Vicious Circle (35 page)

“He fires at the floor,” I said. My throat was unpleasantly dry, and it came out as a croak.

Basquiat looked at me curiously. “That’s right,” she said, acknowledging the point with a nod. “He does. And why does he do that, Mr. Castor?”

I shrugged unconvincingly. I knew the answer, but I was still hoping I was wrong. “Warning shot?”

“After shooting three people in the back? I don’t think so.”

Okay, what the fuck. If she was determined to make me dance . . . “The circle,” I said, tiredly. “He blasted a hole in the circle.”

“I’m still asking why,” said Basquiat. “It seems a strange thing to do. Can you shed any light on the reasoning?”

“Maybe,” I said, facing her stare as levelly as I could. “But maybe you’d like to tell me why I’m here first. It would help to know.”

Basquiat’s jaw tensed so hard that for a second I could see every muscle in her throat. “I’m surprised you have to ask.” The words came out laden with something like anger, something like contempt. “You’re one of DS Coldwood’s regular informants—or so he says. And he uses you a lot in situations like this, isn’t that right? You tell him where someone’s died, and how they died, and how they’ve been getting along since.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s about it. So do you want a reading, detective?”

“Not at this particular point in time, Mr. Castor, no. Maybe later. What I’d like right now is an answer. How did you know that Abbie Torrington was dead?”

So there it was. It opened up inside my stomach like a pit, just waiting for one more word from Basquiat to fill it.

“I’m an exorcist,” I said.

“So what, it’s a sparrow in the marketplace kind of deal?” she spat, unconsciously echoing my own words to Gwillam. “Everyone who dies, you get to hear about it? How’s my grandad doing? Last time I checked, he was still okay, but maybe you can give me an update.”

She glared at me again. I was still trying to think of something to say when DC Field lumbered up and handed her a note without so much as a glance in my direction. She took it, read it, and handed it back to him with a curt nod. He went away.

“A man and a woman came into my office two days ago,” I told Basquiat, as she turned her attention back to me. “They claimed to be Abbie’s parents. And they asked me to find her.”

“To find her dead
body
?” The detective’s tone was incredulous.

“No. To find her ghost.”

It didn’t sound much better. Before Basquiat could answer, I held up my hand in a kind of surrender. “Just tell me, sergeant, did Abbie Torrington die inside that circle?”

“Yes,” said Basquiat coldly. “She did. Stabbed through the heart by some sick fucks playing at witches and wizards.” She came right up close to me, dropping her voice so that her next words would just be between the two of us. “We’ve got her body down at the morgue right now, and you can bet we’re going over it with a fine-toothed comb. And if I find out you were one of the people who killed her, Castor, no power on earth is going to keep me from ripping your balls off. And then reading you your rights at great length while you bleed.”

The pit filled up. I thought it would fill with grief—grief for little Abbie, cut open like a side of meat as part of a satanist ritual—but it turned out to be anger.

“Let me read the scene,” I told her, biting back a lot of other words that were clustering behind my teeth, trying to get out.

“You are dreaming, my friend,” Basquiat snarled, shaking her head. “Whatever impression I may have given you earlier, you’re a suspect here. I asked Coldwood to bring you over in case you turned out to be the type who falls apart and confesses at the scene of the crime. Might have saved us some time. But since you’re not, I’ll have to see how the evidence pans out. The only reason I’m not hauling you in and sweating you right now is because Gary vouches for you—or more precisely, because he’s got you on the books as an informant, which means there’s interoffice paperwork to be filled in before I can get Fields to kick your teeth down your throat.”

“You let Fields do your dirty work?” I said. “I’m disappointed. Used to be, when you asked a cop for some strict discipline, you could at least rely on personal service.”

Basquiat had been on the point of walking away, and she already had her back to me. She swiveled on her heel and dealt me a scything, sideways punch to the head. Since my head was close to meltdown and my balance was all to fuck, I went sprawling. I heard a tuneless whistle of appreciation from one side of the room, running footsteps from the other. Looking up blearily, I saw Gary Coldwood standing over me.

“Mr. Castor tripped on the protective sheeting,” Basquiat said to him.

