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Wham! Daniel Robinson
flung the outer doors open and, shotgun in hand, strode out into the
drive that led to this his so-called ancestral home. He stopped, and
scanned the darkness that surrounded it tonight. His tormentor was
out there somewhere and he intended to put a stop to it.
But where was it? It had
been there moments earlier. He knew that because he'd seen it,
lurking in the gloom, its eyes like twin red stars, gazing up at his
room. What it was, he didn't know; a black shape in the night,
hunched at his window, trying to get in, each and every evening.
Whatever it was, he knew
what it had come for.
Him.
And it wouldn't stop
until it had fulfilled its murderous duties.
But now he saw it, a
movement in the bushes twenty yards to his left.
Gun gripped tighter than
ever, gaze not leaving those bushes, he bent down and grabbed a
pebble. His aim filled with malice, he flung the stone, hard, at the
bushes.
And?
Nothing.
Nothing happened.
Well fine, my friend,
I can wait.
And he did.
He waited, as long
moments passed.
And still nothing
happened.
'What's the matter?' he
shouted. 'Don't like it when your prey comes looking for you?'
And still nothing
happened.
Time to flush it out.
He turned his back on it
and headed back towards the house.
And now?
He heard it, again the
rustling from the bushes.
Quickly he turned.
And now it was stood
there, in the open, no more than fifteen yards away from him.
And now at last he saw
what it was that had appeared at his window each night since he'd
moved into this damnable house.
And now he knew that all
the shotguns in all the world wouldn't stop it.
*
'I thought you'd be
taller,' he said.
'I am taller,' she said.
'Than what?' he said.
'Than you,'
she said.
Jesus! What a way to
spend a Friday night. While everyone else in this rotten country was
out getting drunk, laid or stabbed, where was Liz Sanford? She was
roaming a shut-down amusement park, gun in hand and looking for a
creature that probably didn't even exist.
And was she alone?
Why no. She was with a
man. She was with Geoff Grayson, the amusement park's head of
security. He was the one who'd first reported the creature that
probably didn't even exist, and a man who was making it perfectly
clear that she didn't live up to his expectations of how a woman in
her profession should be.
'And I thought you'd be
younger,' he said.
'I'm twenty six,' she
said.
'And I thought you'd be
blonde.'
You'd think a man would
be happy just to have the government's official occult investigator
running round after him; but, oh, no, he had to want Femrah, Queen of
the Amazons. He'd probably expected her to turn up and wrestle his
'creature' into submission with her bare hands or something. Well no
thanks, she'd stick with the Colt 45, thanks very much.
'This isn't a date,' she
pointed out.
'I know,' he said.
'It's an investigation
into the deadly realms of the paranormal.'
'I know.'
'Then how does how I look
matter?'
They were now stood by a
whirligig shaped like a giant octopus - which, according to him was
the most recent place their quarry'd showed its ugly face.
According to
eyewitnesses, it was huge and black and furry, with claws like
scythes, fangs like daggers and it could use your head as a
basketball any time it felt like it.
'This is where you last
saw it?' she said.
He stopped beside her.
'This is the place all right.'
'And you're sure it was
real?'
'Too right it was. The
thing could've torn a man apart with its bare claws.'
She'd been there for
forty five minutes and she'd not seen any monsters; not on the roller
coaster, not on the dodgems, not even in the ghost train where,
according to all accounts, you could barely move without bumping into
them.
But then she saw
something.
Something that moved.
She'd only caught a
glimpse of it, from the corner of her eye, but it had been there all
right, dashing between two rides in the darkness to her left.
She pointed her gun at
that darkness. According to the man who'd issued her with it, 'Betty,
this thing could blow a monster's head off from halfway across the
Channel.' Twelve months into the job and she was still waiting to
meet something it actually worked on.
Whatever it was she'd
glimpsed, she'd lost track of it.
But then...
...a flash of movement to
her right.
And instantly her gun was
pointed at it.
But now it was gone.
