The Bones of You (13 page)

“Or at least they knew my father’s name. That’s what the figure said as it grabbed me: my dad’s name, Robert Shingley. It was in this muffled voice, as if the person was eating something and speaking through a mouthful of food.”

She was shaking. It was the first time I’d really seen her look uncertain. “So what are you saying? That this person, this assailant, had something to do with your dad?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying.” She wrapped her hands around the builder’s mug into which I’d poured her tea. “I have no fucking idea.” She levelled her gaze, staring directly into my face. It was unnerving. Her eye makeup was smudged. There was a mark on her right cheek: a smear of dirt. “I’m scared. Dad’s book stirred up a lot of shit. What if this is some kind of obsessive? I mean, it’s Halloween soon. That’s when she killed them. That’s when Little Miss Fucking Moffat killed her victims. She kept them tied up, tortured them, and then slit their throats on Halloween night.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Didn’t you know?” Her eyes were wide. She bared her teeth. It took me a moment to realize that she was laughing at me.

“Christ, don’t you know anything? She killed them as some kind of offering. She was trying to raise a demon, or a spirit. Some crap like that. The kids were her sacrifices to whatever the fuck she thought she was trying to conjure up in the basement of that house.” She turned her head and glanced in the direction of the house. I could see the muscles in her neck straining. A vein stood out, as if it was engorged with blood. “She was trying to raise a demon down there.”

I still didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing; I said nothing at all.

* * *

Pru refused to let me call the police. Once she’d calmed down, and thrown back several mugs of tea, she kissed me lightly on the cheek and left.

“I’ll be okay,” she said.

“You can stay here if you like. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

She smiled. Her eyes were bright in the darkness outside. “You’re a nice man. You know that, don’t you?” A look of regret crossed her face.

She turned away and walked off along the street, not looking back. I watched her leave; I kept my eyes on her until she was out of sight, and then I stayed there a little while longer just in case something happened. Then I went inside and locked the door. I went through into the front of the house and checked the other door, the windows. Pru’s story had spooked me. It wasn’t just the fact that she’d been attacked, but what she’d told me about the house next door. The sacrifices. On Halloween.

Halloween wasn’t a date to which I’d personally ever given much thought. I was vaguely aware of kids dressing up as ghosts and monsters and walking the streets clutching lanterns, but that was the extent of my interest. I simply didn’t make that big a deal out of Halloween. Even Jess, God bless her, was largely ambivalent. She joined in and she enjoyed the fun, but it wasn’t a big thing.

I went upstairs and into the bathroom. I ran the cold tap, cupped water into my hands, and splashed my face. I brushed my teeth and washed my hands. Staring at my face in the broken mirror, I wished for a moment that my life had turned out different. I didn’t want any of this: an ex-wife, an estranged daughter, and weird friendships with people who flitted in and out of my life. Why couldn’t I have a proper life, like other people? A mortgage, a new car every three years, kids that loved me, a wife that cooked me nice meals even when I cheated on her…

I smiled and experienced the illusion that it was part of the crack in the mirror, a crack in reality. God knew what might crawl out.

I left the bathroom and stood on the landing. The door to Jess’s room was ajar; it meant that the cat could come and go as it pleased. It was strange how quickly we’d adapted to having the animal around, giving it the freedom to roam.

I approached the door and stood outside. I could hear a whispered voice through the gap. I leaned in toward the door and tried to make out what Jess was saying, but she was speaking too low for me to make out the words.

Was she talking to the cat, to Magic? Maybe telling him a bedtime story?

How cute.

Slowly, I pushed the base of the door with my foot. It opened a fraction more, but still I couldn’t make out what my daughter was saying. Gently, trying not to disturb her, I moved the door even farther. When there was enough room between door and frame, I slipped my head inside.

I could see Jess by the light creeping in around the open door; she was sitting on the bed with her back to me. Her back was held straight, her shoulders were relaxed. In the mirror on the dresser opposite, I could see her face. Her eyes were closed.

Was she talking in her sleep?

I couldn’t see the cat anywhere. It wasn’t in the room.

Jess was whispering softly. It sounded like a song, or a poem. More like the latter, because it was lacking the cadence of song lyrics. There was no tune, but there was a distinguishable rhythm. “Bright-dark. Bright-dark. Bright-dark. Bright-dark.” She repeated the nonsensical phrase like a single word, over and over again.

I moved forward into the room, easing the door wider. I crept up behind her, but she was completely unaware of my presence.

“Bright-dark. Bright-dark…”

When she laughed, I stopped moving. It was louder than the words, and possessed a blunt quality that was completely lacking in genuine humor. It was a bitter laugh, a sardonic chuckle. A sound I’d never heard Jess make before.

“Jess…sweetheart. Are you okay?”

She turned quickly, twisting at the trunk. Her eyes were still shut. Her mouth was pulled into a bitter grin.

“Hey, Jess. It’s Daddy. Are you asleep?”

She opened her eyes. There was a moment when she failed to recognize me, didn’t register at all who I was. Then realization dawned, and the awful grin changed into her usual bright little smile. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, baby. Who were you talking to just then? Was it Magic? Were you talking to the cat, sweetheart?” I took a few steps closer to the bed.

“No, Daddy. I was talking to the little girl.” She pointed into the corner of the room, to the right of the dresser. As I looked that way, my eyes skimming past the mirror, I could have sworn that I saw movement reflected in the glass. But when I looked again at the mirror, there was nothing to be seen: just the room, the bed, the few items of tatty bedroom furniture that had been left behind.

I looked into the corner where Jess had indicated. As expected, there was nobody there. But there was a strange tinge to the air, a kind of hovering dim light, like a reflection from somewhere.

