The Shadows Call Read online

  ‘Don’t you agree? We were only just starting to get the answers we were looking for and Steve called a halt.’

  ‘You ask me, he was afraid of what might be said next.’

  ‘Further proof that harm was going to come to you?’

  ‘No. The opposite. Up to that point the voice we heard said some pretty profound things. Steve can present it as positive proof of the SB-seven’s efficacy in speaking with the dead. But if he’d allowed the session to go on, what next? What about when it just started speaking gibberish? It would throw doubt on everything he’d already recorded. The names it mentioned, the talk about harm and murder, it’d all have been buried in whatever crap came out the box next. See that’s the problem with any of this paranormal stuff.’

  ‘To a sceptic no proof is possible; to a believer no proof is necessary. But Steve’s a fence sitter.’ Sarah conceded my point. ‘He wanted something he could present without anything that would cloud the validity of the evidence.’

  ‘In other words, he’s a bloody faker.’ It gave me great pleasure getting those words out. I watched her face for a reaction, and was glad to see only a wry turn of her lips. ‘How can you like that bighead, Sarah? He’s a pompous arsehole.’

  ‘Jealous, Jack?’ Sarah sat back. Her vagina pressed against my belly, slick and warm from our lovemaking. I reared my hips an inch or two, my newly reinvigorated penis bumping against her backside.

  ‘Need I be?’

  She didn’t answer. She bent forward, pressed back with her hips and I slid inside her. We were languid at first. Until Sarah leaned into me, her hair covering my face and I grabbed her butt cheeks with both hands. We jostled and bumped gracelessly, and I shuddered out my final dregs. Sarah squirmed around on me a few more beats, but I was done, my penis going soft. She lay on top, allowing a sigh to leak from her mouth. I wasn’t sure if it was a sigh of contentment or one of disappointment. I continued to jiggle around, attempting to get some life in my limp dick, but my head was full of damp wool and I couldn’t get it up. Sarah said something I didn’t hear.

  She slid off me sideways, leaving a glistening trail across my lower belly. She laid facing away from me.

  I could feel the chill on my skin now that she’d moved aside, and I pulled at the duvet to cover us. I rolled on my side, went to spoon Sarah against me, but she shifted, and her body suddenly felt wooden. I held back an inch or two, just looking at her messed up hair.

  Something had happened that I didn’t quite comprehend.

  I’d meant my words as a tongue in cheek challenge, but maybe I’d hit a raw nerve.

  Was she fantasizing about Steve when she mounted me for round two? When I failed to last, had I burst her fantasy bubble? Was she pissed off that I hadn’t set her alight while she dreamed about another man? I shifted back another inch or so. Then, without thought, I was standing by the bed. ‘I need to take a leak,’ I announced, but it was only an excuse. I quickly left the room, going down the narrow stairs, my bare heels banging on each step. Our bodily secretions felt icy on my belly and tops of my thighs.

  Anger is particularly debilitating to logical thinking even when there’s a good reason for it. I didn’t have any reason, other than what my imagination tormented me with. I pictured Sarah riding Steve, crying out with joy each time he thrust into her. His whitened teeth flashed with each flexing of his loins, grins of triumph at my expense.

  I banged through the door at the bottom and was halfway along the landing before I asked the question: ‘What the fuck is wrong with you, Jack? You’re acting like an insecure kid.’

  It was only in my mind that Sarah and Steve were making whoopee. There was nothing real in it. So what the bloody hell was I worried about? For all I knew Sarah hadn’t given the pompous bastard the slightest thought when she’d guided me back inside her. Maybe she was simply spent, and wanted nothing more than to relax for the last few hours before we had to get up for work.

  Yeah, that was it. She was tired. I worried that she was betraying me inside her mind when all she wanted to do was sleep. I blamed Catriona for my jealous streak. Catriona had betrayed me, no question, but it didn’t mean that Sarah would. Sarah was a better person than my ex. Much better. It was why I loved her, I realised.

  Is that why you’re acting like a green-eyed monster? You’ve fallen for her, Jack. You love that girl and it frightens you.

