Father of Lies Page 5

  To bring Ruby out of the hypnosis, he had to start talking to her. Assuming she was the real host, of course. Maybe Ruby didn’t actually exist as an entity at all, and was just an alter herself - the most presentable of them? Hell, what a mind-fuck!

  A gurgling, noxious cackling spewed forth as the creature inside Ruby read his mind. “You can’t count to three and snap your fingers, you fucking cretin. This is the Kingdom. You must stop this line of treatment. Altogether. You must agree. You really have no choice.”

  Dark shapes crept along the walls and with a stab of shock, he realised the sun was going down. They had been in here for hours. Soon it would be dark. He became aware of a frantic banging against the door again. Huge, heaving thuds. People trying to get in with no success. But the door was iron-fast shut.

  In his mind he rapidly agreed. Okay. No more hypnosis. He would desist immediately. Absolutely.

  The spark in Ruby’s eyes briefly lit her face before she collapsed.

  The heavy desk instantly gave way, and three security men burst in along with two nurses.

  Becky had fainted at some point, and lay slumped against the wall. Someone was calling her name.

  The next thing Jack registered, as he fell into the armchair, head in hands, was Ruby sucking her thumb, complaining of a headache. Being taken to the padded room again in a straight jacket.

  Jesus Christ, he’d aged a hundred years.

  ***

  Chapter Six

  Woodsend Village. December, 1995

  The night the call-out to Woodsend Village came, P.C. Callum Ross was working with Sergeant George Mason. They parked the Ford Sierra outside The Highwayman - a wind-blasted stone inn on The Old Coach Road - while George bellowed down the phone.

  Outside it was a fresh, blowy night: wisps of cloud dancing across a full moon in a haze of veils. The Old Coach Road was an ancient highway, cutting across the moors past Bridesmoor Colliery on the outskirts of Doncaster. The inn, which had been there almost as long, had a bad reputation, although most nights it played host only to hooded teenagers on slot machines, and grim-faced old men nursing a pint of bitter. From where they sat in the car, the black, skeletal outline of the pithead could be plainly seen, forked against the bruised skyline like a dying tyrannosaurus.

  Callum sighed - 9.45 pm - another bloody domestic by the sound of it, just as they were about to clock off. They always took forever to sort out.

  “Come on, lad. It’s at t’ farmhouse over t’ road. We’ll walk.”

  The wind soughed in the trees as they tramped along the road towards the driveway.

  “Supposed to be ’aunted up ’ere, i’n’t’ it?” said George. “All t’ dead miners trapped underground in that accident a few year back? They could never find all t’ bodies - buried too deep, and t’ roof kept caving in. They say you can still ’ear ’em moaning on nights like this.”

  Callum looked up at the miles and miles of sodden moor land, echoing with a low, whistling wind. “I wish you ’ad n’t said owt.”

  Sergeant Mason - a man his dad’s age - laughed out loud. “Me mother used to say they dug the mine over an old asylum, and you can ’ear mad people shouting when t’ full moon’s up.”

  “Right - now I know tha’s making it up.”

  George laughed again. “No honestly - she did used to say that! Any road - you’ll be safe wi’ me lad. Nothing scares old George! Ah, here we are! ‘Highway Farmhouse.’”

  The drive down to the farm was long and steep. Either side of them were high poplars to shield the property from the driving cold winds. And soon the surrounding fields gave way to woodland.

  “Bit of an odd one this,” said George as they neared the house, which was in darkness save for a small light above the door. “Teenager gone mad, can’t do a thing with ’er, apparently. They’re a rum bunch up ’ere, I’ll tell ya. Bloody inbreeds.”

  “Oh aye? I thought it were a domestic?”

  George lowered his voice to a whisper as their footsteps clomped across the concrete yard. “It’s these remote villages, Son. Some of ’em still live in t’ dark ages.” He inclined his head down towards Woodsend village. “We’ve ’ad a lot of complaints over t’ years with some of t’ families round ’ere. Ever ’eard o’t Deans? Aye, well worse than gypos, lot of ’em. Take back-up if you’re ever called out to them lot. ”

  Horses snorted and kicked in the stalls, and bits of tumbleweed floated around the yard, as George knocked on the kitchen door.

