Kill Fish Jones (19 page)

Fish nodded again.

Alice stared at him, shoving her mop of dark hair
back behind her ears. ‘It's something to do with your mum and them dug-up coffins, isn't it? Judging by the trail of wreckage you've left behind you, I'm guessing a … demon of … revenge? Like a curse demon?'

She took one look at Fish's expression and sighed. ‘Right, so we're going to this Crow's Cottage to hide, yes?'

By now the taxi had gathered speed and was sailing up the hill. Around them the landscape unwound in a vast expanse of heather and darkening sky. Fish took a moment to appreciate its beauty.

‘Nice up here, isn't it?' Alice leaned forward and tapped on the window between them and the cabby. He reached up and pulled it open.

‘Are we nearly there?'

‘Not yet, love. 'Bout ten miles.'

‘Thanks.' Alice waited until he'd closed the panel again before she spoke in a low voice. ‘I've got plenty of money. I took everything out of my savings and nicked some more from Mum's wallet – she always says I can take what I need. Got a train easy. Had to change at that place you devastated, which is when I realised that something really bad was going on. You should've seen the mess! So I thought I'd better get a taxi. Figured we'd pick you up on the way. There's only one road going in the right direction. Good thing too. You'd never've made it on foot, not in the state you're in.'

Silently, Fish reached out and squeezed her hand.

She blushed. ‘That's OK. Anything for a mate. And
Mum won't even see I'm not there for a day or so. You know her – back from work after I've gone to bed, and off again before I'm up.' She gave a snort of laughter. ‘Dad left over a year ago, now, and I don't reckon she's noticed yet.'

They drove in silence for a while through the steadily gathering dusk that covered the land like shadowy silk. On the far side of the hills was a small town where yellow lights glinted in windows, suggesting warmth and hot dinners and TV. But they drove through it and out the other side into a darkness broken only by the taxi's headlights.

They drove for a long time, deeper into the growing night, and then at last the taxi drew slowly to a crawl.

‘We're about the right place, love, but I dunno this Crow's Cottage. Can't be that one there.' The cabby jerked a thumb towards a dark hump against the pale moonlight. ‘It looks deserted.'

‘Next one along,' said Alice smoothly.

He drove slowly down the road for about a mile before Alice said, ‘There, that's my auntie's house.' She pointed towards a light in the darkness. ‘Come on, Fish, out you get. Go round the back – she'll have left the door open for us. Let's get inside quick.'

She pushed open the door, shoved Fish out and climbed down behind him, dragging the bags with her. Fumbling in her pocket, she brought out a wad of notes and peeled off a bunch from the top to hand to the cabby, who pulled open the window to take it.

‘You've given me too much, love!'

‘Keep it.'

‘But …'

‘Look money's no problem, right? Money I've got in spades. And you've been awful nice and patient and everything, driving all that way. And you've got a long way to go back too, so keep it.'

The driver smiled in the darkness. ‘Ooo am I to argue, love?'

Alice picked up the bags and headed fast towards the light. Bewildered, Fish followed her. She let them in the gate and hurried up a path through a neatly kept garden. The taxi was taking its time to leave.

‘Round the back,' she whispered to Fish. ‘He's a nice man, so I'm betting he won't go till he thinks we're safely inside. And try not to be seen!'

Behind the cottage, Alice flattened herself against the wall. So did Fish. They listened until finally, with a deep rumble, the taxi pulled away. While they waited for Alice to be completely sure it was safe, Fish's eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Slowly, the landscape took shape in silhouette against the dark blue of the night sky.

‘OK,' said Alice.

Carefully, they crept back around the cottage, trying to make as little sound as possible. As they went past the front window, Fish heard the murmur of the TV, which explained why nobody had been paying attention to what was happening outside.

On the road again, Alice set off back the way the taxi had come.

‘It's not too far, Fish,' she said gently. ‘Can you make it?'

Fish nodded. He'd had a rest now, and besides, a mile up the road from here was nothing compared to the long, long walk he would have had if Alice hadn't picked him up.

The night air was soft and still with a smell like cool water. Overhead, stars pricked the sky with brightness and a thinly sliced moon cast a pale light. There was no sound but the soft pad of their feet on the road and the rustle of the carrier bags. It didn't take them long to reach the dark shape that had to be Crow's Cottage. The iron gate had a crow on it, which kind of clinched things. Fish paused, looking anxious.

‘Come on,' said Alice. ‘It can't be that bad. Let's go and see.'

She pushed open the gate and they crunched up a gravel path with weeds poking through the stones. When they got to the front door they stopped.

‘Fish, how do we get in?'

Fish screwed up his forehead, then groaned as he remembered that Jon had given Susan the keys to the cottage. She had put them in her handbag, which meant they were either lying by the road where she had fallen, or else someone had found her bag for her and the keys were in Blackheath hospital, nearly thirty miles away.

‘I'm guessing we'll have to break in, right? Come on, let's find a back window or something.'

Alice dumped the bags on the doorstep and set off around the house. Reluctantly, Fish followed her. He was not good at adventures and liked to do things in a proper, orderly fashion. Breaking windows did not appeal. Alice, on the other hand, took keep-out signs as an invitation, never did as she was told and liked to climb on things. It was part of the reason Fish liked her. The other part was the way she understood him without him having to say much.

She pounced on a chunk of brick at the side of the path and a moment later the night was filled with the tinkling sound of broken glass. Fish glanced around, worried that someone would hear. Alice took off her jacket and wrapped it around her hand.

‘Seen them do this in films,' she said. ‘Stops you getting cut.'

