by Robin Jarvis
She knew precisely what that threat was. He was going to tell the police she had been in that Fiesta. How long was he going to hold that over her? This needed to be sorted once and for all and she would go to any lengths to stop it. Emma changed out of her best trainers and pulled on a more practical pair of boots. So much the better for kicking him where it really hurt if that’s what was needed. No one was going to have that sort of power over her. Her eyes fell on a pair of nail scissors on the dressing table and, with a cruel curl of her red mouth, she pocketed them. This business was going to end, tonight.
Chapter 25
Midnight trysts — ’neath scented bowers or in high towers, in moon-shone fields, o’er candlelit meals, on roseate balcony or down on one knee — how heady is the wine of romance, how giddy doth it make us dance.
VIEW POINT ROAD was deserted, a complete contrast to the previous Friday night.
It was dark and quiet. The lights of the container port on the right were fewer than last week. So many had blown during that electrical storm that the maintenance teams hadn’t got round to replacing all of them. The security cameras were still out of action too, but that was a secret the port authority hadn’t told anyone.
A cold breeze blew in over the high ridge of sandhills to the left. Torn ribbons of police tape fluttered in the branches of ugly trees and gorse bushes. Forensic teams had scoured the length and breadth of this road for a full five days without discovering anything new and the one who could tell them everything was striding down it right now.
Emma’s young face was locked in a scowl. With folded arms, she marched the long, lonely route to the Landguard Fort, her boots stomping over the tarmac. Memories of that horrendous night crowded in from every side. The frozen, terrified faces of Ashleigh and Keeley shining in the full glare of the Fiesta’s headlights as it spun into them flashed into her mind. She dug her nails into her palms and concentrated on what she would say and do to Conor Westlake.
The final stretch of the road kinked to the left and the great low bulk of the fort appeared ahead. There were no vehicles in the car park in front of it. The burned-out wrecks had been removed and only the scorched grass of the verges showed that anything had happened there. There weren’t even any bouquets. The forensic investigation had kept everyone out. That was why so many tributes had been left outside the school.
The place looked abandoned and creepier than she ever remembered it to be. Night shadows filled every corner and hollow. A week ago, almost to the very hour, forty-one young people had died here, or of the injuries they had sustained here. Emma was too sceptical and cynical about everything in life to believe in ghosts or anything like that, but she was unnerved all the same.
“Blessed be,” said a voice nearby.
Emma jumped back and yelled a string of obscenities. A figure had been sitting on one of the verges and was now rising, silhouetted against the star-filled sky.
“You flaming idiot!” she ranted. “What you trying to do – give me a heart attack?”
Conor Westlake jumped off the raised verge and pulled the hood from his head.
“Why are you startled?” he asked curiously. “I said I would be here.”
“What do you want?” she demanded. “I don’t have time for this. I could be getting legless on Breezers and pear cider right now.”
“You must forgive me for drawing you hither this night, my Lady,” he began. “But…”
“Stop all that crap!” Emma snapped. “You and the rest of the zombies might have found God…”
The boy laughed. “Is that what you think?” he asked. “You are so far from the truth.”
“Scientologists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Salvation Army, trainspotters – whatever. I don’t actually care. I’m just here to tell you to stop jerking me around. I won’t be blackmailed. Don’t you think I know people? Some of my old man’s mates have been inside and if I have a word with them, they’ll come looking for you. Do you like playing football, Goldilocks? You’d find it hard with both legs busted in five places and your knees chiselled off. So keep out of my face, yeah?”
Emma turned to leave. That should do it, a short, sharp warning – although she really wanted to hit him, it was better to let him fret about worse future violence.
She stopped abruptly. The way back along the road was blocked. At least thirty people were now standing there, having stepped silently from the darkness in front of the sandhills. Emma spun around and glared at Conor.
“I know people too,” he said, smiling.
“What is this?” she shouted.
“The Court is incomplete,” the boy told her. “We need our Jill of Spades to join us. You should have been at school this day. We missed you.”
