Like an arrested felon he was alone on the back seat of the police car. A massive wall of uniform towered over the back of the seat in front; the constable from the station was driving, staring expressionlessly at the road and handling the gear-stick and steering wheel with mechanical detachment.
'But who are they?' asked Loofah, 'And why did they bring us here? I don't really understand.'
'You don't need to understand,' snapped the Under Manager from the front passenger seat, without turning.
'But—,' he began, but stopped, sinking back into the seat.
The police car glided smoothly along the narrow road. Dark woods slid over the glass beside Loofah's head, followed by a sudden blur of high hedges, a brilliant green flash of open fields then more woods. Perhaps Miss Leggett was right, perhaps he shouldn't interfere, perhaps he should just go along with what she wanted and try to keep out of trouble. He sighed deeply and stared at the window, hoping to be carried away by the endless river of colour and blurred shape pouring through his eyes. But unease squirmed in his belly like a restless tapeworm and his fingers remained tightly gripped to the river's grassy bank. He had to try again.
'But Miss Leggett,' Loofah said, leaning forward, 'I would be able to help you much more if I were properly in the picture.' He waited for a response, but none came. 'Just for example: if I had known that these people might be trying to stop me from getting near the—' he winced, '—the creature, I could have been on my guard. If you had told me before that the little fat man was working for them then—.'
'You failed to inform us that this enemy agent had previously approached you,' she snapped, spinning round to blast him with a furious glare.
'But I didn't know he was an enemy agent, did I? Because you never told me anything about any enemy agents. You never told me much about anything, for that matter.'
She sighed with exasperation and turned back to face the front.
'It's really very, very simple,' she said, addressing the windscreen and clearly struggling to control her temper, 'You and the other one have been brought here by undesirable elements. These same elements are now using the creature to further their own evil ends. Presumably you remember what that means—or do I need to show you the photographs again?'
Loofah cringed with guilt as fresh puppy blood and severed infant organs splattered against the speeding windscreen.
'And if you will now for once co-operate, we can bring this foulness to an end,' she went on, 'And at the same time get you away from here—and back where you belong.'
'All I have to do is catch it,' Loofah said quietly, 'And it's got to be me—no-one else will do.'
'Exactly.'
The chill miasma of a desecrated tomb wafted through his soul and he shuddered. Yes, it was out there, somewhere beyond the coloured blur of the side window his nemesis was waiting for him. The bravado that had accompanied the false train sighting has now evaporated—he knew that the next encounter would be for real.
He held a hand in front of his face. The skin flowed over the palm, shades of red, green and blue flowing and blending together like oil on water, with the fingers coming in and out of focus of their own accord, fronds of seaweed undulating in the liquid air. Then, as he stared at the window, the blur poured off the glass and in through his eyes sockets, and then swirled in his skull like swamp miasma. Loofah gazed into the murk, trying desperately to make sense of the half-formed shapes that lurked there.
Peony's spoilt little face loomed out of the fog, followed quickly by Mrs Frimpton's winged-frame spectacles and the ruined telephone kiosk. Perhaps he was, as Miss Leggett repeatedly insisted, no more than an trouble-maker, an abuser of little girl's dolls, a laundry tamperer, a gratuitous vandal. Slime-covered octopus tentacles probed through his abdomen, worming between the steaming loops of his intestines. Or possibly even worse—another face appeared, peeping out from behind a blood-wet axe blade—for was he not, in some weird way, bound up with it, together with all its vile crimes? The tentacles gripped hard and he doubled forward, clutching at his belly.
But now something new was floating out of the fog—it was a girl, the diaphanous whiteness of her gown flowing in a light mist over her golden body. She turned to him and her smile was a warm balm poured over the icy knot of his guts. Then she swam forward and her mouth started moving as if she were chanting some sacred mantra and, although he heard no sound, he knew the words she spoke. And she was not alone; the little schoolgirl dogs were there too, wagging her tails, and also the seagull peg and the cinema usherette with her tray of ice-creams, all drifting in the fog around the girl, all chanting in unison with her, monotonously and insistently. He saw that they were all smiling benignly, all wishing him well—even the wicked little peg had a benevolent glint in its beady black eye. And why? Because he was the long awaited quester for the mysterious female Janus whose title they chanted.
Loofah again leaned forward. 'I have one more question, Miss Leggett.' As he spoke, the police radio under the dashboard came to life, buzzing and then crackling incoherently. 'Who is—?'
