A Book of Bones

by John Connolly

  Hynes, who had dealt with the city’s Muslim community in the past, held the bag up to the light. A misbaha contained either thirty-three or ninety-nine beads. In the case of the latter, two additional beads separated the whole into units of thirty-three, enabling three prayers to be counted thirty-three times. The misbaha in the bag was the smaller set, and looked both cheap and relatively new to Hynes; he could detect no signs of wear and tear, or the discoloration that might have come from regular use.

  “What are you thinking?” Priestman asked.

  “They look fresh out of the box,” said Hynes. “Perhaps he didn’t want to use his own. Funny how sentimental people can be.”

  One of the younger DCs frowned. Hynes’s sense of humor was an acquired taste—if you were unlucky.

  “Or,” Hynes continued, “the killer, wanting to stir things up, just went into a shop and bought himself a set. Mind you, if our boy was smart, he’ll have found them on the Internet.”

  But Priestman had learned never to underestimate the stupidity of criminals, which meant a canvass of sources for prayer beads would be required. This would be time-consuming. Newcastle upon Tyne alone had sixteen mosques, most of them around Elswick and Arthur’s Hill to the northwest, along with God—or Allah—alone knew how many ancillary shops and services.

  “I’m going to talk to Nabih later,” said Priestman. “I’ll see what he has on his plate, and what can be postponed or reassigned. Once he’s up and running, we’ll have him liaise with the neighborhood inspectors and their PCs on the ground to find out if anyone has been making more-than-usually hostile noises. But”—she paused to make sure she had their attention—“the reason for the inquiry doesn’t leave this room, not yet. Nabih knows, but he’ll keep his mouth shut. If this gets out, we’ll be dealing with fascists as well as religious lunatics. So: softly, softly. Am I clear?”

  She waited for the muted chorus of agreement to die down. She trusted them to stay quiet because it wasn’t hard to visualize a situation involving the local far-right activists—of whom there was no shortage—squaring off against the Muslim population, and even the overtime wasn’t worth that.

  “Right, then,” she said. “Let’s get started.”

  Hynes was closest to the door. He was just about to open it and make a break for freedom when Nabih Uddin appeared, blocking his way. From the look on his face, Uddin wasn’t the bearer of good news.

  “What is it?” said Priestman.

  Uddin pointed to the misbaha on her desk.

  “Romana Moon,” he said. “She wasn’t the first.”

  CHAPTER XLIII

  Holmby limped across his kitchen, trying to put together his breakfast. He’d already spilled tea on the floor while hopping from the sink to the table, and decided that he really needed to have a think about the most efficient way to get around his apartment, or else he’d spend the day cleaning up after himself. He remained uncomfortable with the crutch, but he’d have to get used to it if he needed to go any distance. He didn’t want to become a prisoner in his own home, reduced to spying on his neighbors like James Stewart in Rear Window.

  In truth, he suspected he’d be mobile sooner than he’d suggested to Sellars. He ran a couple of times a week, and was familiar with his own rate of recovery from minor injuries. This one was more serious, but he remained certain he’d be moving well in a week or so. He had some meetings lined up, but could postpone the more distant of them, and Skype the really important ones. Even with the BMW automatic, he didn’t want to drive more than he had to, and trains were a nightmare at the best of times.

  The local BBC reports had nothing fresh on the Romana Moon investigation, and neither had Sky News. He checked the newspaper stories on the Internet, but Romana had already been relegated to Other News, if she figured at all. Holmby experienced a sense of outrage on her behalf. What was the world coming to, he thought, when a young woman could be slaughtered like a pig out on the moors, and yet the media grew bored with her after just a few days? He was almost tempted to write a letter to the editors.

  But as he sipped his tea, he also noticed that his memories of his time with Romana Moon were becoming less vivid and more distant, just like those reports. It was distressing. He didn’t want to lose her too soon. She’d been his first, and these things were important, so he sat at his kitchen table and worked hard to recall her, bringing to mind every detail he could, working step-by-step from beginning to end. It helped, but he remained dissatisfied.

