Feeding the Demons

by Gabrielle Lord

  Kit and Gemma stared at each other.

  ‘Holy dooly,’ said Will. ‘We’re rich, we’re rich.’

  A loud shout from the Ratbag made them swing around, still stunned. The kestrel was lifting off from the boy’s arm. Alarmed by the shout, the kestrel flapped higher into the sky. ‘Hey!’ the Ratbag was yelling. ‘Did you see that? He came and sat on my arm! He took the meat from my hand!’ He ran along the path delighted, following under the kestrel, which flew higher and higher, finally fluttering in a stationery hover fifty metres in the air.

  ‘Five hundred thousand each,’ Gemma breathed.

  ‘Five hundred thousand,’ Kit repeated.

  Will clasped his hands around his ankles and turned over backwards. ‘Whoopee!’

  On the path along the edge of the cliff, the Ratbag was still running until he reached the spot where the kestrel hovered motionless above him, treading air. He stood there, looking up, holding his arm up again, hoping for another miracle.

  ‘I can buy my house,’ said Kit. ‘And have money left over if you ever want to study anything, Will.’

  ‘I can expand my business,’ said Gemma. ‘I can upgrade everything. The best cameras, the best everything.’

  ‘Thank you, Grandfather,’ said Will. ‘It’s okay, Grandma,’ he said, remembering and patting the grass of the grave. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand. Now that you have the distance to see a bigger picture.’

  •

  Later, Gemma daydreamed on the deck in the twilight, Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Two Bad Mice face down on the table. She had a wine and soda in front of her that she sipped from time to time because excitement had made her mouth dry while the chicken curry she’d bought at the Thai place in Clovelly Road remained untouched on the table. I’ll be able to get another operator, she thought, whenever the work load gets heavy. I’ll never have to sit in a bloody hot car all day again. Or freeze in a van all night. My life is perfect, she thought to herself. Almost. She picked up the book and went inside to ring her sister.

  ‘Okay,’ said Gemma. ‘I’ve read it. The mice get into the doll’s house and smash up the stuff,’ she said. ‘And Will smashed up your place. Is that it?’

  ‘Did you notice what they smash up?’ Kit asked. When Gemma didn’t reply she went on. ‘It’s because they think that the fish on the plate is real, and they’re looking forward so much to eating it that they get so angry that they have to smash it up. And the ham. And the butter. And the fruit in the bowl. But none of it is real. They feel they’ve been cheated. That’s how Will must have felt. And that’s why he did exactly the same thing. I started to see that Will only smashed up very specific things. That’s what Alexander had immediately realised. And that’s why he told me to read the book. He didn’t want to tell me. He wanted for me to see it for myself.’

  ‘And you did. And now it’s all different,’ Gemma said. She became aware of a banging on the door. ‘I have to go. There’s someone at the door.’

  •

  ‘Taxi!’ she squealed when she opened the door. On the doorstep stood the Ratbag, clutching a very bedraggled ginger cat.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I found your cat for you.’

  The cat leapt out of the boy’s arms and skidded across the floor. He had lost a lot of weight, but it was Taxi all right. Gemma ran to him and scooped him up. ‘Oh, darling Taxi cat. My big, once-fat cat who has returned to me.’ Taxi looked around wildly and Gemma could feel his ribs under his fur.

  ‘I found him,’ said the Ratbag, ‘stuck between some rocks in a cave thing down on the cliffs under the cemetery when I was running after the kestrel. He was sort of half-wedged under a rock. He must’ve been hunting and some rocks fell on him. I had to move about three or four of them, that big,’ he indicated with his arms, ‘before I could move him. I heard him meowing, and I went to see what it was.’

  ‘He must be starving,’ Gemma said, going to the fridge. Because of Kit’s shopping, there were plenty of good things for Taxi and he had his fill of milk, chicken and cheese.

  ‘He’s really skinny now,’ said the Ratbag. ‘I didn’t even think it was him at first. Just some cat.’

  Taxi was bunting at her chin with the top of his head, bumping his cheek and neck along her jawbone, starting to make bread on her neck and shoulders.

  Ratbag, she wanted to say, you’re a winner. ‘Tell me something,’ she said. ‘I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know your name.’

  ‘It’s Hugo,’ he said, as if he wished it wasn’t.

  ‘Is that what they call you?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘My mum calls me Hugo. My dad calls me Victor. It means “winner”,’ he explained proudly.

  ‘And you are,’ she said, putting Taxi down. He immediately ran back into the kitchen to check the area of the food bowl. There was nothing left so Gemma gave him some more. Then he jumped up onto the dining room table where he was forbidden to sit and Gemma let him stay just this once. She turned to the Ratbag. ‘If you want to, you can come into my place in the afternoons when you come home from school,’ she said. ‘It must be lonely in your place, waiting for your mum to get home. You could do your homework here. Maybe help me sometimes on the two-way radio to my highly skilled undercover agents.’ She said the last few words very slowly and seriously.

  The Ratbag’s eyes were as big as saucers. ‘But right now, I’m going to go next door and ask your mother if I can take you out for tea,’ she said. ‘As a reward.’ She disappeared for a moment and returned. ‘Okay, Winner,’ she said. ‘This calls for a celebration. Where do you want to go?’

