11

‘I’ve been thinking about last night,’ Ben said.

Chloe’s eyes were closed, her face at rest. She had reclined the seat and jerked it back like a lounger. The air was warm and dusty from the fan, and the wipers’ hypnotic meter was steadily putting her under.

‘What were you thinking about last night?’ she replied lazily, succumbing to the lullaby of a homeward-bound car.

Don’t scare her – that was his priority. Wherever Chloe’s thoughts and fears had landed, Ben wanted to guide them to brighter territories.

‘I was thinking about that bastard from the village who was spying on us,’ he said. ‘He must be dying of a cold after standing out there for as long as he did.’

‘But you saw him, didn’t you?’ she asked, opening her eyes.

‘It was so dark. I’m not sure what I saw.’

‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘If I saw him, then you saw him. He didn’t look right.’

‘He was too far away to look like anything.’

‘And you remember what the kid said to us. Three times you see him. The first night he’s far, far away.’

‘Chloe,’ he said firmly, ‘don’t tell me you believe all that? I’ve heard these stories a hundred times and that’s all they are. The Tír Mallachts sent him out into the field to fuck with us.’

‘Maybe,’ she replied, sinking lower into her seat like a sulking child, ‘maybe not.’

‘They’re just stories, trust me.’

‘I trust you, Benny Boy,’ she said through a yawn. ‘I trust you to wake me when we’re home, okay?’

*

The rain cleared eventually, leaving the flat surfaces dark and damp with a dove-grey sky that hinted at a second round. The warmth from the heater had returned some colour to Chloe’s cheeks. But she still looked like a porcelain doll thrown on the passenger seat.

Ben hoped she had taken more from Tír Mallacht than he had. The church’s desecration and the symbols should have been enough to keep the doctor entertained, even if his dreams of a lost civilisation had yet to be realised. No doubt there was more, too, that she hadn’t shared with him. Ben felt like a weak link, undeserving of his share.

Her face had turned towards him in her sleep; lips were slightly parted, revealing the tiniest white of her teeth. Ben set his tape recorder on the dashboard, arranging it so that it wouldn’t slide off at the next roundabout. His interviews wouldn’t make for the most riveting of listens but it was time to make a start, and he’d keep the volume low so as to not disturb Chloe.

‘Let’s find out how bad these really are,’ he whispered, reaching forward to press play.

Testing, testing, interview one.

Ben recalled all those hopeful expectations yet to be disappointed. Ideally, he would have stopped the tape between each interview. That off-the-record moment was a great opportunity to sneak in some last questions. But because he had to keep the recorder hidden, it had been allowed to run, listening in when no one was around. He would have to fast-forward through the interludes, hopefully without crashing the car.

Mary’s feet scrunched over the bark. The wooden board was set in place. Ben heard a short rustle as he adjusted the recorder’s hiding place, poking it further under his jacket’s collar.

Now, Mary. Thanks for volunteering to go first. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you.

‘Yeah, thanks a lot, Mary,’ he mumbled.

Ben always enjoyed listening to past interviews – the anticipation of that perfect question and the subtle press, encouraging the speaker to elaborate, guiding them into divulging their secrets. But he was dreading these.

As the tape played, however, and the interviewees came and left, he started to suspect that he had done everything he could. If one line of questioning reached a conversational cul-de-sac, he had segued into another. His questions were well timed. His demeanour was friendly and receptive. He had played his part and the evidence was on the reel.

Now then, John, make yourself comfortable and we can get started.

The man’s age was baffling, as from a distance he could have been mistaken for a child. It was as though he hadn’t grown but he had aged, and not particularly well.

No matter the question, John would wheel the conversation back to the land, speaking erratically about the crops and the soil, his legs twitching as though he was about to break into a sprint. None of his stories stretched back further than last season’s harvest.

When it became apparent that the man was an empty source, Ben asked him directly about the creeper. He had nothing to lose.

Who told you that name?

The man’s years manifested in that second, and there was nothing childlike about him.

It’s a common enough superstition, John. You’ll find it in most parts of the country, if you ask around for it.

It wasn’t as though the Tír Mallachts would know any different. But John rejected the lie.

You made a big mistake coming here.

Luckily, Chloe was still passed out and hadn’t heard that closing line.

