All he found was names. And unearthly faces. Kelly, Patricia, Adele, Caroline, Isobel, Sarah-Jane. And Kathryn Bates, Matron. All dead. Ashes. Estelle Piprelly. Ashes.
Annabel. Dead.
But: Jeanette, alive. Amy, sweet Amy. Alive. And Gabby. Alive.
Strangely, these last three were not as strong in his vision as the others; thoughts of them were shallow, somehow irrelevant, not part of this new thing.
His thoughts lingered with the dead.
Even those he had not known.
The prostitute. The boy, violated in his grave. The old man with the top of his head sawn off. Others in the asylum. He did not want to envisage them, nor hear their voices, for he sought something – someone – else; but their images and sounds pulsated before him, throbbed inside his mind . . . palpitating . . . growing, fading . . . growing, fading . . . expanding, contracting . . . a swelling, deflating, incorporeal balloon . . . a misty white ball . . . a moon—
– He gasped, his hand jumping to his forehead, the pain sudden and sharp, cutting through the dull ache that had troubled him throughout the day. He slumped back on the sofa.
His mind had almost touched . . .
‘Vivienne?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Jonathan Childes. I’m sorry to bother you this late.’ The silence at the other end of the phone lasted for a while. ‘Just closing the door,’ Vivienne said. Childes imagined Paul Sebire was on the other side of that door. ‘How are you, Jonathan? Have you recovered from that dreadful experience?’
‘I’m okay,’ he replied. Physically, at least, he added to himself.
‘Amy’s very proud of what you did. So am I.’
‘I wish—’
‘I know. You wish you could have saved those other girls, too. But you did all you could, you must realize that. I just hope they soon catch the madman responsible. Now, I don’t suppose you want to waste time chatting to me. Amy’s resting in her room, but I can put you through to her. I know she isn’t sleeping because I’ve only just left her – we were discussing you, as a matter of fact. She’ll be glad you called.’
‘You’re sure it’s okay?’
Vivienne laughed quietly. ‘Positive. Um . . . I’ll have to sneak upstairs and tell her rather than call up.’
‘Her father?’
‘Her father. He’s not as bad as you might think, Jonathan, he just likes to give that impression. He’ll come round eventually, you’ll see. I’ll put the phone down now, and go up to Amy.’
He waited, his head still aching, the dull throb of before. A click, then Amy was on the line.
‘Jon? Is anything wrong?’
‘No, Amy. I wanted to hear your voice, that’s all. I suddenly felt the need.’
‘I’m glad you rang.’
‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Same as when you called this afternoon. Sleepy, but that’s the pills I’m taking. No problems. The doctor called earlier this evening and he says the cuts aren’t half as bad as he at first thought. “Healing nicely”, to use his words. I can get up and out tomorrow, so guess where I’m heading.’
‘No, Amy, not here. Not just yet.’
‘I know where I want to be, Jon, and who I want to be with. It’s useless arguing. I’ve had time to think over the past few days and I think I can put any jealousy I have over you and Fran to one side. Not easily, I admit. But I can do it.’
‘Amy, you have to stay away.’
‘Tell me why.’
‘You know the reason.’
‘You think you’re a danger to me.’
‘I’m a danger to anyone at the moment. I even had to consider the risk when I phoned Gabby tonight. I’m frightened to think about her in case this monster discovers where she is through me.’
‘The police will find him soon. There’s no way he can get off the island.’
‘I don’t think it cares about that any longer.’
A sharp, probing, pain again. Childes drew in a quick breath.
‘Jon?’
‘I’ll let you rest now, Amy.’
‘I’ve had plenty of rest. I’d rather talk.’
‘Tomorrow.’
There was an uncomfortable vagueness in the word.
‘Is there something going on that you won’t tell me about?’ she asked almost cautiously.
‘No,’ he lied. ‘I guess I’m just tired of standing on the sidelines while this mayhem goes on.’
‘There’s nothing you can do. It’s for the police to bring it to an end.’
‘Maybe.’
