‘I want to make you happy,’ Tom said. ‘I’ve told you that. You know. You know – if only I could – I –’ He broke off.
She said nothing.
She knew and he knew that he didn’t have the balls to commit murder. Not if it meant going to jail, like some wretched career criminal.
And besides, murdering Roy and getting caught would be a stupid thing to do; and it wasn’t in Tom’s nature to do a stupid thing. He was a man defined by his brilliance. No matter how much it hurt, he could not play the fool.
Even worse - so Tom had thought to himself, planning out each scenario in detail - what if he tried and failed? That would be the most abject of humiliations. But Tom knew that Roy Hall was a hard man to kill. He carried a gun at all times, and knew how to use it. He’d survived no less than eleven attempts on his life by criminals out for vengeance, and was notoriously street-wise and paranoid. He was said to wear Kevlar-reinforced bespoke jackets, and a stab vest beneath his Savile Row shirts. He was surrounded by cops all day long. And he had bodyguards too, on duty twenty-four-seven, paid for out of the police budget. Mainly ex-Special Forces, including some who had died in combat or committing massacres. The best kind of close protection officers in other words: highly skilled, and with no fear of death.
It was easier to kill a President, Tom had concluded, than to murder Roy Hall.
So what to do? How to honour his unspoken pledge to the woman he loved?
As the last bruises on Fillide’s battered body faded to nothing, it came to him. The glimmer of an idea. He considered it carefully; it made sense.
And there and then, a plan was birthed.
‘Get dressed, let’s go out,’ he said.
They went to a late night Chinese place. It was unlicensed so they bought some bottles in an offie and drank them at the table. They shared duck with pancakes and prawn tempura and chicken in black bean sauce and beef chow mein, which she slurped up like spaghetti. And Tom encouraged Fillide to tell stories about the old days.
By the time the green tea arrived, he’d worked out his strategy in detail. Tom now knew how to commit the perfect murder, using the perfect murder weapon.
‘Why are you smiling?’ Fillide asked as she sipped her green tea.
‘I’m happy.’
‘Why? Because you saw me beaten up?’
‘Because I love you. And I want to spend my life with you.’
‘Roy will never allow it,’ she said fiercely.
Tom allowed his smile to bloom. His heart filled with love for her. She looked at him imploringly. She tried to speak again, but her spell muted her, as her thoughts strayed into hate and bitterness. Tom’s heart broke at the sight of so much pain in her face, and he yearned to - he yearned to -
But Tom’s smile faded, and he shook his head. Rebuking with implicit contempt.
‘And Roy is quite right not to allow such a terrible thing,’ said Tom, sternly. ‘For I am a nobody and Roy Hall is your beloved master. And you must serve him loyally and with love in your heart, for all eternity.’
She gasped; croaked. Her muting spell ebbed. She looked daggers at him, but when she spoke her tone was tender:
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘So I must.’
Chapter 11
And now - two days later - the moment of their triumph was close.
The door opened and Fillide flashed him a smile.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’
He stepped inside. He was carrying a sports bag filled with his occult equipment, as well as the gear stolen from Bethnal Green. She kissed him but he pushed her away.
‘What is it?’ she asked, puzzled.
She knew nothing of his plans; that was the only way this could work.
‘Something I want to try.’
She smiled. ‘Is it kinky?’
‘Some would say so.’
She nodded and grinned.
Tom looked around. Roy’s Chelsea place was a massive penthouse apartment that had been lavished with the love of a host of interior designers, then crammed full with antique furniture and Renaissance paintings and modernist sculptures and hand-woven Persian carpets. Tom had been here many times and hated it; he found it boastful.
‘Cameras?’ he asked.
‘I’ve set them to fail,’ Fillide said. That was a routine deception on her part: allowable because it might hurt Roy, or at least hurt his feelings, to know that his concubine was having an affair with another man. But if he didn’t know - no worries.
‘What if Roy comes back?’
‘He won’t. He’s meeting Clark Collier and his other Mason pals. He’ll be gone for hours. What’s your problem? Shall we fuck?’ And she grinned again, oblivious to his agenda.
‘Wait.’
