by Peter Laws
‘Head on through, Professor.’
Matt leant his head out of the window, tapping the brake. ‘Where am I going? … and it’s Craig, isn’t it?’
‘Memory man!’ he said, impressed. ‘Yes, I’m Craig Mills.’
‘So …’
‘Oh. Head for the noodle bar, first right.’ He jabbed a finger at a side street about ten doors down. ‘It’ll be really obvious.’
‘This isn’t a bomb or something is it?’
‘They thought it was but it turns out it isn’t. Which is good. That’s why they called you in. It’s one of your things.’ He glanced down at what Matt was wearing. ‘Love the outfit by the way.’
Matt tried to laugh. ‘Well, that makes one of us.’
The pavements were empty. Shop doors lay open, cars were lurched up on kerbs with nobody inside. The only faces he could see were shop dummies tilted at jaunty, bad-for-the-spine angles. They looked depressed and disturbed about this season’s outfits. He totally sympathised. When he turned the first right it really was obvious. Three police cars were parked in a little arch with a huddle of officers around them. All of them were staring at a noodle bar across the street called Shangri-La! Which according to the sign was: Where East Meets Best! Cute.
He took one last glimpse of his reflection in the rear-view mirror. He leant towards it, looking at his neckwear and groaned. It was the sort of sound he used to make as a teenager, before he left for school, on the day of an apocalyptic acne breakout.
Heads turned and eyes widened when he got out. He only knew one of these officers, the really lanky one. He just gawped back at Matt and nudged one of the others, nodding at the black trousers, the black shirt; clocking the white clerical collar and trying not to chuckle. He’d have felt less conspicuous in a dayglo mankini. He walked up, glancing across at the noodle place. He figured he should probably whisper. ‘Where’s Sergeant Forbes?’
One of the car doors instantly clicked open and DS Larry Forbes shimmied his heft out, making the car shake. He had a mobile pressed to his head but he jabbed it into silence without saying goodbye and rushed over. He slapped a sweaty hand into Matt’s. ‘Look, mate. Thanks for coming down, and sorry for calling you out on your holiday.’
‘Sabbatical.’
‘Right …’ he sniffed. ‘That book finished yet?’
Ah … the question Matt heard maybe thirty times an hour. Mostly from his own nagging brain. He shook his head. ‘Larry … why am I here and why am I wearing this?’ He tapped at his neck.
‘Did it take you a long time to fish one of those out?’
‘Wren found it. Inside a box of VHS tapes in the loft. Which should give you an idea how long it’s been.’
‘You’re quite the Dapper Dan.’
He leant in and whispered again. ‘I feel like a dick. Now what’s this about?’
A huge chunk of an officer suddenly loomed out of nowhere and stood by Larry’s shoulder, dwarfing them both and blocking out the sun. His Buzz Lightyear head looked so big, the black and white cap on it probably had to be sledgehammered into place each morning by a team of four. ‘So is this him?’
‘U-huh,’ Larry bit his lip. ‘Matt, this is Sergeant Bob Gerard. He’s heading up the Tactical Support Team.’
Matt held out his hand. Hovered it in mid-air. Gerard just looked at it for a few seconds.
‘This is where you put your hand out and we shake,’ Matt said. ‘Then you tell me why I’m the only one in fancy dress.’
He grabbed it and Matt felt the crush. ‘I hope you’re aware, Mr Hunter—’
‘Professor Hunter,’ Larry butted in. ‘He’s writing a book.’
‘Isn’t everyone?’ Gerard pursed his lips. ‘You do know, Professor Hunter, that hostage negotiation is a very … very … delicate business.’
Matt’s jaw dropped open. He turned to Larry. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘Hardly …’ Gerard said. ‘We’ve got a Nigerian male in the noodle bar. Says his wife’s possessed by Satan. He’s got a knife to her throat and he’s getting very tired and very jumpy. He says that he’ll kill her if we don’t …’ he raised his fingers in air quotes, ‘“… send a vicar in”.’
‘And you called me?’ Matt said. ‘I jacked that in years ago.’
‘Larry says you know the spiel. The religious stuff.’
‘He does. He’s a walking Wikipedia page.’
