Fear No Evil (Debbie Johnson)

by Debbie Johnson

  I tiptoed forward in baby steps, ignoring the constant whack of the rope and the laughing children’s voices around me. A rotting plank of wood lay lengthways on an oil can, bouncing back and forth as two unseen kids shouted the words to see-saw, Margery daw, litter swirling around in a mini typhoon. Christ. If ever I’d been tempted by motherhood, this was enough to put me off.

  ‘You!’ he growled, pointing one finger at me. ‘Come no closer, whore!’

  I froze. It stared in my direction, blind eyes glaring in the darkness. I felt a warmth creeping over me, fingers of heat probing my mind like a mental massage.

  Will threw his head back and laughed.

  ‘Oh, poor little girl. Poor little Tish. I remember her well – pretty thing with her camera? Gone now. All gone.’

  A gust of wind swirled up, blowing a broken deckchair at Justin’s ankles. He kicked it away. Dan continued to chant, holding his Bible before him like a shield.

  ‘Jayne! Help me!’ said Tish’s voice. Coming from Will’s lips. A beat later, dozens of other voices echoed it: boys, girls, all mimicking the sound of Tish begging me for help. My heart contracted, skipped a beat at the sound. I knew it wasn’t really her but… God, it was so much like her.

  ‘Please help me!’ it said; Tish said. ‘It hurts so much! Why aren’t you here, Jayne? Help me!’

  I knew it wasn’t Will doing this. He’d never purposely hurt me. But it stung so much harder to hear those words coming out of a friend’s mouth.

  The chorus followed, and even the skipping rope went still as they repeated it over and over – Tish’s pleas in a dozen different voices. I gulped, clenched my eyes so tears didn’t come. It hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt, all my guilt and fears about the way she’d died engulfing me. But I was also… angry. Very angry.

  The voices around me launched as one into a version of ‘Oranges and Lemons’, the youthful sound of their singing so innocent, so carefree. So dead.

  They reached the last line, yelling the final word: ‘And we’ll chop off her head!’

  Will clutched at his throat, blood pouring between his fingertips, streaming down his chest and legs, pumping out like a burst pipe. For a second I saw Tish’s fine golden features stretched across Will’s face, blue eyes piercing my heart as she stared out into the darkness and filth of her last few moments on earth. My knees started to buckle, and Betty held me from behind.

  ‘Demon – you will leave! In the name of our Redeemer, I command you to leave!’ said Dan, striding closer to Will’s body.

  The blood had gone. Maybe it was never there.

  ‘God doesn’t listen to you, Priest – not any more! With your pathetic prayers and your false piety… he has no love for you! Your God has no time for killers. For murderers. For those who take the lives of the innocent.’

  Dan paled, and I knew he was thinking of Emily, lying in her hospital bed. Oh please God, I prayed, keep Dan strong. Keep Dan whole. Keep us all safe. Kick this nasty Demon ass on our behalf, oh Lord, and I’ll go to Mass every week for the rest of my bloody life…

  ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, I order you to leave!’ he said, thrusting the good book forward.

  It burst into flames, sparks whooshing into the dark night air, and Dan dropped it, rubbing his singed fingers against his legs. A pile of ash on the floor, little footmarks running in and out of it. Again, the thing in the corner of my eye: the swirling of torn fabric, the tails of old coats, the trailing ribbon of a bonnet, all there but impossible to see face on.

  Will laughed, teetering closer to the edge of the brickwork.

  ‘You have no dominion, Priest,’ he said, climbing up onto the wall and wavering backwards as the gale howled around him. Shit. This was it. Now or never, or Will Deerborne, the poor floppy-haired fool, was going to take a crash landing. He smiled and leaned back, dropping from sight. I dashed forward, flung myself as hard as I could to reach him. Except he hadn’t gone anywhere.

  There was a small ledge on the other side, and Will was crouched down on it, eyes still white, inches from mine. He made a ‘shhhh!’ gesture with his fingers, like we were playing hide-and-seek, then grabbed my outstretched arm and tugged me over. I started to fall, feeling the cold kiss of gravity as my legs tumbled over my head. I reached up, hooked the edge of the ledge with my fingertips. Demon Will watched, smiling, and I closed my eyes, expected the sharp stamp of his boots on my hands.

