Читать книгу The Secrets Of The Shadows - Helen Phifer - Страница 14

Chapter 5

Father John had a busy day ahead of him; he had two funerals and a christening to arrange. He also had a sick parishioner to visit who needed to speak to him about something they wouldn’t discuss with anyone else. But first things first, he wandered into the kitchen in his SpongeBob pyjamas and fluffy slippers. He needed coffee. Not just a spoonful from a jar, proper coffee. He rarely spent money on himself but the one thing he had finally succumbed to was a coffee machine, one that could match the industrial size one in the local Costa without breaking a sweat. In fact Father John’s cappuccinos were the stuff made of legends; if they were to make him a saint it would be Father John – Patron Saint of Coffee Drinkers. The woman’s union would congregate around the large kitchen table once a week with a plate of homemade biscuits and twelve of his coffees, then he would bow out gracefully and leave them to it. For the first time in history there was actually a waiting list to join them and he knew it was because he was running a parish coffee shop. He ground the beans and set about making his coffee, popping two slices of wholemeal bread into the toaster. Once he’d eaten his breakfast and read the daily paper he would shower and put on his sin-busting suit as he fondly called it and get to work.

He was on his second cup of coffee and halfway through reading the paper when he heard an ear-splitting scream outside. He jumped up, throwing his paper to the side, and ran to the window to see what the hell it was. He peered out and could see the bentfigure of Mrs Higgins come hurtling through the churchyard and into the front garden. For an old woman she could move fast! He rushed to the front door and opened it for the woman, who was now standing there breathing heavily and pointing towards the churchyard. She couldn’t speak, so John slipped on his boots and began jogging in the direction she was pointing. He couldn’t see anything and looked around expecting to see some young couple having sex or some drunken, homeless guy but there wasn’t anything. He looked back at her and shrugged. She lifted a shaking hand and pointed towards the wall. He turned around slowly this time, looking at the graves, and then he saw her; he had to blink to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. She was lying on one of the much older graves and she looked as if she was asleep, only John knew she was in a much worse state than being asleep. He nodded to Mrs Higgins and made his way towards the grave, not wanting to go any further but knowing he had a duty of care towards this poor woman. He stood in front of her and crossed himself, saying a quick prayer, then he bent down and placed two fingers to her neck to check for a pulse. He knew there wouldn’t be one but he had to try. He stood up and walked back to the house to phone the police. Dear God what was the world coming to?

***

Will dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. He couldn’t spend all day wallowing in self pity and hiding away from the world, he needed to sort this mess out now. The combination of the alcohol and the thought of how much he had hurt Annie was giving him a butterflies. He was positive he hadn’t actually had sex with Laura, he had been pissed as a fart but he remembered telling her that he loved Annie so how had she ended up naked next to him? He knew from past experience that when he got that drunk he wouldn’t be able to get it up for Jennifer Aniston so there was no way he would have been able to do it with Laura. The hot water cleansed his skin but he still felt like a dirty, rotten cheat on the inside. He rubbed the lemon shower gel that Annie bought all over. He hoped to God he would be able to sort it out with her because the last six months had been the best of his life. He had even been thinking about asking her to marry him and up until he’d met her he never really believed that he’d ever feel that way about a woman – ever. His phone was ringing but it was only when he turned the shower off and began to dry himself that he heard it; his heart skipped a beat and he crossed his fingers it was her. Dashing naked through to the bedroom to reach his phone he picked it up and saw it was a blocked number and knew it was work.

‘Will speaking.’

He listened as the control room operator informed him that a body had been found in St Mary’s churchyard, it looked suspicious and would he attend. ‘Yes, I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ He ended the call, bollocks now it was going to be hours before he would get to speak to Annie. Not wanting to do it over the phone he had no choice so he dialled her number. She didn’t pick up and he hadn’t really expected her to so he left her a message. ‘Annie, it’s not what you think. I swear to God I don’t know how she ended up there. I was so drunk I wouldn’t be able to, well, you know what I mean. I love you so much, I’ve got to go, there’s a suspicious death at St Mary’s and it might be hours before I can come and see you. Please Annie, I love you with all my heart – let me explain.’

He ended the call and slumped on the bed, today was going to be a long day.

