Dark Choir Read online

  “I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting my duties. I was in prison and you did not visit me.”

  “Matthew twenty-five, I believe,” said Max. Widdowson now remembered that he’d witnessed to this man in the past, and he’d said he was a Catholic. Heretic bastard.

  “Sheep and goats, my friend. Sheep and goats,” Widdowson said. Max handed him a personal alarm. Instinctively, Widdowson clipped it to his belt as he had done on his previous visits. If he remembered right, you pulled it and an alarm went off in the whole building. He’d once caught it on the door handle. The thing had fallen off, one of the patients had picked it up, handed it to him, and the alarm had then gone off. If he had been under attack, that delay might have cost him his life. Widdowson was glad he wasn’t staying here long.

  “I need to speak to the nurse in charge before I see the patient. Are they about?”

  “First on the left,” smiled Max. Widdowson entered the unit through the second door.

  The corridor was L shaped. Ahead were the patient’s rooms and to his right was the door to the office and the seclusion room next to it, the heavy grey metal doors firmly shut today. On the left, windows looked into the garden which this building surrounded. Several men with scruffy grey hair wearing faded denim were silently smoking roll-ups on a bench.

  Although the door was open, Widdowson still knocked. The staff nurse was a friendly West Indian man called Marcus. Widdowson remembered him from the last time he’d been here. He’d briefly been to Widdowson’s church but, like a lot of spineless so-called believers, had left. He had no stomach for Widdowson’s hard brand of Gospel. Only the truly faithful did. The truly faithful and those whom Widdowson had a hold over.

  “Pastor, good to see you. You’ve come to see our friend, I assume.” Marcus was all smiles.

  “Yes,” Widdowson didn’t bother to smile back. “How is he?”

  “Same as ever.”

  “Good, good. Has he been out at all?”

  “Not for a while. At least, not unaccompanied. The Home Office,” Marcus noticed Widdowson frown in mild confusion, “you know, the government department that ultimately assesses how dangerous he is, withdrew his public privileges when he came back from the hospital shop one day and said he wanted to take some kids into the woods.”

  That blew one of Widdowson’s theories as to who had visited Gillits. The unit was surrounded by a twenty-foot fence. The patients were accounted for at all times, so there was no way he could have got out. Still, Widdowson needed to speak to him.

  “He’s in his room. Keep the door open, will you. Any trouble, just pull,” Marcus nodded to his attack alarm. Marcus walked Widdowson to the patient’s room. He was sitting on his bed rolling a cigarette.

  “Connor,” said Marcus. “A visitor. I hope you’re not going to smoke that in here.”

  “Course I ain’t, you stupid bastard.” Connor spat the sentence out with real venom then looked up to Widdowson with a toothless grin. “Pastor, how nice to see you. Hug?”

  He looked around to check that Marcus had gone. “Don’t touch me, Pendred. This isn’t a social visit.”

  “A sexual visit then? Oral? Anal?” He laughed.

  “Don’t talk to me like that unless you want a smack in the mouth.” Brushing crumbs from the nearest chair, Widdowson sat down. The room reminded Widdowson of a prison cell, functional and standardised. Blue curtains, a bed, and furniture fixed to the floor made from solid pale wood. Widdowson regarded his host.

  Connor Pendred continually carried an expression in his dark eyes that he could not be trusted. Grey, slick-backed hair clung to his thinning scalp. Faded tattoos across his hands made them look like Stilton. He was heavy and squat, his yellow tongue shot out from his thin lips to lick the tobacco paper. Widdowson noticed his hands shook with parkinsonism from years of antipsychotic medication, but his confidence and malice shone through with crystal sharpness.

  “Right, tell me,” began the Pastor. “Did you somehow get out of here and visit Dennis Gillits the other night?”

  “Nope.”

  “Has anyone contacted you or tried to blackmail you about, well, your past?”

  “Blackmail, no. Contacted, yes. I had a visit. You had a visit, yet, Widdowson?”

  “What? Who visited you? Who contacted you?”

  “Dark Choir.”

  “The what?”

