Fade to Black (7 page)

He laughed loudly, startling a young mother so much she shepherded her child further away from him as they walked past.
‘Careful Arthur’
the voice said. He’d have to watch himself. He must behave normally. Mousey Arthur Wendell would remain his cover, oh yes. But it would be hard to camouflage his animal-self, his new magnetism. Women would be drawn to him; it was going to be embarrassing! He knew he would have to try to stay bland, but the juices coursing through him prickled against the sides of his veins and pulsed through his fingertips. He felt hyper-alive, in charge and abso-fucking-lutely unbreakable!

He jogged back to the Black Crow Hotel. A raging thirst, unlike any he could remember, gnawed at his throat. There was a lot that was different about him now. He felt confident,
stronger
. He breasted the bar and waited for Sarah to reappear. She managed this section. She’d come; he was sure. He jiggled the little golden bell, something he would never normally do. He waited. But it was not Sarah who finally came. It was bored, condescending Jilly, or Julie, with her gothic black hair and bright red lipstick. She didn’t serve him; she confronted him. She raised her eyebrows—the minimum effort from her was the best he would ever get. Another wafer-thin girl also came to fetch some glasses from under the bar. Where the hell was Sarah?

'Any port in a storm, Arthur,'
the inner voice said. It was a cool voice, even-toned, lacking emotion, with no inflection or accent that he could discern—just a new voice in his head. He asked for a pint of dark. The girl didn’t acknowledge his request, just turned to the tap and poured.
So rude
. The new girl at the far end of the bar organized the glasses into a rack and looked over at the girl pouring his drink.

“What time d’ya finish, Georgie?”

Georgie
,
that’s right
, Arthur thought.

Georgie looked at her watch and replied that she’d be off in about fifteen minutes, “Once I get rid of this lot.” He heard her shout back. Obviously, she was referring to him and the old couple who were just finishing their meal at the small, oblong table by the window.

“This lot,” Arthur noted. Charming.

Looking somewhere in the middle distance over his right shoulder, she plonked the heavy base of the glass on the toweling bar runner, the dark ale barely staying within the confines of the glass. There was no ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, just a statement of fact, “Five quid.” His eyes slowly travelled the length of her as she waited for him to fish out the money.

He took in her showy, sequined top that clung like a wet thing to her upper body, her too-perky breasts cantilevering at a ridiculous angle and the skin-tight, pink jeans that stopped prematurely above her ankles.

Something squirmed in his brain. He became slightly disoriented, his vision blurring and shifting. For a panicky moment, he thought he might lose his balance. He gripped the rounded wooden molding of the bar’s edge for support. A trickle of sweat ran between his shoulder blades, its warmth enveloping each pore of his skin as gravity pulled it to the base of his spine. He heard himself pant. As suddenly as he had lost it, his balance returned, as did his super vision.

Again, he marveled at its laser-like clarity. Sarah’s inexplicable absence no longer bothered him. He smiled at the way he could now do that—just redirect his thinking and apply himself completely to a new target. Everything else in the room receded to the background as the rest of his senses joined the game. They became almost painfully sensitive—
amplified.
He stared at the barmaid who was still standing there as if in a dream. He could hear her faint breathing with its wheezy hint of a restricted airway. Yes, he could smell the cigarettes now, too. His eyes zeroed-in on her troweled-on make-up and heavy, black eye shadow. He could see the blobs of black on the ends of each eyelash and the teeny-tiny crows-feet around her eyes. She wasn’t as young as she made out. He looked in an almost detached way at her arched, plucked eyebrows and the thick, stubbly line that betrayed the track of the originals.

‘Georgie’ was probably not her real name, more like
Georgeta
. He followed the line of tiny blackheads running the length of her nose and saw, with a little amusement, how they concentrated in a little dark patch at the turned-up point.
Not a good look, Georgeta
. He saw that her make-up did not quite mask her failure to scrub the rest of her face, either that morning or maybe as long ago as last week. Her nostrils had minute broken veins inside the curve where they joined her thin lips. She either had a cold or liked the odd snort of cocaine.

