Alan Crawford suggested that this discovery might not have any immediate connection at all with the original murder, but perhaps bizarrely was in fact carried out by some unknown third party. He also decided at this stage that it would be better if he did not elaborate too much on a possible wider connection with Bell Hollow. Consequently, he did not mention what he knew about Professor Brock's other findings and thoughts related to the cave. For the time being, he believed that the correct emphasis should be on the crimes of murder and drug smuggling, and not on the relatively minor crime of misusing a corpse or on the mysteries of Bell Hollow.
\*\* (23) \*\*
In the failing light of that same afternoon, the police organised a second search of Bell Hollow. Professor Brock was once again called upon to assist the police in the search because of his experience with the cave. But again, the search revealed nothing of relevance to the murder in the main cave chamber. It did, however, result in the decision to now remove the bell from the entrance to the narrow passageway and ultimately from Bell Hollow. This course of action was taken in case the bell was concealing something relevant or was preventing the discovery of any evidence relating to the murder.
Using heavy lifting equipment that had not been available to Professor Brock's exploration team, the bell was to be lifted to the surface and placed on a secure spot nearby to the cave-entrance. The vicar still shocked by his discovery that morning had been invited to witness the recovery of the bell. Many villagers, as well as members of the press and the local television station, originally alerted by the murder story, had also turned up to watch the spectacle.
As the bell was pulled upwards towards the surface, suspended by ropes, it began to ring out as it rocked back and forth. Its peals resounded through Bell Hollow and echoed around the surrounding hills. Finally, the bell emerged from its underground belfry to the accompaniment of gasps of amazement and a round of enthusiastic applause from the gathered spectators. Images of the lion lying down with the lamb and of Christ's crucifixion leapt from the surface of the bell, illuminated by spotlights and rounds of camera flashes. One of the reporters present asked Professor Brock if he thought this was indeed the 'long-lost bell'. The professor replied saying that he would examine the bell and report the findings in due time. He knew, of course, that this surely was the bell in question. Amongst a fusillade of other questions, one reporter from a local newspaper frivolously asked the professor if he could comment on the possibility that the Holy Grail might also be inside Bell Hollow. The professor smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and responded in kind by saying that he hadn't yet ruled out the possibility of finding that the Loch Ness Monster had in fact moved to Bell Hollow. One thing the professor did know for sure, however, but which he didn't articulate, was that Bell Hollow would never be left in peace again from this day onwards. Its days as a relatively neglected curiosity were over.
In the darkness and bitter coldness of the evening, the bell was touched, stroked, banged, knocked and photographed countless times before it was eventually covered in a protective sheet. A crime-scene warning sign was stuck on the bell informing the public that it should not be touched.
A search of the immediate area close to the entrance of the passageway in Bell Hollow, which had been once blocked by the bell, had revealed no further clues for the murder investigation. Finally, the police ended their operations for the evening, and together with the crowd of onlookers began to make their way back up the hill towards the village.
\*\* (24) \*\*
Alan Crawford's wife and son had decided to stay on with him at Elsie Crawford's cottage and not return home. Later that evening, whilst having a late tea with his family, his mobile telephone rang. On answering it, he was informed that the Thai couple had now been arrested at London's Heathrow airport trying to check in for the late evening Thai Airways flight to Bangkok. Their accomplice, John Wakes, however, was still at large. The London address, which he had used when hiring a car, had turned out to be false. After the call, Alan Crawford told the rest of his family about these developments.
David Crawford was aware that the body of William Avon had been found that morning in the graveyard of St George's, and that this vindicated his claim to have witnessed a murder. Needless to say, he had not been allowed to view the staged crucifixion, but had heard most of the details from his father. All of the family were quieter and more subdued than usual as they ate. After the meal, they sat watching television. The local evening news carried a report about the 'long-lost bell' being discovered in Bell Hollow. In the report, Professor Brock's exploration team was not credited with the original discovery, but instead it was wrongly claimed that the bell had been found by the police after they had gone into the cave in connection with a murder investigation. The report also stated that the body of the murder victim in question had been found earlier in the day in the graveyard of St George's church. The gruesome circumstances in which the body had been found were, however, not mentioned.
The news report about the murder in Wet Rain Hill reminded Elsie Crawford of the time the family had sat together and watched a similar story. It was the murder of the young woman in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, back in November last year. This prompted a question to her son. "Alan, did anything come of the investigation into the murder of that young woman last year?" she asked. "Because it seems to have disappeared from the headlines."
Alan Crawford sighed, and then replied: "As far as I know, mother, there are no new leads in the Karen Hill murder case. The only thing those investigating the case have established is that a ring with her name on it is missing, presumably taken by her murderer. But they are no closer to catching the murderer than they were three months ago. Unfortunately, it's sometimes like that with murder investigations, which can be frustrated for years, and even for decades in rare cases, before there is a breakthrough. Having said that, and unless the murderer happens to die in the meantime, it often only takes one slip-up, something said or done in an unguarded moment, and the secret begins to worm its way out. For example, in the case of this stolen ring, all that is needed is for the murderer to show it to someone else, or to allow it to be seen, possibly even by another criminal, and then he is no longer as secure as he once was. He is now vulnerable. But why do you ask about that particular case?"
"This murder in Wet Rain Hill just put me in mind of it; that's all."
"You don't think they could be connected, do you?" he responded.
"Everything is connected, I suppose, in one way or another," she replied. "It's just a question of how close is the connection."
\*\* (25) \*\*
The Crawford family finally retired for the night. For some time afterwards, Elsie Crawford lay awake in bed, immersed in deep, troubled thoughts. Upstairs, Rhoda Crawford was also having difficulty sleeping; she lay wide-awake, worrying about the impact the horror that had unfolded in the village would have on her son. Beside her, Alan Crawford feigned sleep. But in reality, his mind was working ceaselessly trying to make connections between events, as well as trying to make sense of them. In the next room, sleep eluded David until long after midnight. Finally, he managed to fall into a shallow, fitful sleep, where the mysteries and demons of Wet Rain Hill dominated both his dreams and their punctuating moments of consciousness.
Meanwhile, Professor Brock had stayed on at his weekend cottage in Wet Rain Hill instead of returning as usual to his home in Durham. He felt greatly annoyed and frustrated by the day's events. As far as he was concerned, the removal of the bell from Bell Hollow had been premature. This had then been followed by the half-baked local news report on television, which in his view had stolen the thunder from his team's discovery of the bell in Bell Hollow by attributing it instead to the police; this had angered him. He had spent the remaining part of the evening on the telephone speaking to his team members. The reasons why it was no longer an option to keep the discoveries under wraps, at least from the police, were explained. And after finally retiring for the night, he lay awake unable to sleep, as wave after wave of questions concerning Bell Hollow rolled endlessly through his tired mind.
Across the road in the vicarage, Geoffrey Adams was preparing to go to bed. It had been quite the most upsetting day of his entire life. The shock and horror he had experienced was something that could never be forgotten. Still traumatized, he had checked and rechecked all the locks, knowing that whoever, or whatever, had carried and placed the body on the cross would surely have been aware that someone was staying in the vicarage.
As he climbed into bed, he knew it was going to be a difficult night; one that would have to be endured. In the near darkness, he felt like a child once again; afraid of imagined forms conjured up from inanimate objects. He could see faces in the bedroom curtains. Unfamiliar aspects of the furniture in the room alarmed him. The apparent movement of shadows on the wall perturbed him. The roaring silence that swirled around him as he lay motionless in bed seemed pregnant with the possibility of some imminent and horrifying manifestation. And if he slept: what of his dreams? In his mind's eye, there were already images of death and injury cast as blasphemous parodies of an event central to his beliefs: Christ's crucifixion.
Geoffrey Adams said his prayers as usual. He then tried to counter the horrors of the day by conjuring up a picture of Nok Hume, sure that he could be forgiven for having such a fantasy in the circumstances. His thoughts, however, soon drifted to the telephone call he had received earlier from his mother. She had become almost hysterical on hearing about the murder, even more so after finding out that it was her son who had found the body of the victim in the graveyard of St George's. She believed her son to be in imminent danger, and had told him to leave the village immediately. After all, the murderer was still at large in the area. He had tried to explain to her that it was not appropriate for him to leave his flock, as he put it, at this critical time. Nevertheless, her words had alarmed him. He felt that there was some truth in what she had said. The words: 'Deliver us from evil' had had a particular resonance this evening when he had recited the Lord's Prayer.
But those with evil intent were already moving towards the village of Wet Rain Hill that night. John Wakes, hunched over the steering wheel of his car, drove aggressively along the dark winding country roads. He complained bitterly to his companion about the imminent end of the Lucky Bird Export Company. He ranted about how he had tried to make the managing director of the company, Somchai Tantaratana, see sense; how he had tried to convince him of the dangers, in the current circumstances, of going immediately to the airport. Wakes knew that in all likelihood the police would be waiting for all of them to try and fly out of the country. He had even suggested that they take a ferry to Northern Ireland. But the Thai absolutely would not listen to any of these arguments. He was in a foreign land, and had misjudged the situation and panicked. Here, there were no connections to be exploited, no favours to be asked and no officials to be bribed. After some heated arguments, Somchai had insisted on trying straightaway to catch a flight home from Heathrow airport. After refusing to join them, on a flight out, Wakes had hung back as the Thai couple attempted to check in for a flight. He had been right. The airline check-in desk had already been alerted. He watched as the police arrived almost immediately and arrested Somchai and his minor wife. After this, he had slipped away from the airport unnoticed. Now he was going to take what was the only remaining course of action left open to him if he was to at all profit from his final involvement with the Lucky Bird Export Company of Bangkok: he was going to take the wooden carvings of the cat and the crocodile from that cottage himself, this very night, before their precious contents were discovered.
John Wakes turned to his companion sitting on the front-row passenger seat, and said: "Pass me a sweetie, will you Snaz?" His companion opened the glove compartment and pulled out a packet of boiled sweets. "How long now?" asked Snaz, handing him a sweet. "I reckon half an hour. It's been about seven hours since I left Heathrow. I spent two of those hours persuading you to join me on this venture, followed by five hours driving the length of England for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. Not surprisingly, I'm beginning to feel buggered." Snaz fiddled with the car radio, and eventually found a station playing the song 'One night in Bangkok' by Murray Head. "That's one cool song; kind of appropriate too. That's where I'm headed after this business is over: Bangkok, oriental city, where the something-or-other don't sleep and the girls are pretty."
"I thought it was where we were both headed after this," commented Wakes. Snaz creased his pocked face into an unaccustomed smile and then said: "Sure it is!"