Ben listened to his own steps crunch towards the door. John had already shifted the board aside with his little marsupial hands and stormed out. A long sigh of frustration was heard and Ben pictured himself alone in that grimy stable. He would never forget that feeling.

‘Hang in there, Benny Boy,’ he said, looking at the recorder on the dashboard.

It had shifted out of reach and become wedged under the windscreen. He would have to wait out the silence until his past self recruited another villager for interrogation. Ben’s footsteps faded into the distance. If only he had had the good mind to pause the tape after John left. It’s not as though anyone would have seen him.

He pushed his shoulders back into his seat to ease the aching, glancing enviously over at Chloe, out cold. Lucky for some. Ben thrummed his fingers on the wheel, listening out for his return to the stable.

And then he heard it, something that nearly made him swerve into the other lane.

‘What is that?’ he whispered, now staring at his recorder instead of the road ahead, trying to visualise what the hell he was hearing.

Someone was breathing over his jacket. It was a slow, heavy snarl. So loud that whoever it was must have had their face right down by the recorder. But Ben had hidden it so well.

He listened to every hoarse breath, imagining the empty stable, where there was nowhere for anyone to hide. It was a dog. It had to be. Ben counted himself lucky that it hadn’t chewed his recorder to bits. But then the breathing grew fainter, as the one responsible stood to their feet and slowly walked away.

Ben heard his own voice approaching.

If you would like to take a seat over there, Nora, I’ll just close the door behind us.

There was only the sound of the woman padding across the bark and Ben putting the board back in place. He took his seat beside her and the interview began. There had been no one else in the room. There couldn’t have been. His skin ran cold as if its every inch were wrapped in frozen lace.

Chloe was stirring beside him. Ben’s hands were tensed around the wheel. What had he just heard? If there had been someone or something in the stable, he would have seen them.

Should he have told Chloe? Maybe together they could have purged the facts of falsity. But what if it meddled with their report? Ben needed Sparling’s money more than he needed answers.

It was nothing, just a fault in the reel. His recorder was long past its best. And besides, it had happened before; a day’s worth of interviews garbled and lost because he hadn’t loaded the cassette properly. There was no logical reason to fear it. The sound was merely an excuse for those who wanted to believe, as a door moving in a draught is proof of a presence.

It was some mutt or one of those androgynous kids from the village. When they weren’t admiring each other’s dresses, they were probably out for mischief. The logical explanations far outweighed the absurd.

‘Where are we?’ Chloe asked, wiping her eyes.

‘And there was me thinking my co-pilot was going to sleep the entire way,’ he replied, fronting a smile as best he could. ‘We’ve a long way to go yet.’

‘You did volunteer to be my driver, you know.’

‘Did you just say your driver?’ he asked.

‘I don’t see anybody else in the car, do you?’

*

The creeper must have derived from another folk tale. That’s how it worked. Stories changed from place to place, between villages and counties, like a criminal seeking a new identity. Details were omitted. New ideas were added in. Landmarks and local names were attached, and in time the provenance was forgotten. Ben had said as much in his thesis.

He wanted to substantiate Sparling’s report with some theories as to its origin but his mind was running on fumes. The early tremors of a headache rumbled somewhere in the back of his skull. A name like the creeper would have survived. It was too distinctive. And if it had reached anywhere beyond Tír Mallacht, Ben would have encountered it. Since turning the key in the ignition it’s all he had thought about, and he could feel his ideas leaking like oil with every mile.

Three times you see him.

‘Always with the number three,’ he whispered, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes as he stared at the taillights stretching ahead like a landing strip.

What Ben saw the night before went against the grain of convention. The villagers had sent someone to scare them into thinking that the creeper was real. But if they believed in his existence, why would they impersonate him?

None of it mattered. They had gone to Tír Mallacht to gather information. This they had done to the best of their ability and the proof of their efforts would be in Sparling’s report. And what Ben heard on that recording was probably the cassette again. Maybe it was time for an upgrade.

Chloe looked to be in a trance, staring at the ladders of rain trembling across the window. She had slid down even deeper into the seat. Her discarded parka cradled her like a nest. Muddy boots had been kicked off, and her feet were up by the windshield, both legs at full stretch just to reach it.

The traffic was at a crawl, less than two miles from the city. The wipers slicked back and forth. Between their squeak and chatter, two lint-laden speakers hummed a song too low to hear. Ben had been sitting too long. No matter how he shifted his weight there was discomfort, as though his bones carried bruises.