Gerard leant in. ‘You don’t have to get close. We just need you to talk to the guy. You’ve worked with Larry before and he trusts you. He says that you’ve got a way with these … spiritual types.’ It sounded almost like an accusation, not a compliment. Like telling someone they had a natural, high-five rapport with paedophiles. ‘We need someone fluent in all that religious shit.’
Matt suddenly laughed at how well Gerard had just summed up his career these days. In fact, he should get them to carve that on his office door at the university. Stick it on his business cards. Type it at the bottom of all those articles or on the cover of this new book – if he ever finished it. Professor Matt Hunter: writer, researcher, police consultant and speaker on various flavours of weird religious shit. It had a certain pop to it.
‘Obviously, I’d much rather go in there myself,’ Gerard said.
‘Hey, by all means you can borrow it. Keep it, actually,’ Matt went to grab the collar, ‘because me and my family are going away this afternoon and right now I’m supposed to be helping my wife pack.’
Gerard shushed him with a Hulk-sized hand. Facial muscles turned a few degrees less tense. ‘Take a look behind you. About five’o’clock.’ Some policemen seemed incapable of just pointing and saying ‘over there’.
He worked out where five o’clock was and saw a young black boy through the glass window of a shoe shop. England top, tracksuit bottoms. He was nine, maybe ten years old. He had one palm pressed against the glass. A policewoman was holding the other.
‘That’s Adowa,’ Gerard said quietly. ‘All I’m saying, is that we’d appreciate it if you didn’t let his dad slit his mum’s throat today.’
The kid’s teeth were showing and his eyes were glazed with fright. Like he was another shop dummy, only this one was reliving something. Something bad. Matt turned back and looked back at the noodle bar. His favourite was always Schezuan chicken, which Wren and the kids hated, meaning he never had to share. He noticed it was on special here but he suddenly felt sick. ‘Fine. I’ll try. But I’d appreciate it if you don’t let him slit my throat either.’
‘Then don’t get too close. Stay by the door, even. And remember we’ll be in there in a shot if it kicks off.’ Gerard nodded at some officers who hurried over with a small silver flight case. Then he finally reached out his hand to shake. ‘Act holy.’
CHAPTER THREE
Matt turned his head to the side and caught his reflection in the glass window to make sure the earpiece was well hidden. A ghost of the vicar he used to be made exactly the same move. Then that vicar stared back at him. Glaring at him. Judging him. This ancient version of himself sometimes did that, cropping up in the middle of some cool dream or thought process. He was sorely tempted to flip his old self the finger but that would have looked extremely unhinged to the officers behind him.
Instead he just blinked and took a long deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. The type singers do before a TV audition, or divers before a jump. Or more to the point, prisoners before the guillotine slices their entire bloody head off. He pressed a finger against the stab-proof vest again. Damn, these things felt thin. He pushed through the open glass door of the noodle bar, trying to keep the tremble in his hand to a minimum.
It was a mess inside.
Bowls of noodles lay strewn across the long wooden benches, dangling like exposed veins off the edges. Bottles of soy sauce had rolled to the floor and were forming sticky brown pools on the white tiles. It was chaos. It absolutely stank, too. Like really stank. Considering Matt was such a flag-waving, prawn cracker-m
unching fanboy of Chinese food, it was surprisingly nauseating.
On the wall a golden cat winked and waved its paw while a James Bond medley (in Chinese) seeped out from the speakers. He even spotted a child’s toy, which looked like Elmo from Sesame Street, probably abandoned in the screaming rush. Now Elmo lay face down in a puddle of sweet and sour sauce, grinding his animatronic limbs back and forth like he was slowly screwing the spring roll wedged into his crotch.
Gerard’s voice crackled in his ear. ‘Alright, Professor. No stupid risks. You’re just calming him down and that’s it. So keep your distance. Now … call out his name. Nice and gentle.’
Here we go.
‘Mr Adakay?’ Matt called out, his posh voice sounded like the squeak of a dog toy. He cleared his throat and said it again, more macho. ‘Mr Adakay?’
The speaker on the wall said ‘Gooooooldfingaaahh!’ It was the only response.
‘Again,’ Gerard said.
‘Kwame Adakay? Can I call you that?’
Just the tinny brass stabs of the music. And Elmo’s little sex groan.
