Temple of the Winds Page 4

  `Okay -- go!' he ordered.

  Gus used a long-handled rake to knock the banked charcoal from around one side of the giant iron pot. The unleashed heat sprang upon them like a wild animal, forcing David and Titan even further back.

  `Now the block, Carl!'

  Gus moved clear when Carl knocked a supporting concrete block from under the brimming pot. The veins on Charlie's bare forearms knotted as he took the strain. His solid strength and bulk won the day; degree by degree, he allowed the cauldron to tip away from him. The first splatters of molten aluminium hit the vitrified clay culvert pipe that was to guide the molten metal into the open mould. Charlie let the smoke clear and started pouring. His control was excellent: a shining silver river flowed steadily along the culvert and into the mould. Clouds of vapour rose from the damp sand but it held its shape as the molten aluminium flowed into the form.

  Charlie allowed the lightened pot to tilt right over so that the last dribble puddled itself into the main mass, and the job was done. They gathered around the trench, staring down at their handiwork, unmindful of the intense heat. Escaping air popped from the liquid wheel like eruptions in a volcanic mud pool.

  `Nice,' breathed Charlie. `Really nice. No rippling. Be lots of little blow-holes -- always is with ally, but they don't matter none.'

  `How long will it take to set?' David asked.

  `Initial set'll be about thirty minutes. Then we'll be able to scrape some of the sand away -- see if it's flowed proper all round. Be a bugger if we have to do it again.'

  `Thanks, Charlie. I'll be in the office.' David handed Titan's reins to Carl and returned to his farm office over the museum's front entrance. A fax was waiting for him. He read it through and called a local number with some trepidation. Ellen Duncan was a passionate woman in every respect.

  `Ellen? David. Sorry to call the shop number but--'

  `What does another call matter? The phone's been going nonstop. You've heard about the two UFO prats who disappeared in my lake?'

  `I caught it on the news. What's the latest?'

  `Not enough light now. The proper search starts tomorrow.'

  `Anyway, m'dear -- the last quote is in. Sussex Institute of Art and Design can do the complete tabloid for a shade under 20 kay. That's a full-size replica of the cave in glass fibre complete with the paintings, three figures, and concealed lighting.'

  There was a groan of dismay at the other end. `Can you afford it?'

  `No.'

  `But, David, the Vallon-Pont-d'Arc cave is the most important discovery of the decade. The oldest cave paintings in Europe! 31,000 years old!'

  `I know that as well as you, Ellen,' said David quietly. `And I'm as disappointed as you. We'll just have to think of something a little less grand. Maybe just a section of wall -- the one with the mammoth painting?'

  `Our plan was to give visitors an idea of what it was like to actually be in the cave and see palaeolithic artists at work!' Ellen retorted angrily.

  David was tempted to point out that it was Ellen's plan, but wisely remained silent.

  `Jesus Christ!' she continued. `Why do all these discoveries have to be in France? 24 of them! And what have we got in England? Bugger all!'

  `Let's discuss it over dinner tomorrow night.'

  Ellen calmed down. `As you're being such a miserable skinflint, I shall insist on you taking me somewhere ruinously expensive.'

  `There's a new Chinese restaurant in Midhurst.'

  `Just so long as they don't expect me to eat with those ludicrous chopstick things. Any culture that fails to recognise the superiority and efficiency of knives and forks over stupid bits of wood is not to be trusted. That's why their food looks as if it's already been eaten -- they can't cut it up.'

  David laughed. He had once been in Ellen's shop when a customer had asked for a book on Feng Shui and Ellen had exploded with: `Buy a copy of the building regulations from the Stationery Office! A people so stupid that they've built over twenty million houses on the flood plains of rivers can't teach us anything about building safe and secure homes.' And anyone who referred to herbal remedies as alternative medicine was likely to end up in need of it. Ellen's view was that the pharmaceutical industry, with its synthesising of ancient cures such as aspirin, was the real provider of alternative medicine.

  He promised to pick Ellen up at eight and added: `Oh -- one thing, Ellen. That programme about the Byno dig is on The Learning Zone tonight. 3:00am.'

