Last Days (20 page)

Dan had remained in a perturbed silence all the way home.

Which was not good at all. He had to keep the big man onside.

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LAST DAYS

Max phoned Kyle at first light, in the hotel in Caen; desperate to see the footage from France. His feelings about Susan and Gabriel’s misfortunes struck Kyle not so much as flippant, but as secondary to the purpose of the call.

And Max only agreed to discuss the situation once he’d seen what Kyle had filmed at the farm. Kyle had the master reels with him, which would go to Finger Mouse after the meeting; who’d agreed to do an all-nighter transferring the material.

‘Should have brought my shades,’ Kyle said, and followed Max’s dainty feet, sealed inside ox-blood loafers, further inside the penthouse. Shadows seemed to be entirely absent from every corner of Max’s home. The intense white light filled the entire volume of flawless space and made him feel transparent, but oddly relaxed. And the lights and lamps burned like suns in every discreetly luxurious room he passed.

‘Sorry?’

‘The light, Max.’

‘Oh, yes. Bright if you’re not accustomed to it. But light, my dear boy, is as essential to life as water. It purifies the spirit. Opens the heart. Cleanses the mind. One feels blessed in here. Truly.’

‘Makes my place look like its underground. You keep this up during the day?’

Max nodded, and showed him into a room that doubled as a home office and viewing facility: leather chairs waited before digital viewing equipment. ‘I suffered terribly from a seasonal disorder. Depression, my friend. For years, until I discovered full spectrum lights. They changed my life. Light boxes are fitted in each room here. Made to order. The ceiling fixtures are dawn-light simulators. Four thousand lux during 173

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daylight hours, ten thousand lux at night and during the winter. Same for the desk lamps, and I have visors too.’

Kyle nodded at the large sunlit windows. ‘Nice day.’

Max stared at Kyle with an expression of such self-seriousness he felt a twitch of discomfort, as if confronted by the impassioned but ludicrous beliefs of a stranger in a pub. ‘I don’t take any chances with my soul, Kyle. I want a life and a world filled with light. So that is what I have.

Here, in my little retreat. A place of light. Of illumination.’

‘Right.’ If Dan had been present, hysterics would have ensued.

‘You know we have business interests in the field of Seasonal Affective Disorder? Mostly export. But it’s catching on over here. Doing very well too. The world is waking up to new light. I’d like to give you some for your own home.’

‘No, thanks. I like gloom.’

‘I insist. I shall have some desk lights delivered this evening.

A standing lamp. Maybe a light box for your bathroom and kitchen on those grim London mornings. For Dan as well.’

‘You really don’t—’

‘Nonsense. See it as a gift, for all of your hard work. Which is appreciated, my dear friend. You have already made significant inroads into the mystery of The Last Gathering. And you must try the lights tonight. You’ll notice the difference.

It’s immediate.’ Max sucked in his breath, and flicked his chin upwards, as if arriving at a decision with some relief before banishing whatever thought led to the decision.

‘Thanks.’

‘Think nothing of it. Oh, but if I may beg one indulgence from you?’

‘Yeah.’

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LAST DAYS

‘Please don’t ever call me a
fuckwit
again.’

‘It’s been pretty hairy, Max.’

‘Now I am forgetting my manners. Coffee? A light snack?

Or would you prefer to wait for your dinner?’

Kyle had been so desperate to get to Max’s he’d not eaten since the ferry. Nor gone back to sleep after the dream. He spoke through a yawn. ‘I could take a bite out of something.

Was up early.’

Max walked to the door of his study. ‘Iris!’

‘Sir,’ a voice called from the far reaches of the apartment.

‘Coffee for two. Cake.’

After a distant, ‘Yes, sir,’ Max returned his attention to Kyle.

‘Nice kit, Max.’

‘Yes. I often view rushes and offline edits in here. Works in progress.’ The desk also looked like Cecil Rhodes had once laid maps of Africa across its leather surface. Max sank his small body into one of two chairs supported by a steel swivel-mount. At least fifty inches of flat plasma screen loomed over them. Kyle took the chair beside Max and ferreted inside his shoulder bag for the six flash drives from the Normandy shoot.

