Harvest (14 page)

“
Right then, I’m gonna
check that we have everything we need and make sure there isn’t
anything left in the van, because I really ‘want’ to have to go
nine flights down again for something else,” Dave
groaned.

Rachel led Claire into the
kitchen. “Don’t worry, he’s always like this. Probably had a row
with Kim last night – on and off girlfriend,” she quickly
explained. “He obviously hasn’t been ‘on’ her in sometime. Fancy
another cuppa?” she breezed, ignoring the ever-present pressure of
Claire’s expectation of something to happen. It made Rachel
anxious.

“
I didn’t have a chance
to tell you earlier, as the boys came up with their load and then
you went to give a hand, the priest friend of yours came round this
morning. Did his bit and went. He was very nice.”

Rachel turned. “Oh,
good.
Jeremy is lovely.
Do you feel it
helped you?”

“
Yes...” Claire’s voice wavered hesitantly before
forming words. “
But, nothing happened
…”
she said carefully, trying not to sound naïve.

“
No
flying crockery, unearthly groans and bleeding walls?” Rachel said
raising an eyebrow. “Don’t worry; Hollywood has rather jazzed it
up. I have never known a blessing to have any visible
effect.
Thankfully, I guess – I don’t think I would be
so willing to suggest them if they did!
But, it
might have had some effect.”

David entered the flat,
grunting with his load. “A blessing? Great. You could have scared
the spooks off
after
I
carried twelve boxes up from my van.”

“
Keep moaning and you
will end up a spook!” Rachel threatened playfully, prodding his
chest. “Anyway, we’ve been using the bloody lift so what are you
complaining about? Just drink your tea and get working.”

“
Yes boss. I love
dominant women.” He growled, without a giving away any glimmer of
humour.

Rachel slapped him in
retaliation for the deep shade of red that burned up from her chest
into her face. She soon forgot her embarrassment as the front door
rattled open and Brian herded Amy through.

Her presence drew the walls in
around Rachel, pressing the atmosphere against her chest. Rachel
had suggested the stake-out and essentially that made Amy bait.

Amy looked at David and Rachel
in turn. Rachel saw David fold under the pressure of her
questioning innocent face and he turned away and searched out his
mug of tea in the kitchen, Rachel did not waver under those eyes,
but smiled warmly and said hello to her. Amy bolted to Claire.

Claire caught her
joyfully, crouched down to her height and kissed her forehead. Amy
hugged herself close to her mother, in the safety of her embrace
she twisted to look at Rachel and David, puzzled by their presence.
“It’s okay, baby. Rachel and David are going to put some cameras
and things around the house to try and see what funny things have
been happening. Have you had a good day with Daddy?” Amy nodded.
“Park, Maccy D’s
and the shops?”

Claire smiled at Rachel from
this moment of normality, and Rachel took it as her Cue. “Hello
Amy.” She held out her hand and Amy took it, and Rachel shook it
gently. “I am Rachel. I am here with my friend David, and like your
mum said, we are here to try and find out what is going on. If you
show me your room you can help us find the best places to put our
equipment so we can watch over you,” she said gently. Rachel
reached out for her hand again, but before she took it Amy looked
to her mum, ensuring that she would follow.

Amy led Rachel through to her
room and entered her bedroom with cautious hesitation as if she was
walking into a lion’s den.

“
She has been like that
since... Well, you know,” Claire explained protectively.

“
Plug
sockets,”
David broke in. “Most of the equipment has
back-up batteries but a few spare plug sockets wouldn’t go a
miss.”

“
Take your pick,” Claire
offered.

Rachel caught the discomfort in
Claire’s stare as David pulled furniture away from the walls in his
search; she was obviously struggling with seeing another stranger
roaming over the sanctity of her daughter’s room like a burglar in
action. “I told you it was intrusive.”

“
It’s okay; just reminded
me of the police that night,” Claire said distantly.

