Page 75 of The Angel Maker

How are you going to deal with this?

She had no idea. But she knew she had to do something to keep her family safe—that if she just waited and hoped everything would be all right then it might not be. Because that was how the world worked. Things came out of nowhere and changed everything and right now felt like a moment in time she would wish she could come back to and do things differently.

What to do?

Something.

And so, without really thinking about it, Katie started the engine.

She parked up by the corner of Michael Hyde’s street.

What exactly are you doing here, Katie?

She had no answer to the question because she hadn’t thought that far ahead. What shehaddone was turn around outside her brother’s apartment and then drive the quickest route here possible, breaking the speed limit along the way whenever it had been safe to do so. So the one thing shewascertain of was there was no way Hyde could have beaten her back here.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she got out of the car. The slam of the door echoed around the empty street. There was an odd cast to the light, and a chill breeze in the air, and she pulled her jacket around her as she walked toward the end of Hyde’s street and turned the corner.

The whole area was run-down, but this street was particularly dilapidated. Many of the properties were boarded up, while the few that appeared still occupied had overgrown gardens strewn with litter and children’s toys blanched pale by the sun. Hyde’s house was about halfway down. When she reached it, she saw the front door was flimsy and that old graffiti stained the brickwork in places. The mortar had crumbled away beneath the gray windows, creating the illusion of tears.

A narrow driveway led along the side of the house. After one last look around, she headed down it. Round the back, she found an old door, the white paint peeling off the wood in jagged vertical strips.

Are you really going to do this, Katie?

Yes. She had to find out what was happening.

With her heart beating hard, she reached out and tried the door handle. It turned easily, and the door opened inward with a gentle creak. She stepped quickly inside and then stood very still for a moment, listening.

Silence.

She was in a narrow kitchen, dim light filtering in through a single small window beside her. Her gaze moved slowly over the old cabinets on the wall, some of them missing their doors, revealing rows of cans. The counter below was cluttered with dirty plates and empty bottles. The only clear spaces were the stove, crusted with burned, blackened food, and the sink, where more plates stuck up like pale fins from the gray water. A couple of flies were buzzing mindlessly round.

Her shoes squeaked on the greasy tiles as she moved over to the doorway at the far end of the kitchen. It opened onto a gloomy hallway. Stairs led up to the right, while ahead of her was a living room of sorts, dust hanging in the air. There was a couch and armchair that appeared decades old, faded floral curtains, and a portable television resting on a wooden packing crate. Breathing in, she could smell a sweet and sickly odor, like the stink of old wine coming out of a drunk man’s skin.

Hurry up, Katie.

Whatever you’re looking for, find it quickly.

She moved back into the hallway and headed quietly up the steep, narrow stairs. There were three doors on the landing up here. One was open onto a small, grimy bathroom. Another was partially ajar, and through the gap she could see the base of a bed. The sweet smell was stronger there, and bad enough now to make her cover her mouth and take a step back. She turned to the third door instead. It was covered with small, colorful stickers, the kind that come free with comics.

A child’s bedroom, perhaps.

Hyde didn’t have children. But looking more closely, she realized the stickers were very old and had probably been on the door for years.

She turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open.

Pitch-black inside. Her hand moved over the wall to her left, searching for a light switch, eventually finding one lower down than felt natural. When she pressed it, the room in front of her burst suddenly into life.

Katie gasped.

For a second, she didn’t understand exactly what she was looking at, only that her mind had immediately registered that whatever she was seeing was profoundlywrong. Against the wall to her left, there was a single bed, with a stained pillow at one end and a tangle of covers scrunched-up at the other. Tucked in between the base of that and the far wall was a small desk, with a printer on the floor beneath it and a laptop on the surface, closed but humming quietly.

But it was the wall directly opposite that captured her attention.

She stepped across, the floorboards creaking as she approached it and then tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Hyde had tacked perhaps thirty photographs to the plaster in neat rows and columns. To the right of those, he had taped up what appeared to be notes and crude drawings done with felt-tip pens.

And when Katie looked at the photographs more closely, something tilted inside her. So much so that it felt like the whole house was in danger of toppling over. She had thought that Hyde was stalking her brother, but there was no sign of him on the wall here at all.

But she and Sam were here.

---