Hell to Pay Read online

  “Even family?” I said.

  “Family most of all,” said Eleanor.

  “You could have stood up to your father,” I said to William.

  It was his turn to look at me pityingly. “You don’t say no to Jeremiah Griffin. I don’t know why he was so keen to raise her himself,” said William. “It’s not as if he did such a great job raising us.”

  “So you let him take your children,” I said. “Melissa, and Paul.”

  “We had no choice!” said Eleanor, but all of a sudden she seemed too tired to be properly angry. She looked at the cigarette in her hand as though she had no idea what it was. “You have no idea what it’s like to have the Griffin as your father.”

  “I might have made a mess of things,” said William, “but I would have liked to try and raise Melissa myself. Gloria didn’t care, but then Gloria’s never really been mommy material, have you, dear? I went along with Daddy because…well, because everyone does. He’s just…too big. You can’t argue with him because he’s always got an answer. You can’t argue with a man who’s lived lifetimes, because he’s always seen everything before, done everything before. I sometimes wonder what kind of a man I might have been if I’d had the good fortune to be born some other man’s son.”

  “Not immortal,” I said.

  “There is that, yes,” said William. “There’s always that.”

  I liked him a little better for what he’d just said, but I still had to ask the next question. “Why did you wait until your seventh marriage to have children?”

  His face hardened immediately, and suddenly I was the enemy again, to be defied at all costs. “None of your damned business.”

  I looked at Eleanor, but she glared coldly back at me. I’d touched something in them, for a moment, but the moment had passed. So I looked at Gloria and Marcel, over in their far corner.

  “Do either of you have anything to say?”

  Gloria and Marcel looked at their respective spouses and shook their heads. They had nothing to say. Which was pretty much what I’d expected.

  I left the four of them in the Library, shut the door carefully behind me, and turned to Hobbes. “There’s still one member of the family I haven’t seen. Paul Griffin.”

  “Master Paul never sees anyone,” Hobbes said gravely. “But you can talk to him, if you wish.”

  “You’re really getting on my tits, Hobbes.”

  “All part of the service, sir. Master Paul rarely leaves his bedroom, these days. Those troublesome teenage years…He communicates occasionally through the house telephone, and the servants leave his meals outside his door. You can try talking to him through the door. He might respond to a new voice.”

  So back down the corridors to the elevator, and up to the top floor again. I hadn’t done so much walking in years. If I had to come back to the Hall again, I’d bring a bicycle with me. We ended up before another closed bedroom door. I knocked, very politely.

  “This is John Taylor, Paul,” I said, in my best non-threatening I’m only here to help voice. “Can I talk to you, Paul?”

  “You can’t come in!” said a high-pitched, almost shrill teenage voice. “The door’s locked! And protected!”

  “It’s all right, Paul,” I said quickly. “I just want to talk. About Melissa’s disappearance.”

  “She was taken,” said Paul. He sounded as though he was right on the other side of the door. He didn’t sound…troubled, or sensitive. He sounded scared.

  “They came and took her away, and no-one could stop them. She’s probably dead by now. They’ll come for me next. You’ll see! But they’ll never find me…because I won’t be here.”

  “Who are they, Paul?” I said. “Who do you think took Melissa? Who do you think is coming for you?”

  But he wouldn’t say anything. I could hear him breathing harshly on the other side of the door. He might have been crying.

  “Paul, listen to me. I’m John Taylor, and almost as many people are scared of me as are scared of your grandfather. I can protect you…but I need to know who from. Just give me a name, Paul, and I’ll make them leave you alone. Paul? I can protect you…”

  He laughed then, a low, small, and terribly hopeless sound. No-one that young should ever have to make a sound like that. I tried to talk to him some more, but he wouldn’t answer. He might still have been on the other side of the door, or he might not. In the end I looked at Hobbes, and he shook his head, his grave face as unreadable as ever.

  “Has Paul seen a doctor?” I asked quietly.

