Ingrid stretched out comfortably on the lounger. ‘We’ve been here nearly a week.’
‘Time’s flown.’
‘Do you like it here?’
He nodded. ‘It’s hard to think of anywhere more beautiful and quiet.’
‘Hmm, quiet. Addictive, isn’t it? When I think of that constant din of traffic going by our front door in London it makes me want to stay here forever.’
‘You’d miss teaching at school.’
‘I could transfer to another school down here.’
‘What? A sleepy, rural schoolhouse with a dozen pupils?’
‘Yes. Lovely.’
He grinned. ‘You thrive on solving other people’s problems. A quiet little school would drive you crazy with boredom.’
She reached out to rest her hand on his knee as he sat there beside her on the wall. ‘I could take up lots of hobbies. Crafting, fell-walking, baking.’ She winked at him and whispered, ‘Alfresco nudism.’
‘Now, that is something I would love to see.’ He picked her hand up from his knee and kissed it. ‘Would you like a glass of wine later?’
Smiling, she shook her head. ‘I’m fine with this.’ She took another sip of her tea. ‘You go ahead and have a glass if you like.’
‘I might have a beer later.’
In a relaxed way, Ingrid watched Ben lift Oliver up to light the lamp in the tree.
‘Don’t drop any lit matches on my head,’ Ben joked. ‘Because it’ll make me flaming mad.’
Ingrid chuckled. ‘He’s even got your talent for cracking dreadful jokes.’
‘A chip off the old block, eh?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’ She glanced at John. ‘You don’t want Ben to disappear out of your life, do you?’
‘In a few weeks, he’ll be going back to university.’
‘But you will stay in touch with him, won’t you?’ Her expression told John that she did sincerely want Ben to remain part of their family after the summer in Devon was over.
John smiled. ‘Yes, of course I will.’ He heard voices in the lane. ‘Ah, here come the lovebirds.’
From out of the gloom came Vicki and Jason. They were holding hands, although as soon as they entered the garden they quickly let go, as if they’d be embarrassed if anyone commented on the hand holding.
Oliver brandished the matchbox. ‘I lit the candles. Citronella keeps bugs away.’
Vicki quipped, ‘I wonder if you can get candles that keep scrotty little kids away?’
Despite the remark, the mood was a pleasant one. Everyone exchanged a friendly, ‘Hi.’
John invited the new arrivals to help themselves to cold drinks from the fridge. ‘Non-alcohol ones, Jason,’ he added, ‘otherwise your mother will be coming over here on the warpath to take my scalp.’
Jason laughed, while keeping his eyes locked on Vicki’s face. Smitten, thought John. I hope the relationship doesn’t lead to complications.
Ingrid asked, ‘Vicki, how’s your head?’
‘Oh, it was just a scratch. Stupid branch. It shouldn’t have sharp bits.’
Jason’s expression was one of concern as he said, ‘Sit down, Vicki, and I’ll get you a drink.’
Her eyes twinkled. ‘Thank you, Jason.’
‘You’ve taken the plaster off,’ Ingrid pointed out. ‘You should have left it on for tonight at least.’
‘Why do I want to walk around with a great, big plaster stuck to my forehead? I don’t want to look like an idiot.’
Ingrid’s sharp eyes focused on her daughter’s face. ‘You’ve covered the cut with make-up as well, haven’t you?’
‘That red mark on my forehead made me look like Frankenstein.’
For a moment, John thought that Ingrid would correct their daughter, explaining that Frankenstein wasn’t the monster, but the man who’d created it. Thankfully, Ingrid didn’t go down that route, which could easily have triggered a mother–daughter argument. If anything, Vicki appeared happy to bask in handsome Jason Oldfield’s presence. She allowed him to position a chair for her on the patio, and she sat down.
Ah, happy families, John thought. I hope it lasts.
Micky Dunt found the ideal place to keep watch on the house where Ben Darrington was staying. He’d tucked himself amongst trees on a hillside, confident that nobody could see him. The house stood in a quiet country lane with a smattering of other properties nearby. Micky had taken a peek a few minutes ago and seen, to his relief, that only two houses appeared to be occupied right now. Micky had assumed, on hearing that Ben had gone to stay with his father, that it would be just the two of them in some remote cottage in the Devon countryside. A kid with a broken leg and one guy would be easier to handle than a whole bunch of people. However, a bunch of people is what Micky Dunt saw right now.