'Be quiet!' snapped the Under Manager and snatched up the handset, 'Shower curtain to towel rail, shower curtain to towel rail. Repeat your message. Over.'
The radio crackled again and this time words emerged, bobbing like corks out of the liquid noise. 'Towel rail to shower curtain, towel rail to shower curtain. Bath sponge has been sighted. I repeat, bath sponge has been sighted. Proceed at one to plug hole—soap dish and rubber duck are already at the scene. Over and out.'
The Under Manager tensed visibly as the message came through and as soon it was finished she turned to the monolithic constable.
'Well?' she hissed, 'What are you waiting for?'
For a few seconds he showed no sign of having heard her. Then his hand seemed to tighten, ever so slightly, on the steering wheel, easing it gently to the right. And suddenly Loofah was at the centre of a howling tornado of wrenching G-force, whirling hedgerow and screaming tyres as they spun across the tarmac in a fairground terror-ride. This time, however, the car did not come to stop, but flew out of the spin like a loosed arrow, the acceleration hurling him back into the hard vinyl.
The police siren howled and other cars, small weak things, scuttled out of their way like frightened chickens. They flew down a long hill between stands of dark forest, then swept effortlessly up the other side, scudding from crest to crest over the slow waves of tarmac that rolled down towards them.
'What's going on?' asked Loofah, as calmly as he could manage.
'Visual contact with target re-established,' replied the Under Manager, 'We'll be there very soon.'
The meaning of her words trickled down his spine like cold, clammy mucous and a small army of soft-bodied invertebrates crawled under his skin. Although the speeding landscape still whirled across the windscreen, inside the car all was still, deadly still. Loofah remembered his interrupted question.
'Miss Leggett,' he said, quietly and slowly, 'Who is The Woman Who Looks Both Ways?'
Her back tensed, but she did not turn or reply. Then suddenly Loofah was thrown forward, nearly crashing into the towering wall of the constable's back. The car swerved to the left and screeched to a halt in a tidal wave of flying gravel.
They were in a large unmetalled lay-by parked behind an unmarked saloon and another police car. Uniformed officers milled around and a big man in a sheepskin coat rushed to meet Miss Leggett as she leapt out of the car. Loofah instantly recognised the small round head with its eternal grin.
After a rapid exchange with Truscott, the Under Manager strode back to the car and pulled open the back door.
'Get out!' she said, her voice hard with urgency.
Loofah did not move.
'Be quick!' she cried, 'It's getting away!'
He turned slowly to face her. 'Miss Leggett,' he said, 'you haven't answered my question.'
They marched him quickly across the pot-holed gravel, Truscott one side and the Under Manager the other. From behind came the whooping roar of vehicles on the road—ahead was a dark wall of conifer woods, dense and ominous.
'So the—the thing is helping them to find her?' Loofah asked, 'To find the double woman?'
'This way,' said Truscott, steering them towards a pathway into the wood at the end of the lay-by, 'Meadows is in there already—he's got it under surveillance.'
'But I don't understand,' Loofah continued, stopping, 'Why do they want to find her?'
'Hurry up, will you?' snapped Miss Leggett, pulling at his arm. But he resisted, mule-stubborn, bringing the whole party to a sudden halt. She sighed with exasperation.
'I've already told you—the two-faced witch is a foul and evil creature, but has certain—powers. If your friend in there manages to find her for them there will be no end to the havoc they will be able to wreak.' She turned to Loofah, at last warming to her theme. 'Just think about it, will you? All of Mr Stobart's good works—the community projects, the work with children and old people and homeless animals—all thrown into jeopardy, set back by years.' She paused dramatically. 'It just doesn't bear thinking about.'
'And all because of The Woman Who Looks Both Ways? She sounds very—unpleasant,' said Loofah, as the nymph in his head, lovely as ever, whispered her endless mantra.
'Now will you please hurry,' said Miss Leggett, a faint tone of desperation in her voice, 'Before we lose it.'
He now allowed them to lead him forward and was swallowed into the green half-light. The roar of the road became a faint hum, muffled in the mausoleum quiet of the trees.
They walked in single file as the path wound through the tightly packed trunks, Truscott leading, Loofah in the middle, with the Under Manager coming up behind. The dark silence throbbed with the growing dread of what he was about to face. And yet, despite the heavy pulse, he could still clearly hear the noiseless whispers of the nymph and her friends, nibbling through his brains like an infestation of hungry mice.