Again she didn’t enjoy his tone. For all its solemnity, there was an anger there, a contained but inwardly seething rage; she had felt its potency when she had picked up the phone, incredibly even before he had spoken, as if beams of furious energy were coursing through the lines. She was thinking the impossible, and Amy knew that; yet why did she feel so ill at ease, so weakened by this – imagined? – force?
‘Sleep now, Amy,’ he said. ‘Rest.’
And she suddenly felt so tired, almost as if he’d given an order that her body dare not disobey. She was unbelievably tired.
‘Jon . . .’
‘Tomorrow, Amy.’
His voice was hollow, the tail end of an echo. The receiver felt awkwardly heavy in her hand.
‘Yes, tomorrow, then,’ she said slowly, her eyelids ridiculously weighty. What is this – hypnosis by phone? ‘Jon . . .’ she began to protest, but somehow not having the energy left to complete the sentence.
‘I love you more than you know, Amy.’
‘I do know . . .’
The phone clicked, the connection was dead. The sudden deep sense of loss almost roused her again. But he had told her to rest, to sleep . . .
The receiver slipped from her fingers.
Childes put down the phone and wondered if the pills Amy was taking were making her so tired. They probably contained a sedative as well as a painkiller. He went into the bathroom to douse his face, also feeling weary – but paradoxically, also acutely aware. Filling the basin with cold water, he bent low and splashed his face, holding his wet fingers against his closed eyelids for several moments each time. Eventually, he straightened, confronting himself in the cabinet mirror; he stared into his own eyes, noticing the bloodshot coronas around the soft contact lenses he wore.
And if mirrors had reflected auras, he might also have observed short dancing white-to-violet rays of ethereal energy dazzling from his own body.
Childes wiped his face and hands dry, then went back into the low-lit sitting room. Once more he sank into the sofa near the coffee table, and once more he resisted the urge to pour himself a large whisky. He wanted his senses clear, would risk nothing that might dull them. The moonstone seemed brighter, the bluish flare inside diminished.
Pain in his head again, tiny repeated knife jabs this time. But he would not desist. Only the sudden urgent need to speak to Amy had interrupted the long, long, process – and before that, the urgent need to hear Gabby’s voice – and now there could be no more intrusions, for Amy and Gabby were safe, away from harm. He could concentrate his mind. It hurt, though; God, how it hurt. He closed his eyes and still saw the stone.
He opened them when he heard whispers.
Childes looked around. The whispering stopped. He was the room’s only occupant. He shut his eyes again.
And again heard the hushed whispers.
He allowed his mind to go with the sounds, to absorb them and be absorbed by them, and it all came so fast (so fast after hours of probing, sending out his thoughts, seeking) like tumbling into a snowy pit, the sliding plummet soft and smooth, landing with scarcely a jar, sinking into cushioned earth.
Whispers.
Voices.
Some he recognized. Some belonged to girls from La Roche Ladies College, those who had been fused into one melting mass of flesh when they had plunged together into the fiery maelstrom, incinerated into ashes, cremated into no more than a collective powdery he
ap.
Others.
A small squeaky voice, like Gabby’s, but not Gabby’s.
Others.
Demented even in death.
He could almost feel their presence.
Voices warning him.
Voices welcoming him.
His head reeled with them. And the moonstone that was now the moon throbbed and pulsated, grew large, encompassing . . . threatening . . .
. . . And this time he touched wholly the malignant and diseased other mind . . .
If Police Constable Donnelly had not considered all life sacred – even that of rabbits who squatted, paralysed by headlamps, in the middle of the road late at night – then probably he would never have lost the car he was supposed to be following.
As it was, he had watched Childes leave his cottage from the darkness of his patrol car, the teacher easily visible under the moonlight glare, observed him climb into the hired Renault and drive off into the deeply shadowed lanes. After first radioing HQ to let them know their target was loose, the policeman had followed, keeping a safe but reasonable distance between himself and his quarry.
