Darke

by Matt Hilton

  She was kept busy all morning, coordinating and managing dozens of police and civilian staff, each of whom wanted her time and input. All the while, she kept a discreet watch for Swain, but he was conspicuous by his absence. Ordinarily his desertion should have been cause for celebration, but not under the circumstances. As lunchtime approached, and the nick grew busier, she slipped away, and grabbed a taxi into central London, watchful for a tail. Sneaking off, and acting counter surveillance savvy, could prove detrimental if she was under DPS investigation, but there was nothing else for it. She left the taxi at Covent Garden, and took the tube to Charing Cross. Emerging out on The Strand, she was carried on a tide of shoppers and tourists towards Trafalgar Square, not the ideal location for a covert meeting, but she hadn’t set it. She entered a chain eatery on Northumberland Avenue, with ten minutes to spare, and looked for a man toting a massive iron-studded crucifix.

  Of course Elias Price looked nothing like his online persona, and she didn’t really expect him to. There was little to distinguish him from the other lunchtime diners, and she’d have been hard put to spot him if he hadn’t described where he’d be seated. The eatery was laid out on split-levels. Price had chosen a table at the back right corner of the upper level for its modicum of privacy in the busy restaurant.

  As she approached, Price glanced up from an open laptop, alongside a half-eaten plate of sausages, eggs and chips. He stood, and was much shorter than she’d expected, a small, narrow-shouldered man with greying, receding hair. Perhaps a sturdy physical body wasn’t necessary for a spiritual fight. Price extended a hand, indicating the seat opposite him, all the while studying her heterochromia with mild curiosity. ‘I’m assuming you’re Kerry Darke?’

  ‘I am.’ She hadn’t mentioned she was a detective inspector, and had no intention of doing so until she was sure he could help. ‘And you’re Elias Price.’

  An embarrassed smile flickered across his mouth for a second or two. He glanced again at her mismatched eyes, appearing bashful in her presence, then quickly rallied, again indicating she take a seat.

  She allowed her arms to drop by her side, as it appeared his habits didn’t extend to shaking hands in greeting. She sat, and he mirrored her. While she took a long check over her shoulder, he lowered the screen of the laptop so it wasn’t a barrier between them.

  ‘I’m going to be upfront with you, Miss Darke,’ he said. ‘After you made contact with me I was dubious about accepting this meeting, because I’m a little suspicious of your motive.’

  Taken aback, she blinked at him in a state of brain freeze.

  ‘I didn’t piece things together when first I typed my response to your voice mail message,’ he went on. ‘It was only after I received your reply that I noticed your email address was the same as one I received an inflammatory message from a few nights ago.’

  Kerry’s eyelids screwed shut and she exhaled in realisation. Adam hadn’t only snooped on her computer usage, he’d gone and sent Price a nasty email from her account! As she slowly opened her eyes, she noticed he was appraising her, his bashful smile flickering in place.

  ‘It’s OK, Miss Darke. I also noticed the distinct disparity in writing styles between your subsequent message and the first. If you don’t mind me saying so, the person behind that first message could do with a little schooling in grammar and spelling.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘Well, at least he managed to spell “scumbag fraudster” right, eh?’

  ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I’d no idea…’

  ‘A concerned husband?’

  ‘My fiancé,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Price, if I’d know Adam had sent you an email like that I’d have apologised sooner.’

  He waved away her concern. ‘In regards to some of the accusations aimed at me, your fiancé’s was mild by comparison.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. He’d no right doing that.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure his intention was to protect you; perhaps you shouldn’t be so angry with him.’

  ‘He’s sceptical of all this…’

  ‘Spooky stuff you’re experiencing?’ He smiled again. ‘It’s actually healthy to be sceptical, Miss Darke. And I can tell by your body language that you’re uncomfortable with your conclusions too.’

  ‘I’m going to be upfront with you, too, Mr Price. I’ll admit that for a while there I thought I was losing my mind.’

  ‘And something has changed that tells you otherwise?’

