Through a Glass Darkly

by Bill Hussey

  ‘All right,’ Brody sighed. ‘Let’s talk recent history.’

  Jack told Brody the story of the past few days, from his first dream to his encounter with Mendicant in the private saloon of the Lazarus Club. He was frank about the dreaming, without explaining its genesis or telling Brody about the creatures inside his mind. The priest listened and seemed remarkably uninterested in the details or antecedents of Jack’s powers. Instead, he concentrated on Mendicant’s reference to them.

  ‘The Doctor is playing your fears against you,’ Brody said. ‘I guess you’re not entirely comfortable with your abilities and have kept them hidden. He has seen that fear within you. He is an emotional sadist. He loves to see a soul in anguish. Look at how he threw doubts on my faith; how he played on Peter’s fears of inadequacy. He wants to undermine you …’

  ‘So he’s partial to mind games. Is that the extent of what he can do?’

  ‘That’s enough. Fear can be a seductive thing you know. Look at this.’

  Brody took a faded newspaper clipping from his pocket and passed it to Jack. It was from an English paper printed in Germany and dated April 1999.

  ‘After the catastrophe of my attempt to save Simon Malahyde, I tried to keep an eye on the boy. I had local papers sent to me from the areas in which he schooled. There are many clippings such as these that I destroyed before I left St Augustine’s.’

  BOARDING SCHOOL TRAGEDY

  The pupils of Wistinghausen Boarding School are today mourning the loss of Albert Speno, 14. The unfortunate child was found last Thursday, locked in a tiny broom cupboard in a disused part of the school. He had suffered a fatal stroke, brought on, doctors have suggested, by a pathological claustrophobia. The child’s fear of confined places was well known in the school and Albert was on medication to regulate panic attacks. Albert’s body was found by schoolmate Simon Malahyde. The police do not suspect foul play but are at a loss to explain why …

  The rest of the article had been torn away.

  ‘It’s proof of nothing, of course,’ Brody said. ‘Just another person who encountered Mendicant and fully realised something he dreaded.’

  ‘You allowed this to happen,’ Jack said. ‘Albert Speno. Oliver Godfrey, Stephen Lloyd. They didn’t have to die. Why didn’t you finish it that day you abducted Simon?’

  ‘You’re right,’ Brody said. ‘I am responsible. When it mattered, I wasn’t strong enough. But what will you do? If Mendicant is successful this time? If he takes Jamie and speaks with the boy’s voice? Will you have the strength to finish him?’

  They were both silent for a moment.

  ‘Okay,’ Jack stirred. ‘In the Lazarus Club, he said he had only two days left to complete the rite. That means we’ve got roughly twenty-four hours. Short of shooting Jamie through the head, Jesus Christ knows what we can do.’

  Jack regretted that last sentence as soon as he said it. Brody, however, did not react.

  ‘He is not as strong as he would like us to believe, Jack,’ the priest said. ‘He fears God and he fears us. If he was really so confident of his powers, why did he try to get me out of the picture during his whisperings to Peter Malahyde? And why did he try to kill me before I could tell you my story? But what has been worrying me is this: if Mendicant did incite Anne Malahyde to kill him a week ago, then he cannot be operating alone …’

  ‘Why not?’ Jack asked. ‘Wasn’t he alone in the Rowbanks and Malahyde cases?’

  ‘Yes, but in the first he was flesh and blood when the rite was performed. He could murder the Rowbanks children, drink their fat, burn the baptism dresses himself. In the case of Simon Malahyde, the ritual only needed to be slightly adapted. His spirit was still suffused with the power given to him by the fat of the Rowbanks children. Remember, that ritual wasn’t completed. All he needed was Peter to show the path into Simon. You remember what Peter said? That he was a conduit? In this case, however, Mendicant proposes to possess a child while in his spiritual form, and without the advantages he had with Simon. He does not have the physical substance to arrange the murder of the Godfrey and Lloyd boys and to burn the baptism dresses. Someone must be helping him. Someone he has seduced, perhaps with promises similar to those he made to Peter Malahyde. All that matters is that we now know he has the means to take Jamie as his new body. And this body will last him maybe fifty years. If we don’t stop him this time, I will be long dead at the hour of his next metempsychosis and you will be as old and frail as myself.’

