Banquet for the Damned

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hart arrives at Fife Park on foot — puffing and sweating after the walk from town. A solitary police car passes him as it leaves the main drive to join the Strathkinness High Road. Through the windscreen he notices the two young officers staring at him. 'Who is that crazy guy with the beard?' Hart whispers, and indulges himself with a chuckle.

He enters the shabby residential development and wanders through the cluster of buildings, looking for numbers on the peeling doors of the flats. He presumes they are arranged sequentially, and looks for 37, where Rick lives. The student did not show for his ten o'clock interview, but had seemed pretty keen to meet with Hart when he phoned the day before. Unwilling to delay any longer in contacting the young man, Hart set out for Fife Park just after ten, a little angry with himself for not insisting on seeing Rick right away. Not only should he have a third interview recorded — more ammunition for his case — but after the vanishing of Mike Bowen and Maria, nothing can now be left to chance. If something has happened to the kid he'll never forgive himself. He makes another quick resolution to lay off the booze and chides himself further, when he remembers the two glasses of whisky he needed to just get started that morning. 'Who am I, Aerosmith?' he says to himself with a scowl.

If he cannot persuade the students who called him to leave St Andrews, the least he can do is keep an eye on them. It is too early to go to the college authorities. He needs more proof on tape: frightened voices, unusual narratives of disordered sleep, similar dream experiences, a connection, a case.

Despite the blue of the late-summer sky, Fife Park has a grim feel to it. Neatly cut grass on every lawn, and the swept concrete slabs of the paths, only serve to make it look like an institution. A boot camp or low-security prison. The linked flats could be empty birdhouses with their pointed roofs and drab grey sidings, or a temporary mockup of a town designed for nuclear testing. He's seen similar in Nevada.

Spotting the warden's hut, he ambles up a path to the front door. A CLOSED sign has been hung behind the wire-strengthened glass, but he knocks anyway. There is no answer, but he hears the sound of a car door slam on the other side of the warden's hut. He makes his way toward the noise. In the carpark that opens out before him, he sees a young blond man hastily packing an ageing Volkswagen Golf. 'Hey now,' Hart says, smiling.

The man pauses — the muscles in his arms strain around a television set. He stares at Hart for a moment and then looks away, continuing in his attempts to squash the TV set down and amongst the softer bags he has crammed into the boot of the car. If they ain't laughing at my beard, they're ignoring me. 'Forget to pay the rent?'

Hart says.

'What?' the student asks. His face is red from the battle with the television set; a rivulet of sweat trickles from his temple and through his sideburns, making them dark and shiny wet.

'Nothing. It's just you being in a real hurry an' all.' The young man carries on with his packing. 'I'm looking for number 37.'

Immediately, the young man stops forcing the television into the car, which has begun to rock from side to side from his efforts. He turns to face Hart. 'Do I know you?'

'No. But I need to find number 37, because one of the guys who lives there didn't show up for an interview this morning. That's all.

Don't fret. I'm no cop. With hair like this I wouldn't even make undercover.' The man's young face never moves. 'Can you tell me where number 37 is?' Hart insists, speaking slowly.

The student appears to be in a daze. Hart walks away, shaking his head, when the young man finally speaks. 'I live in 37.'

Turning around, Hart's brows rise above his glasses. 'You do?

That's great. Don't look so worried. I ain't no bailiff, brother. Your TV set is safe.'

'Who do you want?' the student asks, ignoring another attempt at humour.

'Rick…' Hart flicks open the top pocket of his denim jacket to find the surname on his notepad, but the man's reaction to the mention of Rick stops his fumbling. He slams the hatchback door shut and then slumps against his car, with both of his feet stuck out as if to prevent himself from sliding down to the tarmac. He covers his face with his hands and rubs his eyes. 'You all right?' Hart asks.

Nodding, the student pulls his dirty fingers down his face, slowly.

'You Rick?' Hart presses.

'No.'

'Do you know where I can find him?'

'You don't. Nobody does.'

'Mind telling me why?'

'Are you a tutor?' the student asks, now staring at Hart with an intensity that makes him feel uncomfortable.

'No. I'm an anthropologist. Just visiting. And Rick was going to help me with my book.'

Shaking his head, the young man begins to grin, and then laugh as if he has nothing to laugh at but the hopelessness of everything. 'Rick was an anthropological curiosity all right. What's the book about, autistics, or socially dysfunctional rich kids?'

'Things that go bump in the night, actually,' Hart replies with a smile, trying to relax the kid. But the smile shrinks from his hairy cheeks when the student's face blanches. 'I think you better tell me what's going down at 37,' Hart says.

The man nods a reluctant assent. He motions for Hart to follow him.

'Rick's dead,' the student, who nervously introduced himself as Jason, tells Hart once they are seated in the scrubbed and meticulously clean kitchen.

Hart puts his cup of coffee back on the table. 'Dead?'