Iris was small, round, Irish, and white-haired on the head and chin. She brought a coffee pot and a glass cake-stand. A thick fruit loaf with a paper frill looked too good to eat while it awaited the silver knife and two plates, thin as sea shells, that Iris busied herself with. At Max’s cake was also served with little silver forks and red linen napkins that billowed from either end of hallmarked silver holders. ‘Nice cake,’ Kyle said with his mouth full. ‘Rich.’ Iris left them on slippered feet and closed the soundproofed door.

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Max scooped up the drives. Stared at them, his thin lips set in an attitude of distaste, or even indignation. He didn’t even look at his cake. Kyle swallowed a third mouthful of his own. The nervous energy made him wolf it like a last meal.

‘This all of it?’

Kyle nodded. ‘Finger Mouse will lay it across tonight.’

‘I want them uploaded as they become ready. And Dan, where is he?’

‘On another job.’

‘Good. Good.’

‘I’ll be seeing him tomorrow to talk through the arrange-ments for America.’ Max didn’t appear to be listening. He now looked at the flash drives like they were vials of Bubonic plague.

‘Max.
Max
.’

‘Yes?’

‘How did Susan White die?’

Max closed his eyes. ‘Stroke.’ And opened his eyes. ‘At home. A maisonette in Brighton. Her daughter was unable to rouse her for a trip to Bournemouth, or raise her on the telephone. This was yesterday. She let herself in and found her mother. Propped up amongst the pillows. Still alive, but barely. She died later in hospital, without saying a word before she left us. I’d called during the afternoon to discuss the interview. Her daughter picked up the phone. She told me.’

‘Were you close?’

‘Not for years. But we found each other again, recently.’

‘Sad. Kind of weird too.’

Max stared, as if afraid of an impending revelation from Kyle.

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‘Those drives . . .’ Kyle did not know where to start, or how to explain what was recorded on them. ‘Same with the Holland Park stuff, there’s something not right.’

Max turned soundlessly in his chair. Placed one small manicured hand upon Kyle’s wrists, where they jiggled between his bouncing knees. The skin of Max’s fingers was baby-soft; a waft of expensive hand-cream billowed. ‘This is a difficult time for our venture, Kyle. Gabriel, poor Gabriel . . .’ Max closed his eyes and shook his head at whatever thought had reared up inside it. ‘And I am going to Brighton this evening.

Susan’s funeral is tomorrow.’

‘It’s pretty terrible. Really shaken me up, Max. And Dan.’

‘Because you are a sensitive and caring soul, Kyle. I knew the moment we first met.’ Max continued to stare into his eyes, intently; the insinuation of a concerned frown stretched his forehead. ‘But you are also a dedicated film-maker. An artist. With conviction. A great deal of which I have appreciated in your former works. It’s why I chose you, Kyle, to make this film. Our work cannot, simply cannot, be derailed by these cruel acts of fate. These unfortunate accidents. We won’t allow it. Our work is greater than we are, its facilita-tors, its interpreters.’

‘But—’

Max gently shook his coiffured head. ‘We are unearthing painful and terrible secrets, my dear Kyle. We are disturbing what has long been buried. We are investigating the most awful crimes perpetrated against other human beings. Imprisonment, the withdrawal of all liberty, manipulation, control, cruelty, murder. But we must remain courageous, regardless of how much these matters distress us. Steadfast we must be before the things we will see, and hear. We must be on our 177

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guard, Kyle. Always. It’s why I insist on the light, Kyle. We must always remind ourselves that we are for the light.’

‘But there is something else. Something . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know how to explain it.’ Max watched him, his face stiff with caution and unease. ‘At the farm. It was strange.

The atmosphere. Katherine’s
fermette
. What I felt there.

Heard. The things on the walls. The figure in Clarendon Road. You’ve watched the London rushes?’

Max swallowed. ‘I have. The Gathering explored terrible things and took themselves to unusual places, Kyle. Levine’s book is not purely fiction.’

‘No. I’m not talking about what they did to each other.

What I am trying to say is . . . it’s like something else has been left behind in those places.’ Kyle sighed, scratched around his head for a way into an adequate explanation. ‘On the walls. The bloody walls. You can see it for yourself. I filmed them in France too. I don’t think . . . I know it’s not art. Not something they drew, the Gathering. They can’t have, because it’s in Clarendon Road too, on new plaster. I tried to tell you on the phone. In the email, Max. The one you never got back to me about last Sunday. You can see more of it for yourself from Normandy. On there.’ Kyle tapped the drives in Max’s small hands. ‘And we weren’t alone at either location. I sound insane by just suggesting it, but . . .

