Kill Fish Jones (3 page)

Wayne nodded righteously.

‘… but I was just too wrapped up in my own worries to listen.'

Fish studied him. Jon Figg looked like a man whose world was falling apart, which Fish thought was pretty grim since all he had done was misread an address. But then, demolishing people's homes while they were still living in them was pretty grim too.

His gaze left the sagging form of Jon Figg to sweep over the curious faces of the watching crowd and then beyond them to the long curve of the street. In that glance he saw cars and houses and trees and the postman and a small grey cat. He saw a bicycle with a bent wheel propped against a wall, a scrap of paper dropped on the pavement, and a fallen dustbin.

And he also saw a demon on the postbox.

A shiver of fear ran down Fish's spine and he hastily switched his gaze back to the circle of people around his mother – his direct gaze, at any rate – but out of the corner of his eye he watched the demon cautiously. The creature was sitting in full view, confident that ordinary humankind couldn't see it.

Fish didn't know why he was different. He had always been that way and had come to the conclusion that he was just one of those unfortunate people that fate had allowed to be born with extra-special vision. There didn't seem to be any reason for it that he could figure out. At least, he hadn't found one so far. Apart from Alice and Jed, the two friends he trusted absolutely, Fish had never told anyone about his extra-special vision, not even his mother. He knew how hard it would be for her to believe. She would worry, and take him to the doctor, and it wouldn't be good.

Now, so it wouldn't guess that he could see it, Fish tried to act as if the creature wasn't there. He hoped it would go away soon, but he had a nasty feeling that
it wouldn't, that it was somehow connected to the destruction of their home.

From this distance he couldn't make out the details, but the demon reminded him of a bony cat, only nearly the same size as Fish. It had a horrible skinned look about it, sort of red and glistening. It moved, raising its head to examine the group of humans in front of it. In case it spotted him looking, Fish switched his attention back to the rubble around him. After a moment, he risked one more quick glance at the demon. Strangely, the creature seemed to be writing in a notebook.

Unaware of Fish's scrutiny, Grimshaw had flicked back a page and was adding ‘
Wretched with Humiliation
' to the notes underneath Jon Figg's name. He then put a tick through the word ‘
Job
'. As he turned back to Susan Jones, Grimshaw felt that glow of pride again. Symmetry, that was definitely the word. Under her name he put a bold tick through the word ‘
Home
'. There were no comments yet. He was hoping for something like, ‘Screaming and Crying followed by Collapse and Ambulance', so he sat with his pencil poised and his tail curling and uncurling as he noted their every expression.

Susan Jones took a quivering breath, drew herself up and looked Jon Figg in the eye.

‘I'm sorry about your terrible day,' she said with the faintest quiver in her voice, ‘but the fact is you've just made a horrible mistake.'

Grimshaw flicked his ears, surprise registering on his
ugly features. He stared from Mrs Jones to his notebook, and then back again. None of the usual comments would do. Finally, after an inner struggle, he wrote: ‘
Dignified in the Face of Disaster
'. Reading it over, he nodded, satisfied. It was fitting and it made a nice change too. Lampwick wouldn't like it, but Grimshaw felt that it was important to be honest about these things.

By now Jon was the colour of old dishcloths. He nodded speechlessly.

‘We will, of course, be in touch with your company about this,' Susan went on. ‘In the meantime I don't suppose I can go … the word “in” doesn't seem quite right, but …' her voice tailed off then picked up again. ‘I mean, there must be things in the … remains of the house that we could save?'

Fish stood up from the rubble and looked at her. She caught his eye and sighed as he gave a brief shake of his head.

Jon was in agony. ‘Erm … see …'

‘I suppose it's too dangerous for us to go in there. Even if there was anything to save.'

Jon nodded dumbly, though she had really been speaking to Fish.

‘I thought so. Then we'll just have to make do with what we've got.'

The crowd murmured. Some of them were already slipping away, their eyes suddenly guilty. With great concentration, Grimshaw wrote, ‘
Of NOBLE Bearing
'.
He put noble in capitals because he liked capitals and felt they gave things a certain style.