He felt his nose involuntarily crinkle up as the odor of too many sticky roll-ons and sickly-sweet discount perfumes reached him. There were about four different scents layered in there. He noticed, with a little thrill, that she had a red welt on her neck, only partly masked by a shiny, mock-silver necklace. She’d earned that cheap trinket, no doubt as payment from her latest ‘boyfriend’ for services rendered.
Even the boyfriend was cheap,
Arthur thought. He knew her now, knew who and
what
she was. God knows he could probably x-ray her if he wanted to. He liked this new supercharged Arthur. He didn’t know how or why, but he was transforming. He could feel himself crackling with energy and
power
. It even felt to him as though he could feel his hair growing.

“Very cool,” he said.

“Huh?” Georgie said, staring at him with a ‘
what th’ fuck
?’ expression.

How long had he been taking his inventory of the girl? It felt like minutes, but it couldn’t have been. Time had somehow stretched for him.
Even cooler
.

He was too excited to speak. His blood turned to hot champagne. He slapped the five pounds on the bar without looking at her again. He didn’t need to. Every detail of her was imprinted on a chart in his head. He could fold it, turn it around, change the colors and it just sat there—
The Georgie File
—ready for him to access any time he chose. And that would be very soon. He knew now what he was going to do and where. Had Georgie bothered to take an interest in her customers, she might have seen him drain the glass in two gulps, then abruptly leave. She might also have stopped him slipping the heavy-bottomed beer glass into his jacket pocket.

Chapter Six

Allie and Jo whooped at the sight of the caterer’s van parked in the driveway of their parents' home. Of course that’s how their Mother had prepared Allie’s congratulatory dinner! Kensington Katering—perfect!

Marcel trotted out the old joke, “What do Belgravia women make for dinner?”

“Reservations!” Allie and Jo chorused. Allie’s father and mother met them at the door and were effusive in their praise for Allie’s promotion to Detective Chief Inspector.

They were genuinely pleased for her. She could see that, although she was a little disappointed they had not seen fit to invite her brother, Robert. Apparently, the wounds still ran deep. Inside, the requisite bottle of Bollinger was cracked and Kensington Katering tiptoed efficiently around the cavernous dining room as the evening progressed. It had been a little while since Allie had been back to the house in which she’d grown up. Little had changed. The white stucco home looked pretty much like all the rest around the Chester Square area. It was old, as was her family, and it reeked of money, ditto her family. Her father drove a spanking new Aston Martin Vantage and her mother, Suzie, had just told her she’d placed an order for a smart new Audi TT. Allie didn’t ask what had happened to her only slightly older one. She’d probably wrapped it around a tree in a drunken stupor. Suzie Whiteman, successful author of the acclaimed Celtic Cross series for young adults, was a lush of Churchillian proportions.

After the award-winning dinner, the catering staff politely thanked and paid, Allie’s father motioned for her to join him in the drawing room. It amused Allie that they had such a thing as a drawing room—she’d thought of it as a playroom for so long. Jo and Marcel looked at each other, wondering what the secrecy was about. Suzie slipped away to the bathroom.

Allie and her father sat roughly opposite in the huge, rounded brown leather chairs she had loved as a child. They still smelled rich, although grey, spidery cracks wound their way through them, testament to years of use and neglect. Snuggling into the chair brought fond recollections of long, dark winter days when she’d stoke the fire and read till her eyes hurt. She scanned the books in the room, another childhood habit. The heavy oaken shelves occupied an entire wall and faced the ornate, rosewood desk by the curtained window. The shelves groaned under the weight of a thousand books—mostly historical tomes about the British Isles, although she spotted one about Normandy. There were huge, ancient-looking Bibles, mysterious leather-bound books with faded engraving and in the corner, and surprisingly, there was some modern fiction. She was amazed to see
The DaVinci Code
crammed next to a book about Faeries. She smiled to herself. Even the venerable Professor St. Clair was not immune to a great bit of escapism. It was the room in which Allie had always felt most comfortable as a child. But at this moment, it seemed slightly different to her. She thought she remembered it being bigger than it now appeared. The perspective of children often distorted reality.