He opened his bag and started taking out spell books and a pentagram mat and amulets. Then the navaja knife and the ring.
‘Is this the kinky stuff?’
‘It’s not for sex,’ he said casually. ‘But I thought I could cast a spell, to make you love Roy Hall even more than you already do.’
There was a pause. Tom was finding it hard to breathe normally. This was the make or break moment. Fillide threw him a sour and an angry look.
Then the magic kicked in; and she beamed like a fool.
‘That would make me very happy,’ she said, happily.
Tom exhaled; his plan was working. ‘I knew it would,’ he said.
He took his jacket off. Then his gunbelt, followed by his shirt. He slipped off his shoes and pulled down his trousers and dumped them on the sofa. Now he was clad only in socks, underpants and Jack the Ripper’s bloody leather apron.
Fillide nodded approvingly. ‘What a turn on.’
‘Hey!’ Tom said.
She grinned. ‘Is that from Gogarty’s house?’ she asked, meaning the apron.
‘Yes it is. It has magical potency. And so it will help me cast the love spell that I guarantee will make your beloved Roy so very very happy.’
Her face was a mask of pain. The magic did its work; she giggled, in delight.
Tom took off the leather apron and put it down on the sofa. The musky smell of it still repelled him, but he saw Fillide gleaming with exhilaration as she sniffed the rank air.
‘Why this, though? Lots of objects have magical potency,’ she asked.
‘Because,’ Tom said, ‘the apron is a Masonic artefact. And Roy is a Mason too you see. It all connects up.’ Tom showed her the Spanish fighting knife. ‘And this is a Mason’s adze,’ he lied. ‘It’s used for, um, Masonry.’
‘It looks like a knife.’
‘It’s actually an adze.’
‘What’s an adze?’
‘It’s one of these. Masons use them.’
Amazingly, she fell for it.
Tom put the knife on the sofa, next to the leather apron. Both baptised in the blood of Mary Kelly.
Tom stripped off the rest of his clothes, and put the leather apron back on. Then he put the five amulets on around his neck. They were cold against his skin.
‘You look sexy,’ said Fillide smiling, though Tom knew she couldn’t mean it.
He was terrified. His balls had shrunk in fear.
‘Do I need to - ?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘Get naked too?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ She pouted. ‘Roy will be so happy!’ She giggled; the spell had her firmly gripped by now. ‘I love him so much you see, and now I will love him more. And that means Roy will be so happy. Roy will be –’
‘Yes, yes, you said that. Hush now. Silence will help the magic, and the magic will make Roy happy, okay?’
‘Ah.’ Fillide acted ‘silent’; a girlish smile haunting her lips.
Tom shook his head, hating himself for what he was doing. This wasn’t the Fillide he knew and loved. She was like a doll spouting pre-recorded ‘You are my Mummy and I love you’ dialogue to its toddler owner.
‘Show me his study,’ he said, picking up the gunbelt and taki
ng the candle out of it. ‘It’s the place where Roy works, it’ll be full of his essence.’
‘Good idea.’
She didn’t move.
‘Is it through here?’ he hinted, nodding at the door. He knew that’s where the study was; but it was always locked and Fillide had never told him where the key was kept.
‘The study is a private place,’ she said sternly.
‘But we need to go there, to make the magic work.’
‘Roy told me never to take anyone into –’
‘Where’s the key, Fillide?’
‘I have to obey Roy’s instructions.’
‘But this is a surprise.’
‘A surprise?’
‘A nice surprise. Everyone loves surprises. Roy will be delighted, because of what this spell of mine will do.’
‘The spell?’
‘The love spell.’
She twitched, as if dodging a wasp. ‘A love spell. What kind of love spell?’
‘You’ll find out. Trust me, Fillide. Roy is my boss, I only want to make him happy.’
She thought a while. She nodded.
‘The key,’ he prompted.
On the mantelpiece above the imitation log fire was an antique porcelain ginger jar – Ming Dynasty, Tom hazarded. Fillide walked over to it stiffly and opened it up and took out the key.
‘That’s it, that’s good.’
