Friends of the Dusk (29 page)

But at least it had been a girl.

Oh, come on.
Times had changed… dramatically. Gus Staines and Amanda Rubens were a respectable married couple, and quite right too, and she and Sam were, like…

… consenting adults. Unattached, consenting adults.

Had
she consented? She didn’t know, any more than she knew what she’d seen on the gorsey plateau. If anything.

Jane reached up for the cord and put on the light. Colour bled gradually into what was left of the Mondrian walls, faded red and blue squares between the timber framing. On the floor beside the bed, where the phone had lain, was a book,
The Summoner
.

She wouldn’t get back to sleep now. If she’d ever really slept.

In the hours before dawn, she opened the book and entered the Nightlands. Like she’d ever left.

Bliss was at Gaol Street before seven, parts of the pavements slick with the first frost, Dowell intercepting him on the stairs, bulked out in a Scandi-looking sweater.

‘How long you been in, Karen?’

‘I dunno, two hours, three. Listen, I’ve found something, Frannie. Well, it might be not be that much, but it’s one of the few non-obvious things that pops up on both hard disks.’

‘Soffley’s and Greenaway’s?’

He followed her through the CID room into his own office, where she already had the two laptops opened up.

‘Not
quite
the same, one’s only initials – that’s Greenaway’s – but the context suggests we’re looking at the same thing. FOTD. Mean anything to you?’

‘What
is
the context?’

‘It’s in a deleted email Greenaway sent to someone called Gordon Barclay-Hughes, who seems to be the editor of one of those Internet magazines read by nutters. Greenaway says he’s lost touch with the people from FOTD, especially someone he just calls JT, and can Barclay-Hughes help him out?’

‘When was this?’

‘Well, that’s the point. Night before he died. I only went looking for it because Barclay-Hughes replied today, evidently not having heard about Greenaway’s murder. He just says – hang on, I’ll— OK, here it is, he says, “Sorry mate, not heard from any of them in years. I assumed that all fell apart way back. I imagine Mr T’s far too big for all that now. Cheers, Gordon.”’

‘You tracked Gordon down?’

‘He’s in Devon. Totnes.’

‘New Age hotbed, Karen,’ Bliss said. ‘They have public buildings with parking spaces for UFOs. Let’s ask Devon and Cornwall if they know him. What’s the other reference?’

‘That’s in Soffley’s Neogoth contacts file. Nothing new, and nothing to explain what it is. Just a reference to the Friends of the Dusk. FOTD?’

‘Friends of the…?’

‘Dusk.’

‘That’s gorra hint of Dark Web about it, hasn’t it?

Bliss looked at Karen She had her plump lips pursed, nodding.

‘I do like the sound of Mr T, Karen. I love it when fellers are described as “too big”. If there’s any childish pleasures left in police work, taking down someone who’s too big has to be one of them. And did Soffley let them see the piccy of Steve?’

‘Who?’

‘The skull, Karen. Go on, make my day.’

‘Consider it made, boss,’ Karen said.

‘I thought it was going to be worse than it turned out to be,’ Jane said. ‘It’s not the usual kidlit fantasy drivel. Where the vampires aren’t all bad because there are different kinds of vampires?’

‘But they’re always sexy.’ Mum sounding tired. ‘That seems to be a given.’

Maybe she’d slept badly. She was doing her best to look attentive, but she really wasn’t all here. She’d made scrambled eggs for them, with wholemeal toast, but was only picking at hers. She was wearing her old grey dressing gown, frayed at the hem and the cuffs, and the slippers with one flapping sole. She looked… God… middle-aged.

Jane wasn’t hungry either.

It was seven-thirty a.m.

‘The romantic vampire stuff,’ Jane said, ‘that’s been around for most of my life. If I hadn’t read
Dracula
and
Salem’s Lot
I’d still be looking for a vampire to fall in love with. Although the ones in this book… I don’t even know if they
are
vampires in the strictest sense.’

‘That’s what it says on the back.’

‘Yeah, but that’s what publishers do, isn’t it? Vampires sell books.’

‘But you actually finished it?’ Mum reached for a piece of toast but didn’t do anything with it. ‘The whole thing.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And enjoyed it?’

‘I wouldn’t quite say that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just… dark.’

‘You like dark.’

‘It’s… I don’t know.’

‘OK.’ Mum put down the toast. ‘This is very good of you, flower. You want to go from the beginning?’

Hereford was never going to be a city that never slept.

