Bright Angel

by Isabelle Merlin

  I lay the twigs and bark and leaves carefully in the fireplace. Pity I didn’t have any paper, but it couldn’t be helped. I had three matches, had to be very careful with them. But I was lucky. The stuff took first time, and soon the fire was crackling happily. I went and got some bigger pieces of wood and put a few pieces on so the tin could rest on them. Then I went and gathered up as many broad bean pods as I could. In among the weeds, I also found a bit of parsley and mint. Hell, I’d have a feast, I thought.

  I podded the beans and dropped them into the water, which was beginning to simmer. The beans were quite young. They didn’t take long to cook. Very carefully, I tipped out the water, sprinkled salt and the torn-up parsley and mint into the tin, and ate the whole concoction with my hands, as there was no spoon or fork or anything here.

  It tasted fantastic, like the best thing I’d ever eaten, that’s how hungry I was. See, I’d not had anything since that sandwich Radic had given me, and I’d left Mick’s chocolate bar behind in my rush to get away from his caravan. I thought, I’ll never ever whinge about broad beans again. They’ll become my favourite vegies, Dad will be so surprised!

  At least my tummy was full now. And the fire was going well. The house felt warmer, less bleak. I was feeling better. More human. Less scared. But still tired. I’d have to stretch out on that grotty camp bed, even if just for a little while. Beyond that I couldn’t think just now. I knew I had to somehow get to St-Bertrand before midnight but it was a hazy idea and one I had no notion of how I was going to achieve. I’ll sleep on it, I thought. Things will be clearer after a little sleep.

  So I pulled down the curtain from the window, dusted off the camp bed, lay the curtain on that and then the piece of cloth I’d balled up under my arm for the crutch. It was at least clean-ish. I lay down on that, thinking I’d try to go over in my mind what I should do next, but just about as soon as I lay my head down, I fall fast asleep.

  At first it was just sleep, heavy, deep, untroubled. But then it changed, and I slid into a scary dream. I was in a dark place, but ahead of me there was light. Silvery, gleaming light, shining gently. In that light, silhouetted against it, I could see Daniel and Gabriel. They had their backs to me. I called out, but they didn’t hear. I tried to move, towards the light, but my feet felt screwed down to the ground. Then suddenly the light changed. From a gentle glowing orb it lengthened, sharpened, turned into a human shape, gleaming. I was terrified. I tried to turn, to run away, but still I couldn’t move. The figure turned towards me. I could see the whites of eyes, shining, but I couldn’t distinguish the features of the face. The figure took a step towards me. I was even more terrified. I opened my mouth to scream, but no words came. Then the figure raised a hand – a finger pointed towards me – a ray of light came from its finger and touched me on the shoulder and it was like fire and I woke up, yelling in pain and fright.

  At first I thought I was still dreaming. The room was full of moonlight. There was a human shape, looming over me. But as my pulse slowly calmed down, I realised that not only could I see the features of the face, I recognised its owner.

  I don’t know which of us was the more startled. The visitor and I stared at each other for a stunned moment before either of us spoke. Then we both spoke at once.

  ‘Sylvie! Bon sang! Que fais-tu ici?’

  ‘Marc! What the hell are you doing here!’

  ‘I came to see this place,’ he said, in English, his eyes searching my face. ‘I said I’d check it out for Claudine.’

  Claudine? From the depths of my mind I dredged up the memory. ‘Oh, the film director.’

  ‘Yes. We thought it might be a good setting for a certain scene, especially in moonlight.’ His voice trailed off. ‘But never mind that. You – what on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Did Claire say anything to you?’

  ‘No. I haven’t seen her at all today. I’ve been away. But–’ He rubbed at his hair, stared at me. ‘I-I don’t know what’s going on. Have you run away or something? Is it because of what happened to the boys?’

  ‘What? Oh, no. I mean yes. No, I haven’t run away. Yes. I’m looking for Daniel and Gabriel.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he said. ‘The police are doing that. And if you’ve just taken off like that, your aunt and Claire will be frantic. You have to–’

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘what’s the time?’

