The Piper
Mr Sparks
The Haunting of Jessop Rise
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Epub ISBN: 9781448188956
Version 1.0
First published in 2017 by
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Text copyright © Danny Weston, 2017
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
ISBN 978 1 78344 531 8
To whistle-blowers everywhere.
Keep up the good work.
The crows were already gathering, circling and flapping like evil black rags on the chill morning air.
Annie climbed out of the Land Rover and stood for a few moments, looking in at the field, imagining the freshly sown seeds just under the surface, taking their nutrients from the soil and, she hoped, already starting to grow. A cold wind came gusting at her, blowing her long black hair around her shoulders. She wished she’d stayed at home long enough for that second cup of coffee, but she knew that if she’d waited until Ken was up and about, he’d have begged her to allow him to help her. For some stubborn reason that she couldn’t quite identify, it was important to her to do this on her own.
So she swung open the metal gate and then drove the Land Rover to the very centre of the field, a short distance from the old Carlin Stone – the big grey boulder that stuck up out of the ground like a giant egg of some prehistoric animal. Ken had once talked seriously about hiring a bulldozer and moving the stone, but Annie had forbidden him to touch it, thinking of all the old legends connected with it, the ones that her mother had told her as bedtime stories when she was a little girl. The sound of the engine scared up those birds that had already started pecking hopefully at the ploughed earth, sending them flapping and cawing into the air.
‘You lads are in for a wee surprise,’ she murmured, and smiled at the thought of what she had planned.
Then she went round to the back of the vehicle, opened the doors and started unloading heavy bales of straw, grunting with the effort. Next, she pulled out the wooden cross she’d already made, the one she was going to use to support her creation and, finally, she located the black bin bag of old clothing that she would use to form the body of her scarecrow.
She knew how to do it well enough. Her mother had always had the job of making the scarecrows for the farm when Annie was growing up and had taught her young daughter well. Annie’s mother was known locally as a ‘white witch’, versed in the ways of Wiccan magic. The locals had thought of her as a healer, the first person they would contact when somebody was ill. Annie could remember how, every year, her mother had consecrated the freshly seeded ground with a spattering of bull’s blood, an offering to the Cailleach, the goddess of the earth, in order to ensure a good harvest.
Those old ways were pretty much laughed at in this day and age, but Annie also knew that there were still some old crofters, living out in the wilds of the Highlands, who wouldn’t dream of planting a crop without carrying out this ceremony first. Annie’s mother had lived well into her seventies and swore that it was the same ritual that had kept her hale and hearty up till the very end. Sadly, that part of her mother’s DNA clearly hadn’t been passed on to Annie, but she felt she now had a very good reason to go back to the old ways.
The first thing she needed to do was to plant the wooden cross in the ground. She used a spade to dig out a narrow hole and then a sledgehammer to drive the thick vertical upright deep into the soft earth. By the time she had it firmly in position, she was sweating from the effort and also horribly aware of a dull pain, stabbing her deep in her stomach, her illness announcing its presence, reminding her that the pain she was experiencing was going to get a lot worse as time went on. The illness – it had a name but she absolutely refused to use it – would soon put her permanently into a sick bed, and not long after that, a coffin.
The specialist had found it very hard to break the news to her; he’d stared out of the window of his office the whole time he was talking, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else than there. But then, Annie in turn had the awful job of breaking the bad news to Ken and Rhona and that had been the toughest thing she’d ever had to do in her entire life.
Rhona had just stood there, staring at her mother in mute disbelief, and Ken – big, tough man that he was – had broken down and cried like a baby. She tried not to dwell on that, because doing so made her want to cry herself and she had already decided that shedding tears was a complete waste of time. It wouldn’t change anything. No, she had to make herself hard inside and pretend that it wasn’t getting to her, not for her own sake, but for her husband and daughter.