That didn't matter. What
mattered was it was drawing closer with each burst of activity. Bit
by bit, it was closing in on them.
'Get behind me,' She told
Grayson.
He did.
She took a step forward.
No way was she going to stand there like a dummy, waiting for it to
come and get them. Instead, she
was going to get it.
That plan lasted all of
two seconds. Because, from behind the whirligig, it emerged.
Like it had all the time
in the world to deal with these puny interlopers in its kingdom, it
stepped out in front of them.
It was black.
It was furry.
And it was huge; seven
feet of snarling menace - every single inch of that menace aimed at
one person; Elizabeth J Sanford.
It roared at her.
It snarled at her.
And now...
...it headed for her.
Grayson took a step back.
Liz didn't.
She did the opposite. She
charged forward and, before it could react, rammed her boot, hard,
into its testicles.
With a cry of, 'Christ
above!' it doubled over and clutched its groin. Before it could
recover, she grabbed its head, pulled it off and, like the mask it
was, flung it at the ground.
That was the disguise
disposed of, now to deal with the idiot behind it. Without the false
head, he was no more than six foot tall, and - doubled over - only
half that. She grabbed his ear and twisted it.
He shouted 'Ow!' which
suggested she'd got his attention.
She told him, 'You've got
ten seconds. What's going on?'
He wasn't going to
answer.
She twisted his ear
again, and again he called out...
...but, this time, he
owned up. 'We heard there was stolen loot from a bank job buried
under the park and we thought that if we scared everyone away, we
could have it all to ourselves.'
She glared at him. 'Let
me get this straight,' she said. 'You decided to scare everyone away
from a funfair, by dressing up as a monster, so you could have its
buried treasure all to yourselves?'
'And we'd have got away
with it if not for - Ow!'
She'd punched him. She
grabbed his ear again. 'What's your name?'
'Ken Hibbert.'
'And you live where?'
'147, Sycamore Drive.'
'And what's this?' She
waved her gun in his face.
He watched it a moment
and said, 'A gun.'
'And did it occur to you
that, if I'd thought you were real, I might shoot you with it?'
'He
claimed you wouldn't.' He being their mutual friend the security
chief. 'He said you were just a woman and, if you saw a monster,
you'd run away.'
'Right, the pair of you,'
she ordered. 'Listen to this and listen good. If you ever do anything
like this again, I'm going to come round to your homes, I'm going to
throw you on the floor and I'm going to tear your hearts from your
still-breathing chests. Got that?'
'Yes,' they both said.
'Good.' Releasing
Hibbert's ear, she flung him away from her. 'Now leave.'
And they did, casting
glances back at her as they went, pushing and shoving each other,
arguing among themselves about whose fault it was that their
brilliantly conceived and original scheme had gone tits up.
Liz watched them till
they were gone, then she turned and headed back to her van.
For this she'd driven
seventy miles from Sheffield?
*
'I heard supermarkets are
great places to meet men.'
'Then you heard wrong.'
Alison Parker shrugged.
Clearly her flatmate wasn't in any better a mood than she'd been at
three AM when she'd arrived home from work and slammed shut every
door in the flat - then gone and done it all over again to make sure
she wasn't the only one in the place denied a good night's sleep. But
that was what you had to put up with when you were flatmate to the
nation's official occult investigator.
Mid morning found them in
the frozen fish section of the local Co-op, Alison with the plastic
basket in her hand as Liz searched a freezer for something to put in
it.
'Five times,' said Liz,
'five times in the last two months it's happened; people acting out
schemes from Scooby Doo.
And why Scooby Doo?
Why can't it be the X-Files,
or Quatermass? At
least it'd have a bit more class.'
Alison did the cliché
thing of checking her own reflection in a mirrored surface, the shiny
metal strip that ran around the freezer's edge. What it was there for
was anyone's guess but it was an act she always had her characters
perform in her novels - one that Liz was always telling her off for.
According to Her Highness; 'Characters already know what they look
like, so why do they have to look in a mirror before they can tell
the reader?'
