Nobody True (31 page)

Scuffling footsteps outside on the steps, and I knew the beast had returned to its unwholesome lair. I sank back into the darkest shadow I could find.

A key scraped into the lock, the door swung open with a tired creak, and the slouched black shape that was Moker entered. Disgusting snufflings came from behind the thick woollen mask as if he’d had to walk or run some distance from his car and was out of breath. He slammed the door shut behind him and leaned back against it, his chest heaving as he fought to calm himself. Had I managed to panic him? When he saw his victim lumbering into the police station had he realized somebody else had taken over her body? I was sure he had caught sight of me in the car park when he was in the out-of-body state and before entering his dead victim; yet he hadn’t seen me when I was first inside this flat, although he had seemed to sense my presence. So did that mean he could only see me when he, himself, was out of body? Maybe I’d soon find out.

Slowly the serial killer unwound his scarf and dropped it to the floor. His trilby hat followed and, once again, his true horror was exposed to me, the hole in his face deep but, at least, shaded. If anything, the aura around him had increased both in foulness of colour and malevolence. A strange mewing sound came from him as if he were trying to express himself and it grew in volume as he advanced towards me, swinging his arms in front of him, hands grabbing at the air.

I cringed away from him, confused by his attack, now unsure whether he could see me or not. But he stopped short, his head turning towards the opposite corner. He went for it, arms flailing, and gave out a hollow and ill-formed kind of roar when his fingertips felt nothing but the air itself. Nevertheless, I dodged around the table with its untidy heap of newspapers and cuttings, keeping it between us.

Moker shuffled through to the kitchen area, turning on its light as he entered. A few seconds later he was out again, turning a sharp right and bursting into the bedroom. The light came on and I could hear him raging and throwing objects about. That he was searching for me, I had no doubt, and I only felt slight relief in the knowledge that he could sense me but still not see me. Storming out of the bedroom, he came to an unsteady halt on the opposite side of the table, his grotesque head continuing to point this way and that. A couple of times he stared so forcibly towards me that I was sure I was visible, but on each occasion his attention was quickly diverted elsewhere.

The grim aura around him seemed to bristle with small shards of angry brightness, like sparks from bare cable. His chest rose and fell, and his sore, husky breathing was distressed, as if he were about to sob; drool and spittle glistened at the ravaged edges of his facial malformation. Finally, his body movement—the twitching of his arms, the heaving of his upper body, the restlessness of his head—ceased and he stared down at the littered tabletop.

A step forward brought him to the edge of the table, and he leaned over it to begin searching through the newspapers, knocking some of them onto the floor with violent sweeps of his arms, rummaging through the remainder for something specific. He soon found what he was looking for.

It was the news story of my murder, naming me as another suspected victim of the current serial killer. He stared at the black-and-white picture of me; then at the smaller one featuring Andrea and Oliver, with Primrose in the background. The first finger of his hand found the thick, pencilled underlining. Even though the type was upside down to me, I knew exactly what was underlined. Obviously, the newspaper didn’t give my complete address, just the general location: south Woodford.

Moker went to the tall cupboard set against a wall, his breathing still hoarse, his chest still exerting itself. The cupboard had an old-fashioned swivel catch that he flicked upright with a finger and the door all but burst open, a jumble of papers and detritus tumbling out in a mini-landslide. He dug his beefy hands into the pile that remained inside and dragged out two large telephone directories that were at the bottom of the heap. I saw that one was a London listings while the other one was a Yellow Pages. Both were in well-thumbed condition, and I wondered why Moker would have them. There was no telephone in the flat, and even if there were, Moker would have been unable to use it. He couldn’t talk, he could only make noises.

He brought the London book back to the table and set it down, swinging the angle-poise lamp over it and switching on the light. If I’d been my normal self, I’m sure I would have broken out in a sweat when he began thumbing through the pages, because I knew what he was looking for. Moker had probably stolen the directories from a neighbour’s doorstep, a common enough occurrence in blocks of flats where British Telecom just dumped the listings outside people’s homes, but it didn’t explain why he needed them. It had to be that he used them only for looking up addresses, as he was now.

I watched in dismay as he reached the Ts and I wanted to tear the book from his hands, and rip it to shreds with my own. He ceased leafing through and began running down the names. His finger slowed, moved more deliberately, came to a stop. I saw my own name under his fingertip.

That was when we both heard a car screech to a halt on the road outside. Then another car, coming to a swift halt, tyres squealing. Doors slamming. Heavy hurrying footsteps…

35

I had to admit it, Moker was no slouch when it came to running away. Oh, his movement was clumsy, his stride more lumbering than graceful, but his getaway was fast. We’d both heard the footsteps outside growing louder on the pavement, and even as they reached the stairway leading down to the basement flat, Moker was pulling on his scarf and hat, winding the former around his ruined face like a mask and snapping the hat’s brim down to shade his eyes. The heavy raincoat came next, shrugging it on, none of these procedures taking more than a few seconds.

There were moving shadows outside the grimy window as he tore a page from the telephone book and folded it. He was shoving the page into his raincoat pocket as he made for the door leading into the small kitchen. Heavy banging on the front door now, voices announcing, “Police—open up!”

I clenched my fist and hissed, “Yes!” as I saw more legs descending the outside steps, but when I looked towards Moker he’d gone. I went after him, running myself even though I could have just glided along, and was in time to see him disappear out the kitchen’s back door. More banging on the front door, the lock being rattled. The voice again: “Open up! Police!”