‘Where will you go?' asked Ray.

Susan squared her shoulders. ‘We will go to my sister's,' she said. ‘We will go and live with Marsha.'

Impressed, Grimshaw added, ‘
And BRAVE
', then underlined it. He wasn't used to his Sufferers behaving so well. Not to mention that he had already encountered Marsha and thought the Joneses were in for a rough time. Well, up until he killed them, anyway.

By now the crowd had disappeared, apart from one or two hardened disaster-lovers who didn't care how much they were intruding on other people's lives, so long as there was a good tragedy to look at. Jon was having a long conversation with his HQ on his mobile phone, and Ray was pressing Susan to at least have a sit-down before she set off for her sister's.

Susan shook her head. ‘Thank you, Ray, but we should go straight to Marsha.'

While they talked, Fish took a last look round. This time, something caught his eye, something in the wreckage that he hadn't noticed before, although how he had missed it he didn't know. It was sticking out of the rubble, and right under his nose too.

He leaned down to pick it up. It was his favourite book, the one about a girl who had her whole life stolen away, and apart from a little dust and a bent cover it was all right. He stuffed it into his back pocket. Then he stood in the ruins of his home and, with a hollow
feeling inside his chest, said a silent goodbye to his past. A whole chapter of his life had just been closed without warning. Which meant that a new chapter was about to begin. He was afraid it might not be a comfortable one.

That done, he hurried back to his mother.

‘Then let me drive you, mmm?' Ray was saying. ‘You won't want to worry about the journey after a shock like this.'

Susan hesitated, but Fish got in front of her and nodded firmly, looking Ray in the eye. It was just what they needed. Rubble blocked the garage and driveway, Susan was obviously still light-headed with shock, and the trip to Marsha's by public transport meant going on the train. From Fish's point of view this was a bad thing because he would have to face the whispers that loved the dark and tended to hang out in attics, cellars, telephone lines and railway tunnels. Whispers were the echoes of things that people buried deep inside, the darknesses from the corners of their mind that they would die rather than say, or even think, out loud. And since they had no place in their owner's heads, they had to go somewhere. These whispers were not something Fish wanted to deal with today.

Susan picked up the message. ‘Thank you, Ray,' she said gratefully, her voice cracking.

Fish pressed his mother's hand and she squeezed back, giving him a small but reassuring smile. He could see past it to her eyes, which were the dark grey they always went when she was unhappy, so he looked into
them firmly. Her smile widened and, more importantly, her eyes lightened.

‘You're right,' she said. ‘We'll be fine!'

By now, Ray had run the car out of the garage and was waiting for them. Susan climbed into the front and Fish into the back. It felt strange, as if they were starting off on a long journey and had forgotten their luggage. As they drove away, Fish turned so that he could see out of the back window. He knew that anyone who saw him would think that he was taking a last look at his old home, but he wasn't. He was looking at the postbox.

The demon that had been sitting on top of it was gone.

Susan's finger had hardly left the doorbell of her sister's large and very expensive house when the door was jerked open and Marsha appeared. She was dressed in black from head to foot.

‘Oh! Susan! I'm so glad you came! It's been the most terrible day!'

Susan blinked, taken by surprise. ‘Um … yes, it has rather.'

Fish shivered, though it wasn't cold. There was something wrong with his aunt. She looked … shiny. Really shiny. Not just glowing with inner feelings or anything, but actually radiating light. His heart chilled as he wondered what this meant. From the things he could see that ordinary humans couldn't, he understood that children, the newly in love, and the truly innocent always wore a golden light around them, but the shine that came from Marsha was paler, more silvery. He had seen people with it before, but they were just people on the street or in shops, no one he knew well enough to find out why they were shining.

‘Welcome, dear sister,' sighed Marsha. She hugged Susan as soon as they were through the door, though Fish thought that old-fashioned, romantic novelists would describe it more like, ‘She clasped Susan to her bosom,' or some such. Marsha read a lot of romantic novels. In fact most of the time she thought she lived in one.