Well, Alison's reflection
told her one thing. Liz might be the looker in this flat-share
relationship but Alison had the intrigue. Why? Because she
was the one in black. T-shirt, skirt, lace
tights, shoes, eye liner, finger rings, ear rings, nose rings – all
black. The hair was purple but that just gave her a hint of the
rebel. The truth was that any man who could resist a woman in black
was in urgent need of therapy. And maybe people were right and her
face did have the look of a frog to it but, as far as she was
concerned, that just gave her the power to be cute. And Cute
was the greatest super-power of them all. She said, 'According to a
book I once read, the criminal mind is notable for neither its class
nor its imagination.'
'You can say that again,'
said Liz. 'I'm telling you, if I could get my hands on Hannah
Barbara-'
'Barbaira.'
'What?'
'Hannah Barbaira. It's
not a woman, it's two men; Mr Hannah and Mr Barbera. Together, they
created many of the western world's best loved cartoons - including
everyone's favourite atavist Captain Caveman-'
'Whoever they are, I'd
like to smash their lights in.'
'Some say the golden age
of Scooby Doo's right
now,' said Alison. 'After the long, bleak days of the Scrappy Doo
years, the show's flourished anew with the ninety minute specials
that feature the satirist-foiling master-stroke of the climactic
reverse and double twist.'
'What, and you think
that's why everyone's gone Scooby Doo
on me?'
'I'd say so.'
'Jesus.'
'And I don't like to
teach my grandmother to suck eggs but perhaps in future I should tag
along with you.'
'I'm sorry?'
'"Occult
investigator," no way can that be a one-woman job. I mean, look
at this.' Alison took Liz's hand and studied the home-made bandaging
the investigator had wrapped around it. The woman might have been a
'doctor' but that was of Demonology. It was definitely not of
medicine. 'For all you know it could be broken.'
'It's fine.' Liz snatched
her hand back and burned her gaze deeper into the freezer's depths.
'Liz, you have to face
reality, the female hand is a delicate thing. It's not designed for
punching the friends of Heads of Security. It's designed for sewing
and flower arranging and the odd bout of man pleasuring.'
'I feel like Germaine
Greer's just walked in.'
'The point is you have a
potentially lethal job. What if those men had turned violent?'
'I'd have dropped them.'
'Or if that monster had
turned out to be real?'
'I'd have dropped it.'
'You carry on alone if
you want, Liz Sanford but, one of these fine nights, you're going to
get yourself killed.'
*
Dust was the enemy of the
tidy mind, and Charles Victor Nyman would brook no opposition. Thus
he took advantage of a brief lull to give the shop a spring clean. It
was Jennings' Antiques,
just off the High Street and even he had to admit it had a reputation
to maintain. Aiming to raise the place to his own standards, he
hummed a little tune to himself as he feather-dusted one of its
numerous display cases.
But now he had something
else to think about, because, to his right, the bell above the door
had tinkled. The shop had a customer.
Nyman looked toward him.
The man stood there, rat-faced, early fifties, his thinning hair
slicked back by the rain outside. He wore an overcoat whose best
years - like its owner's - were clearly behind it, and the air of a
man who'd spent more years than was healthy harbouring a secret.
Nyman knew his kind all too well; scum, the type who didn't visit
such an establishment until circumstances forced him to.
'May I be of assistance?'
asked Nyman.
'I have something,' said
the man. 'An item I'd like you to look at.'
'Then you'd better let me
see it, hadn't you?'
The man closed the door
behind him then stood there a moment, clearly reluctant to advance
further...
...but Nyman beckoned him
with a finger and, at last, his visitor moved toward him.
When he reached Nyman, he
glanced around, as though there might be someone spying on them.
Tentatively he reached into his coat's inside pocket, and he produced
it; a dagger, a foot long, its handle jewelled, its blade glinting in
the window's light, its form undulating like that of a serpent.
