12. Jessica

Jessica

"I think we need to talk, Jess," Cynthia says when we return home from dropping Freddie at school the next day. "There's a couple of things I need to clear up with you."

"Sure, no problem," I reply.

Well, there goes my peace of mind. All morning, I noticed Mum was acting strangely and suspected that this was coming, which is a shame because everything had been going so well between us. I should have known something was coming down the pipeline to ruin things.

After we've hung up our coats and taken off our shoes, we head to the kitchen where I put the kettle on to make some coffee. My mother leans against the wall with her arms crossed, the stance she always takes when waiting to launch into a tirade. As I place a jar of Nescafe and two chipped mugs on the sideboard, I can sense her eyes watching me intently. Whatever's on her mind I wish she'd just say it. I hate being kept in suspense.

"So, what's up?" I ask, trying to sound casual. "You said you wanted to speak to me?"

"Yes." Cynthia clears her throat. "I bumped into Mrs Biederhof from number 10 yesterday at the supermarket."

"That's nice. How is she?"

"She's fine. Talked non-stop as usual, but this time she had some interesting stuff to tell me. She reckons she saw you and a strange, hooded man climbing out your bedroom window on Saturday night and said you left through the back garden. Is this true?"

My shoulders stiffen. "Strange, hooded man? Is the old dear all right in the head? No, of course it isn't true. Mrs Biederhof must be seeing things."

"Tell me again where you were on Saturday night? When Freddie and I got home from Erin's you weren't here, and you didn't come back until late afternoon Sunday."

"I told you, I went out clubbing with Amina on Saturday and then I stayed over at her place."

"Can she vouch for you?"

"Sure, she can."

"Uh-huh. Well, that's interesting because Amina phoned here yesterday before you got back asking to speak to you, and guess what? I said I thought you were with her and she didn't know anything about it."

An awkward silence descends. Dammit. Rule number one: if you're going to use one of your girlfriends as a cover story for misbegotten deeds, make sure you've briefed her first.

The kettle finishes boiling. I spoon some coffee into each mug and pour in the hot water.

"Well," my mother pushes. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

"All right, all right, I went out with a guy on Saturday," I admit. "But I didn't climb through any window with a hooded man, okay? Mrs Biederhof needs to get her eyes checked. I just…I just went on a date, that's all. No big deal."

"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" Cynthia opens the fridge and takes out a carton of milk. "If it was all so innocent, then why all the secrecy? Why lie and pretend you stayed at your friend's house?" When I don't respond, she asks: "Was it Alex you went out with?"

"Yes."

"The guy that sent you the roses and bought you those designer dresses?"

"Yes."

"The same guy that gifted you that magnificent Egyptian necklace made of solid gold that you pretended was just a little piece of costume jewellery?"

I roll my eyes. "Yep, that's him."

"Is he married?"

"No! Of course, he's not married. Why on earth would you think that?"

"Because there's clearly something about this guy you're not telling me. As I said, if things are above board, then why all the secrecy? When you went on the date with Jack the prat you couldn't wait to sing it from the rooftops, but with Alex, not so much. To me, that rings alarm bells."

"We're just taking things slowly, that's all," I shrug. "I didn't want to tell you because it's still early days and I wanted to be sure about him before I made any kind of announcement."

"How old is he?"

"Twenty-one."

"And you say you met him on a photo shoot?"

"Yes."

"Can I ask you something else, and only answer if you're going to be truthful."

"Yeah, okay."

"Has Alex ever given you money?"

I hesitate before deciding to tell a partial truth. "Yes."

"How much?"

"He gave me money for…well, he paid for your plane tickets to Germany and for the hotel."

"Right, okay." She takes a sip of coffee and stares briefly into the middle distance. Then, putting down her mug, she reaches in her pocket and places a small white box on the sideboard. My eyes widen as I recognise my birth control pills.

"Mum! I can't believe you went in my bedroom and poked through my things. Do you know how wrong that is? It's like reading a person's diary!"

