In the Moors (24 page)

“It's just …” My voice had left me for a moment. “I can't sit here and do nothing. The whole of the county—the whole of the
country
—must feel the same about Aidan at this moment, but I think I could help! I feel I ought to try.”

“Try to what?” said Rey, not bothering to keep the scorn out of his voice. “Find the missing child?”

“Yes,” I said in a tiny voice. “It's why I went to Brokeltuft.”

Quite suddenly, Rey got up from his stool. For a moment, I thought he was going to walk around the breakfast bar and take me in his arms again, because he was swaying on his feet as if trying to resist some inner temptation. He glanced at me, almost shyly.

“Josh died from paracetamol poisoning.”

I gazed at him, afraid to speak. Telling me this secret felt more intimate than our almost-kiss.

“The modus operandi could not have been more different from the first set of murders. Josh still had all his hair. There wasn't a single bruise on his body. The only similarity was the place of burial.”

My mind was racing. “So … was he alive all the time he was missing?”

“Pathology think so. They're placing time of death days, perhaps hours, before he was dumped.”

“For Old Mab's sake!” I focused on the grim line of his mouth. “Does that mean—”

“Yes. Aidan could still be alive. Unless …” He lifted his briefcase onto the breakfast bar and gazed at it, as if not wanting to continue.

“Unless what?” But I knew already, just as Rey did. Little Aidan's body could already be hidden, undiscovered. No one could say for certain that the child was alive.

“The entire murder team would laugh until they'd wet their seats if they knew that I trust your judgment,” said Rey. “And I don't know if I do. I only know that it was me who dragged you into this case. I didn't have to come knocking on your door when we found Houghton on the wetlands. That was my call, and the team is not going to let me forget it. None of them know I'm here.”

“Oh,” I said, my voice full of breath. I remembered what Abbott has said—that Rey had deliberately chosen to use me, almost as bait, at the start of the case. I looked over at Rey, burning to confront him with this, but the words never left my lips.

From his case he brought out a small package, triple-bagged in heavy-duty polythene, with a red label sealing the final fold like a wax signet. He placed it on the kitchen worktop, carefully away from our crumbs and coffee stains. I stared at it. I could feel my chest rise and fall like a Southern belle in a Civil War movie.

“No one can know I'm leaving this with you,” said Rey. “Ever. Do you understand?”

“Wh-what d'you want me to do with it?” I asked. The packet filled the room with significance.

“I don't know,” said Rey. “Do whatever it is you keep telling me you're so good at, for God's sake. My mobile number is on the seal. Now. D'you want that lift to your car?”

NINETEEN

By half past eleven,
I was back home and ready for my Reiki client. The therapy room vibrated with candles, incense, and soft music, and thoughts of Cliff Houghton and Aidan Rodderick were lodged as far back in my mind as I could get them. In reality, both were lost in dreadful places they could not escape.

For an hour, I passed my hands over my client, feeling the heat radiate from them. This energy doesn't come from me any more than the messages and gifts I receive from journeys to the otherworlds come from me. I'm just the adapter. When my client rose from the bed, his eyes had found a focus they didn't have when he arrived, and that pleased me more than I could let him know—it meant that I had transformed myself from someone helping the police with their murder enquiries into a complementary therapist. I filed his cheque, updated his notes, and got ready for the next client.

For lunch I picked a bunch of the baby salad leaves I was growing on my kitchen windowsill and piled them on top a slice of today's loaf, grating a bit of cheddar over them. I spread mayonnaise thickly on a seond slice, rammed the two slices together, and bit down into the oozing mix. It hit the spot, immediately reviving my energy.

Upstairs, I showered and tugged my black dress over damp, bare skin. I brushed my hair until its kinks were temporarily dispersed. It felt heavy as stage curtaining when I moved my head.

Already, I was between worlds, held there, floating in the viscous ether, neither Sabbie nor spirit.

In my therapy room, I opened the file drawer. At the bottom was the furtive package Rey had left with me this morning. I weighed it in my hand: no more than a gram, but as heavy as pain; a white plastic figure with a scarlet sash around his middle and a wand as long as his arm, ready to discharge the blaster ray.

Josh's Slamblaster
.

Somehow, I was surprised to see it, as if I might have dreamed Rey's presence in my house and his covert motive for arriving.

I chose a sixty-minute recording of double drumming. I let it start before I settled myself on the lounger and pulled a scarf over my face. The Slamblaster
lay on my solar plexus, triple-wrapped in its forensic packaging.

It was nighttime at my spirit portal, which didn't surprise me. I stood quietly, gripping Josh's toy in my hand. A smell of riverweed was in the air, and I heard a slurping splash from the stream. Trendle scrambled onto the bank. His sleek body shone in the light of a waning moon; water droplets sparkled as he shook his coat dry.

“Good evening, Sabbie.”

