World's end

Chapter Two

Inactivity did not sit well with Ruth and it seemed only right that her enforced absence from work should be put to good use. Although she knew the buried trauma of Albert Bridge was responsible for her daytime confusions, black moods and constantly disturbed nights, she was determined she would not be paralysed by it; practicality was one of the strengths which had seen her rise so rapidly in the firm.

No one had been arrested for the Albert Bridge murder, although photofits based on Ruth and Church's descriptions had been given wide circulation throughout the media; the suspect had appeared so grotesque that Ruth found it hard to believe he hadn't been picked up within hours. Yet the investigation had drawn repeated blanks and as the days turned to weeks it became increasingly apparent it wasn't going anywhere. One advantage of Ruth's position with Cooper, Sedgwick amp; Tides was her direct access to the Met, where she found plenty of contacts who weren't averse to allowing her a glimpse into a restricted file or digging up some particular snippet of information. So it was relatively easy to find herself that morning in an empty room, bare apart from a rickety table, with the murder file.

The victim was a low-grade Ministry of Defence civil servant named Maurice Gibbons, a fact which had at first raised suspicion of some shadier motive beyond a simple mugging. When it became apparent the only secrets Gibbons had access to centred on the acquisition of furniture for MoD property, all conspiracy scenarios were quickly discarded. He was forty-eight and lived with his wife in Crouch End; both their children had left home. The only gap in the information was exactly what he was doing at Albert Bridge at that time of night. He had told his wife he was calling in at his local for a pint and she had gone to bed early, not realising he hadn't returned home. She didn't remember him leaving with his briefcase, although it was possible he had picked it up from the hall on the way out; why he had felt the need to take a briefcase to the pub was not discussed. And that was about it. He had no enemies; everything pointed to a random killing. Ruth jotted down Gibbons' address, phone number and his wife's name and slipped out, pausing to flash a thankful smile at the detective lounging by the coffee machine.

While there could be a completely reasonable explanation for his appearance at Albert Bridge-an illicit liaison, hereto or homo-to ignore it wasn't the correct way to conduct an investigation. Ruth knew she would have to interview the wife.

Her decision to take action had raised her mood slightly, but it seemed morbidity and depression were still waiting at the flat door, emotions so unnatural to her she had no idea how to cope. Bitterly, she set off for the kitchen to make a strong coffee in the hope that a shock of caffeine would sluice it from her system. As she passed the answer machine, the red light was flashing and she flicked it to play.

It was Church. "We need to talk," he said.

They met in the Nag's Head pub in Covent Garden just before the lunchtime rush. Church had a pint of Winter Warmer and Ruth a mineral water, which they took to a table at the back where they wouldn't be disturbed. Church felt in turmoil; he had barely slept since the shock of seeing-or thinking he had seen-Marianne outside the flat. He had tried to convince himself it was a hallucination brought on by all the turbulence in his subconscious, but it added to the queasy unreality that had infected his life. It had had one good effect, though: it had shocked him so severely that he could no longer passively accept what had happened to him.

"I didn't think I'd be hearing from you again. The last time we spoke you didn't sound too enthusiastic about opening this can of worms any further," Ruth said.

"You can only bury your head in the sand for so long. That is, if it's been affecting you the same way it's affected me," Church began cautiously. He tapped the side of his head. "I can't remember a thing about what happened, but my subconscious can see it in full, glorious Technicolor, and that little bastard at the back of my head won't let me rest until I sort it out." Ruth nodded. "So," he added, almost dismissively, "what I'm saying is, you were right."

"I do love to hear people say that." Ruth appraised Church carefully behind her smile. She instinctively felt he was a man she could trust; more than that, she felt he was someone she could actually like, although she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was that attracted her. There was an intensity about him that hinted at great depths, but an intriguing darkness too. "So what do you suggest?"

Church took out a folded printout of the email he had received from Bob Rickard, the Fortean Times editor. "I made a few enquiries online about what options are available for people with repressed memories."

"This happens all the time, does it?"

"You'd be surprised. Apparently, it's de rigueur if you've been abducted by aliens. You thought that aching rectum was just haemorrhoids? Here's how you find out you've really had a nocturnal anal probe. Regression hypnosis. To be honest, the expert I contacted wasn't, let's say, enthusiastic about its effectiveness. Some people think it can screw you up even more. There's something called False Memory Syndrome where your memory's been polluted by stuff that's leaked in from your imagination, things you've read, other memories, so your mind actually creates a fantasy that it believes is real. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has banned its members from using any hypnotic method to recover memories, so this guy says. But then there're a whole bunch of other experts who claim it does work."

"And the alternative?"

"Years, maybe decades, of therapy."

Ruth sighed. "I'm not too sure I'm comfortable with someone stomping around with hobnail boots in the depths of my mind."

"So we'd only do it if we were desperate, right?" Church's statement hung in the air for a moment before he turned over the printout to reveal several scrawled names and numbers. "I've got a list of qualified people here."

Ruth closed her eyes and jabbed her finger down at random. "They say a leap of faith can cause miracles."

"Don't go getting all religious on me," Church said as he circled the name. "I have enough trouble sleeping as it is. The last thing I need is you telling me it was the Devil we saw."

The appointment was fixed for three days hence. As the time grew closer, Church and Ruth found themselves growing increasingly anxious, as if whatever lay deep in their heads sensed its imminent removal and fought to stay in the comforting dark. Church received his first email from LauraDuSC~legion.com. She was Laura DuSantiago, a software designer at a computer games company in Bristol. She didn't actually say how the strange phenomena were connected, but she dropped some broad hints of a personal experience which had given her a unique insight. The ever more disturbing aspects of his own life had left Church oddly intrigued by what she had to say and he fired back an email straight away.

