by Peter Laws
‘Are you going to be alright, Seth?’
His eyes glistened with tears. ‘Tonight I’ve lost two people who were very dear to me.’ Seth pursed his lips. ‘I met Chris and his family at Hemel church. Became friends. I liked him and Lydia very much. And the little one …’ He paused on that. Swallowed something sharp. ‘A while after I’d moved down to Hobbs Hill, I found out that the church needed a new pastor. I asked Chris if he and Ben wanted to join me. I thought this place would make them happy.’ He dabbed his tears away with the heel of his hand. ‘I genuinely thought that.’
‘I want to ask you something. About the night you found Ben’s mum in the bath.’
Seth’s eyes suddenly grew fixed on the floor. ‘How did you know about that?’
‘Why did she kill herself?’
He looked up. ‘She was depressed. Clinically. And the pills seemed to make her worse. She’d always had such a strong faith.’ Saying that made him bite his lip, quite hard. ‘But when her brain went wrong she turned angry with God, said life had no hope and that she just wanted it to be over, as if life can ever truly be … over.’
‘What about the bathwater in her lungs? Did you and Chris baptise her that night?’
Seth sucked a breath in, but he still nodded. ‘She was pretty much dead already, from the cuts. We just wanted to give her peace. It was … her last rites.’
‘Do you think it worked?’
‘I like to think so.’
Then Matt asked the question that had been gradually climbing out of him, ever since he read that article in Hemel Hempstead library. ‘Ben saw it, didn’t he? He saw you do it.’
Seth took a long moment before speaking. ‘We thought he was in bed. We did it all so quietly. I had no idea he was watching.’
A hospital porter suddenly appeared at the doors, pushing a trolley filled with dirty towels. He passed them and headed towards the lift, pressing the button.
‘I know we’re partly to blame,’ Seth whispered, ‘for Ben’s state of mind. But only partly.’
‘You didn’t think to get the boy help, even when he drowned a cat in church?’
‘The cat had a tumour. The boy thought he was saving it. Well … its soul, I mean. We didn’t get help because Chris was learning about counselling. He wanted to sort Ben out himself.’ Seth tilted his head. ‘We were wrong.’
‘Yes, you were. The boy was schizophrenic.’
‘I know but … I just keep thinking about the main culprit behind all of this.’
‘And who’s that?’
‘Satan, of course. He’s been pulling the strings all along.’
‘Well, isn’t that a very convenient way to abdicate responsibi—’
‘How dare you say that?’ Seth took another marionette-step forward. ‘How dare you? I know full well I contributed to this, but listen to me. There are darker forces at work in this world. I mean just look at what happened with that possessed woman you tried to save in London.’
‘I did save her.’
‘You haven’t seen the news?’ Seth frowned. ‘She walked out in front of a tube train tonight.’
The skin on Matt’s arms. He felt it tighten.
‘Her and her boy, killed instantly.’
His whole body slowly flinching.
‘So you see the dark is still working. Behind every murder and rape and death. Just as God’s behind every kind word and every sound of laughter,’ Seth seemed to shiver. ‘They say she was singing when she did it.’
Matt didn’t say a word for a very long moment. And didn’t breathe much either. His mind flooded with images of Arima and her son and the peals of ‘Amazing Grace’ bouncing off the tunnel. He shook his head and looked back up at Seth. ‘You actually believe that, don’t you? That life is binary. Good and evil.’
‘I most certainly do,’ he said, then his eyes softened. ‘Matt. I asked you once if you believed in God. But let me ask you something else. Do you believe in the Devil?’
‘Nope.’
‘Even after all the things you’ve seen?’ He frowned. ‘Or how about I put it this way. Do you believe in evil?’
Maybe it was because he was so shattered, but for one brief moment Matt could see his mother over Seth’s shoulder. She was standing by the lift, opening her lipless mouth to scream.
Matt rubbed his eyes. ‘Sometimes. Maybe.’
‘Well,’ Seth said, ‘at least that’s a start. Please give Lucy my good wishes.’
He turned and headed for the door.
‘Seth, the police are going to need to talk to you about all of this. They’ll need a statement.’
‘I’ve already been in with Sergeant Miller,’ he said. He stopped at the lift door and turned. His eyes were glistening with tears again. ‘He won’t let up, you know.’
‘Who? Miller?’
‘The Devil. He’ll keep making himself known to you. I can sense that about you. You interest him, I think.’
‘I thought Satan preferred people not to believe in him. To give him the advantage.’
‘Maybe it’s different with you. Don’t you ever wonder why you left the church and seem to be drifting towards the police? All this death … all this horror …’ Seth tugged at his earlobe. ‘Maybe it’s because you want to see the Devil. Maybe you’re drawn to see the things he does.’
‘And why on earth would I want to do that?’
‘Because in its own way, it’s the proof you want, though you don’t admit it.’
‘Of what?’
