The Nightmare Maker Read online

  “I’m going to the nursery to pick her up. I’ll meet you at the station in a couple of hours, and we’re really going to have a discussion. I want the truth about where my sister is,” she said, and hung up without another word. I winced. It didn’t say much for my mental state that I was agreeing with Dana’s unemployed basket case of a little sister in regard to my parenting skills. I paid the bill and ordered a cab. While I was waiting, my phone rang again; apparently, I was a man in demand today.

  “Maaaaate.” The strong Aussie accent that greeted me brought an automatic smile to my lips.

  “Toscan—they said that no one had heard from you in weeks. It’s good to hear from you, man!” Toscan Davidson was one of my best friends in London. He sounded like a cross between Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin, but once you got past his down under, good-ol’-boy persona, it quickly became evident that he was pretty damned sharp.

  “Yeah, matey, I’ve been in your neck of the woods on that cancer drug procurement job for ages. I’m just happy that you’re out of hospital. We’re deffo due for a beer,” he replied, and I nodded. I’d known Toscan for about seven years, and I’d even helped him get a job after he’d soured on his old role in the insurance industry. He was possibly the finest data analyst that I’d ever met, but the number of times that he’d skipped our usual Friday catch-up sessions could probably have been counted on one hand. In fact, if he was back in town, then there were possibly some new avenues of investigation open to me.

  “Hey—I don’t have long to talk now, but I need to ask a favor…you know about Dana, don’t you?” I asked as neutrally as I was able. It was still a battle to keep the lump in my throat out of my voice. I wondered how long that would last.

  “Yeah, mate. I’m gutted to hear about that. It’s why I called; I have the next few days off in lieu, so I thought that you might need a proper piss up,” he replied, sounding cautious. I appreciated the sentiment. I would appreciate the booze too.

  “Before we get to the proper piss up, I need you to help me look into something,” I said. “I’ll explain it to you when we meet up, but basically I need to get some information and then see what picture all of the individual lines create.”

  “No problem, guy. There anything else I can do?” he asked with false cheer. I was about to reply in the negative when a thought popped into my head.

  “Yeah, actually. I’m getting my new place set up, and I don’t have any Internet access yet besides my phone. Could you look up the Redderton Agency? In particular, the family tree for the owners?” I sneezed and missed the start of his reply.

  “—mo. What do you say to meeting for a few tinnies about eight tonight?” I was about to tell him that I wanted to put it off until tomorrow, but a sudden jounce of the cab caused me to bang my injured hand on the door, and I changed my mind. I wanted the information on the Reddertons ASAP. If Becky wanted to stick her nose into how I raised my kid, then she could watch her tonight.

  “See you there.”

  I was just pulling up outside of my newly rented house for the first time (good God, had this place been built before the Romans left?) when my phone rang yet again. The number came up as belonging to Happy Babes nursery.

  “This is Leandra from Happy Babes, Mr. Adler—we wanna ta call ya ’cause there’s some lady here that we ain’t met before to pick up Ollie—”

  “Yeah, my sister-in-law, Becky. Blond girl, skinny. AMERICAN. She should have the password?” I interrupted, wanting to get my stuff unloaded from the cab because the meter was still running.

  “No, Mr. Adler, she don’t have the password, so we thought maybe we should check with you?” I stopped what I was doing and dropped the bag of clothes in my hand to the ground. “She says she’s Olivia’s auntie, she has blond hair, and she’s American. Should we let her go with?” Leandra finished, her obvious discomfort and West London accent turning every statement into a question.

  “Can you hold? I’ll call Ollie’s aunt and give her the password.” I said, my heart pounding. The hair color didn’t track, but I had a hunch that maybe my Bond girl had decided to play hardball. Fingers shaking, I pulled up Becky’s contact information and hit “dial.”

  Becky answered on the first ring, but before I could speak, her voice stabbed into my ear: “Some woman just knocked me over at the nursery! My jeans are ripped, and the staff have locked the doors, Julian! Get here now!”