The day was bleakly cold, with depressing sheets of rain sweeping along Kensington High Street as Church and Ruth made their way west from the tube. There was no hint of spring around the corner. The street scene was a muddy mess of browns and greys, with the occasional red plastic sign adding a garish dash of colour. A heavy smog of car fumes had been dampened down to pavement level by the continuous downpour.

"When you're a kid the world never looks like this. What happened to all the magic?" Church said as they negotiated the honking, steaming traffic which was backed up in both directions for no apparent reason.

"Didn't they pass a law or something? It was putting the workers off their toil." Ruth led them to shelter in W. H. Smiths' doorway for a while in the hope that the cloudburst would blow over, but their anxiety to reach the therapist's office soon drove them out again with Ruth holding a copy of Marie Claire over her head.

Their destination lay up a side road just off the High Street. They buzzed the entryphone and dashed in out of the rain. "The pubs are open now," Church suggested. Ruth smiled wanly; for a second she almost turned back.

The reception smelled of new carpets and polished furniture. It was functional and blandly decorated, with a blonde Sloane smiling behind a low desk. Stephen Delano, the therapist, stepped out of the back room the moment they entered, as if they had tripped some silent alarm. He was in his forties, with light brown hair that had been blow-dried back from a high forehead and a smile that wasn't exactly insincere, but which made Church uneasy nonetheless. He strode over and shook their hands forcefully.

"Good to see you. Come on through." He led them into the rear office which was dark, warm and filled with several deep, comfortable chairs. The blinds were down and it was lit ambiently by a couple of small, well-placed lamps. Several pieces of recording equipment were sitting near the chairs. "Welcome to the womb," Delano said. "I think you'll feel comfortable and secure here. You need to feel at ease."

Ruth slipped into one of the chairs, put her head back and closed her eyes. "Wake me when it's over."

"You're absolutely sure you want to go through this together?" Delano continued. "I think it would be more effective to do it separately, if only to prevent what one is saying influencing the other. This isn't like surgery. Memories are delicate, easily corrupted by outside sources."

"We do it together," Church said firmly. When they had discussed it earlier, they both instinctively felt it was something they could only face up to together.

"Well, you're the bosses." Delano clapped his hands, then ushered Church into a chair next to Ruth's and manoeuvred a reel-to-reel recorder between them. "So we have a good record of what you say," he explained. "I can transfer it to a cassette for you to take away, and I'll store the master here."

After a brief explanation of the principle, he dimmed the lights even further with a hand-held remote control. Church expected to feel sleepy in the gloomy warmth, but the anxiety had set an uncomfortable resonance which seemed to be buzzing around his body. He turned to look at Ruth, her face pale in the dark. She smiled at him, but the unease was apparent in her eyes. Delano pulled up a chair opposite and began to talk in measured tones that were so low Church occasionally had trouble hearing him. After a minute or two, the words were rolling in and out of his consciousness like distant thunder and he was suspended in time.

For what could have been one minute or ten, the sensation was pleasurable, but then Church began to get an odd feeling of disquiet. On a level he couldn't quite grasp, he was sensing they were not alone in the room. He wanted to shout out a warning to Ruth and Delano, but his mouth wouldn't respond, nor would his neck muscles when he tried to turn his head so he could look around. He was convinced there was a presence somewhere in the shadows in the corner of the room, malign, watching them balefully, waiting for the right moment to make its move. When the sensation faded a moment later, Church convinced himself it was just a by-product of Delano's hypnosis, but it didn't go away completely.

"It is the morning of February 7," Delano intoned calmly. "Where are you, Jack?"

Church found himself talking even though he wasn't consciously aware of moving his mouth. "I can't sleep. I've gone out for a walk to wear myself out so I'll drop off quickly. I have bad dreams." He swallowed; his throat felt like it was closing up. "It's foggy, a real pea-souper. I've never seen it like that before, like something out of Dickens. I see a woman washing something in the river …" A spasm convulsed him. "No..

"It's okay, Jack. You rest a moment," Delano said quickly. "Ruth, where are you?"

Ruth's chest grew tighter; she sucked in a deep breath until her lungs burned. "I've been to The Fridge. Clive is whining on. He realises we've got nothing in common." Her voice turned spontaneously singsong: "`Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that?' He doesn't really want me, just the woman he thinks I am. He gets wound up … blows his top … walks off. I'm a bit frightened-it's so quiet, so still-but I try not to show it. I can make it home in a few minutes if I walk quickly. Then I hear the sound of … a fight? … coming from under the bridge." Her breath became more laboured. She wondered obliquely if she was having a heart attack.

"Jack, do you hear the fight now?" Delano's voice seemed to be floating away from both of them.

"Yes. I was frightened by the old woman, but when I hear them fighting I forget her. I could walk on … ignore it … but that's not right. I've got to try to help. Somebody might be in trouble."

"Are you afraid for yourself?"

"A little. But if I could do something to help I've got to try. Too many people walk by. I find the steps down to the river. They're wet … I go down slowly. There're more scuffling noises. A grunt. I wonder if there's an animal down there. Maybe a dog or … something. I can smell the river. Everywhere's so damp. My heart's beating so loud. I edge along the wall." Another spasm. He thought he almost saw something; was it in the room or in his head?

"Take a rest, Jack. Ruth?"

