Part 28 (2/2)

Sighing, he threw open the heavy oak trapdoor, and stepped down on to the wooden rungs.

On the third step, Don reached out and flicked on the light.

Bob had never bothered to have anything stronger than a sixty-watt bulb in the cellar, but even this dim light brought a sigh of relief from Don. There was no one skulking about in the cellar, lying in wait to steal the takings or murder Bob and Joanna in their beds.

At the foot of the stairs Don took a long look around the beer kegs and stacked crates of bottles. The cellar was filthy and smelled of damp. Bob really should get something done about it.

Something moved.

Don snapped his head to one side, but felt only a gentle breeze on his face. He walked forward and found himself looking at a sheet of green tarpaulin that covered most of one wall of the cellar. Don had been down here many times and this bit of the cellar had always been stacked with crates.

Now they had been moved, recently, too, by the look of the drag marks in the dust on the floor.

Don walked to the tarpaulin, which was rippling slightly from the breeze behind it.

Behind it?

Don pulled back the sheeting, and found an opening carved into the cellar wall, and a tunnel beyond.

'Funny place for a hole in the wall,' he said to no one in particular. His voice echoed off into the distance of the concealed pa.s.sageway. There was a light flickering somewhere in the distance. Now more curious than frightened, Don took a few tentative steps into the opening, stooping slightly as his head sc.r.a.ped along the curved roof of the tunnel. After fifty feet the pa.s.sage widened into a chamber. A breeze scurried down from another tunnel, at the far side of the cave.

Mounted on one wall was a rusted oil lamp, its flame fading as the wick was almost burnt away. Don picked up the lamp and shook it. Immediately it glowed brighter as some of the oil came into contact with the flame. The orange glow from the lamp reminded Don of his childhood, and winter evenings in front of the fire. Don and his brothers and sisters, watching television while their parents screamed at each other in the scullery. Happy days.

His attention was caught by something wholly unexpected.

A mirror, set into the rock about twenty feet away. Don stepped closer, wondering what on Earth this place was. He estimated that he was right under the village green.

He looked into the mirror.

And screamed in terror.

Standing before him was not his own reflection, but a large man with mad eyes, anachronistic clothing, and bloodied hands. His expansive face bore a quizzical expression. 'The demon Hatch is known to us,' said the apparition. 'And Robert Matson visits when is weak spirit is fortified by drink.

But, stranger, what dost thou want with Jack i' the Green?'

Up on the village green, covered by the dark blanket of night Josie l.u.s.ton had found what she was looking for in the drunken shape of Martin Price. As Josie lay back on the bone-hard mattress of gra.s.s and wriggled her arms from her leather jacket, Martin was trying to tug his T-s.h.i.+rt over his head.

'Gimme a hand then, Josie, I'm too bladdered,' he said with a mixture of anger and frustration.

'Do it yourself, boy,' she said with a giggle that sent a spasm of rigid anger up and down him.

'What are you laughing at?' he asked furiously, pinning the still-chuckling girl to the gra.s.s as he knelt astride her.

The scream that emerged from the Green Man caused both of them to sit up in embarra.s.sment.

They both looked towards the pub. Its lights still blazed like a beacon in the night, and the door flapped open in the gentle breeze as Don Tyley sprinted away from the building, shrieking in terror.

'I don't get it,' said Steven. 'Baber didn't tell us how to find Jack.'

'You weren't listening,' said Ace. 'All that stuff about Jack's children. He must have meant the school.'

'But the legends say that Jack's under the green.'

'Yeah, but he's growing, right? And anyway, like you said, we can hardly start digging for him. I think the Matsons would have something to say about that.'

They trudged the lane towards the school in silence for some time, Steven jumping at every rustle from the hedgerows.

They heard the sound of a car engine just as the school came into view. 'Someone's coming,' said Steven.

'And fast, too,' said Ace. 'Better get off the road.'

They stood on the verge, the arms of the hedge p.r.i.c.kling their backs. Two huge globes of light turned the corner, the headlights of the car dazzlingly bright.

'Who the h.e.l.l is that?' asked Steven. They're driving like a lunatic.'

'They should have seen us by now,' said Ace, moving even further away from the road.

Instead of following the curve of the corner, the car's nose nose pointed in their direction. The engine screamed still more loudly as the accelerator was stamped to the floor. pointed in their direction. The engine screamed still more loudly as the accelerator was stamped to the floor.

'Christ,' said Ace. 'They're going to hit us!'

CHAPTER 12.

UNFINISHED SYMPATHY.

St James the Less was silent. Whatever voices Baber had once heard here - whatever answered prayers he had witnessed, or revelations he had received - had long since pa.s.sed into memory. Now there was just the hard stool under his bent legs, and a church full of emptiness.

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