Synopsis
The heroine is an African girl who is born in a remote village and is befriended by the tribal witchdoctor. She learns some of his skills and is recognised as having limited supernatural abilities. She gets requests for assistance, which she is reluctant to refuse, though some threaten to be beyond her current power. She treats them as development opportunities and extends her skill to meet each challenge. The status of her clients increases and the assignments become more dangerous. The circumstances of one request appear to justify a death, and she finds that she has become an assassin. She targets only extreme evil-doers. She moves to England and gains an MA and an MBA. Her skills are extended by knowledge of human psychology, organisational behaviour, western science and religion. She employs all these in her work. She is consulted by agents of the security services and her unacknowledged work is sometimes of national importance. Rewards must be concealed, and one subterfuge results in her receiving a national honour instead of cash.
There are recurrent themes. One is the personal growth of the heroine. One is the link between cause and effect, which is often confused. One is the ability of human organisations to make bizarre errors. The book explores areas that are perceived as supernatural but might yet yield to technology.
Extract from Chapter 32 - The Watchman's Tale
Talking in The Golden Grouse was generally safe, but Bert kept quiet about an event that happened to him a year later. Nobody would believe him he was not even sure himself what had happened and if it had ever got back to Marylin she would have tried again to get him certified.
Bert had been sitting comfortably in his chair inside the security hut, watching a rugby match. From time to time he had scanned the control board on which a sensor lit up if anything strange came close to the perimeter fence. Most times when that happened, he would take a heavy flashlight and go to investigate: almost always it would be deer, straying down from the plain to eat from the village gardens.
Neither perimeter nor main gate were floodlit, because Colin Graddige believed that lights would only attract people. If Bert s patrolling should reveal a genuine threat, he had a line to the police station, and a unique alarm system fitted up by Colin himself. It was an air-raid warning siren from WW2. and its noise was terrifying. Bert was also provided with a dog a large German Shepherd called Hilary which looked fierce and barked loudly but had never been know to bite anybody.
There was a break in the rugby match. The referee was unable to see whether the ball had been grounded, and called for television analysis. Bert looked up at the control board and saw a red light glowing. Something had been detected to the left of the main gate. He picked up his flashlight and went to the door.
This time he knew immediately that something weird was up. Beyond the main gate he could see the outline of a tree, and half-way up the trunk were five spots of fire. They might have been candle flames, but they were a bit too tall and burned more fiercely than a candle does. They did not flicker as much as candle flames. It was a still night, without much wind, but even so, Bert thought one would expect some movement. These burnt steadily and brightly. Bert found it weird, spooky and frightening. He could not be sure, but underneath the five lights he thought he saw the outline of a hand. Then he realised that the position of the five flames in relation to each other was just what it would be if the candles were stuck on the fingers and thumb. Whose hand was it? Where was the body? He was scared.
Then Hilary arrived. She must have been up at the far end of the compound. She leapt up at the fence and growled. She did not bark. That was another strange thing: she growled, low and deep as if she was uncertain and afraid, but still determined. Then Bert heard a voice. Audible above the growling of the dog. Either a high male voice or a low female one. Hard to tell. It spoke slowly with great authority, spacing the words out:
“Open, . . . lock, . . . to the dead man’s knock,
Fly bolt . . . and bar . . . and band.
Nor move, . . . nor swerve, . . . joint . . . muscle . . . or nerve
At the spell . . . of the dead man’s hand.”
Bert moved his arm to aim the flashlight but never completed the movement. The beam stayed focussed on an old tree stump close to the fence, where he sometimes sat in fine weather. His hand just stopped moving. He felt no pain, but the arm would not move an inch further, nor would any other part of his body He was paralysed. He could not move feet or arms, or head, nor twist his body one way or another. If his left hand had not been holding onto the doorpost of the hut, he would have fallen, and lain on he ground like a statue wrenched from it's pedestal. He was even unable to move his eyeballs, though the things they were focussed on were clear.
Bert noticed that everything had gone still and quiet. But was that because his hearing had failed or was it because there were no sounds to hear? How was it possible to still all the myriad small sounds that are part of a country night? He felt menaced by some extraordinary unknown force. What on earth had happened? Was it a dream? Had he lost his mind? Perhaps the green men from Mars had really arrived.
Hilary was frozen, too. She was on her hind legs with her front paws about four feet from the ground one resting on the fence and one inches away from it. Her muzzle was open as if she was still growling. But she made no sound. Bert and Hilary were both helpless. But some things stayed normal. Bert could hear quiet rustling from the company flag above his head. The thought flashed through his mind that Lucifer would appear in person.
Somebody did appear. Not Lucifer, but not recognisable either. When Bert froze, he had been looking at a spot well to the left of the gate, so the gate itself was now at the right-hand edge of his limited field of vision. It seemed that a figure of medium height, quite slim, dressed in a long black coat and wearing what might have been a military cap, walked to the main gate and pushed it open. How could that happen? Bert had bolted it himself.
The intruder went past Bert’s right side, showing him that the offices were not the first objective. They were clearly visible from the gate and to reach them a person would have had to go the other way. Suddenly there was sound again yet different. The natural noises that had been stilled did not return, but noises made by the intruder were clear. Bert heard the prolonged screech that the door of the garage made whenever the left-hand door was dragged along the ground. He heard somebody moving the loose shutter over the main window of the fencing store. People frequently raised it to look inside. Bert also heard the clang of metal on metal, several times. It sounded as if the intruder had knocked against the portable toilets in the Miscellaneous Store.
It lasted about ten minutes. Then the figure came into view again, dragging what looked like a very large bag of golf clubs. It went to the main gate, and suddenly turned aside to ruffle the hair on Hilary s neck. A Martian dog-lover! What next? Bert then had his clearest view, and felt sure it was a woman. He heard her say Tough luck, doggie, but it will all be over in a moment. Then she was at the gate and pulled it close behind her. It wouldn’t lock, of course, but she wedged it shut with a brick. Then she faded into the background. The five spots of light moved up into the air a foot or so, just as if somebody had lifted a lantern off a hook. They went out and suddenly Bert could move again. So could Hilary, who dashed to the gate and made a great performance of barking and growling.
Bert thought about sounding the sirens, but then he heard a car drive off and thought Nobody will catch her . Next, he thought If I did sound the alarm, what would I tell people? He had no believable story. And he could imagine Marilyn s shrill voice: Put the old fool away quickly.
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