Bliss took Vaynor with him across the zebra, through the sluggish early traffic to Commercial Road, where most of the lights were for security, and into the alleyways leading to Organ Yard, where there were no lights at all.

Above the dark brick courtyard the early sky was ridged like galvanized roofing. Vaynor directed the little light in his phone at the window blinds in The Darkest Corner. The blinds were old and rubbery-looking.

There was nobody around to disturb. Bliss rapped on the glass, raised his voice to the sky.

‘Good morning, Jerry. Time to come out of your coffin.’

‘I think the premise is,’ Vaynor murmured, ‘that they go
back
to their coffins at daybreak, boss.’

‘Don’t be pedantic, Darth. Come
on
, Jerry!’

He shook the door handle and the door opened.

Bliss looked up at Vaynor, stood and thought for a few seconds. Pulled a tissue from a pocket of his suit and wrapped it around his hand before pushing the door all the way.

The light was on inside.

‘After you, Darth,’ Bliss said eventually, then changed his mind. ‘No, all right, he knows me.’

The dirty glass hanging lamp was the brightest light he’d met since the traffic on Commercial Road. Bliss stepped inside, Vaynor just behind him. He blinked, and the smell came for him, aggressively, made only more sickening by the resident cannabis scent.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Bliss said quietly.

He didn’t move, looked all around the shop. Plastic skull. Rack of dark clothing, hats, album covers, posters. Jerry Soffley’s last slanting smile, wide-open eyes like little poached eggs.

Hello again, Sarge. Frank.

Soffley was sitting up against the wall left of the counter, near the doorway to the vinyl room, the state of his exposed teeth indicating that with his very last breaths he’d been sucking in blood and snot from his smashed nose. No need to go too close, you could guess from the state of the wall what the back of the head would be like.

Bliss said, ‘Jerry, I never thought. Never entered me head for a minute.’

Thought he’d known exactly where he was going with this case, all his questions for Soffley lined up neat as bullets in a clip:
Friends of the Dusk, Jerry – who? Names. Locations. What are they about? How was Tristram Greenaway involved? Is it a gay thing?

The shop was no less tidy than it had been yesterday. This wasn’t about robbery, any more than Greenaway’s murder had been. Bliss was seriously pissed off about this. Why hadn’t he entertained the slightest possibility that somebody might think Jerry Soffley knew too much to be left alive?

He came gratefully out of the darkness to find Vaynor leaning back against the exterior wall, the back of his head tilted into greasy old brick, looking up into the clean sky.

‘Not your first one, surely, Darth?’

‘First one like this, boss.’ Vaynor fetched out a bent cigarette and lit up. ‘Fast-tracked into CID, if you recall. Due to my record of…’ He stared into the smoke. ‘… academic excellence. Missed out on a lot of dead drunks in back-alleys, motorway carnage.’

He was looking at the end of his cigarette in disgust.

‘I didn’t know you indulged,’ Bliss said.

‘Don’t. Not much anyway. It’s to get rid of the smell. And the taste.’ Vaynor risked a glance at the bottom of his trousers and the bits of butchery on his shoes. ‘Hadn’t we better call this in?’

39

The Summoner

T
HE
N
IGHTLANDS
. T
HE
countryside in negative. It looks lush and verdant by day but at night, even in high summer, the colours drain away and the trees become skeletal around the village and on the hill where the castle stands.

The village doesn’t have a name, nor does the castle.

It’s not like Castle Dracula. It’s the reverse of all that. The castle is held by a good family with a tradition of protecting the people who live in the village below. You gradually meet the villagers, the baker and the blacksmith. And the Cunning Man who’s not as cunning as he used to be.

‘The village is surrounded by this thickening forestry,’ Jane said. ‘Or rather forestry that thickens at night. Even though, at night, its leaves disappear. Night is like winter. That’s quite nicely described – only the bad parts, the spiky bits and the thorns remain, and the deeper you go, the harder and tighter it gets and the more all your exposed skin gets cut and slashed.’

At night, the forest becomes limitless, as if it’s part of some other sphere of existence or it leads to one.

‘You don’t have to explain these things to kids,’ Jane said.

Thinking how easy it had been for her, with her bruises and abrasions, to realize it all.

‘Entering the wood is like crawling through coils of barbed wire. Although Foxy Rowlestone doesn’t put it that way because barbed wire hadn’t been invented then.’

