'The sight ...' He detached the rifle from a metal frame wedged between two of the Knights. 'Well, I simply bought that at a gun shop in Worcester. Utility stuff. The support I made myself.'

'People say you're very practical.'

'One tries.'

Sharp screams of terror spattered the sky like sparks over the Rollright Stones. He must have killed or wounded. Two shots.

'Energy,' Adrian said. 'Look at those flames. That's confirmation. Oh G.o.d, Robert, feel the release. Feel that glorious, glorious release of pure, terrestrial energy. The fusion of the Earth and the sky and ... whump!'

Adrian was sky-high. In his army sweater and his camouflage trousers, he looked strong, swelling with power. You could smell his sweat, like engine oil, feel his heat. He caressed the rifle in his arms. Even without it, he wouldn't have regarded Maiden as any kind of threat or any kind of sacred, chosen target because Maiden's approach had been along no known, or even suspected, ley.

Everything in Adrian's world was completely straightforward, rigidly aligned.

He grinned from a summit of self-belief.

'Must've got two, Robert.' Like some country-sport enthusiast talking pheasants. 'Do you think two?'

There was a smell of burning in the h.e.l.lish, rosy night.

'Three would've been better, but I was only given the light for two, so ... One has to go with the surge. When you're working together, breathing together.'

'Better than s.e.x, Adrian?' Maiden recalling the Green Man's long, liquid, shuddering moan as the lightning flared and the gun went off.

Wrong. Adrian stiffened. He made a contemptuous noise. Adrian was a moralist. Adrian had strict ethics. Adrian did not like dirty talk.

'So who are you?' Adrian said, unfriendly again.

Maiden felt dog-tired, used up. Whatever energy had been generated it wasn't accessible to him.

'I said ...' Adrian placed a hand in the centre of Maiden's chest, pushed him hard against the rails. 'Who ... are ... you?'

Adrian was bigger, heavier, swollen with self-righteousness. Close up for the first time, Maiden could see his eyes glittering with the mindless joy of the bully. Seen it, so many times, in his dad's eyes, when Norman brought the slipper out. Norman didn't wear slippers; he only had the one, used for disciplinary purposes. Discipline. Authority. Adrian would know all about that.

OK then. Maiden drew a hard breath.

'I'm Detective Inspector Bobby Maiden.' He paused. This was ridiculous. 'Adrian Fraser-Hale, I'm arresting you for the murder of Ersula Underhill. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention, when questioned, anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be taken ...'

'Oh.' Adrian retreated to the railings, the rifle in his arms. 'I see.'

This would be the first time anyone had applied the word murder to Adrian's continuing programme of sacrificial bloodletting. Maiden took a determined step towards him.

'Further charges will be made later. Hand me the rifle, Adrian.'

'Adrian?' a faint, subdued voice said from the other side of the railings.

'Oh s.h.i.t,' Maiden said.

She stood in the gra.s.s, fifteen, twenty yards away. A small figure in a torn skirt, hair sweated to her cheeks.

'Come on, Adrian ...' Maiden held out his hands for the rifle.

But really the hands were out there in prayer.

'Do the sensible thing, eh?' Maiden said, just like the old man would've said.

Grayle Underhill said, 'Oh.'

Feeling Fraser-Hale's attention waver, Maiden went for him, went for the gun.

And felt the air pulse as Adrian moved with a swift and shocking grace, bringing up the rifle, half turning as Maiden went for him. That fixed, opaque glaze of madness in Adrian's eyes, his teeth bared and parted. You could almost see the twisted, fibrous roots and stretched tendrils in the Green Man's feral smile, as he brought down the wooden rifle b.u.t.t hard into Maiden's eye, the left one, the one that was still half closed.

As Maiden sank, in agony, to his knees, the world was divided into blurred segments by the railings, through which he could see the pale, wavering shape which would, by now, be sharp and tight in Adrian's line of fire.

'The woman's on the line, Robert.' The voice of the Green Man quivering with euphoria and a kind of wonder at the gloriously unexpected magic of the situation. 'I said it should be three, didn't I? The woman's on the line.'

XLIX.

Never occurred to Andy to be scared until she was inside the castle walls and there was no light.

Never been here before, at night, when there weren't at least a couple of lights in the house. So Marcus wasn't here. Well, good. Good probably. Where would he have gone? Down to St Mary's, most likely, into the pub. Andy would turn the car round, go check out the pub. OK. No problem.

She curved slowly round under the castle wall. Taken her over three hours to drive down from Elham, through the rush hour and then another d.a.m.n rush hour and then foot down, but not too hard because it would be pretty stupid if, having driven twice round the suburbs to throw off any pursuit, she was nicked on some b.l.o.o.d.y cart track in the Black Mountains.

There'd been no pursuit, anyway. She'd have known. Would have been easy enough for Riggs to put out her registration to every force in Britain. It was clear enough, now, that Riggs had done no such thing. That the other person Tony Parker had felt obliged to contact with a view to calling off the bad guys was Mr Riggs himself.

And that Mr Riggs had said no. Or that Tony had died before he could even get round to asking him.

The bad guys, presumably, had been. But had the bad guys gone? Best to stay in the car a while. Andy checked the doors were locked. Leaning across to the pa.s.senger side, glancing out of the pa.s.senger window, she saw the body.

Marcus ...

Backed up in a frenzy, turned the car round so that the headlights were on the face. Breathed again when it turned out not to be a face she knew: some young guy with dark brown, dried blood around a deep dent in his forehead, one arm skewed out with a hand upturned, clawed. A block of stone beside him big enough to mark his grave.