He had a perfect view of the back lawn. Candles were burning, giving out plenty of light now the sun had set. A man and a woman sat on the patio drinking from mugs. Ben Darrington had been helping a boy light the candles; it was the same kid Micky had seen earlier in the lane. Just minutes ago, another couple had arrived. They’d been holding hands as they walked along the lane. They’d also been kissing one another as they walked. Though a stronger word than kissing would be more apt – ‘snogging’ was better. The pair had snogged each other’s faces off.
Micky was ready for tonight. He’d brought the gun in the rucksack. Also in there were rolls of gaffer tape for binding hands and feet together. In addition, he’d helped himself to several wicked items from the car’s tool kit: pliers, a screwdriver with a very sharp point, a card cutter (that, also, had a sharp blade), and a claw hammer. Hammers are perfect for breaking finger bones. He’d also charged up his phone from the car’s cigarette lighter. Gurrick had ordered him to film some physical mayhem tonight, and that’s exactly what Micky planned to do.
The sky had turned from blue to black. The red smudge on the horizon, where the sun had vanished, faded away. Bats flitted above the trees. A dog barked in the distance – a shimmering sound that just sort of ghosted through the forest. An eerie sound, for sure.
Micky checked that the gun was the first thing within reach in the rucksack. Good, all loaded and ready to go. The main problem now was the number of people down there at the house. He counted six; he hoped they weren’t fixing to have a garden party.
The teenage couple left the patio and disappeared into the house. So maybe they lived there, too. That meant there’d be a house full of people. Even so, nothing could deflect him from what he needed to do tonight. Micky knew that Karl Gurrick would be waiting impatiently for news that the valuable consignment of cocaine had been retrieved. Micky didn’t want to keep the gangster hanging. There’d be painful consequences for Micky if Gurrick became annoyed.
Micky watched and waited. He snarled with frustration when he spotted a figure on the lane. This was a tall, blond woman. She strode like she was on a life-or-death mission. Yup, just my luck. She’s going to the house, too. The woman hurried in the direction of the people on the lawn like lives depended on it.
Samantha Oldfield arrived like a tornado in human form. She rushed into the back garden where John and Ingrid sat talking. Ben balanced himself on crutches, while Oliver showed him the screen of a hand-held computer game.
Samantha seemed to explode into their presence, waving her arms, and shouting, ‘I’m getting out, and you should, too!’
Everyone in the garden stopped whatever they were doing and stared at this woman with the flashing eyes and heaving breasts.
John stood up, wondering what the hell was going on. ‘Samantha, what’s wrong?’
‘You know what’s wrong. So you’ll do the sensible thing – pack yourself and your family into the car and drive!’
Ingrid swung her legs off the lounger and stood up, too. John felt his heartbeat quicken. One glance at his wife’s expression yelled out loud and clear what she was thinking.
The blond woman took a forceful step towards John. Abruptly, she lost h
er balance and had to steady herself using the wall of the house.
Ingrid said, ‘Samantha, perhaps you should sit down.’
‘As you so rightly notice … yes! I’ve had a drink.’
A skin-full of drink, John told himself. She’s wasted.
Samantha stood up straight in that odd, stiff-backed kind of way that people adopt when they’ve had too much alcohol, as if to say, Look, I can stand up straight. I’m sober. Samantha swayed, despite straining hard to appear dignified. ‘Yes, I’ve had a drink,’ she repeated in a forceful voice. ‘You would drink, too, if you’d made the discoveries I’ve been making over the last few days.’
‘What discoveries?’ When Ingrid asked this question she gave John a very direct look.
‘Discoveries that would shock you, Ingrid … shock you to the core.’ Samantha stepped sideways to keep her balance. ‘You wouldn’t believe what I’ve shown to your husband.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’ Ingrid’s mouth twitched angrily. ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it, Samantha?’
