Infixion (Mesmeris Book 2) Read online

  Not that Dad looked afraid. He didn’t. He just looked puzzled. ‘And that troubles you?’

  ‘No,’ Art said, ‘but it’s not just you, is it?’

  ‘Ah!’ Dad sat back, pressed his hands together. ‘You mean Pearl.’

  I wasn’t surprised to hear my name, not really. Since Jack’s murder, it seemed I was the subject of every whispered conversation. Wary, anxious glances followed me, silences that weren’t silent at all, filled with mouthed words I wasn’t meant to see, as if I was a delicate child, or a lunatic.

  ‘Just back off,’ Art said.

  ‘You’re protecting her,’ Dad said. ‘Well, well.’

  Art protecting me? From what?

  Art’s whole body stiffened, fists clenched at his side. ‘Back off now.’ The words shot out like bullets – bang, bang, bang.

  A sensible person would have run, hid, cowered. Not my dad. Perhaps Art’s face showed something the words didn’t, something Dad understood, or perhaps Dad expected God to protect him. I had doubts about that - big ones. Dad’s child-like trust in a god that let Jack die left me baffled. If he existed – and I suspected there was something – some insubstantial, ethereal, wafting something – then he/she/it clearly didn’t intervene to stop evildoers practising their ways.

  Of course I couldn’t see Art’s face. All I had to go on was his body language, or the bit of it I could see – his hands, his shoulders, the straightness or otherwise of his spine, the centimetre or so of pale skin between the collar of his coat, and his dark hair.

  ‘Sit down,’ Dad said. ‘Let me tell you about your family.’

  Art mumbled words I couldn’t hear, but he sat.

  I fidgeted. My back ached from stooping at a funny angle. Pins and needles tickled my hand, and my legs felt heavy.

  Dad picked up what looked like photographs, and passed them across the desk.

  Art picked them up. His shoulders tensed, then he threw them down again, and muttered something.

  ‘No,’ Dad said. ‘You’re certainly not that.’

  Art’s knuckles stood out white as he clenched his fists on the arms of the chair. ‘Taken into care,’ he said, each word clipped, ‘for my own good.’

  Dad raised his eyebrows, lips pursed. ‘That’s the lie. You were abducted – snatched from your mother.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Art jumped up, leaned right over the desk into my dad’s face, hissed, ‘Shut - the fuck - up.’

  I gripped the knife, hesitated.

  Art glanced back at the door, looked right at me. I was so sure he’d seen me, but he half-turned back to Dad, pointed at the photos. ‘Is she alive or what?’ Every word snapped with impatience.

  Dad nodded. ‘Yes, but . . .’ He used his soft, caring voice – the one he used for bereaved relatives. The only word I picked out was ‘murder’.

  Art shook his head.

  ‘Howard Pitt,’ Dad said. ‘The man you call Papa.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Art’s voice sounded different – croaky and rough.

  Dad held out a sheaf of papers. ‘Read this.’

  Art didn’t take it. He turned, unsteadily, clutched at the back of the chair. He staggered towards me. No time to run, I pressed myself back against the wall and hoped the shadows would hide me. I needn’t have bothered. I could tell by the way he stumbled past that he couldn’t see straight. He felt along the wall, his face ghostly, ashen, his blue eyes as empty as his soul.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Dad called after him.

  Art lurched across the kitchen and out of the back door, leaving it banging in his wake. I ran after him, stood and watched him zigzag down the path, doubled over, hands clutching at his head. Finally, he caught at the gatepost and steadied himself, straightening up a little. He rested his forehead on the damp wood for a moment. Then he rocked back and forth, once, twice, staggered out of the gate, and disappeared.

  CHAPTER NINE MARCUS

  The disciplinary panel consisted of three officers – two male, one female. They sat behind a long, wooden desk. Marcus had met the investigating officer before – a hard-faced, dark-haired woman who seemed to get a real kick out of interrogation. She introduced the balding, slightly overweight Chair, and the skinny, bespectacled HR advisor.

  Marcus sat, as requested, on a hard, plastic chair in the centre of the room.

