I stared at Alice and Hafsah helplessly. Neither looked like they could bear to converse with Renner, which made sense on account of not possessing a single shred of patience between them. Then again, they did have a lot at stake here, and a mad hatter of an author spewing bilge and nonsense was probably not what they’d been hoping for.
‘Do you mind if I have a look at your bookcases?’ I asked, desperate to gain some control of the situation. I’d spotted two cluttered units in the adjacent living room when we came in. Surely there was a copy of his own book there somewhere – a copy that might still contain the reversal or cure.
He shrugged, turning back to us. ‘Certainly, but I’m not sure you’ll find any sausages. Bacon, perhaps. Oh, why don’t you crack some eggs, there’s a chap! But can you make sausages without breaking any . . . No, no I suppose not.’
As I left the room, I could see Alice trying very hard not to put her whole fist in her mouth. Perhaps the ritual had its limits.
Wishing I was a fly on the wall for the conversation they’d be forced to have with Renner, I got to work searching the bookshelves. The purple hue Alice had described should’ve stood out, but the shelves were triple-stacked, books on birdwatching and marine conservation shoved haphazardly into spots alongsideMoby DickandUlyssesandThe Grapes of Wrath. I couldn’t imagine the man I’d just met reading any of these, but maybe he was more lucid when it was just him and the page. Or maybe the madness was a recent affliction.
His delusions unsettled me. It didn’t seem like a simple case of dementia, which my own grandfather had suffered from. He wasn’t just forgetful – he was stark raving bonkers. And his bizarre statements weren’t incoherent clumps of random words. They followed proper sentence structure, for the most part. In short, it wasn’t a type of madness I’d ever encountered before.
Had it been the result of a ritual gone wrong?
After trawling every inch of the bookshelves, as well as every side table, drawer and other cranny in his ramshackle living room, I admitted defeat.
I traipsed back through to the kitchen, where Renner was enthusiastically performing the YMCA for an extremely discerning audience.
‘Mr Renner? Does the lighthouse have an attic? Maybe some dusty boxes of old books up there?’
He stopped mid M, so it looked like he was doing an impression of a gorilla. ‘No, madam. Ask Crispin, he’ll confirm it.’
I wasn’t ready to give up on the only person who could help us find those pages. ‘Is it okay if I have a little look around the other rooms? We would really love to find that book.’
‘Could you find my good slippers, while you’re at it?’ He kicked the velvet ones off his feet with sudden disgust, as jerkily as though he’d just noticed there was a large spider crawling up his leg. ‘I’m loathe to don these impostors.’
I searched the lighthouse high and low, but I found neither the book nor another pair of slippers. After swallowing down the most horrific ‘cup of tea’ I’ve ever had the misfortune of drinking, we said our dejected goodbyes to Renner and headed back up the pier towards the promenade.
‘Poor guy,’ I muttered, staring at the scuffed toes of my Nikes.
‘Poor guy?’ retorted Alice incredulously. ‘Poor us!’
‘Maybe he’s gone crazy because of a ritual gone wrong,’ I pointed out. ‘Surely you can sympathise with that?’
Alice made a littletsknoise. ‘You’re assuming my emotions operate in a logical manner.’
‘Sorry. My mistake.’
When Hafsah finally spoke, it was with quiet, burrowing dread. ‘What are we going to do?’
Before I could answer, I saw something that made my spine tingle.
Mordue, in her black peacoat and red lipstick, walking up the prom towards us.
Some unconscious instinct led me to grab Alice and Hafsah by the elbows and steer them into Carr’s Fish ’n’ Chip Shop before Mordue spotted us.
‘What the . . .?’
‘Mordue,’ I muttered, right as the dean passed the steamed-up chip shop window we were huddled behind.
From that spot, we watched her walk all the way up to the lighthouse and let herself in.
And then the rubies in my throat pulsed white hot, their roots coiling around my windpipe until all I could do was scream.