  It flew open instantly.

  “Oh thank God, you’ve come,” said an elderly lady, bustling them both through to the living room. “Me daughter-in-law’s scarpered - that’d be our Kathleen - ‘can’t take no more on it’, she said. And God knows where our Derek’s got to. Leaving me ’ere to deal wi’ this…”

  She opened the living room door - a large room with a brown and red patterned carpet, and pale pink walls. A pile of heavy furniture lay in one corner as if it had been picked up and dumped there from a great height. The television was switched on but not tuned in - the only sound being that of static.

  Both officers stared aghast.

  A teenaged girl was spinning round and round on her head. Eyes rolling in their sockets. Laughing.

  ***

  Six months later: April 1996

  The day was unseasonably warm and Woodsend, Celeste thought, looked idyllic. Through her front room window, the view over the common was one of God-given pastoral beauty, as if centuries of industrialisation had never happened - an expanse of green, late daffodils shivering in the breeze…all as it should be, except that dancing in the corner of her eye was a ghostly ring of girls in white dresses, their voices tinkling in such a high frequency that no one else would hear…‘ring a ring o’ roses…’

  Being a spiritual medium wasn’t an option and it wasn’t ever going to go away. She knew that. Yet still it caught her off guard and made her heart thump. She blinked and looked away. Then back again. This time the ring of girls had gone.

  Her attention, however, had now been drawn to the scene before her. A woman, perhaps in her late twenties, very slender - was reading to a child: a blonde girl with a crown of bubble curls. The woman’s arm tightly embraced the child’s waist, their heads bent over a book; while behind them a few scruffy lads kicked a ball around, their shouts carrying in the wind, which whipped down from the moors.

  On a day like this, she thought, a person could almost forget the horrific events over winter. Gerry had been in hospital for many weeks with further complications following his heart attack. Every time it looked as though he’d recovered enough to come home, something else kept him there. It had left her alone and frightened; those endless nights long and dark - often without electricity either, as cables toppled in gale force gusts.

  With no television and lit only by candlelight, the wind rattling the panes and shaking the roof, she’d lain in bed for hours, watching shadows form on the walls, trying to keep calm, breathe deeply, and not feed the negative energy assailing her on a nightly basis. The psychic assault had been, no doubt about it, powerful and relentless: images of faces zooming into hers, one after another, every time her weary soul began to sink into sleep - many of them with red eyes or lacerated features. All accusatory, malicious, contorted by hatred, twisted with disease. Sometimes a noise - a heart-stopping bang as if a heavy piece of furniture had fallen over downstairs - would cause her to leap wild-eyed from her bed. Or scratching in the walls, and at the windows. Whispers in corners…Celeste… Celeste…Fear bred fear, as well she knew.

  Yet the attack continued. Wearing her down. Her strength waned. In desperation she returned to Leeds for a few weeks, staying in her sister’s back room over Christmas and New Year, until Gerry was home again. By which time she felt strong enough, and financially desperate enough, to restart her psychic development classes. These were held in Doncaster, and they’d attracted a lot of interest, with some of the attendees showing real mediumistic talent.

&
nbsp; But today there was sunshine again and fresh hope. She turned away from the view and smiled at her client. Began to shuffle the tarot cards and fully open up her psychic channels. Dear Lord, please bless these cards….The woman in front of her was young - about twenty, maybe a year or two older - and had taken off her baseball cap and sunglasses while Celeste had been looking out of the window. As she turned to face the girl, Celeste realised with a little jolt in her stomach, that she recognised her. Despite a changed name and a slightly altered appearance there was no way she’d forget those ice-blue eyes with their watchful, disdainful stare; and while she shuffled the cards and asked for spiritual guidance, the answer came. Of course. The woman had attended a couple of her classes back in February, then suddenly vanished. Now here she was. In Woodsend. The back end of nowhere, as Gerry described it. Coincidence?

