The Darkening (35 page)

Pritam’s breath stopped in his throat.

The woman staring at the camera was Eleanor Bretherton.

He flipped the photograph. In pencil, written in a fine copperplate hand: ‘Mrs L. Quill. Contributed $60 to fête fund 17 May 1975’.

Pritam sat back.

He felt small again, a thin-limbed boy in his grandmother’s cottage before his parents took him from India, listening after dinner as Nani told the story of a small village in Uttar Pradesh where every child was cut open, alive and screaming, to save the village from the wrath of Kali. That tale had terrified him as a child; not just his imagining being one of those utterly helpless children not even able to turn to their parents who themselves wielded knives . . . but imagining how terrible must be the face of Kali to drive loving parents to commit bloody murder.

Eleanor Bretherton. Mrs L. Quill.

Now things go bad
, he thought.

At that moment, someone pounded on the rectory door.

The girl sat in one of the old club chairs, staring into space with slack eyes. She blinked occasionally and breathed slow and deep, but hadn’t shifted or spoken a word in the twenty minutes since she’d arrived at the presbytery.

‘“Hannah Gerlic, 5D”,’ read Pritam. His voice shook. He replaced the exercise book into the girl’s school bag.

He looked up to the other club chair opposite. In it sat Nicholas Close, who nodded acknowledgment. In the middle of the cleared chessboard lay the dead plover talisman. One of its claw horns had been lost, but even to look at it made Pritam’s skin prickle.

This is not hypothetical evil
, he thought
. Not the evil of lust, nor the evil of hate. This is fundamental evil, as old as the world itself
.
This is the devil’s handiwork.

The thought was electric and terrifying, as if the veneer covering the world had peeled at one corner, affording a glimpse of dark and yawning depths below.

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Nicholas.

He sat slumped in his chair, staring at the dead bird. For an unsettling moment, Pritam thought he was talking to the tiny corpse. Then he slid his eyes to Pritam and smiled.

He’s peered into the depths, too
, thought Pritam.
And he looks ready to fall into them.

He shook his head. After finding that photograph of Quill, he’d been shocked to open the presbytery door to stare right into the face of the man who’d brought her to his attention. Pritam had been ready to dismiss him, tell him John Hird was dead and to come back another time - better yet, don’t come back at all! - when he saw the girl standing dumbly behind Nicholas, holding his hand and staring into space. His first impression struck him like a fist:
she’s been raped
. Then Nicholas said a word that was the second blow to finish the one-two: ‘Quill.’

Pritam had let them in, put the girl in the chair, listened as Nicholas briefly recounted the story about finding her outside the woods, finishing by pulling that horrible, disfigured bird from his pocket.

Now Pritam knew the girl’s name.

‘They’ll want to know,’ he said.

Nicholas cocked his head - who?

‘Her parents. They’ll want to know why you grabbed their daughter while she was walking home.’

‘I told you—’

‘
I
believe you,’ said Pritam. The words surprised him. But they were true; he did believe. Every poisonous bit. That abomination of a bird verified it all: so unnaturally dead, so
alien
. It looked like a lightning rod for evil.

‘I believe you, but I don’t think her mother will,’ he continued. ‘I don’t think the police will. Not so soon after the Thomas boy. Nicholas, I think you’re looking down the barrel of some serious questions.’

Nicholas didn’t seem to care. He was watching Hannah Gerlic, and the concern in his eyes for her was real.

She stared into space, her expression blank as glass. Pritam had seen black and white footage of World War I soldiers in hospital wards, automatons staring at infinity. Shell shock.

‘I suppose I am,’ agreed Nicholas quietly. He looked at Pritam. ‘They won’t believe the truth.’

The men regarded one another.

‘I won’t lie for you,’ said Pritam.

Nicholas frowned. ‘Who asked you to?’

There was a rustling from Hannah’s chair and they looked at her. She was staring, wide-eyed, at the dead bird. Suddenly, she sucked in a surprised breath, gagged, coughed up some briny yellow spittle, and started crying.

Andrew and Louise Gerlic were the happiest parents in the world.

Mrs Gerlic hugged Hannah tightly, tears running quicksilver paths down her red cheeks. ‘Silly girl. Silly girl. Silly girl . . .’ She rocked her daughter in her arms. Mr Gerlic had his arms around them both, his eyes shut, nodding to himself.

On the drive to the Gerlics’ house, Pritam and Nicholas had worked out a story set in the awkward middle ground between lies and truth. Nicholas had been reading the development sign when Hannah appeared. She was distraught and wouldn’t respond to his queries. Uncomfortable with the idea of going through a young girl’s bag unaccompanied, he drove her immediately to his friend, the local reverend, where they discovered together the girl’s identity. Why was she so traumatised? They didn’t know. Had Nicholas seen anything unusual? No.

Police arrived at the Gerlic residence. The sight of a clergyman set the room at ease. Nicholas and Pritam were thanked together and questioned separately. One female officer was questioning Hannah without success: Hannah simply screwed up her eyes and shook her head. Another female officer spoke quietly to Mrs Gerlic, who listened a while then nodded consent. The women took Hannah to the girl’s bedroom. They emerged a few minutes later and Nicholas saw the female officer catch the eye of another uniformed officer - she shook her head. No signs of physical interference. The police began to wrap things up.

