by Mark Tilbury
‘We said we were hiking across the country and someone stole all our stuff,’ Maddie said.
Tom nodded. ‘And he seemed okay with that?’
‘Why wouldn’t he be?’
‘Because liars are good at spotting liars, Madeline. They’re experts at it.’
‘He seemed fine,’ Maddie assured her father. ‘I told him my dad was a headmaster at a private school. I said I had posh parents who didn’t understand me.’
‘What are you going to do if he tries to look up this private school up on the internet?’
Maddie opened her mouth to answer and then closed it.
Tom took a sip of lemonade and wiped his mouth. ‘At the very least, you’ll need the name of a real private school and the name of the headmaster who runs it. And then you might be putting that person at risk.’
Ben agreed. ‘Your dad’s right.’
‘I’ll tell them I don’t have a clue which school he works at. I’ll say I’m not interested in what he does. As for his name, I’ll just make one up.’
Tom formed a steeple with his fingers. ‘ Be careful. From what you’ve told me, it’s likely that they’ll try and extort money from your fictional family.’
Maddie didn’t seem too concerned. ‘We won’t be there long enough to let them try.’
Ben wished he shared Maddie’s optimism. ‘We hope.’
Tom looked at Ben. ‘What about you? What did you tell Marcus?’
‘I told him my dad was a bank manager. I sort of gave him my uncle’s name and occupation.’
Tom didn’t look very impressed. ‘Let’s hope they don’t dig too deep.’
‘They won’t,’ Maddie said.
Ben wished he shared her optimism. Something was bound to go wrong. Had to. It always did.
‘If you end up joining this cult, make sure you hide a phone somewhere,’ Tom said. ‘That way you’ll have something to fall back on if things get tricky and you need help.’
Ben wondered if his father had any spare watch-phones kicking about in the house.
‘When you hide it, put it outside if you can. Somewhere no one else will look. You say you told Marcus that you had all your stuff stolen?’ Tom asked.
Maddie took a sip of lemonade. ‘As far as he’s concerned, we’ve only got the clothes we stand up in.’
‘So if you take a phone, you’ll have to be smart about hiding it.’
Maddie grinned. ‘A smartphone.’
Tom grinned back. ‘A smartphone for a smart alec.’
‘Hey, that’s a boy’s name.’
Tom laughed. ‘If the cap fits.’
‘Much better than your trilby.’
Tom’s smile slipped away. ‘Seriously, guys, first sign of any trouble, and you get out of there. Run naked if you have to.’
‘Across hot coals,’ Maddie promised.
Tom looked at them both in turn. ‘Be vigilant. Be careful.’
‘We don’t know if we’ve been accepted yet. He might say no,’ Ben said.
Maddie shook her head. ‘He won’t.’
A big part of Ben wished that Marcus would say no. That way, no one could ever accuse him of not trying.
‘I shall pray for you both tonight,’ Tom promised. He looked at Ben. ‘And I shall pray for your father.’
Ben thought his father might already be with Pastor Tom’s God, eating roast beef and mashed potatoes, or whatever it was they dined on in Heaven.
Tom pursed his lips. ‘Go to your mother, Ben. Tell her what’s happening. And try to reassure her as best you can that everything will all work out?’
Ben thought it would be easier to reassure a polar bear that the ice cap was still in good shape. ‘I’ll try.’
Chapter eight
Edward Ebb looked at the Infiltrator and shook his head. The Infiltrator didn’t look in good shape, which wasn’t any wonder seeing as Brother Tweezer had shot him out of a tree overlooking the courtyard. The Infiltrator had sustained a broken wrist and a broken leg to go with the bullet wound in his left shoulder. He kept whinging and whining that he’d broken his spine, but Ebb doubted the validity of the claim. He’d kicked and thrashed well enough when Ebb had poked a hot needle into the wound in his shoulder.
Ebb conceded the infiltrator may well have suffered internal injuries as well, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t a doctor. It was of no consequence. But he needed to tread carefully because Satan was at his most potent when lying dormant.