  Something had changed. How could a self-induced hallucination know where to send her to find Funky, James and Lewis?

  ‘You could say that.’

  The eatery was buzzing with activity and conversations, although in their corner she felt insulated from everyone around them. She leaned forward conspiratorially, about to blurt out that she was being haunted. Price stalled her. He straightened up, and directed a smile and nod over her shoulder. Kerry glanced up at a young female server, approaching with a menu in hand.

  Kerry ordered a coffee and a slice of carrot cake, and the server left.

  ‘They allow me to work here as long as I wish, but only when ordering food and drinks,’ Price whispered. ‘I’m surprised I’m not as fat as a whale by now.’

  Kerry glanced at his plate. The food on it was in the process of congealing. He forked up a chunk of sausage and nibbled it, before returning it to the plate.

  ‘I make it last,’ he told her with a wink, ‘otherwise the use of their free Wi-Fi would end up costing me a bomb. Yes, the food comes at a cost, but I have to keep up my energy. A case of killing two birds with one stone, eh?’

  Abruptly, Price sat back and regarded her with sudden clarity. ‘You’re a police officer,’ he proclaimed.

  Kerry ran her tongue over her lips.

  ‘I thought you looked familiar,’ he said, and thankfully he didn’t appear perturbed by her occupation. ‘With your eye colouring, I’d almost convinced myself I was thinking of the actress Jane Seymour, but that isn’t it: hers were blue and brown. You were featured in some news reports very recently, weren’t you?’ Before she could answer, he clicked his fingers. ‘Yes! That was it. You were the detective involved in that horrible incident where that obnoxious criminal fell to his death.’

  She nipped her lip between her teeth.

  Price’s eyes were deep blue pools. Dawning lit them, like submerged lamps rising to the surface of a pond. ‘Is your trouble related to that criminal’s death?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice barely audible. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘To what extent?’

  ‘I don’t know how you measure these things.’

  ‘Bad dreams, hearing disembodied voices, strange apparitions?’ Price asked.

  ‘All of the above,’ she said.

  ‘Sensations?’

  ‘I’ve felt temperature drops, and something like a static charge on my skin…as if I’d walked through an electrified spider’s web.’ She danced her fingernails across her opposite wrist as a visual aid.

  ‘Any physical harm?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘He’s tried attacking me, but is unable to touch me.’

  ‘You have no unexplainable scratches, welts, or bruises?’ He curled his thumb and pinky finger under his right palm, extended three fingers like a bird’s talons. ‘No repeated pattern of the number three?’

  Kerry frowned, wondering where he was going with his questioning.

  ‘That’s good. There’s no mocking of the Holy Trinity.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t follow.’

  ‘We can discount supernatural activity in your case,’ he announced. ‘Usually when a victim is suffering a demonic attachment they display physical manifestations, usually in wound patterns of three, where the demon displays its hatred of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’m pretty confident that your activity is paranormal in nature: the supernatural is connected with the gods, angels, demons, but you’re being troubled by a human spirit, and not an agent of the devil.’

&nbs
p; Kerry caught herself open-mouthed. ‘Are you psychic, Mr Price?’

  He lifted his fork, and the chunk of gnawed meat. ‘I’m as psychic as this sausage, Miss Darke. Uh, should I call you detective?’

  ‘I’m not here as a detective. Call me Kerry.’

  ‘Yes. It’s so much easier. You can call me Elias…if you wish? But getting back to your original question…I don’t need to be psychic. There’s only one reason for you to seek out my services. Seeing as we can dispense with my skills as a demonologist, I’d say you are concerned you’re being haunted by a ghost?’

  ‘I haven’t even told you what’s happening yet,’ Kerry said.

  ‘And now’s your opportunity.’

  She described the prolonged and disquieting visitations from Swain she’d endured. At no point did he appear sceptical she was being anything but truthful. ‘But even after everything,’ she said, ‘I’ve still doubted my senses.’

