The Pact Read online

  The Pact

  John Llewellyn Probert

  © John Llewellyn Probert 2014

  John Llewellyn Probert has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published 2014 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

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  Extract from Bloody Angels by John L Probert

  1

  “You utter bitch!”

  Raucous laughter accompanied this proclamation, reverberating off the polished red brick of the elegant buildings that surrounded the darkened school quad. The teenaged girl who had uttered the words clutched the arm of her taller, blonder female companion, who was looking anything but amused.

  “Oh, come on, Jen.” The girl tried again to make the other smile. “He was a complete and utter bastard. Taking his entire wardrobe to Oxfam while he was out was brilliant! You are brilliant!”

  Jen’s face creased into a smile as they made their way along the tarmac path that cut a diagonal line through the square of meticulously maintained grass. “God, Kerry,” she said, “are you sure it wasn’t too much? Do you think he might be really angry?”

  Kerry tugged on Jen’s arm and brought them both to a halt. “Look,” she said, “how long had you been going out with him?”

  Jen looked up at the sky. It was a clear night but the moon wasn’t up yet. For now the world consisted of just her and Kerry and the twinkling stars above. She gave a deep sigh and her breath steamed in the chill night air.

  “Three months,” she said.

  Kerry nodded. “Right - three months. And he’d already admitted seeing someone else behind your back. He might have been seeing her before you two met. In fact he might never have stopped seeing her. For all you know you were the one who was his bit on the side.”

  Jen shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, biting her lower lip. “He said the woman who kept phoning him was his sister.”

  “His sister?” Kerry scowled. “His bloody sister? Listen, you didn’t hear him talking to her when he thought he was alone. You were in your room doing that essay you’d forgotten about. The one on bloody E M Foster.”

  “It’s Forster,” Jen corrected, but Kerry wasn’t listening.

  “I was the one coming out of the toilet in the night club. I was the one who heard him - all those words about ‘secret’ and ‘honour’ and ‘commitment’, and you said yourself it wasn’t you he was ringing.”

  Jen nodded. That part at least was true, and there was no point trying to deny it.

  “And what happened when I told you? When you confronted him?”

  Jen shrugged. “He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. He said I was the only girl for him and besides, what had I been doing getting my friends to spy on him after I’d told him I trusted him?” She placed a palm on her cheek. “That was when he got angry.”

  “And he had no bloody right to be.” Kerry shivered. “Christ it’s cold.”

  The two girls resumed their walk. Ahead of them loomed the darkened recesses of the southwest cloister.

  “Wish we’d brought a torch,” said Jen.

  “We could go and get one if you like.” Kerry looked over her shoulder. “It’s not that far to go back.”

  Jen shook her head. “No, that’s okay,” she said. “Besides, we’re almost late already.”

  “The other two won’t mind,” said Kerry. “And they both know you’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch.”

  Jen stopped again. They were so close to the cloister now that she could barely see the other girl’s face. “You told them?”

  Kerry shrugged. “All sisters forever, aren’t we?” she said. “And besides, they would have found out sooner or later. A stunt like that doesn’t exactly stay quiet for long, you know. Wouldn’t you rather have all three of us to talk to, rather than just me?”

  Jen nodded; even though for all she knew she was more invisible than Kerry in the encroaching blackness. She reached for the girl’s hand. “I can hardly see anything,” she said. “Can you help me?”

  “Oh you silly,” Kerry giggled and took the lead, pulling Jen along behind her. “Just five paces down here and under the archway and we’ll be nearly there.”

  The archway was a narrow passageway that ran beneath the chemistry laboratories and allowed access to the buildings south of the main school. The two girls fumbled their way along the brick-lined alley until, after what seemed to Jen like an age, they found themselves outside once more.

  “I hate that passage,” Jen said once they were through and she’d taken a couple of deep breaths. “It’s like something out of a bloody horror film.”