  They were quiet again for a moment. Then Jack asked:

  ‘Why haven’t you asked me about my dreams?’

  ‘It is not for me to question who God chooses as his champion,’ Brody said. ‘You are His sword, Jack. It is His business how He wields you.’

  There was a knock at the front door. Jack twitched back the curtain and motioned Brody to the back of the room. They had been so absorbed in their talk that neither had heard the car pull up outside.

  ‘It’s the police,’ Jack whispered.

  He showed Brody through to the kitchen and opened the back door.

  ‘Out this way,’ he said. ‘Keep to the backs of the houses.’

  Brody retrieved his few belongings from the corridor. From his bag, he took a slim bundle, wrapped in the same brown paper as the other parts of the manuscript.

  ‘That’s the last of it. I’ve included the addendum to the Transmigration of Souls; the part you didn’t have time to read at the Yeager Library,’ he said. ‘The days are almost up, Jack. Time is running out.’

  Jack watched the old priest scramble across the uneven ground and disappear behind the house that backed onto his own. The house with the patio doors in which he had first seen the creeping corpse of Jamie Howard. The knocking from the front door became more insistent. Jack stuffed the package into his pocket and made his way from the kitchen to the hall. He eased back the latch. There were two uniformed officers outside.

  ‘DCI Jarski wants to see you, Sir.’

  ‘I’m sure he does. Look, I’ve been ill. Can you tell him …?’

  ‘He wants to see you now.’

  ‘I can’t. Not today. I’ll call him and …’

  There was the slightest of glances between the two officers. Before Jack could stop them, they had spun him around and the large forearm of PC Dawling was pushing into the back of his neck, pressing his face against the wall.

  ‘Jack Trent, we are arresting you on suspicion of inciting another to carry an unlawful firearm and inciting the use of that firearm. You do not …’

  Jack tried to struggle free. A blow to his ribs knocked him sideways, forcing all the air out of his lungs and bringing tears to his eyes. Between them, the two constables hauled him upright. His feet clattered on the floorboards. As the officers dragged him from the house, Jack’s vision began to clear. Through the last of his tears he saw ‘1’ flashing on the digital display of his answering machine.

  Fifty-two

  ‘Dawn, he’s in danger. Please, you must believe me. Call him. Make sure he’s …’

  Dawling and the others forced Jack into the interview room. Dawn hesitated, wanting to follow but mindful of Jarski’s instruction: If you see him when he’s brought in, don’t talk to him. I don’t want you making him excitable. We’ve gotta keep a lid on this.

  She went straight to Jack’s office. Here she could step outside the chaos for a moment. Here she almost believed him … She snatched up the phone.

  ‘Dad? It’s me. Is J all right?’

  ‘He’s fine, love. We’re just setting up the Risk board.’

  ‘He’s not mentioned last night or …’

  ‘No. Nothing about that. Speaking of which, maybe I got a bit overexcited. I’m sure you’re right about everything. Must be a logical explanation for all this … You still there, love?’

  ‘Yes … Yes, listen, I’ll be home late tonight. Is that okay?’

  ‘Late as you like, darlin’. Me and the boy’re gonna have some fun.’

  She hung
up and stared at the phone for a long time.

  Quickly, Jesus Christ, quickly.

  Jack took the package that Brody had given him from his pocket and placed it on his knees beneath the desk. He shot a glance at PC Dawling. The constable was standing at the door of the interview room, looking out into the corridor. Any moment now another uniform would arrive and Jack would be searched.

  His hands shook. If they found Brody’s story on him, he was in deep shit. Scratch that: even deeper shit. He drew as much saliva into his mouth as he could and spat into his palms. He smeared his hands over the vast collection of chewing gum that had accumulated under the desk. Thank Christ the station’s contract cleaners were less than thorough. When the remoistened gum began to catch at his fingers, he pressed Brody’s slim bundle against the tacky mess. As he did so, Jarski entered the room.