\*\* (26) \*\*
The pockmarked face of the full moon reflected light from the now hidden sun onto the darkened landscape around Wet Rain Hill. A figure stood by the church bell at the side of Bell Hollow, and gazed up at the night sky. These were indeed not the easiest of times to be out from the protection of the earth, and away from the life-sustaining warmth of the inner sun. But these were not normal times: these were special times, portentous times. These were times of mysterious offerings, of visitations and of visions. But these were also times of violations. Was the time of change, which had so long been prophesised, nigh? When the two very different worlds would come together, and live together, once again, in harmony and equality. That time when fear would disappear from the hearts of those who had remained hidden for aeons in the darkness of the inner world.
The figure moved towards the entrance of Bell Hollow, and beckoned to three others waiting just beneath the surface to join it. They duly climbed out of Bell Hollow up onto the hillside. Standing on this alien surface, their prominent reptilian eyes reflected images of the full moon above. But these sons of the earth felt vulnerable under the luminescence of this cold night-sun. They also felt fearful. But there was also pride. They felt pride because they had been chosen to be amongst the first to begin the great task.
Moving up to that most sacred of objects, they removed the sheet covering it, and stood for a while stood touching its hard mysterious cold surface. Their breaths rasped and hissed in unison, expressing their profound religious fervour. And in time, after the signal had been given, more sons of the earth appeared under the night sky. They came out from Bell Hollow and out from other large gateways around the village that connected the two domains.
\*\* (27) \*\*
Jack Hume had arrived back in the United Kingdom a little more than one week since first departing for Saudi Arabia. He had suddenly decided to break his contract and to return home over concerns for the safety and welfare of his wife. He especially felt the need to do this after hearing what had taken place in Wet Rain Hill since his departure. Capriciously, he had decided not to tell his wife, and to surprise her by simply turning up at the doorstep of their cottage. On arriving at Heathrow airport in the late afternoon, he had hired a car for the approximately five-hour drive from London to the north east of England. But the traffic around London had been far heavier than he had anticipated. And he soon realised that he would be arriving much later in Wet Rain Hill than he had originally planned.
During the journey, there were times when he almost relented and made a call to his wife. But in the end, he stuck to his original plan, even though he now estimated he would arrive in the village around midnight. He had a key to the cottage and had already been told by his wife that the security code she had selected for the newly installed alarm-and-intruder system corresponded to his date of birth. He imagined how thrilled she would be when she saw him. But because of tiredness and fatigue, he took a wrong turning off the main A1 road travelling northwards through England, and found himself driving frustratingly around the city of Leeds for half-an-hour before he was able to rectify the mistake. As a result, it was nearly one in the morning before he finally arrived in Wet Rain Hill.
He could see that there were no lights on in the cottage. All the homes along both sides of Main Street were also in darkness. His car pulled into the small driveway in front of the cottage, and he waited for a moment to see if the noise of his car engine had woken up his wife. But no lights came on. He stepped out of the car, and quietly closed the door. After entering the cottage, he quickly keyed in the security code and gently closed the front door behind him. After using the downstairs bathroom, he went straight into the living room. There were still no signs of his wife stirring. On reflection, this did not surprise him. He had heard that his wife had started to take sleeping pills after experiencing sleeping difficulties following the breakin. He tried his wife's bedroom door and was not too surprised to find that it had been locked from the inside. Not wishing to frighten her, and because of the lateness of the hour, he decided that it would be best to wait until morning before letting her know he had arrived.
He placed his wallet and car keys on the mantelpiece and then sat down on the sofa. The central heating system was as usual turned up to its maximum level. This was because his wife was used to experiencing what he regarded as stifling heat. She was still not able to tolerate even the slightest hint of a chill. He took off his coat and draped it over the back of the sofa. Then he remembered that he left all his cases and gifts inside the car. It would be a nice surprise he thought if the first thing Nok saw when she got up in the morning was all her gifts set out on the table. But before he had managed to go back outside and unload the things from the car, a combination of accumulated fatigue and the snugness of the room overcame him and caused him to nod off to sleep whilst still seated on the sofa.
Jack Hume had not turned the alarm-and-intruder system back on again after he had entered the cottage. Now only the carved wooden crocodile, visible from the outside by moonlight, stood between the partially closed curtains around the patio doors at the back of the cottage on sentry watch, just as Nok had intended.
\*\* (28) \*\*
Professor Brock leapt out of bed like a man possessed. Guided only by the moonlight that flooded into the bedroom, he struggled to quickly pull on the clothing that lay folded over the chair by the side of his bed. His bedside lamp remained deliberately switched off. Then he heard the sound again. It resembled a muffled metallic clank. Something was happening to the bell on Wet Rain Hill. The first time he had heard the sound, he had dismissed it as a figment of his imagination. But now he was sure it wasn't. Once he was sufficiently dressed, he drew back the curtains on his dormer bedroom, and looked out into the night towards Bell Hollow. Silhouetted like mythical creatures in a Balinese shadow play, he saw them moving on Wet Rain Hill; they were carrying the church bell.
He closed the curtains, and then stood still trying to comprehend what he had just witnessed. Suddenly, springing into action, he descended the staircase into his living room. He picked up the digital camera lying on top of his dining room table. This was something that would need to be recorded. The discovery of the bell, all of the discoveries made in Bell Hollow and everything he had ever achieved academically, would now pale into insignificance in comparison to the acclaim that now awaited him. He would be the one who took that historic photograph; the one that would signify a milestone, a turning point, in the history of mankind. It would become the most celebrated image of this, or any other millennium.
He closed the door at the back of the cottage quietly. Then holding firmly on to his camera, he crept towards the low stone wall at the back of the cottage and climbed over it. Experiencing both terror and excitement in equal measure, he began crawling on his hands and knees down the cold stony ground of Wet Rain Hill. He felt like Christopher Columbus splashing and scrambling onto the beach as he made landfall in the New World; terra incognita.
\*\* (29) \*\*
David Crawford switched on his bedside lamp, and gazed at the alarm clock. It was nearly two. He must have finally drifted off to sleep, but for some reason had been suddenly awakened. Was it because he thought he had heard a noise outside? He switched off his bedside lamp, climbed out of bed and went over to the window that overlooked the garden at the back of the Humes' cottage. He poked his head through the drawn curtains, and peered out. But he could neither see nor hear anything unusual outside. A few minutes later, he returned back to bed.
Finally, he drifted back into a troubled and dreamful sleep. The sound of footsteps and the sound of breaking glass were incorporated into his dreams. But he did not stir again until early morning.
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John Wakes and his accomplice, Snaz, found that breaking into the cottage was far easier than they had expected. The alarm in the cottage had not sounded as they broke the locks on the patio doors. Although they had managed to find only one of the two anticipated wooden carvings, they had at least been able to also steal a new car. The keys had been conveniently left on the mantelpiece. This partially compensated them for the shortfall in their expected haul.
The car that they had both travelled up from London in had been left in a lay-by just outside the village. They had not started the engine of their newly acquired car whilst they were still within the bounds of the village for fear of waking the inhabitants, especially the one found sleeping on the sofa. Snaz had been eager, as he put it, to finish him off. But Wakes had managed to restrain his accomplice's murderous tendencies, since it would bring, as he put it, additional trouble without any extra benefits. Instead, they had used chloroform and a rag, both of which Wakes happened to have on him, to ensure that no one lost any sleep as a consequence of the theft. After taking off the handbrake, they had pushed the car loaded with the wooden carving out of the village before finally starting its engine and driving the short distance to the lay-by.
Wakes then produced a hammer and chisel, which he began to use to break open the carving lying in the back seat of the car. After a few purposeful blows, one section of the carving split open easily. "That's it, we're in!" shouted Wakes excitedly. Now standing outside the car, Snaz punched the air in celebration at this announcement. But the celebration was premature. Instead of finding dozens of small plastic bags packed with white powder, the hollowed-out section of the carving turned out to be empty. Wakes began frantically to break open other sections. But the results were the same. It was clear that the bags had all been previously removed. He withdrew his head from inside the back of the car, and stood outside dejected, holding onto the car roof for support. Snaz stood looking at him, and said nothing.
Wakes slumped down in the driver's seat. "I just don't understand it," he said breaking the tense silence. Snaz, still standing outside, his pocked face now a study in brute anger, continued to say nothing. Wakes turned towards Snaz outside and said: "They said it would be there, inside the carvings." Those were John Wakes' final words, as Snaz snatched the hammer from the back seat of the car and struck him on the head with it. He slumped forward in the car seat, wounded and groaning. Then Snaz rained down blow after blow on Wakes' head until it was a mashed pulp of bone, brains and hair, no longer recognisable as human.
He dropped the hammer onto the ground, and brushed off the pieces of gore, bone and hair that had stuck to his clothing; the bloodstains, however, persisted. There was no feeling of horror or regret about what he had just done. It had brought him some momentary relief from the rage that had just overwhelmed him. But as he stood urinating by the side of the car, those feelings of rage began to return again. He decided to return to the cottage and search for the drugs he had been promised were inside the wooden carvings. And this time, he would definitely fix that man sleeping on the sofa and anyone else in the cottage if necessary.
Before setting off for the village once again, he took out a can of petrol from the boot of the car Wakes had driven up from London. He then splashed fuel over the other car now containing Wakes' lifeless body; he would set it alight later and use the remaining car to make his getaway. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was now just after two-thirty in the morning.
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Jack Hume awoke to the slightly unpleasant predicament of having his face stuck to the surface of the sofa by his own slaver. He felt drowsy and strange, as if he had been drugged. He separated his face from the leather surface of the sofa, wiping himself with his sleeve and the back of his hand. Unsure of his current situation, he sat for a few moments feeling dazed and confused. Eventually, he came around to the realisation that he was in the living room of his own cottage, and that it was still dark outside. But why was he here? He began to recall hearing a muezzin calling the faithful to pray from atop a minaret; he remembered the stifling heat, the rushed departure from Jeddah and then arriving in a cold grey London. Next he recalled hiring a car at Heathrow Airport, driving northwards through England, and finally arriving at his cottage. After letting himself in, he must have collapsed on the sofa in exhaustion and then dozed off. But he had no idea for how long.
It now felt very cold in the room. He shuddered, and wondered why there was a draught in the room. Turning around, he saw the curtains pulled across the patio doors billowing gently into the room; the full moon briefly appearing between them. He leapt to his feet realising that he hadn't switched the alarm back on again before dozing off. The patio doors were now open. He rushed towards the back of the room, struggling to remain steady on his feet. His mind was in a whirl. Pulling the curtains completely back, he saw that the glass had been smashed next to one of the handles and the lock forced. Now he was able to recall being disturbed earlier by the sound of glass breaking, but at the time had not been able to react quickly enough to prevent someone smothering his face with a sickly-smelling rag.