"I go down the steps. I'm ready to run at any moment, but I'm aware I've got heels on. If the worst comes to the worst I'll have to kick them off. They're expensive though … I don't want to lose them. It's dark under the bridge. I can't see anything. I move closer. I think I've bitten my lip … I can taste blood." She heaved in another juddering breath; each one was getting harder and harder. "There're two men. They just look like shadows at first. One of them's big, the biggest man I've ever seen. He's shaking the smaller one. I look over and there's another man there watching the fight. I can see he's come from the other side. I'm relieved … I'm not alone."

"Is it jack?" Delano asked quietly.

"Yes, yes, it's Church. He's got a strong face. He looks decent. He makes me feel safer. We both look at the two men-"

"Is he dead?" Church suddenly interjected, his voice too loud. "Christ, I think he's dead! No … he's moving. But the giant's picking him up. How can he be so strong? Just one arm … what's going on? … he's going to break his neck!"

"Calm down," Delano hushed.

"Don't do it or I'm going to call the police!" Ruth yelled. She snapped forward in her seat, then slumped back.

"Take it easy now," Delano said soothingly. "Be peacef-"

"Stop!" Church thrashed to one side. Delano placed a comforting hand on Church's forearm, but Church knocked it away wildly.

"He's looking-" Ruth was wheezing, but she couldn't seem to draw any breath into her lungs.

11 — at us!" Church continued.

Delano was alarmed at the paleness of her face. "I think that's enough now," he began. "It's time to take a break. We can come back to this."

"My God! Look at-" Church gasped.

"— his face! It's changing-"

— melting-"

They were convulsing in their seats. Delano grabbed both their wrists, gripped by anxiety that he was losing control; they were all losing control. He stood up so he could place his head between them. "On the count of three …"

"Not human!"

"His eyes-"

— red-"

— a demon!" Ruth gasped. "Twisted … monstrous …" She leaned to one side and vomited on to the carpet.

"One …"

"Evil!" Jack cried. "I feel evil coming off it! It's looking at me!"

Ruth vomited again, then stumbled off the chair to her knees.

"I can't bear to look at its face!"

"Three …"

For a second, Delano was terrified he wouldn't be able to bring them out of it, but gradually they seemed to come together, as if he were watching them swim up from deep water. Church bobbed forward and put his face in his hands. He felt like he was burning up, his hair slick with sweat. Ruth levered herself back into the chair and sat there with her eyes shut.

Delano was visibly shaken. There was sweat on his own brow and his hands were trembling as he switched off the tape recorder. Frantically he thumbed the remote control until the light flared up too bright and drove the shadows from the room. "Well that was an unusual experience," he mumbled bathetically. He fetched them both water, which they sipped in silence. Then called in his assistant to clean up the carpet. It was a full ten minutes until they had recovered.

"That was unbelievable," Church said eventually. His voice was like sandpaper in the arid stillness of the room.

"You're right," Ruth responded, "because it's not true."

"What do you mean?" Church eyed her curiously. "We saw the same thing."

Ruth shook her head emphatically. "Think about it, Church. There must be a rational explanation. We have to use a little intellectual rigour here-the first answer isn't always the right one. We were talking about how memories can be corrupted by other aspects of the mind's working. That can happen, can't it?" she said to Delano. He nodded. "Remember in the pub you made some throwaway comment about us seeing the Devil, so that's exactly what we did see. You placed that thought in both our heads and our subconscious turned it into reality. It was self-fulfilling." She looked to Delano for support.

"Your reactions were very extreme, which suggests a serious trauma buried away, but if you witnessed a particularly brutal murder, as you told me on the phone, that would explain it," the therapist said. "What you recalled today is known as a screen memory. You create it yourself to protect your own mind from further trauma. Yes, it was quite horrible, but the unbelievable elements allow you to dismiss it within the context of reality as you perceive it so it's not as threatening as it first appears. The true memory that lies beneath is much more of a threat to you. I think we'll need a few more sessions to get to it, to be honest." Delano's smile suggested he was relieved by his own explanation. "I must admit, I was a little worried. I've never come across anything quite like that before."

Church wasn't convinced. "It was pretty real."

"Sorry about the carpet," Ruth said sheepishly. Church thought she was going to burst into a fit of embarrassed giggles.

"Don't worry," Delano said. "Let me just check the recording and I'll make arrangements to get your cassette copy."

He knelt down and rewound the tape. When he pressed play there was a blast of white noise and what sounded like an ear-splitting shriek of hysterical laughter. Delano's brow furrowed. He ran the tape forward a little and tried again. The white noise hissed from the speakers. A second later the giggling started, fading in and out as if it was a badly tuned radio signal, the laughter growing louder and louder until Church's ears hurt; it made him feel sick and uncomfortable. Delano snapped off the recorder in dismay.

"I'm terribly sorry. That's never happened before," he said in bafflement. "It must have picked up some stray signal."

"Remind me not to book with that mini-cab service," Church said.

Outside, the rain had stopped briefly to allow a burst of insipid sunlight, but the oppressive experience with Delano clung to them. Their reclaimed memories, even if false, were now free, scurrying round, insect-like, in the back of their heads, making them feel queasy and disoriented.

"I feel much better after that, even if we didn't find out exactly what happened," Ruth said, trying to put a brave face on it. She gave Church a comforting pat on the back. "Come on, don't let it get to you. It was a bad dream, that's all."

Church looked round at the black office windows above the shops, unable to shake the feeling they were being watched. "I need a drink."

"Let's see what we can do about that."

