When Evil Wins Read online

  Janus was disappointed with the talk; he had hoped there would be more to it than a brief history of what the doctor had done. This left him with only one choice and that was to purchase the book for himself.

  There was another table in the room, just next to the entrance at the bottom of the stairs, with one of Treadwell's staff standing behind it and a huge pile of Dr Aspwith's books. Janus picked one up and handed his money to the young, blonde Treadwell's girl standing behind the table. Whilst she was trying to sort out his change Janus was tapped on the shoulder.

  “It's Janus Malik isn't it?” Richard Jameson asked as Janus turned around to face him.

  “Yes, yes it is. Hello, Mr Jameson,” Janus replied, offering his hand. Jameson shook it.

  “How are things with you Janus? Up here to clarify your life a little?”

  Janus was struck dumb. During their last short conversation he had got the feeling that Richard Jameson had only a passing interest in the paranormal and didn't have any abilities himself.

  “You look shocked, Janus, don't worry, I have an uncanny knack for reading people I know, and it's probably why I've been able to get to where I am today.”

  “Oh!” was all that Janus could manage to say.

  “Looks like there's a lull in the people wanting to have their book signed,” Richard observed. “I think you can get your copy signed now.”

  Janus looked towards Dr Aspwith. “Okay. Thanks. Nice to talk to you again, Mr Jameson.”

  “And you, Janus,” Jameson said.

  Janus made his way across the nearly empty room to the table Dr Aspwith was sitting at.

  “Who do I make this out to?” Aspwith asked.

  “Just to me, thanks, er… Janus Malik.”

  Dr Aspwith signed Janus's copy and before turning back to Richard Jameson, Janus wondered what he could talk about, nothing came to mind and he turned away from Dr Aspwith.

  Janus sighed with relief, Richard Jameson was now in, what seemed to be, an in depth discussion with a tall woman whose rich dark brown hair cascaded across the tops of her shoulders like a silken waterfall. Janus paused for a moment then made his way out of the shop holding the huge tome that was Dr Aspwith’s book under his arm, wondering who the stunning woman was.

  He walked back towards Covent Garden tube station trying to fathom out why Richard Jameson seemed to have such an interest in him. Perhaps it was as he said, he had an uncanny knack for reading people he knew, but how could he say that about him? They'd only met once before and very briefly at that. Janus put it down to the fact that the guy, Richard Jameson, was just an extremely incisive person.

  Janus returned from his early morning jaunt to Treadwell's, one of London's leading occult book stores, knowing there were a few other tasks he had to complete that day before he could relax.

  As he got off the train he checked his watch, it was coming up to one o'clock. He had to get to his dad's house soon with the medication.

  During the train journey home he had been thinking about his father's accident and had come to the conclusion that there was nothing he could have done to stop it. Even if he’d been scheduled for the job his dad would have arrived at the site before him and gone up the scaffolding anyway. His father always made an early start and this fact alone was probably why his father had such a good reputation; his dad was always early, always finished the job on time and without unnecessary additional costs.

  Janus changed his mind about the spiritualist meeting he had attended on that awful day. His dad's accident was just that and even if he’d been there, or even on his way, he would not have been able to change a thing. At the end of the day his father was alive and recovering in his own home, during which time Janus had gained a little more freedom to attempt to research and tease out the buried truths which he was certain existed behind life's more mundane realities.

  Reaching the exit of Leigh Station after the short walk along its grey and exposed platform he jumped into a waiting cab and instructed the driver to take him to his local chemist where he could pick up his dad's medication.

  After Janus had collected the pills the cab driver dropped him off at his home. Quickly entering his flat he made his way into his open plan lounge and checked his telephone messages. There were none. After having a quick coffee he left to take the medicine to his dad's house.

  Janus put his key into the lock of his dad's front door, turned it and entered.

  “Janus,” his father said. “Is that you?”

  “Of course it is, Father, who else?” Janus responded in Polish, as he wandered along the short and dim hall that ran parallel to the staircase. He entered his father’s lounge at the back of the house through the second doorway off the hall.

  “Have you got my pills?”

  “Yes, Father,” Janus said, continuing to speak in Polish. He crossed the old and tatty patterned beige carpet then faced his dad, who had remained seated in his favourite cushioned and high sided leather chair.

  “Thank you, Son,” his father replied, also speaking in Polish. “I need to get better. I can't stand living in this place with nothing to do any longer. This is torture; I need to work.”

  Janus dumped the white paper bag containing his dad's medicine on the sideboard next to the television stand.

  “Father, I've put your medicine on the sideboard.”

  “Thanks, Son. I can see that. There is nothing wrong with my vision,” his Dad said smiling.

  “Father, I’ve got to go,” Janus said, still talking in Polish. “I have things to do. You make sure you keep taking your medicine,” Janus indicated to the package, “and I’m sure you’ll be back to normal in next to no time.”

  “Okay, Son. Thanks,” his Dad said.

  “I'll see you in the next couple of days Father. Okay?”

  “Of course it's okay, Son. I'm getting around a lot better now and the pain's not so bad.”

