‘What's Kath gone and done now?’ she murmured. 'Hasn't got any sense, that girl.’
‘Been a thrillin’ few days, ain't it?’ Mickey burbled as he took up his bicycle. ‘What with Mrs Meacham and your dad goin missin’—it's been great!’
Unable to find any fitting response to the ridiculous lad's words, Jean turned and entered the Stokes’ house once more, closing the door behind her.
Mickey Harmon climbed on to the saddle and the machine lumbered further down the road. Pedalling through the clinging fog, he pretended that his bicycle lamp was a powerful searchlight and his rickety steed an aeroplane plunging through the clouds over enemy territory. Then, suddenly, he pulled on his brakes and the machine juddered to a halt.
Streaming from the house of the late Mrs Meacham was a river of fog-diffused, lemon light that poured over the road, audaciously breaching the blackout.
A joyful chortle issued from Mickey's lips as he tried to guess what else had happened for Kathleen Hewett to leave the door open like this. Had she darted after Frank to apologise or had he come storming back and smashed his way in?
Dismounting, he knocked on the door but received no answer and so, yielding to his own inquisitive nature, Mickey stepped inside and called out tentatively.
When there was still no answer, and intrigued further, the baker's son made a furtive search of the ground floor rooms before directing his gaze upstairs.
‘Hello?’ he sang out cheerily. ‘It's Michael Harmon—is anyone up here?’
A mawkish thrill tingled through him as he ghoulishly savoured the feeling of being alone in the house where the murdered Mrs Meacham had lived. Perhaps the killer and the airman were one and the same. Is that what the row had been about? His adolescent imagination rocketed.
What if that flighty piece his mother so often tutted about had discovered his heinous secret and threatened to tell the police? Maybe the despicable assassin had returned to chop her to bits as well.
‘Miss Hewett?’ Mickey called excitedly. ‘You in there?’
Stepping up to one of the bedroom doors, Mickey rapped on it lightly then pushed it open, preparing himself for the hopefully foul and grisly sight that might await him.
With much disappointment, he found no blood-drenched corpse in the room beyond—still, there was one other he hadn't checked out.
The bedroom of the late Doris Meacham was now tidy after the assaults inflicted upon it by the dead woman's spiteful neighbour.
Dejectedly, Mickey stared around at the humdrum daintiness of it all; from the lacy coverlet to the photograph of the pet dachshund positioned beneath the bedside lamp.
‘Not one decent, mutilated carcass,’ he grunted in disgust, ‘What a swizz.’
As he turned to leave, the bloodthirsty boy's attention was caught by a wooden box sitting on the dressing table and, unable to stop himself, he wandered over to investigate.
‘Crikey,’ he breathed, lifting the lid and discovering that it contained a headset and a small microphone. Triffic—what is it?’
Delving inside, he twiddled with one of the dials and a low, crackling hum began to splutter from the headphones as the machine warmed up.
‘Corking!’ he breathed. ‘It's a wireless—
and
a transmitter.’
Fiddling with the unfamiliar contraption, his delight melted as a wild and exhilarating idea struck him.
‘Blimey,’ he jabbered, ‘Old Sew-and-Sew Meacham must’ve been a secret agent. I bet it was the fifth column what did her in. Cor—I've got to show this to Dad. He'll know what to do.’
Quickly, Mickey bundled the equipment under his arm and fizzing with delirious excitement hurried from the room and ran to the stairs.
Abruptly he stopped, for there, standing on the lower steps, was Kathleen Hewett, with an expression of complete and utter contempt etched on her face.
After telling Frank to leave her alone, the girl had stumbled out into the night to try and cool the fierce turmoil that was seething in her mind. An almighty, dark force was coursing through the atmosphere and within her callous soul it resonated and was already threatening to overwhelm her.
Yet the cold mist had managed, in some degree, to calm her wits. She returned to the house and was disturbed to find she had left the front door open and when she saw the delivery bicycle propped against the wall, an ember of panic scorched inside her.
Whispering a curse into the swaddling night, she had glared up at the darkened windows in suspicion, then crept silently up to the open door.
‘I did knock!’ the lad explained, misinterpreting that despising look. ‘You'd left the door open, I had to check. Ah, you've shut it now, that's good.’