  Pendred began to sing in a cockney falsetto voice. “When the Dark Choir sings…you better block your fuckin’ ears.” He laughed a bitter laugh.

  “Listen, someone turned up at Dennis Gillits’s house and wrote something on his wall. They wrote “Choir.” Who visited you?”

  “He did.”

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  “Make sense for God’s sake, man. Who visited you?”

  “I never knew his name. He was standing there. Cock out.”

  Widdowson gritted his teeth. If the staff weren’t so near, he’d have smacked Pendred around the face.

  “Someone broke into Gillits house and wrote that on his wall.” He took out his phone and showed Pendred a picture of Gillits’s wall.

  “Yeah, they did it to me too.” Connor Pendred nodded to the wall behind Widdowson. Widdowson followed his gaze. Faded, but still discernable, was the word “Choir.” Widdowson frowned. The same crude scrawl.

  “It was done in shit. Course this lot reckons I did it meself and made me clean it off. It couldn’t have been me ’cause I never learned to read and write. Been in Vincent’s since I was twelve.”

  “I know”

  Widdowson had read his file, back in the days when patient confidentiality had been less strict. He’d drowned his baby sister when he was twelve and had escaped from St. Vincent’s when he was twenty-one. He’d raped and killed three girls and one boy in the two days he’d been out. He had a dual diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and personality disorder. The staff nurse who’d let him read the files said that was a long way of saying he was a cunt. Widdowson had reported the man for using profanity.

  He was utterly devoid of conscience. He had sick, sexual sadistic needs. Widdowson wondered if he was possessed in some way, but instinct told Widdowson that, in reality, Pendred was just evil. Simple as that.

  He looked at the faded word again. Choir. Someone was trying to make trouble. Perhaps, someone who worked here. Gillits’s house was a stone’s throw from Berrymoor. Widdowson had really hoped Connor had visited Gillits’s so he could nip this in the bud, but Pendred could not have possibly got out of Berrymoor and visited him. Security here was too tight. If one of the staff had somehow let him out then Widdowson knew Pendred would have told him. He was mad, but he wasn’t a liar. However, someone had got in here and seen him, left this word on his wall.

  “So, you gonna get your visit soon, then. Eh, Reverend?”

  “I’m a pastor, not a reverend.”

  “They’re still gonna come for you. I got a visit ’cause I put myself in his little brown hole so many times he needed a nappy to shit. You’re the same as me, Reverend.”

  Widdowson stood. “I am not the same as you. I have asked forgiveness from God. I have never sinned as you have sinned.”

  “Bollocks. I bet you slid one in a few times, eh?”

  “Shut your sick mouth.”

  “You’ll get a visit, Widdowson. Mark my words.”

  He straightened and got ready to leave. “If anyone tries to frighten me, I will put the fear of God into them. Goodbye, Connor. You won’t be seeing me again.”

  Fourteen

  When Dan returned to the house that afternoon after a trip to the shops, he stiffened when he saw Widdowson’s Daimler parked before the house, next to the Morris Traveler.

  Hate mixed with dread festered in his stomach with the realization he couldn’t just throw Widdowson out. Legally, this was his house. Steeling himself for a fight, Dan got out of the car and went into the house.

  He could
hear the bastard’s voice as soon as he entered the vestibule. Dan laid the shopping bags down and listened. He was talking to Alison. Dan heard Alison speak first.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, Reverend, I’ve got to check on Lindsey.”

  Widdowson’s Welsh tones practically interrupted her. “But to return to my original point, Diane Hepworth employed you because you are a believer. She trusted you to look, not only after Lindsey’s physical needs but her spiritual needs. By not allowing Lindsey to feed from the word of God every Sunday morning, you are heaping damnation onto yourself. The blood will not be on the child’s hands, but on your own. Do you want that?”

  Dan entered the room and stood before the pastor who perched on the settee arm, a tray of tea before him. “The only blood spilled around here will be yours, I hope,” said Dan.

  “Ah, and here is the source of the problem. The apostate himself. I was telling Alison here…”

  “I heard what you were saying. You may own this house, but you don’t own my sister. She’s finished with your church, as have I.”

