by crime The King of Terrors (a psychological thriller combining mystery
He was punched again and lay doubled up on the seat. He could smell warm leather through the thin cotton bag and resisted the urge to puke up the lager he’d drunk. That would really piss them off, he thought, not even allowing the tiniest moan of fear as he choked back the first signs of vomit.
Billy found it difficult to estimate how long they’d been travelling. It felt like an age, and his escalating anxiety stretched out the minutes into achingly long periods of time. He’d lost all sense of direction long ago, the dark of the hood adding to the feeling that he was being dragged into another world entirely. A world he decided he did not want to enter. He wanted to go home like he’d never wanted it before.
The car came to a halt, the cutting of the engine plunging the car’s interior into sepulchral silence. Billy’s galloping fears began upped their tempo to a full-blown stampede. When Isaiah grabbed his arm he jumped back as if struck with a poker hot from the fire.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ he blubbered.
‘You got your wish, Billy,’ he replied, hauling him out of the car. Billy caught his head on the doorway and yelped. ‘For Christ’s sake, Billy, shut the fuck up!’ he snarled. ‘Next time, be careful what you wish for.’
Billy could smell old brick, concrete, damp grass, and he stumbled over uneven ground as he was led away. He heard the sound of some kind of door being lifted, like the shutters over a shop window. It rattled noisily, squeaking with rust. He was bundled inside, standing there in silence whilst the shutters came down at his back with a final loud crash of metal. Or it appeared loud to him, his senses honed to blade sharpness by fear. Billy cringed as the hood was whipped off his head. It didn’t make much difference to what he could see; the place was almost pitch-black.
Isaiah flicked on a torch. They were in what Billy took to be an old, disused warehouse, pieces of long-defunct and rusted machinery sitting around like pathetic creatures from another age; plaster hanging from the walls; an old Pirelli calendar torn into flaps, still pinned above what looked like a filing cabinet. Ahead was a flight of stairs up which Gabriel was already climbing. He glanced back at them impatiently.
Isaiah gave Billy a prod in the back. ‘Go ahead, follow the man.’
Rubbing his bruised side, Billy went up the stairs.’ Where are we?’ he asked. Gabriel was holding open a door at the top of the stairs.
‘Don’t talk wet, Billy,’ he said. ‘In here, now.’
They entered a large empty room, some kind of warehouse, lined on each side with windows, mostly broken. They threw patches of faint light onto a floor littered with broken bricks and other debris, onto a line of cast iron pillars that supported, half-glimpsed in the gloom, a spider’s web of iron girders. At the far end of the room was a single chair, the figure of a man sat in it.
Billy hesitated but was urged on by Isaiah’s balled fist. His feet crunched on powdered masonry, splashed in an oily-black puddle of water. The smell of decay, of a dying building, was overwhelming, stirring up a sickening soup of dread. It was eerily quiet; the faint, distant sound of a siren hurtling through the streets doing its best to puncture the silence but it was short-lived. Billy could hear Gabriel’s rhythmic breathing at his back. The sound of his own blood pumping crazily in his ears.
‘That’s far enough,’ said Gabriel’s disembodied voice.
Billy stopped. He waiting for someone to say something, but no one was taking the initiative and the tension grew hard enough to beat Billy’s legs to jelly as easily as Isaiah’s fist.
‘Some church!’ said Billy, alarmed at his own bravado. ‘And not very Christian, is what I think…’ He pawed his side. It hurt like crazy and he knew he’d pay for it in the morning. He turned to Gabriel. ‘Well, is someone going to say something or not?’
‘You are William Krodde?’ said the figure in the chair. The voice was calm, almost gentle, but Billy instinctively didn’t like it, not one bit. It caused his insides to do a polka.
He tried not to let his feelings show. ‘My name is Billy,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to be the guy Camael.’ He saw the figure, still largely hidden in shadow, visibly stiffen at the mention of his name. ‘That’s right, ain’t it?’ he asked of Isaiah. ‘That’s what you said. Camael.’
