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  “Then perhaps we should go and see him.”

  “Agreed,” said Jessica, necking back her drink. “We’ll go and see him now.”

  The group stood up from the table and Jessica led them back out into the foyer. From the way the woman was walking, Angela could tell she was apprehensive. Her agitated gait was bordering on manic. The alcohol in her system, so early in the morning, probably didn’t help anything.

  “Are you okay, Miss Raymeady?” Angela asked her.

  Jessica stopped in the hallway and faced the rest of them. “I’m just a bit worried. To be honest, if you and Tim can’t help us, then I don’t know what to do. Things have been getting worse and I’m at the end of my tether. I don’t mean to place any additional pressure on you both, but this may be my last chance before I go insane.”

  Tim placed a hand reassuringly on the woman’s shoulder. It seemed like a genuine display of concern. “We will do whatever we can to help you, Ms Raymeady.”

  Jessica wiped away a tear that had spilled from her eye, then laughed at herself. “God, look at me. I must look disgraceful. Anyway, enough dawdling, and please call me Jessica.”

  Jessica led the group up the stairs to the first floor and took a left past a full-sized suit of armour. There was a coat of arms beside it, featuring a black hillside with a white wolf howling up at the moon. Above it, in Latin, was written: THE LABORER IS WORTHY OF HIS REWARD. Angela recognised the quote from Timothy, verse 18 and spoke it aloud.

  “You speak Latin?” Frank asked, almost sounding impressed.

  “Some,” said Angela. “I know my Bible verses at least.”

  “The Raymeady family motto,” Jessica explained proudly. “My husband lived by it. Hard work equals reward.”

  “What does the crest mean?” Tim asked.

  “The wolf is an independent soul,” Jessica explained. “The moon guides it through the darkness. Our family is blessed with vision and independence.”

  “Interesting,” said Angela. “I think my crest would be a Jack Daniels label.”

  Tim guffawed. It was a spluttering, uncouth sound.

  “Okay, you two,” Frank said gruffly, obviously not appreciating the humour. “I hope you’re both ready. Sammie’s room is just up ahead.”

  The door at the end of the hall was covered in stickers and hanging notices that read such things as: YOU KILLED KENNY and DESIGNATED FART ZONE. It was a typical bedroom door for a ten-year old child, but inside the exquisite Georgian mansion it seemed grossly out of place. On either side of the doorway were two magnificent, bronze statues of four-winged cherubs firing bows into the air. They represented love and protection.

  “These statues are beautiful,” Angela commented, running a finger over their flawless surfaces. “There’s a painting above my bed that also features cherubs.”

  “Thank you,” Jessica replied proudly. “Cherubs are supposed to be all seeing. The artist told me that to place them outside your door or over your bed is to have them watch over and protect you.”

  “Beautiful,” Angela said.

  “Sammie likes to draw during the mornings,” Frank cut in with a voice that was somewhat ominous. “Some of his pictures can be a little disturbing, so be prepared. He may also start drawing pictures of us, which will be…unflattering. Try not to take offence.”

  Frank stepped forward and opened the door as Jessica seemed unable to do so herself. She remained at the back of the group as everyone stepped inside. Sammie’s bedroom was long and wide, cluttered from wall to wall with assorted toys and discarded clothing. The walls were plastered with pinned-up drawings and dirty handprints. An unmade child’s bed centred the room. The sheets seemed grimy and wet.

  “You’ll have to excuse the mess,” said a new voice from the back of the room. “I’m afraid housekeeping has declined somewhat since the staff all left. My dear mother tries her best, of course, but it simply never seems to get any cleaner in here. It’s most bizarre.”

  Angela peered over at the back of the room. She saw the pale, bony flesh of a topless young boy. Sammie was sitting at a desk and facing away from them. The knuckles of his spine bulged through his skin as if it were tissue paper. The smell of sweat was thick in the air like a musty fog.

  “Sammie, I assume?” said Angela. “It’s good to meet you. How are you doing today?”

