by Emmy Ellis
“Aww, shit, Banks. Fucking hell, no.”
Oliver’s heart raced—what had happened to Adam? Had a man posted outside spotted him? He tried to call out in his mind, but being roughly manoeuvred into a kneeling position took all his attention, the sparkle of light growing smaller, flashing less brightly, his focus shifted to the now. He strove to keep the faint light in his mind—so long as it flickered even a little, if he could still hear Adam, he’d feel less alone.
“My ankle! There’s a bloody ditch all around this place. I didn’t see it—grass is so long. I’m in the fucking ditch!”
Oliver almost asked aloud where Dane was but stopped himself. He thought it instead, pushing the words towards the light, hoping they reached Adam.
“Dane’s coming, Oliver. I see him entering the field from the road now.”
“How long will he be? Did he see you fall? What if he goes down in the ditch, too?”
“I don’t know if he saw me. He’s… Police shouldn’t be long. I’m…I’m looking over the edge of and can see headlights. Maybe five minutes away.”
“Five minutes? Shit.”
If the men followed the same pattern, Oliver was safe, but if they upped their game, changed their plans, five minutes was plenty enough to kill someone.
The humming began, and Oliver would never have thought he’d be so pleased to hear it. They were going ahead with their weird ritual, and by the time they finished humming and whipping, the police would be there.
They couldn’t arrive soon enough.
* * * *
Adam closed his eyes in an attempt to ignore the pain streaking through his ankle, but it didn’t work. He opened them and leant his back against the side of the ditch, which was a head shorter than him. Dane came nearer, growing bigger with each step, but he wasn’t as close as Adam wanted him to be. He needed to get his attention so he didn’t take a tumble into the ditch, too. If they both ended up in there, ankles broken—he was sure his was—they ran the risk of Mr Banks being killed.
He hadn’t thought much beyond getting there, finding where Mr Banks had been taken, and now he had a chance to think about it, there wasn’t an awful lot he could have done had he made it to the barn. Yeah, he could have burst inside, interrupted the proceedings, but with so many men as the enemy, Adam didn’t stand a chance against them. They could overpower him easily, add him to their victim list, trussing him up like that poor bastard in the other barn.
Dane was within hearing distance now, and, keeping his voice low, Adam called out a warning Dane slowed, trod carefully, and came to a panting stop, the toes of his shoes close to Adam’s nose. Dane bent over, peering down, hands on knees, his legs slightly bent.
“What the fuck?” Dane asked breathily, bunching his eyes closed and baring his teeth. “What are you…doing down there?”
“I fucking fell. Think I broke my ankle.” As though hearing him, Adam’s ankle throbbed harder, and a lance of pain ricocheted through the bone then spread into his shin, up his thigh, and attacked his hip. “Oh Jesus, that hurts. Did you tell the police where we are?” He needed to make sure, to hear it.
“Yeah, estimated time of arrival”—Dane stood straight to lift his wrist and click on the light so he could read the time—“about four minutes.”
“Fuck, that might be too long. Will you go?”
“What, in there? In the barn?”
“Yes!” Adam frowned. “Or if you can’t, help me out of here so I can go in.”
“It isn’t safe. Us going in there isn’t going to be of any help. Not if—”
“But what if they haven’t got that far yet? What if they’re only doing that ritual shit at the moment? We can’t leave Mr Banks. We can make a noise. Distract them.” Adam paused to wait for an answer. It didn’t come. “Right?”
“I don’t know. We saw the state of the last bloke they killed. We know what they can do. We shouldn’t just stand by and let that copper be killed, but… It isn’t as cut and dried as that, is it? We could get killed as well. I’m shitting myself here. Fucking shitting myself.”
“Help me out.” Adam held up one arm, gritting his teeth at a fresh bout of pain.
Dane hauled him up, and Adam hopped on his good leg to get a safe distance from the ditch. He gingerly lowered the other foot, grimacing, another sharp-as-hell pain shooting from his ankle right up his shin bone, exploding into splintered pinpoints in his knee.