Along with some swearing that made Fish blush, Alice reached in carefully, found the knob and pushed open the back door of Crow's Cottage.

Alice pulled a torch out of her pocket and directed the beam into the darkness on the other side of the door. They peered inside and Fish shuddered.

‘Where?'

He pointed to the dirt demons on top of a pile of old rags. They had turned their heads when the door opened, and their eyes, reflecting in the torchlight, glared up at Fish irritably. One of them bared teeth like tiny needles. To the left, he could see more movement out of the corner of his eye, but he made sure not to look at it.

‘Uh huh. Well, I can see spiders.' Alice was looking up at a knot of webs near the ceiling. ‘Oh yuk.'

Hanging on to each other, they edged through the kitchen into the hall. It was narrow, with a tiled floor and a couple of doors leading from it, both shut.

‘Going to get the bags,' said Alice, ‘then we'll look upstairs.'

She handed Fish the torch, walked to the front door and opened it, then pulled in the bags that were still sitting on the front step.

Fish looked around carefully, playing the beam over the floor, walls and ceiling. There were no dirt demons in the hall. It was dusty and some thin cobwebs floated from the ceiling, but there was no rubbish and nothing to decay. The floor was bare boards and the walls were painted straight on to the plaster rather than being papered and heaving with demons, which was a relief. Paint was hardwearing. It got dirty, but it didn't decay like paper.

When she had the bags, Alice put them in the middle of the hall, closed the door, took the torch back and went warily up the stairs. The bare boards creaked under her weight, sounding horribly loud in the night silence. After a moment's hesitation, Fish went after her.

At the top, Alice headed for the only open door. It led to a small, empty room at the back of the house. It was lighter here as a pair of ancient curtains were pushed half open, letting in the pale light from the night sky.

‘Right,' said Alice, looking at the curtains, ‘I'm betting those rags are crawling with things?'

Fish nodded. Whatever colour the cloth had been once, it was now a faded grey-brown, and it was heaving with demons. They were small and (unlike the dirt demons in the kitchen) blunt-toothed, with eyes like pale disks in the half-light. Alice grabbed the curtains and pulled. Demons rained to the ground where they thrashed about for a second and then vanished. The material tore, but the curtains stayed in place.

‘Bum. I'll have to get up there somehow. Or do you want to look in the other rooms … I'll take that face as a no, shall I? You'll have to give me a lift up then.'

Fish squatted on the floor to let her climb on his back as if he were a footstool. Alice kicked off her shoes and stood on him, wobbling a little.

‘C'n just about reach, right. Difficult with the torch though. Keep still!' The light bobbed about as she struggled to get the curtains down.

About two inches from his nose a small, rather faint demon glared at Fish. It eyeballed him angrily and bared its stubby teeth. It looked like an angry frog and made Fish feel like laughing. It was a good feeling.

‘Got 'em!'

A second rain of demons bounced to the floor where they squalled furiously and evaporated. The curtains followed, dropping into a heap on the boards. New demons began to wriggle out of the fabric almost at once. Because they were coming from something so rotten they developed fast, opening their eyes seconds after they formed. They immediately swivelled to stare at Alice, who was throwing the second curtain down on top of them. She climbed down from Fish's back. Then she screamed.

Fish uncoiled quickly. Alice grabbed his arm.

‘Sorry. Spider. Big. There.' She aimed the beam of the torch.

It was toiling diligently along by the skirting. Fish went over to it and cupped it in his hands. It tickled.
He carried it to the window, which Alice opened with a hard shove.

‘Good,' said Alice with relief, as he dropped it to the ground below. ‘Right. I'll deal with these then, shall I?'

She scooped up the dirty material and headed for the door. Left alone, Fish took a look around the room. It was still and quiet, and with the curtains gone, the bare walls and floor were burnished with silver light. He nodded and felt something inside him unknot.

A moment later, Alice was back, carrying the bags she had brought. She upended the largest, shaking out a small, thin quilt and a crocheted blanket.

‘Mattress topper and a baby blanket. We can make a bed. And two blow-up pillows.' She dug in the other bag. ‘Lemonade, biscuits and a loo roll. Not that I'm suggesting we look at the bathroom tonight, but there are some nice bushes outside.' She beamed at him. ‘We'll be all right.'

Fish smiled back. ‘You're fantastic,' he said.

At last they curled up on the quilt, still in most of their clothes and with the blanket laid over them. Outside the window, a tree brushed the glass with its leafy fingers and somewhere Fish could hear a soft hooting that he thought must be an owl. It was a lifetime away from Nightingale Row, with its street lights that banished the stars and the purring of engines late into the night. He drew a deep lungful of air and let it out again in a
long sigh. Already, Alice was asleep. He could hear her steady breathing and feel the warm centre that was her, resting next to him. And for the first time since yesterday morning, when he and Susan had come back from the shops to find their lives changed forever, he felt peaceful.

Closing his eyes, Fish slept and the night went on in silence.

Grimshaw was standing in the middle of the town, seething. By now the ambulances, the police cars and the fire engines had left the scene. Everyone had gone, even the sightseers, and a sort of calm had been restored to the village centre. The wreckage was still there, of course, surrounded by police tape, but the fires were out and the body of the poor man in the van had been taken away. Everything was quiet. Stars came out overhead.

But Grimshaw still seethed.

After Destiny's interference in the deaths he had set in place, Grimshaw had been forced to improvise, showing himself to the truck driver and causing the vehicle to smash into the petrol pump. For a single glorious moment, when he saw the boy flying through the air like a kicked ball, he thought he had won. But all demons know instinctively when they have made a kill, and he soon realised that against the odds the wretched boy was still alive.