by Sam Millar
“That was a robbery and vandalism. Didn’t the report say money was stolen and a couple of statues smashed up, and that the vicar had stumbled upon the intruders by accident?”
“A doctored report. We don’t know what—if anything—was taken. Wilson leaked the robbery scenario to his friends in the press. Probably thinks people will feel more secure believing it was simply a robbery gone wrong, rather than some devil worshipper running about, chopping the heads off statues.”
“Chopping the heads off …?” Deep furrows appeared in Jack’s forehead. “How was the vicar murdered? Any idea, or has that been doctored as well?”
Benson shrugged his shoulders. “Initial reports say he was beaten with a blunt instrument. A rock of some sort, more than likely. Why? What’s that look for?”
“I’m just thinking about that headless corpse at the Graham building.”
“Well, you can stop thinking about it. That case is firmly closed. That’s Wilson’s orders. So don’t even think that you are going back in there. You’re not. Now, why don’t you take my advice and get some sleep? You’re no use to Adrian if you look and think like a zombie.”
“I’d appreciate if you’d keep me informed of any developments,” said Jack.
“I would’ve appreciated you informing me sooner about the phone calls,” replied Benson, staring at Jack.
“I know. I should have.”
“No more solo escapades. If you can’t trust me, then you can’t ask for help when it suits you.” Rising, Benson removed his overcoat from the back of the chair, and squeezed into it.
“Fair enough. You’ll be the first to know of any new developments.”
Buttoning his overcoat, Benson looked at Jack. “I’m sorry about not being able to offer some protection for Sarah. Wilson would laugh me out of the office. Besides, I hate asking the bastard for anything. You’d think it was coming out of his miserable pocket, the way he’s reacting.”
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, Sarah wouldn’t have allowed it. She said I was paranoid, and that she was more than able to take care of herself.”
“Ballsy kind of a woman. My favourite,” said Benson, opening the front door before walking down the pathway, towards his car.
Closing the door, Jack returned to the kitchen to finish off his coffee. He wouldn’t be seeing a bed any time soon. Too many questions; too many theories to speculate on: stoned to death in the sanctuary of holy ground?
It sounded almost biblical.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good and bad.”
Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace
“GOD, THE NIGHT, Sarah!” shouted Jack, his composure long gone. “The stalker was in your very bedroom, less than two days ago. This isn’t a game. You’ve got to let me get you some extra security. I’ve a couple of ex-cop friends who are more than willing to do a bit of guard duty. All you need to do is—”
“I insist that you stop causing a scene, Jack. My clients are not accustomed to loud noises in the gallery,” hissed Sarah, politely smiling at the faces glancing in her direction. “You are going to have a massive heart attack, if you don’t calm down.”
Jack breathed deeper. “Okay. I’ve calmed down, but you can’t avoid what I’ve just explained.”
“Did you know that there have been over fifteen burglaries in the last two months alone, in my area?”
“This wasn’t an attempted burglary, Sarah. He was in your house, in your bedroom, stalking it out.”
Gently, calmly, Sarah placed her finger on his lips. “You’re doing it again, the cop mentality, the paranoia. You’re beginning to really piss me off. I am not one of your damsels in distress, waiting for a knight in shining armour, Jack. I don’t lead a sheltered life, despite the erroneous messages the opulence may be sending you. For your information—and I know how cops just love information—long before I met you, I had been threatened, robbed, even had a knife held to my throat by a would-be rapist; I’ve witnessed a client being shot dead on the streets of Tokyo, and God alone knows how many obscene phone calls I’ve received, not to mention drug dealers accosting me to buy their dope. So, please, do not insult me with the macho bravado bullshit. It simply doesn’t wash. I am more than able—and willing—to protect myself. Now, when I remove my finger, you—we—will not discuss this sad, pathetic creature, any further. You are insulting me, just by having this conversation. There is this little thing in the air, slipping between us. Don’t allow it to destroy us, Jack.”
Defeated, Jack wearily asked, “Well, at least allow me to stay at your place, for the next few nights. Not for your sake—for mine.”
Immediately, Sarah laughed. “I like the sound of that. Me protecting you. You’d make a good politician, Jack Calvert, if such a thing as a good politician existed.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It isn’t a no. Give me some time to think about it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve a business to run.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek, shooing him out the gallery door equally as quickly.
In the hospital, Jack replayed the scene over and over again, wondering what he could have done differently. The combination of all the warnings should have acquiesced into a whole that made Sarah feel vulnerable. But they had not. The opposite had happened—disastrously so. He was the one at fault. He should have had someone watching her at all times, protecting her, despite her protestations. Intuition was one of the strongest advantages he had—something he normally would never have ignored. But he had ignored it, and Sarah, not he, had paid for his complacency.