  The Ratbag grinned widely. ‘I love pizza,’ he said. ‘Could we go to a pizza place?’

  Then he noticed Taxi, who had pulled something out from under the sideboard and was pushing it around. It was the small birthday present Steve had brought the ill-fated night of his visit. Slowly, Gemma picked it up and opened it. When she saw what it was, she burst into tears. When she pressed the red button on his collar, the little battery-operated white cat walked stiffly along and squeaked before falling over, his little legs still walking in air.

  Thirty-Six

  Kit sat at the kitchen table, writing a list of the things she was going to do with the money. Less six and a half, her share of their father’s debt, left her with a lot to spare. If she added that to the money she’d got from half the house she and Gerald had sold, she had enough to make a good offer to the owners of this house. The phone rang. She turned down the Coronation Mass and picked it up.

  ‘Kit Westlake speaking.’

  ‘It’s me,’ said Clive.

  ‘Clive! How are you? Are you all right?’

  ‘It’s been a terrible time for me,’ he said. Kit waited. ‘I really want to change,’ he said. ‘The way I’ve been just isn’t working. It gets me into terrible trouble. As you’ve seen.’

  ‘You’re already changing, Clive. That’s why I knew it wasn’t you. All the time the police were harassing you. I knew it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ he said. There was no cleverness or contempt in his voice.

  ‘See you on Wednesday then,’ he said and rang off.

  •

  Gemma woke to a slight noise. She sat bolt upright, her breath coming in frightened pants. It’s all right, she kept telling herself. Just some new sound. There it was again. This time, she had no doubt. Someone was in her flat. A wave of fear weakened her. Then she rallied.

  ‘Steve?’ she called. ‘Is that you?’

  There was no reply. The .38 was no longer in the bedside drawer. In a fit of righteousness, she’d locked it away properly in the cupboard in her office. Quietly and slowly, she slid out of the bed, moving in a leopard crawl across the carpet to the bedroom door. There was nothing to fear now, she kept telling herself. Adrian Adams was dead, dead, dead. Larry Hagen too. Two
killers. Two deaths. It all goes in twos, she reminded herself. It must be Steve.

  The place was silent again, but it was a pregnant silence filled with something alien, something heavy and dark. Stop this, she told herself. Just stay reasonable. And calm.

  ‘Steve! Talk to me! You’re frightening me!’

  It wasn’t Steve, she knew that now. He wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t creep into her place like this, not now. And if he did, he’d never stay silent like this.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she said, her voice trembling. She got a whiff of it then, the same smell she’d got when Steve had sneaked in; the scent of internal combustion, of engine oil, metal, leather.

  ‘Who are you?’ she screamed. ‘Answer me!’

  Gemma snaked herself up against the wall of her bedroom, almost in the same position she’d been in when she’d challenged Steve. But that time, two things had been different. First, she’d been armed, and second, it had only been Steve.

  She was just straining to peer round the doorway into the dim darkness of the lounge area when it happened. Gemma screamed as a piece of darkness separated itself from the night. He pounced on her, crashing her to the ground, his stink filling her nostrils. His leather hands were crushing her throat. She tried to scream. But as in a nightmare, she could barely make a sound. This was no nightmare; this was the terrible reality. The dreadful pressure building up in her head was forcing her brains out, her eyes out. Her head would burst. With a final surge born of terror, Gemma lashed out with what was left of her strength. She kicked as hard as she could where she imagined his balls might be. It worked. For a second, his grip loosened and he grunted. She pulled away, but the powerful gloved hands found her again, smashing her to the wall as if she’d been a baby. This is it, she thought. I’ve run out of narrow escapes. Everything goes in twos and this time, there’s no one to save me. Goodbye, she thought in her mind. Goodbye to all of the people I love. The heavy body was pressing on her again, hands closed round her throat again. Suddenly, from somewhere there was light. Then Steve’s voice.

  ‘Steve!’ Her voice had no strength. It came out as a bruised whisper but the monster crushing her was gone. She heard the crunch of metal on bone and Steve’s bellow of rage and triumph.

  ‘You cowardly mongrel bastard!’ he roared.

  ‘Stevie,’ she whispered again. ‘Oh Steve.’ There he was in the dining room, standing panting over the body of an unconscious man, still holding the large silver vase that had stood on the dining room table. Gemma looked at her attacker. She had a memory of him through the driver’s window of a green Ford.

  ‘The creep from the gym,’ she said.

  ‘It’s Maggot,’ said Steve, ‘from the Outlaw Raiders of the Southern Cross. He’s been trying to put me to sleep. I’m needed now to give evidence in court. I didn’t realise that one of the keys to this place must have been in the bag I had to leave behind. When he couldn’t find me, he started hunting you. That’s when I started on him.’ Steve put the vase down. He looked exhausted and finished. Then he looked at her where she huddled against the wall, rubbing her bruised throat with her good hand. Gemma stood up wobbling and Steve opened his arms.

  ‘Come here, you,’ he said.