The Artisans

by J G Alva

He would have nothing else to go on, no idea where to go next. No clues, no witnesses. What about Detective Harris? If he wasn’t dead, then yes, but she couldn’t count on that. He might be dead, or he might just be in a coma…either way, he would be no help to her and Toby.

  The only other people who knew where they were were in this church with them: the Cult, Toby, herself and Darren.

  The short detective sat in the front pew of the nave, watching Bellafont with the same rapt attention that all the Cult members exhibited.

  But she had now begun to doubt her own cynicism about Bellafont’s so called aura.

  She had witnessed something very strange only a moment ago. She couldn’t explain it. Maybe her eyes had been playing tricks on her…

  What she had seen was Bellafont standing in front of Darren. He asked him to raise his hands. Darren did. Aimee had seen the cuffs connecting each wrist to the other clearly enough. Bellafont brought his hand up and touched an index finger to them, and they had sprung apart, dropping from Darren’s wrists.

  It was…weird.

  Suddenly, there was a knock at the door behind her.

  Three knocks, in fact.

  It was only quiet, and nobody heard it except Clive. He went to answer it.

  She tensed – not that she had many options – and waited to see who might be on the other side of the door. A policeman, a crowd of strong men…if she called out for help, then something might happen.

  But what if Bellafont slit Toby’s throat as punishment for her disobedience?

  How could she live with that?

  Wasn’t it just better to wait and see what happened?

  But if she waited too long, she could end up in a lime lined pit…they both could.

  She felt herself pulled in two different directions, like taffy.

  There was a click, and then a long drawn out whine as old deteriorating hinges ground against each other. She didn’t turn; she didn’t know if it would enrage Clive Goddard. Light spilled into the church, illuminating the stone walkway between the pews. She felt a hand on her neck; she jumped. The cold point of the knife touched a spot behind her ear.

  Clive’s voice, close:

  “Kill the boy.”

  Was he talking to her? Or someone else?

  She dared not turn her head.

  “Kill the boy, or I kill her.”

  A shadow in a stretched man-shape blocked the light where it fell on the stones between the pews. She knew that shape, just like she knew his walk, his voice.

  Sutton Mills.

  She felt a ripple of half a dozen emotions crawl across her skin, a fluttering in her chest, a surge of blood in all her limbs.

  She could hardly believe it.

  She turned her head.

  She couldn’t speak.

  It was him.

  He stood just inside the church. He looked like some avenging angel skirting the thin line of righteousness, come to enact a reckoning: his clothes were torn and stained with blood, and his whole manner radiated anger.

  “You’re Belluch Luche,” Clive said, from behind her. He sounded nervous or excited, she couldn’t tell which. The point of the knife pricked her, and she winced. “You’re the Coosjak. Do what you’re meant to do.”

  “And what is that, Clive?” Sutton asked.

  Aimee turned to the chancel. The others were not yet aware of this new visitor, but it could only be a matter of time. Quickly, quietly, Sutton stepped back and closed the large wooden front door. The nave returned to its dim natural state.

  She could still see the dead vicar’s naked ankle though.

  “Kill the boy, Coosjak,” Clive said. “Save us all.”

  “But what good will it do if the public don’t see it?” Sutton challenged him. “There can be no revolution if I kill him in here. No one will know. And the machine will continue on, undeterred. People need to see it, isn’t that right? An example. In order for change to occur.”

  Clive didn’t speak for a moment. Aimee couldn’t turn to see him, because the knife poking into the flesh behind her ear would pierce her…but she wouldn’t have tried it anyway. Someone so unstable…a look from her might inspire him to do anything.

  “Just kill the boy,” Clive said, and he sounded distraught. “You have to. You have to kill him or we’re all lost.”

  Clive sobbed, and then quieted suddenly, abruptly.

  Aimee looked to Sutton, and then noticing the expression on his face and the direction of his attention, turned to follow his gaze.

  At the far end of the church, all the heads were turned toward them.

  ◆◆◆

  “He’s the Coosjak!” Clive shouted; almost apologetically, Sutton thought. “He has to kill the boy!”

  There were three men standing around Bellafont and Toby in a loose circle. They all looked capable and tough. But at Clive’s shout, their footing became unsure, their movements agitated…Clive had sold him as the Coosjak, the legendary evil hitman from Bellafont’s novel. If it helped, he would play along.

  “Give me the boy, Bellafont,” he said, advancing toward the chancel.

  To Sutton’s surprise, Darren joined their ranks. He stood to one side, ready to defend his master.

  “This is not the way the future will be won,” Bellafont proclaimed. He reached out a hand and pulled Toby behind him, shielding him with his body. “The boy is not to be harmed.”

  Again, a slight fidgeting in the ranks from the three bodyguards.

  “Bellafont, no,” Clive intoned. “He is Fahl!”

  “He is not.”

  “Soldiers of the New Artisans!” Clive preached. “Let the Coosjak take the boy!”

  “No!” Bellafont’s voice dominated the church.

  Sutton stopped at the steps down into the chancel.

  “I’m taking him,” Sutton said, with deadly menace.

  “Soldiers,” Bellafont said calmly. “Destroy this man.”

