'I wish we knew.'

  'And the others? The other words?'

  Sutherland smiled. I made those up. But the word Magondathog has been reported, now, in all three attacks. Part of it may be the old Celtic word for "stone". The rest is, I was told, etymological nonsense. Whatever that is.' Sutherland rose from the chair, reached out to tug the blanket up around Brady's chest. He looked at the man for a moment, then smiled thinly. 'I really am terribly sorry, Mister Brady. I can understand your anger. God knows, I can understand that. I would ask you only to come to me the moment you feel you need someone to turn to, to talk to, to talk you out of an action that might be regarded as criminal, justifiable though it might be. This is a bizarre and baffling incident, and like you yourself I don't intend to ever let it slip down my list of priorities.'

  'Thank you,' said Brady weakly.

  'Oh. One other thing . . . you work at the Ministry of Defence at Hillingvale?'

  'Yes I do.'

  'Your work is classified, so I'm not going to ask you to talk about it. But I've obtained a release from your department and have read through the notes on your project. I don't pretend to understand it, all that Electromagnetic transmission, extra-sensory pick up. It sounds to me like you were working on what I call the paranormal. So my question is a simple one: could you have released something. . . something unusual, something not physical like you or I, but more. . . metaphysical? Could your work be involved in what happened to you?'

  Brady stared up at the policeman, horrified at the suggestion, remembering that last day in the lab, and the strange event that had occurred there. He said, 'I don't think so. I can't imagine how, or what.' He didn't go on to voice his thought that somehow, just somehow, it might have been possible for him to have attracted something to the site of his work.

  It was a chilling thought. It was a terrifying thought.

  Bill Suchock didn't look at all like the highly qualified draftsman he was; rather, he looked like a highly paid builder, the sort of man that can lend his hand to anything, be it bricklaying, carpentry or road-laying. He was short and stocky, his hair receding and slicked back; he wore donkey-jackets by preference, and dusty overalls. But the thick fingers and chubby hands that could turn themselves so well to the hard graft of do-it-yourself, were also capable of fine drawing, and exercising a finesse with the delicate pens of his trade that was the envy of his colleagues.

  He got on well with Dan Brady, though their interests were considerably apart, and he didn't pretend to understand, or like, that part of Brady's work which the Ministry of Defence man was permitted to talk about. But they shared an interest in family, in sport, and in long trips around England. Bill Suchock didn't find it necessary to always engage in deep conversation with his brother-in-law, and Dan Brady, for his part, seemed quite content to enjoy the ease with which the two men could co-exist in each other's company.

  The thorn in the side of the ease of all relationships connected with the Suchocks and the Bradys was Rosemary Suchock, Brady's younger sister. She was devoted to her husband and her child, clinging to them as if her life depended on them, which in more than one way it did. She was intolerably and appallingly jealous of her brother's success, and the accumulation of material things around him. This jealousy manifested itself in tantrums, comparisons and, most insidious of all, an acute and abrasive criticism.

  And yet it was Rosemary's voice which raised the loudest in favour of family Christmasses, inviting their sturdy, widowed father to join the fun from his home in Durham. And if she was aggressively self-centred about her own child - a trait that was beginning to have its effect upon him - she was never less than loving to her brother's kids, and never less than generous.

  She was beautiful, slim, and almost always on edge. She would have done anything for her father, to make his last years comfortable, and no matter how much she irritated him, Dan Brady couldn't help loving her.

  And that, of course, is what she wanted. Put in the simplest of terms - and there were no terms simpler than those expressed by Brady and Bill Suchock during their quiet drinks together when they played at psychoanalysts -Rosemary needed to love and be loved, and the importance of love in her adult life was a making-up for the greater attention that Dan himself had received as a child.

  That's all it was. The problem stated. And the answer implied: Keep the woman feeling wanted. And the next drink's on you.

  Poor Rosemary.

