by Matt Hilton
Her first instinct was to lift the telephone and jab out the number for the police office situated over in Skelvoe. Still, she let the receiver fall without making the call. She wasn’t yet hysterical and knew that she’d be branded as such by the constable on duty if she allowed her fear to get a grip of her. Instead, she returned to the front door and looked out on the squalling weather. The rain was more a swirling mist riding the air, but the wind moaned over the crags beside the house and she could hear the faint boom of waves from the sea. The sound of childlike voices would be blanketed by the elements. But not so her loudest yell.
“Jimmy, Bethany, come on home now!” Her voice held enough of an edge that the bairns would recognise the fear riding above her anger.
Without waiting for an answer, she stepped out into the night. The rain clung to her face like spider webs. She pulled her cardigan round her body, arms crossed beneath her breasts. Her voice again battled the wind and surf, shrill and piercing.
Shuddering, she crossed the garden to the boundary fence, where she stood pressed up against the spars so that the sharp points dug into her thighs. She made her throat raw with her prolonged shouting. Still no reply. She glanced at the house, considered the phone. Not yet. She clambered over the fence onto the stunted grass marking the beaten path over the hill at the back of the house. The bairns usually used this short cut from the school bus stop. Water pooled around her feet at each awkward step.
She crested the hill out of breath. She wasn’t unfit, must have been holding her breath. She made almost imperceptible noises, like a small, panic-stricken creature. Her legs ached, a mix of adrenalin and cold making her footing unsteady. She paused, eyes digging through the night. Grass, rocks, the plantation of spindly fir trees off to her right. The hill swooped down to the coast road below. Off to her left she could see the sulphurous glow of the town lights from Skelvoe reflected off the low-lying clouds. Nothing else. No movement. No hurrying children. She started down towards the road, following the trail through the grass that the children had beaten down on many previous journeys.
She shouted again. Hollered their names without realising she was doing so. Her breath came sharp and staccato, her stumbling footsteps more rapid than the lay of the land forced. Her shoes were full of water, her jeans saturated to the knees. She couldn’t care less. These were only minor discomforts compared to her current problem. Contrary to everything, including the rumours regarding her liaisons with legible widower, Thomas Rington, her children were her only concern. They were all that mattered. Nothing in this world came before them.
Half skidding, she scrambled down the hillside. Loose pebbles were kicked loose, the sound of their decent muted by her pulse pounding in her skull. The noise startled a feeding crow and it shot into the air shrieking at her sudden intrusion at its banquet table. In defiance it threw itself at her face, wings beating in frenzy before it wheeled away and took up a safe distance, watching her through eyes the colour of sump oil.
The thought barely registered: a crow feeding at night…in this weather? Maybe it was the weirdness of it all, perhaps it was something subtler, some primal instinct that forced her from the path. She stepped over to where the grass grew tall. To where the crow had been gorging itself.
Before her breathing had been forced, short gasps. Now it resembled the puttering of a labouring engine. Her knees gave out and she fell onto her palms, her neck taut, her eyes bulging. The shuddering in her innards extended outwards and she sprayed vomit onto the grass, over the backs of her hands. Her stomach heaved again. Sickness splashed over the crow’s dinner. Over the scuffed shoe. Over the cuff of the grey trousers. Even over the pale flesh and splintered shinbone protruding out of it.
Catherine’s mind rebelled. It couldn’t be true. But the involuntary reaction of her body spoke volumes.
“No,” she moaned. “No, no, no, no. Not my boy. Not Wee Jimmy.”
