World's End (Age of Misrule, Book 1) (6 page)

But Ruth seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. She leaned across the table and said softly, "There could be a hundred and one explanations. A sudden chemical inbalance in her brain-"

"I've been through them all. I've weighed it up and turned it inside out and investigated every possibility, so much that I can't think of anything else. To answer your original question, that's why I always seem so preoccupied. Nothing else seems important beside that."

"I'm sorry-

"No, I'm sorry. It's selfish of me to be so wrapped up in myself. We've all got problems." He looked out into the puddled street. Briefly he considered telling Ruth about Marianne's appearance outside his home, but to give voice to it would mean he would have to face up to the reality of the experience and everything that came with it; besides, it was too close to his heart right now. "I wish I could put it all behind me, but there are so many things about it that don't make sense. Only hours before, she'd been making plans for the wedding." Church grew silent as the waitress came over to pour more coffee; it broke his introspective mood and when she left it was obvious he didn't want to talk about it any more. "This is a good lunch. Thanks."

Ruth smiled affectionately. "My philosophy is eat yourself out of a crisis."

"Yet you stay so thin!" he said theatrically. They laughed together, but gradually the conversation turned to what they had seen beneath the bridge, as they had known it would. "So whose face lies behind the Devil?" he asked.

Ruth's expression darkened. "I don't know. Why should our reactions in the trance have been so extreme, and identical?" Church understood her confusion. "But it's strange. For the first time in months, I feel like I've got some kind of direction. I really want to keep going until we get to the heart of it."

Church was surprised to realise he felt the same way. "How ironic can you get? It takes a brutal murder to give us some purpose in life."

"Of course, there's also the danger that if we let it drop now that awful memory will start its destabilisation again, and I could really do without wrecking my career at this stage in my life." She called for the bill and paid it with a gold Amex.

"So where do we go from here?" Church asked.

Ruth smiled. "Elementary, my dear Watson."

Maurice Gibbons had lived in a three-storey terrace in a tree-lined avenue; not too imposing, but certainly comfortable; it looked like it could have done with a lick of paint and a touch of repointing here and there. The lights were already ablaze in the twilight as Church and Ruth opened the front gate and walked up to the door, shivering from the chill; the night was going to be icy. They'd spent the afternoon quietly at Ruth's flat, drinking coffee, talking about comfortingly bland topics, but now they were both feeling apprehensive. Susan Gibbons was a quiet woman who looked older than her years. Her grief still lay heavy on her, evident in the puffiness of her eyes, her pallor and her timidity as she led them into the lounge where condolence cards still gathered dust on the mantelpiece. She accepted at face value Ruth's statement that they were looking into her husband's murder and sat perched on an armchair listening to their questions with a blankness which Church found unnerving, if only because he recognised something of himself in her.

"I know you've probably been through all this before, Mrs. Gibbons, but we have to go over old ground in case there's anything we've missed," Ruth began.

Mrs. Gibbons smiled without a hint of lightness or humour. "I understand."

"Your husband had no enemies?"

"None at all. Maurice wasn't what you would call a passionate man. He enjoyed his job and he did it well, but he didn't really have any ambition to move on, and everyone recognised that and accepted it. No one felt threatened by him." Her hands clutched at each other in her lap every time she mentioned her husband's name.

"I know he told you he was going to the pub. Do you have any idea how or why he ended up south of the river?"

"No."

A look of panic crossed her face, and Church moved quickly to change the subject. "Had your husband been acting any differently in the days or weeks leading up to his death?"

There was a long pause when Mrs. Gibbons appeared to have drifted off into a reverie, but then she said quietly, "Now that you mention it, Maurice was a little ... skittish, perhaps. He was jumping at the slightest thing."

"He was frightened of something?" Church pressed.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Not frightened, just ... uneasy." She let out a deep sigh that seemed to fill the room. "He went to church on the Sunday before he passed on. That was so unlike Maurice. Do you think he might have sensed something, wanted to make his peace with God?"

"Perhaps he did," Ruth said soothingly. Church was impressed with her manner; her caring was from the heart, and he could see Mrs. Gibbons being visibly calmed.

