The Marks of Cain - By Tom Knox Page 0,17

showed a large bull, a burning tree, and a white Basque house. Then she elaborated, still pointing at the window.

‘The Basques are very devout, very Catholic. But they were pagan until the tenth century, and they keep a lot of their pre-Christian imagery. Like that. That house – there –’ she gestured to the main window ‘– that’s the exte, the family house, the sacred cornerstone of heathen Basque culture. The souls of the Basque dead are said to return to a Basque house, through subterranean passages…’

David stared. The stained glass tree was burning in the cold glass light.

‘And the woman? In the other window.’

‘That’s Mari, the lady of the witches.’

‘The…’

‘Goddess of the witches. The Basque witches. We do not exist, yes we do exist, we are fourteen thousand strong.’ She looked at him, her eyes blue and icy in the hanging light. ‘That was their famous – or infamous – saying. We do not exist, yes we do exist, we are fourteen thousand strong.’

Her words were visible wraiths in the chill; her expression was obscure. David had a strong desire to get out; he didn’t know what he wanted to do. So he made for the little door, and exited with relief into the hazy daylight. Amy followed him, smiling, and then immediately headed left. Away from the path, disappearing behind the stage curtains of fog.

‘Amy?’

Silence. He said again:

‘Amy?’

Silence. Then:

‘Here. What’s this? David.’

He squinted, and saw her: a vague shape in the misty graveyard: female and slender, and elusive. David quickly stepped across.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘Another graveyard…With derelict graves.’

She was right. There was a secondary cemetery, divided from the main churchyard by a low stone wall. This cemetery was much more neglected. A crude statue of an angel had fallen onto the soggy grass; and a brown cigarette had been contemptuously stubbed out – in the angel’s eye. Circular gravestones surrounded the toppled angel.

A noise distracted them. David turned. Emerging from the mist was an old woman. Her face was dark. She was dressed in a long black skirt and a ragged blue jumper, over which she was wearing a T-shirt imprinted with Disney characters; Wall-E, The Lion King, Pocahontas.

The woman was also deformed. She had a goitre the size of a grapefruit: a huge tumorous growth bulging out of her neck, like a shot putter holding the shot under his chin, getting ready to throw.

The crone spoke. ‘Ggghhhchchc,’ she said. She was pointing at them, her goitre was lividly bulging as she gabbled, her face vividly angry. She looked like a toad, croaking.

‘Graktschakk.’ She pointed at them with a long finger, and then at the neglected graveyard.

‘What? What is it?’ David’s heart was pounding – foolishly. This was just an old woman, a sad, deformed old woman. And yet he was feeling a serious fear, a palpable and inexplicable alarm. He turned. ‘Amy – what is she saying?’

‘I think it’s Basque. She’s saying…shit people,’ Amy whispered, backing awkwardly away.

‘Sorry?’

‘She says we are shit people. Shit people. I’ve no idea why.’

The woman stared. And croaked some more. It was almost like she was laughing.

‘Amy. Shall we get the hell out?’

‘Please.’

They scurried up the path, David tried not to look at the woman’s enormous goitre as he passed; but then he turned and looked at her goitre. She was still pointing at them, like someone accusing, or denouncing, or laughing.

They were almost running now; David stuffed the map in his pocket as they escaped.

The sense of relief when they made the car was profound – and preposterous. David pressed the locks and turned the engine and spun the wheel – reversing at speed. They rumbled over the cobbles, past the stencil of Otsoko – the silently grinning black wolf’s head.

Amy’s mobile phone bleeped as they crested a hill: the telecom signal returning.

‘It’s José Garovillo. It’s José.’

‘So.’ His excitement was real; his fear was repressed. ‘What’s his response?’

She looked down, reading her message. ‘He says…he is willing to meet you. Tomorrow.’ She shook her head. ‘But…this is a little odd…there’s something else.’

‘What?’

‘He says he knows why you are here.’

7

The tiny four-seater plane soared across the windswept fields of Shetland, heading for the rough blue sea already visible in the distance.

‘It’s just a twenty-minute flight,’ said the pilot, above the loud engines. ‘Might get a bit bumpy when we reach the coast.’

Simon Quinn was squeezed in the back of the minuscule plane alongside DCI Sanderson; sitting next to the pilot was DS Tomasky.

The speed of events was bewildering. Simon had learned only