Sympathy for the Devil

by Howard Marks

  ‘That’s not likely,’ he said. ‘No one on the island ever goes up there.’ He didn’t look round at her, but continued brushing the same small square of board. ‘It’s not safe. You have to know the paths.’

  ‘So what do they go up there for?’ she said.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The people from the island, you said they know the paths.’

  He kept his eyes on the board. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  Huw thanked the man, then led the way back along the passage to the day room. The curtains were still closed, the ashtray on the floor unemptied from the previous afternoon. He shut the door before speaking again.

  ‘What do you make of that? Thomas has been coming down here on the quiet. Then he leaves with this Fransis character, doesn’t come back.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ The room felt cold. The radiator in the corner gave out little heat. Catrin sat on top of it, began to roll a cigarette. ‘The barman said Fransis was connected to the clinic. But his name wasn’t on the staff register.’

  ‘An outpatient?’

  ‘Maybe. Let’s check there, see if we can get more details on him.’

  She flicked her ash into the fireplace. ‘There’s something not quite right about this whole place, don’t you feel that?’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘It’s as if the place is hiding something. It’s there, but just out of sight all the time.’

  Huw was leaning closer to her, his eyes flicking over to the door. Catrin could hear the sound of the birds far out over the waters.

  She threw her half-smoked stub into the fireplace. In the distance a figure out on the rocks was moving slowly away into the mist. She reached for the binoculars, but it had disappeared into the dimness. As the cries of the birds faded, it was difficult to believe anyone had been there at all.

  ‘That looked like Tudor,’ she said. ‘He was there earlier, watching us.’ She looked out into the half-light. ‘It may be nothing, but Tudor’s daughter, the pretty one. She was one of those youngsters reported missing, but she was never matched with a body.’

  Huw had already turned, picked up his coat. ‘She may have run off to London or somewhere. But Tudor must have known something about those grow-sheds, his place was the closest habitation, there was nothing else near.’

  ‘Except the escarpment.’ She lowered her eyes from the window. ‘You don’t think Tudor’s who he appears to be?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m not really sure any of them are.’ He paused. ‘Like you said, this whole place feels wrong.’

  As Huw reached the door, it was already opening. Standing there was the barman and another man, their broad shoulders blocking out the light. Catrin saw that the barman was staring at Huw, not moving, as if he wasn’t going to let him pass.

  The second man stepped forward. She recognised him as one of the regulars from the bar, the one with the beard and sandy hair fading to grey she’d seen on the first day.

  ‘Your lady friend,’ he glanced past Huw to where Catrin sat. ‘A gentleman wants to speak to her.’

  The barman was still blocking the door, his arm across the gap.

  ‘This gentleman,’ she said, ‘who is it?’

  The bearded man stepped back into the shadows. The barman was still there, watching. ‘He’s waiting for you, the gentleman, at the clinic.’

  There was silence. No one moved. She knew she had enough space to land a kick on the throat of the taller man. But she could hear a shuffling further in. More men were behind them; how many it was difficult to tell.

  ‘We just wanted to make sure you got his message, like,’ the first man said in a slow drawl. ‘There’s no hurry or nothing.’

  She thought she heard a nervous laugh from one of the men, then there was silence.

  ‘This gentleman,’ she said, ‘he’s the one who’s called Fransis Seraphim. The one you’re all afraid of.’

  There was a dull murmur from the passage. She glimpsed the men she’d seen before in the bar, standing in a line along the wall. They made a narrow gap for her to pass.

  ‘Who is he really?’ she said. Her eyes moved from face to face, the weathered features impassive. ‘Who are you all really?’ She could smell the damp fishermen’s jerseys, the close scent of male sweat. All the faces were looking at her blankly, expressionless, and no one said a word.

  As she glanced back, the men’s shoulders were closing around her. Huw had disappeared from view. She felt hands suddenly drawing her forward towards the light.