“You can go and do one!” she bawled. “I wasn’t joking. My dad’s mates will have you. You won’t be so pretty when they’ve finished. The doctors won’t know which slit in your face is your mouth! Tell those freaks to back off and let me pass.”
To her consternation, Conor began to sing.
The Queen of Spades’ dark daughter, is it blood in her veins or water?
What schemes, what vices, what not very nices has her royal mother taught her?
The crowd that blockaded the road joined in, humming the tune – forming a barricade of sound as well as with their bodies. Emma looked at their faces. She recognised a few of them as kids from school, but the rest were adults and all were completely devoid of expression except that their eyes were wide and staring. With a shock, she saw that two teachers were there, Mrs Early and Miss Smyth. How demented was this getting?
The people joined hands to seal any gaps between them and began to move towards her. The defiant girl stood her ground.
“Out of my way!” she shouted at them. “Go on – shift!”
Conor continued to sing.
A plot, a lie, her spit in your eye!
You can bet your life she’ll twist the knife, as she artfully gets her own way.
There is no other, not even her mother, who so clouds the sunniest day!
The crowd advanced further.
“You’re mental!” Emma cried. “Let me by!”
She charged forward and lunged at the weird mob, trying to break through them. They pushed her back and continued walking forward.
Emma rounded on Conor. This wasn’t funny. She wanted to escape this loony lot.
So have a care and don’t trust a hair – on the Jill of Spade’s treacherous head.
Don’t turn your back on this Dancing Jack, she’ll make you wish you was dead.
“Tell your goony gits to let me out,” Emma warned. “Or someone will get very hurt and it won’t be me.”
The boy stopped singing, but instead of doing what she wanted, he laughed. “How very like the Jill of Spades!” he said, holding out a playing card to pin on her jacket. “Come join us at Mooncaster. How can there be revels without your perfidious presence?”
Emma glanced around quickly. The crowd were still humming and still moving into the car park, blocking her retreat. She looked past Conor, to where the path that ran beside the fort dipped down to the beach.
“Here’s a present for you!” she called out. A well-aimed kick sent the boy crumpling to the ground, howling and clutching his groin. Hooting with glee, she ran to the shore. Served the nutcase right.
The crowd continued to follow her. Emma dashed over the shingle. She would run round the Landguard, then back up the peninsula along the sandhills till she reached the town again. Then she skidded to a halt. Across that wide, unlit beach, just up ahead, an even greater crowd was waiting silently.
“You got to be kidding!” she exclaimed. There had to be over a hundred of them there. “What is this, a special night out from the loony bin?”
A woman dressed in a black ballgown that glittered with glass beads, wearing a sparkling tiara on her head, stepped from the assembly. She came towards Emma, swishing the ample skirt of her gown around her as she walked, and leisurely wafted a
feathered fan in front of her face.
“You dolled up like that for a bet or what?” the girl barked aggressively as she came closer. “Isn’t it a bit early for panto? Where’s the other ugly sister or are you minging enough for two?”
“Come, daughter!” the Queen of Spades chided. “We knew you would be a tricky one to call to Court, but our patience is not immeasurable.”
“You ain’t my mother! You scrag-end. You look more like Dracula’s auntie.”
“Don’t keep the Ismus waiting any longer,” the woman who had once been known as Queenie scolded. “He sent us to fetch you.”
“You can forget that right now!” Emma said forcefully. “I’m not going anywhere with you lot! I don’t like rooms with rubber walls.”
She looked over her shoulder and saw that the first crowd of people had come on to the shore and were approaching. Conor Westlake was limping along behind them. She was trapped.
“Get out of my face,” she growled at the woman. “Or I’ll rip your head off and gob down your neck.”
The Queen of Spades closed the fan and tapped her palm with it irritably. “Enough now, daughter,” she said. “A struggle would be so undignified and just the sort of spectacle the Queen of Diamonds would enjoy. Don’t give her that pleasure.”