"Would you like to see his room?" Mrs. Gibbons asked. "Maurice had so many interests and he had a room where he could be alone to think and read. That's where he kept all his things. You might find something of interest there. Lord knows, there's nothing I can tell you."

She led them up two flights to a little box room lit by a bare bulb. It was quite tidy, uncluttered by any kind of decoration; just a cheap desk and chair, a filing cabinet and a bookshelf. A pair of plaid slippers were tucked in the corner.

"I'll leave you to it. Make a cup of tea, how about that?" Mrs. Gibbons slipped out, closing the door behind them.

"Why do you think he was uneasy just before he was killed?" Church said as he sank on to the chair and opened the desk.

"Don't start extrapolating. You'll end up with all sorts of hideous conspiracy theories."

"`Just the facts, ma'am."'

"Exactly." Ruth crouched down to examine the bookshelf. "I think one of us should pay a visit to the local vicar. You never know, Maurice might have seen fit to bare his soul."

"Wouldn't that be nice and simple. He fingers his murderer to the vicar and everything falls into place." He started to go through the sparse contents of the desk aloud. "Pens, envelopes, writing paper. Look at this, typical anally retentive civil servant-a big pile of receipts, most of them for cabs."

"Nothing wrong with being anal retentive," Ruth said tartly.

"Hoping for some tax deduction, I suppose," Church continued. "A notebook-"

"A lot of these books are new," Ruth mused. "UFOs, Von Daniken, The Occult by Colin Wilson, Messages from the Dead: A Spiritualists' Guide. Looks like he's been reading that magazine you were rambling on about."

"That's a bit of a coincidence."

"Sure. Life's full of them. Anything in the notebook?"

"The first few pages have been torn out. There's only one thing in it: a phone number. Barry Riggs. Crouch End UFO Association."

"Great. Little Green Men got him," Ruth said wryly. "We should check it out anyway. You never know."

They caught a cab back to South London and dropped Ruth off first. Church felt chastened by Mrs. Gibbons' grief. Afraid that the depression would come back to ruin the first halfway-normal mood he had felt in a long time, he quickly switched on the computer and went online. There was an email waiting for him from Laura DuSantiago.

Greetings, Churchill-Dude (No relation, I hope. I don't want to picture you with a big, fat cigar.)

I get the impression from your last email that you think I'm full of hot air, but you're too polite to say so. Well, I'll stop teasing, big boy-I wouldn't want a *premature* withdrawal on your behalf. Everyone else who emailed me has scarpered before I had the chance to get down to the *meat*. And I better stop now before this becomes a bad Carry On film ...

Here's the dope: the increase in paranormal activity that all the net-nerds noticed started on the same day. Coincidence? I don't think so. There's stuff happening around the globe, but the epicentre is the UK-and most of it is happening around places of significance to our pagan/Celtic ancestors. Now, statistically, I know that's not difficult in an island like ours, but look at the big picture, not the details. I'm not going too fast for you, am I?

And here's the big story, Morning Glory. I saw something that changed my life. Me, technohead, feet-on-the-ground Laura DuS. Something that all the crazies and peeks of the UFO/Spirit World would give their right arms to see. And losing their right arms would really hamper those types. This was a drug-free, alcohol-free experience, and it talked to me. You want to know what it said, you'll have to meet me on my own turf. I'm not spreading this stuff around online so I can be branded as another nut.

But here's a tip: don't go making plans for the next millennium ...

Your new best friend, Laura.

And there, at the end, was the thing that hooked him and made his blood run cold.

PS Before we meet I need to know if this name means anything to you: Marianne.

Church read the line three times, trying to work out if he was going insane, then wondering if someone was playing a nasty trick on him. It could have been another coincidence, but the way they were piling up gave him an eerie feeling of some power behind the scenes manipulating his life. He turned off the computer and busied himself with mundane tasks for the better part of an hour, but it wouldn't leave him alone and it was only a matter of time before he returned to the keyboard to type out his reply. Then he retired to bed without once looking out of the window into the dark, quiet street.

Ruth reached the church shortly after 9 a.m. It was a bracing morning, with the wind sending the clouds streaking across the blue sky. Standing in the sun, peering at the skeletal trees through screwed-up eyes that cropped out the buildings, Ruth could almost believe she wasn't in London, away from the smog and the traffic noise and the omnipresent background threat. Sometimes she hated the modern world with a vengeance.

