The Footprints of the Fiend

by William Stafford

  The people, men and women in their twenties and thirties, seemed to be happy and excited. I suppose anything was preferable to spending time in that storage unit. The new man kept a stern and vigilant eye on them, his length of wood at the ready to quell any misbehaviour. It wasn’t necessary. The people herded themselves into the lorry. What whispered words I managed to catch were incomprehensible to me. They were foreigners. My first guess was Eastern European. Serbs, maybe. Croats.

  They could have been Martians for all the difference it made.

  When the storage unit was empty and the lorry crammed full, the man with the wood locked up again. Tyke nodded to me. We shut the back doors, enclosing those people in darkness and uncomfortably close confinement.

  I knew better than to ask direct questions. I had a pretty good idea what was going on here.

  Illegal immigrants. Being ferried (lorried!) to London where they would be subsumed by the teeming populace, to work the black market, to participate in whatever illegal activity Whiting and Sprat and that Ronnie from the pub bid them.

  Now, I’ve nothing against people wanting to come to live in Britain. I don’t blame them, in fact. We are a nation of mongrels as it is. Always have been. Anyone who says different is obviously ignorant of history.

  But I’m getting political. I’m on the side of the law. Actively breaking the law, as I was forced to do in my undercover position, rankled with me almost as much as the carnage of the communal bathroom.

  There was no paperwork. No trail. No evidence.

  I could try to make a call and get the lorry intercepted before we got too far along the road. But what would that achieve? It would get Tyke locked up and probably his brother or cousin or clone or whoever it was too. It wouldn’t bring down the entire organisation, which is what I was there to do.

  So, not this time. Not this run. I would have to try to gather some evidence that implicated Whiting, Sprat and all the rest of them. I didn’t even know who all the rest of them were.

  I got back in the cab. Tyke seemed happier. I guessed he saw himself as some kind of saviour to his people. Like Zorro - or whomever the equivalent is in his part of the world.

  We were back in London before 10 pm. A veritable fleet of battered minibuses was waiting in the hangar. Our cargo was divided between the minibuses and driven away, scattered around the city. I wondered what awaited them, where and how they would end up.

  Whiting was there, leaning against his Bentley. When the last minibus had left, he strode over to me. Tyke was locking up the lorry.

  “Now, is this the easiest job you’ve ever had, or is this the easiest job you’ve ever had?”

  I grunted.

  He opened the passenger door of the cab, climbed up and reached down a bulging envelope. The emergency fund.

  “It’s all there,” I pointed out.

  He thrust it at me.

  “Then it’s all yours. What you don’t spend on the road is yours to keep. Now, you’ll come and have a drink with me to toast your first run.”

  It wasn’t a question. I hummed and ahhed. I looked to Tyke but he was already walking off.

  “Ronnie will be pleased to see you.”

  Oh well, then. If it would please Ronnie...

  I got in the Bentley.

  ***

  Ronnie took a shine to me. He said he had big plans for me. He said a good worker like me was wasted on lorry runs. I shouldn’t be pissing about on the motorway. I should be using my talents elsewhere.

  I didn’t know what talents he was referring to. He’d heard good things from Cleon, he told me. He’d like me to head up the DVD side of the operation. He was thinking about branching into email sales. Build up a customer base, email ’em each week with new releases, they sends money through an online payment facility. No address given. No human interaction. Minimal risk. He wanted me to set this up and run it. He wanted me out of danger.

  I’d joked and said Tyke’s driving wasn’t all that bad. Ronnie had laughed too, humouring me.

  No, he wanted me out of danger and away from the grubby business of shipping foreigners to and fro. He wanted to give me a cushy job away from all that.

  I suspected he suspected me. He didn’t want me to see what happened to the truckloads of immigrants that came into the country and, more sinisterly, what happened to those who were shipped out...

  “I’m trusting you, Tonk - What kind of a name is that for a human? Can I call you Simon?”

  “Well, my name’s Kevin...”

  “Close enough. Now, Kevin. There’s a reason why I want you safe.”

  He was looking at me with moist eyes and a sentimental smile. A cold shudder shook me to the core.

  “Have you met my daughter Julia?”

  He beckoned across the room and a woman hurried up and joined us at the table. She was dark haired but there were already odd strands of grey. She was older than me. She was probably pushing forty. I saw it then: her old man was trying to pair her off before she got too old to bear him a grandson, an heir.

  These criminal types can be awfully old-fashioned.

  “I’ll leave you two crazy kids to get acquainted.” He pinched his daughter’s cheek and left us. Julia dipped her head and peered at me from under her eyebrows in what she must have thought was an alluringly coy manner.

  Of all the things I have done since going undercover, including tackling that war zone of a communal bathroom, this was the moment I was at my most uncomfortable.

  “Nice weather,” I offered.

  Kill me, I thought.

  ***

  Julia.

  I can’t bring myself to think about her for too long. Every thought always leads to what she did after she tracked me down to Dedley.

  It’s too hard - unlike the occasion when she tried to get me drunk and seduce me. I couldn’t raise so much as a laugh. This had angered her. Her plan had been to shag me and then claim pregnancy, real or otherwise and thereby trap me into marriage.

