by Mark Roberts
She unfolded the picture and looked at the men’s faces. ‘So the priest’s on the run and he’s armed with a heavy-duty firearm.’ Clay tried to stop the sinking of her heart from creeping into her tone of voice. ‘How long will you be?’
‘Five to ten minutes.’
‘I’ll wait for you.’
Squinting and with a handkerchief over her nose and mouth, Clay walked back into the parlour to the bay window, where the ruined net curtains flapped in the raised sash, smoke pouring out onto Grant Avenue. She looked through the blackened pattern at the Mystery Park and reversed back to the last time she had stood in the same spot, when she had parted the curtains and had spoken to Lucy Bell on her iPhone as she made her way into the park.
Clay recalled the eye contact she had made with Father Aaron Bell’s daughter, and the threat she had hurled at her about a reconstruction of her almost miraculous discovery of a child who should have been dead.
Hendricks’s footsteps hurried down the stairs. ‘Everything appears to be normal upstairs. I’ll look downstairs now.’
‘Thank you. As a matter of priority, Bill, I want Lucy Bell arrested under the Child Abduction Act of 1984. That is, if she hasn’t sloped off with her father. We’ll start small and work our way up with her.’
She handed the photocopied picture to Hendricks.
‘What do you make of this, Bill?’
He took the picture from her and looked at it.
As Clay moved towards Kate Thorpe’s body, the smoke in the parlour danced in the light from the torch in her hand. She got down on her hands and knees, and feeling her hand into the place where the old lady’s head should have been, reached up into the lowest section of the chimney.
Her fingers hit a hard metal plate that had been wedged into the cement.
‘Premeditated. Whoever did this to you, Kate, and I’m pretty sure I know who it was, planned it in advance and wanted to contaminate evidence with smoke by blocking the chimney.’
As Clay stood up, Hendricks looked up from the picture. ‘What am I looking at, Eve?’
‘Young man at the centre of the group of seven. Father Aaron Bell. Or as he was known in the old country, Christopher Darwin, guiding light of Black Sun USA.’
104
6.13 pm
Lucy Bell stood with her back against the railings of the Wavertree Mystery and looked at the policemen and women in white protective suits coming in and out of her house and her father’s church. She rang him for the fourteenth time.
‘The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone.’
Thirteen messages later, she’d said the same thing over and over. Dad, where are you and what are you doing? Ring me back. This time, she left a brand new piece of information for him.
‘Dad, the police are crawling all over the house and the church. What’s happening? Why aren’t you returning my calls? I need to know what’s going on. Dad, you’re not being fair. Talk to me, Dad. Dad, I feel like my head’s a pressure cooker. Dad, dad, dad...’ Lucy wept as she closed the call down.
‘I don’t think your Dad’s going to return your call, Lucy.’ Clay stepped out of the shadows and into the edge of the streetlight on the pavement over the road.
‘Have you been—’ Tears streamed down Lucy’s face.
‘Waiting for you, Lucy? I certainly have. 6.13 pm home, same time every night.’
‘I want my Dad. Where’s my Dad?’
‘You tell me where he is, Lucy. You know much better than me where he goes when he’s upset or in trouble.’
‘He’s not in trouble at all, he’s not done anything wrong, all he ever does is obey the will of the Lord and pray to Him through the intercession of the Virgin Mary.’
‘It depends what the will of the Lord is, doesn’t it, Lucy? Suppose the Lord were a historical character. Suppose he were like Stalin. Would you let him off the hook for even one second if he was ordering bad things to happen?’
Lucy’s face twisted and, under the streetlight, she looked twice as old as usual.
‘We need to talk, Lucy.’
‘We can go into my house and talk. Just send your police officers home.’
‘We’re going to Trinity Road Police Station.’
‘Again?’
‘Are you putting this on, Lucy?’
‘Putting what on?’
