Harvest

by Steve Merrifield

  He was pleased to see that she gave him a measured look, maybe reclassifying him in her head?

  “It’s just knowing that this is happening in this building; where you live, the corridors and stairs you use, neighbours, the whole lot. It all feels wrong, feels different now.” She rubbed her face, apparently resigned to the frustration of the situation. “Last year we were called to a flat, there had been a murder. A boy, well I say a boy but he was about twenty, he had been murdered in his own home. At the scene I was told to sit with the boyfriend – he had returned from popping out for a bottle of wine for their dinner and found him. I sat there and watched his breakdown. The boy’s blood was everywhere, I mean literally everywhere – it was on the ceiling. Imagine what it would be like seeing the blood of someone you cared about. After all this time I have spent at Kentish Town Station and all the crimes I have come across I still don’t understand how your life can just be turned inside out like that. That was the hardest day on the job, yet at the end of the shift I went home and it was distant again. It was someone else’s story from another place; like changing the channel on TV from one story to another. This though… You don’t think about something bad happening at your front door. It brings it home to you, and it doesn’t go away.”

  Craig allowed himself to stare at her, into her distant amber eyes, watched her quiver uncomfortably with her fear and openness. “You care a lot about other people or you wouldn’t do what you do. That’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the antidote to the world you despair at. Sometimes things don’t affect you unless you can relate to them, and I would think with your job you must need to switch off as self-preservation.” He surprised himself with his sentimentality and prayed she wouldn’t laugh at him.

  Kelly just smiled.

  “When this dies down things will return to normal.” Craig sighed. “At times like this it just makes you glad you don’t have kids to worry about.” Craig instantly regretted his comment as he saw the hardness return to Kelly’s face.

  Rachel gratefully accepted Claire’s aid as she struggled with a hefty metal box crate.

  “Did they let you carry that?”

  “Craig shot off to go and get Kelly for later. Dave is the one to have a go at.”

  “Me?” David frowned as he walked in with his own burden of equipment.

  “Yes. He is such a gent. Last of the true romantics,” Rachel announced to Claire, cocking a shrewd look in his direction as they both lowered the box to the ground.

  “You women, you protest that; ‘I want to be my own woman, I want to be the one to call you, I want independence.’ – Don’t open a door for you and its World-War-bloody-Three…”

  Claire gave a dispassionate laugh that seemed to darken her mood as it died in her throat.

  “Right then, I’m gonna check that we have everything we need and make sure there isn’t anything left in the van, because I really ‘want’ to have to go nine flights down again for something else,” Dave groaned.

  Rachel led Claire into the kitchen. “Don’t worry, he’s always like this. Probably had a row with Kim last night – on and off girlfriend,” she quickly explained. “He obviously hasn’t been ‘on’ her in sometime. Fancy another cuppa?” she breezed, ignoring the ever-present pressure of Claire’s expectation of something to happen. It made Rachel anxious.

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell you earlier, as the boys came up with their load and then you went to give a hand, the priest friend of yours came round this morning. Did his bit and went. He was very nice.”

  Rachel turned. “Oh, good. Jeremy is lovely. Do you feel it helped you?”

  “Yes…” Claire’s voice wavered hesitantly before forming words. “But, nothing happened…” she said carefully, trying not to sound naïve.

  “No flying crockery, unearthly groans and bleeding walls?” Rachel said raising an eyebrow. “Don’t worry; Hollywood has rather jazzed it up. I have never known a blessing to have any visible effect. Thankfully, I guess – I don’t think I would be so willing to suggest them if they did! But, it might have had some effect.”

  David entered the flat, grunting with his load. “A blessing? Great. You could have scared the spooks off after I carried twelve boxes up from my van.”

  “Keep moaning and you will end up a spook!” Rachel threatened playfully, prodding his chest. “Anyway, we’ve been using the bloody lift so what are you complaining about? Just drink your tea and get working.”

  “Yes boss. I love dominant women.” He growled, without a giving away any glimmer of humour.

