The Way Of The Worm

by Ramsey Campbell

  “Roberta Bernadette Parkin.”

  I’d never realised Bobby had a middle name. As a religious reference it might almost have been designed to lend strength to her oath. Certainly she pronounced her entire name with pride that could have been mistaken for defiance. “And what is your profession, Ms Parkin?” Raymond Garland said.

  “I’m a journalist and writer.”

  “How long has that been the case?”

  “More than forty years.”

  The tall grey man—suit, shirt, hair and moustache—clasped his hands in front of him and gave her a nod that looked not too far from smug, at least to me. “You’ve been a columnist for all that time.”

  “Nearly all.”

  “Just take a moment to mention the titles of some of your books.”

  “We Are All Victims and The Apology Obligation, they’re the latest.”

  “How would you sum them up?”

  “I’m saying society has become a victim of the victim status too many people are encouraged to feel entitled to, and I’m examining the trend that demands apologies for anything anybody disapproves of.”

  By now I was wondering how soon Regina Dane might intervene for the defence, if Inigo Arnold—the judge—didn’t speak up. Presumably they were giving Raymond Garland time to establish Bobby’s credentials, and he said “What would you say is the purpose of your writing?”

  “To tell all the truth I can.” As if sensing an objection Bobby added “Once I’m satisfied with my research.”

  “Was there anything in particular that set you on this path?”

  “A friend I’ve had since we were at school used to be a writer, and we were into investigating as well.”

  “Can you say which of your publications has the largest readership?”

  “That would have to be my online blog.”

  “That’s how publishing has developed,” the lawyer said as if somebody—perhaps the judge—might need the explanation. “Ms Parkin, how is your blog related to your journalism?”

  “They’re very much the same. Most of the time they literally are. The blog reprints my columns once they’ve appeared.”

  “So the blog upholds the standards you’ve established.”

  “Most emphatically, yes.”

  Perhaps her vehemence roused the judge, who poked his sharp concise pallid face forward under his imposing wig. “I fear we’ve strayed into areas of opinion, Mr Garland.”

  “Your pardon, your honour. Ms Parkin, please tell us what led to your publishing an instalment of your online column about the defendants.”

  “I heard them admit what they did.”

  “How were you able to do that?”

  “I was sent a recording, and I trusted the source.”

  “Is there any possibility in your mind that the recording could have been altered in some way?”

  “None whatsoever, and the Nobles haven’t tried to say it was, have they?”

  “Ms Parkin,” the judge said with a frown that looked weighted by his wig, “please confine yourself to your own testimony.”

  “Sorry,” Bobby said, adding “your honour. I’ll just say all three of them couldn’t have known they were being recorded.”

  “Will you tell the court what your motive was in publishing the information?” Raymond Garland said.

  “The public interest. That’s always what it ought to be.”

  “Could there have been an element of revenge?”

  I supposed Raymond Garland meant to head off the suggestion before it could be used by the defence. “Revenge on whom for what?” Bobby said.

  “You wrote that you’d allowed yourself to be swayed in some way by the defendants. Might you have been harbouring resentment about that?”

  “No, it just showed me how persuasive Christian in particular could be. I wanted to put the record straight after I’d failed to report on them back then.”

  “How are you saying you were persuaded?”

  “The Nobles used some form of hypnotism at the children’s facility they ran in the eighties. I believe they could be using it at the church they’re running now.”

  Inigo Arnold raised his head with a gravity that might have been exerted by the wig. “Is that observation based on experience, Ms Parkin?”

  “Not on mine, no. I’ll withdraw it if you think I should.”

  The judge had already looked away from her and past the lawyer. “Please continue, Mr Garland.”

  “No further questions, your honour.”

  “Your witness, Ms Dane.”

  Regina Dane was a slight woman with a disproportionately broad face enlivened by large eyes. Her hair and her suit were dark enough for a funeral. While she looked no older than my son, I suspected she had several years on him. She approached the witness box as tentatively as someone hesitating to ask for directions in the street, and I saw this was part of a performance. “Ms Parkin,” she said and extended her hands, though not far. “Please allow me to thank you for taking so much time away from your work to travel to the court.”

  “You needn’t thank me.” I gathered Bobby didn’t mean this to sound hostile, since she added “It travels with me.”

  “Is that to say you’re working as we speak?”

  “No, I’m just telling the truth.”

  “You don’t plan to write about your experience in court.”

  “I might if I think it’s worth writing.”

  “I’m sure you’re always careful with your words.” Before I could decide if this was any kind of warning Regina Dane said “You told the court your blog reprints your columns. Does that include the one you wrote about the defendants?”

  “No, that’s only online.”

  “Why is that, Ms Parkin? Surely the controversy would have helped to sell the publication you write for.”

  “The editor thought it was too controversial and wouldn’t take the risk.”

  “Was the decision based on legal advice?”

  “Maybe, but I thought it was too important not to publish.”

