Kissing the Demons (31 page)

She hadn't seen her assailant's face but she'd had the impression of someone tall, probably somebody Joe had paid to get rid of her. It must have been organized by her brother-in-law; nobody else knew she'd be there in his flat.

Everything she knew about Joe came from what Kaitlin had told her . . . and that had all been good because Kaitlin had been blinkered by infatuation. Kirsten, however, had built up an alternative picture as she'd constructed the case against him. She'd persuaded herself that he was a deceiver – a failed priest on the make, ready to take advantage of a wealthy and unworldly young woman. But when she'd met him the contrast between her expectation and the reality had shocked her and she'd had to struggle to convince herself that Joe was a good actor: a purveyor of lies wearing a false mask of honesty. There was no way that the man she'd found in Eborby was the real Joe Plantagenet.

The vehicle she was in had come to a sudden stop and when she tried to struggle in the confines of her trap she found movement impossible. She was at somebody else's mercy and for the first time doubts began to creep in and she hoped she was right about the identity of her captor. If Joe had organized it to teach her a lesson and get her off his back, then he wouldn't go any further. He'd given her a shock and that would be that. Surely.

Joe found Shirley flapping around like a worried hen.

‘I didn't hear anything,' she said, full of apology. ‘But then I had Strictly Come Dancing on rather loud and . . .'

‘Don't worry about it,' Joe said, placing a reassuring hand on her arm before venturing inside his flat.

Shirley was right about the disturbance. The sofa had been pushed to one side and a lamp, still lit, lay on its side next to a pool of cold tea from an upturned mug on the wooden floor. Joe looked round, taking in the scene. Then he knelt down and picked something up from the floor. A tiny piece of fluff, possibly from a newish carpet. He couldn't be sure from such a small sample but it seemed to be red, maybe with a fleck of blue. He rushed out into the passage where Shirley was still standing.

‘Did you see anyone come in or out this evening?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Or anybody hanging around the flats?'

Shirley thought for a while. Then she raised a finger. ‘I did have a peep out of the window just before Strictly started. A van was parked outside. I saw the driver get out and go round to the back. He took out one of those big wheelie holdalls and wheeled it towards the front door.'

‘Was it big enough to hold a person?'

Shirley looked a little shocked. ‘I suppose so, yes.'

‘Did you see this person enter the flats?'

‘Sorry. I didn't see anything else after that because Strictly started.'

Joe bent forward and gave her a quick kiss. Shirley looked rather gratified and touched her cheek. ‘What kind of van was it? Can you remember?'

‘It wasn't as big as a Transit. It was more the size of an estate car . . . only with no windows at the back if you know what I mean.

Joe knew alright. He called in the details. Soon all police patrols would be on the lookout for small dark-coloured vans.

‘And the driver? Did you get a look at him?'

‘No. He had his hood up – I thought it was a bit odd because it wasn't raining.'

It was as Joe expected. Whoever had abducted Kirsten – if she had been abducted – would have been careful not to be identified. Joe thanked his neighbour, locked up his flat and rushed out into the night air.

He'd promised to join Sunny and Emily at Flower Street. There was always a possibility that McNeil would return there with his prey – if indeed he had got Kirsten. There was a strong chance that she'd made a mess and gone of her own accord as some kind of twisted joke. However, Shirley's sighting of the van, the tiny shred of carpet fluff and the hooded figure with the holdall, big enough to hold a human body, indicated otherwise. But he wondered why, amongst all the women in Eborby, McNeil had picked on Kirsten.

He drove too fast to Flower Street and as soon as he turned the corner he saw an unmarked car and a patrol car parked outside the house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

He climbed from the car and looked up at the house. It was an ugly building, set on its own and separated from its neighbours by tall laurel hedges each side. There were lights on inside and he could see the old-fashioned interior through dirty, uncurtained windows. The front door was ajar and when he pushed it open he saw Emily standing in a narrow hallway with nicotine coloured walls. He thought she looked a little shocked, not her usual self.