He couldn’t hear the doctor’s words, explaining the damage done by the perfectly honed dumdum bullets, only the sniggering voice on the phone, saying, Did I catch you and her off guard? You really didn’t believe I needed a pathetic bastard like you to kill the whore? Silly Mister Policeman …
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Superior people never make long visits …”
Marianne Moore, Silence
IT WAS TIME to move on, thought Jeremiah, scanning the old newspaper. Judith had been correct—as usual. Time for the shop to close, for good. Besides, his heart was no longer in barbering. The place was losing customers at an alarming rate. Granted, having only one barber was a major factor—people had no patience, nowadays, wanting everything now, not in ten to fifteen minutes. But his own behaviour wasn’t helping: the dropping of instruments and the wrong change placed in outstretched hands, his mumbling response to queries concerning Joe.
Jeremiah always suspected that customers liked Joe more than him, preferred his easygoing personality, the jokes he sometimes told, his up-to-the-minute news on sport and politics. Liked him until the rumours began to spread, saying that he had had something to do with the little McTier girl. Now, the shop was tainted, frequented by a few diehard customers, customers who assured Jeremiah that they did not believe the rumours. They knew Joe too well.
He knew that he shouldn’t be thinking about Joe. But he wasn’t strong; not like Judith. He thought about Joe most days; knew he was destined for hell for what he had allowed to happen—and all because of the boy. Had he left him to freeze to death in the forest, perhaps things would have been different.
Judith had promised to get rid of him, but so far she hadn’t kept her promise. She had always kept her promises, and this also he blamed on the boy. He was beginning to think that she was lying about her intentions—something she had never done before—and once again, he suspected that the boy was behind this.
It was all the fault of the boy. He was a Jonah, a millstone weighing them down. He was everywhere in Jeremiah’s head. Even the newspapers—the sinful rags he had promised never to read—carried articles about him.
‘Latest on murdered gallery owner’, exclaimed Monday’s miniature headline on page four. “We’ve received some calls and some tips, but unfortunately we haven’t had a significant development on Saturday night’s shooting,” said a spokesperson for the p
olice.
Police believe robbery was the motive, but have not completely ruled out a disgruntled artist. Bizarrely, the one-time and highly decorated detective, Jack Calvert, has been named as a ‘close friend’ of Ms Bryant. Calvert’s son, Adrian, disappeared in mysterious circumstances, almost two weeks ago …
Highly decorated detective. The three words made Jeremiah’s stomach do strange little kicks.
He couldn’t wait to close the shop. Once he got home, he would ask—demand—that Judith do something about the accursed boy. If she refused, well, he would have no choice other than to—
“Open for business?” asked a man’s voice.
The voice spooked Jeremiah. He hadn’t even heard the door jingle its alert.
“I … I was closing actually,” mumbled Jeremiah, quickly crumpling the newspaper into the wastepaper basket.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I got an unexpected call this evening, from an old flame,” said the man, easing his coat off, much to Jeremiah’s obvious annoyance.
Before Jeremiah could object, the man sat down on the chair.
“Been years since I saw her,” said the man, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Want to look my best. Know what I mean?” The man winked at Jeremiah, annoying him further.
Defeated, Jeremiah began to whisk a tankard of soapy liquid, transforming it magically into foam, before transferring it to the man’s skin.
Cut-throat razor in hand, he quickly attended to the soapy face, allowing the soap to settle but not congeal.
A good barber never allows soap to congeal was the first rule Grazier had learned, all those years ago, as an apprentice. If it congeals, it closes the pores; the stubble becomes like nails.
Whetting the razor, Jeremiah skimmed the thin strap of supple Russian leather until the metal gleamed. Expertly, holding the razor with thumb and three fingers, he made a swathe in the air with the lethal blade before commencing on the smooth and unproblematic areas of the man’s face.
The customer looked vaguely familiar, but Jeremiah couldn’t put a name to the face. Too tired even to try. Probably one of those morbid people who had heard about the shop, about Joe. Probably wanted to boast to his friends that he had been to that barber’s shop.
With a slight, invisible movement, Jeremiah’s razor removed the peppered-black soap, leaving the man’s left cheek gleaming reddish pink.
“That was terrible about that little girl, the one they found in the woods,” said the man.
“What?”
“The little girl in the forest, a couple of days ago. Haven’t you heard?” The man looked at himself in the mirror. “Terrible to think what monsters there are lurking in a nice town like this. I’ve always said that it’s not the monsters under the bed we have to worry about, but the ones on top.”
Jeremiah felt his hands shake. He willed them steady.
“I don’t really want to discuss any of that, sir,” said Jeremiah, his voice strangely soft. “It’s an unsavoury topic for the town.”
“Unfortunately, we have no death penalty here. Anyway, I suppose the death penalty is too merciful for a bastard like that,” said the man, ignoring Jeremiah’s words. “I would take the bastard out to the forest and—”
“I don’t much care for your language, sir. I will have to ask you to refrain from swearing in my shop.”
The man looked embarrassed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to swear. But every time I think of that cowardly bastard, picking on the weakest members of society, well … my blood just boils something shocking. Probably a weak individual, himself. Women and kids. Good at that. But you put him up against a man and he will shit his pants, every time. He was probably a bully at school, a torturer of dumb animals. I bet that’s how he gets his real kicks, having sex with dogs.” The man laughed out loud. It was a bawdy, backstreet laugh. It ground against Jeremiah’s skull.