  ‘You mentioned having bad dreams, hearing voices, seeing apparitions, being assaulted by incorporeal hands, unexplained temperature drops and unusual sensations on your skin, they’re all ghostly phenomena, Kerry. All symptoms of a haunting.’

  ‘Or they’re all easily explained by science,’ she countered.

  ‘And yet you haven’t sought the assistance of a scientist. You’ve come to me.’

  ‘Actually, I have spoken to a scientist, a psychologist.’

  ‘Who obviously didn’t satisfy your concerns, because—’ he spread his arms, the fork and speared chunk of sausage meat still in one hand ‘—here we are.’

  Yes. There they were.

  The server returned with Kerry’s order, and placed a copy of her bill on the table with instruction to pay on the way out. Kerry thanked her, and caught the young woman giving her a conspiratorial wink and nod at Elias. He was obviously a familiar face in the eatery, and the subject of some mild ridicule. By virtue of the company she kept Kerry could be thought of as a crank too. She couldn’t care less. She cut off a wedge of carrot cake and put it in her mouth, chewing slowly.

  ‘Did your experiences begin immediately following the death of this…what was his name?’

  ‘Erick Swain,’ she said, and couldn’t avoid a glance around to check her spectral companion wasn’t spying on them.

  Price raised a finger in affirmation. ‘Swain. Yes. I remember now. So? He began appearing to you immediately after his death?’

  ‘Within a day or two,’ she said. ‘At first he was elusive, I only got a glimpse of him, and wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Then he…well, he grew bolder.’

  ‘I can imagine how frightening that was.’

  ‘Terrifying,’ she said. ‘He says some horrible things, creepy stuff, but in a perverted way. He hasn’t physically harmed me but I still feel…violated by him. He appears at the most inappropriate times.’

  Price thought. He forked the morsel of sausage in his mouth and chewed. Kerry ate more cake. Finally Price raised a finger again. ‘You asked me if I was psychic. Is that because you’re wondering if you have the ability, a sixth sense, so to speak?’

  ‘I’m not psychic,’ she scoffed.

  ‘There are different forms of psychic ability. They differ wildly.’

  ‘Yeah, but, I’m like you, as psychic as a house brick.’

  ‘Forgive my rudeness, but I’m assuming that you’re in your early thirties, yes?’ She inclined her head at the question, and he went on. ‘Usually psychic abilities become apparent at a young age. Is this the first time you’ve experienced any phenomena like this?’

  ‘Yes,’ she lied, and had no idea why she didn’t come clean about Girl…or the other stuff from her childhood.

  ‘Have you suffered any recent head trauma, had a near death experience, anything at all that might have triggered a latent talent?’ He stared at her, and she felt he was studying her micro expressions for the truth.

  ‘I watched a man fall to his violent death,’ she said contritely.

  ‘That in itself is horrible, but I doubt it’d be enough to kick start your ability to see and hear the dead.’

  She tapped the side of her head. ‘But it could mess this up, right?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re mad, Kerry.’ He laughed. ‘But I can tell you’re still trying to make up your mind about me.’

  She smiled with him. ‘I have to admit that I struggle with the concept of demons and exorcisms.’

  ‘Because, quite simply, what you know about them are misconceptions promoted by horror movies for cheap thrills. In all my years conducting deliverances I’m yet to see anybody spew green pea soup.’ Again Kerry smiled along with him. ‘Demon is a term we’ve all grown used to. But it’s a catchall phrase used worldwide for various differing phenomena. Every culture has its own demons, but in each they differ vastly. I won’t bore you with a full treatise, only to say I prefer the scholarly explanation that our demons are down to our collective psychology: we conjure an embodiment of evil to torment us as deserved punishment for our wrongdoing. Every culture has unique visual representations for demons, and ours relies heavily on medieval Christian iconography: the reason why I use crucifixes and holy water to banish them. But we must remember that the Christian church labelled all the pagan gods and spiritual deities evil. Our image of a hooved, goat-headed devil is most certainly a representation of a satyr, or Pan from Greek mythology. Ironically the ancient Greek term diamon is the etymological forerunner to daemon, or demon, but originally translated as ‘divine power’ or ‘god’. In Greek mythology, the daemons were intermediaries between humankind and the divine, and could be good or bad depending on the individual they’d attached to. In Islamic tradition, Muhammad alleged that every man has an angel and demon as guides, the angel towards goodness, the demon to evil.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she concurred. ‘Freud said something similar, but gave his demons and angels different names, id and super ego.’