  There are no coincidences, Celeste…

  Uneasiness crept up and down her spine. This girl had said the classes were rubbish and a waste of money, sniggered during meditation, and generally been a bit of a nuisance. It had been a relief to everyone when she left, which had been during the week they were talking about scrying, using a dish of black ink. “Don’t do it for too long,” Celeste had warned. “Just a couple of minutes at most. You must always close down properly and cleanse afterwards, and always, always, protect yourself.”

  This girl, having given a different name on the phone - that of Natalie - was now watching her intently.

  “Those classes you run are dangerous,” she said as Celeste dealt out her cards. “I did that scrying thing and now I’m possessed.”

  Celeste put down the pack. “Is that why you’re really here?”

  Natalie smiled. “You should get sued for doing what you do - taking people’s money for a load of old rubbish. You’re the devil. You never told me how dangerous this was. Now I’ve got long black shadows following me and I’m hearing voices in my head telling me to do bad things.”

  The girl’s eyes were hard as flint. “My bloke, Rick, says I’m swearing and sweating at night instead of sleeping, and my eyes are rolling back and freaking him out.”

  “How long did you scry for? I did say to protect yourself and only for a few minutes if you’re on your own.”

  “All day.”

  “And yet I warned you…”

  “I don’t want to end up like that mad bitch up at Highway Farmhouse - spinning round on ’er fucking head!”

  “Did you seek my classes out in Doncaster?”

  Natalie smiled directly into her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Why? If you don’t understand or believe in spiritualism, and you’re not going to take my advice and protect yourself?”

  “That’s bullshit. You’re dangerous and someone ’ad to find out what you were doing to try an’ stop you. That stupid cow’s a loony now and you’re causing it all. We didn’t ’ave any trouble until you showed up. And now it’s ’appening to me an’ all. I’m seeing a man in a black suit at night - telling me to top meself…”

  Celeste nodded as the woman listed her symptoms. It certainly seemed like she might be under psychic attack and wouldn’t know how to deal with it, let alone have the strength of belief essential to ward it off.

  Probably best to contact Father Adams then, because if this young woman had been scrying all day, inviting in spirits, which, as with the Ouija board, would attract the lowest astral order - then she may well be under psychic attack. She had explained all this in class, but people’s morbid curiosity, lack of spiritual conviction and just plain ignorance of what could happen, often meant they found out way too late.

  She could try to exorcise the girl herself, of course, but one of the dangers of exorcism was that, if not done properly, an evil entity could easily climb into the aura of another - putting herself, already in a weakened state, at risk. No, it was best done through the church. She’d ring Father Adams immediately.

  Explaining this to Natalie, however, it took a few moments before she realised that Natalie was spluttering with laughter. “A what? Like the fucking Exorcist or summat? Are you ’aving a laugh?”

  Celeste took a deep breath and inwardly she prayed for guidance. “You need help, Natalie.”

  And yet a small voice, part of her, thought something else. It was possible that Natalie, as she called herself, was simply making trouble - if she was really infested with an evil spirit then she would be frightened enough to make that call. If, however, this was just a hoax, then she’d probably done what she came to do: the symptoms she had described were certainly copy book. Anyone could find them on the internet.

  Natalie’s aura was strange, though, and difficult to read. There was a black, smudged scribble around her - like a child’s drawing. Other things too, vague shapes, which implied Natalie had been dabbling in far more than a bit of scrying. Which was when an inner voice replayed Natalie’s words, loud and clear - ‘We didn’t have any trouble til you showed up’

  ‘We…’

  It clicked into place. The girl was yet again trying to dismantle her business and her credibility. There had never been any intention to sit for a reading.

  “Actually I think you should leave now, Natalie. If you are afraid then you must contact the vicar in Bridesmoor, or ask me to phone Father Adams for you.”

  Natalie threw back her head and laughed raucously.

