Raven_s Gate pof-1 Read online

  “I don’t want to go back there!” Matt exclaimed.

  “You can wait in the car. You’ll be all right.”

  Reluctantly Matt climbed into the back seat and allowed the two officers to take him back the way he had come. He gritted his teeth as they turned into the driveway. The car slowed down, the wheels biting into the gravel.

  “It seems quiet enough,” the older policeman said. He turned round to face Matt. “Where did you say you saw him?”

  “Upstairs. In the bedroom.”

  “There’s someone here,” the younger one said.

  Matt looked out of the window. The policeman was right. A woman had appeared to one side of the house. She was tall and thin with limp grey hair hanging to her shoulders, and he recognized her. She was one of the women he had met in Lesser Malling. She had been pushing a pram. What was her name? Creasey. Or Creevy. Now she was in Tom Burgess’s garden, hanging out a basket of washing. Matt couldn’t understand what was happening. She had been inside the house, so surely she had seen the state of the rooms. Hadn’t she been upstairs?

  The policemen got out of the car. Feeling increasingly uneasy, Matt followed them. The woman saw them coming and stopped what she was doing.

  “Good morning,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “My name is Sergeant Rivers,” replied the older man. “This is Police Constable Reed. Who are you?”

  “I’m Joanna Creevy. I help Tom Burgess with his housework. What’s wrong?” She seemed to notice Matt for the first time. “Matthew? What are you doing here?” She scowled. “You haven’t got yourself into trouble, have you?”

  Matt ignored her.

  “This is a little difficult,” the sergeant began. “The fact is that we just met this young lad on the road.”

  “You left your bicycle here, Matthew,” the woman said. “I thought you must have been visiting.”

  “Matthew claims that Mr Burgess might have been involved in some sort of accident,” the sergeant went on.

  “It wasn’t an accident,” Matt interrupted. “He’s been killed. Cut to pieces. I saw him…”

  The woman stared at Matt, then broke into laughter. “That’s impossible,” she said. “I saw Tom ten minutes ago. You just missed him. He’s gone to see to the sheep in the far paddock.”

  The policemen turned to Matt.

  “She’s lying,” Matt said. “He didn’t go anywhere ten minutes ago. I was here just now and he was dead.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” Miss Creevy muttered. “Tom is fine. And here I am, hanging out his socks!”

  “Go and look in the bedroom,” Matt said.

  “Yes. You do that.” The woman nodded – and that was when Matt began to worry. She seemed confident – one step ahead of him.

  Sergeant Rivers nodded slowly. “We’d better sort this out,” he said.

  They went into the house and Matt saw at once. Although it was still untidy, Miss Creevy – or someone – had cleared away most of the evidence. The books and papers had been straightened. The shutters were folded back. And the knife had been taken out of the kitchen cupboard… but the gash it had left was still there. They continued upstairs.

  “You’ll have to forgive the mess,” Miss Creevy said. “Tom has been redecorating and I haven’t had a chance to start work yet.”

  They reached the landing. The door of the bedroom was closed, just as Matt had left it. He didn’t want to go in. He didn’t think he could bear to look at the body a second time. But he couldn’t back out now.

  Sergeant Rivers opened the door.

  There was a man working in the room, wearing a pair of white overalls that were flecked with green paint. Everything was different. The sheets and blankets had been removed from the floor and the bed was propped up on its side against the wall. The curtains had been hung up and although one of the windows was still broken, there was no sign of any broken glass. The scattered clothes had disappeared. So had the body of Tom Burgess. The man saw the two policemen and stopped work.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning, sir.” The sergeant took a quick look around. “May I ask who you are?”

  “Ken,” the man replied. “Ken Rampton.” He was in his twenties, scrawny with a sly, crumpled face and curly fair hair. He smiled and Matt saw that one of his front teeth had been chipped diagonally in half. “Can I help you?”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “All morning. I got here about half eight.”

