Synopsis
One of Father Dyball’s clerical duties is to occasionally attend sick or dying patients in St Botolph’s Hospital in the East End. The Registrar has asked him over to visit a new arrival—a mystery-man who appears to have no identity whatsoever. He was found collapsed on a nearby street, carrying no identification, unable to speak and apparently unaware of his surroundings. He seems in a permanent catatonic trance, though Dyball is edgily aware of a hideous tormented suffering behind the man’s eyes, and also a sense of a simultaneous malevolent alien presence, mockingly looking out at him, calculatingly aware of his interest… The Registrar admits the man is slowly dying, and yet desperately fighting this, fighting to live…
He appears in his mid-30s, tough, muscular and deeply tanned, as though having spent years under a hot sun. Other than that there are no clues, though the doorman notes he had a fleeting visitor the previous day, similarly heavily-tanned, who left looking very worried and drove away in a van with some sort of boomerang-logo on the side. Might he be Australian?
Dyball visits Australia House on The Strand to make enquiries, and finds himself in the middle of a lively reception for a visiting young Aboriginal artist, Anthony Van Diemen (named by his adoptive family after the Dutch discoverer of Tasmania). Van Diemen is self-possessed and coolly polite, but Dyball senses an undercurrent of tightly-controlled malice, resentment—and Power. A more useful contact in the crowd seems to be ‘Ned’ Kelly, amiable London editor of the Southern Globe newspaper. Kelly admits the boomerang-logo van means nothing to him, but invites Dyball to a party he’s attending later that evening in Earls Court—every Aussie in London will be there, and someone will surely know who it belongs to.
The party is crowded and chaotic, with both Dyball and Kelly having plenty to drink before getting separated. Dyball is on the point of giving up and going home when he is approached by a young woman who introduces herself as Fay, and says Kelly has sent her to bring him along to meet someone. A slightly-fuddled Dyball smells a rat, but follows her out. At a nearby flat he finds Kelly dead drunk on the sofa, in the company of two men who introduce themselves as Sutton and Potter. He accepts yet another drink, but too late realises it’s been drugged. As he spins towards unconsciousness, he is aware of Sutton moving in close with piercing eyes and even more piercing questions. He’s being hypnotised, but doesn’t have the willpower left to fight it…
Next morning he wakes in his flat as normal with no memory of how he got there. In fact he has no memory of the last couple of days at all, and when Steven Kane phones to ask if he’s made any progress with his mystery St Botolph’s patient, he irritably has no idea what Kane is talking about. Immediately grasping something is very wrong, Kane persuades Dyball to come over to Half Moon Street, where he and Anne soon establish the blanket memory-gap—though none of them have a clue what’s missing. Dyball admits he feels awful, ill and exhausted, as though someone else is lurking inside his head, patiently waiting to take control. While they anxiously confer, the phone rings. It’s a friend of Kelly’s, calling the number Dyball left at the newspaper office. What the hell has the priest done to their editor? Kelly’s been on benders before, but this is different—he’s barely coherent, and has no memory of the last couple of days….
Before they have a chance to absorb that, the phone rings again. This time it’s Anthony Van Diemen, saying he has some important information for Father Dyball. He’s tracked down the owner of that boomerang-logo van—a light-removals business run by a man named Sutton from an Earls Court address. Can the priest come over to Diemen’s hotel for the full story? Once again Dyball senses danger, but feels he has no option but to go. Kane can wait in a car outside, and come barging in if he’s gone too long….
Dyball goes to see Van Diemen in his room, the latter casually handing over Sutton’s address, and murmuring there’s one further crucial detail—but as Dyball glances up into his host’s eyes on cue, he suddenly finds himself spinning away again… Next thing he knows, he’s slumped heavily in his chair, with Van Diemen anxiously asking if he needs a glass of water, as he seems to have briefly fainted. Dyball unsteadily makes his apologies and abruptly leaves. Conferring outside with Kane, he assumes nothing significant can have happened as he was only in there a few minutes at most… You what, responds Kane, you were gone half an hour!
Their only lead is the Earls Court address, and the girl opening its door to them reacts in tearful fury to Dyball’s sudden re-appearance. You! What the hell have you done to Gerry? Gerry who? In a flash Dyball intuitively realises this is Fay, the forgotten girl from the party. Under his and Kane’s gentle coaxing, her story gradually emerges. She’s Gerry Sutton’s latest girlfriend—he and his partners Berry and Potter flew in from Australia only a couple of months ago flashing a lot of money around, and Fay was quickly along for the ride. Then all three men suddenly got scared, like somebody was after them. And these fellas don’t scare easy. Berry got sick, and the other two took him to hospital but wouldn’t tell Fay anything about it. Hardly surprising, grunts Kane, they just dumped him outside without any ID so he couldn’t be traced. What then?