Still feeling less than sure-footed, he stepped outside onto the patio. Steadying himself against the outside wall of the cottage, he looked around. The garden looked bleak and unfamiliar in the moonlight. But there was no sign of anyone, and he returned back into the living room. He began looking to see what had been taken. The wooden carving of the crocodile had gone, and he noticed that his wallet and car keys were missing from the mantelpiece. Through the front window of the cottage, he was also able to see that his hire car was missing. He cursed emphatically. But his concerns about the stolen car were soon pushed aside as a surge of panic swept through his mind. He suddenly remembered his wife. Racing over to her bedroom door, he found to his relief that it was still locked. Whoever had broken into the cottage had not disturbed her. This was at least one consolation. He would, however, have to wake up his wife after he had called the police. But as he began to make the call, he thought he could hear a sound outside. The patio doors were still open, and the curtains remained pulled back. From where he was standing, he could see nothing. Nevertheless, he still felt compelled to call out: "Is anybody there?" There was no reply. Replacing the handset, he cautiously went outside into the garden to investigate. Once again, he could see nothing. Then he walked over to the wall at the back of the garden, and looked down Wet Rain Hill. Suddenly, a figure sprang up from the other side of the wall. He tried to back away, but something struck him in the face, and then all was darkness.
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Snaz turned the handle on the downstairs bedroom; it was locked. He had already searched the rest of the cottage, and reckoned that if the stuff he was looking for was anywhere then it must be inside this locked room; the one that contained a woman sleeping alone. Of that, he was certain. It was the wife of the man now lying outside in the garden. They had probably had some kind of quarrel, he supposed. That was why he had been sleeping on the sofa earlier. He sniggered to himself; well, he had certainly taught her husband a lesson now. Maybe that would endear him to the woman inside the bedroom. Anyway, he would force his way into the room. He knew that the woman was Thai. It would be necessary, of course, for him to dispose of her afterwards. But this wouldn't be the first time he had killed a woman, even a Thai woman. He had killed that one who had been with him in Bangkok when he had bumped into John Wakes at the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. She had made a joke about his face looking like a pizza, which he had not appreciated. So, at the earliest convenient opportunity, he had killed her. The murder, however, hadn't disrupted his holiday plans. After a few days, he had completely forgotten about it. It was no different from all the other times he had killed. Snaz was not one for allowing such things to prey on his mind for too long.
After trying the bedroom door handle a few times without success, he pulled out a key ring from his pocket. Looped onto it was a small Swiss army knife, which he would try to use to pick the bedroom door lock. As he removed the knife, one of the lady's rings he kept as mementoes on the same key ring slipped off and fell onto the floor where it rolled out of sight. He cursed angrily at his own clumsiness, and went down onto his hands and knees on the floor to search for the lost ring. He combed the parquet floor carefully, but in the poor light could find no trace of the ring. Feeling even more vexed and irritated by this, he no longer felt inclined to simply pick the lock. Instead, he would smash the door open using his hammer, which he had placed on the wall outside so that he wouldn't forget to take it back with him afterwards.
Outside in the garden, Snaz picked the hammer up. As he was returning back into the cottage, he suddenly heard a voice calling out from somewhere on the hillside behind him. It sounded like a cry for help. He froze in his steps, and listened carefully for any more sounds. But there was only silence. He was struck by the possibility that someone might discover the body of Wakes lying in the car, and consequently decided that it was too risky for him to hang around the cottage any longer.
He thought about the best way to dispose of the man lying outside in the garden. Then he reasoned that since the car containing Wakes' body actually belonged to the man in question, it would be appropriate if his remains were also found in the burnt out wreckage. That would give the police something to think about. It might even fool them into thinking that at least one of the men in the car was responsible for the murder of Karen Hill, whose ring would eventually be discovered inside the cottage. But first of all, he had to transport the body of the sleeper lying in the garden to the car.
After looking around to make sure that he was not being observed, Snaz tried to lift the body. But it was far too heavy. Pausing for a moment, he reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small transparent plastic packet containing white powder. It was a sample of what they were supposed to have found inside the wooden carving of the crocodile, and had been given to him earlier by Wakes. There was a small white label stuck on the side of the packet resembling the instructions for a prescription. It had been written by Wakes as a joke, and read: 'To Snaz. This is an herbal remedy from the Karen hill tribe in Burma. Take regularly until symptoms persist.' Snaz had no idea who the Karen hill tribe were. When he had first read these words sitting in the car, it had completely unnerved him. Pushed further about what was meant by the words: 'Karen hill tribe', Wakes had mentioned something about a Burmese hill tribe whose female members elongated their necks by wearing rings on them. But Snaz's paranoia seized upon the words: 'Karen', 'hill' and 'ring'. Had he not taken Karen Hill's ring? Was Wakes not playing with words to show that he knew about the murder of Karen Hill and that Snaz now had her ring?
On the night of the murder, Snaz had been lurking in a secluded spot. It was a short distance from the place where he had arranged to meet the dealer that he was going to accompany back to London. The killing had taken place before the dealer appeared. The dealer could not have seen the body. He was positive that the dealer had no suspicions about the murder. And if he did, probably wouldn't have done anything about it anyway. Moreover, Wakes did not know the dealer in question; Snaz was sure of that. So, how Wakes might know or have any suspicions about this particular murder was a mystery. But on account of his dangerous insights, Snaz had made the decision to get rid of him.
He pulled open the lip of the packet. Slipping his thumb and index finger inside, he took out a pinch of the white powder and placed it on his tongue. Wakes had told him that in addition to its hallucinogenic properties, the substance also endowed the taker with additional strength and vitality. This was going to be one of the new drug's strong selling points, so to speak.
Now utilising his increased strength, Snaz finally managed to pick up the body and place it on top of the garden wall. He then unceremoniously bowled it over the wall and onto the hillside below. The sleeper was still alive because he uttered a groan as he hit the ground. He was then followed over the wall by a wheelbarrow, which had been lying overturned in the corner of the garden. The wheelbarrow narrowly missed landing on top of him by inches. Moments later, the sleeper was being transported in the wheelbarrow away from the cottage along the side of Wet Rain Hill. His intermittent flashes of consciousness were accompanied by agonising bursts of pain. Looking upwards, he felt as if he was journeying through the vast dark reaches of space, occasionally catching sight of the stars and the bright full moon. And it was the very brilliance of this moon that would save ultimately him; a voice in his head kept telling him.
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On this moonlit night, Snaz had in fact been watched closely since arriving in the village. From behind hedges, walls and crags, unseen observers had carefully noted everything he had done. They had tried to interpret what they had seen, and had struggled to comprehend what was taking place. Now they had decided to take action.
As he wrestled with the wheelbarrow in pushing it towards Boldlaw Road, Snaz realised that the sample he had taken earlier was beginning to affect him in a peculiar way. It was true that he now felt stronger, but he also felt increasingly as if he had entered into some sort of alternative state of reality. He almost tipped the wheelbarrow and its contents over when his long-dead maternal grandmother suddenly appeared on the hill in front of him picking mushrooms. Crouching down on the hillside, she was placing the crop inside a small basket. She said nothing as he passed by with the wheelbarrow and its unlikely load, and only looked at him with an expression of contempt and hatred. Then before anything else had happened, she began duplicating herself, appearing at six or seven different locations around him; all of these copies eyed him with the same contemptuous and hostile manner.
A moment later, all the facsimiles of his grandmother changed in appearance, and now looked like a pack of fantastic reptiles. These frightful scaly creatures stood upright and from their eyes seemed also to be endowed with a human-like intelligence. They seemed to view him with the same contempt and hostility that his grandmother had shown. Snaz decided to ignore them, sure that they would eventually vanish or at least undergo a further transformation into something else. Without wishing to pay further heed to them, he continued struggling with the wheelbarrow along the side of the hill. Feeling increasingly anxious, he urgently felt the need to reach the lay-by so that he could dispose of the bodies, and be on his way as soon as possible.
But the reptiles would not go away; moreover, they began to close in on him from all directions. Rather than experiencing fear, he felt deep anger towards them. And perhaps in order to gesticulate this anger, he momentarily let go of the wheelbarrow, causing it to tip over. Its human load fell out and rolled over the ground. Feeling even more agitated by these imaginary beasts, Snaz pulled out the hammer he had kept in his inside jacket pocket, and ran furiously towards the nearest reptile. He wanted to see what one of these illusory creatures turned into when struck with a hammer. And if it turned into his grandmother once again, then he would duly hammer her until she finally disappeared; he had had enough. But much to his surprise, the intended blow to the head of the reptile was parried, and the hammer fell to the ground. Then he was struck by the terrifying realisation of the truth. Urinating uncontrollably, he felt the very real and iron grip of the reptile upon his arm.
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Needles of light pierced Jack Hume's half-opened eyes. His world was defined by pain and by incomprehension. Even death would be embraced as a release from this torment; this supposed, however, that he had not already died and woken up in hell.
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Alan Crawford and his son were up before anyone else the following morning. Whilst having breakfast, they heard an urgent knock on the front door. Opening it, they found Nok Hume standing outside in her nightdress, shivering and obviously distressed. She was immediately invited inside, where it was learnt that her cottage had once again been broken into. Nok said that she hadn't heard anything at all through the night, and had just come out of her bedroom to find the patio doors at the back of her cottage open and the wooden carving of the crocodile missing. The alarm system, which she had activated, had apparently failed to go off.
Alan Crawford and his son accompanied Nok next door. "Is there anything else missing, Nok?" he asked, examining the broken locks on the patio doors. He realised at once that the method of entry this time was clearly different from the previous breakin. He had already noted that someone had managed to switch off the alarm system. "No, I don't think so," replied Nok. She had given this answer before noticing the crumpled coat lying in a heap on the floor behind the sofa. "How can it be?" she cried out, picking up what looked like a man's coat, and then exclaiming: "This is Jack's."
"It wasn't there last night?" asked Alan Crawford.
"No! No! He took this coat with him to Saudi Arabia."
"Then someone brought it here last night, or he..."
"Jack must have come home last night!" screamed Nok. She collapsed onto the sofa still clutching the coat. "Did he say anything about coming home?" asked Alan Crawford. Nok shook her head to indicate that he hadn't. "Please check the coat pockets, Nok," instructed Alan Crawford. She searched through them, and amongst other things pulled out an aircraft boarding card. The destination printed on the boarding card was London and it was dated the previous day. The name of the passenger was Mr Jack Hume.
Jack Hume's presence would explain how the alarm system had been switched off. Alan Crawford had no idea why Jack had suddenly come home unannounced, but it appeared that at some time last night he must have been involved in a struggle with the intruder or intruders. And now he was missing. With this disturbing conclusion in mind, Alan Crawford tried to reassure Nok. "Don't worry, Nok. It's going to be okay," he said, trying to sound as sure as he could of that fact. She rubbed her eyes, nodded slightly in acknowledgement to his words, and remained silent.