  “Oh, several, sir. The Griffin insisted. All kinds of doctors, in fact. But they all agreed there was nothing wrong with Master Paul, or at least, nothing they could treat. Miss Melissa was the only one he would talk to, lately. Now that she’s gone…I don’t know what will become of Master Paul.”

  I didn’t like to leave Paul like that, but I didn’t see what else I could do. Short of kicking the door in, dragging him out of the Hall by force, and hiding him in one of my safe houses. Even if the Griffin had been willing to go along with it, which I rather doubt. In the end I walked away and left Paul alone, in his locked and protected bedroom. I like to think I could have helped him if he’d have let me. But he didn’t.

  Hobbes escorted me back to the front door and made sure I had my briefcase with me when I left. As if there was any way I was going to forget one million pounds in cash.

  “Well, Hobbes,” I said. “It’s been an interesting if not particularly informative visit. You can tell the Griffin I’ll make regular reports, when I have anything useful to tell him. Assuming the jungle doesn’t attack my car again on the way out.”

  Hobbes went so far as to raise a single eyebrow again. “The jungle attacked you, sir? That should not have happened. All authorised visitors are assured safe passage on their journey up the hill to the Hall. It’s part of the security package.”

  “Unless someone didn’t want me here.” I said.

  “I’m sure you get that all the time, sir,” said Hobbes. And he shut the door in my face.

  FOUR

  Where Everybody Knows Your Name

  Bottom line, I had a victim who might or might not be missing, and a family who might or might not want her found. And Somebody very powerful had blocked off my gift for finding things. Some cases you just know aren’t going to go well. I got back into Dead Boy’s futuristic car, and it drove me back down the hill. And as we glided smoothly through the brooding primeval jungle, the plants all drew back from the side of the road to give us more room. Nothing and no-one bothered us all the way back down the hill, and soon enough we passed through the great iron gates and back out into the Nightside proper.

  The car bullied its way into the never-ending stream of traffic, and I sat thinking and scowling as it carried me smoothly back into the dark heart of the Nightside. One of the first hard lessons you learn in life is never to interfere in family arguments. No matter which side or position you take you can’t win, because family arguments are never about facts or reason; they’re about emotion and history. Who said what thirty years ago and who got the biggest slice of cake at a birthday party. Old slights and older grudges. It’s always the little things that really haunt people; the things no-one else remembers.

  The Griffins were held together by power and position, and precious little love that I could see. And anyone who’d lived as long as they had had to have accumulated more than their fair share of grudges and nursed resentments. I felt sorry for the grand-children, Melissa and Paul. Hard enough to be born into such a divided family without having grandparents who’d already lived lifetimes. Talk about a generations gap…Why was the Griffin so keen to raise his grand-children himself? What did he hope to make of them that he hadn’t managed with his children? Had he succeeded with Melissa? Was that why he changed his will in her favour?

  I might have a photo of her, but I still didn’t have a clear picture of who she was.

  So many questions and not an answer in sight. Luckily,
when you’re looking for answers, the oldest bar in the world is a good place to start. You can find the answers to almost anything at Strange-fellows; though noone guarantees you’ll like what you hear.

  I looked vaguely out the window at the traffic passing by. The road was crammed full with all the usual weird and wonderful vehicles that speed endlessly through the Nightside, and every one of them was careful not to get too close to Dead Boy’s car. It had really vicious built-in defences, and a very low boredom threshold. There were taxis that ran on virgin’s blood and ambulances that ran on distilled suffering. Things that looked like cars but weren’t, and were always hungry, and motorcycle couriers that had stopped being human long ago. Trucks carrying unthinkable loads to appalling destinations, and small anonymous delivery vans, carrying the kind of goods that no-one is supposed to want but far too many do. Business as usual, in the Nightside.

  The car took me straight to the Necropolis, where its owner was waiting for it. The Necropolis is the Nightside’s only authorised cemetery, where rest in peace isn’t a platitude, it’s enforced by law. When the Necropolis plants you, you stay planted. Dead Boy was currently working there as a security guard, keeping the grave-robbers and necromancers out and the dearly departed in. (There’s always someone planning an escape.)

