Part 29 (1/2)

Baber continued his prayers, but it was as if he was shouting into an infinity of nothing.

'My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why have you forsaken me?' he cried.

The rough canvas that covered the broken stained-gla.s.s window twitched, as if his words were enough to shake the church's foundations. But it was just the wind, patrolling restlessly through Hexen Bridge.

Baber sighed. At theological college he'd read about what St John of the Cross had called the dark night of the soul, but back then it was just words, an abstract concept. He had studied hundreds of miles from Hexen Bridge, and his faith had never seemed more alive.

But the dark cloud of unknowing had swallowed him almost as soon as he returned to his birthplace, to the church his family had watched over for centuries. G.o.d might be the Lord of the whole Earth, but even he seemed to draw the line at Hexen Bridge.

Baber remembered the conversation with the young girl, Ace, and her friend. The weight of the dark secrets of decades had pressed him down, threatening to snap him like a twig.

And yet... Some part of him wanted to share the burden, to bring the shadows into the light and see them fade. The girl was overconfident... But perhaps she did hold the key, along with that mysterious Doctor whom everyone spoke about, but no one could describe.

Should he have said more? Had he said too much already?

He paused, a sudden brightness stabbing into his soul like pillars of sunlight through storm clouds. So used was he to unrelenting depression that he barely recognised the glimmer of hope that - quite without prompting - gripped him.

Baber got unsteadily to his feet, rheumatism nagging at his joints. For all his cries into the shadows of eternity, searching for the unknowable Light in the dark of the world, he felt better now than when he first came into the church. And he could not find any explanation for it.

Baber managed a smile as he turned to the sheet held in place over the shattered window. It was twitching again, the wind billowing it like a sail.

Baber leaned down to pick up a tiny sliver of gla.s.s that Megan Tyley had obviously missed that morning. He cradled it in his hand, a small red tear, still sharp enough to cut if not disposed of properly.

He straightened, remembering the tears the organist had shed back in the early 1980s when they had finally found the money to clean the old pipes. He had chosen to play 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' first, and as his hands moved over the keys he had - The covering over the broken window surged again, this time concentrating on a single spot as if something were trying to push through.

Baber wasn't scared. He could barely feel his pulse increase as the finger of twig came through like a knife, slicing down in a long arc.

There was a rush of metal as the car flew off the road and into a ditch, its engine shrieking as the wheels lost their grip on the ground. Ace darted out of the way just in time, but there had been an audible thump as the vehicle pa.s.sed Steven, whose body rolled on to the tarmac road.

Ace got to her feet, feeling for bruises, and then ran to Steven's side. A gash had opened up over his forehead, but he seemed otherwise unhurt. He muttered something, staring in disbelief at the motionless car, which had twisted part-way on to its side, the bonnet held fast by a thick hedge.

Ace ran up to the driver's door and yanked it open. 'What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l -'

The driver was Joanna Matson, her face still partly smothered by the inflated air bag. She had made no attempt to free herself and hung limply in the seat belt, her arms trailing at her side.

The engine was still screaming, the impact seeming to have knocked the gear stick into neutral. Joanna's foot was clamped down on the accelerator.

Ace reached in and turned the keys, removing them from the twisted steering column. The radio, which had been burbling out an inane Sugar Coma ballad, gave an indignant snort of static and died.

Joanna Matson stared ahead, seemingly unaware of anything that was going on around her. Ace shook her shoulders. Hard. 'Oi!' she shouted, in the older woman's ear.

'What are you playing at?'

At length Joanna looked up. Tears had transformed her mascara into panda eyes. Brightly coloured lipstick had smudged, turning her lips and one cheek into a jagged slash of red. She opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing until Steven approached the car, hobbling.

'Steven,' she said, her voice finding something of the tone of a shocked school teacher. 'What are you doing with this common tart?'

The scarecrow creature pulled itself through the canvas in a clatter of spidery limbs. Its eyes stared at Baber. Accusing him.

Even Baber had to look away, and he stumbled backward as another scarecrow came through, one shoulder studded with splinters of gla.s.s and lead.

'I only told the girl what she already knew,' announced Baber loudly.

The figures paused for a moment, rocking their heads from side to side as if trying to pinpoint the source of the unexpectedly strong declamation. Then, thickly wadded hands outstretched before them like grim somnambulists, the two scarecrows strode down the side aisle.

Baber was at the door. 'Anyway,' said Baber, in a quieter voice, 'perhaps it's for the best that it should all end now. I can only carry the blackness in my soul for so long.' Despite the bravery of his words, Baber knew then that he wanted to live, that life itself was a thing to be treasured. Simple animal self-preservation took over.

He flung open the inner door just as the first scarecrow lunged, and knocked it off balance. Baber turned to run - the main door was almost within his grasp - when the second creature swung out an arm.

Baber felt sticks and straw and brambles smash into the side of his face, drawing blood. He collapsed to his knees, before being jerked back on to his feet by strong hands that gripped his shoulders and throat.

'Tell me more about Jack i' the Green,' said the Doctor as Denman drove his car through the London suburbs.

'Like he said,' noted Denman, jabbing a thumb towards Trevor Winstone, 'it's hard for an outsider to understand.'

'I've lived with a knowledge knowledge of the evil in Hexen Bridge for longer than either of you,' said the Doctor cryptically. 'I just never knew the of the evil in Hexen Bridge for longer than either of you,' said the Doctor cryptically. 'I just never knew the reasons.' reasons.'

'It's because we're all d.a.m.ned,' said Winstone, shaking his head. 'No hope of redemption.'

'Everyone has that,' said the Doctor. 'It's what characterises humanity. You are born, you live, you are terrified by death, and obsessed with guilt and the desire for rationality. And you are redeemed by...' He paused and turned to look at Denman who, he noticed, was crying. 'Love,'

he said at last. 'It's all you need.'

'Has anybody ever told you that you sound like a hippie?'

said Winstone cynically.

'Yes,' said the Doctor. Again he turned to Denman. 'Stop the car,' he said. 'Now.'

'What?'