Kath's eyes glared at the radio whose wires were trailing about the intruder's feet.
‘I found it in Ma Meacham's room,’ he told her, disconcerted by the unwavering malice directed towards him. ‘I was just going to show my dad... it's a radio set.’
‘I know what it is,’ the girl hissed at him, ‘and whereabouts you found it—the reception is far better in there.’
Mickey nibbled his top lip. ‘It's yours then,’ he realised. 'Wow! And are you really a secret agent?’
A frightful slit opened in Kath's face as she smiled menacingly and mounted the next stair.
‘You could say that,’ she breathed, ‘but not quite the sort you mean.’
Mickey's face was blank as he tried to work out what she meant and then, with a sickening spasm tightening his stomach, it dawned on him.
A malevolent, curdling laugh issued from her lips as she ascended, her eyes fixed on his rapidly whitening face.
‘Poor little baker's boy,’ she chanted softly, ‘What will they think when they find you tomorrow, lying out there in the wasteland—with a broken neck? What will your dear father think? That craven traitor who forsook his fatherland to come and live with the custard-livered and degenerate English. How will he react to your wrenched and twisted body? What a tragedy for you to have fallen so very badly in this terrible fog.’
Mickey backed away from her, but he knew he was cornered. ‘You're a filthy Nazi sympathizer!’ he blurted. ‘A dirty Nazi lover!’
‘Oh no,’ she revelled, sniggering hollowly, ‘I
am
a “filthy” Nazi.’
In despair the lad stumbled against the landing wall as she mounted to the topmost step and bore down on him.
In his desperation, Mickey hurled the radio at her with all his might.
The wooden box slammed into Kath's stomach and she reeled sideways as the breath was punched from her lungs.
Dodging past her, Mickey fled down the stairs and reached for the front door.
A furious yell rang from Kath's lips as she staggered after him, clutching her abdomen.
Still fumbling with the catch, Mickey wailed in terror as the girl came stomping down—her face a distorted mask of murderous wrath with an infernal light shining in her wild eyes.
‘HELP!’ he shrieked, scrabbling at the lock. ‘HELP!’
Suddenly, he managed to pull the door open, just as Kath lumbered upon him.
Howling, Mickey tore out of the house and dived into the waiting fog—leaping over the gate and clambering on to his bicycle. But in his fear, his foot slipped from the pedal and he almost toppled to the ground. Then he plunged the clattering machine down the street, slicing through the circling mists which thickly twirled and billowed behind him.
Growling through clenched teeth, Kathleen came speeding after. Through the gate she sprang, glaring right and left, unable to see which way the wretch had fled. Then she heard the rattle of the old bicycle and, like one possessed, she bolted into the suffocating clouds.
Mickey was pedalling for his life. If he could only get home, if he could only tell someone. Over the pavement the bicycle bounced and jarred, as he sailed into the alleyway leading to the high street.
Then, to his horror, the strident sound of urgent footsteps rang in the mist behind—gaining on him swiftly.
Pumping the pedals as fast as his legs could go, Mickey heard the clopping clamour grow steadily louder and he cursed the ancient contraption, wishing it could go faster—and then he was caught.
Flying out of the blinding fog, Kathleen saw his shape grow ever closer, becoming more solid as the veils of vapour were rent aside. Screeching, she lashed out with her hand and grabbed Mickey by the collar and for a moment they were travelling as one—gliding along in tandem. Then, making a ferocious effort, she leaped aside and hauled the squealing lad from the saddle.
Riderless, the bicycle continued on its breakneck journey, emerging with a whirring burst into the High Street where, the momentum gone, it careered against the far kerb, somersaulted and crashed with a resounding jangle and clanking of metal.
Lying face down where he had been thrown, Mickey moaned pitifully and scrambled to his feet.
But Kath was there, standing over him.
The girl was breathing hard, fatigued and panting from her exertions. Yet now she was utterly possessed by the ancient evil which pulsed through the night and her eyes flashed with hellish fires. But there were reserves enough to do what she must.
Feeling terribly alone and defenceless, with the impenetrable fog concealing his plight from any benevolent eyes, Mickey looked into the awful face of the unscrupulous and desperate female—and his heart quailed.