If he needed one? Wasn't moving, looked all twisted up, but ... The h.e.l.l with this. Andy got out, checked for vital signs.

Cold. Dead a good while. What was this? This one of the bad guys? Way he was twisted, it was pretty clear he'd come crashing down the tower steps. Treacherous, those steps, particularly in the dark, but why the h.e.l.l would he go up there in the first place? Andy looked around. Dead silence.

And then the house door opened.

'Sister Anderson.'

Guy in a bomber jacket was walking across the dark yard towards her. She knew the voice, but then she knew a h.e.l.l of a lot of voices. Whoever it was, he'd been in the house. If anybody was in that house, it ought to be Marcus.

Not so much scared as seriously apprehensive, she waited right where she was, within reach of the car. Until his face was in the headlights.

'Well,' she said. 'I didnae think it'd be you. b.l.o.o.d.y Judas, eh?'

It began to rain. Big, hard, vertical bullets.

With a lot of difficulty, Grayle raised her eyes from the rifle barrel, which didn't move so long as she didn't. Which was pointing steadily at her breast bone.

'This is where I ... I get to die ... right?' She tried to see his face. She thought how Charlie had died. Not even crying out. Never knew. Poor Charlie. Came to conduct a wedding and he died.

Adrian said, 'Don't talk. Rejoice.'

'Rejoice?' Grayle flared up. 'That what you told Ersula? When she ...'

'The b.i.t.c.h was unreceptive at the end.'

She heard Bobby Maiden speak, though she couldn't see him. He sounded weak, he sounded hurt.

Adrian said, 'Be quiet, Robert.'

'... b.l.o.o.d.y coward, Adrian. But that's hunting, isn't it? Essence of a great British tradition. Guys with guns against animals that only run. Guys on horses with packs of hounds against one exhausted ...'

'Shut up!'

'Natural balance, isn't it? But, h.e.l.l, Adrian, yours don't even get a chance to run ...'

'I'll kill you ... You miserable piece of town-bred vermin. When this is over I'll take you away to somewhere less sacred and I'll kick the life out of you. In the meantime, you'll shut your drivelling mouth and-'

'You don't kill.' Bobby's voice battling against the rain singing on the stones. 'The Earth kills, remember? You can't do it on your own. And the moment's gone. The lightning's over. Storm's past. It's raining. You've lost it. You can't do it without the lightning.'

Please G.o.d, Grayle thought, no more lightning. Please G.o.d ... Please Cindy ...

'Also ...' Bobby said from somewhere down on the ground between Adrian and the back rails. 'Also, this is Grayle ... You killed her once. And it wasn't her. You blew it. Got it wrong ... Grayle's bad luck for you, Adrian.'

'I do not get it wrong! '

'You're always getting it b.l.o.o.d.y wrong. What about the barbed wire in Wales? Put it out for a man, you catch a young lad. But he didn't die, did he? You screwed up.'

Silence. Other noises behind the spattering on the stones. The smell of smoke from the pines. Grayle felt the rain pouring down her face, blurring her vision. Her clothes like a second, sodden skin. She was afraid to blink.

Adrian said, 'How do you know about that?'

'Ah,' Bobby said. 'Didn't tell the stones, did you? Didn't tell the stones you screwed up.'

Distant sheet lightning, no more than a veil. Grayle cringed. The barrel twitched. Oh Jesus. Involuntarily, Grayle squeezed her eyes shut, screamed, 'Adrian, do you know who you shot down there. You shot Charlie ... shot the G.o.dd.a.m.ned minister!'

'Well, good!' he screamed back through the torrent. 'Charlie was a disgrace. Charlie took drugs!'

'And what the f.u.c.k did you give to Ersula?' Bobby yelled.

'You watch your filthy, vermin mouth ...'

'Maybe Grayle would like to know what else you don't tell the Earth. Hey, considering where we are, considering how stones record, maybe the Earth would like to know what happens when you ... when you take a sacrifice ... when you pull the trigger ... bring down the rock ... sink in the knife ... shove ... shovel in the gravel and the concrete ... When the earth-energy floods into your system like golden light? and you feel this ... blinding joy? Maybe Grayle and the good old Earth G.o.ddess ... your mother ... your holy bride ... would like to know what happens then, how you always come in your pants, when ...'

'You filthy ... swine ...'

Grayle's eyes jerked open to the sight of Adrian up on the lone rec.u.mbent stone, screaming, holding the rifle by the barrel, smashing it down on Bobby Maiden, Bobby shouting, 'Get off the line, Grayle, get off the f.u.c.king line ...'

And then it was all lights.

L.

'... that supposed to mean?' On the edge of the headlight beams, the guy looked worn out, two days' grey stubble.

'Tony sent you, right?'

'Kind of.'

'Nothing to do with Riggs, like.'

'I don't work for Riggs.'

'Oh, aye. Well, n.o.body does, do they? n.o.body works for Riggs, officially.'

'Look, Sister,' Vic Clutton said. 'Time's getting on. I've got a bit of cleaning up to do before I leave.'

'I hope that doesnae include me, pal.'

'Oh, don't be b.l.o.o.d.y daft.' Clutton pulled a gun, a black pistol, out of his jacket pocket, tossed it into the dirt. 'Pick it up. Feel safe.'

Andy ignored the gun. 'What happened to your oppo over there?'

's.h.i.t, Sister, you gonner let me get a word in? Parker ...'

Andy took a breath.

Clutton said, 'Parker had me down here to keep an eye on Em.'

'Didnae do a great job there, Victor.'