“You called? You mean, you went to one of their sessions?”
“The word is séance, Jed. Séance. I found out when they were and I made the appointment. There were three others there that night, two women and a bloke. All old, all desperate for something, anything that would give them hope. Gladys gave them that all right. I don't know how they did it, but she and Frank convinced them that someone was coming through. And it was all going well, until I started asking her some questions. Real questions, things that only I could know about. And them. About the visits to Santa's grotto, the car journey to Scotland, the wooden house. I knew Gladys was scared; she sat there, rigid as a post, gawping at me. She hadn't recognised me, how could she? I was a grown man. But then…” He took a deep breath, as if he were steadying himself. “Then she changed…she started talking, but it wasn't her you see. Despite all the charade, all of the deceit, this woman actually did have something. She'd connected, she'd got through to the other side.”
“Christ…” Matthew dragged his hand across his face. The tears tumbled down his face. “Who was it, who had she connected to?”
Matthew stared out into the night. “Gran,” he said simply.
At first they thought it was just one car, headlights cutting through the nighttime drizzle. Jed followed their approach with the binoculars. Matthew knelt by his shoulder, breathing through his mouth, trying to keep calm. Soon, another vehicle came from the same direction, leading at least six or seven others. Saloons, all of them with full loads. “Men and women inside,” said Jed, able to make them out clearly now. Lights burned from virtually every window of the old house, the headlights of the many vehicles lighting up the area as if it were a football stadium. “There's a lot of people here, Mat.” He pulled down the binoculars. “What the hell is going on?”
Matthew shrugged. “You'll find out.” He glanced at his watch, the first time he had done so since settling amongst the rocks. “Sullivan should be here soon.”
“Him again? What has he got to do with all of this?”
“Nothing. He thinks it's a drugs' raid, nothing more. But he wants the scalp, that's his prime reason for being here. Promotion beckons. He was worried Dad might cock it all up, so he told him Jon was dead.”
“But Dad saw him, didn't he.”
“Yes. Another of Sullivan's little capers gone to pot. Like the one he told you.”
“Told me? What do you mean?”
“Well, not you, to be exact – that girl's father. What was her name, the one who gave you this address?”
“Janet?”
Matthew nodded. “Sullivan never thought things through very carefully, like sending those photographs to Dad. The man is an imbecile, but he might still have his uses.”
“But has he any idea the pain, the suffering he's caused? Janet's dad, he was …” Jed turned his gaze to his brother. “And you?” Matthew turned away, absently checking the shotgun again. “How many lies have you told, Matthew?”
“Only as many as I needed to.”
“So how the hell can I trust you?”
“Don't worry about me, Jed. I'm here because this is personal. And that means I'm here to look after you. So – when we move, you stay close and don't say a word. It won't be long. As soon as Sullivan arrives, we start.”
Another set of headlamps came bouncing across the moor, this time from a different. Snapping up the binoculars, Jed trained them on this new arrival. “Our wait is over,” he said, slumping down on his backside. “Sullivan is here. And he's not alone.”
The journey proved long and uncomfortable. Larry sat beside David, both of them handcuffed, right wrist to left, the other hand attached to the door handle, so there was no hope of escape. After the fight, a patrol car had come and burly police officers bundled them both into the back seat, Sullivan appearing from nowhere, grinning, telling the officers that he was taking charge. And now, they were driving across an open moor, the car jumping around like a rock in a bucket, crashing this way and that. Larry kept his eyes tight shut, not wishing to focus on anything, least of all the back of Hannah's head. He'd tried to ignore her when she got in beside Sullivan, but every time he got a whiff of her perfume, his senses clouded over and he was back in that room with her, tasting her. He fought to resurface, gasping for breath, hoping this was some horrible, ghastly nightmare? Was she in this with Sullivan? His femme-fatale, his Mata Hari? She'd done something to make Larry lose his sense of propriety, his knowledge of right and wrong, of intelligence, of common sense, replacing everything with utter, total stupidity.
Mercifully, the car began to slow down and Larry, craning forward, tried to make out some recognisable feature, but it proved to be too dark. With the car still jumping up and down on its rodeo drive, he sat back and tried to keep himself calm. Next to him, David sat still as a statue. He'd hardly spoken a word since the police arrived and now seemed to have fallen deep inside himself. Perhaps he was meditating; perhaps he was dead. Larry didn't care, all he wanted was for the car to stop, allow him the opportunity to empty his bladder.
And then, unbelievably, the car did stop. Larry almost cried out with thanks. Divine intervention, it worked!
Hannah reached over, unlocking Larry's handcuff around the door handle. Then, as Sullivan stepped outside, she leant over to David's side and unlocked his. Their wrists, however, remained locked to one another's. “We'll keep you together, for now,” she said as she got out.
Too dark to recognise who they were, Jed brought up his hand up to shield his eyes against the glare of the headlamps. He moved cautiously forward, just as Matthew had instructed him, leaving the shotgun and binoculars propped against the rocks. Jed wondered what these orders were for – what was Matthew planning and, more importantly, where was he?