  The boy did not turn around, but said, “I’ve been better, Angela, I won’t lie to you, but one cannot complain. There are people with burdens far beyond my own.”

  Angela looked back at the others, made eye contact with Frank, and whispered, “How does he know my name?”

  Frank shrugged. “I never told him.”

  “Nor did I,” said Jessica.

  Angela asked the boy directly. “How do you know my name, Sammie?”

  The boy turned his head to look at her. His neck muscles bunched up as he twisted around. His black eyes bulged at her like a rodent’s and he tapped a finger against his forehead. With a knowing smile he said, “There’s someone in here that knows you.”

  Angela felt a wave break in her stomach. “Who?”

  Sammie grinned wider. His teeth were yellow pegs set into brownish gums. “That’s for me to know. Why don’t you all take a seat? I’d relish the company.”

  “You’re sure this kid is just ten?” Tim whispered behind her. “He sounds like Mr Darcy.”

  “It’s one of the changes in him,” Frank explained. “Some of the doctors placed his mental age as that of a fully grown adult. They could not explain it.”

  Angela took several steps forward and, for a fleeting moment, she felt a buzzing in her head. It ended with a brief spell of dizziness and then passed away. Afterwards Angela wondered if she’d only imagined the feeling.

  Sammie had turned his head to face forward again and was drawing something at his desk. The closer Angela got, the more she was horrified by the boy’s condition. In fact, she was seriously beginning to consider reporting Miss Raymeady for neglect. Sammie’s body was little more than a flesh-strung skeleton-- an unfed, unwashed child.

  “How long has this other person been with you, Sammie?” Angela asked. “Is it just you and them, or are there more?”

  “There’s just him and me. He came to visit me a short while ago and has been here ever since. I honestly don’t know what I would do without him now. Funny how one can become so attached to new friends, don’t you think?”

  “So you and he are friends?” Angela confirmed. “What does he do for you?”

  Sammie smiled. “Oh, you know – this and that. He’s shown me delights I never knew of. Opened up doors I never knew existed.”

  Angela raised her eyebrows. “Doors? What do you mean?”

  Sammie stood up so suddenly that it made Angela jump back a step. “Don’t worry yourself about it, Angela, my dear. I’m sure you have many more important things to brood over than the ramblings of a ten year old boy. Here take this. I made it for you.”

  Angela walked up to the boy and took the sheet of paper he was offering. She turned it over and looked at the crayoned image Sammie had drawn for her. Her eyes stretched wide and the picture fell out of her hand as if it were a burning coal. The image that Sammie had drawn was straight out of her nightmares.

  “I’m leaving,” said Angela.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tim was confused by what had happened. He didn’t know what it was Sammie had drawn on the paper. Angela had taken the sketch with her, but whatever it was, it had freaked the woman out in a big way. She’d fled the room like it had been on fire. Tim couldn’t say he blamed her; Sammie had freaked him out without even having to draw him a picture.

  After Angela left in a fluster, Jessica sent Frank to retrieve her. Now Tim was standing in the room alone with the boy and his mother.

  Jessica was approaching Sammie gingerly, almost as if she feared him. Tim stayed back by the room’s entrance, examining the walls for anything that could help him form a logical opinion on the boy’s behavio
ur and mind-set. The kid was smart, there was no doubting that. There was perhaps a chance he was one of those brainiac, savant kids, like Mozart, or Rain Man – that could explain his behaviour. There was also little doubt, however, Tim thought, that smart kid or not, little Sammie was one disturbed mamajama.

  The boy’s walls were plastered with paintings of monsters and bloody destruction. Tim could pick out pictures of dragons, gargoyles, wolf-monsters, and many other creatures of the night that he couldn’t even recognise. There were also pictures of people: human bodies torn asunder and mutilated on spikes. Tim felt like he was standing inside an inmate’s cell at some high-security psych-ward not a child’s bedroom.

  “You shouldn’t be so rude, Jessica.” Sammie chastised his mother as if he were the authority figure in the room. “You haven’t introduced me to your new friend.”