‘My brother tells me you have important information for me, Billy,’ said the man. That same creeping sensation skittered across Billy’s fevered mind like some kind of spider darting for cover.
‘Maybe I do,’ he said, his voice croaking a little. He stood erect. ‘Depends.’
‘Depends?’ echoed Camael.
‘Cut the lip, Billy,’ warned Gabriel, coming close.
He held up a gloved finger, a small gesture that saw Gabriel back off quickly. ‘Yes, I am Camael,’ he said.
He rose from the chair. He was surprisingly tall, very slim, and Billy was reminded of a large insect uncurling its limbs. He was dressed in black, head to toe, and it was probably this, combined with the strange light from the windows that gave his long face a deathly, waxen appearance. He wore round glasses, heavily tinted, not unlike the ones Billy associated with John Lennon. His hair was long and straight, touching his shoulders, as black as his clothing. He stared towards a shattered window, seemingly forgetting all about Billy, as if he were totally alone and immersed in private thoughts.
‘Where is the woman, Beth Heaney?’ he said at length.
‘I’m not saying till we’ve cut a deal,’ he returned.
Camael’s lips spread into a thin smile. ‘Cut a deal? Really, Billy, you must stop watching all those movies.’
‘Yeah, well, all the same, what I know won’t come cheap.’
‘So what exactly is it you know, Billy?’
‘Put it this way, I know where she hangs out. I could take you straight there. I also know she’s up to something. She’s flogging gold and stuff.’ He saw Camael turn from the window to face him. ‘That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? She’s part of some racket.’
‘You are very astute, Billy. You must be congratulated on your sharp and incisive mind. Where is she?’
‘I want two thousand pounds,’ he spluttered.
Camael’s brows rose. ‘As much as that? For a simple address?’
‘I reckon she’s worth far more than that to you. But I’m not greedy.’
‘Most kind of you, Billy,’ he said. ‘We’d find her eventually, of course, with or without your help.’
‘So why am I here?’ He folded his arms, his confidence beginning to peek out of the dark corner it had scuttled away to hide in. ‘Nah, you can’t risk her leaving Manchester. You need to find her and find her quick, is what I think. I can make that happen tonight, but you have to make my two thousand happen.’
Camael took a step towards the window. He wiped his finger down one of the panes; it came away dirty. ‘I don’t have to do anything. But I am a generous man. You shall have the money after you have taken us to her.’
‘No deal,’ he said defiantly.
Camael put his hands behind his back and came slowly over to Billy, his eyes on the ground. When he lifted his head, Billy saw his own frightened reflection in the dark spectacles.
‘Billy,’ he said again in that same composed and measured tone. ‘Please do not argue with me. You could be dead in less than thirty seconds and I guarantee no one will ever find your miserable little body. Do you really want that?’
He shook his head, looking agitatedly at Gabriel and Isaiah who now book-ended him. ‘Sure. As you like,’ said Billy. ‘We can settle up afterwards.’
Camael turned his back on him. ‘Describe her to me first, Billy.’
He did as he was told, Camael never once turning around, listening intently, occasionally nodding as if in agreement. ‘Were you in love with her, Billy?’ he asked unexpectedly.
He thought about it. ‘I fancied her,’ he admitted. Yet in truth his feelings did go deeper, the more he thought about it; thought about her. ‘You might call it love,’ he said at length.
/> ‘She has that effect on people,’ he said. ‘She is evil. She plays with men’s minds. It is her strength. And yet you would exchange this love for a handful of silver?’
He ignored the question. ‘What are you going to do with her when you find her? I don’t want to be involved in something – something serious.’
Camael’s head cocked on one side. ‘It’s far too late for that, Billy,’ he said. ‘Far too late. I want you to take my brothers here to the place where she lives, right now, tonight.’
‘Right now?’
‘Do I hear an echo, Billy?’
‘But I’ll get my money, right? We have a deal?’
‘You will get paid,’ he said. ‘Isaiah, take him to the car.’
Billy opened up his mouth to speak but thought better of it. He allowed himself to be led dumbly away. When they were alone Camael spoke to Gabriel: ‘You have everything prepared?’
