Temple of the Winds Page 5

  `Tag?' Ellen opened her eyes.

  `A graffiti artist's signature. They sometimes spray them first in case they're chased off before they've finished. It warns their buddies that the site is spoken for. Funny sort of tag, though -- EX2218.'

  `Yes -- of course -- a tag. I'll get it cleaned off first thing...' She hesitated. `Any more news about the UFO nutters that disappeared in my lake this afternoon?'

  Anxious to change the subject, thought Malone. Nor does she ask me who I think our artist friends were. On the other hand, she's the owner of Pentworth Lake therefore it was natural that the disappearance of the two Trade and Industry inspectors on her land would be praying on her mind. Malone liked to think matters over before speaking. `Still no sign of them when I left the station,' he remarked. `A couple of plods borrowed from Whisky-Charlie posted down there for the night. They're not happy. Actually, those two weren't ufologists. They were from the Radio Communications Agency in Southampton.'

  `So what on earth were they doing?'

  `Investigating a source of radio transmissions that were interfering with the VOR aircraft beacon at Midhurst.'

  `Broadcasting from the middle of my lake?'

  Malone shrugged and took another sip of the potent tea. `Apparently.'

  `Since when?'

  `Since Thursday. It'll come out now. The Mid-Sussex Gazette have got hold of the story.'

  `That'll bring the UFO nutters back by the coachload. Not that I'm complaining. They nearly cleaned out my stock, and there's not a stick of stressed pine furniture to be had in the town now.'

  The policeman grinned. `The transmissions stopped just after the men disappeared.'

  `And they'll reappear,' said Ellen emphatically, reaching down to stroke Thomas who was trying to sneer Malone to death.

  Malone looked at her speculatively. `Even if they're loaded with equipment and sucked down into quicksand?'

  `There's no such thing as quicksand as a material, Mr Malone. There's sand and there's water. Mix them together in roughly equal proportions by volume and you have what people call quicksand. You can float in it much easier than you can in water because it's denser, you can even swim in it but it takes some doing.'

  `You ought to have that bog fenced, Miss Duncan.'

  `It's not a bog -- it's a lake that can become a swamp under certain conditions.'

  `So what's the difference between a bog and a swamp?'

  `A bog is mainly decayed vegetation with a high water content. All nitrogen and virtually no oxygen. Swamps are mineral particles in suspension -- sand and clay. Pentworth Lake only becomes a swamp when exceptionally heavy rains cause an upwelling -- such as we had on Tuesday night.'

  `It's called a swamp on some of our old maps,' said Malone. `Black Death bodies were dumped in it. And some locals call it the plague swamp.'

  `Not in my hearing, they don't.'

  `It ought to be fenced.'

  Ellen shook her head. `I'd have the Ramblers' Association after me, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, West Sussex Council, and God knows who else. That common is stitched up with covenants which is why my parents and their parents before them have been stuck with it. I thought I had a buyer a couple of years ago but it fell through. Just as well after last year's find. Even the Pentworth worm-drowning club has fishing rights for the next fifty-odd years. So, the land I don't need for my herbs, I rent to David Weir for his sheep. Which is all the low-lying parts are good for in the summer.'

  `Your Stone Age find is fenced. Chainlink and razor wire.'

  Ellen pulled a face. `I hate it. Temporary planning permission until we've completed the dig. It was that or souvenir hunters stripping the site, so the council sanctioned the fence.'

  `Certainly was a lucky find.'

  Ellen drained her tea and stood, pulling the duvet modestly around herself. `I'm fine now, Mr Malone. Thank you so much for your help -- I really am most grateful, but I think I ought to catch up on my sleep.'

  Malone accepted the dismissal. He confirmed his arrangement to meet Ellen at ten the following morning by Pentworth Lake, exchanged `good nights', and set off for home, running with long, easy strides close to the wall of Pentworth House.

  Once out of sight of Ellen Duncan's shop he slowed and stopped, thinking hard. The strange tea had certainly spiked his exhaustion even though he had been on duty for 10 hours. He felt he could face anything -- even the self-styled Divine Sentinel himself: Father Adrian Roscoe, founder and leader of the Bodian Brethren, and Lord of Pentworth Manor. There was no time like now.