‘Kwame. I’m a pastor. You asked for a pastor?’
Silence. He took another step.
‘Kwame? Are you there?’
Another.
Gerard whispered, ‘You’re moving too fast.’
‘Would you like me to come round, Kwame? To where you are?’
‘Slow down!’
A whisper, disembodied, suddenly hissed itself from behind a wall of glowing fish tanks. It was Kwame. ‘Slow. Come slow.’
‘Okay. Do as he says.’
‘No problem. I can do slow.’ Matt lifted his empty hands up. Nothing up my sleeve. Then he turned the corner. Kwame was on the other side, surrounded by a tableaux of fish tanks, shapes swirling and diving with neon streaks. The water looked pretty dirty.
Kwame was one of those uber-hairy guys. Fur on the face and forearms, a tracksuit-wearing Sasquatch of a man. His hand was pressing his wife’s forehead back. Her eyes were shut tight, chin high, sweaty neck exposed. A long strip of wet green lettuce hung out of her mouth like an alien tongue. For some reason she’d decided not to swallow it. The knife’s tip rested almost directly on the quivering cord of her jugular vein.
‘I’m here to help. My name’s Matthew Hunter.’
Kwame’s bauble eyes moved slowly up and down him, checking out the black shirt, the dog collar. ‘Are you qualified to wear that?’
‘I am.’
It wasn’t a total lie.
‘You look a bit too young to be a pastor.’
‘Wow, Kwame, I like you already. I’m actually thirty-four. And is this your wife? Is this Arima?’ His words had a nervous hint of jolly about them, like he was making chit-chat at a summer barbecue. This was either a clever or suicidal tactic, he had no idea which.
‘Used to be my wife, Pastor. But Satan got her now.’
‘How so?’
‘I mean he crawl inside her body. While she sleep. Slithers in through her mouth. And when she wake, she … she a foul thing.’
‘I see. Just take your time.’
Gerard: ‘Good. That’s good. Keep that tone.’
That tone …
Matt stepped out of his body for a minute and listened to himself slipping into the smoothy ministerial voice he once used to soothe the dying or depressed or doubting. Or in Kwame’s case, the demented. It was that patent hey-I’m-just-your-fellow-metaphysical-traveller voice. How quickly it came back after all these years.
‘… I tell her, say Christ, say his name, and she spit and cough and can hardly speak.’
‘So what’s with the knife? Why not just get her help?’
‘Don’t challenge him, idiot!’
Matt considered pulling out the earpiece and plunging it into the nearest bowl of noodles.
‘My pastors at the church … they already try to help her. They pray, they sing, they read the word.’
‘And?’
‘It never work.’
‘Why the knife, Kwame?’
Kwame’s face started to wrinkle and crease.
‘I’m not going to judge you, okay? But come on. Let’s stop messing about. Tell me straight about what’s just happened here.’
‘For God’s sake, Hunter. Don’t harass the—’
A loud pop of malfunction shot through the earpiece, making Matt wince. Then silence. Dead batteries maybe, or interference. Whatever the case it meant no more Gerard. Panic and relief flooded Matt, both at the same time. He wanted to push his finger into his ear to give the thing a wiggle. Didn’t bodyguards do that in films? But he wasn’t about to do something so obvious in front of Kwame.
‘Okay … I tell you. We were eating dinner just now and she say … she say she going to kill our son. She gonna give little Adowa … brain cancer …’
‘But how could she do that? It’s impossible.’
‘Oh, she crafty. She can say a prayer to Satan and the boy get it just like that. She done it before. Gave her sister a stroke last year. Just by prayin’ it.’ His chest was starting to bulge now with deep, heart-squeezing breaths. The Umbro sign moved up and down in quick jerky movements. ‘Had to stop her. Had to, cos I love my boy.’
‘Of course you do. I saw him outside and he looks like a fine young man.’ Matt paused. He gave a gentle tilt of the head and said, ‘You’ve been through a great deal, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And the pastors’ prayers did nothing?’
Kwame just looked at the floor, bewildered.
Matt didn’t speak, just earnestly nodded like he was pondering the spiritual pain. Actually he was just wondering what the hell Gerard would be suggesting right now. Then an idea instantly flicked up inside his brain.