‘I do.’
‘The blessed Articles of Faith anointed and ready?’
‘It is all as it should be, as it is decreed.’
He nodded, satisfied. ‘It has been a long search. But this will be a special night,’ said Camael. ‘And this Billy?’
‘All is in hand,’ said Gabriel.
‘You are a good servant,’ said Camael. ‘You will be blessed and receive your just and holy reward, in due course.’
‘I know it,’ said Gabriel. ‘It will be as you promised.’
He bent to one knee before Camael, who stepped forward and made a sign on Gabriel’s bowed forehead.
* * * *
14
Number 349
Moonlight painted a strange, spectral bloom on Isaiah’s cheeks, Billy noticed. All colour washed away. As if he was looking at the world in monochrome. Isaiah’s expression was equally monochrome; he was giving nothing away. His eyes, though, were watering with the intensity of his gaze.
‘What’s so interesting about a full moon?’ said Billy, more to shatter the unsettling silence that had fallen between them. He noticed the man was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles glared white. He joined his companion, looking out of the windscreen to the swollen moon hanging over the rooftops of the block of flats, making it look as if it were coated in silvery frost.
‘You are sure this is the place?’ Isaiah asked, his voice low.
‘Yeah. Third floor. Number 349. What’re you going to do to her?’
Isaiah craned his neck forward, checked the streets around. It was after midnight and it was deathly quiet. ‘None of your business,’ he said.
‘You’re not going to hurt her, are you?’
‘What do you care, Billy? You were the one who sold her out.’
‘Yeah, but not to get hurt. She’s a nice woman.’ Coming from him it sounded odd, he thought. Because he meant it, and Billy had never really meant anything nice about anyone before.
‘You should have thought about that before you set your price.’
‘So what’s she done, exactly?’
Isaiah looked at him, his eyes now shaded and set into deep black pits of nothing. ‘You heard Camael; she’s evil.’
Billy gave a nervous chuckle. ‘Surely you can’t believe that crap, that anyone can be evil. You know, evil like the devil, like Hitler.’
Isaiah turned back to the moon. ‘What do you know?’
‘So who is Camael? And you ain’t telling me your real names are Gabriel and Isaiah – sounds like a bloody nativity play!’
‘Shut the fuck up, Billy!’ snarled Isaiah, thumping the wheel with the flat of his hand. ‘You’re starting to drive me nuts!’ He pulled the keys out of the ignition. ‘Come with me; we’re going to check the place out.’
‘I’ve told you already, it’s number 349. You don’t need me up there.’
‘You haven’t got a choice,’ he said, popping the boot of the car.
Billy got out of the car, followed Isaiah round the back. The man reached in and took out a large leather bag, like a sports holdall, and another plastic carrier bag filled with something bulky and heavy, which he passed to Billy. ‘What’s this?’
‘Just make yourself useful and carry it for me.’
‘And what’s in the leather bag?’
‘You don’t need to know. Show me the way now, quickly whilst there’s no one around.’
They hurried across a square that had once played host to carefully manicured grass and a few trees, but it was mainly bare earth and ragged stumps now. Billy led Isaiah to the block of flats, to the dark, tunnel-like entrance to the lift and stairs. The smell of urine hadn’t got any better, thought Billy. Without waiting Isaiah bound lithely up the concrete stairs, which Billy found quite impressive for such a heavy-set man, and not least because he found it difficult to keep up with him.
‘You don’t need me here,’ Billy moaned breathlessly. ‘And we could have taken the lift…’
‘Keep the fucking noise down!’ Isaiah hissed. ‘You want your money then do as you’re told.’
The gasping young man nodded and spat on the ground.
They reached the third-floor walkway. Lights were burning in a few of the flat windows, but mostly they were in total darkness. They padded softly down the walkway, stopping outside the door to flat number 349. Beth’s place. Isaiah nodded at it and Billy nodded back in confirmation. The man put a finger to his lips, reaching into his coat pocket for gloves, which he put on as he studied the window frame, running a gloved finger around it. Billy noticed the place was in darkness.
