Fear No Evil (18 page)

‘Oh? Not interested? Do you prefer boys? Little boys, maybe, like so many of your kind? Altar boys, choir boys, lost boys… or old women? Defenseless old ladies, with their puckered skin and dried up cunts? Or corpses, dead and rotting, ripe and splitting to the touch? Is that what you like to fuck,
Priest
?’

The harsh words were made even more foul by the fact they came with a child’s voice.

The doors to the hallway and bathroom and wardrobe were banging open and shut over and over again, in time to dozens of lisping children’s voices rising and falling as they sang Row the Boat. Merrily, merrily… . Merrily, merrily… bang. Life is just a dream. Bang.

Over in the corner of the room, the mattress was springing up and down, the foam top keeping the shape of two pairs of tiny jumping feet. In the bathroom I could hear the taps running, the sound of kids screaming and laughing as they soaked each other in a water fight. The steamed-up window behind the girl was now decorated with dozens of small palm prints from hands we couldn’t see.

‘Tell me who you are,’ insisted Dan, apparently oblivious to the twisted playground around him.

‘We can’t tell you. If you knew our names, you could call us in for tea – then we’d have to stop playing. And we don’t
want
to stop playing.’

Betty and Justin advanced towards her, their voices higher and louder and more insistent, the word ‘Jesu’ repeated often. Will was on to ‘Come All Ye Faithful’, which might not have been particularly seasonal, but from the furious frown on the girl-woman’s face was certainly doing the trick of bothering her.

I wrapped the blanket closer around myself as one of the unseen imps tried to tug it away. As I walked towards Dan, I could feel something trying to untie the laces on my trainers, and kicked out at thin air. Apart from being frozen, terrified and confused, I was now starting to get seriously annoyed.

I walked behind Dan, started again on the Our Father, then dragged the words of Mass to my mouth. I might not go for months at a time, but some things you never forget.

‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed…’

‘NO IT WILL NOT!’ screamed the girl, in a huge, booming voice that punched my eardrums. ‘Your soul will be mine forever! Your God is not interested in you, Jayne McCartney! He has abandoned you! Like He did poor little Joy! All dressed up and nowhere to go. I’m afraid I kept her awake and played games with her all night long. Until I killed her… oops!’

Betty and Justin were close; Justin edging between me and the thing in front of me; Betty passing something to Dan from her bag, all the while chanting.

The woman twisted back towards Dan, staring at the wooden crucifix he was now holding in front of his chest. Her face showed contempt. Hatred. And definitely fear. I could tell she longed to reach out and knock it away, but was too scared. Like me and wasps.

‘By the power of the cross I command you,’ he said. ‘Reveal your name.’

The bouncing on the bed stopped; the door slammed shut a final time, and I could hear dozens of young voices chorusing together. ‘Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run, see how they run…’

‘My name,’ the woman said, in a baby doll voice she would have had a decade earlier, ‘is Sophie Clarke. Bye bye, Sophie. Rest in peace.’

Sinuously twisting out of Dan’s grip, she was suddenly running towards the window. The window that was now open, blowing and clattering wide into the wind.

‘No!’ shouted Dan, throwing himself forwards to try and grab her. He missed, fell to the floor, and we saw Sophie Clarke, or at least her body, dive through the open window.

Will reacted first, jumping up from his knees with a huge flying rugby tackle. He managed to grab hold of her ankles, held on for grim life, his face contorted with the effort as Dan scrambled back to his feet and went to help. They had one foot each, and were pulling her back through the frame inch by inch. She was fighting them all the way, kicking and writhing, cursing their names and trying to get them to let go.

Justin moved forward, leaned out of the window and got a grip of her bucking torso, dragging her back into the room and threw her to the ground. Betty leapt behind him, slamming the window shut and kicking Sophie back down when she tried to reach it again.

She flopped on the floor like a netted fish, wriggling and jerking and crying in anger. Dan stood over her, praying loudly and insistently. Betty and Justin joined in. After a minute or so the body went limp. Soft. Lifeless.

‘Shit… is she still alive?’ I asked, crawling over to try and check her pulse. I got up close to the twisted face, looking for signs of life, and almost jumped out of my skin when her eyelids snapped back open.

