The Footprints of the Fiend

by William Stafford

  “Trust me; they’re hypocrites to a man. Soon as our doors are open, they’ll all be in. Sampling our wares. Charging it to expenses, no doubt. You mark my words.”

  “You’re probably right. But, I wonder...um, is it the best location, the one you want? Is it the best place for your business?”

  Johnson kept the councillor waiting for an answer. He stared at him until Dixon looked away.

  “On that hill, Gerry, the place will be visible from miles around. Especially, Gerry, when it’s all lit up at night, Gerry. You promised me that site, Gerry. You said it was as good as mine, Gerry. You said we’d get a knock-down price because that factory has been standing empty for decades, Gerry. You said!”

  Gerry was beginning to panic again. Johnson’s voice was beginning to attract the attention of the couple at the far table.

  “A month. That’s all,” he whispered. “You’ll get your club.”

  Johnson nodded.

  “Oh, I’ll get my club, Gerry. Or you’ll...” He didn’t finish the threat. Instead he poked his finger right through the stack of poppadums, shattering the lot.

  ***

  “This used to be a pub, you know.” Gary Woodcock made an attempt at conversation.

  “I know.” Miller glanced up from the menu she was perusing. “Think I’ll have a dupiaza.”

  “Right. I’m going the full vindaloo.”

  “You don’t have to, you know; Stevens isn’t here.”

  Woodcock looked relieved.

  “Thank fuck. I’ll have a dupiaza too then.”

  Silence drifted over them, like an aroma wafting from the kitchen. Their attention was drawn to the loud man at the other table.

  “Pissed at this hour!” Woodcock diagnosed. “Good job I’m off duty.”

  “Who’s that with him? I know him.”

  Woodcock tried to turn around and get a proper look without appearing obvious. In the end, he went for an extravagant dropping of his napkin and a no less flamboyant retrieval.

  “Oh, him. That’s, um, Councillor Whojimmyflop or something.” He repositioned the napkin on his lap.

  “You have a great memory for names,” Miller teased. “You should be a detective.”

  Woodcock pulled a face.

  Silence returned.

  “So, as I say,” he ventured again after a long minute, “This place used to be a pub.”

  “Oh really?” Miller batted her eyelashes. “Well, I never knew that.”

  They laughed.

  “You can be a right piss-taker when you want to,” he accused her.

  More silence. The waiter took their order.

  Woodcock and Miller looked across at each other, both about to say something. They both changed their minds at the same instant. Miller toyed with her cutlery; Woodcock checked his phone.

  The loud man across the room left in a hurry. Councillor Whojimmyflop stayed where he was, waving his empty pint glass at the waiter. The meal was ordered. It would go on expenses and what he didn’t eat would go in a doggy bag for tomorrow’s lunch.

  Again Woodcock and Miller tried to say something and again they both decided against it. The waiter brought their food. They smiled and smelled the dishes he laid out before them.

  “Mmm,” they said in appreciation.

  Miller tipped rice onto her plate.

  “Mel...” Woodcock began.

  “Let’s eat first,” she said. She smiled. That gave him some relief.

  They genuinely enjoyed the food and made comments about it and sampled each other’s. They gave the waiter a hearty thumbs-up when he came back to check they hadn’t dropped dead face down in the dishes from food poisoning.

  “Did you know,” Miller said through a mouthful of garlic naan, “This used to be a pub?”

  They ordered liqueur coffees and competed over who could get the broadest cream moustache but they recognised the time had come to discuss what they needed to discuss.

  “So....” Woodcock began, “There’s an elephant in the zoo.”

  “There isn’t actually,” Miller replied. “Not for years. You mean in the room.”

  “Do I?” Woodcock swept his hand through the air, dismissing his false start. He adopted a more direct approach. “He’s back, then.”

  “Yes,” Miller nodded. “He’s back. What of it?”

  “Well, I just wondered how it, um, affects, ah, you and me...”

  “It shouldn’t,” said Miller. She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “It’s just work. You and me - that’s play!”

  Woodcock withdrew his hand.

  “You care about him a lot, don’t you?”

  “He’s a friend.”

  “More than that.”

  “No! Gary, you have nothing to worry about. Honestly. He’s a bender, remember? He wouldn’t look twice at me even if I won the lottery and shat ice cream.”

  Woodcock signalled to the waiter, miming the writing of the bill.

  “Don’t be like this, Gary. How many times?”

  “Part of me wishes he’d never come back. Should have stayed in his parents’ spare bedroom.”

  “And stop pouting. You’re so bloody childish sometimes.”

  They jutted their chins in angry silence as the waiter brought the bill in its own leatherette folder. Miller whipped out her debit card before the waiter could leave.

  “Let me -“ Woodcock protested.

  “Piss off, Gary.” She was thrusting her arms into her coat sleeves. The waiter came back with the card reader. Miller entered her PIN.

  “Let me give you half at least. Mel!”

  The machine chugged out a curling receipt as long as the waiter’s arm. He tore it off and handed it to Miller and then made a discreet withdrawal.

