Darkness Demands

  "Down boy," John whispered to himself.

  "What's that, hon?" she asked back over her shoulder.

  "I was just saying have a good day."

  "As good as I can. Roll on the weekend."

  "We on for that barbecue Saturday?"

  "If the weather holds. Oh, nearly forgot." Val slipped her mobile into her purse. "Can you pop round to the Haslems?"

  "They're away."

  "I know, but I noticed they'd left a window open downstairs. I don't want a burglary on my conscience."

  "I'll see to it."

  "Thanks."

  "See you tonight."

  "Ciao!"

  After kissing her he watched her climb into the car, then drive away in a swirl of dust.

  John turned to the dog. "There's only me and you now, kidda."

  The dog wagged his tail, then went to stand by the closet where his snack treats were kept.

  "No, you've just had your breakfast. Why don't you go sit in the sun or chase rodents or something?" John clicked his tongue. "You know, John old buddy," he said to himself. "You've got to stop having conversations with the dog. Or one day they'll take you away to the happy place."

  He glanced at his watch. 8:30. He should really be sitting down at the computer to tackle the first chapter of Without Trace. But he'd promised Elizabeth he'd take a walk downstream on the off chance that her moon ball had beached itself somewhere. And it was such a perfect day. The great outdoors could have been sweetly calling his name, inviting him to slip on his sunglasses and stroll for a while. What's more, the sirens were now fading into the distance to be replaced by birdsong.

  "Come on then, Sam, just a quick walk. Then it's back to work. If I don't have that chapter done today smelly stuff starts hitting the fan… God, there I go again. Talking to you."

  The dog pricked up his ears, his bright eyes on John's.

  "Yup," he said. "I'm on my way to be a fully fledged basket case."

  He walked for longer than he intended. Partly he wanted to see the look of delight on his daughter's face if he recovered the ball. Partly because it was such a pleasant day with the sun streaming across the meadow. And partly, yes God dammitt, he was postponing that moment when he had to switch on the computer and start work on the book. He knew full well now that Without Trace wasn't going to be another Blast His Eyes. Without a new angle the book already had the distinct whiff of failure about it. Just for a second he could picture 'For Sale' signs appearing outside the Water Mill.

  He walked on, following the line of the stream through the field. Cows munched grass. Skylarks sang. A great day to sit by the lake with a beer and a book. Not a great day to sweat in front of a computer screen with the blind drawn. Sam was ready for a cross-country hike and only turned back reluctantly when John called him. The Man In The Moon Ball would have to be written off as lost without a trace. As Paul was responsible for its loss, the cost of the replacement would be Paul's responsibility, too. Great… that would do nothing to enhance domestic harmony tonight.

  John cut across the field, heading for the lane that would take him on a more direct route back home. Then he'd check the Haslem place and close the window. At that moment Sam darted into long grass only to emerge with a mouse gripped in his teeth by its hindquarters. The mouse squealed while twisting from side to side, its black eyes beady with panic. Sam tossed the mouse into the air before catching it in his mouth headfirst.

  With a grimace John looked away as the dog chewed with sheer pleasure, the tiny mouse bones crackling.

  "Sam, you are one gross beast."

  From past experience he knew the dog would swallow the mouse whole without spilling so much as a drop of blood. He walked a little faster in the direction of the Haslems' house.

  2

  Sam accompanied John into the Haslems' garden. This was unfamiliar territory for the dog and John watched him run across the lawn, nose to the ground.

  John checked that the front door was locked, then headed round the back. The house, a reward for Keith Haslem's years building up a law firm, looked unmolested. Standing back he shaded his eyes against the sun to look up at the bedroom windows. Everything looked normal. But then if it wasn't he still didn't know how he'd get a message to Keith. The family might be up the Amazon for all he knew.