She laid the clothing out on the ground in the vague shape of a man – there was a ragged old tweed jacket that had belonged to Ken’s late father, a pair of tattered blue jeans, all gone at the knees, two battered brown work boots, the leather cracked and flaking with age. She had no idea who the broad-brimmed hat she’d found hanging in the cowshed might once have belonged to, but it seemed to her that a scarecrow had to wear some kind of a hat and she was pretty sure nobody was likely to lay claim to it. For the face, she had nothing more than a water-stained potato sack and, she told herself, she would have to make that work the best way she could. She glanced over her shoulder and noted that a line of crows was sitting on the wall watching her, as though waiting patiently for her to leave so they could resume their foraging. But Annie was having none of it. She wasn’t going to see all her hard work destroyed by a flock of greedy birds.
She started stuffing the garments with straw, big handfuls of it, pushing and prodding it into position. She’d already tied off the legs of the trousers and the cuffs of the jacket with twine, as her mother had taught her, and the scarecrow’s big figure quickly began to take shape. She’d brought along a darning needle and some strong thread with which she affixed the empty boots to the ends of the jeans. Likewise, she secured the hem of the jacket to the top of the jeans. A lot of farmers she knew used old gloves to form hands but she hadn’t been able to find any spare ones. So she’d brought along a collection of thick dark twigs she’d picked out of the hedgerow and she pushed these into position in the straw-packed cuffs to form splayed fingers. They looked surprisingly convincing.
Now for the head, she thought, and she filled the old sack with straw, tying it off at the neck and tucking the loose folds of fabric inside the collar of the jacket, so that it stood straight up from the shoulders. She surveyed her handiwork for a moment and then decided that it was time to lift the scarecrow into position, up against his cross. She extended his arms out along the crossbar and tied them in place with lengths of twine. She straightened his boots so they stood flat upon the earth, and it really did look as though he was standing upright all by himself.
She took a step back and studied him thoughtfully. The rumpled old sack was nothing like a face, she decided, so she spent a bit of time, pushing and prodding it, making two indents for the eye sockets and another, deeper one for the mouth. Still not happy with her efforts, she crouched down, prodded her fingers into the mound of damp, freshly dug earth where she’d made a hole for the post and smeared some of it into the three openings, giving an impression of more depth. Now she reached into her pocket and pulled out the vial of bull’s blood. In the olden days, of course, a bull would actually have been sacrificed to obtain the blood, a sharp knife drawn across its throat, but this small sample had been obtained with the help of the local vet who had used a syringe to extract what was needed and knew well enough not to ask what it was to be used for.
Annie uncapped the vial and splashed a little of the crimson fluid onto her fingers, then reached up to work it into the fabric around the edges of the scarecrow’s mouth, just as her mother always had. She stepped back, looked again and decided, yes, he had features now, the various folds and creases of the sacking even seeming to indicate a misshapen smiling face.
Now for the rest of the ceremony. She took a few steps back from the scarecrow and gazed slowly around the field. She put her thumb half over the top of the vial and began to sprinkle the remaining blood as she recited the words that her mother had taught her when she was only little.
‘By the power of blood
Make this corn grow strong!
By the power of blood
Watch over this land!
By the power of blood
Watch over this family!
Bind them and nurture them
And see they come to no harm.’
She splashed the last of the liquid over the smooth surface of the Carlin Stone and then slipped the empty vial back into her pocket. She stood for a moment, in deep concentration. She knew this wasn’t going to change anything, but it had felt good going through the ritual, revisiting the days when she was little and didn’t have a single care in the world. She remembered that there was one last detail that needed sorting out. She collected the hat and placed it carefully, almost ceremoniously, onto the scarecrow’s head.
‘There,’ she said, and she felt surprisingly pleased with herself. She had made a very convincing scarecrow. Even Mother would have been impressed by her efforts. And now, what about a name? He looked like a …
Quite suddenly, it came to her out of nowhere. Philbert. She would call him Philbert. She had no idea where it had come from, it wasn’t even a proper name, so far as she was aware, and yet … somehow, it really suited him.
‘Pleased to meet you, Philbert,’ she said, bowing her head to him. ‘My name is Annie.’
He just stood there, looking down at her: a dead thing conjured from bits of old clothing and handfuls of straw. She felt vaguely foolish, but all the same she kept right on talking.
