Thicker Than Water Page 17

  So I swiped a bottle of whisky - a potent liquor I’d only just discovered - and a glass, found a tiny room at the back of the club where they stacked empty beer barrels, and commenced an experiment that Albert Hofmann would have approved of.

  Matt appeared in the doorway maybe an hour later. He’d noticed my absence from the party and had come looking for me.

  ‘You okay, Felix?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I answered, raising the whisky bottle to support the contention. ‘Doing good here, Matt.’

  ‘Then do you want to come and join the rest of us? Auntie Lily wants to talk to you about the ghost in her outside loo.’

  ‘Auntie Lily can whistle for it.’

  Matt came forward into the room. He was wearing the scrimshaw cross that Mum had just given him: carved with bas-relief thorns to the point where it looked like a bramble thicket, and with the legend INRI inscribed on a scroll at its centre, it was an object both beautiful and grotesque. He took the whisky bottle from my hand. ‘I think you’ve probably had enough,’ he said gently.

  I took it back and poured myself another large one. ‘Probably right there,’ I allowed.

  ‘Fix—’ Matt hardly ever used my nickname, so this was a sign of some preternatural unbending. ‘I know you could have done with having me around, the past few years. I just - felt that this was something I really needed to do. Something I was meant to do. They say if God wants you to be a priest he speaks inside you so you can’t mistake it. And it was like that, it really was. Like something pulling me, that I couldn’t refuse. But it was terrible having to leave you and Dad. I’m going to try to think of ways to make it up to you.’

  ‘You are?’ I asked. ‘That’s cool, Matt. You’re a prince.’ He looked pained at the sarcasm, which encouraged me to go on. But I was drunk as a bastard by this time, and it took me a while to think of anything good. I was about to ask him what sort of penance he thought was suitable for sodding off for five years and leaving us all up the Swanee, but the word itself - penance - set off a chain of associations that led to a better idea.

  ‘Take my confession, Father Castor,’ I said.

  Surprise and consternation crossed Matt’s face, but only for a moment. He shook his head. ‘If you’re serious about that, Fix, go to St Mary’s and talk to Father Stone. You don’t want absolution from me. I want it from you, but that’s beside the point.’

  ‘I am serious,’ I persisted. ‘There’s something that’s weighing on my mind. It’s been troubling me for twelve years, and I can’t share it with anyone. Except you, Matt. Because you’re family and this is family business.’

  I held him with my stare, like the Ancient Mariner. He wanted to leave - wanted not to have come in here in the first place - but I had him by the balls, from a clerical-pastoral-tragical-historical point of view. He couldn’t say no in case I meant it: and what with the booze and the baggage, that was a question that I couldn’t have answered myself.

  Matt sat down on a barrel.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘Do it properly,’ I slurred.

  He took the hit with an impatient gesture. ‘Then stick to the script,’ he countered.

  I spoke the familiar, disused words with a prickling sense of unreality. ‘Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It’s been eight years and some odd months since my last confession. I have one sin on my conscience.’

  ‘Just the one?’

  ‘Just the one, Matt. I don’t want to keep you from your adoring fans.’

  He didn’t answer, so I went on.

  ‘After Katie died . . .’

  The words just hung there. Whatever I’d been about to say drained out of my head like oil from a cracked sump. Nothing came to replace them.

  ‘After Katie died?’ Matt repeated, prompting me. ‘Go on, Felix. What happened after Katie died?’

  Why had I started this? What had been the point of the joke? I filled my glass from the whisky bottle, discovering in the process that it was still full from the last time. The pungent liquid ran down my fingers and spattered on the ground.

  ‘After Katie died . . . ?’

  I couldn’t look at him, so I stared at the brimming glass: at the shivers and ripples chasing themselves across the meniscus. ‘I killed her again.’

  ‘What does that even mean, Felix?’ Matt’s voice was still mild, but I felt the tension underneath the words.

  ‘Her ghost. Her . . . spirit came back. She came into my room.’

