The Darkening Read online

  Nicholas let himself in the front gate and walked around the small house to the backyard. The young man was again carrying his bottles of cleaning liquids across the yard.

  ‘Hey,’ said Nicholas.

  The boy didn’t break stride, but his eyes slid over to Nicholas.

  ‘Stop,’ said Nicholas. He could hear how quiet his voice was. ‘You can stop.’

  But the young man didn’t stop. Nicholas could see the eyes in his round face were puffy and red.

  He told himself to turn around and go back to his hiding spot on the footpath. Yet he found his feet carrying him to the open door of the garden shed.

  Inside was a folding card table on which the boy had placed his bottles. Nicholas watched him pour bleach, ant poison and — he found himself with the insane urge to laugh — Listerine into a jug. Spread out on the table was a short letter on floral notepaper, the soft, swirling handwriting of a woman. There were no hearts, circles or crosses at the bottom.

  ‘Please don’t,’ said Nicholas.

  The boy lifted the jug, locked his eyes on Nicholas, and drank deeply.

  Of course he can’t stop. He’ll never stop.

  The boy gagged silently, but kept swallowing.

  ‘Are you in there?’ asked Nicholas.

  The boy’s face started turning bright scarlet. His eyes closed tight with pain.

  Nicholas left and hurried back to the street.

  What had happened to the joy in that boy’s life? Or in Dylan Thomas’s life? Or Cate’s life? Were the happy moments of their lives evaporated, boiled instantly away until all that was left was the moment of their death? What happened to the laughter? What happened to the years of contented sighs, when Cate fell asleep curled in his arms, knowing she was wanted and loved? Did it last anywhere, in some other universe, in some distant heaven? Or only now in his own memory? How much of her was trapped in that tiny bathroom in Ealing, or underground in Newham Cemetery, or in his own miserable heart?

  No answers.

  He stepped back behind the lasiandra, which suddenly whispered as a cold breeze hurried up the darkening street. Afternoon was turning to dusk.

  Across and down the road, the Myrtle Street shops were quiet. A car parked. A man entered the convenience store and emerged shortly after with two stuffed bags of groceries. The light in the computer repair shop went out. Two minutes later, a lanky man stepped out and locked the front door. He leaned and sidestepped to peer into Plough amp; Vine Health Foods, gave a short wave, then trotted around to the side street where his Nissan was parked. He drove away.

  Nicholas checked his watch. It was 5.34.

  The lights inside the health food store went out.

  He took a small step back, lowering himself a little behind the tangled shrubs.

  A moment later, the door of Plough amp; Vine Health Foods opened and a tall, slender young woman stepped out. Rowena. She reached into her handbag for keys, dropped them, knelt to pick them up and locked the door. Nicholas watched her test the door was secure, then she checked her watch and hurried out from under the awning of the shops, away from his hiding spot. He watched her draw her long, knitted coat about herself as she strode away. He waited until she was far enough away that he would be just a shadowed stranger in the distance before stepping out from behind the lasiandra to follow.

  Sedgely had her shop here. Quill had her shop here. But did that automatically cast any tenant of the shop under suspicion? Of course not. Ahead, Rowena’s coltish long legs took her across Myrtle Street and up to the corner of Madeglass, where she turned left. She was moving fast, so Nicholas picked up his pace.

  Old Bretherton. Old Sedgely. Old Quill. The old woman walking in the woods with Garnock. Were they the same person? He’d come to think so. But was there any connection between them and the vital young woman hurrying ahead of him? Was there any similarity between the friendly, clumsy woman who sold wheat germ and organic liquorice with a lovely smile and the sinister, bent thing that had watched with glittering eyes from her nest between hanging dresses? He couldn’t see it.

  At the end of Madeglass Street was a busier road that led under the railway line. At the corner, a small huddle of people waited at a bus shelter. Relief seemed to soften Rowena’s tall form, and she slowed her pace as she moved to the end of the queue.

