Black Cathedral (department 18)

by L. H. Maynard

  Kirby nodded her head again.

  ‘Bring it here. Now.’ His voice raised, the manner not allowing any discussion or argument. There could be no delays.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Kirby said, casting a concerned glance at Carter.

  Kirby returned moments later and flipped open the laptop, punching a few keys. ‘There you go,’ she said, handing the computer to Carter.

  Carter studied the image on the screen. Raj was sitting in the middle of the floor, head bowed, Jane two paces away from him. Jane’s mouth was working.

  ‘Can you get sound as well?’ Carter said.

  Kirby reached across and hit another two keys. Jane’s voice issued from the laptop’s inadequate speakers. She sounded tinny and far away.

  ‘…blame yourself for this, Raj. We’re all under a lot of stress.’

  Silence. Jane took a step towards him.

  ‘ We must talk about it,’ Jane said. ‘Or at least talk to Robert. He’ll know the best way to proceed.’

  Carter winced at this. He had no idea what had just happened, and was at a loss to know what to do next. He watched Jane move closer still to Raj. The man w asn’t responding. He could be carved from stone. Carter squinted his eyes to get a closer look at him. He was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. ‘Can we zoom in on Raj?’

  Again Kirby reached over and pressed a couple of keys. The image of the man sitting on the floor filled the screen. Carter studied the image closely, and then froze. ‘What’s that in his hand?’

  Kirby zoomed in closer.

  Clenched in Raj’s bloodied fingers was a shard of glass, six inches long and wickedly pointed.

  ‘Pull back,’ Carter shouted.

  The camera retreated in time to show Jane crouching down in front of Raj.

  ‘Jane, no!’ he shouted and, tossing the laptop to Kirby, ran to the door, wrenching the handle. Locked. He started beating on it with his fist. ‘Jane! Get out of there!’ He remembered the broken window. There was still a chance. He pushed through the others and ran to the front door.

  In the library Jane glanced back at the door with irritation. She turned back to Raj who had now raised his head and was staring at her. Raj’s lips moved and Jane leaned in closer to catch what he was saying. And as she leaned in Raj lashed out, swinging his arm in a wild arc.

  The shard of glass sliced through the soft tissue of Jane’s arm, missing the artery but causing blood to pour from the wound.

  Jane slapped Raj around the face. The blade of glass fell from his fingers. With an angry roar Jane picked up the glass and swiped it across Raj’s neck, severing his windpipe and cutting his carotid artery. As blood pumped from his neck Raj tumbled backwards, hitting the floor, the impact sending a fresh spray of blood into the air. His fingers scrabbled at his throat, trying in vain to close the wound, but the more he struggled the more the air pumped from his lungs and he could feel the warm breeze from his windpipe on his blood-wet fingers.

  As he lay there on the carpet, his life draining away in a crimson pool, Raj was changing. His face was shifting, stretching and ageing, until Jane was staring at her mother’s disapproving features.

  ‘Such a disappointment, Jane.’

  ‘I know, Mum. I’m sorry.’ She moved her lips but spoke the words in her head.

  ‘Such a disappointment.’

  Raj’s eyelids fluttered shut.

  ‘Raj!’ Carter was at the window, frantically trying to haul himself over the sill, but there was still enough glass in the shattered window to impede him. ‘Jane!’ he shouted.

  ‘You’re too late,’ Jane said. She was standing now, the bloody shard of glass still gripped tightly in her hand.

  Carter stared at her, torn between revulsion and uncertainty. A slow smile spread across her lips. ‘Much too late,’ she said, and started to sink through the floor. A few feet away from her Raj Kumar gave a final red-speckled exhalation and quietly died.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The telephone next to Jessica Anderson’s bed rang, waking her from a deep and dreamless sleep. She rolled over and clamped a pillow over her ears but could still hear the shrill electric tone through the thick pad of duck feathers. Eventually she could bear it no longer. She threw the pillow across the room with a curse and grabbed the receiver, pressing it to her ear. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.

  ‘Jessica, darling, it’s Celeste. Did I wake you?’ It might have been midday from the alertness in the woman’s voice.

  ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning, Celeste. Of course you woke me.’ She tried to inject a small amount of affection in her words but she felt murderous.

  ‘Good. Be at the airport in an hour.’ The alertness was mixed with cold instruction.

  Jessica sat upright in bed, the pillow falling onto the floor. ‘Are you out of your mind? Why the hell would I want to go to the airport at this time in the morning?’

  ‘Because I have my Lear there, fuelled up and ready to go. We’re going on a trip.’ She sounded like a mother presenting an errant daughter with a rare treat.

  ‘A trip? A trip where?’ Was this some romantic interlude?

  ‘Scotland. Well, the Lear will take us to Aberdeen Airport; from there we’re getting a helicopter to Kulsay.’

  Jessica picked up the glass of water sitting on her night-stand and took a sip, washing away the fur on her tongue. ‘Celeste, you are out of your mind.’