  “Ring me if you need to,” Janus said as he left the back room. Before shutting the front door he called out, “Bye, Father.”

  Janus left his dad's home, he was happy now, and relieved that his carer's duties were over for the next two days or so.

  ***

  It was on the second day after his son had said to him ‘see you in a couple of days’, that Andrzej began to feel drained of energy. He got out of his bed slowly; fighting dizzy spells and trying to force his eyes to focus through the black spots that occasionally tainted his vision. Gradually and carefully he dressed himself.

  Since he had started taking the medicine his son had collected from the chemist up the road, he’d begun to feel not quite right; but he consoled himself with the thought that it was probably just a change in the brand of his medication that was causing the new side-effects. He was sure they would pass and was determined he wouldn’t be calling his son before he was due to visit the following day.

  Janus had been very good to him during his convalescence and Andrzej didn’t want to be a burden; so he would wait.

  Andrzej made his way slowly down the stairs to the kitchen; supporting himself on the stair’s banister as he did so.

  After he had put the kettle on he had to steady himself once more by holding onto the kitchen counter. He finished making his tea and walked unsteadily into the lounge.

  He picked up his pills from the sideboard and took an extra dose from the bottle. He was sure that if he doubled his dose it would make up for the difference in medicines between the chemist and the hospital.

  Andrzej sat in his favourite chair placing the extra pills and the cup of tea on the table next to it.

  After his tea had cooled sufficiently he popped his usual dose and the two extra ones, he deemed necessary, into his mouth and washed them down with his now luke-warm tea.

  He knew it wouldn’t be long before the double dose would take it effect and he would start feeling much better. Andrzej sat and waited; struggling to stay awake.

  After an hour the dizziness he had experienced earlier that morni
ng came back with a vengeance. He really needed to call his son; there was something very wrong, but he didn’t have the energy to get to his phone in the hall or get to his mobile which was charging on his bureau.

  Still sat in his chair he wondered why he felt like he had wet himself; he didn’t recall any powerful urge to urinate. As he sat there he began to feel a strange coldness creep up along his arms; it had started in his fingertips making him shiver: his thoughts became scared and frantic but he was unable to react. The intense lethargy he was feeling enveloped him like a slimy cold and heavy, wet to the touch, blanket of chain mail, pressing down upon him.

  Gradually his thoughts calmed as, finally, consciousness seeped away in unison with the loss of his vision.

  Chapter Eleven

  During the two days that had passed since Janus had dropped off his Dad's medication, he’d spent the majority of the time reading and researching every aspect of the paranormal he could find in the library.

  The more he looked into it the more he saw it was quite likely he had some latent psychic ability himself. However, some of the books he read smacked of charlatanism, they were there to sell the idea to an unwitting public but others told of things in such a way that to dismiss psychic ability as a fraud would be a fraud in itself.

  Janus closed the book he’d just finished and looked up, it was just in time too, the librarian was making her way towards him, probably to let him know that the library was about to close.

  “Janus…,” the librarian started, he had become such a regular that all the library's staff now knew him by his first name.

  “Don't tell me. You're closing up,” Janus said, before she could finish.

  “We are. Are you finished?” the librarian asked.

  “Yes thanks,” Janus said, picking up the books. “Don't worry I'll put them back,” he added.

  After returning the books to their respective slots on the shelves, a frowning Janus left the dingy glass fronted building. He was thinking about everything he’d read and he’d come to a decision; a decision about something that had been bubbling in the back of his mind ever since his father's tragic accident had allowed him the space to look into a side of his life which had been prohibited for such a long time. He would somehow convince his dad that the plumber's life was not for him, not right away of course, that wouldn't be fair to his dad, but perhaps over the next year or so.

  He would start his own business as a paranormal investigator or something like that. He still had to look into what that actually meant, but he felt it was the path he had to take.

  He knew for sure his dad would hate it, especially after the problems and the reasons his dad had taken him from Poland; but that was twenty years ago now.

  The early winter's evening, though getting dark was warm and Janus decided he would walk the three miles back to his flat in Leigh.

  It would be a good exercise for him as he had not had any manual work to do since handing over his dad’s contracts to other companies. Whilst walking along the London Road back towards his home it occurred to him that his dad had not called him once during these last few days. Janus mentally thanked his father for letting him get on with the stuff he wanted to do, without interruption. He also thought his dad desperately wanted to get back on his feet and do things for himself, for a change, and this was probably the reason he hadn't received a single call over the preceding days.

  Oh well, Janus thought. I'll see you tomorrow morning, Dad.

  ***

  Janus woke with a start and looked at his clock. It was just gone twenty past eight and Janus frowned. He had deliberately not set his alarm as he was sure his dad would have called at 7.30 a.m. on the dot, just to remind him that he was due at the house.

  Janus got out of bed and jumped into the shower. After getting dressed Janus put the kettle on and made himself a cup of coffee. Whilst he drank it he flicked through the news on the teletext.

  Still no call, he thought, as a dark and negative feeling enveloped him, making him shudder.

