[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
smudge of greenishness running outside those possible
cropmarks. Mark knew there were psychics who could
dowse maps. It wasn't part of his talent, but he found
himself wishing for it. The photo told him absolutely
nothing.
He needed to be there, in that field.
Jack had finished going through the rest of them
while he was studying it. "Can I take another look at that
one?" he asked suddenly, and Mark startled. "What's up?
51
The Psychic's Tale Chris Quinton
You're a bit on edge, aren't you?"
"Sorry. Got a lot on my mind."
"That business at Steeple Westford really shook
you, didn't it?"
"You have no idea," Mark muttered. "Yes, you
could say it did."
"Don't let it get to you, sunshine." Jack leaned over
and patted his knee. "We'll get it sorted, one way or
another. Right. What we might have here could be
foundation pits, and this might possibly be an enclosing
ditch and bank, making it your typical henge monument. If
it is, then the rest of the circle is in the trees. Or they could
be natural features, where trees were felled when the field
was extended into the copse, and that's an older boundary
ditch. It'll take an excavation to tell which it is, or if it's
something completely different."
Mark nodded. "I have to go there," he said without
thinking.
"Why? It's an unregistered site, and I can't dig
without permission from the landowner."
"Can you show me where this field is on the map?"
"Sure." Jack made a note of the grid references at
the bottom of the photo, then took an Ordnance Survey
map from his pack and unfolded it on the coffee table. In a
matter of seconds, he had homed in on a point in open
52
The Psychic's Tale Chris Quinton
country a couple of miles from Steeple Westford. It formed
a lopsided triangle with Westford and another village
Eastbridge, where Curtess had held land. Tension shivered
down Mark's spine.
"That's it. Has to be," he whispered. "Jack, do you
know who owns that field?"
"The Fitzes. They own most of the land around the
village, but it's all rented out to local farmers. Harry Barnes
has a good-sized chunk, including this one and the villa
field. From what I've heard the rents are the only things
keeping the Fitzes' noses above water. Rumour has it the
debts are mounting, and people seem to think Charlie
Fitzwarren will be putting the whole estate up for sale
before too long."
"And Curtess is laughing in his fucking grave,"
Mark growled.
"Whoa back, sunshine. You're taking this a little too
personally."
"So sue me!" he snapped. "You didn't see the looks
on those people's faces when they found out I was
descended from that sodding bastard!" He got jerkily to his
feet and paced restlessly up and down the room. "They
blamed me, and she was just lying there, bleeding, like the
girl in the attic, their babies dead, and the blood kept on
spreading "
53
The Psychic's Tale Chris Quinton
"Stop." Jack rose quickly and stood in front of him,
hands closing hard on Mark's biceps. "What girl? Where?"
"Red Lion. Emily." He hadn't known he knew that.
Barriers were crumbling, and garbled information flooded
into his mind, bringing with it the usual headache and
incoherence. "Her name was Emily and " Oh, shit!
"Whoa, whoa." Jack's fingers bit into Mark's
muscles. "There's a girl bleeding to death in the Red Lion?"
"Fuck, no," he said impatiently. God, he hated this
aspect of his talent, hated that it chose here and now, in
front of Jack, to break free and manifest itself. "Not now.
Then. All she had was a candle "
"Stop it!" Jack barked, shaking him. "You're not
making any sense. What the hell is wrong with you?"
Mark gazed at him, dazed and bemused and losing
the battle. They were the same height, he noted
distractedly, but Jack was broader& Belvedere Fitzwarren
had been even bigger, a bull of a man
"N-nothing?" he stammered, and struggled to take
back control of the knowledge fermenting in his head. He
knew why it was happening. He'd been reluctant to deal
with the Curtess/Fitzwarren situation right from the start
when Alice had put that book in his hands, so he'd
automatically slammed up every defensive wall he had.
The brief lowering of them so he could pick up on anything
54
The Psychic's Tale Chris Quinton
paranormal that might be going on in the Red Lion had
started a hairline fracture, and the assault of the sarsen
stone in the church had caused another. Now that strange
mediumistic subconscious of his was working overtime to
connect the dots on several different frames of reference at
once.
Jack narrowed his eyes. "Are you on something?"
he demanded. "Pull yourself together and tell me about the
girl at the inn!"
Yes, concentrate on one thing at a time, but not him,
not Curtess. The girl. "Emily."
"Yes. Her."
"Her baby died. So did she. Bled to death."
"No. They couldn't have kept that quiet at the Lion.
The whole village would have been buzzing with it."
"Then. Not now." Exhaustion started to seep
through his limbs, and only Jack's hands kept him upright.
Fuck it! Got to get him out of here before But he couldn't
stop the words babbling from him. "Don't know dates.
Eighteen hundreds, maybe?"
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
