*And you found these in the cellar?' said Richard Holmes, slowly sliding each Polaroid back into the bundle he'd been handed.

*There's loads of stuff down there' Mason told him, sipping from his can of beer. *It can't all be his. There's too much of it.'

Holmes, now more casually attired in a pair of brown cords, black leather loafers and a voluminous knitted cardigan over his striped shirt, nodded sagely and continued leafing through the pictures. He shifted position on the leather sofa, reaching for his wine glass.

*Well, I'm not an expert, my friend,' he murmured, his eyes still fixed on the images before him. *Certainly not on the subject of animal killing. What the recently departed Mr Usher is doing with a butchered dog in his garden I have no idea.'

*Killing the dog's bad enough. I want to know who he got to take the picture. Any ideas? How well did you know him? Do you know who he was friendly with?'

*You mean do I know any of his acquaintances who might have been happy to take photos of him standing over a butchered dog?'

*Yes.'

*We talked most days,' Holmes said, shrugging his shoulders. *It's a little hard to avoid one's colleagues in such a closed environment, as you'll see, but I didn't know the details of his private life if that's what you mean. With him living here, he had more privacy than those of us who have quarters inside the school itself. He could have been up to all sorts and no one would have known.' Holmes leaned forward and spread some of the pictures of Usher out across the coffee table before him. *You said you found some notebooks and papers too. Have you read them yet? I wondered if there might be any clue in those as to what was going on here.'

*I've looked through some of them but I couldn't find anything useful. It was all inconsequential day-today stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary.' Mason let out a long breath. *Except for one thing. In several places in his notebooks, Usher mentions a name. William Bartholomew. Was that a teacher or pupil at Langley Hill?'

Holmes frowned.

*In what connection does he mention the name?' he wanted to know.

*There's nothing too specific,' Mason explained. *But there's usually talk of money with the name.'

*It doesn't ring a bell,' he admitted at first but then he raised his eyebrows and nodded, a smile flickering across his lips. *Unless he's talking about Abbot Bartholomew, God bless him.'

*Who's he?'

*Being a history teacher, my boy, I thought you'd have known.'

Holmes drained what was left in his wine glass and replaced the receptacle on the table. Mason refilled it immediately.

*Abbot William Bartholomew,' the older man went on, good-naturedly. *He was burned in 1535, along with six of his companions.'

*It wasn't uncommon for priests or monks to be put to death in that time,' Mason offered. *When Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries any clerics who resisted were executed. But that doesn't explain why Usher would be mentioning a man in his notebooks who died during the Reformation.And why the connection with money?'

*Perhaps he'd heard about the treasure.' Holmes drank some more wine. *Or the curse.'

*Now you are taking the piss,' Mason grunted.

Holmes shrugged.

*Abbot Bartholomew and his companions weren't executed by the agents of Henry VIII, they were burned alive by the people of Walston.'

*Why?'

*Bartholomew and his cronies were said to be alchemists.'

*They were trying to turn base metal into gold?'

*According to local legend, they succeeded.'

*So why were they burned?'

*Because they had a slightly different method to everyone else for achieving their aim. Supposedly, they used some kind of sacrificial blood ritual to produce the change from base metal to gold.The secrets of this ritual had supposedly been given to them by God Himself. Apparently it involved the torture and flaying alive of small children.'

*God recommending the slaughter of kids so that priests can become rich,' Mason said, laughing.*Obviously an example of God moving in a mysterious way.'

Holmes nodded, took a sip of his wine and continued.

*A number of children had gone missing from the local villages and Abbot Bartholomew and his companions were suspected. The locals stormed the monastery and apparently found the bodies of two dozen children hanging from the walls and ceiling of the monastery. All flayed. All with their throats cut and their hearts and entrails removed. They dragged the occupants of the monastery outside and burned them on the spot. Then they razed the place to the ground. Bartholomew and his followers belonged to some kind of order, cult for want of a better word, that believed people could be controlled by the strength of their libido. Manipulated by their sexual desire. Anyone with a particularly strong sexual urge could be controlled. The more powerful the urges, the easier they were to control. None of them ever had sex, naturally, because they were monks. They frowned upon it, not because they disapproved of its earthly pleasure, but because it took away their power. They achieved power through abstinence, if you like.'

*And they believed that?' Mason grunted.

*It's a noble belief,' Holmes joked.

*What about ley lines? The headmaster said the school was built on one.'

*On two to be exact,' Holmes corrected him.*A confluence. Very unusual. But nothing to do with Abbot Bartholomew, I fancy.The poor old fellow can't be blamed for everything.'

*Like what?'

*There've been incidents over the years,' Holmes smiled. *In and around the school. None of it conducive to the image of Langley Hill.'

*What kind of incidents?'

*When the school was being built there were a number of unexplained accidents involving the workmen here. Three were killed in a period of eighteen months. One reportedly went mad. Ghosts and apparitions were supposedly seen. More rumours. In the thirties, a number of local children went missing from Walston and a teacher here was blamed.'

*What happened to them?'

*No one knows. The bodies were never found.'

*They were murdered?'

*Rumours and gossip, my friend. During the war a stray German fighter plane crashed in the school grounds. The pilot got out safely but was supposedly caught and hanged from a tree in the grounds by a group of townspeople.They said he'd attacked and raped a local woman.' Holmes raised his hands. *More rumour. More gossip.'

*What about the monks' treasure? The gold that Bartholomew supposedly made from base metal. Was it ever found?'

Holmes raised his eyebrows indulgently.

*A myth,' he explained. *Nothing more.'

*So why would Usher mention it so many times in his notebooks?'

Holmes could only shrug.