John got ready to catch Samantha if she lost her balance completely.
‘Listen …’ Samantha pointed at all four of them in turn – Ingrid, John, Ben and Oliver. ‘Leave while you still can. Get away … get right away from here. I’d say the same to our other neighbours in the lane, however … however, they’re either away from home on holiday, or otherwise absent … the … the summer school thing …’
‘Perhaps you should go home,’ John suggested. ‘We can talk about this tomorrow.’
‘No, John.’ Ingrid glared at him. ‘I want to hear what Samantha’s been showing you.’
Ben put his hand on Oliver’s shoulder, encouraging him to return to the house so as to prevent him from hearing something embarrassing about his own father.
John threw up his hands as his patience gave out. ‘Samantha. Don’t do this. You’re mistaken about the mummies.’
‘The mummies?’ Ingrid’s eyes widened in surprise; she clearly hadn’t anticipated that Samantha’s revelation involved mummified bodies.
‘Hasn’t John told you? Well, he should have done.’ The woman surged on: ‘Those mummies up at the castle are changing … transforming … transmuting. The mummy called Kadesh used to have two hands. Now he has one hand. The other has pfftt.’ She fluttered her fingers to suggest a hand vanishing into thin air. ‘The girl mummy, Amber, has just acquired a cut to her head. It wasn’t there twenty-four hours ago. The injury, however … however!… occurred just before death, three thousand years ago. The mummies’ physical characteristics are being altered.’
Ingrid shook her head, baffled. ‘Dead bodies are changing?’
‘Yes, Ingrid, they’re changing.’
‘Changing into what?’
‘Changing into you! All of you!’
When Ingrid heard this, her jaw actually dropped open in shock. ‘And you told John that this was happening?’
‘Yes.’
Ingrid turned to John. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because it’s impossible,’ he said as calmly as he could. ‘For some reason, Samantha is getting herself worked up over ideas about the mummy collection.’
‘This woman gets you alone in the castle and confides her innermost thoughts to you?’
‘Yes, but it’s not what it seems. It’s a mistake or a practical joke from years ago. The mummies aren’t transforming.’
‘Oh, but they are!’ Samantha lurched forward to grab John’s arm.
‘John.’ Ingrid’s voice rose in surprise. ‘Samantha is frightened. She is absolutely terrified. Look how she’s shaking.’
John could feel the tremors running through the woman’s hands as she desperately held on to him: the same desperate grip as a shipwreck survivor clinging to floating wreckage.
‘Listen,’ Samantha hissed. ‘Ingrid … John … the mummies are changing into your family. Amber is just like your daughter, Vicki. There’s a – a mummy we call Bones. His thigh bone is broken in three places. Just like Ben’s. There is the mummified body of a little boy – Ket. He and your son, Oliver, resemble one another so much. Same bone structure, same height, same age.’
Oliver heard this clearly enough. ‘Dad?’ he shouted. ‘Is she saying I’m going to be dead like that Egyptian boy, too?’
‘No, Oliver.’ John pulled Samantha’s hand from his arm. ‘Samantha’s only joking.’
‘But it’s all true!’ she said. ‘Amber is Vicki. Ben is Bones. Ket is Oliver. You, Ingrid, are Isis. Look … look …’ She dipped her hand into her pocket and managed to pull a stick of chalk from those tight jeans. ‘Look … watch this.’
John said, ‘I think you should stop this now.’
Samantha ignored him. ‘Watch.’ There, in the light of the candles and lanterns in the garden, she drew two parallel chalk lines across the patio slabs. Above one line she wrote Mummy family. Above the second line, running parallel to that, she chalked Tolworth family. ‘Now watch.’ She quickly blazed white lines to form a giant asterisk. ‘This asterisk is what I call the event. The “event” isn’t far away. It’s soon. Keep watching as I extend the two lines. See how I’m making them converge? This indicates that, as time goes by, the mummy family and the Tolworth family are gradually coming closer together. Resemblances between the two families – alive and dead – are becoming more noticeable. The mummies are developing your characteristics.’