If only I could let them in, I thought to myself, hovering between front room and kitchen. If only… Silly to think about impossibilities. I had to make up my mind what to do next: follow Moker, or wait for the police to break the door down? Back at the police station, they’d obviously taken the “dying” woman’s last words seriously. I/she had given them the name of her attacker/killer, her appearance giving the words credibility. When they discovered the leaking wound to her heart, the knitting needle still in place, they would have been bound to investigate. A swift computer check of the electoral roll would have soon provided Alec Moker’s address. That had been my plan and it seemed to have worked. At least I’d caught their attention.

But now Moker was fleeing and for the moment I’d lost sight of him. I sped through the grubby kitchen and out the back door where there was a small concrete yard full of junk—a rust-stained fridge, cardboard boxes, a piece of rolled-up lino, just the normal throw-aways that mount up when communal flat dwellers find it too much bother to dispose of their bits and pieces legitimately. Moker was just disappearing over a five-foot-high wall at the end of the yard.

I knew where he was going and it filled me with horror.

I followed him over the wall to find myself in a secluded church garden, a small and neatly kept oasis with trees, shrubbery, flowerbeds and a trivial amount of flat lawn. It was surrounded on all sides by tall buildings, old houses probably converted into flats, and the rear edifice of the church itself, its spire looming over all, a mocking finger that pointed heavenwards—mocking to me, that is. Moker was galloping along a narrow flagstone path with that peculiar gait of his, ducking into the passage between church wall and thick shrubbery. When I reached it I saw a single tall gate at the far end which Moker was just shuffling through. I cursed the gate for not being locked.

A streetlamp lit up his slouched figure as he turned to his right. Then he was gone and I moved swiftly to catch up. Through the shadowed passageway I went and I was soon out into the light of a broad but quiet road that must have run parallel to the one in which Moker’s flat was situated. Vehicles were parked along either side and I noticed the old Hillman among them: Moker was standing beside it, fumbling in his raincoat pocket for the keys. Presumably he always parked some distance from his home for reasons of his own, or there had been no empty spaces nearer to his flat. Tonight it had been Moker’s good fortune that parking in central London was always a problem.

He found his car keys and unlocked the Hillman’s door, although it took him a couple of attempts to guide the key in. His nervous excitement—excitement of the unpleasant kind—was evident in his aura, for under a nearby street light the weird halo was still sparkling, but now short explosions of greyish light flew from it. There were also new colours in the aura, which, until now, had remained malevolently dark apart from the earlier angry eruptions. Mauve and deep blue were the main hues present, although red blushed through them all at irregular intervals. None of these shades was vivid though, all were somehow muddied, impure, foul-looking.

By the time I had reached him he was sitting inside the car with the page torn from the telephone directory held before him at an angle so that it caught the light from outside (presumably the Hillman either had no interior light, or it was broken—or Moker wasn’t risking being spotted). I peered through the side window and saw his finger moving down the Ts again.

He was looking up my address once more.

I could have hitched a ride with him, but I wanted to reach my house first. I had no idea of how I would warn Andrea that an unexpected—and very unwelcome—guest was on the way; my only thought was to be there before he arrived.

It seemed that Moker had always sensed my presence, but it was only when he, too, was in the out-of-body state that he could see me. It may have been for a brief moment, but Moker had known my face earlier, and later, back at his flat, he had checked it out with the newspaper photograph. Now he was on the way to my home; his mission…? To extract some distorted idea of revenge? To punish me for telling the police the identity of the woman’s attacker which, hopefully, and without too much brainwork, would connect him to the other serial murders? Or because I was the only one who knew of his special powers? It didn’t matter which—he was a sick madman and he was going after my family.

I willed myself through the empty streets and roads, taking long, low leaps so that I was almost flying, pushing myself off the ground with my hands each time I sank, just as I had in dreams. The chill inside me had nothing to do with temperature; it was because of the fear that gripped my soul. I wanted to scream in frustration, wanted to confront Moker before he reached my house, but all I could do was propel myself along and pray that Andrea wasn’t home, that she’d taken Primrose to a friend or relative just to be away from the newshounds and even well-wishers who might mistake interference for sympathy. Yet somehow I knew she would not leave home if only for Prim’s sake; our daughter would need familiar things around her, for when life is upheaved by tragedy, a small comfort can be taken from the familiar, from the things you know and feel comfortable with—things that are still there. Prim would need time to adapt and, more importantly, to accept, and taking her away would not help. No, Andrea would not leave our home with Primrose; not for a while, anyway. I just hoped my wife had locked all doors and windows before she went to bed tonight.

My journey seemed to be taking forever, although I knew I was making good progress. There was hardly any traffic around—not that it would have bothered me—and the pavements were deserted save for some lonely nightworker or two or revelled-out revellers. I had no idea at all of the time, but I could see that most of the houses and all of the shops and offices were in darkness.

I remembered the number of times I’d chastized Andrea for leaving a window, upstairs or downstairs, slightly ajar, or the back door locked but unbolted, and I prayed that my absence would spur her to take proper precautions. She must be feeling vulnerable without me and that thought only emphasized how useless I would be to her now.

At last—at long, long last—I was gliding up the road leading home. And despite the late hour, the lights were still on.

I paused at the gate. Oliver’s silver BMW was parked at the kerbside and I didn’t know whether to feel elated or angry. At least Andrea and Prim were not alone. But why should Oliver be here at this hour?

Maybe Moker would do me a favour and murder him.

I quickly pushed such worthless thoughts from my mind. Even if Oliver had killed me, pretending it was the work of another, he would be able to protect my wife and daughter. And it was my daughter I cared about most.

I passed through the gate and went up the path to the front door. I took a deep and unnecessary breath before moving through it.

I could hear their voices coming from the lounge—Oliver’s and Andrea’s—speaking low so all I could hear from where I waited in the hall were murmurings. The lounge door was open and, foolishly, I was tempted to linger outside and eavesdrop, as if I might be seen should I enter the room. I rebuked myself before slipping through the doorway.