  `You set your video and I'll set mine,' Ellen replied tartly. `That way we should manage one decent recording between us.'

  Charlie Crittenden chose that moment to shamble into the office. David finished the call without telling Ellen how much he adored her. He looked up inquiringly.

  The traveller jerked his thumb at the window where his boys could be seen clearing up. His wife was already at work on the showmans' engine with a chipping hammer, cleaning off decades of rust and scale from around the firebox door. `Perfect, Mr Weir. Absolutely bleeding' perfect.'

  David beamed. `Well done, Charlie.

  `Still be hot in the morning. Best let it cool slow so it don't twist.' Charlie grinned and nodded to the monstrous showmans' engine. `We'll drill the spoke rivet holes tomorrow and fit the spokes, Mr Weir. The Plus Gas has freed the pistons and valve gear, so we'll have that old road loco there fired up and running at low pressure in a week. Be nice to know that she's working before we set to prettying her up.'

  David was pleased; if Charlie Crittenden said that the showmans' engine would be running in a week, then it would be so.

  It was as well for David Weir's peace of mind that he had no idea of the important role that the huge machine would play in the momentous events that lay ahead.

  Chapter 4.

  IT WAS THE MENACING hiss of a snake that woke Ellen Duncan.

  She didn't scream or dive under the bedclothes -- nothing so unseemly. She lay perfectly still, listening intently while willing her heartbeat to slow from its Gatling hammering of 180 that was threatening to burst through her rib cage.

  Don't be silly, she chided herself, it was a cat. Not Thomas though because she couldn't move her feet; her pet was a crushing presence on the bed, obeying the immutable law that states that a sleeping cat on a duvet trebles in weight.

  There it was again. A sustained hiss -- too long for a snake's hiss, and certainly not a cat. Half a million years' evolution had gone into the development of the cat's hiss -- it was a brilliant piece of impersonation -- and evolution had got it right because snakes rarely hissed for more than two or three seconds when expressing displeasure, nor did cats. This hiss lasted at least ten seconds.

  The strange noise stopped. She stared up at the yellow glow of Pentworth's North Street's lights suffusing the low ceiling of her tiny bedroom over her shop, wondering if she had dreamed it. And there it was again, this time followed by a metallic rattling noise.

  Ellen did not regard herself as imbued with great courage, but she was fiercely protective towards her little shop; the realisation that someone was trying to break-in and so damage her beautifully-restored Victorian front filled her with a rage that drove out all thought of personal safety. Without even stopping to consider why anyone would wish to break into a herbalists, she yanked her feet from under Thomas, dashed to the window, and threw up the sash.

  The two youths were street-wise; they were swathed from head to foot in black, including their balaclava helmets, and ran off soundlessly in opposite directions, taking long, unhurried, soundless strides, and were gone by the time Ellen had unlocked the shop's side door and rushed barefoot into the silent, deserted street. Her sharp sense of smell detected a faint, sickly taint of cellulose paint on the cold, night air.

  `Bastards!' she spat venomously, standing in the middle of the road and staring in the direction that the tallest youth had taken. `Fucking bastards!'

  `That sort of behaviour can get you into trouble, Miss Duncan. Prominent town councillor charged with insulting behaviour.
It wouldn't look too good in the papers.'

  Ellen wheeled around and gaped at the ghostly figure of a tall man who had emerged from behind a car parked against the towering wall of Pentworth House on the opposite side of the road. He was wearing a white tracksuit and white trainers. Even his sweat-soaked headband was white. His tall, muscular figure was picked out in stripes of orange and yellow reflective tape and there were chevrons of the stuff on his chest and legs. He looked like a Technicolor barcode.

  `Who are you?' she blurted, feeling frightened and vulnerable in her inadequate nightdress.

  The man in white joined her in the middle of the street but she recognised the expressionless, wide-set eyes and gaunt features without having to look at the offered warrant card. `Oh -- Sergeant Malone.' She relaxed and smiled in nervous relief. `Aren't you a little early? I thought our meeting was at ten?'

  `I was jogging my weary way home when suddenly my cosy little world is turned upside-down by delectable ladies rushing about the town in skimpy night attire,' Malone replied drolly.

