Water Rites Page 4
“Gosh almighty!” Ben said again.
“In the meantime,” she seemed suddenly restless, glanced around her, looked out to sea, “just remember what you’ve seen today. Keep it as your secret, and wait patiently. Pray to me every night, I will be listening for you. Just because I don’t answer doesn’t mean that I haven’t heard. Live among your own kind, learn all you can, for knowledge is vital. It may be a long time, but I will come to you again.”
Suddenly, her hand had slipped from his own, and with a splash she was gone into the ebbing tide. He leaned forward, looked for her, but a wave obscured his view.
That was the last, and only, time Ben Shannon saw the queen of the People of the Water. He did not tell anybody, mostly because he seldom talked with other boys.
But he never forgot that summer’s day in his early boyhood when he had sat upon the rocks alongside her and she had held his hand, told him how one day the earth would be flooded and the fish people would rule over it.
He had believed her and he had prayed to her every night before he went to bed. That had been the most momentous day of his life. It had dominated his thinking, it had become his religion; every other belief was false.
Just one day had altered the course of his destiny. He had been waiting over forty years for the earth to flood and the queen of the People of the Water to return to him. If anything, the passing of time had strengthened Shannon’s belief.
His parents were long dead and he had changed his name from Ben to Royston; it sounded more important, more convincing, and he had never liked “Ben.” He wasn’t a boy any longer.
He had sought out other believers, vetted them carefully before taking them into his fold, his chosen few. A small gathering who believed as he did, who worshipped with him in secret and whose faith was unshakable. They waited together for the Promised Day.
And they were still waiting.
Five
Phil Quiles knew that he had to go back up to the reservoir again. Because he couldn’t leave that faulty light until tomorrow. He daren’t, it was on the cards that Dalgety would call back before the end of the day; the inspector had found a fault, he would dearly love to discover that the pumping station manager had disobeyed his orders to fix it immediately. Dalgety was that kind of man.
A negligence report against Phil would be to his detriment when the inevitable takeover came about and the authority needed to prune its workforce, compile a list of employees to lay off.
“What’s the matter, love?” Kate glanced at her husband as she put his plate on the table, it was always as if a kind of telepathy existed between them, if one was worried, the other sensed it.
“Nothing,” he smiled.
“Yes, there is,” an expression of mock disapproval. “For a guess, it’s Dalgety. Whenever that slob’s been here it takes you the best part of a day to get over it. What’s he complaining about this time?”
“One of the reservoir lights has gone on the blink,” Phil didn’t meet her gaze, it all sounded so trivial now. “Just needs a new tube. It’s easily fixed, I’ll do it this afternoon.”
“Then there’s nothing to worry about, is there?” She sat down opposite him, watched him carefully. “Or is there?”
“No. No, of course not.”
“Yes, there is, I can tell. Come on, we’ve always shared our worries so you can tell me all about it.”
“All right,” he cut through a slice of meat, stared at it as if right then it was the most important thing in the world to him. “The reservoir bugs me. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. Gives me the creeps when I’m down there like …” he smiled sheepishly, “like something nasty might come up out of the water and grab me.”
He had expected her to laugh, maybe ridicule him. She didn’t, she just nodded. “I’m not surprised, actually. That time I came up with you, shortly after we moved in here, I didn’t like it at all. Peter was just a baby then, I was carrying him in a sling. He’d slept soundly all the way up there but the moment we got inside that building …”
“I remember only too well, love. He suddenly woke up, didn’t just cry, he screamed. It was dreadful, the enclosed space magnified it. You had to go back outside with him and the moment you went through the door, he stopped. In fact, he went back to sleep again. God, it was awful. After that, I’ve hated going in there. As if … Peter could see something which we couldn’t.”
“Maybe I’d better come up with you while you fix that light. It won’t take long and I’ll be back in plenty of time to walk down to the school and fetch Peter.”
“No,” he shook his head. “I’ve been checking the instruments and levels all this time so I’m not going to run scared now. Anyway, if the rumours are true, they’ll be draining it and filling it in soon. In their greed, they’ll sell the site for building, find a loophole in the Green Belt restrictions to enable them to build an upmarket woodland housing complex. It’s probably all in the mind, it’s such a dark, depressing place. I guess Dalgety got me nervous, everybody’s on edge when he’s around.”
Phil set off on the walk up to the reservoir. So peaceful, so warm, amid the evergreen conifers, he almost convinced himself that it was still summer, that the leaf fall was weeks away. Woodpigeons cooed in their daytime roost, a surprised rabbit leaped up, bounded away. Insects hummed, a cloud of gnats hovered in the still atmosphere. The creatures of the woodland were so lethargic, it started to ease his tension.
All you have to do is to go down below, walk around the ledge until you reach the light, take off the faulty tube, replace it with the new one. Two minutes at the most then you’ll be back outside where the sun’s shining.
That part of the reservoir will be in shadow until you’ve fitted the replacement fluorescent strip.
There’s something down in the water that moves and glows.
No!
