Creed (24 page)

Creed shivered. He was cold, but he was more frightened than cold. He switched off the light and sat there in the dark, watching the street, nervous that
they
might have followed him.

No, right now the park pigs would be questioning them. One of them, anyway – the stick insect couldn’t have escaped. But they might visit him later back at the mews. Oh Jesus. Enough is enough. Time to turn the story over to the news editor; let the newshounds, the ‘insighters’, the investigative journos – the penheads – look into it. He could give them enough to get going. And why not call in the police again? After all, he
had
been attacked, and that cadaverous creep had broken into his home. (He wondered how the freak was explaining himself to the cops at that moment in the park. That it had a fetish for ice-cold, moonlight dips? With luck they’d put it in a cell for the night. With greater luck they’d lock it up for good on the indictment that it was too grotesque to roam free.) Hell, let the
Dispatch
decide; the ed would know how to play it.

He switched on the engine and the headlights, but remained there thinking. The seat was wet through, his feet felt as though they were wrapped in soggy rags, and when he delved into the breast pocket of his coat for a cigarette, his fingers touched soaked mush. He swore. Loudly.

He reached for the cloth he always kept on the backseat, then pulled out the Nikon from the coat pocket he’d shoved it into when fleeing from the park. As he dried it off he prayed that the camera had survived the ducking.

The drive back to Earl’s Court was wretchedly uncomfortable, not even his new-found outrage managing to warm him. They’ll get it, the bastards, he promised himself. They’ll get what’s coming to them. You don’t screw with the Press and get away with it, no sir. He grinned maliciously. So you wanted to keep out of the public eye, did you? Just wait and see what happens when your ugly wrinkled mug appears in the paper, page one, no less, across three columns at least! Nobody pisses on Joe Creed.
Nobody.

He swung into the mews, the jeep’s beams highlighting the bumpy cobblestones, and came to a halt in front of his garage doors, parking tight, sideways on. He was too cold, tired and shaky to garage the Suzuki. Besides, it wasn’t the first time it’d had to spend a night in the open – a few beers seemed to narrow the garage’s entrance too much for precision parking.

Picking up the cloth-wrapped camera, Creed slid over to the passenger door and stepped out. He walked around the corner to his front door, key pointed like a homing device.

But the door was already open.

He gawped and became aware of the banshee-like wailing, a sound that a child in agonising pain might make.

‘
Sammy!
’

The stark cry was left ringing in empty air as Creed dashed into the house and up the stairway. Dread on arriving at his own home had become an almost familiar sensation by now, but he didn’t pause to dwell upon the fact. Lights shone from the kitchen and lounge, but both rooms were empty. So was the bedroom. And so was the bathroom.

He realised that the terrible wailing was coming from the floor above.

‘Sam?’ This time his voice was hushed. ‘Sammy?’ Louder, but not much.

He entered the kitchen and looked up into the vortex that was the spiral staircase, the dark circle at the top tinged orange. He trod the metal steps warily at first, but his ascent gathered momentum when the wailing over his head rose in pitch to an awful squawking screech.

There was no light on in the room directly above, but amber glowed from the darkroom doorway. Something hung there in the opening, silhouetted as it swung and twisted from side to side.

‘No, no, no . . .’ Creed muttered as he approached, incredulity as well as fear intoned in the word. Who would do something like that? You’d have to be . . . you’d have to be inhuman . . .

He turned on the room’s light and stood there as if receiving an electric shock, his trembling fingers still gripping the switch. The thought occurred to him that he’d have to search the garage area for a hammer.

He’d need that to prise out the nail that pinned his cat over the door.

Life is full of crises, we all know that. It’s how we learn, how we grow. They help form character, mould the man (or woman), as it were. As an opposite to good times, they even help us appreciate life a little more; and a person without strife is a person without passion, for trauma both tests and strengthens moral fibre, becomes a measure of human depth. There is no adversity on this earth that cannot be overcome by fortitude and positive will. Or so we’re led to believe.

Now, to be chased through a park in the dead of night by an emaciated ghoul and a herd of trees, to play cat-and-mouse in freezing pond water, to be stabbed but not stabbed by a dagger-like finger, then to return home and find your pet cat nailed to a doorframe and your only son missing is not, mercifully, a common experience to us all, but it is one that would sorely test the stoutest of spirits. Creed, as we know, does not possess the stoutest of spirits.

He didn’t go to pieces – at least, not right away. First he found a hammer, then he wrapped his coat around Grin to stop the poor animal scratching his arms and face to shreds. After that he levered the long nail from the wood and the cat’s tail, while holding on to the squealing creature beneath the coat with one arm. Once free, Grin didn’t bother with thanks: she shot from Creed’s arm in a blur of furry speed and disappeared down the well of the spiral staircase. Where she went after that the photographer had no idea, and he made no effort to find out; his prime concern was the whereabouts of his son.