  Rachel slapped him in retaliation for the deep shade of red that burned up from her chest into her face. She soon forgot her embarrassment as the front door rattled open and Brian herded Amy through.

  Her presence drew the walls in around Rachel, pressing the atmosphere against her chest. Rachel had suggested the stakeout and essentially that made Amy bait.

  Amy looked at David and Rachel in turn. Rachel saw David fold under the pressure of her questioning innocent face and he turned away and searched out his mug of tea in the kitchen, Rachel did not waver under those eyes, but smiled warmly and said hello to her. Amy bolted to Claire.

  Claire caught her joyfully, crouched down to her height and kissed her forehead. Amy hugged herself close to her mother, in the safety of her embrace she twisted to look at Rachel and David, puzzled by their presence. “It’s okay, baby. Rachel and David are going to put some cameras and things around the house to try and see what funny things have been happening. Have you had a good day with Daddy?” Amy nodded. “Park, Maccy D’s and the shops?”

  Claire smiled at Rachel from this moment of normality, and Rachel took it as her Cue. “Hello Amy.” She held out her hand and Amy took it, and Rachel shook it gently. “I am Rachel. I am here with my friend David, and like your mum said, we are here to try and find out what is going on. If you show me your room you can help us find the best places to put our equipment so we can watch over you,” she said gently. Rachel reached out for her hand again, but before she took it Amy looked to her mum, ensuring that she would follow.

  Amy led Rachel through to her room and entered her bedroom with cautious hesitation as if she was walking into a lion’s den.

  “She has been like that since… Well, you know,” Claire explained protectively.

  “Plug sockets,” David broke in. “Most of the equipment has back-up batteries but a few spare plug sockets wouldn’t go a miss.”

  “Take your pick,” Claire offered.

  Rachel caught the discomfort in Claire’s stare as David pulled furniture away from the walls in his search; she was obviously struggling with seeing another stranger roaming over the sanctity of her daughter’s room like a burglar in action. “I told you it was intrusive.”

  “It’s okay; just reminded me of the police that night,” Claire said distantly.

  Rachel nodded grimly before turning her attention to an uncomfortable-looking Amy. “Are those your drawings?” She pointed at sheets of paper on the floor at the end of the bed. Amy nodded. “Can I look at them?” Rachel sank to the floor and sat cross-legged. Amy left her mum’s side and began handing them to her one at a time. Having distracted Amy from David’s intrusion Rachel winked to Claire collusively. “They are very good,” she said enthusiastically as she fingered through them and then back to the beginning again. Her face became focussed as her attention was taken to the recurrent green scribbles. She looked about the room trying to see what they represented. “What’s the green?”

  Amy sat mimicking Rachel’s crossed legs and studied her seriously, measuring Rachel’s character as if it could be read in her face.

  “Mr Sparky.”

  Amy’s sudden and unexpected answer punctuated the air innocently, leaving Claire and Rachel silenced in their wake.

  Rachel’s attention passed over Claire’s stream of praise of the fact that Amy had spoken. She was focussed on the actual words Amy had used, words that stiffened the hairs on the nape of
her neck; sure that Amy’s new words were an epiphany. Rachel tried to keep her voice calm and even despite the urgency that welled within her and caused her jaw to quiver. She prepared the tone of her question carefully and precisely as if cornering a wild animal that she feared would bolt and escape should she fail to approach it with enough caution. “Amy – What is ‘Mr Sparky?’”

  Rachel delivered her question, but averted her eyes and the pressure she thought they might add to her question. She concentrated on the pictures scrawled around her, leaving Amy to decide how to answer. Amy broke free from her mother’s grip and cautiously lifted the valance sheet of her bed, and looked hesitantly into the darkness, seemingly fearful of what she might find there. She put her comforting teddy bear to one side and leaned into the space under the bed, grunting with the exertion of an extended reach, then clambered out and produced a folded sheet of paper. She passed it slowly to Rachel who noticed this action had earned a frown and a smile from her mother, clearly puzzled at the ceremonious transaction of trust she was witnessing. Rachel accepted the thick sheet of paper and thanked her with as much awe and reverence as she thought Amy would expect.