  She had been devastated by the discovery of Dan's near murder and the loss of his family. Like a hen without a head she had rushed around desperate to help, knowing that she could help, made useless by her own grief and confusion. Bill had kept a clear head. He had assisted the police, had visited the hospital almost daily to see his brother-in-law, and had talked to the comatose Dan for hours, hoping that the words would penetrate the unconscious levels of the mind, to the alert man he believed to be trapped within. Nevertheless, Rosemary put her weight into the task of tidying and redecorating Dan's lounge, ready for when the family was brought together again.

  And the fear had happened.

  There was a presence in the house, a residuum of evil; they could feel it towards dusk. It seemed to ooze out of the stone walls of Brook's Corner, and gather in the lounge where they were working. It lowered the fire, lowered the temperature in the room; it rattled the french windows, blew cold and icy in the faces of the nervous couple.

  'Let's go, Bill. Let's get out of here.' Rosemary was standing by the door, arms folded, looking pale and very frightened.

  The windows of the lounge had been repaired, the carpets replaced, and Bill had fetched a second-hand suite from friends of his. Rosemary had spent the day covering them. Bill had worked on painting where the gloss had been scorched on the doors and windows.

  'Something doesn't want us here,' she said. 'Bill, I'm frightened -'

  'You're imagining things,' he said. 'It's the wind, and your nerves. There's nothing here.'

  As darkness came down outside, Rosemary put on the lights. The wind guttered down the chimney. Upstairs, a door banged loudly. Rosemary began to feel so on edge that she wanted to scream, to run from the house and never come back . . .

  She turned to Bill. 'For God's sake, let's call it a day!'

  And the lights in the lounge exploded!

  Rosemary screamed. The room was plunged into sudden, terrifying darkness, and the wind blowing through the chimney dulled the fire until the coals barely glowed.

  The french windows were flung open: Bill's pot of paint was sent flying, spilling onto some newspapers.

  The two of them grabbed their coats and fled from the house.

  The next day Bill went back, cleaned up the mess and finished the painting. He went during the day, and stayed only two hours.

  Thereafter, his visits were increasingly brief.

  When the call from the hospital came, that Brady was conscious, the Suchocks were in Durham visiting Brady's father. Rosemary decided to stay on for a day or two, as was the original plan, because her father was ill, and needed caring for and feeding. When he was better, the two of them would travel down to see Dan.

  Bill Suchock took the Intercity to London, early in the morning, the day after Dan's recovery. He took a commuter train to Iver, a taxi home, and picked up his own car. From there, equipped with fruit, and photographs of the refurbished lounge, he made his grim way to the hospital. No matter how cheerful he tried to be, he couldn't conquer the terrible dread that pounded in his chest: did Dan know, yet? Did he know that Alison and the family had disappeared without trace? If the police had been to see him, then yes, perhaps he did. Perhaps the nursing staff had told him. But perhaps it was being left to Bill, as a member of the family, to break the tragic news. It was a responsibility he accepted, and was geared up towards; it didn't stop him feeling sick with nerves.

  'Hello Dan.'

  Dan Brady looked round from the window, stared at his brother-in-law, then gave the merest, weariest of smiles. 'Bill . . .' he acknowledged, then turned away.

  'I can't say you look like the sunshine's coming out of you. I'm not surprised.' Nervously, Suchock took a seat, placed the grapes by the bed and undid his jacket. He had been instantly taken aback by Brady's appearance. Used to seeing a pale-faced, supine, sleeping man, this sudden redness of face, the wild dishevelment of the hair, the drawn features, and dark rimmed, sunken, angry eyes gave Brady the look of a fiend.

  Brady said, 'I know about Alison. And the kids. I'm going to find them, Bill. I'm going to find them, and I'm going to hunt down those bastards and break every bone . . .' his voice had begun to rise. He caught himself short, turned slightly, then glanced at Suchock. 'I'm under sedation. By rights I ought to be flat on my back, but this is what anger does, Bill. It keeps me walking, keeps me thinking. When the drugs wear off . . . God knows what will happen. I dread to think. But it's got to come. I want it to come. I'm going to kill them. I've got to get them back, I've got to find Alison.' Tears welled slightly in the haunted eyes. 'I can't live without those kids, Bill. I need them more than . . .'