Well, she continues, then Gerry was at a party and overheard your friend and his pal asking about his van. He got me bring them over here separately so he could find out what they knew. He slipped them a mickey each and tried to hypnotise them, but it didn’t work—it seemed as though once they were under, someone else took control of them…. they both suddenly stood up and walked out together like puppets—it was weird. Gerry was even more freaked out, and he and Potter started to make plans to get away. But then this morning Gerry collapsed on the floor screaming someone was twisting a knife in his guts… he went into a kind of coma. Potter drove him to the hospital like with Berry, and promised to phone me later to tell me what was happening, but he hasn’t called yet…
On cue, the phone rings, and Kane snatches it up. Potter? Listen you don’t know me, but my name’s Steven Kane and I can help you. I think you’re in terrible danger, and running won’t help. The same will happen to you as to Berry and Sutton—you’ve got to tell me what’s going on…. Forget it, gasps Potter, you don’t know who you’re up against. NOBODY will find me where I’m going…. The line cuts off. Kane tries asking Fay where the trio’s money originally came from, but she doesn’t know… some kind of business deal they wouldn’t talk about. Everything’s a dead end. He and Dyball agree to go home and get some rest, then pick things up again in the morning. But by the morning Dyball has vanished into thin air….
Kane has an irrational hunch he’s flown out to Australia, possibly not of his own volition, but a methodical check with the airlines draws a blank. Unless of course he’s travelling under an assumed name…. But why would he do that? Kane is seriously worried, though unsure of his next move, when the phone rings. It’s Ned Kelly, still a little shaky, but with his memory suddenly returned overnight, and asking concernedly after Father Dyball. Kane quickly fills him in, and asks Kelly for some professional help digging into the background of Sutton and co. Kelly tells him to be in a Fleet Street pub in an hour, when he’ll hopefully have some answers.
The answers are not reassuring. Sutton, Berry and Potter don’t exist. Their real names are probably Soames, Beery and Parks, three roughneck prospectors working out in the remote Northern Territory around Darwin. Soames flew a freelance charter-plane service—it’s the only way to get about up there—but there were local rumours he and Beery had accidentally stumbled across something big, and later roped Parks in on it. At any rate, the three took off from some remote airstrip outside Barkis Creek a few months ago and just vanished—neither they nor the plane were ever seen again. There was a half-arsed search, but it’s a big place, and they were assumed to have crashed somewhere in the bush—no chance of surviving that, not out there. Shortly afterwards Messrs Sutton, Berry and Potter turn up in London splashing the cash around—coincidence?
No, agrees Kane, and I think Anthony Van Diemen is somehow involved too—where was he from, originally? Kelly is nonplussed: Van Diemen? Some Mission in the Northern Territory I think, I’d have to check. Anyway, what could he have to do with all this? He’s just an Abo artist, currently flavour of the month with the liberal trendies back home—though I think he privately despises them by the way. Alright, says Kane, then what about this airstrip Sutton vanished from, where was that exactly? Jesus mate, the absolute middle of nowhere—a godforsaken place called Pett’s Lagoon….
While Kane and Kelly compare notes in the Punch Tavern, Father Dyball is well on his way to Pett’s Lagoon, via Zurich, Rome, Singapore and Darwin, finally taking a ramshackle charter-flight deep into the interior, to Barkis Creek. He has no clear idea why he is doing this, just a vague, light-headed conviction that it is vitally necessary. At Barkis Creek he takes a room in the tiny township’s sole decaying hotel, and spends the evening in the bar, getting to know the local stockmen. They’re all friendly enough, until they hear the guest is hoping to get to Pett’s Lagoon, when they immediately become wary. What would he want to go out there for? That’s over a hundred scorching miles into the bush Sport, nothing out there except Bert Bell, his ancient Tiger Moth, and the local Abos. Bert’s minding the place for old man Pett’s lawyers, while the estate gets settled after Pett died out there just a few months back. Yeah, there were a few unanswered questions, but the police said Natural Causes, and we like to mind our own business around here. How about you?
