A frightened moan as he prised loose the second.
A despairing, outraged shriek as he pushed at the last two fingers and she plummeted down, down,
down,
into the valley, her body bouncing off the sloping dam wall.
Childes heard the squelching breaking thud when she hit the concrete basin below. He slid to the floor of the walkway. And even before he had settled, an overwhelming relief swept through him, his being liberated from a black turbulent pressure, a confused boiling rage. He was too numbed for tears, too wearied for elation. He could only watch as the mists swirled and gradually dispersed.
Although one lingered.
Annabel leaned forward and touched his face with cold little fingers, fingers that had not been there before. Light from the far end of the dam shone through her and she became no more than a floating haze. Then she was gone, had become nothing.
'Illusion,' he said softly to himself.
55
The lights came from headlamps and torches that shone at the end of the walkway. Childes looked into the glare, shading his eyes with a raised hand. He heard car doors slamming, voices, saw silhouettes appear against the brightness. He was mildly curious to know how they had found him, but not surprised: nothing more could surprise him that night.
Childes no longer wanted to stay there on the dam, even though the illusory mists had dispersed completely and no hand clutched grotesquely at the parapet ledge. The night had presented too much, and now he had to find refuge, his own peace. His head felt light from released pressure and, although he was confused, bewildered, his senses were flushed with a quiet euphoria. He needed time to think, a period for consideration, but acceptance of his sensory ability was complete and calmly acknowledged. For he was sure it could be controlled, used with restraint and intention -
she
had shown him this, although her purpose was unequivocally evil and her deranged mind had exercised a different kind of control. He rose to his feet and looked out, not into the valley, but across the reservoir itself, the moonlight glimmering off the water's placid surface, no longer sinister but with a luminous purity. Childes breathed in crisp nocturnal air, tasting the sea's faint brine, brought inland by the breeze; the air was cleansing and seemed to rid his inner self of skulking shadows. He turned and walked towards the lights.
Overoy was the first to reach him at the foot of the steps, Robillard and two other uniformed policemen close behind.
'Jon,' Overoy said. 'Are you okay? We saw what happened.' He held Childes by the arm.
Childes blinked at the lights.
'Turn those torches away,' Overoy ordered.
The two officers following Robillard went by them, the beams from their torches sweeping towards the centre of the dam's walkway. Robillard signalled for the police cars' headlamps to be switched ofT. The relief was instant, a heavy shade drawn against a blinding sun.
'You saw?' Childes uttered.
'Not clearly,' Robillard said. 'A fogbank had drifted off the reservoir and obscured our view somewhat.' A fogbank? Childes said nothing.
Overoy spoke quickly, as if anxious to forestall Robillard. 'I saw you trying to save the other person, Jon.
:
He looked squarely into Childes' eyes, and though his gaze appeared expressionless, it barred any dissension. Childes was grateful, while Robillard looked doubtfully at his colleague but made no comment.
Unabashed, Overoy went on: 'I assume she was trying to kill you before she fell. Pity for her she was too heavy for you to hold.' The words were chosen carefully, almost as a statement that should be memorised.
'You knew it was a woman?' said Childes quietly.
Overoy nodded. 'We traced her lodgings back on the main-land. I rang you a couple of times earlier this evening to let you know, but your line was busy. I was lucky to get the last plane out tonight.'
The two policemen were shining their flashlights over the side of the dam, spotlighting the crumpled shape below.
'What we found at her home wasn't very pleasant - in fact, it was pretty grisly - but at least it proved conclusively that the woman was the killer we were looking for,' Overoy said grimly. 'The girl's body - Annabel's - was hidden under floorboards. To put her there was crazy because eventually the smell of decomposition would have given the woman away; other lodgers would have soon complained. But maybe she didn't care, maybe she already knew the game was up when she fled here. She must have been totally mad, and that's an irony in itself.' Childes looked at the detective quizzically.
'It's how I got on to her,' Overoy explained. 'Her name was on our list of staff and patients at the psychiatric hospital. She was a nurse, and obviously as lunatic as those in her charge. Christ, you should have seen the junk at her lodgings - occult stuff, books on mythology, emblems, symbols. Oh yeah, and a small collection of moonstones, which must have cost her quite a bit. If each one was for a new victim…' Overoy shrugged.
'She said she worshipped-'
'The moon? Yeah, she did, one moon-goddess in particular. It was all there in her books, in her ornaments. Crazy, crazy stuff.'
Other figures were on the dam coming towards them.
Robillard spoke. 'When Inspector Overoy gave us the woman's identity, we were easily able to verify that she'd arrived on one of the ferries. She's been here for a couple of weeks, as a matter of fact. After that it was easy to locate her whereabouts on the island. She'd been staying at a guesthouse tucked away inland, far from the coast and main centres. She hadn't been seen all day, but we searched her room. Evidently, you've been lucky tonight, Mr Childes: she left her "tools of the trade", as it were, behind in the guesthouse. We found a small black bag containing surgical instruments. She obviously felt confident enough to do away with you with her bare hands.'
'She was strong enough,' remarked Overoy, 'so we learned from her employers at the hospital. They used her, apparently, to restrain their most violent patients and, according to the other doctors and nurses there, she never had much trouble doing just that.'