  Maybe the law firm wasn't doing as well as was supposed…

  John turned over some possibilities in his mind. Perhaps Keith Haslem had indulged in a little embezzlement. These things happen. And it tended to be those that you least suspect… The detective inside of him was flexing his muscles. There was a whiff of mystery about Keith's abrupt departure.

  Sam bounded across what for him was virgin ground. He marked his new territory with a golden splash at every other bush.

  "The mystery thickens," John murmured to himself as he went to push the window shut.

  Inside, the kitchen was a mess. Someone had broken off preparing a roast. Now a slab of raw beef in an oven tin was alive with crawling flies. The place would be a mass of maggots within days. He could also see breakfast dishes on the table. Cornflakes and milk congealed in bowls. A knife smeared with butter lay beside a loaf of bread that was probably hard as a brick in this heat. The whole house would stink vile within a day or two. John weighed up the ethics of what amounted to friendly trespass. He'd have trouble squeezing through the window he'd just pushed shut. But maybe Paul could make it through. Then at least he could dump the rotting food safely in the trash. Of course that might trip the alarm. But it was all in a good cause.

  The dog by this time had his head in the herbaceous border, snorting loudly. John guessed Sam might have the scent of another mouse.

  "Leave it, Sam. Here, boy." John didn't relish listening to the dog crunch up another rodent for a morning snack. The dog snorted noisily, not wanting to quit the delights of the flowerbed.

  John crossed the lawn. He'd done what he could do for the time being. The house hadn't been ransacked, and although he couldn't lock the window from the outside at least it didn't present such a blatant invitation to local felons.

  Then once more John Newton's internal detective showed himself to be on the ball.

  "Now, there's a thing," he murmured to himself.

  In the center of the flowerbed was a birdbath. A run of the mill thing, it consisted merely of a concrete post that stood about waist high with a concrete bowl on top.

  It was what lay in the concrete bowl that made it special. He stepped up to the edge of the grass to take a closer looksee.

  What he saw only added to the mystery. In the birdbath was a layer of ashes. Scattered around the birdbath, on the soil and even resting on the leaves of the plants were dozens of matches. All but one or two of the matches were used. The empty box lay open on the soil.

  "So, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," he murmured to himself, "what do you make of this?"

  He picked up one of the matches then struck it against the box, where it flared brightly. So, the matches weren't duds. Unconsciously he slipped into the role of detective. A trick he'd practiced since childhood.

  "OK," he said. "Give me the scenario." He rose to his feet. "Keith or Audrey Haslem came out of the house, crossed the lawn, placed a piece of paper in the birdbath and burnt it to ashes. But why not just drop it in the trash?" As was his habit he answered himself. "Because it was no ordinary piece of paper. They wanted it destroyed completely. Either to hide its contents or because the document became a subject of their hatred. Like a jilted lover burning the photograph of their ex. But why all the unused matches?" He turned the matchbox over in his hand. Again the answer seemed simple. "Because whoever burned the paper had been in a tearing hurry. No. It's more than that. They'd been gripped by sheer panic. So they'd run out here, dumped the letter in the birdbath, fumbled with the match box, spilt the contents into the flowers, managed to set fire to the paper, then ran back to the house without bothering to pick up the matches."

  In his mind's eye, he played out the rest of
the scenario. After burning the paper Keith Haslem had bundled his family into the car (leaving the kitchen Marie Celeste like, with half-eaten breakfasts, raw meat exposed to the summer air, the window wide open).

  He figured the burner had to be Keith. Yesterday morning the man was certainly the driving force in getting his family into the car and then the hell out of Skelbrooke as if Lucifer himself had gotten a scent of his ass.

  "So what were you burning, Keith old buddy? Check stubs, phony receipts, forged title deeds?"

  John stepped closer to the birdbath, then with a finger and thumb delicately removed a fragment of burnt paper. It was fragile enough to turn to dust when he touched it. With even more care he lifted another fragment, which he rested on the palm of his hand so he could study it more closely.