  “Do you work for Tom Burgess too?”

  “I’m helping him out with the decorating.”

  “Have you seen him today?”

  “I saw him about a quarter of an hour ago. He looked in to see how I was getting on, then he left… Something to do with his sheep.”

  “That’s what I just told you,” Miss Creevy said.

  Matt felt the blood rush to his cheeks. “He’s lying,” he insisted. “They both are. I know what I saw.” Suddenly he remembered. “Tom Burgess left a message,” he said.

  He swung round and pushed the door shut to reveal the wall behind it. But the wall, which had been off-white before, was now green. And the words that the farmer had painted had gone.

  “Be careful,” Ken Rampton warned. “Wet paint…”

  Sergeant Rivers came to a decision. “We won’t waste any more of your time, sir,” he said. He grabbed hold of Matt, his hand tightening on his shoulder. “As for you, I think we should have a word outside.”

  Miss Creevy followed them back downstairs and out into the yard. Matt wondered if the policemen were going to arrest him. In fact, he suddenly realized, that was exactly what he hoped would happen. If they arrested him, maybe he would be taken back to London. Maybe this sort of behaviour would mean that he could kiss the LEAF Project goodbye. But before anyone could say anything, Miss Creevy stepped forward. “I wonder if I could have a private word with you, officer?”

  They spoke for about two minutes. The sergeant glanced his way a couple of times and nodded, while Miss Creevy shrugged and spread her hands. Finally he walked back over to them.

  “You ought to know that wasting police time is a very serious business,” he said.

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  “Let’s not have any more of that, thank you.”

  The policeman had made up his mind. Matt could see that. He bit his tongue.

  “I understand you’ve been in trouble a few times before,” Sergeant Rivers continued. “You’re with the LEAF Project, is that right? You ought to count yourself lucky. Personally I don’t believe in all this do-good stuff, to tell you the truth. You’re a thief, and the best thing for you would be to be birched and locked up where you can’t do any more harm. But that’s not my decision. The courts have sent you here and if you had any sense, you’d be grateful and stop trying to draw attention to yourself. Now, we’ll say no more about this nonsense. But I don’t want to see or hear from you again.”

  Matt watched as the two policemen drove away. Then he turned round. Miss Creevy was smiling at him, her long grey hair flapping in the breeze. There was a movement at the door and Ken Rampton appeared with the paintbrush still clutched in his hand. He said nothing. But he too was smiling.

  “Go back to Hive Hall,” Miss Creevy said. “Mrs Deverill is waiting for you.”

  “To hell with her!” Matt shouted.

  “You can’t escape from us, Matthew. There’s nowhere you can go. Surely you can see that by now.”

  Matt ignored her and grabbed the bike.

  “There’s nowhere you can go.” The woman echoed the words in a high-pitched voice.

  Ken Rampton began to laugh.

  Matt pedalled away as fast as he could.

  LOCAL AFFAIRS

  Greater Malling had once been a small, attractive village but it had grown into a large, unattractive town. There were still a few reminders of what it had once been: a pond, a row of almshouses and a lopsided sixteenth-century pub.
But the roads had come, cutting in from every side and joining together at noisy intersections. New houses had elbowed out the old. Offices and car parks had sprung up, joined by cinemas, supermarkets and a clattering bus station. Now it was very ordinary. Somewhere to pass through on the way to somewhere else.

  It had taken Matt an hour to cycle here from Glendale Farm. He had been afraid that the road would play another trick on him and deposit him somewhere he didn’t want to be. But he was still wearing the stone talisman that Tom Burgess had given him. Somehow the little golden key had unlocked the maze of country lanes and allowed him to find his way.

  Matt parked the bike outside a launderette. It occurred to him that someone might steal it but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t be needing it again.