"I'm sorry, Jessica. I'm not proud of what I did, but you left me with little choice. I had to do a bit of snooping to find out what was going on. You've changed so much these past couple of weeks I barely recognise you. You've gone from hardly ever going out to spending so much time away from home. Then you got yourself all these modelling jobs and now you've suddenly got this secret boyfriend. It's getting hard to keep up. To be honest, I don't like the changes I'm seeing in you. I just hope you're being careful."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean I wouldn't want you to end up pregnant. Not at your age."

"I'm nineteen years old for goodness' sake," I snap. "I'm allowed to have a sex life, and of course, I'm being careful. The proof is in what you stole from my bedroom."

"Yes," she concedes, "but nineteen was also the age I got pregnant with you, and I don't want you throwing your life away by having a baby too young, Jess. Don't make the same mistakes I did."

My temper flairs. "You think me and Freddie were mistakes?"

"Of course not. But there's so much I want you to do with your life before you think of becoming a parent, that's all. Especially if this thing with Alex is only something casual."

"Who said it was casual?"

"Is this boy definitely serious about you? The kind of men who sniff around the modelling scene tend to have their fingers in a lot of pies. I'm assuming he's loaded?"

"Yes, his family has money, but what does that have to do with anything? Are you saying a rich guy wouldn't be serious about me?"

"I just don't want you to be left holding the baby if things don't work out." She takes another gulp of coffee. "And him buying you all those expensive gifts, spending all that money on you so early in the relationship does ring alarm bells. It's like he's trying to buy your affection. Although…" she adds hastily, "please do thank Alex for the plane tickets and the hotel. It was extremely generous of him, and I'll be forever grateful. Tell him I think he's very kind."

"All right, I'll tell him."

Cynthia puts down her mug and straightens out her collar. "Now listen, Jess. There's a lot of things that have happened recently that I've turned a blind eye to and choose not to look too closely at because I just don't have the time or the energy right now. A lot of things that just don't add up."

"Such as?"

"Did you really make that ￡50,000 working as a model? Come on now, tell the truth, this is me you're talking to. Be honest."

"Yes, I made it through modelling." Even as I say it, I can tell she knows I'm lying. I scratched the side of my chin, always a dead giveaway ever since I was a kid. "What makes you think I'm not telling the truth?"

"Lots of things," Cynthia says. "But mainly just motherly intuition. For one thing, why do you still keep your job at Sloppy Joe's if modelling pays so much better? You're telling me you can make ￡25,000 per photo shoot but you're happy to still accept minimum wage at the diner? Get out of here. Something smells off."

Dammit, she's got me there. "I, um…well isn't that the sensible thing to do? Modelling is such an unstable career, one minute you have work, the next you don't, so isn't it safer to keep my part-time job as something to fall back on?"

She laughs bitterly. "You have an answer for everything. I don't know what mischief you're up to, darling, but all I'll say is this. Whatever you have going on in your personal life, don't let it get in the way of you taking care of Freddie while I'm gone, okay? I need to know I can completely trust you while I'm in Germany, or else I won't be able to go."

"Of course, you can trust me!" I shout, slamming down my coffee. "Mum, I promise you there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Go to Germany and do what you need to do, everything will be fine here while you're gone. Freddie always comes first, you know that. Don't even think about cancelling."

"Well, that's good to hear, because I've already got enough things to worry about, what with the school sending another letter home about Freddie's behaviour."

"What are they complaining about now?"

"His teacher said he's been hitting the other kids again."

I pull a face. "That's only because the other children provoke him. My brother is not a troublemaker, Mum. Freddie told me the other kids in his class are always teasing him about his idiosyncrasies. You know, like his thing with counting how many baked beans are on his plate at dinnertime."

Cynthia runs her fingers over her face. "The thing is, his teacher, Miss Barnes, says she wants a meeting with me next week to discuss his progress. That's the same week I fly out. There's just so much to do it's getting overwhelming."