‘Lucy, you’ve got a mind like a razor. My colleague Bill Hendricks is an incredibly intelligent man and he was dazzled by your lecture. You’re classically autistic but you know what’s going on, down to the last detail. The will of the Lord, Lucy? Or the will of Dad? Who is the Lord, Lucy? Who is in command? The Lord? Or what your Dad says the Lord is saying? Who told you to kill Kate Thorpe? The Lord? Or Dad? Who told you to bring Marta Ondřej to the park and call the emergency services? Who told you to join in with killing the Adamczak brothers?’
Lucy turned her back on Clay, squeezed her head between two narrow railings and twisted her neck, right to left over and over, trying her best to compress her skull and what lay within it.
‘Don’t do that, Lucy.’ Clay lay a hand on her shoulder and the tender touch ignited a storm.
Lucy pulled her head away from the gap in the railings and banged her head at full force against the iron bars, once, twice, three times in rapid succession.
Clay dragged her backwards and cuffed her left wrist. She took her right wrist and locked it into the other cuff.
‘Listen, Lucy. Listen to the people running towards you. Listen to what I’m saying. You cannot avoid what has happened. You cannot avoid what you have done. You cannot avoid what is coming next. Historical forces, Lucy. Broad ideas that motivate change in history.’
‘Such as the genocide of the Canaanites at the hands of the Israelites following the will of the Lord, just after the beginning of time as we know it. Yes. Historical forces. Don’t try it with me on historical forces, DCI Clay, because you won’t win.’
Clay looked into Lucy’s dazed eyes as the growing lump on her forehead swelled and turned a deeper shade of scarlet.
‘An ambulance is on its way, Eve,’ said Detective Sergeant Bill Hendricks.
Above the swelling on Lucy Bell’s forehead, the skin broke and a bead of blood rolled into her left eye.
‘All you have to do is tell the truth, Lucy.’
‘Lucy?’ she echoed back. Lucy dropped to the floor and Clay caught her, supporting her weight against the railings. On the pavement, Clay made a pillow of her knees and watched the lights going on and off in Lucy’s eyes.
105
6.32 pm
On Brownlow Hill, Father Aaron Bell digested the message his daughter had just left on his phone. He walked towards the side of the Metropolitan Cathedral and called Desmond Corrigan, the security guard.
‘Desmond, I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’ve left some very important papers in my locker. Could you please open up and let me back inside. I’m at the door of the crypt.’
‘No, problem, Father Aaron. I’m on my way right now.’
‘Thank you, Desmond.’
‘I won’t keep you waiting, Father. It’s a cold night.’
‘Oh, Desmond...’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘I heard you’ve been working the night shift by yourself these past few nights?’
‘Steve’s not a bit well. Yeah, I’m all alone.’
‘Solitude’s not such a bad thing. Jesus himself sought it out.’ He waited, listening to Desmond’s footsteps approaching the door at speed, then the unbolting of a lock behind the heavy wooden door.
‘Won’t be a moment, Father Aaron.’
‘No problem, Desmond.’
Father Aaron looked up at the multicoloured glass spire of the Roman Catholic cathedral and it produced the effect it always had on him. He felt how small he was in the scheme of things, and how from an early age his whole life had been a series of disasters.
A key turned inside the door to the cry
pt and as Desmond opened it, Father Aaron saw a patch of torchlight in the depths of the darkness beyond. Desmond Corrigan, a small man and the unlikeliest of security guards looked up at Father Aaron and into the priest’s eyes. He hooked the ring of keys onto his belt and took his torch from his waistband.
‘Come in, Father Aaron.’ He shone his torch into the crypt and the light picked up the arches of the vaulted red-brick ceiling. ‘I always feel like I’ve entered a different time and space when I come here,’ he said. ‘And I always feel that Jesus is close at hand and I am closer to Jesus.’
‘You’re closer to Christ than you think, Desmond.’
Father Aaron closed the crypt door.
‘Do you think so, Father?’
‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’
As Desmond turned his back on the priest to lock the crypt door, the security guard sniffed the air. ‘Petrol?’
‘You know me, Desmond.’ Father Aaron shook the three-gallon petrol can and the fuel sloshed against the metal. ‘Head in the clouds. I had to fill my car up just now because the needle was well into red and I was almost out of juice. I forgot to put the can back in the boot – I was that keen to get my papers, I walked away with it in my hand. Head in the clouds.’