‘Okay. Kwame, answer me this. Did your pastors fast before they did it?’
‘What?’
‘Did they avoid food?’
‘Why you ask this?’
‘Jesus said some demons only come out with prayer and fasting. Gospel of Mark. Chapter Nine. Did they fast?’
The constant quiver in Kwame’s lips suddenly stopped. ‘I can’t remember. I don’t know …’ he shrugged. ‘Maybe, no.’
‘Well, it’s not rocket science, is it? I reckon they probably didn’t. But I’ve been fasting, Kwame. You hear that? Which means I can exorcise her right now. If you want me to.’
If Gerard could still hear the audio feed on his end, this would probably be the point that he’d put his head in his hands.
‘So, shall I do it?’
Kwame pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. ‘You lying to me, mister?’ Maybe he could smell the cheese and chorizo wrap Matt had scoffed an hour earlier.
‘You know what?’ Matt said. ‘I’m not asking you to trust me.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I don’t even know what noodles you ordered.’ Matt pointed in the general direction of the heavens. A bead of nervous sweat trickled down his temple. ‘But you’ve got to trust Him. Because that’s what this is about, Kwame. Not me, not you. Not Adowa. It’s not even about Arima. Because in the end this isn’t about flesh and blood. It never was. This is the heavenly realms we’re dealing with. So are you going to let Arima come over here so I can get started?’
The three of them stood without speaking for a moment, Kwame’s lips moving in silent prayer. The James Bond medley slinked into a pathetic synth version of ‘For Your Eyes Only’, like a demo on an insane child’s keyboard.
‘Do it then,’ Kwame said finally. ‘Do the exorcism. But I’m going to hold her. And I won’t let her go until the demon comes out. That should work.’
No numb-nuts, that won’t work.
Matt felt a sudden fury at Larry for suggesting he dig this damn vicar collar out from that fossil of a box in his attic. But then he found himself flicking through the files in his mind, found a drawer, pulled out a folder. Ah!
‘Set her on the floor,’ he s
aid. ‘Over there. Kwame, I’m going to have to lie on her.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I need to lie on top of her.’
‘What you talking about—’
‘You remember Elisha, don’t you? When he brought the little boy back to life?’
Kwame thought for a moment, began to nod.
Matt quoted the Old Testament text, as close as he could remember. He was almost, almost, tempted to say it in a Charlton Heston voice to give it gravitas. But he didn’t. ‘“As Elisha stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm.” Kwame. Do you want your wife back today?’
He was already moving her into position, knife held close. It was amazing how a few Bible quotes could get people to fall in line. Arima moved with him, upright and stiff in his arms. Like a kooky version of one of those shop dummies outside. The only movement came when she slowly sucked the lettuce up. It slithered through her lips, almost all the way up. Like she hadn’t sucked it in at all, but it had just crawled in, all by itself. A piece of religious trivia suddenly popped open in his head. Something his brain often liked to do. He could see himself reading about medieval Christianity on a Tube ride and how Gregory the Great reported nuns eating unblessed lettuce and getting possessed. He remembered laughing at that, when he read it. Leaning over to Wren and saying ‘… can you believe this? Satan via the veg aisle?’
He saw the wet green tail vanish between her lips and it didn’t feel quite as funny.
Ffffft.
Kwame lay his wife softly on the floor and with his spare hand he cleared the wiry afro fringe from her eyes. He wiped away a single white bubble of spit from the corner of her mouth. Even with the blade at her throat there was a tenderness to his movements.
Matt crouched down and just did it. He slowly crawled on top of her, ignoring the ghost of Gerard’s voice (or maybe it was his own common sense) saying in a steady, frantic whisper, over and over again … what the hell are you doing? What the hell are you doing?
Maybe this would be a funny story he would tell in lectures or in radio interviews. Maybe he could include it in his book. That hilarious Sunday he dressed up as a vicar and lay flat out on top of a possessed Nigerian, who had a knife at her throat. But the closer he got to her face, he had a sickly throb of dread, real and sharp, that maybe people would tell this story in hushed tones, at his funeral. What a tragically bizarre way for a fella to die, they’d say, trying not to laugh into their cucumber sandwiches.