‘I want you to guard this field with your life,’ she told him, sternly. ‘Do you understand?’ She half turned and pointed to the row of crows ranged along the wall. ‘Keep those lads out, whatever you do. And this corn …’ She waved her hands to indicate the surface of the field. ‘OK, I know you can’t see it yet, but it is there and it’s going to be here after I’m gone, maybe for years afterwards. It’s your job to look after it …’ She glanced awkwardly around, hoping that there was nobody within earshot to hear her words. ‘And … Philbert, do me a favour, will you? Look after my husband and my daughter and anyone they care about … because … because I won’t be able to …’
Quite suddenly the sadness welled up within her like a great hot balloon, one that burst suddenly, filling her with a tide of bitter hopelessness and she was aware of her eyes stinging as the tears finally came. She hated herself for being so weak but she somehow couldn’t stop herself and she was so angry … yes, sad too, of course, but the overwhelming feeling was one of anger, that this horrible illness could come along and take her away from her husband and her daughter and the farm they had made their home …
And the next thing she knew, she was hugging Philbert against her, pressing her face into his chest, her tears soaking into the tweed fabric of his jacket, as she told him about all the things she couldn’t bring herself to tell Ken or Rhona – of the fear that gripped her every minute of every day, how she worried about how Rhona would cope and how Ken would manage to run the farm without her there to quietly push him in the right direction … it all came spilling out of her in a torrent and, once she’d started, she found that she just couldn’t seem to stop …
When she had told Philbert about all her fears, the wave of sadness finally receded and she was able to get control of herself. She stepped back a little, reached out to straighten his lapels and tilted his hat to a rakish angle on his head. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her coat and looked at him solemnly. ‘I’m glad we had this little talk,’ she said, quietly; and then laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it.
She loaded the tools and what was left of the straw into the back of the Land Rover and drove back across the field, the vehicle bucking and lurching on the uneven surface. As she neared the gate, the crows flapped up from the wall, cawing raucously. They wheeled back and forth above the field and she could almost sense their confusion, afraid to go back to what they had been doing before because now a man stood guard in the middle of the field, watching them intently. Annie got out of the Land Rover and closed the gate behind her. The morning sun was breaking through the clouds to the east and, for a moment, Philbert was silhouetted against it, his arms splayed. At this distance, Annie thought, he could almost have passed for a real person.
‘See you later,’ she called and she even gave him a wave; but of course, he didn’t respond. How could he? His arms were tied to the crossbar, and besides, he was only made of straw.
Jack stared forlornly out of the car window. It was a pleasant June day, edging towards late afternoon and on every side, he saw nothing but hills and valleys and areas of dense coniferous forest – an unfamiliar landscape that stretched in all directions with no sign of a house or a shop.
He glanced at Dad, hunched behind the steering wheel. He was dressed in an old outdoor jacket and hadn’t bothered shaving that morning, which was unusual. His jaw was covered with fresh stubble, his blue eyes fixed intently on the twisting ribbon of road unwinding ahead of them.
Occasionally, they drove past fields, enclosed by grey stone walls, the only sign that people actually lived out in this wilderness. Sometimes there were big shaggy orange cattle in the fields or the fluffy white bundles of sheep. Other times, it was just grass and dandelions or a crop of something that Jack couldn’t identify. For a boy who normally lived in a city suburb, it was somewhat overwhelming.
He thought about his friends back in London who would already be missing him, wondering why he hadn’t turned up at school that morning. Earlier today, they’d have sent him messages, asking if he was genuinely ill or just pulling a sickie. At lunchtime, they’d have mentioned him in their posts on Snapchat and Instagram, asking if anyone knew what had happened to him. They’d be home from school by now, ringing his mobile and getting no reply. It would seem to them as though he’d vanished into thin air; like he’d been abducted, which, when he thought about it, was pretty much what had happened. Of course, Jack had no way of verifying any of this, because he had been made to leave his phone back at the house in London.
The first that Jack had heard about this trip was the previous evening. He’d been settling down to play Assassin’s Creed on his Xbox, when Dad had marched unceremoniously into his bedroom, not even bothering to knock. He’d gone out earlier for a drink with a friend from work and now he was back, looking harassed, Jack thought, his expression deadly serious.
‘Pack some stuff,’ he said. ‘We’re going on a trip.’
Jack looked up at him in surprise. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘You heard. Just the two of us. It’s about time we had a holiday.’