The Infiltrator looked in a pitiful state tied to a chair in the Revelation Room. Lumps of congealed vomit lodged in his beard. His bald head gleamed with sweat beneath the overhead lights.
Ebb unscrewed the cap of a bottle of Evian spring water. ‘Are you thirsty?’
The Infiltrator croaked something unintelligible.
‘What’s the matter? Afraid it might be holy water?’
The Infiltrator shook his head.
‘Who are you?’
He looked at Ebb with devious eyes. Full of pity. Full of deceit. Full of hate. ‘I’m… a… bird-watcher…’
Ebb laughed. ‘A bird-watcher, huh? So how come you had a long-range camera in the tree with you?’
‘I was—’
‘We’ve had the film developed. Guess what?’
His nose started to bleed again. ‘I don’t fucking know.’
Ebb resisted an urge to poke out an eye. ‘There wasn’t one picture of a bird on that film. Not one. But there were plenty of pictures of my courtyard.’
‘I—’
‘Who sent you? Did a demon send you to spy on me?’
‘No.’ The word came out in a bubble of blood.
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then tell me who sent you?’
‘No one. I—’
Ebb turned the bottle upside down and tipped half the contents onto the dusty concrete floor. He then righted the bottle and took a swig. He wiped his mouth. ‘That’s so good. Nice and cold. Straight from the fridge.’
The Infiltrator licked his cracked lips with a lizard tongue.
Ebb screwed the cap back on the bottle. ‘I’ll let you have some if you tell me who you are.’
The Infiltrator’s eyes narrowed. He looked like a fox with the scent of chicken in its snout.
Don’t trust him, Pixie-pea.
Ebb jumped. He turned around to face three skeletons secured to wooden crosses on the far wall. The middle skeleton had a pink wig lodged on its skull and sunglasses covering its eye sockets. Ebb addressed it cautiously. ‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ve got his cards marked.’
Never trust a man with a beard, Pixie-pea.
Ebb gawked at the skeleton. ‘Leave me alone. I’m busy.’
The skeleton seemed to grin at him, but that had to be a trick of the light. Skeletons didn’t grin. A one-eyed cat could tell you that much. He turned back to face the Infiltrator. ‘Tell me who you are and I’ll let you have a drink.’
‘A…bird-watcher…’
Ebb threw the bottle at him. It bounced off his forehead and landed on the floor next to his chair. The Infiltrator attempted to escape the ropes securing him to the chair. He wriggled like a maggot on a fishhook. At one point, he almost tipped himself over.
‘Sit still. I shan’t pick you up if you upend yourself.’
He stopped writhing and stared at Ebb with those deceitful eyes. ‘Please. I’m… in… agony.’
Ebb snorted. ‘And I’m a busy man. All you need to do is tell me who you are and who sent you, and this will be over and done with.’
Done and dusted, Pixie-pea.
Ebb ignored the voice. ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’
‘Yes.’
Ebb noticed that two of his front teeth were missing. ‘How would you like Sister Alice to splint that leg and wash your wounds?’
The Infiltrator nodded and snorkelled blood and snot back up his nose.
‘So tell me who you are?’
The Infiltrator exercised h
is right to remain silent.
Ebb reached into the pocket of his white ceremonial robe and pulled out a small glass vial. He held it up in front of his quarry. ‘Do you know what this is?’
‘No.’
‘It’s holy water. Do you know what holy water is?’
‘Yes.’
Ebb smiled. ‘Good. So you’ll understand it burns the skin of evildoers?’
The Infiltrator’s eyes widened. They looked to Ebb as if they were making a grand effort to launch from their sockets and fly to the moon. And well they might. If he was connected to a demon, he was in for a tough time. A very tough time indeed.
‘Please…don’t…do…this…’
Ebb uncapped the bottle. There was a tiny dropper attached to the lid. He drew some of the liquid into the dropper and stepped closer to his adversary. Close enough to smell his rank body. The stench of bodily waste was almost too much to bear. God alone knew what diseases the Infiltrator harboured.