‘It’s okay,’ said Dan, kneeling down beside her. ‘She’s back. It’s Sophie, isn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

She sounded terrified, and stared out at us all in fear and confusion. With huge eyes. Huge, scared, very human, very blue eyes. The eyes of a young woman, who had very nearly shared the same fate as her friend Joy.

Chapter 20

I’m sure that being rich brings many benefits. You don’t waste your time worrying about the gas bill, or paying the mortgage, or debating the merits of Primark over Prada.

And, right up there at the top of the list as far as I’m concerned, you get to keep really, really nice whisky in the house.

We’d all retreated to Will Deerborne’s apartment, at his suggestion. We’d got Sophie out safely, Betty had checked on Arthur, and we needed somewhere secure to regroup.

Calling Will’s home an ‘apartment’ is a bit like calling Windsor Castle a semi. It was a vast penthouse that took over the entire top floor of the Deerborne Building. Most of it was his private living space, but there were also a few bedrooms set aside for ‘corporate VIPs’. Luckily there were no fat cats in residence that night, which meant we could all crash out, lick our wounds, and drink the rather excellent fifty-year-old Glenfiddich that Will was currently splashing into tumblers with still-shaking hands.

Sophie was wrapped in one of his bathrobes, looking like a twelve-year-old in her dad’s clothes. She was much prettier without the whole demon chic thing, but obviously still terrified. She was sitting so close to Justin she might as well have climbed onto his lap, and I noticed she never took her eyes off him, even when she was talking to us. Crikey. Takes all sorts, I suppose.

She’d explained to us how she’d found herself going back to Joy’s old room more and more often, trying to come to terms with her friend’s death. Joy had left her diary in Sophie’s room the night she died, and she’d later read it. Cue automatic guilt trip: if she hadn’t been so busy with her new man, maybe Joy would still have been alive, etc etc. She’d snuck the diary into Joy’s belongings once the police had declared it a non-crime scene. One of Alec’s little mysteries solved, at least.

‘One minute I was sitting there,’ she said, ‘feeling a bit sad. And the next, I woke up lying on the floor, surrounded by you guys.’

Tish was now back to business as usual – fuming about her broken camera, and planning to ‘kick some evil ass’ when she next got the chance. Yeah, right. Once she’d emerged from behind the sofa. She glared up at me, and I wondered if I’d said that out loud.

‘I’m not scared,’ she said. ‘I’m fucking angry. And anyway – you know what? Next time, I’m going to take Sister Margaret Mary with me! She’d put all those little bastards into detention!’

‘I’m sure she’d manage to stay on the back of the beast at Satan’s rodeo,’ I said, ‘but God, I hope there isn’t a next time.’

I kicked off my party shoes and curled my feet underneath me on a sofa the size of Slovakia. I really needed to sleep sometime soon, and Slovakia looked mighty welcoming.

‘There will be a next time,’ said Dan, ominously. ‘There always is. It’ll just stay, killing over and over again, and keeping the souls of those children from the rest they deserve. It won’t go away until someone forces it to.’

Oh, thank you Mr Brightside.

‘And will that “someone” be us?’ I asked, suspecting I already knew the answer to that question.

‘Unless you can suggest anybody else, then yes. It’ll be us. Or at least, me, Betty and Justin. This is what we do. This is why we’re here. You can go back to following cheating husbands any time you like, Jayne.’

Low blow. I guess we were all a bit rattled.

‘Thank you for the permission,’ I snapped. ‘Although we both know I don’t need it. Get off your high horse, Dan – I brought this to you; I’ve been on it from the beginning, and I’m seeing it through. But if I’m going to walk into that kind of situation again, I need to know more. Be better prepared. That was like… taking a nail file to a gun fight.’

‘No it wasn’t,’ said Will, putting the now half-empty bottle down on a smoked-glass coffee table, and settling himself on the floor. He leaned back against the sofa and sighed, long and hard.

‘It wasn’t like that, Jayne. We had God on our side. And that’s like the ultimate big gun, isn’t it? Whatever it threw at us, we had the edge. It was terrible – but we’re all here, in one piece. My hands haven’t stopped shaking since we left, and I’m convinced my heart will never go back to its normal rhythm, but we’re alive. I’m just sorry I couldn’t be more use to you, Dan – standing in the background doing an acapella version of “Morning Has Broken” probably wasn’t that helpful…I’m hardly Arnold Schwarzenegger when it comes to these things.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said, laying a hand on his shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. ‘You were brilliant. Without you—’

‘I’d be dead,’ said Sophie, in a tiny voice, her hand creeping out of the over-long towelling sleeve to find Justin’s.