Alan Crawford went outside into the garden. He then called the police in Hexham on his mobile telephone. After this, he began looking around for any indication or signs of what had happened last night. His son, who remained indoors, wanted to comfort Nok, but didn't really know how to begin. Now the problem wasn't just the disappearance of her wooden carvings. It was something altogether more terrible. "Do you think they took him, David? One of those things you saw on Wet Rain Hill," she asked suddenly, breaking the silence. He hesitated for a moment. "I don't know, Nok," he answered. "But please don't imagine the worst. I'm sure it will all be okay." She leant forward and touched his hand, and then turned her head away. He knew that she had begun to cry. They sat for several minutes without speaking. Her sobs punctuated the silence. He took hold of her hand, which felt as soft and warm as an oven glove. She briefly squeezed his hand before withdrawing hers and taking hold of the Lord Buddha medallion around her neck. Then something caught his eye glistening on the floor nearby the sofa. He leant over and picked it up. It was a lady's ring. He immediately offered the ring to Nok. "Is this yours, Nok?" he asked. She took the ring from him, and examined it. Then she shook her head. "I've never seen this ring before, David," she said, handing it back to him. He now looked closely at the ring for the first time and noticed something very significant about it.
A few minutes later, Alan Crawford reappeared in the room. David handed him the ring. He had already recognised the name inscribed on it. After looking at the ring, Alan Crawford gave his son a meaningful look. It was clear from this communication that they should say nothing about the significance of the name 'Karen Hill' in front of Nok Hume. "Do you think Jack dropped that ring?" she asked, looking at Alan Crawford. "No, I don't think so," he replied, adding: "But I think that whoever stole the wooden crocodile dropped this ring."
"Is Jack still alive?" she asked.
"Of course he is, Nok," he replied, wondering what else he could say in the circumstances. "Where is he?" she asked.
"I don't know, Nok. But Jack is going to come home safely. I'm sure of that," he replied, forcing reassurance and conviction into his tone.
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Alan Crawford made several attempts to telephone Professor Brock, but each time got no reply. He was sure that the professor had spent the previous night in the village, and had not returned to his permanent home in Durham. Moreover, the time was not yet eight in the morning, and so he shouldn't have departed for the university yet. Alan Crawford walked the short distance along Main Street, where he saw that the professor's car was still parked on the driveway. He rang the doorbell at the cottage, but got no reply. Then it struck him there was a possibility the professor had taken an early morning stroll down Wet Rain Hill to look at the bell. It was a dry and clear morning, ideal for such an excursion. A few minutes later, Alan Crawford started to walk down Wet Rain Hill. Almost immediately, it was apparent that the bell was no longer standing by the entrance to Bell Hollow. He ran down the hill towards the cave, and began looking around for any indication as to how it had been removed. After a while, he found several metres of a crudely constructed rope discarded amongst some brambles. The rope was made from twisted strands of twine, which put him in mind of the material used to attach William Avon's corpse to the cross in the graveyard of St George's.
As he began walking back up the hill, he noticed something else. About half-a-mile away, in the direction of Boldlaw Road, there was what at first looked like just one more rocky outcrop on the hillside. On closer inspection, however, it was apparent that it had distinctly unnatural features: The rock was shaped like a trapezium, and its smooth surface glistened in the rays of the morning sunshine coming from low in the sky behind him. Running towards the object, he saw that it was in fact an overturned wheelbarrow. Looking around, he noticed lying on the ground a few metres away was a hammer. To his horror, he saw that the head of the tool was matted with frozen gore. Turning the wheelbarrow upright, he saw a further indication that something terrible may have happened on Wet Rain Hill: the inside surface of the barrow was speckled with drops of blood.
Less than one hour later, twenty police officers were sweeping out over Wet Rain Hill, carefully searching for any further clues connected with the disappearance of Jack Hume and the theft of the wooden crocodile. Alan Crawford kept in mind the possibility that Professor Brock had also gone missing, and that this was somehow connected with the disappearance of the church bell. Then there was also the ongoing investigation into murder of William Avon on Wet Rain Hill to be kept in mind.
At around ten-o-clock that same morning, Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford heard that two cars had been discovered abandoned in a lay-by near to the village. One of the cars contained the body of a man, brutally murdered by a heavy blunt tool such as a hammer. The police had already run checks on the cars, and discovered that both had been hired in London from different agencies. One of them had been hired in the name of John Wakes, and recognised by the police as the same car observed outside the village two days earlier. The other car had been hired by Mr Jack Hume at Heathrow airport yesterday. Alan Crawford's heart sank at this news. There had not yet been a positive identification of the murder victim inside the car, but he feared the worst.
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Not surprisingly, Geoffrey Adams had slept badly the previous night. He emerged from the vicarage still feeling tired, and walked briskly towards St George's carrying his portable compact disc player. He had brought it with him so that he could listen to Gregorian Chants whilst he sorted through some documents inside the church. Although not Roman Catholic, he found that the unaccompanied plainsong of that Church evoked within him a deep sense of peace, not to mention profound feelings of contentment. These choruses of hope from a lost era of Christian certainty were something he needed badly at this particular time.
Before entering the church, he stopped and glanced in the direction of his terrible discovery yesterday. He half expected to see some new horror posted by the lich gate. But thankfully there was none to behold. Relieved, he took out his keys and was about to open the doors to the church when he found to his surprise that they were already unlocked. Perhaps he had forgotten to lock them the previous evening. Warily pushing open one of the doors, he stepped inside the church. Instead of feeling that he had entered a place of protection or sanctuary, a sense of imminent danger descended upon him. As he walked up the aisle, carefully looking around for any signs of disturbance, his unease began to increase. Midway to the altar, he stopped for a moment like a reluctant groom; his footfalls on the stone floor abruptly terminating. A roaring silence filled the church. He proceeded again up the aisle. Reaching the altar, he did not as usual make the sign of the cross. Instead, he stood facing the apse and then perhaps surprising even himself, called out: "Hello; is anybody there?" Still holding onto his portable compact disc player, he turned around and faced the entrance of the church. He instinctively wanted to run towards the doors, back out into the bright wintry sunshine. But something held him to the spot. He felt somehow it was his duty to stay and face whatever was lurking inside the church, even if it was just his own fears that had to be confronted.
He moved into the apse, beyond the altar. Rays of sunshine streamed through the stained glass windows high up the walls, illuminating a myriad of fine dust particles suspended in the air. An old wooden staircase climbed up to a small balcony where there was a door opening onto a stairwell. Inside, a spiral stone staircase wound its way to the top of the belfry. Standing still, his gaze moved upwards towards the balcony. He noticed that the door was slightly ajar; this was unusual. He waited to see if there were any signs of movement. There were none. He called out again, but this time more loudly and with a more determined tone in his voice. "Hello. I say is anybody there?" But once again, there was only silence.
Geoffrey Adams then prayed, and asked for protection. He was afraid, but felt compelled to start climbing the wooden staircase to find out why the door was open. He had barely set foot on the stairs and begun to ascend when he heard a sound from inside the belfry. It resembled the rapidly muffled peal of a bell. But this brief sounding was sufficient for him to realise that it was not the church bell with which he was familiar. After stopping momentarily, he resumed his ascent up the stairs and eventually reached the small balcony. Then he carefully pulled the small door further open and peered into the stone stairwell. Shafts of daylight streamed in from the intentionally placed gaps set in the stone structure, illuminating the empty stairwell. His heart pounding, he began the spiral rise up to the belfry. He needed to know who had gone to the extraordinary lengths of returning the old bell to the church belfry. This might also surely reveal the identity of those who had taken care of the bell over the centuries that it had lain inside Bell Hollow. He called out in as clear and as firm a voice as he could muster in the circumstances: "Hello, there. Please do not harm me, whoever you are. Please trust me. I come as your friend."
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"What's up?" asked David Crawford, as he opened the door and found Paul Jackson standing outside. "Something ..., there's something in the graveyard," gasped his friend in response. He had never seen him as agitated as this before. "What is it; another body?"
"No! No! Come on! It's even stranger than that. We'll inform the police later. But first, you'll have to see this for yourself."
David Crawford closed the door behind him and left the cottage. He quickly walked with his friend across Main Street. "So, tell me then, what is it?" he asked impatiently.
"About ten minutes ago, when I was in my bedroom getting ready, for some reason I looked out across to the graveyard of St George's. You know that my bedroom looks directly onto it? Anyway, I noticed that large unusual tombstone, the one that is in the shape of a four-poster bed commemorating some children who died in a house fire about a hundred-and-fifty years ago," explained Paul Jackson.
"Yes, I know the one. The tombstone used to give me the creeps when I was younger," acknowledged David. Jackson continued his story. "Well, the grass in that part of the graveyard is a bit overgrown these days. I suppose because there are no remaining relatives left alive in the village to tend to it. Anyway, as I was looking over towards the tombstone, I thought I saw something moving in the grass. My first thoughts were that it might be a dog. But then I realised that it must be something much bigger than a dog, probably a person. Bearing in mind what had just been discovered in the graveyard yesterday, I was eager to find out who it could be. I felt that whoever it was, they were going to extraordinary lengths to avoid being seen in what was already a very secluded spot." Jackson paused for a moment, as if reluctant to move onto the conclusion of his tale. David remained silent for a while, and then asked: "What did you see then?" They were now just outside the lich gate on Church Lane, and halted for a moment. "I think this is going to sound far-fetched," said Jackson excitedly. "But as I kept looking at the spot, I briefly caught a glimpse of something that I couldn't understand. You see, it didn't look like a, well a ..."
"Like a person or a human?" interjected David.
"Yes, that's right," agreed Jackson. "Then it just seemed to disappear into the thick grass near to that tombstone. I kept looking for several for minutes, but it didn't reappear."
As they passed through the lich gate, David glanced nervously towards the area around the church notice board and saw that the wooden cross was no longer in place. The police had probably already removed the setting for William Avon's staged crucifixion in order to carry out forensic tests. As ever, there was a silence and stillness in the graveyard of St George's that did not seem to be completely accounted for simply by the high stone wall surrounding it. This was a breezeless place, a kingdom of moss and cobwebs, canopied cold corners, sad tilting stones and patches of uncut lank grass. It was a place where only speaking in hushed tones was appropriate, and having anything other than a morose demeanour was an anathema.
From the path, they could see the top of the large gravestone in the shape of a four-poster bed, commemorating the babies who had perished in a fire. They stood still, not relishing the prospect of reaching it by walking over frozen earth, past old graves and through overgrown grass. As they watched nervously for any signs of a presence in the graveyard, a single muffled peal of a bell suddenly rang out from the belfry of St George's. Startled ravens shot out from the tops of trees near the church and, circling around above, filled the air with a chorus of harsh irritable squawks.