I take both her hands in mine and look her dead in the eye. "Now listen to me, Mum. Don't worry about anything, okay? I'm sorry for all the sneaking around, you're right, I should have just come clean and told you the truth. As of today, I promise to be honest with you about when I'm meeting up with Alex. And I'll happily go to this meeting on your behalf at the school. You just focus on preparing for your trip and keeping your stress levels low, okay? I want you to focus on getting better and nothing else."

She smiles weakly and then pulls me in for a one-armed hug. "Oh darling, what would I do without you? You really are an angel, but sometimes you can be a little devil too. All right, I gratefully accept your offer to go down to the school, thank you. I can't deal with Miss Barnes right now, so your intervention is much appreciated, but don't take any crap from her about Freddie. Remember to stand your ground. But can you promise me just one last thing?"

"Sure."

"When I return from this trip, can we sit down together and have a proper chat about everything? I mean about where you really got that ￡50,000, because sweetheart, I know it wasn't from modelling." I open my mouth to protest but she shushes me with one finger. "Nope. No more lies. Oh, and I also want to meet Alex. If you're going to continue seeing him, then he will need to be vetted by me."

My palms get all sweaty. "Um, yeah sure. I can do that."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise."

"Fantastic, that helps put my mind at rest. I love you."

"Love you too."

Oh no. How the heck am I going to get out of this one? Not for the first time, I've backed myself into a corner with no way out.

Later that day, as I'm walking through Clapham High Street to buy some groceries from Sainsbury's, I hear a car horn beeping to get my attention. Spinning around, I see a black Rolls Royce parked across the road and get a shock when I realise the man in the driver's seat is none other than Hobbs. Oh my gosh. What is he doing here? Then the mystery deepens as the passenger window slides down and I see the ghostly face of Mrs Kingswood, her lips moving and saying something inaudible from this distance.

What the hell does she want?

Glancing left and right, I jog across the street and hesitantly approach the car, my heart thudding like a drum. Why oh, why do I get a bad feeling about this?

"Mrs Kingswood," I say, forcing a smile. "What a nice surprise. What are you doing around my neck of the woods?"

"As a matter of fact, I came here especially to see you," she replies. "Is there somewhere private we could go to talk?"

I rock back on my heels. "Actually, I was just in the middle of doing some shopping. Now isn't really a good time, but if you maybe come back later, we could—"

"Jessica, this is a life-or-death situation. I need to speak with you now urgently."

Life-or-death? This lady is starting to worry me…

"How long is this talk going to take and what's it about? Can you at least give me a clue?"

"I told you, the matter is private, but it's highly important we speak today. There's not a moment to lose. I promise it won't take long, no more than half an hour. Now, you know this area. Where can we go where we won't be bothered by anyone? This is an extremely sensitive matter, and I must have absolute privacy."

For a few seconds, I say nothing, just stare into her haggard face and wonder what secrets she could possibly reveal. Deep down, a part of me doesn't want to know, but in the end, curiosity gets the better of me. I want to know what this ‘life-or-death' situation is.

"Okay, there is one place we could go," I say at last. "There's a quiet spot on Clapham Common where people rarely ever go. We could go and talk there, I guess."

"Excellent!" Mrs Kingswood flashes a sickly grin. "Get in the car and you can give us directions."

With great reluctance, I pull open the door and slip in next to her. About ten minutes later, Hobbs is parked up on a side-street and me and Beatrix Kingswood are sitting on the same bench where this whole crazy thing first started—the same secluded clearing where I first read The Sunday Sport story about a girl selling her virginity. The irony is not lost on me.

For a while, the two of us sit stiffly side-by-side, looking away from each other, virtual strangers brought together by the most bizarre circumstance. Mrs Kingswood has brought a battered old suitcase with her from the car, and something about it makes me nervous. I wonder what dark secrets are held within it.

"Does Alex know you're here?" I ask, as it suddenly occurs to me.

"No," she replies. "I come to you in the strictest confidence, Jessica, and would rather you kept what I am about to tell you just between the two of us."