  'Hey, take it easy. Come and sit down and talk to me.' Bill rose and for the first time embraced his friend. Brady's voice wavered between the fatigued and the hysterical; he was rambling, and Suchock wasn't sure quite who Brady would kill, and who he would find, although he rightly assumed a reference to the person, or persons, who had kidnapped his family.

  'Where's Rosemary?'

  'In Durham, looking after your father. They'll both be down in a day or two.'

  Brady nodded. Seated on the edge of his bed, he stared at Suchock, who grew uncomfortable beneath the gaze. He looked tired, he knew, and unshaven. He needed a cigarette badly, but rules were rules . . .

  Quickly, then, reducing the horror to a minimum, Brady told his brother-in-law about the evening, about what had happened. Suchock's face paled. Even in so muted an uccount, the details were horrific. He winced and shook his head as Brady mentioned Alison's rape. 'Bastards . . . who could do such a thing . . . bastards . . .'

  'I've seen films about Satanists. Or gangs of kids who invade homes.'

  'Clockwork Orange . . . disgusting.'

  'But there was something about this group. Something different. I felt it from before they came into the house. I felt the evil. Whatever they were, Christ they were organized. Something terrible, Bill. Something truly evil: gathering . . .'

  Suchock frowned. 'Gathering?'

  'That's the sense I got. They were gathering. They took my kids as part of it, but they didn't need me, so they tried to kill me . . .'

  Appalled silence. Suchock said, 'The police . . .'

  Shaking his head, smiling almost cynically, Brady said, 'They know nothing. Although it's happened before. I told them what I remembered, they told me what they knew.' He stared at Suchock. 'How about you, Bill? You found me. Tell me what happened.'

  'The odd thing is,' said Suchock carefully, leaning back in the uncomfortable hospital chair, 'I reckon you died briefly. I reckon you really did. I came round for a quick, pre-Christmas drink, mainly because Rosemary was being a little difficult, and I needed some air, and a Scotch.'

  'What time did you come?'

  'About ten o'clock. The house was in darkness, which is unusual for your place. No answer from the front. Smell of burning, which got me agitated, so I went round the side and came in through what was left of your french windows. The fire was out by then. You were on the floor trussed up like a bag of beans. Except that you weren't.'

  Brady frowned.

  'No ropes, no cord, nothing, but I couldn't get your arms apart, or your legs. You were barely breathing. I called for help at once.'

  'Why did you think I was dead?'

  'I saw your ghost. That's all it could have been... if we rule out imagination, and we both know I've got none of that. As I came round the side of the house I swear I saw you standing in the windows; then you backed away into the room. I swear it, Dan. And your face wasn't black and grey with bruising, which it was when I found you. Your spirit, something like that, and when I found you, more dead than alive, I reckoned you'd probably slipped away for a moment, just a moment, and the sound of my voice brought you back. That's why I came in here whenever I could and talked to you. In case it brought you back.'

  Brady smiled. 'Thanks Bill. I remember more of those whispered talks than you'd think possible. I remember a lot from being in a coma.'

  A face, female. . . staring down at him. . . young, pretty, dishevelled, the smell of sweet herbs burning . . .

  'What was that?'

  'What was what?'

  'That look. A faraway look. You were thinking of something . . .'

  'A girl. She visited me here several times. I didn't know her.'

  'A nurse, probably.' Brady shook his head. Suchock suggested, 'Someone from Hillingvale?'

  'Perhaps. It's odd, though. There's a smell in this room, too. Like burning, like a sort of incense . . .'

  'I've noticed it frequently. So have the nursing staff.'

  Brady stared at the other man for a moment, trying to mentally articulate the other thing that had been worrying him. It was to do with the nursing staff, something about their attitude to him, their behaviour towards him. He said, 'Do I frighten the nurses on this ward? I ask because they behave oddly. Nothing I can put my finger on, just a feeling that they'd be happier not coming into the room . . .'