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Jack Hume decided that if he had indeed died and was now facing the torment of the damned then it was an ordeal that had some unexpected aspects. There was no doubt that he was in such pain that could only be described as hellish. But in the background, he could hear the plaintive cadenced voices of a Gregorian chant. Surely, he reasoned, this was the music of monasteries and therefore of heaven, not hell. Feeling slightly reassured by the sound of monks singing in Latin, he struggled to make more sense of his predicament and surroundings.
He was aware that he was lying on a cold even surface, probably of stone. He extended his legs so that the tips of his shoes came into contact with the hard and uneven surface below him. On his right hand side, he was able to feel a hard rocky surface. To his left, he sensed nothing but open space. He realised that he was lying in something resembling a niche carved into a rock wall, but felt too weak and pained to make any effort to move.
In the black void outside, indistinct needles of light flickered like distant stars in the firmament. He could no longer see the full moon, which had previously shone so brightly in the cold night sky above. The air around him now was warm and slightly stale. He had a sense of being somewhere underground. The Gregorian chanting in the distance was continuing unabated. His throat felt dry, and he began cough. The sound of his coughing echoed as if he was inside a cave.
The remorseless pain he experienced was in addition to extreme bodily discomfort. He felt like vomiting, and also needed to urinate. His bladder demanded nothing less than to be emptied immediately. This was followed by an eruption from his mouth of warm bilious vomit, which spilled out onto his face. He moved his head to one side in order to drain off some of this additional misery.
How had he come to be in this situation? He could recall being attacked by someone. The weapon his attacker had used had been hard and heavy, perhaps a hammer. It had happened whilst he had been out in his garden at night. He had not seen his attacker until it had been too late. There had been a blow to the temple followed by the most excruciating pain imaginable. Then he must have passed out. How, he wondered, could he have survived such an attack, and why had he been brought to this place? He lifted a hand up to his head and carefully touched the spot where he sensed he had been struck. Expecting to find evidence of an open wound, he was surprised to find himself touching what seemed to be surgical stitching. The thread that had been used was thick and coarse, and he managed to count ten stitches. The area around the wound was still swollen and very painful, but it had evidently been cleaned up and operated on.
More memories began to return. Following the attack, he must have lain on the ground unconscious for a while. Some time later, he could recall falling onto the ground again, possibly as the result of being pushed from the top of the garden wall. This might account for all the pain he was now feeling in the rest of his body. Then he had moved across the hillside, lying uncomfortably astride something like a wheelbarrow. During his conscious moments, he had been aware of the full moon above and had realised how visible this would make him and his assailant should anyone be looking out across Wet Rain Hill at the time. Then something seemed to have thwarted the progress of his assailant. He could recall hearing not only angry words and curses, but also some very strange and unfamiliar noises around him. The wheelbarrow had then tipped over and he had fallen once again onto the hard cold ground. But there was no recollection at all of what had happened after that.
He continued lying in the stone niche without making any real effort to rise up. Both his pain and weariness would not allow it. Soon, he began drifting fitfully in and out of consciousness. At one point, he became aware of a pair of large black obsidian eyes peering intently down at him. The eyes belonged to a nightmarish creature that was standing by his side holding a flaming torch. It had a massive crocodile-like jaw and a forehead that was not too dissimilar in shape and size to that of a human, except that it was covered with leathery nodules. But its reptilian eyes, oversized and inscrutable, were not the windows to any human soul.
He closed his own eyes to see if the creature would possibly vanish from his imagination. But even as he did so, he could still hear the steady rasp of its breathing, and could smell the strong odour of its breath and body. He opened his eyes again, and saw that the creature was now holding in one hand what appeared to be a wooden cup. It poured a small amount of white powder into the cup from a plastic bag it had in its other clawed hand. Then the creature offered the cup to him. Terrified, but disinclined to refuse the offer, he feebly took hold of the cup. The creature then indicated by imitative actions of its head and clawed hands that he should drink what was in it. Although lying on his side, he still managed to turn his head to such an angle that he could look down into the cup. Aided by the light cast by the flames of the creature's torch, he saw that it appeared to contain a mixture of the white powder and water. Still lying on his back, he lifted up his head slightly and placed the cup against his lips. After drinking down its tasteless contents, he felt almost immediately that the pain in his head, and indeed in the rest of his body, had begun to lift. He even started to feel something approaching being comfortable. And he also sensed that he had begun to hallucinate.
People began to walk up to his side. He realised that those he recognised had all been long dead. But there were others whom he didn't recognise. They all spoke to him as if they were visiting a patient lying recovering in a hospital bed. Some gave reassuring words, and told him not to worry, that everything was going to be fine. Others spoke of their anger and outrage at what had happened to him. One old lady, whom he didn't know, said that she was related to the man responsible for the attack on him. She also said that she was sure that the man in question would be deservedly punished. A young woman, whom he had also never seen before in his life, then appeared before him. She was the saddest visitor he received. This young woman described how she had also been attacked by this man. And she too believed that this man needed to be punished for his extreme wickedness. Jack Hume could only slightly nod in acknowledgement at everything that was said to him. He wanted to converse, to ask his visitors questions, but found he was utterly incapable of speaking during this experience.
Even the reptilian creature, which he somehow knew was female, returned to his side and began to comfort him. It spoke using what seemed to him like an archaic form of the English language, with a laboured rasping hissing voice as if the spoken word was not its normal or preferred mode of communication. After swabbing his mouth and face with what looked like a large piece of wool, it carefully placed a cold-clawed hand on his forehead as an apparent gesture of reassurance. Even in this singular predicament, he found that he could not prevent himself from repeatedly drifting in and out of consciousness; a somnolent state of momentary wakefulness and dream-packed sleep.
After what may have been a few hours or even only just a few minutes, he once again seemed to wake up to the fact that he was still lying inside a stone niche in the most unusual of circumstances. He still felt weak and less than comfortable, but nevertheless was aware that there had been a considerable improvement in his condition. For a start, the wound on his head no longer hurt as much. In addition, he didn't feel nauseous. He was also alone, and noticed that his surroundings appeared to be better illuminated than they had been before. From where he was lying, he could see the flames of four or five cressets fixed to the walls of what looked like the inside of a stone cavern. He was sure that not all of these had been previously lit. The flickering star-like pinpricks of light he had sensed whilst in his former state of delirium were the reflections from the iron pyrites and other minerals in the rock surface. The scene reminded him of a dungeon in a medieval castle. Then he realised something else that had changed: there was now nothing but absolute silence; the Gregorian chants had stopped.
After some time spent gathering his thoughts and contemplating his next course of action, he was just about to try and stand up when he was checked by dark shadows moving quickly across the uneven rock surface before him. From his position inside the niche, he was unable to see what these shadows preceded. Suddenly, there was something by his side. It was a person, someone that was very real and recognisable as the vicar, Geoffrey Adams, from St George's church. The vicar, however, was not alone. But neither was he accompanied by another person. And although this was not his first encounter with such a creature, the sight of one, if anything, was now even more shocking than before for Jack Hume. Now that he could see and comprehend his surroundings with a far greater degree of clarity then before. He tried unsuccessfully to move deeper into the niche like a frightened hermit crab retreating into a commandeered shell.
The sight of the vicar, dressed in a cassock and wearing a dog collar and a large crucifix around his neck, was clearly not as startling, but was in some respects as equally astonishing. He had a peculiar and somewhat disconcerting smile on his face, as he stood holding onto what appeared to be a large portable cassette player. It was as if the vicar was slightly drunk or maybe drugged. And his demeanour was all the more remarkable given his proximity to a creature that could have come straight out of a science fiction tale.
Perhaps, Jack Hume concluded, the vicar was not real after all. He must be just another of the illusory characters that had previously visited him. But closing his eyes and opening them again did not make the vicar vanish. A short while later the vicar began to speak. "Don't worry Mr Humes! You're going to be okay," he said with a reassuring tone of voice. Jack Hume had no wish to doubt this sentiment. "Where am I, vicar?" he asked, finding the sound of his own weakened and echoing voice strange and unfamiliar. "You're somewhere under the graveyard of St George's," replied the vicar.
"Then I guess I'm dead," responded Jack Hume sharply.
"No, you're not dead," assured the vicar. "You're very much still amongst the quick."
"Well that's something to be grateful for at least. And standing right beside you, is...er, who or what?" Jack Hume did not look at the creature in question as he spoke. He suspected that it was the same reptile that had apparently nursed him earlier. He also sensed that all who were present understood the question. "She's one of God's children," replied Geoffrey Adams with evident enthusiasm. "And what is simply wonderful, is that she, and all the others like her, are Christians!" Jack Hume pondered the vicar's bizarre assertion. But all he could think of in response was to ask: "And how do they tolerate infidels, non-believers? Because I'm not sure if I'm really a Christian." Geoffrey Adams smiled at this, and responded to it with a further question: "Have you then become a Buddhist, just like your dear wife?"
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Snaz regained consciousness with a start. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead and fell off his face into the darkness before him. He grimaced at the excruciating pain that now beset him. The agony at having almost every muscle in the upper part of his body pulled into an unrelenting state of tension was intolerable. His abdomen felt as if was being pierced by a thousand hot sharp pins. In order to shift some of the weight away from his upper body, he tried to stand up on the single wooden peg around which both of his feet were crowded. After a few minutes of standing on the tips of his toes, he became tired and relented. But the moment he allowed his body to drop down again, he once again fell into a state of extreme agony. His shoulders screamed out for release from the burden of supporting all his body weight. The twine with which his outstretched arms were attached to the crossbar burned deeply into his wrists. Breathing was difficult as well as being exhausting. Fluid began to flow willy-nilly out of almost every orifice in his body. He screamed out, pleading to be released from this most extreme and agonising of all tortures. Death, and its accompanying termination of all the senses, would be welcomed.
The wooden cross bearing Snaz's contorted body was securely fixed into the rock floor of a house-sized subterranean cavern. The base of the cross was further supported by a cone-shaped structure of small rocks, whose individual shapes had been put together with all the felicitousness, firmness and strength of a farmer's dry stone wall. The light provided by a single cresset hanging over the entrance to the cavern revealed walls covered by red ochre and charcoal paintings. The illumination provided by the dancing flames gave the representations of animals the illusion of movement; an unlikely dance involving the lion and the lamb.
Snaz struggled to make sense of his predicament. He tried in vain to utter an audible call for help, or for mercy. But to whom could he appeal? Then he became aware that more light had appeared at the entrance to the cavern housing his simulated Calvary. Too weary even to lift up his head, he waited as the brightness drew nearer. But his torch-bearing hosts now standing beneath him brought no reprieve. There was not even a Roman centurion to offer him a sponge of vinegar; and no weeping Mary Magdalene. In his extreme agony, he now also had extreme terror. Scores of reptilian eyes gazed upwards at him. And looking down on them, he knew that they were there to watch his final wretched final moments.