When she let Susan go, Marsha turned to Fish. She hesitated a moment then pursed up her mouth and kissed him delicately from as far away as she could manage. Fish didn't blame her. Once, when he was very small, he had bitten her when she tried to cuddle him, because he didn't like the stifling sweetness of her perfume. She had kept her distance ever since. Now, he smiled at her. Marsha gave him a confused look.

‘Darling child,' she murmured.

‘How did you know?' asked Susan, taking off her coat and dropping it over the banister.

‘I was about to ask the same thing! Some kind of sibling telepathy, I suppose! How wonderful! But then we were always so close.'

‘We haven't spoken for over a month, we only see each other at Christmas and birthdays …'

‘Oh, don't be so tiresome, dear. Sibling telepathy goes so much deeper than mere visits!'

Gently, Fish pushed Susan ahead of him in the direction of the lounge. Waiting for an invitation from Marsha was like waiting for mountains to crumble.

Marsha's lounge was beautiful. It was also pale cream and gave Fish the heebie-jeebies, because every smudge showed up like a beacon of muck. The clouds had darkened on their way here and it had rained briefly but heavily. Fish hoped he hadn't stepped in any puddles walking to the door.

‘Mind the carpet, dears,' said Marsha, as if they could avoid treading on it.

‘So, what exactly is the matter?' demanded Susan. Fish edged her towards the sofa. She sat down and he settled next to her, relieved. Once she was sitting down, her voice dropped again to more like its normal softness.

‘Tell me, Marsha, has something bad happened to you?'

Marsha's face trembled as she struggled to speak. Fish watched her, fear growing in his middle. He was about to find out what it meant when people shone like that and he knew it wouldn't be good. He leaned forward, his eyes on her face, waiting.

His aunt passed a hand over her forehead. ‘Only the worst thing! My darling Reginald is dead!'

As she said the words, Marsha's pale blue eyes dimmed and a look of shock and loss swept over her face. The shine around her grew stronger as she spoke and, suddenly, Fish understood. All those people he had seen who glistened with silver light had lost someone they loved.

Then, delicate tears filled her eyes and she dabbed at
them with a lace handkerchief, just at the corners and doing no good at all. The tears tracked gracefully down her plump cheeks.

Susan was staring at her, aghast. ‘Reg is dead! Oh, Marsha.' Her own blue eyes filled with tears too, real proper ones that made her lids go pink and her nose run.

Fish drew in a slow breath, full of fear and grief. Reginald Power had been one of the few people that he felt completely at ease with, who could sit in companionable silence without expecting any conversation. But now was not the time to break down. He had a bad feeling that there was something else going on here, something hidden behind the visible tragedy. He found himself glancing anxiously about the room and realised that he was looking for the demon. Although there was no obvious reason to think it had anything to do with Reg's death as well as the demolition of their home, Fish thought there must be a connection. He shivered, remembering other terrible things that had happened recently to people they knew. Things like the death of the vicar.

‘It was this morning,' Marsha went on. She blinked at them and looked away. ‘Out of the blue. It's terrible how a single second can alter the course of your life forever!'

‘But what …'

‘I was going to telephone you at once, dear, but I was so distraught! I couldn't stop crying! And then
when I was able to speak, I rang and rang and there was no reply …' She gave Susan a reproachful look.

‘I'm sorry, but we were out and the house was being knocked down anyway …' Susan dried her eyes on a tissue and gave Marsha a warm if watery smile.

‘So I just waited here alone, little knowing that you would sense my pain and come to me!' Marsha clasped her hands together ecstatically.

Susan winced. ‘Look Marsha, I want to help you and I'm glad we came, but it wasn't because I had a premonition or anything. We're here because the house was demolished by mistake and we've nowhere to live.'

Marsha looked at her blankly.

‘We have to stay with you,' said Susan firmly.

‘Oh my dear! That is so noble of you! I could certainly do with the company if you're prepared to put up with a poor, weeping widow.'