“Is that you Jed?”
He stopped as he recognised the voice. “Dad?”
“Jesus Christ! Jed!”
They emerged from the glare of the lights and Jed fell into his Dad's arms, hugging him as if he hadn't seen him for months. Groaning, Larry stepped back, and Jed caught sight of his dad's lips quivering. “Jesus, Dad, what have they done to you?”
“No, no, it's this damn bloody rupture. I'm supposed to be taking it easy.”
Stepping up beside came Sullivan, breathing hard with barely controlled anger. “Where the fuck is Mat?”
Jed gave himself a moment to take in the scene before him. Dad, looking deathly, handcuffed to another man, a man he didn't know, and Hannah Randall hanging back. “Dad, what the hell is all this?”
From nowhere, Jed felt something very cold and very hard rammed up against the side of his head. He didn't need to see it to know that it was the barrel of a gun. “I'll ask you again,” wheezed Sullivan, “where is Mat?”
Before Jed could answer, Matthew's voice came from out of the darkness, somewhere close. “Drop the gun Sullivan - very slowly please.”
But Sullivan didn't flinch. He continued to press the barrel against Jed's head. “I'll kill him, Matthew. Don't think I won't.”
“I wouldn't doubt it, Sullivan me old mate. But if you do, then I'll kill you, and your lovely piece of skirt over there. So go on, pull the trigger and then you'll both die.”
“Matthew!” Dad's voice, sounding terrified. “Matthew, for God's sake!”
Jed heard Matthew moving, circling them in the darkness, keeping himself well out of the way of the headlamps. Jed prayed it would end soon, but not in the most obvious way. He just wanted to go home.
“I'll kill her first, if you like. So, drop your gun, Sullivan. After three…one…two…” They heard the pump action engaging pump action engaging, sounding like a cheese-grater against stone. “Okay then…” a long pause. Jed held his breath, squeezing his eyes tight shut. “Three!”
The shotgun boomed and in that awful moment, the whole world pitched into hell.
36
Instinctively, Jed fell to his knees, hands clamped to his head, making himself as small as he could, waiting f
or the terrible sound to erupt inside his brain, a sound that would herald the end of his life. The darkness wrapped around him like a protecting veil. There was no pain, no swirling cascade of images from his past life. Nothing happened. He forced himself to realize that he still lived. Chancing a glance upwards, he saw Sullivan, picked out by the headlamps, trembling, gun lowering, no longer pointing, but held limply, without desire. He's as confused as I am, thought Jed, but then stopped as a shape reared out of the blackness, and struck Sullivan across the head with something big and hard. With a guttural grunt, Sullivan collapsed to the ground, his face slapping into the dirt beside Jed.
Everything happened quickly then. Hannah's scream pierced the night. There came a crack, like a whip, Jed learning later that the sound was Matthew's fist smacking under her chin. She too crumpled, unconscious. The silence hung there, the eruption of violence stunning the others.
Jed found Matthew scrambling around, searching through Sullivan's pockets. He stood up as Jed stepped up close, and he had the policeman's keys. “You – you really would have let him kill me?”
Matthew pushed past him and snapped, “Of course.” He crossed to the other two men and quickly released them.
Working the shotgun action, ejecting the one spent cartridge and feeding in another, Matthew sounded confident as he spoke. “I want you two to wait here.” He reached down and picked up Sullivan's gun. He pressed it into David's hand. “You'll be good at this.” He winked. “Put Sullivan and the woman in their car, handcuffed, just like you were. If they try anything,” he nodded towards the gun, “use it.”
“What are you going to do, Matthew?” It was Larry, his voice small, like a child's.
Matthew took in a deep breath. “Clear up this mess.” He went to move away, but his dad held him by the arm.
“It doesn't have to be like this.”
“Yes it does, dad. That bastard over there holds us all responsible for the deaths of his parents. I went to see them, exposed them for what they were and Edith, she wrote a scathing report for the local press. It was so good, it even made the nationals. They'd accumulated thousands, selling books, making documentaries. They were planning on creating haunted holidays here, in that house.” He nodded towards the great, bleak edifice standing out against the night, blacker even than the sky. “It all came tumbling down, and a short time after the reports surfaced, they committed suicide. The two of them, in their car. Usual stuff, hose-pipe from the exhaust…They were found the following day.”
Jed cleared his throat. “And Jonathan?”
Matthew gave his brother a scathing look. “That little shit took up their mantle. But he became even bigger than they could ever dream, persuading his many followers to help him in creating a cult.”
“A cult?”
“Through hypnotism, drugs, blackmail, he convinced some very important people that he had the answers to many of the world's problems.”
“That sounds really bizarre.”
“Oh, it is. But there are plenty of people out there who are willing to swallow any old pap.”
“And, this cult…Those cars, this place…Jon's summoned them?”
“They're all there, in that house. They're waiting.”
“Waiting? Waiting for what?”
