Mesmeris (14 page)

Bright, fluorescent light lit up the corridor and a hand gripped the back of my neck and forced my face against the wall. ‘What you doing?’ Lill said. ‘Snooping about where you don’t belong.’

I cried out as she pulled my right arm up behind my back. Stinging pain shot through my shoulder. ‘I . . . I was looking for Jack.’

The door opened a crack. Dan grinned. He called over his shoulder, ‘Hey, Jacko, your missus has found you.’

Jack shoved him aside and pushed Lill away from me.

Her back slammed against the wall. ‘You bastard.’ She pulled him around to face her and slapped his face with a crack that echoed around the corridor.

Jack’s jaw clenched, his eyes took on that hard glint I’d seen before.

Lill seemed shocked by what she’d done. She stared at him, eyes wide, mouth open, breath coming in short bursts. ‘Sorry. I . . .’

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Jack said.

Lill’s face paled. ‘Look, I’m sorry. It’s just . . .’

Her eyes pleaded with Nico, who shrugged. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

‘Dan,’ she said. Dan turned his back and returned to the room.

Jack smiled, cold, mocking.

‘Why not let Pearl come in, Jack,’ Nico said.

‘No.’ Jack didn’t shift his gaze from Lill.

A deep, roaring crash filled the corridor. It reverberated and shimmered, rolled and rumbled like thunder and they all headed for the stairs like automatons.

Jack held me back. He held a finger to his lips, his eyes watching the others. ‘We can’t go where they go, okay? We have to leave.’

‘Okay.’ I followed him down the corridor back to the landing, struggling to keep up with his long strides. ‘What was that noise?’

‘The gong. Time for the sabbat. The sun’s gone down.’

By the time we reached the landing, the hall below was thronged with people. We looked down on them as they filed into the previously locked room. They laughed and chatted, and drank their red drinks. A tighter group moved through them, hulking, musclebound guys surrounding a group of smaller people. I recognised the kids from the garden. The ‘guards’ herded them towards the doorway.

I turned to Jack. ‘They’re . . .’

‘Shh.’ He held me back from the bannister, out of the light.

Dyl, his eyes huge, panicked, turned against the flow of people. ‘Look,’ he said to the nearest guard, ‘thanks, but . . .’ He tried to push back from the door. ‘Will you just . . .’ He tried to fight his way through the people pressing behind him. The guard picked him up and carried him inside the room.

We crept halfway down the stairs and stopped. From our vantage point, we had a clear view through the door of the room. A flight of steps led down to a basement auditorium.
People sat in rows on chairs, red and gold, like theatre seats. Scores of black candles burned in sconces on the deep red walls. At the far end of the room was a stage with a red velvet curtain pulled across it. From where we stood, I could see over the curtain to a stone altar beyond, prepared as if for a church service. Above the altar hung an inverted cross – and on the cross . . .

‘Oh, my God! God!’ My knees gave out. I clung to the bannister and closed my eyes. A body hung on the cross – upside down, its throat cut, the blood still dripping – drip, drip, drip onto the stone altar. Above the chatter of the audience, I imagined I heard it splash onto the stone, over and over.

‘Come on.’ Jack took my elbow. ‘Come
on
.’

‘I can’t.’ I was paralysed with horror – mind and body numb.

‘Pearl.’ He dragged me down the stairs.

My feet were slow, tripping over the steps, almost falling.

Somehow, we reached the front door. It opened and cold, fresh sea air blew over my face, woke me from my stupor.

Then a hand smacked against the door, slammed it shut.

‘Where you going?’ Nico raised his eyebrows. ‘Surely you’re not trying to miss the party?’

‘Get out of my way,’ Jack said.

Nico didn’t move, but his eyes were wary. He looked back into the hallway. Everyone was already in the room. Just him, Lill, Jack and me – two against two.

Jack smiled – an evil smile. ‘Going to take me on, Nico – really?’

Nico hesitated.

‘Go on,’ Lill said. ‘I’ll take the girl.’

Jack laughed. ‘You won’t touch her.’

‘She’s your target, not your fucking girlfriend,’ Lill said, eyes sparking.

‘She’s not my target any more,’ Jack said. ‘You are.’

Lill’s smile faltered. ‘That’s a joke, right?’

‘No joke,’ Jack said.