  “You can leave the tip,” Miller stood up. While Woodcock dug in his pockets for pound coins, she headed for the door. The councillor was also paying for his meal. Miller stepped back from the door as a party of men in anoraks and chunky knitwear came in on a tide of hearty laughter.

  “Table for six!” one of them called out. “And do you know, your roof’s on fire?”

  ***

  Trevor Nock, his nose still sore and swollen, was standing with his new friend watching the glowing footprints appear on the roof of the Simoom restaurant.

  “Look at that,” the new friend murmured in Trevor’s ear.

  “I am doing,” said Trevor.

  “Behold the evil that walks among us!” the new friend pointed across the road.

  The restaurant was being evacuated but instead of moving away, the customers were standing on the pavement, looking up at the roof. It wouldn’t be long before they crossed to Trevor’s side to afford themselves a better view.

  “Another den of iniquity is exposed unto us!” Trevor’s friend said dramatically.

  Trevor was puzzled. Before he’d been sent down and his life of petty crime brought to an abrupt end, he used to frequent that very restaurant. He’d always enjoyed it and had never had a dicky tummy or a burning bumhole the day after. Den of iniquity? Surely not!

  “Simoom means ‘hot wind’” said the dramatic new friend.

  “Not in my experience,” Trevor added.

  A fire engine arrived. By this time a trail of hoof prints was smouldering across the roof, glowing like embers. The waiter and the kitchen staff were holding each other in terror, imploring the firemen to put a stop to this unholy display.

  “Let us go,” the friend tugged at Trevor’s sleeve. “We have borne witness.”

  Reluctantly, Trevor went with his new friend. They headed through the pedestrianized town centre, while other people were heading towards the Simoom to see what was going on.

  “You can find your
way home from here.” It wasn’t a question.

  Trevor nodded. The friend was gone - as quickly as he’d appeared. Trevor had been sitting on the pavement, nursing his injured face, when a hand had helped him to his feet and an austere-looking gentleman in black clothing had offered him a handkerchief to staunch the blood flow. It had struck Trevor as somewhat odd - Who has proper handkerchiefs these days? The man had led Trevor to a shop doorway, out of the path of an oncoming pushchair. What was odder was that Trevor couldn’t get a proper look at the man who was showing him such kindness. The man always seemed to be in the corner of his eye, at his side or just behind him. It was disconcerting but also comforting, in a way.

  But now, Trevor was alone again. He called out ‘Hello?’ a couple of times before giving up and making his way home.

  Who was this man? Why had he insisted they stand and watch the hoof prints appear on the restaurant roof?

  Trevor became aware his nose was bleeding again. He reached in his pocket for the handkerchief. He searched every pocket he had more than once. The handkerchief was gone. Trevor was baffled. Had he imagined the whole experience?

  It seemed only the pain in his nose was real.

  ***

  The fire crew was packing up. The hoof prints had steamed when the water from the hose hit them but had fizzled out. The waiter was grateful, promising free main courses to the firemen any weekday evening.

  Miller and Woodcock had hung around, feeling obliged to keep an eye on the public. The group of hearty men had given up and gone elsewhere as soon as the footprints were extinguished.

  “Show’s over,” Woodcock said.

  “Looks that way,” Miller agreed. “This sort of thing keeps happening.”

  “Yeah. Me and Stevens am looking into it. The first time it was down at the Barge Inn.”

  “Nice pub.”

  “Yeah... We should go sometime.”

  “Yes.”

  That response heartened Woodcock. Their waiter approached.

  “A djinn! A djinn!” he wailed.

  “I’d rather have a lager,” said Woodcock. “If you’m offering.”

  ***

  Theo Dunn woke up in the newspaper office, feeling like he’d been run over. He rubbed his eyes and the back of his neck.

  Working late again. I should get a pay rise...

  But he couldn’t remember working. He couldn’t remember the journey to the office. The way he was feeling, he couldn’t even remember what day it was.

  It was late. The night sky outside the window told him that. The pain in his back and limbs suggested he’d been at his desk for quite some time. Why couldn’t he remember anything?

  He looked at his computer screen, shaking the mouse to dispel the screensaver. An empty document was open. He’d been about to write something but hadn’t typed a word. An internet search tab was also open. He maximised it to see what he’d been looking for.

  THE DEDLEY DEVIL, 412,000,000 results...

  What?

  In red beneath that, Did you mean deadly devil?

  Theo clicked on the first result. It was an online article someone had scanned from his own paper but before he could take in the headline or read any of the copy, the photograph made him fall of his chair.

  Staring out from the middle of his computer screen was the face of the man in Theo’s bathroom mirror.

  11.

  Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler seemed more annoyed than usual at the staff briefing. She was pissed off with the laser pointer - an old-fashioned stick would have been better for jabbing at the images she was presenting to her team. Photographs of the public houses, and now an Indian restaurant, that had fallen prey to some arsehole with an unfunny sense of humour.

  “Someone’s out there playing silly buggers, ladies and gentlemen. I want an end to this bollocks before someone gets hurt. What?” She roared at that wanker Stevens who had dared to raise his hand.

  “What about him who fell in the canal? He got hurt, didn’t he?”

  Wheeler’s nostrils flared.