The rabbit (or had it been a hare? They said hares had a special affinity with the full moon and would run senseless before it) had appeared near a bend in the road and Donnelly had braked only just in time – in fact swerving to the left a little to avoid the stupid animal, the patrol car brushing the hedge on that side.
The rabbit (or hare – he could never quite remember the difference) had stayed crouching there on the road, directly in his path, stunned and shivery, one black and glistening eye watching with dumb blankness, and the agitated policeman had had to leave his car and actually shoo the silly creature away.
When PC Donnelly had finally resumed his journey and rounded the bend, the Renault’s red tail-lights were nowhere to be seen.
It was as if the car, driver and all, had been swallowed up by the moon-bleached landscape.
First the ringing doorbell disturbed Amy’s sleep, then the sound of voices roused her into wakefulness. One of the voices was unmistakably her father’s, and it was angry. She pulled back the bedclothes, wincing slightly at the effort, and went to the bedroom door, limping only slightly, opening it just enough to listen.
The voices were still muffled, but her father was evidently complaining about the lateness of the hour. She thought she recognized both the other speakers. Amy joined her mother, who was in her dressing gown on the landing, peering over the balustrade at the three men grouped in the downstairs hallway. One was Paul Sebire, fully clothed, obviously having been working late. The two other men were Inspector Robillard and Overoy. Amy wondered what Overoy was doing back on the island. She stood beside her mother and listened.
‘This is ridiculous, Robillard,’ Paul Sebire was saying. ‘Why on earth should we know where he is? Frankly, it would suit me fine if I never laid eyes on the man again.’
It was Overoy who replied. ‘We need to know if Miss Sebire has heard from him.’
‘I believe he may have telephoned my daughter occasionally over the last few days, but I’m sure Aime´e would have no idea of his whereabouts tonight.’
Amy and her mother exchanged glances.
‘Find your dressing gown and come down,’ Vivienne quietly told her daughter, moving round to the head of the stairs.
‘Inspector,’ Vivienne said, descending, ‘Amy did receive a call from Jonathan earlier tonight.’
Paul Sebire looked up at his wife in surprise and then annoyance.
‘Ah,’ said Overoy and waited for her to reach the hallway. ‘Would it be possible, then, to have a word with Miss Sebire? It is a matter of urgency.’
‘Look here,’ interjected Paul Sebire, ‘my daughter is sleeping and shouldn’t be disturbed. She still hasn’t recovered from her accident.’
‘It’s all right,’ came Amy’s voice.
Sebire turned to see that now his daughter was coming down the stairs. Amy hardly gave him a glance – indeed, she had hardly spoken to him since she had learned he had struck Childes at the hospital.
Overoy frowned at Amy’s bandaged eye and the plaster-cast from hand to elbow on her left arm. She walked with an awkward stiffness, limping a little. Healing cuts on her face and hands marred the smooth, light-tanned skin that he remembered so well from their previous meetings; he sincerely hoped none would leave permanent marks.
‘We’re sorry to disturb you at this hour, Miss Sebire,’ apologized Robillard, looking distinctly uncomfortable standing there in the hallway, the front door still open behind him, ‘but as we’ve already explained to Mr Sebire, the matter is rather important.’
‘That’s quite all right, Inspector,’ Amy replied. ‘If it concerns Jon, I’m only too willing to help. Is there something wrong?’
‘You should be resting, Amy,’ Paul Sebire remarked rather than rebuked.
‘Nonsense. You know the doctor said I could be up and about tomorrow.’
Overoy spoke up: ‘I was sorry to hear of your accident. Jon told me about your injuries. Er, your eye . . .?’
Although impatient to learn of the reason for their visit, Amy managed the flicker of a smile. ‘Apparently there is no serious damage, my sight won’t be impaired. The bandage is really only there to prevent infection and to force me to rest the eye. Now you must tell me what this is all about. Please.’
Vivienne moved close to her daughter and slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her close.