  8

  The pickup felt cold. As the engine started, the air filled with the sound of trance drumming. Then all was silent again, just the soft whirring of the heater.

  As they drove out of the village, the coastline was visible only as a bank of murky greys and subfuscs as vague and insubstantial as the low clouds covering it. The road climbed through the oak woods Catrin had passed the first morning, then past tall birches to the drive down to the clinic. Through the intricate trefoil of the gates she saw in the distance a building made from the ancient, dark rock from which the cliffs were formed.

  The men with her said nothing, kept their heads straight ahead, not glancing at her once. The barman was driving, and on her other side was the tall man with the grey hair, with next to him a younger man she’d never seen before. Throughout he kept his face averted, hidden behind his baggy hoodie.

  On both sides the drive was bordered by hedgerows that had long ago lost their shape and become overgrown, the branches raking the side of the vehicle. Soon she could no longer hear the calls of the seabirds and the waves breaking on the cliffs behind them.

  The barman now slowed almost to a crawl. Catrin peered out at the trees. ‘This must have been planted when the house was first built, perhaps earlier. Blackthorn doesn’t normally grow above fifteen feet, but this must be nearer twenty.’ She wanted them to think she was relaxed, let them ease off their guard. The man in the hoodie put his hand out, ran it gently along the hedge.

  ‘Isn’t the blackthorn sacred to the ancient Celts?’ she asked.

  ‘Clever girl.’ It was the man in the hoodie. His voice was low, cracked, barely more than a murmur, yet vaguely familiar to her. ‘In the old calendar it represented the Waning or Dark Moon.’

  Through her mind for a moment flickered the trees in the first film. All had had their significance, she was sure of that now. She said nothing more, stared into the dark thickets receding far into the mist. The trees on either side of the drive hung low, making a deep tunnel over the track until abruptly it opened into a paved area in which a crumbling ornamental fountain doubled as a bird-bath.

  The building that housed the clinic, on the far side, was more extensive than she had anticipated. The high brick façade was inset with columns of black rock, but was otherwise plain, unrelieved by decorative effects. The windows were intersected by the gangways and ladders of old, rusted fire escapes, shrouded with a thick layer of ivy. There was a faded coat of arms over the entrance. The place looked like an old boarding school run to seed. There was nothing to identify it as a clinic, no ramp for wheelchairs, no signs apart from a wooden arrow pointing to a parking area. Beside several trailers resting on bricks in the long grass Catrin noticed a van with builder’s tarps on the roof.

  The barman braked abruptly, spun the pickup round at the entrance to the clearing. He threw the door open, but did not get out. ‘The gentleman who wanted to speak to you will be in there,’ he said. She wondered why he wasn’t going any closer. There was still over thirty yards to the main building.

  ‘What are you so frightened of?’ she said.

  He just pointed at the doorway. She could see reflections from the trees, maybe camera lenses. She knew she was probably being watched.

  Catrin looked through the branches. Just visible in both directions as far as the eye could see a razor-fence ran down into the woods. Threaded through the fence were black, tear-shaped nodes and lengths
of slim, transparent wire almost invisible against the frozen leaves. It was classic stealth security, discreet but effective. So the only way out was back along the drive, and that was closed off by the gates.

  The barman slammed the door behind her and revved his engine. ‘Look,’ his voice was muffled by the sound, ‘we’re just the messenger boys. Around here when the clinic shouts, we have to jump.’

  ‘What about my friend back at the inn?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about him.’ He closed his window, began to pull away. ‘Just do what they tell you, and he’ll be safe.’

  There was a spray of gravel as the car fishtailed into the mist. Catrin was left standing alone, looking up at the building. She could see no lights on, no signs of life within it. She moved towards the builder’s van which was coated in mud. She ran her finger along one side. A damp sliver came free; beneath was a lighter grey. It looked like the colour of the first van that had followed them.

