The Footprints of the Fiend

by William Stafford

  “I would offer you a beverage, officers,” he showed Brough and Miller his sad smile, “but I’ve been meaning to replace the kettle for quite some time.”

  Miller assured him it was okay.

  They told him why they were there. Terence Flax looked at them curiously. Current events meant nothing to him but he nodded in recognition at the pubs they named and his eyebrows did another leap, like excited caterpillars, when they told him of the footprints.

  “It all has a ring of familiarity,” Flax cast his eyes around the stacks of newspapers. He tapped his lips with his index finger as he thought. “One moment, please.”

  He left the detectives in his office and returned to Theo’s desk. The young reporter was making notes from something he was reading from the screen. This was an improvement on catching forty winks. The boy might even be working. Stranger things have happened. Much stranger things, indeed...

  “Pardon me, my boy,” Flax hated to interrupt this flurry of productivity. “You’re more familiar with the files than I. Could you find me anything on footprints on public houses at all? I’d be obliged. There are two officers of the law in my office so there is some urgency in my request.”

  Theo looked from the old man to the office door to his screen and then back at the old man again.

  “You mean this?” He twisted his monitor. The old man peered at the headline: The Mystery of the Satanic Spoor.

  He patted the reporter on the arm.

  “My word!” he was astonished. “You are certainly on the ball, my boy. That is just the ticket. But why, pray, were you looking at that old story?”

  “Because it’s happening again!” Theo gestured to the window to indicate the world outside.

  “That would account for the police interest...” Old man Flax tapped his lips again.

  “Um, you mentioned something about urgency,” Theo prompted.

  “Oh yes, quite.” Terence Flax shuffled back to his office to collect the detectives.

  ***

  Woodcock and Stevens parked at the top of the town. Woodcock had suggested visiting the locations in the order in which the footprints had appeared. This had been met with a dismissive “fuck that” from his superior, who opted for visiting them in order of convenience.

  “It’s not a pub crawl,” Woodcock observed. “We don’t have to worry about wasting drinking time.”

  “Any visit to a pub without having a beer is a waste of drinking time,” opined Stevens with a sneer that curled his moustache, “so it doesn’t matter what fucking order we do them in.”

  He strode across the car park, his tan leather jacket flapping in the breeze. Woodcock checked the car was locked and hurried to catch up.

  “Might be a good idea to have a map, sir,” he ventured another suggestion. Predictably, Stevens shot it down.

  “Got the sat nav. Besides there’s no boozer around here I haven’t been in.”

  “That’s not the point, sir. I have an idea...”

  “Fuck me, Woodcock! Don’t strain yourself.”

  “Hold up, sir.” Woodcock nipped into a newsagent’s.

  Stevens looked at the sky as if he blamed something in the clouds. He joined his D S in the shop.

  “Just this, please,” Woodcock placed a tourist map of the town on the counter. The assistant rang it up.

  “And these.” Stevens dropped a packet of crisps, a bar of hazelnut chocolate, a tube of mints and the latest edition of Jizzbags on the counter. “Oh, and twenty Bachmans.”

  “Fuck off. I’m not buying your cigarettes.”

  The assistant dithered.

  Stevens glared at him.

  Woodcock exhaled noisily and nodded. He paid for the goods. Stevens was waiting outside. Woodcock thrust the paper bag of purchases at the D I.

  “Ooh, it’s like Christmas!” Stevens laughed. “Have a mint.”

  Woodcock declined. He unfolded the map.

  “Got a pen? Look who I’m asking! I should have bought a pen.”

  “The White Swan,” Stevens announced. “This’ll do for starters.”

  Struggling to fold the map up again, Woodcock followed Stevens into the pub.

  ***

  In his office in the Council House, Gerry Dixon crunched a couple of indigestion tablets. He washed them down with a swig of cold tea. The telephone startled him. He pressed a button.

  “A Mister Johnson-“

  Gerry interrupted the secretary’s voice.