  He turned back towards Pentworth and loped quickly and silently along the hushed street with its shoulder-to-shoulder antique shops.

  Pentworth House was a late 18th Century ancestral pile whose total lack of architectural importance was redeemed by its collection of Turners and its 400 rolling acres of deer park and farmland. But when the great maritime painter's works were moved to the new national museum, the tourists had melted away so the National Trust were happy for Adrian Roscoe to take it off their hands as a mesne lord for 20 years at a nominal rent, with a purchase option, providing the house, farm and deer park were maintained in good order. In ten years Roscoe had revitalised the estate. He built a dairy and a large bakery, bought in an experienced manager and went into quality ice cream and bread production aimed at the top end of the market.

  Pentworth House's five-metre high wall that Malone was skirting was incredibly ugly; a mixture of granite, bargate stone and black chert. Its dark, forbidding presence gave Pentworth the brooding atmosphere of a prison town. It occupied the northern side of North Street, shouldering Pentworth brusquely to one side, so that the town's true centre was Market Square, about 100-metres to the south of Pentworth House's front entrance -- two huge, brutal elm doors that looked like lock gates.

  Malone approached the Videofone porter. Heat-activated security lights bathed him. A closed circuit TV camera mounted over the gates whined softly in the stillness as it panned to keep him framed. A doorbell wasn't necessary.

  While waiting, savouring the rich smells from the bakery that hung over the town at night, he wondered if he was being a little peremptory in visiting the Bodian Brethren HQ at such an hour. But among Mike Malone's many responsibilities in this desperately under-manned sector of Sussex Police's Western Division was a requirement to maintain a watching brief on Adrian Roscoe and his followers. Nothing overt -- very low key. After a spate of mass suicides in France and America, Home Office directives on the matter of weird cults showed a degree of paranoia. A lesser consideration was that as mesne Lord of Pentworth Manor, Roscoe had a seat on the town council.

  `Good evening,' said a well-educated woman's voice from the speaker grille. `I'm Helen, tonight's duty sentinel. Please state your business.'

  Malone held his warrant card up to the camera lens and identified himself. `There's been an incident in North Street. Nothing serious but I'd like a word with you please. You may have seen something.'

  `But, of course,' said the voice. `Please come in.'

  Always one hundred per cent cooperation with the police, Malone reflected as a solenoid lock on a side door buzzed. Two minutes later he was shown by a minor sentinel into a small office off the spacious, oak-panelled hall, where the duty sentinel was sitting behind a reception desk. An array of closed-circuit monitors confronted her; on the wall was the inevitable framed print of Johann Bode, an 18th Century astronomer after whom the Bodian Brethren were named.

  The girl looked up and smiled as Malone showed her his warrant card again. A new recruit, he thought; blonde as far as he could judge from the wisp of hair that had escaped from under her close-fitting hood. That, and her white monk-like gown gave her an ageless quality, but he guessed around 19; Adrian Roscoe liked them young. Not too young of course -- never under 18. Adrian Roscoe was always meticulously careful where the law was concerned.

  `How can we help, officer?'

  Nice voice. Educated. Roscoe put the bright ones i
n the front office and on administration -- the dumb ones went in his bed. Sometimes several at a time if the rumours were true.

  `Sorry to trouble you at this hour, miss, but there's been an incident of vandalism in North Street. Ellen Duncan's herbal shop. I wondered if you had seen anything.'

  `Our cameras don't see along North Street, officer.'

  Malone glanced at the monitors and noticed that all six pictures were slightly shrunken with a black band around the edges.

  `The camera on the roof flagpole has a 300-degree pan and tilt head, and the best power zoom money can buy,' he observed. `I advised on its overhaul when I was CPO. The system's old, but reliable. There's not much it can't see.'

  The girl met his gaze without flinching. `It wasn't trained on North Street at the time.'

  Malone grinned. Such composure was always a challenge. `At what time? Did I say anything about when?'

  The girl matched his smile but he had rocked her a little. `I haven't touched any of the controls since I came on duty at ten.'

