The Evil Within

by S M Hardy

  No! I struggled against his will. I knew where this was going, and I didn’t want to see any more. I didn’t want to see Krystal’s crumpled body at the top of the stairs. I didn’t want to see what he’d done to Benji.

  But he did. He wanted me to see his finest moments. Benji barking, snarling, showing teeth, bouncing back and forth, trying to protect his young owner. A hand around the little dog’s throat. His body hitting the wall and sliding to the floor. Then, thankfully, momentary darkness before more images crowded around me as I was sucked into his vortex of madness. A white face in the dark. Peter Davies, backing away, his face full of fear.

  Sanctimonious God-botherer.

  The cliff path. I was in his head as the man ran along the cliff path. There was someone ahead of him waiting. His euphoria changed to confusion and … We were falling, falling, falling … Bitch!

  Then silence and pitch-black dark for a few seconds before it began to get light and my hearing began to return, bringing with it the sound of ragged breathing, hiccupping sobs and the weight of an arm around my shoulders and a hand holding tightly onto mine.

  ‘Jim? Jim! Can you hear me?’ A voice coming from so far away. ‘Jim?’

  I opened my eyes. Jed was crouched down beside me, and Emma’s hand was in mine.

  ‘What happened?’ I managed to say, but my voice came out as more of a gasp.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Jed said, ‘I thought you were having a fit.’

  ‘Make yourself useful and get Jim some tea.’

  ‘The last thing he wants is tea, woman,’ Jed grumbled, and the next thing I knew a tumbler was being pressed into my hand.

  I looked down at the glass and had to rest it on my knee as my hand was trembling so badly I was in danger of slopping the amber liquid that half-filled it.

  Emma gave my other hand a squeeze and let it go as she unwrapped her arm from around me. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  I took a sip of my drink and then another, and it wasn’t until I felt the warm trail the liquid left down my throat and into my chest that I realised how very cold I was.

  ‘In a mo … m … moment,’ I said, and God help me my teeth were actually chattering.

  ‘Well, I will say one thing,’ Jed said, flopping back down into the armchair, ‘you are sure full of surprises.’

  I put my drink down and looked around for my jacket, belatedly remembering I’d left it outside.

  ‘Can I get you something?’ Emma asked.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to send her running all over the place for me.

  ‘You’re shivering,’ she said.

  ‘Cold.’

  She and Jed exchanged one of their looks and he got to his feet. ‘I think Jim left his jacket on the patio,’ Emma told him and with a nod he was gone.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked again. ‘Jed was meant to be contacting Krystal.’

  ‘It’s not an exact science,’ she said with a tight smile. ‘A psychic doesn’t necessarily contact the person they are trying to reach. If there’s another spirit waiting …’ She trailed off as Jed came back into the room holding my jacket.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing it to me.

  To my embarrassment I had trouble standing up and, in the end, just shrugged my way into it while still sitting.

  ‘Did you get anything useful?’ I said, nodding towards the tape machine.

  ‘Not really,’ Emma replied, reaching out for the machine and clicking a button, I assume to wind it back. ‘Jed said a few words.’

  ‘Then he was gone,’ Jed said with a shudder, ‘and I was damn glad of it too. He was …’ He shuddered again. ‘He made me feel horrible inside. Dirty and slimy.’

  I knew what he meant. I felt like I’d been dragged through a sewer and it had left filthy tidemarks throughout my whole body, but nowhere near as bad as inside my head. It was so bad I could almost taste it. I drained my glass, but I had a feeling it would take more than half a glass of good malt to wash this nastiness away. I was hoping it would eventually fade to nothing as I didn’t think I could go on living feeling like I did at this moment. I felt soiled. And, as for the images floating around inside my head, I wanted them washed away, and it was something I didn’t think a long, hot shower was ever going to achieve.

  ‘Are you sure you’re ready for this?’ Emma asked, her finger poised over the play button of the recorder.

  I wasn’t, I really wasn’t, but I wanted to get it over with. Then maybe I could get this dreadful feeling out of my system. ‘Yes,’ I lied, and she turned on the tape.

