Toby fumbled in his pocket with clumsy hands and finally wrestled it free at the sixth ring. He looked down at the screen.
“It’s Flower,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lizzie Jones’s home had been burnt and was now uninhabitable, although since her husband had died there it seemed unlikely that she’d want to stay within its walls even if she could. So she was with her sister in Islington, being comforted, being nursed – as if either would make an immediate difference.
Flower had stayed with her, first to give sympathy and then to accept hers.
Over the phone, Clay could hear Flower’s voice scream in agonised tears at Toby. It took about quarter of an hour to get an address out of her, a clear idea where she was. Toby told her they’d be with her shortly and then hung up with his face seemingly pained by invisible bruises. Clay thought he even saw tears in his friend’s eyes.
On the way over, Toby decided they could tell them their suspicions of Abigail, Belinda and Judy but, for now he thought it best if they left out anything about Clay’s dreams. They were women who’d lost their loves; it was difficult to know how they’d react if they found themselves in the company of the murderer.
The sister’s house was a large place off Upper Street. It had four floors, a pretty garden, was well looked after and showed not the slightest hint of violence or destruction. Clay hoped that by going there he wasn’t damning it to some terrible fate.
They rang the doorbell; it chimed distantly.
Lizzie answered the door numbly, no tears in her eyes, no expression on her face. She stood back without a whisper, letting Toby pass with just the merest glance. It was Clay she looked at, the great disappearing act that was Clay, the enigmatic Clay.
She was small and cute, with jet black hair and wide blue eyes which always made her look a lot younger than she really was. She generally had a closer resemblance to a rebellious teenager than to a qualified lawyer. Since she’d heard the awful news though, her eyes seemed to have widened and she now resembled a shocked and neglected small child.
They were shown into her sister’s living room, a quirky little den, containing a collection of chairs of different styles and vintages. Being at the back of the house, it was a dark room, the light within faint and fragile. They could hear Flower before they entered, and there she was – all dressed in black – on a 1950s sofa, appearing likely to drown in tears.
Her arms went out to Toby and she stood up and then seemed to lose strength and coordination in her legs and arms; she flailed at his shoulders to stop herself toppling to the floor. Her arms clutched around him, her head pressed to his chest. He helped her back to the couch and she reached for him again, curling herself into him. Her legs stretched over him, her arms gave a weak throttle around his neck, her face burrowed deep into his shirt. Toby held her and flashed a look of concern and embarrassment towards Clay.
Clay sat in a soft 1960s bubble chair the other side of the room, and stared back with embarrassment mixed with guilt. He could remember it all, perhaps because he had the utter knowledge that it was real – the image of Jake’s death was one that hadn’t faded, one he could conjure up in painful red.
Lizzie placed herself in front of him in a 1970s black leather chair. She looked at them and then stared at Clay with a drugged numbness.
“Who’d have done this?” wailed Flower. “Everybody loved Jake, everybody! There was no one who disliked him. There wasn’t, was there? He was always so nice and happy and willing to go out of his way. Who would kill him? Why would anybody do that? I’d have been killed as well if I’d stayed there, wouldn’t I?” She pressed her palms against her eyes to dry the tears, then tore her hands through her hair. “That fucking bastard would have come for Jake and he’d have killed me too. I’d have seen him, I’d have screamed and he’d have killed me like he killed Jake!” Her words were getting lost in an anguished breathlessness. “But maybe that would have been best, maybe it would have been good to be killed so I wouldn’t have to feel like this. My insides wouldn’t be like they’ve been stained with fucking acid. Maybe it would have been better if I’d stayed there and let him kill me too.”
Clay lowered his head, but raised it again when Lizzie said:
“The police are looking for you, Clay.” Her voice, in contrast to Flower’s, was a complete monotone, as if no hint of emotion had ever affected it.
He nodded. “I know.”
“He’s seen them,” said Toby.
Lizzie just stared at Clay and Clay tried not to stare back. Somewhere in the last two years – or maybe it was just the last two days – the smallness, the blue eyes, the jet black hair had made her look a lot older, rather than younger. Beforehand, she may have been mistaken for a truculent teenager, a young Goth, now she was a granny with a hard stare which had seen it all.
“I don’t understand this!” Flower cried to the ceiling. “How could this have happened? Do you know what’s going on? Do you? Who would kill him? Why would anybody do that? Do you know? Do you know who the fuck would do that?”
“Yeah,” said Toby. “We think we do.”
“What?” Lizzie’s voice was cold.
Flower reacted slowly to the statement. It wasn’t the line she’d expected and her soliloquy was shattered by this ad-lib. Her head was still on his chest, her hands tight around his neck. She gave another muted wail, then stopped, her eyes wider, her mouth open, her arms slipping away from him. She jumped back on the couch. Her legs still lay across him, but the rest she kept at fingertip level. “What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“We think we know what’s going on,” said Toby.
Flower glanced at Clay – Lizzie’s eyes had never left him – and he lowered his gaze in pained knowing.
“Who is it?” asked Lizzie. “Have you told the police?”
“No,” said Toby. “It’s a little delicate to inform the blue meanies, as even with the progressive state of our legal system it’ll be very difficult to prove in court.”
