by Will Harker
As I walked, turning the meaning of the vandalised plaque over in my mind, another thought kept niggling at me. Something Roebuck had said that, in the wake of discovering the body, I had forgotten. I tried to coax the memory but it stayed stubbornly out of reach. For the moment, I let it rest and switched back to the plaque. If Hillstrom wasn’t the killer but remained a potential fifth victim, then what did the removal of his ancestor’s name signify? Perhaps this time it wouldn’t be a recreation of the final freak—the contortionist, Matthew Slip-Jointed Jericho—but something altogether different. Unless of course…
“Ah, shit.”
Rounding the bend, I’d almost crashed straight into them. I should have realised that the way to the council chamber would take me via the rally point. Caught up in my thoughts, I hadn’t even noticed the chanting. Now the mob pulsated before me, fifty or more faces twisted into hateful laughter, white supremacist emblems on every T-shirt and bandana. Taking up most of the street in front of the completed mosque, they pushed and tugged at each other like the playground bullies they were.
Only one thing redeemed the scene: shoved to the fringes, I could see from their troubled expressions that the remaining Bradburians—those who hadn’t already left—had realised what a Pandora’s box they’d opened. Their placards that earlier in the day had been wafted so proudly now lay heaped at their feet. Meanwhile, a thin line of officers did their best to marshal the thugs.
During my time in uniform, I’d helped police enough demos to read the signals they were telegraphing to each other. The situation was teetering on the brink. All it would take was one wrong word, one stray missile, a misinterpreted glance and the whole thing could go up like a powder keg. I had no doubt that, when it did, Lenny Kerrigan would be at the heart of it.
We locked eyes, the murderer of the Malanowski children and I. He was stationed with his crew on the far side of the street and, at the sight of me, whispered something to his Neanderthal deputy, Mickey ‘Fat Boy’ Wallace. I watched as this murmur did the rounds of the dozen or so Knights of St George. Then Lenny was taking out his phone and shooting me that shit-eating grin.
I didn’t have time for this.
An alleyway, barely wide enough to allow two people to walk down shoulder-to-shoulder, cut away from the road. My footfalls echoed from wall to wall as I took this exit. The sun did not reach here and the chanting behind me soon became muffled again. I’d almost reached the far end when I remembered what Roebuck had said the last time we’d seen him, “I have something for you—a little surprise I found on the net after we talked last night. I think you’ll find it quite revelatory.”
I glanced back the way I’d come. Could I risk returning to the historian’s house? Unless the killer had taken it, there was a chance that whatever he’d discovered might still be among Roebuck’s papers. Perhaps on that cluttered desk. And if Garris hadn’t called his Major Investigations contact then–
“Where’s the other little faggot, eh? Had a lover’s tiff, Scotty?”
Lenny Kerrigan, leading the Knights of St George into the alley. I really didn’t have time for this. Flipping Lenny the bird, I turned my back on him just in time to meet a colossal fist that slammed the sweet spot between my nose. For a split second, my vision went dark and I staggered sideways into the wall. Meanwhile, Kerrigan called out to his second-in-command.
“Fuck’s sake, Mickster. I said don’t start on him until I give the word.”
“Sorry, Len. Got carried away.”
I spun around, flicked the blood from my nose, shook my head until the alley reappeared before me. From the narrow strip of sky above, the first patter of rain began to fall.
“You want to go toe-to-toe with me, Lenny, that’s fine,” I grunted. “But right now I’ve got more important things on my plate. So move the fuck aside.”
I lunged towards them and at least six jolted back in surprise. Kerrigan held his ground, though the trademark smile faltered.
“Let him come to us,” he muttered. “Just like we said.”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing here,” I spat back. “Though I guess it’s got something to do with this ‘big surprise’ you’ve been crowing about. Honestly, Kerrigan, I don’t care. You name the time and the place and I’ll happily trot along and beat the ever-living shit out of you, just like I did in that interview room.”
Thunder rumbled, finding its voice in the throat of the alley. The rain strengthened and ran like angry tears down Kerrigan’s face.