*Perhaps he heard about it from another member of staff or one of the kids or even someone in the town. As I said, it's a well-known legend around here.'

*And the curse?'

*Stories passed down over the centuries say that Abbot Bartholomew cursed those who burned him. As the flames were licking around him he damned the villagers and all their descendants.' Holmes raised his hands to head height and wiggled his fingers in Mason's direction. *Spooky, don't you think?'

*That still doesn't explain the dead dog in the picture with Usher,' Mason observed.

Holmes could only shrug.

*As I said, I have no idea what Usher got up to here,' he remarked. *And to be honest, I don't really care.'

*Aren't you curious about his disappearance?'

*He didn't disappear, Peter. He left his job. Simple as that.'

*And what if it's not? What if there's more to it than that?'

*Then you are welcome to investigate what became of your predecessor. If you discover anything, I will be delighted to learn of your progress but I fear that there is far less to this situation than meets the eye.'

Mason exhaled wearily.

*You're probably right,' he conceded, tipping the last of the wine into Holmes's glass. He raised his own beer can in salute. *Here's to Abbot Bartholomew.'

Holmes mirrored the gesture and both men smiled as they drank.

Outside, the wind whipped around the cottage and the first drops of rain began to fall.

57.

It was after eleven by the time Richard Holmes left.

The portly English teacher teetered unsteadily up the path then made his way back up the driveway towards the school itself, ignoring both the rain and also Mason's offer of an umbrella.

Mason waved his new colleague off then locked the front door behind him, moving back through the cottage and switching off lights in his wake. He felt tired. It had been a long first day and he needed to get a decent night's sleep.

Before he retired though, he decided to return the boxes of photos to the cellar.

Good idea. Lock the bloody things away and forget about them.

He wandered through into the kitchen, dropping empty beer cans and wine bottles into the waste bin near the back door then he pulled open the hatch that led down into the cellar, flicking on the light that would illuminate the subterranean chamber.

He retrieved the boxes of photos from the sitting room, stacked them carefully on top of each other then made his way carefully down the stone steps into the cellar. He could hear the rain outside, beating down hard by now and, Mason thought, it was colder in the cellar than it had been before.

Just your imagination working overtime. All that bullshit about curses and mutilated kids.

He smiled to himself and replaced the boxes towards the far wall of the underground room.

He paused beside the other boxes that held Simon Usher's discarded belongings.

Move those too. Stick them out of the way so you won't be tempted to nose through them again. Just forget about Usher.

He bent down to lift them out of the way and noticed that the top one was open.

Just put it away. Close it and never touch it again.

There were several reams of paper inside. Letters. Bills. Circulars.

Christ, hadn't Usher thrown anything away?

Mason noticed that the topmost sheet of paper was headed and, despite himself, he read the heavy black letters.

WALSTON GENERAL HOSPITAL.

Mason pulled the sheet from inside the box and scanned it.

*Notification of appointment,' Mason read aloud.There was a date beneath. *What was wrong with you?' he muttered. He glanced down at the boxes, wondering if the answer lay within. He decided to find out.

58.

Mason was lying on his back with just his pants on.

The girls were on either side of him.

Sammi to his right and Jo to his left. Both were dressed identically, clad in only white bras and white thongs, kneeling above him looking down expectantly. He felt their hands glide across his chest, stomach and thighs and the erection that was already pressing against the material of his pants grew even more prominent. Jo gripped it gently through the cotton as Sammi began to ease the garment from him. Mason lifted his hips to help her and she pulled the pants free, tossing them aside with a giggle.

Now totally naked he let out a deep breath as the two girls leaned forward and he looked longingly at them as they both ducked their heads towards his raging stiffness.

Their tongues met on his swollen penis head and he gasped as he felt the soft wetness caressing his tip, each tongue swirling around the bulbous end before gliding along his rock-hard shaft down towards his swollen testicles, then up again. They moved as one, a perfectly choreographed machine that existed only for his pleasure and he intended to enjoy every second of their attentions.

He allowed his hands to brush through their hair, one hand on each of them feeling the soft silkiness of the freshly washed manes beneath his probing digits. And all the time they licked and sucked at his throbbing stiffness with such fervour and expertise that Mason wondered how many times before they had performed such a ritual.

Jo held his penis, pushing it towards Sammi who fastened her soft lips around it. A moment or two of that ecstasy and Sammi raised her head, smiling up at him. Jo took him into her mouth, her tongue flickering over his throbbing tip while her lips engulfed him. He could feel light kisses on his thighs and hips then Sammi moved between his legs to lick at his scrotum and testicles, her long blonde hair caressing his flesh as surely as her mouth and fingers.

As Jo knelt beside him he ran his hand along her slender back, feeling the perfect smoothness of her young skin. Then his questing fingers moved further, sliding beneath the gusset of her white thong and slipping gently over her already moist sex. She sighed as he touched her, redoubling her efforts on his penis with her mouth and, for a moment, Mason thought he was going to lose control. The effect of these two girls upon him was incredible and he wanted to prolong this pleasure as long as he could.

As if a signal had been given, both girls knelt up and Mason watched as they kissed, tongues intertwining. Jo slipped Sammi's bra off to reveal her pert breasts with the nipples so pink and erect and then she reached back to repeat the action on herself so that her breasts too were exposed to his gaze. Mason reached up and cupped one in his hand, thumbing the stiff nipples one at a time.

Sammi wriggled quickly out of her thong and clambered onto his lap, gripping his penis in one hand, lowering her slippery cleft onto it with infinite slowness, wanting to tease him but also desperate to feel him inside her. Mason realised with delight that the girls were as desperate for release as he was.