"Okay. So what's this all about, then? What is this life-or-death situation you are referring to?"

Beatrix goes quiet for a while, like she's fumbling for a way to articulate it. "Put simply, I think my son is dangerous and you would do well to steer clear of him. Your very life could depend on it."

I blink at her stupidly. "Come again?"

"I believe Alex could be a danger to you and I want you to stop seeing him. Your life could be at risk if you don't heed my warning."

"Define what you mean by dangerous?" Like I don't already know. Let's see, arson, stalking, assault with a deadly weapon…

"Did Alex ever tell you about the circumstances surrounding what happened to his father?" Mrs Kingswood asks.

"Er, no. All I know is his dad died when Alex was ten and that's it."

"Well, I'm afraid there's much more to it then that." She falters. "Eleven years ago, my husband Neville fell down the grand staircase at Claremont Hall and broke his neck. Died instantly. All a terrible accident…at least that's the official version of the story."

"What do you mean? Are you suggesting some sort of a cover up?"

"For you to get a better understanding, I probably need to go back to the beginning." Cautiously, she opens her briefcase and takes out what appears to be an old library book and a couple of faded newspaper clippings. "A few months before Neville died, Alex discovered an old Ouija board under one of the floorboards in his bedroom. He began playing around with it, and he told me someone was trying to communicate with him from the spirit world, you know, like a ghost or something. He told me the planchette moved all by itself, but I just dismissed it as childish nonsense. I thought he was making it up, but then, after a while, I noticed discernible changes in my son."

"Such as?" I ask nervously.

"It was as if Alex became a different person. Overnight, he became a musical genius who could play the piano like nothing I'd ever heard before. Suddenly, he excelled in everything, could speak fluent Latin, French, and generally had a vocabulary far advanced for his years. His governess and music teacher were dumbfounded. Nobody could explain the change, least of all me because I was looking in all the wrong places." Beatrix breaks off and takes a moment to compose herself.

When she speaks again, her tone is low and troubled. "Then weird things started happening around the house. Furniture would be rearranged in an odd way. Doors would slam out of nowhere. There were strange banging and scratching noises at night. A terrifying incident involving knives. The servants began to whisper we had a ghost in the house, but I scoffed initially as I wasn't a believer in the occult at that time. I was so blind I failed to make a connection between Alex's newfound abilities and the appearance of this ghost."

"This is nuts," I murmur.

"You haven't heard the half of it," Mrs Kingswood says sadly. "Things took a dangerous turn the night Neville returned home from working in the Middle East. He was a violent brute who used to physically abuse me, but I put up with it because at that time, a woman had to know her place. The night Neville died we argued viciously, I forget about what, and Alex tried to intervene to protect me. And that was when it happened…"

"What happened?" I ask eagerly, now on tenterhooks.

"That was when I saw something so wild, so crazy, I'm still not sure if I imagined it. Just thinking about it gives me trouble sleeping even after all these years." She swallows hard and licks her lips. "As Neville and Alex stood on the staircase arguing, I thought I saw…"

"What did you see?"

Beatrix bows her head, almost in embarrassment. "I thought I saw an enormous black tentacle rip through Alex's shoulder and smack Neville on the head. I thought I saw my son strike the killer blow that sent his father crashing down the staircase to his death."

There's a long, dark silence. The park suddenly feels very cold. My jaw drops, unable to process what I've just heard. "Are you saying you think Alex murdered your husband?"

"No, not Alex. I'm saying that some unearthly creature within him did. That tentacle didn't belong to Alex…it belonged to something else."

I give a crazy laugh. "Wow, now I've heard everything. Is this supposed to be a joke? Is there a hidden camera somewhere and Jeremy Beadle is gonna jump out from a bush in a second to tell me You've been framed?"

"You shouldn't laugh. Every word I've said is true."

"I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you. Do you know how insane you sound? A big black tentacle ripped out from a ten-year-old? What?"