Rachel nodded grimly before
turning her attention to an uncomfortable-looking Amy. “Are those
your drawings?” She pointed at sheets of paper on the floor at the
end of the bed. Amy nodded. “Can I look at them?” Rachel sank to
the floor and sat cross-legged. Amy left her mum’s side and began
handing them to her one at a time. Having distracted Amy from
David’s intrusion Rachel winked to Claire collusively. “They are
very good,” she said enthusiastically as she fingered through them
and then back to the beginning again. Her face became focussed as
her attention was taken to the recurrent green scribbles. She
looked about the room trying to see what they represented. “What’s
the green?”

Amy sat mimicking Rachel’s
crossed legs and studied her seriously, measuring Rachel’s
character as if it could be read in her face.

“
Mr Sparky.”

Amy’s sudden and unexpected
answer punctuated the air innocently, leaving Claire and Rachel
silenced in their wake.

Rachel’s attention passed over
Claire’s stream of praise of the fact that Amy had spoken. She was
focussed on the actual words Amy had used, words that stiffened the
hairs on the nape of her neck; sure that Amy’s new words were an
epiphany. Rachel tried to keep her voice calm and even despite the
urgency that welled within her and caused her jaw to quiver. She
prepared the tone of her question carefully and precisely as if
cornering a wild animal that she feared would bolt and escape
should she fail to approach it with enough caution. “Amy – What is
‘Mr Sparky?’”

Rachel delivered her question,
but averted her eyes and the pressure she thought they might add to
her question. She concentrated on the pictures scrawled around her,
leaving Amy to decide how to answer. Amy broke free from her
mother’s grip and cautiously lifted the valance sheet of her bed,
and looked hesitantly into the darkness, seemingly fearful of what
she might find there. She put her comforting teddy bear to one side
and leaned into the space under the bed, grunting with the exertion
of an extended reach, then clambered out and produced a folded
sheet of paper. She passed it slowly to Rachel who noticed this
action had earned a frown and a smile from her mother, clearly
puzzled at the ceremonious transaction of trust she was witnessing.
Rachel accepted the thick sheet of paper and thanked her with as
much awe and reverence as she thought Amy would expect.

“
Mr Sparky is the name of
some invisible friend the girls conjured up a month or two ago. I
thought it was sweet; they’d never done anything like that before.
I had forgotten about it,” Claire blurted, her face reddening,
possibly realising the disturbing relevance it might
have.

Rachel unfolded it carefully
and found a scrawled crayon picture caked onto it. The image was
chilling. She glanced to Claire and found the same uncertainty
reflected in her eyes. Claire instinctively pulled Amy close to her
protectively, as if the very picture posed a threat. The cold
realisation of what Amy had seen, or thought she had seen, rushed
in upon Rachel faster than she could process. Was this what had
taken Emily? She asked of herself. Was this what they were going to
be waiting for tonight?

“
What
does it mean?”
Claire whined at the verge of
disintegrating.

Rachel didn’t answer but
continued looking over the picture, following the thick lines of
crayon and felt tip that smothered the middle of the tattered page
in forming the crude image of a pink girl with brown hair, she
stared out of the page with wonky wide eyes. A scribbled round
green spiral curled threateningly around her, at the centre of the
pattern there was a green skull-like head with a vicious black
zigzagging crocodile maw and dark eyes, its overly long arms
reaching out for the girl who was sobbing thick blue tears around a
circular screaming mouth.

Amy pointed at the picture and
her crude handwriting that spelled out its name, her voice chilled
the air as she read it: “Mr Sparky...”

Chapter
Ten

Scott Bray knocked at Harry’s
door. “Harry? It’s Scott, your social worker,” he repeated close to
the door. His lips brushed the cold sticky paintwork, and he
recoiled sharply, scrubbing his mouth with his sleeve as he thought
about the vile residue that might be lurking there on the grubby
door. He was sure he had heard movement within the flat. Scott
unofficially held keys to save the cost and hassle of calling out a
locksmith if Harry lost his set, yet again. Although he had used it
to get past the lobby door he would be infringing on Harry’s
privacy if he used it to check on Harry in his flat. He knelt
before the door and levered the letter box open, took a breath to
announce himself but only produced a hacking splutter as his throat
and lungs were lined by a pungent cloying smell of decay stale
urine and faeces from within the flat.

