by Rob Campbell
“So, what happened?” Monkey asked.
“A couple of years after you were born, Melanie started to suffer from some terrifying dreams and visions. The doctor reckoned it was just a return of her anxiety and put it down to the strains of being a new mother.”
“Are you saying it was my fault?”
“Of course not!” Archie looked mortified that he’d upset his nephew.
“I don’t think he meant it like that, Monkey,” I said, touching him on the arm for reassurance. Monkey looked anything but reassured, squirming uncomfortably in his seat. Archie’s comment about anxiety running in the family certainly seemed to hold true where his nephew was concerned. If he wasn’t climbing something, Monkey could appear like a caged animal at times. Something about that thought made me laugh, but I could see that nobody was finding this situation easy, never mind amusing.
“The doctor prescribed some sleeping pills, but if anything, your mum became worse. She was convinced that somebody was trying to murder her and take her child away.”
“God, that’s awful,” I said. “She must have been terrified.”
“Then why did she leave dad? He would have looked after her and me!” This long-winded explanation wasn’t helping anybody. Archie was getting exasperated, and the increasing pitch of Monkey’s voice indicated that he was equally agitated.
“There’s no easy way to say this, Monkey. I had hoped that your dad had been more honest with you.” I saw the corner of Monkey’s mouth twitch, and the lines above his eyes creased, giving every impression that he was about to burst into tears. From the things that he’d told me about his dad, I knew Monkey worshipped the ground he had walked on – Archie slagging his dad off wasn’t going to bring him any closer to his nephew.
“Your mum didn’t leave your dad. She jumped off Bramble Bridge. When the paramedics arrived, she was already dead.”
Monkey’s mouth opened in an ‘o’ shape, his eyebrows giving the impression of trying to escape into the cover of his hair.
“No, no, no, you’ve got it wrong. That can’t be right, she would never have done that.” He looked at me imploringly, and I’d never felt so helpless or lost for words in my life. “You’re lying!” he screamed at Archie, drawing worried looks from a couple walking their dog.
“Why would I lie?” Archie asked, standing up and holding his arms out.
I pulled Monkey into a hug, his sobbing causing his shoulders to bash into my chest.
“I think that you’d better go now,” I said to Archie.
“I’m so sorry,” he replied. “I didn’t want to upset him. He just needs to know about his dad.”
“You hated my dad, and he hated you!” Monkey screamed, pulling away from me and squaring up to Archie. “That’s why you’re saying these things!”
“I didn’t hate your dad. I said we didn’t see eye-to-eye.” Archie paused for breath, running a hand over his face. “Look, there’s something wrong with this town, Monkey. I’m worried that you’re getting involved in something that you don’t understand, and I don’t want to see you end up like your mother… or your father.”
“Wait a minute. How do you know what he might or might not be involved in?” I asked. I know he’d been stalking us at the lecture, but what else did he know about us? I was becoming increasingly concerned with where this was going. “And why didn’t you just tell us that night in the theatre?”
“I wanted to go through the proper channels first. But when he refused to see me, I knew I had to try something else – that’s why I sent the letter.”
“How noble of you,” I muttered.
Archie ignored my comment, instead choosing to put one arm on each of Monkey’s shoulders and look him straight in the eye, a look of steely resolve in his eyes.
“Your dad was involved in some secret organisation that called themselves the Wardens of the Black Heart. A bunch of religious nutters, if you ask me. Once I found out what your dad was like, I tried to persuade Melanie to leave him.”
Monkey was backing away from his uncle now, shaking his head in disbelief, tears of anger running freely down his face. “Noooooooo!” he screamed, a single, drawn-out howling syllable. He charged into Archie, fists pummelling his uncle in the gut. Archie absorbed the blows, wrapping Monkey in a bear hug until his nephew ran out of steam. When he tried to hold Monkey at arms-length, Monkey gave him one huge shove that sent his uncle staggering backwards.
“Get lost and don’t come back,” Monkey shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Archie.
“I’ve said my piece, and if you need to talk about it, give me a call,” he replied, holding his hands out in a placatory gesture. He turned towards me and said: “Take good care of him, Lorna. I’m really sorry. I didn’t intend for things to turn out this way.”
* * *
It took me a good fifteen minutes to calm Monkey down after Archie had left. He’d gone through stages of angry denial, hostility towards his uncle, and had finally settled into a morose silence. It was difficult for me to know what to say. I hadn’t known his dad, so how could I say whether his uncle’s words had any credence? It did seem an incredible story, but given everything that we’d witnessed over the past year or so, was it really that unbelievable? There was so much weird stuff going on in and around Culverton Beck that it wasn’t that much of a stretch to believe that just one more man who’d lived in the town was mixed up in all of this. Just because it was my best friend’s dad didn’t make it any less possible.
Monkey had asked me what I thought, and I tried to keep him calm by claiming that Archie had admitted that he had anxiety issues and that this was probably just some side-effect of his condition.
“But what if he was telling the truth?”
“We don’t know either way. We need to think about what he said and go through what we’re sure of,” I said, trying my best to keep my thoughts and words as rational as possible.