“It’s broken. Damn it to fucking hell and back.” He ground his teeth, and despite the raging agony, managed to hop-hobble to the track he should have been walking on in the first place. He took Dane’s offered arm for support.
“We can’t go in there, Adam. You’ll be no good the way you are. One whack from them, and you’ll go down like a sack of shit.”
Adam nodded. “I know, but I just… I just want to help him. I was left in that alley. No one knew I was there. I was left and I don’t want to leave him.”
A caterpillar of cars turned onto the track, stopping halfway to the barn for officers to tumble out, running on silent feet towards them. Langham led the way, and as he drew closer, the panic on his face was stark in the moonlight. He raced past, the other officers close behind, and they flooded through the barn doorway and disappeared inside.
* * * *
Oliver heard the arrival of new people, heralded by shouts of “Get down! Get down on the floor—now!”
His legs weakened even though he was kneeling, the humming mercifully gone now, replaced with scuffling feet, yelled protests, and police orders. Arms encircled him, and he flinched, panic rising over who had taken hold and dragged him along. What if one of the men had grabbed him with a view to using him as a hostage? What if he got killed anyway, regardless of the police being there?
“It’s all right, it’s me,” Langham said.
He pressed Oliver’s shoulders until he sat on something cold and hard, then removed the blindfold. Oliver’s first sight was Langham’s face, his anxiety plain in the furrowed brow and grimacing mouth.
“You all right?” Langham asked, going to work on untying the rope around Oliver’s ankles. “As well as you can be?”
Oliver nodded. “Yeah, just cold.”
“Someone get a damn blanket!” Langham roared, turning to look at the activity behind him.
Oliver stared, too, taking in the scene of naked men on their bellies, wrists cuffed behind their backs, faces in the hay, their heads shining from the torch beams, sinister and just plain odd. Officers hauled some to their feet and marched them outside. The killers were all bald, and it reminded Oliver of something.
“Where’s Littleworth?” he asked, scanning the people.
“No idea, why?” Langham freed Oliver’s wrists.
“He’s the one who took me.”
“What the fuck?” Langham’s eyes darted from side to side, his mind clearly working overtime.
“He’s the one who got me outside the station. Put me in his van then dropped me off to the other three in the Golf.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, that sneaky, pissing wanker!” Langham took his mobile from his pocket and jabbed a few buttons. “Get someone out to Littleworth’s house and yard—now!”
Chapter Fourteen
Adam woke on the sofa, wondering what the hell the time was. They’d returned home in the early hours after he’d been seen to at the hospital and they’d given more statements to the police. Sam had been understanding about them not being able to go into work, and seeing as it was another of his barns that had been used for the previous night’s ‘dance’, he had other things on his mind.
The image of knee-high piles of pig shit came to mind, and he felt for Dane having to shift that lot tomorrow. Adam wouldn’t be able to work for a few weeks—not until the cast came off his ankle—but his time off wouldn’t leave them too short of money. Sam had graciously agreed to give sick pay. Adam had felt more than grateful about that. He didn’t look forward to the day when he went in for another X-ray, tho
ugh. If his bones hadn’t knitted together, he would have an operation in his future. Little metal plates would be inserted, the bones screwed to them.
Switching his mind back to Sam, Adam smiled. He’d mentioned Adam and Dane as being “The best shit-shifters I’ve ever had, and I’m not wanting to lose you in a hurry.”
Dimming light seeped through the gap in the curtains, and he guessed it must be after four o’clock in the afternoon. That was about the time it got dark these days, and with the rumble of his stomach came the scent of some stew or other, no doubt a tasty concoction Dane had made. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the sofa, easing his casted foot into the ugly shoe the hospital had provided, all black plastic sole and blue Velcro straps. Whatever painkillers they’d prescribed had deadened the pain so he could fall asleep easily, but the faint promise of it returning nagged in his toes and shin.
