Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(10)
“Just a blasted minute!” Under the brim of his hat the ends of Lazenby’s fair-brown hair looked wild and flyaway, as if with electrostatic charge. “What did you just say? That—that— What was it?”
“What do you think I said?” Randolph enquired unkindly. He’d undergone nine excruciating days of ritual to keep Wayland’s words. The human mind was not equipped by nature to contain them; they slipped from the ears as soon as spoken. It was a rather unpleasant experience, although not nearly as unpleasant as actually remembering the things.
“I... But...” Lazenby’s mouth opened and shut in bafflement at his inexplicably failed memory.
Randolph patted him on the cheek. “There, there. Thank you greatly for your consideration, and enjoy your policeman, he’s just coming. And if I can remind you...don’t cross my path again. There’s a good chap.”
CHAPTER THREE
SEVERAL DAYS LATER, SAUL STILL couldn’t stop thinking about that bizarre incident. Too much about it was puzzling. Glyde turning up for the third time could no longer be blamed on coincidence, let alone interest; that he believed Saul to be following him made no sense at all.
Saul had been on Cock Lane because the Major speculated it might be one point of a mystical pattern beginning at Temple Church. Temple Church was his new Key to All the Mythologies, which Saul ascribed to the book he’d recently received through the post: a cheapjack private printing bound in brown card. The Major claimed it was a great rarity and had been sent to him on strict conditions of secrecy by a mysterious and anonymous correspondent. Saul took that with an extremely large pinch of salt, but the Major was caught up in his fantasy, and had insisted they explore the various lines of connection on foot.
It had been a reasonably pleasant stroll through busy streets on a nice day. Major Peabody had spoken of currents of spiritual energy and the harmonies of the spheres, repeatedly adding, “As above, so below,” while gesturing to the sky with his umbrella and nearly taking Saul’s eye out. It was the usual nonsense that he humoured as he always did, and then they’d found themselves on Cock Lane, and...
He’d lost his temper, that was all. Suddenly, abruptly, after a year with Major Peabody and six years before that of hard-learned self-control, he’d found himself raging bitterly at his employer as the man retaliated with equal savagery. He couldn’t even remember what either of them had said, or why: it had been a red-mist fury, a wave of anger so great it had blotted out everything else. Major Peabody, once they’d managed to get rid of the confused and annoyed policeman, had decreed that they had walked into an area of great psychic darkness and forgiven Saul’s insubordination on the spot.
Saul didn’t believe in psychic darkness, whatever that might mean—though if it meant not losing his job, he’d take it. They had had a meaningless quarrel, that was all.
Only, Glyde had turned up again, and he’d said...something.
Saul couldn’t remember, and his attempts to do so gave him a nauseous sensation of something missing, like probing the cavity of a just-pulled tooth. Glyde had—he’d said— There had been a noise, Saul was sure, not exactly loud but with a loud feeling to it, like the ringing after a great hammer blow. A noise, and words that had slid away from his ears like water off an oiled surface, leaving the barest trace of their passing.
But that was nonsense. He’d stopped paying attention for a moment; gone off into his head, as his mother had used to call it. He’d been distracted and missed what Glyde had said, and it had been disconcerting to be jerked back to awareness of the world around him.
That raised the question of what had preoccupied him to such a great extent, and he was afraid he knew the answer. The press of Glyde’s fingers, which he’d felt on his wrist for days afterwards, and that powerful tug, jerking Saul towards him. Nature had given Saul a taste for lean strength, hard brains, harder will. It had let him down quite spectacularly to date, and the evidently disturbed Randolph Glyde would be no different.
Glyde, grabbing his wrist, spouting jabber that suggested he’d come out of the trenches with a persecution complex or a tendency to hallucination, voicing obscene invitations for all the world as though he’d been thinking about something else. He must be a madman. The only emotion anyone should feel towards the poor fellow was pity; one should certainly not dwell on the touch of his fingers or the shape of his mouth. Randolph Glyde was unbalanced and aggressive, perhaps dangerous, even if, during his periods of lucidity, he was also the most unnervingly attractive man Saul had met in years.
God damn it. He was going to stop thinking about this.
He’d been letting Glyde occupy his mind in self-defence. The Major was riding high on his recent successes with the burning tree and the ‘psychic darkness’, and he’d barely stopped talking since Saul had arrived that morning.
“It is all thanks to the book,” he announced, waving it indicatively. “This fellow has produced research of astounding proportions; I count myself fortunate that I was able to procure a copy. Combining this new information with my own studies leads to so many new avenues of discovery. The Great Hexagram is revealing its secrets at long last!”
The Great Hexagram, which Saul was positive the Major had thought up no more than a few days ago, was a huge six-pointed pattern with its base at Temple Church, extending well north of London. Bits of thread dangled from many pins on the map as Major Peabody attempted to realise his vision, while Saul went through books in search of the required supporting evidence.