“It was just a dream, sweetheart…a dream, that’s all. Was the girl scary?”

The light faded, was gone.

She shook her head. “No, she was nice. She said she likes us being here. She isn’t lonely anymore.”

When I reached her, I scooped her up and kissed her forehead, then laid her gently down on the bed. I tucked her in, taking the opportunity to hug her as I did so. She wriggled a bit, giggling, and then quickly settled down.

“You get some sleep, okay?”

She nodded. “I’m tired. Tell me a story?”

I sat down on the bed next to her, ran my hand across her brow. She didn’t feel too hot or too cold. Nor did she look ill. I was probably right about her having a dream. The new surroundings, the upheaval of coming to stay…it had brought on a nightmare. If she was getting into fights at school, she was having issues anyway. This could be an extension of whatever was already going on with her.

“Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a little girl.”

Jess giggled again. She closed her eyes.

“This girl was a princess, but it was a secret. She lived with her mummy, and her daddy was a knight who fought dragons, so she didn’t get to see him that often.”

She was breathing heavily, on the verge of sleep. I ruffled the hair across her forehead with my fingertips. Her skin was so soft, so delicate. Precious.

“One day the princess sat beside a magical lake, and she saw her entire future reflected in the water. Her daddy would kill all the dragons, her mummy would never be poorly again, and everyone would live happily ever after. All the princess had to do was go to sleep…go to sleep…and when she woke up, everything would be fixed. She’d never be lonely again.”

I became aware of someone else in the room. No, that isn’t quite right. I knew there was nobody there, but I could feel them. Someone was standing in the corner listening to the story, taking in my words and cherishing them. I didn’t want to look because the sensation wasn’t at all unpleasant, and I didn’t want to ruin it.

“And they all lived happily ever after…”

I stood and moved away from the bed, keeping my eyes on Jess. She was fast asleep; her face was partially obscured by her pillow, but she looked calm, relaxed.

I sensed rather than heard movement in the corner. I couldn’t take it any longer, so I looked over there. A shadow moved; it was quick, light, barely there at all. Then there was nothing, just the empty air and the suggestion of a disturbance. It was becoming familiar to me, this feeling. It was enough to make a man paranoid, or to make him believe in ghosts.

I left the room and closed the door. Then I opened it again, just an inch or two. I told myself it was to allow the cat to get back in, but deep down a little voice asserted that if the door was open, it would be easier to hear Jess if she called out to me in the night.

When I went downstairs, I finally remembered the book: Robert Shingley’s study of the Katherine Moffat case. I’d been trying not to dwell on any of this. It made me uncomfortable to think of a child killer next door when I had my daughter in the house. But I could keep my curiosity at bay no longer; I had to at least take a look at the book.

I had a hard time finding it because I had no idea where I’d put it down when I’d brought it back up from the cellar. I checked all the obvious places: bookshelf, kitchen table, under the sofa, on the stairs…then I eventually found it stuffed down the back of the armchair in the living room.

I sat down in the chair and looked again at the cover. It was very banal: just a shot of the house next door, but taken years ago, before it had been boarded over like a dirty secret. I opened the book at a random page and was surprised to find it blank. Possibly it was a publishing error or a page that had been inserted by mistake during the printing process. I opened the book at another place, and got the same thing. When I examined the book closer, I discovered that every single page was blank. No text, no pictures, not even a page number. I had no recollection of it being this way before, when I’d taken a quick glance at the book.

Blank white pages: a bunch of pages of nothing.

I shut the book and threw it on the floor. I pushed it away from me with my foot, feeling as if it were dirty. Then I leaned over and picked it up, stood, and walked through to the kitchen. I put the book in the kitchen bin, took it out again, went to the door and chucked it in the outside bin. When I came back inside the house, I made sure the door was locked.

Those blank pages had unsettled me. They felt like a message.

* * *

Much later—I’m not sure what time it was—I woke up in the dark. I knew I was in my room, but everything felt different. The shape and texture of the darkness was unfamiliar, and it took me a few minutes to take it all in, to assimilate the information my senses were giving me.

Ichi, ni, san, shi, go…

I only needed half of the mantra to calm my nerves. I blinked into the darkness. I’m not sure when exactly I became aware of it, but there was someone else in the room. I could hear light, raspy breathing. Then the smell reached my nostrils: it was like backed-up drains, or rotten eggs. I wrinkled my nose; the smell was faint, but it was unpleasant. I waited, expecting to hear a sound, but none came.

I wanted to sit up, reach out, and switch on the bedside lamp. But I wasn’t sure of the precise location of the lamp, or of the cabinet. My memory kept pulling up images of the old room where I used to stay, the room in my friend’s house. This new room, with its different kind of darkness, would not resolve into a solid image in my mind.

I clenched my fists, prepared to start the counting mantra again.

Something moved across the floor. I could hear the sound of claws as they gripped the pile of the carpet.

Magic. It was the cat.

I felt my entire body relax. Suddenly there was no danger; everything was okay, normal, familiar. The cat had made its way into my room—that was all: there was nothing to be afraid of. It must have brought in that foul smell from outside.

But the door to my room was shut. So how had the cat got inside with me?

My fists clenched again.

Slowly, I began to lift myself up on the pillows. I moved as slowly as I could, making as little noise as possible.

The claws scrabbled on the carpet again.

The smell grew stronger: rotten eggs; weeks-old garbage left to decay in a warm room.

Slowly, I shifted the duvet down off my chest, giving myself space to maneuver. If I had to fight, I wanted to make sure I could get at whatever the hell was in there with me.

Then the damned cat meowed.