Towards the end, there was a fleeting recollection of what had taken place during the previous evening: all the anger, the violence and the murder. There was also a recollection of all the other murders that he had been responsible for in the past. And amongst the reptilian gazes below, he imagined that he could see the faces of several women; he could recognise them all. The one now standing at the very front, he knew from a newspaper photograph: she was called Karen Hill.
Finally, his body shuddered violently; and without any last words voiced either inwardly or outwardly, he fell limp upon the cross and was dead.
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Professor Brock was sitting on what seemed to be an old wooden park bench. He was inside a room-sized cavern illuminated by a single burning cresset fixed onto the rock wall. On his legs was a pair of rusty antique shackles, which he could well believe dated back to the time of Cromwell. This restraint, however, seemed to be more token than anything else. His hands were still free, and he would be able to stand up and shuffle away from his seat if he so wished. One reptilian creature stood guard just outside the entrance to the cavern. His captors had so far not physically mistreated him. Nevertheless, he knew that they had administered some type of hallucinogenic substance to him after his capture last night. The types of hallucinations and sensations he experienced as a consequence had been more or less as he would have expected based on his own research. This first-hand experience of entering into altered states of reality had however still taught him a great deal. But no matter how strange the places he had visited in his imagination last night, they surely could not compare with the strangeness, nay terribleness, of his current environment.
With some dismay, he surveyed his surroundings as revealed by the flickering torchlight in the cavern. Like some ghastly storehouse in a Nazi concentration camp, bones and bone parts, some of which were recognisable as human, were arranged in piles. There were also piles of what looked like human hair, as well rags and fragments of cloth, animal skins, furs and wool. But in his opinion, the most disturbing items were two old, and rather small, coffins standing opened on a stone bench in the centre of the cavern. It appeared that his captors were harvesting the contents of the graveyard of St George's. He recalled the strange cross that Steve Bone had located in the narrow passageway leading off from Bell Hollow: it too had been made out of carved bone. He now knew that there was a likelihood the laboratory tests would reveal that it was in fact human bone. The warm stagnant air inside the cavern was musty, thick and unwholesome, with the lingering reptile-house odour of his hosts adding to the miasma.
In these abysmal surroundings, uncertain of his fate, the professor reflected on how his attempt to photograph the reptilian creatures had gone so horribly wrong. Firstly, the creatures had turned out to be much more alert than he had supposed them to be when he had set out down Wet Rain Hill last night. Despite his best efforts at concealment and stealth, they had detected him on the hillside as he had approached Bell Hollow. The reptiles had also displayed a surprising amount of speed. He recalled his terror as he tried in vain to run back up the hill towards his cottage and the village. But these swift-moving and powerful creatures would not be outrun. In his final seconds before capture, he was sure that he had managed at least one cry for help before a shove from behind had sent him, and his camera, crashing to the ground. Further attempts at crying out for help had been smothered by a cold leathery-clawed hand placed over his mouth. Shortly after being subdued, he must have been forced to take the hallucinogen. With regard to everything that had happened afterwards, he could not be sure what had been real and what had only been imagined. He could recall with certainty, however, that he had awoken to find himself inside a dim underground cavern like the present one. Stretched out on a stone slab, he had opened his eyes and had been mortified at the sight of four or five of the reptilian creatures standing before him. After this paralysing shock, came the intense thirst. The type of thirst where one would enter into, without a moment's hesitation, a Faustian pact and sell one's soul in return for simply a glass of water. His thirst was so strong, that slaking it even took priority over feeling afraid of his captors. But those same captors had understood his condition perfectly, and had offered him water. Lots of water; ice cold, clean and more refreshing than anything he had ever tasted. One of the creatures had offered him cup after cup of it, which he had drunk gratefully. They had also offered him what appeared to be mutton, but he had had no desire to eat anything. Then he had been brought shackled to his current quarters.
Whilst being escorted along gloomy torch-lit passageways, some apparently bored through solid rock whilst others were adapted from existing natural features, he had tried to communicate with the creatures in an attempt to find out what they planned to do with him. He had addressed them using the type of simplified and amplified English habitually used by some when speaking to foreigners whose command of the language is considered to be less than fluent. He was painfully aware of how ineffective or even ludicrous this approach can be; but either his hosts couldn't communicate with him or they had no desire to do so, because he got no response from them as he was guided through their abode.
Obviously, another question that was at the forefront of his mind was: what were these creatures? They were clearly endowed with a high level of intelligence that was approximately human in its level of sophistication. In this respect, there were no other reptiles or even mammals with which they could be compared. The professor decided to assign the creatures the scientific name: 'Lacerta Sapiens', or 'Intelligent Lizards'. These 'Lacerta Sapiens' must have followed a separate and quite different evolutionary path from their reptilian ancestors, following a parting of the ways aeons ago. Crocodiles, acknowledged as the most intelligent of known reptiles, had stayed still in evolutionary terms for millions of years, but 'Lacerta Sapiens' had clearly not done so. They had evolved limbs that enabled them to stand upright. Moreover, their bodies had evolved in a way that allowed them to use tools and to develop a technology for successfully manipulating their environment. And like the first modern humans, they had already received the Promethean gift of fire. The cave paintings found in Bell Hollow were a sure sign that they had within them that spark of consciousness, which up until now had separated man from all the other living creatures on the planet. He could not begin to guess how widespread 'Lacerta Sapiens' might be over, or rather under, the face of the earth.
He felt that it was truly remarkable that these creatures had managed to survive undiscovered and undetected by mainstream science for so long, and wondered if evidence of their evolutionary development was in fact present in the fossil record but had either been passed over or simply misinterpreted. For more than a hundred years mankind had been piecing together the history of the dinosaurs, those terrible lizards of old, but had somehow missed finding any trace of these most singular offshoots from what was evidently the same evolutionary line. Or had the presence of these creatures actually been acknowledged in the mythical beasts of folklore and legends? How ironic, he noted, that the village church was named after St George, who symbolized the slaying of terrible scaly beasts.
To the professor, the driving force behind the present activities of the creatures around Wet Rain Hill appeared to be religious in nature. It was apparent that they had acquired some sense of spirituality, notwithstanding the more disturbing and primitive aspects of their behaviour such as the charnel house scene in the cavern. He believed that within the last three-hundred-and-fifty years or so they had developed a belief system that had its origins in their discovery of the church bell from St George's inside Bell Hollow. Perhaps it was something not too dissimilar to the cargo cults that had sprung up in New Guinea during the Second World War. The creatures had, it seems, drawn inspiration from the imagery found on the bell, namely: the crucifixion scene, and the graphical representation of the lion lying down with the lamb. The lion and the lamb may have become totems, and the cross a sacred symbol. A sort of reptilian offshoot from Christianity, adapted to the realities of their subterranean world and reptilian worldview, could have developed. The professor wondered, however, if he would ever live to communicate all his observations, speculation and insight to the outside world.
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David Crawford and Paul Jackson crept nervously towards the spot. The four-poster-bed gravestone lay in a section of the graveyard that was shaded from the light of the morning sunshine. The stone bed leant over noticeably to one side, and was partially covered in moss and weeds. The inscription on it was weatherworn and now almost impossible to read. They halted and crouched down a short distance away. Behind the gravestone lay the thicket of grass where Paul Jackson believed he had seen something earlier on. Both young men felt that the sound of their heartbeats must surely be audible above the silence of the graveyard. Then after waiting for some time to see whether anything stirred, they moved cautiously into the overgrowth. Parting the grass, they were immediately shocked to see that a section of the gravestone had been removed. David took out a pencil torch from his pocket and, crouching down, nervously directed a beam of light into the darkness at the side of the tomb. To the astonishment of the two observers, a tunnel dug into the earth beneath the grave was revealed. It was supported by wooden planks and poles, and ran nearly horizontal for about five metres. Then the tunnel appeared to gently slope down into the earth where it eventually disappeared into an inky blackness from which no sound came.
Crouching by the entrance, the two young men exchanged puzzled glances. They maintained a breathless silence as they pondered their next move. Suddenly, they were both startled by the loud shrill tones of David's mobile telephone as it rang; he had forgotten to turn it off and was in no doubt that it was his father calling to ask where he was. "Come on, let's get out of here!" shouted his friend whilst springing to his feet. "Sorry," responded David sheepishly, also standing up quickly and switching off his telephone without answering it.
As they began moving away quickly from the entrance, a figure suddenly appeared behind them. Without waiting for a closer look at what had just emerged out of the tunnel, they began running. But it was Paul Jackson who was marginally slower in making his escape, and who consequently was felled from behind by the figure. "God help me!" he gasped in terror, before his cries were stifled. David instinctively stopped to consider giving his friend some assistance, only to see him being dragged into the overgrown grass. It was also clear that more figures were emerging from the tunnel. He felt that there was no option but to escape first and then to seek help from outside. He ran for his life, out from amongst the gravestones, onto the path through the graveyard, through the lich gate onto Church Lane and down towards Main Street. Only then did he begin to expend energy yelling for help.
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By evening, despite an extensive police search, Paul Jackson had still not been found. The search for him had initially centred on the graveyard of St George's. Based on David Crawford's story of events, a light mechanical digger was brought in and used around the spot where he reported finding a tunnel earlier. Although no such tunnel entrance could now be seen, it was evident that the earth around the damaged gravestone had been disturbed recently. The advice of the vicar of St George's was sought on this matter, but strangely he could not be found. The vicarage was empty, and there was no sign of Geoffrey Adams anywhere. No one in the village connected with the church could explain his absence. The part-time sexton of St George's, however, was tracked down, and he was adamant that no digging had taking place recently in the graveyard around the spot in question. The sexton was both mystified and horrified by the sight of the freshly turned over earth beside the gravestone. He, along with many others, was at a loss to understand why anyone should want to carry out such a ghoulish activity on what was a very old grave.
After about an hours' worth of digging in the vicinity of the grave all that was uncovered, apart from further evidence that the soil had indeed been recently dug up and filled in again, were several wooden planks, stones and small artefacts from various times in the village's history. The fact that there were wooden planks amongst the soil seemed to corroborate the story of a tunnel. Hardly anyone involved in the search, however, could believe his description of what had taken place around this tunnel. In particular, his description of Paul Jackson's monstrous assailant was treated with almost total scepticism; this was, however, with the clear exception of his father.