  His eyes widened. ‘What on earth?’

  I said, hurriedly, ‘It’s really important. Super urgent. The time.’

  He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and looked at his watch. ‘Five minutes to midnight.’

  ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ I tried to jump up from the bed, but my ankle gave way, and I would’ve fallen if he hadn’t grabbed hold of me. He said, ‘You’re hurt.’

  ‘I just twisted my ankle when we were running, it’s nothing, oh my God, I’ve got to get to the cathedral before it’s too late, I’ve got to. Did you bring a car? God, where are we? Are we a long way from St-Bertrand here, I have no idea, I–’ I was almost crying now, frantic with worry and fear.

  He looked at me. He said, ‘Yes, I have a car, parked not far. And St-Just is only a few minutes away, so St-Bertrand’s pretty close. But the cathedral, Sylvie, you’re not making sense. Why the cathedral?’

  ‘I don’t have time to explain. Please, let’s just go. Please, hurry.’

  ‘The cathedral’s locked at this time of night,’ he said. ‘You can’t get in. No-one can get in. Why?’

  ‘Please, it’s a matter of life and death. Daniel and Gabriel will be there. Let’s go.’ I was at the door already, pulling it open, ready to start off.

  He caught up with me. ‘Give me your arm,’ he said. ‘No, better still. I’ll carry you.’ And suiting the action to the word, he picked me up and carried me, half walking, half-running back to his car, my sense of urgency obviously having infected him too.

  The hut was only a short distance from the road, just into the woods. If I’d kept walking just a little longer last night, heading straight up from the hut, I’d have found the road. I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep and I cursed myself for it because if St-Just was only a few minutes away by car, then even on foot it would have not taken me that long to walk to St-Bertrand after that and I’d have been there on time.

  Marc bundled me into the car. We started off, going fast. I tried to tell him what had happened but I was so nervous and worried about what was happening in that cathedral that the words came out all jumbled. I don’t think he can have understood much from my garbled gabble. But maybe it was because as a writer he had the imagination to piece a few things together quickly on his own, because he didn’t try to stop me or to say that we had to get back home at once or say anything at all other than that of course we had to get to the cathedral on time.

  We roared into St-Just, and were about to go through it when I noticed something. I said, ‘Stop! Stop!’

  He braked, hard. I opened the door and hobbled out. No. There was no mistake. Mick’s car was parked there, on the verge, just round the corner from the St-Just church. There was another car near it. One I didn’t recognise. A hire car, by the look of things. Top of the range. My throat thickened. My legs wobbled. Something flashed through my mind. Marc had said the cathedral at St-Bertrand was locked, that you couldn’t get in. What if they’d had to change venues?

  I had a sudden memory of the feeling that had assailed me here, that very first day. A sense of something evil, watching. Some brooding presence – maybe it had been a premonition, one of those weird things, stuff you couldn’t explain–

  Ignoring Marc’s shout to come back, and the shooting pains in my ankle, I sprinted – or rather hobbled very fast – to the church gate. I pushed it open and hurried down the path to the church. I pushed at the door. It was locked!

  I’d been so sure they’d be here. So certain. I rattled the door handle. No result. I stared at the door, panic invading my mind completely. They must be in St-Bertrand then.
I’d been wrong. Somehow they must have been able to...

  Wait. There was someone there. Someone standing at the side of the church, in the shadows, I thought, confusedly, because I couldn’t see them properly. It was small and thin and sort of wispy but I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, old or young, and I could hardly even tell what colour the person’s hair was or their clothes, for everything about them seemed faintly gleaming grey, as though bleached by the moon. I could see the person was wearing ordinary clothes – trousers, a jumper, something like that – and I could see the whites of their eyes shining but not the colour of their eyes – they were looking directly at me – and it was strange because though this was a stranger, somehow I felt as though I knew them. Because I’d seen them in my dream.

  We looked at each other for the merest moment of time and – how can I explain what happened next? I can hardly explain it to myself. Correction. I can’t, not at all. But in that instant the figure turned and walked to the end of the wall, where it met the churchyard at the back, and vanished – and inside me, at the same instant, something happened. Something changed. I found my courage again, and my clarity. I knew what I had to do.