  The thoughts bounced around my skull like a pinball as I stood at the toilet and urinated. I hadn’t needed to piss, but now that I stood poised over the bowl, it came in a torrent. I was mildly embarrassed that Sarah might hear me all the way upstairs. I nipped my bum cheeks, trying to control the flow. Now I peed in stops and starts, and that was the rhythm my thoughts took. In one instant I pictured Sarah’s lovely toffee-coloured eyes blinking up at me in dreamy adoration, the next the man hammering into her was Steve and they were both laughing at how his capacity for satisfying her made me look like a eunuch in comparison. Then Sarah was telling me how much she loved me too, but when I checked it wasn’t me she said those words to but Daniel, our uptight boss. My right hand was still engaged in directing the sputtering flow of urine into the bowl; my left hand rubbed at my face. I jammed the base of my thumb into my eye sockets in turn, trying to force the images out of my skull.

  ‘Fucking bitch,’ I muttered to myself.

  I bit down on the words.

  What the hell?

  I hadn’t meant to utter a thing, especially not concerning Sarah.

  This was my insecurity, nothing to do with her!

  ‘Fucking bitch!’

  I punched the wall with my left fist. Mad at myself. Mad at Catriona for making me so insecure. Mad at Sarah for offering the cold shoulder. Didn’t women expect to be cuddled after sex? Hell, I was being the ideal gentleman and she’d turned from me. Fucking bitch. Fucking bitch. Fucking bitch.

  I flushed the loo. Turned. Stood in the cubicle exit, peering the length of the bathroom.

  A woman stood in the far doorway, on the half-landing. She was a silhouette.

  Naomi?

  She stepped forward into the dull light bleeding from the toilet cubicle behind me.

  ‘What are you doing, Jack?’

  It was Sarah. She was naked but had pulled a sheet around her shoulders to ward off the cold.

  I massaged my red knuckles, as I stared back at her. I was like a kid caught jacking off over his dad’s porn mags. My face flushed, I could feel the heat rising up from my throat, my scalp prickling. I had no excuse for my crazy antics or for my words. I dreaded that she’d heard me.

  ‘I, uh, knocked my hand on the doorframe,’ I lied.

  Sarah watched me. Then she reached for the cord and switched on the bathroom light.

  I showed her my reddening knuckles. But she knew I was lying: to a sceptic no proof is possible.

  ‘Why did you get out of bed like that?’

  ‘I needed to pee,’ I said.

  ‘That much?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  The length of the narrow bathroom still separated us.

  ‘I thought I’d done something wrong,’ she said. ‘You jumped out of bed like a scalded cat and ran down here.’

  ‘I was bursting. Must’ve been all that coffee we drank.’ I was self-conscious standing like that with my shrivelled penis displayed in all its miniscule glory. I lowered my hands over my groin. Sarah wore a perplexed expression but at least I could detect no anger. She hadn’t heard me swearing thankfully. She adjusted the sheet on her shoulder.

  ‘It’s bloody freezing,’ I said, ‘we should go back to bed.’

  ‘It’s after five. We need to get up soon. I think I’ll just stay up and have a bath. Is that OK?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ I took a step towards the tub. ‘I’ll run it for you.’

  Sarah looked me up and down. She allowed the sheet to fall from her shoulders and it pooled behind her. ‘Why don’t you get in with me?’

  I was happy that
I’d not got round to fitting a new bath yet. The tub was old, cast iron, large enough to accommodate us both. ‘Who gets the tap end?’

  ‘You. No question about it.’

  I ran the water. Put in some foaming bubbles. Helped Sarah to step in the tub. She oohed and aahed at the heat as she lowered herself. I got in, again self-conscious about the proximity of my shrivelled member to her face. Bathing together was supposed to be romantic, but it was anything but. It was difficult to lower myself without knocking Sarah around, and my dodgy knee gave me hell as I tried to get settled. The taps were at extremes of temperature and both touched my shoulders in turn. I oohed and aahed for different reasons, and a bit sharper.

