The Two Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Will Carver

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Litha June 2009

  Celeste

  V

  January

  Brooke

  January

  V

  Celeste

  V

  Samhain October 2008

  January

  Lily

  Celeste

  January

  Lily

  January

  V

  Yule December 2008

  Totty

  January

  Celeste

  Totty

  V

  January

  Celeste

  January

  Imbolc February 2009

  Talitha

  January

  V

  January

  Celeste

  Talitha

  Celeste

  January

  V

  January

  Celeste

  January

  Ostara March 2009

  V

  January

  Gray

  January

  Gray

  Celeste

  January

  V

  January

  Beltane May 2009

  Celeste

  V

  January

  Celeste

  January

  V

  Litha June 2009

  Annabel

  January

  Annabel

  Brooke

  January

  V

  Lughnasadh August 2009

  January

  January

  V

  January

  Celeste

  January

  V

  January

  Beltane May 2009

  Celeste

  January

  Ostara March 2009

  January

  V

  Imbolc February 2009

  January

  Talitha

  January

  Yule December 2008

  January

  Totty

  January

  Samhain October 2008

  Lily

  Celeste

  Lily

  V

  Celeste

  V

  Yule December 2008

  Celeste

  V

  Imbolc February 2009

  Celeste

  Ostara March 2009

  V

  Beltane May 2009

  Celeste

  Litha June 2009

  V

  January

  V

  V

  Celeste

  V

  Brooke

  Lughnasadh August 2009

  Aldous

  Mabon September 2009

  V

  Celeste

  January

  V

  Celeste

  January

  V

  January

  Celeste

  V

  January

  V

  Celeste

  V

  January

  V

  January

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  They Kill Without Mercy. Disappear Without Trace.

  They are The Two.

  And now the stakes are raised once more for Detective January David.

  5 lie dead, brutally murdered – the first taken on the night of Halloween and as autumn bleeds into winter more ritualistic murders are discovered.

  January must battle his demons, for in his mind lies the clue to stopping a ruthless murderer.

  But his worst nightmares have literally come true when he discovers there’s not one but two twisted killers on the loose …

  About the Author

  Will Carver is 31 years old. He is married and comes from Reading. The Two is his second thriller.

  Also available by Will Carver

  Girl 4

  For my brother, who said,

  ‘Why don’t you just write a supernatural thriller?’

  Prologue

  I‘VE COME TO know my mother a lot better over the last year, since she died.

  We’re much closer now.

  She’d seen things before that terrible spring of ’85; her journals tell me that much. It wasn’t until the day before my sister Cathy was taken, that cloudless spring day I trustingly left her outside on her own, the day all our lives began to wither and change into something altogether darker and broken, it wasn’t until the last day our family was happy that my mother saw him, the one she refers to in her journals as The Fat Man.

  The vision that would haunt her.

  The nightmare that held all the answers but which nobody believed.

  Now I believe.

  Now I understand.

  With my mother gone, he is the only person who can help find my sister.

  But, in my nightmares or visions or intuitions or whatever these things are, I am yet to see him.

  I haven’t seen anybody since Audrey, my wife, my pregnant wife, left. I stayed with her while she recovered from the ordeal with Eames but knowing she had been with him, that she had slept with the man that killed all of those people, that his child, not mine, was growing inside her and that she was going to keep it, there was no choice but to part.

  She betrayed me with the villain I arrested and now she has disappeared to I don’t know where. I do not care.

  Ploughing through the diarised moments of my dead mother’s life is part of my routine now. The piles of handwritten notepads occupy the space that was once Audrey’s home office. I spend most of my time in that room when I’m home, tricking my mind into believing the house is much smaller than it really is. Cutting myself off from the reality of the dwarfing world outside.

  So far I have learned nothing significant about the similarities between our abilities. The gift or curse I seem to share with my mother. The volumes from ’84 to ’87 are merely a chronicle of the steady decomposition of Mother’s mind and the irrepressible growth of her irrational desperation. They chronicle the breakdown of our family following Cathy’s abduction. My father’s withdrawal and resignation was proportional to Mother’s apparent madness and both my parents’ neglect of me.

  The height of her hopelessness came a year later than these entries, when she turned to the Lord.

  3rd March ’88: No visions last night either. Can’t take this. Lit a candle for Cathy’s safe return. Prayed to God or whoever will listen. Where are you, Fat Man? Tell me where my girl is. Why do you no longer visit me? Who will help us?

  Now I am closer to my mother, it hurts to read her sounding so delusional. Not in regard to her visions of this Fat Man but because she’d lost so much hope, so much confidence in herself, that her only option seemed to be entrusting her faith to an idol she had long since forgotten.