“So, you think he was telling the truth?” Monkey said, the tone of his voice darkening.
“I didn’t know your dad or your mum, and I can’t make a rational judgement based purely on a ten-minute meeting with your uncle.”
He seemed to accept my explanation, nodding soberly and taking a sudden interest in his shoes.
“It’s like we said about The Truth and Gooch’s note and all the other stuff. We need help with this – it’s too big for the two of us,” I said.
We left the park in silence, walking towards the centre of town. Poor Monkey; he’d just learned that his mum had committed suicide and that his dad may have been a member of the Wardens of the Black Heart. It was a lot to take in for me, never mind him. I knew that I would be there for him, whatever he needed, but right now, I just didn’t know what to say. What could I say in a situation as bleak as this?
Despite passing a few trees that looked ripe for climbing, Monkey displayed zero interest. He was lost in his world of turmoil, and so it wasn’t surprising that as we made our way down the hill towards the high street, he failed to notice the group of youths coming down the path that ran from the other side of the park.
Without saying a word, I pushed Monkey behind a parked van and put my finger on my lips to indicate that he should remain silent. He looked shocked – probably because he’d been nothing but silent for the past few minutes. I jabbed my finger down the road, pointing to where the youths were mounting the pavement. From our hiding place, we could hear their loud voices.
“I can’t believe you’re out with us this morning. This is sick!” The unmistakable voice of Tuggy, Goofy Muldoon’s right-hand man and partner in crime.
The group stopped outside the newsagents whilst one ran in and returned shortly afterwards with two packets of cigarettes. I peered around the top corner of the van whilst Monkey crouched down near the back wheel.
“It’s gonna be just like old times. I’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
“Goofy Muldoon!” Monkey whispered.
“What happened?” Tuggy
asked.
“I don’t know,” Goofy replied. “I just woke up this morning like I’d had the best sleep of my life.”
“And you remember?” Tuggy pushed.
“I remember everything,” Goofy sneered. Not the monotone that we’d witnessed in hospital, neither was it the calm voice of the boy who’d been recovering from his ordeal by sampling the delights of peppermint tea when we’d visited him at home not long ago.
No, this was the sneering, scheming bully who’d chased us through the maize field, tormented Monkey and, in his words, threatened to put my friend in the ground.
“I remember Gooch and his bag, and I remember Arkwright and his girlfriend screwing things up for us.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Tuggy asked.
“I’m working on it, Tuggy. I’m working on it.”
Chapter 35
After the last couple of days, we weren’t going to put it off any longer. We had to face the fact that we were so far out of our depth, we’d be sinking like two stones if we didn’t get help.
Still reeling from Victoria’s betrayal, Monkey and I were trying to make sense of what misfortune had befallen Charles Gooch. It seemed that he’d been cast aside like some unwanted spare part, and trying to conjure an explanation that fit anybody’s definition of logic was futile. There was a skeleton sitting in his apartment, for God’s sake! And it wasn’t like the ones we’d had in the biology department at school; this one had a foul smell and bits of rotting flesh hanging from its bones.
So long a focal point for our concerns about the shadow that was inexorably drawing over Culverton Beck, I shuddered to think what level of evil could erase Gooch from the picture so easily. With the complication of what to do with The Truth and then the revelation that Monkey’s father may have been mixed up with the Wardens of the Black Heart, we needed somebody who could make sense of things.
“Is this the place?” Monkey asked sombrely as we stopped outside the steps of the modest terrace on the outskirts of town.
I checked my phone and confirmed that this was indeed the place we’d been directed to. “Twenty-seven Mossbank.”
Monkey adopted a serious tone. “Not a word about what my uncle said to us.”
“But—”
“No buts, Lorna. The less he knows, the better.”
“Okay.” There was an element of logic to what Monkey said; after all, we didn’t want anybody thinking that we might be in league with the Wardens. I turned back to face the house. There was what could be optimistically described as a small yard, yet in truth, the two tiny steps that led up to the front door occupied at least half the surface area. Bricks the colour of burnt gravy made up the façade of the house, and paint was peeling off the window frames. There was a small window at ground level that indicated the presence of a cellar. I stepped across the weed-choked space, climbed the step and pressed the doorbell.
“Are we doing the right thing?” Monkey asked, failing to hide a pained look.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, reaching to press the bell again. “Do you have any better ideas?”
There was a muffled sound behind the door before it opened inwards, no more than a few centimetres, and Dylan Fogg’s face peered out from the gloomy interior. He looked at me for a second, then at Monkey. When we didn’t say anything, he opened the door wider and stood with his arms folded, treating us to a frown.
“Well?”
“Well what?” Monkey said over my shoulder, but I had a fair idea what was coming.
“I spoke to the vicar at St Stephen’s yesterday. Seems like I missed quite a bit whilst I was lugging all my gear into this place.” He adjusted his glasses and put on a confused expression that was obviously fake. “Something about the parish records?” he added as if seeking clarification whilst making it obvious that he knew.
“I’m sorry, Dylan,” I said. “We should have told you earlier.”