‘Mr Childes disappeared from his home earlier tonight,’ Inspector Robillard said. Over his shoulder and through the door, Amy could see that more than one police car was parked in the drive. She felt a tightness in the back of her throat. ‘One of our patrolmen,’ the inspector went on, ‘who was, uh, on watch, lost his car in the lanes, I’m afraid.’
She gave a small shake of her head, not understanding.
‘We wondered if Jonathan might have phoned to let you know where he was going,’ said Overoy, a nicotine-stained finger scratching his temple.
Amy looked from one policeman to the other. ‘Yes. Yes, he did call, but he didn’t mention anything about going out. If anything, he sounded tired. But why do you want to know? Surely he’s not under suspicion?’
‘He never has been as far as I’m concerned, Miss Sebire,’ replied Overoy, eyeing his colleague with mild but apparent disdain. ‘No, I caught the last flight over here tonight because I wanted to talk to him. I also hope to help the Island Police make an arrest.’
He paused to take in a breath, looking at each of them.
‘You see, we’ve discovered the identity of the person responsible for this madness. Someone we’ve checked on and know is still here on the island. Someone who might get to Jonathan Childes before we do.’
Childes sat in the Renault for a while, suddenly terribly afraid.
It had drawn him here to this place, inducing an image of a large moonlit-smooth lake. Yet no lake of that immensity existed on the island. But there was one such vast area of water, a valley that had been flooded a long time before, covering trees and the deserted houses alike to form a reservoir, a great concrete dam built across that valley to prevent its rivers from reaching the sea.
A voice – no, less than that: a thought – had enticed, had lured, him there with a promise.
The thought’s instigator had no shape, no substance. When Childes concentrated, his own consciousness drew its periphery inwards to almost a defined line of thought, only a soft-brimmed radiancy formed at a point behind his eyes, a moon-shape that shimmered hugely on the wall of his mind and excluded all other images and all other rationality.
It wanted him here, and Childes had not resisted.
The promise? The incentive?
An end to the killings. An end to the torment. An answer, perhaps, to Childes’ own mystery.
The notion made him push open the car door, just as it had impelled him to drive through the empty lanes to reach this point. He had felt sure he was being followed
when he had left the cottage – presumably by a police patrol car, for he assumed he was now under observation night and day – but the lights of the vehicle behind had soon disappeared, the other driver having turned off somewhere along the way. Maybe he, Childes, had finally become paranoid; and who could blame him?
The night was chilly despite the season, cool air breezing in off the sea to soothe the land after the heat of the day. Sweater and cord jeans could not prevent that chill from causing a back-juddering shiver; he pulled up the collar of his jacket, closing the lapels around his throat. The full moon was still unsullied by clouds and bathed the countryside in a stark luminescence, rendering it peculiarly flat, while shadows were deep and uncompromisingly black. So brightened was the sky by its round hanging lamp that stars, untold millions of them, were visible only beyond the far-reaching canescence. As Childes walked towards the dam, it seemed that the landscape was frozen beneath the eerie gleam.
His senses were alert and acutely clear, his eyes ceaselessly searching the area around him, well aware that any inert creature would easily blend in with the surroundings, so dark were they in places, so oddly shaped in others. Here, a lone bush might be a crouching animal; there, a tree stump with thick roots stretched outwards could be a sitting man; a clump of trees to his left might easily hide a lurking figure, while a spread of undergrowth ahead could provide a concealing canopy for some waiting predator.
He wondered now if he wasn’t disappointed that he had not been followed by a patrol car. Perhaps he should have rung Robillard before he left the cottage. But then, how would he have explained to the police inspector, who was sceptical to say the least, that earlier that evening his mind had finally fused with another’s? The difference this time was that the fusion had been whole, with Childes on the offensive, seeking out and delving, surprising the other with his strength at first, then becoming absorbed by it.
By It!
Explain the silent, torturous mental battle that had followed as the creature taunted him with horrors that had come to pass, revealing the deaths to him again like some edited movie rough-cuts, with each frame containing feelings, smells, the pain and fear of the real event, a new stupendous dimension in cinematography. 4D. All in random order:
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