Free The Echo by Minette Walters Page A

about his mother groaning, his father weeping, and demons leaping out of clouds."
    "Can you quote it?"
    Terry looked at the others for inspiration. "Not really," he said when he didn't find any. "He always began with 'my mother groaned, my father wept' but I forget what came after."
    Deacon cupped his cigarette in his hands and dredged deep into his memory. " 'My mother groaned, my father wept,' " he murmured, " 'Into the dangerous world I leapt;/ Helpless, naked, piping loud,/ Like a fiend hid in a cloud."
    "Yeah," said the young man with surprised respect. "How the hell did you know that?"
    "It's a poem entitled Infant Sorrow by a man called William Blake. I wrote a thesis on him years ago. He was an eighteenth century poet and artist who was considered off the wall by his contemporaries because he claimed to see visions." Deacon gave a faint smile. "William wrote some wonderful poetry, but lived and died in virtual poverty because no one recognized his genius until after he was dead. I suspect your friend knew William and his work rather well."
    "Yeah," said Terry with quick intelligence. "William Blake. Billy Blake. What else did this guy write?"
    " 'Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/ In the forests of the night,' " Deacon paused, inviting the lad to finish it.
    " 'What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?' " said the youngster in triumph. "Yeah, Billy were always spouting that one. I told him it didn't rhyme properly, and he said you had to stress thy , which was where the rhyme was."
    Deacon nodded. Had Billy Blake been a teacher? he wondered. "There's a line in the next verse that goes: 'What the hand dare seize the fire?' Was he thinking of that, do you suppose, when he tried to burn his own hand?"
    "I dunno. It depends what it means."
    "The tiger represents power, energy, and cruelty. The poem describes this beautiful but uncontrollable creature being forged in flames and then goes on to question why his creator was brave enough to manufacture anything so dangerous." Deacon could see he'd lost the others but there was keen interest still in Terry's face. "It's the creator's hand that dared 'seize the fire,' so perhaps Billy thought he'd started something that he couldn't control."
    "Maybe." A faraway look came into the young man's eyes as he stared across the river. "Is the creator God?"
    "A god. Blake doesn't specify which one."
    "Billy reckoned there were loads of gods. Gods of war. Gods of love. Gods of rivers. Gods of every bloody thing. He used to swear at them all the time. 'It's your fault, you buggers,' he used to shout, 'so let me alone and let me die.' I said he should just stop believing that the gods were there, then he wouldn't have to hate them. Makes sense, doesn't it?" The pinched face turned back towards the brazier.
    "What did he think was the gods' fault?'
    "It's not what he thought ," said Terry with careful emphasis, "it's what he knew ." He reached out and gripped the air with his fingers. "He strangled someone because the gods wrote it into his fate. That's why he stuck his hand in the fire. He called it the 'offending instrument' and said 'such sacrifices were necessary if the gods' anger was to be directed somewhere else.' Poor bastard. He didn't know his arse from his elbow most of the time."
    On Terry's instructions, Deacon gave the bottle of Bells whiskey into the care of the old man in the balaclava, before following Terry into the warehouse to see where Billy had slept. "It's a waste of time," the lad grumbled. "He's been dead six months. What are you expecting to find?"
    "Anything."
    "Listen, there've been a hundred derelicts in his space since he kicked it. You won't find nothing." But despite this he led Deacon into the gloom. "You nuts or what?" he said in amusement as Deacon lit a small pool of light at their feet with his flashlight. "That's not going to help you see a damn thing. Just wait, okay. Your eyes'll soon adjust. There's enough light comes through the