Stephen Mallory

Stephen Mallory was a black superintendent in the London police. He was in charge of juvenile delinquents in London and surrounding areas.

Biography
Stephen Mallory first appears when Matt has been arrested for wounding a security guard. Mallory takes a liking to Matt, and it seems that Matt is more a victim than a criminal. Mallory stresses the crime that Matt was involved in and says his sentence will be less severe than Kelvin Johnson, Matt's treacherous associate. Stephen Mallory says he knows Matt was innocent, because he spoke with the injured guard. He also says that Matt will be in a detention center for a few months.

Later that evening, Stephen Mallory speaks to Gwenda Davis, Matt's aunt, who acts like she committed a crime. She dislikes Mallory and he dislikes her, seeing her as shabby. However, he likes Matt, and wonders why he got involved.

Mallory is the only one to wish Matt good luck before he goes to the Yorkshire moors with Jayne Deverill. Unlike the judges, Mallory is the only one who is doubtful of Jayne and reconsiders the whole affair.

Stephen Mallory later speaks to Kelvin and looks into the case more. He takes a train up to Suffolk and looks into a case file about Matt and his apparent psychic nature. Because he predicted his parent's deaths, recorded in the file, Mallory goes to see their neighbour, Rosemary Green, who was a friend of Matt's. She quickly confirms the report. Mallory then goes up to London again and on the train he sees that a drug addict was found dead in Lincoln's Inn offices, and an old woman (Jayne Deverill) was the only one seen nearby. This means Mallory suspects her, and he heads straight to Yorkshire to pull Matt out of Deverill's house.

Stephen Mallory finds Lesser Malling hard to find and when he gets there he sees Noah the farmhand tormenting and hitting Matthew. Mallory is shocked and scolds Jayne Deverill for not sending Matt to school despite her promise. Mallory says that Jayne is doing everything wrong, and he will pull Matt out of her care. She says "I wouldn't do that if I were you," and she has the cheek to claim she is a law-abiding citizen. She then storms off into her house saying "We'll see who ends up with the red face" and Mallory promises that he will return tomorrow, because he couldn't just snatch Matt away from Jayne, she could twist it round to say he abducted Matt. So he will sort out paperwork and Mallory promises to return tomorrow.

However, as he drives off, Matt notices Jayne Deverill is dressed in black.

Mallory heads down the country on the motorway, and is mulling over the events. He reckons Matt will be safer in prison, or in a detention center. Mallory switches on the radio, but is puzzled when it breaks. Hissing comes out, then faint whispering.

Mallory wonders if the radio is broken but the whispering gets louder. Its later revealed to be a warped version of the Lord's prayer, backwards. Mallory doesn't know this he just wants to stop the car. But for some reason it is speeding up. Finally, it speeds over a bypass, and smashes right into a truck. Both vehicles explode, and Stephen Mallory is dead. His death was reported on the radio the next morning. Jayne Deverill is very pleased about it because she made it happen.

Trivia

 * Stephen Mallory was one of Matt's first allies. He died first.
 * Stephen Mallory fulfills the horror tradition of "The black man dies first."
 * Unlike Matt's other allies, he knew nothing of the supernatural, or if he did, he didn't believe it.