The Evil Within

by S M Hardy

  When I turned back to Jed, he raised an eyebrow and grinned. ‘I can see why we haven’t seen hide nor hair of you today.’

  ‘I’m sorry you were worried.’

  He flapped a hand at me. ‘Emma will be pleased you’ve been enjoying yourself for once.’

  ‘You’ll come in and have a coffee when you’ve finished up?’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said and went back inside to see what Lucy was doing.

  She was standing in the kitchen, leaning with her back against the kitchen sink waiting for the kettle to boil, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the open notebook lying on the table. Had it been open when I’d walked through the kitchen earlier? I didn’t think so. I glanced Lucy’s way and she smiled in a way that made most of the brains I was born with disappear down south. It wasn’t the look of a woman who’d been reading something they really shouldn’t have.

  I flipped the notebook shut and moved to stand in front of her, pushing it firmly from my mind. It was a day for good thoughts not those nightmares are made of. They would no doubt come when she’d left for the night.

  She reached up and slipped her hands around my neck and I moved in for the kiss. ‘I could get used to this,’ I whispered against her cheek.

  ‘Hmm, so could I.’

  ‘When you’re not at the pub, where do you live?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m staying with a friend in Exeter, but it’s only temporary, until I find a place of my own.’

  ‘When are you going back?’

  ‘Trying to get rid of me already?’ she said, but her eyes were twinkling.

  I didn’t get the chance to reply as there was a rap on the door and I jumped away from her like a startled cat.

  ‘Come in,’ I said, hurrying to the door.

  I heard Lucy chuckle, but when I glanced around she was busying herself with making the coffee.

  I pulled the door open. ‘Come in,’ I said again.

  ‘Are you certain?’ Jed whispered to me.

  ‘You’d better,’ Lucy called, ‘I’ve poured you a coffee.’

  Jed took his usual seat at the table and I joined him while Lucy lounged against the sink. His eyes went straight to the notebook and then to mine and I could tell he was dying to say something, but he very sensibly kept it to himself. Whatever it was I’m sure it wasn’t something Lucy should hear.

  ‘Have you had a good day?’ he asked.

  ‘I took Jim to Saint’s Bay.’

  ‘Nice spot.’

  ‘I enjoyed it,’ I said.

  ‘Next time we’ll have to walk to Chalfont,’ she said.

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘I’m working tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Letting Mum take a day off for once, but maybe the next day if the weather holds – if you’re up for it?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  Jed took a swig of his coffee and put his mug down next to the notebook, giving me a pointed look. ‘Then I’ll come around tomorrow, if that’s OK? Just to finish tidying up the garden.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ And it was. There were a couple of things I wanted to ask him, one being did he know who it was Darcy Garvin might be visiting at Goldsmere House. I wasn’t sure whether it was important or not, but I’d been drawn to the place for a reason.

  Lucy asked Jed about what he’d been up to, I think probably to stop him feeling awkward, and we chatted about this and that until he downed the last of his coffee and got to his feet.

  ‘I’ll be off now,’ he said, ‘and I’ll see you tomorrow – about nine?’

  ‘That’s good for me,’ I said, seeing him out the back door.

  He hesitated just outside, and I took the hint and walked with him around to the front.

  ‘I’m really sorry you and Emma were worried,’ I said as we rounded the side of the cottage and out of Lucy’s earshot.

  ‘You’re all right, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘I do need to speak to you.’

  ‘You can do that tomorrow. I think you have better things to be doing with your time at the moment,’ and he slapped me on the back as we reached the front gate. ‘It’ll do you good to mix with someone of your own age instead of us two old fogies.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘That you will, lad, that you will,’ and with a farewell flip of the hand he started off down the lane and didn’t look back.

  I watched him until he turned the corner and then wandered back around the side of the cottage and into the kitchen. Lucy had washed the mugs and was sitting at the table in the spot Jed had so recently left. The notebook was unopened and where I’d left it.

  I bet the nosey bint’s been sticky-beaking.

  And I had to fight back a sudden surge of anger. Not now, not now.

  Butter wouldn’t melt; little prick tease.

  Stop it.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Lucy asked, turning in the chair to look at me.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile. ‘Sorry, miles away.’

  She rose from the chair to walk around and stand in front of me, reaching up to run her fingers down my cheek. I wrapped my hand around hers and moved it to my lips, kissing her knuckles.

  ‘I can stay for a while longer,’ she said and her voice had a slightly husky sound to it that was enough to let me know Lucy might be a lot of things, but I doubted very much a prick tease was one of them, and I think the man knew too as his voice grew silent.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I walked Lucy back to the pub just after closing time. The lights were on, so I assumed George and his wife were still clearing up.

  ‘Do you think I should come in and say hi?’ I asked.

  She grinned at me. ‘Better not.’

  ‘You think your parents will mind – you know, you seeing me?’

  ‘No, not that it’s any of their business, but I’ll get the third degree out of the way first.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about. If we start seeing each other regularly, then we can do the whole meeting the parents thing.’

  ‘I hope we will.’