  He was looking for a railway station and a train to London. That was the decision he had made: to get as far away as possible from Yorkshire and never come back. Unfortunately, there was no station. The line to Greater Malling had been closed down years ago, and if he wanted a train he would have to go all the way to York. He found a traffic warden and asked about buses. There were two a day. The next one wouldn’t be leaving until three o’clock. That left three hours to kill.

  Matt walked aimlessly down the high street and found himself facing a library – a modern building that already looked down-at-heel, with shabby, pebbledash walls and rusting window frames. He thought for a moment, then went in through a revolving door and up a staircase that was signposted REFERENCE. He found himself in a wide, brightly lit room with about a dozen bookcases arranged along the walls, a bank of computers and an enquiry desk, where a young man sat reading a paperback.

  Something nasty, something very dangerous, was going on in the village of Lesser Malling. Somehow it involved many of the villagers, Mrs Deverill, an abandoned nuclear power station and something called Raven’s Gate. It also involved Matt. That was what unnerved him most of all. He had been chosen. He was sure of it. And before he left Yorkshire, he was determined to find out why.

  Raven’s Gate. It was the only clue he had, so that was where he decided to begin.

  He started with the books in the local history section. The library had about a dozen books on Yorkshire and half of them made brief references to Greater and Lesser Malling. But not one of them mentioned anything by the name of Raven’s Gate. There was one book that seemed more promising and Matt carried it over to a table. It was called Rambles Around Greater Malling and had been written – some time ago to judge from the old-fashioned cover and yellowing pages – by a woman named Elizabeth Ashwood. He opened the book and ran his eye down the contents page. He had found it. Chapter Six was entitled Raven’s Gate.

  Matt turned the pages and found Chapter Seven. He went back and found Chapter Five. But Chapter Six wasn’t there. A jagged edge and a gap in the binding told their own story. Someone had torn out the whole chapter. Was it just a random act of vandalism or had it been done deliberately? Matt thought he knew.

  But the library offered more than books.

  Matt went over to the man at the enquiry desk. “I need to use the Internet,” he said.

  “What for?” the librarian asked.

  “It’s a school project. We’ve been told to find out something about Raven’s Gate.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Nor have I. That’s why I want to go on the Internet.”

  The man pointed and Matt went over to the nearest computer. There was a girl clicking away with the mouse at the next desk but she ignored him. He called up a search engine, then typed in:

  RAVEN’S GATE

  He remembered the words scrawled on the farmer’s wall in green paint. Once again he saw the dead man, his body torn apart, his eyes wide and empty.

  He pressed ENTER.

  There was a brief pause and then the screen came up with a list of results. Matt saw that his search had listed over twelve thousand possible sites relating to ravens and to gates, but none of them were even slightly relevant. There was an American football team, the Baltimore Ravens, whose players had walked out of the gate. There was a Golden Gate park, also in America, where birdwatchers had spotted a variety of ravens. Apparently ravens were also nesting in the Kaleyard Gate in Chester. But there was no Raven’s Gate… Not on the first page, not on the second, not even on the third. Matt realized he would have to scroll through all twelve thousand entries. It would take him hours. There had to be another way.

  He was about to give up when a pop-up window suddenly appeared on the computer screen. Matt looked at the three words, floating in the white square:

  ›Who are you?

  There was no way of knowing who they had come from.

  He didn’t quite know how to answer, so he typed back:

  ›Who r u?

  There was a pause. Then:

  ›Sanjay Dravid

  Matt waited a moment to see what would happen next.

  ›You have made an enquiry about Raven’s Gate. What is your field of research?

  Field of research? Matt didn’t know how to reply. He leant forward and typed again:

  ›I want to know what it is.

  ›Who are you?

  ›My name is Matt.

  ›Matt who?

  ›Can you help me?

  There was a long pause and Matt began to think that the person at the other end – Sanjay Dravid – had gone away. He was also puzzled. How had Dravid known that he was making the search to begin with? Had his enquiry triggered some sort of alarm on the Net?