  A rush of wings

  As I came closer, I could hear the sound of voices. Or rather, a voice, for only one person was talking, a low, fast mumble. It was a voice I recognised at once.

  I must not go barging straight in. And I had to stop Marc from doing it, too. Somehow, I knew that. I forced myself to wait an instant, two instants, till I saw Marc heading towards me through the graveyard. He was about to speak when I held up a finger to my lips. Thank God, he understood. We crept around the end of the church wall, and stopped. Carefully, we looked around the corner.

  It was the strangest sight. Something in me was sort of awed by it. Washed over by the thin silver of moonlight, the lovely little yard at the back of the church looked unearthly. The flowers had no colour, they were only faint glimmers at the bottom of the stone sarcophagi, which looked in this light like the last resting places of giants. On the air was carried a faraway tinkle of bells – the cows from the meadow beyond, wandering somewhere out of sight. The stone mask embedded in the wall, the mask with its eyes of dark emptiness – it looked weirdly alive, its eye sockets filled with grey light, its mouth open on a silent scream.

  Radic was sitting with him on a sarcophagus, perhaps even the very one where Daniel and I had sat, that wonderful day that seemed so long ago. Not Daniel, and not Gabriel sat by him – but a stranger. It wasn’t the figure I’d seen earlier – that one, puzzlingly, was nowhere to be seen – but I could guess his identity easily.

  Benedict Udo looked older and smaller than he had in the newspaper photos, and even from here I could see he was sweating, and his eyes were wide, but curiously blank. He wasn’t talking, though. Radic was doing all of that, on and on. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, because he was leaning in close to Udo, talking fast, low, not allowing him to get a word in.

  But it didn’t matter to me what he was saying. I could guess. I hardly had ears or eyes for those two, for some distance away, sitting in the grass in the shadow of the wall, not far from the mask, were Daniel and Gabriel, hands tied, and half-hidden by Mick who was standing watch over them. I could see Mick plainly, and I could also see quite plainly the thing he had in his hand. It gleamed in the moonlight with a lovely, sinister shine. I knew why Udo was sweating, and why the boys were not moving, for the gun pointed right at them and the hand which held it also held all the cards in this deadly game and there was no way out. Of course, I thought. They had never intended to come unarmed. Never intended to keep that promise. Of course not. But it surprised me that they’d managed to change the venue and come armed and still manage to trap Udo, alone. More than surprising, though, was the expression on Mick’s face.

  For, in the moonlight, Mick’s face was nothing like I’d ever seen it. It showed neither the friendly mask nor the half-glimpsed savagery of the past but a kind of exalted, almost holy look. I know that sounds totally weird, but that’s the only way I can describe it. He looked like one of those saints you see in stained-glass windows or holy pictures, with their glance up to heaven and their faces already full of otherworldly light, looking forward to their just reward. Or like the angel Michael, I thought, suddenly – the warrior angel, the angel of righteous retribution – thrusting his deadly spear without expression right in the innards of the Devil, intent on finishing his task, no matter what or who might get in the way.

  It made me shudder. But even given the element of surprise, there was no way Marc and I could do anything, right now. If we came rushing out, Mick would shoot us. Or Daniel, or Gabriel. Or all of us. He wouldn’t hesitate. I knew that as surely as if I could read Mick’s mind. In my stupidity I’d thought Radic to be worse, more dangerous than his nephew. But I’d been wrong. Completely wrong. Radic had the instincts of a thug, but Mick had those of a killer. He would shoot any one of us dead as coolly and unemotionally as though shooting a clay pigeon. And he’d not stop. He didn’t care about the spilling of blood in sacred places. He didn’t believe in heavenly protection. He didn’t believe in other people’s right to live, either. He only believed in one thing, his revenge. His certainty that he was right, about Udo, that Udo was the Devil and had to be destroyed.