Flower shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
There was hesitation in Toby’s voice, as if for a moment he couldn’t believe what he was going to say. “We’re pretty certain it’s Abigail, Belinda and Judy.”
“What?” screamed Flower. She swung her legs and staggered to her feet, taking the floor. “What do you mean? They couldn’t do this. They’re three girls, there was no way they could beat him in the way the police said. They said whoever did this was huge, that he was monstrous – it wasn’t three girls, they couldn’t have killed him like that.”
Her voice trembled, her skin shivered with rage and despair. Clay couldn’t look at her, he couldn’t look at any of them, he just felt his insides crumble.
“It’s witchcraft,” said Toby. “They’ve cast some kind of spell.”
Flower stared at them both, astounded.
For the first time, emotion affected Lizzie’s face. It was pain. Despite the drugs she’d taken to block it, the pain had now risen so high it was pouring over the medicated walls. She winced and put her hand to her forehead, before meeting them again with a level gaze.
Toby continued: “We don’t know exactly how they’re doing it, but it’s them. I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry for your loss and I’m sorry we’ve come here in your mourning period and told you what sounds like – at first hearing – absolute piffle, a great big trifle with your emotions. But you told me about the coven yesterday. And Clay has heard some stuff. Bringing it all together, it seems as if it’s definitely them.” He reached out his hand to Flower. “I know it sounds preposterous, I know it sounds utter nonsense – but, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the case. Except, sometimes you can’t eliminate the impossible.”
“Oh God!” Flower pulled herself into him again. “Oh dear God!”
“What kind of things did you hear, Clay?” asked Lizzie.
“Just things.” His voice was
subdued. “Whispers as I passed.”
“All circumstantial evidence,” said Toby.
She nodded. “Raymond would have loved you. As long as some little tangential evidence fitted his theory, then he was delighted to believe anything. Welcome back, Clay. If you’d shown up a week ago, I’d have been overjoyed to see you. I’d have guessed it would’ve snapped my husband out of his stupid obsession – now all I can say is, why didn’t you show up a week ago?”
“I don’t think it would have made any difference,” said Toby. “I think those bitches were going to do this anyway. I think he’d still only have had a week left alive.”
For a second it appeared as if tears might show in her eyes. “Maybe. I’m still trying to get used to the idea that someone would kill him. I’m still trying to understand someone going out of their way to do it. It’s so hard to think of someone – three someones – planning the death of my Raymond.”
“It’s impossible, just impossible!” cried Flower. “How can this all be happening? How can they be dead?”
Toby held her and she held him.
“This is quite obviously the most shocking time of our lives,” said Toby. “There’s been Raymond, Nick, Jake – you don’t expect your friends to have such high mortality rates.”
“Why did they do it?” asked Lizzie. “For kicks?”
Clay shook his head. “We think it’s because they didn’t get parts in the TV series. We think that’s why they killed Raymond and Jake.”
“But that’s preposterous!” Flower’s neck craned away from Toby’s shoulder. “They’d be no good in it! I’ve seen them act and they always look like they’re acting. They don’t look like real people. They look like actors delivering lines – bad actors delivering lines.”
“They think they’re talented,” said Clay.
“And it is actually based on them,” observed Toby. “It’s probable – in their strange, twisted, selfish little minds – that they thought they deserved it.”
“But what about Nick?” Flower cried. “Why did they kill poor Nick?”
It was Lizzie who answered. “They probably killed him because of what he knew.”
Toby stared at Clay and then back to Lizzie. “What in Hades did he know?”
“He was one of Raymond’s main sources.” Lizzie reached her right hand over and scratched her left wrist, hard, as if trying to draw blood. “He told him a lot about those girls, about those ladies, about those cunts.”
“What d-did h-he know?” Flower’s voice had a stutter.
“Abigail,” said Lizzie. “He knew Abigail. He told Raymond what Abigail could do, what she’d taught the others to do – and after you went away, Clay, Raymond built himself a whole fun story.”
Clay sat forward in the seat. “What could she do?”
“You need to ask? She’s a real born witch. I don’t know what it is, maybe some part of genetics nobody has ever explored. But she’s a real-life broomstick-riding evil fucking witch.”
“Jesus!” said Toby. “I cannot believe this is real.”
“It’s real.” Lizzie stopped scratching, as if she’d given herself enough pain for the moment. “Raymond was right. Look what’s happened, look what’s gone on – can you really believe he didn’t have something here? That he wasn’t right in a single way? That’s one of the saddest things about this. Raymond and I argued about it. I sneered. I left him when it all got too much. Then look what happened – he was right, I was wrong and he died alone.”
“I’m sorry.” The tears were like treacle in Flower’s voice.
“What could Abigail do?” asked Clay.
“She was able to bewitch men for a start. Didn’t you notice she was able to enchant any man she considered useful to her? From Jake onwards, she could always make men who might help slaver over her.”
Toby shook his head. “Come on! She’s an attractive woman and – let’s be frank – a little slutty. Those are the type of females these men go for.”
