Chapter Fifty-Three

“But you just got here,” Prudence lamented when Erin abruptly announced she was leaving.

“Sorry—I forgot—I promised to meet someone at the bonfire,” Erin mumbled as she slipped on her jacket.

“And who might that be?” Farnsworth asked with a conspiratorial wink. “A certain police detective, perhaps?”

“Uh, yes,” Erin agreed, just to end the conversation. Her head was spinning—she had to get to the bonfire. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do once she got there, other than find Detective Hemming and tell him of her discovery.

“We certainly wouldn’t want to stand in the way of that, would we?” Prudence said.

“I’ll drop by afterward and see how you’re getting on.”

“Oh, don’t worry about us—we’ll be fine,” Farnsworth said. “I’ll look after Pru and make sure she doesn’t swill all the brandy.”

“Great,” Erin said, stepping outside. “See you later,” she called, closing the door behind her.

The celebration was in full swing by the time Erin slid into the public car park and walked the two blocks to the village green. Men dressed in fool’s motley were putting the finishing touches on the huge pile of logs and kindling, stacked so high she could barely see the buildings behind it. As she approached, they were lighting the torches, applying the flames to four corners of the great pile of wood. The flames leapt and crackled, hungrily consuming air and wood, until the entire pile was ablaze. She looked around for any sign of the policemen. Finding none, she buried herself in the crowd.

*   *   *

Peter Hemming stood at the edge of the village green, surveying the merrymakers as they arrived in groups of two, three, and more. Laughing and chattering, they approached the enormous woodpile in the center of the square. The noisy conviviality reminded him of how solitary his life had become, less by choice than by neglect. As he watched the happily babbling revelers, he couldn’t imagine himself one of them—he was more comfortable in the role of observer.

“It’s all rather primal, isn’t it, sir?”

He turned to see Sergeants Jarral and Harris standing beside him.

“Very Wicker Man, if you ask me, sir,” said Sergeant Harris.

“What’s that?” said Jarral.

“It’s a classic horror film from the seventies,” said Hemming, “involving human sacrifice.”

“It was based on claims the Romans made that the Celts executed criminals by imprisoning them in gigantic wooden effigies and burning them alive,” Harris said.

Jarral shook his head. “That’s horrible.”

“It was all Roman propaganda,” Hemming said. “There’s no evidence the Celts ever did that.” But he still felt a shiver down his spine as the costumed men, brandishing torches, lit the four corners of the woodpile.

The drumming increased in pace and volume as the three men stood watching the red flames rise and spread, greedily devouring the timber.

“Detective Hemming!”

He turned to see Erin Coleridge running toward him, hair flying behind her.

“What is it?” he said.

“I know—who—the killer—is,” she said, panting heavily.

A cheer went up from the crowd as someone tossed a handful of firecrackers onto the flames. They popped and cracked, spitting multicolored streamers into the air in a burst of rainbow sparks. He looked at Erin, breathing heavily, hair in disarray, her face pale in the firelight.

“He’s here,” she said. “And we have to stop him—now.”