  A slight smile crept across his lips. “I imagine you were surprised to find that your mother had left the house to my church.”

  “Not at all.” Dan reclined on the sofa opposite Widdowson and put his feet on the table. “Diane was so far up your arse she could tell what you’d had for dinner. Most people around here reckoned you were fucking her. I think you were but not in the way she would have liked you to.”

  “Your language and your disrespect of your mother is earning you no favors.”

  Dan turned to Alison. “The pastor here has a policeman friend, Gould, who has very particular sexual tastes, don’t you Widdowson? And you provide the victims. Shall I tell Alison all about it?”

  Widdowson pointed a bony finger at him. “That, young man, is slander. You are treading on very thin ice.”

  “Hit a nerve, have I?”

  “My conscience is clean.”

  “That’s because they say, that psychopaths are incapable of feeling guilt.”

  Widdowson looked Dan in the eye with a stare so hateful Dan had to fight the urge not to put his hands out in front of him in case the pastor attacked. “If you are thinking of slandering my name, then think again. I can destroy you, Hepworth. Don’t think you’ll be safe from my retribution down in London. My influence stretches far beyond the confines of this little town.”

  Dan showed no fear. He stared back. “I know what you and your boyfriend Gould are capable of. I know about Darren King and how you two fitted him up. You’re a piece of shit, Widdowson.”

  Widdowson leaned back in the chair. They heard a cry from the bedroom. Alison went to see what Lindsey wanted.

  “I came here to discuss your handover of the house,” Widdowson said, using the distraction to change the subject.

  “We’ll need to find somewhere for Lindsey to go. That’ll take time. Then there’s all the equipment to move.”

  “Lindsey can stay here. Volunteers from the church will look after her until she’s placed in a home. Alison will have to go, I’m afraid. She has not kept her contractual agreements with Mrs. Hepworth. Namely that she’ll continue to bring Lindsey to church every Sunday.”

  “Hold on, Widdowson. You don’t get any say in who looks after Lindsey. I’m the nearest relative, so legally I make decisions for her good.”

  “Mrs. Hepworth spoke to me many times…”

  “Have you got that in writing?”

  “Our contract was verbal.”

  “Then it isn’t valid. If you like, we can take this dispute up with Social Services. They’ll take fucking ages to sort it out. I’ll be retiring here by the time they get around to acting, and you’ll be in a grave. Now there’s a cheerful thought.”

  “I can see Satan has hold of your heart. You cannot be reasoned with. I came here prepared to reason. Again, you have acted like a petulant child.”

  Widdowson stood up to leave. “We will be arriving tomorrow morning. I will expect Alison to be gone, and my parishioners will take over Lindsey’s care. You will be allowed to stay for your mother’s funeral, but after that, I don’t want you to set foot in Scarsdale again. Do I make myself clear?”

  Dan shot to his feet, fists clenched. “I’m going nowhere. I’ll stay here for as long as I want. I’ll make your church freaks’ lives a misery, and if any of them lay a finger on my sister, I’ll fucking break their legs.”

  Widdowson smirked. “Will you really?”

  Alison appeared in the room and coughed gently. Dan and Widdowson looked at her as she clearly had something to say. As the hostility between the two men resided, she began to speak.

  “Pastor, while I acknowledge your legal right to occupy this house, I must also point out that, as Lindsey’s only living relative, Mr. Hepworth can make best interest decisions on Lindsey’s behalf. Lindsey is unable to make complex choices, so Daniel, legally, can make them for her. Whether Daniel chooses to dismiss me or not is exclusively his decision. You have no legal right to dismiss me. If Mr. Hepworth chooses to dismiss me and allows your church members to care for Lindsey, which I gather, would be very unlikely, then Social Services would need to know. Have any of your people had a Criminal Records Bureau check? Have they been trained in manual handling techniques? If you will be choosing to live here, have you yourself had a CRB check?”

  “He fucking needs one,” muttered Daniel.

