Fear No Evil (Debbie Johnson)

by Debbie Johnson

  The Stag Building was an old office block down near the docks, rented out to a cargo ferry firm. A bit dusty, a bit down-at-heel, but not in the slightest demonic, as far as I could tell.

  ‘Why would there be all this activity at one Deerborne building and not at the others, assuming they were also, I dunno, built for nefarious purposes?’ I asked.

  ‘Nefarious. That’s a good word,’ he replied. ‘Well, the short answer is I don’t know. Demonic activity is unpredictable. It might depend on what the building was used for, and who by. Plus the fact that the chaos of young students coming and going every year might be attractive to it.’

  ‘Yuk. So, if there were more virgins being sacrificed in black masses at Hart House – yeah, I know, stereotype – then it would potentially have stored more evil than the others? Is that it?’

  ‘Maybe. Sometimes you get infestations attached to certain buildings because of what’s gone on there; how much they were invited in. There could be somewhere in Hart House that has more significance, that was perhaps used for rituals—’

  ‘The roof,’ I said. ‘I bet it’s the roof. The first time I saw it I thought it looked like there was something up there – a garden or an old observatory. But heck, could just as easily be a Satanic altar and a drink-as-much-blood-as-you-can buffet bar. Only in summer though, obviously. Be really cold up there the rest of the year, the wind blowing up from the waterfront like it does. It’d go right up their robes. Bloody fair-weather devil worshippers.’

  Dan shook his head in disgust, but I could see a smile tugging at the corner of his lips at the image of the big bad bogeymen doing a Marilyn with their skirts.

  I heard my phone pinging – a text landing. I kept hold of the wheel like the law-abiding citizen I am, and asked Dan to check it for me.

  ‘What if it’s personal?’ he asked.

  ‘It won’t be,’ I said, hoping it wasn’t in fact Alec Jones suggesting a squirty cream mud wrestle at his place at midnight.

  ‘It’s from Tish,’ he said when he opened it up. ‘She’s… shit!’

  ‘What? What? Why the “shit”? You don’t use words like “shit”! Tell me before I crash the fucking car!’

  I pulled in as fast as I could, and grabbed the phone from him.

  ‘J – meet me later – we need to talk tonight. Out with my camera now, at the other Deerborne buildings, but see you back at Pig’s Trotter by 10 p.m.’

  Tish was the only person I knew who texted with full grammar and punctuation. Her one-woman battle to keep up standards in the English language. I hit reply, texted the word ‘DON’T’ in capitals, then called her. Straight to voicemail. I left a message, then got out of the car.

  ‘Dan – you drive – I need to make some calls,’ I said, getting out and switching places with him.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be all right,’ he replied, adjusting the driver’s seat so he could fit his legs in. ‘She won’t go in, she’s too sharp. And nothing’s happened at those buildings.’

  ‘As far as we know. And that’s not good enough. First Adam warns us about them, and then Tish says she’s going along to take photos of them…shit!’ I snapped. I buckled up, and dialled Alec Jones.

  ‘I need a favour,’ I said.

  ‘Then you’ll owe me one,’ he replied, on auto flirt. Any other time, I’d have been up for it – but not now.

  ‘No. This is serious, Alec. I know we’ve avoided discussing the woo-woo stuff, but it’s real, and it’s dangerous, and my best friend is heading right into it. I’m probably a couple of hours away and I need you to get there for me and make sure she’s all right.’

  ‘Should I take back-up?’

  ‘No… hang on, can you call in some kind of B&E at one of them? Then a patrol will go round there, while you check out the other. You know, prowler or something. Anything to get a couple of uniforms there. Send them to Doe Hall in Roby, will you? And you go to the Stag Building. We’ll meet you there.’

  ‘The one by Victoria?’

  ‘Yeah. You’re looking for Tish Landry. You won’t be able to miss her – tall, glam, camera in her hand.’

  ‘I won’t be able to miss her because it’s eight o’clock at night, and there’ll be nothing down there apart from rats, of both the rodent and human variety.’

  ‘I hope you’re right – thanks Alec,’ I said.

  I hung up, and turned back to Dan.

  ‘You’d better get that dog collar back on,’ I said. ‘Because we’re going to be breaking some speed limits.’