She took him for lunch to Wodka, a Polish restaurant nestling in the hinterland of well-heeled apartment blocks on Kensington High Street's south side. Over blinis and cream and ice-cold honey vodka, they discussed the morning's events and what lay ahead. Church was taken by Ruth's brightly efficient manner and sharp sense of humour which helped her see the inherent farce in even the bleakest moment.

"You always seem like you've got something on your mind," Ruth said when she felt comfortable enough to talk a little more personally.

"You know how it is." Church sipped at the strong Polish coffee, but if Ruth noticed his discomfort she didn't pay it any heed.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"Nothing I should burden you with."

"Go on, I'm a good listener. Besides, after an experience like that we're a minority of two. We have to stick together."

It would have been easy to bat her questions away, but there was something in her which made him feel like unburdening himself; a warmth, an understanding. He took a deep breath, surprised he even felt like talking about it. "I had a girlfriend. Marianne Leedham. She was a graphic designer-magazine work, some book covers, that kind of thing. We met soon after I'd left university. I had a seedy flat in Battersea, just off Lavender Hill, and Marianne lived round the corner. We'd see each other in the local Spar or in the newsagents. You know how it is when you see someone and you know it's inevitable that sooner or later you're going to get together, even if you haven't spoken?" Ruth nodded, her eyes bright. "I felt like that, and I could tell she did too. The local pub, the Beaufoy Arms, used to hire a boat to go along the Thames each year. It was an overnight thing, lots of Red Stripe, jerk pork and dancing, up to the Thames Barrier and then back again for dawn. I went with my mates and Marianne was there with hers. We both knew something was going to happen. Then just before sunrise we found ourselves on deck alone." He smiled. "Not by chance. We talked a little. We kissed a lot. It was like some stupid romantic film."

Ruth watched his smile grow sad. "What happened, Church?"

His sigh seemed like the essence of him rushing out. "It was all a blur after that. We saw each other, moved in together. You know, people think I'm lying when I say this, but we never argued. Not once. It was just the best. It was so serious for both of us we never even thought about getting married, but Marianne's mum was getting a bit antsy, as they do, so we started muttering about getting engaged. Everything was fine, and then-" His voice drifted away; the words felt like heavy stones at the back of his throat, but somehow he forced them out. "Two years ago, it was. I'd been out for the night. When I came back the flat was so silent, I knew there was something wrong. Marianne always had some kind of music on. And there was this odd smell. To this day I don't know what it was. I called out for her-there was nowhere else she could have been at that time of night-and my heart started beating like it was going to explode. I knew, you see. I knew. I found her face down in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. She'd slashed her wrists."

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," Ruth said in dismay. "I shouldn't have pried."

"Don't worry, it's okay. It doesn't hurt me to think about her any more. I've got over all that grief thing, although sometimes I feel a little …" His voice trailed off, but her smile told him she understood what he was trying to say. "It's how she died that I can't cope with. There hasn't been a single day gone by since then when I haven't tried to make sense of it. There was no reason for it. She hadn't been depressed. We'd never, ever argued. As far as I was concerned, everything in our lives was perfect. Can you imagine what that's like? To discover your partner had this whole secret world of despair that you never knew existed? Enough despair to kill herself. How could I have been so wrapped up in myself not to have even the slightest inkling?" He couldn't find the words to tell her what it was that had soured his life since that night: not grief, but guilt; the only possible explanation was that he, in some way, was complicit.

But Ruth seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. She leaned across the table and said softly, "There could be a hundred and one explanations. A sudden chemical inbalance in her brain-"

"I've been through them all. I've weighed it up and turned it inside out and investigated every possibility, so much that I can't think of anything else. To answer your original question, that's why I always seem so preoccupied. Nothing else seems important beside that."

"I'm sorry-

"No, I'm sorry. It's selfish of me to be so wrapped up in myself. We've all got problems." He looked out into the puddled street. Briefly he considered telling Ruth about Marianne's appearance outside his home, but to give voice to it would mean he would have to face up to the reality of the experience and everything that came with it; besides, it was too close to his heart right now. "I wish I could put it all behind me, but there are so many things about it that don't make sense. Only hours before, she'd been making plans for the wedding." Church grew silent as the waitress came over to pour more coffee; it broke his introspective mood and when she left it was obvious he didn't want to talk about it any more. "This is a good lunch. Thanks."

Ruth smiled affectionately. "My philosophy is eat yourself out of a crisis."

"Yet you stay so thin!" he said theatrically. They laughed together, but gradually the conversation turned to what they had seen beneath the bridge, as they had known it would. "So whose face lies behind the Devil?" he asked.

Ruth's expression darkened. "I don't know. Why should our reactions in the trance have been so extreme, and identical?" Church understood her confusion. "But it's strange. For the first time in months, I feel like I've got some kind of direction. I really want to keep going until we get to the heart of it."

Church was surprised to realise he felt the same way. "How ironic can you get? It takes a brutal murder to give us some purpose in life."

"Of course, there's also the danger that if we let it drop now that awful memory will start its destabilisation again, and I could really do without wrecking my career at this stage in my life." She called for the bill and paid it with a gold Amex.

"So where do we go from here?" Church asked.

Ruth smiled. "Elementary, my dear Watson."

Maurice Gibbons had lived in a three-storey terrace in a tree-lined avenue; not too imposing, but certainly comfortable; it looked like it could have done with a lick of paint and a touch of repointing here and there. The lights were already ablaze in the twilight as Church and Ruth opened the front gate and walked up to the door, shivering from the chill; the night was going to be icy. They'd spent the afternoon quietly at Ruth's flat, drinking coffee, talking about comfortingly bland topics, but now they were both feeling apprehensive. Susan Gibbons was a quiet woman who looked older than her years. Her grief still lay heavy on her, evident in the puffiness of her eyes, her pallor and her timidity as she led them into the lounge where condolence cards still gathered dust on the mantelpiece. She accepted at face value Ruth's statement that they were looking into her husband's murder and sat perched on an armchair listening to their questions with a blankness which Church found unnerving, if only because he recognised something of himself in her.

