The Evil Within

by S M Hardy

  ‘Miss Darcy, I think. That’s why I was a bit surprised. She always seems a bit of a cold fish to me. If it’d been Miss Miriam, I could’ve understood it. She gushes for England that one,’ she gave a sniff, ‘not that it means a thing. Miss Darcy may be cold, but Miss Miriam,’ her shoulders wriggled as if shivering, ‘she loves others’ misfortunes, she do.’

  Jed and I exchanged a glance. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  She gave a sniff. ‘Remember when the Morgans’ little girl died?’ Jed nodded. ‘Well, obviously they weren’t at the following committee meeting, never came again, but as you’d expect, everyone was talking about it. There was Miss Miriam saying how sad it was and dabbing at her eyes, but afterwards I saw her.’

  ‘Saw her what, Tilly?’ Jed asked.

  ‘When she thought no one was looking, for all her tears, I saw her smiling.’

  ‘Could be you were mistaken,’ I said.

  ‘No, Mr Hawkes, I know what I saw. That woman is just plain nasty. Now, if there’s nothing else I’d better get on.’

  After she’d gone Jed and I exchanged another glance, and Jed blew out through pursed lips. ‘I’m beginning to get a completely different picture of the Garvin sisters to the one I’d had before,’ Jed said. ‘I’d always thought them harmless old biddies.’

  ‘We don’t know that they’re not.’

  ‘Hmm, now say that like you believe it.’

  ‘It’s a big jump from being possibly a bit malicious to being a potential murderer.’

  Jed rubbed at his beard. ‘I think maybe we should take a trip over to Chalfont.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Because that’s where you got to hear about the Garvins’ “whack-job” cousin. And where better to get gossip than the village pub?’

  ‘Now?’ I asked.

  ‘Now,’ Jed said, glancing at his watch. ‘We’ll just have enough time to get over there for a quick bite and for me to get back for a wash and brush up before going to see Emma.’

  I parked in the pub car park. Being a Monday afternoon, it was almost empty and inside the bar was quieter still. Rose was sitting behind the bar reading a magazine, and when she looked up and saw me her lips curled into a smile, which made me think that Lucy should perhaps be a little more careful about who she chose as friends.

  ‘Hi, Jim,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.’

  ‘Just passing,’ I said.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  Jed reluctantly went for a half of ale while I made do with a pint of soda water with a splash of lime. We also ordered a couple of sandwiches.

  ‘Yesterday you mentioned the Garvin girls’ cousin,’ I said, jumping in with both feet, ‘and your father gave the impression he wasn’t too good. Jed here wondered which one it was. He hadn’t heard that he’d taken ill.’

  Rose looked up from Jed’s half-pint she was pouring. ‘As far as I know there’s only the one and that thar’s that David.’ She gave a shiver. ‘Didn’t like him, but wouldn’t wish what happened to him on my worst enemy.’

  ‘What did happen?’ Jed asked.

  Rose put Jed’s glass down on the bar and started pouring me a lime and soda. ‘Tragic accident, they all say, but damn weird to my way of thinking.’ She took a quick look over her shoulder, no doubt to make sure her father wasn’t listening, and moved in closer. ‘You must have heard about it,’ she said to Jed. ‘Happened a while back. He fell from the cliff path just a bit past the point. You’d have to be a fool to manage to fall from thar.’

  ‘So, what do you think happened?’

  ‘I reckon he jumped,’ she said, ‘jumped before someone found out what he’d been up to.’

  ‘And what had he been up to?’ I asked.

  She glanced around again. ‘He was always hanging around outside the little kids’ school. I heard he’d even tried to get a job there once, but ald Mrs Peterson wasn’t having none of it. She knew a wrong’un soon as look at ’em.’ She plonked my drink down in front of me and took my money. ‘I think a few people were getting suspicious,’ she said, handing me my change. ‘Maybe even someone had it out with him, said they were going to report him.’ She gave a derisive sniff. ‘Anyway, when they found him, he was still alive, but only just. Idiot – if you’re going to do that sort of thing at least make sure you do it proper. Now he’s up there at Goldsmere House with about as much going on in his head as a cabbage, so I’ve heard. Good riddance too.’