David St. Clair was an impressive man—even Allie could see that. He was tall, silver-haired and good-looking in that St. Clair way. Allie looked a lot like him; everybody said that, apart from the height. She was the same, average stature as her mother. There had been rumors in past years of female undergraduates finding Professor St. Clair very appealing indeed, but nothing ever seemed to come of it, at least that Allie was aware of. His voice was his chief asset though, deep, relaxed and cultured—he’d sounded authoritative on radio and it hadn’t been long before television executives had noticed. His Celtic Myths and Legends series for BBC2 had been a huge hit. “You’re on your way, Allison,” he said, raising his brandy in salute.

“Thanks, Dad,” she replied. “It seems so.”

“How’s life generally, though? Are you happy with… everything?”

She knew what he was alluding to. As with all fathers, he was concerned that, at thirty, she hadn’t found a partner or made babies.

“Yes, all good,” she said, trying to head off an inquisition.

He hesitated a moment.
Here it comes,
Allie thought,
something’s on his mind.

“You know you can always move back here if you were inclined, don’t you?”

This was such surprise that she didn’t quite know how to respond.

“What’s brought this on?”

He smiled and swirled his brandy. “Nothing, really. I just wanted you to know that if life was to become a bit tough or threatening, you’re always welcome here.”

“Well, thank you, but I guess I’ve never thought about it. Are you worried about me for some reason?”

David St. Clair looked hard at her and she felt a little alarm going off.

“I am, to tell you the truth. And I’m not going to explain quite why, mysterious as that sounds.”

“It
does
sound mysterious. Now you’re starting to worry me,” she laughed. “What’s going on?”

“Let me ask you this,” he said. “Have you been contacted by anybody recently? Has anybody new come into your life…?”

“No, I’ve not met anyone new… there’s no time for that at present. You basically just asked me that a few moments ago, didn’t you?”

He got up out of his big chair and walked to the bookshelf, scanning a section about head high and to his left. He took down a pale volume and placed it on the desk.

“It was a slightly different question, Alison.” He smiled. “So you’re saying that apart from the wonderful promotion, life goes on to your satisfaction?”

“Yes, absolutely. If you’re worried about my breaking up with Alan, don’t be. It was never—”

He chuckled and told her it was nothing to do with Trout boy. They both smiled at that. He asked whether she’d seen his interview on BBC4 about the Glastonbury Tor sightings.

“Sorry, I didn’t. When was this?”

“Monday night. That airhead, Roseanne Palmer, called me to talk about new lights seen orbiting St. Michael’s Tower.”

“
Really? Anything to it?”

He looked closely at her. “There just might be. I played down the sightings, of course, but you never know.”

Allie was intrigued. She remembered the Tor very well—it had played a big part in her childhood. She’d spent many summer days climbing that funny bump in the landscape. She remembered an old farmer guy down there shooing her off his property as well. He had been fierce, unreasonably so, she’d thought at the time. She’d only brushed one of his roses, but he had gone off his head at her.

In fact, something about the Tor had freaked her out a bit once back then and the family had cut short the visit as a consequence. The St. Clairs had visited the Tor many, many times while her father was doing his PhD in Ancient Celtic History. Her brother, Robert, came to hate the place though.

“You never know?” she persisted. “What do you mean exactly?”

“The chief detective coming out in you, is it?” His tanned face cracked into a broad smile.

“Absolutely! Give.”

“No great theories here, Alison, but these sightings are consistent with those reported in the 194o’s and way back beyond that as well.”

“Weren’t they put down to bombers returning from raids over Dresden at the time?”

“Good memory,” he said, clearly pleased with her. “They were ascribed to aircraft, but I have to tell you, I don’t agree with that. There were obviously no aircraft about when the lights were first recorded in 461.”

“So, what are you suggesting… that something truly weird is going on?

“I think—” He was interrupted by hoots of laughter from the living room. Allie’s mother burst into the room, giggling loudly. She’d had a champagne or three.