  After almost thirty years on the force, DCI Jarski could count on one hand the number of times he’d been surprised. He looked now at the change in Jack Trent and realised that, from here on in, he would need to start counting on two hands. This transformation was not the slow-burn weariness under which he had seen many a good officer crack. Jack’s disintegration had taken place in a matter of days. His shoulders were bowed and his skin was looser somehow. His fingers, drumming on the table, were grey with dust, his knuckles scabbed and yellow. He looked beaten down. Finished.

  Jarski ushered the duty doctor into the room and closed the door.

  ‘Now then, Jack,’ Jarski said, taking his seat, ‘how’re you feelin’?’

  ‘I’ve had a couple of rough days, Roger. How ’bout you?’

  ‘Ditto. You gonna tell me where you’ve been?’

  ‘Well, to start with I had this call from an old white rabbit. He sent me down this rabbit hole to Wonderland and I nearly didn’t find my way back again. Next up, the rabbit sends me to see Old Mother Hubbard. She doesn’t live in a shoe, but she does have lots of children,’ Jack put his hand against his mouth, as if about to communicate a delicate secret. ‘Some of them are a bit weird.’

  ‘Aha. I see. And what’s this I hear about you asking Bob Peterson to follow Dawn’s son with a loaded weapon?’

  ‘You need a gun to hurt the bad guy. The old white rabbit told me that.’

  ‘Do you believe Simon Malahyde was possessed?’ Jarski asked in a weary voice.

  Jack, his manner switching to solemn contemplation, laid his hand flat on the desk and traced the callused ridges of his knuckles.

  ‘What makes you think Sergeant Howard’s son is in danger?’ Jarski persisted.

  One of the scabs crumbled under Jack’s probing finger and began to weep.

  ‘Why did you have the boy followed?’

  ‘How can I answer these questions?’ Jack whispered. ‘None of you understand. Everything you know is a scar, thin and ready to crumble, if only you probe it a little.’

  Jarski cast a look at the doctor, who nodded and slipped out of the room. A runnel of yellow fluid from Jack’s knuckles mingled with his blood.

  ‘I’m going to leave you now, Jack,’ Jarski said. ‘I’ll send someone in to stay with you.’

  ‘Dawn?’

  ‘No, Dawn’s busy. Maybe she’ll come and see you later.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay here. Not on my own. I see things when I’m on my own … I caught Greylampton. The bank manager. He killed little girls, didn’t he? He smelled of old paper. I saw how he cut them up. I saw it in here,’ Jack tapped his forehead.

  ‘But you stopped him, Jack. You probably saved …’

  ‘He’s coming for the boy,’ Jack laughed, smearing blood between his palms. ‘Not Greylampton. He hanged himself, didn’t he? No, Malahyde, or the spirit that was in Malahyde. He’s coming for the boy and he’ll take him to the dark place. To the forest. To the clearing. And then, abracadabra, the magic will be done. I like magic. Bunnies in top hats and women sawn in half and dead things made alive again …’

  Jarski closed the door behind him. Outside, he could still hear Jack jabbering away. The duty doctor pressed through a crowd of officers.

  ‘I’ve got a friend coming over to evaluate him,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Evaluate him? What’s to evaluate? He’s doo-fucking-lally, isn’t he?’

  ‘Well … yes. But I’m not a psychiatrist. In the meantime, I’ll give him a physical examination, sedate him if necessary.’

  ‘Christ in heaven, spare me,’ Jarski said, marching away down the corridor.

  Father Garret had brought with him all the various tools that he’d purchased from the army surplus store over the past four months. The bolt cutters with which he had forced the roller door at the Steers Mill paper factory; the axe used to remove Stephen Lloyd’s head; the shovel that had beaten in Oliver Godfrey’s skull; the sheets of tarpaulin in which he had wrapped both bodies. Also on the trailer behind the car was the large army supplies container in which he had transported Oliver and Stephen to the Old Priory.

  Now, he must remain focused. This was his revenge. If he was to die, if he was to be damned, then he would take one last parting shot at the creature that had promised him eternity and now laughed at his fate. He would not go to the cellar just yet …

  The estate was deserted. What a stroke of luck that Jack Trent lived in such a place. No prying eyes, no fat mouths to tell what they saw. With a final look around, Garret got out of the car and approached Trent’s door. He knocked. Waited. Knocked again.