  My protestations that I believed in keeping myself pure until my wedding night met at first with disbelief, followed by a begrudging respect for my conviction. But she only went and told her old man that we had talked about marriage. He got the ball rolling right away. There was no question of my resistance.

  Of course, I knew all along the marriage would be invalid: it would be Kevin ‘Tonk’ Tonkinson walking down the aisle not David Brough. I had to remember that and continue to play my role.

  The thing is: the woman was obviously deranged. Spoilt rotten by her father - in company at least. Sometimes I glimpsed a dark undercurrent pass between them like a jolt of static electricity. What had happened between them behind closed doors, I wondered? What had he done to her to turn her into this demanding, conniving, brittle woman-child?

  I saw it then. But what did I do? Everything in my power to placate her and jolly her along. Perhaps if I’d treated her differently, perhaps if I’d done something to help her, she wouldn’t have - she wouldn’t have - I can’t bring myself to complete the thought.

  I feel partially to blame for what she did.

  I don’t know how I will live with that.

  7.

  Miller saw her chance - it was the only thing she could see - and she took it. She leaned forwards and, with some difficulty, raised herself from the low cushions and dropped from the sofa. She crawled on her hands and knees behind it and headed to the French windows. There was no chance of overpowering the gunman, not even under the cover of darkness, but if she could get out she could summon help. She hoped the lights would not come on. She hoped her absence would not be revealed, causing the gunman to shoot the other two in anger... Before he came looking for her...

  She held her breath and reached up for the handle. It was marginally lighter outside and she imagined sh
e would be silhouetted against the window frame. She had to trust the gunman was not looking this way. She froze. The gunman was swearing; he’d made his way across the room and was trying the light switches.

  “Fuses, I expect,” Peter Brough offered.

  “Shut it! And keep still.”

  Miller twisted the handle downwards. She pulled the window open as much as she dared. She crawled through the gap, cursing her failure to enrol at and attend a gym. She pulled the window closed behind her, grimacing anxiously until the lock softly clicked into place. She hurried to put solid wall between her and the gunman.

  She stood, leaning against the living room wall. Her breath was heavy; she couldn’t remember breathing since she had left the sofa.

  Damn it! Should have brought my bag. My bloody phone’s in there.

  And the car keys.

  Shit.

  What to do...what to do...what to do?

  She dithered for a moment and then told herself to collect her thoughts. Why did you leave the room, Mel? To raise the alarm. To summon assistance.

  Right. So do that then.

  The neighbours! They would have a telephone at least.

  Miller stole around the house, heading for the front drive. She would climb over the bloody gates if she had to. She hurried along the neatly clipped grass along the edge of the drive, wary of making noise on the gravel. Her absence couldn’t have been noticed yet. But it couldn’t be long before it was. And the lights could come back on at any second. The Broughs probably had an emergency generator. They seemed the sort.

  Miller reached the gate. It appeared to be taller than she remembered. She looked for a release button and found one, a silver square on a post about the height of a car window. She pressed it and pressed it again. Nothing happened. It wasn’t just the lights. The power to the property was completely off.

  The crunch of footsteps on the gravel chilled her to the bone. She froze, holding onto the post. The footsteps were getting louder, approaching at a steady pace.

  It’s the gunman, she thought. He knows I can’t get away. Well, I’ll be buggered if he’s going to shoot me in the back.

  Slowly, Miller turned to face him. She gasped to see a man with long, shaggy hair and an unkempt beard like an exploded bird’s nest walking towards her. When he was about ten feet from her, he stopped. He smiled, his eyes and teeth glinting among the hair.

  “Hello, Miller,” said David Brough.

  ***

  “It’s good to see you,” he whispered. Tugging Miller by her sleeve, he pulled her back towards the house. “I knew you’d show up eventually and I knew you’d be followed.”

  “What? How could y-?”

  “Ssh, Miller!”

  They had reached the back of the building. Brough released Miller’s sleeve and dropped to the ground. She did too, although she wasn’t sure why; then she realised he was opening two narrow doors in the ground.

  The cellar!

  Brough beckoned to her and then climbed down the ladder. Miller screwed her face up against the musty smell and gingerly picked her way from rung to rung while Brough waited.

  “You’re going to have to go back in there,” Brough whispered. “When you’re ready, have a coughing fit. I’ll hear you and I’ll put the power back on.”

  “What - what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to have a chat with our uninvited guest.”

  “What - Do you know him? And you were out; why didn’t you get help?”

  “There’s no time for your questions, Miller.” They had reached the wooden flight of stairs that led up to the kitchen. “Get back in there. You’ll be safe. Everyone will be safe. I promise.”

  Miller stared at him. He’d changed. Months at home, isolated and alone, grieving for his murdered boyfriend... She could understand the lack of pride in his appearance, but what surprised her was his apparent togetherness, his calmness and confidence in what was a highly-charged hostage situation. Involving his own parents, no less!

  Oh well, she reflected as she crawled across the darkened corridor towards the living room, it could be worse. He could be catatonic. Or a gibbering wreck. Both of which, frankly, she’d been expecting.

