The Watchers Page 15

  ‘No!’ Randall snapped, and I turned and looked into his craggy face. His grey eyes were steely and knowing. He addressed the room: ‘You don’t need me to tell you that predators don’t drain their prey entirely of blood only to leave the carcasses mostly intact. They don’t extract the brain through holes made with almost surgical precision. Something is haunting our village. Stalking our community. Something ancient and dangerous. But you must not hunt them, seek them. You must not invite them in, or else there will be a judgement!’ He paused. ‘Please, I am here to warn you against probing these visitations any further. For your own sakes.’

  You may as well raise a red flag to a bull. Telling people not to investigate is as good as telling them they should.

  A flash of red caught my eye. At the side of the hall, towards the back, was a girl with long dark hair and pale skin wearing a crimson coat. She was rocking ever so slightly from side to side.

  ‘We shouldn’t fool ourselves that the landing at the school was a one-off event,’ Randall raved on. ‘The Havens have a strange and long history of unusual sightings. Ten years ago the lifeboat was called out to sea to investigate glowing red lights near Stack Rocks. Many years before that, stones rained on the roof of the Haven Hotel.’

  The hall was silent, regarding this unkempt but commanding man warily.

  In my head Admiral Hill Bartlett’s voice repeated, Artificial objects under intelligent control moving at quite fantastic speeds.

  ‘I’ve seen plenty of dead animals,’ said Frobisher at last, ‘but this . . . this is savagery. You think this is the work of . . . aliens? From another planet?’

  ‘No, I do not.’

  ‘Well, if not aliens then what?’

  Randall’s face darkened. ‘Evil. Deception. Complicated diversions intended to cover up some other activity. These poor animals have served a purpose.’ He glanced at me, and I felt my skin crawl into gooseflesh. ‘What do you think, boy?’

  He seemed to be implying that the events were the work of some supernatural force – some demonic power. None of his words suggested any connection with the military. And yet I knew that his predictions were what had brought me here in the first place. Now, as I looked into his eyes, his grim determination filled me with dread. That determination was the reason the audience was staring at him transfixed. Except the children. They were motionless, their expressions bordering on empty. Much more of this and it was only a matter of time before he worked this small community into a frenzy.

  I shook my head and said finally, ‘I’m here in an official capacity. I’m sure we can work this all out if we stand together and stay calm, rational. Just give me time to speak with the authorities. With the children too.’

  Absolutely not,’ Cooper said. ‘All access to the children will be controlled by me and Father O’Riorden, and only in agreement with their parents.’

  ‘Robert, you must not get involved,’ Randall protested.

  Before I could utter another word the little girl in the red coat snapped her head in the headmaster’s direction. Her face was scared, bewildered, her eyes wide. There was something wrong with her, the way her head was tilting to the side, eyes rolling in her head.

  Randall, distracted, was shaking his head with the conviction of a fanatic. ‘These children are under attack, and you, Headmaster, have an opportunity to avert the chaos that is coming – but only if you listen to me.’

  I could feel my anger rising. This community didn’t need more mystery, it needed answers.

  Suddenly Randall was at a window, pointing a finger at the glass. Curious eyes followed. And there was a stunned silence. I glanced at my watch, the one my father had given me. It had stopped. A low droning sound that set my teeth on edge filled the air. The children in the hall burst into tears. Randall’s eyes, full of alarm, met mine just before the lights flickered and dimmed. Blinked off.

  Even now I can’t explain how the girl in the red coat crossed the hall and came to stand next to me. It happened in a second. But when the lights flickered back on, there she was: to my right perhaps two feet away. She was motionless except for her delicate fingers, which were twisting at her sides.

  I could feel the weight of Father O’Riorden’s curiosity as I took a step towards her, tilting my head. I recognized her, the long dark hair framing a gentle pale face.

  Then a new voice: ‘Get away from my daughter!’

  A young woman with a cloud of dark hair burst from the audience. Her shoes clipped the wood with panicked force as she strode towards me.

  ‘Did you hear me? Get away from her!’

  I recognized her too: slender and dark with a beautifully curved mouth and strong features. Araceli Romero. And the child was her daughter Tessa. I recognized them from the story in the paper.

  A powerful rumble from above, not the sky quake this time but a crash of thunder so loud the entire hall shook. People leaped to their feet, some hurried for the doors. Tessa let out a piercing scream. She stared right at me, and her eyes were like black glass.

  ‘May the Lord protect us from the cunning serpent of deceit,’ said Randall. He crossed himself, stepping towards Tessa. ‘Protect us from our sins, keep us safe in this, our moment of need.’

  Another child screamed.

  And another.

  The man I thought might be Dr Caxton was on his feet and heading for the doors.

  Randall turned to Araceli. ‘Come,’ he ordered. ‘We have to get out of here. Now!’

  All around the hall adults were shouting with alarm.

  And then chanting. Not just Tessa. All the children: ‘Kcab gnimoc era ew rof. Seiks eht hctaw dna rehtag!’

  Welsh? No, but almost.

  Tessa began trembling violently. It was enough to spur Araceli into action. She grabbed her daughter by the shoulders and shook her. ‘Tessa, darling, what’s wrong with you?’