  Chapter 40

  I’ve seen Tish’s blood before. Like the time she got drunk on Aftershock in the park when we were sixteen and fell face-forward off the roundabout. There was a lot of it then, streaming from her split lip, made worse by the fact she was laughing so much. And when we went on a misguided Club 18-30 holiday to Tenerife when we were both twenty-nine, our last hurrah before we were officially Too Old To Party. She’d walked straight into the side of a plate glass sliding door and almost sliced the top of her big toe off. It’d made mincemeat of her pedicure, and bled so much she had to throw her sandals away because dogs kept sniffing her feet.

  But I’d never seen this much blood. I didn’t think she had that much in her, skinny thing as she is. And as I stared at the dark, glistening puddle rolling slowly in big, fat drips off the steps in front of me, I wondered how she could possibly survive with that much out of her.

  Alec was holding me back, grabbing my arms from behind to restrain me, and I thought I might punch him if he didn’t let me go. The crime scene arc lights were set up, the white forensics tent covering the whole porch, men in uniforms and white jumpsuits flocking over it like albino ants.

  ‘Where is she?’ I yelled, trying to prise his fingers away from my flesh.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said quietly, his voice taking on a gentle Welsh lilt I’d never noticed before. Must be his soothing-the-dangerous-lunatic tone.

  I whirled round to glare at him.

  ‘Gone where?’ I shouted. ‘To the General? Tell me!’

  ‘She’s gone, Jayne,’ he repeated, his brown eyes glazed with sympathy. ‘And I’m going to need you to calm down so I can ask you some questions. It’s the only way you can help her now.’

  I stared up at his face, searching for a sign that I wasn’t understanding him properly. Some sign that he was mistaken. Some doubt. Some clue that she wasn’t ‘gone’, that she was in an ambulance on her way to the hospital, where the finest medical team in the land would be waiting to work on her. To fix her. To stitch her back up. To bring her back. Because Tish could not be dead. That was just too crazy, too weird, too… wrong. It was wrong, and Alec must be wrong too.

  He shook his head and clamped his lips together, failing to find the words that could comfort me, too kind to use blunt force.

  Gone.

  I fell to the floor, landed on the stone cobbles like a sack of flour, bones turned to paste. It had started to rain again. Hard and heavy. I heard one of the forensics guys saying ‘oh for fuck’s sake’ in the background. Water’s not good for crime scenes. For murder scenes. For scenes of insane slaughter.

  Dan stepped forward, shouldered Alec aside and kneeled down next to me. He was getting his jeans dirty, I thought, wondering for a moment why we were both sitting on the floor in a filthy dockside street, in the rain.

  ‘Come on, now,’ he said, reaching out for me. He brushed my hair out of my eyes, then held both my hands in his.

  ‘We have to get up, and go with Alec. He needs to talk to you. Then I’ll take you home.’

  ‘No,’ I said, my fingers limp in his grip. I didn’t know if I’d ever have enough control over my limbs to get up again. I’d have to spend the rest of my life here, like a catatonic tramp, watching the ferries come and go.

  ‘He says she’s gone, Dan. He means she’s dead. That can’t be right, can it? She texted us… I’m meeting her for a drink tonight. She’s bought a new camera and everything.’

  ‘I kn
ow,’ he replied, quietly, ‘but something happened to her here, Jayne. Tish isn’t with us any more.’

  Not Tish. Just her blood, trickling and rolling and congealing on the steps, getting photographed and tested and eventually, when they were all done and it couldn’t answer any more questions, scrubbed away and forgotten and trampled underfoot as office workers trudged in and out, day after day after day. Scrubbed away like Joy Middlemas. And Geneva Connelly. And the blood from Justin’s head… God. Why had he survived and Tish hadn’t?

  The thought shot across my mind, fired like a shard of glass from a slingshot and embedding itself in my thoughts. Not fair. I knew it wasn’t fair. But Tish being dead wasn’t fair either.

  ‘I have to tell her mum and dad, and Tash, and… Richard. I have to tell Richard,’ I muttered, my lips wobbling as I tried to form words. Somewhere, deep down, I was calling myself names. Like ‘pathetic cow’.