  ‘You imagined she did. Your grief—’

  ‘No, Matt. Katie. Katie herself. You know I can see things that you can’t.’

  ‘I know you’ve convinced yourself that you can.’ The tightness was right there on the surface now. Matt had known about my death-sense ever since we were kids, but we’d never discussed it since he took holy orders. It was the elephant we danced arabesques around every time we talked.

  ‘And I made her go away by . . . singing,’ I went on. ‘By chanting. I think she just wanted to talk. I think she was scared, and she wanted to be where she belonged, with the family. But I sent her away. And she never came back.’

  The silence stretched.

  ‘Go to her grave,’ Matt suggested at last. ‘Pray for her. Pray that she found her way to Heaven, and pray for her forgiveness.’

  I turned the over-full glass in my hands and more whisky oozed over the rim of it to trickle down the sides of the glass like sweat or tears.

  ‘Do you hear me, Felix?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I hear you.’

  He smacked glass and bottle out of my hands. The glass shattered, the bottle didn’t: it just skittered away across the floor, coughing up booze like a docker at chucking-out time.

  ‘Then say the Act of Contrition,’ he suggested.

  I started in. ‘Deus meus, ex toto corde paenitet—’ But it had been too long and I didn’t remember the words. Matt recited them for me and I parroted along, finding my feet again at ‘adiuvante gratia tua.’ It was just words, and I didn’t believe there was anybody listening.

  But there was, of course. There was Matt.

  He put his hand on my shoulder, gripping hard enough to hurt.

  ‘Your sins are forgiven, you drunken, selfish bastard,’ he said. ‘Go in peace.’

  When I looked up, he was gone. Or maybe it’s fairer to say that I didn’t look up until I was sure: until his footsteps had faded into silence. The music and shouting rose to a peak and then fell to a rumble again, announcing the opening and closing of a distant door.

  I sat breathing whisky fumes like profane incense, still feeling the weight of his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t feel like I’d been absolved: it was more like I’d had my collar felt by some holy constable of the spirit. I knew two things, and two things only: that Matt’s vocation was real, and that as far as absolution went, a few soggy prayers weren’t going to cut it.

  Pen heard me out in silence. When she spoke - pagan gods bless her infallible instincts - it was to change the subject.

  ‘So this thing that you’re feeling when you’re over there at the Salisbury. Do you think it’s a geist of some kind?’

  Pen speaks the argot, and she was using the word in its technical sense. To an exorcist, a geist is a human spirit that takes no visible form but can still have powerful - almost always destructive - effects.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, stating the obvious. ‘But I don’t think so. Most geists move things - physical things. They break bottles, throw furniture around, blow candles out, fling people through windows. This is . . . intangible. It’s just a feeling. And it seems to be really pervasive - I mean, it spreads across the whole estate, where a geist would tend to stick to one small locus.’

  Pen inhaled the steam from her coffee cup, eyes closed, like Nicky drinking the wine breath. Then she downed it in one swallow. I waited patiently, knowing she was thinking it through.

  ‘The people on the estate,’ she said, when she finally opened her eyes again. ‘Do
they know this thing is there? I mean, obviously it’s changing the way they feel and the way they behave, but are they aware that it’s happening or are they just submerged in it?’

  ‘The second, I think. I’m aware of it because—’

  ‘—Because of your built-in radar.’

  ‘Exactly. But to anyone else I think it would be like a sound that’s been in your ears for so long you can’t hear it any more - you just hear the silence when it stops. It’s subtle. Powerful, but really subtle. To tell you the truth, I’m starting to wonder if there’s a demon mixed up in this somewhere.’

  Pen nodded as though she was coming to the same conclusion at the same moment.

  ‘Then you should talk to an expert,’ she said.

  10

  As it happens there are two demons within my immediate circle of acquaintances. Pen had Rafi in mind, for many reasons besides the strictly pragmatic, but of the two of them Juliet is the easier to deal with by a factor of a million: and Juliet was already on the case, in a way, so I dropped in on her first.

