Fear No Evil (Debbie Johnson)

by Debbie Johnson

  ‘Yeah, but all that supernatural shit going on is your thing, isn’t it? That’s your job. I’ll just hang round in the background saying a Hail Mary with my knees knocking if you like. But this stuff… the human shit… this is my world. I should know all about this.’

  Dan smiled, reached out and gently stroked the side of my face with one long finger. I leapt so high I almost banged my head on the roof of the Swift.

  ‘Stop frowning. Stop trying to control everything. Stop—’

  I never got to find out what else I was supposed to stop doing, as my phone started ringing and I answered it instead. The number was withheld, and the voice on the other end was female, drenched in years of heavy-duty tobacco smoking. The kind of gravel you don’t get for less than forty Benson and Hedges a day.

  ‘Is this Jayne McCartney?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. No relation,’ I snapped. I wasn’t having a good afternoon.

  ‘To who? Eddie fucking Murphy? I can tell, love, ’cause you’re not funny. I think you’ve been looking for me.’

  A very large penny dropped from the sky and landed with a crack on my skull.

  ‘Is this Lorraine?’ I asked, opening my eyes wide at Dan in a ‘this-could-be-important’ gesture.

  ‘Yeah. What do you want, and what’s it got to do with my daughter?’

  ‘Lorraine, first off, I’m not working for them. The Caseys. I’ll meet you anywhere, any time, it’s up to you. I think you could help me. Another girl died. At Hart House. Same way as Geneva. And her mother’s going through exactly what you did.’

  ‘I don’t think so, hon. Bet she didn’t have to play the grieving single parent to the police, did she? Identify the body on her own? Go to the pissing inquest on her own? Answer all their stupid questions on her own, with no one to offer a tissue or hold her hand when she was crying too much to talk any more? All to protect my dick of a father-in-law. They can all burn in hell as far as I’m concerned, and take their blood money with them… Don’t s’pose you’re interested in all that crap, are you? Anyway. I’ll help if I can, or that makes me as bad as them, doesn’t it? Can you come now?’

  I glanced at my watch. I’d been hoping to catch up with Alec Jones for a late lunch, and call by to see Corky to get a copy of Geneva’s inquest report, but that could wait. I was sure I’d find out more from her mum than anything the pages of a file could tell me.

  ‘Yes. And Lorraine – is it all right if I bring someone with me? He’s… a friend of your priest.’

  There was a beat of silence. I could hear a cigarette lighter sparking into action and a faint sucking sound as she took her first drag.

  ‘Okay. I’ll meet you at the Beatles Story in half an hour.’

  I closed the phone, looked up at Dan.

  ‘The Family,’ he croaked, in a passable Marlon Brando impression. ‘We have our ways.’

  ‘I never doubted it for a second. So now we have a date with Mrs Connelly. That thing I said about you being a friend of her priest? I hope you didn’t mind me… well—’

  ‘Lying?’ he supplied.

  ‘You might be a friend of her priest – you don’t even know who he is, so it could be true. Anyway, I was going to say embroidering. It’s a much nicer word.’

  ‘Perhaps. But lying is a much more accurate word. I have my suspicions that nothing I could ever say or do would stop you lying. I don’t think you can help yourself. So what would be the point of me minding? I’d spend the whole day getting annoyed with you.’

  ‘Very philosophical,’ I said, pulling off from the side of the road and heading the car back into town. ‘If only I could have the same approach to you being so bloody patronising. Now shut up and put your seatbelt on.’

  Meeting at the Beatles Story at the Albert Dock was a stroke of genius on Lorraine Connelly’s part. The Dock is buzzing at night, packed with glamour and party animals and probably a fair whack of Casey products: bar-room muscle, mood- enhancing Scooby snacks, the occasional affiliated ‘dipper’ helping themselves to the contents of an overlooked handbag. But at lunchtime? Not a whiff. Tourist Liverpool was out to play, and unless they were in disguise as Spanish students having their photos taken with the busker in a Sgt Pepper outfit, nobody from the family was likely to be within a mile of us.