  The Soldiers, to everyone’s surprise, did not move.

  “He is Belluch Luche!” Clive shouted, desperate.

  “Soldiers,” Bellafont said, and there was just the slightest quiver in his voice. “I order you to destroy him!”

  “Bellafont has been corrupted,” Clive said. “There are no orders. Not in the new world.”

  “I’ll destroy him,” Darren said, pronouncing the words carefully, his eyes on Sutton. “Give me a weapon.”

  He turned to Bellafont, and held his hand out. The Soldiers looked at him, and then turned to Bellafont.

  “Give him a weapon,” Bellafont said. “He has proven himself.”

  The tallest of the men pulled a knife from a back pocket and deposited it in Darren’s hand.

  Darren looked at it, turning it so it caught the light.

  Abruptly, he turned, running toward Bellafont.

  Bellafont, taken completely by surprise, backed up frantically, Toby still at his back.

  Darren plunged the knife into Bellafont’s chest.

  There was a moment of silence, and then Clive’s voice rang out.

  There was nothing intelligible in the call; it was more an expression of pain and despair. It made the hairs on Sutton’s arms stand up.

  Darren took out the knife and plunged it into Bellafont’s chest once more.

  No trace of pain seemed to touch Bellafont’s features. The only expression on his face was of a great sense of astonishment, as if everyone else was mad, not him.

  He fell backward then – Toby quickly moving out of the way – and Darren fell with him, still clutching the knife.

  Sutton thought that Bellafont was probably dead before he hit the floor, but that didn’t stop Darren pulling the knife out and stabbing him again. And again.

  And again.

  At every plunge, Darren sobbed.

  Clive cried out again. He was now standing just behind Sutton.

  He turned to him, and as he did so, Aimee brought a Bible down on the back of Clive’s head. Clive made a huff sound and fell
forward, and Sutton grabbed the hand holding the knife. He held it up high, lifting Clive up, so that his feet almost left the ground…

  Then he brought his left fist around and drove it into Clive’s face.

  His lip split, there was blood, and Clive fell back, falling in between the pews and sinking to the floor. He did not get up.

  “Aimee?”

  “Oh God,” she said, but she sounded exhausted rather than distraught. She took his hand. “Oh God.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sutton…” Suddenly, something behind him captured her attention. A hand came to her mouth in shock. “What’s he doing? Oh God, Sutton, what’s he doing?”

  He turned to see what she was talking about.

  Toby stood in front of the stained glass windows, one hand on the altar, as if to steady himself. The Soldiers stood to one side, watching; it was as if they were too shocked to act, to think even.

  At their feet, Darren had turned the knife around in his hand, and was sawing through Bellafont’s neck. He was emitting a low moan, like a deep note on a synthesizer. His hands were covered in blood and bits of gore. The sound was terrible: a thin cracking and snapping, like he was crushing a bushel of sticks.

  Eventually, it was done.

  Darren sat back on his heels. He was breathing heavily. His knife hand was shaking. He turned to Sutton and Aimee at the head of the nave.

  “So he doesn’t come back,” he said, indicating the decapitated head. “So he can’t come back…”

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 25

  “How did you find me?” Sutton asked, holding the door open so his visitor could enter.

  Detective Inspector Patrick Harris used a cane to compensate for the weakness in his left leg. But other than that, he looked good.

  “I looked for you,” he said simply, coming into the flat.

  He was a little grey at the edges, Sutton thought, looking closer. It had only been four weeks since he’d been stabbed; he was still healing. There was a flatness to the colour of his face.

  “This is a nice place,” the older man remarked, stopping at the end of the hall.

  Sutton was renting a flat in one of the new buildings on the opposite side of the harbour from his old Baltic Wharf address. It was all parquet floors and wool rugs. Fully furnished, of course…seeing as he currently had no furniture of his own. A large living space dominated, with an L-shaped sofa on one side, in front of an impressive home entertainment system arranged harmoniously in a sprawling cabinet unit; a dining table and chairs occupied the opposite side. Two large pillars kept the roof up. There was even a balcony, with some garden furniture on it: tables and chairs, and a potted plant. The plant was plastic.

  It was almost like home.

  But of course it wasn’t his home. What remained of his real home – mostly rubble now – had been swept away, and in the last week work had begun on restoring it to its original design.

  With a few alterations, of course. At Sutton’s insistence.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Sutton asked.

  “Tea, please.” Sutton raised his eyebrows and the detective said, “oh, one sugar, and a small amount of milk.”

  Sutton indicated the dining table and chairs, but when he came back from the kitchen with the tea he found the detective on the balcony. He had his bad leg up on one of the chairs, his cane in his lap.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, indicating the leg.

  “It’s fine,” Sutton said, putting the cups on the table.

  He took the remaining chair, and the two of them didn’t speak for a time, content as they were to watch life in the harbour: a scattering of boats at play, and sporadic groups of people in bright summer clothes on their way to nowhere in particular. It was a good day, Sutton thought, and as good days were finite – they had to be – it was best to pay attention to them when they came along.

  But then the detective did speak, and it seemed like the day was not quite so bright.