He stood then reached for the crutches propped against the sofa arm and gripped the handles. He needed a piss, a drink, and food, in that order. As he lurched into the hallway, Dane came to the kitchen door and eyed him with a look of concern.
“Everything all right?” he asked, worrying a black-and-white-checked tea towel in his hands.
“Yeah.” Adam smiled. “Yeah, I’m doing okay. Dinner smells good.”
“Old biddy over the road dropped it in. Heard about what happened, thought we might need feeding.”
“Of course she did.” Adam smiled again. “Doubt there’s much she doesn’t hear about.”
“You need some help?” Dane nodded at the crutches.
“Nope. Thanks. I can manage.” Much as Adam wouldn’t mind Dane to lean on rather than the crutches, he had to do this by himself.
“All right. Well, I’ll just be cooking the potatoes to go with this casserole. Mash or boiled?”
Chapter Fifteen
PSYCHIC STAYS AS POLICE AIDE—BUT HE ALREADY KNEW HE WOULD!
Psychic police aide, Oliver Banks, has admitted, a month after his involvement in the Queer Rites case, that said case almost had him putting his skills aside and trying to lead a normal life.
Banks, apparently contacted by the dead and led to their murder sites, has been a police aide for some time now. He’s known for helping with several one-off murders and the more well-known Sugar Strands and Queer Rites cases. Working alongside Detective Langham, Banks has proved himself a valuable asset to the city police. Although some people have scoffed at his ability, it might be folly to assume it’s all a load of hogwash. Time and again his information, relayed to him from fresh corpses, has been a vital part of catching those responsible for their deaths.
However, the Queer Rites case took a sinister turn when the killers targeted Banks as their third victim, blindfolded and taken to a remote barn on the outskirts of sleepy Mereton Marsh. If it wasn’t for Banks’ special ability in being able to communicate with a civilian helper through thought—can you believe that?—he would undoubtedly have been killed.
Why the victims were killed hasn’t become evident. None of the twenty-three men responsible are offering any explanation. The mastermind behind the operations, a Mr Littleworth, has also declined to give police any answers. The men are being held in Stratford prison while they await trial.
Banks, minutes from the same fate as the previous victims, was able to get help by sending his thoughts to a man named Adam Parks of Lower Repton. When we asked Banks how he felt about his experience, he declined to elaborate fully, but he did say, “I’ve thought about giving this up, but if I stopped helping the police I’d be going against everything that is good. People may not believe I do what I do, but that’s neither here nor there, is it? I hear the calls and I relate the information. As long as the dead speak, or the living project thoughts and words to me, I’ll be here to listen.”
Whether Banks’ claims to hear the dead are true or not, we applaud him in his dedication to helping fight crime. With the state of our city, we…
Oliver stopped reading and scrunched the front page of the newspaper into a ball. The use of ‘apparently’ by the journalist with regard to him hearing the dead pissed him off, but there was nothing he could do about it now. His editor boss had listened avidly as Oliver had told him as much information as he’d been allowed and reminded him that now the Queer Rites case was basically over, he ought to get himself into the office kitchen and make a round of teas. Make himself bloody useful.
He sighed, home now after a long day spent making those rounds of teas and fending off the editor, who had kept pushing for more than Oliver was comfortable giving. He reckoned he’d have to find another job for the times in between helping the police, because the money the force paid him now didn’t equate to anything he wanted to shout about, nor could he afford to live solely on that. It was a token gesture, the pay of an informant, really, and he’d never get rich on it no matter how many times he helped out. Working at the newspaper had seemed like a Godsend at the time he’d landed the job, but his boss was becoming increasingly insistent on prodding for information, and Oliver was uncomfortable with it.
Still, if he stayed, he might always feel this way about being the local rag’s tea-making boy. Returning to that kind of work after the thrill—and fright—of accompanying Langham on a case was a huge letdown. No adrenaline flowed, the hours dragged by, and he had the sense he accomplished nothing at all. Unless he counted slaking people’s thirsts as the highlight of his day.