  Dan was distracted as we walked through the exhibitions. I suspected a hopeless fan was hiding under his calm exterior, and he’d start humming ‘Day Tripper’ any minute now.

  ‘I hope you’re not about to whip out your skiffle board,’ I said.

  ‘I almost never do that in public,’ he replied, as we made our way to the replica Cavern where we’d arranged to meet Lorraine.

  It’s weirdly like the original, except much less smelly. Dark, dingy, atmospheric – but the sanitised twenty-first-century version comes without the fags, booze and wee on the floor.

  I knew Lorraine the minute I saw her. She was trying to down-glam, but the vestiges were still there – perfectly frosted blonde hair extensions; a trim size-eight figure dressed in a Juicy Couture tracksuit; over-tanned skin criss-crossed with smoker’s creases. Huge blue eyes that had already seen way too much for one life-time. She was in her early forties and had the physique of a teenager, but her face told a different story. I heard a gag once about Liverpool women being called ‘Kronenbourgs’, after the lager – because they looked sixteen from the back and sixty-four from the front. Lorraine was a classic example of the breed.

  She looked at us warily as we approached, lingering slightly longer on Dan than she did on me. Quelle surprise.

  ‘Thanks for meeting us, Lorraine,’ I said. ‘This is Father Dan Lennon. He’s helping me out on this.’

  ‘He’s a priest?’ she asked, sounding shocked. The subtext was something along the lines of ‘with a body like that?’. I sympathised, but didn’t have time for girl talk.

  ‘Former priest,’ he added, with infuriating honesty.

  ‘Right. Well. I’ve not got long,’ said Lorraine. ‘So get to the point.’

  ‘Okay. Do you think Geneva was murdered by a ghost?’

  That seemed to-the-point enough to me, and Lorraine made a slight hissing noise in response She was trying to look tough, but it didn’t really work – all I saw was a sad, ageing beauty who’d lost her only child, and given the best years of her life to a family who wouldn’t piss on her if she was on fire. In fact, they’d probably bring a six pack and some burgers and have a barbie.

  ‘She’s serious,’ said Dan, quietly. He reached out and took Lorraine’s hand in his, making eye contact with her in such an intimate way I felt like a gooseberry.

  ‘We know you’ve been through something terrible,’ he said. ‘I can’t even pretend to know what it’s like to lose a daughter, or to live with the pain you live with every day. But I know you’re a woman of faith, and that God has never left you. Geneva’s never left you. What we’re doing now is trying to prevent this ever happening again, and we hope you can help us with that.’

  She was a tiny woman, really. Even with heels she’d be shorter than me. She was clinging on to Dan’s hand and staring up at him, eyes swimming with tears.

  ‘You think so, do you? That Geneva’s with me? Because it doesn’t bloody feel like it. And I have to go to Church. I have to keep asking Him why he picked on her; why he took my little girl, the only good blood in that entire bastard family…’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t God who took her, Lorraine. Perhaps it was something else. But she’s with Him now. I’m sure of that.’

  I wasn’t so convinced – this was a teenage girl Wigwam had told me was planning a move into the hierarchy of Liverpool’s version of the Krays. A girl who even Wigwam had described as ‘tough’. Surely St Peter would call security when that rolled up at the pearly gates looking for a pass in?

  Lorraine squeezed her eyelids closed, and tiny drops of liquid were forced from the corners. She wiped them clear with one vicious swipe, and tugged her hand free of Dan’s.

  ‘You wou
ld say that. Anyway. When our Theresa,’ – she used the correct Liverpool pronunciation of ‘Tree-za’ – ‘started blabbering on about this ghost business, we all thought she’d lost the plot. She’s a bit highly strung, to be honest, her mother did too much coke while she was carrying her. We were all amazed she came out of the womb with a whole nose. But they were close, her and Geneva, always had been. And she says our girl had been… well, haunted. For weeks before the fall. Not the type to spook easy, Geneva, you know? She had… balls, Eugene always used to say. Told her she was a little girl with big balls.’

  Eugene would probably win Grandad of the Year Awards with pep talks like that. He should get it printed up into a bumper sticker.