  “Tell him I’m in a meeting. And I thought I told you no calls.”

  “Er...he’s here,” the disembodied voice added. Gerry could imagine her insipid face reddening with embarrassment.

  “Tell him I’m out.”

  “He’s right here!” the voice distorted as the secretary pressed her mouth to the mic.

  “Hello, Gerry!” Charlie Johnson’s voice, cheerful and loud, repelled Gerry from his desk. “All right to pop in for five minutes? Or what say I take you to lunch? Does that sound like a plan?”

  Gerry clutched his chest. A dyspeptic belch erupted.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Dixon,” the secretary whimpered.

  There was a knock on the door. Without waiting for an invitation, Charlie Johnson breezed in.

  “I’d put my coat on if I was you,” he clapped his hands and rubbed them. “Good breeze blowing today.”

  “It’s an ill wind...” Gerry Dixon muttered. He reached for his coat, almost pulling the rack on top of himself.

  “I’m sorry?” Johnson held the door open as if he owned the place.

  “Just not Indian,” Gerry pleaded.

  Charlie Johnson patted him heartily on the back.

  They went to lunch.

  ***

  The detectives went away happy. Well, perhaps happy wasn’t quite the word. The key thing was they went away. Theo Dunn was relieved. On the one hand it was gratifying to know that the police appeared to be taking the link between current and past events seriously. The man one had mentioned it was a copycat. Some nutter going around trying to recreate the mysterious appearance of the footprints over a hundred years ago. Although why anyone would want to do such a thing was as yet unknown. The other one - the lady one - Miller; Theo remembered her name - had asked him to speculate. What did Theo think the motivation might be? Had he any explanation for the original mystery?

  Theo had mumbled something about religious intolerance, maybe, and had told them about the “ranters” of the time. They were all out against alcohol and public houses. Perhaps one of them had perpetrated a hoax to add weight to their argument. Perhaps someone with similar views today was restaging the hoax in order to make a point.

  Miller had smiled and given him her card. If he thought of anything further Theo was not to hesitate. He was to contact her right away.

  He went to the toilet and washed his face. He ventured to look in the mirror over the sink and was relieved to see that the face looking back at him was his own, wet and pleased to see himself.

  That lady detective hadn’t been wearing a ring...

  Theo wracked his brains trying to think of a reason to give her a call.

  ***

  Grace Hindle, Gerry Dixon’s secretary wasn’t surprised when the councillor didn’t return from his impromptu lunch appointment. It was standard practice, Grace had come to learn in her years of service. Men! They invariably got more work done in the pub than in the office or the Council Chamber. She finished her tasks for the day. She took messages and made excuses. At last, knocking-off time came around. She shut down her computer and got into her coat.

  As she walked to the bus station she passed a billboard advertising the new strip club - the new strip club for which planning permission and licences and all the rest of it had yet to be granted. She grim
aced at the enormous expanse of female flesh on display. The model’s head was out of frame. Her torso was clad in clinging black lace and leather.

  “Opening soon!” the billboard proclaimed. Grace assumed that meant the club and not the model. “THE STRIP MINE”.

  That was presumably some kind of play on words.

  Grace Hindle shook her head in disgust. It was just like the arrogance of that Johnson man, to put up such a vile and exploitative hoarding before the deal was officially done.

  Reflexively, she touched the silver cross on her necklace.

  What was the town coming to?

  Or, more accurately, what was coming to the town?

  ***

  Brough stepped out of the shower in his en suite at the Railway Hotel. He wiped his hand across the mirror but the tiny room was still too steamed up to show his true reflection. This suited Brough. He hadn’t shaved or visited a barber since - since Alastair... He didn’t know why exactly.

  If I get a new haircut, I’d be different. Alastair would never see it.