  I tracked her down at the library in Willesden where her partner, Sue Book, now works. Juliet was waiting for Sue to finish her shift, after which they were going to some kind of a book launch and public reading together. The two of us sat in the children’s section, because children at least were immune to Juliet’s lethally intense sexual aura. But there were a few mothers and fathers dotted around the room, too: Juliet ignored their uneasy, covetous stares and heard me out while I described my latest adventures at the Salisbury.

  But she didn’t offer any insights of her own, and in the end I had to put the question directly.

  ‘So did you make it down there? If you didn’t, no pressure - I know you didn’t make me any promises and you don’t owe me anything. But this has got me scratching my head, Juliet. Anything you could throw me would be good.’

  ‘I was there,’ Juliet said.

  I waited for more, but more didn’t come. Juliet looked down at the book she was reading: The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was a subversive enough juxtaposition to throw me a little off my stride.

  ‘So what did you find?’ I asked, when it was clear that she wasn’t going to volunteer anything further.

  She looked up at me again. A human woman - or man, for that matter - would have looked at the book in order to avoid eye contact, but Juliet was incapable of feeling embarrassment or social awkwardness. She was a stone-cold fact, exquisite and unapologetic, in a world of nuances. So she was looking at the book because something I’d said or something she was thinking had made a connection. To hunger? To caterpillars? To metamorphosis?

  ‘I can’t discuss this,’ she said.

  I took a look at the other people in the room. It was true that there were a lot of eyes on us - or rather, on her. ‘Okay,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘But if I hang around until after the reading, could we—’

  ‘I don’t mean here and now, Castor. I mean ever. This isn’t a subject that can be raised between us.’ Her stare was cold and stern: she knew me, and she knew how hard it was for me to take no for an answer. She was warning me with her eyes that any subsequent answers would be smackdowns.

  But fools rush in, as they say. ‘It kind of already has been,’ I pointed out. ‘Raised, I mean. Can you at least tell me whether you felt this thing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or whether you recognised it? Whether it’s something you’ve met before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you’re a ghost-breaker,’ I pointed out. ‘This is your living, right? What if I hired you to—’

  ‘I said no, Castor. I’m not for hire. If you can handle this yourself, do so. If you can’t, don’t come to me for help or try to pick my brains with one of your stacked games of twenty questions. It will cause friction between us. It could even compromise our friendship.’

  Before I could think of a question that wouldn’t sound like it was a question, Susan Book crossed the room and joined us. She put a hand on Juliet’s shoulder: Juliet took it in her own, touched it to her lips and then replaced it.

  Susan beamed at me. Being with Juliet had made her blossom: turned her from a shy, conflicted little mouse with a self-effacing stammer and a tendency to blame herself for other people’s failings into a woman with confidence and quiet charisma. Sex is magic, and she was tapped into the wellspring. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy her that.

  But in case the point needed to be made, that unobtrusive little kiss on the back of the hand reminded me that there was a lot more to this relationship now than sex. Susan loved Juliet, wholly and desperately and unquestioningly. And Juliet - felt something too. Something that made her protective and a little possessive and occasionally exasperated when Susan wouldn’t do as she was told or see things as they obviously were. Might as well call that love, too: it had a lot of the hallmarks.

  ‘Hi, Felix,’ Susan said. ‘Are you going to come along with us to the Martin Amis thing?’

  ‘And be lectured about how Muslims ought to smack their kids more? Nah,’ I said. ‘No, thanks. You crazy kids go and enjoy yourselves.’

  I stood up, trying not to let my consternation and annoyance show on my face. Juliet had warned me once before this - about a year before, if memory served - that certain subjects would always be taboo between us. Heaven and Hell were on the list, and so was God, and so were her own nature and origins. It would be useful to know which of these, if any, were operating here: but Susan’s arrival had made it impossible for me to fish any further.

  ‘We will,’ Susan said, presumably referring back to my begrudged ‘Have a good time’, or whatever it was I’d said.

