Fear No Evil (Debbie Johnson)

by Debbie Johnson

  He answered on the first ring, and obviously had my number programmed in so he knew who was calling.

  ‘Dodgy Bobby’s dead. OD’d. That sound right to you?’

  ‘I know he is,’ I said, ‘and no, it doesn’t sound right, but you know as well as I do sometimes these fuck-ups just… fuck up. And whatever happened at Hart House freaked him out. He’s been hiding out for almost two years now.’

  ‘Nah. I always knew where he was. Just didn’t see the point in letting him know it. He was a useless shit anyway.’

  I looked around at the other customers. Lawyers and PAs and accountants on their breaks. Young mums with toddlers in pushchairs. A few tourists fresh from gawping at the Beatles balcony at the Town Hall. None of them seemed to be discussing smacked-out psychics with a gay gangster. I was living the high life.

  ‘There’s a witness,’ I said. ‘Jason Quillian. Says he sold the bag. Do you know him? I’m reliably told he looks like a human with a pit bull’s face.’

  ‘Don’t they all, love? Not one of ours, but yeah, I know him. Low level. Never have the brains to get any higher. So dumb he’s dangerous – the type you need to keep an eye on. If he’s out on bail we could go talk to him.’

  ‘Might be better if I go alone,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to offend your delicate sensitivities, Wigwam, but he’s likely to crap his pants if he sees you coming.’

  ‘What? You don’t think I’m capable of doing softly-softly? I’m well in touch with my feminine side, let me tell you. But if that’s how you want to play it, you’ll find him in that park near Thelwall. The one with all the broken glass and dog shit.’

  ‘That doesn’t narrow it down.’

  ‘The one that’s not been done up. The new one’s all shiny and clean, like, so the vigilante mums don’t let the likes of Quillian anywhere near it. On the corner of Collier Street.’

  ‘Right. I know it. I’ll go get a tetanus shot first. Wigwam, what about Geneva? I need to know more. I need to talk to Theresa. This might not even be connected to my case, so there’s a limit to how much time I can put in on this particular line of inquiry.’

  There was a telling pause at the other end. Wigwam’s trademark feel-the-terror silence.

  ‘You’re wrong there, queen. There’s no limit to how much time you can put in. Very sad about the other girl and all, but Geneva’s the priority now. Eugene says so. And if you get to the bottom of this, he’ll buy you a nice present.’

  ‘My time’s my own, Wigwam, and nobody tells me how to spend it. You don’t scare me, so don’t waste your breath.’ Big lie, obviously. ‘I’ll work on Geneva’s case as long as it intersects with mine. And as for a present from Eugene, no thank you. I’m doing this for Joy and Geneva, not for that scum-sucking bag of bollocks.’

  ‘Oooh, get you. Would you say that to his face?’

  No. Of course I bloody wouldn’t. I didn’t fancy eating through a straw for the rest of my life.

  ‘Let me know when I can see Theresa. Got to go now.’

  I snapped the phone shut, and it immediately rang again. Jesus. I desperately needed a minute of quiet to process the day’s events, but it wasn’t going to happen. The Caseys had no sense of personal boundaries. I’d probably need to buy a new phone after this job was done, wash myself clean of them.

  ‘Fuck off, Wigwam!’ I said, a bit louder than I should. One of the yummy mummies looked up at me sharply, and I waved in apology.

  ‘It’s not Wigwam. It’s Dan.’

  ‘Sorry. Been a busy day. How are things going? What are you up to?’

  ‘Busy at this end too. We should catch up. What about tonight?’

  ‘I have a party to go to. My nephew’s eighteenth, in the parochial club,’ I said.

  Unbelievable as it was, I had to spruce myself up, stick a twenty in a card, buy a blow-up doll from the Ann Summers shop, and make my way to St Nelly’s for Kieran’s party. The entirety of my family would be there, as would the whole of Kieran’s school. The place would be swimming with beer and hormones. I predicted at least one punch-up, possibly a marriage split, a heart attack, and a few less-than-immaculate conceptions. A typical McCartney family do, in other words.

  ‘Do you want to come?’ I asked. It’d be an interesting place to catch up.