‘A holiday, where?’ he asked, baffled. This wasn’t like Dad at all; he never did anything without serious planning for months beforehand.
‘It’s … a surprise,’ said Dad. ‘Yeah, I … thought you needed cheering up.’
Jack almost laughed at this. Dad was clearly the one who needed cheering up. Since Mum had run off with that guy from her work, he’d wandered around the house looking like he’d lost something important and couldn’t remember where he’d put it. Jack hadn’t really been surprised when the break-up happened, though. He’d seen it coming a long way off, even if Dad hadn’t.
It wasn’t such a big deal. It had happened to loads of Jack’s friends at school. People moved on with their lives, that’s what everyone said. Still, it had been a bit much when Mum made it clear she was happy to leave Jack with Dad until she’d ‘sorted herself out’. Months had gone by and Mum had barely even bothered to get in touch, just the odd, awkward phone call and a card on his birthday, and that hurt. It made Jack feel that he couldn’t really have meant very much to her in the first place, if she could dismiss him so easily. She was clearly having too much fun with her new partner to let some unruly fifteen-year-old get in the way.
It took him a while, but he had finally got used to the idea that he wasn’t going to see very much of her. Oh well. He’d always got on better with Dad anyway. Mum was … difficult, always had been. Still, it would have been nice to be asked what he actually wanted to do. But he’d got to a point where he thought he had everything sorted out in his head. Now here was Dad, acting all weird, complicating things.
‘When are we leaving?’ asked Jack, apprehensively.
‘Tomorrow morning,’ said Dad, looking around the room as if trying to decide what things Jack should take with him.
‘But … it’s school tomorrow,’ Jack reminded him.
Dad nodded briskly, as if to say, yes, he was aware of that.
‘Well … you’re not supposed to take holidays during term time.’
Dad grunted. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave a message on the school’s voicemail. We’ll say you’re sick.’
‘Er … OK … well, what should I pack? I mean, how long are we going for? A night, the weekend, a week?’
‘I don’t know how long for,’ Dad muttered. ‘Just … fill a rucksack.’
Jack frowned. He didn’t like the sound of this.
‘Should I bring my laptop and stuff?’
‘No!’ Dad looked suddenly very agitated. ‘Don’t take anything like that. I mean it, Jack. Leave it all here. Your mobile, too.’
Jack actually laughed at this. ‘You’re kidding, right? Who doesn’t take a phone with them? That would be … crazy.’
‘Humour me,’ said Dad. ‘I want to … to see if we can manage without those things for a while.’
‘But it doesn’t make any sense. Dad, I’m not being funny but you’re acting really weird.’
‘No, I’m not, I’m just … I want to get away from all this for a while.’ He waved a hand around at Jack’s room. ‘All this … stuff.’
Jack glared at Dad. He wanted to tell him that he liked ‘stuff’, always had. But Dad seemed really preoccupied. He was pacing up and down, looking distracted. ‘Dad, what’s going on?’
Dad ignored the question. ‘Pack your medication,’ he said, as though he’d just remembered. ‘You’ll need that. Bring as much as you have, because I’m not sure when we’ll be able to get to a doctor for a repeat prescription. And don’t stay up too late playing on that thing.’ He waved a hand at the Xbox. ‘I want to get away early.’
Dad hadn’t been kidding. He had shaken Jack awake in the small hours of the morning and, after grabbing a quick bowl of cereal, they’d left at first light, slipping out of the house, loading their stuff into the back of the Vectra and driving slowly away, Dad looking anxiously to left and right as he did so, as though he were some kind of criminal, as though he half expected the police to arrive at any moment and slap a set of handcuffs on him. Glancing back at the house, Jack got the craziest feeling that he would never see it again, but then he shrugged off the thought.
Of course they’d be back!
But then he looked at Dad’s serious expression, his red-rimmed eyes, the thin lips twisted into a permanent scowl and he knew that something was very wrong here. But he couldn’t ask about it. Not at first, anyway.
The hours passed with painful slowness as they drove steadily northwards and still Dad hadn’t told him what was going on. It was no good, Jack decided. It was time to ask some questions.