  The moment she passed on her fear to this higher power was the moment she gave up on my sister.

  The moment she stopped fighting.

  And I refuse to do that.

  In the space of one year I have lost a father I hardly knew, a mother I didn’t want to know and a wife I wish I’d never met.

  Once again, I’m alone.

  There is no one.

  Only Cathy.

  And there certainly is no God.

  Litha

  June 2009

  Celeste

  I DON’T MOVE, at first.

  It takes a few seconds to realise that, actually, I can’t.

  I’m bound, and not just physically.


  As my eyes adjust to the darkness in my windowless room I can make out a tiny rectangle of light on the wall in front of me.

  And I know that I’ve been caught.

  I know that she didn’t die.

  Stupidly, I think it’s over.

  The room is as cold as you would expect a jail cell to be; the skin on my breasts goose-pimples as a numbing chill bolts down my neck, causing my shoulders to judder.

  Somebody stepping on my grave.

  My hands are restricted, tied to the frame of the bed, which I now register as double size. Even in the blackness, I am aware that I have been placed in the centre of the room rather than up against a wall.

  Both arms are stretched out perpendicular to my body. But I’m not handcuffed. My wrists are tethered to the bars of the bed frame with what feels like satin or some other equally sleek fabric. The loops holding me in place are not tight and yet, still, I cannot seem to move my arms. The same smooth material rubs against my ankles, binding them together and attaching them to the bottom bedstead.

  What is this?

  I focus on the strip of light, cocking my head to the right slightly to listen for voices, something, anything that confirms the police have finally captured me. The saliva in my mouth is thick from thirst, the acridity of smoke enveloping every taste bud.

  I pull at the cloth that fetters me to the frame, trying to release myself.

  Nothing.

  Spiritually, my shackles tighten, paralysing my limbs, leaving my body crucified to the mattress beneath.

  The back of my neck itches, then my lumbar, then the inside of my right thigh. I can’t scratch. I can’t move.

  They can’t treat me like this.

  I wriggle my core violently, hoping to dislodge something, my limbs still heavy and motionless. The bed moves half an inch closer to the door but my situation does not improve. So I scream. With every last one of my muscle fibres twitching simultaneously and the tendons in my neck trembling, I let out a cry that warbles with viciousness.

  I hold the roar for five seconds, maybe ten, then wait.

  Nothing.

  Nobody comes.

  Again I cry out, this time interspersing my howls with ‘You fucks’ and ‘Let me out’ and ‘Who are you?’

  I wait again, catching my breath.

  Silence.

  I stare intently at the illuminated rectangle ahead of me, my eyes fixed on the same spot, willing the flap to open and reveal the face of my arresting officer, the man to be hailed as a hero, the one who stopped the procession of mutilations and burnings and blood-draining exsanguinations.

  I want to see January David’s eyes, full of pride and achievement; his pathetic feeling of triumph despite the death of the five people he could have prevented if he really knew just what was going on.

  But, despite my powers, I cannot open the small door to the outside of this prison.

  So I wait.

  Momentarily, I give up.

  That’s exactly what they want.

  Relaxing into my restraints I take six long breaths, in through the nose, hold for five seconds then expel through the mouth, opening my eyes again on the third exhalation. On the ceiling above me I can just make out a pattern. A circle, slightly bigger than the bed that I am lying on, but it is too dark to see what is painted inside. With my vision compromised, it is only a short while before my other senses begin to compensate. I can smell the paint now; I couldn’t at first. Whatever the symbol above me is, it is fresh. As if the cell has been recently decorated.

  Then I smell burning. Not like something is on fire, not like the smell a few hours ago that I can still taste on the flesh inside my cheek as I knelt in front of another victim, the fire burning beneath her. Just candles. Newly lit candles, the extinguished matches still hot, the minuscule stream of smoke dancing into the air as its flame is blown out.

  Then I feel something altogether alien. It’s as if, somehow, the silence I have found myself in has become even more quiet. I sense something drawing closer.

  The tin flap drops open, sounding like a car crash against the noiselessness of my isolation.

  I hold my breath now, my body rigid in anticipation.

  More light streams into my cell, forming a pathway along the dust particles floating around inside.

  Initially, the opening frames a bearded chin, but that slowly descends out of sight making way for vibrant pink lips against the palest of skin tones, then a pointed nose that resembles a flat owl’s beak, perfectly symmetrical, eventually stopping on the eyes. Dark and bloodshot. So dark there is little colour difference from the pupil.

  He doesn’t blink.

  I open my mouth, the viscous saliva forming a string that connects both my lips. I want to speak but can’t force myself to say anything. As if attempting to call out in a dream.

  The man’s eyes are unflinchingly reserved, reluctant. I feel my own widen further, trying to take in more than is possible through the tiny aperture I have been allowed.

