Dead Bad Things (15 page)

  A hand to hold.

  He walked over to the mirror. The surface was no longer reflective. It had begun to fog over in the early hours of the morning and continued that way throughout the day. He could no longer see himself in its smooth, flat surface: all he could see was grey, like a slab of mist cut from the world and set on a stand in his bedroom.

  "Who are you?"

  There was no answer. His gift was still too weak; he could not yet hear the dead.

  "Why have you come to me?"

  A drum began to beat, slowly, rhythmically, like an ancient tribal summoning. The sound only existed inside his head; he knew that. But still, it was sad and beautiful and haunting: a haunting sound from a haunted mirror heard by a haunted man. He blinked back tears. He thought about Michael, and how Michael had hated Trevor's attentions, had been so scared of him. But Trevor had been unable to stop himself; he was not strong enough to resist.

  Never strong. Never strong enough. Not to resist.

  So he had acted upon his compulsions, not even thinking about the hurt he was creating, the damage he was causing. His little brother had been physically weak, and unable to fight back. Trevor had told himself that it was just an expression of his love, a way of making things special between them, but deep down inside he knew that he was lying to himself, lying to his brother, lying to them all.

  Lying all the time. And still lying now, even when there was no need.

  The truth was something he could never quite reach – even the truth about himself, about who he really was and what he was able to do. All those years performing, faking it for an audience, and the bitter truth was that he had been gifted all along. He had always been able to hear the dead speak, but it was easier to ignore them and put on an act, give the people what they wanted rather than what the dead needed them to know.

  "Come to me. Here. Now. Show me that you can hear me."

  The pale hand appeared again, pressed against the other side of the glass. Up close, Trevor could see that it was cut, ragged, the skin was peeling away from the bone. It seemed human, but there was something not quite right about the way it looked. Like an imperfect imitation; the battered hand of a ruined mannequin.

  "Yes, that's it. That's right. I'm here for you." Trevor could feel a power in the room, a force that was coming to him from beyond the mirror. It was his old gift returned, but also something new, something different. Before, whatever he had been able to do had originated from deep within him, at his core, but this… this was from somewhere else, an external point towards which he was being drawn.

  The hand clenched into a fist. Knucklebones popped through the pallid flesh. They were sharp, white, more like teeth than bones. The fist began to writhe against the glass, smearing it with strange clear ichors – the thing's blood?

  Did ghosts bleed? Did they weep real tears?

  "What are you?"

  Slowly, by inches, a pale orb appeared through the thick mist, like a weird vessel breaking the surface of a still, grey sea. It was spherical, or perhaps oval. It took several seconds for Trevor to realise that what he was seeing was the top of a head pushing through the grizzled gloom. A large bald head.

  Once it cleared the veil of grey, he began to make out the cuts and slashes in the skin, the small hollows in the skull. It was the top of a head: the pate of some strange being heaving into view, and then pressing oddly against the glass.

  The skull was soft; it flattened as it was forced against the glass.

  Thankfully, the head did not twist and enable the being to look up, into the room. It remained in the same position, pushed up tight against the glass.

  Another fist rose and slammed silently into the glass. The figure was certainly humanoid, even if it was a shell, a disguise (and just what had prompted that thought?).

  A shell. Yes, that was it… Trevor realised that he was looking at a husk, a man-shaped suit containing something else. The tattered flesh, the bloodless pallor. The malleable bones. It all added up to a costume.

  The head was now moving across the glass, the bones pressed flat. It looked like some kind of dance, a manoeuvre choreographed from the movements seen in bad dreams, and Trevor was fascinated and repulsed in equal measures. How could bones be this soft? How could those fists make no sound against the other side of the mirror?

  "Tell me who you are?"

  The drumming. He had been so distracted by this vision that he had forgotten all about the drumming sound. It had increased in volume, threatening to spill from his head and out into the room. It was the soundtrack of the strange creature, the song of its arrival. The beat of its birth. The thing was dancing in rhythm, moving to the beat, and Trevor was drawn to its perverse motion.

  Then, like sweets being snatched from the clutching hands of a child, the figure pulled back from the glass. The fog closed in, filling the space where it had been. The drumming stopped.

  "Come back to me!" Trevor fell to his knees and placed his own forehead against the glass. It was cold, like ice. His own skull felt soft, as if it might cave in with the pressure.

  "Please come back."

  For a moment – a fleeting moment that felt like a snippet of dream – he was sure that he heard laughter. But then it was gone, not even an echo remaining. Not even a vibration left in the air. Gone. Gone.

  Gone.

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Sarah had found the telephone number in her father's old notebook, the one he had not stashed away but kept in plain view, in a drawer with his old warrant card. It was his police-issue book, where he recorded the names and dates and essential information of people who might help him. He called it his Snitch Book. Back when Sarah had lived here, in the family home, he had shown her the battered cover of the book often, telling her that good, reliable informants were as important to a policeman's job as deductive reasoning.

  A good snitch or informant, he had said, could solve a crime for you. If you knew what to ask, and how to ask it.

  Like everything else in police life, her father had claimed that it was an art form. Everything was an art form according to him: the questioning of suspects, the breaking-in of doors, even the quiet words spoken in a silent lounge or back room to inform a loved one of their father/lover/brother's death.

  It was all art, or so he claimed. Art of the highest order. Like a fucking Van Gogh.

  Sarah glanced at the blinds, seeing darkness at the window through the gaps. It was late enough that she should be tired, but too early to try and force sleep. Benson had wanted to stay with her after they had visited her mother, but she had convinced him to leave. His attention had been cloying, and she wanted some space in which to think, to process what had happened in the rest home. He'd been crestfallen when he walked out of the door, but she didn't care. Let him have his little huffs and sulks; she had more important things on her mind. She had business to take care of.

