Creed (37 page)

Nothing happened. No footsteps, no challenge. He breathed a sigh of relief and ventured onwards, this time not so hastily, making the shadow of the terrace in no time at all. He squatted there, his back against the stone, and did his best to relax his breathing as well as his skittish nerves.

All was quiet. The house itself might have been empty for all the noise that came from it on this side. There were clouds above, but for reasons of their own, they were avoiding the moon; its eerie light reigned supreme. Creed shivered.

‘Joe?’

It was almost a whisper in his ear.

He jumped, almost cracking his head on the wall behind.

‘Is that you, Joe?’

He turned and looked up and the moon was strong enough for him to gasp at what peered over the balcony at him. It was the head of a silver jackal, and Creed felt very weak.

‘It’s me, Joe – Cally. Wait there, I’ll come down.’

Cally? Cally in a mask? Of course. A ball. A costumed ball. She was wearing a costume. But how could she know he was there? Not just there under the terrace, but at the Mountjoy Retreat itself?
How?

He was shaking as she descended the steps to his left, the white, long-snouted mask cast silver by the moonlight. He was too shocked to rise.

‘It’s all right to stand, Joe,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘No one can see you from the house.’ To his relief, she removed the mask, and now it was her hair that was made silver by the moonlight.

He got to his feet. ‘How . . .?’

‘I saw you as we drove past.’

‘That’s not possible.’

‘I saw you in the headlights before you hid behind a tree. You were lit up like a frightened rabbit.’

‘So why didn’t you stop?’

‘I didn’t want Daniel to know you were there.’

‘Ah,’ Creed said. He paused. ‘Ah. Daniel. You mean your director friend, the guy you said you worked for, only he told me he didn’t have a clue about you and you yourself admitted later you’d lied about that, and here you both are, together, guests at the same bash, arriving in the same car, but you—’

‘
Will you be quiet for a moment
,’ she hissed. ‘I’ve warned you about these people. They’re evil, they’re dangerous, and I’m trying to protect you, as well as your son.’

‘It doesn’t explain anything. Who is this creep Lidtrap, and what’s he to you?’

‘Daniel is my brother.’

Creed made a sound that was somewhere between a whine and a sigh.

‘Our grandmother left everything she had to the Mountjoy Retreat. We were invited here tonight, along with some of her oldest friends and acquaintances, to pay tribute to her.’

‘A fancy dress ball? That’s a funny kind of tribute.’

‘A
masque
. Lily loved such things. It was her last wish that she be celebrated in this way.’

He was thinking hard. ‘Wait . . . wait a minute . . .’

‘Keep your voice down.’

‘Your mother’s here, isn’t she? Lily Neverless’ daughter, Grace. This place is a mental institution.’

‘Both the elderly and the mentally unwell are cared for at the Mountjoy. It’s a rest home more than anything else though.’

‘The
senile
and the mentally unwell, you mean. A bunch of loonies living in a grand style.’ Creed shook his head in dismay. ‘Oh Christ. That’s it, isn’t it? That freak you say is Nicholas Mallik is here too. The stupid bastards who run this place allowed him and his bony sidekick to break out to create merry hell.’ He banged the wall with the heel of his fist. ‘It’s all too much, too much of a coincidence. Even Henry Pink, the man who was supposed to have hanged Mallik, is here too. And now you tell me Lily Neverless left her fortune to this place. It’s all connected somehow, they’re all pieces of the same puzzle.’

He leaned one shoulder against the stone and studied Cally. She was pallidly beautiful in the moonlight, the dark gown she wore, sequins sparkling where they caught the light, moulding itself to her curves; her shoulders were bare, icy . . . For all his doubts, all his distrust, he wanted to draw her close, to sink into her, to warm her shoulders, her back, with his hands.

‘Joe, is that why you’re here – to see the old executioner?’

‘That’s right. Henry Pink. I figured he was the one person who could tell me whether or not you were lying about Mallik.’

‘But I can help you.’

‘Like you were going to help me get Sammy back? Why didn’t you call me?’

‘I couldn’t reach you this afternoon, but I knew Sammy would be safe until this affair tonight was over.’

He gripped her arms. ‘Are you telling me he’s here, Sammy’s
here
?’

‘I thought that was why you came. I didn’t know how you’d found out, but—’

‘
Sammy’s here?
’

‘Keep your voice down. We can get him away. We can get them both away.’

‘Both? Henry Pink as well? He’s some kind of prisoner?’

She shook her head impatiently. ‘Not him. My mother, Joe. We can take them out of this place. Don’t you understand, don’t you know why I’ve had to help them? They’ve had my mother locked up for all these years and once I was old enough to realize what was going on, they threatened me with her life. I’ve had to do what they ask.’

‘I don’t get it. You could have gone to the police, the medical authorities. Your own grandmother could have arranged it for you.’

‘No, no. She was part of it. My brother, too. You don’t understand what they’re like. They’re involved in things you’ll never understand. My mother isn’t . . . she isn’t quite right, but she’s not like them, she isn’t evil. Lily committed her when my brother and I were babies. Our grandmother raised us, she took care of us, made sure we wanted for nothing. But she corrupted us to her ways. Hers and Mallik’s.’

She moved into him, and then his hands really were on her shoulders, on her back, warming her icy flesh.

‘If you only knew what I’ve been through. I’m part of them, Joe, but it has to end, it has to stop now. They’re insane, they think they can regain past glories—’

‘Hold it, hold it. Who are you talking about now? Mallik?’