  “And may I ask what you earned from publishing it yourself?”

  “Not a penny. Anyone can read my blog for nothing.”

  “You don’t think it has earned you publicity.”

  “If it has that wasn’t my intention.”

  “Would it have made a difference to your editor if you’d named the source of your information?”

  “I honestly don’t think so.”

  “Indeed, Ms Parkin, you’ve taken an oath to be honest. Did your source ask to remain anonymous?”

  “No, not at all. I shouldn’t think he’d ever do that.”

  “Then may we know why you failed to name him?”

  “Because his family belongs to, let’s say the church the Nobles run, and I didn’t want to cause them any unnecessary trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble were you afraid to cause?”

  “Ostracising, maybe, or worse.”

  “That’s very vague and speculative, Ms Parkin. Has anything of the kind taken place?”

  “Not to my knowledge, but that’s not to say it couldn’t.”

  “You’ll be aware that the defendants have identified the source. I’ll ask you to name him to the court now.”

  I saw Bobby realise there was no point in secrecy, but she was plainly reluctant to say “Dominic Sheldrake.”

  “Is he the person you told my learned friend was a writer and investigator?”

  “He was when we were at school.” A pause appeared to prompt Bobby to add “Maybe later too.”

  “If he’s all you say, why did he send you the material instead of disseminating it himself?”

  “He gave up writing a long time ago. I expect he thought I was the best person to publicise what he’d found out.”

  “Wouldn’t putting it online himself have done that?”

  “I suppose he preferred me to put it into words.” Bobby lifted her head higher, presenting her chin like an emblem of defiance. “
And of course he’d passed it to the police,” she said.

  Regina Dane paused as if a question that she’d had in mind had been anticipated. “Let me remind you of some of the comments you wrote,” she said. “You mentioned that Christina Le Bon influenced you even when she was a toddler.”

  “I don’t believe I said influenced.”

  “You described her as your biggest inspiration, and you set her alongside a number of people you cite as having made you who you are. But you also single her out as the biggest disappointment in your life.”

  “I’m afraid that’s what she turned out to be.”

  “And you say you’re disappointed in yourself for having been so influenced. Would you agree you must be quite easily swayed if you can be so won over by a child as young as she was?”

  Bobby jerked her chin higher. “I said I was impressed by her, and I wasn’t that much older myself.”

  “How old were you at the time, Ms Parkin?”

  “Twelve. Just twelve.”

  “Weren’t you quite sure of yourself even then?” Regina Dane gave her little time to answer. “You’re understandably resentful,” the lawyer said. “Is that why you claimed she was being abused at that age?”

  “I simply wondered how early it started. These things generally begin when the victim is young.”

  “When she’s vulnerable, you mean.” Once Bobby indicated agreement, Regina Dane said “But in your blog you contend that Christina Noble already knew her own mind. Are you accusing her of being implicated even at that age?”

  For the first time Bobby looked uncertain. “No, I’m saying when it happened her father must have made her.”

  “You’re accusing him of abusing an infant.”

  “No,” Bobby said with more defiance than I thought was helpful, “suggesting it might bear investigating.”

  “It’s been investigated, Ms Parkin. You’re maintaining it was no more than a suggestion on your part.”

  “If you check you’ll see I just said I wondered.”

  “That was very skilful of you. Quite professional.” Regina Dane began to turn away from Bobby and then seemed to find a reason to confront her again, however tentatively. “But you did say you might have been blinded by visions,” she said.

  “Distracted from what was really going on, you mean.”

  “I believe you’ll find blinded was the word you used. Perhaps you aren’t so careful with your language after all.” When Bobby let a stare do duty as an answer, Regina Dane said “How did you come to experience these visions?”

  “I was investigating the setup the Nobles ran back in the eighties.”

  “Christian Le Bon and his daughter ran it. You aren’t saying Christopher did.”

  Bobby might have been choosing her words before saying “Just them.”

  “And you were investigating it at whose behest?”

  “My own. It was my idea to find out the truth.”

  “Hadn’t the organisation been brought to your notice?”

  I saw Bobby decide there was no point in holding back. “Yes, by Dom Sheldrake.”

  “What did he tell you about it?”

  “I really can’t remember after all these years. It was supposed to treat children who suffered from nocturnal seizures. They called it Safe To Sleep.”

  “Treat them how?”

  “By hypnotising them or something like it till they were able to sleep normally, but in fact it was giving them visions based on the beliefs Christian Noble has held all his life. I’d say it was indoctrinating the children.”

  “All his life.” The lawyer seemed poised to pursue this, but said “Please tell the court about the visions you experienced.”

  “I participated in some of the sleep sessions. I was hypnotised along with the children.”

  “No, Ms Parkin,” Regina Dane said, laying both hands on the ledge of the witness box. “Tell the court what you saw.”

  When Bobby closed her eyes I was afraid the question had revived the experience, “Beyond the world,” she said. “What lives out there.”