  ‘She wasn’t daft. No illusions about what her dad and grandad did for a living. Saw plenty of stuff no little one should. She had a habit of hiding for hours on end, in cupboards and under desks and even in the boots of cars. Liked listening in, storing it all away. It didn’t bother her. Not like it did me, anyway. She was clever. She had plans. For years, when she was a baby, I had these fantasies – I’d get some money of me own, take her away, move to fucking France or something and raise her away from… them. But as she got older, I saw it different. I saw she was more like them than me. Don’t get me wrong, she was a good girl. She never hurt a fly.’

  Lorraine was fooling nobody but herself, and I wasn’t sure she was even pulling that one off. Geneva would clearly have kicked the ass of Lucretia Borgia and Lady Macbeth in the Fantasy Bitch League, and undoubtedly expected to follow in the fine Casey family tradition of murder, mayhem and mutilation. She’d just have done it wearing a push-up bra and a with law degree.

  Time to get down to business. Background on Geneva’s character was all well and good, but she wasn’t my concern, Joy was.

  ‘And after Geneva… what did you think about what Theresa said?’ I asked. ‘About ghosts? Because we – me, Father Dan and a few other people – think Theresa may well have been right. There’s something going on at Hart House. Something very, very bad.’

  ‘And are you going to stop it, love? You and Father Fuck Me here?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dan, firmly, as I bit back a laugh. ‘We are. What else can you tell us that might help?’

  ‘Like what? What would I know?’

  ‘Do you remember Geneva’s room number?’ I asked. ‘Did she keep a diary? And… why didn’t she tell you? About the problems she was having?’

  I knew the last question was a killer, and fully anticipated a potential, and justified, slap across the chops. I steeled myself, but it never came. Lorraine looked deflated and desolate. I didn’t think she had the energy left to swat a fly off her dinner plate, never mind me.

  ‘She was in room 18. And no diary – too busy trying to find out other people’s secrets to write down her own. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me, love. I’ve asked myself that over and over again. We were close, once. But… she’d changed. The last few months before I lost her, she was quieter than usual. Always seemed to be concentrating on something I didn’t know about. Looking at something I couldn’t see. Just put it down to stress and study, didn’t I? Maybe I should’ve pushed harder, but she reacted about as well to ultimatums as Eugene. Whenever we argued, even if it was her fault, she could go weeks without speaking to me at all; until I ended up the one begging her to make up… I didn’t want that to happen again.

  ‘Later, though, after that inquest, I found out it might have been hormones. Because of the baby.’

  ‘What baby?’ I asked, suddenly wishing I’d taken the trouble to pester Corky before I came.

  ‘The baby she was carrying, hon. Geneva was eight weeks pregnant when she died.’

  Chapter 23

  ‘That was a bit of a revelation, wasn’t it?’ I said, as we walked along the waterfront back into town to Will’s place. The Liver Birds loomed overhead, dark against the sunshine, and the red open-topped buses were doing a roaring trade.

  He ignored me, which was probably for the best, and stepped up his pace so I had to scoot a bit to keep up.

  Will’s place had become the unofficial headquarters for our diverse gang of derring-doers. Betty and Justin were staying there, but Dan was sticking with Duane. Maybe something to do with the Clash back catalogue. Perhaps they stripped down to their dog collars and pogoed round the vestry to ‘Rock the Casbah’ late at night, necking the communion wine.

  The appearance of the kids-quite-literally-from-hell had narrowed our points of research. Betty and Adam had now put together a string of child disappearances that coincided with the early stages of Hart House’s erection.

  They didn’t spot a pattern at first, as it was spread across a three-year period from 1892 to 1895. The children in question were both male and female, aged from two to thirteen, taken from different areas across the city. The police of the day hadn’t made any connection between them – but that meant nothing. The children had all been poor, and three were from labouring Irish families and therefore didn’t count. Even today, with computers and the internet and global co-operation of law enforcement agencies, the Peter Sutcliffes and Fred Wests of the world still remain unnoticed for a scarily long time.

