Read Kill Fish Jones for Free Online Page A

again. ‘Yes! I do remember now. You were the man who helped.’
    Fish risked a glance at the creature in the corner. It was watching Susan and Jon with great attention. Because it was so close now, Fish couldn’t help a shiver as he noticed its eyes, which were inky black from corner to corner. It was dressed in patched trousers with a hole cut out for its tail and had a complicated watch strapped to one skinny wrist. Fish also noticed that what he had taken for a hump was actually a filthy old backpack, made of worn leather with tarnished buckles and a couple of sturdy pockets on the front. Suddenly, the creature looked up, as if it sensed Fish’s gaze. Quickly, Fish turned his attention back to the conversation.
    Jon’s voice had become sad as he went on. ‘Thing is, Steve is dead now, which is part of the reason why those last few coffins haven’t been buried again – they haven’t found anyone else to finish the work yet. He drowned in the lake after his house burnt down, his wife fell off a roof on to the railings, his son had a horrible accident with a fire hose, and his daughter got crushed in some revolving doors.’
    Marsha and Susan were staring at Jon in horror. Fish felt an icy trickle run down his spine. Things were getting worse and worse. The web of death and disaster stretched further than he had realised. All over again, he found himself remembering the vicar’s horrible death.
    â€˜And then, just after Steve’s death in fact, my dog exploded, the roof of my house was crushed in by a falling tree and Emily got bashed on the head and went to hospital. The bash on the head didn’t kill her straight away, but last night … She never regained consciousness, not even once.’
    Jon bowed his head, the tears running down his cheeks. He didn’t try to stop them or to wipe them away. Susan put out a hand and touched his arm.
    Fish sent a look of undiluted fury at the creature, sure that it was somehow responsible for all this horror. It was scribbling in its notebook and didn’t notice the look, which was good because if it had it would have known at once that Fish could see it.
    Jon got a hold of himself and straightened up. He raised his head. Fish thought he looked afraid.
    â€˜And how is the vicar?’ Jon asked. It seemed like an innocent enough question, but Fish knew at once that it wasn’t.
    Susan looked puzzled, then sad, then terrified. ‘He died just the other day. He was up in the bell tower and … Of course, some people said it might be suicide because of his house collapsing due to subsidence, hiswife falling off that mountain in Switzerland and his … his mother being run over by a lawn mower, but I
knew
him and he
wouldn’t
.’
    The icy trickle had spread, seeping through Fish to his core. Suddenly the catalogue of pain was full of hidden meaning. The terrible things that had happened to the vicar were linked in some way to the terrible things that had happened to his own family, to Jon Figg and to Jon’s friend Steve. Was the demon causing it all somehow? And if so, why?
    He felt his mother’s eyes on his face, looking at him searchingly, so he met her gaze and put his hand in hers. He ignored the demon, which was watching them all intently, as if waiting for something.
    With a sigh, Jon nodded. ‘Yes, I thought that might be another reason why the reburial of the coffins from St Michael’s hasn’t gone ahead.’
    Marsha was staring at them with wide eyes full of shock. It was as if fear had infected them all, spreading from one to another like a plague.
    â€˜And then …’ Marsha gasped, her brain putting all the pieces together and coming to one inescapable conclusion, ‘… and then Susan’s house got knocked down and my Reg died.’
    Four pairs of eyes locked across the table, and Fish’s heart turned over.
    â€˜It’s …’
    In the corner,