  Eventually, he blinks, and I jump. Every movement is exaggerated, every sound is amplified: his blink is like a whip cracking.

  These are not the eyes of my arresting officer.

  These are not the eyes of January David.

  V

  THE TRAFFIC LIGHTS change again, illuminating my living room in an orange wash followed by a flood of green that remains until another drunken rabble passes by and presses the button at the junction, whether they need to cross or not.

  The juvenile compulsions of the weak-willed.

  I take a sip of red wine and watch the northern wall of my flat cycle through the colours once more.

  A scraping behind the door alerts me that the bed is moving.

  I don’t care, though.

  I’ve got her.

  It ends tonight.

  Litha marks her demise.

  The wine is full-bodied, thick, like blackcurrant syrup. It coats the inside of my mouth before passing down my throat, swathing it in a fruity glaze that is almost sensual. I close my eyes and lick my teeth slowly, starting with the incisors at the top. I can still detect the changing lights somehow. I drop back into the comfort of my worn leather chair, the only piece of furniture, all I need in my near-empty room.

  The muffled screams persist but I remain unmoved, allowing myself this pleasure.

  She starts to wail. Long guttural bleats that develop into predictable obscenities.

  This is the sound of justice. The sound of God’s work.

  Nobody can hear her. Nobody will ever hear her.

  Moving my wine glass into my left hand I flip open my mobile phone in my right and hit 9 three times. It isn’t long before a woman answers.

  ‘Emergency Services. Which service do you require?’ She sounds too chirpy.

  ‘Fire Brigade, please.’

  She doesn’t speak again. The phone line clicks straight through to a well-spoken man who asks me what my predicament is. I speak in a slightly raised pitch, masking my true voice in case the call is being recorded. I don’t want to sound like me; I want to sound desperate for help.

  I give him the address of the fire.

  ‘I don’t know whether there are any people in there,’ I lie, forcing a fake whimper of concern.

  He tries to make me stay on the line and wait for the help to arrive. He says I should stay exactly where I am.

  I hang up.

  It doesn’t require too much force to twist the phone in my hand and break it in two. The back plate falls off, exposing the inner workings. I release the catch that holds the SIM card in place and take it out. Bending this in half dislodges the chip on the front. I flush it down the toilet. Then, walking back into the living room, I see the wall is lit in red. Looking out of the window, I notice a young couple waiting by the side of the road until it is safe to cross.

  Behind me the woman shouts again. A faint murmur. ‘Who aaaaare you?’

  I glare at the couple who have now crossed the road and paused to embr
ace, hoping they did not hear, waiting for them to continue with their journey, watching as his hands wander down her body.

  I hold my breath.

  They carry on their way, undoubtedly heading towards a night of fleeting coital ardour. Once they are far enough away I hurl one half of the broken phone across the street into the road to be carried away by traffic; the other I drop straight down into the bushes below, splitting it into two locations.

  They don’t need to find us.

  She will be judged.

  When the screaming stops I make my way over to the room I have prepared for her.

  I smile, waiting at the door with my finger on the latch that will release the rectangular flap that separates us. Closing my eyes again I breathe deeply but silently to compose myself, the corners of my mouth dropping into seriousness.

  Her retribution is my salvation.

  I stare at her through the opening, her body tethered to the bed that will be a final place of rest. She stares back, trying to retain some power, to show she is not afraid. But, of course, she breaks.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  To look at her you would see that such language does not suit her willowy, almost ethereal, appearance. But, knowing her as I do, understanding her inner evil, her masked malevolence, her odious self-determination to transform her visualisations into heinous reality, I am not shocked.

  I say nothing.

  She asks again, this time placating me as if I were a sub-mental buffoon.

  ‘Who … are … you … and … what … do … you … want?’ Her eyes widen in her annoyance, her teeth grinding.

  Several years ago, I was someone else. A father, a husband. I was loved, and needed, but that man is gone. Who I am now is of no concern to you. You may know me only for my actions and you are here so that justice may be served.

  You are here at the will of my Lord, so that he may have his vengeance.

  That I may have my peace.

  I do not tell her any of this. It is not required.

  Instead, I close the hatch, drop to my knees, and begin to pray.

  My work is just beginning.

  This is my genesis.

  January

  I KNEW THIS was coming. I knew seven weeks ago when the fifth body was found in the undergrowth to mark the coming of summer.

  I knew it last night while I slept. While The Two performed another merry dance, banging their drums, rolling their wheels, tormenting me with their mysterious messages in the room where The Smiling Man once stood. That dark, endless room in my mind where my subconscious is invaded by intuitive visions, cryptically pointing me towards the solution to my investigation.