“Raving mad, every single one of you,” Emma declared. “Right, I’ve had enough…” She pulled out her mobile and started to dial. “You’re in so much lumber now.”
The Queen of Spades laughed dismissively. “If you think to summon the police of this dreary dreaming place then look yonder. She pointed behind her with the fan. A chubby police officer moved to the front of the crowd.
Emma was neither impressed nor intimidated. “So you’ve got a tame pig,” she jeered. “I wasn’t calling the law, you rancid dog’s dinner. I’m phoning my old man… hello, Dad? I’m down the fort – come get me double quick! Bring your battle gear, there’s a load of freaks and nutters here trying to…”
The Queen of Spades smacked the phone out of her hands. It went flying into the dark surf and disappeared with a plop. Emma screamed in anger. She punched the woman in the face, then the stomach and kneed her in the chin as she doubled over.
“You mad old munter!” the girl shrieked. “You are so dead!”
The two groups of people came rushing towards them. Emma tore at the woman’s hair, ripping the tiara from it. Then she shoved her on to the shingle and swung her leg back to kick her. Suddenly strong hands seized her arms. The two crowds had converged and surrounded them. They dragged the screeching teenage girl clear and held her firmly.
“Get off me – you mentalists!” she screamed. “Get off! My dad is going to kill you!”
The Queen of Spades was helped to her feet.
“The sacred text,” she instructed quickly, gasping and clutching her stomach. “Read it!”
The police officer moved in front of the struggling girl. He switched on a torch and lifted his copy of Dancing Jacks into the beam.
“Beyond the Silvering Sea,” he began.
But Emma refused to listen. She let out a deafening shriek that drowned out the policeman’s voice. Then she flung her head back and smashed the nose of the man grasping her arms. He yowled and let go. At once she swung her hands round, dashed the book from the policeman’s grasp, then pushed him fiercely in the chest. The overweight officer lost his balance and fell backwards. The girl lunged at the next person, hitting them out of the way. Then she elbowed another aside and headbutted a third. Someone came running up with a glob of minchet on their fingers, ready to smear it across her mouth.
Emma snatched the nail scissors from her pocket and stabbed the air in front of her. The person retreated and spread the sickly-coloured ointment over their own lips.
“I’ll stick anyone who gets in my way!” Emma yelled, and she wasn’t bluffing.
“Let her go!” the Queen of Spades commanded. “Let the fool go!”
The people parted and Emma moved through them warily. “Who wants some of this?” she asked. “Go on – keep back.”
They obeyed and at last she was clear. The dark desolation of the nature reserve stretched in front. Without a backward glance, the girl ran.
The Queen of Spades watched her racing away into the gloom.
“I knew it would not be easy,” the Jack of Clubs said as he hobbled up to her. “Your resourceful daughter is a force to be reckoned with.”
“She is magnificent,” the woman declared with maternal pride. But such sentiment would have to wait.
“The Ismus has ordered she be gathered amongst us tonight,” Jack reminded her.
The Queen of Spades flashed her eyes at him. “Jill shan’t get far,” she assured him. “Mauger will bring her down.”
Emma pelted over the scrubby, rabbit-cropped grass that grew on the barren flats of the nature reserve. Sporadic clumps of gorse were the only features on that empty stretch and in the darkness they appeared as dense and solid as boulders. Beyond them the black, silent sea reached to the horizon where container ships twinkled as they passed one another.
A small shape darted in front of her and Emma gave a startled yell. It was only one of the countless rabbits that infested this place. She reproached herself, but was it any wonder she was so jumpy?
Then she realised she was out in the middle of nowhere. She had run too far – like a panicky rabbit herself. The high mounds of the sandhills were way off to the left. They stood between her and the road, cutting her off from it. When her father came speeding to the rescue, she wouldn’t be able to see him. She wished he’d get a move on; she couldn’t run much further. Her lungs were busting and her legs ached like anything.