  ‘Will there be Guinness and mini sausage rolls and a fist fight on the dance floor?’

  ‘Ah. I see you’ve been to one of these things before. All of the above and more, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Then count me in.’

  Chapter 17

  Kieran is my favourite nephew. Out of the sixteen I have. My five older brothers have done their duty on the going-forth-and-multiplying front, and so far, all of their offspring have been male. I wholeheartedly wish one of their wives would pop out a girl-child – it’d take the pressure off me. Everyone in the family has this superstitious belief that it will be me who finally breaks the pattern, and gives them all an excuse to buy pink cot blankets and Barbie dolls. So far I was letting them all down by showing no sign of even finding a mate, never mind procreating.

  Kieran is the son of my brother, John Paul (yes, really – my parents didn’t think that one through), who at thirty-six isn’t a lot older than me but already has four sons. He started young, proposing to his wife Olivia the old-fashioned way – over a pregnancy-testing kit, with the cheapest diamond Argos could offer.

  John Paul is a car mechanic by day, and a musician by night. He plays in an Irish band, and does covers for weddings and parties. He’s the one member of the family the McCartney thing works for – and he milks it for everything it’s worth. He was currently telling me all about the gig he’d played the night before, at an old folk’s home in St Helens. Feel the glamour.

  ‘The spirit was willing,’ he said, ‘but the flesh was ninety. Still, at least I won the meat raffle.’

  Dan was with us – the source of much curiosity among the clan McCartney, as the first man I’d brought to a family function since, well, ever. Unless you counted the time I snogged my cousin Simon at our First Communion. We were only eight at the time so there were no tongues.

  He raised his eyebrows and asked: ‘Meat raffle?’

  ‘It is what it sounds like,’ I said. ‘You get a bag of lamb chops and some belly pork to take home.’

  ‘Don’t knock it – nice rack of ribs in there last night, and a bit of T-bone,’ said John Paul, as though he’d been handed the keys to paradise.

  ‘A classy meat raffle then,’ I added. ‘Dan – fancy coming to the bar with me?’

  Instead, I guided him off towards a dark corner of the function room. St Nelly’s was in fine form tonight. Liverpool has a strong Catholic community, and the churches often come with their own affectionate nicknames. Hence the Church of the Blessed Sacrament nearby is known as the Blessed Sac. St Philomena’s is predictably St Phil’s, and St Helena’s, our parish, is referred to as St Nelly’s. The party was in its parochial hall – a fifties-built vintage affair with scarred lino flooring, tinsel curtains on the stage and metal shutters on the bar.

  Dan had arrived almost an hour ago, and since then I’d barely had a minute to speak to him. The vultures had descended the minute he walked through the door, to the sound of ‘Simply The Best’ by Tina Turner. This may be an eighteenth, but it was widely acknowledged in our family that all gatherings should include a healthy selection of music for the older generation. For some, that meant Billy Fury or Little Richard; for me, it meant anything you could have heard on Now That’s What I Call Music 1 through to 10, after which I pretty much stopped paying attention.

  We settled into a leather-effect booth as far away from the madding crowd as we could. Dan was still grinning at the sight of my eighty-nine-year-old grandfather on the stage, doing YMCA wearing a full Indian headdress. I was glad the clan McCartney wasn’t letting me down.

  ‘So, fill me in – what did you find out today?’

  He nodded, sipped his pint first. He was dressed in jeans and a pale
blue short-sleeved shirt, obviously trying to downplay the priestly connection. It hadn’t worked. My mother had practically genuflected when he walked in, offering him repeated drinks like some crazed alcoholic version of Mrs Doyle.

  My dad had been taking him outside ‘to see the view’ every twenty minutes since he got here. As the view from St Nelly’s Parochial Club is a boarded-up chippie and a row of terraced houses, I suspected he meant ‘for a fag’. He’d allegedly given up, which meant he could smoke as many as he liked as long as he didn’t buy any.

  ‘I saw the man about a deer. A professor, actually,’ he said. ‘It was very interesting. Have you heard of the horned God?’