NINE
Broom’s Cottage
I don’t know too much about guns and the like. As co-founder of a sporting goods line, I was more inclined towards clothing and running shoes, my expertise in shooting having only fired an air rifle or two during my youth. So I had to trust him when Paul Broom showed me the SIG Sauer semi-automatic handgun that he fetched from a strongbox in his bedroom. He told me that it was a model that held nine rounds, didn’t have a safety catch, and only required me to simply depress the trigger repeatedly to fire all nine rounds in rapid succession. The gun was coloured a matte black - Broom informing me with a fervent sheen to his face that this was the same model favoured by covert anti-terrorist operatives as it did not reflect light, so did not betray their position whilst waiting in ambush. Also, because of its lack of non-essential switches, it was easily concealed under clothing and could be drawn quickly without fear of snagging on cloth. ‘I learned all that from reading my favourite thriller author, who I’m sure knows his stuff.’
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said.
“Here, Carter. Try it out.”
Broom handed me the gun. There was no magazine or load in the gun, yet it still appeared surprisingly light to my hand. Some people are fascinated with guns; they relish the weight, and the power it imbues, in their hand. I’d never had such feelings before now, but I have to admit that there was something comforting about the way the grip fitted my palm. It was as though Broom’s SIG had been built with me in mind. I couldn’t help raising the barrel and pointing it at my distorted reflection in Broom’s plasma TV screen in the adjacent living room. ‘Go ahead, punk. Make my day,’ I quoted in my best Dirty Harry snarl.
Broom placed a hand on the gun barrel, guided it towards the floor “Let’s not have any Elvis moments, huh?”
“It isn’t loaded,” I reminded him.
“Regardless. Never point a gun at anything you don’t intend shooting.”
“What if I never intend shooting anything? To be honest, I’m a little concerned that you’ve actually handed me this thing.”
Broom walked away from me, fetching a box of ammunition. 9 mm Parabellum, it said on the carton. He began feeding cartridges into a magazine.
“I said ‘what if I never intend shooting anything’?”
“Sometimes that choice is not yours to make,” he said.
I placed the gun down on the kitchen table. “Not my choice to make? You’re kidding me, aren’t you? Put it away, Broom. I won’t use it. I’m not…capable.”
Broom’s features became chiselled planes. “Not capable? I beg to differ.”
“Beg all you want; I couldn’t shoot someone.”
“So you think.”
“I don’t think it, Broom. I bloody well know it.”
His reply was a disparaging chuckle. The dead eye I shot him earned little response. He merely came over and pushed the magazine into the gun. He pulled a slide, feeding a bullet into the firing chamber.
“At the expense of dousing your enthusiasm, may I take you back to that hellish night when you were being tortured by your brother? Back to the water mill. You had just witnessed Cash cutting your baby out of Karen’s womb-”
“Fuck it, Broom. Do you have to?”
He held up a consoling hand. Placed the SIG on the table. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be so graphic. I’m merely attempting to prove my point.”
I leaned both hands on the table, hung my head. Eyes closed. Felt the buzz, the rush of hatred within.
“It’s show time, bro.”
“When Cash had you tied to that post and was cutting strips of flesh from your chest…”
“Okay. Enough!” I reared up, inhaling sharply. “I get where you’re going with this, Broom. And the answer is yes! Without a doubt. Without fucking pause. If I’d had that gun with me, I’d have emptied it in Cash’s face. And when it was empty, I’d have slammed his skull to a pulp with the barrel. It’s likely that I’d have rammed the fucking thing right down his throat and made him choke on it.”
“Ouch! That’s brutal, brother.�
�
Broom winked. “All you need is the correct set of stimuli.”
Phlegm cracked in my throat.
“You are capable of killing,” Broom went on. “You’ve proven that once.”
I shook my head like an old dog attempting to shake a flea out of its ear. “That was different. That was an extreme circumstance. Nothing I could ever imagine could come close to that ever again.”
“So you think.”
I thumped my knuckles on the table, shaking empty soup bowls and the ammunition box. “That was the worst imaginable thing ever. I lost everything. I lost the woman I loved; I lost my baby, for Christ’s sake!”
“Yeah, but you gained a soul companion.”
I snatched the gun from the table. “Fuck you, Cash. And fuck you, Broom. I’m not a killer. I’m not like either of you. I couldn’t shoot anyone.”
“Even if that someone was as bad as Cash was?”
