Twenty-Five

Mayor Wilkes strode along Main Street to the home of his PA. Heavy black cloud boiled in the sky. Gales whipped the river into angry waves that seethed white on the shoreline. Gulls screamed.

‘Damn these kids,’ Wilkes fumed. ‘The quarantine’s bad enough, now this.’ Sight of the gold bracelet this morning had shocked him. He knew exactly who the bracelet belonged to. He’d read the name inscribed on the oblong piece of gold: Ghorlan~Victor. Now he needed to investigate this further, then find a solution to this new problem. Despite his anger, he grinned. ‘Problems make me perform better. Give me obstacles: I get better results.’ He rammed open the door, then thundered upstairs to June’s apartment.

Victor Brodman watched Mayor Wilkes march along the street as if he owned the whole island. What on earth drove a human being to act in such an arrogant way? Victor shook his head as he stood on the jetty. A cold breeze jetted against his hot skin. Spray from waves, smacking against the wooden structure, speckled his clothing. The tang of salt told him that the ocean winds were carrying a storm this way.

Archer listened in horror as Jay repeated the name. The boy’s lips moved to a deadly rhythm. ‘Laura . . . Laura . . . Laura . . .’

To Archer, hearing Laura’s name uttered by Jay, the witch, the curse boy, the monster with a child’s face, was overwhelming. Archer knew the outcome. He’d witnessed Jay chanting Maureen’s name. And all the rest of those people that had been doomed by this little boy with the devil inside of him. ‘Laura . . . Laura . . .’ The soft voice had all the dark power of a tolling bell that foretold impending disaster.

Waves of fear rolled through Archer. That fear had the power to plunge him back into vivid memories of the day he told the gunmen where his father hid in the cellar. Blam, blam, blam. Bullets had exploded the face of the man who’d treated Archer and his mother so cruelly. Memory hauled him back to the dormitory at Badsworth Lodge when he’d seen Maureen loom over his bed just hours after she’d been crushed between the buses. Then he was back in the vault under the castle again. The gloomy place where it was always night-time. Spiders. Cobwebs. Fungus smells. The car with the thing in the back. The woman with the mass of black hair. Her face had been shrivelled like an old peach, yet she had beautiful blue eyes. Archer’s muscles locked tight. Yet, instinct drove him to walk away from Jay . . . bad Jay . . . witch Jay . . . because Jay chanted Laura’s name.

He should warn Laura. Nasty . . . bad . . . awful things would happen to her. Archer loved Laura. If she died he doubted if he would survive without her. The eight-year-old made it as far as the dining hall where he collapsed on to the floor tiles, dead to the world.

Mayor Wilkes glared at June. ‘This isn’t a social call,’ he hissed. ‘I’m not here with a bunch of grapes and to enquire if you’re feeling better.’

‘I never expected you would.’ June’s face bled nothing less than complete resignation. Her hands were shaking. ‘Damn, I thought I was getting better.’

He eyed her with distaste. She wasn’t an A-class employee; she was, however, loyal. Then she had to be. Without this job she’d be homeless. No one was going to employ a convicted fraudster. Just another lousy crook who had got caught.

June sipped water from a glass. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing too arduous.’ He grinned. ‘It’ll be like taking candy from a baby.’

She stared blankly at him.

Damn idiot of a woman. Irritably, he said, ‘A child, one of the Badsworth Lodge creatures, has something of mine.’

‘Something of yours?’ Her dull eyes gazed up at him.

‘Yes, a boy called Archer. You can’t miss him. He’s tiny, almost a dwarf. Lots of blond curly hair. Only his face . . . you’d think he was forty, if he was a day. Peculiar-looking kid. Then that lot from the orphanage always are.’ He grimaced. ‘What makes them like that God alone knows. Anyway, this specimen has a gold bracelet. I want it.’

‘A bracelet?’

‘Yes, can’t you follow what I’m telling you, June? It’s blindingly simple. Archer has a gold bracelet. Go get it for me.’

‘How?’

‘Use your initiative. Offer to help out across at the hostel, they’re short-staffed so they’ll welcome even a dried-up husk like you. Get in there, find Archer. The bracelet’s in his pocket. Take it from him.’

The stare became even more glassy.

Wilkes debated whether a slap across her face would sharpen her wits. Tempting . . . Instead, he slammed his hand down on the tabletop. ‘Wake up, woman. Surely you’re over this wretched bug. Now, once you have the bracelet bring it to me at my house. Don’t let anyone else see it. Don’t tell anyone about it . . . Dear God, June. Snap out of it. This infection only lasts twenty-four hours at the most. Don’t go faking being ill.’

She rubbed her forehead. ‘I’m . . . uh . . . sorry. I thought I was getting better. I’m finding it hard to . . . think properly.’

‘June, take the bracelet from the boy. Where do you think you’re going?’

‘I need to lie down for a while.’ Unsteadily, she walked down the hallway toward her bedroom.

‘Heaven preserve me from imbeciles,’ he barked in the direction of the bedroom door. ‘I’ll do it myself. But don’t get too comfortable. As soon as the quarantine’s lifted you’re out of this place. Do you hear?’

Wilkes marched out into the street as the wind roared past the houses. He couldn’t delay this any longer. It was time for him to find Archer. Then take the bracelet. And no more Mr Nice Guy. His lip curled into a grin. As if I was ever such a thing.