“You got the jump on me!” Some of his followers couldn’t hide their looks of contempt as he practically screamed words. “If you hadn’t come at me sudden like that, I’d have fucked you up!”
“You’d have tried. And I’d still have made you piss your pants in terror. You know your problem, Lenny?” Conscious of Wallace lurking behind me, I took another step forward. I noticed that Lenny’s Knights had to push at their leader’s shoulders to keep him from stepping back. “You’re weak. Hollow right through. All you are is an angry child shrieking at a world it doesn’t understand. So step aside, you mewling toddler and let me–”
I should’ve seen it. That backwards movement of Kerrigan’s hand as he took the crowbar from one of the thugs behind him. But right then something else had caught my eye: the light, the glint, the dazzle that I had first glimpsed in the woods surrounding Marco’s diner and then again in the forest by Travellers Bridge. Now it sparked at the shadowy mouth of the alley. Not Carmody’s binoculars but a single lens, fixed and focused on me. Finally understanding what it was, I couldn’t help a rueful smile.
The smile was still on my lips when I hit the ground.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE PAPARAZZO’S LENS FLASHED in the first lightning strike.
I should have known. Of course, it made no sense that she would have just given up. As soon as she’d caught wind of the story—brilliant young CID detective beats suspected child murderer to a pulp—press photographer, Maxine Thierrot had stalked my every move. Throughout my trial she’d been there, that ever-watchful camera’s eye greeting me as I arrived at court and then lying in wait whenever Garris and I had taken a break. And it hadn’t ended there. Eighteen months later, I had found her lurking in the prison car park when Sal came to pick me up. Eventually, her editor had tired of the story and pulled her from the gig, but before that she’d spent weeks hanging around the fair.
Only once had I asked her why she was so fascinated with me. That had been on my last day before sentencing. I remember us on the court steps, Garris trying to pull me away, Thierrot giving me a cool professional shrug.
“It’s nothing personal,” she said. “You’re just a good story, that’s all.”
“Well, now you can put away your little camera,” I’d retorted. “The story’s over.”
“Oh no.” She’d smiled. “I really don’t think it is. Because whatever made you throw your life away, it’s still inside you. The violence, the anger? And you know what? I think you’ll do it again. Just know, I’ll be there when it happens.”
I guess she’d got tired of waiting and had decided to give the story a little push. Only the game she’d been playing with Lenny Kerrigan hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped. I could see that much from her pinched expression as she strode into the alley. That was why, despite the pain in my ribs from the crowbar, I smiled.
“You fucking idiot.” Pushing Mickey aside, she fronted up to Kerrigan. “Can’t you follow a simple instruction? You were supposed to provoke him into attacking you. How am I supposed to use this?” She looked down on me as I rolled onto my back, gritting my teeth and laughing against the agony. “Just look at him. He’s the fucking victim here!”
Lenny appeared dumbfounded. I could almost hear the cogs grinding in that primitive excuse for a brain. Predictably, confusion gave way to rage.
“You better give me my fucking money, you stuck-up bitch,” he shrieked at her. “It wasn’t
my fault you didn’t get the shot when he beat me up outside that shitty diner. I got people I owe. Bad fucking hombres who’ll cut off my nuts if I don’t pay up.”
Thierrot gave one of her indifferent shrugs. “You won a small fortune in damages from our friend here. It isn’t my fault that you pissed it all away on coke and hookers. Our arrangement was contingent on you getting me the shot I needed to sell my story. Violent Ex-cop Pursues Vendetta Against Far-right Thug. You didn’t deliver that story, so the deal’s off.”
The laughter was like blades stabbing at my guts but I couldn’t help it.
“So this was how you were playing me, was it? This was your huge surprise? You know, it’s funny, Kerrigan. For a just a minute, I wondered if you were involved in something much bigger than some slapstick tabloid sting. But no, even this farce was beyond you, wasn’t it?”