  “Mr Sparky is the name of some invisible friend the girls conjured up a month or two ago. I thought it was sweet; they’d never done anything like that before. I had forgotten about it,” Claire blurted, her face reddening, possibly realising the disturbing relevance it might have.

  Rachel unfolded it carefully and found a scrawled crayon picture caked onto it. The image was chilling. She glanced to Claire and found the same uncertainty reflected in her eyes. Claire instinctively pulled Amy close to her protectively, as if the very picture posed a threat. The cold realisation of what Amy had seen, or thought she had seen, rushed in upon Rachel faster than she could process. Was this what had taken Emily? She asked of herself. Was this what they were going to be waiting for tonight?

  “What does it mean?” Claire whined at the verge of disintegrating.

  Rachel didn’t answer but continued looking over the picture, following the thick lines of crayon and felt tip that smothered the middle of the tattered page in forming the crude image of a pink girl with brown hair, she stared out of the page with wonky wide eyes. A scribbled round green spiral curled threateningly around her, at the centre of the pattern there was a green skull-like head with a vicious black zigzagging crocodile maw and dark eyes, its overly long arms reaching out for the girl who was sobbing thick blue tears around a circular screaming mouth.

  Amy pointed at the picture and her crude handwriting that spelled out its name, her voice chilled the air as she read it: “Mr Sparky…”

  Chapter Ten

  Scott Bray knocked at Harry’s door. “Harry? It’s Scott, your social worker,” he repeated close to the door. His lips brushed the cold sticky paintwork, and he recoiled sharply, scrubbing his mouth with his sleeve as he thought about the vile residue that might be lurking there on the grubby door. He was sure he had heard movement within the flat. Scott unofficially held keys to save the cost and hassle of calling out a locksmith if Harry lost his set, yet again. Although he had used it to get past the lobby door he would be infringing on Harry’s privacy if he used it to check on Harry in his flat. He knelt before the door and levered the letter box open, took a breath to announce himself but only produced a hacking splutter as his throat and lungs were lined by a pungent cloying smell of decay stale urine and faeces from within the flat.

  Scott retched and slumped onto his generous posterior, dragging a handkerchief from his pocket to his mouth to stifle whooping coughs as his body tried to disperse the evil from his throat. Nausea gripped him as the rank smell reached down into his guts forcing him to swallow stirred-up bile. He stumbled back on to his feet. That was not a good sign. Harry had let his old house fall into a squalid condition; the state of it had forced him into wandering the streets, often sleeping rough too. Scott had managed to get him a flat at the Heights in the hope that a smaller property would be easier for him to cope with. It now looked like a care home would be the next step. “Alright then, I will call back another time.” Scott headed to the end of the corridor and waited round the corner out of sight.

  Five minutes passed before he heard Harry’s door creak open, as he had predicted it would. After the door closed Scott listened to the rustle of a bag and footfalls heading in the opposite direction. He waited until he thought Harry would be at the lift then stepped out and saw Harry walking away from him, hunched around a weighty black bin bag that he cradled in his arms. Harry walked past the lift doors and slipped through the fire escape at the end of the corridor.

  Scott frowned and followed, perhaps the bin bag meant Harry was attempting to tidy the place; maybe all Harry needed was home help. Although the rank stink suggested the flat needed more than a light clean. The stealthy furtive way Harry made his exit also led Scott to think the black sack was nothing to do with house work. Harry definitely had something to hide, which fuelled Scott’s suspicion further. Scott reached the door and found himself walking in Harry’s cruel wake. He screwed his nose up against the smell that was more than the ammonia of urine and the copper of stale faeces. Rotting flesh. Scott stifled a cough to clear his throat of the nauseating odour and eyed the large printed sign on the door:

  ‘PLEASE USE OTHER STAIRCASE, THIS DOOR TO BE KEPT SHUT AND LOCKED AT ALL TIMES DUE TO THE HEALTH & SAFETY RISK.’

