‘She says I have to tell you that people passed by this house at night. Evil people. They meant harm. This is a long time ago. A long time ago …’ Frederick’s voice picked up speed, echoing in the confined space. ‘They wanted to punish someone who lived nearby … She says she was right about the demons, only they were real. Real people. They wanted to punish him … they stole his hearing …’
Unnerved, Leon took in a breath.
‘She says you’re searching for the answer. That you have to keep looking, searching. She is talking about the head …’
Irritated, Leon tried to pull away, but Frederick caught at his hand.
‘Listen! She wants you to listen …’
‘I don’t believe in this! You’re a fake. A bloody fake!’ Leon snapped, trying to break the Dutchman’s grip.
‘She wants you to bring the skull back …’
‘This is ridiculous! Bloody ridiculous!’
‘She knows what happened up in that tree …’
At once Leon stopped, rigid in his seat.
‘All those years ago, when you were only a boy … She says you heard a voice. Up in the tree, coming from in among the leaves. The voice told you to let go … She said “the tree made you do it” … She knows you better than you know yourself …’
‘No …’
‘She says she watches you …’
‘Christ, no …’
‘She watches you here, when you work. In your study … She watches you …’
‘Let me go!’ Leon hissed, finally pulling away and running to turn on the lights. His face was waxy as he challenged Frederick. ‘It’s a trick! You knew about Detita! Gina must have told you!’
‘I didn’t tell him anything,’ Gina insisted, giving the Dutchman an unfathomable look. ‘I didn’t, did I?’
‘No.’
Confused, Leon blustered. ‘You’re lying! You knew! You must have done!’
He was reeling like a drunkard. Desperately he scratched around for a logical answer. It was a parlour trick, that was all. He tried to see it from his brother’s point of view. Ben would have laughed – said it was a joke, a cheap con. Nothing else … But Leon had seen something moving behind Frederick’s chair.
Had he seen it?
What had he seen?
Madness?
His own?
Pushing Gina aside, Leon blundered out of the room and made for the garden. There he stood, panting dryly, in the night air. He could pretend that it had all been a sham, but he knew otherwise. Much as he loved Gina, he had never confided in her about his childhood accident. About his fall. About how the tree had told him to do it. So how had she known? Had he talked in his sleep? Jesus, had he?
And if he hadn’t given himself away to Gina, the alternative was chilling. Because someone had known. It had either been Detita in that room or some other spirit, but they had known the secret Leon had hidden all his life. His first flirting with instability. His first plunge into the mind’s labyrinth.
The tree told me to do it …
13
Little Venice, London
Hand in hand with dusk, the restaurant lamps came on, lighting the water of the canal below. It was a mild, humid evening and people had taken the tables on the terrace, the soft lapping sound of the water and the muted breeze making a little city ripple of cool. In the distance, Paddington station huffed and shuffled its trains in the dusty night and the evening traffic slid under a shimmer of street lamps.
And in Little Venice – a knot of white stuccoed town houses bordering the canal in West London – the local high-grade supermarket closed for the night, the lights went out in the window of the French patisserie, and a middle-aged couple entered a nearby restaurant. Shown to their seats a moment later, the woman took off her jacket in the unseasonable warmth, the man beckoning to the wine waiter. On the table next to them, a younger couple were sitting in silence. The woman had taken a lot of care with her clothes, her dark hair glossy, makeup subtle. Beyond them, sitting alone, was a pale blond man reading the late copy of the Evening Standard.
Listlessly, the brunette scrutinised the menu, the waiter hovered, the blond man ordered paella and the middle-aged woman looked up to the night sky.
‘Did you feel that?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Rain.’
Her husband scoffed. ‘It can’t be—’
His words were drowned out by a clap of thunder, violent electric lightning impaling the sky, its jagged white light reflected in the water below. At once the diners fled into the shelter of the restaurant. On the canopy outside the rain pelted down, splashing upwards as it landed, the thunder snapping overhead.
‘Bloody weather,’ the brunette’s companion said, brushing the rain off his suit. ‘You want a drink?’
She nodded. Beside her, the middle-aged couple squabbled and the blond man stood under the canopy by the door to watch the storm. The rain drummed incessantly on the metal tables outside, food washed off plates, some spilling on to the floor, the wine diluted, glasses overflowing as the waiters hurried to clear the tables. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ended.
Apologising, the waiter showed his customers to other tables inside, only the blond man resisting.
‘Just dry off my table and chair. It won’t rain again tonight.’
Surprised, the waiter did as he was told.
Below, steam rose from the canal and spring trees shed pendulous water droplets. Dividing his paper into two parts, the blond man sat on one half of the Evening Standard and then calmly began to read the remaining pages.
‘Moron,’ the middle-aged man snorted, moving to the bar.
His wife followed as the younger couple took a table by the window. Curious, the brunette watched the solitary diner on the balcony, his figure illuminated by the outside light.
‘I thought you wanted to come out for a meal,’ her companion said, irritated, ‘but you look so bloody miserable …’
She shrugged, staring ahead.
‘You not feeling well?’
‘I’m fine. Let it drop.’
A sudden movement on the balcony made her turn and look over to the blond man again. He was standing up and leaning on the stone balustrade, his eyes fixed on the water below. From where she sat, the woman could see nothing, only the restaurant’s lights reflected in the still, unblinking, water.
‘We could have a weekend away …’
‘Maybe.’
‘Don’t sound so bloody excited.’
The woman’s whole attention was now centred on the blond man. He was standing, rigid, looking into the water below.
‘Are you listening to me?’
The brunette no longer heard her lover. Watching the fair-haired man, she again glanced out to the canal as he leaned further out, bending over the balustrade.
Christ! she thought suddenly. He’s going to jump.
Leaping to her feet, the woman raced over and caught his arm, pulling him back. Surprised, the man turned and then quickly motioned for her to look down into the water.
‘Look over there!’ he said, pointing. ‘There’s something’s over there.’
Hurriedly, she snatched a candle from an inside table and then leaned over the balustrade, holding the light as far as she could towards the water.
‘No!’ the man said urgently. ‘Not there. Look over there!’
Leaning out even further, the woman shone the candle light over the flat, black water. The night was very dark, the moon obscured by cloud, the canal deep, its surface unbroken apart from a smattering of reeds and the dripping of water from underneath the balcony.
And then she saw it.
Floating on the water at the edge of the canal, hardly visible, was a bundle, wrapped tightly in a soiled white blanket. It was small, benign, but eerie. Gently, it glided away and began its grisly procession down the middle of the canal, on an almost imperceptible current. Transfixed, they watched its progress, the bundle finally passing under the full glare of one of the restaurant’s outside lamps. The beam illuminated the blood-spattered wrapping – and the place where the parcel had come partially untied.