Thierrot smiled. It might sound strange, but I honestly didn’t think there was anything personal in what she’d planned with Kerrigan. It was all just as neat and clinical and businesslike as her well-cut suit and spirit-level fringe. The grey eyes behind her severe spectacles showed no emotion at all as she nodded in agreement.
“You’re right, Mr Jericho, I played this very poorly. I certainly should never have involved myself with someone who takes half an hour over his shoelaces each morning. But what I said to you that day outside the court still stands. Whatever this thing is you have inside you, it will show itself again. And I will be there when it does.”
With that, she turned on her kitten heel and swept out of the alley.
Kerrigan watched her go, a stunned expression on his face. Those rusty gears were working overtime now. I half expected steam to start shooting out of his cauliflower ears. With their leader reduced to a state of apparent catalepsy, Mickey assumed command. It was raining hard now and I knew from my experience policing far-right protests that one thing a fascist can’t bear is getting his little bovver boots damp. At Mickey’s suggestion, the Knights of St George started to disperse.
Coming to his senses at last, Lenny called after them. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He tapped my knee with the crowbar. “We’ve got business to settle here.”
The thugs just turned up their collars and continued on their way. They’d seen their glorious leader humiliated, not just by a common ‘gypo’ but, perhaps worse in their eyes, by a woman. Even the once-loyal Mickey couldn’t hide his disgust.
“You do what you want, Len,” he grunted. “I’m off for a pie and a pint.”
“Get back here, Fat Boy!” Kerrigan screamed. “That’s an order!”
Mickey gave him one last glance, then cast his gaze at the ground where I was struggling to get to my feet. “That copper might be a pike, but he’s right about you, Len. There ain’t nothing to you. No spine anyway. And while we’re at it, I might as well say, you should never have killed them little Pole kids that way. Send ’em back, beat the shit out of the parents, that I can get behind. But only a coward would do that to children. So yeah, fuck you.”
Lenny’s threats and Mickey’s footsteps faded away into the rain. With my face to the dripping wall, my fingers scrabbling for purchase at the bricks as I righted myself, I thought they had left me alone. I ought to have known better. A coward, Fat Boy had called him. Well, cowards don’t pass up opportunities like this, not when their enemy is at a disadvantage.
Running steps behind me. The whistle of the crowbar through the air. My spine howling at the impact. A swift follow-up and my right shoulder bellowed. I lost whatever grip I had on the wall and hit the ground again. Rolling onto my back, I saw Kerrigan standing above me, framed against that roiling channel of the sky. His eyes were huge, his mouth drawn into a clown-like rictus, spit foaming between his teeth. He had played his hand and had lost everything. Pretty soon some ‘bad hombres’ were going to inflict real damage on our Lenny, perhaps make an example of him. I knew the type from my own thug-for-hire years and I didn’t fancy Kerrigan’s chances. All he now possessed was his rage and the crowbar that he held high above his head.
I tried to raise myself, to kick at him, but the agony in my back kept me rooted to the cobblestones.
“I’m gonna fucking murder you!” he screamed.
There was no point reasoning with him, I could see that. I’d dealt with people suffering this kind of extreme psychotic break before and all you could do was pin them down and hope the paramedics arrived before anyone got seriously hurt. In those instances, I’d always had backup, pepper spray, and a baton to resort to. Now I’d just have to hope Kerrigan tired himself out before he killed me.
No point calling for help either. Outside the alley, I could see that the street had been abandoned, discarded placards heaped on the pavement. Sheets of rain rebounded off the road so that even if a passing motorist happened to glance this way, they’d be unable to see anything behind that silver curtain. In any case, the roar of the storm would drown out my cries.
When it came, the blow wasn’t a direct hit but a fumbled attack that grazed the top of my head. Even so, the pain was extraordinary. A jagged fork that danced before my eyes, it resembled the lightning carving up the sky. Immediately my stomach clenched and I vomited onto the cobblestones. Kerrigan was saying something—screaming something—but his words didn’t matter. In the flashes between the pain, I could see them again: the Malanowski children. My constant companions, they stood at the mouth of the alley. Sonia and the boys, pity in their eyes. Only this time they weren’t alone.
