The Evil Within

by S M Hardy

  ‘Jed?’

  ‘Can we come in? We need to speak to you and Miriam.’

  I could only see one side of her face through the crack in the door and the one eye flicked my way. Her head and shoulders slumped and with a weary sigh she pushed the door closed.

  Jed raised his fist to thump on the door again, but I stopped him as I heard the rattle of the chain. Darcy opened the door and stepped to one side, gesturing for us both to come in. She led us down the corridor and into a small sitting room. One lamp in the corner by a large, lumpy armchair gave the room some muted light. A glass of some golden liquid rested on a small table beside it. Darcy obviously didn’t believe in half measures as the glass was almost three-quarters full.

  She sank down onto the chair and gestured that we should also sit.

  ‘Maybe we should do this in the kitchen,’ I said, ‘we’re both pretty wet.’

  ‘No matter. The furniture will dry,’ she said, and her voice sounded lost, like all hope had deserted her.

  ‘Where’s Miriam?’ Jed asked. ‘I’d rather not have to do this twice.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ Darcy said, reaching for the glass and taking a slug. Tellingly she didn’t offer us a drink.

  Jed and I exchanged a glance. ‘Where is she on a night like this? It’s filthy out there.’

  Darcy looked up at us with haunted eyes and although half her face was in shadow, I could see there was something wrong with it. Her left eye wasn’t much more than a slit, her eyelid a sliver of liver.

  ‘Jesus, Darcy, what happened to you?’ I asked, leaning forward in my seat.

  She lifted her left hand towards her face not quite touching her skin with her fingertips, before clenching her hand into a fist and letting it drop back into her lap.

  She took another swig of her drink. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Someone pushed Emma down the stairs last night and now they have Lucy,’ Jed said, getting straight to the point. ‘I don’t know how or why but we think it all has something to do with your cousin David.’

  Darcy gave a start at his name and her hand was shaking as she placed the tumbler down onto the table.

  ‘Is Emma all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, thanks to her hard head, but Lucy isn’t.’ He glanced my way and gestured towards Darcy. ‘Show her,’ he said.

  I stood to pull my mobile out of my back pocket and clicked on the message showing the picture of Lucy and held it out to Darcy. She stared at it in my hand as though it was something alien to her.

  ‘Take it,’ Jed snapped, and Darcy flinched.

  She slowly reached out her hand and clasped her fingers around it. When she looked down at the screen her lips pressed together into a thin, bloodless line. This time her expression was not one of disapproval, it was more like she was trying to hold in a scream or howl of agony.

  When she looked up her eyes were brimming with tears. ‘David isn’t our cousin,’ she said at last. ‘He’s our brother.’

  ‘Brother?’ Jed said.

  And something I’d heard before went click in my head. ‘The rumour about Darcy’s father and a liaison with some girl,’ I said. ‘That’s why he was sent away. He’d got her pregnant.’

  Darcy grimaced and reached for her glass. ‘Marie Baker,’ she said. ‘She was our nanny for a while. Then she just left out of the blue. It wasn’t until years later we realised that the little boy being brought up by our aunt in Chalfont was actually our brother.’

  ‘David Baker,’ I said as another bit of information floated up out of my subconscious.

  ‘What?’ Darcy said. ‘No, David Carlisle, he’s known as David Carlisle.’

  ‘There was a business card tucked in the corkboard back at the cottage – David Baker, handyman.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Darcy said. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Darcy?’

  Her one good eye was huge and full of despair. ‘I didn’t want to believe it was true,’ she whispered, ‘but deep down …’ She let out a shuddery sigh and slumped further into her seat.

  ‘It’s you who visits Krystal Morgan’s and Marie Louise Baker’s graves?’ I said.

  She gave a small bob of the head and looked back down at the picture of Lucy before dropping my phone into her lap. ‘She’s at The Grange. There’s a larder off the kitchen.’

  ‘The Grange?’ Jed and I both asked at the same time.