  Instead, he vaulted back over the ledge and onto the roof. My arms were trembling with the fatigue of holding my own body weight, and I felt my grip loosening, nails tearing from my fingertips as I tried to get a better grip. I prayed. Like I’d never prayed before. For me, for Tish, for everyone on that rooftop, for my family… for a quick death, even if I knew I couldn’t have a painless one. For all the things I’d done wrong. For all the things I’d never done at all. Most of all, for a place in heaven. Because now? I believed. I really believed.

  Hands reached over, getting a firm grip of my aching wrists, and pulled. I snapped myself out of my self-delivered last rites, and tried to help, throwing my leg up and over until I was able to hoist myself higher. Another tug, and I flopped over the wall and back onto the windswept roof. I tumbled to a heap on the litter-strewn floor. An old Coke can digging into my backside, but it was a huge improvement on dangling off the edge. I looked up. Dan, staring at me like I was back from the dead. Almost, I thought, almost. I scrambled back to my feet, wobbling as the blood flowed back through my veins, my eyes locked onto his.

  Will was lying in a crumpled heap, as though all the bones had been taken from his body. While I’d been cringing on the ledge, the demon had exited his body. I started towards him but was interrupted by Betty’s cry.

  ‘Justin!’ she yelled, and we whirled around. He’d been standing by the door, blocking anyone’s exit, a wall of bulk against a world of evil. His eyes rolled, and his teeth clamped together so hard he must have bit his own tongue, blood seeping through his lips. I was no expert, but even I could tell the demon had moved on to Justin.

  Dan strode towards him, eyes blazing, rosary wrapped around his fingers. He was having to strain to move, like he was leaning into a blizzard, and I noticed his jacket stretching out behind him, held by hands I couldn’t see.

  ‘In the name of Jesus, I say your names,’ he boomed. ‘Sarah Elizabeth Loudon. Thomas George McNally. Benjamin Hayes. Zachariah William Strong. Liam Joseph Doran. Margaret Bridget Finnegan. Eleanor Mitchell. Charlie Piggott. In the name of Jesus, I exorcise you! Leave this place – go to your Maker, and be at peace!’

  Justin’s body snapped straight, started to flap like a fish on a riverbank, arms flailing and knees jerking up and down. His face twisted and contorted, a small trickle of blood dribbling down his chin and to his neck. Flickers across his face: tiny mouths ghosting over his, gaps where baby teeth had fallen out; eyes of blue, green, brown; soft, fair skin and childish chins, smooth and round and crying out for the touch of a mother. One after the other, their anguished features superimposed on Justin’s, made of light and shadow and something so insubstantial I knew you could never touch it. Their spirit.

  The bandage on Justin’s head bloomed red as his wound started to bleed again. The skin on his hands began to bubble, rippling and popping like there were tiny insects beneath it trying to escape. He took a couple of steps towards Dan, his face murderous, and I squirted my water pistol at him. He shrieked and jumped back, like I’d drenched him with acid.

  ‘In nomino Iesu, exorciso te!’ said Dan, switching back to the now-familiar Latin.

  Justin dropped to his knees, an anguished howl streaming from his lips to the moon, in his own voice, and that of the children.

  I could see and feel the anguish and the pain, in the straining of the tendons in his neck, the twisted grimace of his lips, the pulsing veins in his forehead.

  Dan had said he was a ‘blocker’. What that hadn’t quite portrayed was the sheer physicality of what he was doing – of the strength o
f both body and will it was taking him to keep that demon trapped in his body while Dan repeated the Latin, over and over again.

  It seemed to last for hours, hours of poor Justin scraping his nails against the concrete and slamming his booted feet so hard on the ground you could feel the vibrations. Hours of him biting his own tongue so hard blood streamed from his lips, as he fought to contain it long enough for Dan to take control.

  Eventually, it ended. Abruptly, he fell flat, face-planting the floor with a thud. Betty jumped in, murmuring and stroking the back of his head. He mumbled, sat up straight. His eyes were back. His body was still. His skin was his own, even if it was marred by blood and burst vessels. The background noise stopped. No wind. No giggles. No nursery rhymes. We all froze and stared at him.

