Fire Spirit (30 page)

‘What happened to your
fingers
?' asked Amelia.

‘It was the fire. I was trying to pull him out, but I couldn't. It was much too hot.'

Amelia's eyes were glistening with tears. ‘It was that Creepy Kid, wasn't it? I felt him. I knew he was there.'

Ruth nodded. ‘I'm so sorry. We'll give Tyson a proper burial at the pet cemetery.'

‘But they're together now. Tyson and the Creepy Kid.'

‘What do you mean, together?'

‘They're underneath, but they're going to come back. I know it. I can feel it.'

‘Ammy, Tyson's dead.'

Amelia shook her head furiously. ‘No, he's not. They're together. Him and that Creepy Kid. And they're going to come back, I promise you.'

NINETEEN

‘
I
could seriously use a drink,' said Ruth. Amelia rummaged in her purple woven bag and produced a bottle of Gatorade No Excuses. ‘Here you are, Mommy. It's a bit warm, but it's wet.'

‘Very sweet of you, sweetheart, but I need a
drink
drink.'

Her eyes flicked up to her rear-view mirror.

‘Is he keeping up with us?' asked Amelia, twisting around in her seat.

Ruth nodded. ‘I just hope we're doing the right thing, inviting him home.'

‘Mom, he's telling the
truth,
I swear it. You saw those people yourself, all burning.
And
that mask.
And
that Creepy Kid.'

‘I still find it really hard to believe. Dead people coming back from hell? There has to be some other explanation.'

‘You told Martin that you believed it.'

‘I told Martin that I
almost
believed it.'

‘But
I
believe it, and you believe
me
, don't you?'

Ruth looked at her. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘I believe you, sweetheart. But I genuinely wish that I didn't.'

Martin had made himself a reservation at the Courtyard Hotel on Kentucky Drive, but Ruth had insisted that he come back to the Cutter house for a family supper. He was a stranger in a strange city, after all, and whatever his motives he had come a very long way to help them.

More than that, though, she badly needed to talk to him about what had happened at the clinic. She needed to understand where all those burning people had come from, and why the Creepy Kid had punished her by setting fire to Tyson, and himself. She needed to find out why that hysterically-laughing white mask had spoken to her in the voice of Pimo Jackson.

She had no way of knowing for sure if Martin was genuine, or if Professor Frederick Solway really existed, or if the Nine Circles of Hell were any more real than Middle Earth. Martin could be nothing more than a con artist. He could be certifiably insane. But even after all of the forensic tests that she and Jack had carried out, none of the material evidence from any of the fires that they were investigating made any scientific sense whatsoever. As far-fetched as it was, Martin's was the only theory that so far fitted all or at least most of the facts.

But there was something else, too. Martin and Amelia seemed to have developed an unspoken but almost tangible affinity, exchanging looks that made any words unnecessary. And she had to admit that she herself found Martin's presence strangely reassuring, as if he was an old college friend she had known for years. Maybe that was what made him a good con artist. Just for tonight, though, she didn't really care.

When they turned into the driveway, Ruth saw that Craig was already home. Out of habit, she went around to the back of her Windstar and was about to open up the tailgate when she realized that Tyson was no longer sitting in the back, snuffling impatiently to be let out, and never would be. She looked at Amelia and Amelia looked sadly back at her.

Martin had parked his battered silver Taurus by the curb, and he followed them up to the porch.

‘This
is
going to be OK, isn't it?' he asked. ‘I mean, your husband won't have his nose put out of joint if I join you for supper?'

‘Of course not. Why should he?'

Martin shrugged. ‘Some men are pretty skeptical about the afterlife, that's all. More than women.'

Ruth unlocked the front door. ‘We saw what we saw, Martin. Maybe they were dead people coming back from hell, maybe they weren't. But we can't pretend that we didn't see them, and we can't pretend that Tyson wasn't burned to death in front of our eyes. We have to talk this over, no matter what anybody else thinks about it.'

Craig was pacing around and around the living-room, talking on the phone.