I thought he sounded a little formal, as if there was something wrong—some way I'd offended him that I'd forgotten but he had not. “I need to find the place that Aidan is hidden. Can you help me, Trendle?”

“This is always my one endeavour, to help you.”

“I think Josh was there before him, that's why I've brought his toy.” I held up the Slamblaster and gawped at it. It was now the length of my arm. I dropped it in horror.

“Sabbie.” Trendle's voice was urgent. “I am here to counsel you.”

“I need counselling,” I agreed.

“This
thing
you have brought is not a spirit. It's only a memory of a boy's love for his toy.”

I began to understand what was wrong. Trendle did not agree with my reasons for the journey. He considered this his first job—a sort of triage service, where he sniffs out bogus motives and methods.

“Untrustworthy,” he said, his voice low, as if he didn't want to be overheard.

I gathered my arguments, keen to persuade him, but something rammed against my left shoulder before I could speak. I sprawled down, my face hitting a stone that jutted from the grass. I stared at it in horror. Things often appear suddenly in my portal, but not things of danger. I got to my knees and saw blood dripping onto the stones. I'd bashed my nose. That shouldn't happen. I looked up.

The Slamblaster was now as tall as a young boy—as tall as his owner might have been. He stared at me with glowing red pupils. His mouth struggled to speak, but the plastic lips were permanently sealed and no sound came from him. Of course. The toy saw me as a threat—after Josh's experiences, he must consider every new adult a threat.

“Please! I mean Josh's spirit no harm.” I scrabbled to my feet. “I must visit the place where Josh was kept, so that we can find the poor child who is held there now. Is this possible?” I didn't think I needed to add that it was important.

The Slamblaster nodded creakily, as if nodding was as alien to his muscles as pushups would have been to mine. He was growing all the time; now he was as tall as me. His purple-gloved hand closed over my arm. His grip was tight enough to make my fingers tingle. He turned on his jointed body and crashed through the trees that lined the brook, pulling me with him. We were in a dense forest of oak and beech. There was very little light and the ground was deep in bracken, but the Slamblaster was so tall now that my feet didn't reach the ground as he yanked me along.

Trendle leaped onto my shoulder. “Tell that thing to let you go.”

I shook my head, impatient at his reproach. “This might actually give us some answers for once.”

“Get out of its grip and let me deal with it.”

But I didn't want that. Rey had asked me to do this, and I was determined to provide him with a result.

I felt a great tug on my arm as my dress caught in the tree roots that twined over the forest floor. I fell onto my stomach, squashing Trendle's long, soft body beneath me. He gave a squeal of pain. The gigantic toy dragged me up, and Trendle turned tail and fled through the trees. That brought me to my senses.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop, stop! Let go my arm!” Finally, the Slamblaster seemed to register my distress. He turned to me. His red eyes were as large as spotlights. He grasped my thigh and arm and slung me over his shoulder. A long trail of a scream came from me like vapour from an exhaust as I sailed into the air and landed, breathless, on the toy's plastic jacket. I dug my knees and fists into it, but the Slamblaster
didn't even react. He just stomped through the forest, each stride taking us ten or more metres, as he continued to swell and grow—soon he was so tall that I had to cover my head with my hands to stop the topmost branches of the trees whipping against me as we stormed on.

Suddenly the Slamblaster came to a juddering halt. His hold on me faltered, and I yelled in terror as I felt myself slip. I gripped at the plastic bolts sticking out from his ludicrous helmet. We were no longer in the forest of trees. We were on the edge of a ravine that seemed to slope down and down into a chasm.

I had to take charge of my journey. I let myself float from the creature's shoulder. My feet landed just as the Slamblaster
began to storm down the ravine. I tried to follow as best I could under my own steam. The floor was littered with small rocks and larger boulders, but the massive figure had no trouble with them. He powered stones out of his way with a kick from his boot and lifted larger rocks in both his purple-gloved hands, sending them crashing down the path ahead. I slipped and slid behind him.

The bottom of the gorge was filled with potholes and pitfalls, its air thick with sun-baked dust. Not a bush or tree afforded shade or the promise of fruit. There was nothing but the road ahead, bordered on both sides by a gorge so steep and so high that the sky above was no more than a channel of unnatural blue. It was hard to look up, anyway, for the sun bore down on us with blinding intensity. I could feel it burn the back of my neck. My armpits prickled with heat, but I didn't dare take off my black dress in this fierce sun. Every muscle in my body ached—the back of my calves especially. Tiny round balls of gravel cut into my bare soles.

“Trendle,” I gasped. “Don't desert me.” I was truly sorry that I hadn't taken his advice. That was what my spirit guide was for, after all—to guide me safely through otherworlds.