  Dead Boy was mugged and murdered in the Nightside many years ago and came back from the dead to avenge his murder. He made a deal, though he’s never said with whom. Either way, he should have read the small print in his contract, because now he can’t die. He just goes on and on, a trapped spirit possessing his own dead body. We’ve worked a couple of cases together. He’s very useful for hiding behind when the bullets start flying. I suppose we’re friends. It’s hard to tell—the dead have different emotions from the living.

  I left the car parked outside the Necropolis and walked away. It could look after itself until Dead Boy came to claim it at the end of his shift, and I had things I needed to be doing. I strolled along the dark neonlit streets, past sleazy clubs and the more dangerous, members-only establishments, and my reputation went ahead of me, clearing the way. There was still a lot of rebuilding going on, aftermath of the Lilith War. The good guys won, but only just. At least most of the dead had been cleared away now, though it took weeks. The Necropolis furnaces ran full-time, and a lot of restaurants boasted a Soylent Green special on their menus, for the more discerning palates.

  The streets seemed as crowded as ever, teeming with people busy searching for their own personal heavens and hells, for all the knowledge, pleasures, and satisfactions that can only be found in the darkest parts of the Nightside. You can find anything here if it doesn’t find you first.

  Buyer beware…

  I made my way to my usual drinking haunt, Strangefellows, the kind of place that should be shut down by the spiritual health board. It’s where the really wild things go to drink and carouse, and try to forget the pressures of the night that never ends. The bar where it’s always three o’clock in the morning, and there’s never ever been a happy hour. I clattered down the bare metal steps into the great sunken stone pit and headed for the long, wooden bar at the far end. I winced as I realised the background music was currently playing a medley of the Carpenters’ Greatest Hits. Music to gouge out your eyeballs to. Alex Morrisey, the bar’s owner, bartender, and miserable pain in the neck, must be in one of his moods again.

  (Last time I was in, he was playing the Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up,” with the lyrics changed to “Suck My Kneecaps.” I didn’t ask.)

  All the usual unusual suspects were taking their ease at the scattered tables and chairs, while half a dozen members of the SAS circulated among them, soliciting donations with menaces. The Salvation Army Sisterhood was on the prowl again, and if you didn’t cough up fast enough and generously enough, out would come the specially blessed silver knuckle-dusters. The SAS are hard-core Christian terrorists. Save them all, and let God sort them out. No compromise in defence of Mother Church. They burn down Satanist churches, perform exorcisms on politicians, and they once crucified a street mime. Upside down. And then they set fire to him. A lot of people applauded. The Sisterhood wear strict old-fashioned nun’s habits, steel-toed kicking boots, and really powerful hand guns, holstered openly on each hip. They’ve been banned and condemned by every official branch of the Christian Church, but word is they’ve all been known to hire the SAS on occasion, on the quiet, when all other methods have been tried, and failed. The Salvation Army Sisterhood gets results, even if you have to look away and block your ears while they’re doing it.

  We sin to put an end to sinning, they say.

  One of the Sisterhood recognised me and quickly alerted the others. They gathered together and glared at me as I passed. I smiled politely, and one of them made the sign of the cross. Another made the sign of the seriously pissed off, then they all left. Perhaps to pray for the state of my soul or to see if there was a new bounty on my head.

  I finally reached the bar, unbuttoned my trench coat, and sank gratefully down onto the nearest barstool. I nodded to Alex Morrisey, who was already approaching with my usual—a glass of real Coke. He was dressed all in black, right down to the designer shades and the snazzy French beret he wears to hide his spreading bald patch. He slammed my glass down onto a coaster bearing the legend of a local brewery; SHOGGOTH’S OLD AND VERY PECULIAR.

  “I’m impressed, Taylor, you actually scared off the SAS, and I once saw them skin and eat a werewolf.”

  “It’s a gift,” I said easily.