Nyman held out a hand. At
last the man placed the dagger in it and Nyman held it up to study.
'Well well what have we here? Let me guess, you've had this for some
while but, thanks to a liquidity crisis, you feel it may be time to
part with one of your treasures? Well don't worry. We've all done
that in our day and I've always boasted that I give a fair price. In
my experience a man who cheats his customers never sees them again.
And may I ask how this item came to be yours?'
'It was left to me by my
grandfather.'
'And he died?'
'Thirty years ago.'
'In that case he was a
gifted man. This dagger can be no more than twelve years old.'
The man made a move to
grab it back. 'Maybe I should-'
Nyman moved it beyond his
reach. 'Don't worry. I know it's not stolen. How? This.' He tapped
his own forehead. 'In here is a memory bank of every valuable item
known to have been purloined in the last two hundred years, and an
object such as this would feature had it been reported missing. If
you don't want me to know how you came by it, that's your
prerogative. Possibly it was acquired during an illicit but
passionate affair you'd rather your wife knows nothing of, or perhaps
it's the source of a long-standing family dispute. I'm not your
judge, nor am I your jury. Of course this dagger's youth means it's
no antique. Happily, despite public misconception, it is covetability
that decides the value of an item, Mr....?'
'Boizot.'
'...not age and I have a
certain contact who'd do anything to get their hands on this.' He
popped his eyepiece in place and inspected the handle more closely.
'Hmph.'
'What?'
'If I don't miss my
guess, this line is Tyrillium. That means the dagger's slightly
radioactive.' He removed his eyepiece. 'Oh don't worry. A man would
have to hold it for a long long time before it did him any harm. In
fact, it's so close to perfection that there's only one issue I'm
still not clear about.'
'Which is?'
Thud, Nyman rammed the
dagger into Boizot's forehead. He held it there a moment then yanked
it forcefully from the man's skull, and Boizot dropped to the floor,
dead.
Nyman gazed down at the
man and the large pool of blood rapidly forming around him. 'Oh yes,'
said Nyman. 'That answers that question. It's certainly sharp
enough.'
He yanked the
handkerchief from his breast pocket and calmly wiped the blood from
the blade. Wouldn't want it to get stained. That would be a crime.
Taking care not to get
blood on his nice new suit, he slipped the handkerchief back into its
pocket then yanked a paper bag from the counter beside him. He calmly
placed the dagger in it then wrapped the bag around it for purposes
of disguise.
Job done, he headed for
the door, stepping over the late Mr Boizot - and leaving behind poor
Mr Jennings, the real owner of the shop, who lay dead behind the
counter.
As he left, the bell
above the door tinkled lightly. He stopped to pat dust from it and,
as he stepped out into the street, blow him down if the sun wasn't
coming out.
*
Alison Parker always
boasted that in ten years of serious writing she'd never once altered
one word of a first draft; 'Once the muse grabs me, it all spews out,
every word in its place,' she'd claimed upon first meeting Liz. 'Me
and Robert E Howard, we have so much in common.'
Sprawled out on the
settee, sat watching daytime TV, Liz glanced across at the line of
Alison's books on the shelf to her left. Twelve of them. The girl was
twenty one. How could anyone aged twenty one have had twelve novels
published?
And where was the genius
right now? In her room at her typewriter ('Computers kill
creativity') and weaving yet more 'magic'.
Liz took another suck on
her cigarette. Alison Parker as a flatmate. God alone knew what Frank
had been thinking of.
But now the girl wasn't
in her bedroom any more, because its door flung open and she stepped
out, a camcorder pointed at Liz. 'Say cheese,' she ordered.
'What's that for?'
'It's the camera I'm
going to tape you with when I go along on your next mission.'
'What's this obsession
you've suddenly got about going along with me? And don't say it's
concern for my welfare.'
Alison was clearly going
to give her some old flannel, but then, mind made up, she said, 'You
want to know why I want to come with you?'
'That's what I've just
said.'
'Right! Stay there!' And
the girl disappeared back into her room. The door slammed behind her.