  ‘You’ve come before us accused of a serious assault,’ the Chair said.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Do you have anything to say in your defence?’

  ‘Yes, Sir, I’d . . .’ He wondered if it was worth the effort. He’d messed up, and they were going to chuck him out, regardless. He trotted out his prepared speech anyway. ‘I’d like to apologise for my momentary loss of control. I realise my behaviour on that day was not acceptable in a police officer - would not be acceptable at any time, for any reason whatsoever . . .’ He paused. ‘. . . no matter what the provocation.’

  ‘You could have killed him,’ the investigating officer said.

  ‘Yes, Ma’am. I do realise that.’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ The Chair sounded unconvinced. ‘You’ve been offered a place on the High Potential Development Scheme at Hendon, I see.’

  ‘Sir.’ Buggered that up too, Marcus thought.

  ‘You do realise this assault could mean the end of that, the end of your whole career?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ Would they bother to say that if they were going to chuck him out? Maybe not. Marcus felt a glimmer of hope.

  The three of them exchanged glances.

  ‘Wait outside, would you?’ the HR guy said.

  He sat in the corridor, in limbo, his life on hold. If things went against him, first thing would be to find somewhere to live. Out of the job, out of the flat. He rubbed his forehead. No chance of renting somewhere without a job, so job first. Shit! Maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have to.

  The door opened, and the HR guy poked his head out. ‘Come back in, would you, Fielding?’

  Marcus sat, again, on the hard, plastic chair.

  ‘We are aware,’ the Chair said, ‘of - extenuating circumstances in this case, and, of course, you have our sympathy.’

  Cheers, Marcus thought. But . . ?

  ‘However,’ the Chair continued, ‘I’m afraid we feel that the seriousness of the assault . . . ‘

  One punch.

  ‘. . . indicates that you are temperamentally unsuited to the, er, stresses of police life.’

  Stresses of police life? Were they kidding? After what he’d been through?

  ‘The penalty for this kind of offence is instant dismissal. I’m afraid we can see no reason to deviate from that in this instance.’

  Marcus stared, shocked, not only at their decision, but at the devastating effect it had on his body. He’d known it was coming, or thought he had, but the physical impact of the words left him dumbstruck. His insides crumpled. His body shrank in the chair, leaving him diminished, a nothing, a nobody.

  ‘You’ll receive our decision in writing.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ His voice sounded strange in his ears - weak, feeble. ‘Thank you, sirs, Ma’am.’

  Outside the office, he leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath. Now what? No job, no home, nothing. A pair of black crows soared high in the sky. He watched them, thought how they attacked any one of their number who showed weakness. Bit like Mesmeris, he thought. And that was the worst of it. He’d scuppered any chance he had of destroying his sister’s murderers.

  CHAPTER TEN MARCUS

  Marcus moved out of the flat at the end of the month. He took a job as a bouncer at one of the crap nightclubs in town. His rugby mates took it in turns to let him sleep on their sofas, but he could tell they were glad to be rid of him. Who wants a miserable loser living with them?

  He spent most days in a grubby cafe. The place was so unpopular they were grateful to have him there, even if he only bought a coffee or two all day. The only condition was that he sat in the window.

  ‘People see you in h
ere,’ Bepe, the owner, said. ‘They think it good place to come. They come inside. Is money, yes?’

  Marcus nodded and smiled, covered his notebook with his hand.

  He had three of them, notebooks, their lined pages crammed with his uneven writing. Page after page of information he’d picked up about Mesmeris. How was he going to damage them now? His sole reason for living was to destroy them. He’d worked his arse off for it, only to throw it all away, and for what? A girl. A girl who didn’t even care enough to listen, who didn’t even care enough to say no to his best mate.

  He turned to a clean page, drew a vertical line down the centre, and wrote ‘good’ at the top of one column, ‘crap’ on top of the other. Underneath, he wrote all the plusses of his life at that moment, and all the minuses. The minuses won.

  Another page. ‘How to change things’ written at the top.

  He stared at the empty space, his mind a blank. One thing, that’s all it would take, to trigger a series of events, to turn things around. What that one thing was though, was anybody’s guess. The answer had to be somewhere in these notebooks. He’d have to read through them systematically from those first, furious words, etched into the pages, almost unreadable.

