The Dream Catcher Diaries

by Alexander Patrick

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted.

  She sighed, took the paper from me and read out loud.

  To the kind Sisters of Mercy and Charity,

  First of all, thank you for being there for Caitlin as she has grown up. I remember so well the day I came to you, desperate and alone carrying my precious child. I remember how you helped bring her into the world. I made a promise to you then, and I hope you feel that I kept it.

  The Mother Superior paused at this point. ‘We had to make her promise, you see; we couldn’t have the child brought up on the streets. We wanted her to have the baby adopted, but she wouldn’t – so we said we would look after her.’ She stared at me through her thick glasses. ‘Don’t you see? She actually wanted to take the baby back with her. She said she would give up her job, give up her addictions, but we knew she couldn’t. They never do, you know. We told her quite clearly, either the baby stayed with us, and she could come and visit, or we would contact social care and have her adopted. She agreed.’

  I glanced up at Christ in torment, and I knew exactly how he felt. ‘Please, go on,’ I whispered. The Mother Superior nodded in satisfaction.

  I have given over her education and spiritual guidance to you, as I promised, and I have only come to her on those days agreed by you. You have chosen when and how often I could come, and in all this I have complied, and it has all been worth it.

  She is growing up to be so kind and beautiful – everything I could have hoped for.

  If you remember my promise all those years ago, you will recall that you stressed the importance of her father. You wanted to know who he was, what he did, his name – and I would not tell you. In truth, I could not tell you, but now I can. He has returned and he wishes to be a father to Caitlin.

  This is why I am writing this letter. It is to hold you to your side of our promise. You must agree I have been faithful to mine.

  If you are reading this then it means the worst has happened, and I will not be around to see the most precious creature in my life grow up to be a woman, but at least I now know that her father will be there for her, and it is to his care that I now entrust her future.

  It is time for him to take on his responsibility and become a true and permanent father to her. It is a promise that you made, and I hold you to it. You will know him when he arrives. He is a golden-eyed god. That is what his daughter calls him, and you will know him from her. He loves her. He is the kindest man I have ever met, and he will take care of her. I give her to his keeping.

  God bless you all.

  God bless you, father of my child, and thank you.

  I sat quiet in my own thoughts as the letter was read out. I understood every word of it. I felt all the sorrow and anguish, leaving the baby in the care of the nuns, only allowed to visit on their say, always having to be polite to people who had made her a prisoner of her own fate, always a visitor, always having to apologise for who you were, what you did. She lived in her own hell.

  Everyone has a story to tell, but Tanya had never shared it with me. She had given me something much more precious. She had given me Caitlin. She had set her free.

  As those bastards had murdered her, she would have known that her death would release her child from the prison, to which she had been forced to send her. I like to think it would have helped; a part of her was always ready to die, wanting to die, waiting to die.

  ‘Of course,’ the Mother Superior was saying, ‘we will not hold you to this. Brenda was, as you may know, something of a dreamer.’ She said the word as if pronouncing an infectious disease. ‘We have full control of the child. We have no problem finishing what we have begun. She has already chosen her path in life. She has chosen to be a bride – the best kind.’

  I was startled. ‘She’s getting married?’

  The Mother Superior smiled. ‘Only figuratively; you must know she wishes to be a sister?’

  ‘She has mentioned it,’ I said casually.

  ‘We are happy to continue with her education. To be honest with you, it would be the best for her. We can offer her a safe, secure environment. I’m not sure you could say the same?’

  I wondered if that were true. Her mother had just been tortured and murdered in the most brutal fashion, and Caitlin may well be the next target, if they knew about her – and I had no idea whether they did. I wasn’t about to take that risk though and, anyway, I knew what the right thing was; Tanya had told me in her letter. It had been carefully written, but if any letter had shouted ‘Get my daughter out of here!’ This one did.

  ‘I would like my daughter to come home with me,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Do you have a home? A proper home, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure Caitlin must have mentioned it.’ She had, I knew she had, the witch was trying it on. They didn’t want me to take her – tough, she was coming home with me.

  ***********************

  I had to wait around for the day to unfold, for Caitlin to be allowed to wake up, for the nuns to break the news. They wouldn’t let me do it; I was only the father. I have no idea what they said to her, but it was a very composed little girl who came into the room where they had placed me out of harm’s way.

  ‘I want to stay here,’ she said meekly.

  I can see into the hearts of men – and that included this daughter I had acquired. I knew she was lying. ‘Why is that, nuisance?’ I asked playfully.

  ‘This is where I belong. This is where mummy would want me to stay. She chose this place, and she trusted the nuns. This is where I can be what I want to be. I don’t belong anywhere else.’

  She was the bravest little creature. She was saying all the things furthest from her heart because she believed that she was saying what I wanted to hear.

  ‘So, you’re not coming to my wedding?’ I asked.

  Her eyes opened wide. ‘Wedding?’ She almost shouted it.

  I shrugged. ‘Sonia thinks she’s going to marry me – but if you can’t come, I don’t ...’

  She threw her arms around my neck. ‘Daddy!’ she yelled. She pulled back. ‘Can Hades come too?’