  Celeste stood up and walked towards the door. Held it open.

  Outside, in the early Spring sunshine, the woman reading to the little girl looked up and waved as the front door opened and Natalie breezed out. Celeste narrowed her eyes and it occurred to her that the woman was the same one who lived at the end of their row of houses. She’d seen her around a couple of time but never before with a child - in fact, the woman was so very dark and the girl so very fair.

  The moment stuck. The little blonde girl rocking to and fro. Chanting. As the dark woman turned to stare over her shoulder. A moment freeze-framed in her mind like a camera still.

  And one which would be recalled in every detail twenty years later. If only, if only…

  A few more seconds passed. Natalie was now out of sight. Neither tramping up Ravenshill, nor down it, nor across the common. Celeste scrutinised the horizon in all directions. Well how odd. Like she’d vanished into the ether.

  A dark cloud shifted over the sun, lodging into place and sending a chill into the air. A coiling wind blew around her ankles. Just like the last time the devil had come calling.

  They would have to leave. Immediately.

  ***

  Chapter 7

  Drummersgate Unit, Riber Ward. Present Day: November, 2015

  Becky looked through the porthole window of Room 10. After the disastrous hypnosis treatment, which had left everyone in the team shocked and unnerved, Ruby’s mental health, by contrast, appeared to have improved dramatically.

  The first night in the padded room upstairs she’d slept soundly through to the following morning. When she awoke she ate a full breakfast for the first time since being admitted to Drummersgate, and had maintained a calm demeanour ever since. And here was another first, Becky realised as she looked through the window - Ruby was actually making eye contact and, very faintly, smiling.

  She rapped on the door and let herself in. Mindful. Hyper-vigilant. And yet…and yet…something fundamental really had changed. Something so insidious as to be almost indefinable.

  “Morning, Ruby!”

  Ruby looked up from the magazine she’d been flicking through.

  “What are you reading?”

  Ruby showed her. ‘Red.’

  “Someone lend it to you?”

  She nodded. “Chantal.”

  “The cleaner? That was nice of her.” Becky sat on a chair by the door. “Any good?”

  “Yeah. I like the fashion stuff.”

  Becky’s eyebrows shot up. The transformation was nothing short of staggering. This, the girl who would not talk, engage in any kind of communication - refuse to even look at yo
u unless it was a violent rant - was behaving almost like a normal young woman. She’d showered and washed her hair too, which draped damply around her fine-boned, ashen-skinned face. Her bitten nails were no longer bleeding at the quick. Her pale eyes were clear and bright.

  ‘I shouldn’t have ever watched ‘The Exorcist,’ Becky thought, ‘or I wouldn’t be thinking the rubbish I’m thinking now - like could Ruby have been possessed? And did this now mean she would tell them who she was and where she came from? Had her cure really been so simple, with an exorcism of her demon? Did Jack even know he might have done it?’ He’d laugh if he could hear her thoughts, that was for sure.

  Well whatever had happened, maybe now Ruby would talk and get well? Then pass her two-year assessment and be discharged into the community again? Strong and able to cope with life. What an achievement. A flicker of excitement fizzed around in her tummy.

  “So tell me how you’re feeling today, Ruby?”

  Ruby turned over another magazine page. “Yeah good.”

  “Can you remember anything about the other day? In the treatment room with Doctor McGowan?”

  Ruby shook her head. “No.”

  “Can you remember coming here to the unit, or what your life was like before you came here?”

  Ruby shrugged, seemingly fascinated with what she was reading. “No.”

  “But you don’t feel angry anymore?”

  Ruby’s blank stare met her own enquiring one. “Angry? No, not at all. Why?”

  “Or sad?”

  Again Ruby shook her head. “No.”

  “Can you remember anything about your family? Where you grew up?”

  Ruby pushed the magazine aside. Screwed up her features. “No. Nothing. Just…”

  Becky waited.

  “…being at the mill. I was with someone. We had to leave - it were a bad place.”

  “Where was the mill? Do you know?”