  Jessica turned around to peer at Tim and seemed extremely embarrassed. “You’re right, of course. Where are my manners? Sweetheart, this is Timothy Golding. He’s here to help Mommy with some things around the house.”

  “What things?” Sammie asked. There was a sliver of aggression in his ten-year old voice.

  “Just…things. You don’t need to worry.”

  Tim decided to start his investigation and asked his first question. “Sammie, could you tell me what you drew for Angela?”

  Sammie grinned at him, shrugged his bony shoulders. “I just drew what my friend told me to. He wanted her to remember.”

  Tim nodded, but didn’t understand. “Remember what?”

  “Perhaps you should ask her,” Sammie suggested. “It would be wrong of me to discuss other people’s business. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure I’ll find time to draw something for you too.”

  Tim laughed. “Funny, but that almost sounded like a threat.”

  Sammie giggled. “Don’t be silly, Timothy. I’m just a child. What threat could I possibly be to you?”

  That’s to be determined, Tim thought as he battled a growing feeling of apprehension. The negative emotions rising from Sammie in noxious waves were making Tim feel sick. Other people may not have detected the malodour, but Tim most certainly did. Something was not right about the boy – in fact, something was very wrong. But there would be some rational explanation, there always was, and Tim would find out what it was. He always did.

  Almost always.

  “Do you mind if I went and had a quick word with Angela?” Tim asked Jessica. “Perhaps I can get her to stay.”

  Jessica smiled at him and nodded enthusiastically. “If you could I would be grateful.”

  “I’ll try my best.” Tim left the woman alone with her son. To be honest he was glad to get out of there. It was getting hard to breathe in the thick, bodily stench of the room.

  He headed back over to the main hall and quickly realised he didn’t even know where to find Angela. The house was vast and easy to get lost in, but he quickly had a thought that would help him. There was an intercom set into the wall by the foyer’s front doors and Tim dialled 904 on the keypad. Frank quickly picked up on the handheld receiver that Tim had seen the man carry.

  “Hey, Frank. I wanted to talk to Angela. Are you with her? You are? Great. Where can I find you both? Okay, I’ll see you there.”

  Tim hurried up the stairs.

  According to Frank, Angela was on the second floor in the Saunders Suite. Tim had no idea where that was, but he was sure he would find it. The manor was a labyrinth of corridors, but he was gradually beginning to get his bearings. The building was more or less a giant cube with four floors of luxury rooms. How Jessica could stand to live in such a voluminous house almost on her own, he did not know. Personally he would have gone crazy knocking around the mansion all alone.

  Maybe she went crazy, too. She does seem a little on edge.

  The Saunders Suite was up ahead. Tim rapped his knuckles against the door and it quickly opened. Frank stood in the doorway, blocking the room, but Angela was nowhere to be seen.

  “She won’t come out of the bathroom,” Frank explained, moving to let Tim inside.

  “Is she okay?” Tim asked.

  “I don’t know. She was locked in there when I arrived. I haven’t managed to get her to come out and talk to me.”

  “Okay. I’ll see if she’ll speak to me.”

  Frank shrugged. “By all means. Ms Raymeady really would prefer it if you both stay.”

  Tim walked across the bedroom and stood outside the door to what was most likely an en suite bathroom. He tapped against the wood and tried to speak through it. “Angela? It’s Tim. I know we’ve only just met, but I was kind of hoping we could talk. To be honest, I think there may be something going on in this house and I would prefer not having to figure it out on my own. I’d like your help.”

  There was silence.

  Tim tried harder. “I…know there’s obviously something in your past that is making you want to run away right now – I have a past too – but if you leave, then you’re just letting yourself down. If you run then your past is making a coward out of you. If you stay…well, then you’d have my thanks at the very least.

  The door opened and Angela came outside. She’d obviously been crying. “You don’t know anything about me, or my past. Why are you so sure you want my help anyway?”