  “I’ll be there in five,” I said, running to the street.

  In a London miracle, it actually only took four minutes for the black cab to pull up in front of Happy Babes. Becky dashed out to meet me, her face flushed red. “Do you see what I mean? Dana goes missing, and then you just leave Olivia alone like this. This settles it—you need me, and my sister’s little girl needs me. I’m staying.” Her shrill words bounced off me as I threw the driver a fiver to stick around, and I marched into the nursery, my pace as relentless as the current of the Mississippi.

  “Who was it, Becky? Was it the woman from the other day?” I shouted over my shoulder.

  Becky trotted to catch up. “I don’t know, I didn’t get to see her face,” she replied in a quieter voice.

  I stomped up to the nursery door, which Leandra held open. “Show me your security footage,” I said while going straight to the office.

  I received a dirty look from the manager that pulled her drawn-in eyebrows together on a forehead kept smooth by a Croydon facelift. She didn’t argue, though, as she rewound the security camera footage. After thirty seconds of searching, the screen displayed the picture that I was expecting. She was wearing a blond wig, but those long legs and slim figure had to be Mia’s.

  “Bitch.”

  “Ahem…Mr. Adler.” I got another dirty look from the manager for my outburst, but I largely ignored her. I say largely, because there was nothing small about that woman. Not size, or hair, or attitude.

  “Under no circumstance is that woman to be allowed to pick up Olivia, and if you see her around here again, then I’d ask that you contact the police.” I spoke the sentence in a way that made it clear that this wasn’t a negotiable point, and I could see that the seriousness of the situation impressed itself on the older woman; she nodded gravely. A few of the other parents stared as I trotted out of the office and collected an obliviously happy little girl; there’d be whispers around the playground about this episode. I wondered what they’d say if they knew the truth.

  **********

  Becky tried to open her mouth as we got into the cab, but I gave her a look that could have vaporized planets, and her delicate jaw clicked shut. Someone was going to pay for trying to take my daughter.

  The ten-minute cab ride to the new house at Argyle Road was silent, and Becky mutely helped unpack the remaining items from the taxi when we arrived. She was still quiet as she surveyed the inside of the house: small fireplace in the living room, tiny dining room, separate kitchen in back, two bedrooms upstairs, one bathroom, and a postage stamp-sized garden. All for the low, low price of £2,000 per month. I think I spotted mold in only three of the rooms—win!

  “It’s great, isn’t it?” I said, gesturing grandly. Somehow my sister-in-law didn’t look impressed. She was even less impressed a few minutes later when I explained that I was going to meet my old drinking buddy for a few pints. Admittedly, with Mia trying to snatch Olivia, she had a point. I thought about cancelling, but I decided against it. I couldn’t find Dana on my own, so I needed to get Toscan on the case.

  “It’s a good thing that I’m here; I can make sure that you don’t accidentally misplace my niece under a…”

  “Enough. I’m going to deal with that.” I was deadly serious about it too—but I knew that this wasn’t the moment.

  Becky scowled. “You passed out drunk last night, your daughter almost got kidnapped today, and I still want to know what the hell you really did with my sister, but you want to go out boozing in a city where there’s just been yet another riot…”

  She kept talk
ing, but I didn’t have any attention to spare for the rest of her words; her mention of a riot had sent a cold chill down my spine.

  I’d been so focused on my fight with the Anarchist, the information that he’d revealed, and the problem at the nursery that I hadn’t followed up on the events of the night before. I cursed myself. If the recent riots really were related to a fellow Dreamwatcher, then that was a further complication. Although, I thought, the name really should have been a clue that he might be involved in the rioting. I’m a procurement manager, not a detective.

  In fact…now that I thought about it, there had been several disturbances during the course of my fight against the shadow demon. I’d chalked them up to just being part of the same phenomenon, but if they weren’t, then what was the point? None of them had been more than localized and…

  “Julian, I asked you a question.” Becky’s voice was not even remotely friendly. If I’d have received the same tone from Dana, I could have counted either on make-up sex or fresh bread (her two favorite ways of relieving stress) sometime in the near future. I didn’t think I was going to get any bread tonight, and I shivered at the thought of…eww…not going there.

