‘Jesus,’ said Clara.
‘And so Will Tullock is still in there pulling your strings?’
‘He was. Not so much, now.’
‘He’s gone?’
‘Yep. All those years ago he used to talk to me, the Shadow Man. But he hasn’t for a long time.’
‘For how long?’
‘Not very much since that night.’
‘When you killed Luke?’
‘Yes. He has spoken to me since, but just snippets, like flying visits into my head. It seems like he didn’t need to be around anymore.’
‘But you were, weren’t you?’ I watched the prone form of Sal at Janey’s feet and I was angry, almost forgetting the predicament we were in, but after two episodes of this over half a lifetime, it was time to stop her game.
Janey smiled at me, quizzically, pausing and trying to read my expression, wondering where I was going with this. ‘Go on.’
‘You didn’t stop – we’ve seen dozens of reports from over the years – they aren’t that hard to find when you really look across local papers on the web. People burning to death at home or in their cars.’
‘Fires do happen.’
‘But they smell of you, every one of them smells as bad as this lake. They were you weren’t they?’
‘Hey, I didn’t set every fire that killed people in the north of England in the last thirty years…’ A smile slowly spread across half of her face. ‘But I did do a lot of them, you’re right.’
‘But why, though?’
‘People excluded me from the word go.’
‘Who excluded you – we certainly didn’t. What the hell are you talking about?’ Katie said with some anger in her voice.
‘Let’s just keep calm about this, we don’t want… anyone to do anything rash.’ I said.
‘Fuck calm, I’ve just about had enough of this. She’s gonna kill us because she felt left out and didn’t have any friends, even though we were her friends. It makes no sense.’
‘You weren’t my friends, though, idiot. You might’ve thought you were, but I didn’t. I never once called for you or phoned to see what you were doing. Hanging around with you did keep Will quiet though, which was good because he could be awfully noisy in my head, like all the bloody time. I needed a distraction.’ Janey had lowered the muzzle of the shotgun. ‘I’d always known I was different – the voice inside me told me so. When I heard about Will I could identify with his excommunication, with his isolation, and so we were kindred spirits I suppose. That’s how he found me. When he left, and people were even more unpleasant because of the way I looked, I didn’t see any reason to stop. People are stupid, people are nasty, and so I burn them.’
‘But there is no ‘he’, Janey. It’s all you, don’t you see? You’re not well and you need help. You need some treatment before it’s too late.’
‘At which point,’ Janey said indicating Sal at her feet, and spinning around with her arms raised to indicate all she had created for tonight, ‘does this constitute ‘not too late’? It’s very sweet of you, but if I keep doing this, it’s the only way to keep a link to Will, it’s the only way he’ll see me. He’s the only relative who really cared about me.’
‘You couldn’t have had more loving parents.’
‘That’s fucking bullshit! I couldn’t have had more controlling parents. I couldn’t have had parents who wanted me to be more like a Stepford daughter than they did. Do this, make friends here, go to these people’s houses. Instead of sitting down and getting to know me, and spending time with me, about what made me tick, they tried to mould me into something else.’
‘So instead of an imaginary friend, you made up an imaginary relative.’
‘He wasn’t fucking imaginary!’ She spat at me, her mouth frothing with anger, as the shotgun waved around wildly and could’ve taken any one of us out in an instant.
‘Just be careful with that thing.’
‘And you be careful with that.’ She pointed at me. ‘Could always get you in trouble, that mouth of yours, Flip.’
‘I still don’t see why, though. I don’t see why you have to get to us.’
‘No, you don’t, do you. You really aren’t as smart as everyone thinks you are. Will Tullock was the first generation of my family in this village and I’m the last. He’s trapped here and so am I. It’s come completely full circle.’
‘And so taking out everybody you ever knew closes things off, does it?’ asked Katie, unable to keep the disdain from her voice.
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘But what now. What about after we’ve gone, Janey?’ I asked.
‘Will hasn’t said.’
‘He hasn’t said very much over the fucking years by the sound of it, Toots,’ Katie snapped.