  ‘Can’t say it’d be my starter for ten on “University Challenge”.’

  ‘Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, whatever name you want to use, is traditionally associated with horns, antlers, that kind of thing. The early Christian church adapted a lot of Pagan symbols into its own religion to make it more attractive to the masses. Some think they used the same tactic but in reverse for the Horned God, associating horns with the devil to put people off folkloric figures like Herne the Hunter.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Are we sitting in Herne the Hunter’s Parochial Club right now?’

  Good point.

  ‘So…what’s this got to do with the Deerbornes? Do you think they’re Satanists or Pagans then? I met Will Deerborne today and he seemed like a particularly civilised man.’

  I noticed Tish arrive and get immediately engulfed in a group hug from my various cousins, brothers and nephews. Within seconds she’d be drowning in gin and tonics with little pink umbrellas in them.

  ‘Hello children,’ she said as she sat down next to us. ‘Are you in the naughty corner?’

  ‘No, we were just discussing whether Will Deerborne is a Satanist or not,’ I said. ‘Or whether his family were just huge fans of Bambi.’

  ‘No way! His suits are far too nice.’

  ‘You can’t really tell from the outside,’ said Dan. ‘And the name of the buildings might be significant.’

  ‘Really?’ Tish asked. ‘You mean all the horny stuff? I see what you mean, but surely that doesn’t make my future husband a devil worshipper?’

  ‘No,’ said Dan. ‘Not necessarily, anyway. It doesn’t run in families, like ginger hair or peanut allergies. And the obvious might be true – that the buildings are called what they’re called simply because of the family name. It’s just a line of inquiry. Better to know than not.’

  ‘I always thought Satanism was just an excuse for a load of sad, middle aged losers to dress up and shag each other in the woods,’ I said, trying and failing to imagine Will frolicking in the forest with a goblet of virgin’s blood.

  ‘Well, that kind of thing never goes out of fashion,’ said Dan with a hint of a grin. ‘But there are documented cases of it being taken a lot more seriously as a religion. What’s happening today doesn’t have to relate to Will – but the chances are, once upon a time, one of the Deerbornes took the left-hand path. Given the timing, we’d be looking for someone who possibly travelled a lot, maybe in France and the continent, where a lot more was discussed and written about the Occult and Satanism..’

  ‘Really? What about our home-growns? The Hellfire Club and all that lot?’ I asked.

  ‘They were mainly into drinking and having sex. Occasionally with women dressed up as nuns to make it extra pervy.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  What a strange conversation to be having in a church club, listening to Lady Gaga sing about her Poker Face.

  ‘Would that explain the ghosties?’ asked Tish, doing a spooky sound-effect on the last word.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s just “ghosties”,’ he said. Without sound effects. ‘Betty and Adam found something. Two children, missing at about the same time, summer of 1892. A six-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. There may be more.’

  ‘And if there are?’ I asked, knowing there was something he wasn’t telling us.

  ‘Well, if there are more, and if we find evidence that one of the Deerbornes was worshipping the Devil, then he might also have been sacrificing the children. Which means a lot of desolate souls left in Hart House. When that kind of energy builds up, it can attract other… entities. Like a demon who uses their energy, their sadness, to manifest itself.’

  I put my drink down so hard some sloshed over the edges. I stared at Tish. She shrugged her shoulders. I stared at Dan. He smiled, sympathetically.

  ‘Welcome to my world,’ he added.

  The desolate souls of murdered children? Jesus. I could do without that on a Friday night.

  ‘Anyway, Will’s already had a package delivered to my office,’ I said. ‘There was loads of stuff in there about the history of the building, and the Deerborne who designed it. There was also a key to Joy’s room, and some swipe cards to get us in and out of Hart House whenever we like. And his mobile… in case we need any help.’

  I fear I may have sounded a touch smug with the last sentence. Tish picked up on it immediately and made an ‘oooh’ sound. I ignored it, and instead filled them both in on the news about Dodgy Bobby. Or Robert Howard Carravaggio, as it would say on his hopefully very wide gravestone.

  I saw a flicker of pain in Dan’s eyes when I described the circumstances of Bobby’s death; and a flicker of interest in Tish’s.