  Ellen wasn't sure how to react to that. `Well... I'll never complain again about the police not being around when they're needed.'

  Detective-Sergeant Mike Malone returned her smile while taking in the full-breasted outline of Ellen's body against the glare of fluorescent lights from an estate agent's window.

  During a stint as the sector's Crime Prevention Officer in his uniformed days, he had visited Ellen several times and had often wondered what she was hiding under her white coat -- now he knew, and was impressed, particularly by her dishevelled tumble of rich, dark tresses that fell about her shoulders.

  `I was about to nab them when you frightened them off,' he said. `We had an informant.' He tapped a portable telephone clipped to his waistband. `I was on my way home and got diverted.'

  Certainly being diverted now, he thought. 37? to 39? At least five years older than me. What is it about older women that fills me with these uncontrolled lusts?

  Ellen glanced at the distant darkened octagonal tower of Hill House that reared above the town like a derelict lighthouse. `Cathy Price,' she snorted. `Well -- the nosy little madame has her uses.'

  `Can't say who it was,' Malone replied.

  `So why didn't you chase after them?' Ellen inquired reprovingly, trying to not to sound ungrateful. `You're kitted out for running.'

  `No point, Miss Duncan.' Malone indicated the reflective stripes on his tracksuit. `Decked out like this, they'd have no trouble losing me, and I hate getting lost.'

  Ellen couldn't help smiling despite the strange circumstances. Uncertain what to say or do next, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, the tarmac was cold and gritty. `Well,' she said at length. `At least they didn't manage to break in. Brad Jackson and one of his mates, I bet. I caught that little bastard shoplifting last year. If I ever get my hands on--'

  `It wasn't Brad Jackson,' Malone interrupted. `They were both too tall. And they weren't trying to break in.'

  For the first time since rushing into the street Ellen looked at her shop front. EARTHFORCE was sign-written in a semi-circle of scrolled Victorian lettering on each window. Inside each arc, in smaller letters was: `Ellen Duncan -- Herbalist' with her telephone number underneath. But now there was an addition: below the telephone number, written in the vivid yet stylishly ugly, overlapping fonts favoured by skilled aerosol graffiti artists, was what appeared to be a four-digit telephone extension number.

  `EX2218?' the police officer mused. `I'm sure I would've noticed if you had over two thousand phone extensions in your shop, Miss--' He broke off when he saw the sudden terror in Ellen Duncan's eyes. For an instant her face contorted as if a frenzied demon had seized control of her features.

  `I--' she began. But she never completed the sentence. Malone darted nimbly forward and caught her around the waist as her legs buckled. He was fit and strong, and had no trouble scooping her into his arms, his hand went inadvertently under the nightdress, causing it ride up in the process.

  `I'm okay,' said Ellen weakly, struggling ineffectually to tug the errant nightdress around her thighs.

  `Delayed reaction,' said Malone cheerfully, pushing the shop's side door open with his hip. Carrying Ellen up the narrow stairs was out of the question so he entered the shop. The combined aroma of hundreds of herbs assailed him -- a pleasant, evocative scent that stirred childhood memories of autumn meadows warmed by Indian summers. He shifted his grip so that his fingers were pressed against the side of her breast, and opened the counter flap with his knee. He carried her into the shop's back room, catching her nightie on the door handle and yanking it even higher.

  `Please put me down, Mr Malone.'

  `Lights?'

  Ellen turned on the lights and kept up her protests until Malone lowered her into the swivel chair at her desk in such a way that her nightdress rode up once again, this time affording him a tantalising glimpse of pubic hair, dark and inviting, before his mortified patient thrust the garment between her knees and clamped them securely together. The action caused a dark, cold-puckered aureole to appear briefly before she clutched a hand to her neck. She was about to speak but started trembling. Malone gripped her hands tightly.

  `Don't say anything,' he advised, noting her deathly pallor and wondering if he ought to call a doctor. `Just keep still, keep quiet, and breathe deeply.'