Gently, Jeremiah rested the razor on the pliable neck of the man, whose protruding Adam’s apple was the size and shape of a sparrow’s egg.
Just one slice, whispered a voice in Jeremiah’s head, as his hands began to shake again. That’s all it would take, and loud-mouthed know-it-all will be gone into the night. You can do it. Show Judith you’ve got what it takes.
The man stared at Jeremiah, his eyes now suddenly piercing. He seemed to be reading his mind. The eyes seemed to be daring him.
“Are you okay?” asked the man, breaking Jeremiah’s thoughts.
“What? Yes … of course.” With a slight curve of his elbow, Jeremiah removed all remaining stubble. “That’s you, sir. Hope you’re satisfied with the shave?”
Carefully examining his face, the man ran his hand over the smooth skin.
“Excellent job. I’ll have to come here in future. My old place is being demolished, turned into a café, of all things.”
“There’s a lot of that happening everywhere,” replied Jeremiah, accepting payment in one hand while the other quickly worked the door. “Have a good night, sir. Safe home.”
“Thank you for the excellent shave. You’ll be seeing more of me in the future. That’s a promise,” said Jack Calvert, heading into the night air.
PART TWO
SPRING:
NEW LIFE; OLD REVELATIONS
“When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces …”
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Where dead men meet …”
Samuel Butler, “Life After Death”
MEGAN THOMSON KNEW that she shouldn’t have eaten the trout, freshly caught by her husband, Peter, at the rocky stream. Now she was paying the price, suffering from terrible bouts of diarrhoea, cramps stabbing into her gut like a hot bayonet.
“That damned fish you caught,” she moaned. “I shouldn’t have come on this trip.”
“Stop all the complaining, will you? No one else has said a word about the fish. You simply didn’t want to come with us. You made that plain enough last night, in the tent. Probably thinking of that pathetic loser, Kevin Hamilton.”
Uncomfortable, the other two members of the camping trip looked away from the quarrelling couple.
“You really are making a fool of yourself in front of all your friends—again. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just don’t take your sexual inadequacies out on me,” said Megan, feeling her stomach percolate. How long had he known about Kevin? She tried to keep her face impassive.
“When you finally kick the bucket, I’m getting you a headstone that reads, ‘Here Lies My Adulterous Wife—Cold as Ever!’” Peter smirked at his wit.
“Your headstone will read, ‘Here Lies My Husband—Stiff At Last!’ Now, get out of my way!” shouted Megan, pushing Peter to the side, her bowels on fire, as she headed quickly—for the fourth time in less than two hours—towards the privacy of trees just beyond the campsite.
“Make sure you’re downwind,” laughed Peter, watching her scurry for relief into the trees’ shadows.
Just as Megan thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it began to rain.
“Fuck! I don’t believe this!”
As she moved further inwards, the rain quickened. She was far out in the forest now, and the trail leading back—the opening from which she had emerged—was no longer visible. She saw only a snarled wall of dark bushes and leafless, decaying trees.
“Far enough,” she whispered, removing the wipes from the packaging, as she crouched down, feeling instant relief as the shit flew from her arse. The relief was tremendous.
The weak moon was slowly vanishing behind inky clouds, leaving her limned in its dying light, making her feel uneasy and vulnerable, her confidence ebbing. She had never felt this way before, in all her camping trips, but there was something in how the darkness had suddenly come upon her, like a living, breathing thing. It felt hostile.
Ten minutes later, she stood unsteadily, drained. “Never again,” she vowed. “No more fish. No more fucked-up camping trips.�
��
Moving cautiously, she edged out of the designated toilet area only to feel something squish beneath her feet, making her slip, tumble forward and scrape her face on thorny bushes.
“I don’t believe this,” she whispered, disgustedly. “I’ve slipped on my own—” Her voice slowly trailed off when something told her that it wasn’t her own shit, but something else, something more sinister.
“What on earth …?” Everything around her seemed suddenly removed, hardly real, as she stared, zombie-like at the ground. Momentarily, she seemed to be robbed of all breath, as if under water, and felt pain beginning to swell her head. She tried to move, she tried to run, but there was a gap, a delay between the thoughts in her head and screams from her mouth. She began to dry heave.
“Help!” she screamed, over and over again, until her voice was nothing more than a croak. “Help me …”
The bodies rested side by side, pressed into the dirt, their exposed throats black with blood, their ribs resembling rusted radiators.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Prying curiosity means death.”
H.P. Lovecraft, “The Rats in the Walls”
EASING FROM THE vehicle, Jack saw his reflection in the side mirror and he hesitated, held there by his own weary eyes. He looked dead. Six weeks of searching for Adrian had aged him terribly. He felt that at any moment a nervous breakdown could come crashing down upon him, leaving him a drooling fool trapped in dark memories. Worse, it would leave Adrian without hope, and that alone was the spur that forced him not to succumb.
In the encroaching dawn, he reluctantly stood, binoculars tight against his eyes, scanning the vastness of the Graziers’ land, scouting for any additional messages. Unbeknownst to him, less than two miles east and more than four hours previously, Megan Thomson had become a discoverer of dead things.