"I know you've probably been through all this before, Mrs. Gibbons, but we have to go over old ground in case there's anything we've missed," Ruth began.

Mrs. Gibbons smiled without a hint of lightness or humour. "I understand."

"Your husband had no enemies?"

"None at all. Maurice wasn't what you would call a passionate man. He enjoyed his job and he did it well, but he didn't really have any ambition to move on, and everyone recognised that and accepted it. No one felt threatened by him." Her hands clutched at each other in her lap every time she mentioned her husband's name.

"I know he told you he was going to the pub. Do you have any idea how or why he ended up south of the river?"

"No."

A look of panic crossed her face, and Church moved quickly to change the subject. "Had your husband been acting any differently in the days or weeks leading up to his death?"

There was a long pause when Mrs. Gibbons appeared to have drifted off into a reverie, but then she said quietly, "Now that you mention it, Maurice was a little … skittish, perhaps. He was jumping at the slightest thing."

"He was frightened of something?" Church pressed.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Not frightened, just … uneasy." She let out a deep sigh that seemed to fill the room. "He went to church on the Sunday before he passed on. That was so unlike Maurice. Do you think he might have sensed something, wanted to make his peace with God?"

"Perhaps he did," Ruth said soothingly. Church was impressed with her manner; her caring was from the heart, and he could see Mrs. Gibbons being visibly calmed.

"Would you like to see his room?" Mrs. Gibbons asked. "Maurice had so many interests and he had a room where he could be alone to think and read. That's where he kept all his things. You might find something of interest there. Lord knows, there's nothing I can tell you."

She led them up two flights to a little box room lit by a bare bulb. It was quite tidy, uncluttered by any kind of decoration; just a cheap desk and chair, a filing cabinet and a bookshelf. A pair of plaid slippers were tucked in the corner.

"I'll leave you to it. Make a cup of tea, how about that?" Mrs. Gibbons slipped out, closing the door behind them.

"Why do you think he was uneasy just before he was killed?" Church said as he sank on to the chair and opened the desk.

"Don't start extrapolating. You'll end up with all sorts of hideous conspiracy theories."

"`Just the facts, ma'am."'

"Exactly." Ruth crouched down to examine the bookshelf. "I think one of us should pay a visit to the local vicar. You never know, Maurice might have seen fit to bare his soul."

"Wouldn't that be nice and simple. He fingers his murderer to the vicar and everything falls into place." He started to go through the sparse contents of the desk aloud. "Pens, envelopes, writing paper. Look at this, typical anally retentive civil servant-a big pile of receipts, most of them for cabs."

"Nothing wrong with being anal retentive," Ruth said tartly.

"Hoping for some tax deduction, I suppose," Church continued. "A notebook-"

"A lot of these books are new," Ruth mused. "UFOs, Von Daniken, The Occult by Colin Wilson, Messages from the Dead: A Spiritualists' Guide. Looks like he's been reading that magazine you were rambling on about."

"That's a bit of a coincidence."

"Sure. Life's full of them. Anything in the notebook?"

"The first few pages have been torn out. There's only one thing in it: a phone number. Barry Riggs. Crouch End UFO Association."

"Great. Little Green Men got him," Ruth said wryly. "We should check it out anyway. You never know."

They caught a cab back to South London and dropped Ruth off first. Church felt chastened by Mrs. Gibbons' grief. Afraid that the depression would come back to ruin the first halfway-normal mood he had felt in a long time, he quickly switched on the computer and went online. There was an email waiting for him from Laura DuSantiago.

Greetings, Churchill-Dude (No relation, I hope. I don't want to picture you with a big, fat cigar.)

I get the impression from your last email that you think I'm full of hot air, but you're too polite to say so. Well, I'll stop teasing, big boy-I wouldn't want a *premature* withdrawal on your behalf. Everyone else who emailed me has scarpered before I had the chance to get down to the *meat*. And I better stop now before this becomes a bad Carry On film …

Here's the dope: the increase in paranormal activity that all the net-nerds noticed started on the same day. Coincidence? I don't think so. There's stuff happening around the globe, but the epicentre is the UK-and most of it is happening around places of significance to our pagan/Celtic ancestors. Now, statistically, I know that's not difficult in an island like ours, but look at the big picture, not the details. I'm not going too fast for you, am I?

And here's the big story, Morning Glory. I saw something that changed my life. Me, technohead, feet-on-the-ground Laura DuS. Something that all the crazies and peeks of the UFO/Spirit World would give their right arms to see. And losing their right arms would really hamper those types. This was a drug-free, alcohol-free experience, and it talked to me. You want to know what it said, you'll have to meet me on my own turf. I'm not spreading this stuff around online so I can be branded as another nut.

But here's a tip: don't go making plans for the next millennium …

Your new best friend, Laura.

And there, at the end, was the thing that hooked him and made his blood run cold.

PS Before we meet I need to know if this name means anything to you: Marianne.

Church read the line three times, trying to work out if he was going insane, then wondering if someone was playing a nasty trick on him. It could have been another coincidence, but the way they were piling up gave him an eerie feeling of some power behind the scenes manipulating his life. He turned off the computer and busied himself with mundane tasks for the better part of an hour, but it wouldn't leave him alone and it was only a matter of time before he returned to the keyboard to type out his reply. Then he retired to bed without once looking out of the window into the dark, quiet street.

