Banquet for the Damned

Shaking his head, the young man begins to grin, and then laugh as if he has nothing to laugh at but the hopelessness of everything. 'Rick was an anthropological curiosity all right. What's the book about, autistics, or socially dysfunctional rich kids?'

'Things that go bump in the night, actually,' Hart replies with a smile, trying to relax the kid. But the smile shrinks from his hairy cheeks when the student's face blanches. 'I think you better tell me what's going down at 37,' Hart says.

The man nods a reluctant assent. He motions for Hart to follow him.

* * *

'Rick's dead,' the student, who nervously introduced himself as Jason, tells Hart once they are seated in the scrubbed and meticulously clean kitchen.

Hart puts his cup of coffee back on the table. 'Dead?'

Jason nods. 'I saw him last night. What was left of him in the loft space. I called the police early this morning.'

'Why not last night?'

Jason raises his frightened eyes. 'After what I saw upstairs, there was no way on this earth that I was leaving my room until daylight. And I had to be sure it had gone. It was outside my room. After it killed Rick. So then I was going to jump from the window, but I heard it go down the stairs. Then it would have been outside the flat, so I stayed put, in my room until first light.' The way Jason, in all sincerity, is referring to this other party, shrivels Hart's balls. 'I called the police this morning from the phone by the common room, and they came right away. But it was all gone from the attic where I saw him. There was nothing there. I don't know how. There must have been stains.' Jason swallows. He seems to be on the verge of tears. 'Then they opened Rick's room and found some acid in one of his drawers and accused me of wasting their time. They were really on edge. Nearly bloody arrested me. They asked me loads of questions. I think they put me down as some kind of idiot suffering from hallucinations. Then they just sat in their car, for ages, and watched me pack. They said it was the second prank call they had received in a week.'

Hart leans forward. 'The second?'

'Yeah. Some golfer was found in shock on the beach and claimed to have seen something down there. He'd had a heart attack and a stroke, but the fuzz didn't find a thing. They reckon people are freaking out because of that body part they found washed ashore.'

'Jesus,' Hart whispers. He slumps into his plastic chair.

'And now they reckon that everybody is claiming to have seen a body. But I did. I know I did. I don't take drugs. I know what I saw and it made me puke.'

'You saw Rick?

Jason nods.

'This was last night?'

Jason nods again. 'I thought they would blame me. We didn't get on. He was a messy bastard. Awful to live with, but I wouldn't have wished that on my worst enemy.'

'What exactly?'

'There was someone in the loft with him.' Jason's voice dies. He covers his eyes with his hands.

'You saw it?'

'Sort of. It was… It was…'

'Go on.'

'It was eating him.'

Hart stares at Jason's face for a long time before he pushes his stubby fingers behind the lenses of his glasses, to rub his own tired and red eyes. Jason stares at Hart, whose turn it is to be distracted and pale in the face. 'You seem to know a lot about this?'

'That's why I'm here. It's something I've been researching for a long time.'

'You believe me then?'

'Wish I didn't.'

'Who is it?'

'I don't have a clue. Not as to specifics. But I think something has returned to this town. Something old that most people would never believe in.'

'You mean like the devil or something? I mean hang on, that must have been a man I saw up there.'

Hart sighs. 'Did it look like a man?'

'No.'

Hart raises an eyebrow. 'Well then. It's all too much for people to believe in, Jason. They need colour footage these days. I don't even bother explaining anymore. Just keep things to myself, mostly.'

'Amen to that,' Jason replies. 'It's so crazy, though. I thought I was going to be arrested for murder. Especially after what I said last night in the pub about Rick. I didn't have an alibi, I had a motive, I was drunk. But the police only slapped my wrists about making prank calls.' Jason starts to laugh with disbelief.

'Jason,' Hart says, his voice low, his stare fixed on the young man. 'Did you see anything before last night?'

'Like what?'

'A shadow. Near Rick's room.'

'No. Nothing. I spend most nights at my girlfriend's place. I couldn't stand being around Rick. I was ready to… Well, you know.'

'He got under your skin.'

Jason nods. 'Messy bastard. Poor sod.'

'Place looks fine to me.'

Jason smiles, sadly. 'I cleaned it this morning for the last time. We all lost our deposits because of Rick. But the least I could do was wash his dishes one last time. A kind of goodbye.'

Hart turns his tired face to look up at the ceiling.

'You want to go up there?' Jason asks.

'I better.'

'You're on your own.'

'That's fine.'

'I'll give you five minutes and then I'm out of here. I've got to lock up and post my keys through the warden's door. And anyway, you won't see anything. I went in with the police. There's nothing there. Not a drop of blood that I could see, and the police didn't look too hard once they'd found the acid. I've begun to wonder myself, now, whether I actually saw anything. Maybe it was like my subconscious or something.'

'Do I need a ladder?'

'No. Just go up the stairs. Then go through the fire door and turn right. It's at the end of the hall.'

Hart leaves Jason to his packing and makes his way up to the attic. After he has opened the loft door, he has to fumble for the light switch. With the light on, he moves into the narrow storage space and crouches down on the dusty floorboards. Peering under the boxes scattered about, he notices several dark patches on the wooden boards and fragments of carpet. Could be oil, and the stains look old. Maybe there is something for forensics, but Hart is relieved the police have not taken samples. They would immediately start looking for a serial killer or something — wasting their time and getting in his way. When the time comes to act, the police will be useless. Hart shudders. Then it will be time to forget a rational approach. If he's learned anything from South America, it will be a time to act quickly and to go somewhere insane. Can he?

Hart lifts his face and squints at the low ceiling. 'Who are you?' he whispers. 'Why are you here?'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

South Street is deserted. The disintegrating cathedral at the top of the street surveys all of which it once was master. And at such a quiet hour, the sight of so many blackened chimneystacks above the houses, shops and college halls, with their attic gables ominous atop worn stone fronts, makes Dante's neck tingle with excitement. He checks his watch under a streetlight and realises he is five minutes early.

From a tourist-office map he located St Mary's College, and walked from the flat on the Scores to find it tucked behind the walls of upper South Street. An arch leads to the college buildings and the court they surround. It has been burrowed into a plain stretch of stone wall, obscuring the actual court from the street outside. One of the iron gates in the arch is unlocked. Dante steps into a narrow brick annexe and the courtyard opens out before him. Dim globes light the paths, and subdued nightlights glow within the ancient buildings to create an enticing gloom in the court.

Hesitantly, he makes his way forward, until he stands before the oak tree at the head of the main lawn. Around the wings of the court, like a smaller version of the Quad, a ring of academic halls creates shade and protects the hush of the garden. There are cupolas and decorative turrets, worn plaques and coats of arms above the archways and broad windows, whose panes of glass are divided into little squares. Dante thinks of his guitar. He would like to sit down on a bench in the stillness and dark, to allow the impressions and contours of history to press in on him. He wonders what he could find on a fretboard to capture the atmosphere of the court. Blues scales were not cold enough. He'd have to brush up on classical arrangements.