Catching her rasping breath, she realised just how unfit she was. She had never been sporty and always ducked out of games, citing women’s troubles even before she had any, so hardly ever got any proper exercise. The cigarettes didn’t help either.
Gulping the cool air down, she wondered if those maniacs were still chasing her? What were they even up to? It was too mental to begin to understand. Were they trying to kidnap her or preach at her? Mad stuff like that didn’t happen here in crappy Felixstowe.
Veering aside, she ran on to the wide concrete access path that snaked across the reserve, towards the sandhills. Her boots thudded over the hard grey surface. As the hummocky mounds reared closer, the shadows deepened about her. The gorse here grew thick and tall, spilling through the railings that ran alongside the ridge.
When she came to the point where the path ran between two hills, she paused for a moment. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she coughed and felt giddy.
A section of View Point Road was before her, running parallel to the grassy dunes. There was no sign of her dad’s car yet and the dark, lonely road looked threatening. More of those nutters could be lurking anywhere in the shrubs that lined it.
Without hesitation, Emma hurried up the steps of the nearest hill. The high ridge path on top of the mounds afforded the best vantage point. She could see into the container port across the road, or in the opposite direction, over the flat expanse of the reserve and to the sea. Then in the distance ahead, there were the gleaming lights of the town. When she reached the topmost step, Emma dared to look behind her for the first time.
That part of the nature reserve, near the Landguard Fort, was empty. There was no movement, no sign of those crazies at all. Nobody was following her. It was a massive relief. The sudden release from fear and anxiety hit her like a cold wave and at once she felt exhilarated and light-headed.
Cackling at her triumph over them, she jumped up and down, thrusting one finger into the air.
“In your faces, losers!” she crowed, almost disappointed that they had given up so easily. “In your stupid faces!”
But she was too exuberant and careless in her boisterous leaping. She missed her footing and slithered part way down the side of the hill.
Spitting sand from her mouth, Emma yelled abuse at the wor
ld then started climbing back up. Her right hand squelched in something wet and warm. The girl stared at the patch of coarse dune grass curiously. Even in the dark she could see what was lying there and she gave a shriek of disgust.
It was the torn remains of a rabbit – a very freshly killed and mutilated rabbit.
Emma scrambled to her feet and wiped the blood from her hands as she regained the high path.
“Ugh – gross!” she retched. “That is so puke-making! I’m goin’…”
Her words died as she caught sight of something moving through the gloom, down there – on the reserve. A large shape was darting from one clump of gorse to another, scooting swiftly across the ground, but keeping within the shadows. What was it? It wasn’t a dog – it was too large – but what? It moved more like a gorilla than anything else she could think of, but that was impossible.
“What the hell is that?” she breathed and fear crept quickly over her.
A glimpse of two shaggy forearms almost made her believe it really was a great ape, perhaps escaped from a zoo somewhere? But the next time it broke cover and rushed to the next concealing shrub, she saw the squat, muscular body and powerful back legs that weren’t part of any monkey. One thing was certain, however – it was coming this way.
“That ain’t right,” Emma whispered and her skin began to creep and crawl.
The mysterious creature leaped across the concrete path and she finally saw the ram’s horns curling back from its head. Two hostile points of burning yellow blinked in the darkness.
“It ain’t real…” she muttered, shaking her head. “Can’t be.”
The shape halted as if it heard. It snorted the air. The malevolent eyes glared across the scrubland and shone straight up at her. Emma dropped to her knees in terror, but it was too late. The thing, whatever it was, had seen her.
She wanted to scream and almost stumbled down the hill again in fright. At that moment, the shape threw back its head and gave a ferocious, bestial roar. Then it came tearing over the scrub – towards the dunes.
A silent, strangled cry wheezed from Emma’s lips as the horror sprang on to the first step below. Petrified, the girl could only stare at it. She saw a wide, downturned mouth in a repulsive wide head and the jagged points of many sharp teeth. She saw the rolling of powerful shoulders as the ape-like arms swept it up the hill after her and heard the savage panting of its sulphurous breath.