Ruth reached the church shortly after 9 a.m. It was a bracing morning, with the wind sending the clouds streaking across the blue sky. Standing in the sun, peering at the skeletal trees through screwed-up eyes that cropped out the buildings, Ruth could almost believe she wasn't in London, away from the smog and the traffic noise and the omnipresent background threat. Sometimes she hated the modern world with a vengeance.

The vicar was in the churchyard, in his shirt-sleeves despite the chill, trimming the hedge with an electric cutter. He was tall with a red face-although that might have been from the exertion-and a balding head with white hair swept back around his ears. The drone of the cutter drowned out Ruth's first attempt at an introduction, but she eventually caught his eye.

"I said, shouldn't you have a gardener to do that?" she said.

"Oh, I like to get my hands dirty every now and then. What can I do for you?"

"My name's Ruth Gallagher. A solicitor. I'm looking into the death of Maurice Gibbons. I was told you knew him." She was still surprised how quickly people parted with information once she announced her legal background; it was almost as if they considered her a policewoman-in-waiting.

The vicar nodded ruefully. "Poor Maurice. Still no suspect, I suppose."

"Not yet, but no one's giving up. There was one particular line of enquiry I wanted to discuss with you. It might be nothing, but Mrs. Gibbons mentioned he came to church the week before his death which was unusual-"

"He was a very troubled man," the vicar interjected. "He came round to the rectory after the service for a chat. I can't betray the confidences of the people who come to me …" He paused, weighing up his options. "But with Maurice dead, I don't see the harm, especially if it gives an insight into his state of mind." Folding his arms, he stared up at the steeple. "Maurice was concerned about spiritual matters. We discussed, amongst other things, the return of the spirits of the dead, ghosts, you know, and possession by demonic entities. He wanted to know how easy it would be to arrange an exorcism if necessary, and I told him something of that magnitude would have to be sanctioned by the bishop."

"He thought he was possessed!" Ruth said incredulously.

"No, I didn't feel that. It was more as if he was talking in general terms, but he was certainly very anxious. He seemed to fear being tormented by the more malignant aspects of the spiritual realm."

The memory unleashed by the therapist returned in force, and Ruth stifled a shudder.

"Are you feeling all right?" the vicar asked, concerned.

"Fine. Just a chill." She forced a smile. She didn't believe in those kind of things, but the coincidence was hard to ignore.

The Victorian house could have been stately, but it had been indelibly scarred by thoughtless inzprovenzent: cheap, UPVC window frames and door, grey plastic guttering, an obtrusive aluminium flue for a gas boiler. Barry Riggs smiled broadly when he answered the door to Church, but it seemed forced, almost gritted. He was around forty, slightly overweight, with a doughy face and glasses that were a little too large. He smelled of cheap aftershave fighting to mask body odour. Inside, he seemed to have the builders in. Planks leaned against the stairs, an empty paint can stood in the hall, there were dust sheets everywhere and a pristine toilet bowl stood in the lounge, but he made no mention of the mess and there was no sound from anywhere else in the house.

"I know why you're here," Riggs said conspiratorially as Church was ushered on to the sheet that covered the sofa.

"I did tell you on the phone," Church replied dryly.

"No, the real reason. Something much bigger than Maurice Gibbons." He nodded knowingly.

"You better fill me in from the beginning, Barry." Church was already harbouring doubts about the validity of his visit. As "chief investigator" of the Crouch End UFO Association, Riggs had sounded more authoritative on the phone than he appeared in his natural habitat.

"Maurice heard of my investigations on the grapevine," Riggs began, sitting a little too close to Church for comfort. "People talk. There's never any coverage in the media, but you talk to people in the street and they know of the importance of my work. It's the future, isn't it? Anyway, I digress. Maurice knew I'd uncovered some unarguable evidence about Government knowledge of the UFO threat. I'm not going to go into details now, but let me just say secret base and St. Albans. We can talk about that later if you want."

"Why did Maurice come to you, Barry?"

"Alien infiltration, Jack. Plain and simple. Maurice was a Government employee. He knew he was a target. He was frightened, Jack, very frightened, and he came to me looking for any information that might protect him. `They walk among us,' he said. I remember it well. He was sitting just where you are, with his little briefcase. He'd got classified information in it, but he wasn't ready to show me just then. It was a matter of building trust, but they got to him before he could divulge what he knew."

"Who got to him?"

"The aliens! In the future, Maurice will be seen as a hero. He was a whistleblower, ready to open up the whole can of worms about the Government selling us down the line for alien experiments."

Church stared out of the window at the sinking afternoon sun, wishing he had opted for the vicar. "And he told you this? That aliens were after him?"

Riggs paused. "Not in so many words. But he wanted to know everything about my investigations. We ran through the dates and times of sightings, witness reports, everything. He was particularly interested in the descriptions of different races, the Greys and the Nordics and all that. And alien abduction scenarios. What the abductees experienced in real detail. What they heard, lights in the sky. I tell you, Jack, he was here for hours."

Church stood up quickly before he was overpowered by Riggs' body odour. "Thank you, Barry. You've been very helpful."

Riggs grinned. "You know, that's just what Maurice said. `People need to know what's out there, Barry. They're sleepwalking into a disaster."'