He was with them. That dark angel in his balaclava mask, looming up behind my ghosts. That relentless killer who’d visited such cruel deaths upon McAllister, Poole, Mahal, and Roebuck. Who would now recreate one more Jericho freak before his design was complete. I wouldn’t be able to save Marcus Hillstrom. Wouldn’t be able to unpick the puzzle at last. I had failed again.
Just like at the railway crossing, the killer lifted his hand and waved.
In the next instant, the crowbar fell and with it, darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY
OPENING NIGHT AND NOT A SOUL had come to the fair.
I staggered alone among the stalls and rides, clutching bruised ribs, blood trickling from my torn scalp into my eyes. Amid pulsing lights and the carousel’s jangled calliope, I tried to call out for Sal and my dad. Even for Harry, who had so loved his visit to the fair. No one answered. No one moved in the shadows. No one…
Turning onto the main strip, a carnival tent appeared before me, its red and white stripes running like the blood that dribbled down my face. On a raised dais outside stood a man in pale vestments, his head haloed, his face a dark and howling void. From this emptiness, he bellowed his spiel:
“Roll up, Scott Jericho, roll up! Come and experience the most legendary display of phantasmagoria ever to grace a showman’s stage! Amazing sights to both captivate and horrify the senses! No friend will credit the stories you have to tell of the miracles, natural and otherwise, that you will see here tonight! But do not let such considerations deter you! Once in a lifetime—perhaps twice, if Lady Luck is smiling—will you encounter such rare and exotic creatures as these. Roll up, I say, and bear witness to the freaks of Jericho!”
They shuffled out of the tent behind him, four figures who came to kneel in front of the dais. Robert McAllister with his drooling canine jaws; Agatha Poole, shooting sparks from her blackened fingers; Adya Mahal, shoving hunks of flesh into her mouth; Gerald Roebuck staring up at the balloons tethered from his eyes. There was no more preamble. Conjuring a crowbar out of thin air, the killer stepped down from the platform and moved swiftly along the line, smashing skulls as he went.
“Don’t you worry, Scott,” he grunted at me. “Just keep telling yourself, it’s only a story. None of it’s real. None of it.”
Finally, they lay at his feet and, twirling the crowbar like a cane, he pointed it to an empty space at the end of the row.
“Just the contortionist left,” he said,
a little breathlessly. “Then the story will be done… Except you don’t want it to be done, do you? No, Scott Jericho always needs a puzzle. To feed him, to connect him to the world, to make him feel alive…”
My eyes flickered open. In the harsh clinical glare, the phantom figure of the killer vanished, just like it had back in the alleyway. I blinked hard, took a breath, felt it catch around my ribs. Coughing against the pain, I snatched at the plastic cup that was offered to me and managed a few shallow sips.
“Take it easy,” my dad advised. Then, handing me a couple of pills, “They said to give you these when you woke up.”
I looked into my palm and groaned. “Paracetamol? Are you kidding me? My head feels like it’s been hit by a truck.”
“They’ve already hooked you up to the good stuff,” he said. “Even you shouldn’t need much more than that.”
I glanced at the back of my hand. A cannula was taped there, the drip stand beside my bed feeding me a bagful of intravenous treats. I guess I’d just have to wait until the happy vibes kicked in. In the meantime, these weren’t my precious benzos but I swallowed the paracetamols anyway.
“How long have I been out?” I asked.
I was lying in a screened-off section of a ward. From behind the curtain came the steady beep of monitors and the indecipherable whisper of doctors and nurses.
“About five hours,” Dad said, collapsing into a chair at the end of the bed. “Docs think you might have a concussion so they want to keep you in overnight. You looked a proper state when I got here, but they told me there’s no bones broke and no internal bleeding.”
I took a peek under the covers and winced. My torso was the colour of a spectacular sunset, all flaming reds and brooding purples. Lifting careful fingertips to my head, I found it swathed in bandages. Just a little pressure at my temple was enough to ignite stars.