  A few seconds quiet, then, ‘Do you really want to be inside my head?’ a voice said, and hearing it again it sounded sly. Sly and malevolent. ‘Come on. Come on if you dare.’

  I heard a gasp and a sharp intake of breath. ‘Oh, bugger that.’ Jed’s voice.

  ‘What happened?’ Emma.

  ‘Something, someone really nasty—’

  ‘Ahh. Ahh.’

  ‘Jim? Jim?’

  ‘No, don’t touch him, Emms.’

  Then just me groaning and sounding like I was trying to speak.

  Come back, you little bitch. Think you can make a fool of me. The man’s voice, me speaking but his voice.

  ‘Dear God.’ Emma.

  More groaning. Sanctimonious God-botherer.

  ‘What do you think—?’ Emma

  ‘Shush.’ Jed.

  Bitch!

  ‘Ahh … Ahh …’

  ‘It’s over,’ Jed said, and then there was a click as I assume Emma had turned off the recorder and then nothing but the hiss of a blank tape until she clicked the off button.

  ‘Who is he? Who is this man?’ Emma asked.

  I slowly shook my head. ‘I have to think,’ I said to nobody in particular.

  ‘What did you see?’ Emma asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. There was so much, it was like he was taking me for a trip through his memories. Almost like he was showing off.’

  Jed gave a little shake of his shoulders. ‘He was only in my head for barely a minute and that was long enough. The man was loathsome.’

  ‘Is,’ I said. ‘Is loathsome.’

  ‘I still can’t believe he’s alive.’ Jed’s bushy eyebrows bunched into a frown.

  ‘Well, I do. Though, if I’m right, he might as well be dead.’

  ‘Explain,’ Jed said.

  ‘Can I have some paper and a pen?’ I asked Emma. ‘I want to write a few things down before I forget.’

  She got up and hurried out of the room.

  ‘Then I want to forget them for good.’

  Jed didn’t say a word, but I could see from his expression that he understood. He said the man was loathsome and he was right. This unknown man was also something far worse. He was evil and it was his inherent evilness that kept his spirit active while I was pretty sure he was lying in a vegetative state in a hospital somewhere.

  When Emma returned with the paper, I scribbled down all I could remember of the images I had seen from the first moment I’d been dragged into his nightmare world until we had fallen off the cliff, which I think we had. And as I wrote, as I made myself remember, a few terrible truths began to become very apparent. Krystal hadn’t been the first and she certainly wasn’t the last.

  When they realised that they wouldn’t be getting anything out of me until I’d finished my note-making, Emma led Jed out of the room, and I heard them whispering as they went off somewhere together.

  I had just finished and was reading through what I had written down, making sure I hadn’t missed anything and trying to make sense of it all, when Jed returned with a glass of red wine in each hand. He put one on the table in front of me and settled back down into the armchair.

  ‘Emms is making us some dinner,’ he said.

  ‘That’s very kind of her.’

  ‘She’s a kind woman.’

  I dropped the notepad onto the coffee table, rubbed my eyes and stretched. Funnily enough, I felt better for having written all t
he bad stuff down.

  ‘Finished?’ Jed asked, gesturing at my notes.

  ‘Hmm, as much as I can remember,’ I told him. ‘It was so fast and a lot of the images I saw were blurred into each other.’ I hesitated. Was it fair to burden him, and I supposed Emma, if he chose to tell her, with what I thought I now knew? Would it be fair not to?

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  I picked up my glass of wine, then put it down untouched. ‘The man, I …’ I changed my mind and reached for the glass again. I took a sip, not really knowing how I was going to put into words the suspicions I had.

  ‘Go on, lad, spit it out.’

  ‘Krystal wasn’t the first,’ I practically whispered.

  He leant forward in his seat, stared at me for a moment, then let out a ragged sigh. ‘He was only in my head for a very short time, but it doesn’t surprise me.’ He got to his feet. ‘Come on, I think Emms should hear what you have to say.’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, does she need to hear this?’

  He gave a snort of humourless laughter. ‘Don’t even think of keeping anything from her. It would be more than either of our lives would be worth,’ and with that he picked up the notepad and pen, handed them to me and led me out along the corridor and to the kitchen.

