Fear No Evil (33 page)

‘I like to retain my air of mystery,’ he replied. ‘Is everything all right? I wasn’t expecting you… what happened to your real car?’

He was staring at the BMW, correctly assuming it was mine, as it was the only vehicle in the car park.

‘It got a make-over,’ I said. ‘Fancy a drive? I mean, if you’re not busy. I thought we could talk about stuff. Demon stuff. And also—’

‘You wanted to cruise round in your new toy, and you couldn’t find anyone else?’

‘No. That’s not fair. I didn’t even
ask
anyone else. So, you coming or what?’

He nodded, looked at the car again.

‘Do I even want to ask?’ he said.

‘Not unless you want to hear the answer. And it’s a one-day only deal anyway.’

‘Okay. Let’s do it. But I’d rather not talk about demon stuff if that’s okay with you. I was up late last night with Betty planning, and I need some time off. Come and wait inside while I get a shower first. Don’t nose in the cupboards, it’s not my place.’

Bugger. Busted. Deprived of my favourite activity, I instead amused myself by imagining the look on his face if I stripped off all my clothes and offered to scrub his back. And other body parts. I got very caught up in this distraction, to the extent that I didn’t even notice when he walked back into the room. Fully clothed, sadly.

‘What are you smiling about?’ he said.

‘Um… nothing. Are you ready? Do you need to do your hair or put your make-up on or anything?’

He gave me a disgusted look and said: ‘Where are we going, and what do I need to bring?’

‘Don’t know where we’re going. Somewhere the car can stretch its legs. And it’s another scorcher, so can’t see as you’ll need anything other than yourself.’

And a picnic blanket, and a jumbo pack of condoms, I added mentally.

Two hours later, and we’d gone much further than either of us had planned. Geographically speaking, of course. I’d headed through the Mersey Tunnel, and then peeled off towards Shropshire, thinking we could maybe have lunch in Ludlow and climb the castle walls. Instead, a desire to stretch our own legs as well as the BMW’s led us to a National Trust car park near Church Stretton, where we followed signs for the Long Mynd walkways.

I’d been here once, a lifetime ago, with my almost-imaginary lecturer boyfriend. The one with the equally imaginary wife and kids he never told me about. I remember being blown away by how beautiful it was, but had never been back since. Now seemed as good a time as any to exorcise that particular demon, especially as I rarely gave Paul and his contribution to my educational fall from grace a spare thought these days.

If you’ve never been to Shropshire, imagine somewhere wild and beautiful and mystical. The kind of place Druids would hang out on stag weekends. Then take away all the tourists you’d normally find in that kind of beauty spot, and you have it. It’s gorgeous. And very, very hilly. We’d been trudging up a steadily increasing incline for what felt like hours before we hit a brass plaque congratulating us on reaching Pole Bank – the highest point.

I’m in pretty good nick cardio wise, but I was still tired out. In a pleasant way, that would be ideally followed by a slap-up dinner in a country pub and seventeen pints of Guinness. Instead, I settled for sitting next to Dan, eating the butties we’d picked up at a service station and swigging Evian straight from a shared bottle. We were both quiet for a few minutes, taking in the views of Central Wales, and the peaks of Stiperstones. My calf muscles were whining and my mascara was probably hovering somewhere to east of my nose, but I didn’t care. It was a day to sit and enjoy the sunshine and the spectacular scenery – both that in front of me, and that to the left of me.

Then, of course, he had to spoil it.

‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do after we’re finished with all this?’

Of course I had. For all of thirty seconds, before I squashed it and added it to the ever-growing lists of Things To Keep In Attic of Brain.

‘I’d rather get through it first,’ I replied. ‘It’s going to be scary and horrible and potentially fatal. So I don’t want to waste time worrying about the fact I don’t have a pension and my office is haunted by a demented cleaning lady.’

He nodded, took another bite.

‘Hmm. I see what you mean. But it won’t be fatal – I’ll look after you. And you really should get a pension.’

I looked at him, then gazed back out over the hills.

‘Oh shut up,’ I said. ‘Stop acting like my dad. You’re not my dad. You’re my—’

‘What?’

‘A person who isn’t my dad. Can’t we just enjoy the day without having life-coaching sessions thrown in? We can’t even get mobile reception up here, I lost it down in the valley. So let’s pretend we’re normal people, at least for a bit.’