  Sarah was aware of the fact that – just like her father – she was in danger of becoming obsessed, but she had never been able to turn her back on a mystery. It was a defining characteristic, and one which had got her into a lot of trouble throughout her life. When she was a kid, she earned the reputation as a pest, someone who would never let a thing lie. She had unearthed a lot of secrets, and it had always cost her friends. This niggling skill of hers was part of the reason why she was so alone.

  She turned the notebook over in her hands, feeling the dried sweat and the threat of violence held between the bindings. There were many names written down in there, and an equal amount of numbers, but only one of her father's informants had been respected enough to also be called a friend. His name was Erik Fontana. That was not his real name, of course – it was a stage name. Fontana was a club singer. He had played the circuit for years, making friends, forging contacts, being Johnny-onthe-spot whenever something nefarious went down, or was planned or gossiped about.

  She picked up the phone and dialled. The number could have been for anything – a house, a flat, a squat, a nightclub – so she just let it ring out, hoping that it was still current. Finally someone picked up at the other end.

  "Yeah." A female voice. Low, throaty, gruff.

  "I'm trying to contact an Erik Fontana. Do you know him?" She waited, her fingers picking idly at the telephone cord. It was coiled like a thin serpent around her wrist. The plastic was cold, alien to the touch.

  "Fuckin' hell, that's an old name. Yeah, I know him. Goes by his real name now, though. Has done for years. It's Eddie. Eddie Knowles." The woman sounded like she smoked forty cigarettes a day. Her throat was ruined.

  "Is he there? Can I speak to Eddie?"

  "Listen, pet, I don't know who you are, but he's my husband. If he's been fucking you, that's all it is. A fuck. So do yourself a favour and do one, yeah?" A sharp intake of breath: she was apparently sucking on a cigarette. The fact that the woman was still on the phone led Sarah to believe that the man she wanted was there, probably listening to one side of the conversation from another room.

  "No, you don't understand. It's nothing like that. Erik… I mean Eddie. He was a friend of my late father's." She licked her lips. She didn't want to offer any more information, not until she knew the man was actually there, on the premises.

  "Who's your dad, then? Is he a booking agent, a club owner? Does Eddie owe him money? Cos if he does, that's just another kind of fucked." She cackled loudly, like a witch. Then she sucked again on her cigarette.

  Sarah sighed. "My father's name was Emerson Doherty. He died almost seven months ago." She inhaled softly, amazed by the sudden surge of emotions which threatened to overpower her. Darkness boiled within her belly, churning up her insides. She felt sick. The world seemed to wobble for an instant. The room swelled, and then shrank back to its proper proportions.

  "Oh. Doherty. You his kid? The girl? I met you once, when you was little. Cute. I… I'd like to say I'm sorry for your loss, but I ain't. Not one bit."

  "Don't worry about it. I'm not sorry either."

  Again, that hideous cackling, like a Shakespearean sorceress:
Hubble bubble, toil and trouble. By the pricking of my thumbs
… "OK, pet. Eddie's in the back room, having a wee smoke. I'll go get him. He always had time for your old man, although no fucker else did. For what it's worth, you don't sound like him. Not one bit. And you can take that as a compliment."

  "Thanks…" But the woman had already thrown down the phone. Sarah could hear her receding footsteps, stomping away across what sounded like bare floorboards but was more likely to be a cheaply laminated kitchen floor. She strained her ears and made out distant voices, laughter, and then different footsteps – these ones much softer – as they moved towards the phone.

  "Yeah. This is Eddie." His voice was less damaged than the woman's yet it still held the grizzle of tobacco and alcohol abuse.

  "My name's Sarah Doherty. I believe you knew my father."

  "Yeah. I knew him. We were friends, him and me, as much as you can be in this game. In this life. We respected each other." There was the hint of a smile in his voice, a sliver of humour that wasn't particularly healthy.

  "I'm ringing… well, I'm not exactly sure why I'm ringing you. I found some photos today. Of my dad. Weird shots of sex parties. I remember you always used to go to the same parties he did, and mixed in the same circles. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about a club or something he might have belonged to."

  "A club? I don't know what you mean, not really. We went along to sex parties back in the day, yeah, there was plenty of that. Sex and gambling and all kinds of naughty stuff." He laughed. It sounded like the gurgling of a blocked drain. "I wouldn't go talking freely about this, except that the old bastard's dead. I suppose nobody cares what he got up to in his private life. Fuck, they all knew about it anyway. Most of his gov'nors was there, too, in them stupid masks. We all had a fine old time." He seemed to revel in telling her this. It was as if he were trying to shock her, to draw out of her some kind of reaction with his words.

  "What about the other stuff you mention. The other fun and games. Did any of that involve vigilante activity?"

  "Fuck me, girl, you aren't backwards in coming forward, are you? How the fuck do I even know who you are. A voice on the phone. A few pretty words down the line. I mean, you could be anyone." He laughed again. It sounded like the promise of an assault.

  "I have money. If you meet me tomorrow I can pay you for the information. I just want to find out about my father." Her mouth was dry. "I want to get to know more about how he spent his time, even if I don't like what I find."

  There followed a lengthy silence, as if Knowles were thinking about something. Sarah heard a clock ticking – not in her house, but on the other end of the line – and something about the sound was hollow, false, like an imitation. She waited.

  "Listen, love. Ask yourself a question. Ask yourself this: 'How much do I want to know? How deep should I get?'" He coughed, spluttered, and then regained his composure. "Your dad was into some pretty heavy stuff. I knew about some of it, but not all of it. We rolled together for a while, were pretty tight in fact, but he started getting too intense. His position on the force gave him access to plenty of privileged information, and made it possible for him to hide a lot of evidence."