"So here are the options. Maurice was crazy. Maurice was overworked and suffering from stress-induced psychosis. Or Maurice was crazy. Either way, it's a good explanation for why he was wandering along by the river at the crack of dawn." Church sprawled on the sofa in Ruth's lounge, looking out at the city lights against the early evening sky.

"Do you think you could possibly be a little more glib?" Ruth said ironically.

Over a take-out curry and a bottle of Chilean red, they had spent half an hour trading information and finding there was no common ground whatsoever.

"You were the sceptical one," Church replied. "This was supposed to be taking us away from the Devil living under Albert Bridge. Now we have one man thinking Gibbons is being hunted by aliens, another convinced our man is being haunted by ghosts and demons."

"You're still skating on the surface, Church. Dig a little deeper."

"Do you think you can patronise me a little more? I haven't had my fill yet."

She laughed and topped up his glass. "The important fact is that Maurice Gibbons was a frightened man. Something was disturbing him enough to seek out the vicar and your UFO loon for information. He knew something."

"Or he was crazy."

"He was a civil servant, down-to-earth. If he was frightened, why was he keeping it to himself? There must have been hundreds of people he could have discussed it with, not least his wife."

"Perhaps he was waiting until he was sure." Church took a deep swig of his wine and then said out of the blue, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

Ruth looked at him in surprise. "Why do you ask?"

"It doesn't matter. So where do we go from here? I can't think of any other lines of enquiry … hang on a minute." He suddenly stared into the middle distance, ordering his thoughts, then he snapped his fingers. "There's something we've missed."

Susan Gibbons welcomed them in forty-five minutes later after Church's phone call had convinced her their visit would only take a few minutes. In Maurice's room, he went straight to the desk and pulled out the pile of taxi receipts, riffling through them quickly. They were all for a Monday evening and for the same amount.

"So where was he going on a regular basis?" Church asked pointedly. Mrs. Gibbons had no idea. "I think the police looked into this, but didn't get anywhere," she said. Church wasn't deterred. He called the minicab firm. The receptionist asked around in the office and a few minutes later came back with an address.

The house was a small semi in High Barnet; half-rendered, with more UPVC windows and a paved-over front garden where a few yellow weeds forced their way among the cracks. The light that glared through the glass of the front door seemed unpleasantly bright. They rang the bell and it was answered immediately by a woman with dyed black hair and sallow skin. She dragged on a cigarette, eyeing them suspiciously while Ruth ran through her patter. She reluctantly allowed them into the hall, which smelled of cigarettes and bacon fat.

"He came round to see my uncle every week," she said, glancing at a photo of Gibbons which his wife had lent them. "Queer duck, but he used to perk the old man up. He's not well, you know. Hasn't left his bed in weeks. I got lumbered looking after him." She wrinkled her nose in what could have been disgust or irritation.

"Can we see him?" Church asked.

The woman nodded, then added combatively, "I'm going out soon."

"Don't worry, we can let ourselves out," Ruth said disarmingly. "What's your uncle's name?"

"Kraicow," the woman snapped as if that was all she knew.

She led the way up the stairs and swung open a bedroom door on to a painfully thin old man, his limbs just bone draped in skin. He lay on the top of his bed in striped pyjamas with one arm thrown across his eyes. His hair was merely tufts of silver on his pillow.

"Is it okay if we talk to him?" Church said.

"Just one of you," the woman said. "He gets very confused if there's more than one person speaking." She added obliquely, "He's an artist, you know. Used to be quite well known."

The woman left them alone, and Church went to sit by the bed while Ruth watched from the door. Church remained quiet as Kraicow twitched and moaned beneath his arm, but eventually the old man removed it from his face and looked at Church with clear grey eyes, as if he had known he had a visitor all along.

"Hello, I'm Jack Churchill," Church said quietly. "I hope you don't mind me coming to see you."

Kraicow looked away and mumbled something; Church wondered if he'd be able to get any sense out of him at all. But when Kraicow looked back he spoke in a clear, deep voice. "I'm pleased to see any human face after looking at that miserable bitch all day long. She never leaves me alone."

"You don't know me," Church continued, "but I wanted to talk to you about Maurice Gibbons."

Church wondered how he would be able to discuss the matter without upsetting Kraicow about Gibbons' death, but the old man said simply, "He's dead, isn't he?"

Church nodded.

"I warned him."

A hush seemed to descend on the house. "Warned him about what?"

Kraicow levered himself up on his elbows so he could look Church in the face. For a moment the old man's eyes ranged across Church's features as if he was searching for something he could trust, before slowly lowering himself down with a wheeze. "Maurice saw my breakdown … what the bastards at the health centre call my breakdown," he began in a voice so low Church had to bend forward to hear him. "It was in the street, in Clerkenwell-where I work. I was making too much noise. Ranting, I suppose. Not surprising under the circumstances. Maurice overheard some of the things I said, and he knew straight away I was telling the truth because he'd seen the same thing too."

"What had you seen?" Church whispered.

Kraicow licked his dry lips. "You know much about the old myths and legends?"

"It depends which ones."

"The final battle between Good and Evil. The end of this cycle and the start of something new." The front door slammed loudly; Kraicow's niece had gone. "The legend is the same all over the world. The End-Time." Kraicow grabbed Church's wrist with fingers which seemed too strong for his feeble state. "They're coming back."

"Who are?" Church's mood dampened; more craziness. "Aliens? Demons?"

"No!" Kraicow said emphatically. "I told you, the old myths. Not fairytales, no, no, not folklore!" His eyes rolled back until all Church could see were the whites. "The legends are true."

"Are you okay?"

Kraicow threw his arm across his face again. "The legends said they'd be back for the final battle and they were right! Do you think we stand a chance against them?"