‘She’s right,’ said Dan. ‘You saved her, Will, when I failed – and don’t ever underestimate the power of a good hymn. But maybe Jayne has a point. I’m used to this. You’re not. What happened tonight – the abuse, the foul language – I’ve been on the receiving end of that before. You haven’t. You need to know more. We’ll do some… training, I suppose you’d have to call it.’

‘Oh God,’ groaned Tish. ‘Please don’t tell me it’s going to involve a flipchart and some role play sessions…’

We all laughed, far more than the joke merited.

‘Listen, guys,’ she said, standing up and stretching so tall she almost touched the ceiling. ‘It’s been a blast – but I need to get home. I have a dog to walk. Jayne – call me tomorrow.’

‘Will do,’ I said, giving her a small wave. Dan was the only one of us still on his feet, so she walked over and hugged him. Her head lay on his shoulder for a fraction longer than necessary, and I could tell she was still scared, and exhausted, and probably worried sick about what was going to happen next. But she’d never show it – bravado had always been her default setting. She’d go home, cuddle Mr Bean, and work herself into the ground.

‘It’s late,’ said Will, getting up on his slightly unsteady feet. ‘We all need some rest. Why don’t I see Tish out, then go and check on the sleeping arrangements. I’ll have breakfast sent up for us at about seven? Does that sound okay?’

Sophie looked slightly taken aback at the idea of a seven a.m. start, but we all had a lot to do. She’d decided to go home to Scotland for a few days, and I really didn’t blame her. After everything that had happened, I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t come back to Liverpool at all.

Dan was standing in front of the fireplace, lost in thought, impossibly blue eyes staring intensely ahead.

I was tired to the core of my being, and unsettled in a way I’d never been before. All the evidence was suggesting it was kids. It was kids, doing all that evil shit. Killing Joy. Killing Geneva. Killing God knows how many others before a pattern was noticed. Kids who used to be innocent and pure and vulnerable. Kids who were taken from their homes and murdered, sacrificed to someone’s twisted idea of a religion. It was sad and sick and sorrowful.

Will came back into the room and told us everything was ready. I didn’t need much prompting, I was dead on my feet. I got up, said my goodnights and went off to my room. I was sharing with Betty, and she trailed in a few minutes later, smelling of cinnamon. Like fresh cookies. Unlike me, who’d fallen under the duvet without so much as brushing my teeth. Slattern.

‘You okay?’ she said, climbing in to her own bed and lying on one side so she was facing me.

‘Yeah. Not too shabby considering. Betty, what was that tonight? And are you used to that kind of thing?’

‘That was a demon. Not sure how it relates to the children. Probably just uses them, their energy and their memories. Underneath all that distraction, there’ll be a demon, and we’ll find out who it is.’

‘What – demons have different names?’

‘Oh yes. There’s even one called Leonard, which always makes me giggle. It didn’t work tonight, but Dan never gives up. To answer your other question, I don’t get used to it, no. That’d be odd, wouldn’t it? To get used to something like that. But I have got less surprised by it. The shock of the first time is always the worst – a bit like having a baby, I suppose.’

In an evil, unnatural, stomach-curdling way. Which is exactly how I view the process of childbirth already, come to think of it.

‘Do you have kids?’ I asked, realising how little I knew about her. Until tonight, I’d thought her and Justin were a couple. They might still be – but Justin was sleeping in the same room as Sophie, at her insistence. She’d imprinted on him like a baby duck.

‘I do. I have four. I know,’ she said, catching my shocked expression. ‘I started early, and the youngest are twins. They’re at home with my partner.’

‘Oh. That’s not Justin, then?’

‘No. He’s not my type.’

‘What, you don’t fancy scary baldy biker blokes?’ I said.

‘No. I don’t fancy men.’

‘Oh…
oh
. I see.’ Didn’t see that one coming. Betty Batty had me foxed at every turn. ’So what does your partner do? Is she a hypnotist too?’

‘What do you mean, a hypnotist?’ she asked, grinning at me over the top of the duvet. ‘I’m not a hypnotist, I work part-time as a traffic warden! And Rebecca’s a physics teacher. Hardly Paul McKenna.’