Dyball has more luck with the cautiously chatty manageress. Bert usually drops in here for a drink after his weekly trip into town for supplies she mutters. Probably be in tomorrow lunchtime. Buy him a beer or two, and he’ll drive you over on his way back…
Meanwhile, back in Half Moon Street, Kane is desperately trying to persuade Gideon Cross to become active in the case. Absolutely not, huffs Cross, what you suggest is extremely dangerous, and there’s not one iota of proof that either Van Diemen is involved, or that Dyball has gone anywhere near Australia. For all we know he could be having a long weekend in Bournemouth…. Then the phone rings, and it’s Ned Kelly with more news. Alright, listen to this: Van Diemen is originally from a Mission just outside Pett’s Lagoon. So was Arthur Parks—he worked there for a fella name of Pett who built the place before the War. Pett was friendly with the local Abos, they trusted him, told him a lot of private stuff about their sacred sites and that. There’s still a lot of opals and emeralds around there supposedly. Hidden caches of ’em, so they say. Worth a fortune. Now, maybe Parks overhears something he wasn’t supposed to—who knows? But a few months ago Pett suddenly drops down dead for no reason, and Parks disappears just a couple of days afterwards. The coppers don’t like it but what can they do? And get this — Kelly saves his trump card till last — our correspondent in Darwin was on the phone to me early this morning with the local gossip. Seems an English priest flew in yesterday incognito and took a charter straight out to Barkis Creek. Told the pilot he was heading for Pett’s Lagoon “on private business”…
Kane thanks him and hangs up. Cross stiffly apologises, and says he will go and prepare. Whatever happens, he must not under any circumstances be disturbed for the next twelve hours…
Barkis Creek. Dyball has little difficulty persuading the sociable Bert Bell to drive him back to Pett’s Lagoon, but even Bell hesitates at what the priest calmly requests next. He wishes to meditate alone deep in the Outback, and will pay Bell handsomely to fly him to the precise spot he has in mind. Bell thinks he’s crazy, but, well, money is money… They take off in the Tiger Moth, and after several dozen miles flying low across baking scrub, Dyball points out a long white salt-flat, a natural landing strip. The plane touches down, and Dyball gets out, telling Bell to come and pick him up from this spot exactly 24 hours later. He waits until the plane is a dot on the horizon before walking across to a prominent rocky outcrop on the edge of the strip. Turning the corner he is unsurprised to find an elderly aboriginal priest stood patiently waiting for him.
In London, Gideon Cross makes the exhaustive ritual preparations necessary for a dangerous journey onto the Astral Plain. Leaving his physical body behind, he travels first to Van Diemen’s hotel room. Hovering at the ceiling, he can see the aborigine’s naked body kneeling on the floor in an attitude of prayer, forehead resting on knees, on a carefully-spread canvas sheet covered with a thin layer of soil from the Outback. But the body itself is empty, a mere shell—Van Diemen’s Astral Body is elsewhere. Cross faces an immediate quandary. With the physical body thus unguarded, he can simply enter it and cause it to destroy itself, leaving the aborigine’s spirit to wander helplessly in limbo for eternity. But he still has no definite proof of Van Diemen’s guilt, and Father Dyball may be in imminent danger. Concentrating his powers, he instead focuses his awareness on homing in on Van Diemen’s Astral Body, and feels himself being pulled around the globe towards Australia, towards Pett’s Lagoon….
Dyball and the old aborigine face each other, and the scales seem to fall from Dyball’s eyes as Van Diemen finally releases his mental grip, now that the priest is miles from help in the middle of nowhere. The aborigine speaks, though his lips don’t move, and Dyball realises he is hearing him telepathically. He is Van Diemen’s grandfather, and has taught his grandson well. The curse of the Killing Bone is already destroying two of the white men, and the third will soon follow. There can be no escape, and they will suffer a long and most hideous death. Dyball should not have interfered, their punishment was just. Now the priest must share their fate, though his end will at least be swifter. But what did they do? asks Dyball. —They violated our sacred sites, stole our precious stones, and tortured and killed one of our people to find out what they needed. Pett did not guard our secrets carefully enough, and paid his own price.