  Oh, he wasn’t a sadist, I thought with a cold clear appalled knowledge. He would not enjoykilling me or the others, but he’d do it, if he felt he had to. It would mean no more to him than the squashing of a fly. He’d feel no remorse. He’d sleep well at night. Unlike his uncle who, despite his violence, might perhaps hesitate, might feel remorse. Not that I really knew about that. It was just a feeling I got in this weird state I was in myself.

  Behind me, I heard Marc move. It was a very slight sound, but it scared me, for I was afraid it would be heard. But no-one noticed. Marc tapped me on the shoulder. I turned. He mimed making a phone call. I nodded. He shrugged and whispered, right close to my ear, ‘I do not have my mobile with me. Do you?’ I shook my head. ‘I will go for the nearest house to call for help. I’ll be quick. Don’t do anything.’ I nodded, only half-listening, and hardly noticed when he left swiftly and silently over the grass.

  Radic was still earbashing Udo, whose shoulders seemed slumped under the onslaught of words. He hardly looked like the sinister underworld lord of Radic’s and Mick’s reporting, but a tired, put-upon and nervous man in a situation he did not want to be in or could hope to control. His smart suit looked rumpled and stained – was that blood? – his frame shrunken inside it.

  Why had he come alone? Someone of his sort always brought a bodyguard. Surely that couldn’t have been that person I’d seen earlier? Because then what kind of bodyguard is it that leaves his boss to face the music. But there was certainly no-one else to be seen here. Udo had been caught like a rat in a trap, without backup. How on earth had they managed that?

  I must have made some small movement without realising it, because all at once Gabriel’s eyes turned towards me. I saw his face change, just for an instant, fill with joy. I put a finger to my lips. He nodded. Alas, Mick had seen.

  ‘Who’s there? Come out, hands in the air, or I’ll shoot!’ he shouted. Not giving me time to reply, he shot anyway, in the general direction where I’d been. The bullet hit the wall, whizzing past my ear. I screamed, ‘Stop, stop, I’m coming out!’ And I stepped out, my hands above my head, my heart pounding like mad, not knowing whether this was my last minute of life on earth, not knowing if he was just going to shoot me down where I stood, my eyes not on him but on Daniel and Gabriel, staring at me with terror and love in their eyes.

  But he didn’t get a chance. Radic said harshly, ‘Stop that fooling around with the gun, Steve, for God’s sake, you’ll wake the whole bloody neighbourhood. The girl’s alone, you can see that.’

  ‘How’d she get here then?’

  Radic raised a hand in exasperation and I saw then why Udo hadn’t tried to get away. They were h
andcuffed together. ‘Your bloody caravan’s not that bloody far from here, is it? You blew it, mate. Shouldn’t have left her on her own, told you that. She’s a bloody Houdini, that one.’ Mick opened his mouth to speak, but his uncle broke him off. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake stick her over there with the others and shut up.’ He turned back to Udo. ‘Now, my friend, where were we?’

  A more sensitive man than Radic would have quailed at the black look in Mick’s eyes then. But all he said was, ‘Okay. Get over here, and don’t try any funny business.’

  He shoved me down. Oh, to be close to them again! To be able to touch them, feel their warmth, to be together again! We were in a desperate situation but it didn’t seem as bad as before because we were together, breathing the same air.

  Daniel whispered, ‘They just want money. They’re just haggling, pushing my uncle as hard as he’ll go. I think they’ll let us go once they get what they want.’

  I thought, no way, but didn’t say so. Instead, I said, ‘Why is it here? Why did your uncle agree? Why did he come alone?’

  ‘He didn’t. They ambushed his car on the road. That one – jerking a thumb at Mick – killed my uncle’s bodyguard, shot him in cold blood. They brought us here – he had no choice. They never intended to go to the cathedral.’

  ‘Oh.’ I felt stupid. How could I have thought I had any measure of control over events, how could I have imagined I could know what these ruthless people might do? And if the bodyguard was dead, then who was that other person I’d seen? Or thought I’d seen, for my mind was in confusion now and I did not know if I could trust my own senses.

  ‘Here they can get away easily. They can leave us tied up and no-one will find us till maybe late in the day.’