It stayed shut for a few moments, and then it opened again. Alison
reappeared with an object in one hand then strode across to stand
over her flatmate. 'This is my latest novel, the one that's due at my
publishers in two weeks' time.' She dropped it on Liz's lap. 'Notice
anything odd about it?'
Liz picked it up and
studied it, front, back and then front again. 'It's a bit thin.'
'Thin? Keira Knightley's
thin. This is positively cadaverous.' Alison snatched it back from
her, sat beside Liz and read it. 'It's one sentence, a title; She
Went in Search of Oblivion. That's it. In the
six months since I moved in with you, that's all I've been able to
come up with.'
'So?'
'So I've never had
trouble thinking of things to write before. And you know why I can't
write?'
Liz shrugged.
Alison said, 'You.'
'Me?'
'No matter what I try to
write, I know what I should be writing; The
Adventures of Liz Sanford, Occult Investigator.
It's fate. I write horror. You live it. You're Holmes. I'm Watson.'
'It's not fate,' Liz
pointed out. 'It's Frank. He's the one who lumbered me with you - or
didn't it occur to you there was a reason he did that?'
'Exactly. Frank's your
landlord. Frank's my uncle. That, my girl, is destiny. When a woman
encounters destiny, she should take advantage of it. Except I can't
because you won't let me go along and see what you get up to.'
'Use your imagination.'
'I would if you hadn't
come along and stuck a dirty great wheel clamp on it.'
'I wish someone'd stick a
dirty great wheel clamp on you.'
'Give me one good reason
why I can't go along.'
'It's not safe.'
'Give me another.'
'I'm bound by the
Official Secrets Act.'
'Give me another.'
'You'll get in the way.'
'So that's all you've got
is it? Safety, the law and I'll get in the way?'
Liz shrugged.
Alison was about to say
something...
...but didn't get the
chance because the doorbell rang.
'Are you going to get
that?' said Liz.
'No,' said Alison.
Neither was Liz...
*
So much for that claim.
Liz pulled the front door open - and found herself facing a man with
a sharply-cut suit and the patrician air of John Le Mesurier. A polka
dot hankie jutted from his breast pocket.
'Yeah?' she said.
'Good morning, my dear,
would you happen to be a...' he checked the folded sheet of A4 in his
hand, '...Miss Alison Parker?'
'No. I'd happen to be a
Dr Elizabeth J Sanford.'
'A doctor?' He raised an
eyebrow.
'That's right. Need
anything removing?'
'Not just yet thank you
but, if you're not Miss Parker, would I be correct in thinking the
young lady may be resident here?'
'She might.'
'And might I be allowed
to see her?'
'You might - if you tell
me who you are.'
He didn't. He just waited
for her to invite him in.
So, sighing, she stepped
aside to allow him entry.
And on his way in he
said, 'What a delightful little place. I don't suppose a cup of tea
would be out of the question?'
*
'Miss Parker, my name's
Breen Rowling, and I'm legal representative to one Daniel Robinson.'
Liz handed their mystery
visitor the cup of tea she'd reluctantly made for him. He said,
'Thank you, my dear,' and she claimed a seat beside Alison on the
settee that directly faced his armchair.
Alison frowned. 'Daniel
Robinson? I've never heard of him.'
'You should have,' he
told her. 'You met him on a train two weeks ago.'
'What?' she said. 'That
man from Cornwall?'
'What man from Cornwall?'
said Liz.
'The last time I went to
visit my dad in Sunderland, I got talking to a man on the train. He
was on his way to check out some hill or other in North Yorkshire.'
Rowling added, 'And
whatever you did during that encounter must have impressed him hugely
because he's made a small bequeathment in your favour.'
Alison waited for him to
go on.
He said, 'I'm afraid Mr
Robinson has suffered something of a mishap since then and is
currently deceased.'
'Deceased?' she said.
'But he was bouncing with health.'
'Such is life I'm afraid.