‘How do you suppose Sparling knew to ask about the creeper?’ he asked.

It felt an age since either of them had spoken.

‘I was thinking the same,’ Chloe replied. ‘He definitely knows more than he’d like us to believe. I just don’t understand why he sent us to that place. Like, honestly, there’s nothing there, and that much was obvious from the million maps he showed us.’

‘What do we care? We’re getting paid, aren’t we?’

‘I suppose,’ she sighed. ‘It’s weird though.’

‘What is?’

‘Everything, Benny Boy. I regret to politely break it to you that everything about this is fucking weird.’

There was so much that they didn’t know. Ben hadn’t even read his contract. He had nodded his head like a money-starved idiot as Sparling spouted facts that he knew couldn’t be true. Who even was Doctor Alec Sparling? They hadn’t enquired as to his profession or academic history.

Ben knew the man’s name. That’s all, because that’s all he had told them.

‘Have you any battery left in your phone?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, I turned it off once we reached the car. Why?’

‘Look up the office number for my old supervisor, Joe Cunningham. He’s the lad who recommended me to Sparling. It should be on the university’s website.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, digging around in her jacket.

He should have researched Sparling sooner. It wasn’t like him to be so lackadaisical. Ben liked to reserve his negligence strictly for the realms of retail and parenthood. The financial reward that Sparling repeatedly alluded to had obviously blindsided his better judgement.

‘It’s ringing,’ Chloe said, holding the phone over to him.

Ben hadn’t spoken to his supervisor since finishing his thesis. But they had shared a well-disposed rapport throughout. Cunningham recognised the hours he put in and probably played some part in Ben receiving the grade that he did. The man himself was extensively published and well connected in his field. His word could be trusted.

Ben was nervous as he listened to the dial tone. He hated talking on loudspeaker.

‘Hello,’ said a slow, slightly gruff voice.

‘Joe, it’s Ben French, long time no talk.’

They had always spoken casually. It was one of the reasons why Ben enjoyed their meetings. He had wanted to take him for a few pints after his master’s was completed, like soldiers catching up on past victories. But time got away from him and soon the idea – like everything – became history.

‘It has been some time. Where are you working these days?’

There was that question again, only now Ben had an answer.

‘That’s why I’m calling you, Joe. I’m about to write up a report for Doctor Alec Sparling. He told me that you’re the one who recommended me to him.’

‘Alec Sparling,’ he repeated, and Ben could imagine him creaking back in his chair, fingers tugging at his beard.

‘Yeah,’ Ben confirmed, ‘he was assembling a team for a survey.’

‘And he told you that he spoke with me?’

Ben and Chloe looked at one another.

‘That’s right, Joe. That’s what he told me.’

‘I’ve never heard of the man, Ben, and I’ve certainly never spoken to him. Besides, if I were to put your name forward for any work, I would always contact you to let you know.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

No, Benny Boy, there wasn’t a thought in your head when you signed that contract.

‘What work are you doing for him exactly?’

‘Well, that’s the strangest thing. He made us sign confidentiality agreements, so I’m not allowed to talk about it. Not until he gives me the all-clear to do so. It’s a research gig, historically and archaeologically speaking.’

‘That is strange.’

Ben could tell the man was thinking. Cunningham’s gears turned slowly but they always produced worthwhile results; a machine that prided itself on quality over quantity.

‘I have heard that name before,’ he said eventually.

‘You have?’ Ben asked, as both he and Chloe leaned in closer to the phone between them.

‘Oh, it must be two years ago now. One of my students told me that she had been approached by a Doctor Sparling.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Oh,’ he said, as the cogs turned again, ‘Carol Fortune, I believe it was. Yes, such a rare surname. How could I forget?’

‘Do you know what Sparling wanted from her?’

‘Unfortunately, no. She was a history graduate and I thought she might go for the master’s, as you did, but I didn’t see her after that. She was a clever girl, I remember. I must actually chase her down and see where she ended up.’

‘So, Alec Sparling isn’t an academic?’

‘I can assure you, Ben, if he were, I would know about it. I make it my business to keep up with these things.’

‘Okay,’ he said, eyes locked with Chloe’s in concern, ‘thanks for your time, Joe.’

The car ahead had pulled away without either of them noticing. It was Chloe who voiced what they both were thinking.

‘So what the fuck is he?’