  “Accidental. Pissed as a fart, fell in, banged his bonce, end of. What I’m worried about is that things will escalate. Fancy footprints won’t be enough for this joker. He won’t be able to get his jollies unless the whole building goes up. And it’ll be more than some homeless tramp finding himself warmer than he bargained for. Fucks sake, Stevens.”

  “Um, is this the kind of thing we should be doing, Chief? I thought this was the Serious Crimes division.”

  “I’ll give you fucking serious in a minute if you don’t stop interrupting. Right, Brough, Miller, I want you on research. Has this kind of thing ever happened before? Stevens, Woodcock, I want you out on the streets. Talking to the proprietors, talking to the witnesses. Try to find something that connects them - apart from them all being pubs, I mean. Well, apart from the restaurant which, in case you didn’t know, used to be a pub. Harry, you can liaise with forensics. Find out how he’s doing it.”

  Detective Inspector Harry Henry raised his hand.

  “Already on it, chief. Not much to go on. Fire brigade wash most of it away.”

  Wheeler’s nostrils flared. She narrowed her eyes.

  “Getting your excuses in early, Harry? To avoid the rush?”

  She cast one final look of disdain around the room.

  “Go on then,” she urged. “Fuck off.”

  ***

  “I don’t know why she’s given us bloody library duty,” Brough complained as he and Miller headed to her car.

  “She’s easing you back into things, I expect.” Miller unlocked the car. “Anyway, I’ve got an idea.”

  As they drove from Serious up to Dedley town, she explained. The library need not be their first port of call. There was a brand, spanking new archives building, thrown up in his absence, but even that need not concern them right away.

  “When I was clearing out the house, I found box after box of old papers. Newspapers. They were my dad’s and Mum never got around to chucking them in with the recycling. I was going to but then I took a look at them. Have you heard of the Dedley Chronicle?”

  Brough pulled a face.

  “Should I have?”

  “It’s a local paper. Comes out weekly or every other week or something. Only it’s not news, it’s history. Well, I thought it’d be a shame to send ‘em to the recycling, so I took them to the office. Their office, I mean. Thought they might like them. For their records or something. Well, the old boy I spoke to was all sort of sentimental. He kept pulling out issues at random and marvelling at them like they was old friends. He said he’d gladly take them off my hands and he’d get his junior to file them.”

  “Fascinating, Miller.”

  “There’s no need for sarcasm. But I thought we’d try there first. They might know if this kind of thing has happened before.”

  “Oh well,” Brough conceded, “I can’t see that it will be any less boring than poking around in the library.”

  Miller parked on a side-street. The police station’s car-park had been sold off and was now a building site, now that the police station was no longer in regular use. She led Brough around a couple of corners.

  “Here we are,” she announced.

  “A barber’s? Miller, why have you brought us to a barber’s?”

  She nudged his ribs and pointed to the upper storey. Brough saw that above the barber’s and the shops on either side of it, the windows were emblazoned with the name of the paper, along with a heraldic device that was the paper’s crest.

  “Although, you could do with it,” she observed. She didn’t approve of this more hirsute Brough. “I feel like I’m arresting a tramp.”

  Brough laughed more from surprise than amusement. He smoothed his long hair with his hand.

&nb
sp; “I rather like it,” he pouted.

  “They’ll be calling you Brough the Scruff,” Miller warned.

  “We’re not eleven,” he said. He moved to the entrance and the stairs that led up to the office. Miller followed. His backside was level with her face all the way up.

  Just about sums it up, she thought.

  ***

  The proprietor of the Dedley Chronicle was reprimanding his ace reporter (for ‘ace’ read ‘only’) Theo Dunn for not being “with it” that morning. Terence Flax was a kindly old soul who couched his reprimands in avuncular smiles and gentle coaxing. Theo would have preferred an outburst, a brief explosion of anger and irritation that would be over, done with, gone. This cajoling and cosseting was worse. It was never-ending. No matter what he did, Theo found the old man regarding him with moist-eyed, sentimental disappointment.

  “Whatever’s the matter with you, chap?” the old man was leaning over Theo’s monitor. “You can always talk to me, you know. My door and my ears are always open.”

  “I’m just tired.” Theo rubbed his eyes to illustrate.

  “Tired?” Flax’s eyebrows flew upwards. “You always seem to be, ah, how shall we put it, resting your eyes at your post?”

  “I’m sorry,” Theo muttered. “I’ll drink more coffee.”

  The old man waddled away, shaking his head. Theo stretched. He stifled a yawn and rubbed his eyes again.

  Back to work.... What had he been doing? He refreshed his screen. The browser was open at an article about a man called the Dedley Devil. Theo shrugged and minimised it. Another window showed a story about mysterious footprints on the local pubs. The article had been posted by a local history society, paraphrasing old stories from the Chronicle and using illustrations without permission; the events it detailed were from the end of the nineteenth century.

  Theo had to read the whole thing again to remind himself of the facts - if you could call them facts. The article was sketchy to say the least.

  The old man, meanwhile, had intercepted a couple of visitors at the door. He led them to his office in the corner, a poky room brimming with stacks of newspapers and old files.