The Fetch Read Online Free PDF Page B

you
shapechange
into something
evil
, but I won’t know what it is unless I catch you again and
torture
you.’
    He sighed. In his own day they had called it ‘chains’. Torture had never been mentioned.
    ‘Can we dig the monster from the grave?’
    Framed in the doorway from the garden were the Pre-Raphaelite girl and a three-foot-tall, freckled, red-haired, sullen little bruiser called Tony. He was a nephew of Susan’s. His fingers were caked in earth, grass, and human blood (his own).
    Richardshook his head firmly. ‘I don’t want you to leave the garden, and I don’t want you digging in that mound. Is that understood? It’s a protected monument. You’re not allowed by
law.
’
    Tony hid his hands behind his back.
    ‘If you want to hear the story of what was once buried there you can come into the study and I’ll show you some pictures and tell you about it.’
    The blankness of their faces told him that this was an unsatisfactory alternative to digging.
    ‘Have you got pictures of the giant?’ the girl asked.
    ‘He wasn’t a giant. He was a Bronze Age prince, buried with his horse, his weapons, and several huge joints of meat.’
    Tony stared darkly through his freckles (but what a fine and intense light glowed from the small figure’s face), then growled huskily, ‘Want to see his bones.’
    ‘His bones aren’t there any more.’
    Ah, the disappointment! Richard almost laughed out loud.
    Then the growl again. ‘Where’s the bones now?’
    A chance to draw order from the chaos: ‘If you want to see the bones you’ll have to sit quietly on the lawn for an hour, then I’ll show you some really
spooky
pictures. Can you do that? To see the bones?’
    Even as he spoke the words, he realized mournfully that as a child psychologist he made a good train driver.
    There was the briefest of pauses. Tony’s brow furrowed and he stared at Richard steadily and contemptuously. Then he stuck two fingers up and fled from the doorway, the girl in hot pursuit.
    Richard walked into the sitting room expecting to find Michael there, supervised by Jenny, but there were only several aunts sitting in armchairs talking together around the remains of the sherry. His heart racing, he went quickly upstairs to the bedroom, then the bathroom, but finally found the child asleep, in his study downstairs. Jenny was there, leafing through the pages of one of his archaeological photograph albums. Two pieces of the christening cake were on the desk, next to a cup of coffee that now had a skin of cold milk on its surface.
    AsRichard entered the room, she looked up from the album and smiled. ‘I hope you don’t mind me looking at your work.’
    ‘Not at all. Which album is it?’
    ‘The Roman farm at Hollingbourne. Nice photographs. Some of them are really eerie.’
    ‘Just special effects.’
    Michael, in his cradle, was sleeping noisily.
    ‘Giving you a hard time, I see.’
    ‘He was getting restless. Too many “Hungarian aunts”. Susan suggested we brought him through here for a snooze.’
    ‘Good God, he snores.’
    Jenny laughed. ‘I know. I like it. It helps me feel relaxed.’
    He leaned over the crib and watched the sleeping features of the boy. Michael’s ginger hair was sticking out in damp spikes. His right hand was bunched and jammed against his chin. He had more wrinkles round his eyes than Richard himself.
    ‘Is this or is this not a beautiful lad?’
    ‘He’s lovely.’ Jenny smiled again, watching Richard. ‘I’m happy things have worked out for you both.’
    Richard nodded wearily, then sat on the edge of the desk and flicked through the Hollingbourne photographs. ‘For a long time we didn’t think they would. Work out, I mean. We tried for so many years, so much failure, so much hope so routinely dashed. It does something to your confidence after a while …’
    ‘I can imagine.’
    ‘Itmakes you hard,’ he said, and immediately wished he could retract the personal indiscretion. Jenny just