  ‘He’s best man, dog I mean.’

  She slapped me. ‘Oh, Daddy!’

  She walked out with me, guiding me to make sure I didn’t trip. The sisters watched from their windows. They knew they had lost a nun. They probably thought that hell had gained a sinner.

  Meanwhile, I had to think of a way of breaking the news to Sonia that we were about to be married.

  Chapter 72

  The room was dark, and the music playing was soft and soothing. Harrison closed his eyes. It was the Appassionato – Beethoven at his most sublime and most lyrical – and it filled him with warmth and sweet contentment. The music came to its natural conclusion, and he drew breath and stretched. He became aware of someone else in the room. He turned. ‘I hope it’s good news,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said the man.

  Harrison swivelled his chair around completely so that he could see the man more clearly. ‘Give me your report,’ he said.

  ‘The whore is dead, sir.’

  Harrison waited for the details. The man knew he would want the details.

  ‘We made her death last. She knew pain before she died. We all made sure of that. She screamed for mercy. She screamed and told us all she knew. She shit herself, sir. We all took a turn. We all gave her one, and we made sure it hurt. She begged for death.’

  ‘And you gave it to her?’ said Harrison, with a satisfied smile.

  ‘Not for a long time, sir. She kept begging, and we kept promising. “Just one more time,” we said, and then we did it to her again, and she begged some more, and we said the same thing. We just laughed. She was pathetic!’

  ‘Did you ... cut her?’

  ‘We cut off her tits and her hands. Then we started on her face.’

  ‘And she lived through it all?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’

  ‘You’ve done well.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’


  ‘You may go.’

  ‘What would you like me to do now, sir?’

  ‘Return to the Brotherhood and mourn with them.’

  ‘I’m not a suspect?’

  ‘I wouldn’t return you if I had any doubts about that. Go back and wait for further orders.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The man left.

  Harrison sat in silence for a moment. He knew he was sending the man to his death. He had no doubt that the Dream Catcher would work it out. He had no intention of letting the man live. He was a discard; he didn’t deserve to live. He had done his task; now it was time for his reward. He reached up and switched his music back on. Time to celebrate, he thought. He called up Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor. That seemed fitting.

  Chapter 73

  We had a number of problems.

  Euan wanted to bury Tanya in the village, near him. We needed her body for that, obviously. It took bribes, fiddles and patience, but eventually the remains of her poor broken body was released and brought home.

  Euan was adamant that Fraser Drummond should not deliver the sermon. He had sat through too many lectures on sodomy and whores for that. Instead, the old minister was brought out of retirement to deliver the sermon. He did it remarkably well. We tried to brief him but, on the day, he was still under the illusion that Tanya was Euan’s wife. Euan didn’t care. He was too sunk in grief for that. He had loved her in the only way that a man of such intense emotion can love: deeply, passionately and completely. I wondered, as I sat once more in that cold kirk, whether Tanya had judged right with regard to Euan. Had she underestimated the power she had over him? If she had trusted him more, would she still be alive? I guess I was not the only one to be thinking such thoughts.

  The whole of the village turned out to pay tribute to David’s whore and Euan’s wife. She was cremated, and her ashes were buried next to the kirk. Caitlin remained dry eyed throughout.

  Caitlin was my next problem.

  She didn’t belong to me. I was surprised the sisters had let her go so easily. For several weeks we waited for the call from social care. It never came. I guess that living in an isolated community helped. I watched and waited. The whole of the Brotherhood waited with me, and nothing happened.

  I don’t know what those nuns said to her, but she had wrapped up her emotions tightly inside her, and I had no way in. I took her for walks. I sat with her. She crept into my bed in the mornings. She talked and talked. She talked about her schoolwork, school friends, her interests, hobbies, hopes and wishes – everything except her mother. I tried; she shut me out.

  Then, one day, we walked over to the cemetery and sat at Tanya’s grave. It was a small sad affair. We placed flowers on the newly made plot and sat in silence. I realised that Caitlin was staring at me. ‘I look nothing like you,’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  She reached out and touched my face. She was referring to my eyes. I knew that.

  I knew also that whatever she asked me, I must answer truthfully, despite the possibility that it might hurt. I planned to send her to the local school. Whatever I didn’t say, the local children would fill in the gaps. I needed to prepare her, arm her. Her sheltered life had ended, perhaps her childhood too.

  ‘How did Mummy die?’

  At last, the question I had been waiting for. ‘Some bad men killed her,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I’d heard.’ She was testing me. ‘Euan loved her, didn’t he?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Aye, I did.’

  ‘She wasn’t really an executive, was she?’

  ‘No, Caitlin.’ I put my arms around her, and she snuggled in.

  ‘What’s a whore?’

  ‘I think you know that.’

  She sobbed into my chest. I could feel her whole body convulse. ‘When are you sending me back to the convent?’

  ‘You’re not going back. You’re staying here with me.’

  She pulled herself up. She may have been sobbing, but she was still dry eyed.

  ‘Where have you been for all this time?’ she cried out.

  ‘I’m sorry, Caitlin, I just ...’

