Under the Downs Chapter 12

A/N: Dear all, thank you once again to all you lovely people who reviewed, I am glowing! Its so good to know when you get it right. So now we are back to the case with a nice, short little chapter. Any views of Paganism are John's and not my own.

The main street in Arundel is very steep. And my knees are like jelly. It's a hard climb from the car park at the foot of the hill to Castle Magic, the shop where John-Matthew bought the book we found. The shop window is predictably full of huge chunks of rock amethyst, and incredibly naff statuettes of Celtic gods and fairies. When we open the door, a little bell chimes. The air is thick with the scent of joss. Tinkly New Age music plays in the background. A woman dressed, again predictably, in purple Indian cotton comes out of a back room through a bead curtain. Her hair is long, and greying at the temples.

'Do you need any help?' she smiles decorously. 'We've got some lovely new books on Iron John which might interest you.'

Sherlock takes out John-Matthew's book and shows it to her. 'We're trying to find the boy you sold this to,' he says, pointing out the neatly inscribed name inside the front cover. She starts looking worried.

'You aren't police, are you?'

I try to distract myself from my shaky knees and the erotic memories drifting behind my eyes by browsing the bookshelves. I pick up a book on Iron John. The subtitle is 'Queer Paganism for the Aquarian Age.' Do we have a neon sign over our heads or something? When I turn back to the counter, the woman is looking distinctly harassed. Sherlock has been working his personal magic.

'He's a good boy,' she is saying. 'He just wants to find out more about the world, that's all.'

'No one wants to stop him doing that,' I interject, putting on my 'sympathetic doctor' expression. 'But his parents are really worried about him. You can imagine. We'd just like to establish that he's safe, that's all.'

She looks torn. 'I'm bound by my oath of silence, you see,' she explains, grinding the heels of her hands together. 'It's not that I don't want to help. It's just that there could be serious karmic consequences if I break the confidentiality of the Coven.'

I tread hard on Sherlock's foot when he opens his mouth to speak. He gives me a filthy look in reply.

'I'm sure you'd be rewarded equally for helping his parents. His mum is making herself quite ill with worry.'

She nods sympathetically. 'She's such a funny woman. They have such odd ideas, you know. Peculiar. But I wouldn't wish that on anybody. Losing a child.'

'I'm sure you wouldn't,' Sherlock agrees, forbearing to remark on 'odd ideas.'

'We wouldn't tell them where he was if he didn't want us to,' I tell her. 'It would be up to him to contact them if he wished. We just want to be able to reassure them that he is safe, that's all.'

She sighs. 'I told him not to leave without at least giving them some idea of a way to find him, a phone number or something, but he wouldn't have it. He said he wouldn't have a chance of getting away if he didn't keep it a secret. He seemed to think they'd send him off somewhere, a mission or something, if he told them.'

'Did you help him?'

'Oh, no, I wouldn't be involved. I told him it was cruel and wrong. Against Coven rules. Remember the Charge of the Goddess, I said. "An it harm none", Jonny.' She looked extremely sad. 'He wouldn't listen. Next thing I knew, it was all over the evening news that he'd disappeared.'

'You didn't go to the police?' Sherlock asked her, leaning on the counter and looking through the glass at the silver rings.

'Well, I didn't know anything, did I? I certainly didn't know where he'd gone off to.'

'And then there was your vow.'

'Well, yes.'

'Do you have any idea where we might look for him,' I pressed her gently.

She frowned. 'You mustn't say anything,' she said.

'Your secret is safe with us,' Sherlock said.

She sighed, obviously feeling she had put up enough of a fight to satisfy any karmic forces that she'd had no choice.

'You know the road to Amberley, up round the north of town? Just before you get to the museum, there's a bridge over the river. Walk north from there. You might find some travellers who could help.'

'Thank you so much,' I tell her. 'We promise we will respect his wishes, and we'll leave your name out of it.' Not that we knew it, of course, but my saying it made her feel better.

'He's a good lad, you know,' she re-emphasised. 'Can I help you with anything else?'

'Well, it's funny you should say that,' Sherlock began.

It took me nearly twenty minutes to get him out of that shop. He bought up pretty much every book she had on Tantric sex. I caught sight of myself in the shop window as we left. My face was beetroot.

Tomorrow, a hot river walk…