Nicholas drifted to join Pritam. ‘I don’t know if she’ll be safe,’ he whispered.

Pritam looked at him.

‘We have a great deal to discuss.’

Nicholas dropped Pritam back to the presbytery, and the men made arrangements to catch up there later that evening. Nicholas then kept driving, back to Lambeth Street.

Dinner was awkwardly silent, considering how loud it had been to prepare.

Nicholas had sat at the kitchen bench, watching Katharine chop vegetables, water chestnuts, onion, chicken. Every time he’d started to speak, she’d whacked some ingredient into submission or ground spices in her large granite mortar.

‘Want a hand?’ he’d yelled.

‘No, no,’ she’d yelled back brightly, then began throwing diced things into the wok where they shrieked loudly in the sizzling oil.

When they both sat to eat, the silence was so severe that Nicholas didn’t think he had profound enough words to break it. Katharine didn’t seem to feel compelled to; she chewed quietly, shooting the occasional cool smile to him.

‘Delicious,’ he said finally.

‘It’s nothing,’ she replied. They were quiet for a long moment, then she added, ‘I bought a tajine.’

‘Oh? Tall, pointy thing?’

‘Yes. Haven’t used it yet.’

‘Wow. Exotic.’

They ate without speaking again until their plates were clean. It was only when Nicholas made to stand and clear the table that Katharine broke the silence.

‘Sit. Please.’

He remained on his chair. Katharine licked her lips, lifted her chin and looked at him.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

Nicholas had been wondering when she would ask. He’d practised a careful, oleaginous answer that slipped neatly around issues that he knew his mother wouldn’t accept - ghosts, witchcraft, child sacrifices - while still keeping alive the notion that this had become a bit of an iffy suburb and maybe moving might not be a bad idea. However, his mother’s bright eyes seemed to burn away all his clever duplicity and he found himself simply saying, ‘What?’

Katharine tilted her head - her don’t-take-me-for-a-fool look. ‘Your sister came up from Sydney,’ she said, her words coming brisk and clipped hard. ‘You two huddle together like twitty schoolgirls. Gavin Boye shoots himself outside my front door.
You
duck away and find yourself a flat without so much as a thank you. She flies back to Sydney so fast you’d think they were giving away harbourside houses. She calls up today, la-di-dah as if nothing’s happened, and then suggests I sell this house and move down to Neutral Bay.’

Nicholas shrugged and inspected the tablecloth. ‘Neutral Bay is nice.’

He felt her gaze on his face, drawing at his thoughts like a poultice.

‘What can I tell you, Mum? Jeez.’

She took a long breath. Then she nodded to herself and pulled his empty plate towards her. Nicholas could see an opportunity was passing. He tightened his jaw.

‘Kids are getting murdered here, Mum.’

Katharine’s hands fussed around the plates. She looked up at him.

‘A child died,’ she agreed. ‘A terrible thing.’

‘A lot of kids. Over the years.’

He watched for her reaction.

‘Well, I’m no spring chicken. I’m not likely to become a victim.’

‘Adults, too. That Guyatt chap who killed the Thomas boy. He was from Myrtle Street.’

‘He died in prison.’

‘Yes. So did Winston Teale, remember? He was a local, too. Wasn’t he?’

Katharine’s fingers stopped moving. ‘Yes. From over the hill in Kadoomba Road.’

They looked at each other for a long moment.

‘And Gavin Boye. There’s something wrong with this suburb, Mum.’

He could see her eyes narrow. But she didn’t disagree. When she spoke, her tone was even and reasonable.

‘If I thought it was safe enough for you to stay here after that terrible business with Tristram Boye all those years ago, why on earth shouldn’t it be safe enough for me now?’

Nicholas wanted to say,
Because of the ghosts. Because Quill isn’t dead, she’s alive and living in the woods. She’s murdering again.
He clenched his jaw. He couldn’t say any of this to her.

‘Or do you blame me for what happened to you down there?’ she asked.

Nicholas blinked. ‘No. Why would I?’

‘Because I didn’t keep you safe. Because I was . . . I don’t know . . . I was a bad mother. Because I didn’t move when your fa—’

Her eyes widened ever so slightly and she bit down the last word.

‘Dad? Dad wanted you to move?’

Katharine stood noisily, picked up the plates and carried them to the sink.

‘Donald wanted lots of silly things. That just happened to be one of his rare good ideas.’

Nicholas frowned. His father wanted his family to move? Why? Because Owen Liddy went missing in 1964? Or was there more he knew?

‘When?’

‘Nicholas! I don’t know.’

‘Before he started drinking?’

‘A long, long time ago. When we were happy and there was no good reason to move. Okay?’ She scraped the plates off with a harsh clatter.

‘
But there must have been a reason!’

Before he could press the point, the telephone rang in the hallway. Katharine clip-clopped out of the room to answer it. Nicholas sighed, and watched her listening as the caller spoke. Then she held the receiver out to him.