  ‘It was our family home until grandmother died. It was sold to pay the death duties, that’s when we were sent to live with our aunt in Chalfont. That’s when David …’ Her voice cracked.

  ‘Who is it that has Lucy?’ Jed asked. ‘We know David’s in Goldsmere House.’

  Darcy gave a bitter laugh and reached for her glass, grasping it between both hands as she knocked back what was left. ‘You know nothing,’ she spat.

  ‘Then why don’t you tell us?’

  ‘We haven’t time for this,’ I told him. ‘We have to find Lucy.’

  ‘Who is it that has her?’ Jed repeated.

  ‘Right from the start I knew something was wrong with him,’ Darcy said, ignoring the question. ‘He looked like an angel, but even as a child his heart was as black as any demon’s.’

  ‘Jed, we need to go,’ I told him.

  ‘Who has Lucy?’ Jed repeated again.

  Darcy slammed her empty glass down on the table making us both jump. ‘Who do you think?’ she said. ‘Who’s not here?’

  ‘Miriam?’ Jed said.

  ‘Miriam – David. I’m not sure where one ends and the other begins any more. Some days I don’t even know which one I’m talking to.’

  My mobile pinged. Darcy picked it up out of her lap and glanced at the screen. ‘I think you might want to see this,’ she said and handed it back to me.

  Meet me at the point. Come alone.

  ‘Is she crazy? It’s blowing a gale out there,’ Jed said, looking over my shoulder.

  ‘No, she’s not crazy,’ Darcy said, ‘it’s worse than that. He consumed her. David gradually, insidiously worked his way into her head until all she could think about or care about was him. After his … his accident, I thought she was getting better. I thought at last she was free of him.’ She looked at me. ‘But, oh so slowly, she gradually began to change. David would keep coming through in things she said and did. Then you came to Slyford and she got worse.’

  ‘Me?’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Yes, you. You and your little performance at Emma’s. I told her to leave you be. I told her you wouldn’t realise the significance.’ She shrugged. ‘Miriam probably would have listened, but David …’ She grimaced. ‘Since that night she … he’s been obsessed with you.’

  My mobile pinged again.

  I said meet me at the point!

  ‘I should reply,’ I said.

  ‘Tell her yes,’ Jed said. ‘I’ll go to The Grange and see if I can find Lucy.’

  ‘What if Miriam takes Lucy with her?’ I asked. ‘She can’t leave any loose ends and Lucy would definitely be a loose end.’

  ‘We should call the police,’ Jed said.

  ‘No!’ Darcy said. ‘No. It’s bad enough David being in that terrible place, but Miriam as well – then he would have won.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, woman?’ Jed asked.

  I grabbed Jed by the arm. ‘Come on,’ I told him. ‘We’ll go to The Grange on the way to the point. I’ll text back when we’re on the move.’

  For a moment he was as immoveable as a statue as he glared down at Darcy, but then with a grunt he let me pull him towards the door.

  Back in the car I began to text as Jed drove. I kept it short and sweet.

  All right, was all I wrote.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The ground floor of The Grange was lit up like a Christmas tree and the front door was ajar. Jed paused on the doorstep and, gesturing for me to stand to one side and behind him, slowly pushed the door open. I’m not sure what he was expecting, but he was being very carefu
l, that was for sure, and there was something in his posture that brought home to me that this man really had once been a soldier.

  Once inside he moved from room to room, each time pausing on the threshold, each time taking it slow as he opened the door. As we entered the kitchen it finally occurred to me that he was checking for booby traps.

  ‘Jed, Miriam’s a middle-aged woman not Al-Qaeda,’ I whispered.

  ‘You saw what was inside his head – you saw what he’s capable of,’ he hissed back, and that had me biting back any further criticism. He was right. I knew exactly what David Baker, or should I say David Carlisle, was capable of: murder and torture and more.

  As soon as we walked into the kitchen, even if it hadn’t been for the open front door, we would have known that Darcy hadn’t lied. One of the kitchen chairs lay on its side. It was as Darcy said, there was a larder at the back of the kitchen. Another kitchen chair, slashed duct tape hanging from its arms, was crammed into one corner. A roll of the stuff lay on a shelf along with a very sharp carving knife, its gleaming blade dulled in places by smears of blood.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I groaned. ‘Oh my God – Lucy.’