  `The main gate camera moved when I rolled up just now,' said Malone casually, knowing full well why but using it to further discomfort his victim.

  `That one locks automatically onto a source of body heat.'

  `Ah, yes -- of course -- I'd forgotten.'

  Malone noticed that she had moved her left hand to her lap. He had also advised on the location of the alarm push button. Wired to the Divine Adrian's bedroom and alarming him right now with any luck.

  `I believe a couple of your inmates were roaming the town a while back. They may have seen something. I'd like to talk to them please.'

  `No one has been out of the house tonight.'

  `I think you're wrong there, Helen.'

  Malone's trained eye noted that his unexpected familiarity had further unsettled the girl but her composure remained good. Nevertheless, a crack had appeared and every good crack deserved a wedge.

  `I would've seen them,' she replied.

  `How? You haven't shifted the cameras, remember. Anyway -- we're talking about the last hour. It won't take me long to roll back the logging tapes a couple of hours and fast forward through them.'

  `It would be more convenient in the morning, officer.'

  Malone leaned confidingly across the desk. `Look, Helen. I've got an appointment first thing. I'd like to clear this up now. And please don't tell me that all your inmates are tucked up in bed. I happen to know there are always nine in your funny chapel praying for the solar system's salvation. One for each planet. Right?'

  `The Solar Temple is not a "funny chapel", officer,' said the girl primly. `Furthermore--'

  `Good evening, Mr Roscoe.' Malone's sudden interruption was spoken without him turning around. Then he turned to confront a gaunt, forbidding, white-gowned presence and a pair of eyes of such a compelling ultra-violet blue that the police officer was convinced could be achieved only by special contact lenses.

  The self-styled Father Adrian Roscoe, leader of the Bodian Brethren, smiled engagingly at the police officer. Those who heard him speak for the first time were always surprised by his rich, resonate voice which was at odds with his slight build. It was a famous voice that had featured in over 1000 American television commercials; ten years earlier, Roscoe had been Britain's first voice-over multi-millionaire. `You must have eyes in the back of your head, Sergeant Malone.'

  No. Just damn good ones in the front of it. Sharp enough to see a reflection in this lovely girl's eyes.

  `I have indeed, sir,' said Malone.

  Father Roscoe gave an easy chuckle as they shook hands. There was genuine friendliness in his whole demeanour, his grip and even the remarkable blue eyes conveyed warmth, but they never blinked -- ever.

  `Good evening, Sergeant Malone. Forgive two small corrections. Firstly, as you are well aware, our brother and sister sentinels are not inmates, as you choose to call them. We have a happy kibbutzim community here; sentinels are free to leave at any time if they so wish.'

  Which keeps the press off your back, thought Malone.

  `Secondly, there are always ten solar sentinels at prayer in the temple. The belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter are the remnants of the fifth planet from the sun. It aroused the wrath of God and so he destroyed it and all its peoples. We pray for the salvation of their souls, and, through the intensity of continuous prayer -- we are also beseeching God not to exact the same fearful but well-deserved retribution upon this sin-wracked earth.'

  `Well it certainly seems to be working, Mr Roscoe.' Malone observed. `We're talking to each other in this world and not the next.'

  The flippant remark caused a little of the friendliness to fade from the intense gaze. `It is customary to address me as Father Roscoe. I believe Inspector Evans has already spoken to you on this matter.'

  The sudden chilling, slight as it was, induced a strange sensation of foreboding in Malone. He had met Roscoe on several occasions and could well understand the strange influence he exerted over susceptible young people. Crossing him took courage.

  `Perhaps I'd better just stick to "sir",' Malone offered. He was hardly a good Catholic, but he was buggered if he was going to accord this creep the same title as Father Kendrick of St Dominic's. Nor did he flinch away from that hypnotic, compelling gaze. Mike Malone could stare down an opal-eyed mummified Egyptian cat, but it took some doing with Adrian Roscoe.

  The older man shrugged. `As you wish. So what's the problem, sergeant?'

  Malone outlined the incident in North Street.

  `Ellen Duncan? Ah yes -- the herbalist. The woman with the large black cat... And you saw the two men outside this woman's shop?'

