Silencing the Dead by Will Harker (ready to read books .TXT) 📗

my hand. Directly above ‘GARY, Private Detective’ in my contacts list was ‘GARRIS, Peter.’ My thumb hovered over the name as I battled the almost irresistible urge to hit CALL.

In the days before I had discovered who he was, what he was, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I’d have hurried to share my every thought and theory with him, bouncing my plan for action off that logical, experienced intellect. Despite everything, I knew he could still help me now, if he chose. But this was a trite business, wasn’t it? Hardly worth compromising my morals to consult a serial killer.

Shoving the phone back into the pocket of my trench coat, I re-entered the tent.

Four faces turned to look at me. I felt their expectation like a dead weight.

“Just an idea,” I muttered. “Didn’t pan out.”

My dad nodded. “We’ve been talking about what you said regarding this thing seeming a bit ritualistic, what with the Bible verse and everything. Well, Tommy Radlett happened to notice this religious-type lurking around the forest road yesterday afternoon. He was handing out pamphlets to the chavvies who were playing in the woods. You know how we get nonces hanging around the fair sometimes, looking out for kiddies? Well, Tom told the little ’uns to stop rokkering with the mush and to jel out of it.”

“Stop talking to the man and run away,” I translated for a puzzled-looking Haz.

“Then Tom phoned me and I went down there to have a word. He was a youngish joskin, about your age. Clean-shaved, a bit bug-eyed, looked like he cut his own hair from the state of it. The usual black suit a preacher might wear, but at least a size too small for him. Charity shop number would be my guess. Still, he’d had money once, and whatever converted him to the good Lord, it must have happened in the past couple of years.”

“How do you know that?” Haz asked.

“He was wearing glasses. Designer frames, Cartier, but one of the arms was broken and taped and the lenses had been replaced, probably because his eyesight had got worse since he’d bought them. Thick, Coke-bottle lenses that looked ugly in the frames because he couldn’t afford to have the thinner kind.”

Haz frowned. “Maybe the glasses weren’t originally his? Maybe he found them and had the lenses replaced?”

Dad searched inside his pocket and brought out a torn sheet from the front of the preacher’s pamphlet: REJECT SATAN, REJECT SIN, REJECT WORLDLINESS AND AVARICE, ENVY AND GREED. EMBRACE JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR LORD AND SAVIOUR BEFORE THE HELLFIRE CONSUMES…

“A puritanical prick like this doesn’t pick up expensive glasses off the street and keep ’em,” Dad said. “He’d hand them in as lost property to the gavvers. But he might hold onto a pair from his old, sinful life, thinking that to throw them away would be wasteful. From the state of them, I’d guess this big life change happened a year or two back.”

I couldn’t help but smile at Haz’s quietly awed expression. It was how he had often looked at me in the old days when I performed my ‘tricks.’

“I learned from the best,” I murmured to him, and turned my attention back to the scrap of paper. “So you confronted this guy, tried to take one of his pamphlets, and he wrenched it back.”

“Said his message of salvation wasn’t for the likes of me. That he could tell just by looking into my face that I was beyond the grace of God.” Dad chuckled—a sound so rare that we all looked at him. “Anyway, I told him to be on his way and I didn’t think much more about it, until this happened. A fire-and-brimstone mush like that might well think fortune telling was the devil’s work.”

I glanced at Tilda who was quietly shaking her head. As she didn’t speak, I let the gesture pass.

“I gotta go see to the dodgems,” Big Sam said. “The plates are still out of alignment. Tils, why don’t you stay up at our trailer tonight? I’ll get Sandra to make up the spare bed.”

Dad agreed. “And if you want to open tomorrow, I’ll have one of the chaps stand guard outside the tent. I still think this is all a prank, but to be on the safe side we’ll keep a close eye on you. Unless Scott has anything to add?”

I shook my head. At that moment it was difficult to see what else could be done. In a strange way, the oblique threat of the doll reminded me of that uncertain terror harboured by Darrel Everwood. His fear that some dark fate awaited him at Purley Rectory was almost embodied in that gruesome wax poppet. And in their very different ways, weren’t Tilda and Darrel cut from the same psychic cloth? A religious fanatic who saw a simple fortune teller as a witch deserving of biblical punishment would surely view Everwood in similar terms. But it was such a vague connection, and when I asked Tilda if she’d ever met or spoken with Everwood, her denial seemed to make it even more unlikely.

“I’ve seen him on the telly, of course,” she said. “Done very well for himself, that one. But I doubt he has the true gift of a seer. Smoke and mirrors is his game, if I’m any judge.” But not yours? I let the question go unspoken. “Never met him, though. Why would I? They don’t put ugly mugs like mine on the telly.”

She cackled and then hushed us as we all demurred.

“I don’t have to be a mind-reader to know when I’m being flattered.” She shooed her twisted fingers at both Big Sam and my dad. “Now, off with you. The boys here can walk me over to your trailer, Sam. I shan’t open the tent tonight, but tomorrow?” Her lips tucked in with annoyance. “No God-botherer’s going to scare me away from my living.”

After they left, Haz and I helped Tilda out of her chair. Her knobbled knuckles affectionately