***

Annie had driven around aimlessly for a couple of hours, at one point she ended up on Walney Island and parked the car on the seafront, watching the waves crashing onto the shore with tears rolling down her cheeks. She finally decided it was time to go home and parked the car outside her semi-detached house. Her phone was vibrating on the seat next to her but there was no way she would answer it. She couldn’t bear to hear Will’s voice right now, he had hurt her so much yet she wasn’t surprised. She knew she had got too involved so soon after Mike. She looked at her house, it had been over a month since she’d been inside. The For Sale sign that was swaying in the wind would be coming down, there wasn’t another option. It looked like she would be moving back after all, she couldn’t stay with Jake, he’d smother her with love, and the last time she’d stayed at her brother’s it had caused no end of heartache for everyone. She’d run there to escape from Mike after he’d smashed her over the head with a bottle and almost killed her, which had led her to discover the haunted house in the woods, where she had also discovered her new found ability to see ghosts. Oh and she’d managed to attract the attention of a man called Henry who was a serial killer.

Her phone beeped, shaking her from the memories which were filling her mind with horror; the only good thing which had come out of it had been her falling in love with Will. He had turned into her knight in shining armour, and now this morning had put an end to all of it. Her phone beeped to tell her she had a voicemail so she opened the glove compartment and threw the phone in there, slamming it shut. She needed some time on her own, time to think, and this was as good a place as any. She got out of the car and walked up the three steps to reach her front door. Once she opened it and stood inside she waited for a couple of minutes to see what would happen. See if the memories of the beatings Mike used to give her would come flying back, but they didn’t. In fact she didn’t feel anything. She went into her living room, which had once been full of mismatched, antique painted furniture. Now it was an empty shell; everything had been packed away and stored in one of her brother’s barns at his farmhouse in Abbeywood. The only thing of any comfort was the carpet that she’d had fitted just before Mike had tried to kill her, it still smelled new. She went through into the kitchen and checked the cupboards, there were a couple of mugs, a plate and two forks and a spoon – at least she had something to eat and drink with. She filled the sink with soapy water and plonked the lot of it into the bowl to soak. She needed to go and buy some groceries. In fact she needed to buy quite a bit unless she waited until Will was at work and went back for all her stuff – she would have to because she didn’t have much spare cash. Turning to look at the kitchen door where Mike had decided to try and cave the back of her head in, she expected to feel upset, but the only thing she felt was relief that she was still alive, even if her life was one fucked up mess. She ran up the stairs to check the bedrooms and turn the heating on to air the house through, it didn’t feel much like summer today. She didn’t even look into the master bedroom, instead she went into the much smaller spare bedroom, which looked out onto the tree-lined front street. This house was by no means as pretty as Will’s but it was her house and it was time to reclaim it.

Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them back. She had wanted to spend the rest of her life with Will but she wouldn’t let him treat her like a fool. She stripped the single bed, shook all the covers and pillow cases and then put them back on. They had never been used before so there was no point washing them, she was just checking for spiders and dust. Annie turned to peer out of the window and caught a glimpse of a little girl standing on her front door step. She was wearing a long, white cotton dress and had platinum blonde hair which had been parted down the middle and braided into two plaits. She didn’t recognise the girl as one of the neighbour’s kids; the poor thing must be frozen because there was a bitter wind today. And then she noticed that the litter on the street was whipping around on the tarmac pavements in a frenzy, but the girls hair and dress weren’t moving at all. Annie looked up and down the street to see if there were other people around, the only one was the elderly man across the road and he was hanging onto his battered old trilby to stop it from blowing away. Her heart began to race and the palms of her hands were damp. The girl didn’t move, she carried on staring up at her. Annie pressed her face to the glass and opened her mouth to speak but the girl lifted a finger to her lips to shush her. Then she turned and walked down the first two steps … by the time she should have touched the third one she had disappeared. Annie ran down her stairs and opened the door; there was no sign of the girl. She stepped out of the house and down the steps to check the front street, as she trod on the bottom step something crunched underneath her shoe. She stopped and bent down, picking up a broken toy figure, it was a head and body with no legs or arms. It was a pretty creepy toy because whoever he was he looked far too old to be an action figure, his hair was grey. She looked up and down the deserted street then turned and went back inside her house. She went into the kitchen and opened one of the empty drawers, throwing the figure into it. She didn’t like it but for some reason she knew it was important to someone, maybe the girl had played with it when she had been alive. As much as she didn’t want to admit it she knew that the girl was dead, normal kids don’t disappear into thin air. If only Jake had been here, he would have had a shit fit.

***

A car horn beeped outside and Will pulled himself up from the bed. He went downstairs, picking up the overturned picture. He kissed his finger and pressed it to Annie’s lips – sorry babe. The hall still stunk of stale vomit and his stomach lurched once more, he opened the front door and inhaled the fresh air, lifting his hand to wave at the officer waiting for him in the patrol car. Slamming his door shut he went down the steps and opened the car door. ‘How’s it going Sean?’