  Absolute silence.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ he mumbled, ‘I’ve got a bastard of a headache.’

  Betty laughed and hugged him, checking his head wound. Will crawled over, none the worse for wear apart from his soaking wet clothes and hair sticking out at very un-businesslike angles.

  ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘I don’t remember a thing after we sang “Kum Ba Ya”…’

  I walked to Dan, fell into his arms. He held me tight, kissing the top of my head.

  ‘It’s over,’ he murmured. ‘They’re gone. And whatever was using them has gone too.’

  Chapter 45

  I left the others to do the mopping up. Literally, in the case of the water cooler; figuratively in the case of Dan, who was holding some kind of prayer ritual on the roof, for the souls of the children and the banishment of… whatever else had been there.

  I’d had enough – there was nothing left to give. Everything ached; the memory of Tish’s begging voice was imprinted on my soul forever and, of course, I had work to do.

  I’ve never been so grateful to walk back into my little flat in my life. I sank down onto the sofa, still damp, and surveyed my ruined nails, blood caked into the jagged rips. I didn’t care. I was still here. Still alive, and breathing, and ready to fight another day. I called my mum and dad, gratuitously told them I loved them. I think they assumed I was going a little bit mad because of Tish, and they were probably right. But I did love them, and if there was one lesson I’d learned through this whole sorry affair, it’s that life is too short to hide from the good things.

  It was just after nine o’clock. Not too late, I decided, dialling the Middlemas’s number. Rose answered, voice brisk and efficient as ever. I explained as best as I could what had happened. I didn’t sugarcoat it – there was no need. She’d known along that Joy was right. Because she loved her, and trusted her. And now she’d lost her.

  She accepted it all, stopping me to ask questions about Geneva, silent when I told her about Tish.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Miss McCartney,’ she said. And she was, I knew. So was I. Didn’t change a thing though – she was still gone. I put the phone down, sank back into the cushions, wishing I had a cat to cuddle. Or a man to screw. Anything to bring me back to life before I sank into a nerve-filled sleep. My mobile pinged, and I almost jumped out of my skin. Frazzled to the max. It was just a text landing, a blessedly mortal sound if ever there was one. I flipped it open and read.

  ‘Jayne – you silly cow. Where’s your imagination? Try the name of our glorious leader,’ it said. From a number I didn’t recognise. With perfect spelling and punctuation throughout, apostrophes in the right place and everything. Only one person I knew texted like that.

  Tish. My dead best friend.

  I stared at it, closed the phone. Opened it again – no message. Perhaps I’d imagined it. Perhaps I was going crazy. But perhaps, just perhaps… they had cell phones in the afterlife. If they did, Tish would get her hands on the newest and the best.

  I dragged myself to my feet, my body telling me that was a bad idea, and sat down in front of the laptop. Password required. Our glorious leader, the non-existent text had said. I typed in three words – Sister Margaret Mary. No. I fiddled with the cases, ran the words together. Third try, it worked, and my screen filled with icons for word documents and excel spreadsheets and jpegs. Loads of the little buggers. She was nothing if not prolific.

  I clicked on one marked ‘Indonesia’, and read. It was the report she’d been talking about. A report about child labour; about exploitative working conditions, about sweat shops and modern day slavery. About kids as young as six suffering through 18 hour days for a pittance. About Deerborne Industries paying them that pittance, and profiting from their misery.

  I felt a jolt of shock rock through me, a wave of nausea flooding my body. Not Will. Not the man I’d thrown myself off a building to save. He couldn’t have known about any of this, surely? He hated this stuff. He lived by his morals. He was planning to siphon five per cent of Deerborne profits into the pockets of the needy. This was not a man who would endorse unethical working practices in any way, shape or form.

  I closed the file. Saw around two dozen others winking at me on the screen.

  I got up to brew a pot of coffee. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 46

  Two days later, I was woken up by a soft tongue licking my face. Wet, warm and insistent. I stretched, my senses momentarily buying into the pleasure, then jerked upright.