* * * *
THREE MONTHS LATER
Oliver was drifting to sleep, belly full, his heart content.
He thought of tomorrow and wondered how many rounds of tea he’d have to make. Today had been twenty-three, with two coffees thrown in for good measure, and Cheryl from reception had even had the cheek to ask him to nip to the local Tesco and get her a carton of orange juice. It had got him out of the office, but fucking hell, he wasn’t employed to stand in a queue behind several other people—mostly mothers with red-faced, yowling children in the trolley seats—wishing he was anywhere but there.
The tick of the clock faded away. Blackness crowded at the edges of his mind, growing as it crept towards the centre of the supermarket scene in his mind, and sleep would embrace him soon.
“You didn’t find me.”
The male voice, such a quiet whisper, almost went unnoticed, but the hairs on the back of Oliver’s neck stood on end, goosebumps streaking from there to cover his skin. The air chilled. He snapped his eyes open, pushed up on one elbow, peering over to check the time. Eleven o’clock. He’d been lying there an hour, then, waiting for sleep to come. It hadn’t seemed that long. Had he drifted off without realising it, the voice coming to him in a dream?
“Hello?”
No, it hadn’t. The voice was louder this time, still a whisper but one full of urgency and pleading. The harshness of it brought more goosebumps, chilled the air even more, and he had the horrible thought that this spirit might not be a good one. Oliver sat up.
“Are you there?”
Yes, he was there, but he had the unnerving question of whether the voice was from someone alive or dead. Since he’d been able to communicate with Adam, he now didn’t have any clue—they sounded the same.
“Can you hear me?”
Oliver nodded—stupid, really, if it was a living person, because they wouldn’t be able to see him. He got out of bed and went into the living room, heading for the kitchen on the other side.
“Yep, I hear you.” He picked up the kettle to check how much water was in it. There was enough for him to have a cuppa, so he switched it on. “Who are you?” He took a cup off the mug tree and spooned coffee and sugar into it.
“Simon. I’m Simon.”
“Alive or dead?” Blunt, but Oliver was tired, and he needed to know.
“Um, dead?”
“Okay, where are you? I don’t mean whether you’re here with me, either. Where is your body?”
“Warehouse.”
“Aww, fuck. That case is closed. Al
l the men involved were arrested months ago. Is that you, Jason? Thomas?”
“I know the case is closed. But you didn’t find me. I’ve been…waiting. But after the foxes found me, bit my feet and legs… There isn’t much of me left, and while there’s still a bit, I want my parents to have something to bury. You can still see it’s me. Kind of.”
“Oh Jesus. All right, um…” The images he conjured in his mind weren’t pretty—a man with the skin gnawed off his body, bones protruding, a rope of intestines dangling from a lower belly that had been sliced open with sharp claws. Unsure whether he’d thought that up himself or whether he was being shown, he swiped the visuals away. Took milk from the fridge and made his coffee. “What’s left of you?”
“Hair. Skin. I watched myself bloating then shrinking, and loads of stuff came out.”
“Fucking hell.” Oliver swallowed down bile. “Right. I get the picture. So, do you know which warehouse it is?”
“No, but I know what it looks like.”
Oliver sighed inwardly and took a sip of coffee. Burnt his tongue. Not knowing where the warehouse was would prove a pain in the arse if this bloke didn’t give him some decent landmarks to go on. He could only hope he would.
“It’s bright orange.”
Oliver knew the location immediately. The warehouse, an oblong metal behemoth, sat on top of a hill behind the retail park off Gainsborough Avenue. It had been used in the past as a place for people to store their shit, for a price, but the company had gone bust several months ago. It now stood empty, a huge, white hanging tarpaulin FOR SALE sign on the front, red letters visible from the road when he waited at the lights—those bloody, seemingly never-changing lights—to turn into the retail park.
“I know it. We’ll be there soon.”