  She smiled up at me. ‘So do I,’ then she gave me a kiss that had me wishing I could drag her back to the cottage, whispered ‘goodbye’ and disappeared inside.

  I could hear voices before I’d even had a chance to turn away. I hesitated a moment, waiting for gruff anger, then heard feminine laughter followed by a masculine chuckle. Lucy could probably wrap George around her little finger like most daughters could their fathers.

  The walk back to the cottage was a lonely one, though I couldn’t believe how happy I was. Floating-on-air happy was about the gist of it. Once inside I locked up and then set about washing the glasses and dishes from the makeshift picnic supper we’d had in bed. I’d had no white wine, but Lucy said the red went better with the cheese and crackers, which was about all I had that didn’t need cooking – and who had the time for that? We certainly didn’t.

  I went around checking all the windows and the outside doors, even though I’d checked them all before I went out that morning and quickly again before walking Lucy home. I wondered whether I was getting a bit OCD. Then I supposed someone having tried to kill me would excuse me if I was. I quickly pushed the thought from my mind. Tonight, I was going to be happy. I’d had a good day and an even better evening, and I was damn well going to have a good night.

  And, strangely enough, I did.

  Jed was early, arriving just as I was pouring the boiling water into my mug. I was beginning to think he could smell a mug of java or a glass of the hard stuff from a mile away.

  ‘Want one?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say no,’ he said, sinking down at the table.

  I handed him a mug and then slouched down into the seat opposite, the notebook on the table between us seemingly filling the space.

  I stretched out my hand, laying it on the book and sliding it towards me. I flipped the cover open, leafing through the pages
until I reached the last sheet of my scrawled writing. Then I pushed it back across the table to Jed.

  He looked down at the page, then his eyes lifted to meet mine.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘I think he’s trying to let me know that someone tried to murder him, though why he should think I’d care I haven’t a clue. He was – is – a monster as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘You couldn’t have …’ he trailed off, rubbing his chin and grimacing. ‘Sorry, stupid question.’

  ‘Not really. I’ve been asking myself the same thing.’ Or at least the voices in my head had been inferring it, but I wasn’t about to tell Jed that. He might be open-minded when it came to the supernatural, but I doubted that open-minded.

  ‘Can I read it?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Not really, but I think maybe I should.’

  I gestured for him to go ahead. With a sigh he pulled a glasses case out of his top pocket, and perching a pair of those half-lens spectacles on the end of his nose, began to read, his forefinger tracing his progress.

  I finished my coffee and washed up our mugs, then generally pottered about leaving him to it. Judging by the speed of Jed’s finger crossing the page it was going to take him some time. After ten minutes or so I went outside into the garden just for something to do as being in the kitchen watching him read was beginning to make me feel claustrophobic and antsy.

  I was sitting on the doorstep when the door opened and he joined me outside. With a grunt he lowered himself down to sit beside me. I glanced his way; his expression was grim, his eyes narrowed and fixed at some point at the end of the garden. His usually ruddy complexion had taken on a sallow look.

  Twice he opened his mouth to say something and twice his lips pressed back together in a thin line. I’d always thought Jed was probably about fifty, maybe fifty-five, but this morning he looked like if he wasn’t already collecting his pension it could be sometime very soon.

  The third time he opened his mouth he managed to speak. ‘You saw all that, did yer?’

  ‘In glorious Technicolor.’

  He let out a long deep breath and shivered. ‘There’ve been a couple of times that I’ve considered my gift to be something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy, but,’ he paused and shuddered, ‘what you’ve written in that notebook, what you say you saw—’

  ‘Did see, Jed, I did see it,’ I told him, my voice little more than a whisper.

  He nodded and I could see his jaw muscles working like he was grinding his teeth or trying very hard to speak but nothing was coming. ‘What you saw was like looking into the depths of hell.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How can you live with it?’ he asked, at last turning to look at me.

  ‘Yesterday I would have told you I wasn’t sure I could.’

  ‘And today?’

  ‘Today I have hope.’

  ‘Lucy?’

  I looked away. ‘I know it’s early days and nothing might come of it, but I’m moving on. I’ve a reason to go on that has nothing to do with dead children and murdered priests.’

  ‘But will he let you go?’

  I laughed. ‘No. No, he wants something from me. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘And Krystal?’

  ‘To me, she’s the important one.’

  Jed took a deep breath and then clambered to his feet and held out his hand to pull me up after him. ‘It’s too early for a drop of the hard stuff so if you don’t mind, I’ll have another mug of coffee.’

  ‘Tell you what – how about we go for a drive over to Chalfont and I’ll buy you a coffee and a muffin?’

  He gave me a strange look. ‘What’s over at Chalfont?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but humour me.’

  He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘All right, I hadn’t much planned for today anyhow.’

  I made straight for Goldsmere House. As we turned down the lane Jed shifted in his seat and frowned through the windscreen. To his credit he didn’t say a word until I pulled up outside the main gate.

  ‘If you’re thinking of having me committed, I’m pretty sure you’ll find you need at least two doctors’ signatures on the papers,’ he said, peering down the drive.