  She listened at the door. The living room was in silence. She glanced back but Brough was nowhere to be seen. She knew he was positioned at the fuse box, waiting for her signal.

  Just thinking of it made her throat scratchy. She hoped she wouldn’t cough too soon and ruin everything. Swallowing hard, she turned the door knob and crawled into the room. Everything was still. She glanced up, unable to distinguish which of the dark shapes were furniture and which were people. The gunman was over at the French window, trying to look out at the garden and keep his gun trained on his hostages.

  Miller was a couple of feet away from her seat. Her shoulder connected with an ornamental table. Quick as a flash, Miller rolled onto her back and caught the vase before it could hit the floor. She held her breath.

  She could hear the gentle snoring of one of the old couple but couldn’t tell if it was Mr or Mrs Brough who had nodded off. She sat up and backed her way up onto the sofa.

  Suddenly, Mrs Brough burst into a coughing fit.

  No! Miller wailed inwardly. Not yet!

  Her eyes screwed themselves shut as the room was flooded with light.

  “Halle-bloody-luljah!” cheered the gunman. “Hoi, what are you doing with that vase?”

  Miller blinked. She was nursing the vase in her lap.

  “Um, I -“

  “Well, if you were thinking of clobbering me with that, you can forget it.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Sheepishly, Miller replaced the vase on the table.

  “I’m coming in!” announced a voice from the doorway. The door was pushed open to its fullest extent and David Brough stepped in, his hands raised.

  “David!” Peter Brough cried. “My boy!”

  “Well, well, well,” the gunman stepped towards him. “Ain’t this a nice surprise!”

  “I’m here now,” said Brough. “You can let the others go.”

  “I’m going nowhere,” said Peter Brough, folding his arms in defiance.

  “Me neither,” said Miller.

  “No skin off my arse,” said the gunman. He waved the shotgun towards an empty chair. “Sit there. Grass.”

  Brough strolled across to the chair, in no particular hurry.

  “Look at the state of you,” the gunman sneered. “Let yourself go, ain’t you?”

  “Says the man in the mask,” Brough smiled.

  “Oh, you can smile. You won’t be smiling soon after I’ve blasted your loved ones to bits. I want you to suffer, Tonk. Like I’ve suffered. Like you made me suffer.”

  “Tonk?” Peter Brough was puzzled.

  “Shut it,” snapped the gunman. “Or you’ll be first.”

  “I’m sorry about Julia; I truly am. She was obviously unhinged but that doesn’t excuse what she did to my - What she did.”

  Mention of the name seemed to cause the gunman physical pain. He gave an anguished cry and thrust the gun barrel closer to Brough’s face.

  ***

  Instead of going home when he had finished at the pub, Theo Dunn headed back to the office. There was something he wanted to check out. He was certain he’d heard of something similar happening, was certain there was an article about it in one of the back issues. The Dedley Chronicle was still on the brink of entering the electronic age; the typewriters had been replaced by computer terminals but if you were looking for a website or trying to contact them by email, forget it. Similarly, all the records were housed in filing cabinets and box files. Old issues of the paper were bound together in great leather books. Theo had quite a task ahead of him, but one of the advertiser
s was a pizza place a few doors away. He could ring Stefano for a spicy Mexican freebie if the hour grew very late.

  Footprints...footprints... Theo flicked through the F tray of the card index cabinet, hoping for an easy tip-off. There was nothing. He tried ‘footsteps’. He tried ‘roofs’ and ‘rooves’ and ‘pubs’ and ‘public houses’; he found plenty about church restoration appeals, various fights and murders in pubs throughout the ages, but nothing akin to the current phenomenon.

  Bollocks.

  He returned to his desk and began to scribble a list of key words he could try searching for. Hoof prints. Large animal sightings. Mystery. Flames. Fire.

  He also began to doodle, hoping it might prompt his memory. He drew a triangular form, elongated it and added a chimney. He marked out the slates and then described the pattern of hoof prints he had himself witnessed on the roof of the White Swan. He drew the moon, full and low, as a backdrop to the roof and then surrounded the moon with dense scribble from his biro to denote the night sky.

  And then, he didn’t know why, he began to draw a figure on the roof, peering out from behind the chimneystack. The figure had elongated features. Nose, chin and beard were all extended into points. The ears were also pointed, stretching back from the face. Parallel to the ears, a pair of horns sprouted from the figure’s forehead. A clawed hand held onto the brickwork. A furry leg was visible from behind the stack. It tapered down to a cloven hoof. Finally a tail snaked in the air, terminating in a barb, an arrowhead.

  Theo blinked, coming out of the trance that had overcome him while he had sketched. He looked at what he had done. The figure leered at him from the page, thick eyebrows dipped in a malevolent V.

  Theo gasped. The pen felt alien in his hand. He had no memory of even beginning the drawing. He shoved his chair from the desk and darted back to the card index to resume his search.

  Demon, he looked for.

  And devil.

  And Satan.

  ***

  In the Brough house, the situation had reached a deadlock. No one had moved, no one had spoken for quarter of an hour. Tension was high. At last, Brough spoke.