There was a noise ahead. Truscott dropped to a crouch, signalling for Loofah to do the same. The footsteps got closer—crunching pine needles, breaking twigs—and the pulse of dread roared to a sudden crescendo. Then a figure appeared from behind a screen of narrow trunks; it was Meadows—Loofah breathed again.
His relief, however, was short-lived.
'Up ahead,' hissed the Detective Sergeant, his malicious eyes darting from side to side like those of an excited lizard, 'No time to lose!'
'Right then,' said Miss Leggett from behind, 'away you go.'
Loofah became aware of three pairs of eyes focused on him. He looked from one to the other: Meadows sneering with reptilian malice, Truscott smiling him a smile of empty benevolence, and the Under Manger sighing with repressed impatience.
'Me?' he said weakly.
'Of course you,' snapped Miss Leggett, 'We've been through all this already.'
'But alone?' whimpered Loofah, 'I thought you might come with me, to show me what to do.'
'You know what to do. Now get going!' With this she pushed him forward into Truscott, who manhandled him towards Meadows, who propelled him, with some momentum, up the path.
Loofah stumbled forward a few yards then stopped and looked back over his shoulder. All three were watching him, crouched beside the path. He opened his mouth for one last appeal, but the Under Manager angrily waved him away. And so, swallowing hard, he turned and began to edge slowly forward, walking on tiptoe with pantomime stealth.
The rod-straight trunks formed an impenetrable palisade either side of him and chaos of branches meshed over the path, blotting out the light. He was in a corridor, a twisting dimly lit corridor. Miss Leggett and her cohorts were out of sight after the first turn in the path and he could see nothing ahead beyond the first bend. He was going too fast—his enemy could be around the next bend, or perhaps the one after that—but when Loofah tried to slow down the sinuous walls of the corridor seemed to propel him forward. The dreadful silence throbbed louder with every step.
He turned a corner and unexpectedly staggered out into open woodland; at last he was free of the horrid corridor of conifers and out among mature deciduous trees, stolid oak and reassuring beech, keeping a respectable distance from each other, giving themselves—and him—space to breathe. The sunlight dappled through the branches and the air was clear and fresh. No longer propelled towards his doom by the walls of the corridor, Loofah slowed his pace to a stroll and inhaled deeply, forcing down his fear and trying to enjoy his unexpected liberation.
Yet although he was free of the conifers, the pulse of dread seemed to have increased in intensity. And as if in reaction to this increase the endless silent mantra about the double-faced woman was now echoing round the cavern of his cranium with renewed urgency. It was then that he noticed a fresh sensation—a discomfort in the pit of his stomach as a tiny maggot of doubt gnawed its way steadily through the underside of his liver. Loofah could still feel the unwavering will of the Under Manager forcing him onwards to his date with destiny, like some science fiction force-field beam controlled from her hiding place a hundreds behind. The reasons for following this will were both numerous and compelling, and yet…
Despite the crystal-clarity of the liquid air under the trees, he realised that the inside of his skull was an impenetrable fog of ignorance and confusion—and the paltry few facts that he had managed to wring out of Miss Leggett had only added to the obfuscation rather than dispersed it. Like a delightful hologram, the diaphanous image of the chanting nymph was now rotating slowly in the sun-dappled light, the maggot growing in size and vigour with each repetition of her mantra. Then a clear thought congealed out of the swirling obscurity: perhaps he should defy the Under Manager's will—the puff-angry face glared at him from a small clump of dog's mercury, but he ignored it—and try to find out more before committing himself to something as momentous and hideously irrevocable as a confrontation with—.
Suddenly he stopped, paralysed into total stillness. For a long moment he just stared, unable to look away, then at last managed to snap his eyes closed, squeezing the lids together in an effort to block out the image that still glowed on his retinas. For it was there, ahead of him on the path, among the trees at the top of the gentle hill that sloped up from where he was standing. It had had its back to him and so he hadn't seen either its face or the fateful tee-shirt—but this time he knew with absolute certainty.
For an eternity he stood in blackness as a whirling storm of chaos roared through his skull. As he struggled to bring some sort of order, naked fear tore through like a scream, blotting out all else, and when, welling up from core of his being like an oil strike, came a dark plume of hatred.