“Even then.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care. I’m telling you.” Contrary to my words, I lifted the gun and aimed it at an imaginary target. Broom shifted out of my line of fire. “No one could be as bad as Cash.”
“Thanks, I’ll take that as a compliment. I think.”
Broom pursed his lips. “I hate to disillusion you, Carter. And this isn’t to take anything away from your hurt, but, believe me, there are things out there that make Cassius Bailey look as sweet as a choirboy. His crimes pail into insignificance when-”
“Don’t fucking say it,” I snapped. “What Cash did to me…to Karen…to my son…” Words caught in my throat.
“Attaboy. You tell him, Carter.” I felt heat behind my eyes. “You put the facetious ponce in his place.”
Broom leaned against a counter top. Nonchalant, head drooping. All he needed was a cigarette hanging from his lips and he’d have done a good impression of the Marlboro Man - sans the Stetson.
“If you had to protect someone you care for,” he blinked up, including himself in that equation, “or it was someone you became emotionally involved in, you would kill. It’s human nature.”
“I’m not emotionally involved with anyone; don’t think I ever could be again. Not after what happened to Karen.” But even as I said it, an image of the woman from the ferry flashed into my mind. Janet. Archaeology student. I pictured the slope of her nose, her full bottom lip, and her glittering eyes as she’d watched from the minibus as she’d been carried away from me by the ageing hippy. I shook the cobwebs loose. Stared at Broom. “Any way, who the hell do you think I’m going to have to shoot? You still haven’t explained yourself. What was all that about needing my special skills?”
Broom gripped my shoulder. I allowed the barrel of the SIG to drop.
“Tomorrow morning, after we’ve had breakfast, I’ll take you down to the beach and you can practice shooting tin cans. For now, mind you don’t go and shoot yourself in the foot.”
I sniffed, but laid the SIG on the tabletop, angling the barrel away from us. “You’re avoiding the issue, Broom.”
“I’m not avoiding the issue; I’m trying my hardest to soften the blow.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
He shrugged, sloping away from me.
“Or the way you keep side-stepping the question. Who is it that you think I might have to shoot?”
“Didn’t I hint at that earlier?”
“Not to my recollection.”
“I mentioned that there was something wrong on the island.”
I raised my brows, puckering the scar on my forehead.
“I told you that something had returned.” He looked at me as though his enigmatic explanation should be enough. Call me ignorant, but other than the unerring pull that had brought me here with a sense that I was needed, I wasn’t sure there was any basis to the feeling until the revelation had hit me over my soup bowl earlier.
He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Standing like that his height wasn’t so imposing. He had the bent aspect of a frail old man, or the drooping boughs of a willow tree.
“Do you recall our conversation when I asked you to come here?”
“Yeah. Most of it.”
“Do you remember how I said that you weren’t beholden to me, that it was your choice, that you could refuse to come?”
I nodded. “We’ve already been over this, Broom. After you got me out of hospital, supported me, nursed me back to health, how could I refuse to come?”
His mouth twitched. He rolled his shoulders. “I’m no saint, Carter. As we have most assuredly ascertained, most of my reason for helping you was for purely selfish reasons.”
“Most of your reason was selfish,” I reminded him. “But you went way beyond your needs, didn’t you? I know that. You know that. Then, somewhere along the way, you and I became friends. Round about the same time, your helping me became unconditional. You aren’t as selfish as you like to make out.”
His lips quirked. “No it isn’t that. I simply realised that you were handy to keep around. It was good that I had someone to put out the rubbish, wash the dishes, iron my clothes and stuff. I didn’t even have to pay you the minimum wage.”
“Gee, thanks.” We were both smiling now. “Now I feel really special.”
“Is this where we hug and then go and snuggle up on the couch and watch some chick-flick together?” Broom laughed.
“I wouldn’t say I was that grateful,” I said. “But, really, you asked for my help with a problem. I said I’d come. Here I am.”
