Part 28 (1/2)

'Everyone in the village is trying to cling to the past. But it's not working. We all feel it. Something is happening, something new and terrible. ' ”Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”, as Yeats put it.'

'Jack?' queried Steven.

Baber nodded. 'Jack has always been here. But he's waking up, and it's terrifying me.'

'But Jack's just a legend,' said Steven.

'No,' said Baber. 'My father realised that Jack exists. It's possible his father knew before him. That dark patch in the photographs - you only really notice it from the top of the church tower.'

'Yeah,' said Ace. 'We know.'

'He started taking the photographs. I suppose you could call it a cry for help. He couldn't just go around talking openly about Jack. Not in Hexen Bridge.'

'Why not?' queried Ace.

'The register you saw,' said Baber. 'The traditions that surround it, the monitoring of the populace. It's inextricably linked to Jack.' He gulped down some coffee, seeming not to notice its temperature. 'The vicar of Hexen Bridge is one of Jack's children, you see. Perhaps more so than most.'

'So that lad who you said has gone to London...' began Ace, remembering the register in the church.

'He's still here,' said Baber. He turned to Steven Chen. 'But you wouldn't recognise him.'

'So Jack sits under the green and turns people into... Into the living dead?' asked Ace.

Baber dodged the question. 'I've said as much as I know.'

'How do we stop him?'

'Jack? You can't stop Jack!' exclaimed Baber, with unexpected vehemence. 'We're all all his children. He could kill us all, just like that.' He snapped his fingers. 'You and the boy might be safe. You don't belong here.' his children. He could kill us all, just like that.' He snapped his fingers. 'You and the boy might be safe. You don't belong here.'

'I didn't feel particularly safe last night,' admitted Steven.

'I've said too much already,' added Baber hurriedly.

'You've told us nothing nothing that we didn't already know,' said Ace, anger rising in her voice. that we didn't already know,' said Ace, anger rising in her voice.

'Then condemn me as a coward if you wish,' said Baber.

'But that's better than being d.a.m.ned by Jack.'

Ace got to her feet. 'Come on, Steven. It's time we paid our respects to this Jack.'

'And how do we do that?' asked Steven. 'Get a shovel and start digging up the green?'

Ace turned to Baber. 'Well?'

Baber, still slumped in his chair, glanced up, but did not reply.

'Look,' said Ace, 'if we see Jack, we'll tell him you had nothing to do with it.'

'You seem to be treating this very casually,' observed Baber.

'That's because I know we're going to nail the sc.u.mbag.'

'Really?' His voice betrayed amus.e.m.e.nt.

'Yeah. I've done this sort of thing before.'

Baber shook his head. 'You haven't. The only thing we can do is pray that Jack sleeps again.'

'But Jack's this big black stain, right? He's growing all the time. That's what those photographs show.' Ace paused in the doorway. 'Get real, mate. He's not about to have another kip.'

'Then the fate of Jack's children is in your hands,'

announced Baber sadly.

It was closing time at the Green Man. With both of the Matsons nowhere to be seen, Don Tyley had struggled on his own behind the bar. It had been an awful night, the clammy air thick with tension. There had been three or four messy brawls within the pub as people pushed and jostled around the bar to get served, and the police had been called. Not that Stu Minton, returning from the fire-damaged Chinese restaurant, had done much other than tell his second cousin Dave to leave his third cousin Jimmy alone. Then he'd stayed for a pint himself and had ended up in the middle of yet another pus.h.i.+ng-and-shoving match over who was the better pop group, Fractured Spirit or the Unlicensed Virgins.

Now, finally, Don had been able to close the door on the last customer. Little Josie l.u.s.ton had hung around the bar until everyone else had gone, flirting with him. Time was when Don would have taken her around the back and given her a good seeing to. But then he thought about his son, only a couple of years her junior, and what had happened to him, him, and had ushered the girl out of the pub with little ceremony. and had ushered the girl out of the pub with little ceremony.

He pulled the heavy bolt at the top of the door into place and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Tomorrow, he thought, he'd have a few words with Bob and Joanna about leaving him alone, at the mercy of the regulars.

Thump.

Don turned suddenly, startled by the loud noise behind him. His heart thudded in his chest, but there was nothing there. He took a pace or two closer to the back door, but that was closed, as it should be. 'Anyone there?' called Don, his voice trembling slightly.

Idiot, he thought. If there is anybody there, they aren't going to answer, are they?

The thump came again, less heart-stopping this time as Don was facing in the direction of the sound. A few feet away he could see that the trapdoor hadn't been shut properly, the wind causing it to flap upward. 'Daft thing,' he said with a sigh of relief. 'Fancy scaring me half witless like that.' He moved towards the hatch, but found himself wondering what had caused it to move in the first place. Don scratched his head.