‘You want a travel sweet?’ Jack got the tin from the glove compartment and offered it to Dad, but Dad shook his head, kept his gaze fixed on the road. They had been driving for hour after hour, mile after mile, stopping only once at a service area to fill the petrol tank and grab a couple of much-needed sandwiches. For some reason, Dad insisted on paying cash for everything, which was really strange. He usually slapped everything onto his credit card and settled up at the end of the month.
Jack was beginning to get very bored. He couldn’t even play on his phone. He took a sweet for himself, slipped it into his mouth and returned the tin to its hiding place. He sucked noisily for a few moments and then spoke, for the first time in miles. ‘So … it’s somewhere in Scotland, right?’
‘Hmm?’ Dad appeared to have been lost in thought.
‘Where we’re headed? Scotland.’
Dad grunted, but didn’t nod or shake his head.
‘I mean, it must be. We passed signs for Edinburgh and Glasgow hours ago and we’re heading north, so I’m guessing it’s … like, somewhere in the Highlands?’ He frowned. ‘Only, we don’t know anyone in Scotland, so …’
Dad sighed. ‘It’s near Pitlochry,’ he said, as though that explained everything. He gestured to an ancient road atlas on the car’s back seat, its pages splayed like the wings of the dead birds they kept passing on this remote stretch of road. ‘You can have a look for it if you feel like being useful.’
‘A book?’ exclaimed Jack, in disbelief. ‘I mean, that’s a bit … Stone Age, isn’t it? Why don’t we just get onto Google Maps and …’ He broke off, remembering. ‘Oh right, we can’t actually do that because some genius made us leave our phones behind, didn’t they? Brilliant.’ He reached back, picked up the atlas and swung it over onto his lap. He stared at the current double-page spread. ‘How do I even …?’
‘Turn to the back pages,’ explained Dad. ‘There’s a glossary. Look up the word “Pitlochry” first. That’ll give you a page reference. And then you need to find a village called Elladour.’
Jack smirked. ‘Sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings,’ he said. ‘How do you spell this Pit-whatsit?’
‘Pitlochry. P I T L …’
‘Oh yeah, got it.’ Jack turned the pages. ‘Do you think there’ll be a cinema there? Only there’s a new film out on Friday I wanted to see. There’s a bunch of people from school going.’
Dad shook his head. ‘I’d be very surprised if there’s a cinema,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty remote where we’re headed. That’s kind of the point.’ He made an effort to turn his head and give Jack an encouraging smile. ‘Come on, it’ll be fun. We’ll be … going back to our roots.’
‘Our roots are in Scotland?’ exclaimed Jack. ‘Since when?’
‘Well, no, I didn’t mean … our actual roots.’ Dad shook his head. ‘I’m just saying, we’ll be going back to nature, won’t we? Living simply and … naturally. Who needs computer games and TVs, anyway?’
‘You’re saying there’s no TV?’ said Jack grimly. ‘Please tell me this is a bad dream and I’m going to wake up in a minute.’
‘Well, I don’t know. There might be one. I’m … not really sure.’
‘What kind of a hotel is it that doesn’t have a TV?’ asked Jack.
‘It’s not a hotel. It’s a lodge.’
‘A what?’
‘A lodge … it’s like a small house. A cottage. Belongs to a friend.’
‘What friend?’
‘Douglas, if you must know.’
‘What, Douglas from the bank? I thought he lived in London.’
‘He does. But he has this weekend retreat.’
‘Oh, so we are just going for the weekend, then?’
‘I told you before. I’m not sure how long. God, Jack, you’re so literal.’
They drove on in silence for a few moments while Jack studied his father, trying to fathom out what was wrong with him. ‘You know we’ll get into trouble, don’t you?’ he said at last. ‘Having a holiday in term time and everything. You’ll most likely get fined. That’s what happened to Jonno’s parents when they took him to Tenerife.’
‘Well, that’s up to the school, isn’t it?’ said Dad. ‘Anyway, I left them a message. I said you were sick …’
‘But that’s not true, is it?’ snapped Jack. ‘And since when did you start lying to the school? You’d normally disapprove of it. I asked to take one sick day a couple of months ago, and you nearly had a fit!’ He ran a hand through his long black hair. ‘For God’s sake, Dad, what is going on? Look, are you in some kind of trouble?’