Ingrid stared at Samantha. ‘Are you claiming we’re … what? Twins in time? Doppelgängers? Clones of one another?’
‘Give it another day or so and you will be identical.’ Samantha’s voice rose in triumph as she realized Ingrid had, at last, grasped the explanation. ‘What’s more, I believe those mummified corpses will have the same fingerprints as you. They will even have identical DNA to yours.’ Samantha threw the chalk down so emphatically that she nearly toppled forwards after it. John caught hold of her, steadying her.
At that moment, Vicki and Jason stepped out of the house. They clearly only had eyes for one another and barely noticed the bizarre scene of the drunken Samantha being kept on her feet by John.
Samantha nodded. ‘Ah, here we have Amber, also known as Vicki.’
Oliver suddenly gave a piercing yell. ‘She’s trying to scare us! She’s saying we’re going to die and be wrapped up in bandages like mummies!’
Ben gently ushered Oliver to the house. ‘Come on, mate. We’ll find something to watch on television.’
When they’d gone, Ingrid hissed, ‘Well, you did a fine job of scaring my son.’
‘I’m a scientist,’ Samantha retorted with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘I am compelled to tell the truth.’
Jason seemed to notice the presence of Samantha for the first time. ‘Oh, hello, Mum. Vicki cut her head on the tree tonight, but you can’t see the mark, can you?’
‘Ha!’ Samantha let out a yell of triumph. ‘Told you! Told you, didn’t I?’ She pointed at the chalk lines that grew closer together as they approached the EVENT asterisk. ‘Convergence. The mummified body, Amber, forms a cut on her head. Tonight Vicki has cut her head. And I am certain it will be in the same place at the hairline. Do you understand what I’m telling you? The Tolworths are becoming the mummy family, and the mummy family are becoming the Tolworths. Convergence!’
‘You’re forgetting something.’ Ingrid adopted the voice of cold logic. ‘You claim … drunkenly, I might add … that the Tolworths are becoming identical to the mummies in the castle.’
‘It is the truth.’
‘But John isn’t like Kadesh. John has two hands.’
‘Correct, John Tolworth does have two hands. But he …’ She pointed at a figure in the shadows. ‘But he only has one.’ Samantha beckoned. ‘OK, Philip, you can join us now. Help me convince the Tolworths to get away from here. They’ve got to run. And to run like all the monsters and devils of hell are chasing them … with the intention of ripping them apart!’
Light from the candles and lanterns i
lluminated the garden, allowing Micky Dunt a clear view of events taking place down there. Micky couldn’t hear what was being said, but something dramatic was occurring. A blond beauty had turned up; she’d talked while making lots of impassioned gestures. She appeared to be drunk – swaying, staggering, occasionally shouting, sometimes even hanging on to a guy for support. She’d pulled an object out of her pocket – a pen? Too far away to be sure. Yet she’d used whatever it was to draw or write on the paving slabs. Another woman was annoyed by the blond’s antics. That woman had shook her head a lot and argued with the visitor.
Now another man joined the party. He was tall, serious looking; he reminded Micky of a judge walking into a courtroom; very upright and dignified. All these new arrivals complicated the situation for Micky. He wanted to go down there and make Ben Darrington hand the cocaine over. But how could Micky simply stroll into the garden with five people down there, and two more in the house? OK, he had eight bullets in the gun, but he doubted if he could hold them all at gunpoint while he got to work on Ben Darrington. Karl Gurrick had demanded that Micky film some torture-porn, too.
Despite the problems that Micky was facing, he found himself drawn into the drama unfolding down there in the back garden. It looked as if things were getting even more interesting. The tall, silent guy held up one arm. Even from way up here in the trees, Micky could tell that the guy’s right hand was missing. Micky wished that reality had a volume control. He wanted to up the sound and hear what those people were saying to each other. He guessed it was getting more fascinating by the moment.
Philip Kemmis emerged from the darkness to stand in the light cast by the candles. John saw that despite the way he stood up straight, the man’s eyes had a wounded quality, as if he suffered intense pain – though that wouldn’t be physical pain. John knew that the man had never recovered emotionally, or mentally, from the mystery accident that cost him his hand.