‘That the night exists. And if the night exists then … who knows … maybe the morning does too.’ Seth nodded in his direction. ‘Keep on hunting, Professor Hunter.’
Seth stepped inside, and before he had a chance to turn around, the lift door slid to a close.
Thoughts of Arima and her son kept rushing in but he shut them down quickly. Pulled up the shutters of his psyche. Instead, he hugged the tray of drinks into his side and scooped up the tin of chocolates from the chair. He grabbed the ribbon from the balloon between his teeth. With arms full, he pushed the door of the ward open with his foot.
The place was quiet. Lights dim, people were snoring. Someone at the nurses’ station was wrapping their hands round a mug of tea and was squinting at something on a computer screen.
It was an NHS hospital but tonight they’d put Lucy in one of the private rooms. Number 23. He slipped in and set the drinks down on the long window sill that looked out across the lights and the black shapes of Oxford city centre.
Wren was sat on an armchair with Amelia perched on her lap. Her scrunched up face was nestled into Wren’s neck, and both of them were sound asleep. Lucy was too, her head on the side, flat out on the bed. Her hand was still clasped in her mother’s, stretched across the bed to the armchair like a bridge. One of them was snoring but it wasn’t easy to tell which.
He felt desperately tired.
Lucy’s chest was rising and falling, and the sense of relief at seeing that made him feel suddenly unsteady on his feet. So he turned to the window and rested his arms on the sill.
It was raining, and it kept pelting the glass for a very long time. At one point it turned so heavy and angry that the glass shook, like the pane might shatter. But it didn’t. So he just sipped his tea and watched the water pound hard against the window, waiting for them to wake up.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Years back, I was walking in a field with my wife when a seemingly random thought popped into my mind: write a novel. The time between that day and this was filled with words and ideas, but most importantly it brought people.
So thanks go to my brilliant agent Joanna Swainson. Her cheerful and constant support is the key to this book being in your hands. And also to agent Broo Doherty, who made me think I wasn’t crazy to try. Thanks go to Genevieve Pegg at Orion, too. She gave me a little water in the desert once, and it lasted for longer than she might imagine.
To my publishers Allison & Busby I say a giddy, grateful thank you. For Susie
Dunlop, Daniel Scott, Kelly Smith and especially to Lesley Crooks. Her January ‘yes’ turned the colours back up. My laser-eyed editors Sophie Robinson and Fliss and Simon Bage were great. They came to Hobbs Hill, walked in its woods and managed to get out alive. Best of all though, they took notes. And to Christina Griffiths who designed the cover. When I saw it I gulped – in a good way. This book is better because of you all.
Thanks to all those who read the early drafts when it was at its cruddiest (and most disgusting). And to all who scrolled through a million neurotic emails from me, charting my quest to scale Mount Published. It must have made for a very samey read, but I always felt like you listened. Thanks for your support and prayers, particularly those from Russ and Judy Taylor. I also want to thank Ken and Anne Dwight. Ken made a joke about baptisms and snipers once. I never forgot it, and neither, it appears, did the Hobbes Hill killer. Moreover I thank God, without whom this book – and I – could not have been written.
To every barista, bar staff and monk who has poured the vital Earl Grey which has fuelled this novel, I say cheers. I hope the incessant tapping of my keyboard hasn’t made you want to stab me with a dessert fork. And an extra special thank you to Jan Evans, whose uber generous childcare freed me up to get the book done.
A massive thanks go to my family. Especially to my incredible mam, the poet, who has always loved words and made me love them too. To a great sister Julie, a thoroughly decent human being who thinks I hum when I eat. I hope she’s wrong. And to my brother Norman who still seems just that little bit cooler than me. To Dad too, and all those Hammer Movies we watched together. None of these four people laughed when I said I wanted to be an author, it was thumbs up all the way. That stuff matters.
And finally, like a reality show contestant, I’d say that this book has been ‘a journey’. But those closest to me know it really, really has. Yet to share it with the loves of my life, Joy, Emma and Adam, has made it a wild and wonderful climb.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
Do you want to know about our other great reads, download free extracts and enter competitions?
If so, visit our website www.allisonandbusby.com.
Sign up to our monthly newsletter (www.allisonandbusby.com/newsletter) for exclusive content and offers, news of our brand new releases, upcoming events with your favourite authors and much more.
And why not click to follow us on Facebook (AllisonandBusbyBooks)
and Twitter (@AllisonandBusby)?
We’d love to hear from you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Laws is an ordained Baptist minister with a taste for the macabre. He writes a monthly column in the Fortean Times and also hosts a popular podcast and YouTube which reviews thriller and horror films from a theological perspective. He lives with his family in Bedfordshire.
peterlaws.co.uk @revpeterlaws
By Peter Laws
THE MATT HUNTER SERIES
Purged
COPYRIGHT
Allison & Busby Limited
12 Fitzroy Mews
London W1T 6DW
allisonandbusby.com
First published in 2017.
This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2017.
Copyright © 2017 by PETER LAWS
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2083–5