  `Youths. Very clearly, sir.' Not strictly a lie because Malone had seen them -- although not their faces which had been masked by their balaclavas.

  `And what makes you think they're from here?'

  `They were city wise. They used teamwork. They weren't your average can-kicking, gum-chomping, brain dead Pentworth yobs.'

  `And yet they indulged in mindless aerosol vandalism,' said Roscoe pointedly.

  `Maybe it wasn't so mindless, Mr Roscoe. Any idea what EX2218 means?'

  Roscoe gave the question several moment's thought -- several moments too long. It was a typical acting cliche that Malone recognised immediately. `I'm afraid not, sergeant.'

  Liar! If you really didn't know you would've said so straight off and not indulged in a pretend pause.

  `Well it certainly scared Miss Duncan.'

  `Then it would be more sensible to ask her.' Roscoe paused for a moment and then came an unexpected climb down. `Of course, it's perfectly possible that the two you saw were our more recent novitiates. As you know, we rescue many from the streets of Chichester, Brighton, Littlehampton, Bognor... Drug-addicts... Beggars... Drop-outs... They're all God's children, destined to carry out God's work. Unhappily, it takes a while for some of them to shake off their ungodly ways.'

  He beamed suddenly. A gnarled, almost emaciated hand reached out from the folds of his gown and took Malone by the elbow. `However, if you say you've actually seen them, then you'd better come and pick them out.'

  File under heading: bluff, called, thought Malone, kicking himself for not anticipating the climb down; Roscoe always co-operated 100 per cent with the police. He turned to the girl who appeared to have shown no interest in the conversation. `Just a small point, Helen. Get those monitors adjusted. The pictures are about 20% too small.'

  `It's an old system,' said Roscoe.

  `Still a damn good system, though,' Malone countered. `Get Bob Harding to take a look at it.'

  Roscoe led Malone across the main hall, beneath a huge, glittering crystal chandelier. He passed a security card through a swipe reader and opened the double oak-panelled doors to what had once been the stately home's banqueting hall. The results that had been achieved with the clever use of drapes patterned with gothic arches were dramatic. The huge tapestries, hung from ceiling to floor, completely covered the minstrels' galle
ry. They made the hall narrower and thus exaggerated its height, giving the impression of being in a cathedral. The northern end was almost completely hidden by a giant, flower-garlanded portrait of Johann Bode with hidden lights creating a halo around the old astronomer-mathematician's head, illuminating his venerable features in a milky, ethereal glow. But the centre piece of the Solar Temple of the Bodian Brethren was the floor -- totally black onto which an overhead planetarium projector threw images of the planets with the sun in the precise centre. The image of each planet was correctly proportioned: Jupiter, huge and menacing with its giant red spot glowing like a baleful eye; Venus a featureless haze of light; Mars with its reddish rills and dormant volcanoes. The asteroid belt was depicted as a sparkling dust ring of glittering points of light. And, most glorious of all: Earth -- a blue-green iridescence disk swathed in spirals of delicate white lace of its weather systems. The overall effect of the hall was like being inside a giant, luminous Orrery.

  Outside the orbit of Pluto was a circle of ten white-gowned figures, sitting cross-legged on the floor. They were perfectly still, hands folded in laps, cowls pushed back, heads bowed in silent mediation.

  `Help yourself,' Roscoe invited. Even when whispering, his voice lost none of its sonorous qualities. `Walk around the outside, but please don't go inside the circle. Each sentinel has focussed his or her entire consciousness on their assigned planet. A break in their concentration, for even a second, could be disastrous. And if they're not among them, then I'll assemble all the others in the lecture room.'

  Feeling slightly foolish, and rather wishing that he hadn't pushed his bluff so hard, Malone approached the circle of silent meditators and regarded them in turn. Damned hard judging their height and build under those gowns, but he could see enough to eliminate four of them right away, plus the stupid kid with the tattooed face.

  He walked slowly around the outside of the circle. None of them gave the slightest indication that they were aware of his presence -- each pair of eyes remained fixed in a hard stare at their designated planet.