  Jed crouched down by the chair. ‘Keep calm,’ he told me. ‘There’s not enough blood for it to be life-threatening. I think he or she was just trying to frighten her – and maybe you, if you came here.’

  ‘Well they’ve succeeded,’ I muttered as my eyes roamed the cramped room looking for more evidence they’d been here. But Jed was right, there was no more blood and there would have been. There’d been plenty in my frenzied journey through David Carlisle’s psyche.

  ‘She must have taken Lucy with her.’

  ‘You really think Miriam is behind all this?’

  ‘Who else?’

  My mobile pinged again before I could think of a reply.

  Where the fuck are you?

  I’m on my way, I texted back.

  If you dont hurry there wont be nothing worth coming for.

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ I said, showing Jed the text.

  ‘He − she − it is trying to panic you.’

  ‘How can you be so calm?’

  Jed just grunted. ‘We need wet-weather gear if we’re going to the point.’

  ‘You’re coming with me?’

  ‘You don’t think I’d let you go on your own?’

  ‘The text said I had to.’

  ‘Fuck the text! If you go on your own, I’d bet nineteen to the dozen that you won’t be coming back – and Lucy neither.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But what? Miriam is at best deranged or at worst she’s been taken over by someone so incredibly evil they don’t care what they do. Either way you need help.’ He strode through the kitchen and out into the hall, and after one more glance at the bloodied knife I followed him.

  Jed went straight along the hallway to a small lobby at the back of the house, taking off his jacket as he went. I followed on behind, now not so sure what I should do. What Jed said made sense, but if he came with me it could make a bad situation a whole lot worse.

  ‘Maybe we should call the police,’ I said.

  Jed reached up to take down one of the long, waxed raincoats hanging off a line of hooks on the wall. ‘And how would a load of plod marching along that narrow cliff path make this any better? You involve them now and you’ll leave them no way out. Never corner a rabid dog, lad.’ My expression was no doubt distraught as his softened. ‘Don’t worry, lad, I do have a bit of experience in this sort of thing.’

  ‘You said you were a soldier.’

  He laughed. ‘Military Intelligence, that’s how I met Reggie.’ He handed me the coat. ‘This used to be his. Emma uses it now but it’s large enough to fit you.’

  Jed took down another and pulled it on. He then passed me a pair of wellies. They were a size too big, and I assumed also Reggie’s, but better that than slipping and sliding around in the pouring rain.

  When we’d both changed we looked like a couple of North Sea fishermen, but at least we wouldn’t be getting any more soaked than we already were.

  Outside the weather hadn’t changed any. Flashes of silver zigzagged the sky, lighting up the drive, followed by booms of thunder that were getting louder, closer. We hurried out along the lane to the path to Fisherman’s Cove.

  ‘I can’t see a thing,’ I said.

  ‘Here,’ Jed said, and a beam of light appeared as if by magic. ‘You take it and lead the way.’

  ‘She’ll see us coming,’ I said, but still took the offered torch. It was one of those big buggers you see the American police force use on TV, and I must admit I felt a little better having the weight of it in my hand, if for no other reason than it’d make a good weapon.

  ‘Probably best to hold it down low and pointing at the path. It might stop her from doing something stupid.’

  ‘She already is doing something pretty fucking stupid. How on earth does she think this is all going to end?’ I shouted back at him, in an effort to be heard over the tempest going on all around us.

  If he replied I didn’t hear him. I wasn’t even sure if he’d heard me. But now I’d asked the question it’d set me pondering on the answer. If Miriam was truly somehow possessed by her illegitimate brother, because this was what Darcy would have us believe, did he or she really care? Miriam could possibly have no idea of what she was doing, or if she did was so in David’s thrall that she would do whatever it took to keep him happy. The vision of the chubby-faced young woman on her knees flashed through my head – had that been Miriam? Had David been abusing her when he was little more than a child? This didn’t get any better. One thing was for certain, David would try to protect himself, meaning he wouldn’t want anything to happen to Miriam, the person giving him a physical body.