‘Fine,’ Lill stepped back. ‘Then you’d better watch her every moment, because I’m coming to get her.’

‘You do and I’ll kill you – fact.’

‘You can’t protect her forever, Jack,’ Nico said. ‘Lill
will
find her. You know she will.’

‘And when she does,’ Jack said, ‘I’ll be waiting for her.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

We ran across the gravel and turned right down the road. Jack pulled me along so fast I had trouble staying upright. He stopped near the promenade and crouched down beside a car. I leaned forwards, tried to get air back into my lungs. And then it happened. It started as a tremor and a stifled warble at the back of my throat and then, like vomit, it spewed out, unstoppable - a scream that went on and on.

Jack jumped to his feet. ‘Stop it! Shut up. You’ll have the police on us.’

But I couldn’t shut up. I stamped my feet, waved my arms, wordlessly pleading with him to do something, to help me. He grabbed me tightly, told me it was okay and I screamed even more. A few people turned to look. Some hurried away but a group of lads stood watching, even laughed, as if we were some kind of street theatre. Then Jack slapped me, just like in a film, right across the face and one of the lads cheered. Jack bundled me into the car. He did my seatbelt up, got in the driver’s side without saying a word, started the engine and pulled out into the road like an idiot, like a boy racer, squealing tyres, the lot. The group of lads scattered out of his way as he skidded past them.

Once we reached the outskirts of the town, he slowed down a little and looked over. ‘You okay now?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Thank you. I couldn’t . . .’

‘I know,’ he said.

‘Can we call the police?’

‘No.’

‘Please – I’m frightened.’ Tears ran down my cheeks. ‘Jack.’

He pulled off the road and stopped the car. He took my face in his hands. ‘Listen, the police are in with them.’

I tried to shake my head but he held it fast.

‘The guy on the sofa with the underage girl?’

I tried to think.

‘Blue dress – what there was of it?’

I nodded.

‘Chief commissioner.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘Papa has them all, all the high-rankers. It’s what Papa does. Finds out their ‘predilections’ as he calls them, gives them what they want, records it, films it.’

‘We could tell my uncle. He’s a detective. He’s not corrupt.’

‘You want him dead?’

I shook my head.

He drove fast but not fast enough for me. I wanted to fly home, forget it all, but I just couldn’t get Dyl’s terrified face out of my head.

‘Why were the kids there?’ I said.

‘I don’t know.’ He glanced over, sighed. ‘I really
don’t
know. That wasn’t a normal sabbat.’ He shrugged.

‘They gave them drugs,’ I said. ‘Lots of stuff – for nothing. Why would they do that?’

He didn’t answer, but I didn’t like the way his eyelids lowered, the way his mouth tightened.

‘Those kids are like me,’ I said. ‘It could be me in there – me and my friends.’

‘No, it couldn’t. You don’t do drugs.’

‘And that makes it all right?’

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. That nerve twitched in his jaw. ‘Makes
what
all right? You don’t even know what’s going on. You don’t know anything.’

‘I do though, don’t I? I do know.’

‘Leave it. They’re probably just recruiting them.’ He obviously didn’t believe that any more than I did.

‘If anything happens to them,
we’ll
be responsible. Can you live with that? Because I can’t.’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

‘What about the sacrifice?’ I said.

He glanced over, frowned.

‘The body,’ I said, ‘hanging over the altar? Throat cut?’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t see a body.’

‘You did. You
did
,’ I said. ‘His blood was splashing . . .’
Was it? Really? Could I have even seen that, heard it?

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

He
had
seen it, because I remembered his face when he grabbed me, and dragged me down the stairs. He’d seen it, all right. ‘Stop the car.’

‘
What
?’

‘I won’t stay in the car with you. Let me out.’

‘No way.’

‘Then I’ll jump.’

‘Don’t be stupid. You’ll kill yourself.’

‘I don’t care. I will do it.’ I put my hand on the door handle.

‘Okay. Okay.’ He swerved across two lanes of the motorway and hurtled up the slip road. ‘Damn it! You’re insane.’

He turned left off the roundabout and pulled into a layby. He rubbed his face with his hands.

I picked up my phone.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Don’t use your phone. Just - let me think.’ After a couple of seconds, he took a deep breath, started the engine, looked over his right shoulder and pulled out. He drove hunched forward over the steering wheel, eyes straining ahead.