  Mr Bean went scooting down to the end of the bed, yapping as he retreated. I glanced at the clock. 6.30 a.m. Fantastic. Pets are about as much fun as syphilis.

  I staggered to the living room, opened the balcony door. Dan had rigged up some chicken wire around the wrought-iron railings, lest the little treasure should slip its skinny body through the gaps and go plummeting to a watery grave in the dock. Although, I thought, watching him cock his three-inch leg on the table, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  I narrowed my eyes at him as he trotted back in, leaping up onto the sofa and chasing his tail three times before he settled down onto the half-chewed cushion. Half-chewed by him, I should add. He might have tiny teeth, but he’d so far managed to destroy four pairs of shoes and most of my CD collection. Tish had never mentioned this kind of behaviour. Maybe he was grieving. Maybe I should take him to a doggie therapist so he could bark about his mother.

  I pulled myself into my jogging gear, preparing to brace the cold winds and grey drizzle that had now firmly replaced our Indian summer. It had been a tough couple of days, and today wasn’t going to be any easier. Only forty-eight hours to go until Tish’s funeral. After that, everyone told me, the shock would finally settle in and the real pain would start. Oh goodie. Something to look forward to.

  I’d read all the files on her memory stick. I’d looked at all the photos. I’d even tried to understand the financial reports before giving up when my eyes started to cross. And it had all added up to one thing: Will Deerborne wasn’t the man we thought he was.

  He’d fooled everyone, but that didn’t make it any better. He’d fooled me, and that’s what really counted. Me. The all-seeing private eye, who it appeared couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag without a map. One of the photos was a grainy snapshot taken at long range, of Will visiting one of his factories abroad. Kids clearly visible inside, working with what one of the other files had informed me was a type of wood glue that gave off carcinogenic fumes. Nice.

  I hadn’t known quite what to do at first. My instincts were to confront him straight away, but I realised that was only because I wanted him to deny it all. To come up with a plausible explanation. To make the pain and the tearing disappointment go away.

  Then I started to wonder about other things. About the fact he always seemed so interested in what Tish was doing. About the fact that, heaven help me, I’d once mentioned to him that she was waiting on a report from Indonesia, and whether that had tipped him off.

  Her murder had always felt human, much as I’d grabbed at it as an excuse to gung-ho my way back into Hart House, water pistols blazing. And the demon had pulled that memory from me, the sickening sight of Tish dying. It had t
aken it from my mind, from my psyche, not from its own. Which, my blinding logic told me, meant it hadn’t caused it. Someone else had. Someone else had killed my best friend and left her alone like a slaughtered pig for strangers to find.

  I called Alec Jones. Shared some of my suspicions with him. He was shocked and, I could tell from his voice, worried – if what I’d said was true, his chances of solving the case were slim to zero. There’s no way Will Deerborne, with his smart suits and thousand pound loafers, would have been down at the docks with a sharpened knife in his hand. He’d have used a pro. A hit man we’d never see another trace of. The good ones knew what they were doing. They knew how to eradicate evidence. They knew how to kill quickly and leave no signs of their passing. And Will? He could afford to hire the best. He might be innocent of the Deerborne curse, but he’d updated it – a twenty-first-century take on the greed and lust for power his family had always been a slave to.

  Once I’d processed those thoughts, I still wanted to confront him. But this time to kill him.

  Instead, I did the next best thing. I e-mailed the Divine Richard, attaching the pertinent files. ‘Splash on a plate,’ I typed into the body of the text, ‘but keep me out of it.’ A ‘splash’ was their word for a front-page scoop – Tish’s holy grail. I made copies of everything else, and sent one to Alec Jones, and one to the Campaign for Ethical Trading. The bastard. That would keep him busy – and kill him corporately at least. I also planned to hound Alec until I knew all stones had not only been unturned, but examined under a forensic microscope. I wanted to see Will rot in jail for this, but part of me accepted he might not. He had too much money, too much power.

  Too many people hadn’t been properly punished through all of this. Solitaire. Eugene Casey. Will Deerborne. Their hired killers. Too much blood, and not enough of it avenged.