  Finishing his coffee Janus rang his dad's number, after five minutes of the landline ringing Janus put his phone down. He must have gone for a walk or something, Janus thought to himself.

  Picking up his jacket Janus left his flat for his dad's house curious as to whether he would be in or not, mentally avoiding the feeling that something was not quite right.

  Janus knocked at his father’s front door, although he had a key he wanted to hear some reaction, some sound of movement in his Dad's hall. No sound was forthcoming. Janus opened the door to his Dad’s house and entering, he called out for his father.

  “Dad?” he said in English, then; “Father,” he called out in Polish. There was no response. He quickly made his way up the stairs to his father's bedroom. The bed had not been slept in.

  “Dad?” Janus called again, a little louder this time: still no answer.

  Taking his phone from his pocket he rang his dad's mobile number. His dad's mobile phone rang out in the silence. The sound was coming from downstairs.

  Janus scooted down the stairs taking them in twos and made his way into the lounge, as he entered the room he saw the back of his Dad's head poking just above the back of his favourite comfy chair, the one in which he always sat to watch the telly. The TV was off.

  “Dad,” he said, as he walked up to his father. “What are you doing?”

  His father didn't answer.

  Janus was now standing between his dad and the television and saw that his Dad's face was almost completely grey, all colour drained from it.

  As he reached to stir his father from his sickly sleep Janus glimpsed his father's trousers and recoiled in utter shock, dropping his phone. It looked as if his father had wet himself, not with urine, but a red-brown viscous liquid. His grey, silent and unmoving father was sitting in a vast dark and congealed pool of his own blood, the stain colouring even the front edge of the comfy chair’s cushion.

  Janus tried to comprehend what he was seeing, but the longer he looked on, the more he began to notice things he didn't want to notice, but the things, no matter how hard he tried to ignore them, were there all the same.

  He knew then that there wasn't any chance of waking his father from this sleep. Somehow his father had bled to death. But why? He had been doing so well and there hadn't been any problems since his dad had been discharged from the hospital.

  Janus rushed to his dad's phone in the hall at the bottom of the stairs and called an ambulance.

  Within ten minutes the ambulance crew arrived and Janus took them to his father. The two crew members were shocked by what they saw.

  They looked at each other, there wasn't any chance of resuscitating this guy; he’d been dead for at least twenty four hours and undoubtedly the dead man had been drained of almost all of his eight and a half pints of blood; it was also obvious to them that the guy's son was more than aware of this.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Malik,” one of the paramedics said to Janus. “We can’t take the bod… I’m sorry, your father. In circumstances like these the police need to be called. I’m truly sorry. Your father has been dead for at least a day.”

  Janus just stared at the man; a feeling of sickness developing in the pit of his stomach.

  “Sir, it’s okay, I’ll radio it through. Peter?” the paramedic turned to his partner, “could you take Mr Malik to the kitchen?”

  Peter guided Janus to his father’s kitchen, away from the awful scene. Janus followed, his mind numbed.

  “Mr Malik, I’m so sorry for your loss — but Barry has to notify the police — it’s the blood, you know,” Peter struggled to explain.

  Janus just shook his head; nothing was making any sense to him.

  “I’m afraid we have to get the forensic medical examiner in; it’s just procedure you understand,” Peter told Janus. Janus didn’t react, he couldn’t, he didn’t know how.

  Peter hated it when he had to attend situations like this; when the next of kin had no inkling
about the possibility of one of their nearest and dearest’s mortality. He had been to many in his fifteen years with the service, but, in these situations, it always felt like the first.

  After the police had arrived along with the FME and asked a few cursory questions of Janus, the undertakers loaded the body into the hearse and took Andrzej Malik to the mortuary.

  When everyone had finished with his father’s house, Janus exited the front door to the property, closing it behind him.

  Still feeling numb he got into his car and drove to the hospital to seek out Mr Greensteed.

  Within a short while of Janus arriving at Southend hospital, his father's consultant appeared and took Janus to one side.

  “Janus, I'm so sorry this has happened,” Greensteed said, reaching out and gently squeezing Janus's shoulder, “but I must stress this was always going to be a possibility; it was a massive internal haemorrhage.”

  “But he'd been doing so well, Mr Greensteed. My Dad took all of his medicine,” Janus stressed.

  “I know, I know, Janus.” Marshall Greensteed hated it when things like this happened, “but your father did suffer incredibly serious injuries. It was a miracle he survived at all.”

  “But it's been four weeks since he left the hospital. You even checked him a few days ago.”

  “I must admit that there was nothing to indicate this would happen, but these things do happen, Janus, I'm sorry to say. In the end it's sometimes nature's way rather than the surgeon's,” Greensteed paused, “I am truly sorry.”

  “I don't know what I will do now,” Janus said. “What do I do? I've never been in a situation like this before.”

  “Janus, here's a card. Contact this woman, she's a counsellor, she'll help you get through the next few days and help you with your next steps.”

  “Thank you, Mr Greensteed,” after a second’s pause Janus added; “There was really nothing you could do?”