  So instead, he began thinking about the next girl.

  * * *

  AS IT HAPPENED, SELLARS had also decided not to work that day. He’d left home shortly after 7 a.m. as usual, but called in sick as soon as he found somewhere quiet to stop.

  Sellars enjoyed his job. It wasn’t like the usual courier and delivery nonsense, with too many drops to be made in too little time. Carenor was a specialist service: it looked after the transportation of everything from fine art and gemstones to rare books and legal documents, and charged a premium as a guarantee of discretion and security. Many of its vehicles didn’t even bear the company name, and its drivers were recruited for their intelligence as much as their skill behind the wheel. Carenor had one central hub, in Manchester, and two subsidiary operations, in London and Glasgow, but drivers went wherever they were needed, so Sellars, although based in Manchester, might just as easily find himself driving to Truro or Inverness as Bradford or Sheffield, as well as to the Continent. He preferred the longer trips: the mileage and subsistence allowances were generous, and it gave him more time to sit in the van or truck and listen to the radio, follow an audiobook, or, most recently, learn Spanish. He already had French from school, and a little German, just enough to get by. It was one of the reasons Carenor gave him so many of the European runs, as few of the other drivers boasted much proficiency in other languages.

  With the call made to the office, he inserted the new SIM into a used Nokia he’d picked up cheap at a CeX store, and drove to the M6. He wasn’t in the mood for audiobooks, or Como está?, so he listened to Radio 3 along the way. It calmed his nerves, but not by much. The more he considered Holmby, the more problematical the man appeared to be. Finally, he stopped at the first motorway services with a Costa, where he ate a bacon roll and flicked through a discarded copy of the Daily Mirror, but mostly continued monitoring the news reports on his phone. Northumbria Police had scheduled a press conference on the Romana Moon killing for that morning, and shortly after 10:00 a.m., the first details began to seep onto the Internet. Sellars read them with a rising sense of dread. There was no mention of the prayer beads, which didn’t surprise him—the police would sit on that for as long as they could—but an appeal was being issued to hospitals and clinics in Northumbria and the surrounding counties for information on anyone over the age of sixteen who might have been treated for a serious sprain, or a fracture of the ankle or leg, during the previous forty-eight hours.

  Sellars hid his face in his hands, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, two new messages had appeared on his phone.

  The first was from Holmby, which he decided to ignore.

  The second he didn’t ignore, because the sender wouldn’t have liked that.

  No, not one little bit.

  CHAPTER XLIV

  DS Hynes and DC Lisa Gackowska were taking care of interviews at Larkin-Brook Academy, the school at which Romana Moon had taught, having first given the nod to Cleveland Police that they’d be on their patch. It was a dull, overcast morning to be entering a moribund part of a city that routinely made lists of the least favorable in which to live. Kids growing up in Middlesbrough, Hynes reflected, could already feel the boot of inequality pressing down on their necks by the time they started to read and write, not helped by the fact that half the city’s schools were fucked anyway.

  If Larkin-Brook Academy wasn’t the worst of them, Hynes remained content to leave the winner unvisited, even if it seemed unlikely that Larkin-Brook could possibly expect
much serious competition. Its students scored, on average, half a grade lower than their peers in exam results across the board, but performed much better when it came to rates of teenage pregnancy and early criminal behavior. The school was predominantly male, which probably didn’t help matters, Hynes being of the opinion that young women generally exerted a moderating influence on teenage boys, although any teenage girls at Larkin-Brook had their work cut out, judging by the likely lads congregating in the schoolyard as the two officers arrived. The school buildings themselves were colored dirty beige trimmed with a dirtier white, and the grounds had the unkempt appearance of wasteland.