‘Yes. And others. They’re aged, some of them are crippled, but they want what they had before. They think they can be powerful again.’ She pulled her head away from his shoulder so that she could look into his eyes. ‘You’ve got to help me, Joe. We need each other.’

‘Right. Let’s go.’ He made to move towards the gardens, but she held him back.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Out of here. We’ll tell the police all we know and they can do the rest.’

‘Didn’t you listen to me?’ She sounded angry, although her voice wasn’t raised. ‘The police don’t have the authority to have my mother released.’

‘Lily committed her, and now the old hag’s dead. Somebody else has to take on that responsibility.’

‘Somebody already has. Daniel has agreed my mother stays locked away. He’s with them, Joe, he’s part of them.’

‘All that may be so, but we can tell them about Sammy’s kidnapping. At least the police can help me get him back.’

She shook her head vigorously. ‘They would never find him. He wouldn’t . . . there wouldn’t be enough left of him to find.’

The nausea Creed felt made him unsteady.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, holding on to him, ‘but you have to know how inhuman they are. We have to do this on our own.’

This wasn’t Creed’s territory at all. ‘We can’t . . . we can’t . . .’ he began to say, but he couldn’t assemble the rest of the sentence.

‘There’s no other way, believe me. This is something more than a mere celebration of my grandmother, so they’re going to be very busy. It’s our only chance, right here and now. There’ll be no other opportunity after tonight.’ She grabbed his lapels. ‘Let me find out where Henry Pink is first . . .’

‘He doesn’t matter any more.’

‘He does,’ she stated firmly. ‘It’s important that you know I’m telling the truth about Mallik. If you’re convinced by what Pink says, then you’ll be more willing to help me. And I do need your help, Joe, I can’t do this alone. Besides, think of the story you’ll have for your newspaper.’

There was that. ‘We’ll get Sammy too?’

‘If it’s possible. I can’t make promises. You have to trust me to do my best.’

Trust her? Trust anybody? That wasn’t really in Creed’s nature. She had, however, touched a nerve. This story, if it were true, could earn him a small fortune. It wasn’t
the
shot he’d been searching for all his career, the big one that would have put his name among the photographers’ hall of fame; no, this was even better, this would be (if the retired executioner was coherent enough to verify what Cally claimed) the scandal of the century, a revelation of skulduggery in high places from way back, nostalgia with a horrible twist. Imagine the movie rights on such a story! If, if,
if
it were true. Bring it up to date with kidnap, incarceration, and weird devil worship stuff. It was mind-blowing. It was awesome. Of course, he would have gone in to save Sammy anyway, but in all honesty he couldn’t deny that the rest of it was an added incentive.

‘Answer me two questions first,’ he said, feeling a familiar tingling in his nerve-ends.

Her face was close to his own. He could feel her warm breath on his cheeks.

‘Why all the different names? McNally, Lidtrap, Buchan . . .’

‘Buchanan. My mother’s married name was Buchanan, and mine used to be Calmeira Buchanan. I didn’t lie to you before – I changed my name by deed poll. Grandmother urged both Daniel and me to shed the Buchanan name legally as soon as we were old enough to do so. She despised my father, you see, she considered him weak and the ruination of my mother. I believe she also despised my mother for her particular weakness until the day she died. So one very drunken evening, Daniel and I stuck needles in a phone directory and came up with our present names.’

‘Your brother should have had another go.’

‘No. The rule was that we stuck with whatever the pin struck. Silly, I suppose, but as I said, it was a drunken evening. What was your other question?’

‘How did you find me here?’

‘Use your head, Joe. When I saw you near the estate’s entrance, I guessed you’d try to get into the building somehow. This was the only way you could, so five minutes after Daniel and I arrived I slipped away and came out here. I saw you dash from the trees quite clearly in the moonlight and all I had to do was wait until you got close. Can we go now before I’m missed? Besides, I’m freezing.’

Creed could think of nothing else that might delay them. ‘I’ll break your neck if you’re lying to me,’ he said grimly. It was a threat without substance, but it made him feel just a mite more bullish.

Unfortunately, when they had climbed the steps and crept across the terrace, lonely, insane laughter from somewhere inside the house set his limbs to shaking again.

If you’ve ever paid a visit to a lunatic asylum (perhaps been a resident at some time?), you’ll know the stale heaviness that hangs in the air like floating decay. For some peculiar reason it clings more stagnantly at night than in the daytime. Possibly it’s sick brain cells crumbling from their hosts to permeate the atmosphere in the way skin flakes from flesh. At least, that was the fanciful thought Creed had as he hid inside the small room filled with muddied boots on the ground floor of the Mountjoy Retreat.

The girl had led him around to the side of the house, away from the terrace and its large french windows and doors. Even as they stole past, lights in those windows began to come on behind them like stalking spotlights so that they had to hurry lest they be exposed in a sudden glare. The side door they entered was shut but unlocked, and was the one Cally had used earlier. Holding his hand, she took him along a narrow corridor. Music and muted conversation from somewhere in another part of the house came to them, but it seemed a long way off.

She had found the boxroom quickly enough (perhaps she had already planned to hide him there). Its window was small, the glass thick and mottled so that moonlight barely scraped through. She had told him to wait for her there. ‘I have to get back before they realize how long I’ve been away. I’ll find out which is Henry Pink’s room, then I’ll come and get you.’ Unexpectedly she had kissed his cheek before slipping outside into the corridor again. Given the chance, Creed would have held her tight and returned the gesture with considerably more passion, but she was gone, the door quietly closed behind her, and he was all alone, cold and nervous and wondering if he wasn’t the world’s biggest fool for entering the lion’s den like this.