  Sadly, I was pretty sure Rose’s confidence was misplaced. If he’d been a danger before, as far as I was concerned, he was now doubly so – but how? How could a man in a coma be playing havoc with my life? And why? I’d never met the man.

  But you have – inside your head. He knows you know what kind of monster he is. He knows you’re going to expose him for what he’s done, and he can’t allow that.

  Jed asked that I drop him off at Emma’s, saying he’d forgotten something and, by the time I swung into her drive, we had talked ourselves round and round in circles.

  ‘It’s all in my head – it must be,’ I said, pulling up outside the front door.

  ‘Someone trying to kill you, and creeping around outside Emma’s bedroom wasn’t inside your head.’

  ‘Maybe it was. Maybe I walked in my sleep.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘I really don’t know what to believe any more.’

  ‘He got inside my head too,’ Jed said, his voice almost a sigh. ‘I remember how it felt; I remember how it made me feel. It was like my head was full of poison. The man was pure evil.’

  I didn’t disagree. I’d felt the same.

  ‘Give my love to Emma,’ I told him. ‘If they don’t let her come home tomorrow, I’ll pop over to the hospital to see her in the evening.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said as he climbed out of the car. ‘And Jim,’ he bent down to look back at me, ‘be careful.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I said, trying to smile, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

  He gave a grunt and slammed the door shut. I watched him until he reached Emma’s front door.

  It was almost five-thirty when I walked up the path to the cottage and not a moment too soon. During the drive back from Chalfont the sky had darkened to grey, and black storm clouds had begun to chase across the heavens. As I turned into the lane the first plump drops of rain splattered against the windscreen.

  I went straight upstairs, undressed and threw myself into the shower. All the talk about the Garvins’ cousin and how he’d invaded my head had left me feeling dirty. Sadly, the shower wouldn’t be able to wash away the filth lingering inside my psyche.

  By the time I’d showered and changed the rain was drumming against the windows and I heard the first rumble of thunder in the distance. It was almost six o’clock and Lucy was going to get soaked. I tried ringing her mobile, but it went straight to voicemail and it occurred to me I was getting a lot of that these days. I thought about phoning the pub to tell her I’d come and get her but realised I didn’t have the number. And anyway, she was probably halfway across the village and already soaking wet.

  I grabbed my keys off the hall table and made a run for it. In the few seconds it took me to run down the path and jump into the car my shirt was plastered to my back. At this rate we’d both need a change of clothing by the time we got back. The thought that we could always get naked while our clothes dried out brought back the smile to my face.

  I made it across the village without seeing her and was pulling up outside the pub when my mobile went ping. I pulled it out of my back pocket and smiled. I had a text from Lucy. I clicked on the message and my smile disappeared.

  If you ever want to see your whore again you will do exactly as you’re told. Understand?

  I stared at the screen. What was happening? What was Lucy playing at?

  The phone pinged again, and another message popped up.

  I said, do you understand?

  Then I did
understand, I understood only too well. He had Lucy. The motherfucker had Lucy, but how on earth could that be?

  Yes, I replied, I understand.

  Good. Wait for instructions. No police or game over for your filthy little slut. Understand?

  Yes, I typed, though I had to do it twice as my fingers had apparently stopped functioning.

  I swung the car around and drove back to the cottage, all the time wondering what the hell I was going to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  By seven there had been no further messages and I was going not so quietly mad. I paced around the cottage, my stomach in knots and my heart pounding, mobile in hand, hardly able to take my eyes off the screen while I waited for another message.

  Then it rang and I practically dropped it in my hyped-up state of anxiety. The screen said Jed was calling.

  ‘Not now, not now,’ I said to myself, but swiped the screen to answer the call anyway.

