What the hell is this?
He flicked his eyes up immediately, looking to see if anybody shifty was lurking nearby; someone who might have been creeping near his car. A spindly marionette of an old woman, a patient, stood outside one of the entrances. She was wearing an obvious wig and was gripping onto an IV drip with one skeletal hand while puffing in cancer smoke with the other. Two hospital porters were giggling and panting as they lugged huge bags of toilet rolls out of a van. But there was nobody really dodgy looking, near the car.
Dear ‘Reverend’, it said.
‘Reverend’ being in inverted commas.
Last night in Barley Street, certain enemies of God were summoning the forces of Satan. A man with your history should be well aware that arousing Black Magic power is nothing short of heresy, and it has been noted, with disappointment, that you seem to be a co-conspirator with these witches and wizards. Not just observing, but desiring. While the battle rages for the soul of this town, you are courting the High Priests of Set who have a Satanic agenda to trick the holy, poison the heart and corrupt children. Please understand that such people will not go unchallenged by the Lord.
And so, with all this in mind, a prayer …
‘Lucifer, we order you, we instruct you, we compel you to go, and in the authoritative name of the Lord Jesus Christ … leave this town for good.’
He read it over four times. He flipped the sheet, looked over the edges and even sniffed it because that’s what detectives in movies probably did, to check for a clue. Perhaps he’d get a whiff of the coconut aftershave that Pastor Todd was wearing the other day.
There was nothing to smell or see. No scrawled sign-off saying Yours Truly: The Phoenix Club.
He ran his eyes down it, one more time.
Last night, in Barley Street, certain enemies of God were summoning the forces of Satan … witches and wizards!
Okay. So these witches and wizards were the Hodges and the Wassons. He’d worked that out. He ran his fingers down the sheet.
While the battle rages for the soul of this town, you are courting the High Priests of Set who have a Satanic agenda to trick the holy, poison the heart and corrupt children.
He tapped his finger on it again.
To corrupt children …
The sudden footfall of shoes on gravel crackled out from behind him. He flicked his head back to an alley leading off down a slope. Footsteps, running away.
He sprang off the bonnet, racing past the skinny old lady, but when he got to the mouth of the alley it looked long, but it was very empty, except for some wheelie bins and a lamp post that seemed to be making a buzzing, crackling sound. He presumed it was dodgy electrics until he spotted the dead sparrow at the bottom of it, open ribcage quaking and rippling with slowly moving flies.
What … so was the bird a message too? Another dead animal to add to the list?
He looked at the carcass for longer than he needed and glanced back up at the hospital. He wanted to waltz up to that ward again, push open Rachel’s door and shake the note in their faces: See? See what you’re up against?
But instead he just popped open one of the wheelie bins and fished out an empty Tesco Metro carrier bag. He knelt down and plucked the bird from the ground. Wincing, he shook the flies out of it as they darted toward his face and hair. He spat, spluttered his lips and wafted them away. Then he walked toward the car, carrying the bird in the bag, like he’d bought small groceries. The entire time, the old lady in the wig had watched it all. She was so shocked that she’d stopped sucking on her cigarette and was staring at him open-mouthed.
‘How about I buy you a sarnie, son? From the machine.’
‘Huh?’
Her eyes were full of heartbroken concern as she gazed at the bag with the dead bird in it. ‘Man loses his pride, what’s he got left? So don’t reduce yourself to this.’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Officer Keech led him through the hallway and kitchen. Jo’s old familiar photographs gazed down at Matt, but he made a conscious choice not to look at them. He’d only see a burnt face and a gaping burrowed cheek staring out.
‘This way,’ Keech said, raking his ginger fringe away from his barely visible eyebrows.
He stepped out of the back door and walked directly into the wind. It had brewed up over lunchtime and was now swaying the trees, bushes and hairdos of Menham with mischievous abandon. Larry had arrived a few minutes earlier, so was already standing at the bottom of the path, and his tie seemed to be having a blast in the weather. It would sometimes swing and rise, like someone with a reed pipe was sitting cross-legged in the garden, charming it.
The garden was overgrown and scattered with angel ornaments. Jo’s daughter, Seren, was still staying with her grandfather, but Matt noticed her twitching pink Frisbee lying in the grass and a set of Velcro pads with a ball stuck to them lying next to it. He could picture Jo and Lee sitting out here after work, supping a beer and playing lawn games, talking about their day. And Lee would be doing dad-type things with a little girl that wasn’t his. Memories flashed of Matt doing the exact same with Lucy. Scenes of it filled his mind that felt like minutes ago, not years.
Keech led him to the bottom of the path and Larry glanced at the plastic bag dangling from Matt’s fingers. ‘You brought takeaway?’
‘It’s a dead bird.’
‘A what?’
‘I