  ‘Tish, leave it, will you? At the moment it’s going to look like nothing more suspicious than another smackhead coming to a predictable end. And if it turns out to be more, the story’ll be yours already.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ she replied. ‘It won’t get picked up by the news desk anyway – not interesting enough. Assuming he didn’t die tragically young leaving one-year-old sextuplets behind him.’

  ‘No. Just an orphaned fish tank full of fag ash. I’m going to speak to the guy who claims to have sold him the drugs tomorrow.’

  ‘Shall I come?’ asked Dan.

  ‘Why?’ I replied.

  ‘Cheap kicks.’

  I didn’t believe that for a minute, and threw him a look that told him so. I agreed he could come with me though – he’d be the prettiest bodyguard on the block.

  ‘Where are Betty and Justin?’ I asked.

  ‘In the Bat Cave,’ he said, seriously. ‘Sleeping in lead-lined vaults.’

  ‘No they’re not,’ I replied.

  ‘No, you’re right, they’re not. Holiday Inn. Can you find out which room Geneva was in? Via your police contacts, or maybe your new friend Will Deerborne? Justin would like to see it.’

  ‘I’m sure I can,’ I said, ignoring the bait. ‘Wigwam will know, and the request’s already been made for the official police file.’

  To another one of my ‘new friends’, DI Alec Jones. It’s raining men. Hallelujah.

  ‘Tish, can you help Adam and Betty look for more missing kids, in old copies of the paper?’ I asked.

  ‘No point,’ she said. ‘The filing system at the library will probably be better than ours. He’ll be looking through microfiche, like I would. There are original cuttings, kept in little cardboard bags according to topic, but nothing so vague as missing kids nineteenth century. Plus a lot of the hard copies are rotting away to dust. I have found out some interesting bits and bobs about Deerborne as an industry though. Not sure if it’ll turn out to be relevant or not, but I’ll keep on digging.’

  ‘Any slavery?’ I asked. A lot of the fortune of the great and the good in the city was founded at least partly on the triangular trade – cotton and textiles and sugar across the seas in exchange for human cargo.

  ‘Undoubtedly, but by the standards of the day, not a lot. That Deerborne philanthropy thing again. One of them was an MP in the late 1780s, another William actually, and he was a pro-abolitionist. From that point on, the family started to withdraw from it themselves, even though slave ships were leaving Liverpool every week at that stage.

  ‘Since then, they’ve consistently donated significant portions of t
heir time and wealth to good causes. Especially under the current Will Deerborne – in fact he’s in the middle of doing something pretty revolutionary at the moment. Instead of giving ad hoc donations from their charitable trust, he’s making it an official part of the business. Five per cent of all profits will be automatically siphoned off for the greater good – like a tithe, in reverse.’

  That was impressive. A lot of businesses liked to make the right noises about their duties and being active in the community. But I was guessing that an annual five per cent of Deerborne profits was a vast sum, especially if it was guaranteed, and not just an occasional sop to the corporate soul.

  ‘The Deerbornes sound perfect. We should be starting a fan club,’ I said. ‘So what are the bits and bobs you’re looking at?’

  I knew she wouldn’t tell me yet – she’s like a dog secretly burying a bone when she’s working. It’s the cause of many of her rows with the Divine Richard – she expects to be given leeway of days on end to work on her ‘bits and bobs’, without giving him a hint about the story. I have a small stash of memory sticks in my flat, works in progress she’s given me for ‘safekeeping’. It’s like a superstition – if she tells too soon, she might jinx it. It’s identical to the phenomena that makes my Dad wear the same pair of socks every time Everton play - the pair he wore when they won the FA Cup in 1966.

  ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ she replied. ‘Apart from Edward Cullen, of course. Look, I’ll tell you more when I know more. It’ll be worth the wait, honest. Change of subject here, but have you spoken to anybody at the Institute yet? If not I’ll do it. I have good contacts there.’ I felt a slight flush creep over my cheeks and confessed I’d not only tried, but very annoyingly failed.

  ‘You naughty girl,’ she said. ‘And you a former alumna and all.’