  Suchock stood up and walked to the window, to peer out across the fields of Berkshire, and the distant town. 'Truth is, Dan, they think you're haunted. They are afraid, but it's the sort of fear that people get through rumour, rather than fact.'

  'They think I'm haunted?'

  'Two nurses, and one patient, have been very horribly killed in the last three months. One poor girl was decapitated; the other thrown down the stairwell, which from here is six concrete floors. The patient jumped, or was thrown, through a plate-glass window ... a window that is supposed to be unbreakable with ordinary human strength.'

  Brady turned, wincing a little as the bones in his neck gave him pain. He was not fully right, although it was only violent movement that showed him the weaknesses still residual in his body. 'That's horrible. But why should they be . . . what I mean is . . . why me?'

  'Nothing more than the fact that you came here as an enigma, a man treated cruelly, with an inexplicable disappearance associated with you. You're not someone who came in here for heart surgery, or a peptic ulcer. You came out of the dark, and remained in that dark for three months. You come; a nurse is killed, then a second nurse, and a patient; there's poltergeist activity on the wards, the sound of running . . . and a smell like burning, which is always present in two places: at the entrance to the ward . . . and in your room.' Suchock turned back from the window and picked up his coat. 'You've received the best medical attention, believe me. No one's shirked on that. I made sure of it. But don't blame the staff for being a little apprehensive. This is a haunted ward . . . and you're a haunted man. What worries me, Dan . . .' he hesitated. Should he say the thought that nagged at him?

  Brady said it for him. 'You're worried that there might be something in it, that I am - somehow - the cause . . .'

  Bill Suchock just shrugged, then reached out to shake Brady's hand. 'I've got to go, Dan. Rosemary and the Old Man will call by in a couple of days. I'll be by tomorrow. And you'll be out in a week, anyway.'

  'Thanks for coming, Bill. I appreciate it. I appreciate everything. Please keep coming ... no matter what happens to me.'

  Suchock glanced at him nervously, then smiled. 'You're family, Dan. You're family.'

  6

  * * *

  A few minutes before the official breaking of dawn, a car drew up silently on the far side of the road to Brook's Corner. It was an S-registered Cortina, painted black; the windows were dark too, allowing the occupant to observe without being observed, even though the car's morbid appearance would attract attention.

  Headlights extinguished, the car remained still and quiet, cooling in the crisp, frost-touched atmosphere. It was beginning to grow light, and the house at Brook's Corner could be seen through the beech trees as a tall, dark shape against a sombre grey sky.

  Jack Baron valued these quiet, haunted moments at the beginning of a new day. He stepped from his car and closed the door very carefully. The nearest house to Brook's Corner was three hundred yards away, but he wanted no dogs barking at the sound of his car-door slamming. Any time that he felt a house-check was in order he would opt for the dawn patrol. Even dogs were sleepy at this time, and the occupants of a house, almost certainly in bed, would be so deeply enslumbered that he could safely walk through their property with the impertinence that his job required.

  He had no such worries with Brook's Corner. He knew that the occupants were elsewhere. Force of habit had made him arrive so early . . . that and the fact that the police did regularly check the property, and the brother-in-law - Suchock - was forever pottering about, painting or re-plastering.

  Baron was in his late thirties, a man of medium build and medium height, but tough to look at, and tough in his attitude and behaviour. He was an East-Ender, a cockney born and bred, and enough of his life had been street-life for him to be able to use his fists, and yet hold the police in healthy respect. Dressed in a leather jacket and tight, faded denims, he ran quickly across the road and in through the gate of the house. He wanted a cigarette, but made do with a reassuring touch on the bulky packet in his breast pocket. He checked the frontage of the house from a distance, then walked more confidently along the curving driveway, heading for the side of the house where there were french windows that he could easily open.

  This was the second time Baron had undertaken this routine; his second visit.

  The first, prompted by a message from a certain client of his, had been made shortly after the fire, nearly three months ago. It had been an unsatisfactory search, since the police had still been showing an active interest in the events that had occurred here, and he had been interrupted in his work by their untimely arrival.