  He'd enjoyed himself in his role of detective. But suddenly that sense of enjoyment vanished with a pang that snapped his stomach muscles tight.

  On the blackened paper nothing remained of the handwriting but a ghostly trace. Instantly John recognized the looping l's and y's. Then he deciphered one word 'grief-stone.'

  "Damnation." His voice was hushed. "So you got the same letter, too."

  3

  "Paul… Paul?"

  Paul Newton turned to see Miranda catch up as he walked between the school blocks.

  "Miranda? I thought you had Technology this morning."

  "I have but I wanted to catch you before lunch."

  He smiled. "You've caught me."

  "I can't see you after school tonight."

  "Oh, no problem." He sounded cool but disappointment crashed inside of him. Hell, it was over so soon. No more Miranda Bloom. No more of those delicious Spanish eyes looking up into his.

  She looked as if she needed to hurry away, and she cast glances back over her shoulder.

  Maybe there was someone else, Paul thought morbidly. No doubt she wanted to dash off to meet some stud… oh crap… why does it always have to rain on me… Yesterday he felt as if lightning had flickered out of his scalp, sparks out of his fingers and toes. He'd never been that close to a girl before. He felt… well, he felt transformed. That memory of her freckled breasts had stayed glued inside his head ever since last night. He was certain the others in class must have realized he looked different. Even the security guards must have noticed a difference in him on the CCTV monitors as he zombied his way from class to class, his eyes somehow turned inward looking. Gazing only at mental images of Miranda, with that lovely smile, her twinkling Spanish eyes; the dark tipped breasts with their delicious dusting of freckles. God, he was away with the fairies even now as she stood right next to him, telling him the whole deal was off. They were going their separate ways… adios amigos…

  The thoughts flashed through his head at a million miles an hour.

  Or so it seemed. And she'd not noticed any change in his expression.

  No, there she was, smiling sweetly, holding that technology file to her breasts (oh, God, that lucky technology file, pressed so firmly against her body)…

  "So, that's OK with you, Paul?"

  What was OK with him? What had she asked? He smiled a casual smile, but inside his head sheer turmoil reigned. He'd missed some vital words. What had she just asked him?

  Paul. Ugly Bob has asked me to dance naked in the school canteen. So is that OK with you, Paul?

  "Paul," she glanced over her shoulder, raven black hair swishing luxuriantly. "I'll have to go now. Sheena and Kari are waiting for me. Sorry about not being able to make it to the cinema."

  "That's OK." It wasn't OK. It wasn't OK so much it sucked like the biggest Hoover in Christendom, but what the hell could he do about it?

  "Look," she told him and touched his forearm. "After I get back from my grandmother's I can meet you. That's if you can make it?"

  He said that he could. And his heart beat a whole lot faster.

  She nodded. "OK. The cemetery gates at seven?"

  He smiled easily now. "I'll see you then."

  Suddenly she seemed to lunge toward him; her face came up close to his. For one wild moment he thought she'd actually kiss him in full view of the entire school.

  Instead, she whispered with a nerve crackling intensity, "Bring something with you."

  The smile he gave her before she darted away was knowing. Inside, his heart thundered against his ribs. He looked round at the others moving like a tide from block to block. Surely he must look different to them now.

  What was the word?

  Transformed?

  Changed?

  No, a far more powerful description:

  Transfigured.

  That was the word… transfigured. It's what happens to saints when they've glimpsed paradise: they glow as if lit up from inside by a whole rack of halogen lamps. Paul Newton felt like that right now.

  He glanced at his watch. Eight hours until he met Miranda. Then they'd enter the quiet clutches of the cemetery together. Hell. It couldn't come quickly enough.

  4

  John Newton returned home. The dog took up a position on the grass bank where he could bask in the sun. Family Haslem's home was secure, if a little untidy. He'd get Paul to tackle the raw meat in the kitchen later; otherwise the property would become a holiday destination for every fly for miles around.