  Kerry giggled. “You mean you think there might be someone lurking in there waiting to get you?”

  “Or you.” Jen didn’t think it was funny. “Why should it just be me they’d be after?”

  “Because, my dear,” said Kerry skipping ahead, “I didn’t give all my boyfriend’s belongings to charity last week, did I?”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” Jen said decisively. “Hey - wait for me!” She scurried to keep up. The buildings in this part of the school were more spaced out. The common across which they were now walking was dotted with skeletal apple trees, their outlines rendered all the more fairytale sinister by the floodlights that had been positioned at regular intervals across the ground. Jen tried not to think about how the backlit branches resembled clawing hands, reaching out to pluck her from the path and drag her into the darkness.

  “What’s up with you?” Kerry asked once Jen had caught up with her friend.

  Jen couldn’t resist a nervous glance over her shoulder. “Nothing,” she said, before adding, “probably.”

  “What do you mean?” Kerry had quickened her pace, and even though she was trying to sound self-assured, the little quaver in her voice betrayed the fact she was nervous as well.

  “I just thought I heard footsteps.”

  “Oh bloody marvellous.” Kerry was starting to pant a little now. Ahead of them loomed the oblong shape of one of the residence blocks. “Nearly there,” she added.

  There was a single light burning on the third floor.

  “Christ,” said Jen as they reached their destination. “Has everyone else buggered off for the weekend?”

  “Looks like it,” said Kerry as she thumbed the button for Room 312.

  They stood in the darkened doorway of the block, waiting for a reply.

  “I wish you hadn’t said you saw someone,” she added eventually.

  “I didn’t.” Jen pulled her coat around her even more tightly. “I just thought I heard footsteps, that’s all.”

  “It’s hardly as if it’s some bloody serial rapist, is it?” Kerry jumped up and down in an effort to keep warm and pushed the button again.

  “Don’t be daft,” said Jen. “There haven’t been any rapes on campus, so how could it be a serial rapist?”

  Kerry rolled her eyes. “Well they’ve got to start, haven’t they? Besides, he could have started somewhere else and now he’s moved here to find fresh victims. Oh for Christ’s sake come on!” Kerry pressed the button again.

  Jen looked back the way they had come. She was sure it was just her imagination, but now it looked as if there really was a shape there, about ten yards away from them.

  A large, man-shaped silhouette, moving slowly.

  Slowly but purposefully.

  Jen clutched her friend’s arm. “Press the bell again, Kerry.”

  Her friend snorted
. “I just did about ten times,” she replied. “She’s probably on the toilet or something.”

  Jen looked back down the path, blinking to try and shut out the glare from the floodlights.

  The shape was moving closer.

  “Press it again anyway,” she said.

  “Tor’s going to be pissed off if I do,” said Kerry. “You know how upset she gets if you rush her over anything.”

  Jen reached over and pressed the buzzer. Then she turned and blinked back into the darkness.

  The dark figure was nearly upon them.

  Jen pressed the buzzer three more times.

  “Hey,” said Kerry, squinting into the black, at the someone who might have been lurking there, “you know, I think you might be-”

  There was a grinding buzz as the door release to the block was triggered. The two girls tumbled inside. Jen shoved at the door and it closed with a metallic click. She pressed her face to the glass and tried to peer outside, but in the glare from the fluorescent strip set into the ceiling of the white-walled entry hall, it was impossible.

  “Probably nothing,” said Kerry as she pressed the button to call the lift.

  “Or that serial rapist of yours,” said Jen with a shiver and a giggle.

  “You think so?” Kerry turned to the door and gave a gesture designed to incense anyone who might think it was being delivered in their general direction. “Go and find someone else to terrorise you, bloody pervert!” she said, loud enough that it could have been heard through the glass. “We’re staying in here tonight!”

  “What the fuck did you tell him that for?” Jen’s eyes were filled with fear once more as a bell rang and the lift doors opened. “Have you never seen any of those films where girls get trapped in a building and terrorised?”