  She began to beat my chest with her small fists. ‘How dare you stay away all my life! How dare you leave Mummy like that! How could you do that to us?’

  She screamed at me, she ranted, she sobbed and, finally, she wept. Through her tears, she told me how much she hated the convent, the nuns, her prison. She told me how she would cry herself to sleep at night every time her mother left her there. She told me about her loneliness, her feelings of betrayal and desertion and about her despair. I told her how much her mother had loved her. She didn’t believe me. In the end, I showed her the letter from Tanya, the letter I had vowed never to show her. Finally she believed me, and she wept again.

  So, everyone has a story to tell, even a ten-year-old child, loved by all she touched. My daughter, my damaged daughter – and now I had to repair that damage. I held her tight. I held her close to me, and I realised with dismay that Tanya had given me another reason to live.

  Too late.

  I had so little time to repair the damage, so little time before she lost her father as well as her mother – because just around the corner lay the Discard Revolution. And it would change everyone’s life forever.

  Chapter 74

  The police are known for their allegiance to each other. Rogue police officers are protected. It is them against the rest of the world; to join the police means to join an exclusive club, one that everyone else sneers at. The very people who look at you with such disdain are the same ones who clasp your hand in a crisis. You solve their nasty problems and keep their sordid secrets, and they reward you with derision and contempt. You are best, and easily, forgotten – that is, until they need you again.

  A police officer can only trust another police officer. If you behave badly, there is always someone who will look the other way, especially if what you do works; especially if it makes everyone’s life easier and the streets safer; especially if what you do harms only those whom no one cares for anyway, the people who, in fact, deserve it. If this is the case, then you know you can trust your colleague. He may not bear the mark under his arm, he may not smile at the same people as you, yet you know you can still trust him because he is your friend and this is the way it has always been.

  Or can you?

  If there is a worm and if it is spreading throughout society, can it infect the police as well? What if the unthinkable happens? What if that man or woman you have always trusted has decided to place their allegiance elsewhere? Then what do you do?

  The answer?

  Trust no one.

  ***********************

  Angus and I fell out for the first time over the question of traitors in the Brotherhood.

  I had always known that we harboured them. We had infiltrated Fabian at both a senior and base level. They had done the same to us. We knew that from the information taken from their freelancers. We had already been through the Brotherhood and purged it of known traitors, men and women named by Fabian themselves. But that was then; there had been time for more to come seeping through, time for more betrayal. No organisation is totally secure.

  Knowing it is happening is one thing. Knowing who or what to do about it is another. We had our suspicions. There was one man we had doubts about. He was a discard; his name was Omar. I asked if I could talk to him. Angus reluctantly agreed. It was obvious he considered this to be his job, not mine.

  Tough, Tanya was mine.

  We had access to some rooms at the back of a club we used. He was brought in to see me there.

  Omar’s face was already covered in bruises. He looked suitably aggrieved, but then if he was innocent, he had every reason to be upset. He was placed on a chair at the table opposite me; his arms were bound behind his back.

  ‘Release his arms,’ I said.

  Stewart glanced at Angus. Angus nodded, and I frowned.
Omar was released.

  Stewart passed behind me. I grabbed his arm. ‘Next time, you just obey,’ I hissed. He said nothing. He clearly thought I was going to be too soft. He didn’t trust me to be ruthless. I turned to Omar, and I knew he felt the same. He was sitting opposite me looking relieved.

  ‘Pull up your sleeves,’ I said. ‘Show me your arms.’

  He did so.

  I studied his arms, then looked him in the face. ‘They never put the breaking irons on you?’

  ‘I worked the mine. I was a mule. We didn’t use them.’

  That was true.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ I said softly.

  He looked puzzled.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘I’d like to hear your story.’

  He touched his cheek. ‘I’m a discard,’ he said. He wore the brand. ‘I was a bad boy.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nothing serious – but then it doesn’t need to be, does it?’

  I was watching him carefully. He was dark, with heavy eyes and thick lips. ‘You’re of mixed race?’ I asked.

  He beamed good-naturedly. ‘My father was Egyptian,’ he said. ‘They didn’t like that.’ He glanced around at Angus and Stewart. ‘They don’t like Muslims,’ he said. He turned back to me. ‘I hear Matrix is different.’

  ‘You must believe that or you wouldn’t have joined the Brotherhood,’ I said.

  ‘I believe,’ he said. He looked into my eyes, defying me to doubt him, and my heart sank because I knew he was lying. I knew he was a traitor and he shouldn’t have been.

  ‘Why have you betrayed the very people who would protect you?’ I asked.

  I felt Angus and Stewart tense up beside me.

  ‘I haven’t ...’

  ‘I see it in your eyes, my friend. I see the lies in your heart. Haven’t you heard? I am the Dream Catcher, I can see into people’s hearts, and I see into yours. You believed the whore deserved to die, and you believe that Bràithreachas is corrupt. You have no faith. You don’t even believe in your own God anymore. You’ve lost your way.’

  ‘I’m a discard!’

  ‘Perhaps, and that’s what makes this a tragedy. You’ve betrayed your own kind.’