  Harry! Scott chastised in his thoughts. He chuckled to himself with the thought that the health risk the sign warned of had probably doubled now Harry had gone in there. He eased the door open. There were no lights working in the stairwell and the windows were masked with grilled slits, casting thick ghostly bands of light onto each landing. He leaned over the banister and was surprised to see Harry was already two floors down. “Fast bastard!” he marvelled quietly. Scott padded after him, careful not to give away his pursuit.

  Seven floors down he thought Harry might turn out of the stairwell into the lobby but, like all the doors between Harry’s level and the ground floor, they each had thick bolts drawn across them from inside the stairwell to stop people from disregarding the health and safety notice. If Harry had left the stairs Scott would have found a door unbolted. He surmised that Harry must have gone further down – to the basement. He peered over the banisters and down into the darkness, he was starting to not like this, and he was feeling more than a little claustrophobic. The chute for the rubbish was in the ground floor lobby and Scott was sure there wouldn’t be access to the rubbish storage area in the basement – a place the residents were not meant to go. He wondered where Harry was going with his rubbish sack. What was Harry trying to hide?

  Scott swallowed his crawling uncertainties and continued to follow Harry down. The last landing was below ground level with no slit windows to cast any light, and what lighting might have been in place didn’t appear to be working. Scott took the banister in his hand and walked carefully down into the graduating gloom until he reached the all-consuming blackness of the landing. His mind turned the tables on his determination. He could wait for Harry upstairs. Before he could turn on his heels he hesitated, clutching at his fleeting courage. It was only darkness after all. It was best to see what Harry was up to; it was his duty – the flat was Harry’s last chance of independence. Scott had to ensure that Harry could integrate and cope alone. He was a stubborn old bugger but he had a little-boy-lost look about him that made Scott want to look out for him, to do his best by him. Despite Scott’s help Harry resented his visits so he couldn’t rely on Harry for honesty. He decided he would have to catch Harry in whatever odd activities he was doing if he was to get any idea of how he was living.

  Scott soft footed after Harry until he reached a large door that was slowly drifting closed on its automatic arm. It identified itself by a sign containing bold letters:

  ‘BASEMENT. STRICTLY NO UNAUTHORIZED ADMITTANCE.’

  Scott caught the door and hesitantly pulled it wide and considered the consequences
of disobeying the sign. Scott rationalised that his minor trespass would be wavered considering he was on Council business.

  The basement was large and gloomily lit by emergency lights, some of the fluorescent tubes blinked and flickered creating a gentle strobe effect in their need to be changed. Scott found the light switch in the murkiness but decided the main lights would ruin his attempt at stealthy discretion. The dim light gave vague definition to the large room and the chain link lockers that ran the walls, securing the supplies and tools required in maintaining the building. The lifts were to his right and directly ahead of him on the far wall was another door leading to the main stairwell that the residents used. In the gloom ahead of him Scott could see one of the lockers was pulled out from the wall at an angle, as if it had been dragged aside.

  Scott neared it cautiously. The shelves carried dusty mildewed boxes, abandoned tools and several bottles of cleaning fluids. The fluids were gently lapping the sides of the bottles that contained them, snatching at the dim light in their movement. They had only recently been disturbed. Scott peered behind the shelving into a wall of blackness. The lockers seemed to cover a disused doorway. Scott scanned the shelves and was relieved to find a club-like torch. He snapped it on and blinded himself momentarily. He angled the torch away from his face, blinking away the painful white ghost of light lodged in his eyes.

  Scott shone the torch into the gap and squeezed himself in. On the other side of the shelving was a double doorway with its heavy metal doors flung open wide into the space beyond. He found himself in a large room, the walls charred and blackened with thick soot while damp mould filled any crevice and corner. The floor was cluttered with debris and what seemed to be cremated furniture. The room was a black hole of melted shelving units and twisted carnage. Shadows danced and leapt in the air from the torches beam like scattering bats. Scott surmised that it was one of the basements for the shops in the parade within the base of the high-rise. The shops having been burnt out about a decade or so ago, never reopening.