‘You better get me out of this, and fast. I am not staying here.’
‘You have to. Where can you go? Home? Manchester? You can’t hide anywhere. Neither of us can. Distance doesn’t matter. We’re in the flood now, Seb. We’re in Hazzard’s stream. He goes backwards and forwards. Time doesn’t mean a thing over there. But you don’t have to be swept away.’
‘How? How is this possible? It’s just not real. It can’t be happening,’ Seb said uselessly, and more to the sky than to Mark.
‘You ask me that? How can I explain this? But you help them and maybe they’ll cut you some slack. There’s no other way. You have a publisher and readers. You get paid to write. That’s what they’re after, money, and exposure for his ideas. You think death has shrunk Hazzard’s ambition? I’d say it’s made it worse. But I tried to explain to them, on your behalf, that it’s not all that simple. You know, with books, and with horror always being a hard sell, and your last book about the ship not being so good . . . But they’re expecting a film too. So be prepared. You’ll have to manage their expectations from the start. That’s the first thing you need to do, because they think that you are a big, fat cash cow.’
Seb was almost in tears when he said, ‘I don’t want this . . .’
‘I’m sorry, Seb.’ Mark looked at his watch and winced. ‘Gotta get a move on. Train to catch. I’ve a taxi coming. Local driver. Oh, and the locals, watch out for them. Some of them help Joyce and Veronica. Feed them. Stuff like that. “Them up at the college”, that’s how they referred to these bitches while I was mooching about. I knew something was up ten years ago before I even saw this bloody place. I found boxes of food by that gate. They were left there by people from round here. Some kind of bloody tithe or tribute, I don’t know, to sustain the SPR. But there are surviving connections from when Hazzard was alive. Only it’s all going wrong, I think. The network they’ve used for years is literally dying off. They’re skint and barely hanging on now. They think you’re the answer to their prayers.’
Seb sank to his knees and placed his strengthless hands upon his seemingly hollow thighs. His legs seemed incapable of supporting his weight.
Mark glanced at Veronica, then whispered to Seb from the side of his mouth. ‘You can get through it. I did. They made me bring my books here and they insisted I stayed one night. You know, to make a point.’ He closed his eyes and winced at the memory. ‘They’re crazy, Seb. Both of them. They don’t even have running water. They use a stream. There’s no electricity here either. They exist in some bloody awful cottage over at the back. Place is cut off, but they keep it all going, for him, Hazzard. I don’t think they have much choice either. I’m guessing they’re all that’s left of the last SPR intake before Hazzard died. They’ve been here for bloody decades, going mad. And Hazzard will not release his last two followers. Don’t trust them. Just write the bloody book and hope for the best.’ Mark turned away and began moving down the slope, heading for the overgrown lower parkland.
25
The Discarded Coat
They had left him hours before. Not long after Mark disappeared from sight, the two women had walked away and disappeared behind the house, without a single backward glance.
Still dazed from shock, Seb had followed them at a distance, until they passed the walled garden and vanished into the woods beyond the roses.
He’d returned to the Hall, slumped upon a wall before the portico, and sat with the disarray of his thoughts for company. Occasionally, a shiver touched his neck as if a breeze or a cloud’s shadow had passed over him.
Even outside in strong sunlight, with a blue and cloudless sky above his head, the prospect of the night ahead had made him experience a physical frailty decades beyond his age. But the consequences of defying these unstable remnants of the SPR didn’t bear consideration. If he drove home, then what of later, what of tonight? Something would be sent after him. Was it better to be at home, in his own room, and to have his final cries unheard by any save those that gathered about the bed? Would he choose heart failure at home over a night at the Tor? That’s what his life had come down to: stay or die.
He was useful to Veronica and Joyce and what they served. That was all he had in his favour: their desperation for money. They had been forgotten and were captives. Mark had said as much, though how much he could believe of what any of them said was open to question. But who else could Veronica and Joyce turn to?