‘Normal? Not sure I know how,’ he replied.

‘Okay, then I’ll settle for you shutting up,’ I said. And he did.

Not long after, we started back down, stopping for numerous ‘photo opportunities’ on the way. Okay, so we didn’t have a camera – but my life had been pretty short on the picturesque recently, and I wanted to make the most of it. The camera was in my head, capturing every moment and tucking it away.

By the time we reached terra firma, ye olde tea shoppes were closing up, and the car park was emptying. Diehard walkers were bashing their boots on the trunks of their cars, and packing up their foldable chairs. It was starting to go dark – as it should in late September. Even a stupidly sunny one like this.

Dan strapped his seat belt on, and I noticed his nostrils flaring. That showroom smell strikes again. Shame I wasn’t going to be able to keep it.

‘Are you going to keep it?’ he asked, reading my mind.

‘No. Of course not. It’s from Eugene, as I’m sure you figured out. But it’s mine, all the paperwork came with it. So I’ll… give it away. Maybe I’ll give it to Father Kerrigan. He can sell it on and use the funds for the Church roof, or the women’s and children’s group, or whatever. Do some good with it. There’s a big bag of cash as well, so if you or Betty or Justin need any—’

He opened his mouth to reply, but my phone started to beep, skittering around on the dashboard from the vibrations. We were back in range, and I had what looked like a million messages.

One was from a nice lady at Vodafone, wanting to tell me all about their exciting new tariffs. Erase. Another was from the BMW garage, informing me the car came with a free service package and I should call for details. Erase. A third was from my mum, telling me my gran was coming over for Sunday lunch and had requested not only my presence, but Dan’s. Too scary to comprehend. Save for later. The next was from Adam, so I actually listened to it the whole way through.

‘Hi Jayne,’ he said. ‘Adam here. Did some extra work on your problem last night. Supposed to have been out at footie training, but the Dewey Decimators’ goalie dropped a very heavy reference copy of an Albanian dictionary on his foot and broke his big toe – occupational hazard. So I did some research, and I found something interesting. The child disappearances didn’t stop once Hart House was built. And when I looked earlier, they were there too. Not a pattern unless you’re looking for it, or if you’re a library superhero like I am… anyway. I got all the details. Cross-reffed them to the information you had about the other Deerborne buildings in the city… and guess what? They all match. Before, for Doe Hall in Roby, and after, for the Stag Building down by the Victoria Dock. As the foundations were laid, missing kids all over the shop. Anyway. Might be nothing, but I thought I’d let you know. Call me back later.’

I handed Dan the phone, telling him to listen to the message. He was silent afterwards, thinking so hard I could almost hear his brain whirring. I started the car and got us back onto the main road out of town. Time to get back to reality; traffic fumes and noise pollution and little red cars with tiny engines and 120,000 miles on the clock. Bliss.

‘What do you think?’ I said.

‘I think we need to look into it more. Talk to Will, talk to your friends at the police, see if there’ve been any incidents reported at those buildings as well. We’ll get onto it when we’re back.’

I nodded and flicked on the Z4’s headlights. I always thought they gave them the appearance of evil little imps. You know, if cars were people. Which they’re not, I’m fully aware.

While we drove I turned over Adam’s news in my mind. I’d not picked up on anything vile happening at the other Deerborne buildings, and I was sure Will would have mentioned it if it had. Doe Hall, as far as I knew, was barely used these days – it was a file storage facility while they transferred all their archives onto digital records. Then I think the plan was to transform it into yet more of the ubiquitous Luxury Flats that Liverpool has so many of.

The Stag Building was an old office block down near the docks, rented out to a cargo ferry firm. A bit dusty, a bit down-at-heel, but not in the slightest demonic, as far as I could tell.

‘Why would there be all this activity at one Deerborne building and not at the others, assuming they were also, I dunno, built for nefarious purposes?’ I asked.

‘Nefarious. That’s a good word,’ he replied. ‘Well, the short answer is I don’t know. Demonic activity is unpredictable. It might depend on what the building was used for, and who by. Plus the fact that the chaos of young students coming and going every year might be attractive to it.’

‘Yuk. So, if there were more virgins being sacrificed in black masses at Hart House – yeah, I know, stereotype – then it would potentially have stored more evil than the others? Is that it?’