I sunk back in my seat, convinced he was going to kill us both, as he raced through the countryside. He was livid with me. It didn’t matter. As long as we survived long enough to call the police, I didn’t care.

It seemed hours before he said it was safe to stop. He parked around the corner from a service station. ‘Walk in, keep your hood up. Phone and get out. They’ll have CCTV so keep your head down, got it?’

I got out of the car, ran up the road, then remembered and ran back. ‘I don’t know where they are.’

‘Hove. 28 Marchmont Avenue.’

‘Right.’

A sign outside the door said to remove all helmets and hoods before entering. I ignored it and kept my head down, as instructed. The phone was fixed to the wall in the middle of the shop. Two skinny, spotty lads crouched down below it, eyeing the cans of lager. My skin tingled with nerves. I wanted to scream at them to bugger off but instead, I hopped from foot to foot and waited. One of them looked up at me so I stopped hopping and looked away, at the shelf of tins, as if baked beans were the most fascinating thing ever. Eventually, they grabbed a six pack and wandered over to the till.

I pressed 999.

‘Emergency – which service, please?’

‘Police and – and . . .’ I kept my voice low, afraid that people would hear.

She started reading out the phone number to someone. I panicked. They were trying to trace us. ‘Just listen,’ I said. ‘There are kids in danger – Hove, Sussex, twenty – twenty . . .’ I couldn’t remember the bloody number. Fear gripped me. What was the name of the road? The woman was talking, asking questions, stupid questions. I talked over her. ‘Twenty-eight,’ I said. ‘Twenty-eight Marchmont Avenue. Get there – ambulance, too. Ambulances.’ I replaced the receiver and walked out of the shop.

‘Okay, love?’ the guy behind the counter said.

I didn’t answer.

Jack had the engine running when I got back. ‘We’re going to have to shift,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’ I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He almost smiled. ‘Let’s hope we don’t regret it.’

‘We won’t.’ I felt better, as if we’d rescued them from Papa ourselves.

He stopped the car in a residential estate somewhere near Swindon and got out. ‘Come on,’ he said, impatiently, as if I was supposed to know what was going on. He strode off down the road.

‘Where are we?’ I couldn’t see why he’d stopped – no pubs, shops, petrol stations, just identical, square, red-brick houses. He crouched down near a tatty black saloon and then we were in it and driving back towards the motorway.

I watched him fiddle with the controls. ‘That first car,’ I said, ‘the one we went to Brighton in. That wasn’t yours, was it?’

‘No.’

‘Do you even own a car?’

‘No.’

‘Right.’ I wasn’t really surprised. After everything else, a stolen car or two didn’t seem to matter.

We swopped cars again at a services on the eastbound section of the M4. It meant getting off at a junction, driving back east for a stretch, then getting off again and driving west but he seemed to know what he was doing.

‘They will be okay, won’t they?’ I said, when that nerve in his jaw had stopped twitching.

He looked over and smiled. ‘Yeah. Of course they will.’ And I believed him. It felt better that way, hurt less that way. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and sank into oblivion. I didn’t wake until the engine stopped.

A police car stood parked outside my house.

‘Shit!’ Jack said.

‘It’s probably my uncle,’ I said. ‘He’s always coming over.’

He nodded. ‘Right.’

We got out of the car and I hugged him. I nestled into his neck, kissed his warm skin, breathed in his smell and wanted to stay there.

He unclasped my arms from his waist. ‘We won’t be able to see each other for a few days,’ he said.

‘What?’
How was I supposed to deal with this without him?

‘Only a few days, until I know they haven’t traced us. If we don’t draw attention to ourselves, word won’t get back. No phone calls, texts, nothing, okay? No contact. It’s important.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘If anything happens and you need me, and I mean
need
, as in your life’s in danger, come to my place. Make sure you’re not followed.’

‘I don’t know where you live.’

‘Yeah, you do.’ He climbed back into the car.

Spook, the garages, Jubilee Gardens. It was him then, him and his brothers who’d slit Spook’s throat. I wouldn’t think about that, must not think about that.

CHAPTER TWENTY

No sooner had I walked through the door than Mum appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Come in here’, she said, through clenched teeth, lips white. She didn’t look me in the eye - afraid, perhaps, of what she might see there. ‘You’re on your own, then?’