The Infiltrator wheezed and rasped like a knackered engine trying to whirr into life. ‘Geoff…my name’s…Geoff…’
Ebb stepped back and studied the weasel’s face for signs of deception. ‘Geoff? Geoff who?’
The Infiltrator sucked in air through clenched teeth. He gasped five or six times, as if he were about to deliver a baby demon, and then shook his head.
Ebb took a deep breath and tried to summon patience. It was wearing as thin as the Infiltrator’s hair. ‘Geoff who?’
The Infiltrator looked away.
The demon was toying with him. Teasing him. Trying to provoke him. Ebb refused to rise to it. ‘I don’t particularly care what your name is. I want you to tell me who sent you.’
He scraped his tongue over dry lips. ‘I’m a bird-watcher.’
Ebb shook his head. ‘Liar! Did Satan send you?’
‘No.’
‘Does Satan reside in you?’
A long drawn out wheeze, and then, ‘No.’
Ebb smiled. ‘I expect nothing other than denial from a terrorist.’
The Infiltrator’s eyes rolled back in his head. Further indication to Ebb that he was harbouring a demon. ‘I’m not—’
Ebb raised a hand and stepped back. ‘I fear no evil. I shall not stand in the shadow of evil. I am the light, and I am the resurrection.’
‘I’m…Geoff.’
The words sounded like they’d been raked over hot coals. The hot coals of Hell. ‘Show yourself, Satan.’
‘I’m…not…Satan….’
Ebb smiled. ‘Denial is always the first port of call for Satan’s seafarers.’ He stepped forward again and held out the dropper. ‘The holy water shall determine your validity.’
The Infiltrator stared at him with those treacherous eyes.
‘Do you fear the holy water, Satan?’
Satan did. It was written it in a thousand lines upon the Infiltrator’s face. And well he might fear the holy water. Just as he’d been right to fear the hot needle that Ebb had thrust into his wounded shoulder. Like all cowards, Satan was not as good at taking pain as he was at dishing it out.
Ropes pinned The Infiltrator’s hands to his sides. Tweezer had secured him well. Tweezer seemed to enjoy tying people up, especially people who had betrayed The Sons and Daughters of Salvation. Ebb dripped a few drops of holy water onto the Infiltrator’s right hand.
The coward did not stand on ceremony. He bucked and writhed and tipped himself sideways onto the cold concrete floor. His head hit the ground with a nasty thud, reminiscent of when Ebb had hit his mother over the head with a shovel many years ago.
‘Come forth, Satan. Come forth and show yourself.’
Satan seemed content thrashing about on the floor inside the Infiltrator’s body. Ebb had intended to drop acid onto the weasel’s other hand, but he didn’t want to risk his own safety by getting too close. A wounded animal was a dangerous animal.
‘Come forth, Satan. Come into the light and face the truth.’
Satan’s rage frothed and bubbled on the Infiltrator’s lips. Ebb wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see ectoplasm forming a cocoon around that filthy, matted beard. He stepped back to a safer distance and screwed the cap back onto the bottle.
‘I shall send Sister Alice and Brother Tweezer to attend to you later.’
The Infiltrator didn’t look very grateful. He wriggled and moaned and scraped his head on the rough concrete floor as if trying to burrow his way out of the Revelation Room.
Ebb was in no mood to pander to whims. He left the Infiltrator to bask in self-pity and walked out of the Revelation Room. He locked the door behind him and rested his back against it. As soon as he understood Satan’s purpose here, the Infiltrator could go straight to Hell courtesy of death by a thousand cuts.
Chapter nine
Anne Whittle looked at her son as if he’d just told her he was about to fly to the moon on a broomstick. ‘And what if it all goes wrong?’
‘It won’t.’
‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.’
Ben tried to summon conviction. ‘I’ll be all right. I promise.’
‘And what am I supposed to do while you’re away? Sit here and worry myself into an early grave?’
‘Tom said you can help out at the church.’
‘Church?’ Anne sounded like a child learning words for the first time.
‘They need help with the garden.’