  Once we had found a modicum of comfort, things got better. I forgot all about my momentary wobble of minutes ago: Sarah sponged me down and then I took a turn at her. I spent more time on her boobs than was perhaps necessary, to a point where I felt a couple of pleasant ticks of my penis, and I wondered what it would be like doing it right there in the warm water. It didn’t come to that. Once I’d shampooed my hair, Sarah made it obvious that it was time for me to get out. She wanted to lie prone in order to soak away some of her fatigue.

  I got out, dripping on the linoleum. After wrapping myself in the discarded sheet, I stood there admiring her as she lengthened herself out in the bath, slowly massaging shampoo into her locks. Her breasts and the mound of her pubis were elevated above the suds. I began to grow hard. But Sarah didn’t notice; her eyes were shut and she was murmuring with pleasure. I wondered whom she was thinking about. My guts clenching, I went to find some fresh towels.

  Collecting towels from a clean laundry pile in the ground floor kitchen, I shucked off the bed sheet and wrapped myself in a cotton bath sheet. It was more absorbent than the bed sheet and warmer. I carried two more towels with me as I headed back to the bathroom. My feet wanted to move faster, but I denied the urge to run back to Sarah. I conjured images in my mind, and they weren’t nice ones, where Sarah was pleasuring herself while murmuring Steve and Daniel’s names in turn. Partly I wanted to catch her in the act, but another part of me was terrified what it would mean for us if I did. I chickened out in the end, making sure that I made enough noise as I ascended the stairs to alert her of my approach. I’d left the door partly ajar, but I still gave a gentle rap of my knuckles before entering.

  I stood looking down at Sarah for a moment too long.

  It was because my breath had caught in my throat.

  She was lying stretched out in the soapy water as I’d left her, but she wasn’t murmuring in pleasure now. She wasn’t doing anything. She was totally inert, and her head was beneath the surface. Her mouth was slightly open, and it was awash. A single stray bubble popped from her right nostril.

  Without thought I lunged for her, hooking one arm under her knees and one beneath her neck. As I yanked her from the bath I hollered her name; it sounded more like a ragged howl of animalistic horror. Water splashed everywhere, my gimpy knee gave way and I fell back against the wall, still hugging Sarah’s limp body in my arms. As I began the slide to my butt cheeks, Sarah gave a violent start. Her eyes sprang open and she emitted an ear-piercing shriek.

  We ended on the floor, with Sarah on top of me. Her eyes were wild, her soaking hair lashing my face as she shook to get free.

  ‘It’s OK, it’s OK!’ I cried.

  ‘Jack! What are you doing?’ Her voice was pitched between terror and rage. She tried to pull away from me. Her elbow dug me in the groin.

  ‘It’s OK. Jesus, I thought you’d drowned!’

  ‘Hell! I was only relaxing,’ Sarah croaked. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I tried to help her to a more comfortable position. Sarah continued to squirm, trying to free herself of my grasp. I received another dig in the groin and this time it made me feel sick. Or maybe that was my response to thinking she had drowned. ‘Bloody hell, Sarah! You need to be more careful. You fell asleep and slipped under water. Shit! I thought you were dead.’

  Sarah began weeping: it was a conditioned response to the terror of the moment. My eyeballs were bolting from my head, prickling like crazy. Perhaps I cried too.

  29

  Ghost in the Machine

  It was an uncomfortable few days that followed. My attempts at saving Sarah from drowning had proved counterproductive in that it almost frightened the life out of her. Neither of us knew how to respond. I’d been trying to help, but you wouldn’t think it. Once she’d dried herself, got dressed, she called her dad to pick her up and had fled home rather than travel in to work with me. She called in sick that day. When Daniel asked if I’d seen her the previous evening I lied. She was in work on Tuesday but avoided me as best she could. I thought about cornering her in the staffroom and asking what was wrong with her, but decided it was best to give her some distance. On Wednesday Daniel sent me to work in the stockroom for the entire shift. He kept Sarah busy with managerial duties in the office. He even ensured that Sarah and I were on different lunch hours, so he had her all to himself the entire day. I fumed silently, thinking evil thoughts. I’ve never been overtly violent, but I did start to wonder what shaped dent a spanner would put in my boss’s head.