  “Because Sammie went out of his way to freak you out, and that means you know something about what’s going on – whether you realise it or not. I don’t even know how a ten year old boy can freak out a grown woman he’s just met, but I figure it means he doesn’t want you here – which means that I do. I heard about your name being written in Sammie’s diary. There’s a conflict happening somewhere, because if Sammie summoned you here then he certainly didn’t act like he wanted you here just now. Whatever is going on obviously involves you, and I think we’ll have a better chance of figuring it out if you stay.”

  “I can’t stay.”

  “Look,” said Tim. “I don’t know what was on that drawing, but you’re not alone. Whatever happens, I’ll have your back. Let’s figure things out and try and to help this family. Anyway, Frank told me we’re going to get paid a shit load of money, so what’s to think about? How ‘bout it?”

  Angela looked close to tears again, but she kept them back and nodded. “Frank,” she said, looking over at the silver-haired man. “Could you give us both a minute, please? If I’m going to stay here then I’d like to know a bit more about the guy offering to watch my back.”

  Frank obliged her and left the room. Tim stepped over to the four-poster bed and perched on the end of it. Angela pulled up a chair that was tucked up beside a vanity table. She sat down on it and faced Tim. It seemed like there were things she wanted to know, questions she needed to ask.

  “Why are you all doing this to me?” was her first enquiry.

  Tim was confused. “Hey, I’m as in the dark about all this as you are. I didn’t know anything about this until a couple days ago. I figured I was just being hired for a simple job, but then I realised it was all a big setup to bring me here.”

  Angela frowned. “You were set up?”

  Tim nodded. “Well, yeah, sort of. I guess in a way it was more of an informal interview. Frank and some woman were posing as a family with “ghost” problems. They called me to see whether I saw through their bullshit or not – guess they wanted to see if I was a hustler. I caught onto their scam in about thirty-seconds flat. So they brought me here.”

  “Okay,” Angela said after remaining silent for a few moments. “Maybe you’re in the dark as much as I am, but that doesn’t mean I trust them. They’re up to something, and for some reason they’ve got their sights set on me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that they summoned me here specifically and then started playing games with my head. That picture… They must have looked into my past. I just don’t know the reasons why.”

  “What was on that picture that scared the heck out of you so much?” Tim asked.

>   He didn’t expect her to trust him so soon, but it appeared that she was willing to give him the chance. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the slip of paper with Sammie’s drawing on. Tim looked at it and his eyes went wide.

  “Is this…is this you, here in the corner?”

  Angela nodded and Tim looked closer. The childish artwork depicted the interior of a Christian church, complete with alter and oversized crucifix. Tim assumed it was some place Angela had once worked. There were blood-soaked walls depicted by thick, red crayon and a crudely scrawled carpet of stickmen-bodies making up the bottom of the picture. In the corner of the church was a doodle representing Angela. Opposite was a tall man with bright red eyes, holding a knife. The man looked crazy and malevolent.

  “What is this supposed to mean?” Tim asked Angela. “It’s sick, horrible. Are these bodies down there at the bottom? What does this have to do with you?”

  “This drawing is a snapshot from my life,” she said. “That picture happened to me for real. I was involved in a church massacre.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Jesus had nothing to do with it,” she said. “It was a parishioner named Charles Crippley. I was stationed in Jersey at the time. It was a dream position: big house, private island full of rich and generous parishioners. It was a cushy job. But I had one parishioner who was a bit of a handful.

  Tim nodded. “Charles Crippley?”

  “Yes. He was a local farmer, a quiet man, kept to himself. Some people said that he was mentally disabled, like a child in a man’s body. I have to admit that the man was strange, but I didn’t think he was unintelligent. He was more odd than stupid.”

  “How was he odd?”

  “He spoke to an imaginary friend, for one thing. Barley, he used to call him. Said that Barley was his friend.”

  “Just like Sammie says he has a friend?” Tim ran a hand through his brittle, ginger hair and wriggled his bony butt on the edge of the bed, trying to get comfortable. “That’s a coincidence I can’t say I like.”