  They killed her – the words embedded in the fabric of the paper. Bastards.

  Seeing the writing brought back the sharpness, the sting in full, glorious intensity. It left him breathless, faint. He skipped the first few, raw, desperate pages. He’d been unaware that time had softened the edges of his fury, but it had. He’d forgotten how intense it had been, how debilitating, how the pain had crippled him, left him unable to function.

  The killers were dead. That should have been an end to it. If they hadn’t cheated him out of a trial, perhaps it would have been. But no, all three of them hung themselves on remand. Convenient for the real people responsible, the ones selling the whole twisted ideology. They were still out there, and Marcus was coming to get them.

  He ordered more coffee, sat for a few minutes, staring out of the window at people trundling along, hauling their luggage behind them. He wondered if death had touched their lives. Who knew? Perhaps their brother or sister, daughter or son had been taken from them with mindless violence. Unlikely. People who’d suffered that didn’t laugh, didn’t have a carefree walk, didn’t ever lose the weight from their hearts – not ever. Some forgave, he knew. Their faces appeared on TV screens. They claimed to forgive their loved one’s murderer or murderers. Did they? Did they really? He didn’t think so. He’d never forgive – never, even if he succeeded in wiping them out, every one of them, he’d never forgive, but would pursue them until oblivion claimed him. If there was any kind of afterlife, he’d be there, making sure their suffering never ended, never.

  Blood dripped onto the plastic table. ‘Shit!’ The pen had cut into the palm of his hand. He dabbed at the blood with the flimsy scrap of translucent paper that passed for a napkin. His heart fluttered. Sweat broke out on his temples, the back of his neck. He leaned his forehead against the steamed-up window, rolled it against the cool condensation, and breathed.

  The answer wouldn’t be in those early ramblings, cries of pain and rage, but later, perhaps.

  He skipped the first pages, waited until the writing settled a little, became more legible. Every detail of the investigation he’d meticulously recorded. Even the very words spoken by the family liaison officer, the lawyers, the doctors – every word recorded in faithful detail. Even their expressions – pitying, frustrated, clueless – they, too were noted. It had helped, occupied his energies, keeping the diaries. The obsession with detail succeeded in blocking out the big picture – the unspeakable horror that destroyed his mother. If he let it, it would have destroyed him too. But he didn’t. He immersed himself in detail, in minutiae, and saved his sanity. Then that was the answer – to immerse himself in detail again, to continue with his one ambition – to destroy Mesmeris. But how? Without the forces of law and order behind him, he was on his own.

  He sat back, thought for a moment. He needed to be in a position where he could hurt them, big time.

  A germ of an idea popped into his head. At first, he discounted it. The thought of spending even a minute with one of them without smashing their skulls was preposterous. He’d never be able to do it.

  In vain, he searched for another option. There was none. It was the only way.

  His pulse picked up. The dizziness vanished, replaced by clarity – his mind racing, certainty growing ever stronger that this was the right move. He couldn’t do it alone though. He’d need help. His mind travelled back to that afternoon in the woods, to the detective’s body, hanging from the tree, and the DCI, DCI Jim Mac something.

  Marcus ordered another coffee, knowing it meant going without a pint later.

  He drank it as he rifled through his notebook, tearing one or two pages in his haste, and there it was, Macready – Jim Macready. He sat back.

  The scrawled note below read, So-called expert in some twisted religion. And there, next to that, was the word that now dogged his every waking, every sleeping moment - Mesmeris.

  ‘Knew it,’ he said. ‘Knew it.’ He shoved his notebooks into his bag, dropped a few pound coins on the table, and left.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN MARCUS

  Finding Macready was easy, getting to meet him less so. It took three calls before he got to speak to the guy himself, and then only by lying, saying he had some new information about his sergeant’s murder. Even then, Macready wasn’t keen to meet outside the station. Only when Marcus mentioned the magic word, Mesmeris, did he get the meet he wanted – at a local dive, known as The Archers.