“They're waiting for you and me, Jed. And we're not going to disappoint them.”
He might have thought that the single gunshot blast would alert those inside the house, but if he did, Matthew gave no hint. Setting his jaw hard, it was clear nothing would cause any deviation from his original plan. Jed kept close, jogging alongside as they both moved over the gently undulating moorland, zigzagging through the coarse grass, keeping low. Although he had picked up the other shotgun, Jed did not intend to use it. That would be a step too far along a pathway that he already felt had become far too dangerous. Matthew appeared to have no such qualms. He was in his element, obviously well-versed in the art of violence. Jed suddenly realized that he didn't know his brother at all, not his life, his work, his thoughts. But he was beginning to, and what he was discovering was not pleasant.
They moved through the old, dilapidated gate and, keeping close to the wall, skirted around to the back of the house. The lights blazed from the windows, illuminating large circles of ground, revealing the many cars parked in an orderly fashion. No doubt, they had met like this on many occasions; it all seemed so well rehearsed. But what were these meetings for and why now? Jed stood, steadying himself, taking in gulps of air, knowing the answers were close. He closed his eyes, wondering if he had the strength, the courage, to see this through to the end. The end, however, was something he'd rather not think about. His legs buckled underneath him. Would he – could he see this through to the end?
Matthew elbowed him in the arm. “Come on,” he hissed. But Jed couldn't move. Cursing, Matthew seized him by the sleeve and hauled him along the wall.
“There's a workman's entrance somewhere on this side,” he whispered as they neared the far corner. He gave a little gasp of triumph. “Here!” But he cursed again as the door remained firmly locked. He stepped back, looking up. The windows were few at this part of the house and were too high to reach. With a loud expulsion of breath, still gripping Jed's sleeve, he moved on.
They came to another door and next to it a window. Matthew tried the handle and cursed. Without hesitating, Matthew put down his shotgun and took off his leather jacket. Quickly, he wrapped it around his arm, took a breath, and smashed his elbow through the window. It shattered instantly, the noise sounding dreadful in that quiet night. Both of them stood, convinced that soon they would hear the sound of approaching footsteps. But there was nothing. Matthew very carefully put his hand through the broken window, found the latch and opened it. “Get in,” he said abruptly.
“What?”
“Get through the bloody window – you're slimmer than I am. Go through and open the door.”
It took Jed a good five minutes of heavy breathing as he sweated and wriggled his way through the tiny gap, but made it at last, sliding down to the floor on the other side. He waited a moment, trying to find his bearing. Beneath his feet, the shattered glass from the window crunched, and he winced with every step.
“Hurry up!”
Matthew was close to the edge, his patience gone. Jed knew he was a man on a mission, a mission to assassinate. Could that ever be justified, despite everything Kepowski had done – the brutal killings, the deceit, the treachery? Nurse Willis, her boyfriend, all those others…and Miles. Miles. Why the hell did he murder Miles? What had Miles ever done to him? Suddenly, everything fell into place and, with a new resolve, he stood fully upright, and took in a long breath to settle his simmering rage.
He groped along the wall for the door and pulled back the bolt. Matthew stepped inside.
“What kept you?”
“I had a little trouble, a few concerns,” replied Jed, taking the proffered shotgun from Matthew's outstretched hand. He worked the action back and forth. “But that's all dealt with now.”
It was pitch black, but Matthew had come fully prepared. He pulled out a torch from his holdall and shone the beam around the room. The light picked out the various pieces associated with a kitchen. Sink, worktops, fridges, pots and pans. But all of it was neglected, some of it covered in mould. No one had prepared food in that place for years. Over on the far side, the beam picked out a door and beneath it a strip of light edging under the crack. Matthew switched off his torch and dropped it back into the bag. “Quietly,” he whispered. He eased open the door.
A large foyer-type space came into view, a staircase winding up to the upper storey, rooms running off in various directions. An enormous chandelier took centre stage, casting everything in a stark, unforgiving glow. The area felt very grand but, as in the kitchen, dust and grime lay thick upon everything. No one tended this place, kept it in order. It was a pitiful shadow of its former glory.
From somewhere within came the low hum of voices. A chant of so
me kind, coming behind the pair of closed doors on the far wall. Matthew, pressing his finger against his lip, jerked his head towards the doors, and he crept towards them, Jed close behind.
Matthew stopped and pressed his ear against the woodwork. Grinning, he signalled to Jed with an upturned thumb. Both braced themselves and Matthew went through the doors at a rush.
He ground to a halt almost instantly.
Jed, coming up close behind, froze, his mouth falling open. “Oh my God,” he muttered, realising both he and his brother had made a terrible miscalculation.
David stood outside, the gun cold in his hands. He'd helped Larry drag the two unconscious bodies of Sullivan and Hannah into the back of the car. It wasn't easy, especially Sullivan, and by the time they'd finished, both men were out of breath. Larry hadn't been much help, his abdomen hurting, not daring to look at the dressing, saying, “I think these stitches need re-doing.”.
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