  He made coffee, raided the cake tin, checked his e-mail, and then opened the computer file labeled Without Trace. For a whole three minutes he stared at the flashing cursor.

  "Well, what are you waiting for? The first chapter and synopsis has to be in the mail on Monday. Tom's going to be pissed with you if you don't do it. Then you won't get the Goldhall contract, then the money stops coming in, then you lose the house, and poor little doggy and all your children go hungry." He sang the words under his breath; part encouragement, part terror tactics to get his backside in gear so he'd write that first chapter.

  But it wasn't coming.

  There was no spark. Without Trace would be a hash of warmed over old mystery cases. Tom was right. The book he'd conceived didn't possess a shred of originality. Breathing heavily out through his nostrils he leaned back in his chair in disgust. As he did so his eye took in the shelf where Blast His Eyes sat. Now that was a book with attitude. So it had started out as a true-life mystery, just as his six preceding books, but it had evolved into a real detective hunt.

  He'd begun with the usual book and archive research, blowing the dust off old newspapers (well the dust off old microfiche files would be more accurate) as he'd unearthed the account of a murder case from 1889. Behind every murder is often a compelling human-interest story. What drove the individual to murder? How did they try to escape justice? Were they caught? How were they punished?

  The St. Paxton-Wellman case was no exception. What gave the case an extra splash of glamour was that it told a story of riches to rags-a member of the English aristocracy brought low by all too human weakness.

  Lord St. Paxton-Wellman, a distant cousin of Queen Victoria, inherited a country mansion in Lincolnshire, just down the road from Lord Byron's estate. With the grand house came a fortune in the form of Indian tea plantations.

  The boy was, as they say, set for life.

  But instead of doing what the eldest sons of the English aristocracy should have done-that is acquiring a first rate commission in the army- he dedicated his life to pleasure. In turn that led to a pathological addiction to gambling by the time he was twenty-four. There were also rumors that he suffocated his illegitimate child borne by his scullery maid. However, good family connections meant he could pass the buck. A stable lad was convicted at the famous 'Bastard Murder' trial of 1879. There were whispers at the time that the boy was a patsy. Even so, he was hanged at Lincoln jail, then buried in lime. As part of the research John visited the site where the stable lad and other hanged convicts had been interred. Innocently, the burial pit now lay beneath a supermarket carpark.

  But even though Lord Paxton-Wellman evaded English justice he didn't slip the grasp of, per
haps, Divine justice. His wealth hemorrhaged from him like blood from a severed artery. By the time he was forty the estates were gone, his wife deserted him, he lost his manorial home.

  Soon his lordship turned to crime. What's more, he had no hesitation in shooting anyone who got in his way. By then the nineteenth century was the age when science had begun to do the miraculous. He must have picked up a snippet of pseudo-scientific research that suggested the eyes of murder victims still preserved the image of the murderer, and that like a photographic plate could be developed. With the image of the murderer in police hands, an arrest would soon follow.

  Well, that's how the theory ran. Of course it was all tosh. But Paxton-Wellman didn't know that. And so that's how the title of the book originated. The wicked lord would literally blast out his victim's eyes with a pistol. Now the story alone would make Blast His Eyes a good commercial proposition for any publisher. But then came a minor miracle. John Newton carried on his book research, picking up tasty nuggets that would add weight to the book, and which eventually led to one of Paxton-Wellman's safe houses, where he found a box that had actually belonged to the man. John had been shrewd enough not to open the box there and then, but opened it live on a TV chat show the day the book was launched. Inside, there had been a monogrammed pistol (without doubt Lord Paxton-Wellman's); china figurines wrapped in newspapers (bearing the date 1889), a Spanish gold ducat, and, perhaps more strangely, diaries that detailed the results of several thousand backgammon games (the lord's obsession for backgammon knew no bounds, it seemed). John had even been able to round off the chat show with a satisfying account of the villainous lord's death by drowning when he tried to escape from the police by swimming across a lake.