‘Yeah but he will. He’ll see what I’m doing and he’ll come back – I know he will. Then we’ll decide what to do.’
‘Are you saying that you’re going to keep doing this until that voice tells you to stop?’ Katie asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, and don’t take this the wrong way, but what if that voice is all in your head?’
‘It is all in my head, but it’s not my voice. Think that I don’t think I’m crazy? Fucking right I am, but taking revenge is the right thing to do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want my fire to die down.’
∞ ∞ ∞
Janey bent forward awkwardly, her knee not easily flexing, and she picked up the paraffin can, with a spout already fitted. She quickly realised that she couldn’t pour the fuel over Sal whilst keeping hold of the shotgun, so she carefully laid the weapon on her kit bag. Her hands free, Janey started shaking the paraffin over her old friend. Sal lay quietly on the ground, her only reaction to cough and spit when the pungent liquid splashed on her face.
‘Janey, you don’t have to do this, we can sort something out,’ said Katie, taking a step closer.
‘Don’t come any closer, Tits, otherwise I’ll throw this can in the fire and she’ll go up like a match.’
‘But you’re gonna do it anyway,’ Katie stole a quick glance at me, throwing her eyes to the left, twice, to make sure I knew what she meant. ‘So why shouldn’t we be a ‘have-a-go’ hero.’ Katie spread her arms wide to the side, and I stole a couple of steps away from her as Janey was transfixed.
‘Wanna go out in a blaze of glory, do you?’ Janey was clearly enjoying this, enjoying the power she had over us, liberated now that we knew who she was.
‘I always did like Bon Jovi,’ said Katie. I took another couple of steps around Janey, then stood motionless again. It did put the fire between Janey and me, so I’d have to go further round again to have a straight run at her, not that I had a plan for after that.
‘You always did think you were a funny cow. Alright. See how you like this.’ Janey picked up the shotgun again and awkwardly side footed the paraffin can so it skidded across the gravel to Katie’s feet. ‘Douse yourself in that,’ she said.
‘Fuck you.’
‘Don’t do it,’ said Clara.
Janey fired the shotgun over Katie’s head. ‘Still want to sound clever, do you? Pour it over your fucking head, or the next shot is at your chest.’ I ducked at the shotgun blast but used it as a chance to move just the other side of the fire. It was pitch dark now and Janey’s entire focus was on Katie and making sure she had her where she wanted her. I had a clear run at Janey from the back and side and could also see Sal, lying on the ground at her feet.
Katie picked up the petrol can and inverted it over her head, the stinging acrid liquid flowing down over her, drenching her shirt and a dark wet stain appearing over her jeans as it ran.
‘That’s better.’
‘You know you won’t get away with this,’ said Clara, defiantly.
‘Oh? Who’s gonna stop me?’
Two things happened at once. I decided that Janey’s distraction was the perfect opportunity for me to run at her and I started off at a sprint. At the same moment, Sal decided to f
ight back and, even constrained as she was by the chains across her chest looping behind her back, she rolled backwards and kicked out at her captor. Janey took the blow in her crotch, causing her to gasp for breath and double over, bringing her eyes around in a low arc and she looked right at me rushing toward her. She swung the shotgun around, losing all interest in Katie and focusing on my charging run. In slow motion the barrel looped over Sal’s supine form as she wriggled to get some balance so she could aim another kick. The barrel swept past the fire, the flames reflected off the polished metal, and slowly came around to aim at me. I was maybe eight yards away, and hurdled some of the debris that had fallen away from the fire, the searing heat burning the right side of my face, my legs protesting at being asked to perform to this level. Three yards away and there was an explosion in front of me, Janey firing the shotgun at point blank range, the muzzle blast blinding me for a second. Somehow, call it self-preservation, or my spider sense, I twisted as it fired, turning my shoulders away so they were more side on. Janey was going for the middle of my chest, but instead peppered my shoulder with shot, every single one causing white hot pain to go deep inside me. As the gun went off, small sparks ignited around us, like resin spitting from a fire, they exploded in the air like miniature fireworks and faded as soon as they appeared. I