Scott retched and slumped onto
his generous posterior, dragging a handkerchief from his pocket to
his mouth to stifle whooping coughs as his body tried to disperse
the evil from his throat. Nausea gripped him as the rank smell
reached down into his guts forcing him to swallow stirred-up bile.
He stumbled back on to his feet. That was not a good sign. Harry
had let his old house fall into a squalid condition; the state of
it had forced him into wandering the streets, often sleeping rough
too. Scott had managed to get him a flat at the Heights in the hope
that a smaller property would be easier for him to cope with. It
now looked like a care home would be the next step. “Alright then,
I will call back another time.” Scott headed to the end of the
corridor and waited round the corner out of sight.

Five minutes passed before he
heard Harry’s door creak open, as he had predicted it would. After
the door closed Scott listened to the rustle of a bag and footfalls
heading in the opposite direction. He waited until he thought Harry
would be at the lift then stepped out and saw Harry walking away
from him, hunched around a weighty black bin bag that he cradled in
his arms. Harry walked past the lift doors and slipped through the
fire escape at the end of the corridor.

Scott frowned and
followed, perhaps the bin bag meant Harry
was
attempting to tidy the place; maybe all Harry needed was home help.
Al
though the rank stink suggested the flat needed more
than a light clean. The stealthy furtive way Harry made his exit
also led Scott to think the black sack was nothing to do with house
work. Harry definitely had something to hide, which fuelled Scott’s
suspicion further. Scott reached the door and found himself walking
in Harry’s cruel wake. He screwed his nose up against the smell
that was more than the ammonia of urine and the copper of stale
faeces. Rotting flesh. Scott stifled a cough to clear his throat of
the nauseating odour and eyed the large printed sign on the
door:

‘
PLEASE USE OTHER
STAIRCASE, THIS DOOR TO BE KEPT SHUT AND LOCKED AT ALL TIMES DUE TO
THE HEALTH & SAFETY RISK.’

Harry!
Scott
chastised in his thoughts
.
He
chuckled to himself with the thought
that the health
risk the sign warned of had probably doubled now Harry had gone in
there.
He eased the door open. There were no lights
working in the stairwell and the windows were masked with grilled
slits, casting thick ghostly bands of light onto each landing. He
leaned over the banister and was surprised to see Harry was already
two floors down. “
Fast bastard!”
he
marvelled quietly. Scott padded after him, careful not to give away
his pursuit.

Seven floors down he
thought Harry might turn out of the stairwell into the lobby but,
like all the doors between Harry’s level and the ground floor, they
each had thick bolts drawn across them from inside the stairwell to
stop people from disregarding the health and safety notice. If
Harry had left the stairs Scott would have found a door unbolted.
He surmised that
Harry must have gone further down –
to the basement.
He peered over the banisters and down
into the darkness, he was starting to not like this, and he was
feeling more than a little claustrophobic. The chute for the
rubbish was in the ground floor lobby and Scott was sure there
wouldn’t be access to the rubbish storage area in the basement – a
place the residents were not meant to go. He wondered
where Harry was going with his rubbish sack. What was Harry
trying to hide?

Scott swallowed his
crawling uncertainties and continued to follow Harry down. The last
landing was below ground level with no slit windows to cast any
light, and what lighting might have been in place didn’t appear to
be working. Scott took the banister in his hand and walked
carefully down into the graduating gloom until he reached the
all-consuming blackness of the landing. His mind turned the tables
on his determination. He could wait for Harry upstairs. Before he
could turn on his heels he hesitated, clutching at his fleeting
courage. It was only darkness after all.
It was best
to see what Harry was up to; it was his duty – the flat was Harry’s
last chance of independence. Scott had to ensure that Harry could
integrate and cope alone. He was a stubborn old bugger but he had a
little-boy-lost look about him that made Scott want to look out for
him, to do his best by him. Despite Scott’s help Harry
resented his visits so he couldn’t rely on Harry for
honesty
.
He decided he would have to
catch Harry in whatever odd activities he was doing if he was to
get any idea of how he was living.