"It was only after Neville's death that I finally started to do some research and take the whole ghost thing more seriously." Solemnly, Beatrix passes me a bunch of tattered newspaper clippings dating back to the late 1980s depicting stories of demonic possession from all over the world: South America, Europe, Africa, everywhere.

"Demonic possession?" I say, incredulous. "That sounds like something out of a horror movie. Am I supposed to take this seriously?"

"Just hear me out. Don't judge me until you've heard everything."

Mrs Kingswood then goes on to say that after Neville died, most of the servants fled Claremont Hall, refusing to continue living in a house that was haunted and where a mysterious death had taken place. Only Hobbs and Mrs Bullivant were brave (or foolish) enough to stay on. And it was then she began to notice that strange things seemed to occur around Alex. For example, if he was angry or sad, the sunny sky would suddenly go dark outside. Sometimes his tantrums would bring rain and gale force winds. Beatrix noticed other things too, like her son could attract or repel animals at will. Sometimes when Alex was seriously mad, an entire flock of birds would flee the woods, only to return when he was in better spirits.

"Oh my God, this just gets crazier by the minute," I say, shaking my head. "But I still don't see how you came up with the idea of demonic possession?"

"I'm coming to that," she says. Her face looks so pinched and pale she sort of reminds me of Nosferatu the vampire. "Okay, so sometimes at nights, I'd hear Alex talking in his sleep and he kept on saying the name Erasmus over and over again, but in the morning when I asked him about it, he said he didn't know what I was talking about. I thought it was an odd name for a child to fixate on, so I decided to do some research and came up with this…"

Wordlessly, Mrs Kingswood passes me the old library book entitled Demonology Vol. One. Flipping to a page near the middle, she points to a Medieval woodcut of a horrific beast-like creature with tentacles and its head on back to front. I break out in a cold sweat. As I stare into the diabolical monster's cold, inhuman eyes, I see something disturbingly familiar in them. They remind me of the way Alex's eyes look sometimes when he's angry. Then I get to thinking about all the times I noticed the temperature drop as soon as he entered a room. But was that real or just my imagination? Surely, it's not possible for a person to control the temperature? Hurriedly, I push the ridiculous thought from my mind. No, that's impossible. Demons don't exist.

"What is this horrible creature?" I ask, hoping to steer the conversation in a different direction.

"That is the great Erasmus, demon of the elements," Beatrix replies softly. "It is said he has the power to control the weather, amongst other things."

"Hold on, so let me get this straight; you're saying Alex messed around with a Ouija board when he was a kid and somehow channelled the spirit of the demon Erasmus into him, and he's now possessed?"

"In a nutshell—yes."

"Jesus. I'm lost for words. This is just about the craziest thing I've ever heard."

"But it's true, I tell you!" she implores. "Every word. Haven't you seen his eyes, for goodness' sake? How sometimes they're bluey-green but at other times yellow? How else can you explain that phenomenon? But the demon is clever, it knows when not to show itself. I'll give you an example. When Alex was twelve, I called in a Catholic priest to see him in the hope of getting an exorcism done to clear away the bad spirit. But the whole entire time, Alex behaved normally. The demon refused to show himself, so the priest denied us the exorcism as there was no proof of my son's possession. Erasmus is very, very crafty, let me tell you."

That's it. I can't take any more of this.

With a loud sigh, I drop the book and newspaper clippings back in Mrs Kingswood's lap. Getting up from the bench, I pace back and forth, trying to hold it together. I don't want to believe any of this madness is true, but there's something horribly convincing in Beatrix's grave tone and demeanour. The way she looks, her whole appearance suggests someone who has been through a traumatic experience. And looking back, there was definitely something not right in Claremont Hall the first time I visited. An undeniably black aura surrounding Alex that was more than just about his outward appearance. Deep down, my intuition suggests it just might be true. But how could it be? Demons are the stuff of folklore. They're not real…are they?

No, no, no! I refuse to believe it. She's not sucking me into this insanity.