Suddenly my otter was back, trotting beside me. We picked our way forward through the stones. I was trying not to twist an ankle or take the skin off one, but Trendle's legs were so short that his stomach was scraped over the rocky ground. I couldn't bear to think of his paws all ripped and bleeding as my own feet were. I picked him up and cradled him.

“I lost my senses. I didn't start this journey for the right reasons. I was puffed up with the idea Rey Buckley had asked for my help.”

Trendle looked up from his position along my arm. His eyes were black and molten and full of love.

“We could float like hovercrafts,” I said to him.

“That would be cheating,” said Trendle.

Trendle was right. A little five-year-old boy walked a far more difficult path than this. If we didn't experience this journey in its full intensity, we would never be able to face Josh's spirit.

I understood well enough where we were headed. This was Josh's last road—the path to his death.

“You are a most honourable otter,” I whispered.

Trendle put out his tongue and licked the back of my hand, where I'd scratched it climbing in the window to Brokeltuft.

When the sun dipped behind the rock, I knew something new would happen. The Slamblaster had reached the end of the gorge, which was blocked by its own high sides. A tiny sliver of light filtered through a narrow crack. The Slamblaster was far too big to squeeze through it. He beat his plastic fists on the rock and his sealed mouth writhed with frustration. We had to be very close, now, to Josh's spirit.

Without a backwards glance at my robotic companion, Trendle pushed through the slender breach. I followed, crawling on all fours.

We found ourselves in a busy street. Traffic roared past me, hooting as I almost fell into the road. The rocks melted away, and behind me was a house, a stone-built structure three stories high. It looked strangely familiar, but I couldn't think why. My eye was drawn to the dormer window at the top. Was this where Josh had spent the last days of his life? My stomach clamped as I looked up. I was not sure I wanted to meet Josh Sutton or hear his story.

A gate was set into the wrought-iron railings around the house. I clicked it open, and it dissolved in my hand, leaving me clutching air. The scene was becoming distorted, as if someone was bending a photograph and snipping at it with scissors. The roof was chopped smaller and smaller until I could no longer see the attic window. I kept my eyes focused on the front door, wide and glossy with bottle-green paint with its number placed centrally just above my eye level—73—in polished brass ironware.

I took a fast step forward. Snip by snip, the house was shrinking. Its roof, its garden, its windows were all disappearing until all I could only see the front door. A feeling of dread overwhelmed me.

“A door,” I said to Trendle. “Is this the symbol I'm to bring back? I brought a door back for Cliff, and that was the start of everything.”

I ran the length of the path and lifted my finger to press the bell. The door faded before my eyes, the last of the photograph snipped away.

As if the entire journey with the Slamblaster
had been some sort of dream, I was back with Trendle at the brook. He slid into the water and floated on his back. Unlike me, he no longer seemed disconcerted by the terrible journey we'd taken. I thought about apologising, but it didn't feel it was the right thing to do.

“Why do things always end up with doors?” I asked, but I saw the answer myself. “Because they are portals.”

A change in the sound of the drumming came clearly into my ears, calling me back. An hour had passed since I lay down on the lounger in my therapy room. My body had been there all the time. My nose wasn't broken, my feet were not bleeding, and my black dress wasn't coated with dust. But my heart thundered along, singing in my ears like the beat of the drum. I pulled off my scarf and stopped the CD, then reached for paper to record my journey.

“That's all I saw. I didn't get the name of the street. I could try again, but I'd like to give it twenty-four hours before I do. Can I keep the Slamblaster that long?”

“Sorry.”

Rey leaned forward and put the package in his document bag. Barely half an hour had gone by since I'd pulled the scarf from my eyes, but here he was, sitting on the wicker chair in my therapy room. He'd achieved a personality remake since the morning. I no longer recognised him as the bloke I'd shared eggs and hugs with. I managed a wonky smile, trying to even up the feelings that were swilling around the room. At that moment he had all the command and conviction, and I had all the insecurity and trepidation.

As I'd described my journey to him, his eyes had developed this gauzy film. I realized that he didn't want to hear about a giant Slamblaster. I pushed a notebook into his chest. “See for yourself.”

A full-half minute passed before he opened the notebook and read my account. “Feels like your imagination to me,” he said, without looking up.

I didn't respond directly. “It was a hard journey. Protracted … exhausting. But I didn't get any feelings of dreadful pain.” I glanced up, sensing the heat of tears in the corners of my eyes. “I'm glad to say.”

“I'd told you how the child died.” The words felt dragged out of him. “You already knew it was painless.”

“Rey, I'm simply relating what took place—”

“Look at the house you've described …
well-kept, attic window, posh suburb.
Don't you realize what this is?”

I went to stand next to him, pretending I needed to read. But standing close to a seething Rey didn't have quite the affect I'd anticipated. My heart was thumping blood around my body, turning my skin a tender pink. I noticed something as I read my words. “I've left out the number I saw on the door.” I reached across to take the notebook and correct the omission.