Beth reached into the hulk, scratching her hand on a piece of sharp metal as she did so. Robbins' face soured when she pressed her fingers to the man's neck. She turned to him and shook her head. The DCI followed the diver's descent again, looking up to see another figure on the balcony where he'd fallen. Beth saw it too. This time Robbins called for backup.

"Matthew," she said out loud, "what have you done?"

They wasted valuable moments trying the lift in the block of flats, then were forced to race up the stairs.

Turning on to the floor that contained the flat they were looking for, they fully expected the figure to be gone by now. But he wasn't; he stood there looking down on the scene below, both hands on the balcony rail. The door to the flat was open behind him.

They approached him slowly, cautiously. Robbins spoke first, telling him to keep his hands where he could see them.

"You think I did this," said the man. It wasn't a question.

"I don't see anyone else around here," said Robbins.

"Matthew," said Becky, "why?"

He turned then to answer her. "It wasn't up to me to judge him, he knew that."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" asked Robbins.

The man didn't say any more, and he offered no resistance when Robbins took him by the arm, cuffed him, and started to lead him away. "We'll take him back to the station," he said to Beth, "but I've no idea what will happen after that."

Beth leaned over the balcony and looked down at the fall. She shut her eyes when she thought what that man had just been through. Then she followed Robbins and Matthew back down the stairs again. By the time they reached the street an ambulance had arrived, and the police. Robbins pushed his prisoner's head down as he deposited him in the back of a squad car. The residents of the flats, all used to minding their own business, came out through their doors to look when they heard the sirens. The owner of the car was screaming about insurance and asking who was to blame. (Ironically, in his heyday Douglas Knowles would have been able to point her in the right direction.)

More white and orange vehicles were arriving now and Robbins knew that this could go on well into the early hours of the morning. Statements would need to be taken, the body disentangled and taken away.

Beth joined him again. "What about Matthew? What about who, whathe is?"

"Tomorrow," the DCI said softly, chewing on an antacid tablet. "We'll talk about all that tomorrow."

Chapter Fifteen

He'd sat with Irene Daley that night until she'd finally dropped to sleep.

They'd prayed and read from the Bible together, but Father Lilley was extremely concerned about her. It wasn't so much the stress of the last few days, although it was clear that had taken its toll. She was a shadow of herself, having barely eaten in all that time. But no, it was more the way her mind was working now. She was having dangerous thoughts about the person who had shown up at her doorstep and couldn't possibly be Matthew.

"But father, what if----"

"Irene, he is not your son. He can'tbe. You said yourself."

"And the grave?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, I can't explain it. But I do know that Matthew is with Our Savior right now, not walking this earth."

He firmly believed it. That thingmight look and sound like Matthew, but it certainly wasn't the boy he confirmed, the man he'd listened to as he confessed. The man he'd put in the ground while his family stood around the graveside: a grave now thoughtlessly desecrated because of the creaturepretending to be him. The more Lilley himself pondered on it, the more convinced he became that this person----if indeed he was a person at all----was here for the most wicked of purposes.

Already it was infecting Irene Daley's mind, and was in the process of convincing others that it wasMatthew. He looked to the good book----as always----for help and guidance, references to the Devil, how he might send his minions back to wreak havoc.

' And as ye have heard that the antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists' John 2:18.

Had Matthew's body been invaded by a demon or ungodly spirit? Lilley hadn't ever performed an exorcism and wasn't about to start now.

As he sat downstairs in Irene's house, the dawn about to break on this another day, he looked at the photograph of mother and son together. Lilley wondered how his own father, the staunch Catholic who had instilled in him all that was right and good, might have dealt with such a challenge of faith. He thought he could almost hear the man's voice telling him what to do then. Lilley nodded. It was time for him to become a soldier of God himself, to become the Lord's right hand.

He hadto stop this evil from spreading. And there was only one way he could think of to do it.

~

The phone in Robbins' office hadn't stopped ringing all morning, and by midday he had his orders. The case was being taken out of his hands and the man they were holding with relation to the death of one Douglas Knowles was to be transferred to a secure facility for questioning. The further tests Beth had wanted to perform would also be handled by 'more experienced' government doctors, Robbins was told. Arrangements would also be made at some point to move Knowles' body from the local hospital.

"See," he told her when he finally emerged. "Just as I thought."

"They can't do that. What's going to happen to him?"

He looked her in the eye and said seriously, "I don't know, but you can't charge a dead man with murder, Beth."

Wilson, now back at work but refusing to go anywhere near the cells, drew their attention to the television in the corner. Several officers were gathered around it, listening to the report. Becky recognized a pixilated picture of Matthew from the hospital, the newscaster telling the world about the miracle recovery of motorcyclist Phil Barnes. There was also some confusion as to who exactly the man in the photo was, although the likeness to a 'hit and run' accident victim from seven years ago was definitely uncanny.

"It'll only be a matter of time before they link it with the exhumation and what happened last night," Robbins said.

By two o'clock that afternoon the police station was besieged with reporters and TV crews, and the internet was awash with rumors about Matthew.

Becky observed the crowds gathering outside. "It's going to be hard for anyone to keep all this quiet now."

An unmarked van arrived for their guest at four. Robbins was to give it an escort of squad cars until it reached the motorway, then the whole thing would be out of their hands. When Robbins and Beth went down to the cells, where he was under constant surveillance by three police officers, the man was still not speaking. He hadn't said a thing since the balcony.

"Time to go," Robbins told him.

As Valentine and WPC Adams led the man out of the cell, he paused when he caught Beth's eye. "Don't worry, you'll see her again," he told her.

Robbins watched him go. "What did he say? See who?"

Beth fought back a tear. "Doesn't matter."

They walked with him to the back door of the station, opening it up to see the van there in the car park, waiting. But even before they'd reached the second step at the entranceway a deluge of people started piling in behind the van. Someone had tipped them off and the news people weren't about to miss the biggest scoop of the year, if not the decade.