  This notion may have held some tenuous logic months ago when Brough was in the

  first shock of grief but now, six months on, he realised it made no sense. Here he was, transformed into a walking ball of hair. He was certainly different to the smart and well-groomed David that Alastair had known and - and loved.

  He had loved me, Brough was certain. We were going to move in together. I gave

  him a key. And if I hadn’t done that, he might still be alive today.

  Brough sought his eyes in the mirror. Two brown smudges. The guilt he felt over Alastair’s death was still with him. No matter how often he reminded himself it was Julia who had actually committed the crime, he still felt responsible.

  He should have been straight with Julia... Hah! He laughed at this bitter irony. He should have been honest with her - but that would have risked his cover.

  He buried his face in a towel. How many times was he going to go over this in his head? Round and round in circles, the same thoughts, the same recriminations.

  He rubbed his hair. Stevens was right: it was scruffy. Perhaps he should get it sorted, abandon this outward show of his mourning. He raked his fingers through his beard. That would have to come off too.

  But not now. Not yet.

  Brough wasn’t ready.

  He dried himself off and got ready for bed, hoping his neighbours - drunken sales reps on either side - wouldn’t be too raucous when they dragged themselves from the bar later on. Something else he needed to sort out: finding somewhere to live. He couldn’t take much more of this no-star hotel.

  He pulled the covers over himself and hugging one of the pillows to his chest, waited for sleep to come.

  At least when he slept, Alastair no longer appeared to torment him.

  12.

  Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler called the morning briefing to order. She was keen that her team shared their ongoing findings. She was not a fan of the maverick, the detective who worked alone, playing by his own rules and all those other clichés you can find on the back of a DVD box. That was why she kept a watchful eye on David Brough. He would be a team player or he’d be out on his arse and never fucking mind who his dad was. That Miller was apparently not as wet a lettuce as Wheeler had at first estimated. She was anchoring Brough to the rest of them, even though she was starry-eyed about that other chap... Woodcock.

  Wheeler shuddered. Thoughts of Woodcock inevitably led to Stevens. That wanker. Look at him, sat there chewing gum like an arsehole grabbing at tight underwear. She supposed she should get his contribution out of the way. After that, the day could only get better.

  To her surprise, Stevens actually had something worthwhile to say.

  “Alright,” he stood up and acknowledged the team. He wiped his nose on the back of his fingers and then held up a map. He had to enlist Woodcock to hold up on side of it. Stevens peered at it, a little thrown to see it upside down. “Me and Gary went from pub to pub yesterday. No change there you might say. Heh.” The slightest glance at Wheeler’s stern expression quashed every hint of levity. Stevens cleared his throat and adopted a more professional approach.

  “Everywhere we went it was the same story. Mysterious footprints. Nobody saw nobody. These things just appeared on the roof like wossname.”

  “Spontaneous combustion,” Woodcock supplied.

  Stevens nodded.

  “Yup. And we spoke to the landlords - in a couple of cases, they was landladies -“ he paused to allow this startling piece of information to sink in, “ and they couldn’t think of nobody who was doing this. And there was no connection between them. Some are free houses; some are parts of a pub chain. Some places am old, some not so. I’ve got ‘em marked out on this map here.”

  He swept his hand across the sheet of paper, like work experience on a shopping channel.

  “What we noticed and you can probably see it from there, is the sites form a pattern or shape. A bloody big arrow. And do you know where that arrow’s pointing to? You’ll never guess! The old factory on Bridges Bank.”

  He pronounced it ‘bonk’ in accordance with the local accent but they all knew where he meant.

  The proposed site of The Strip Mine.

  Wheeler nodded appreciatively. She even thanked Stevens for his input. Stevens sat down, the proudest kid in assembly, abandoning Woodcock to deal with the map. Woodcock pinned it to the wall. As he returned to his seat, Miller sent him a proud smile.

  “Intentional, this arrow?” Wheeler pointed over her shoulder with her thumb to the map behind her. “Or are we reading too much into it at this stage? Either way, good work, Benny. And um...” She nodded to Woodcock. His first name eluded her. She turned to D I Henry and invited him to come forward.