Jason nods. 'I saw him last night. What was left of him in the loft space. I called the police early this morning.'

'Why not last night?'

Jason raises his frightened eyes. 'After what I saw upstairs, there was no way on this earth that I was leaving my room until daylight. And I had to be sure it had gone. It was outside my room. After it killed Rick. So then I was going to jump from the window, but I heard it go down the stairs. Then it would have been outside the flat, so I stayed put, in my room until first light.' The way Jason, in all sincerity, is referring to this other party, shrivels Hart's balls. 'I called the police this morning from the phone by the common room, and they came right away. But it was all gone from the attic where I saw him. There was nothing there. I don't know how. There must have been stains.' Jason swallows. He seems to be on the verge of tears. 'Then they opened Rick's room and found some acid in one of his drawers and accused me of wasting their time. They were really on edge. Nearly bloody arrested me. They asked me loads of questions. I think they put me down as some kind of idiot suffering from hallucinations. Then they just sat in their car, for ages, and watched me pack. They said it was the second prank call they had received in a week.'

Hart leans forward. 'The second?'

'Yeah. Some golfer was found in shock on the beach and claimed to have seen something down there. He'd had a heart attack and a stroke, but the fuzz didn't find a thing. They reckon people are freaking out because of that body part they found washed ashore.'

'Jesus,' Hart whispers. He slumps into his plastic chair.

'And now they reckon that everybody is claiming to have seen a body. But I did. I know I did. I don't take drugs. I know what I saw and it made me puke.'

'You saw Rick?

Jason nods.

'This was last night?'

Jason nods again. 'I thought they would blame me. We didn't get on. He was a messy bastard. Awful to live with, but I wouldn't have wished that on my worst enemy.'

'What exactly?'

'There was someone in the loft with him.' Jason's voice dies. He covers his eyes with his hands.

'You saw it?'

'Sort of. It was… It was…'

'Go on.'

'It was eating him.'

Hart stares at Jason's face for a long time before he pushes his stubby fingers behind the lenses of his glasses, to rub his own tired and red eyes. Jason stares at Hart, whose turn it is to be distracted and pale in the face. 'You seem to know a lot about this?'

'That's why I'm here. It's something I've been researching for a long time.'

'You believe me then?'

'Wish I didn't.'

'Who is it?'

'I don't have a clue. Not as to specifics. But I think something has returned to this town. Something old that most people would never believe in.'

'You mean like the devil or something? I mean hang on, that must have been a man I saw up there.'

Hart sighs. 'Did it look like a man?'

'No.'

Hart raises an eyebrow. 'Well then. It's all too much for people to believe in, Jason. They need colour footage these days. I don't even bother explaining anymore. Just keep things to myself, mostly.'

'Amen to that,' Jason replies. 'It's so crazy, though. I thought I was going to be arrested for murder. Especially after what I said last night in the pub about Rick. I didn't have an alibi, I had a motive, I was drunk. But the police only slapped my wrists about making prank calls.' Jason starts to laugh with disbelief.

'Jason,' Hart says, his voice low, his stare fixed on the young man. 'Did you see anything before last night?'

'Like what?'

'A shadow. Near Rick's room.'

'No. Nothing. I spend most nights at my girlfriend's place. I couldn't stand being around Rick. I was ready to… Well, you know.'

'He got under your skin.'

Jason nods. 'Messy bastard. Poor sod.'

'Place looks fine to me.'

Jason smiles, sadly. 'I cleaned it this morning for the last time. We all lost our deposits because of Rick. But the least I could do was wash his dishes one last time. A kind of goodbye.'

Hart turns his tired face to look up at the ceiling.

'You want to go up there?' Jason asks.

'I better.'

'You're on your own.'

'That's fine.'

'I'll give you five minutes and then I'm out of here. I've got to lock up and post my keys through the warden's door. And anyway, you won't see anything. I went in with the police. There's nothing there. Not a drop of blood that I could see, and the police didn't look too hard once they'd found the acid. I've begun to wonder myself, now, whether I actually saw anything. Maybe it was like my subconscious or something.'

'Do I need a ladder?'

'No. Just go up the stairs. Then go through the fire door and turn right. It's at the end of the hall.'

Hart leaves Jason to his packing and makes his way up to the attic. After he has opened the loft door, he has to fumble for the light switch. With the light on, he moves into the narrow storage space and crouches down on the dusty floorboards. Peering under the boxes scattered about, he notices several dark patches on the wooden boards and fragments of carpet. Could be oil, and the stains look old. Maybe there is something for forensics, but Hart is relieved the police have not taken samples. They would immediately start looking for a serial killer or something — wasting their time and getting in his way. When the time comes to act, the police will be useless. Hart shudders. Then it will be time to forget a rational approach. If he's learned anything from South America, it will be a time to act quickly and to go somewhere insane. Can he?

Hart lifts his face and squints at the low ceiling. 'Who are you?' he whispers. 'Why are you here?'