  The two of them squeezed into the lift and Kerry thumbed the button for the third floor.

  “But we’re not trapped, are we?” she said as the doors slid shut. “We can leave any time we like.”

  “Not if we think there’s a killer lurking outside,” said Jen, looking more miserable by the minute.

  “So he’s a killer now?”

  “He’s probably both,” Jen replied. “The only thing we can hope for is that he wants to kill us first and then rape us, instead of the other way around.”

  The lift reached the third floor and the doors slid open.

  “Well at least I’m with an optimist,” said Kerry, stepping out into exactly the kind of badly lit corridor a killer might be lurking in. She hesitated just long enough for Jen to bump into her from behind, causing her to squeal in horror.

  “Sorry!” In the echoing darkness Jen’s stage whisper seemed louder than her actual speaking voice.

  “It’s your bloody fault,” Kerry replied. “You’ve gone and got me worked up, now.” She waved her arms around.

  “What are you doing now?” Jen asked.

  “It’s the motion-sensitive lights,” Kerry explained. “Sometimes they’re not all that sensitive.”

  “Or they’ve been broken by the killer who’s lurking up ahead,” said Jen. She was about to step back into the lift when the corridor lit up with the same kind of harsh glare that had greeted them downstairs.

  “Or maybe it’s just that the lights are crap,” said Kerry with a smile of triumph. “Come on, we’re late.”

  Victoria - Tor to her friends - had the room at the far end of the corridor. Despite the now fully functioning illumination, the two girls hurried down it, their anxiety purging itself in giggles as they reached the door of room 312.

  “Let us in!” Kerry hammered on the door.

  “Quickly!” Jen was laughing now. “There’s a serial killer chasing us!”

  “Or a rapist!” said Kerry.

  “Or both!” said Jen.

  “But we don’t know which way round he’s going to do it!” Kerry added. “So let us in before-”

  The door opened and the two girls tumbled into the room, giggling and squealing.

  A tall girl wearing unflattering black plastic rimmed spectacles, her long brown hair bound in a plait that snaked down her back, glared at them.

  “You’re late,” she said.

  “Close the door!” said Jen in a fit of giggles. “Close the door or he might get us!”

  “Who might get you?” Tor rolled her eyes as Kerry backed against the door.

  “The murderer!” Kerry said. “The one who’s going to make sure we’re trapped in here before he picks us off one by one.”

  “Yes,” said Jen, breathless with relief now that there were somewhere safe and warm. “The one who followed us here through the orchard.”

  Tor raised an eyebrow. “We have been having fun on the way here, haven’t we ladies?” she said. “Rachel and I have been wondering where you’ve been.”

  The slightly plump, but very pretty, blonde girl sitting on the sofa put down the copy of Twilight that she had been reading and looked up.

  “Jesus Christ, Rach,” said Kerry. “Have you still not finished it?”

  “Finished it, and all the others,” said Rachel with a grin. “Second time around, now.”

  “I know,” said Tor, shaking her head in desperation as she ushered Jen and Kerry into the sitting area, “there’s just no hope for her.”

  “At least I read,” said Rachel. “I don’t just spend all day running around whacking some hockey ball,” she was looking at Kerry. Then she turned to Jen. “Or carting my latest boyfriend’s clothes to the charity shop.”

  “Oh shit,” said Jen. “So you do know.”

  “We three do, my dear,” said Tor. “Why else do you think we called this meeting? Besides, did you really think you’d be able to keep something like that quiet?”

  “And more importantly,” said Rachel, “did you really want to?”

  Jen shrugged herself out of her coat. “I suppose not,” she said. “But I would have preferred the chance to iron things out with him before everyone else found out.”

  Tor wrinkled her nose. “Is he not returning your calls?”

  Jenny shrugged. “I haven’t rung him.”

  “Good girl.” That was Kerry.

  Jenny flashed her a look. “And he hasn’t tried to ring me for the last three days, either.”