  “You think our car will still be in one piece when we finish?” Gackowska asked. She was slim and blond, and looked like a stiff breeze might carry her out to sea. If any breeze ever had the temerity to do so, Hynes was certain it would return Gackowska to dry land pretty sharpish, while apologizing for any inconvenience caused and promising not to do it again. Gackowska had a stillness about her that could be unnerving, which was why Hynes liked conducting interviews with her by his side. It drew out guilt the way a magnet attracted iron filings.

  “That’d be getting off lightly,” said Hynes. “We’ll be lucky if it hasn’t been nicked, or set on fire.”

  “Who was Larkin-Brook?”

  “No idea,” said Hynes, as he watched a lanky streak of piss with bad hair launch his schoolbag at the legs of some fleeing unfortunate, taking him down with pinpoint accuracy. “It could be two people, in which case they can share the blame.”

  He and Gackowska parked and got out of the car. Someone made pig noises, and Hynes thought it might have been the schoolbag-throwing streak of piss. Even if he wasn’t the one, he had the look of a self-professed Alpha about him, or what passed for it under the circumstances. Hynes made a beeline for him.

  “All right?” said Hynes. “Nice day for it.”

  “Fuck off.”

  The kid was playing to the crowd, and they were lapping it up. Hynes had made the right choice.

  “What’s your name?” said Hynes.

  “I just told you: F—”

  “Yeah, ‘Fuck off.’ I heard you the first time.”

  The schoolbag was sitting at the boy’s feet. Quick as a flash, Hynes picked it up and tossed it to Gackowska.

  “Hey, you can’t do that!”

  “I just saw you assault another boy with that bag. It’s evidence, Mr.…?”

  “Clifton,” said Gackowska, reading out the name on a battered exercise book. “Ryan Clifton.”

  “There you go: Ryan Clifton, a.k.a. Fuck Off. Well, you see that car, Ryan Clifton?” Hynes indicated the unmarked Skoda, and waited for a reply. It took a while in coming, because Clifton’s demeanor had already changed. He was now clearly wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth, or thrown the bag, or even got out of bed that morning. Eventually, he managed to summon a single syllable, but the effort cost him.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” said Hynes. “It doesn’t look like much, that car, but I like it a lot, and exactly the way it is. If something were to happen to it, no matter how minor, I’d take it very badly, very badly indeed. I’d feel compelled to find someone to blame, and because I’m a busy man, I wouldn’t have time to look very far, if you catch my meaning. So, Ryan Clifton, I’m entrusting you with the well-being of this police vehicle. Consider it an introduction to civic responsibility. If there’s even a dead leaf on it when we get back, I’ll become such a part of your life you’ll think you came out of the womb with me attached.”

  Hynes took the bag from Gackowska and threw it back to Clifton.

  “Have a nice day at school,” said Hynes. “I hope it’s fucking filled with learning.”

  5

  This oratory looks evil. With herbs overgrown

  it fits well that fellow transformed into green

  to follow here his devotions in the Devil’s fashion.

  —Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (trans. J. R. R. Tolkien)

  CHAPTER XLV

  Like so many of England’s great cathedrals, Worcester had begun its existence as a Catholic place of worship: first, in the seventh century, as a priory, of which no trace could now be seen; then as a Benedictine monastery in the tenth century, of which the crypt and certain other elements persisted; until finally, in the sixteenth century, Henry VIII put his mark on it, and Worcester succumbed to the forces of the Reformation. Its age meant the cathedral reflected a variety of architectural styles, from its Gothic bays and medieval chantry, to the Norman crypt and Chapter House.

  It was near the door to this Chapter House that Sellars now lingered. Most visitors to Worcester came to view the tomb of King John, but Sellars had little interest in old English kings. Instead, he was gazing upon a stone effigy in the cloisters: the image of a face surrounded by leaves and branches, the roots of which were lost in the figure’s mouth and nostrils.

  A Green Man.