"You have no idea what it was like living with Alex when he was growing up," she continues more to herself than me. "How…how temperamental he could be as a teenager. Depending on what mood he was in, your whole world could be torn apart by bad weather. The day could start out sunny one minute and be swamped by a torrential downpour the next. When Alex hit puberty things only got worse. At the slightest provocation, all the furniture in a room would be smashed to pieces. Storms would appear out of nowhere. Once, a lightning bolt even struck the clock tower in one of the outbuildings after we argued. The situation was becoming unbearable, and I knew a lot of my son's fury was borne of sexual frustration, so I did what any mother would do. I tried to find him an outlet for his desires, the perfect girl who he could vent his—"

"Let me guess, that's where I came in?" I interject sourly.

Beatrix nods her head. "Yes, but you weren't the first. Before you, I brought several girls to Claremont Hall to see Alex, all pretty girls from high class escort agencies, but he refused to sleep with any of them because he said they were ‘unclean.' The girls were all prepared to do it for the money, even though they were obviously terrified of him, but Alex said no, he wanted someone pure and untouched, and saw the idea of sleeping with a ‘whore' beneath him."

"Right. So that explains why you wanted me to pretend to be your friend Doug's daughter. You were worried if Alex knew I was an escort just like the rest, he would refuse me too, and you couldn't allow that to happen."

"Exactly," she smiles grimly. "But this time around, instead of Alex refusing the girl, it was you who refused to sleep with him, and it set off an obsession that continues to this day. Do you know, he actually says he's in love with you? And he really believes that you love him too."

"That's because I do," I say fiercely. "I love Alex with all my heart."

"You can't be serious."

"Never been more serious in my life."

"What sort of future do you think the two of you have together, hmm? Have you not seen the way people react to Alex? They run a mile. If you continue this relationship, you'll be ostracised from society too, just as he has been. Is that what you really want?"

"I don't give a damn what people think about us!" I say, my voice rising. "I don't live my life to please others. Look Mrs Kingswood, I appreciate you coming to see me today to warn me and everything, but you can't expect me to believe all this crazy stuff about demonic possession. Do you know how insane you sound? And I can't just end things with Alex because you say so. We love each other and I want to be with him. The way he looks doesn't bother me, in fact, I love his face. I love everything about him. What kind of a parent are you anyway? You had such little faith in your son's ability to find his own partner, you resorted to hiring prostitutes. Do you know how messed up that is? How damaging that is to Alex's self-esteem? Making him think he wasn't capable of finding someone who would truly love him for himself and not because they'd been paid to? I think what you did to him was kind of sick."

Beatrix's demeanour swiftly returns to her former brusqueness. "Well, I can see I've wasted my time on you. You refuse to believe me anything I say or take heed of my warning. For some reason, you seem determined to walk the path to destruction, and all I can say is good luck. At some point, you will find out the truth about Alex, but sadly, by then it might be too late."

"What do you mean, too late?" I ask fearfully.

"Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough. All I'll say is this: it is my belief there is a battle going on inside Alex's subconscious between the demon and his humanity. You'd better just hope the human side wins because if not, God knows what Erasmus is capable of. But you've made your decision, so I'll bid you good day, Jessica Gardner. I pray that I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I am. Take care of yourself."

Exhaling softly, I sit back down on the bench and stare at her. I notice her hands are shaking. Shit, this lady really does believe in all this demonic possession stuff. What a nightmare she must be to live with. No wonder she and Alex don't get along.

Silently she packs up her briefcase, then tidies her suit jacket and marches off in the direction of her car, leaving my peace of mind in tatters. I don't want to believe it, but there's a niggling voice deep inside telling me to be careful.

A harsh breeze blows despite the milky sunshine, and I tighten my scarf in an effort to keep warm. Then suddenly, I hear a rough, cawing sound from above my head. Glancing up, I see a blackbird circling and am instantly overcome by a sense of dread. I've always been told that blackbirds bring bad luck. I pray this is not an omen of things to come.