You’ve seen it yourself.
It was a trick of the faulty flickering light.
Dalgety didn’t see it and he’s the shrewdest guy you’ll ever meet, looks for little things.
Phil began to sweat, told himself it was a combination of the warmth and the steep climb.
It will be cooler down there.
He shivered, his sweat cooled even in the direct sunshine.
You might lose your footing, fall in. You’d never get out. Whatever’s down there will take you for its own.
He even thought about chickening out, turning back. He wouldn’t because he still had a job.
The old sign warned, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
And there was already a trespasser within the barbed wire enclosure.
Phil stared, rested both hands on the rotting wooden gate. It was a woman, she had climbed up onto the raised grassy mound, she had her back towards him, seated on a folding tubular chair. Before her was an easel and she was painting, each stroke of her brush a painstaking movement. She was using one of the concrete inspection hatches for a table, paints and brushes laid out, a thermos flask in readiness for when the heat made her thirsty.
She had bright chestnut hair but it was probably dyed because even from this distance he could tell that she was old, late seventies at a guess, from her posture. Arthritic limbs, a stiffness about her movements, wasted rather than slim.
She glanced round when she heard him unlocking the padlock, even at her age, she might have been attractive except that her expression of discontent had spoiled her features. Eyes that narrowed with defiance rather than curiosity, a mouth that had set into a disagreeable pout; a permanent bad-tempered disposition had lined her freckled features and pouched her cheeks long ago.
She watched his approach, challenged him with an outstretched, wrinkled neck. He saw how she tensed, almost as if she was eagerly anticipating a confrontation.
“Yes, I’m trespassing, and I did see the notice!” Her voice was harsh, an offensive croak.
He halted a couple of yards from her, felt uneasy in her presence. The villagers could be a nuisance at t
imes, they considered these woodlands theirs by right, an inheritance from their ancestors who had been allowed to roam freely here, pick wild fruit and gather kindling. They had fought and won several battles against proposals to commercialize their considered domain. Forestry and water were no threat to the environment but still they resented an outside ownership.
“Help yourself, enjoy your painting,” Phil smiled disarmingly.
“Oh!” Disappointment because he wasn’t going to order her to leave. “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” his gaze fell upon the watercolour, it had a lack of detail about it which could have been amateurish, it might have been stylistic. He shuddered.
“Good, isn’t it?” An arrogance that defied criticism. “I’ve only just started painting landscapes, I spent months at art class, just a waste of time. In the end the teacher admitted that, she said, ‘I can see that I can’t teach you anything, Mrs Jackson.’ My daughter paints, too, sometimes we go out together at weekends but Barbara has a full time job. She’s manager at Jones & Jimpson, the well-known estate agents. They’re considering appointing her to the board of directors after Christmas, and I should think so, too. But she’s got a lot to learn about painting. Not married yet, either, I’ve told her she’s got to wait until Mr Right comes along, and he’s got to be a millionaire and have a public school education. You don’t look for up-and-coming prospects, I tell her, find the finished product. She’s fifty next birthday. My husband was chief planning officer for the council, he’s been retired fifteen years and still knows more than the upstart who replaced him. He goes to writing classes, his teacher tells him he’s up to publishable standard. I told Barry he’d better get cracking and sell some of his short stories, even folks like us can use the money.”
Phil’s brain was spinning, it couldn’t cope with this woman’s family history and prospects without so much as a pause for breath. “Very creditable.”
“You know they’re going to build on this site, don’t you, Mister …”
“Quiles. There are always rumours. Once it was going to be a sand-and-gravel quarry …”
“Houses!” She snapped angrily. “Mock Georgian style. I know because Barry’s former colleagues at the council offices have seen the outline planning. Eight on this site alone, and once that’s approved the owners of the woods will be allowed to sell. A bit at a time, a few acres here and there. Then there’ll be a council estate, you mark my words. Corruption, backhanders, it’s a way of life but my Barry wouldn’t have any of that. They’ve been after doing it for years and now they’re going to get their way. It’ll bring down the price of property in the village, you mark my words. They’ll dispense with this reservoir, drain it and fill it in, you see if they don’t, Mister Quirms.”
“Quiles,” a shiver ran up Phil’s spine. “I only work for the water authority …”
“They’re going to merge, too, then there’ll be some layoffs and the water rates will double. Or treble. Is your job safe?”
“Who knows?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Anyway, I’d better get moving, I’ve got to fix a light down in the reservoir.”
“That’s somewhere I’ve never been,” her eyes narrowed. “All the years that I’ve lived in Hopwas and known this place, I’ve never even been inside there.” She pointed at the blockhouse. “That building’s always intrigued me. When Barbara was young I used to bring her up here for walks and that place fascinated her, too. I used to create fantasies for her, once I told her that it was a foreign legion outpost. It used to be clean in those days, Mr Quiles, shining white with a fresh coat of paint every few years. Now it’s a disgrace, green slime and lichen all over it, a dirty grey where it used to be white. You’ll notice in my painting that it’s like it used to be.”