  Nicholas slowed and stopped behind a power pole fifty metres away. He leaned against the hard wood and the faint tang of creosote rose through the chill air. The sun was gone now, and the first sparkles of stars were appearing in the purple sky. He watched Rowena. She was chatting with the middle-aged woman in the queue ahead of her. Both women laughed. Rowena’s teeth were white in the gloom. The headlights of a bus appeared in the railway underpass, its windows glowing warm yellow. A moment later it let out an elephantine sigh and stopped to take on passengers. Rowena got on board. Nicholas watched her pick her way down the aisle to a seat halfway back. The bus rumbled and soon was gone.

  Nicholas drove his hands further into his pockets. There was no malefic air about Rowena. Her shop was Quill’s and her door still bore Quill’s mark, but was that her fault? Of course not. Was she in danger herself? He didn’t think so. The old woman who had been Quill had found somewhere else to hide, a new centre for her web. She was in the woods.

  He felt the cold wind of night grab at his hair. He turned and walked slowly home to Bymar Street.

  ‘. . and then the princess realised he was the kindest, gentlest and best of all the animals, and she loved him most of all. .’

  Bryan’s voice flowed down the hall like warm water, soothing and calm. Suzette could picture Quincy’s eyes rolling and straining to focus as she fought to stay awake and hear the rest of her favourite story. Bryan had been so good, keeping Quincy occupied all day and well away from her sick brother.

  Suzette was in Nelson’s room. It was dark. He lay on the bed, his chest barely rising and falling. The doctor had suggested it was some kind of chest infection and, after conducting all manner of tests for meningococcal, pneumonia and SARS, had let him go home. Bryan had argued that he needed to be in hospital, and Suzette loved him for it. ‘Trust me,’ she said. He did, and she loved him for that too.

  She finished writing Nelson’s full name on a candle that was so purple it was almost black. Already waiting on a tray was a small poppet, a roughly human-shaped thing of white cotton and smelling strongly of sage, garlic and lavender. She’d sewn the poppet closed with Nelson’s hair.

  How dare she? thought Suzette. How dare she attack my child? But a part of her begged her to be quiet, to be grateful. Quill’s done so much worse.

  She listened. Silence from the far end of the house. Story time was done; Quincy was asleep.

  Time to start.

  She lit the candle.

  19

  Pritam sat on the Right Reverend Hird’s bare mattress, unsure where to begin.

  The ambulance had taken John’s body away in the early hours of yesterday morning. Yesterday itself had been a blur: phone calls, discussions with the archdiocese about funeral arrangements, hunting through John’s telephone book and finding with relief that he had no siblings or hidden children that needed contacting. At the end of the long day, Pritam, utterly spent, had collapsed in his room ready for sleep, but instead had lain awake for hours, playing over and over the last few minutes of his friend’s life.

  When John collapsed, Pritam had phoned 000. He’d surprised himself — maybe disappointed himself — with how calm he’d sounded talking to the emergency operator. He’d performed CPR at the operator’s instructions, wincing guiltily at the papery dryness of the old man’s lips beneath his own. As he pressed the heel of his palm into John’s chest, counting, breathing, counting, his eyes had drifted up to the photograph of Eleanor Bretherton. Was it coincidence that John had suffered such a severe attack while looking at the photograph? Surely. But Pritam had seen the look on John’s face. It began as one of wonder, and became something he’d never seen in the old
man before. Now, sitting in his room and waiting to pack his few belongings, Pritam had convinced himself that he knew what the expression was.

  Fright.

  A man who had been seemingly afraid of nothing saw something in that photograph that had literally scared him to death.

  Pritam rose from the bed and walked into the rectory sitting room. The chess game was as it had stood fourteen hours ago, when he had wished to see John’s face in defeat. Well, he’d seen that last night and it cheered him not at all. He opened the storeroom. Two sets of wooden shelves lined opposite walls. One held spare hymn books, sacramental wine and wafers, collection plates, vestments, Christmas decorations and the cast plastic nativity scene John steadfastly refused to replace. The opposite held archive boxes.