  “I asked you how much you were going to pay me for all the time I’ve spent looking after Ollie. I thought someone like you, who spends all day buying stuff, would realize that there’s no such thing as a free supper,” she said acerbically while picking at an unidentifiable patch of something black and sticky on the kitchen counter.

  I was honestly a bit relieved by the question. It was exactly the kind of statement that I’d been expecting from my sister-in-law. “She’s your sister’s little girl. My house just burned down. Does this place look like I’m rolling in money? Think about it,” I said with enough sarcasm to cut…a thing that is quite easily cut. She clearly didn’t like the answer and stomped off in a huff.

  I proceeded to order some pizza that we ate in relative silence, with Olivia providing the only entertainment in the empty apartment by smacking her lips in appreciation with every bite of pepperoni. I ordered Becky a taxi, and she went back to the Travel Lodge to pick up her things. I read a book to Olivia and then put her to bed. I headed out almost immediately after her aunt returned, with the admonishment to call me immediately if anything suspicious happened.

  I took the train into Paddington, and Brunel’s Great West line swept me into Zone 1 in ten minutes. Toscan hadn’t specified which pub to meet him in, but there hadn’t really been any need. Occasionally we’d pop into the Grand Union at lunchtime because it was next to the office, but if we really were going to have a good session, then only the Royal Exchange would do, with its old-fashioned corner setting and comfortable leather chairs.

  We were just pulling to a stop as I noticed a familiar-looking picture on a discarded copy of the Evening Standard that was lying half folded on the floor. I picked up the paper and took a few steps toward the door as I opened it. Given what I suspected about the riots, I should have been prepared for what I saw next, but I still felt a mountainous disappointment as I read the caption that accompanied the picture. Anarchist strikes again: Millionaire city banker mauled to death in flat. The rest of the story explained that the police had been alerted when city banker Fred Swanson’s secretary had become suspicious after he didn’t turn up to the office at his usual five a.m. start time. The responding officers had found the man brutally murdered. His throat was ripped out, there were signs of a violent struggle in the bedroom, and a large anarchy symbol had been daubed on the wall in the man’s blood. The man in the picture was undoubtedly the pudgy banker from last night’s dream. I took a shuddering breath and emptied my supper onto the floor. Sorry, Mr. Swanson.

  Chapter 10 2030–2300, Tuesday, September 22, 2015

  “Mate, you look like you need a drink.” The unaccustomed concern in my friend’s voice told me that I hadn’t recovered from the depressing confirmation that my failure last night had cost a man his life. Six months ago, I would have thought that such a thing was impossible, but with everything that had happened in the last three months, it seemed depressingly inevitable. Why couldn’t I have woken from my coma to discover that fuzzy unicorns were handing out chocolate milk shakes that cured cancer?

  “Double rum and Coke. Cheers,” I muttered. Then I looked Toscan in the eye and gave him the universal man signal of a double head-bob to signal my thanks, adding a shrug to provide the unspoken subtext that the world was a real bitch at the moment. His curly brown hair nodded in the correct countersign of agreement, and he went to the bar while I flopped down in a well-padded chair.

  When he came back with the drinks, I took mine, downed about half of it in a gulp, opened my mouth to speak, and then took another long pull before saying, “What did you find out about the Reddertons?” He quirked an eyebrow at me in surprise, perhaps because I’d gotten straight to business, but he settled back into the casual position that he usually took when he was getting ready to spiel out a long information dump.

  “Well—first of all, I have all of the generally available information. Founded nearly a hundred years ago, family business, largest private investigation firm in the UK, etc. I then started to do some digging at Companies House. That’s where the interesting information starts. You see, what I found there is that even though the current CEO, seventy-five-year-old Erasmus Redderton, had three children, two boys and a girl, there are only three Reddertons on the current board of directors.”