A base madness was animating Kathleen Hewett. A deep, unseated veneration for destruction drove her, and, in her contorted, repellent countenance, there was only hatred.
Making a final bid to escape, Mickey lunged to the left, but this time she was ready for him.
‘Oh no!’ she yelled, her hands snaking out and catching him by the throat. ‘You're not going anywhere, baker's boy!’
Mickey's screams were brusquely curtailed as she slapped her hand tightly over his mouth and thrust him roughly against the wall.
‘Did you really think I'd let you go?’ she spat, pressing her strong fingers into his throat and crushing his windpipe. ‘I haven't drudged away my time for a common little half-breed rat like you to spoil it all.’
Choking and fighting for breath, the lad squirmed and flailed his arms, hitting Kathleen's side—thumping her with his thrashing fists.
‘See where your prying snout has brought you!’ she hissed, relishing her victim's agonies, as the glare from her eyes burned into him. ‘So may all enemies of the Reich perish.’
Mickey's struggles grew weaker and, realising that he was no longer capable of crying out, she took her other hand from his mouth and efficiently throttled him.
A dry, croaking breath whispered from his lips, as his eyes rolled in their sockets until only the whites were visible below the lids—and then his body went limp.
Snorting with immeasurable contempt and quivering from the intensity of her grisly labours, the girl released her grip and Michael Harmon slumped, dead, to the ground.
Gazing down, with no emotion except relief, in the comforting knowledge that she was now safe, and tinged with a measure of pride in the swift execution of her duties, Kathleen turned the body over with the toe of her shoe.
Mercilessly, she gave the dead adolescent a despising kick, then looking upon Mickey's inert features, she saw with some amusement how innocent and angelic he appeared in death.
A malicious snigger shook her as an odious thought suggested itself.
‘Filthy Nazi?’ she murmured, resentfully. ‘You should not have been so insolent, baker's boy.’
Grubbing in the dirt, she scraped up a smear of oily grime and daubed a neat square over Mickey's top lip.
‘Heil Hitler,’ she chuckled horribly.
Suddenly Kath started and rose to her feet, her sharp ears detecting a shambling movement just outside the mist-filled alley.
Cautiously, she moved away, trying not to make a sound.
‘Stay!’ commanded a hollow, gurgling voice.
The girl shuddered at the sound of it and pushed through the fog more quickly.
‘Hold!’ the uncanny voice called again. 'This is a most succulent kill.’
A horrendous lapping noise trickled from the blank gloom and Kath hesitated, curious to know who had spoken, but unwilling to take a step nearer. Why was the mysterious stranger not horrified and outraged at what she had done?
Presently the slobbering ceased and she heard a scratching clatter beetle over the ground.
“Who is it?’ she snapped. “What do you want?’
'I desire only to applaud this delicious deed born of my dark thought,’ the unseen enigma told her, in a voice that was now rich and barbed—like poisoned honey, ‘and show my gratitude for the sweet nourishment you have bestowed upon me. The life essence of this whelp was fierce indeed—most sustaining.’
Kath screwed her face up, becoming at first irritable, then angry. She did not understand what kind of game the hidden man was playing but then, even after two years of living with the English, there was much about their vulgar humour that eluded her.
Yet she knew that to remain would certainly prove dangerous—so far, the stranger had not seen her and that was exactly how she wanted it.
‘Linger a while longer,’ the voice drifted through the mist, reading her thoughts. ‘Who is there to see we two in this captivating murk? Let us speak together.’
‘What is it you want of me?’ she repeated, coldly.
A guttural sigh came to her, as if the man was savouring her scorn. ‘Long have I been withheld from this world,’ the prickly, syruped tone muttered, ‘ages uncounted have I spent languishing in the fetters of mine enemies, whose bitter chains did bind me close and made me weak. But now I am released from their shackles. I, who sired the first grain of misery when the world was young; I, who nurtured the seeds of enmity and discontent and watched that harvest burgeon across the land, am free once more.’
Kathleen peered through the obscuring vapour as a powerful desire to know the identity of this man was inflamed in her breast.
‘Who are you?’ she murmured.
‘One of the legion who descended from on high,’ came the treacling answer. ‘Archduke of we who waged war about the throne of the Beginning—mightiest under the fallen Lord of Light.’