One moment our candle's burning brightly. The next...' He made a
snuffing-out gesture with the fingers of one hand.
'And what killed him?'
'Natural causes
apparently. You'd have to ask a doctor, I'm no expert on medical
matters.'
'And what's he left her?'
said Liz.
'His home.'
Alison stared at him.
Rowling pulled a largish
photo from his case, took a glance at it then held it out toward her.
The girl took the photo and studied it. It showed a large, gaunt
house atop a craggy moor. Both house and moor had all the warmth of a
clenched fist.
But it meant plenty to
Liz; 'That's Delgado Manor.'
'Where?' said Alison.
'Delgado Manor,' said
Liz, 'is the, "Most evil house in Britain." It belonged to
the occultist Valentyne Delgado. He had a racket going, conning the
well-heeled out of their money in exchange for the "mystic
enlightenment" that only he could bring. He died, one night, in
mysterious circumstances, lying in a pool of his own blood. And
neither murderer nor weapon were ever found.'
'Dr Sanford's quite
correct,' said Rowling. 'Delgado Manor was indeed the aforesaid
residence but Valentyne's been dead for twelve years and, when Daniel
took over, he renamed it, to distance it from a past he found
distasteful.'
'But I only met him
once,' said Alison. 'Why would he leave it to me?'
'Mine is not to reason
why, only to hand out the paperwork.' Rowling took a wad of documents
from his case and quickly checked them. 'Now, if you'd just like to
sign here...' He handed her a pen and a bunch of papers.
Resting them on her lap,
she signed one.
'...And here.'
She signed another.
'...And here.'
She signed another.
'Dr Sanford, we need your
signature as a witness.' He held a document out to her.
She took the Biro from
Alison and signed with a distracted scribble. She was more interested
in considering the house.
After taking that
document back, Rowling signed it too then returned his attention to
Alison, 'Now then, this is yours.' He let her retain one of the
forms. 'And these are for our records.' He put the other documents in
his case. He popped his pen back into his breast pocket, took a set
of keys from his case and handed them to Alison. 'These are for you.'
'Thank you.'
He snapped his case shut,
locked it then reached out a hand for Alison to shake.
She shook it.
'Congratulations, Miss
Parker. The world's most evil house is now yours.'
*
The moment their visitor
was gone, Alison Parker had flung shut the front door, sprinted into
her bedroom and started packing her bags.
Liz, having followed her,
stood watching. 'You're not planning on going right now,
are you?'
Alison rammed a skirt
into her suitcase. 'Are you kidding? That place is straight out of
Hound of the Baskervilles.
I've got my central character; you - and now I've got my setting.'
*
Liz climbed into her van,
yanked its door shut then pulled her seat belt on. She was parked
outside the flat.
And she wasn't alone
Alison was in the seat
beside her. Alison watched Liz for a moment then said, 'You know, you
don't have to come with me.'
'Someone has to keep an
eye on you.'
'You mean,' said Alison,
'that someone has to come with me so she can nosy at, "The most
evil house in Britain."'
'It means I know you. You
go alone, you're guaranteed to go blundering into danger.'
'Says who?'
'You do. You know why?
Because, right across your forehead, are written two words.'
'What words?'
'"Kill me."'
'Well, in that case, it's
funny how I've managed to stay alive all these year then isn't it?'
Liz started the engine
and pulled the van away from the kerb.
*
Five yards down the road,
a man jumped out in front of them. Liz slammed the brakes on, hard,
missed him by about three inches then wound down the window.
She leaned out and told
him, 'You know, if you want to get killed, it's better if you wait
till I hit full speed before jumping out in front of me.'
He headed straight for
the window. When he got there, he said, 'Is one of you Alison
Parker?'
'Yeah,' said Alison. 'I
am.'
'Have you inherited a
house?'
'I may have. And I may be
on my way there right now.'
'Then thank God I found
you. Miss Parker, you can never, ever, go to Delgado Manor.'
'Because?'
'If you do, you'll die.'
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