I do believe I’ve experienced four genuine paranormal epi -

sodes. One in London, one in the farm’s temple, another in Katherine’s
fermette
. The fourth was the imprint of a hand on the wall of our hotel room. Did you know, Max? That we would get this shit on film?’

Max’s leathery throat worked up and down. His smile was thin, stiff.

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LAST DAYS

‘Residues, Max. The things we heard. At the house in Holland Park. They’re on all the audio tracks. Finger Mouse checked. Birds. Dogs. We think. Other stuff too. Wind. Can’t be sure, but it was terrifying. And when Dan was trying to free Gabriel from that bloody trap, I wasn’t alone in Sister Katherine’s
fermette
. There was someone . . . something . . .

downstairs in the building. Same in the temple. I’m sure of it. Tell me you’ve seen the intruder in Clarendon Road?’

Max nodded.

‘We weren’t alone in that house. Or at the farm. I’m sure of it. How can this be explained?’

Max smiled. ‘My dear Kyle—’

‘Listen to me. You weren’t there. It’s like . . . and now

. . . well . . . it’s like something has come out . . . out of those places. I’m getting these dreams. In France. And then the walls of the hotel room . . . the bathroom altered. An image of something was on the bloody bathroom wall, Max. I found it after the weirdest fucking dream I have ever experienced. I know you wanted the paranormal scoop, but for fuck sake . . .’

Max closed his eyes, though Kyle suspected it may have been as a result of his bad language.

‘Sorry. Potty mouth. But this is serious, Max. I’ve tried to blame the first sighting on a drug addict, put the second and third down to exhaustion. But the bathroom? I have it on film. And now Susan, not to mention Gabriel? What the fuck is going on here?’

Max opened his eyes, stared at the flash drives. ‘I don’t know. But who knows what that fool Katherine did. Suggested. Even brought into the Gathering. I can’t say. But I have long suspected that she connected . . . broke through 179

ADAM NEVILL

to something that should never have been contacted. It’s why the film is so important, while there is still time.’ Max squeezed his wrist. ‘Now you are starting to understand my motive to make this film. I was right . . .’

‘Time? What do you mean, “while there is still time”?’

Max fidgeted in his chair. ‘There are not many of us left.

Besides myself, I could only find three adepts from London and France.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There are even fewer adult survivors from Katherine’s time in Arizona. I only traced two. And now there is only one. Have you any idea how valuable an interview with Martha Lake will be now?

We can’t dilly-dally.’

‘Why now, Max? Why is she breaking silence now?

Martha Lake has remained incognito for thirty years. I looked online. Googled her. Same with the recently deceased Patricia Clover. You said yourself that Susan White never opened up to anyone before she came to us in Clarendon Road. Ditto with Gabriel, who didn’t tell us much by the way. I know, because Dan asked the doctor—’

‘Kyle. Kyle. Have you any idea of the stigma, the indelible stains upon those who were a part of The Temple of the Last Days in America? Not to mention what was suggested of us in the Gathering? This is not something one is willing to talk about. Not for a very long time. Because of the children.

What was done . . . what happened to the children. The way they were taken from their parents. The way they were isolated, mistreated under Katherine’s direction. Unacceptable.

It was abuse. Some may have even been . . . I can’t even bring myself to talk about it. Some were never found. And we live in a more sensitive time. It is only in the twilight of one’s years that one feels more comfortable with speaking up, 180

LAST DAYS

and admitting an association with all this, with making amends with the past. Trying to find peace. The fact that I have paid them a great deal of money for their testimony, alas, must also be taken into account. Not all have been as fortunate as I have, Kyle, after their release from Katherine.

And what happened to us was not the kind of thing one even wanted to remember. Please bear that in mind. Gabriel had an accident. Susan’s passing was a coincidence. High blood pressure.’

‘And the other one. Your friend who died last week.’

‘Brother Heron suffered from a long illness. Cancer. It’s why he didn’t want to be filmed. You are in no danger. Surely, you cannot believe that you are?’ Max half smiled, as if perched on the end of a frightened child’s bed.