  Pritam didn’t know what he was looking for, so he took down the first box, removed its lid and sat on the floor. He pulled out the topmost piece of paper and began to read.

  While Pritam was unpacking boxes, Laine was taping her last one shut. That was the last of Gavin’s belongings put away; some for charity, some for the tip, some to be saved for a happier ‘one day’ that Laine felt, right now, was as distant as the stars.

  She and Gavin had moved into the house fourteen months ago to look after his mother. Mrs Boye’s husband, Gavin’s father, had passed on two years earlier, and the widow’s decline had accelerated in those twenty-four months. Three personal carers had quit, finding her manner too abrasive even for their seasoned experience.

  Twelve months ago, the arrow on Laine’s marriage fire-danger sign had pointed to ‘moderate’. Over the subsequent six months it had escalated to ‘high’. She and Gavin had been trying for a child for more than a year, and had finally started IVF treatment. The hormone injections gave her an immovable headache that soured every heartbeat. Waking up sick, commuting to her grinding job at a graphics company that seemed to tender only for redesigns of cereal boxes and fridge calendars, then returning home to Mrs Boye’s increasingly nonsensical and voluble rants made it hard to unearth even minuscule moments of pleasure.

  Gavin got a promotion: sales executive, Asia Pacific. He wasn’t the brightest man, but he was good-looking and seemed to get along well with everyone. He had a natural charm. He’d certainly charmed her.

  But he had also put her through the humiliation of two affairs. Both times Laine had caught him out, and both times he had collapsed at her feet in a ball of remorseful tears promising never, ever to be so stupid again. While most of her softened to his grief, one deep part of her remained ice, half-wishing that he had stood his ground and explained his infidelity without remorse. If you’re going to pretend your wife doesn’t matter while you’re fucking another woman, show that same face to me, she’d thought. Sure, I might slap it, I might leave it, or I might forgive all of you instead of most of you. But he’d simply sworn never, never, never again. . then landed another overseas job that would deliver him into temptation for weeks on end. The needle moved to ‘extreme’.

  Then, the unforeseeable. A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks notice. ‘I’ll get a job around here,’ he’d told her. ‘Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We’re not paying rent, and Dad’s left us plenty. You should quit too.’ A year earlier, this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a gruelling routine of shitty work, shitty weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grown-ups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn’t keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn’t trust it.

  But Gavin seemed to mean it. He began eating properly — health food and raw vegetables. It should have been good. It would have been good. Had he not started talking in his sleep.

  In the middle of the night, when the huge house ticked uneasily, Gavin’s whispering would wake her. She had to lean close to hear his words. ‘Bird. Tris. Back. Dead.’ By the watery light coming through the window, she could see he was deep asleep as he spoke, yet his expression was adulating, hungry. ‘Bird. Please. Bird. Dead.’ The words kept her awake long after he’d rolled over, snoring. Two people muttering to themselves in the house made her feel guiltily glad she hadn’t fallen pregnant; she didn’t want a child infected with this family’s madness. She stopped taking the fertility drugs, but didn’t tell Gavin.

  Then, just a few days ago, Gavin had risen early. Laine had been so exhausted, having finally fallen asleep at four, that she hadn’t stirred. Mrs Boye had slept uncharacteristically late too. They’d both been roused at seven by police knocking to bring ‘some very bad news’.

  And now? Her lawyer was battling with Gavin’s life insurer, but Mr Boye’s inheritance was hers. She would find a carer for Mrs Boye and get the hell out of this quietly haunted house. Two nights ago she had been in the shower making plans for just that when Nicholas Close had visited.

  Close was pale and odd-looking. Not unhandsome, but held together inside by wires stretched too tight. Laine had heard that his wife had died, and that he’d been with Tristram when he was taken way back when. Close had said he wanted to talk about Gavin, and she’d had to clamp her mouth shut. She had wanted to yell: Tell me about the bird! What does it mean? What bird?! But that would have signed her application into Bedlam, so she sent him on his way.