  Marcus caught a train, then walked, and arrived first. The place was a state – the outside painted a grimy mustard yellow, the inside worse – grey, torn net curtains blocking out most of the daylight. It stank of stale beer and pine disinfectant. Unsurprisingly, the place was empty.

  Marcus bought two pints of cheapest lager, and sat in a dingy corner. The red velvet seats were worn and shiny at the edges, and smelled of wet dog. Marcus sat up, back straight, resisting the urge to lean back and close his eyes. Even the flock wallpaper had a sickly aroma. He didn’t want that grease on his hair. He hadn’t had a shower for days, and probably whiffed himself, but it was his smell, his dirt. He rubbed at his jaw, felt the prickles. No doubt, he looked like a hobo – red-rimmed eyes from disturbed nights, trying to fit his six foot two frame onto one settee after another. He’d lost weight, the clenched stomach unable to tolerate more than a few mouthfuls of anything.

  The door swung open and Macready poked his head around.

  Marcus jumped to his feet, afraid the DCI would miss him and walk out.

  Macready’s sharp eyes registered surprise, dismay, perhaps. At him or the state of the pub, Marcus didn’t know. Maybe both. He strode over to the table, held out a calloused hand.

  ‘Fielding?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Call me Jim, please.’ His handshake was firm, warm and dry. ‘Mind if I sit down?’ He sat anyway.

  Marcus waved a hand at the drinks. ‘I wasn’t sure . . .’

  ‘That’s great.’ Macready took a slurp of the lager. Froth clung to his almost-moustache. ‘So, I hear you mucked up.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Marcus felt like a schoolboy in front of the headmaster. He picked up his glass, stopped half way to his mouth, and put it back down again.

  ‘Shame,’ Macready said. ‘You’d been accepted onto HPDS, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The guy had certainly done his research.

  ‘How can I help?’

  Marcus opened his mouth, but nothing came out. The whole plan suddenly seemed ridiculous.

  ‘I have to tell you,’ Jim said, ‘my influence is – limited.’

  ‘My sister . . .’ Marcus swallowed.

  ‘I know, lad. I haven’t forgotten.’

  The sympathy in Jim’s voice made Marcus’s eyes sting.

  Jim took another slurp of his drink
, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘They were impressed with you at Hendon.’

  ‘Really?’ Marcus allowed himself a small, bitter smile.

  Jim rested his elbows on the table, and leaned forwards. ‘Come on, out with it. You haven’t come all this way to ask for a desk job. What is it?’

  Marcus glanced at his uncut, dirty fingernails, wished he’d bothered to have a shower, comb his hair, have a shave. What would he do in Jim’s place? Laugh, probably. ‘I can help you get them,’ he said.

  Jim sat back, eyes guarded. ‘Get who?’

  Marcus had trouble saying the word, an involuntary twitch pulling at his mouth. ‘Mesmeris.’

  Jim sat back, folded his arms. ‘Go on.’

  ‘They’re still out there, peddling their poison.’ Marcus breathed. Stay calm, show him you can do this. ‘They killed your sergeant, didn’t they?’

  Jim’s face showed nothing, no reaction.

  ‘That M.O,’ Marcus said. ‘The inverted crucifixion, throat slit – that’s classic Mesmeris, isn’t it?’

  Jim’s eyes narrowed. ‘And how, exactly, would you know that?’

  ‘I’m good,’ Marcus said. ‘Really good – and you need me.’

  Jim laughed, shook his head. ‘You’re not short on arrogance, lad.’

  ‘Thought you wanted to get them as much as I do,’ Marcus said. Come on, you bastard, say yes.

  ‘We’re working on it.’ Jim was wavering. Marcus could see it in his eyes.

  Stay calm, he thought, show him you have your emotions under control. Whatever you do, don’t piss him off.

  ‘I can go undercover. Get you the evidence.’

  ‘I don’t know, lad.’ Jim’s eyes narrowed. Marcus could almost see him calculating the risks, the possible gains.

  ‘I’m going to destroy them,’ Marcus said, ‘annihilate them. You can help me, or not.’ He shrugged. ‘Up to you.’