A deep and ominous hatred, unfathomable as an ocean trough, it flowed through him, first calming the storm and then crystallising into a deadly ice around the hideous image. This thing was an offence and an aberration, by its very being it negated him, it poisoned his life. He wanted it dead, he wanted it gone, indeed he wanted it never to have lived, he wanted its very existence blotted out from time itself.
A fresh image now filled his mind, as clear as a video picture. He was sitting across its chest, pinning it to the ground, and as it cringed with terror he brought a massive stone down onto its face, crunching its spectacles into its jelly-eyes, spattering its brains across the leaves. The image could become reality—he could actually feel his hands ripping open its belly and coiling up its steaming intestines like a washing line—no, it must become reality. The need to kill pulsed through him like an urgent heartbeat, quelling any remnants of uncertainty.
He opened his eyes. It was still there, now disappearing from view over the brow of the hill. Red hot blood pumped through his ears and as he launched himself forward, a beast's roar tore from his throat.
The creature turned. For a moment it just stared at him with puzzled surprise—then recognition dawned and its face twisted into a mask of hatred, a hatred so powerful that the creature's eyes actually glowed with the pale light of its loathing. It seemed to hesitate, but instead of charging forward to meet him in savage combat on the sun-dappled hillock, it spun away and leapt off the path into the trees.
At the top of the hill, he swerved off the path in pursuit. His legs pumped like steam pistons, powered by the white heat of his own hatred, and his vision narrowed into a focused tunnel—he saw nothing but the fleeing black jacket. He screamed again, a formless noise of fury, and hurled himself after it.
He breathed easily and he did not tire—the death-lust had transcended his body's limitations—and yet he was getting no closer. When he went faster it went faster, when he doubled the manic power of his express train legs it seemed to find equivalent strength, and so the distance between them remained the same, the bobbing black back in his tunnel of loathing grew no larger.
For an infinity he was swerving between the looming trunks and leaping over fallen branches and patches of undergrowth, enveloped in his loathing, aware of nothing but the figure in front. It was always there, never closer, never further, as if it were etched onto the lenses of his spectacles. They were tied together, he and it, locked forever in this endless chase.
And then without warning it went down, tripping on a tree root and sailing out into the air, a diver without a pool, before crashing full length on the soft ground crumpling into a tumble of twisting limbs. For a brief moment he faltered but then, with a howl of triumph, he lunged forward for the kill.
As he charged the creature struggled to its feet and started to run, but stumbled to a halt after a few paces—it had lost a shoe in the fall—and turned to face him. The distance between them closed rapidly; it hunched down, clenching its fists, ready for his murderous onslaught, and with mad fury shrieking through his skull he focussed the laser of his loathing on its hideous face, now visible at last.
But then something happened—a wave of strangeness flooded over him, filling his veins with masses of tiny eels, and the furious energy ebbed from his charge. His momentum sapped, he stumbled to a halt with no more than twenty yards separating them.
For an era he knew nothing. Marooned in pool of stalled time, he was staring into a mirror, gazing into his own soul. Tree trunks spun around him in a dizzying waltz and the forest floor swayed under his feet, while his whole being squirmed and twisted like a worm on a pin.
Something moved at the edge of the pool, a flash of white. He turned from mirror to see a girl in a white gown floating through the trees towards him. She smiled, flooding him with sunshine, and when she was at his side she reached up to coil her slender arms around his neck. His eyes slid closed and, with lips trembling for the soft warmth of her kiss, he folded her in his arms and—.
His arms closed on nothing, his lips remained cold. He opened his eyes—and saw the girl, twenty yards away, reaching up to kiss him. No, it was not him that she was kissing—it was the other one! A sword-thrust of naked pain sliced into his guts and he staggered backwards. Then, as their lips met, he bellowed like a speared bull and hurled himself at them, insane with jealous rage.
But as he leapt to tear them apart, he fell into a wall of emptiness.
It was a pure white emptiness, sweetly perfumed. For a moment he was a disembodied consciousness afloat in a world of abstract whiteness. Then, however, dry leaves crunched under his soles as he moved, indicating the existence of legs and feet. Sensing something at the end of an arm, he lifted it to his face and a hand coalesced out of the whiteness a few inches from his face.
As he lowered his hand, Loofah glimpsed a vague image quickly dissolving into the fog, an image of a little white dog thrashing out its death throes among the blood-soaked shards of a broken mirror. He exhaled into the opaque air, with an odd feeling of being lucky to be alive.