  ‘Alec will do that – and we can go and see them all tomorrow, if you want to. I’ll come with you. But for now, you need to help Alec. Give him their details. Answer his questions. You know it needs to be done quickly.’

  He was right. Quickly was best. Brutal and fast and with all haste, it needed to be done. Her parents had to be told their oldest daughter, their wayward sheep, had died alone and in pain. And Tash… God, knowing Tash, she’d already be in bed with her cocoa and a Mills & Boon, getting a good night’s sleep before another busy day in the doctor’s surgery where she worked. Richard… he’d be in the pub. Or at work. Happy to be back with her, happy at the thought of spending another night with her, wondering when their next big row was going to explode and how long he’d have to wait before she pouted her way back into his bed.

  Dan stood up and held out his hands. I took them and he tugged me to my feet. I wavered slightly, then turned for a final look at the scene. Jesus. What had happened? Why hadn’t I made it in time? Why had I got her involved in all this shit in the first place? Why was Justin still here when she wasn’t? God, I wanted that thought to go away. I slammed my scrunched up fists into my temples, trying to knock it out of my head. Dan took hold of my hands and held them down by my side.

  ‘This way,’ said Alec, ‘we’ll talk in my car.’

  I was grateful. The portable incident room was already there, parked up like the overgrown caravan it was, its tiny windows steamed up from the warm breath of the people inside. I knew what it would be like in there: overcrowded, everyone jostling for space, mobile phones and cameras and fingerprint kits and take-out coffees strewn over every surface. I didn’t want to go in, sit with a blanket round my shoulders, and blubber like a baby. Waiting for them to try and prod information out of me while trying to avoid provoking a full-scale breakdown and a call for the Valium man. I’d done it myself – get ’em talking, Jayne, I’d always be told, but stop ’em crying.

  I’d known, deep down, what had happened. The minute Dan screeched the car around the corner, slamming on the brakes at the sight of crime scene tape stretched across the road, I knew.

  The constable on guard duty had tried to stop me getting past, until I physically threw myself at him so hard we both fell over, wrapped in yellow tape, tumbling on the pavement as I shouted for Alec Jones.

  Alec Jones. My hero. He’d rescued me from the PC, pulled me out of the tape, and tried to tell me what had happened. Tried to keep me away from that doorway, even though there was no sign of her. Of Tish. Of her body. There’s never a rush to move a corpse, once it’s well and truly dead. It’s just forensic furniture to the people dealing with the crime, not a real-life person who loved new shoes and had a dog called Mr Bean and watched Bagpuss on DVD when she was feeling sad. But once the tests are done, the pictures taken, it goes away. Off to the mortuary, the realm of Corky Corcoran and the Coroner. The place I’d been to see Dodgy Bobby, what felt like years before.

  I sat in the passenger seat. Alec sat next to me, Dan behind. He wasn’t touching me, or talking to me, but having him inches away allowed me to breathe. And if I was going to talk, I needed to breathe.

  ‘Her mum and dad are at 54 Grayson Villas. It’s in Cressington. They moved there last year and… you don’t need their life story, do you?’ I said.

  ‘Phone number?’ he asked. I recited the number. They’d kept the one they’d always had, and in the days before mobile phones when Tish was a teenager living at home – technically at least – I’d called it a thousand times. A million.

  ‘Anyone else? Husband? Partner?’

  ‘No. A boyfriend, but… they’re next of kin. Be careful when you tell her dad. He’s got angina. And her sister Tash is… well, be careful. They’re sensitive people. Quiet people. Nice people.’

  The exact opposite of Tish, in fact, who was rude, loud and often awful. We used to joke she’d been adopted from some woman who was jailed for being criminally shallow.

  ‘It’s all right, Jayne,’ Alec said, resting his notepad on his lap and gazing at me. ‘I’ll go myself. I’ll do it properly. I’ll look after them.’

  ‘Thank you… how did it happen, Alec? I can see the blood. I know she’s… gone. But how, exactly?’

  There was a pause as he weighed up his options. I was his friend. I was a former police officer. But I was also close to the victim and had been displaying signs of considerable hysteria just minutes ago.

  ‘Tell me Alec, please. I’ll find out myself eventually anyway.’