  The child’s legs unhinged, and she slumped forward.

  Randall stooped, caught her.‘You’re not safe here,’ he said, looking at me intently, pained almost.

  I tried to read what was in his eyes beyond grim determination. Secrets.

  Admiral Lord Hill Bartlett had been right. Grandfather was the key. He knew something. And whatever it was, I had to know it too.

  The menacing, metallic droning intensified, the air around us pulsing with vibrations.

  ‘Stop it!’ I yelled. ‘Whatever you’re doing, just stop it!’

  ‘You forgot, boy,’ he shouted over the din. ‘You ran away and you forgot. But now you’re remembering. You should never have come back. It’s coming. Evil is coming.’

  II

  The Broad Haven Triangle

  ‘They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky.’

  H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

  Overhurst Farm,

  Broad Haven,

  Wales

  Friday 11 February 1977

  Dearest Julia,

  With every passing day my interest in this mystifying community deepens, all because of the Happenings. No single word so instantly provokes a hardening in the residents’ attitudes; some become curiously muted, others implacably hostile. Meanwhile, the local newspaper spins ever more outlandish stories about flying saucers.

  And there are all sorts of crackpot theories: craft from outer space, visitors from the future, even inter-dimensional beings. The most outlandish theories are floated by demonologists, who think UFOs are fabrications created by evil forces to deceive us mortals. The higher echelons of the Nazi party believed just that, and were involved in occult practices to summon demons from hell and Satan himself – ‘the prince of the power of the air’.

  Truly these mysterious phenomena present a vexing problem, for how can one account for the fact that so many credible,
educated and cultured witnesses claim to have seen something in the sky (or on the ground) that millions of other people insist do not exist? But facts must speak for themselves, and the facts in this case are compelling. I have enclosed the most recent accounts for your entertainment – these will form the basis of my book.

  Now my love, just in case you are worried that I am temporarily taking leave of my senses, let me reassure you that I do have a theory. At a public meeting today I was dismayed to witness a startling display of paranoia, superstition and overreaction, which leads me to think that people who are raised in an environment where strange perceptions are considered routine can grow up predisposed to accept the existence of angels, aliens and UFOs. This condition has a name – contagion.

  Are the mysterious flying objects objectively true? Unlikely. Are they true to those who live here, at the heart of the Broad Haven Triangle? I very much think so.

  But now of course for the hardest part of my endeavour – I must prove it!

  All my love,

  Caxton

  – 20 –

  Haven Hotel, Skyview Hill, Little Haven

  Araceli Romero was standing against the panelled bar in the main dining room of the Haven Hotel, running an agitated hand through her cloud of black hair. Randall had his back to me. After inspecting some unfinished paintings propped against the wall – seascapes, mainly – he had positioned himself next to a high Gothic window on the opposite side of the dusty dimly lit room. There was an unpleasant chalky smell in the air, and the building was creaking on its foundations under the force of the wind. Upstairs the floorboards creaked too, with footsteps. Araceli had said that if Tessa wasn’t tired, she’d often pace the corridors until sleep came.

  ‘Do you know what’s wrong with her?’ I asked.

  ‘Who the hell are you? Why are you so interested in us?’

  When we returned here after Tessa’s episode down at the school I was looking forward to the opportunity to question Araceli about the events in the paper – the ‘flying football’ that had chased her car, and, afterwards, the man who had visited her and warned her not to talk. Most of all I wanted to know whether Selina had been to the hotel. And why.

  Araceli was glaring at me. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m investigating the military and their operations in the Havens.’

  Her eyebrows drew together. ‘Why should I trust you?’

  I didn’t want to tell her about my parents: my father’s job and my mother’s campaign against nuclear weapons; the injur­ies sustained during the protest at RAF Croughton. Because that meant telling her about my connection with nuclear weapons. ‘I’m a local boy. I grew up here, and what’s happening worries me greatly.’

  Araceli bit her lip, her slender body rigid. Then she turned to the bar and poured what remained of a bottle of red wine into a glass that looked cloudy with age. She rubbed at her temples and then looked sadly at an oil painting on the floor. It was of a lighthouse standing in the wild waters of St Brides Bay. A curious painting, I thought, because it reminded me of something. And because there was no lighthouse in St Brides Bay.

  ‘Yours?’ I asked, pointing.

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t come up here to admire my art.’ She gave me a hard look.

  I shook my head and said, ‘I’m looking for evidence. If the military can explain what the children saw, then—’

  ‘It was the bloody military who told me to keep quiet!’ She scowled at me, then at the curve of Randall’s back.

  At its farthest point the Haven Hotel was so close to the cliff edge I was apprehensive of going too near the window; of looking down onto crashing waves, onto the cliffs near Ravenstone Farm, onto Stack Rocks rising out of the sea.

  Araceli said to me, ‘Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here. You’ve come because of what I saw.’

  ‘Wrong,’ Randall said. He turned from the arched window, facing us both across the shadow-haunted restaurant. ‘The boy is not here because of you. He is here because of me.’