  Emma was doing something interesting with chopped tomatoes and the scent of frying garlic and onions set my taste buds tingling. I was suddenly a lot hungrier than I’d thought I’d be; a few minutes earlier I’d felt sick to my stomach.

  ‘I have one rule,’ she said with a smile as soon as we walked into the room, ‘we only talk about pleasant subjects until after dinner. I don’t want to end up putting most of this in the bin.’

  ‘If that’s your spaghetti Bolognese you’re making, nothing could possibly put me off finishing it and asking for seconds,’ Jed said.

  Emma brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled at him. ‘I’ve made some garlic bread.’

  Jed grinned. ‘My favourite.’

  ‘I hope you like garlic,’ Emma said to me, ‘otherwise I’m afraid Jed and I won’t be very nice to know for the rest of the evening.’

  ‘One of my favourites too,’ I told her.

  The spaghetti was wonderful. I don’t know what she’d done to the Bolognese sauce, but it was the best I’d ever tasted. It had once been my signature dish – not any more. Mine would taste for ever bland in comparison.

  We talked, at least they did. Mainly about people they knew. The village committee, local characters, George from the pub, and my ears pricked up when they mentioned his daughter.

  ‘You’ve heard Lucy’s back?’ Jed said.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ Emma said. ‘Lucy’s such a nice young girl.’

  ‘George is as pleased as punch.’

  ‘He would be,’ Emma said with a sniff. ‘No one would be good enough for his daughter.’

  ‘Well, he was right about her fella.’

  ‘Have you met Lucy yet?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Yesterday, I popped in the pub for some lunch.’

  ‘She’s a lovely girl.’

  ‘She seemed very nice,’ I said and for some unfathomable reason I felt my cheeks starting to warm.

  ‘She moved to London for a while, but it didn’t work out,’ Emma said, ‘so she’s back.’

  ‘Boyfriend trouble?’ I asked, keeping my head down as I wrapped the last few strands of spaghetti around my fork.

  ‘Hmm, he made the mistake of trying to treat her like a doormat,’ Emma said.

  Jed chuckled as he licked garlic butter from his fingers. ‘The way George tells it, I think it was probably the biggest mistake of the fella’s life. She was out the door like a shot.’

  ‘She’s not nursing a broken heart, which is the main thing,’ Emma said.

  ‘Nah,’ Jed said. ‘She’s more angry than upset.’

  ‘Good, I don’t like to think of a nice young woman like her grieving over some ne’er-do-well.’ Emma stood up and started to clear the dishes. ‘Lemon meringue pie, anyone?’

  ‘You’re spoiling us, Emms.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘If you thought the spaghetti was good, Jim, you wait until you try Emms’ lemon meringue.’

  I was feeling full to burst, but when she put the pie on the table my mouth began to water. I could actually smell the lemon as she cut through the spiky crust and scooped the first slice onto a plate.

  Then there was silence except for the clink of cutlery against dishes and sighs of contentment.

  ‘Am I too old for you to adopt me?’ I asked as I dropped my fork onto the scraped-clean dish and flopped back in my seat feeling pleasantly sated. Emma laughed as she stood to collect the dishes. ‘Here, let me,’ I said, getting up to join her.

  ‘You sit down,’ she said. ‘The most strenuous thing I’m about to do is load the dishwasher.’

  I sank back down onto my seat as Emma bustled about the kitchen. I noticed when she leant across the table to collect the cream jug she rested her hand on Jed’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. Things were obviously moving on between the two of them and it made me happier than I would have imagined.

  Dishwasher loaded and glasses replenished, Emma led us back to the living room where we would ‘be more comfortable’.

  I was halfway to the kitchen door before I remembered the notepad and retrieved it from beneath my chair where I’d put it while we ate. When we spread ourselves back around the coffee table, I noticed that my friends’ smiles had faded away.

  I got straight to the point. ‘I think “the man”,’ as we all called him now, ‘had killed before Krystal and, from what I saw, Peter Davies’s death wasn’t suicide.’