The book’s inside cover had a photo of Foxy Rowlestone sitting on a small knoll by a stream, her face half turned away,
her hair in coils, feet hidden in the folds of her long, velvet-looking dress. If Dante Gabrielle Rosetti had been a fashion photographer…

‘When’s this set, exactly?’ Mum said.

‘Twelfth century. That’s made clear. All the history seems to be accurate. Over twelve hundred years since the birth of your Saviour.’

Jane buttered a half-slice of toast. It still looked too sickly to eat. She was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, but Mum must’ve spotted a wince.

‘Bruises?’

‘One or two. I didn’t realize. It’s OK, I’ve applied arnica.’

‘You’re sure it’s OK?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Anyway, the Summoner’s back. After nearly a century.’

‘The Summoner.’

‘He comes out of the woods, the Nightlands. He looks human, vaguely. He’s stick-thin, skin and bones. And he’s part of the Nightlands. Almost like part of the wood when he’s in there, so it doesn’t harm
him
. Because he’s basically a corpse, anyway.’

‘A zombie?’

‘That word isn’t used, thank God. It’s post-medieval, it isn’t British and it’s naff. But kids can work these things out for themselves.’

‘You always could.’

‘The Summoner… the villagers thought he was history. Hasn’t been seen in anybody’s lifetime. But they know that when he comes it means certain death, and he gives no warning of his visits. He’s suddenly there, in the village, and everybody rushes inside and cowers and waits for his declaration. “I am come,” he says, “to call a name.” And the villagers are frozen into a state of like breathless terror? On the basis that whoever’s name is called will not have long to live. They’ll fall ill and die within a few days. Once your name’s been called, you don’t ever get spared. That’s it. Curtains.’

‘Bingo from hell.’ Mum shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m tired. No, you’re right, that’s darker than sucking blood because it happens in everyday life, even kids’ lives. People you know fall ill and die – relatives, neighbours, and that’s genuinely frightening.’

‘Anyway,’ Jane said, ‘the village is resigned to it. The local peasants say that any man with the courage to try and approach the Summoner finds, when he reaches the spot where the fiend was last seen, that he’s no longer there. And they’ll hear the parting laughter from somewhere deep in the wood, sometimes followed – gleefully – by the name of the man who tried to catch him.’

‘So nobody does.’

‘Even up at the castle they’re helpless. The current knight, Sir William, is away at the Crusades, leaving his wife and daughter with his elderly father, Sir Roland. We’re seeing all this through the eyes of Sir William’s daughter, Catherine, who’s sixteen and about to experience the horror first-hand when the Summoner appears on the castle hill. Calling for her mother, who starts to go pale and anaemic. And so it goes on.’

‘What’s the intended age group for this stuff?’

‘Young adult. Twelve-plus?’

‘It’s just I’m wondering if this is a metaphor for the Black Death or something.’

‘Kids hate metaphor. Besides, the rest doesn’t really fit with disease. The Summoner is what’s left of this itinerant magician. He’d slink around the towns and villages of the borderland, passing himself off as a healer but all the time he’d be experimenting on his patients in his search for the secret of immortality. Which he evidently found, in a warped way because, despite being killed by one of Sir Roland’s ancestors, he comes back, every generation or so. He’s older – like, he should’ve been dead perhaps decades ago or even centuries. He comes back to rejuvenate himself by taking other people’s lives.’

‘Which
is
a vampire thing, isn’t it?’

‘But without the fangs and the puncture marks. He’s just absorbing their life energy. Which, to me, is scarier. Because it makes more sense.’

‘Mmm.’ Mum pushed her plate away, held the e-cig up to the lamp, brown fluid rising. ‘Go on. I’m still listening.’

‘This is the interesting bit. In the past, the Summoner destroyed the village by taking so many people that the others just packed up and buggered off. So the village was left derelict, and it took over fifty years for people to start coming back. And now they’re leaving again.’

‘I get the connection,’ Mum said. ‘What I don’t get is why kids – girls – apparently loved it so much.’

‘I’ll explain. Comes down to Geraint, the blacksmith’s son, who comes up to the castle to chop the wood and refurbish the weaponry. He’s like very strong and handsome, but he’s just a peasant, and Catherine’s been brought up to have nothing to do with him… so you see where this is going. Especially after old Sir Roland, Catherine’s grandad, puts on his rusting armour and goes out to the woods to take on the Summoner and doesn’t come back, and then, next night, the Summoner returns, stronger than ever, and calls out the name of Geraint’s dad, the blacksmith.’