‘Oh you know how it is Will, same shit different day and all that.’

Will nodded; he knew exactly what he meant. ‘So what’s happened?’

‘I haven’t been to the scene; I heard the shout come over the radio that an old dear had found a dead woman in the church grounds. They’ve been in a flap ever since.’

‘Christ. As if we need any more murders, I take it that it doesn’t look like natural causes?’

‘Not from what I’ve heard on the radio. They were shouting about getting a tent there from CSI to cover her up. I spoke to Smithy who’s on scene guard, he said she was totally naked.’

‘Not good Sean, not good at all.’

The church steeple loomed in the distance and Will thought he would give anything to be anywhere other than there. But he would push his problems to the back of his mind and do his best for whoever it was that needed his help, they hadn’t asked for what had happened to them – unlike him.

June 27^th 1984

Father John wanted to speak to Sophie without Beth present but it was impossible, Beth knew that something was going on but she didn’t want to admit it. He’d woken in the night after a terrible dream where he was playing tug of war. He was on one side and the shadow man on the other – Sophie had been the rope. When he had opened his eyes his hair was plastered to his head with sweat. The room smelled terrible, like rotting vegetables. He’d sat up and reached out to turn on the bedside lamp, smelled then jumped out of bed and turned the main light on because the lamp cast too many shadows. It had been years since he’d encountered that particular smell and he felt unsettled; the shadow man had been here – in his room. John knew that whatever it was wouldn’t be able to touch him in a house that belonged to God but it scared him that it still believed it could go wherever it wanted. The sooner Father Robert came back from Manchester the better because at this very moment in time John felt violated in God’s house. He knelt down at the side of his bed and began to recite a prayer that he hadn’t really used since he was a child. He paused, sure that he heard a deep voice repeating each word, and every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He whipped his head around, looking for a shadow lurking in a corner, but he was alone. He finished his prayer then stood up. ‘I’m not afraid of you anymore. I don’t know why you are here but I think that it’s time you moved on, because if you don’t I will send you back to whatever hellhole it is you have come from and you will never see the light of day again.’

With that John left the bedroom and went straight downstairs and out of the front door to check on Beth and her children. Beth’s house was in darkness which was a good sign, they must all be sleeping. Unsettled, he went back to the presbytery and took the key for the church from the large pewter dish on the sideboard in the hall. He needed to be close to God, so he made his way over to the church, which was shrouded in darkness. The spotlights which illuminated it every evening had turned off. They ran on a timer so as to save money but he wasn’t scared, this place was his life and he believed in God and the power of good. This also meant that he believed in evil as well and somehow in the hours of darkness it was far easier to believe that evil was lurking in the shadows. As he strode across the damp grass he sensed someone walking behind him but he brushed it off as his imagination. It wasn’t until he reached the small cemetery where the grass ended and the gravel began that he heard definite footsteps behind him. He didn’t turn to look but continued in the direction of the church. When he reached the huge oak door he inserted the key in the lock and opened it. His heart was hammering inside his chest but he would not show his fear because he knew that it would be a sign of his weakness. Stepping inside he felt along the wall to the left of him for the light switch. When his fingers located it and pressed it down the relief which washed over him was overwhelming as the entrance was bathed in glorious light. He stood there leaning against the closed door until his breathing slowed and was back to normal; the door felt as if it was vibrating the tiniest bit. He had never noticed that before, but then he had never had cause to come in here in the middle of the night after a bad dream and being followed by a man who wasn’t from this world. The inner sanctum of the church was still in darkness and for the first time in his life as a priest he felt scared of that darkness and what could be waiting in there – Get a grip John; you are in the Lord’s house. There is no way that God is going to let such evil enter his house; this is a place of safety and love. He marched across to the glass door and threw it open, if that repugnant smell had entered his nostrils he would have screamed but it didn’t. The church smelled like it always did, a little bit damp with the lingering aroma of candlewax and the smell of the fresh flowers that the mother’s union brought in and arranged each week. This week it was lavender, roses and lilies and they smelled fabulous. He crossed himself; Thank you God, I’m glad you kept to your side of the bargain, I need all the help I can get. I’m still a beginner at all this stuff you know. Please don’t leave me to deal with it on my own because I don’t know whether I can. He turned on the lights and the shadows were banished, John felt his nerves begin to steady and his heart start slowing to a more regular pace. He busied himself lighting candles and arranging hymn books into neat piles. When he’d done this he walked to the altar and knelt down to pray harder than he’d ever prayed in his life.