  Rachel looked from Jen to Kerry. “Are we still not mentioning his name then?”

  Kerry shook her head. “He’s either ‘He’ or ‘Him’.”

  “Or ‘Bastard’, of course,” said Tor, glancing at Jen. “I’m assuming ‘Bastard’ is okay?”

  “With or without the ‘Complete and Utter’” Jen replied with a smile. “Feel free to add it whenever you like.”

  “Oh I will,” said Kerry, taking off her coat.

  “That’s enough chit chat,” said Tor. “Are we all ready?”

  The atmosphere in the tiny student room changed abruptly. The girls exchanged nervous glances and then nodded, before arranging themselves in a rough circle - Rachel and Jen sitting on the bed, Tor on the chair she had turned to face away from her desk, and Kerry on a cushion that had been thoughtfully provided for her.

  “In that case I declare this extraordinary meeting of the Suicide Blondes open.” Tor had a notepad at the ready, her pen poised over it.

  “I still think that’s such a weird name,” said Rachel. “I mean; I’m the only one who’s actually blonde.”

  “That’s meant to be the point,” said Jen. “It’s ironic, you know?”

  “But more importantly, it pisses off the teachers, upsets our parents, and makes boys curious,” said Kerry. “What more could you want?”

  The others giggled at that.

  “Come on,” said Tor, tapping the pen on the pad. Jen couldn’t help notice she did it with such force the point gouged indentations into the paper. “We’ve got things we need to discuss.”

  “In that case I need a drink,” said Kerry, getting to her feet. “Have you still got that bottle of cherry brandy, Tor?”

  Tor rolled her eye
s. “I should be mean and say no,” she said. “It’s in the bottom of the wardrobe, behind the shoeboxes.

  “Great.” Kerry went to rummage and was soon rewarded with her prize. She held the bottle up to the light. “Have you gone and bought another one?” she asked.

  Tor shook her head. “No, why?”

  Kerry shrugged. “It just looks fuller than how we left it last time, that’s all.” The stopper came out of the bottle with a satisfying ‘pop’. Kerry looked round for glasses. “Anyone else want some?”

  It turned out they all did. Soon they were chinking glasses and one mug (Tor only had three because Kerry had broken one during their last get together) and toasting the future.

  They talked long into the night, about the kinds of things young girls worry about. Unsurprisingly, a major part of the conversation involved Jen and her now ex-lover. They finished the bottle and opened another Tor admitted to having forgotten she had ever purchased. In time, the conversation died down, but the light in room 312 was still burning the next morning. However, by the time their lifeless bodies were discovered, the bulb was long dead.

  2

  “Are you familiar with St Miranda’s College?”

  DCI Jack Willoughby had a habit of always getting straight to the point. Parva Corcoran wouldn’t have minded a cup of coffee, or at least a “How are you getting on?” from her senior officer before he’d cut to the chase. Mind you, he’d asked her to sit down, which was at least something. And he’d allowed her a generous five days off since finishing up that business with poor old Harry Marsden, the DI who was headed for a long-term psychiatric institution for the murder of Carl Jespers and all the others whom he had killed when he had been, as she was sure the judge would put it, ‘not in his right mind’.

  She crossed her legs, feeling the material of her black slacks rasp as she did so. “I can’t say that I am,” she replied. “I’m not exactly familiar with St Miranda, either. Is there one?”

  From behind his desk Willoughby shrugged. “I’ve no idea, but that’s what the place is called.” He held up a landscape-styled glossy brochure. The cover depicted three young girls seated on a college green surrounded by towering buildings of gothic design. The sunshine that bathed their faces could be natural or could be photoshopped. It was so difficult to tell these days. “According to the blurb in here it’s ‘an exclusive environment for the education and development of young ladies between the ages of sixteen and eighteen’. From the look of the pictures in here I would guess ‘exclusive’ translates as ‘expensive’.”