The vicar was in the churchyard, in his shirt-sleeves despite the chill, trimming the hedge with an electric cutter. He was tall with a red face-although that might have been from the exertion-and a balding head with white hair swept back around his ears. The drone of the cutter drowned out Ruth's first attempt at an introduction, but she eventually caught his eye.

"I said, shouldn't you have a gardener to do that?" she said.

"Oh, I like to get my hands dirty every now and then. What can I do for you?"

"My name's Ruth Gallagher. A solicitor. I'm looking into the death of Maurice Gibbons. I was told you knew him." She was still surprised how quickly people parted with information once she announced her legal background; it was almost as if they considered her a policewoman-in-waiting.

The vicar nodded ruefully. "Poor Maurice. Still no suspect, I suppose."

"Not yet, but no one's giving up. There was one particular line of enquiry I wanted to discuss with you. It might be nothing, but Mrs. Gibbons mentioned he came to church the week before his death which was unusual-"

"He was a very troubled man," the vicar interjected. "He came round to the rectory after the service for a chat. I can't betray the confidences of the people who come to me ..." He paused, weighing up his options. "But with Maurice dead, I don't see the harm, especially if it gives an insight into his state of mind." Folding his arms, he stared up at the steeple. "Maurice was concerned about spiritual matters. We discussed, amongst other things, the return of the spirits of the dead, ghosts, you know, and possession by demonic entities. He wanted to know how easy it would be to arrange an exorcism if necessary, and I told him something of that magnitude would have to be sanctioned by the bishop."

"He thought he was possessed!" Ruth said incredulously.

"No, I didn't feel that. It was more as if he was talking in general terms, but he was certainly very anxious. He seemed to fear being tormented by the more malignant aspects of the spiritual realm."

The memory unleashed by the therapist returned in force, and Ruth stifled a shudder.

"Are you feeling all right?" the vicar asked, concerned.

"Fine. Just a chill." She forced a smile. She didn't believe in those kind of things, but the coincidence was hard to ignore.

The Victorian house could have been stately, but it had been indelibly scarred by thoughtless inzprovenzent: cheap, UPVC window frames and door, grey plastic guttering, an obtrusive aluminium flue for a gas boiler. Barry Riggs smiled broadly when he answered the door to Church, but it seemed forced, almost gritted. He was around forty, slightly overweight, with a doughy face and glasses that were a little too large. He smelled of cheap aftershave fighting to mask body odour. Inside, he seemed to have the builders in. Planks leaned against the stairs, an empty paint can stood in the hall, there were dust sheets everywhere and a pristine toilet bowl stood in the lounge, but he made no mention of the mess and there was no sound from anywhere else in the house.

"I know why you're here," Riggs said conspiratorially as Church was ushered on to the sheet that covered the sofa.

"I did tell you on the phone," Church replied dryly.

"No, the real reason. Something much bigger than Maurice Gibbons." He nodded knowingly.

"You better fill me in from the beginning, Barry." Church was already harbouring doubts about the validity of his visit. As "chief investigator" of the Crouch End UFO Association, Riggs had sounded more authoritative on the phone than he appeared in his natural habitat.

"Maurice heard of my investigations on the grapevine," Riggs began, sitting a little too close to Church for comfort. "People talk. There's never any coverage in the media, but you talk to people in the street and they know of the importance of my work. It's the future, isn't it? Anyway, I digress. Maurice knew I'd uncovered some unarguable evidence about Government knowledge of the UFO threat. I'm not going to go into details now, but let me just say secret base and St. Albans. We can talk about that later if you want."

"Why did Maurice come to you, Barry?"

"Alien infiltration, Jack. Plain and simple. Maurice was a Government employee. He knew he was a target. He was frightened, Jack, very frightened, and he came to me looking for any information that might protect him. `They walk among us,' he said. I remember it well. He was sitting just where you are, with his little briefcase. He'd got classified information in it, but he wasn't ready to show me just then. It was a matter of building trust, but they got to him before he could divulge what he knew."