Darkness Demands Part 31

Robert grabbed the old man, and then with barely a pretence of gentleness shoved him into the pa.s.senger seat.

"Harry wanted to go fis.h.i.+ng."

"I bet he did," Robert snarled. "Put your legs in so I don't slam the door on them."

John's patience evaporated. "Take it easy with him. He can't move that quickly."

Robert rounded on John. "What do you know what he can or can't do?"

"Stan's exhausted. Show a bit of consideration, can't you?"

Robert tapped his nose. "You, Newton! Keep this out!"

With that he climbed into the pa.s.senger seat. Then he raised his hand. It was to draw the seatbelt across Stan's chest, but the old man raised his hands in fear as if to protect his face from a blow. Robert Gregory saw what the man had done and hurriedly pulled Stan's arms down, then fastened the seatbelt.

John felt as if he'd been slapped himself. He looked from Stan to the ugly brute of a son-in-law.

So, that's it, Gregory, John told himself as the truth crept home. That's why the old man thinks you're Adolf Hitler. You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Gregory. You miserable, abusive bullying b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

CHAPTER 27.

1.

Robert Gregory crushed the gas pedal to the floor, sending the car roaring down the old Roman road. Anger seared him. He managed to keep the rage bottled until he was well out of sight of the Water Mill, then he released it in a rush.

"I don't believe it. I don't f.u.c.king believe it. You must lead a charmed, f.u.c.king life!"

"I was looking for Harry," Stan Price said, frightened. "I wanted to go fis.h.i.+ng."

"Harry's f.u.c.king dead. And so should f.u.c.king you!"

Unable to stop himself now, he leaned toward Stan, then snapped his elbow back into the old man's chicken bone chest.

"Uh!"

The flow of traffic at the main road stopped him from driving further. He shook his head marveling at the unbroken stream of trucks and cars. "How do you do it? How do you walk through this without so much as turning a hair?"

Stan rubbed his sore chest. "Baby Bones."

"Yeah, I'll Baby Bones you, you old dog."

He raised his elbow again. Instead of flinching the old man began to laugh.

Surprised, Robert didn't follow through. "Jesus Christ, what on Earth does a pile of skin and bone like you find so funny?"

Stan reached down into the storage compartment in the door and pulled out two sheets of paper. On each one were a few lines of Gothic-looking handwriting.

Robert Gregory snapped angrily. "What have you got there?"

Stan laughed until his eyes watered. "You-you've been getting them, tooa you've been getting them, too!"

Robert Gregory s.n.a.t.c.hed the letters. "I meant to throw these out. Some stupid brats have been playing a prank."

"You've ignored them?"

"Of course I b.l.o.o.d.y well have."

The old man laughed again. A loud braying laugh, so raw with emotion that it unsettled Robert.

"He's ignored them." Stan shook his head. Tears of laughter rolled down his cheeks. "He's ignored them!"

At last a break appeared in the traffic. As Robert Gregory pointed the car's nose homeward he hissed through clenched teeth. "Go on, laugh. Because I haven't finished with you yet."

2.

Thirty minutes after Robert Gregory drove Stan Price away John Newton still smoldered with anger. He makes my blood boila an old phrase but an apt one. John paced the lawn, his blood running hot in his veins. John kicked the head off a dandelion. So help me, I should have grabbed Robert by the s.h.i.+rt collar and chucked him into the pond.

There was no doubt in his mind that Robert Gregory ill-treated the old man. To what extent, however, he couldn't say. Stan had certainly expected to be slapped when Robert had raised his hand to get a hold of the seatbelt buckle just over Stan's shoulder.

Now John remembered with a biting clarity that Stan had claimed someone was trying to kill him. John had written that off as a delusion cooked up by dementia. Now he wasn't one hundred percent sure. But what could he do about it? He'd need a d.a.m.n sight more proof if he was to telephone the police. Should he talk to Stan's daughter, Cynthia Gregory? But she was so timid she'd probably back up any c.o.c.k and bull story Robert Gregory came out with.

John walked toward the orchard. From the shade of the trees Sam watched him. He paused to rub the dog's head. "It's a cruel world," John murmured. "Sometimes you find yourself standing by, watching s.h.i.+t happen and knowing you can't do a d.a.m.n thing about it." The dog licked his hand. John smiled. "Well, if you get a chance, boy, you tear a b.l.o.o.d.y big lump out of Gregory's a.s.s."

For a while John did a few pointless ch.o.r.es to take his mind off what had happened: he made coffee, scratched out weeds from between the cracks in paving slabs, worked more grease into the sluice gate clogs up at the pond. The thing hadn't been opened in years. Now it had become a personal quest to free the mechanism. Pick the bones out of that one, Freud, he told himself, wiping the grease from his hands.

He then went to weed the flowerbed. h.e.l.l's teeth. He should be writing. He knew that. But Stan's visit had unsettled him. Especially the ugly scene with Gregory yelling at the old man like he was a dog. Now he didn't think he could settle to do anything productive-or meaningful. That was until he saw the briefcase.

Gregory's stormy arrival had wiped the briefcase from his memory.

Now it sat there under the holly bush. Cobweb smeared, cracked- oozing with questions.

He paused with a bunch of bindweed in each hand. So what was in there?