The folded piece of paper, coloured orange by the darkroom light, lay on the floor in the doorway as if the cat had been used as a pointer to it. Creed picked it up, his fingers smearing blood on to its surface. He opened it and read:

That’s when he went to pieces.

So an hour later we find Creed ruminating in the kitchen, the bottle of Bushmills in front of him down to its last quarter, the room itself thick with fug, the ashtray on the table piled high with brown cigarette stubs.

‘Bastards,’ he murmurs to himself, not for the first time in that long, hysterical, then lachrymal, then guilt-ridden hour. How could he have been so stupid? he asks himself. What the fuck was he going to do? How was he going to get Sammy back?
What
was he going to tell Evelyn?

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

He drains the whiskey in the tumbler and pours another. Before drinking he fumbles with a cigarette paper, overloading it with tobacco, scattering flakes across the table, into the booze. It takes two hands to hold the match steady. What a night!

The liquid no longer hurts his throat when he swallows; neither does it revive his spirits.
I’m dead
, he groans inwardly.
Evelyn will kill me. If she doesn’t, they might!

His head sags, nods once, jerks up again. It sags again, stupor at last beginning to dull everything. His eyelids are too heavy, they start to close.

Footsteps on the stairs . . .

‘The door was open,’ she said quietly.

He eyed Cally with disbelief, amazed (and wide awake again) that she had the nerve to confront him. Her hair tonight was tied into a bunched tail at the back, leaving her face exposed, somehow guileless. Beneath her beige raincoat she wore a soft black polo-neck that emphasized the clean curve of her jaw. She looked good and he hated himself for noticing.

‘You . . .’ he said, the word accusing.

‘I’ve closed it behind me. You’re quite safe.’

‘I’m . . . safe?’ He may have been wide awake now, but his thoughts were not yet together.

‘For the moment,’ she added, but not for assurance. ‘Can I have some of that Scotch?’ She nodded towards the bottle.

‘Irish,’ he corrected. ‘It’s Irish.’

She came all the way into the room and he couldn’t make up his mind if it was sympathy or disgust he saw in her eyes. He straightened in his chair, palms flat on the table, cigarette jutting from his mouth. Cally looked around for another glass, walking over to a wall cupboard and looking inside.

‘Below,’ he told her.

She knelt and took out a tumbler that matched his, then brought it to the table and poured herself a drink. She swallowed half before saying anything else. ‘You don’t look so good,’ she commented.

Creed leaned back in his chair and managed a crooked smile. ‘I don’t look so good? Really? You know what?
I don’t feel so fucking good!
’

He was on his feet, the chair toppling over behind him, his face livid, his knuckles white-ridged and aimed at her.

Cally took two steps back, her glass nearly slipping through her fingers. He came around the table towards her and she backed away, pulling out a chair and positioning it between them.

‘Joe, please calm down. Please calm down.’

He drew some satisfaction from the light of fear in her eyes.

‘You want me to calm down, you fucking bitch? You kidnap my son and you want me to calm down?’ He grabbed the back of the chair and tossed it aside. Cally retreated around the corner of the kitchen table and held out a hand to ward him off.

‘You’ve got to listen to me, Joe. You mustn’t blame me for this, I’m trying to help you. If you don’t want Samuel to be hurt you must listen to me.’

He stopped, dearly wanting to throttle the life out of her, but not quite sure if he had the strength right at that moment. His anger had not dissipated, but concern for his son and his own weariness dimmed it. ‘You drugged me the other night, didn’t you? You dropped something into my drink that made me see things that weren’t there.’

Perhaps in some perverse way she thought the truth might help him trust her a little. ‘I mixed something in your tobacco, Joe. Not enough for you to notice, but enough to have an effect. Can we sit down and talk?’

‘Not until you tell me why you did it?’ His voice was low and his fingers flexing.

‘To frighten you.’

‘Shit –
why?
’ He took a step towards her and she backed away again. Creed managed to restrain himself, but only just.

‘To soften you up, to scare you. It was a mild hallucinogen – no lasting effects. It helped them put thoughts –
bad
thoughts – into your mind.’

‘Jesus, I guessed it was something like that!’ He shook his head tiredly. ‘For a while there I thought I was going nuts. I . . . I’ve got to sit down.’ He did so, shakily, using the chair he’d just thrown aside. He stretched across the table for his drink and gulped it back.

If she was afraid, Cally no longer showed it, although her movement as she took the seat opposite him was steady, wary.

He watched her for a little while and when she picked up the cigarette that had been burning the table since falling from his lips earlier, and offered it to him, he regarded it suspiciously.

‘It’s okay,’ she promised. ‘The tobacco’s clean. Your tin was emptied, the tobacco replaced. Look at all those others you’ve smoked tonight.’

He took the cigarette and revived it with short drags. ‘Where is he?’ he asked finally, forcing calmness upon himself.

‘Safe. For the moment.’

He lunged across the table (so much for forced calmness), his hands reaching round the back of her neck to pull her towards him. Their faces were only inches from each other as he all but spat the question at her again: ‘
Where is he?
’