Nevertheless, the police generally accepted the claim that Paul Jackson had been abducted. They realised that he had recently witnessed a murder in the village. The fact that he had now also been abducted, and that the other witness to the murder had narrowly missed the same fate, was considered by the police to be significant. It was obvious that the Thai couple, who had already been arrested in connection with the murder, could not have carried out Paul Jackson's abduction themselves. But they were known to have some accomplices. And disturbingly, it seemed that one more of their accomplices, namely John Wakes, had now also been murdered; his body having been found that morning in a car in a lay-by outside Wet Rain Hill.
The fact that it was not Jack Hume who had been finally identified as the murder victim in the lay-by provided some relief for those who knew him. Nevertheless, considerable anxiety remained over his disappearance, especially because of the disturbing circumstances in which it had occurred. In addition, the discovery that someone intimately connected with another murder, namely of Karen Hill, had been inside Jack Hume's cottage was also very worrying. There was even a slight suspicion amongst some police officers that Jack Hume himself might be involved in her murder, though Alan Crawford himself did not for a moment believe this to be the case. The fact, however, that Nok Hume had not been able to explain the unannounced arrival of her husband late at night at the cottage had not been helpful in this respect. It did nothing to allay any suspicions there might be about her husband's character and his evident past connections with Thailand. And now he was missing along with a growing list of people from the village.
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Just after eight-thirty that evening, Alan Crawford answered a loud knock at the front door of his mother's cottage. Standing outside was a lean man, who appeared to be aged somewhere in his late twenties. "Sorry to disturb you, my name is Steve Bone," he announced. "I believe you are Detective Sergeant Crawford?"
"That is correct," responded Alan Crawford cautiously, thinking that the caller might be a news reporter hoping to garner some information about the murders and disappearances in the village. "Professor Brock told me about you, and that like him, you are a frequent visitor to the village," explained the caller. "I was keeping my fingers crossed that I would find you in."
"Professor Brock!" repeated Alan Crawford in surprise. "Have you spoken to him today?"
"No, that's the problem. I haven't spoken to him today, which is unusual. You see, I'm a research fellow at the university in Newcastle. I work with Professor Brock. This afternoon, whilst I was working away from the university, I needed to get in touch with him about something. So I tried calling him first at the university, but was eventually told that he hadn't appeared in his office yet and nobody knew where he was. Then I tried his home in Durham, again without any luck, and then his cottage here in the village; again without any success. I even sent him an e-mail, which has gone unanswered. Unfortunately, he prefers not to use a mobile phone."
"So, you were worried about him and drove over to Wet Rain Hill to investigate?"
"In a word, yes; this was after I had called into my office earlier this evening on the way home to collect some papers. A colleague told me there was some concern about the professor's unexplained absence. He hadn't called in to say that he was either ill or had some other problem. I also learnt that the police were looking for him."
"That would have been me," explained Alan Crawford.
"Then I immediately decided to drive straight over to Wet Rain Hill."
"Do you have any idea where he might be?" asked Alan Crawford.
"I don't know for sure, but I'm concerned that his disappearance might be connected with the discoveries our team made in Wet Rain Hill over a week ago."
"No doubt you've heard about the discovery of a dead body in the village graveyard yesterday morning?"
"Yes. The professor called me last night and we talked about it. Naturally, his first thoughts were about the murder, but he was displeased with the way the television news attributed the discovery of the church bell to the police. Anyway, he talked about how the victim was actually murdered as the result of being pushed into Bell Hollow. He explained how he had already been obliged to reveal to you the discoveries our team had made in Bell Hollow because of their apparent connection with some crimes in the village. He also told me one detail about the body in the graveyard that was not reported: That it was found hanging on a cross, displayed in what appeared to be an imitation of the crucifixion. When I heard this, it was not difficult for me to link this gesture with what I already knew about the discoveries made in Bell Hollow. You see, I think those responsible for the murder and those who displayed his body on the cross are not the same," explained Steve Bone. Alan Crawford nodded in general agreement with the last statement. Then he looked back over his shoulder, before saying: "Look, Mr Bone, I really apologise for not inviting you in, but can we go somewhere else and discuss this?"
Five minutes later, both men were in the Blackbird public house. As they sat down at a table with their drinks, it was Steve Bone who spoke first. "The reason I was away from my office at the university today," he explained, "was that I was getting some tests carried out on a small carved cross I found inside Bell Hollow. To my astonishment, the tests revealed that it was made out of human bone."
"Do you have any idea of the age of the bone, Steve? And I hope you don't mind me calling you 'Steve'?"
"Not at all; the bone was at least two-hundred years old."
"That's some consolation," responded Alan Crawford. "At least we don't have one more murder victim to worry about." In his mind, he had made a connection between the human bone and the graveyard of St George's. "Just now, Steve, you referred to the display of William Avon's body on the cross in the graveyard at St George's as 'a gesture'; could you explain what you mean by that?" But before he replied, Steve Bone hesitated and looked at Alan Crawford. He was reluctant to begin saying something that was quite unorthodox and which would sound utterly crazy to most ears. Alan Crawford sensed this reluctance and tried to give some reassurance. "Don't worry, Steve, I'm open-minded. I realise that something very odd is going on in this village."
Steve Bone cleared his throat, and began speaking. "I don't know exactly what they meant by hanging the body on the cross, leaving aside for the moment the problem of what I actually mean by 'they'. But the sudden arrival of a body in Bell Hollow might have been seen as a sacrifice carried out for their benefit. They responded by imitating Christ's crucifixion on the cross, which also looks very sacrificial. And they did it in a place where it would be clearly seen." Alan Crawford thought to himself how Christ-like, at least according to tradition, the bearded William Avon had appeared to him. "They thought someone said 'hello' to them and so they politely replied 'hello' in return?" he suggested. "Maybe something along those lines," agreed Steve Bone.
"The placement of the bell, all those centuries ago, inside Bell Hollow was something else they appear to have interpreted in a particular way. Though ironically, at least according to something once suggested by Professor Brock, the bell was put there by the villagers to protect them from the dangers of Bell Hollow," noted Alan Crawford.
Steve Bone continued: "Then the recipients of the bell maintained it for nearly three-and-a-half centuries. They developed something like a religion, a cult, based around the bell itself and the imagery on its surface. I think the professor has already told you about the beautiful cave painting of the lion and the lamb, as well as the cat and sheep carcasses found inside a niche in the cave. I'm sure we would be able to find many more similar examples of this theme if we explored the cave further. The professor told me that cats and sheep have a history of disappearing in this area, both nowadays and at various times in the past. There was also the carved head of a cat found inside the same niche. The professor has since told me that it came from a carving stolen from a home in the village. It was apparently stolen the night before it was found inside Bell Hollow. They must have seen the statue of the cat on display, and because of its lion-like, or leopard-like features if you want to be pedantic, could not resist taking it."
Alan Crawford nodded in agreement, and added: "They left a dead cat in return. Maybe they saw it as a fair exchange. But the wooden carving they took in fact contained drugs; hallucinogens to be precise."
"The professor also told me about this," acknowledged Steve Bone. "I think this might be the reason why the wooden carving of the cat was eventually smashed and broken open after they had sensed that there was something inside it. I would be really interested to know how those hallucinogens are being put to use."
"The use of hallucinogens in the context of religious belief is something I'm sure Professor Brock would also be interested in," noted Alan Crawford ruefully, before adding: "But I can remember reading that the word 'assassin' literally means 'hashish eater'. The assassins were members of a secret Moslem cult who murdered crusaders whilst under the influence of this drug."
They continued their conversation in the Blackbird public house. Steve Bone, again with some reluctance, outlined his thoughts concerning the hitherto unknown life form that he believed were Wet Rain Hill's subterranean residents. He described his own terrifying encounter inside Bell Hollow. Alan Crawford then mentioned Paul Jackson's abduction in the graveyard of St George's earlier that day. In fact, because of this, David Crawford had finally also related to his father how he had seen a creature, like the one that had abducted Paul Jackson, once before on Wet Rain Hill. And had explained that he had not mentioned this before because of some doubts he had harboured over whether or not he really had seen it, not to mention the fear of ridicule. Steve Bone explained that he too had remained silent about what he thought he had caught sight of inside Bell Hollow for precisely the same reasons.
Alan Crawford felt instinctively that there was a pressing need to act quickly to save those who had disappeared from the village. It would be difficult trying to persuade his colleagues in the police force about the true nature of the situation in Wet Rain Hill. Precious time would also be wasted. He decided that he would act with the help of the only two available people who had sufficient understanding and experience to be of use at this time: namely his son and Steve Bone.
"Do you think we can communicate with them and try to obtain the safe release of those they seem to have in their custody right now?" he asked Steve Bone.
"We can try. But not having a complete feel for their mental outlook on the world is going to make it difficult. They will be viewing some of the recent events in the village from their own unique perspective, which will be possibly quite different from ours. But if we can make contact with them, perhaps establish a dialogue, and promise them something in exchange for the safe release of those they are holding, then there might be a chance," replied Steve Bone.
"What do you think they might accept as a fair exchange?" asked Alan Crawford.
"Perhaps: a guarantee of their future safety; a promise not to reveal what we know about them," suggested Steve Bone.
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Detective Sergeant Alan Crawford, David Crawford and Dr Steve Bone said nothing as they made their way thoughtfully down Wet Rain Hill. There was a cold easterly wind blowing that threatened to bring with it some rain. Although it had not rained for several days, the hillside remained damp and difficult to negotiate in the darkness. The moist ground was cut-through with swaths of mud on which it was easy to slide given the steepness of the hill. Small rocky outcrops, and concealed holes made by a variety of hillside animals, provided additional peril to the traveller. There was almost a full moon. But at times, its luminescence was obscured by the darkening clouds rolling in from the North Sea just over twenty miles away. The three men travelling down the hill took great care not to get noticed. They avoided using torchlight whenever the moonlight was sufficient.
An airliner passed by overhead on its descent into the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The hum of its jet engines resounding around the hills. An unseen night owl sitting in one of the trees at the side of Liz's Burn hooted ever more loudly, as if in contempt at the mysterious large grey bird briefly silhouetted against the emerging moon. The babbling waters of Liz's Burn became steadily more audible as they approached Liz's Rock. All three men briefly touched the side of rock as they passed by, as if in a gesture to signify their arrival at an important place. A group of sheep, which had been sheltering against the anvil-shaped monolith, scurried away at the arrival of these night time intruders.
Steve Bone was carrying a soft shoulder bag containing a laptop computer. Alan Crawford had hold of a small case containing a projector, whilst his son carried a small haversack holding miscellaneous cables, batteries and compact discs. The time was now ten-twenty. They found a clearing amongst the brambles around the entrance to Bell Hollow, where Steve Bone placed his laptop computer on top of a protective plastic sheet. He turned it on. As the Windows operating system began to load into memory, the laptop issued an unwelcome series of loud bleeps and chirps. This was accompanied by the grinding noise of the hard disk drive being accessed. Finally, the machine settled into a quiet hum as it awaited further instructions. The projector, complete with sound speakers, was also taken out the small case and connected to the laptop via a long cable. Speaking in a hushed voice, Steve Bone asked both Alan and David Crawford if they could position the projector at the entrance to the cave. Steve Bone then activated the software that was going to be used to project images and sounds into the cave.
