‘All of them. Rachel Wasson. Jo Finch. Kassy West. The whole clan. I think that together we’re all going to get to the bottom of what might have really killed Steph.’
He wanted to put both hands around his mouth and shout psychopathic Labrador really loud … but instead Matt opened his hands in a sort of who’d-a-thunk-it gesture. ‘They’re coming here? Well, fancy that. Hey, I know we’ve just met but would you mind if I stuck around? Professional interest, you understand.’
Bob started nodding eagerly, but Joyce raised a hand.
‘Why were you at the school?’ She tilted her head. ‘What on earth did they find up there to have to call a religion professor in?’
He could see her eyes flashing, the eager chew of the bottom lip. Like he was about to admit that yes, of course, the police had naturally found hoof prints in the blood. Or ectoplasm clogging the wounds.
‘I’m not at liberty to say. But it was just a favour for a friend, and from the looks of it, this was nothing more than a tragic animal attack.’
Her shoulders sunk and she shook her head slowly. ‘I beg to differ about that.’
He was about to reply, but now Bob was up on his feet, clapping his hands together. He started waving someone frantically over. ‘And here they are. Right on time.’ He turned to Matt, with a sharp little flare of apophenia. ‘Amazing timing that you happened to be passing through just now. Maybe the spirits are guiding this. Bringing you into it.’
Matt turned to see some figures up on the hill, near to where he’d been earlier. A hefty woman was navigating her way down the slope. Behind her, a young woman was standing on the brow of the hill, as if she was deciding whether to follow or not. She wore thick trendy glasses and short dark hair. Dressed in a blazer, like many of the students he taught. She seemed to be shielding her eyes from the sun, though it wasn’t particularly bright now. If anything, it was clouding over.
Matt waited with the Hodges as the figures approached. The terraced roofs of Barley Street were visible through the swaying tree branches. Number 29 sat there, looking mundane. No bats flying from the chimney. It was as they got closer that Bob turned to Joyce.
‘Look at how grown up Rachel is …’ Bob said quietly. ‘She’s changed her hair but … dear me … doesn’t she look like Holly? Doesn’t she walk like her?’
‘It’s her first time back in a decade,’ Joyce nodded. ‘Must be awful for her.’
‘Holly Wasson …’ Matt said. ‘That’s the younger sister?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is she coming too?’
For the first time, Bob took his eyes off Rachel. ‘I’m afraid that Holly Wasson never made it through the infestation.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I mean that the week of activity was too much for her. It wore her down until she couldn’t come out from it. But then that’s precisely what these entities do. They grind people down until they break. Pain is sport to them. Despair is what they worship.’
‘The demon in the house …’ Joyce said quietly, ‘it always did focus on little Holly …’
‘It was poor Rachel that found her.’ Bob nodded toward the girl in the glasses, coming closer. ‘Her sister had hung herself in her bedroom. She used the cord from her stereo and dropped off the sill just like—’
Scratch, scratch.
Matt looked up quickly. They all did.
Something was scampering across the roof of the gazebo, an animal. He ran his eyes across the wood and sensed Joyce clutch her jacket across herself. But then he quickly knew what it was. It was the long branch of the tree scraping the roof in the low breeze.
That was all.
Just a tree, stroking them softly with its fingernails.
It felt colder.
‘Can you imagine,’ Bob said, sadly, ‘to be for ever nine years old?’
Bob reached out for Joyce’s hand and squeezed it. Then he took a deep breath, let go and headed down the steps toward the two women, so he could greet them. It was then that the spider finally appeared. A small one, scuttling out from Matt’s fringe. It tickled his forehead and slid down a silk rope to dangle directly in front of his eye. He raked it away with his hand and flung it to the floor, hoping there weren’t any more little wriggling things hiding up in his hair, waiting for their cue.
He looked across the two girls’ heads at Barley Street.
And Barley Street looked right back at him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
What rabbit’s wanting most of all, is for you to ask a question.
To walk beside its burrow and to lean your head right in.
Branches spring out of the dirt, fingering the heart that hurts,
weaving up into your skirt to trickle down the chin.
Questions could be anything, so choose whatever, shallow, deep.
Throw your voice into the hole, as veins of nature start to creep.
Once your head is framed with soil, twigs and branches at your cheek,
You can call your question out, cos rabbit’s ready now to speak,
yet
Warrens are colossal things, they run for ever, underground.
Most folk think they’re ten foot in but warrens go far deeper down,
carrying your question round. Comets tumbling with no sound.
So wait a while and rabbit comes, from the dark to sing its song.
Answers dripping from its lips. Answers that you hope are wrong.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There was a lot of hugging. Tears were shed.
Both expressions came mostly from the big woman, who was called Jo Finch. She was a twenty-nine-year-old local cleaner who was quick to tell everybody that she’d been present at the school yesterday. She kept making the point that she’d seen more gore than anybody else had. This wasn’t to brag. It was a purging. It was group therapy. She’d watched Steph’s dog go ‘swivel-eyed crazy’. She’d seen it ‘chomp’ into the teaching assistant. She’d seen ‘jets of blood’. But it was obvious what moment had frightened her worst of all. Because in