‘Step this way, Father.’ Desmond pointed his torch ahead of himself and walked into the light.
‘We can get into the main section of the cathedral by the lift. I know a way of getting to the staff lockers that doesn’t involve a load of messing around with the alarm system. I’ll get you there safe and sound so you can pick up your papers, don’t you worry, Father.’
‘Thank you, Desmond.’ They walked side by side deeper into the crypt. ‘How are your children getting on?’
‘Six, four and eighteen months. Never a dull moment. Here.’ He reached inside his fleece, took out his wallet and showed Father Aaron a photograph of two older girls and a young boy.
‘My,’ said Father Aaron, taking in the children’s facial similarities to their father, the black skin that made the whites of their eyes stand out; the girls smiled broadly, their teeth gleaming white, both with their hair in dozens of beaded plaits.
‘How’s your daughter Lucy, Father Aaron?’
‘Nearly thirty years of age and, still, never a dull moment.’
Desmond stopped as they entered the central part of the crypt chapel and shone his torch in the direction of the altar, picking up the brick arches above their heads and the pews on either side of the aisle.
‘Do you ever feel sealed off from the world out there when you’re in the crypt?’ asked Father Aaron.
‘I guess that’s why I feel closer to Our Lord when I’m down here.’
Desmond shone his light at the pillars, at one of the three-dimensional wooden relief images of the Stations of the Cross: Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea, as he condemned him to death.
‘I know what makes me feel closer to Christ,’ said Father Aaron. ‘Come on, Desmond, let’s go to the devotional candles at the side of the altar.’
Outside the edges of the security guard’s torchlight, shadows shifted in the silent pews and darkness pressed down from the curves of the perfectly constructed arches of the ceiling.
Father Aaron stopped by the three-tiered metal frame hosting the candles.
‘Praying by candlelight, in the darkness, in the place where the dead could be housed as their souls fly to heaven. I think we should pray together, Desmond.’
‘That would be a great honour for me, Father Aaron.’
Father Aaron pointed to the kneeler.
‘You go there. I’ll stand over you. My knees aren’t as good as they used to be, so you’ll be doing me a favour if you kneel. We will pray in silence, but first of all we must light some candles.’
Aaron produced a box of matches from his coat pocket. ‘Desmond, keep your torch trained on the candles as I light them, please. Good man. Thank you.’
The tip of the match rasped as Father Aaron dragged it down the emery board and it hissed into life. He applied the flame of the first match to six candles, dropping the dying match to the ground. He struck again and, within moments, seven more candles were alight.
‘One more for the Holy Trinity,’ said Father Aaron, as he brought the last of the candles to life, filling the darkness with an oasis of warm light. ‘Turn off your torch please, Desmond. You don’t need it now.’
‘What shall we pray for, Father Aaron?’
‘Pray for your wife and children, and that God the Father will have mercy on you for your sins.’
The security guard nodded and said, ‘Thank you for this, Father Aaron.’
Father Aaron stood over the kneeling security guard and counted to one hundred. He unscrewed the cap of the petrol tin and, stepping silently towards the guard, trickled petrol on the fleece on his back. He waited, saw the stillness of the man beneath him and made a trail of petrol either side of the first application.
As Desmond’s head ascended slowly, Father Aaron guessed that he now had an inkling that something was not quite right.
‘Father Aaron?’
‘Yes, Desmond.’ He lifted a lit candle and stepped back.
‘Can you smell strong—’
Father Aaron touched Desmond’s fleece with the flame of the candle and fire chased up the back of his jacket and into his neck and hair. The guard looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened in shock and terror as flames filled the darkness between him and the priest.
He tried to get to his feet. Father Aaron smiled back at him and flapped the fingers of his right hand up and down. Desmond’s screams grew louder as each moment passed, and echoed back at him under the arches.
He fell onto his back and Father Aaron splashed petrol onto his chest and abdomen, using the candle to light the front of his fleece. Then he looked deeply into Desmond’s eyes.