  “Please be specific,”

  Bobby squeezed her eyes so tight that her face appeared to shrink. “I’d really rather not remember.”

  The lawyer’s fingers shifted on the ledge like a mime of patting someone’s head. “Did you publish your observations at the time or since?”

  “Back then I was persuaded they were beneficial.”

  “You do seem easily persuaded.” As I willed the prosecution to object, not that doing so could expunge the comment from anybody’s mind, Regina Dane said “You’re asking the court to accept that visions of a kind you would rather not describe were meant to help children sleep.”

  Bobby opened her eyes with some force. “That isn’t what I said.”

  “Is that the effect they had on the children?” When Bobby didn’t speak the lawyer said “Ms Parkin, wasn’t it your observation that the treatment did indeed cure the children of their nocturnal problems?”

  “It seemed to.”

  “And because that contradicted your purpose in investigating, you didn’t publish your findings.” Before Bobby could respond the lawyer said “Have you met any of those children since?”

  “Some.”

  “And did they appear to be damaged or say that they were?”

  “No, but that’s how indoctrination can work.”

  “Indoctrination.” Regina Dane turned her back on Bobby, and her gaze passed over me—over the surreptitious lens, at any rate. “I believe,” she said, “that many if not all of the people who benefited from Safe To Sleep are positively involved in the church that Mr Le Bon and his family founded.”

  She scrutinised the spectators at such length that Bobby began to grow restless. As if she’d had an afterthought Regina Dane said “Ms Parkin, you told my learned friend that none of the family knew they were being recorded. Why is that significant?”

  “It’s why they owned up to what they did.”

  “How could Christopher Le Bon own up to anything that happened before he was born?”

  Bobby made to speak and failed. “No more questions, your honour,” Regina Dane said without even glancing at the witness. Presumably Raymond Garland felt the same, since he wasn’t heard from. Bobby stepped down from the box, looking frustrated and close to bewildered, but I’d seen and heard none of this when I was summoned as the next witness.

  12 - On Every Side

  As the doors closed behind me so discreetly that they might have been designed to hush my arrival, the eyes of all the Nobles fastened on me from the far end of the courtroom. Christian and Tina were seated in the pen reserved for defendants, but they conveyed the impression that they were enthroned, gazing down from a high place at the world. So did Toph from directly behind them. Not just the faces—three variations on a single introverted theme—but their eyes might have belonged to a solitary entity that was watching my approach. I couldn’t help reflecting that some spiders had six eyes, though the way the Nobles inclined their heads almost imperceptibly in my direction was as reptilian as ever. I thought they looked poised to strike.

  I felt their scrutiny gathering on me as I limped along the aisle, not merely weighing on me like a mass of cobwebs but surrounding me, closing in. It seemed to have infected most of the courtroom, where the same contemptuous indifference was trained on me from every side. The room was full of faces I recognised from the Church of the Eternal Three, and quite a few of those that weren’t familiar bore the identical expression. Their attention felt like an unnatural darkness that was growing concentrated in the sunlit room. When I caught sight of Toby, seated nearly at the front, I failed to glimpse the look that gave way to concern shadowed by regret. At least Claudine wasn’t with him—at least Macy wasn’t, thank God.

  I did my best to hide my limp—I didn’t want to appear vulnerable, let alone as if I were inviting sympathy or condescension—but the stride I attempted to keep up stumbled more than once. Fixing my at
tention on the witness box felt like avoiding the eyes of the judge as he observed my progress. Although he was seated higher than anyone else in the court, I was sure the Nobles viewed him as lower than them. By the time I reached the witness box my legs had grown shaky, and I gripped both handrails as I climbed the steps. A clerk waited for me to conquer the ascent and handed me a laminated card that bore the oath. “Please take the book in your right hand,” she said.

  I planted my hand on the Bible instead and felt I was using it for support, though it didn’t provide much. Ought I to have declared my unbelief? I imagined it was too late now, and demurring might have weakened my case from the outset. I vowed three times to tell the truth and invoked God’s help with doing so, or rather called on God to witness my truthfulness. “Please be seated,” the clerk said.

  As Raymond Garland stepped forward I made another vow, though silently—to focus my attention on him and shut out all sense of the Nobles, at least all I could. “Please state your name for the record,” be said.

  “Dominic Sebastian Sheldrake.”

  “And your profession, Mr Sheldrake.”

  “I’m afraid I’m retired.”

  “No shame in that,” the lawyer said and interlaced his fingers in front of his stomach, protruding his thumbs. “What have you retired from?”

  “I used to teach film.”

  “You lectured on the cinema at Liverpool University for more than forty years.” Having translated my statement, Raymond Garland said “Did you also write about the subject?”

  “I published the odd piece.”

  “Your essays appeared in a number of academic journals, presumably after your work was reviewed by your peers. Your analysis of religion in the cinema attracted a good deal of favourable comment by your fellows in the discipline. Quite a few found your thoughts stimulating.”