  Emma’s hand went to her throat as if imagining the rope around her own neck. ‘You think he killed Peter?’

  I lay my hand on the notepad resting on my knee and nodded. ‘Yes.’

  Jed rubbed his beard, staring at me through narrowed eyes. Though he might have been looking in my direction, he wasn’t seeing me, he was mulling over what I’d said.

  Emma was watching him. She had told me he had found the reverend’s body and was no doubt wondering how he would react to this news.

  ‘Do you know,’ Jed finally said, ‘I always had a funny sort of feeling about his death. I tried to tell myself it was the shock of finding him the way I did, as the police didn’t appear all that interested, but it always struck me as strange.’

  ‘How do you mean, Jed?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Hanging yourself from the banisters – I don’t know. It was too awkward somehow. The rope would have to be short enough that you were left hanging, but long enough that you could launch yourself off the top step. If you were in the frame of mind you wanted to kill yourself, it was too much like hard work when you could fling yourself off the cliff or take an overdose of something or other.’

  Emma frowned at him as she thought about it. ‘Maybe he didn’t have anything to overdose on.’

  ‘If he took the time to buy the rope and then measure the amount he’d need and the height from where he would have to jump, I’m sure, given the time he must have spent planning it, he would have thought of a better way.’

  ‘It could have been a spur-of-the-moment thing.’

  ‘The rope was new, the police said that much. And he didn’t leave a note.’

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t suicide?’ Emma asked me.

  I flicked through the pages of the notepad until I got to the place where I’d scrawled Sanctimonious God-botherer. ‘I saw Peter Davies. He was backing away from me – him. He was backing away from him and he was scared. More than scared. He looked to me like a man who was frightened for his life.’

  ‘But you said the images were blurred into each other they were so fast,’ Emma said.

  ‘He seemed to linger on the ones he enjoyed the most,’ I said, and Emma’s excellent dinner suddenly felt like it was weighing very heavy in my gut and I felt a little que
asy. Maybe it was the light in the room, but I had the feeling Jed and Emma were both feeling the same.

  ‘What makes you think he’s killed before Krystal?’ Jed asked after a while.

  I looked back at the notebook on my lap and laid it on the coffee table. ‘It’s in my notes, but,’ I had to swallow twice before I could continue, ‘from the images I saw, from the things he showed me, I think he started on animals and then progressed to children. His first was a …’ I looked up and saw Emma’s stricken face and lapsed into silence. She didn’t need to hear some of what I’d seen. I was sure it was going to haunt me and didn’t want it doing the same to her.

  Jed obviously thought the same as he looked from her to me and back again. ‘Maybe we should leave all this until tomorrow.’

  Emma wrapped her arms around herself as if she was now cold. ‘How would that make this any better? We need to find him and stop him. Now.’

  ‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘although I think he’s still alive he might as well not be.’

  ‘You said that before,’ Jed said.

  I nodded. ‘He’s in some kind of coma.’

  ‘He can’t be,’ Jed said.

  ‘I saw him. He was lying in a bed with all sorts of wires and tubes coming out of him.’

  ‘I hate to piddle on your bonfire, Jim, but if that’s the case, who the hell tried to kill you and broke into The Grange? Not to mention scared the shit out of you on the cliff path?’

  I reached out for my glass of wine and took a swig. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, avoiding Emma’s eyes by staring into the bottom of my glass.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Emma said, looking from Jed to me, ‘what are you both not saying?’

  Jed leant back in his seat crossing his arms and fixed me with a penetrating stare, no doubt leaving me to break the bad news.

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ I said. ‘If I’ve understood everything I saw correctly, there’s not just one killer – there’s two.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jed and I walked home to the sound of the dawn chorus, and despite being up all damn night he insisted on taking a look around the cottage with me before leaving.

  ‘And who’s going to make sure no one’s lying in wait for you when you get home?’ I’d asked him, and he’d given me a look that had made me shiver, and not for the first time it crossed my mind that Jed hadn’t always been the village handyman. Sometime before I left Slyford, if I ever built up the nerve, I’d have to ask him.