‘Maybe she’s out,’ he whispered, hoping this would make Isaiah turn round and leave. Some hope.
‘All the better,’ he said. He put the bag down on the ground, gave a quick look all around and then reached inside his coat pocket again. He took something metallic out that blinked briefly in the moonlight, and he set about the door lock. In seconds he was able to turn the handle slowly and ease open the door. He made a sign for Billy to stay by the door and in no uncertain terms made it clear that he was not to scarper.
The man crept silently inside, waiting a second or two before signalling for Billy to enter. They were in a small living room. Isaiah bound swiftly over to what Billy presumed was the bedroom and gently pushed open the door. ‘She’s not in,’ he said in a hushed voice difficult to catch.
‘Maybe she’s got another night job, like the one at the supermarket,’ said Billy. ‘Can we go now? You can come back when she’s in.’
He grasped Billy by his shirtfront and yanked his face close to his own. ‘I don’t want to hear another word from you, not one!’ he growled. ‘Now sit over there and make like a mouse in a trap!’
Billy didn’t like the image it conjured up, but he did as he was told, going over to a threadbare sofa and wondering what possessed Beth to live in a flea-bitten, grotty dump like this; and what on earth she was involved with when it included guys like these. He looked around; the room was a dive, little better than a doss house.
He watched as Isaiah reached up to the light in the centre of the ceiling and took out the bulb. Then he went over to his bag and unzipped it. He gingerly withdrew a long red velvet bundle edged with gold, and carried it across the room as carefully as if he carried a delicate baby. He placed it on the floor and mumbled something incoherent over it. Billy stared in both amazement and with an escalating fear. He looked over to the door. It was but a few short yards away. He could make a dash for it. He’d had enough of these weird games. He wanted out. Forget the bloody cash. Forget his plans. This was all going a step too far.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Isaiah without even looking up from the bundle.
‘I shouldn’t be here. This is all wrong,’ he said.
Isaiah peeled back the red folds of the bag, like skin on a great, fleshy wound, wide enough to take out what looked to be a two-foot long silver hammer. He’d seen something similar before; a mace, the type of things knights used in movies. It seemed to glow with a white fire as it flashed in the narrow panel of moon
light thrown in through the window. Isaiah inspected it keenly, his hands running up and down its surface. Finally he went to stand with his back against the wall, near the door, the mace resting on his right shoulder.
‘I need to go back now,’ Billy whimpered.
‘Go through into the kitchen. Close the door. Don’t make a sound.’
‘Why can’t I go back?’
‘Do as you’re told, Billy, and you’ll not get hurt.’
Billy wasn’t convinced, but he groaned and did as he was ordered. He didn’t close the door entirely. He left a tiny crack to peer through, though in truth there wasn’t a great deal to see besides the patch of moonlight sitting on the floor. He looked about him. The state of the kitchen was every bit as grotty as the living room, a smell of stale food hanging in the damp air. He was drawn to the window near the kitchen sink as a means of possible escape, but one quick look outside convinced him otherwise. Even if he managed to open it and climb out without Isaiah hearing him the fall would kill him, or at the very least break most of the bones in his body.
That’s when he heard the sound of a key being put in the door, the sound sickening because he had desperately not wanted to hear that tonight. He shot over to the partially opened kitchen door, stared hard through the gap. He made out a shadow flitting beyond the frosted glass of the door, a slim woman’s shadow. He couldn’t make out Isaiah but he knew he was there, absorbed into the darkened room, almost a part of the wall he leaned against.
Billy’s faint heart began to run the Derby and his mouth was sponged dry. The urge to scream out a warning was overwhelming, and yet he choked it back as if choking down bile.
The door opened and the woman stepped into the room, a hand reaching out for the light switch. Billy heard it click a couple of times, and he sensed the woman’s hesitation in the dark, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. He saw the moonlight catch the side of her face as she moved cautiously into the room. Billy could not help himself; he called out.
‘Beth!’ he shouted, his voice ripping through the silence like an explosion.