‘I thought Maddie was staying with me.’
‘Maddie’s coming with me.’
‘Why?’
Ben took a deep breath. ‘Because we’ve got a much better chance of getting inside this cult if we’re together.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s better than me at convincing people.’
‘We should just call the police.’
‘We can’t, Mum. We don’t even know where the cult is, do we?’
‘Let them find him. That’s what they’re paid to do, isn’t it?’
‘We don’t have enough time.’
Anne picked at her bottom lip with a shaking hand. ‘How long will you be gone?’
Ben stared at his mother. With her bobbed hair and big brown eyes, she put him in mind of a spaniel. How on earth was he supposed to give her a timeframe? ‘Not long.’
She reached into her pocket and held out a tiny gold locket on a gold chain. ‘This is for you.’
Ben took the locket and frowned. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s your brother’s.’
The wiring in Ben’s brain short-circuited. ‘I haven’t got a brother.’
‘You have. He died.’
Ben’s eyes widened. ‘When?’
‘Almost two years before you were born.’
Ben took a step back. ‘You’ve never said.’
Anne didn’t answer. Tears turned her eyes to smoked glass.
‘I had a brother, and you didn’t think to tell me?’
‘Your father didn’t want to talk about it.’
Ben was about to say something he might later regret about his father, and then: ‘How did he die?’
‘We don’t know.’
Ben laughed. A nasty, nasal sound that was a distant cousin to a snort. ‘What do you mean, you “don’t know”?’
‘He died in the womb when he was six months old. But I still had to give birth to him. He was still your brother. We called him Dominic. There’s a plaque in the cemetery.’
Ben leaned against the kitchen worktop for support. ‘I can’t believe you never told me.’
‘I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’ Anne shouted. ‘I’m telling you so you understand how precious you are to me. What a miracle you are. I had a massive haemorrhage, Ben. They told me not to have any more children. But I wanted to. I wanted to give your father a child. I wanted to give Dominic a little brother or sister. I wanted to show them all I wouldn’t be beaten.’
Ben took a deep breath. ‘Jesus Christ.’
Anne bit her lip. ‘So you take that locket
and remember just how precious you are. I know what people think of me. I know what they say. They look at me and think I haven’t got a thought in my head. But I have. I’ve got just as many thoughts in my head as anyone else.’
‘No one thinks that, Mum.’
‘Yes, they do. But do you know what? None of them know me. Your father included. He thinks he does. Thinks he knows me upside down and back to front. But I don’t let him in here.’ Anne tapped the side of her head.
What was he supposed to say? Hey, Mum, good job on keeping that a secret all these years?
‘I know your father’s never treated you right. Ordering you around as soon as you could walk. Making you nervous. So I won’t make excuses for him not wanting to talk about what happened to Dominic. It’s just the way he is. He keeps it all in. Puts on this great big brave face and hides his feelings behind that big bushy beard.’
Ben laughed. ‘He didn’t hide his feelings if I did something wrong.’
‘I know.’
‘He didn’t hide his feelings when he used to make me stand outside for half the night if I messed up.’
‘He was just trying to teach you—’
Ben snorted. ‘Teach me? Teach me what? How to freeze?’
‘How to be a good boy.’
Ben looked away. ‘I wet my pants once when he shouted at me.’
Anne looked shocked. ‘When?’
‘One Christmas Eve when he caught me sneaking a look at my presents under the tree. You went to bed early with a headache. He took me out to the shed and told me that all my presents were going to the children’s home. And then he told me I had to stay in the shed all night because Santa’s evil twin was going to come and punish me.’
Anne shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry, Ben. I didn’t know.’
Ben bit his lip. ‘I was scared of him. I reckon he was the reason I stuttered.’
Anne didn’t answer. She looked out of the kitchen window for a few moments before speaking. ‘He does love you.’
‘He has a funny way of showing it.’
‘I remember when I brought you home from the hospital. He was so proud. He walked around with you in his arms, talking to you like you were all grown-up.’
‘As if I’d have understood that.’