Black London 05 - Soul Trade

“You and your bloke’ll be joining us for supper, I hear?” he said.
    “If you’ll have us,” Pete told said. “I know we didn’t get off on the best foot, Mr. Smythe, and for that I apologize.”
    He smirked at her. Making a copper apologizeto him must be some kind of lifelong fantasy for a stain like Philip Smythe, but if it got her what she wanted, Pete would smile and kiss his arse for as long as the day lasted.
    “More the merrier,” he said at last. “Always thought you were a bit of a bitch during the investigation, but after what you did for our Margaret you’re welcome any time.” He offered his hand, and Pete shook. His handshakewas limp and sweaty, as insincere as his words, but there was no prickle of magic there. Philip Smythe was a dead wire, in more ways than one. Pete thought that after she’d figured out what was going on in Overton, she’d see that Philip made a return visit to Pentonville. A fraud charge from these phony meetings should keep him away from Margaret until she was in university, away from her poisonousparents.
    “I can’t wait,” she told him aloud, and looked over at Jack, fidgeting at the edge of the crowd. He jerked his chin at her, the universal Let’s get the Hell out of here gesture. If there were any other way, she would have waited, gone in to do a proper exorcism, with tools and spells and the ritual that such a thing commanded.
    But she didn’t have time, so she was going in blind.
    Shejust hoped it wasn’t the last mistake she ever made.

 
    16.
    The Leroys’ semi-detached brick was a far cry from the Smythes’ untidy pile of a house. Mrs. Leroy, a small, nervous woman who didn’t keep her hands still for more than three seconds at a stretch, had scrubbed the place within an inch of its life. Even Pete’s obsessively tidy father would have called it compulsive.
    “Drink?” Philip Smythe gestured at Pete with a bottle of gin when sheand Jack stepped over the threshold.
    “Thanks, mate,” Jack slid up and relieved Philip of the bottle, refilling his dented flask before passing it back. Mrs. Leroy was already shooting them murderous looks, but she pasted on a fake smile when Pete caught her eye.
    “I owe you a great thanks for what you did for our Diana,” she said.
    “Just wish I could have gotten here sooner,” Pete said. “It lookslike you’re holding up well. All of you.”
    “Mr. Killigan started a support group back in London so we could all find each other and share our stories,” Mrs. Leroy said. “That man, he’s a saint. So patient. Helped us so much with our poor child.”
    “And all of this? The tent and whatnot?” Pete asked. “His idea?”
    “Oh heavens, no,” Mrs. Leroy said with a laugh that sounded more like a scream. “Thatwas Mr. Smythe’s idea. Said we had an obligation to share our girl’s gift with the world, and he’s right. What Diana can do comes from a higher place.”
    “An obligation, eh?” Pete said. She eyed Philip Smythe, holding court in the corner with two men she assumed were Mr. Leroy and Patrick Dumbershall’s father. They were laughing, grins wide as shark mouths.
    “Mrs. Leroy…” Pete started, but thewoman cut her off.
    “Carrie, please.”
    “Carrie,” Pete said. “This isn’t easy to ask, but have you noticed anything … odd about Diana since all this started?”
    Carrie Leroy gave a start, as if Pete had reached over and stuck a pin in her arse. She swiveled her head slowly, smile still in place, clocking the other parents in the room. “Not here,” she murmured through clenched teeth. “Meet me inthe kitchen.”
    Then she pitched forward into Pete, knocking her drink down her shirt. “Oh, no!” Carrie exclaimed. “I’m just too clumsy for words. Do come with me, Miss Caldecott, and I’ll take that stain out.”
    Jack gave Pete a look over Margaret Smythe’s head. He’d been talking with her the entire time, laughing and showing her sleight of hand tricks with quarters and cigarettes. Margaret wassmiling for the first time since Pete had arrived in Overton, slowly and nervously, but she was acting less dopey than she had been in the morning.
    If Margaret was with Jack, she was safe for the time being, so Pete let herself be tugged into the kitchen.
    “Sorry about your blouse,” Carrie Leroy said. “I couldn’t … I had to…” She started to shake, and she buried her face in her hands.
    “Hey,”Pete said. “It’s all right. Really.”
    “No, it is