‘What have you found?' he asked.

‘Come and see for yourself.'

As Joe followed her upstairs he outlined what had just happened; Kirsten's disappearance and the state of his flat. At first Emily made sceptical comments – until he told her about the holdall and the carpet fluff. Then she looked worried.

‘Why target Kirsten?' she asked, puzzled, as they stood on the landing.

‘Perhaps he's been watching my place.'

‘And if he's been watching your place, he's probably been watching mine,' she said softly. He saw her suppress a shudder.

The thought that a killer had been spying on him made Joe uncomfortable. And Emily was right. If he was playing a game of cat and mouse with the police why wasn't she a target?

‘Perhaps I should warn Jeff . . . The kids . . .'

‘If he's just interested in young women they hardly qualify.'

‘Oh God, Joe, I hope you're right.' It was nine o'clock now but she made a quick call to Jeff, just to tell him not to let the kids out of his sight at any time. She finished the call and touched his arm gently. ‘Joe, you'd better see this.'

She opened the door to the back bedroom slowly and carefully. He could see she was wearing her crime scene gloves and he fished in his pocket and put on his own before following her into the room. There was no bed in there, just a large mahogany desk standing on a threadbare rug and a chest of drawers in the corner. The curtains were thick and half eaten by moths. The room smelled of decay and death and Joe had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched from the shadows by unseen, malevolent eyes.

There were sheets of paper around the walls, stuck to the faded flowered wallpaper with rusty drawing pins and, on close examination, he found that they were pages from old newspapers, yellowed with age. As he began to read he discovered that they dated from the eighteen nineties, the far off days before papers carried photographs. On each sheet an article was circled. The Shrowton murders.

‘There's a book on the desk,' said Emily. ‘A kind of diary.'

Joe walked slowly over to the desk and picked up a book that was lying in its centre. It was heavy and seemed to be bound in some sort of leather – pig skin perhaps. Joe opened it up.

‘Good job you've got those gloves on, Joe. Read the first page.'

He did as she suggested and instinctively dropped the thing back on the desk.

‘This book is made from the skin of Obediah Shrowton, hanged at Eborby prison thirteenth October 1896.'

He could see the pores in the tanned flesh and it made him feel a little nauseous. But he forced himself to open it again. He had to know what was written inside. In the light of the bare bulb dangling overhead he began to read.

‘I Jacob Caddy have the power over life and death. I am Death. The Reaper of souls. I have kissed the Demon and she urges me to kill.'

He turned to Emily. ‘Have you read this?'

She nodded. ‘I talked to the neighbours before you arrived. They've been here for years and they remember Ethan McNeil's parents . . . said they “kept themselves to themselves”, which I took to be a coded way of saying they were odd. They hardly saw Ethan when he was growing up but they often heard him crying and they said he was unusually quiet. I suppose these days someone would have called in Social Services.'

‘Anything else?'

‘The house has been in the same family since it was built in the 1880s so if that's true it means that McNeil's a descendant of Jacob Caddy.'

‘Keeping up the family business,' Joe said almost in a whisper as he began to read the next page of the horrible journal.

It was an account of the murders of Obediah Shrowton's family and servants. A cold-blooded narrative outlining each blow. The fact that he had split the skull of Obediah's wife open so that he could see her brain seeping out of the broken skin. And there was more about demons. The demons Caddy embraced who urged him on to terrible acts. He wrote dispassionately about how he despised Shrowton whose high-handed attitude to him as a tradesman had rankled. As Joe turned the pages he discovered that other people who had offended Caddy, either in reality or his imagination, had died too. Some of these murders went unsolved, others blamed on somebody amongst the victim's family or close associates. Caddy himself, he wrote, had never come under suspicion. His demons had protected him . . . and the fact that he wore the mask of the harmless, jolly butcher. Caddy's business had prospered and he had settled in this house. His demons had seen him right.

‘Was his demon real, do you think?' Emily asked unexpectedly.