immediately felt my chest clog, as if someone had closed the hatches on Number 1 lung and I tried to heave a breath that wasn’t coming. My vision started to fade with the pain and the immediate concern that my lung was collapsing, and I might’ve fallen but my momentum saw me crash into Janey, my elbow catching her in the throat, causing her to stagger back. I’d planned everything – peeling away from the rest of the group, quietly finding a straight line from where I could attack and then planned my run. I’d not given any thought at all to how to deal with her when we met. Janey pulled the shotgun up to waist level, aiming straight for my belly, a macabre grin in half her face and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
‘Shit,’ she said, letting the barrel drop. She’d fired twice and needed to re-load. More sparks crackled across the fuel-charged air, tiny pockets of fumes so concentrated that the extreme heat from the fire was enough to ignite them but not light up the whole area – Sal included. Janey tossed the gun into the air, catching it by the barrel and hefted it like a club, coming at me to cave my head in with the stock. Then came the kick. Sal had finally managed to get some leverage when she wasn’t rolling back and forth on her hands and could now swing her leg with force and power. Janey saw it coming this time and turned to aim her own vicious kick at Sal’s stomach. She crumpled on impact, groaning and curling up like an autumn leaf. I felt my foot brush against something heavy and looked down to see the monkey wrench Janey had used on me all those years ago. I bent to pick it up with my good arm but overbalanced and fell, grabbing the wrench as I did and rolling over to my side in a gymnastic move that would’ve surprised Mrs Simpson, our old PE teacher. But it left me on the floor. Suddenly Janey was stood astride me, swinging the gun down in an arc, aiming for my head. It was all I could do to hold the wrench up horizontally in both hands to deflect the clanking blow as it came. The vibration raced up my arm and the pain was unbelievable, as if she’d tried to wrestle my shoulder out if its socket. Once again she raised the gun above her head and with a victorious cry for what she knew would be the killing blow, she swung down again. I knew I couldn’t defend myself as I had – my injured arm lay at my side like a dead weight– and in my anger, my desperation I flung the wrench at Janey, like an Apache throwing an axe in an old Western, the wrench flew from my hand, turning on its axis as it closed on Janey, the head smashing into her nose and caving in her upper jaw. Her arms dropped as the strength drained from her, buckling under the weight of the gun. A high-pitched moan escaped her lips, but still she continued to fight, staggering forward, aiming a kick at me on the ground like she had at Sal, as blood poured down her face and dripped all around us. I reached up and grabbed a handful of her shirt and yanked as hard as I could. Already unbalanced she fell forwards, tripping over Sal’s immobilised form, her momentum carrying her towards the fire.
‘Noooooo!’ she screamed, finally letting go of the shotgun and putting her hand up to protect her face as the flames reached out and drew her in, wrapping themselves around her like the arms of a lover. The intense fire, still piled high with pallets, collapsed under her weight, sending flames, sparks and debris exploding out to the sides as she landed, writhing in the heat of the furnace, disappearing from view. Airborne sparks and embers hung around us, with more small exploding fireworks and I realised what was happening. The air was so charged with paraffin fumes where it had been poured on Sal, and where Janey had spilled it all around and on herself, and the flames of the fire were so hot as it spilled outwards that the whole area could go up, taking Sal and me with it.
Sal.
She was covered in fuel and very likely to be what would go up first.
‘Sal,’ I said to her, her knees still curled into her chest. ‘We need to go, Sal. We need to go, now! Can you move, can you get up?’
‘Fuck I don’t know, she caught me a good one.’
‘Well if you don’t get up you’re gonna end up like her.’ More fireworks pinged off all around us as I bent and helped Sal to her feet. She was doubled over from where Janey had pulled the chains through from her arms behind her back, under her crotch to her front. Thankfully she hadn’t chained her legs.
‘Go, go, go,’ I said, quickly ushering her away as the fire collapsed again and a shower of sparks crashed over where we’d just been standing.