Phil looked, nodded his agreement. The blockhouse didn’t look so sinister in this woman’s painting. Almost friendly, in fact.
“I’d love to see inside it.” There was no mistaking her hint, the way she wiped her paintbrush and laid it down.
“Water authority officials only are allowed through those doors,” he found himself echoing Dalgety’s tone. Suppose the inspector paid a surprise visit, found Mrs Jackson inside the enclosure. He half-turned, peered back down the track through the larches. There was nobody in sight.
“I’m trespassing already.” She rose unsteadily on to her feet. “One more quick trespass wouldn’t make any difference would it, Mister Quiles?”
A sudden idea, one that brought relief with it. He would not be down there alone during those few minutes which it took to swap over the fluorescent tubes. “I suppose not.”
“Thank you,” she grabbed his arm to steady herself. “We Jacksons are used to keeping secrets. We’ve known all about the corruption between the council and the builders and the water authority for years and kept it under wraps. My Barry is going to fight this latest move to build houses up here, tooth and nail.”
“Phew!” Her nose wrinkled as he opened the outer door. “It stinks in there, it can’t be healthy. No wonder the quality of our water’s deteriorated these last few months. You can even taste it in a cup of tea.”
“That’s the chlorine,” he supported her down the steps. “The water is up to EEC standards, so I’m informed.”
“No wonder it’s bad,” she coughed in the dank smelling atmosphere. “I said all along that we should never have had anything to do with the EEC and now I’ve been proved right. Mind I don’t slip, Mister Quiles.”
“There’s your reservoir, then,” he stood on the ledge, his back pressed against the damp, slimy wall. “Just a concrete pit filled with water.”
“Ugh!” He felt her shudder, shuddered with her. “What a horrid place, I’d hate to be down here in the pitch dark. I thought you’d got to mend a light, Mister Quiles, but they seem to be working all right.
The light on the far side of the water no longer flickered.
“So did I.” Phil’s shudder spread all over his body, he looked in disbelief.
“Perhaps one of your colleagues has been and mended it.”
No, Dalgety wouldn’t lower himself to menial tasks. In fact, he would ensure that his manager carried out the maintenance job himself.
“You ought to check it just to make sure that it’s all right.”
“No, it looks fine.” There’s no way I’m going over the other side unless I absolutely have to. “We’d better get back.”
He held on to her, supporting each other in case either of them slipped. He felt the goose pimpling of the wrinkled flesh on her arm.
“Whatever’s that?” For some reason his companion had turned, looked back.
“What?” He didn’t want to look, he tried not to, but somehow he could not stop his head from turning.
Back down the steps, almost on the opposite side of the reservoir, something glowed beneath the dark surface. A luminous streak that rippled, then seemed to vanish.
Phil stiffened, clutched at his aged companion.
“There’s something down there in the water, Mister Quiles!” A kind of whispered shriek of terror.
“I … didn’t see anything.”
“It’s gone now,” she was struggling to climb the wet steps, her head still turned. “It was like some kind of … fish that shone under the water.”
“It was a reflection from the far light.” Phil had almost managed to convince himself of that last time.
“It couldn’t be because the light wasn’t flickering like you said it would be, I looked specially. And there’s no current to ripple the water.”
Damn you, I wish I hadn’t brought you with me, then I wouldn’t have known anything about it.
The sunlight outside was dazzling after the gloom of the interior. While he locked the outer door Mrs Jackson was shuffling back to her easel with a haste that unnerved him.
As though she was afraid.
“I’ll leave you to your painting,” he called after her, “I must go and catch up on the work.”
He tried not to hear but her words floated to him on the soft breeze, a frightened whisper from an old woman.
“I didn’t know what evil felt like before today, Mister Quiles. But I do now. I can’t explain it, but if ever I sensed evil, I did down in that reservoir.”
He hastened his step, almost ran. As he locked the padlock on the gate, the key slipped from his fingers, he had to search for it in the long grass. Mrs Jackson had climbed in uninvited, she could damned well climb out again. Sod her, like Dalgety, she unnerved him.
The woodpigeons were still crooing away in the firs, midges swarmed and hummed. Peace and tranquillity all around; if there was evil here then it confined itself to the depths of the underground reservoir.
That was a small consolation.
Six
“I find your theory absolutely fascinating,” Barbara Jackson felt slightly heady, it wasn’t just the wine, she had only drunk two glasses of the vintage claret; nor the meal, each course a seafood base that had a delightful freshness about it as if it was only hours out of the ocean. It was the atmosphere, the elaborately furnished dining room of Packington Hall which had once, it was reputed, graced Victorian aristocracy. It was rumoured that both Sir Robert Peel and Disraeli had dined here in their day.
Her companion had an almost hypnotic effect upon her, she was unable to take her eyes off him. A strangely handsome man with finely cut aquiline features, a goatee and dark hair that might have been thinning but it was impossible to tell because of the discreet way it was styled. His eyes glinted in the soft glow of the chandelier directly above the table and made her skin prickle.