  Ellen did as she was told while Malone filled an electric kettle at the sink and switched it on. He glanced around the workroom-cum-office. Compared with the shop's floor-to-ceiling rosewood cubby holes and tiny drawers -- reminiscent of a bygone age, the room was businesslike and modern. Along one wall was a wide, stainless steel worktop that served as a bench for several commercial coffee grinders that Ellen used for milling dried roots. There was also a small industrial kiln and even a teabag and sachet sealing machine. Dominating the tools on a wall rack was a wicked-looking, ebony-handled knife. Adjoining the door leading to an outer still room was a mail order packing table with various sizes of Jiffy bags stacked neatly in racks together with a giant roll of brown paper, gaffer tape dispensers, electronic scales, and a franking machine.

  The chair he had sat Ellen in served a small workstation with a desktop PC, a laser printer, and a facsimile machine. Virtually all the wall space around the workstation consisted of shelves piled high with locally-printed booklets written and published by Ellen Duncan.

  One area of wall by the workstation was occupied by large colour glossies of her and David Weir at their palaeolithic dig on land that the farmer rented from Ellen. The discovery the previous year of the 40,000-year-old flint mine camp had been a local sensation. One picture showed Ellen proudly holding a huge, bifacially-worked axhead.

  Although the room was warm from the kiln that switched itself on and off every few seconds, Malone knew about shock, and was sensitive enough to guess at Ellen's concern about the revealing nature of her nightdress. He raced upstairs without consulting her, told the beginnings of an erection that it wasn't wanted, and returned with her duvet, still warm and with her body scent clinging to it. He placed it across her shoulders and tucked it around her, which earned him a grateful smile.

  `You're very kind, Mr Malone.'

  `Brave is the word, Miss Duncan. There's a ferocious black cat the size of a panther upstairs which tried to declare your duvet an occupied zone.' His humour was rewarded by an even wider smile although the fear he had seen in her eyes was still there.

  `Thomas wouldn't hurt you -- he likes visitors.'

  `But could he eat a whole one I ask myself?'

  The old joke prompted a nervous laugh from Ellen despite the terror churning in her stomach. Thomas slunk under the desk in case the commotion had resulted in a tin of Felix being accidentally opened.

  `Your kettle's slow,' Malone remarked, eyeing the big black cat warily as it investigated its empty feeding bowl and regarded him with baleful yellow eyes. Strangers whipping a warm duvet from under Thomas met with feline disapproval.


  `It is if you fill it right up.'

  `Not guilty, ma'am. Since I've started living alone, I've learned to be careful with electricity.'

  The kettle began a muted singing.

  `Divorced?' asked Ellen.

  `A year. My ex's mortgage and my digs to keep up. Maintenance on two children always means a lot of month left at the end of the money.'

  `Promotion?'

  `I'd have to transfer out of this sector first.'

  Concentrating on small talk took Ellen's mind off the graffiti. `Inspector Harvey Evans. He's the sector inspector, isn't he?'

  `He certainly is.'

  `Surely he'd recommend you, wouldn't he?'

  `I can recommend a new kettle, Miss Duncan.'

  Ellen smiled at the warning tone but was not put off. `I've not seen you in his morris men side.'

  `I'd be surprised if you had.'

  `He's transformed the Pentworth Morris Men since he took over as their squire,' said Ellen reprovingly. `Doing away with the fluttering handkerchiefs and bringing in those sword and staff dances has made them so much more macho. They raised over five kay last year.'

  `They practice mostly on Sundays,' said Malone casually. `A day reserved for my kids.'

  Ellen sensed the reluctance behind the admission. It was obvious that Malone was a private man who disliked talking about himself. `Forgive me for prying, Mr Malone. I'm a nosey old biddy.'

  The electric kettle interrupted Malone's reply with its shrilling. He followed Ellen's directions and used yellow teabags bearing her `Earthforce' logo to make two mugs of curiously-scented tea.

  He drew up a stool, sat opposite her, and sipped cautiously. The brew had an unexpected invigorating taste. He regarded it with mock suspicion. `Nothing illegal, I hope, Miss Duncan?'

  `Ginseng -- and a few additions of my own. Just a temporary pick-me-up.' Ellen closed her eyes and allowed the powered root decoction of the ancient remedy to go to work on her nervous system.

  `I suppose that number must be a tag of some sort,' said Malone, sounding offhand but watching Ellen carefully.