Fillide unlocked the door and took Tom into Roy’s study, which was oak-panelled and lined with old books that had never been read. Beside the desk was a large ancient globe of the world that, across the farthest of its oceans, bore the immortal logo Here be dragons. Tom guessed it was in fact a cocktail cabinet. Quintessential Roy.
Tom was carrying the pentagram mat and the candle with one hand; the ring and the knife were clasped in the palm of his other hand. He arranged them on the floor. Then he kneeled and pulled back the carpet. Using the tip of the knife, he carved a pentagram on the wooden floor boards.
‘Should you be doing that?’
‘It’s a token of my love for Roy.’
‘Oh good!’ her voice said; though her eyes were aghast.
Tom cut his own wrist with the navaja and dripped blood on to the groove he’d made in the floorboards. He did it carefully until the outline of the pentagram was etched by his own blood. Then he put the shop-purchased pentagram mat on the floor above the crude pentagram of blood. Double power, he hoped.
He was feeling dizzy.
‘Roy’s really gonna love this!’ he said. He was getting bored of his own lie by now.
‘Can I help?’
‘Yes. Light the candles.’
There were four incense candles in the room; Fillide lit them all. Tom could smell galbanum, the sweet aroma that comes from the skin flap of the sea snail. Solomon had used this incense in his legendary Temple. There was also mandrake and myrrh, powdered lapis lazuli and the faint boozy hint of ambergris.
‘We need a holder for this.’ He gestured at the holy candle taken from Gogarty’s house in Ildminster Square, which Tom had placed carefully on the oak desk.
‘This is from Ildminster Square too,’ said Fillide suspiciously.
‘Yeah, it’s an aphrodisiac. It’ll get you horny so you can make Roy happy in bed. And thus you can prove how much you love -’
‘For fuck’s sake, Tom!’ Fillide snapped. ‘I thought you cared about me, why do you keep –’
‘If Roy isn’t happy in bed it will HURT HIM TERRIBLY,’ said Tom, savagely. ‘And you wouldn’t want that now, would you?’
‘No I wouldn’t want that,’ she said, numbly.
‘Then you must help me.’
‘Then I must help you.’
‘The candle,’ he prompted. ‘We need matches and a holder.’
Fillide found matches in the kitchen. She couldn’t locate a candle holder large enough, so they used a pint beer glass. The candle went in the glass. Fillide passed Tom the matches.
‘You said he kept a journal. Where is it?’
Fillide pointed at the front drawer of Roy’s bureau. He tried it. It was locked.
‘Key?’
‘I don’t have it.’
‘I need a book in which he has written words, to help keep Roy safe.’
Fillide took Jack the Ripper’s knife and jimmied the drawer open.
Tom opened the drawer. Inside was a leather black journal. It was full of names and addresses and lists of phone numbers next to amounts of money. Roy’s little black book.
‘What now?’ Fillide asked.
‘Now I cast a spell. Using the powers I possess as a witch.’
Tom put Sarah Penhall’s ring on his finger. He held the knife in his mouth, teeth gripping the sharp blade , tasting the stale bloodstains of the Ripper’s victims. Fillide lit the holy candle. It took a while, but eventually it began to burn.
Tom picked up the journal, a totem of connection between himself and Roy Hall, and he opened it up and let his eyes rest upon Roy’s words. He stood naked except for Jack’s apron upon the pentagram mat which rested on the pentagram of blood carved into the floor boards, and drank in the dark scent of the candle made from human fat, and began to chant the spell he had memorised earlier.
Chapter 12
‘I want to see Detective Superintendent Douglas Randall,’ said the giant of a man in the long black overcoat and the old fashioned black Fedora hat. He was a dark skinned man with a strangely blank face.
PC Jenny Sykes, who was filling in because the civilian receptionist at Limehouse was on a walking holiday, glanced at him. She thought the obvious thing: suicide bomber? She activated the whole body scanner concealed in the desk and ignored her waiting visitor while the results came through.
Negative. No bomb.
But no person either. Jenny checked her CCTV screen and saw an old lady sitting under the CRIME STOPPERS poster, waiting to talk to someone in CID. But no trace of the man in the Fedora hat. Another fucking dead one, Jenny thought wearily.