‘I can see that you’re wondering why.’ There was work to be done in the crypt but there were words that demanded to be said out loud. He shook his head. ‘Why?’ He pictured Kelly-Ann sitting in a cell and waiting to die at the hands of the state. ‘An eye for an eye. And I want you to get used to it. There’ll be plenty more fires where you’re heading.’
106
6.35 pm
Carmel Dare stuck Raymond Dare’s right leg into the right leg of his pyjamas, then did the same with the left.
‘You’ll have to stand up from the bed, Raymond.’
Slowly, he stood up, and she pulled the waistband to his hips.
‘Hold your arms out.’ As he followed the instruction, there was a knock on the door and Carmel said, ‘Come in.’
She threaded the pyjama top over his arms as Doctor Ellington, the young female psychiatrist who had attended to Raymond since his admission to Broad Oak, entered. Carmel shuddered at the sight of the armed police officer at the door of her son’s hospital room.
The smile on Doctor Ellington’s face dropped.
‘Get into bed, Raymond,’ said Carmel, as the brutal weight of truth assaulted her: one son in police custody, the other on a psychiatric ward.
Carmel sat on the edge of the bed. ‘What’s happening, Doctor Ellington?’
‘Raymond’s seriously ill. It’s not a decision that I’ve taken lightly but I’m afraid I’m going to section him under the Mental Health Act.’
‘Thus taking away all his rights and choices,’ said Carmel, evenly. ‘Don’t be sorry. He doesn’t deserve to have rights, given the rotten choices he’s been making, over and over.’
‘Mum?’
Both women turned to Raymond.
‘Did you get the message to CJ and Buster to come and see me in hospital?’
‘You’ll have to give me their contact details. But to be honest with you, Raymond, you don’t need them around you, especially not now.’
‘Mrs Dare.’ Doctor Ellington leaned towards her. ‘I’ll put a message on the nurses’ station. No visitors for Raymond other than the ones you allow. Particu
larly no boys of his own age. I suggest he has no visitors until we can assess him fully.’
Raymond turned on his side, away from the wall.
Doctor Ellington looked at him. ‘That’s right, Raymond, get some shut-eye. It’ll make you feel a whole lot better.’
‘Ja-Ja-Ja-Ja-smine... Come here, girl...’
‘How long’s he been taking illegal drugs, Mrs Dare?’
‘Two years, but it wasn’t always as intense as it has been lately. I know what you’re going to say next, I’ve looked it up. His brain isn’t fully grown yet, and there could be long-term damage.’
‘Ja-Ja-Ja-Ja-ck, ck, ck, ck.... You fu-fu-fu-fucker...’
Raymond opened his eyes and, with great effort, levered himself up by his elbows. Doctor Ellington and Carmel Dare watched him closely as he made it to a sitting position, blinking hard, as if he had something urgent to attend to.
‘Raymond, lie down. There’s nothing you need to do.’
‘Can I have pencils, coloured pencils?’ he asked.
‘No. You could harm yourself with them,’ said Doctor Ellington.
‘Feed me, feed me art. Then can I have felt tips, thick felt tips?’
‘I suppose you could,’ replied the psychiatrist.
Carmel looked out of the window at Broadgreen Hospital, overshadowing Broad Oak. ‘I’ll get them for you from the shop in the hospital.’
‘Lots and lots, Mummy.’ He turned his attention away from the women and stared hard for many moments at the silent door. ‘Come in,’ said Raymond. Silence. ‘I said, come in!’
The door remained closed.
Although his eyes were dulled by medication, a light came on as he tracked the space between the door and the bottom of the bed.
‘Nice one, lads.’ He smiled at the empty space at the bottom of his bed. ‘Come here, come here.’ He turned his attention to the side of the bed and spoke into thin air. ‘Thanks for coming to see me, lads.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Have you got any weed for me?’ He reached out and took a slice of air, dropping it into the breast pocket of his pyjama top. ‘Mum. Don’t be sad. Don’t cry. I’ve got visitors. Mum.’ He pointed at the wall. ‘This is CJ. And this is Buster.’