“If you’re a director or a producer – do you ever stop meeting attractive women who are a little slutty?” asked Lizzie. “Of course not. But you don’t whisk them away to chateaux in the south of France, you don’t promise them above the title credit on the world after you’ve gotten into their pants. That doesn’t happen. It did for Abigail though, because she had them entirely in her thrall and wanted what they could give her before she let them go.”
“If that’s all true, why wasn’t she more successful as an actress?”
Lizzie tried to smile, but only managed to raise the corners of her mouth slightly. Her face resembled a medieval death mask. “Because, I’m guessing no type of magic could help her type of acting. It’s one thing to have a director, a producer completely in your power – it’s quite another to have the magic to make the crew agree, to make the rest of the cast agree. She had nowhere near enough power to make the audience love her, to make the audience see her as anything other than a truly bad performer.”
“She was fired from a lot of things,” said Clay. “Well, she’d say she’d quit because she’d taken the play as far as she could – but since she’d then wallow in weeks of despondency, I always thought she was dropped.”
“Oh my God!” the tears ran down Flower’s face. “This is in Raymond’s book. I read it in Raymond’s book, didn’t I? She didn’t get work and the others didn’t get work, so she started to show them witchcraft. I don’t know, maybe she thought if one made it, they’d all make it.”
“How did he know this?” asked Toby. “I’m guessing they didn’t write it down in a Christmas news letter. I’m supposing they didn’t put it on the internet. How could Raymond know all this?”
“I told you,” said Lizzie, “from Nick.”
“How would he know?”
“He was in love with Abigail. Didn’t he always follow her around? Didn’t he hang on every stupid word? Didn’t he adore her?”
They all thought back to the younger Nick Turnkey, when he was more presentable, just before jadedness smeared his face, his posture, his hair. Then he’d had a look of intense passion that appeared whenever Abigail came near.
Lizzie’s voice was still cold, but it was undeniable she was warming to her subject. It seemed that even through her medication, hate was one emotion she could feel. “Apparently, she let him follow her about. She was a struggling actress, stuck in penury, and needed someone to buy her drinks and take her out for food and treat her to little baubles she could wear. Nick was good for that, he was an adoring sap – and she knew that if she didn’t sleep with him, it just made him crazier about her. She put a spell on him. She enthralled him like she enthralled the others, but whereas from them she wanted something big and worthwhile, from him all she needed were the little things.”
“And she told him all this stuff?” asked Clay.
“Yes.” Lizzie still stared at him. “He was her troll. I didn’t know what that meant either – Raymond found it on the internet. Apparently, sometimes a witch will enchant a man so far he is caught completely in her power. She doesn’t have to do anything, she can treat him like shit, and he’ll always be there and will always do anything for her.”
“Isn’t that called being a boyfriend?” asked Toby.
If it was a joke, Lizzie failed to see it. She just closed her eyes. “He wasn’t her boyfriend though, he was little more than her slave. He kept her money-wise, but she kept him in a whole other way. She told him things to keep him interested. He apparently thought he was special as he knew her secrets, but I’m guessing she was just playing with him.” Her eyes stayed shut and her face was passive, but she still looked so pained. “She told him about her witchcraft, told him how she trapped those men who could help her, told him how she was teaching Belinda and Judy. It must have made her laugh – telling a man she had completely trapped how she was trapping others. She told him the three of them were going to be strong witches and then do what they liked. She told him all they needed was a sacrifice,
the death of a lover and then they could go to the next level and become immensely powerful.” Her eyes opened again. She stared at them, grieving, angry, almost unable to believe the words from her mouth. “And he spent all that time with her, astounded by her words, lost in her charms, hoping to be that sacrifice.”
“Shame he wasn’t,” said Toby.
Lizzie did try to laugh at that, but it sounded like a cat choking.
“She kissed him – that’s as far as it went – on the lips the last time they went out just the two of them, and then she stopped using him. Raymond supposed she’d lost interest, had maybe found another sap. Soon Nick woke up in tears and realised he’d been led on in idiot chains, realised what a Queen Bitch she was – and then he began to talk. He talked to Raymond. It was just after you’d gone, Clay, and Raymond and Nick put their ideas together and – voila!”
The grief and guilt twisted Clay’s insides.
Lizzie sniffed. “I think Nick just wanted to talk it through, loosen it from his chest. Once he realised that Raymond was writing something, he Sellotaped his mouth shut, refused to acknowledge him. Who knows why? Maybe he was still scared of her, still in love with her. It started to make Raymond nervous as well. He wrote his book and then tried to keep quiet about it – but even then I don’t think he truly grasped the risk he was taking. I don’t think he realised until that odious little shit Charles West went and told them.” She spat the word out, biting into her lips as if to stop herself from screaming. “Suddenly there were phone calls, pleas. Raymond already supposed he had one friend dead on the altar of witchcraft and panicked. Poor Raymond. He was never the same after that – we were never the same after that. They may have ruined my life when they killed him, but they ruined us long before.”
Flower stood up unsteadily and crossed the room, squeezing herself into the chair with Lizzie, leaning her tearful face to Lizzie’s shoulder. Lizzie raised her arm languidly and stroked it through her hair.
The Wannabes Page 20