‘Maybe. Sometimes you get infestations attached to certain buildings because of what’s gone on there; how much they were invited in. There could be somewhere in Hart House that has more significance, that was perhaps used for rituals—’

‘The roof,’ I said. ‘I bet it’s the roof. The first time I saw it I thought it looked like there was something up there – a garden or an old observatory. But heck, could just as easily be a Satanic altar and a drink-as-much-blood-as-you-can buffet bar. Only in summer though, obviously. Be really cold up there the rest of the year, the wind blowing up from the waterfront like it does. It’d go right up their robes. Bloody fair-weather devil worshippers.’

Dan shook his head in disgust, but I could see a smile tugging at the corner of his lips at the image of the big bad bogeymen doing a Marilyn with their skirts.

I heard my phone pinging – a text landing. I kept hold of the wheel like the law-abiding citizen I am, and asked Dan to check it for me.

‘What if it’s personal?’ he asked.

‘It won’t be,’ I said, hoping it wasn’t in fact Alec Jones suggesting a squirty cream mud wrestle at his place at midnight.

‘It’s from Tish,’ he said when he opened it up. ‘She’s… shit!’

‘What? What? Why the “shit”? You don’t use words like “shit”! Tell me before I crash the fucking car!’

I pulled in as fast as I could, and grabbed the phone from him.

‘J – meet me later – we need to talk tonight. Out with my camera now, at the other Deerborne buildings, but see you back at Pig’s Trotter by 10 p.m.’

Tish was the only person I knew who texted with full grammar and punctuation. Her one-woman battle to keep up standards in the English language. I hit reply, texted the word ‘DON’T’ in capitals, then called her. Straight to voicemail. I left a message, then got out of the car.

‘Dan – you drive – I need to make some calls,’ I said, getting out and switching places with him.

‘I’m sure she’ll be all right,’ he replied, adjusting the driver’s seat so he could fit his legs in. ‘She won’t go in, she’s too sharp. And nothing’s happened at those buildings.’

‘As far as we know. And that’s not good enough. First Adam warns us about them, and then Tish says she’s going along to take photos of them…shit!’ I snapped. I buckled up, and dialled Alec Jones.

‘I need a favour,’ I said.

‘Then you’ll owe me one,’ he replied, on auto flirt. Any other time, I’d have been up for it – but not now.

‘No. This is serious, Alec. I know we’ve avoided discussing the woo-woo stuff, but it’s real, and it’s dangerous, and my best friend is heading right into it. I’m probably a couple of hours away and I need you to get there for me and make sure she’s all right.’

‘Should I take back-up?’

‘No… hang on, can you call in some kind of B&E at one of them? Then a patrol will go round there, while you check out the other. You know, prowler or something. Anything to get a couple of uniforms there. Send them to Doe Hall in Roby, will you? And you go to the Stag Building. We’ll meet you there.’

‘The one by Victoria?’

‘Yeah. You’re looking for Tish Landry. You won’t be able to miss her – tall, glam, camera in her hand.’

‘I won’t be able to miss her because it’s eight o’clock at night, and there’ll be nothing down there apart from rats, of both the rodent and human variety.’

‘I hope you’re right – thanks Alec,’ I said.

I hung up, and turned back to Dan.

‘You’d better get that dog collar back on,’ I said. ‘Because we’re going to be breaking some speed limits.’

Chapter 40

I’ve seen Tish’s blood before. Like the time she got drunk on Aftershock in the park when we were sixteen and fell face-forward off the roundabout. There was a lot of it then, streaming from her split lip, made worse by the fact she was laughing so much. And when we went on a misguided Club 18-30 holiday to Tenerife when we were both twenty-nine, our last hurrah before we were officially Too Old To Party. She’d walked straight into the side of a plate glass sliding door and almost sliced the top of her big toe off. It’d made mincemeat of her pedicure, and bled so much she had to throw her sandals away because dogs kept sniffing her feet.

But I’d never seen this much blood. I didn’t think she had that much in her, skinny thing as she is. And as I stared at the dark, glistening puddle rolling slowly in big, fat drips off the steps in front of me, I wondered how she could possibly survive with that much out of her.

Alec was holding me back, grabbing my arms from behind to restrain me, and I thought I might punch him if he didn’t let me go. The crime scene arc lights were set up, the white forensics tent covering the whole porch, men in uniforms and white jumpsuits flocking over it like albino ants.