A pile of baby bonesa Despite himself he smiled as his runaway imagination slipped in the macabre answer.

No. Unlikely. More likely it contained the letters that schoolmaster Kelly received in this very house seventy years ago.

No sooner had he thought this then his curiosity ignited again. He wanted to open up that case, pull out the letters, then run upstairs to compare them with the ones that had arrived over the last couple of weeks.

Would the demands be the same? Would they be phrased the same? And more importantly-G.o.d dammitt, the hairs rose on his neck-would the handwriting be the same? He dropped the weeds, then sat down on the bench with the briefcase on his knee.

KELLY stenciled on the leather blazed at him. The thing might have been broadcasting OPEN ME! FIND OUT WHAT'S INSIDE!

He fumbled with the lock that secured a hefty leather strap over the case before noticing a key tied by chord to the handle. The key had oxidized to a dull orange. Immediately the rust came off onto his fingers as he forced his now shaking fingers to grip the key, push it into the keyhole and turn it.

C'mon, c'mon, c'mona The key went in. No problem.

It would not turn. Big problem.

d.a.m.n it.

He wanted it open now. He wanted to see what the case contained.

There were answers in here. He wanted to get them together with the questions whirling round his head.

Getting sweaty in the hot sun, he twisted the key in the lock. His fingertips tingled under the pressure. Kelly's briefcase didn't aim to yield its treasures easily. Grunting, John turned the key as hard as he could. Movement.

d.a.m.n.

The key wasn't turning in the lock. It was the metal barrel of the key that was twisting under the pressure.

"Christ, John, you don't know your own strengtha c'mon, apply a little science to the problem here."

He blew into the lock, then examined what he could see of the mechanism. After seventy years in the garage or wherever the metal parts had rusted tight as glue. Experimentally, as if prying apart the jaws of a crocodile, he attempted to pull open the briefcase, hoping the leather strap that held it shut would simply snap. Five minutes of sweating and cursing proved that the strap still held good and strong.

Now it really was time to apply a modic.u.m of intellect rather than a truckload of brute force. He carried the bag to the tool-shed, where he laid it on the workbench. After that, he aerosolled oil into the lock. For a moment the oil pooled, glistening, in the lock, then as if thirstily sucked from within it vanished into the lock. Now he'd have to stomp down his impatience for a while as he hunched over the bag, staring at it, willing the oil to run into the lock mechanism-lubricating, dissolving old grease, working into little levers and springs so he could unlock it. But this was going to take time.

After spraying the lock again with oil he went indoors.

Now he felt fired up. He'd start work on Without Trace. What's more he sensed an urgency now. It was more than just writing a new book. The Skelbrooke disappearances had knitted themselves into his life now. This was personal involvement. The more he learned, the more he could deal with what faced him.

As he walked into the house the dog for no accountable reason threw up his head and gave a long howl that somehow wrenched at his heart. The howl echoed across the valley to the cemetery on the hill where the sounds faded and died amongst the gravestones.

3.

"Miranda's not here!"

Paul rocked back on his heels. He hadn't expected that kind of reaction simply for knocking on the Bloom family's front door. But there was Miranda's mother, white-faced, with two staring eyes that looked like b.a.l.l.s of black gla.s.s set in her head. Jesus, he'd never seen such an expression on someone's face before.

It made his skin crawl.

"I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs. Bloom," he continued politely. "But Miranda wasn't in school this morning so I thought I'd call to find out howa" His voice began to falter as those ball-like eyes stared at him as if he'd just disemboweled himself on her doorstep. "I wondered if she'sa that she might have been ill or she'da" He shrugged, finding it difficult to finish the sentence under a stare that rolled wildness, madness and terror all into one.

What the h.e.l.l's going on here?

He'd only met Mrs. Bloom a couple of times but she'd always been friendly, even a little flirtatious. She had the same dark Spanish looks as Miranda, with neat short hair that was an attractive feathery black. Now she stood there at mid-day in a white bathrobe, her hair spiky, unpleasantly oily looking, and shooting those eyeball-rolling looks first at him, then along the street. She looked as if she expected Death himself to dance round the corner swis.h.i.+ng his scythe this way and that.

"Mrs. Bloom?"

"Yesa what?"

Her eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled from him to the street. Again that look of distraction.

"Mrs. Bloom, I wondered if I could speak to Miranda?"

"No."

"Is she out?"

She rolled the eyeb.a.l.l.s at him-they flared with absolute dread- then she looked away, this time over the rooftops as if she couldn't bear to look him in the eye.

"She's not here. She's gone."

"She's gone?"

"Yes. Didn't you hear me! She's left home." The woman took a deep breath. "So don't bother coming back because you won't find her here."

Paul was thunderstruck. "Did Miranda say where she was going?"

"Of course not! She's just packed her things and gone."

"Mrs. Bloom, I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. If she-"

"Now go. Please go away." Her face twisted as she struggled not to cry. "Can't you see how upset I am?"

A split second later Paul found himself staring at a closed door. From inside came the sound of the woman sobbing. For a moment he stood there stunned. He looked up at the windows hoping to see Miranda's face, but the drapes were drawn, giving it the appearance of a house in mourning.

At last he walked away. Part of his world had been taken from him. For now shock numbed him, but he'd start hurting soon enough.

CHAPTER 28.