  The Green Man had first begun speaking to Sellars when he was still in his teens. He’d always been a quiet, solitary child, even before the IRA tried to kill his mum and him, and adolescence was hard. He started hearing voices when he was thirteen, but he didn’t tell anyone about them. His mum and dad had separated when he was still barely able to walk, and his dad had dropped out of his son’s life and gone to live in Australia, where he started a new family. He sent money back, but only sporadically, and never enough of it to make life any easier. His mum did her best for her boy, and he’d loved her dearly, although she was never the same after the bomb went off. It did something to her nerves, and might also have done something to Sellars’s own mind, although he tried not to dwell on this possibility. His mum became afraid to go into the city, and then afraid to go farther than the shops at the end of their street, before becoming afraid even to leave her own home. By the time she had to be committed, Sellars was eighteen, and could look after himself.

  But by then he’d also put a face to the voices he heard. His class had been taken on a trip to Worcester, where he’d stood before the Green Man, this symbol of pagan worship in a Christian church, a sop to the nature-spirit beliefs of the peasantry in an age when a good or bad crop was the difference between living and dying. There, before this ancient god, he listened as the babble in his head rose to a cacophony before being silenced forever, and what came after was one voice. He’d fallen to his knees before it, even as the other kids in the class pointed and laughed, although they stopped when blood began to pour from his nose and ears, and his eyes turned white as he collapsed unconscious on the stones. After that there’d been a detour to a hospital, and a diagnosis of ruptures to the eardrum and septum, the cause of which could not be determined. Sellars didn’t care. All he knew was that he was no longer frightened, and the voice of a god now spoke to him.

  In the years that followed, Sellars had more than once prostrated himself in the hollow once occupied by the Blessed Chapel of the Congregation of Adam Before Eve & Eve Before Adam on the Hexhamshire Moors, his face against the grass, listening as though for some exhalation deep in the earth from the same deity. He’d heard nothing, yet still experienced a feeling of religious ecstasy comparable, he imagined, to that enjoyed by pilgrims at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: a sense of walking in the footsteps of the sublime, and being at only one remove from a greater power.

  Then, some years back, he had taken Lauren to the United States. Lauren was already pregnant with Kelly at the time, but not so far gone that travel was in any way uncomfortable for her. She wanted to go to Florida, but Sellars convinced her that she’d enjoy New York more. He’d never been to America before, never mind New York, and had his own reasons for wanting to visit the northeast of the country, but he’d been right about the city. It was Lauren’s kind of place, full of museums and art galleries, and so big and busy that she could lose herself in its flow and not be noticed as she took in everything. Sellars kept her company at some of the s
ights, although Lauren was happy to let him go to a bar, or the big clothing stores, while she wandered the Met, and MoMA, and the Cloisters. Afterward, she’d come back and tell him of what she’d seen, and he never got bored of listening to her, not once. Had he gone with her, he’d have lost the will to live after half an hour, but something of her enthusiasm communicated itself to him, and he saw these paintings, sculptures, and buildings through her eyes, and re-created them in new forms.

  Sellars thought that he had never loved Lauren more than he did during their week in New York. When he caught glimpses of them reflected in shop windows, or the mirrors of bars, he saw the couple they might have been, and a future they might have enjoyed, but only if he were someone else. Perhaps that alternative version was out there, somewhere, in one of the parallel universes he had come to believe existed. He hoped so. It helped him to think there could be a variant of himself that was not beyond salvation.

  When they were done with New York, they hired a car and headed north, stopping off in Boston for a few days before moving on to Maine. By a circuitous route, and with Vermont as a final destination, they came to a small town in central Maine, as though by accident rather than design, where they stopped for lunch. Sellars left Lauren reading a book in a coffee shop while he went and stretched his legs, just to have some time alone. She didn’t mind. She knew his ways by then. Every day or two he needed some solitude, and she’d quickly learned not to take it personally. It was just his nature. As long as she had a book, she was content to let him do as he pleased.