peeks round as the six figures begin to move faster and faster, back and forth between the stones. The tall figure with the antlers starts to sing a different chant, the figures whirling until there almost seems to be more than six. As if the very stones have somehow come alive and are joining in.
Chubber, run!
But he can’t, he’s frozen to the spot, mesmerised. Seconds pass, minutes, hours maybe. He doesn’t know. The figures race round and round until their chants conflate to a single drone. Chubber blinks. Something has happened. The six figures have rushed away from the circle. They are pulling something from behind a stand of gorse. It’s a person. A man. He’s limp, not resisting. Now they shove him down next to the flat rock and push him into a shallow trench alongside it. The six figures position themselves around the huge slab and slowly push the boulder over the hole in the ground. The scraping echoes into the night and the rock moves the final few inches and seals the chamber.
Chubber turns from the tor and runs back down the hill. Twice he tumbles over and rolls in the bog, clothes soaking, body cold. When he’s put two ridges between himself and the stone circle, he finally pauses for breath. He thinks of the man, the one in the hole. Chubber looks to heaven, raises his hand and passes his palm across his eyes, recreating what happened back at the stone circle. The tapestry of moon and stars and galaxies soaring overhead are wiped away, replaced by the utter blackness of the tomb.
Chubber whimpers at the thought of it. He knows he’s a bad man, but what he’s just witnessed goes far, far beyond bad. Those people, they were …
Evil, Chubber, those people were evil.
Evil. He doesn’t like the sound of that. He quickens his pace again. Not long to the track where he’s parked his van. Just a few more steps and he’ll be there.
Chubber!
Oh God! There’s the track and there’s the van and …
And, Chubber, and?
And standing by the car is a hooded figure with a towering headpiece of antlers.
Sunday 24th August
‘Bee, Mummy, Bee.’ Jamie pointed at a blur of wings hovering over the food. ‘Buzzy bee.’
‘It’s a fly, sweetheart,’ she said, swatting the insect away with a hand and offering her son another Dairylea sandwich. ‘They’re like bees, only they don’t make honey.’
‘Bee,’ Jamie repeated before he took the sandwich and chomped it down. There was the tinkle of a bell and Jamie looked up. ‘Horse.’
She turned to follow his gaze. Samantha and Clarissa were riding up and down the narrow lane on their bicycles, every now and then one of them uttering a ‘trot on’ or a ‘woah’ to control their mounts.
‘Pretend horses.’ She turned and scanned the horizon until she picked out a group of Dartmoor ponies grazing near a clump of gorse. ‘There’re some real ones, darling.’
Jamie had by now lost interest in the local wildlife and turned his attention to his collection of chunky plastic cars. She cleared away the picnic things, then lay back on the woollen blanket, shielding her eyes from the light. The respite wouldn’t last long, she knew. Jamie would need attention or the girls would all of a sudden come over and profess extreme boredom. But for the moment she would enjoy the warmth of the sun, the sound of birds in the heather, the stillness of the surrounding wilderness.
‘Vroom,’ Jamie said. ‘Vroom, vroom, vroooooom.’
She felt something on her thigh. The wheels of a truck climbing the impossibly steep hill of her body. She worried about Jamie sometimes. His sisters were nine – seven years older – and they played with him only when it suited them, so he was, in effect, an only child. With her husband away for much of the time, Jamie only had her to spice up his life. Of course he went to nursery five days a week; she figured the girls there spent many more hours playing with Jamie than she did. Not for the first time she felt a pang of guilt, but then dismissed the thought. She wondered if her husband ever had the same doubts as he lay on his bunk at night.
‘Car, Mummy.’ The wheels rolled up and onto her stomach. ‘Vroom, vroom.’
‘Yes.’ She reached out a hand, keeping her eyes closed and groping for the toy. ‘Let me have a go.’
‘No, Mummy, car! Car!’ Jamie’s voice went up in pitch. ‘Car coming!’
She opened her eyes and sat up, hearing the revving of an engine, something like a racing car, a guttural exhaust spitting and crackling, the squeal of tyres on tarmac. Somewhere the tinkling of a bicycle bell and a shout. She turned her head towards the road and heard a scream silenced as metal screeched against metal. She pushed Jamie away and scrambled to her feet, aware of a flash of blue haring away down the lane, her daughter lying like a rag doll in the road next to the mangled frame of the bicycle, one wheel still spinning round. Even as she ran towards the accident she could hear the tick-tick-ticking as the wheel rotated, and as she reached Clarissa it was the only thing moving, the only thing still making a sound in the whole wide world.
Then she woke up.
Charlie Kinver cast out once again. He had no real expectation of another fish. Two nice ones in an hour was a good bag. Especially for Fernworthy. The reservoir’s surface dimpled with little wavelets as the earlier breeze died to a zephyr. A duck set out from the far bank and a dozen swallows skimmed the surface, sweeping up the last of the morning hatch. The heat of the late August sun warmed Charlie’s back. The bright light would be driving the trout deeper. Unlikely he’d get another bite now. But still …
He wound in, thinking he’d have one final cast. Behind him, in his fishing bag, the two brown trout almost shouted out to be taken home and placed in a pan. A knob of butter, a few minutes’ heat and then served atop a slice of toast made from the bread his wife had baked that very morning. They’d had an argument before she’d gone to church and he’d headed off fishing, so the catch would serve as a peace offering.
He cast out a final time, and almost as soon as the fly touched the water, a fish struck. Kinver raised his rod. The reaction was instinctive, but this time he was too late. The fly flew out of the water and caught in the low branch of a tree to his right. He could see the line had somehow wrapped itself around the branch. He pulled on it, hoping it would slip over the branch. It didn’t. Instead, the hook caught in the bark. Charlie put the rod down on the bank. Pointless getting cross. He had waders on, so he could simply wade along the bank a few metres and free the hook. Since this was his last cast he’d cut the line, pocket the fly and then reel in.
Charlie stepped into the water and began to make his way down the bank. He reached the tree, put a hand up and held the fly. With the other hand he took his knife, sliced the line and freed the hook. He pulled the line to make sure it would come round the tree and then began to wade back to the gravel beach.
A flash of white caught his eye. On the bankside, wedged in the crook of an old