  ‘Ha! So you’ve been conducting your own research?’

  ‘I’m a detective, Elias.’ She smiled conspiratorially. ‘It’s in my nature.’

  ‘OK, so let’s dispense with the little sprites with horns and get down to how I choose to approach the issue of the demonic. What are your beliefs on positive and negative energy?’

  ‘I didn’t pay much attention in science class at school.’

  ‘Then I’ll keep things in layman’s terms for you. Instead of good and evil, think light and dark. One cannot exist without the other. Light and dark are determined by energy. And, as we’ve learned — through quantum science — energy can be transformed but it can’t be destroyed. If we think in terms of humans as spiritual beings, powered by energy, then after our corporeal bodies fail us what becomes of our energy? It can be transformed into something else, surely, so why not a ghost? When an evil person dies, what happens to their life force? Swain, by definition could not be described as a good man, and it’s doubtful that if his spirit were visiting you, then it’s with a sense of bonhomie, I’d bet. He was a shit in life, and a shit in death, right?’

  Kerry chuckled. ‘You’ve hit the nail on the head there.’

  ‘And you said he torments you?’

  ‘Regularly.’

  ‘He blames you for his premature death?’

  ‘That’s the thing. He claims he doesn’t.’

  ‘And yet he wants something from you?’

  Kerry pushed aside the remaining chunk of cake. She picked up her coffee, to be doing something with her hands. ‘I can’t go into specifics, but yes.’

  ‘And is this something that you can deliver?’

  ‘Yes. But I’m not prepared to.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Kerry peered at him. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s my belief that Swain’s spirit, an embodiment of his negative energy, has attached to you, because he perceives you as his nemesis – despite what he tells you to the contrary – and he’ll stay attached until he gets from you some kind of appeasement.’

  ‘He wants revenge,
’ she admitted.

  ‘On you?’

  ‘On others.’ She paused, but the only way she’d get the answers she needed was to be truthful. ‘He wants me to hurt somebody on his behalf.’

  ‘And you won’t?’

  ‘Definitely not. But he claims he won’t leave me alone until I do.’

  ‘Hmmm. Then I’m afraid you might have to get used to having him around. By their nature, spirits are timeless; he can wait you out. Are you prepared to do the same?’

  ‘I’m not prepared to do what he asks. Isn’t there something you can do to get rid of him for me? I’ll pay—’

  Elias shook his head morosely. ‘I can clear negative energy through rituals based on my clients’ personal religious beliefs, but I can only help cross restless spirits over when they’re ready to go, once they’ve found closure on the earthly plane. Appease Swain with what he wants, and sure, then I can cross him over, but until then…well, you’d be wasting your money, and I’d be wasting your time and mine. Despite what your fiancé thinks of me, I’m not a fraudster preying on the vulnerable, Kerry.’

  ‘I appreciate what you’re saying. All I meant was I’m prepared to reimburse you for your services…if you can get rid of him. But what you’re saying is that I’m asking for the impossible?’

  ‘Nothing’s impossible, of course. You could do as he asks, but answer yourself this question: do you genuinely believe you can trust him to deliver his end of the bargain once you do?’

  ‘To leave me be after? Yes, I suppose I do. But about…’ she faltered.

  Again, Price studied her closely. ‘There’s more you’re not telling me, isn’t there?’

  Kerry said nothing, only met his gaze.

  ‘You said he wants you to hurt somebody on his behalf. We’re not talking about giving this person a fat lip, are we?’