The movements in his bed -
‘E turned thee car around and headed back to thee Church. By 7.30 p.m., Michael was behaving irrationally, violently and noisily. He picked up my cat and flung it through thee window. Food was placed before him to placate and occupy his mind, but he threw it on thee floor. It was my view that an enormous force of evil was emanating from Michael and that this was undoubtedly a case of demonic possession. It was clear from Carol’s words that she was convinced that her ex-husband Jack was connected with some Satanic group and that he had pledged Michael to thee Devil. Michael’s violence of speech and action, his threat to murder someone and thee fact that he invoked thee power of thee moon persuaded me that thee exorcism should begin immediately without further delay.
So sorry, sad and so, so confused -
‘E took him to thee vestry at thee side of thee Church and there E laid him on his back on a pile of red, gold and green cassocks. E stood over him asking him questions, finding answers, putting suggestions, saying prayers, and casting out thee devils one by one. E named each devil by its own eviclass="underline" bestiality, lewdness, blasphemy, heresy, masochism and so forth. A wooden crucifix given to him by his wife was repeatedly put in his mouth as E prayed for him. He writhed and thrashed on thee floor. Carol and E had to hold him down forcibly. Every time he puffed out his cheeks and gasped and panted for breath, another demon had been expelled. However, by noon on thee Sunday we were all exhausted. He was rid of forty demons but alas there were two still inside of him: violence and murder.
Between life and death -
‘E felt that there was a doll somewhere for Michael like thee witchcraft dolls into which people stick pins; unless it was found and burned E would never be able to cast out thee spirit of murder for E had had thee word from God that if Michael went home that afternoon he would kill his wife. E tried to contact a medical officer of some sort but, as it was a Sunday, E could find none. E called thee police but Carol said Michael would be cross if thee police were called into this matter. So at 8.30 p.m., E drove Michael and Carol home. E left at 9 p.m. in search of thee doll and Carol’s ex-husband. Thee last thing Carol said was, “My husband is going to have a good rest.”
Lost in room -
‘E finally returned with her ex-husband, Jack. Michael Williams was on his hands and knees with his forehead touching thee lawn. He was naked except for his socks and his wife’s rings on his fingers. It was with these very fingers he had torn out her eyes and her tongue and, as she lay choking on her own blood on thee grass, he had hammered a twelve-inch nail into thee top of her skull. His hands, arms and body were bloody and beside him was thee hammer. Thee first policeman asked him, “Where did all that blood come from?”
‘“It is thee blood of Satan.”
‘“Did you kill your wife?”
‘“No, not her,” he said. “E loved her.”’
They found me hiding -
In Church of Abandoned Christ in sixth flat on second floor of sixth house in Portland Square in ghost bloodied old city of Leodis, BJ still lost; all covered in sleep and drunk upon a double bed, lost in so, so many rooms; hair shaved again and eight eyes shined, BJ be this Northern Son. Black Angel beside BJ upon bed; his clothes shabby and his wings burnt, he has dolls in his pocket; he is Hierophant, Father of Fear, and he whispers:
‘It is time to bring Jack home again.’
In the shadow -
Rings upon the bed -
In the shadow of the Horns -
BJ, head bobbed and wreathed.
Chapter 46
I watch -
No sleep, no food, no cigarettes -
I just watch and I listen:
‘A Fitzwilliam man will appear before Wakefield Magistrates later today charged with the murder of Clare Kemplay, the Morley schoolgirl whose body was found on Saturday in Wakefield. The man is also charged with a number of motoring offences and is expected to be remanded in custody for questioning in connection with offences of a nature similar to those with which he has already been charged. This is widely believed to refer to the disappearance of eight-year-old Jeanette Garland from her Castleford home in 1969, a case which became nationally known as the Little Girl Who Never Came Home and which remains unsolved to this day…’
Thursday 19 December 1974 -
Netherton, Yorkshire.
I wait.
Dawn, I watch a grey-haired woman come out of her front door with a parcel under her arm. I watch her close the door. I watch her come down her garden path. I watch her open her gate. I watch her carry the parcel round the back of Maple Well Drive. I watch her open the gate behind the bungalows. I watch her walk up the tractor path towards the row of sheds at the top of the hill. I watch her slip. I watch her get back up. I watch Mrs Marsh disappear into the end shed with her parcel.
I wait.
Thirty minutes later, I watch Mrs Marsh come out of the end shed. I watch her walk back down the tractor path. I watch her slip. I watch her get back up. I watch her open the gate behind the bungalows. I watch her come back round on to Maple Well Drive. I watch her open her garden gate. I watch her go back up her garden path. I watch her open her front door. I watch her go back inside, empty-handed.
I wait.
Twenty minutes later, I watch a car pull up.
It is a big black Morris Oxford. The driver is all in black. He is wearing a hat. He doesn’t get out. He sounds his horn twice.
I watch Mrs Marsh open her front door. I watch her lock it. I watch her come back down the garden path. I watch her get inside the car. I watch them talk for a minute. I watch them set off.
I toss a coin -
I look at the top of my hand:
Tails -
I wait.
Ten minutes later, I open the gate to the field behind the bungalows. I walk up the tractor path towards the row of sheds at the top of the hill. The track is muddy and the sky grey above me, the field full of dark water and the smell of dead animals.
Halfway up the hill, I turn around. I look back down at the little white van outside their little brown bungalow and their little brown garden, next to all the other little brown bungalows and their little brown gardens.
I take off my glasses. I wipe them on my handkerchief. I put them back on.
I start walking again -
I come to the top of the hill. I come to the sheds:
An evil sleeping village of weatherbeaten tarpaulin and plastic fertiliser bags, damp stolen house bricks with rusting corrugated iron roofs.
I walk through this Village of the Damned. I come to the end of the row -
To the one with the blackest door and the rotten sacks nailed over its windows.
I knock on the door -
Nothing.
I open the black door -
I step inside:
There is a workbench and tools, bags of fertiliser and cement, pots and trays, the floor covered with empty plastic bags.
I step towards the bench. I step on something -
Something under the sacks and bags.
I kick away the sacks and bags. I see a piece of rope, thick and muddy and hooked through a manhole cover -
I wrap the rope around my hands. I hoist the cover up. I swing it off to one side -
There is a hole.
I look into the hole -
It is a ventilation shaft to a mine. It is dark and narrow. The sides of the shaft are made of stone, metal rungs hammered into them.
I can hear the sound of dripping water down below. I look closer -
There is a light, faint but there -