  ‘So, it is an asylum?’

  Jed turned in his seat to look at me. ‘So some of the locals would say, but as far as I know it’s a private care home for patients who can’t be looked after in run-of-the-mill old people’s homes.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Old people with dementia and the like. Not all care homes will take them. Dementia can be a terrible thing, makes some poor souls violent and others just can’t look after themselves in even the most basic way, if you get my meaning.’

  I leant forward so I could get a look through the gates and up the drive to the building. Judging by the security Goldsmere House had in place, I suspected it didn’t have anything to do with old people with incontinence problems. It also looked too high-tech just to be a show to pay lip service to the locals and their concerns.

  ‘It’s private, you say?’

  Jed nodded and rubbed his beard. ‘I’ve heard it’s mighty expensive, and by the looks of it I think I’ve probably heard right.’

  I looked towards the cameras on the top of the gates and sure enough they were pointing down at the car. I took off the handbrake and shifted into gear. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to make someone in there start wondering about me and I’d have trouble coming up with any sort of logical answer as to why I kept turning up outside their gates.

  ‘Why the interest?’ Jed asked as we pulled back onto the main road.

  ‘I wasn’t really sure until the other day when I found myself turning into the lane for no apparent reason and pulling up outside the gate.’

  ‘Do you think this is where he is? In your notebook you say there was a man in a hospital bed.’

  ‘Possibly, but here’s the thing. When I was here last time a car was leaving, so I pulled to one side to let it pass, and you’ll never guess who was at the wheel.’

  Jed frowned at me. ‘Someone we both know?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Not Emms?’

  ‘Why would Emma be visiting the place?’

  Jed let out a relieved sigh and began to laugh. ‘No reason, but you were beginning to make me wonder.’

  ‘No, who else do we both know?’

  Jed’s brow creased in concentration. ‘No idea.’

  ‘Darcy Garvin.’

  Jed’s eyebrows shot up into his shaggy fringe. ‘Darcy Garvin? No. Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said.

  ‘Well I never,’ Jed said and sank back down into his seat. He didn’t say another word until we reached Chalfont.

  I parked in the same small car park behind the shops and after I stuck some change in the meter, we went straight to the small cafe Jed liked so much.

  Once we’d placed our order and Lil had disappeared behind the counter to make our coffee, I started back where we left off.

  ‘So, can you think of why Darcy would be at Goldsmere House?’

  Jed shook his head. ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘Elderly parents?’

  ‘No, as far as I’m aware they were brought up by their grandmother. Their parents died when they were little more than toddlers, from what I’ve heard.’

  ‘And there were only the two of them?’

  ‘Aye. Them and the old girl.’

  ‘So they’ve always lived in Slyford St James?’

  ‘As far as I know,’ he said, but there was an edge to his voice.

  At that moment Lil appeared with our order and she and Jed exchanged pleasantries while she laid the table and presented us with our order.

  When she was gone, I watched him stir his drink. I was missing something, I was sure of it. ‘I thought you’d always lived in Slyford?’

  He didn’t look up from his cup. ‘Slyford born and bred.’

  ‘But you ha
ven’t always lived there.’

  He glanced up at me, dropped the spoon on the side of his saucer and leant back in his chair, fixing me with an inscrutable stare.

  ‘No, I went away to boarding school when I was twelve.’

  ‘Really?’ Now he had surprised me.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘So the Garvin girls would have only been kids when you left?’

  ‘Possibly. I didn’t know them then. I knew their grandmother, everyone did, she thought she was lady of the manor and we were all her serfs.’ He began to laugh. ‘She had an old roller and a chauffeur who was a hundred and ten if he was a day. He used to ferry her around the place while she sat in the back with her nose in the air like she could smell the great unwashed walking the streets around her.’ He paused rubbing his head. ‘Come to think of it, she used to live at The Grange. It was sold on not long after she died, probably to pay death duties, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘So, you came back when you finished school?’

  ‘For a while, but not really to stay until about twenty years ago when my ma died. She left me the house, so I’ve been here ever since.’

  ‘So you came back about the same time as Emma and her husband moved here.’

  ‘A bit before.’

  I thought about it for a moment. ‘Emma told me …’ What had Emma told me? Then I remembered. ‘Emma told me you used to look after the garden at The Grange, and when she and her husband moved in you carried on looking after it for them.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He started peeling the corrugated wrapper away from his chocolate muffin and paying it a lot more attention than it warranted.

  ‘But you were friends with Reggie and Emma before.’

  Jed placed the muffin back on its plate and gave me a very long, hard look. ‘Not everything is some great mystery, you know.’

  ‘Then why make it seem like it is?’

  He breathed out a long and ragged breath as though releasing some pent-up emotion. Anger perhaps? Or something else? ‘I met Reggie when I was in the army. We were friends, and when he married Emma, she became my friend too. Reggie’s health began to deteriorate, and they wanted to move away from the city. They came to Slyford to stay for a while and when I heard The Grange was going up for sale, I told them. They bought it, I continued to keep it tidy, and there you have it.’