“Yeah. I saw. But I think he’s got his sea legs now. I don’t see him tripping anymore.”

“Depends if he stays around me,” said Basquiat. She knelt down, stared into my face. “I use Fields to do the softening up,” she said. “All the detail work I’ll do myself.”

She walked away, and Coldwood helped me back onto the vertical—or something close to it.

“Let’s get you some fresh air,” he muttered.

We went back out through the hall onto the street. I leaned against the front of the building, feeling the world turn around me.

“She’s got this thing about kids,” Coldwood explained. “Takes it personally when they get hurt. There was a pedo out in Kingston—guy who’d done time for raping a little boy, and it looked like he might be getting back into old habits. Fell down some stairs at his house while Basquiat was over there to run some questions past him. Broke his arm, did some serious damage to his back that he might never recover from. She booked him for assault: said he attacked her and went down the stairs when she used a judo throw in self-defense. Story stank, but who cares? He did another six months. Happy ending for everyone.”

I didn’t say a word. I was taking this personally, too, but I wasn’t going to start swearing any oaths of vengeance in front of a police officer. They’ve got a different set of rules for the general public.

“Get yourself a lawyer, Fix,” Coldwood said sadly. “A good one. Sooner or later, we’re going to pull you in formally, and a bad lawyer’s gonna leave you with egg on your face whatever happens.”

“I need—a lift home,” I said, slurring the words.

Coldwood examined me critically for a few seconds, then turned to one of the uniforms standing by the door, who were pretending not to listen.

“Drive him back,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And get the license number of that car he was driving. Just for the record.”

He went back inside without saying good night. I guess he felt he’d done me enough favors to be going on with.

W
HETHER
I
DREAMED
OR
NOT
THAT
NIGHT
, I
DON’T
REmember. Sleep was like a lead-lined box that I fell into, and the lid slammed shut over my head. It was as cold as the grave in there, and mercifully quiet.

But at some point in the night, someone must have torn away the sides of the box, because light started to filter in under my eyelids. Only a little, at first, but those first splinters broadened into crowbars, prying their way in, twisting me open to a day I didn’t want to have anything to do with. There was a tapping sound, too, of chisels working their way into the cracks and crevices of my consciousness.

I tried to turn to get away from the light and the intrusive noise, but it seemed to be coming in from all sides. And movement was difficult in any case, because my muscles were cramped and screaming.

I opened my eyes, which felt as though they’d been sealed shut with a silicon gun. I was in a car—Matt’s car, I realized when I saw the pine tree air freshener hanging over my head like mistletoe. What the hell was I doing there? I’d parked the car at Pen’s and then Coldwood and his little friends had bushwhacked me and spirited me away to Hendon. And since I’d gotten a police escort home . . . No, the details wouldn’t coalesce. The fever had been raging by then: I must have crawled back into the car under some vague impression that I still had to drive home, and then fallen asleep at the wheel instead. Good job. If I’d actually gotten the thing out onto the road, I’d be waking up in a morgue somewhere and finding out firsthand what out-of-body experiences are like.

The tapping came again, louder, from right behind my head. With difficulty, I levered myself around in the seat without turning my neck, which felt like it would snap rather than pivot. Pen was standing beside the car, looking in at me with an expression of puzzled concern on her face.

I unlocked the door and climbed out, almost losing my balance. Pen jumped in to catch me and keep me upright.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “Not feeling too clever, to be honest.”

She winced as the smell of my breath hit her unsuspecting airways: judging by the taste in my mouth, I could sympathize.

“Fix,” she admonished me, but a lot more gently than I’d have expected, “have you been drinking?” I could understand the question. I was trying to lock the car and failing to get the key into the lock. Pen took the keys from me and locked it with the beeper on the fob.

“No,” I said. “No more than usual. This is—something else. I’m coming down with some kind of bug.”

She steered me toward the house. “What did you do to the car?” she asked, sounding concerned.

“The car?” I echoed stupidly. My mind was a sprawl of flabby fingers that wouldn’t make a fist. Then I remembered the sideswipe on the Hammersmith overpass. “Oh, yeah. That wasn’t me. That was Catholic werewolves.”

