White Crow (8 page)

But Barrow was not satisfied, and repeated his question, not once, but twice more.

‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’

And each time the old man said he was.

‘Very well,’ said Barrow, ‘I have asked you three times,’ and he led the way into the depths of the house. The small boy followed unseen, and was in time to glimpse Barrow and the old man enter a small room in the very centre of the house. Barrow carried a candelabra, with five lighted candles on it. All the boy could see as the pair entered was a large chair standing in the middle of an otherwise apparently empty room, but a few minutes later Barrow left the room, without the candelabra.

He turned and locked the door, and then disappeared along a passageway. The boy didn’t see him again that night. But it took him a long time to get up the courage to go and spy through the keyhole.

When he did, his eyes must have opened as wide as saucers, for this is what he saw. The old man was tied to a chair by thick and strong ropes, and by the light from the candles, the boy could see that the chair was some rather strange apparatus, bolted to the floor. The candelabra stood on the floor a few feet in front of the man, otherwise, the room was empty.

The boy waited. And waited, and waited some more, and nothing happened.

He went back to his hiding place, and must have dozed, because he woke suddenly and rushed back to the keyhole. The man still sat there.

Two of the candles had gone out, and the third was guttering, almost gone too.

And the man was whispering. Whispering something over and over again, the same five words, but so quietly and quickly that the boy could not hear what he said.

Then the third candle went out, and just a few minutes later, the fourth. The old man kept repeating the same five words, again and again and again, like an incantation of his own. And now the whispering grew louder, and the boy heard what he was saying:

“The angel or the devil, the angel or the devil, the angel or the devil . . .”

Then there was a long wait, a terrible, long, long wait, while the fifth candle flickered and spluttered, nearly died and came back to life, and without warning went out. The room was plunged into darkness.

Then came a different voice.

‘Are you a God-fearing man?’

That was all, and a few seconds later, there came a terrible scream, which sent the boy running from the Hall.

Barrow had discovered the power to summon spirits, right there, in Winterfold Hall, but whether the spirit was good, an angel, or bad, a devil, depended on the person.

If the person had led a good life, and was going to Heaven, they’d be sent an angel, to calm them and soothe them and tell them Heaven was waiting.

But if they had sinned, then a devil would come and warn them to repent while they still could, filling their minds with the horrors of Hell.

And if they had sinned so badly, that there was nothing they could do to redeem themselves, then the Devil would take them there and then, and drag them off, screaming all the way to Hell.

It’s quite a horrible story.

I love it.

T
he day is done, and Rebecca suddenly wants not to be sitting under a damp bridge listening to ghost stories.

She gets up abruptly and leaves the secrecy of the arch, not bothering to ask if Ferelith is coming.

‘Meet me tomorrow?’ Ferelith asks.

Rebecca doesn’t answer. Instead she asks a question of her own.

‘So you never told me. Do you believe in God?’

Ferelith raises an eyebrow.

‘Yes, I believe in God. But you know, the trouble is, I don’t think He believes in me. Not really.’

Her voice is a strange mix. She’s trying to be sardonic, but Rebecca senses something frail, almost vulnerable, underneath. Just a hint. But she can see she’s not going to get a straight answer and stalks away through the tumbling vegetation of the grounds of the Hall.

‘Two o’clock?’ Ferelith calls after her.

She doesn’t reply.

Suddenly she feels very alone, and fishes in her pocket for her mobile.

She calls Adam.

She’s almost surprised when he answers.

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s me,’ she says, feeling defensive already. He doesn’t say anything at first, so she goes on.

‘How are you?’

‘What do you want?’

His voice is cold. Her heart quickens.

‘What do I want?’ she asks, feeling anger rising inside. ‘I thought I might speak to my boyfriend, that’s all.’

‘Listen, Becky.’

‘What?’ she says, then stops herself. She makes herself speak more gently. ‘What?’

‘Listen. The thing is, I’m not your boyfriend. Right?’

‘You’re . . . what? What do you . . . ?’

‘Listen, just forget it, okay? I’ve got to go now, anyway.’

Then Rebecca hears laughter, but this time, it’s just one other voice. A girl’s voice. She hears the girl speak to Adam.

‘Come on,’ she says.

That’s all. But Rebecca doesn’t need to hear any more to know what’s going on.

She hangs up, then immediately thumbs for the last dialled number. She hesitates, staring at the number. Inside her she feels the seeds of disbelief, panic, and pain. They grow.

She’s still staring at the number as she gets back to The Street, and is surprised to see her father’s car outside the house. She shoves her mobile back in her pocket.

Suddenly her father comes out of the house looking slightly ridiculous, wearing yellow rubber gloves and carrying a big bucket.

On the ground beside the car she sees an array of bottles, white spirit, kitchen cleaners, and a big sponge.

Her father is scrubbing away furiously at the side of the car and doesn’t see her coming, but when he does, his face darkens and he doesn’t say a word.

‘Dad,’ she says, ‘What is it?’

He doesn’t answer, just keeps on scrubbing at the mess on the side of the car.

Something is written there, in big red letters, bright against the white bodywork.

It’s hard to read because someone, presumably her father, has tried to clean it off, and now he’s making even more of a mess of it with whatever cleaning fluids he can get his hands on.

But she can read enough of it to know what it says.

‘Who did it?’ she asks quietly, but still he says nothing.

He throws the sponge he’s using into the bucket, stands and kicks the side of the car.

Three old ladies are walking by, staring at her, at the mess, at her father standing there with washing-up gloves on. They whisper something to each other and Rebecca glares till they move on.

He kicks the side of the car again.

‘Dad, don’t,’ Rebecca says, but her father is not listening.

More people are passing and looking and her father turns and strides into the house, slamming the door.

Rebecca is left in the road, without the beginning of an idea of what to do.

She gazes at the side of the car.

He’s barely managed to remove any of the paint, and it’s still possible to make out what someone has scrawled across it in tall red letters.

CHILD KILLER.