'Didn't they wonder why she'd disappeared after the fire?'
'She didn't. She was even interviewed by the police - she was on our list with the rest of the staff, remember? She took her normal annual vacation after most of the fuss had died down. She was insane, but not stupid.'
Maybe it would all sink in later; for the moment, though, none of what they had told him had much meaning to Childes. He stirred when he heard another voice, one so familiar and so welcome.
'Jon,' Amy called.
He looked past the two detectives and saw her only a few yards away, Paul Sebire holding her arm to support her. There was anxiety on Sebire's face, and it was directed at him.
Childes went to Amy and she raised her hands, the cast on her injured arm reflecting whitely in the moonlight. He hugged her close, loving her and wanting to weep at the sight of her bandaged face. She winced as he held her tight.
He relaxed his grip, afraid to hurt her more.
'It's okay, Jon.' She was laughing and there was dampness on one cheek. 'It's okay. I was so afraid for you.'
Over her shoulder, he saw Paul Sebire frowning. The older man said nothing as he turned and walked back to the cars parked at the end of the dam.
Childes stroked her hair, kissed the tears from her cheek. 'How did you know where to find me?' he asked.
Amy was smiling and returning his kisses. Somehow she sensed the change in him, the dark cloud that had shadowed him for so long now swept away. It was as though his very thoughts transmitted that change to her.
'We found out from Gabby,' she told him.
'From Gabby?'
Overoy had joined them, and it was he who said, 'We went to Miss Sebire's home tonight looking for you after the patrolman watching your place lost you. She didn't know where you were-'
'But I remembered you said you'd spoken to Gabby earlier,' Amy interrupted. Tt was only an idea, but I thought you might have mentioned to Fran where you were going tonight. Inspector Overoy considered it worth a try, anyway, so he rang Fran at her mother's number. She was having problems with Gabby.'
'Your daughter was in hysterics because of a nightmare she'd had,' Overoy continued. 'She'd dreamt you were by a huge lake and there was a monster-lady trying to drag you down. Your wife told us Gabby was inconsolable.'
'You knew where I was from that?' Childes asked incredulously.
'Well, I'm used to
your
precognition by now, so why shouldn't I believe your daughter?'
Gabby too? Childes was stunned. He remembered she had asked him to tell Annabel she missed her.
Amy broke into his shocked thoughts. 'There are no "huge" lakes on the island, Jon. Only the reservoir.'
'We had nothing to lose,' added Overoy with a grin.
'No, just me to convince,' commented Robillard. 'But what the hell? None of this business has made much sense to me, so why should I mind tearing across the countryside in the middle of the night up to the reservoir.' He shook his head in perplexity. 'As it happens, they were right. My only regret is that we didn't get here sooner. You've been through quite an ordeal.'
'Is it over, Jon?' implored Amy, her hand reaching up to touch his face. 'Is it really over now?'
He nodded, but the moon shone from behind him so she could not see his face. He turned to look at Overoy.
'Who was she?' he asked the detective. 'What was her name?'
'She had an assumed name, we discovered, one she'd been using for years. She called herself Heckatty.' For some reason, there was a certain satisfaction in Overoy's tone.
Heckatty. The name meant nothing to Childes. And he hadn't expected it to. He wasn't even sure of what had taken place that night. Had their spirits really returned to haunt the creature whose very name was so ordinary, so meaningless? Or had the fusion between their minds, his violent psychic contact with this madwoman, brought forth imaginations that were merely, in essence, visions and fragments of disrupted minds.
'Illusions,' he said quietly to himself yet again, and Amy looked up at him, puzzled.
'Oh my God,' came a voice from near the centre of the walkway.
They turned in the direction of the two policemen who were crouched on the bridge section of the dam and shining their torches on an object lying between them. One officer was taking something from his tunic pocket to push it beneath whatever was lying there. He rose and made his way back to the watching group, gingerly carrying the object down the steps of the bridge, his companion following.
Of course all their faces were colourless under the moonlight, but there was a tightness to this officer's features that suggested he had become physically pallid.
'I don't think you want to see this, Miss,' he said to Amy, shielding the item he held so carefully on the small plastic bag taken from his pocket.
Curious, Overoy and Robillard moved in closer to look.
'Oh…' murmured Robillard.
Childes moved away from Amy. The other policeman was shining his torch at his colleague's cupped hands. Overoy had turned away, his face wrinkled in disgust.
'Some struggle you had,' he said sympathetically to Childes, who stared down at what the officers had found.
The bloodstained eye looked too ridiculously large to have been contained in a face. Dripping tendrils hung loosely over the side of the plastic bag and, as Childes looked down and the policeman's hands turned slightly, moonlight struck the eye's pupil. For a moment - just for a
fleeting
moment - a glint, almost like a tiny life-force, was reflected in there, and to Childes it had resembled the bluish phosphorescence that shone from within a moonstone.
Childes shivered as he turned away, and breathed in deeply, as he had only a short time before, dispersing shadows.
He slipped an arm around Amy's waist, pulling her gently to him, and they left that haunted, silver lake.
56
And Childes wondered where this newly-accepted power would lead him…