Thicker Than Water читать онлайн

He put his hand on my shoulder, gripping hard enough to hurt.

‘Your sins are forgiven, you drunken, selfish bastard,’ he said. ‘Go in peace.’

When I looked up, he was gone. Or maybe it’s fairer to say that I didn’t look up until I was sure: until his footsteps had faded into silence. The music and shouting rose to a peak and then fell to a rumble again, announcing the opening and closing of a distant door.

I sat breathing whisky fumes like profane incense, still feeling the weight of his hand on my shoulder.

I didn’t feel like I’d been absolved: it was more like I’d had my collar felt by some holy constable of the spirit. I knew two things, and two things only: that Matt’s vocation was real, and that as far as absolution went, a few soggy prayers weren’t going to cut it.

Pen heard me out in silence. When she spoke - pagan gods bless her infallible instincts - it was to change the subject.

‘So this thing that you’re feeling when you’re over there at the Salisbury. Do you think it’s a geist of some kind?’

Pen speaks the argot, and she was using the word in its technical sense.

To an exorcist, a geist is a human spirit that takes no visible form but can still have powerful - almost always destructive - effects.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, stating the obvious. ‘But I don’t think so. Most geists move things - physical things. They break bottles, throw furniture around, blow candles out, fling people through windows. This is . . . intangible. It’s just a feeling. And it seems to be really pervasive - I mean, it spreads across the whole estate, where a geist would tend to stick to one small locus.

’

Pen inhaled the steam from her coffee cup, eyes closed, like Nicky drinking the wine breath. Then she downed it in one swallow. I waited patiently, knowing she was thinking it through.

‘The people on the estate,’ she said, when she finally opened her eyes again. ‘Do they know this thing is there? I mean, obviously it’s changing the way they feel and the way they behave, but are they aware that it’s happening or are they just submerged in it?’

‘The second, I think.

I’m aware of it because—’

‘—Because of your built-in radar.’

‘Exactly. But to anyone else I think it would be like a sound that’s been in your ears for so long you can’t hear it any more - you just hear the silence when it stops. It’s subtle. Powerful, but really subtle. To tell you the truth, I’m starting to wonder if there’s a demon mixed up in this somewhere.