  But when they cross-referenced the abduction reports with the Hart House timeline, it was there – at least eight of them fit, maybe more. A four-year-old boy, taken from Scotland Road the day before the foundation stone was laid by Will’s architect ancestor Joshua Deerborne. A girl, six, from Bootle, two days before the ground breaking on the west wing. A twelve-year-old disappearing from outside her home in the city back-to-backs the night before work started on the now long-gone summerhouse. A pattern. A horrible one.

  My heart threatened to splinter and crack if I thought too much about what they’d gone through. Snatched from their families. Kept, alone and terrified, murdered in God knows what hideous way.

  I knew it was relevant, and I knew Dan saw it as the key to the whole thing. The children were sacrificed, probably at some kind of altar inside the building, he thought. A Satanic ritual. Their spirits had lingered, understandably discontent, linked by their deaths and by the building. And the demon was using that negative energy to manifest itself.

  Really, it sounded like such a load of old bollocks. If I hadn’t experienced some of it myself, I’d be calling the men in white coats for an emergency pick-up.

  Instead I concentrated on the problems in the here and now, the ones I could deal with, and ignored the hideous research from decades ago. I mean, did the Caped Crusader call in at the library on his way to open a can of whoopass on the Joker? I don’t think so.

  Dan was planning to have The Talk with Will and thought it might be better if I was there. Not the birds and the bees, you understand – I’m sure Will was perfectly aware of how babies were made – but the Your Ancestors Might Have Been Satanists talk. Not something many captains of industry were facing after lunch.

  Francesca informed us, in as few syllables as possible, that Mr Deerborne was finishing off a video-conference with Tokyo, and would be up ‘presently’. She’d arranged for refreshments, which she probably hoped I’d choke to death on.

  I mooched around the lounge, nosing into nooks and crannies and wishing Dan wasn’t there so I could have opened a few drawers as well. It was very inhibiting. Even when he wasn’t saying anything, I felt guilty. Still, I’d be able to have a snoop in the bathrooms cabinets later, at least.

  ‘Do you remember your first confession?’ he asked, as I poked around a letter tray looking for anything interesting. Notes from Will’s pen pal on death row in Texas. Copies of bank statements. Bravissimo catalogues. That kind of thing.

  ‘Yeah, course I do. I couldn’t think of anything I’d done wrong, so I lied and said I’d knocked my brother Patrick off the swings. Father Doheny was so impressed with my honesty he gave me a Snickers bar afterwards. Well, it was a Marathon back then, obviously.’

  ‘You learned the lesson well, then.’

  ‘Wha
t? Tell big fibs and you get free chocolate? Yeah, I took that one right to heart. Why are you asking, anyway?’

  ‘Because I struggle with it sometimes. With faith – the trappings of it. And you… you seem to do a lot of things that would technically be classed as wrong. But somehow – you make them feel right.’

  I looked up from the letters - there was nothing there but invitations to glittering social events and requests for charitable donations anyway.

  ‘I assumed you’d, I don’t know, fallen out of love with all that. Or you’d still be a priest, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I fell “out of love”, as you put it, with the bureaucracy. Not with my beliefs. But I haven’t been to confession for months, and things are… disturbing me.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ I asked, holding his eyes with mine and feeling a strange tingling bubbling away in the pit of my tummy.

  ‘I’m not interrupting, am I?’ said Will, walking into the room at exactly the wrong – or possibly right – moment. He was wearing one of those impeccably cut suits that Tish likes so much, and shoes that probably cost as much as my car.

  ‘No. Not at all,’ Dan replied, one final glance at me before giving all his attention to Will. ‘How are you today? Any problems sleeping?’

  ‘None at all,’ said Will. ‘Which probably makes me a very bad person. What happened last night at Hart House… it was very disturbing. I’ve been thinking about it all day, trying to sort it out in my mind. I haven’t been able to – but I have come to a conclusion. I want to help you stop it. In any way I can.’

  I met Dan’s eye and he nodded slightly. We needed to tread carefully – it wasn’t Will’s fault he was the progeny of evil, after all.

  ‘Thanks Will. We need all the help we can get,’ I said. ‘And there is something we really need to discuss, about Hart House. And about your ancestors, especially Joshua Deerborne.’