  It was raining on Wednesday evening when I left the showroom and headed for my Volvo. A brisk wind swirled the raindrops around beneath the security lights at the rear of the warehouse where I’d parked. I thought it was cold enough for snow, and the rain was a little flinty where it struck my exposed face. Turning up my jacket collar, I made the decision it was time to get my winter coat out of storage: a task for when I arrived home. Sliding into the driver’s seat, I shivered at the rain running down my back. The windscreen misted the second I turned the engine, and I fiddled with the heater blowers to clear it. The engine grumbled, damp, and I gave it some throttle to get things moving. I drove around the building in time to see Sarah come out the customer exit. She threw up her hands in exasperation at the weather, then dug in her handbag for her collapsible umbrella. I pulled up, wound down the window.

  ‘I can give you a lift home if you want?’

  In that moment it was as if the uncomfortable atmosphere had lifted and she smiled pleasantly at me. Sarah trotted over to the car and leaned down at the window. ‘I’m glad I caught you, Jack.’

  About to respond that there had been ample opportunity to seek me out the last few days, I clamped down on it, saying instead, ‘I’m glad you did too.’

  ‘Brianne called. There’s stuff to go over with you. Is now a good time?’

  ‘They found something?’ I asked, not sure how I felt about the news.

  ‘I think it’s best I let Brianne tell you herself. Can I call her and let her know she can come over?’ Sarah clambered into the passenger seat, alongside a swirl of damp wind.

  ‘What about Steve?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s busy with something,’ Sarah replied. I was happy that he wasn’t busy with her. Maybe something in my face told Sarah so. She looked across at me. ‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting funny since the other night.’

  ‘Things did end on an awkward note,’ I pointed out.

  Abashed, Sarah nodded. ‘I did over react a little.’

  ‘Only a little?’

  ‘Jack, put yourself in my shoes. I was snoozing away nicely and you hauled me out of the bath like a sack of spuds. I thought I was being attacked. I thought you were trying to…well, after that loony spirit box session, I thought you were trying to kill me. No wonder I acted a little crazy after that.’

  ‘I was trying to help you,’ I countered.

  ‘I know that now, but at the time? I don’t know, maybe I was dreaming or something, but when you first grabbed me by the throat I thought you were trying to force my head under the water.’

  ‘I didn’t grab you by the throat. I put my arm under your head to lift you out.’

  Sarah leaned over, placed her fingertips beneath my chin and closed my mouth.

>   ‘I know. But at the time I was confused. I was scared.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, wondering why I was the one apologizing.

  ‘It’s nothing. Forget about it. I’m the one who’s sorry. Hell, Jack, I should be thanking you. If I did fall asleep and slipped under water, it’s highly likely you saved my life.’

  I sat holding the steering wheel.

  ‘Can we just put it behind us?’ I finally ventured.

  Sarah mimed balling something up and tossing it on to the back seat. ‘There. Forgotten.’ But then she leaned to place her lips against my cheek. ‘But I still want to say thank you.’

  I nodded, allowed her to buss her lips against my cheek, then I drove for the junction to the main road. While I steered us towards my house, Sarah got on her phone and called Brianne Walker to organise a meeting.

  ‘Brianne said she’ll be over within the hour,’ Sarah said after hanging up.

  ‘What has she told you about the investigation?’

  ‘Not a lot. But to be fair we didn’t get much chance to talk earlier. Daniel was on my case when she rang me, and then gave me a bollocking for using my personal phone in company time.’

  ‘What a dick,’ I said.

  ‘Tell me about it. There aren’t too many people I find insufferable, but Daniel Graham is one of them. I can’t wait to leave and see the back of him.’

  Her words were music to my ears. Yet a nagging thought bothered me: there was truth in that old saying that guilt is ill veiled when you protest your innocence too much.

  ‘What about Steve “the fake” Walker? On the scale of insufferability he rates very highly in my estimation,’ I said.

  ‘Steve’s not that bad. Not when you get to know him.’

  ‘So I keep hearing, but there’s nothing about the smarmy git I find endearing. Not enough that I care to get to know him any better.’ I made a face. ‘Brianne’s OK, I guess. And Hilary was cool.’