  She heard a crunching sound and turned. A lone man was coming round the side of the building. He wore the same white trousers and jacket she had seen on the men in the canteen in the woods. His lips were moving, but his words did not carry through the mist. As he got closer she saw that it was the young doctor, Smith, who’d shown them the way to Tudor’s place. He looked very pale, the blood drained from his face. As he saw her he seemed deliberately to pull himself upright. He was carrying some cases that looked hastily packed.

  ‘Are you the one they call the gentleman?’ she said. He pushed the cases into the back of his large pickup. He said nothing, seemed reluctant to move away from the car. Catrin waited. There were still no lights or movement inside the building.

  ‘No, it’s someone else who’s expecting you,’ he said at last. His tone was professional, almost cheery, but there was an undertow of tension in his voice. She looked at his car, wondered if it was strong enough to ram the gates. The bull bars on the front looked more for show than for business, and she decided it probably couldn’t. She saw they’d now been joined by two other figures. Maybe the two had been there all the time in the mist. They were standing back, wearing white smocks, and both were shaven-headed and well-built. Orderlies, by the look of them.

  ‘Just follow me, please.’ The doctor quickly shut the door to his car, locked it. It had a series of additional retro-fit locks, Catrin noticed. Without speaking he led her inside, the other two men following close behind. The first room was a large hall that seemed to function as a security checkpoint. At the back were the rubberised arches of what looked like a large metal detector.

  Ahead of her the doctor turned left, past a shallow cupboard crammed with cardboard boxes. She looked back. Behind her the two men in white were standing silently, arms crossed. One of them glanced at her, sniggering under his breath.

  The doctor gave her a thin-lipped smile but said nothing. As he moved along the corridor she noticed a line of smoked-glass camera domes mounted on the ceiling, some covered with fine wire mesh.

  ‘The security here seems rather tight for a rehab unit,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ The man was trying to sound relaxed but failing. She got the sense again that he’d have preferred not to be have been going back into the building.

  ‘Any particular reason that you know of?’

  ‘Measures had to be taken to ensure that no one tries to bring in drugs, potential weapons that might be accessed by more vulnerable patients.’ The doctor was watching her closely now.

  ‘Like who?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, like most rehabilitation centres we offer withdrawal programmes for the standard spectrum of addictions – alcohol, opiates, cocaine, amphetamines.’ The doctor paused; the sound of his own voice seemed to give him more confidence. ‘We’ve also occasionally had patients with conditions that result from abuse of hallucinogenic drugs.’

  ‘You mean acidheads?’ she asked.

  ‘Not always. Some with conditions resulting from the more extended forms of hallucinogenic experience, those involving misguided quests for spiritual knowledge. This part of the country, as you know, has had more than its share of psychoactive experimentation in the last few decades. Some members of the alternative community seem to have taken a trip that they never came back from.’

  There was a rattling behind them, a sound like a trolley being wheeled down a long corridor. Catrin looked round, but could see only the two men following, nothing else, just the bright light and empty space. She couldn’t see their faces clearly in the glare.

  She moved closer to the doctor. ‘Why didn’t you mention this when we asked you in the pub? You said this place was just a standard unit for NHS referrals.’

  The doctor said nothing further. He led her in silence up the stairs to the second floor. He kept glancing out of the narrow windows at his pickup parked at the front. The first door on the right opened into a small, overheated room. Once inside he blocked the door and stood in front of it. Catrin could see the window ahead had bars over it. Outside she heard the two orderlies laughing nervously.

  The doctor stared over her shoulders, not catching her eye. Suddenly he moved his hand towards her and she backed away. She saw the outline of a row of syrettes in his coat pocket.

  His young face looked tired, anxious under the fluorescent lighting. She heard the door locking behind him. On the far side, the small window let in as much brightness as the mist allowed.

  She reached over for the ashtray in the middle of the coffee table. It was balanced on a stack of magazines and Twelve Step leaflets, the edges curling and yellowed. As she moved it towards her she noticed that an undisturbed layer of dust covered the surface of the papers.