  Alison continued. “Listen. I have Lindsey’s interests at heart. I believe it would not be good for her to stay in a house where there is conflict and stress from the person she loves; Daniel. What I propose is this. One week after Mrs. Hepworth’s funeral we will vacate the house. Lindsey and the bed and hoist, etcetera will be gone. The house will then be yours, the contents and fixtures untouched. Agreed?”

  Dan could imagine cogs turning in the pastor’s mind. As a plan, it was better than facing down an army of religious zealots at dawn.

  After a long pause Widdowson replied. “Agreed.”

  He smiled and walked slowly up to Alison. “Well, Daniel. You’ve got a bright one here, haven’t you? We knew Alison was good at her job, but as a diplomat, she has a real talent.” His smile faded and he began to circle Alison like a predatory stalker. “Yes, she’s got a tongue on her, haven’t you my girl? Forked, perhaps? Had us fooled, she did. Quiet as a mouse when Diane was alive but now, clearly, she’s been plotting. Now she’s beguiled you, eh, Daniel? Set up home here like a serpent, taken over with her keen mind and sharp tongue. You ought to watch her, Daniel. The very Devil lives in this woman. Eh?”

  He was standing behind her now, a sneer fixed onto his face, intimidatingly close.

  “Leave her alone,” said Daniel quietly, with as much menace as he could muster.

  “I don’t need you to stick up for me, Mr. Hepworth,” she said, turning to face him. “This man has no power over me.”

  “You will yield, girl,” he said very quietly into her ear.

  She laughed. And for one moment, Dan thought Widdowson was going to hit her. His face hardened and his eyes narrowed. This had really got to him. After a few long seconds, he stormed out of the door and slammed it behind him.

  Alison seemed completely unfazed by the encounter. “We showed him.”

  “You did. Again.”

  She shrugged and smiled. “That’s bought us a couple of weeks.”

  “That still leaves us with the problem of what to do with Lindsey.”

  “I spoke to the social worker. She can go to Willow full-time until we sort something out. You’ll have to speak to the social worker to confirm, but that’s the plan.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Me?” she smiled a great big smile showing her wide teeth. “I’ll survive.”

  Fifteen

  “Move it, you little piss-ass bastard.”

  Jackie’s voice carried through the darkened street. The lamps illuminated pools of light until the
road ended by the trees that surrounded St. Vincent’s. The dog growled at her. Yesterday, it had killed the next door neighbour’s cat. Stupid bloody cat was soppy, anyway. Always coming up to people for a stroke. It had thought Grinch would be friendly. Wrong. Jackie had watched from the kitchen as Grinch shook the cat to death in seconds.

  She’d cut through from the 1960s council estate where she lived in town through the bungalows that lined the road then ran out past the asylum. Taken the road that skirted the new housing estate and the newer mental hospital called Berrymoor. She’d thought about getting a job up there but fuck that. Retards were one thing, but loonies were another. They had murderers and peados up there. She didn’t fancy working with them.

  Jackie crossed the road and walked until her and Grinch passed the last bungalow. Light from the final streetlight faded as she entered the wood through the gap in the iron railings, entering the asylum grounds.

  She let Grinch off the lead and he flew into the darkness, desperate for a piss. She pulled her denim jacket around herself to keep out the cold then lit a fag. She could feel the cold cutting right through her leggings.

  While the dog went and did its business, Jackie checked her phone for messages from that bloke she’d been chatting up from the dating website. He’d sent her a picture of his cock, so she’d done a picture of her tits, wearing her best push-up bra so they didn’t sag.

  There was no reply. Still, he lived in Derby which was miles away. She wasn’t supposed to drive after getting caught with no insurance or tax back in the summer. If he was interested, he’d drive up here. If he wasn’t, he could fuck off.

  Far to her left the lights of Willow House glowed through a faint mist. That was all that was left of old St. Brendan’s. Fucking arseholes. Twenty years she worked in that hospital. Wiping arses, feeding faces. She got caught nicking from the petty cash and that was it. Out. Before that, they’d caught her slapping that dibby one, Nigel, the one that had no left eye, just a big hole where his eye should have been. She’d whacked him right around his face just as the manager walked in, and she’d been put on final warning.