As Janey collapsed on the unstable pallets in the fire, they fell backwards and flung her out the other side, completely ablaze. Her clothes and body burned in yellow and orange and red. She turned to look at me, opening her mouth which was just a raw blackened cavern, but no sound came out, reaching her hand up to point at me like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She ran at the cave entrance, flames streaming out behind her like afterburners on a plane, and either jumped down or fell into the hole, it was impossible to tell. Flames still poured out of the cave entrance for a few seconds, but then they died, leaving a plume of acrid smoke that continued to rise up for some time afterwards. We never saw Janey again.
‘What goes around comes around,’ I said, turning my attention once more to Sal. We walked round to where Katie and Clara were huddled together, the stench of paraffin strong on Katie’s body.
‘Don’t go near the fire, for God’s sake,’ I said to her, my one arm dangling uselessly, blood dripping from my fingers.
‘Thanks for that,’ she replied pithily.
∞ ∞ ∞
I heard sirens in the distance and looked up and saw the flashing glow of red and blue lights back in the village. It turned out that the residents of Newlands Farm Cottages had called the fire brigade when they’d seen the flames coming from the top lake over an hour before. A fire in the countryside wasn’t a priority, but calls to the police reporting gun shots were, so we had a monopoly on the emergency services, the gravel around us soon becoming a parking area for police cars, fire engines and an ambulance. An armed response unit was the first on the scene, tooled up to the eyeballs with weapons and making us lay down on the ground. Given the extent of our injuries and being covered in paraffin, that wasn’t going to happen, and it took us a few minutes to persuade them that we weren’t the bad guys. A detective inspector came forward and began to talk to us and was soon despatching a car to Janey’s house and ordering a forensic team. It was a long time before we could finally go back to The Wheatsheaf. Paramedics insisted on checking us over and patching us up. They wanted to take both Sal and me to hospital to be checked over. They said I needed any shot that hadn’t gone straight through my shoulder to be removed, but we refused, so they glued the gash on my forehead from the monkey wrench and dressed my wounds. Then we were good to go.
The next few days saw rounds of interviews with various detectives, and we kn
ew that the bungalow was being systematically pulled apart. I did go along to the hospital and had a small procedure to tidy my shoulder up. We never heard anything about the cave by the top lake, or Janey’s body. The police were very cagey about it, as if they were embarrassed to discuss this aspect of the case, when they were keeping us informed about everything else. Asking separately we got the impression that they hadn’t found her – but that was impossible, there was no way out – even the stagnant pool wasn’t an escape route. Or was it?
∞ ∞ ∞
The police found a series of journals on Janey’s bookshelves, which she’d started at the age of eight. Early ones were just inane scribbling, but their narrative coalesced as she got older into a conversation between her and someone else, occasionally named as Will. We found out that her parents had taken her to the family doctor when she was nine, concerned that she appeared to be having conversations with someone who wasn’t there. The doctor dismissed this as an ‘imaginary friend’ even though she was a bit old, really. They assumed she’d grow out of it.
We could finally drift home and try to move on, although we were reunited at times by inquests and investigations. Beyond her parents, Mrs Grimshaw, Todd, Mr Grissholm and Luke Lewis, Janey was implicated in the deaths of fifteen other people, with another twelve having her hallmark but no evidence. It turned out that the rumours of other missing children, back in 1985, had been just that – rumours, caused by Luke Lewis’ disappearance.
If anything good can be said to have come out of this whole nightmare, it was that the four of us stayed in touch. Not getting together very often after Janey’s case was closed, but chatting continually on social media as we formed new relationships with each other. We also got to know a wider group, people we’d grown up with. Ironically it was as Janey had said, those that stayed local struggled – with their health, their happiness, jobs, businesses – and an alarming number died young, from cancers or neurological diseases.
Maybe she was right. Maybe you had to leave Laurendon to thrive, to succeed and be happy, and by staying around you condemned yourself to being dragged down with the rest of the village. Or maybe it wasn’t the village itself that had gone bad. Maybe it was the other way around, and the one thing, the one person, who could truly call Laurendon home had cast his own spell over the place, haunting it, possessing it, treating the inhabitants like pawns in a game.
The Shadow Man Page 20