"Take it easy," Church said calmly. "Why did Maurice come to see you?"

"He knew they were back! He'd seen them too. He knew they were biding their time, but they'll be making their move soon-they won't wait long. The doors are open!"

"Did Maurice say-"

"He wanted to know what to do! He was so frightened. So frightened. He knew they wouldn't let him have the knowledge for long … they'd get to him. But who could he tell? The bastards put me in here!"

Church sat back in his chair in disappointment; he was getting nowhere. Was Gibbons as crazed as Kraicow, or were his visits some kind of altruistic act? He glanced at Ruth, about to take his leave, but Kraicow grabbed his shirt and dragged him forward.

"Remember the old legend: In England's darkest hour, a hero shall arise. It's there. It's been written." He took a deep breath and some degree of normalcy returned to him. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"I'm sorry-

"No, no, it's crazy talk. I've spent too long breathing in those paint fumes." He chuckled throatily. "Look in the top drawer."

Curiously Church followed his nod to the bedside cabinet. In the drawer was an envelope; an address was scribbled on the front. "That's my studio. You go there, you'll see."

"I can't-"

"You'll find what you're looking for. Peace of mind. Direction. You'll know what happened to Maurice. It's up to you now." He pushed Church away roughly and rolled over. "Go!"

Church glanced at the envelope one more time, then reluctantly took it. At the door, he silenced Ruth's questions with a simple, "Later." Downstairs was in darkness. In the gloom, Church felt eyes on his back although he knew the place was empty, and he didn't feel safe until they were outside, dialling a cab on Ruth's mobile.

Kraicow's studio was at the top of a Victorian warehouse in one of the many unredeemed backstreets that formed the heart of Clerkenwell. From the outside it seemed almost derelict: smashed windows filthy with dust, graffiti and posters for bands that had long since split up. Unidentified hulks of machinery were scattered around the ground floor, which stank of engine oil and dirt. But when they climbed out of the service lift at the summit, Kraicow's room presented itself to them in a burst of colour and a smell of oil paint and solvent. An enormous, half-completed canvas was suspended over the centre of the floor, but it was impossible to tell from the splashes of colour exactly what it would eventually be. Other canvases of all sizes were stacked against various walls. The floor was bare boards, but clean, and there was a small camp bed in one corner where the artist obviously snatched a rest during his more intense periods of work. On an uneven table was a collection of tubes of oil, dirty rags, a palette and a jar filled with brushes.

"Do you ever get the feeling you're wasting your time?" Ruth said as she looked around at the disarray.

"You were the one who insisted we go down every avenue, however ridiculous," Church replied. "Personally, I think you've been reading way too much Sherlock Holmes."

Ruth began to search through the stacked canvases. "What are we looking for?"

"God knows." Church busied himself with an investigation of a pile of rags and empty paint pots near the window. On the top was a sheet of sketch paper where Kraicow had written El sueno de la Razon Produce monstruos. Church read it aloud, then asked, "What does that mean?"

Ruth paused in her search and dredged her memory for a translation. "`The sleep of reason brings forth monsters.' It's the title of-"

" a painting by Goya. Yes, I remember."

Ruth leaned on the canvases and mused, "It's strange, isn't it? We go about our lives thinking the world is normal and then we stumble across all these people who obviously have a completely different view of reality, indulging in their paranoid fantasies."

"Are you including the vicar in that?"

Ruth laughed. "The UFO guy and Kraicow and obviously Gibbons, all feeding each other. And obviously Mrs. Gibbons had no idea what was going on in her husband's head."

Church moved on to another collection of canvases, older, judging by the thick layer of dust that lay on the top. "Well, paranoia's like a fire. It quickly gets out of control and suddenly the norm looks weird and the weird becomes perfectly acceptable."

"You'd know, would you?" Ruth Jibed. Church didn't respond.

Their search continued for fifteen minutes more, becoming increasingly aimless as the futility of the task overcame them. Church, for his part, was afraid to stop; he didn't want to return to his empty flat with its bleak memories. Their hunt for meaning in their experience had released a whole host of emotions with which he hadn't had time to come to terms.

Ruth let the final canvas drop back with a clatter. "We should call it a day," she said. Church noted a hint of gloom in her voice. After a second she added morosely, "I don't think we're getting anywhere and I'm afraid if we don't sort out what happened I'm never going to get back to who I was. That morning was so destabilising I feel like every support for my life has been kicked away." She wandered over to the window and hauled up the blind to look out over the city.

"I know exactly what you mean," Church said, remembering the morning after Marianne's terrible death with an awful intensity. "Sometimes you never get straight again." He checked the final canvas, a surreal landscape with hints of Dali. "Nothing here. I don't know what Kraicow was talking about. Serves us right for listening to the views of a mental patient. So what do we do next?"

There was no reply. Church turned slowly. Ruth was standing at the window with her back to him, so immobile she could have been a statue. "Did you hear me?"

Still no answer. He could tell from her frozen body something was wrong. A hum of anxiety rose at the back of his head, growing louder as he moved towards her. Before he had crossed the floor, her voice came up small, still and frightened. "He was right."

Church felt his heart begin to pound; somewhere, doors were opening.

When he came up behind her, he could see what it was that had caught her attention. On the window ledge was a small sculpture in clay, rough and unfinished, but detailed in the upper part. It was a figure with a face so hideous in its deformity and evil they could barely bring themselves to look at it.

And it was the perfect representation of the devil they had recalled during Delano's therapy session. Kraicow had seen it too.

It existed.