  I rolled the Coke round in my glass to release the bouquet, and savoured it for a moment before looking casually round the bar, checking who was in, and who might be useful. Count Dracula was sitting at the end of the bar, a ratty-faced dry old stick in a grubby tuxedo and an opera cloak that had seen better days. He was drinking his usual Type O Negative and talking aloud to himself, also as usual. After all these years he doesn’t have much of an accent anymore but he puts it on for the personal appearances.

  “Stinking agent keeps me so busy these days, I never have any time for myself. It’s all chat shows, and signings, and plug your new book…Posing with up and coming Goth Rock bands, and endorsing a new kind of vacuum cleaner…I have become a joke! I used to have my own Castle, until the Communists took it over…I used to have my vampire brides, but now I only hear from them when the alimony cheque is late. They’re bleeding me dry! You know who my agent booked to support me on my last personal appearance? The Transylvanian Terpsichorean Transvestites! Twenty-two tarted-up nos-feratu tap-dancing along to “I’m Such a Silly When the Moon Comes Out.” The things you see when you haven’t got a stake handy…I could have died! Again. I tell you, some night you just shouldn’t get out of your coffin.”

  Not far away, half-spilling out of a private booth and ostentatiously ignoring the old vampire, was The Thing That Walked Like An It. Star of a dozen monster movies back in the fifties, it was now reduced to signing photos of itself at memorabilia conventions. There’d been a whole bunch of them in the week before, reminiscing about all the cities they’d terrorized in their prime. Now, if it wasn’t for nostalgia, no-one would remember them at all.

  (The Big Green Lizard was banned from the convention circuit because of his refusal to wear a diaper after the “radioactive dump” incident.)

  A couple of Morlocks bellied up to the bar, and made a nuisance of themselves by being very specific about the kind of finger snacks they wanted. Alex yelled for his muscle-bound bouncers, and Betty and Lucy Coltrane stopped flexing at each other long enough to come over and beat the crap out of the Morlocks before throwing them out on their misshapen ears. There’s a limit to what Alex will put up with, even when he’s in the best of moods, which isn’t often. In fact, most days you can get thrown out for politely indicating you haven’t been given the right change. I realised Alex was still hovering, so I looked at him enquiringly.

  “I’m offering a special on Angel’s Urine,” he said hopefully. “D
emand’s gone right off ever since word got out it wasn’t a trade name after all, but more of a warning…And I’ve got some Pork Scratchings in, freshly grated. Or those Pork Balls you like.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve gone off the Pork Balls. They’re nice enough, but you only get two in a packet.”

  “Hell,” said Alex, “you only get two on a pig.”

  Behind the bar, a statue of Elvis in his white jump-suit was weeping bloody tears. A clock’s hands were going in opposite directions, and a small television set was showing broadcasts from Hell, with the sound turned down. A mangy vulture on a perch was gnawing enthusiastically at something that looked disturbingly fresh. The vulture caught me watching and gave me a long, thoughtful look.

  “Behave yourself, Agatha,” said Alex.

  “Agatha,” I said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the name of your ex-wife? How is the old girl these days?”

  “She’s very good to me,” said Alex. “She never visits. Though she’s late with the alimony cheque again. Jonathon, leave the duck alone! I won’t tell you again! And no, I don’t want the orange back.”

  “Place seems pretty crowded tonight,” I said.

  “We’ve got a very popular new cabaret act,” Alex said proudly. “Hang about while I announce him.” He raised his voice. “Listen up, scumbags! It’s cabaret time, presenting once again that exceptional artiste, Mr. Explodo! Your own, your very own, and I wish you’d take him with you because he disturbs the crap out of me, yes; it’s Suicide Jones!”

  A very ordinary-looking man stepped bashfully out onto a small spotlit stage, waved cheerfully to the wildly applauding audience, then exploded into bloody gobbets. Messiest thing I’d seen in ages. The crowed roared their approval, clapping and stamping their feet. As cabaret acts went, it was impressive enough if a bit brief. I looked at Alex.