This possibility had never occurred to Joe. He had assumed that the demons were in Caddy's head. ‘He refers to the demon as “she” and talks about kissing it. Maybe it was a woman urging him on. But why? It doesn't make sense.'

He moved slowly round the room. There was a dusty bookcase filled with notebooks. He picked one out but the lists of times, numbers and scribbled notes they contained didn't make much sense. The name written neatly on the covers was Prof. G. McNeil. Presumably a relative.

Suddenly he heard a voice shouting from downstairs. ‘Ma'am, we've got that door open.'

‘They've been trying to open the door to the cellar,' Emily explained. ‘It was locked and it seemed to be reinforced with something. I'm not looking forward to seeing what's down there.'

They made their way down the stairs in silence. When they reached the hall Joe saw that the door under the stairs was ajar and the uniformed constable was standing next to it with a solemn expression on his face.

Joe knew the question had to be asked. ‘Has somebody had a look down there?'

The constable nodded but he said nothing. As Joe descended the narrow stairs he expected to see more dust and cobwebs but it looked as though the stairs had been recently cleaned and when he reached the bottom he found himself in the cellar with brick walls and a roughly cobbled floor. The bare bulb overhead was lit but there was darkness in the corners.

‘There's nothing here,' he heard Emily say. He had almost forgotten she was there behind him.

‘There's another door.' Joe strode across the cobbled floor and when he tried the door he found it locked and swore softly under his breath.

‘Is this any good?'

He turned and saw that Emily was holding a large iron key. ‘It was hanging on that hook over there,' she said, pointing to an old rusty hook protruding from the wall.

Joe took it from her and put it in the lock. It was stiff but it turned eventually. ‘Go on,' Emily said impatiently as the door creaked open.

He took his torch from his coat pocket, glad she was close behind him. No outside light penetrated into that small, brick-lined room, empty apart from a filthy mattress against the far wall and a bucket in the corner. The place smelled dank and musty. And it smelled, Joe thought, of suffering.

‘Oh God,' Emily muttered. ‘This must be where he brought them.

Joe shook his head. ‘That door hasn't been opened in years. He doesn't bring them here, I'm sure of that. He uses this house but this isn't where he takes his victims.'

‘So what's this room for? Oh bloody hell, Joe, it makes my flesh creep.'

‘I've no idea,' Joe said quietly. ‘But I'm sure it's been used to imprison someone at one time.'

‘Who?'

‘It's an old house. It could have been used at any time.'

He walked forward into the dank little chamber, eight foot square. The mattress looked ancient, as did the old enamel bucket with the nasty stains in the base. On the wall next to the door was something Joe hadn't noticed at first glance. A pair of hooks, rusty like the one in the main cellar. From one hung a length of fraying rope. From the other dangled something that looked like part of a medieval helmet. But this was no protection for a human head, just a cage with a piece of iron protruding inwards where the tongue should be. Both the rope and the metal contraption were encased in cobwebs and once the door was shut, the place would be completely dark.

He heard Emily draw in a sharp breath. ‘I've seen one of those before in a museum. It's a scold's bridle.'

‘It's rusty. And look at the cobwebs – it hasn't been used for years.'

‘Certainly not on our victims but there's a theme here, Joe. No light, soundproof room, hands tied together with the rope so you can't feel your way around the walls. And that thing to imprison your tongue.' Joe saw her shudder in the torchlight. ‘Let's get out of here.'

Joe followed Emily out of the cellar, leaving the door to that dreadful room wide open. Being in there had disturbed him, as though demons had been concealed there in the shadowy corners. Something terrible had happened in there. But none of the evidence pointed to it being the scene of the murders of Pet Ferribie or Anna Padowski. They had died in another place.

When they reached the hall Emily addressed the half dozen officers who'd been waiting there in case McNeil returned. ‘Right, I want a couple of you to get this place sealed off so the Crime Scene people can have a good look round . . . with particular attention to the cellar. Everyone else I want out looking for McNeil's van. He might be somewhere in the city centre.'