  “Well, that makes sense, though, since Derrick’s dead,” I interjected, impatient to find out what it was that made Toscan look like a cat that had got the cream. He must have found something good because the corners of his mouth twitched up almost uncontrollably on his broad, sunburned face.

  “Yeah, mate, I found pretty quickly that he was dead, but the Companies House records aren’t due to be updated for months and months yet; the thing is that he was never in line to inherit anything or be in a position of power. It seems like this Derrick was the black sheep of the family: no convictions, but arrested over a dozen times for various bits of disturbing the peace. His brother, Jack Redderton, heads up all field operations, is a decorated veteran of the first Gulf War, and lives with his boyfriend in West Ham. His sister, Cynthia, is the CFO, divorced, one daughter.” He finished this with the grin still on his face, so I knew that he was holding back something good. I gave him a quick hand motion to carry on as a waitress came and collected our empties.

  Before he responded, the Aussie leaned forward, putting both elbows on the table, and stared into my eyes. “The mom, Caroline, disappeared more than a decade ago—on the same day as your mom,” Toscan said.

  My head swam—and not from the booze. My mother, a stunningly beautiful woman, had disappeared during a trip to Milwaukee when I was only a kid; most of the whispers around town had suggested that she’d run off with a man. She’d left behind two young children and a bitter little man who called her names that no child should have to hear about anyone, let alone their mother. “Ummm…” I said eloquently, but Toscan bailed me out again by proffering his now-empty pint and cocking his head toward the bar. I nodded my thanks, rose, and got in the next round. While I took care of that business, I also had a chance to get my thoughts together. I had actually come to the pub with the primary goal of getting my friend to start investigating whatever organization sat behind Father O. and Mia.

  “So, I actually asked you here because I wanted you to look into something much more complicated than the Redderton Agency,” I said when I returned to the table, two pints of London Pride in hand.

  “Brillo, because it was a rush job, but otherwise that was a bit dull.” Toscan leaned forward and cracked his knuckles in anticipation of finding out what I considered to be a challenge.

  “It has to do with the Reddertons tangentially, but actually it’s probably best if I start from when I was a kid…” It took another three pints each, but by the end of our session, I had given my friend a pretty thorough version of bot
h my life as a Dreamwatcher and the events of the past few weeks, including my suspicion that I could get Dana back. He had sat quietly, digesting information throughout. I considered for a moment that it had gotten strangely easy to open up about my nightly activities, and I wondered why I had spent so many years hiding them. Before I could get too far down that train of thought, Toscan burst out laughing.

  “Good story, Elsa!” He slapped his hands on the table so loudly that the bartender glanced in our direction.

  I shook my head in confusion. “Elsa? What the hell do you mean, man?” I said, annoyed that he’d reacted that way to me baring my soul, my hopes to him.

  “What? With that story, I’d expect you to be on the table singing ‘Let It Go.’ You’ve had a shitty time. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, but you didn’t need to make up some story about having magical powers that you’ve hidden away all your life,” he replied, pantomiming flinging blasts of ice around the room, to which he added “pew-pew” noises.

  I smacked my glass on the table, and the bartender’s glance turned into a scowl. “Screw you, man. I’m serious. I’ve got powers, that’s why they’ve been watching me. You must realize that there’s something weird going on here. It can’t be a coincidence that my mom and Jack Redderton’s disappeared on the same day. I need you to take this seriously,” I pleaded.

  “So what you want me to do is to figure out why you have these powers?” His words were clear, but there was a gleam in his eye that told me that he wasn’t entirely sober, which probably explained how he’d gotten the idea so wrong.

  “No! I want you to figure out what Father O. and Mia’s mysterious little organization is actually up to! I need to find out, find them, and find Dana using whatever information I can get out of them for hunting down the Anarchist, but I’m not going to start negotiating without doing any research!” I said, blinking to focus clearly on the man across the table. He simply shook his head and gave me a slightly bewildered look. “I need leverage.”