  Harry Henry strode purposefully to the front, a folder of his findings in his hand.

  “Morning, everyone,” he said, with a serious expression. No one repeated the greeting. “As you may know, I spoke to the boffins about this. I spoke to Forensics and also the bods up at the university. Asked them how it’s done. How is he - or she - or they - how is this person or persons unknown doing it? Making these footprints appear out of nowhere.

  “Well. Forensics didn’t like to speculate. They said they only deal with what’s left at the scene, and there’s never much of that once the fire brigade have hosed the place down. They said - and this was actually helpful - I should talk to the fire brigade, so that’s what I did do.”

  A grunt from Wheeler urged him to speed things up.

  “And the chap at the fire station said I should go to the university and speak to a combustibles expert or what-have-you. So off I went to the university and had a chat to a very helpful fellow, a professor, ah...” He fumbled through his copious notes but couldn’t find the name. “Any road, Professor um, Hale! Yes, that’s it! Professor Hale. Not what you’d expect for a mad scientist type. You always expect them to be German and untidy. Well, I do, at any rate. But this one wasn’t German or untidy. Quite well presented, in fact. Hands looked manicured. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Harry...” Wheeler sent him a warning glare.

  “Well, Professor Hale told me, and this is only guesswork because he hadn’t any actual samples to analyse or nothing, that it’s quite easy to pull off. His best guess was, um,” he pulled a sheet from the folder, “white phosphorous in a solution of, ah, carbon disulfide. You paint it on the surface, the carbon, um, stuff evaporates away, leaving the, ah, phosphorous to react with the oxygen in the, ah, air.”

  “That’s interesting,” Wheeler rubbed her chin.

  “He said - Professor Hale said he’d be very surprised if it wasn’t that or something very like that. A variation on the theme, he called it.”

  Everyone was nodding. Harry stood as though waiting for applause.
Wheeler pushed him out of the way.

  “So, there’s a scientific explanation. Let that put your minds at ease, ladies and gentlemen. This ain’t the work of the devil. There’s somebody out there playing silly buggers, painting footprints on the pubs of Dedley. There’s a possible connection with the new strip club. That should help you. Find out who’s opposed to the club. Religious nuts. Feminists and such like. Mothers For Morality types. Yes, Inspector?”

  David Brough had raised his hand.

  “Um, Miller and I have found out something germane.”

  “Oh, have you? And don’t call me Germaine.”

  Brough, unsure whether this was a quip, chose to ignore it. He got to his feet and went to the front. He beckoned with his head for Miller to join him.

  “Brough the scruff,” Stevens coughed into his hand.

  “Years ago,” Brough began.

  “Here we go!” Stevens jeered. “Once upon a time!”

  “Shut your fucking face,” Wheeler snapped. “I’m sorry, David, for this bloody wanker. Please continue.”

  Stevens pulled a face, feeling hard done by. He looked at Brough with undisguised contempt. Woodcock and Miller shared a supportive glance.

  “Over a hundred years ago,” Brough resumed, his cheeks reddening between the fall of his fringe and the mass of his beard, “there was a spate of incidents almost identical to those occurring today. And what’s more, the very same pubs are being affected. In one case, the Indian restaurant - that used to be a pub. Back then, these things stopped as quickly as they’d started. Up on Bridges Bank.”

  “Bonk!” Stevens interjected scornfully.

  Wheeler looked daggers at him.

  “Up on Bridges Bank,” Brough repeated with emphasis. “Before the factory was built there was a bit of a local landmark there, known as the Devil’s Doorstep. A huge slab of stone that some believed was an altar for satanic rituals. The locals, terrified out of their wits, all stormed up the hill with explosives stolen from a nearby quarry and blasted that stone off the face of the Earth. No more sightings of the mysterious footprints were recorded after that.”