After several minutes, everything was nearly in place. Although the cave's dark and uneven surface would make a less than ideal projector screen, Steve Bone believed that the extraordinarily powerful projector beam would be able to utilise the presence of shiny iron oxide particles within the rock as a reflective surface. Being mindful of not wishing to draw any unwelcome attention from the village, the speakers were arranged so that as much as possible of the sound produced would be directed into Bell Hollow.
It was almost eleven by the time all the equipment had been tested and Steve Bone was ready to begin his slide show complete with sound accompaniment. Standing behind the laptop computer, Steve Bone and David Crawford were able to see on the laptop screen the images that were being projected into Bell Hollow. The accompanying sounds directed into the cave could also be heard through small speakers fitted in the laptop computer. Alan Crawford crouched close by the entrance to the cave. His duty was to monitor the clarity of the images as they appeared on the rock surface and to make sure that they were being successfully projected into the cave.
The first of the images was a painting of an idyllic pastoral scene: a classical representation of paradise on earth. The scene was complete with verdant hills, water and trees, an azure skyline and a set of romantic ruins set in the background. But the centrepiece was a lion and a lamb lying down together on a hillside in a state of mutual tolerance and peace. The sound accompaniment to his particular image seemed somewhat incongruous. It resembled a combination of snake-like hisses and dinosaurian roars, alternated by the sound of people laughing and chatting. Steve Bone briefly explained that the hisses and roars were amplified and electronically filtered recordings taken from Bell Hollow during the recent exploration. The significance of it all, however, needed no real explanation.
The next image was that of the church bell when it had been situated inside Bell Hollow. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was accompanied by the sound of church bells pealing out in celebration. The third image was that of a renaissance painting of Christ's crucifixion with Mary Magdalene weeping at the foot of the cross. No sound accompanied this image.
The fourth image was a photograph of crocodiles on a muddy riverbank, accompanied by a wildlife soundtrack. The fifth image was that of a mixed-race couple: a black woman and a Caucasian man. This image was presented with the opening bars of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the 'Ode to Joy'. At the end of this image, however, there was still no response to the 'son et lumiere' spectacle from the intended audience within Bell Hollow.
Starting with the lion and the lamb lying together in peaceful repose, Steve Bone ran through the whole show once again. This time he lingered on each image several minutes longer than in the first showing. But again, Bell Hollow displayed a contemptuous silence. The moon had momentarily faded from view behind the clouds, and the hillside was cloaked in total darkness. The three men felt cold and increasingly disillusioned as they neared the end of the third showing, wryly referred to by Steve Bone as the midnight matinee.
Alan Crawford was the only one of the three facing towards Wet Rain Hill. Looking up from the cave entrance, his eyes were suddenly drawn to the movement of a large number lights on the hill. His immediate thoughts were that the show at Bell Hollow had finally been noticed from the village, and that a team was coming down to investigate. But as the opening bars of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony played out in Bell Hollow, and the moon reappeared from behind the clouds, confirmation came that they had indeed been noticed. It came in a form that shocked him to the core. "What on God's earth!" he cried out.
The others immediately turned around and looked up the hill. About two hundred metres away, an incomprehensible scene presented itself. Eight creatures, in most respects resembling crocodiles walking on elongated hind legs, moved purposefully and quietly down the hill towards them. But they were not alone. In the moonlight, and by the light from their burning torches held in clawed hands attached to powerful forelimbs, their eight charges could be seen. These were: Jack Hume, Professor Brock, Geoffrey Adams the vicar, Paul Jackson and four uniformed police officers. They all appeared to be unnaturally subdued and strangely unconcerned about their predicament. There was no acknowledgement given to the three witnesses at Bell Hollow, who themselves felt immobilised by fear and disbelief.
Then, Nok Hume appeared on the hillside. Clearly not yet under any spell, she ran down towards Bell Hollow shouting hysterically: "Jack. Jack!" Another one of the creatures suddenly came into view behind her. Seen from a distance, it looked like some terrible giant flightless bird. It quickly closed in upon Nok. But the creature did not attack or even take hold of her; instead, it showered the air around her with a cloud of fine white dust. She stopped shouting. Moments later, a snowstorm was similarly falling about the heads of the three men who had observed all of this from beside Bell Hollow.
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Rhoda Crawford had been unhappy with her husband's decision to carry out the secretive late-night mission to Bell Hollow, and even more so at the involvement in it of her son. She felt this way especially when a nightmarish and wholly abnormal danger now seemed to stalk the village. Feeling deeply troubled, she had struggled both to understand and believe the reasons why their dangerous journey down to Bell Hollow had to be made in secret and in the vulnerable hours of darkness. She had listened to her husband's hurried explanation of what he was convinced had taken place in the village; and of how the efforts of the party of three might be the only prospect of saving those who had vanished. Had she not already heard her own son's terrifying eyewitness account of his experience in the graveyard, she would have doubtless scoffed at the outlandish thesis presented to her. She might also have questioned the wisdom and sanity of her husband. But she knew that there must indeed be some element of truth in the things that had been put before her. And so, feeling like a mother about to send her loved ones off to fight a just war, she had finally and reluctantly agreed with their plan. Elsie Crawford naturally also felt very scared. She could scarcely comprehend what was taking place in the village, and recalled that her son had once said that nothing remarkable ever happened in Wet Rain Hill anymore. How wrong he had been on that score.
To provide some reassurance, the party of three had promised to keep in contact with the cottage by mobile telephone for the duration of their mission. David's mobile telephone was set into vibration mode, with the ring tone switched off. Calls were exchanged at regular intervals starting from the time the three men had set off down Wet Rain Hill. Contact was maintained in this way until just before midnight. Then a call made by Rhoda Crawford was not answered. Sitting together with Elsie Crawford in the cottage living room, she anxiously redialled, but still got no response. It had been discussed beforehand that in a situation where a call was not answered, attempts should be made for about a further fifteen minutes before contacting the police. Rhoda Crawford, however, already at the end of her tether, waited only a further five minutes before she reported the disappearance of the three men to the police. Then she called the Jacksons across the road to explain that something further was amiss in the village.
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A medical examination was carried out on the eleven men and one woman discovered in the early hours of Thursday morning in a confused and disoriented state around Bell Hollow. The results indicated that they had all ingested a potent hallucinogenic drug. The drug had affected the twelve individuals to varying degrees of severity; eight of them exhibited extreme symptoms to the extent that they were completely unaware of their surroundings at the time of their discovery. In all cases, however, the effects had begun to wear off during the course of the following day. What remained afterwards were fractured dreamlike memories, fleeting recollections of things apparently experienced in the altered states from which they had just returned.
In the judgement of the sober-minded police officers brought in to investigate the ever-widening circle of crime and mystery surrounding the village, it was the hallucinogenic drug that was the root cause of the murders, crimes, and bizarre train of reported events and disappearances that had taken place recently. A Thai couple had been formally charged with one of these murders, namely that of William Avon, and with involvement in the illegal importing of the hallucinogenic drug. In addition to the twelve people found late at night on Bell Hollow alive but suffering from the effects of this drug, an unlucky thirteenth dead person had also been discovered at the same time. A post-mortem examination revealed that his body contained traces of the same hallucinogen and that he had died from being subject to prolonged and extreme physical stress. The police were not yet able to account for the circumstances of his death. He was labelled as a former associate of the murdered John Wakes, an accomplice of the Thai couple. They proved that he was also Wakes' murderer. His fingerprints matched those on the hammer that had been used as the murder weapon against Wakes. He was also identified in the same manner as being the person responsible for inflicting a head wound on one of the eleven men found on Wet Rain Hill. But most remarkably, he was also shown to be very likely the murderer of a young woman called Karen Hill, who had been killed last November in the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A key ring bearing the engraving 'Snaz', and holding a collection of lady's rings was found near to his body. A lady's ring belonging to Karen Hill, previously found in the cottage targeted by the criminals, was shown by metallurgical analysis to have once been on this key ring. Tests also showed that the ring contained traces of his DNA on its surface.
The list of the twelve people who had been found alive and drugged on Wet Rain Hill made for remarkable reading. For a start, it included a world-renowned professor of archaeology who was, amongst other things, an expert on the usage of hallucinogens by prehistoric man. The irony of this was not lost on those who reported and speculated about the incident. A researcher working under the professor was also amongst the group, as was a couple that had unwittingly been used to smuggle the hallucinogen in question. Then there were two young men, one of whom had apparently been abducted prior to his reappearance on the hill, whilst the other had given a description of the abduction that clearly seemed to be drug-induced. And as with all good mysteries set in an English village, the local vicar had also played his part. The vicar had apparently vanished without trace the day before and had turned up amongst the group of twelve on the hill. Finally, five policemen, including a Detective Sergeant who had been originally involved in investigating the drug smuggling and related murders, completed the total.
The police, however, admitted that only a broad picture of events in the village had emerged, and that they were still having difficulties filling in some of the finer details. They suspected that many of those involved, including family members, were for some reason withholding information. Moreover, a few of those touched by the events in Wet Rain Hill had made rather curious, some would say far-fetched, claims of having strange experiences involving reptilian-like creatures. But the only evidence remotely related to reptilian involvement that the police had uncovered were the smashed fragments of the stolen wooden crocodile, used originally to smuggle the hallucinogen. This discovery was made in the car also containing the dead body of John Wakes.
The hallucinogen at the centre of the events was a substance that appeared not only to affect how those who took it perceived reality, but which also seemed to endow them with remarkable strength. This was evidenced most dramatically by the remarkable feat that appeared to have been accomplished by the group of twelve. It seemed that they had managed to push the anvil-shaped outcrop, known locally as Liz's Rock, away from its ancient and weatherworn base. Detached from the bedrock, it had rolled a short distance down Wet Rain Hill and ended up blocking the entrance to Bell Hollow. The ancient cave was now all but closed to the outside world. It was said by some that this closure was an ancient wish of Wet Rain Hill that had at last come true.
The strength-enhancing properties of the hallucinogenic drug had surely also been put to use in carrying the long-lost church bell away from Bell Hollow and in hoisting it up into the belfry of St George's church; though by whom, when and why remained a mystery. It was also a mystery as to how the bell had been preserved in such an immaculate condition during the long march of the centuries for which it had been lost down Bell Hollow; or at least it was so for most people.
On the Sunday morning following its reinstatement, the church bell of St George's had rang out continuously for the first time in nearly three-hundred-and-fifty years over the village of Wet Rain Hill.