  “Clive Goddard is dead,” he said simply.

  Sutton sipped his tea.

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  “He never woke up?”

  Harris shook his head.

  “I didn’t expect him to,” he said. “That kind of wound, even self-inflicted…there was no way he was going to recover. Not really.”

  “He fell on his sword,” Sutton remarked lightly.

  Harris gave him a smile without much mirth.

  “Too late for Bellafont though.”

  When the police had arrived at the church, Clive had been mourning over the loss of his leader. At their entrance, he had been galvanised into action, and using the same knife Darren had discarded after cutting Bellafont’s head off, he had plunged it into his own chest. No mean feat, but apparently he had done it several times, before the attending officers had wrestled the weapon from his grip.

  They had managed to resuscitate him, despite the damage to his heart, and to stabilise him in hospital, but by then he was in a vegetative state: his brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long.

  “Did you know,” Harris said, picking up his cup, “that Clive joined the Cult before his wife died?”

  Sutton raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t.

  “It’s true,” the detective said, tipping the cup toward him and then taking a drink. “Everyone assumed it was the other way around, that it was her death that made him sell his business and join a cult. Not so.”

  They thought about that for a moment.

  “I don’t understand it,” Harris said then, quietly, despondently.

  “Sometimes,” Sutton said slowly, “sometimes, people need something more.”

  Harris looked at him.

  “More?”

  “A reason to live.”

  “He didn’t have enough? He was wealthy, he had a beautiful wife-“

  “And yet I bet he thought his life was empty,” Sutton said.

  Harris grunted. He wasn’t convinced.

  “The world is a strange place,” he pronounced gravely.

  “Hm.”

  “I’m sure I don’t understand it.”

  “Is that why you’re retiring?”

  Harris smiled.

  “Stabbed in the line of duty…my wife wouldn’t allow any other outcome.”

  “You sound…”

  “What?”

  “Like you’ll miss it,” Sutton said.

  Harris didn’t reply for a moment.

  “I was thinking…after Darren attacked Bob, and it was touch and go, I was thinking that I’d tried my best. Done what I could, to try and make this world a little more…”

  He groped for the word.

  “Safe,” he pronounced eventually. “That I was getting old.” He paused. “When we spoke on the phone that first time, you asked if I wanted kids…do you remember?”

  Sutton nodded.

  “I remember.”

  “Well. I lied. I always wanted kids; it was my wife that didn’t. And I think the reason I tried so hard – and for so long – to make the world a better place was to convince her that we could have children, and that she wouldn’t have to worry. But…maybe she was right after all.” He sighed. “Anyway. Time has run out. For us anyway. So I was thinking…maybe it’s time for someone younger to take over the reins, as it were.”

  His look was significant.

  Sutton smiled and shook his head.

  “I just do favours for friends,” he said.

  Harris was sceptical.

  “Right.”

  “If they happen to give me a little something, you know, as a thank you for that favour, well…”

  “This isn’t an interrogation, Mr Mills. It’s fine. You can talk to me.”

  “We are talking,” Sutton said.

  Harris stared at him, and then turned away with a sigh.

  “You’re like a wall,” he said eventually.

  “Thanks.”

 
“I can only bang my head on it so many times before I realise it’s hurting me more than it’s hurting the wall.”

  “Okay.”

  The harbour was so peaceful, any argument would only disturb that peace.

  “How is Detective Costar?” Sutton asked.

  Harris blinked, pulled back from some errant reverie.

  “He’s fine. Fully recovered. Perfectly healthy. Thank God.”

  “Back on the job?”

  The detective smiled.

  “Getting hit over the head can do wonders for your career, it seems. Wipe the slate clean, as it were. He’ll be fine.”

  “And Darren?” Sutton asked.

  Harris shook his head.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You know why he did it?”

  Slowly, sadly, Harris nodded.

  “His brother was involved with the Church of the New Artisans for five years,” Harris said. “This is almost ten years ago now. Not long after the Cult had just formed.”

  Sutton blew air out of his pursed lips. It was not quite a whistle.

  “What happened?”

  Harris held his palm up.

  “He got sick. About four years ago. A cyst in his stomach. Of course, the Cult didn’t use conventional medicine, and persuaded Darren’s brother it couldn’t help him. By the time he finally relented and went to a hospital – at Darren’s insistence – the cyst had burst. Septicaemia. He died in surgery.”

  “So Darren blamed the Cult,” Sutton said. “Blamed Bellafont.”

  Harris nodded.

  “Yes. When I asked him to help with the taskforce, he jumped at the chance. He must have thought it was divine intervention, to have this opportunity to get back at them. What he did was very simple, so I’m told, and reasonably crude, but it did the job. And as I am useless with technology, I didn’t notice anything untoward.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He put a program on my phone, some sort of spyware thingy – don’t ask me for the details, I don’t understand it – but it basically allowed him to track my phone, my whereabouts, and also to listen in on my calls.”

  “So he knew what was going on, all the time,” Sutton remarked. “He knew what you knew.”

  “Yes. It was a criminal breach of trust, unforgivable really, but…I’m not angry about it. Not anymore. Just sad.”