‘I know, Roger. I know that. But I can't cut the price any lower than seventy-eight-five. I have to break even, at the very least.' He paused, and then he said, ‘OK. Get back to me. But you know that I can give you a top-quality job. Far better than Hausmann's, any day.'

He hung up. There were bags under his eyes, and his hair was all mussed up.

‘Roger Letterman,' he said. ‘I think I just lost out on six kitchens out on Cottonwood Drive. I don't know how anybody else could fit them any cheaper. Not unless they make their worktops out of compressed horse-manure. Still – the Logansport contract is going ahead OK, touch wood and whistle.'

Ruth said, ‘Craig, honey, this is Martin Watchman.' She hesitated. Her throat was so constricted that she could barely speak. Craig looked blank, and so she said, ‘You know – the gentleman who came down from Chicago today to help with Ammy's anxiety attacks.'

‘Oh – OK,' said Craig, and held out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Martin. How did it go today? Make any progress?'

‘Tyson's dead,' said Ammy. Her cheeks were shining with tears. She rushed over to Craig and put her arms around him.

‘
What
?' said Craig. ‘What the hell happened?'

Ruth could only speak in a choking staccato. ‘It was terrible. The whole thing was terrible. Those visions that Ammy's been having, I saw them too. We all saw them. And then that Creepy Kid showed up. He put his arms around Tyson and they both burned up. They caught
fire
.' The word
fire
came out only as a throaty squeak.

‘
What
?' said Craig.

Martin said, ‘Your wife has had a bad shock, Mr Cutter. I think she could use a drink.'

They sat around the kitchen table with a bottle of wine and talked for almost an hour. Gradually, Ruth and Amelia and Martin explained to Craig about the Liébault experiment at Doctor Beech's clinic, and the horrifying images it had conjured up.

‘And these what-d'you-call-'ems – these PMVs – they actually set the drapes on fire?'

‘They're not ghosts, Craig. They're not holograms. They're real people.'

‘But they're dead, right?'

‘Dead, yes,' said Martin, ‘but not at rest. They're a split-second ahead of us in time, that's all. It's just like somebody walking down the street about twenty yards ahead of you. If you're both walking at the same speed, you're never going to catch them up, right? But if they turn around and start walking back toward you, then you're going to meet up with them pretty quick, because your closing speed is doubled.'

Craig turned to Ruth. ‘What's he talking about? Do you know what he's talking about?'

‘Craig,' Ruth appealed to him. ‘Please try to understand. I don't know if Martin's theory about hell is true or not. I don't have any way of proving it. But then again, I don't have any way of
dis
proving it, either.'

‘
Andie's ashes
,' Amelia whispered.

‘Excuse me?' said Martin.

‘Andie's ashes. Somebody just whispered “
Andie's ashes”
into my ear.'

Craig tilted back his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. ‘You know, I don't want to be the party-pooper here. But it seems to me like a classic case of mass hysteria. Like, you're all working each other up into such a state that you're beginning to believe that it's really happening. But, let's be logical here for a moment, how
can
it be?'

Martin said, ‘Ruth gave me to understand that you believe in the afterlife.'

‘I do. I believe that when we die we're judged by God and we get our just desserts. If we've tried our best to live a good and honest life, we get admitted to heaven. But if we've been purposely and unrepentantly wicked, we get sent to hell.'

‘So what's your problem, Craig? You believe in some kind of continuing existence after death, and that's exactly what we're talking about here.'

‘I know. And I do believe in life after death. But I don't believe that dead people come back, wherever they've been sent to. And I certainly don't believe that they set fire to innocent people.'

‘Not just people,' Amelia put in. ‘Dogs, too.'

‘People, dogs, whatever. I don't believe it. That's no way for a soul to get absolution, is it, however sinful they might have been when they were alive, or whatever problems they might have left behind them?'

‘You think that because you're a monotheist,' said Martin.

‘Say what?'

‘You believe in only the one God. And to some extent, yes, you're right. He
is
the Supreme Being, although He's not quite the whiskery old senior sitting on a storm-cloud that Michelangelo painted.'