  ‘Looks like no one’s been here for a while.’

  As she ran her finger over the tops of the magazines, small clouds of dust drifted out into the air.

  ‘Not the cleaners anyway,’ the doctor said.

  His eyes kept being drawn back to the wall behind her. But as he saw her watching him, he quickly looked away. She swung round but there was only a large square noticeboard behind. On the top half were anti-drug leaflets, cartoons with simple stylised figures. The lower part of the board featured photos of the staff arranged on a diagram of a tree.

  The supervisor was placed on the top branch, a middle-aged man with a well-tended beard over hollow cheeks. To the right of the trunk were several young men with thinning blond hair, who could have been brothers. She recognised the men from the canteen in the woods.

  The doctor had moved away from the door towards the board. As he saw her looking closer he edged nearer to it, but Catrin had seen what he was trying to hide. The picture was not as faded as those above. Situated in the lowest section of the diagram, labelled ‘Facilities Management and Security’, it showed a man in a charcoal suit, with a high forehead and long grey hair.

  Immediately she recognised Fransis. ‘That man,’ she said, ‘he’s working here under another name.’ She looked more closely at the board. Archie Molloch was the name there, it meant nothing to her. She stared hard at the doctor. ‘He’s the one who’s asked you to hold me here, isn’t he?’

  The doctor avoided her eyes. She could see a barely concealed tension in his face. He moved quickly towards the door and tried to get out before she could reach him. But Catrin was too quick for him, she had her fingers round his throat, his arm in a lock behind his back. He tried to swing round, kick back at her, but she was ready for him. Her fingers dug deeper into his larynx. He couldn’t move, couldn’t yell.

  She heard the two orderlies moving their weight from foot to foot outside. She edged the doctor back to the far end of the narrow room.

  ‘This Mr Molloch, he’s the gentleman who was expecting me,’ she whispered, ‘isn’t he?’ She saw fear on his face, his eyes narrowing. She’d never seen someone look so terrified. Suddenly he lurched towards the window. The drop was at least fifteen metres but he attempted to butt his way through the glass. Catrin held him back, pulled him to the floor, keeping her fi
ngers on his throat.

  ‘What is it about him that spooks everyone?’ She’d put her mouth to his ear as she whispered.

  He shut his eyes tightly, shaking his head back and forth violently. Just like a small boy who thinks if he closes his eyes bad things will go away. She grabbed a bunch of Twelve Steps leaflets, bunched them together and stuffed them in his mouth as she eased the pressure on his larynx. She reached over to the light, worked the cord around his hands and legs, then his neck. He was hog-tied now, like one of the show subs she used to see in the clubs. She peeled down his trousers, then unbuttoned his jacket and his shirt. She put the tip of her boot on his buttocks, pushed him gently away from the window until he was facing the large mirror on the opposite wall.

  ‘Look.’ Sometimes, she knew, it was shame that could break the strongest spirits. He’d kept his eyes shut, but she prised them open so he could see himself in the glass. She had her iPhone out. ‘Smile!’ The flash went once, twice, bouncing back from the mirror. ‘It’s going to go viral,’ she whispered, ‘might even make the tabloids as you’re a doc, is that what you want?’

  He shook his head violently; fat tears were running down his cheeks now. She prised his eyes open again and took the leaflets from his mouth.

  ‘He just asked me to bring you here,’ the doctor said weakly, ‘I don’t know anything more.’

  His eyes moved to the door and she held his throat tighter. She could tell he was holding back on her still. She held the screen of the camera to his face so he could see how it looked for him, then asked him in a quiet but insistent voice why he was so frightened.

  ‘It’s nothing, just a rumour, that’s all.’ His voice was weak, breathless. ‘One of the orderlies here used to work at Broadmoor, he started it.’

  ‘And?’ Catrin drew over the dead flowers from the corner, raised the vase so he could sip a little. She lowered her ear to his mouth but kept her fingers on his throat in case he tried to bite her.