Silencing the Dead by Will Harker (ereader ebook .txt) 📕

Behind the reporter, the red neon sign had started to flicker: PARKER’S SERVICES. Every letter but one had phased out. I suddenly remembered what Anne had said about Tilda’s prediction—that Debbie would “find her way back to us, through water and wood until the red eye guided her home.” Now I stared at that static scarlet ‘I’.

“How did she know?” I wondered.

Haz smiled. “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Scott Jericho.”

EPILOGUE

Before he left, Haz retrieved my phone from the bedside cabinet and laid it beside me.

“It’s been ringing pretty non-stop,” he said. “You must have a million voicemails. I didn’t realise you were so popular.”

If it hadn’t been for the dulling effect of the analgesics pumping through my veins, I might have guessed who had been trying so desperately to contact me. As it was, I could already feel my eyelids beginning to droop. I caught clumsily at Haz’s sleeve as he turned away from the bed.

“Still going to love me when they take off these bandages and my neck looks like a boiled chicken?” I asked.

He bent down and brushed his lips against mine. “We’ll see.”

I laid there for a while, drifting in and out of sleep, listening to the muffled conversation of visitors in the next bay, wondering about an old woman and her prophecies. Like me, my mother had possessed a dual soul, caught up in the romance of her stories but infused with a practical hard-headedness. Although sceptical about many things, she’d still believed in her friend Tilda Urnshaw. I remembered a scene not long before she died in which my mother had overheard her cocky seventeen-year-old son scoffing at something Tilda had said.

“Don’t ever let me catch you laughing at your auntie that way again,” she had seethed. “That woman has more wisdom in her little finger than you’ll possess in a lifetime. You might very well need her advice and comfort one day.”

And I had needed it. Tilda was the first person I went to when, a month later, my mother was found dead.

Only half-conscious of what I was doing, I picked up the phone and called my voicemail. “You have seventeen new messages. First message received at 8:30 am on 1st November…”

The somewhat breathless voice of the private detective panted down the line, “Jericho? It’s Gary Treadaway. Look, we’ve had a bit of a balls-up on our end. The boss said not to worry about the last few days’ pay that you owe us. Call it evens, eh? Anyway, this is just to say, we’ve lost him. Not exactly sure when it happened, but the old bastard’s fucked off somewhere all right. I’ve had one of the boys pose as a window cleaner to take a look through the upstairs windows. The house is empty. We’re thinking he might have bunked over the neighbour’s fence, but that’s just guesswork. I knew you must have a good reason for wanting us to keep an eye on him, so I’ll try you again later. I only hope he’s not going to cause you any trouble. I mean…” The detective chuckled uncertainly. “What trouble could he cause?”

I’d been so focused on the call that I hadn’t even acknowledged the doctor who’d stepped inside the curtain to take my blood pressure. Now as the cuff around my arm deflated, a hand reached out and took the phone from me.

“160/80. I think you need to calm down a little, Scott.”

I looked up into the vacant face of Peter Garris.

“Now, now,” he said, as I made a grab for the front of his shirt. “No drama. If you kick up a fuss, I’ll be forced to use this on the first nurse that pokes their head through the curtain.”

A surgeon’s scalpel flashed in his hand and I settled back onto the bed. Meanwhile, Garris moved around the cubicle, finally taking the plastic seat beside me. He laid the blade flat against his thigh and treated me to a paternal smile.

“Been getting yourself into trouble again? I seem to remember saying that you needed a new puzzle. Perhaps next time it can be a less bruising one?”

A flicker of the old rage ignited in my chest. “What do you want?”

He looked at me for a long time, something new in his gaze. A hint of indecision. “To make amends,” he said at last. And reaching into his jacket pocket, he brought out a scuffed and battered digital recorder. “It contains the audio file in which you revealed Harry’s act of mercy. It’s the original. I didn’t make any copies. I’m sorry…” He frowned, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. “I don’t want to hold it over you anymore. What I did to save you in Bradbury End, I did to save you. Not some twisted version of yourself. Back in my garden a few days ago, I realised that you were beginning to frighten me. That the position I had put you in was changing you in some fundamental way. You shouldn’t frighten people, Scott. That’s what men like me do best. I’m the villain of this story—you’re the hero. Always remember that.”

He stood, smiling at the scalpel like an old friend before sliding it into his pocket.

“You won’t be seeing me for a while. Being who I am, I’ve always had plans in place if ever I needed to run. So take a breath, Scott Jericho. Try to be happy. And maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”

He had pulled back the curtain and was about to step through when he clicked his fingers.

“Of course, I almost forgot. I’m such a muddle-head when I’ve got a long journey before me, but I meant to say, I know the murders I committed for your sake have weighed heavily on you. Well, you can stop torturing your conscience about one thing, at least.”

“Oh, yes?” I almost laughed. “And what’s that?”

In the harsh hospital