Craig lifted his hand. ‘Don't let's get blasphemous here, Martin.'

‘No blasphemy intended, Craig. What you have to realize is that, apart from this one Supreme Being, there are many other lesser gods, who carry out the day-to-day administrative stuff. That's what Professor Solway thinks, anyhow. He believes that there are gods of happiness, gods of grief, gods who console you when everything in your life seems to be going down the crapper, excuse my French.

‘You've heard about people in very dangerous situations, who have sworn blind that there was somebody next to them, kind of a third presence, who helped them out of it. Shackleton believed there was somebody walking next to his party, when they were stranded at the South Pole, somebody who guided them to safety. And there was a guy on the seventy-sixth floor of the World Trade Center on September eleventh who was sure that there was a stranger close beside him who told him to run headlong into the flames, even though that was the last thing his natural instinct would have told him to do.

‘Those are the lesser gods, Craig. But not all of them are sweetness and light. In the case of these fires, I think we're probably dealing with the gods of retribution or the gods of ill fortune.'

Craig stood up. ‘I'm sorry, Martin. But I really think that this is baloney. How about another drink and then we change the subject?'

Martin was unfazed. ‘Craig,' he said, ‘what evidence do you have for the existence of God? Absolutely none, do you? None at all. Yet you believe in Him absolutely. So at least try to have an open mind about lesser gods. Professor Solway is sure that there are gods or spirits or elemental forces which can save the souls of the damned from everlasting torture. The damned can do a deal with them, if you like. If they perform a ritual sacrifice which finally resolves the problems they left unfinished before they died, then the gods will allow them to have peace.'

‘This is such shit,' Craig protested.

Ruth said, ‘
Craig
!' but Craig waved his hand dismissively.

‘Why do you think that, Craig?' Martin persisted. ‘The Holy Communion is a re-enactment of the Last Supper, isn't it? And Catholics believe in transubstantiation . . . that when they drink that communion wine and eat that communion wafer, they are actually ingesting the blood and the flesh of Christ. If that's not a ritual sacrifice, I don't know what it is.'

‘But these fires have killed totally innocent people. God wouldn't allow that.'

Martin shrugged. ‘If God didn't allow the death of innocent people, this would be a very happy world indeed. But also a very dull one.'

Ruth said, ‘Is anybody hungry? How about some three-cheese pie, and a little salad?'

‘That sounds very tempting, Ruth,' Martin smiled at her.

But Craig shook his head and said, ‘No, thanks. Not hungry. I had a burger with Mike Watterson at A&W's.'

At that moment, the front door opened and Jeff came in, his hair sticking up on end, wearing a black T-shirt with
Cattle Decapitation
lettered on the front. He was closely followed by Detective Ron Magruder and Detective Sandra Garnet.

‘Met these guys outside,' said Jeff.

‘Sorry to intrude, Ruth,' said Detective Magruder. ‘We heard about Tyson. You don't know how sorry we are. He was one hell of a dog, Tyson. One hell of a dog.'

‘We're all going to miss him so much,' said Detective Garnet. ‘Especially you.'

Ruth said, ‘Yes, I am. I saw him die right in front of me, but I still can't believe he's gone.'

Amelia piped up, ‘He
hasn't
gone! I
told
you! He's coming back!'

Ruth put her arm around Amelia's shoulders and said, ‘Let's talk about that later, sweetheart. Right now I think Detective Magruder has something he wants to say to me.'

Jeff picked up a slice of three-cheese pie in his fingers and started to eat it. Then he went to the fridge and took out a can of Dr Pepper. ‘Dad? I thought we were going to pick up my new car this evening,' he said.

‘Yes – yes, of course,' said Craig. ‘In fact now might be a good time. Ruth, honey – Jeff and I are going over to Gus Probert's house to pick up that Grand Prix. He only lives out on Meadow Drive, by the golf course, so we shouldn't be more than forty-five minutes, tops. Jeff, do you want to call a taxi?'