‘Trouble?’ Dad looked alarmed. ‘Don’t be silly. Why would I be in trouble?’
‘Well, something’s wrong. You haven’t … you haven’t robbed that bank you work at? Are the police after you or something?’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ said Dad. ‘It’s … complicated.’
‘Well, look, you’ve got to tell me sooner or later. And I’m not a little kid any more, I can handle it, whatever it is. Only … we’ve driven hundreds of miles and you haven’t told me anything. Not a word. And I need to know.’
Dad sighed. He glanced at Jack and then looked away again.
‘I’ll tell you tonight,’ he said. ‘Once we’re there. When we’ve got ourselves settled in.’
Jack didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Settled in.’ Like they were going to be there for ever.
‘It’s always the same,’ he complained. ‘You don’t tell me anything. It’s like you try to shield me from stuff, when there’s no need. Like with you and Mum. I knew what was going on, the whole time. But you kept glossing over it.’
Dad looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, if I did that, I must have thought it was for the best, mustn’t I? I was trying to protect you.’ He gave Jack a look. ‘Hey, listen, did you take your meds this morning?’
Jack sighed wearily. ‘Of course,’ he said.
‘Don’t say, “of course”. You have forgotten before, haven’t you?’
Jack turned his head to look out of the passenger window. He’d been diagnosed two years ago. There was a name for what he had but he never used it. What it mostly meant was that he was prone to mood swings, shuttling between super positive and downright depressed. And when he was down, that could lead to negative thoughts. But the doctors had eventually found the right medication for him, something that smoothed out the rough edges of his life, so most of the time it didn’t bother him too much. Oh, there’d been a couple of occasions, early on in the process, when he hadn’t been prompt with his meds and when that happened, he was prone to having what the doctors called ‘episodes’ – seeing and hearing things that weren’t actually there. But he hadn’t had one of those for months now. Jack hated it when Dad made such a big thing of it. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Really.’
‘I hope so,’ said Dad. ‘After that fight you had …’
Jack sighed. The ‘fight’ had been no big deal really. A kid in Jack’s class had somehow found out about his condition and had started making snide comments to his mates, about Jack needing to take ‘weirdo pills’. A few punches had been exchanged. End of story, as far as Jack was concerned, but Dad didn’t seem happy to leave it there. He wanted assurances that everything was OK.
They drove onwards into the wilderness. Jack tried to concentrate on the map in front of him but he hadn’t slept much the night before and was aware of a grey fog hovering somewhere at the back of his head. He tried to shrug it off but its grip was powerful and he was dimly aware of it closing on him, tightening its hold. Dad was still talking, but his voice seemed to boom and echo, dissolving into meaningless fragments.
The map blurred and Jack drifted away.
He dreamed something weird.
He and Dad were still travelling but now they were walking, striding across a vast field of waist-high grass. A powerful wind gusted around them, making the grass ripple and sway, almost as though it was alive. Dad strode across the field, his gaze fixed intently on the way ahead, but it seemed to Jack there were things hidden within the grass, things that were watching the two travellers in silence as they went by. Jack kept looking this way and that, catching glimpses of movement, indefinable shapes that seemed to shrink back under cover whenever he attempted to focus on them. Then he came to one particular spot where a screen of grass appeared to hide a dark hollow and Jack slowed to a halt, because now he was sure that in the shadows of that hollow, something was crouched, something large and oddly shaped, waiting to spring out at him. Slowly, apprehensively, he reached out a hand to part the grass …
‘Ah, there’s the cross!’
Dad’s voice cut rudely into the dream and Jack jerked abruptly awake again. It seemed to him that he had only been asleep for a few moments, but glancing blearily at his watch, he could see that more than an hour had slipped by since he’d first picked up the map. He looked at Dad, confused.
‘The … cross?’ he murmured.
‘Yeah. Douglas said to look out for it.’ Dad grinned at him. ‘Great map reader you turned out to be,’ he said.
‘Sorry, I was tired …’
‘Well, I suppose we did have an early start. Don’t worry. I managed anyway. Got us here in one piece.’