“And like I said, you’re not beholden to me.” He nodded at the gun. “Does giving you the SIG change things between us?”
“As long as you didn’t ask me here to kill someone.”
“Not someone. I thought I’d already made that clear.”
“Some thing.”
“Some thing,” he emphasised. “Contrary to what you believe, I think that your special skills go beyond anything anyone else could possibly offer.”
“My special skills? You keep saying that, but I don’t know what it is you’re referring to.”
“Oh, Carter. I think you do.”
I frowned. It was just for show. Both of us knew it.
“I’m talking about your ability.” He withdrew his hands from his pockets, folding them under his armpits. “Your inclination to sniff out evil.”
I snorted. Made me sound like some sort of wild boar snuffling for truffles. “Now you’re getting weird.”
He held up a finger. “Weird is my middle name.”
“Any way,” I asked. “When did you come up with this idea? It’s not as if I turned into a psychic over night.”
“Your ability has nothing to do with psychic or mediumistic powers,” he pointed out.
“I’m glad about that,” I said. “I don’t want to depose Van Helsing in your affections.”
“That would quite simply be out of the question.” He smirked at me. “Van Helsing’s the main man.”
“W.W.V.H.D. I remember.”
He formed his fingers into a make believe pistol, aimed at my chest and pulled the trigger. Satisfied that he’d put things into perspective, he went on. “However, my good friend, I think that you come a very close second in the old demon hunting stakes.”
I laughed, shook my head. “Have you been sniffing the correction fluid again or what?”
He chose to ignore me. Instead he explained, “You’ve been all the way to Hell and back again. Something about your experience has given you an affinity with evil.”
“You are speaking in metaphors, I hope? Regardless of what I told you about Cash, I didn’t have one of those near death experiences. No tunnels or bright lights for me. No harp music. I sure as hell didn’t go someplace full of flames and little pointy-hoofed men with toasting forks.”
“Not that you remember.”
“Trust me, Broom. It wasn’t anything like that.” It was my turn to fist my hands in my pockets. “Only place I went was
straight to the bottom of the river. Luckily my hang up call to the ambulance had brought everyone running. A young copper dove in and dragged me to the surface. I was dead. Had been for a few minutes they reckon. If it hadn’t been for the paramedics throwing a few thousand volts through my heart, I wouldn’t have made it. I’d have lain at the bottom of the river until nature took its course and I came bobbing up to the surface like a cork. The point I’m trying to make is this; other than being dead, nothing remarkable happened to me whilst I was at the bottom of the river. Everything was just black. No thought. No conscience whatsoever. No Heaven. Certainly no hell, either.”
“Like I already pointed out. Not that you remember.” Broom gave me a self-satisfied grin. “You - and you’re hitchhiker - are definitive proof of an afterlife. How can you find the notion of heaven or hell so ridiculous when you believe you are possessed by the spirit of your dead brother?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one,” I said. “I’m as nutty as squirrel shit. And so are you by association.”
Broom turned down his mouth. “Neither of us is mad.”
“Not even a little?”
“Switching track,” he said. “And attempting to explain myself to one obviously too ignorant to understand the implications of such a God-given gift, I believe that you did indeed see Hell. Maybe only for a fraction of a second. But that was long enough. The distillation of pure evil recognised you for a righteous man, and it latched on to you. When you were snatched from its grasp it sent your brother after you. Cash, however, was too late to drag you back down below and instead became your prisoner. I truly believe that God intervened. Came to your aid. Made you master over the beast, as is correct in His law.”
I stood there looking at him. Drool threatened to pool in the ditch made by my lower jaw. Broom was weird. For a trained psychologist his overwrought imagination was downright unbelievable.
“See, Carter,” he went on. “You touched the devil. Now, due to that, you have this ability to draw evil towards you, or you to it. Imagine if you will a gigantic magnet. Then imagine that evil has substance, like small, twisted fragments of metal. You Carter are like that magnet. It is inevitable. The evil will come to you.”