  ‘Jim,’ he said without any niceties, ‘we have a problem. Emms is awake and I’m afraid we’re going to have to involve the police, there’s no other way.’

  ‘No!’ I practically shouted. ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘Jim? We have to. Someone tried to kill Emma. Someone pushed her down the stairs.’

  ‘He has Lucy,’ I said, and I could feel my eyes bubbling up. ‘He has Lucy and he says I’ll never see her again if I don’t do as he says and that includes not calling the police.’

  ‘Who has her?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know?’

  I heard Jed suck in breath. ‘Well – how did he make contact?’

  ‘With her mobile. He texted me on her mobile.’

  ‘Oh bugger!’ and I heard someone say something to him and there was a muttered conversation. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘At the cottage.’

  ‘Wait for me there. I’ll be straight over.’

  ‘What if he sends me another message?’

  ‘Let me know,’ and with that he hung up.

  Time seemed to go into slow motion, every minute taking an age. I should be doing something. I should be trying to find Lucy. Where the fuck could he have taken her? But he couldn’t have taken her anywhere – he was in a high-security care home. Unless he wasn’t as ill as they thought, unless it wasn’t as secure as they thought – but that was mad, wasn’t it? I’d seen him in there connected to a whole load of wires and tubes.

  You didn’t really see anything. You only saw what he wanted you to see.

  ‘Come on, Jed, come on.’ But Jed was miles away and all I could do was sit and wait, unless I did call the police. Whenever these situations occurred on the telly, I usually shouted at the screen for the hero or heroine not to be such an idiot and of course they should go to the police. They were the experts and how the hell would the villain know anyway? Now I was in the self-same position it didn’t feel so easy. Terrible things could be happening to Lucy while I waited for Jed or another message, but even worse things could happen to her if I didn’t do as I was told.

  A zigzag of lightning lit up the sky and after a count of about five seconds there came a crash of thunder that was loud enough to make me jump. The rain was now lashing against the kitchen window and the inclement weather conditions would hinder Jed’s journey back from Torquay.

  There was another ping from my mobile.

  Sitting comfortably? Your bitch is.

  And there was a close-up of Lucy tied to a chair, head slumped forward, her hair a tangled mess, hiding her face.

  Or maybe not.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’ I shouted at the phone lying on my palm, then jabbed my finger on the letters at the bottom of the screen.

  What do you want? I typed.

  This time there wasn’t any instant response. I waited and waited for what felt like eternity but was probably only a few minutes. This was driving me insane.

  What the hell do you want? I typed again.

  Nothing.

  I looked at the picture of Lucy again. At least I had something to show the police if it came to it. Maybe that was the answer, maybe this was what I should do – go to the police.

  Where was the nearest police station? I had no idea – it could be anywhere. Knowing my luck, probably Torquay and I’d pass Jed on the way there.

  Then there was a thump, thump, thump on the door, sending my heart right up into my mouth.

  I dropped my mobile onto the table and grabbed the largest knife I could find. What I thought I was going to do with it I had no idea. I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. All sorts of visions passed through my head, and by the time I reached the door I was expecting to open it to find no one there, but instead a package on the doorstep containing something terrible, like one of Lucy’s fingers – or worse. One of the final scenes from the film Seven floated into my mind, the distraught Brad Pitt peering down into a box containing his wife’s severed head.

  I flung the door open. If ‘the man’ was there waiting for me with an axe, chainsaw or some other lethal weapon I didn’t care, it had to be better than this.

  Jed stepped straight inside, rain running down his ruddy cheeks and dripping off the end of his nose. He certainly wasn’t dressed for wet weather this evening.

  His eyes went to the knife I was brandishing in my right hand, though he didn’t pass any comment. ‘Have you heard anything more?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, leading him into the kitchen. I picked up my phone and handed it to him. ‘I asked him what he wanted, but I’ve had no reply.’