‘Name?’
‘I gave you the name,’ the man said in very serious tones. ‘His name is Douglas Randall and he is an officer of the law of Detective Superintendent rank.’
The man had a high pitched voice, and an annoying manner.
‘Your name?’
The man considered for a while. ‘Samuel,’ he eventually lied, badly.
Jenny realised this idiot was young. A child really, mid teens at a guess. Lanky, but unformed. His voice had broken, but abruptly and too much, so his vowels alternated between basso and soprano. Jenny stared at her screen again and authorised a PNC check based on her typed description. Height nine foot two; ethnic origin IC2 aka Mediterranean; clothing 1940s in style; features average, in an odd sort of way, with a defined aquiline nose. But she couldn’t take a photograph of him to send to the CRO, that was such a bloody pain.
‘He’s not in,’ Jenny said tersely.
The IC2 teenager looked at her, and forced a smile. Was he trying to flirt? Jenny was twenty-nine years old, she didn’t flirt with children. Especially dead ones.
‘I guess, if you really want to speak to someone,’ she said, in a moment of charity, ‘you can speak to someone else in Number Five.’
‘Number Five?’
‘Number Five Murder Squad. Do you have information to report? There’s always our Crimestoppers helpline you know.’
The funny-faced IC2 stared blankly at her.
‘Yes or no?’ she snapped.
The IC2 hesitated. Very formally, he said: ‘Thank you. Your offer is a fair one. I would desire that greatly.’
‘That’s a yes?’
‘That’s a yes,’ he confirmed.
‘Take a seat. I’ll see what I can do.’
The tall clay-faced child-man sat on the bench. And waited, with motionless patience.
‘Ty’h nzal’s kra naaghs n’ghalasj zsyn’e ty’h nzal’s za’je oth’e kyl-d zhem’n f’ungh’n. Nal Y’gs-Othoth krell N’yra-l’yht-Otp. I’a Y’gs-
Othoth. I’a N’yra-l’yht-Otp,’ Tom intoned.
The holy candle was burning slowly, releasing clouds of black acrid smoke that were – to Fillide’s horror – staining the ceiling black. The three dark incense candles had fugged the air-conditioned air of the apartment. The blended aromas of myrrh and mandrake and galbanum and ambergris and lapis lazuli and burning human fat were oppressive.
Tom, meanwhile, was feeling absurd; naked except for the leather apron, with a dragon-themed ring on his index finger, chanting an ancient spell he’d cribbed from one of his mother’s old novels. He’d discarded his glamour for this ceremony, and his facial and torso and leg scars were raw and ridged.
Tom paused.
‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked.
‘It’s a pause,’ he said. ‘I pause, for a few minutes.’
‘What does it all mean?’ asked Fillide. ‘The stuff you’re chanting?’
‘It’s gibberish, to be honest,’ Tom said. ‘So far as I know, anyway. I think it’s something to do with Cthulhu, whatever that is. The point is: the words have magic resonance, and you have to say something. But it’s more important that I’m holding Roy’s journal, his little black book. He’s held this book. He’s written the words inside it. That makes the book totemic; it makes the words iconic, in the literal sense. And so we’re connected.’
Tom put the book down up and stepped outside the pentagram and walked around the pentagram the witches’ way, widdershins. Then he returned to his haven upon the double pentagrams and took off the leather apron and threw it on the carpet.
Tom was now entirely nude. His skin was pale in the candlelight. His glass eye glared blindly in his ghastly face. His balls had shrunk to the size of peanuts. His body was skinny and unimpressive as well as being riven with black scars.
But as he stood there another pattern began to appear on his naked skin. Spreading like a rash over the rents in his chest and stomach. A tattoo that lay beneath the surface of the skin was rising to the surface, animating his flesh.
Fillide stared at the marking with something between admiration and fear. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
Tom coughed and spluttered a little. The incense smoke was starting to suffocate him. ‘It’s Hecate’s Wheel,’ explained Tom, of his stomach-tattoo. ‘It’s – the sign of the witch. I didn’t, to be honest, know I had it.’
Hell on Earth Page 73