  Then the window flickered again:

  ›Goodbye

  So that was it. Nothing more happened inside the pop-up window and after a while Matt gave up. He went back to the enquiry desk.

  “Yes?” The librarian looked up from his paperback.

  “Is there a newspaper office in Greater Malling?”

  “A newspaper…?” He considered. “There’s the Gazette. I’d hardly call it a newspaper. They never print any news. Otherwise there’s the Yorkshire Post.”

  “Where’s the Yorkshire Post?”

  “It’s in York. If you want a local newspaper office, you’ll have to try the Gazette. They’re in Farrow Street. But I doubt they’ll be able to help you with any school project.”

  It took Matt a moment to work out what the man was talking about. Then he remembered the lie he had told to get on to the computers. “I can try,” he said.

  Farrow Street was a leftover from medieval times. It was very narrow and quiet, crammed with dustbins full of bottles and cans. As he turned off from the main road Matt thought that the librarian had made a mistake. It seemed the last sort of place you’d want a newspaper office, cut off from the rest of the town in this dirty and forgotten corner. But about halfway down he came to a row of shops. First there was an undertaker. Then a travel agency. And finally a crumbling red-brick building on three floors that advertised itself with a plastic sign next to the door: GREATER MALLING GAZETTE.

  Matt entered an open-plan area with a young, frizzy haired girl sitting behind a desk, eating a sandwich, typing on a computer and talking into a headset that was plugged into her phone. She seemed to be both the receptionist and the secretary for the three journalists who were sitting at desks behind her. There were two women and a man, and Matt was struck by how bored they all looked. One of the women was yawning continuously, scratching her head and staring into space. The other woman was half-asleep. The man was fiddling with a pencil and gazing at his computer screen, as if he hoped that whatever story he was working on would write itself.

  “Can I help you?” It was the receptionist who had spoken. Matt thought she was talking into the mouthpiece but then he saw that she was looking at him.

  “Yeah. I want to talk to someone who knows about local affairs.”

  “Do you live around here?”

  “I’m staying in Lesser Malling.”

  The girl leant back. “Richard!” she called. She had a nasal, rather whiny voice. “There’
s someone here for you.”

  The man who had been playing with the pencil looked up. “What?”

  “This kid here – he wants to see you.”

  “Yeah. All right.”

  The man stood up and sauntered over to Matt. He was in his twenties, dressed in a striped shirt and loose, faded jeans. He had a serious, intelligent face… the sort of face Sherlock Holmes might have had when he was young. His hair was short, blond and scruffy. He hadn’t shaved for the last couple of days. Nor, from the look of it, had he changed his shirt. Everything about him was crumpled: his hair, his clothes, even the way he stood.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I need help,” Matt replied.

  “What sort of help?”

  “I’m trying to find out about something.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s for a school project.”

  “What school do you go to?”

  That took Matt by surprise. “I go to school in Lesser Malling,” he lied. He didn’t even know the school’s name.

  “And you’re doing a school project?”

  “Yes.”

  “Try the library.”

  “I have. They sent me here.”

  “Sorry, I can’t help you.” The journalist shrugged. “I’m busy.”

  “You don’t look busy,” Matt said.

  “Well, I was busy until you arrived.”

  “Busy doing what?”

  “Busy being busy. All right?”

  Matt forced himself to keep his temper. “OK, maybe I can help you,” he said. “You’re a journalist. Maybe I’ve got a story.”

  “A story?”

  “I might have.”

  “All right. Come upstairs.”

  The journalist led Matt up to the first floor and into a conference room that looked out on to Farrow Street. It wasn’t much of a room, but it was already obvious to Matt that this wasn’t much of a paper either. There were eight seats arranged around a wooden table, a presentation board and a water cooler.

  “Thirsty?” the journalist asked.

  Matt nodded.

  He took out a plastic cup and filled it. Matt saw a single bubble of air rise up inside the water. He took the cup. The water was lukewarm.