  Juliet made a sour face. ‘Ideas,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing wrong with ideas, Jules,’ Susan chided gently.

  ‘No. But my comfort zone is flesh.’

  On which note I said my goodbyes, feeling none too happy.

  If Juliet wasn’t going to play ball, I was left with Asmodeus. And Asmodeus was a different proposition altogether.

  Bigger, for one thing. Meaner. And living inside my best friend.

  Rafi only started playing with black magic after he met me and saw the things I could do. This was during my brief, abortive stint at university, when he was an elegant wastrel and I was a working-class Communist with a chip on my shoulder the size of the Sherman Oak. We vied briefly for Pen’s affections, although Rafi never had any doubt that he’d win in the end. He always did: he was one of the people who life went out of its way to accommodate.

  Rafi was never part of the exorcist fraternity: he was just an enthusiastic amateur with a sharper mind than most who mixed and matched necromantic rituals until he put one together that actually worked. But he was never a completer-finisher, either, which was the first part of his downfall. He left out one of the necessary wards, and the magic circle that should have kept Asmodeus safely contained was fatally flawed. The demon - one of the most hard-core bastards in Hell - battered his way out and into Rafi’s soul.

  A lot of things could have happened at that point: demonic possession is a fairly new phenomenon, and not all that well documented. What actually happened was that Rafi became delirious and got so hot he actually seemed in danger of catching fire. His girlfriend called me, and I tried to carry out an exorcism.

  That was the coup de grâce. I’d never encountered a demon before, let alone one as powerful as this. I screwed up badly, welding the two of them together in a way that I couldn’t undo. Asmodeus has lived inside Rafi ever since, the senior partner in a very unequal alliance.

  For Rafi it was effectively the end of any kind of normal life. A human soul is pretty lightweight when weighed against one of Gehenna’s finest, so Asmodeus would surge up and take the driving seat whenever he felt like it. After a couple of ugly incidents, Rafi was sectioned under the Mental Health Act: there are aspects of the way we live now that the law hasn’t caught up with yet, and this was one of them. Being realists, though, the senior management
at the Stanger wrote ‘Schizophrenic’ on the paperwork, while at the same time they lined Rafi’s cell with silver to curb the demon’s worst excesses.

  For three years we bumped along and made the best of a bad job: I went along to the Stanger every so often and used my tin whistle to play the demon down so that Rafi got some peace, and Doctor Webb, who ran the place, was happy so long as we kept the money coming.

  Happy, that is, until he got a better offer from a former colleague of mine: Jenna-Jane Mulbridge, the director of the Metamorphic Ontology Unit at Queen Mary’s hospital in Paddington. Jenna-Jane was just a ruthless monster back when I worked for her, but for the past couple of years she’s been reinventing herself as a crazed zealot, convinced - just as Father Gwillam is - that humanity is now engaged in a last-ditch, apocalyptic struggle against the forces of darkness. As far as I can tell, she sees her role as broadly similar to Q’s in the James Bond films: humanity’s armourer and engineer, forging the weapons that we’re bound to need when the dead and the undead back us up against the wall and finally come squeaking and gibbering for our throats.

  But before she can be Q, she has to be Mengele. She’s turned the Helen Trabitch Wing at Queen Mary’s into a little concentration camp over which she rules with loving, obsessive sadism, and she’s managed to persuade the CEOs of the hospital trust that this still counts as medicine. She’s got an amazing variety of inmates there: werewolves, zombies, the oldest ghost ever raised and some tragic nutcase who thinks he’s a vampire. About the only thing she hasn’t got is a demon, and she’s got her heart set on acquiring Rafi.

  About a month back, the cold war between me and J-J got a little hotter, as it periodically does: it looked like she was going to be able to persuade the High Court to overturn a decision made by a local magistrate, which had given Pen power of attorney over Rafi. She was looking to have Rafi transferred from the Stanger to the MOU, with the connivance of Doctor Webb, whose balls she seems to have in her pocket.