  Jed studied the picture of Lucy and I saw that same mean expression I’d seen before creep back onto his face.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said, dragging my hand through my hair as the awful sick feeling of despair bubbled up inside of me. ‘What should I do?’

  Jed glanced at me, then back to the image on the screen. ‘Come on,’ he said, handing me the phone.

  I followed him out into the hallway. ‘Where’re we going?’

  ‘To have a long conversation with the Garvin sisters about their cousin David.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll help us?’

  ‘They’d bloody better,’ he mumbled as he threw open the front door.

  I just about had the wherewithal to pull on my jacket and grab my keys, but I was dressed about as well as Jed for the conditions and we were both dripping wet by the time I slammed the door to his Jaguar and settled back into the seat.

  Jed started the engine and fiddled with the heater in an effort to clear the mist clouding the windscreen. After a few seconds he gave up and pulled out a cloth from the glove box, swiping it across the glass to leave a trail of tiny, shining droplets in its wake. With a grunt he put the car into gear and slowly reversed down the lane until he could turn around, which was no mean feat as I doubted he could see a thing out the back.

  The road through the village was deserted and the few street lights barely cut their way through the murk. The storm had darkened the skies and it could have been midnight instead of mid evening.

  Lights glowed from the windows of the Sly as we drove past, and I felt awful knowing George and his wife were in there serving customers with hardly a care in the world, while their daughter was in the hands of some unidentified, crazed psychopath.

  ‘Do you think this David had a partner in crime?’ I said, thinking out loud.

  Jed didn’t take his eyes off the road ahead. ‘Did you see anyone else in his head?’

  ‘Only his victims and the woman who tried to kill him.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jim, there’s something really odd about all of this.’

  ‘Odd? The whole fucking thing is odd,’ I said, getting angry. ‘This is a small country village, where the most exciting thing that should be happening is someone’s pet cat going missing. That’s why I came here and ever since I’ve arrived my life has turned to shit.’

  ‘Your life was already shit,’ Jed said with a snort, ‘that’s why you came here.’

&n
bsp; I couldn’t argue. ‘Well, it got a whole lot shittier.’

  ‘And if I told you it was going to get worse before it got better, I’d probably be right,’ Jed said. ‘I think whoever is doing this is trying to force the pace. He wants you gone and by hurting Emma he thought you’d be on your own tonight. He obviously didn’t realise how tough she can be.’ He paused for a moment as he brought the car to a halt. ‘Or how angry I can get.’ He turned the engine off and killed the lights. ‘Come on – let’s do this thing.’

  ‘What are we going to say?’ I asked. ‘We can hardly tell them we think their comatose cousin is somehow threatening Lucy’s life, has attacked Emma and has tried to kill me.’

  The inside light clicked on as he opened the driver’s door and I caught a glimpse of his grim expression. If I was Darcy or Miriam upon seeing that look, I’d tell him anything he damn well wanted to know.

  Jed strode around the car and up the path towards the house, seemingly oblivious to the rain lashing down upon us. The building was in darkness apart from a crack of light I could just make out through the glass panel in the front door, probably coming from an ajar door to the kitchen or a living room.

  Jed wasn’t in the mood for niceties. He thumped on the door four times, left it barely a second and thumped again.

  I grabbed his arm before he could do it again. ‘We want them to invite us in, not call the police,’ I warned him.

  He let out a shuddery breath and gave a bob of his head.

  Light bloomed in the hallway as a door opened. ‘Who’s there?’ a tentative voice called.

  ‘Jed.’

  ‘Jed?’

  ‘Is that you, Darcy? I need to speak to you.’

  The hall light came on and the shadow of a slight figure moved slowly towards the door. I’m not sure whether some sort of sixth sense kicked in, or whether it was just my powers of observation, but my anxiety levels jumped up another notch and at this rate I had the feeling I might end up having a heart attack before the end of the evening.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ I whispered out of the corner of my mouth.

  I heard the drawing of bolts and, with the clink of a chain, the door opened a crack and Darcy peered out of the gloomy passageway.