But two wrongs don’t make a right, urges Dyball, you could have gone to the police… The aborigine’s tone becomes angrier, and Dyball instinctively feels he is now hearing the voice of Van Diemen himself: The police? What do they care for us? They didn’t even try to stop Parks from leaving! There is no need for further debate, the time has come… Without warning, the old man reaches down for a sharp stone from the floor, and hurls himself at Dyball, who is taken completely by surprise by the speed and viciousness of the attack. He is in a sudden fight to the death with an opponent whose wiry strength and fury are more than a match for Dyball’s rusty unarmed-combat skills…
Gideon Cross looks down at the scene from high above, and sees Van Diemen’s Astral Body also watching intently from nearer the ground. This is the moment for a lethal attack, while his opponent’s attention is temporarily distracted… But Van Diemen has razor-sharp reflexes and senses Cross swooping down on him at the last second. In an instant he vanishes! Thus begins a simultaneous incredible battle on the Astral Plain, with each man changing form with bewildering rapidity to defend or counter-attack. Van Diemen sneaks up behind Cross as a snake poised to deliver a fatal bite, but Cross senses him and becomes an impervious tortoise. Van Diemen then becomes a giant eagle, swooping down to snatch up his foe and drop him from a height onto the jagged rocks below, but at the last second Cross becomes a huge Queensland crocodile, and the eagle’s claws rake ineffectually across his back. The eagle vanishes, and Cross, nearing exhaustion, becomes a wild dingo and lopes into the bush for cover. Van Diemen re-assumes human form and hunts him with a spear, badly wounding him across the shoulders. But Van Diemen is also getting desperate, and makes a wild grab for his snarling opponent. Cross instantly re-assumes human form and lunges upwards, fixing his fingers around the aborigine’s throat and squeezing hard. Van Diemen panics and tries to transform again, but has lost control and becomes a tiny green beetle, scuttling in helpless circles on the ground. With a savage laugh, Cross snatches up a stone and brings it smashing down on the frenzied insect…..
At the same moment, the old aborigine is poised to similarly brain a helpless Father Dyball when he gives a sudden deep groan and topples sideways—dead! A dazed Dyball feels himself being invisibly but gently guided towards a hidden fissure in the rock, to discover two carved pieces of bone, each piercing a small clay figure. His knows what he must do, and withdraws the bones from the clay before snapping them in two and hurling them out into the wilderness. Now all he can do is sit and wait for the arrival of Bert Bell next morning…
Epilogue in Half Moon Street, a few days later. A battered but intact Gideon Cross is sitting up in bed, angrily berating Dyball for being so easily controlled by ‘a novice’. Hardly a novice, murmurs Dyball, since you don’t seem in such great shape yourself after meeting him in person. That’s irrelevant snaps Cross, I was forced to intervene and two evil men have died as a result. Yes, agrees Dyball (effectively voicing the thoughts of the reader here), but were they the right two ‘evil men’ ? Cross snorts in exasperation. Kane attempts to lighten the mood—well at least Soames and Beery are now recovering in police custody. And they finally caught up with Parks too, hiding out on the south coast with several bags of uncut emeralds. He’ll have difficulty talking his way out of that one. Mind you, the police have quite a job themselves, explaining the mysterious death of a visiting Australian celebrity-artist in his locked hotel room. Apparently he looked like a steam-roller had hit him….
Commentary
The Killing Bone is arguably the best of the Guardians books (its follow-up Vampires of Finistere is equally good, but so stylistically different it is unfair to directly compare the two). W.H. ‘Bill’ Baker is certainly the most skilful writer of the series—terse, fluent, precise, with an appealing deadpan wit and sharp psychological insight. Killing Bone is in places genuinely unsettling in the way it conveys the true horror of mental possession—the loss / fragmentation of a sense of self. The whole thing has pace and urgency, and builds to an absolutely knockout climax. The settings—smoky Fleet Street boozers, raucous parties in cramped Earls Court flats, the arid, desolate wastes of the Outback—are all superbly realised with real conviction. The characters actually feel like more than just ciphers for once too. All Wicking would really need to do here is tighten down the (relatively complex) narrative to a fast-paced 90 minutes, and somehow expand Anne Ashby’s role to get her more involved. Of all the entries, this is the one where Hesslercould most easily approximate the breathless dynamic rush of Scream and Scream Again, via short scenes, rapid cutting, and snappy naturalistic dialogue.
One can almost picture Patrick Magee, relishing the chance to take centre-stage at last, happily waiving the ‘no nudity’ clause in his contract for the climactic Astral Plane battle; however, since the book clearly describes his Astral Body as being a youthful Olympian-ideal version, Hammer instead ask Dave Prowse to do it in his Y-fronts. Cult Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, soon to star in Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977), brings charm and menace to the role of artist-magician Anthony Van Diemen, though the
Australian producer Antony I. Ginnane
actor’s demands cause Carreras a few headaches; chief among these is his refusal to leave Australia, necessitating a costly relocation Down Under for the production. (Cannily, however, Carreras makes a co-production deal with Aussie exploitation producer Antony I. Ginnane, who manages to secure Hammer a lucrative tax break thanks to his contacts within the Australian Film Commission; consequently, The Killing Bone becomes the most profitable of the whole Guardians series.) Back home, the film is a comfortable success, earning plaudits for its sensitive handling of Aboriginal culture, and Carreras is ready for his big final splash with the equally exciting, but more familiarly traditional, instalment #6…