“That’s one way of putting it. So, you’re still determined to go after this painting by yourselves?”
“The Truth?”
“If it is The Truth. Might be another wild goose chase.”
I swiped my phone’s screen, selecting the photo of the painting that I’d taken that morning before leaving the house. I held the phone out to Dylan, and he took it off me, turning it around to get a better look. I’ll admit that for a moment, I enjoyed watching his eyes widen as the shock of what he was seeing crossed his face. But then I remembered what we’d come here for.
“Dylan, we could really do with some help here.”
He looked at the pair of us before staring at the screen again.
“You found it! So Abram is actually Abernathy?” His voice was momentarily filled with wonder, but he quickly reigned in any enthusiasm. “If you’ve managed to find The Truth, why do you need me?” he said suspiciously, handing my phone back.
“A lot’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. When we last spoke to you, you said that you weren’t prepared to tell us your darkest secrets until we chose sides.”
“It wasn’t exactly what I said, but go on.”
“Well, Lester’s no longer an option.”
A look of concern crossed Dylan’s face. “He’s not…?”
“No, he’s not dead.”
“He’s had a stroke of bad luck,” Monkey added.
“Bad luck, eh? Then you’d better come in,” he offered, opening his door wide and beckoning us into his house.
We passed down a narrow corridor that was full of clutter that Dylan clearly hadn’t yet found a place for. I glanced at the living room at the front of the house, noticing that there was just enough room for a two-seater sofa, a small coffee table and a TV. Stairs led up to the first floor in front of us, but he showed us into the dining room at the back of the house. The room was dominated by a large oak table, on top of which were piles of papers and folders.
“I’m still sorting through everything. Probably be a few more days before I’ve got it all in order.”
It was the middle of the afternoon but gloomy outside, with little light spilling into this room from the backyard. Dylan leaned over behind the door, switching a lamp on, and pale yellow light seeped across the room. We sat around the table, wasting little time in bringing Dylan up to date with everything that had happened.
“So, this Victoria Halfpenny gains Lester’s confidence, steals The Frenchman, kills Ramón Blanco and then polishes off Gooch into the bargain.” He shook his head in disbelief. “It seems like we have a formidable foe in our midst.”
I passed him my phone again. “Take a look at this note. It was next to Gooch’s body in his apartment.”
Dylan took the phone from me, his face a picture of concentration as he scrutinised the photo.
“What does that last word say?” Monkey asked. “We can’t make it out.”
“Chernobyl,” Dylan said. “It looks like he’s saying sorry for Chernobyl.”
I knew the name from my history lessons. “Wasn’t that a nuclear disaster in the 1980s?”
“In the Soviet Union,” Dylan confirmed. “The fact that he mentions The Sun means that it makes some kind of sense. There might be a connection between the two. If these pieces by Abernathy are as powerful as we’re led to believe, and the Wardens somehow reverse this power, that’s the kind of global catastrophe we might be talking about.”
“I’ve never heard of Chernobyl,” Monkey piped up. “But it sounds like bad juju.”
“We’ve seen what Gooch can do with that briefcase.” I explained what had happened to the house where Gooch had somehow managed to steal a reportedly lucky carriage clock and then left it on the owner’s doorstep soon afterwards. “The house burned to the ground.”
“And that was just a minor object,” Dylan commented. “You’re saying Gooch uses this briefcase to somehow reverse the power of objects, and now the delightful Miss Halfpenny has both The Frenchman and the briefcase?”
“Oh my God. This isn’t good, is it?”
/>
Dylan shook his head sombrely.
“Maybe the briefcase won’t work for her,” Monkey suggested.
“I like your optimism, my friend, but I’m not holding my breath,” Dylan said.
“Yeah, but what about Goofy?” Monkey continued, before explaining how, after spending months in some kind of trance after looking in Gooch’s briefcase, he had suddenly snapped out of it.
“You’re suggesting that because Gooch no longer has the briefcase, everything he used it to change will be somehow reset?”
Monkey looked quite pleased with himself. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted.
“We can’t assume that,” warned Dylan.
I thought back to the last time we’d seen Dylan. “When you helped us out in the alley, when Gooch had us cornered, and we told you about the way Goofy had been when he looked in the briefcase… you said you’d heard of such things before…” I finished speaking without asking a question, but I could see in Dylan’s eyes that he understood what I was driving at.
“I always knew that the black hearts had a way of reversing fortune to suit their agenda. I just never understood how they did it. I’ve spoken to a lot of people on the subject, but nobody has given me a more convincing explanation than what the two of you have told me. It must be something to do with what’s in that briefcase.”
“But what happened to Goofy?” Monkey pressed.
“There are some people who suspect that the reversal of luck is something to do with the transfer of energy. It’s complicated, but a guy I trust once explained to me that as a side effect of this transfer, anybody who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time can end up with some nasty side effects.”
“How do you know all this stuff, Dylan?” I was starting to feel exasperated. For all his talk about being different to Lester, this was starting to sound very similar to a lecture from the millionaire.
“I’ve just said – I don’t know it all,” he responded defensively.
“Okay, how do you know any of it, then? Who do you work for?”