  He got to his knees and examined the lock for a good while. Then he took out his tools. Unscrewing the mechanism, revolving the barrel and drawing back the bolt was child’s play, but he took his time, careful not to leave any telltale scratches on the brass plate. With the slow, methodical care of a surgeon, he laid out the innards of the lock, memorising its fitting. Then he pushed the door open.

  He stepped inside and began to search out the best hiding place for his prize. Not too obvious, that was the key. The flashing red digit on the answering machine caught his attention. Beforehand, he had decided to touch nothing unless absolutely necessary, but something told him to punch the play button.

  ‘Mr Trent, this is Anne Malahyde. I must speak to you. I don’t have it in me to punish myself any more …’

  Garret pressed ‘delete’.

  Brody stared into the darkened windows. Something was wrong, he could feel it. Throughout the day, he had paced to and fro between the public telephone box and Tom Howard’s house. He would wait another quarter of an hour – ’til eight-thirty – Dawn Howard might be home by then. If not, then he would have to chance it. He would have to go to the house.

  There was not a breath of wind. The moon, tinted a smokey shade of red, glowered across the fields. It cast a strip of light against the body of a water tower and dyed a scarecrow’s rags maroon. Nothing stirred in the fields. Nothing stirred in the house. Thoughts crept unbidden into Brody’s mind. Was he sure of Jack Trent? It was only instinct and that vague prophecy in Sam Willard’s letter that had told him Jack was the one. Well, what of that? What else did he have to guide him? Yet shouldn’t he be wary of a man who had hinted that he possessed such strange abilities? No. It was too late for second thoughts.

  Something caught his attention. A movement in one of the upper windows of the house. Black moving against black. The flash of a lustrous eye, the tap of a beak against glass. Brody pulled open the gate and hurried to the back door. Shading his eyes, he put his face to the kitchen window. Four rounds of bread sat upon a plate, a knife with a curl of butter perched on the upper slice. A pan steamed on the cooker top. Evaporated foam had made a tidemark around the sink, just above where the washing up sat in cold, oily water. Drawers had been pulled out and cupboards opened, as if someone had been preparing a meal. The door was unlocked. Brody eased it open.

  The pan groaned. Otherwise the house was quiet. Brody turned off the gas. Blue shadows fell away and dusky moonlight lit the room. S’like the galley of the Marie Celeste, he thought.

  Scuf
fmarks had scored the linoleum, two parallel furrows that stretched into the hallway. The door was open; the corridor, empty. The grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs tolled the hour, catching at Brody’s heart with its discordant chime. Footprints marked the carpet. Wet, muddy footprints.

  Had he already taken the boy? No, not here. A modern house, with all its suburban banality, would hardly appeal to the Doctor’s sensibilities. Jamie would be taken to the clearing, Brody was sure of it.

  ‘Jamie? Can you hear me? Are you here?’

  He reached for the living room door. It opened a crack and he smelled the faint miasma of decay.

  A shadow fell over him and grew against the wall. He saw the pendulum sway of the head. The pan in the kitchen gave a sudden prang. The clock stopped ticking. For a moment, everything remained cold and still.

  Fifty-three

  After his physical examination in the presence of PC Dawling, Jack had been taken back to Interview Room Six. The duty doctor had asked him a few questions; all rather obvious attempts to tease at the edges of whatever mania lay behind his delusions. It was easy to play up to the doctor’s preconceptions. Hadn’t this guy seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, for Christ’s sake? It had also been easy to divert the doc’s attention by spilling hot coffee in his lap. While the physician danced around the room, swatting steam from his scalded groin, Jack peeled Brody’s manuscript from under the desk and stuffed it in his shirt.

  The doctor suggested that Jack’s paranoia would not be improved by being locked in the cells downstairs. After some persuasion, Jarski had agreed that Jack could be lodged in his office until the psychiatrist arrived. Again, it was simplicity itself to fool the doctor into believing that he had taken the sedatives: hand to mouth, pills dropped into sleeve, drink of water. Jack looked back with gratitude on all those childhood hours spent boring his father with sleight of hand tricks.