  I met his eyes for three, perhaps five, seconds, until his weighty gaze forced me to drop my attention to the worn carpet.

  ‘It’s that drunk Bestford, isn’t it? He sent you to find out what’s happening here. Hmm? Wants to find out how I know all I do.’

  I said nothing.

  And you have the audacity to ask for our trust.’ He let out a harsh and disparaging laugh. ‘You? A politician!’

  ‘Don’t call me that.’

  ‘But that’s why you left, isn’t it – to “make a difference”?’ he sneered. ‘I imagine that Mr Bestford is worried he has approved one too many military bases in the vicinity of our little community – yes? And now he wants my expertise.’

  ‘Your expertise?’ I turned towards Araceli and said, ‘This man is not your friend. He cannot help you or your daughter.’

  ‘And you can?’

  I nodded and told her a direct lie: ‘I am sure I can.’

  Araceli did something I wasn’t expecting. She laughed in a shrill, almost hysterical way. Then she said in a reproachful tone, ‘You know, I did ask for help. I came to your MP’s office for help. Over and over. What I wanted most was corroboration, do you see?’

  I did. She had needed to know these bizarre events weren’t just happening to her.

  ‘Eventually, a young woman came to see me.’

  ‘Selina?’

  Araceli nodded. ‘And guess what? She couldn’t help me either. Nothing has changed.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, I couldn’t stand it any more in Parliament,’ I said flatly. ‘I resigned.’

  Randall’s head snapped up. I could see he wanted to know more but couldn’t bring himself to ask. His eyes were calculating, his mind working through possibilities.

  ‘Why?’ Araceli asked.

  I wanted to tell her, but how could I? There was just too much to share. What was actually going on – what I understood of it, anyway – sounded wild, like most conspiracy theories. And not only did I think they wouldn’t believe it, I wasn’t sure I believed it. But I needed to be credible if I was to win Araceli’s trust and complete the admiral’s mission: find out what Randall knew and avert an international incident with the Soviets.

  ‘I am sorry for the way you’ve been treated,’ I continued. ‘Genuinely, no one deserves to be treated with such disdain in the light of such –’ I searched for the word ‘– fantastic events. The government knows that what you have seen in the sky is real, and they have done since the ’50s,’ I added, remembering the strongroom of documents buried beneath the streets of Westminster. ‘But they also know that these phenomena originate on this planet, that most sightings are explainable, and those which are not are almost certainly state-of-the-art spy planes which are deployed routinely and deliberately to test the air defences of hostile nations. At airfields all over Britain fighter planes are kept ready to intercept, and if necessary engage, any unidentified flying object within combat range. That is why the subject is regarded as sensitive, and that is why you received such a cold response from the authorities.’

  Her eyes were wide and wondering. I reached out to touch her hand in reassurance. What I wanted to tell her more than anything was that I felt an odd connection with her, as if we had shared something once, something deeply important. I had felt this since the morning in London when Selina had shown me her photograph in the newspaper.

  Randall turned his back on us, staring out towards the raging sea. ‘These phenomena are easily underestimated,’ he said.

  I felt a flare of anger. Just because there was a mystery here, it didn’t mean that Randall had free licence to intimidate people with scare stories like he had done with me.

  ‘More lies?’ I asked. ‘More scaremongering?’ I looked at Araceli. ‘This is what he does. All he’s ever done.’

  Araceli looked me straig
ht in the eye. ‘So, you’re saying there’s a rational explanation?’

  I nodded.

  She shifted her gaze to Randall. ‘And you?’

  ‘Manifestations of a supernatural force.’

  Araceli looked again at me, and this time I read something else in her eyes. Optimism perhaps? ‘Suppose you’re the one who’s right,’ she said quickly, ‘and these UFOs are secret aircraft, how do you know so much?’

  I was relieved to hear the hostility had gone out of her voice.

  ‘Because I was briefed. At the highest level.’

  ‘Who briefed you?’ Randall demanded. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I no longer have to do as you say.’

  I turned towards Araceli and said quietly, ‘Let’s talk rationally, OK? Please, won’t you tell me what’s happened to you and your little girl and I’ll explain what I can.’

  – 21 –

  We sat at a dining table, Araceli and I. She poured me a drink, and I thanked her politely. I pretended not to notice the dust on the tablecloth. I pretended not to notice the floorboards above us creaking again.

  She was pretty, I noted as I took a sip of the wine and waited for her to speak. Not beautiful, but striking. Tall for a woman and slim, but not a waif – she looked strong. She glanced at the painting again – the lighthouse that seemed so oddly familiar – then at Randall, still stationed at the towering Gothic window, and I saw her swallow. Then she began.

  ‘Just after Christmas, after the light came – the light that chased us in the car – Tessa was so terrified she was trembling. The doctor had to give her a sedative. But afterwards she changed, became so remote. Disconnected. She wasn’t sleeping and could barely take one step outside the front door. After a week I was able to take her down to the school, but the teachers made me come and collect her at lunchtime. They said she . . . frightened the other children.’

  The strange chant the children had made in the meeting came back to me: Kcab gnimoc era ew rof.