There are only five steps up to Pen’s front door. Somehow, they seemed to take a long time to negotiate, and we had a near disaster at the top when I lost my balance and Pen had to shove me forward into the hall to avoid me going back down again on my arse.

“I’m calling a doctor,” Pen muttered as she hauled me into the living room and dumped me without ceremony onto the sofa.

“I think,” I said, “I just need to lie down. Had a hell of a day yesterday. Got into a fight at White City, then the cops hauled me in to help them with their inquiries.”

“Jesus, Fix!” Pen was looking down at me with troubled eyes. “What do they think you did?”

“Murder.” I stared at the ground, trying to shut out the memory of the crusted spatter of blood and the terse plastic tag—like the tag you’d get from a cloakroom attendant—that marked the place where Abbie Torrington died. Wasted effort: it wouldn’t go away. “They think I murdered someone.”

There was a silence, which seemed to expand like white light until it filled the room. Light-headed, I almost floated away on that white tide back into unconsciousness. I had too much still to do. I fought against my own body, and the room came back into focus. I didn’t think that silent tussle had taken any time at all, but when I raised my head again, Pen was gone.

Saturday, May the sixth, I thought. Something went down on that night—something whose shape I could just barely make out through the many and disparate things it had touched. On Saturday, Stephen and Melanie Torrington are beaten and then shot in their own home. They don’t struggle. They don’t run. They just die. Later on, so does Abbie—sacrificial lamb in someone’s satanic knees-up. Then after they’ve killed her someone else walks into the room and breaks up the party with an assault rifle, aiming not at the Satanists—at least, not after the first few exhilarating moments—but at the magic circle where Abbie’s body is still lying. Was that other someone Dennis Peace? Was this where he acquired Abbie’s spirit, assuming he really had it? And if he did, was it a kidnapping or a rescue?

Meanwhile, three miles away at the Scrubs, St. Michael’s Church was invaded by some entity so powerful that just being close to it poisoned the minds and souls of everyone in the goddamn building, sending them off on murderous trajectories that had sliced through the city like so many loops of piano wire through a ripe cheese.

And something else. Something I was missing.

Pen’s voice, low and urgent, was coming from out in the hall. Nobody else’s voice, just hers. I turned and saw her through the doorway, standing at the foot of the stairs, all by herself, talking away fifteen to the dozen. She was on her mobile, of course, but right then it seemed to me that there must be some spectral figure standing next to her, silent and invisible, as though she were reporting in to heaven, because there was a blaze of light around her head like a halo. But no, that was just the sun streaming in through the skylight over the front door. It was a beautiful day. About time. Way past time. But if the sunlight knew what the fuck it was shining on, would it bother to make the trip?

Pen came back into the room, stood over me looking irresolute. “I’ve got to go, Fix,” she said. “Rafi’s seeing a psychiatrist this morning for a preliminary status hearing. I don’t want him to face that all by himself. I called Dylan and asked him to come and have a look at you, but he’s on call so he can’t. He’s going to send someone else, though—a friend. You just—you just stay here until he comes, all right?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She knelt down and gave me a quick, awkward hug. “Get better. I’ll give Rafi your love.”

And as she straightened up again, a thought was zigzagging across my brain, trying to find an intact neuron it could connect to. Pen was still talking, but I didn’t hear a word over the ringing in my ears.

Something about Pen? Or about Rafi? I should be there for him. I had been there for him. That was the problem. That was why he was so fucked up now.

The door slammed, startling me out of a half doze. I tried to get up, but I didn’t manage it. I opened my mouth to say “I’m coming with you,” but Pen wasn’t there anymore. Of course, that was why the door had slammed. She’d left already.

But that wasn’t the issue, was it? Pen was fine, because she was going to visit Rafi, and Asmodeus—most of Asmodeus—was somewhere else. So what was the problem? Why did I feel like there was something I hadn’t done, that I had to do right then without wasting any more time? And given that feeling of urgency, why was I still half-sitting, half-lying on the couch with my head hanging like a weight from my shoulders, staring at the floor?