  Then I wondered what the fuck I was thinking. We were talking about possession, for fuck’s sake.

  He’s been inside your head and you’ve been inside his – you’ve seen it is possible.

  It can’t be.

  You’ve been seeing ghosts for the past two weeks – you didn’t think that was possible either.

  I still don’t.

  What then? You’d prefer to believe you were mad? Grow up, Jim – this isn’t all about you. Think of someone else for once in your life. Think of that young woman, who could possibly die tonight, think of Krystal and what happened to her.

  It’s Miriam who’s mad. She must be. I was arguing with myself now – desperate to make some sense of it all. She only thinks she’s possessed by David – that’s the logical answer. It was, but in my heart, I knew it wasn’t the correct one.

  A hand touched me on the shoulder, and I whirled around. Jed moved in close and cupped a hand to his mouth, bringing it close to my ear.

  ‘Best I hang back a bit,’ he told me. I went to hand him the torch. ‘You hold on to it,’ he shouted, ‘if worse comes to worst you can always use it as a club,’ and with that cheery bit of advice I carried on walking and within moments realised why it was here that Jed had chosen to start to keep back. I had reached the most exposed stretch of path.

  Although there was some way to go before I reached my destination, the path curved around the cove below and even through the pouring rain I could see the shadow of the point jutting out into the sea like a huge black beast. Another bright flash illuminated the headland, followed almost immediately by an almighty crash. I strained my eyes to peer across the bay in those few brief moments, but if Miriam and Lucy were there, I couldn’t see them.

  I trudged on through the dark. I kept the torch pointed down at the path, so I could see a few steps ahead, but it was barely making an impression. How Miriam had managed to coerce Lucy into going with her I had no idea, and the image of the bloodied knife skittered through my mind and I felt sick to my stomach.

  By my reckoning, I’d almost reached where the path dipped and a second branched off down to Fisherman’s Cove when I heard a sharp, high-pitched yap from ahead of me. I
stopped dead, peering into the black, not daring to lift the torch. Then I heard it again, closer now. I raised the torch a tad so it was angled onto the track about a yard in front of me. Another yap, and just on the edge of the beam I saw something move. I raised it a little higher and to the left.

  Krystal was crouched down, her little dog squirming within her arms. Her eyes were wide and fearful as she looked at me. I sank down to her eye level and she lifted her forefinger first to her lips and then to point along the path and to the right.

  Benji continued to struggle until he managed to manoeuvre himself around, so he was facing to where she had pointed. He yapped again and then snarled, showing teeth. Krystal petted his head with the hand she’d used to point.

  They were warning me of something or, should I say, someone? No, something was probably right, my own argument that Miriam was deranged I now recognised as merely a wishful fantasy. She was possessed by something, that something being the entity that once had been David Carlisle.

  ‘Is it him, Krystal? Is it really him?’ I whispered, though no one could hear me over the howling wind.

  Her bottom lip began to tremble, and she nodded.

  I climbed to my feet and glanced back over my shoulder. I could just make out the bulky silhouette of Jed a few yards back down the path. Keeping the torch pointing straight down I hurried back to where he stood.

  ‘Trouble ahead,’ I said into his ear.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I think he may be lurking at the top of the track down to Fisherman’s Cove.’

  I didn’t need to see his face to know that his eyebrows had probably bunched together into his caterpillar frown. ‘How?’

  ‘Krystal told me,’ I said and walked back to where Krystal had been waiting.

  She was still there, but my flashlight found her now standing in the middle of the path as it first illuminated her black shoes then white socks. I didn’t dare raise the torch any higher, but then, somehow, I could see her, as though she was glowing with some inner light. It wasn’t bright, just enough to see her there. She pointed again along the path and to the right. I switched off the torch and hefted it in my right hand, holding it just above the lamp to use the handle like a club.