  Now it was done. The last box was packed. She could go and put all this behind her.

  Except she wanted to know.

  Gavin’s brother had been murdered. His killer had suicided. A boy had gone missing a week or so ago. His killer had suicided. Gavin had suicided. What linked all this death? Nicholas Close.

  She was leaving this awful city. Who cared if he thought her mad?

  She would go to see him.

  20

  Hannah Gerlic was so angry she could spew. Miriam, who was two years older and in year seven and supposed to be more adult about things, had chucked the most dangerous kind of spaz when she caught Hannah using her lip gloss. Jeez, come on! Miriam knew Mum wouldn’t let Hannah buy her own lip gloss! But catching her, Miriam hadn’t yelled and spacked out; she’d gone silent. This meant one of two things: either she’d march straight to Mum and reveal some secret she’d crossed her heart not to tell, or she’d Get Even Later.

  As Hannah stumped along alone, she understood very clearly that Miriam had chosen the latter.

  They’d walked off towards school together, Miriam all sweetness and light and miss-you-Mum. But out of sight of home, she had turned on Hannah, fast and harsh as those peregrine falcons you see on TV documentaries, diving like lightning on field mice and ripping their guts out. ‘Just wait, you little bitch,’ she’d hissed, and then had given Hannah eighteen-carat, diamond-studded, first-class silent treatment the whole two kilometres to school.

  Once there, Hannah quickly forgot her older sister’s fury and the day ambled along nicely to its final (and Hannah’s favourite) lesson: Art and Craft. Hannah was good at art, and loved the luscious sense of creation that came from spooning thick acrylic paint onto a brush and sliding it over pristine white paper, of making something out of nothing. Mrs Tho (who Hannah thought was the prettiest woman in the world and who was always patient) said Hannah’s paintings were magnificent and told her to keep in mind that the school fete was coming up, where she might be able to exhibit some of her work. The idea plucked pleasant shivers inside Hannah, and the thought of other people seeing — and maybe buying — her work was. . well, just awesome.

  Afire with this, she had attacked this afternoon’s blank paper with excitement, and come up with something vibrant and pretty and deliciously weird. It was a horse in a man suit in a supermarket aisle shopping for seahorses. Where the image had come from, who knew? But it made her classmates laugh and Mrs Tho smile. Hannah couldn’t wait to show Miriam, who was usually the biggest fan of her creative talents.

  Not this afternoon, though.

  A glacial freeze surrounded Miriam as they started to wa
lk home. Hannah tried to engage her older sister by telling her about the fete. She started to unroll the new painting, but at the top of the hill past the school Miriam stopped in her tracks.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you, you thieving little dog. I’m going along Silky Oak Street. You walk the other way.’

  Hannah felt a small thump of fear in her tummy. The ‘other way’ was along Carmichael Road.

  Since Dylan Thomas went missing, she and Miriam weren’t allowed to walk along Carmichael Road. ‘How come?’ they’d both asked in a singsong complaint — although both of them preferred the Silky Oak Street route because it took them past the Myrtle Street shops, where they could buy a Cornetto if funds were plentiful or (if times were tight) share a Bounty bar. Mum had explained with gravity that the woods off Carmichael Road were too big and it was very easy for careless girls to get themselves lost. And now Miriam was forcing Hannah to go past them.

  ‘Miriam. .?’

  Miriam walked a few steps and whirled again, eyes brightly ferocious. ‘I mean it, shithead!’ she spat. ‘You follow me and I’ll kick you to death!’

  Hannah stood frozen. She’d never seen her sister this angry. She remembered a half-heard warning from Mum: Miriam’s going through a phase right now. She’s growing up fast and lots of changes are happening to her. She’s liable to be a bit testy.

  Wow, you reckon? thought Hannah.

  She watched Miriam stalk off on her long, thin legs. She fought the sudden urge to bawl, slowly rolled up her painting and walked to the terminus of the school’s avenue, which turned down Carmichael Road.