  ‘Throat,’ he answered. I nodded. That explained the blood.

  ‘Done properly?’ I asked. He knew what I meant. It’s not a cause of death you see often, but like most of them, it comes with its own ways to go wrong. Clean, professional, with the carotid and the jugular severed, it’s over quickly. Messy, but quick. But done wrong? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

  He nodded, and I felt a tiny sliver of relief ease its way into my heart. I couldn’t deal with that now, but I knew it would, ultimately, help. To know she hadn’t been lying here, in this dismal street, alone and bleeding and gasping for life.

  ‘Her bag was gone,’ he said. ‘Her coat pockets inside out, like someone had been through them, looking for loose change or keys. We sent someone round to her flat straight away, just in case. No sign of anything there, but then again I was fast getting here. She was still—’

  ‘Warm?’ I finished for him, as he realised what he was about to say. He nodded.

  ‘It’s all right, Alec. You did everything you could. So, what are you thinking? Robbery gone wrong? I’m presuming there were no signs of sexual assault?’

  I couldn’t quite believe those words were coming out of my mouth, but something about Alec describing the scene had kicked it off in me – a proper response. The kind of response I’d been trained for. And also a way of detaching myself so this wasn’t actually Tish we were talking about.

  ‘No,’ he answered quickly, ‘not that we could see. And no defence wounds on her hands.’

  That meant she hadn’t seen it coming. Most people, when confronted by a big knife about to insert itself into their bodies, have the natural reaction of throwing up their hands to ward it off. Unfortunately flesh and blood isn’t much of a defence against sharp metal, and their palms end up slashed as well. So Tish had been killed quickly, efficiently, and from behind.

  ‘That,’ I said to Dan in the back seat, ‘sounds pretty fucking human to me.’

  Alec asked more questions. I gave him more answers. He avoided the ‘woo-woo’ stuff, and concentrated on the facts. As I climbed out of the car and back into the deluge, he hugged me, pulling me to him and holding my hair in his hands in a way officers in charge really aren’t supposed to do. I could feel the eyes of his team on us, wondering if the boss had gone mad.

  ‘I’m here for you, Jayne,’ he murmured, kissing the top of my head. ‘Anything you need.’

  I nodded into his chest, and retreated, back to that bloody red BMW that had seemed so fun and interesting a few hours ago. Before everything changed.

  ‘Whe
re?’ asked Dan, sliding behind the wheel without asking if he should.

  ‘The pub,’ I replied. ‘The Swordsman.’

  The Swordsman was a crappy, run-down pub near the office where Tish’s paper was based. What lighting it has flickers on and off; their idea of a bar snack is a bag of pork scratchings; and at least two reporters have seen rats peeping out of the frayed upholstery. But it fit the basic requirement of a journalists’ pub: it wasn’t the best, it wasn’t the cheapest, but it was the nearest.

  As we walked in, the karaoke was in full sway, and the rats were in hiding – presumably shielding their ears from the Whitney Houston song that was currently being massacred by a woman I knew as the education reporter. My eyes adjusted to the dim glare of on-off lights, and I scanned the room for Richard. He was perched on a stool by the bar, a small ocean of empty pint glasses in front of him, talking to a much older man. He noticed me and waved.

  ‘Hi Jayne! Drink? Is Tish on her way?’

  Richard was a tall man, his body all geeky angles and straight lines. His sandy brown hair tufted in several different directions at once and his hazel eyes were slightly glazed. Drunk as a skunk, but in Tish’s world, that meant nothing. ‘I do my best work after a bottle of rosé, darling,’ she used to say.

  He stared at me, taking in my rain-soaked hair, unsmiling face and the lack of response to his question about the drink.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said quietly, barely audible over the music.

  ‘It’s Tish. She’s dead. Murdered. She was working down by the docks, and she was attacked.’

  God, that was blunt. Too blunt, but I didn’t have the emotional energy left to finesse anything. He reeled back, landed with a shake on his stool. The man with him dropped his glass, lager spilling out over the scarred wooden surface of the bar top.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, looking at me with the same desperation I’d felt earlier. ‘That can’t be right…I only spoke to her a couple of hours ago, she was meeting me here later…’