  ‘I’ve just come from a meeting with the Sorority. It’s been agreed that we need a presence on the island, to oversee what’s happening there.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m not flying to Scotland at three o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Sorry, sweetie,’ Celeste said in her honey voice. ‘It’s a done deal. We’re going. Unless, that is, you want to upset the Sorority,’ she added silkily. The menace was floating on the surface.

  Jessica took the phone away from her ear and glared at it venomously.

  ‘Are you still there?’ Celeste said after a long moment.

  Jessica sighed and put the receiver back to her ear. ‘Yes, I’m still here,’ she said, resignation in her voice.

  ‘Fine. See you in an hour then.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jessica said, and placed the receiver back on its antique-style cradle.

  She threw back the sheets and padded through to the bathroom.

  Fifteen minutes later she’d showered and washed her hair. She wouldn’t have time to dry it so she pulled it back into a severe ponytail and secured it with a band, then she threw a few changes of clothes into a suitcase, and added half the contents of her dressing table.

  When she was packed and dressed she picked up the phone again and hit the intercom button.

  It was an age before Jennings, the chauffeur, answered. His voice sounded sleepy.

  ‘Sorry to wake you,’ she said. ‘I have to go out. Bring the Mercedes round to the front of the house.’

  ‘Where are we going, ma’am?’

  ‘The airport.’

  ‘The airport,’ he repeated. ‘Very well.’

  The Lear was waiting on the runway. Celeste Toland had met her at the entrance to the airport and swept her through passport control with the ease of the heavily influential. As she walked across the tarmac Jessica looked up into the Lear’s cockpit. The pilot was young, fresh-faced and wore heavy dark glasses, despite it being the middle of the night. He was reaching up and adjusting something above his head. Then, as if aware he was being watched, he glanced down at Jessica, smiled slightly and threw a salute.

  ‘He looks very young to be flying planes,’ Jessica said to Celeste. ‘No more than a child.’

  Celeste took her arm and guided her towards the steps. ‘Don’t worry,’ the older woman said with a smile. ‘Jackson’s very experienced. And I don’t just mean his piloting skills.’ She gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Jealous?’

  ‘What, of Flyboy? Hardly.’

  ‘Good. You needn’t be. It’s you I love.’

  And Jessica didn’t belie
ve that either.

  At the steps to the Lear, Jessica was surprised to see the rest of the group that called itself the Sorority. They all greeted her warmly but none made a move to get onto the plane.

  Eventually Jessica lost her patience. ‘You’ve got me up at the ungodly hour. Can’t we at least get on board?’

  Several of the women laughed. Celeste laughed with them, which angered Jessica.

  Celeste stroked her face. ‘Poor Jessica. We don’t need to get on board.’

  ‘Celeste, I’m tired. I just want to sleep. What’s going on?’

  Miranda Fry had opened her purse. ‘Celeste, do you want to use mine?’

  The older woman shook her head sadly. ‘Thank you, no. It has to be mine.’

  She opened her own purse and took out a small revolver.

  Jessica backed away. ‘What…’

  Celeste sighed. ‘I do genuinely regret this Jessica, though you won’t believe me. The Sorority doesn’t need you anymore. We have our passage to Kulsay. You’d only be, I am afraid to say, a hindrance.’ She hesitated, almost as if there was genuine regret in her actions. ‘I would always have to doubt your allegiance wouldn’t I, Jessica?’

  With that she shot Jessica three times in the chest and once in the head.

  As Jessica slumped to the tarmac, quite dead, the group of women sank slowly into the ground until there wasn’t a sign of them having been there save for the gentle waft of Chanel No. 5.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Robert Carter stood at the broken window and watched Jane Talbot disappear. There was nothing he could do; no way he could turn back the clock. He gave a howl of anguish and sank to his knees. The only woman he had ever truly loved was gone and the man she had just killed was lying dead just a few yards away from him. First Sian, now this. A hand rested on his shoulder.

  ‘There was nothing you could have done.’ John McKinley’s words echoed his thoughts.

  He looked up at McKinley’s handsome black face. There was compassion in the other man’s eyes; compassion and sadness.

  ‘I watched it on the computer,’ McKinley said. ‘It all happened so fast.’

  ‘Did you see what happened to Jane?’ Carter said. Had it all been recorded?

  ‘Gone. If it was Jane. I’m beginning to doubt that it was. Come on, let’s get back inside.’ He helped Carter to his feet and together they walked back to the front door.

  Kirby and Bayliss were sitting on the floor. Bayliss’s hands were covering his face; Kirby was weeping, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She made no effort to wipe them away.

  ‘Have you tried the door again?’ McKinley said, as they stood outside the library.

  Bayliss shook his head. The laptop was on the floor beside him, the picture on the screen a moment frozen in time. Raj lying dead on the floor of the devastated library. He looked peaceful in death, as if he was merely sleeping. Only the red gash at his throat tainting the image. Carter bent down and closed the screen, then went to the door and turned the handle. The door opened easily.

  Crouching down beside Raj’s body he reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from his face. As he stared down at the serene face his heart wrenched and a choking sob broke from his throat. Awful as he felt about not being able to save Raj, he couldn’t help but feel more grief at losing Jane. He closed his eyes and let the memories of her come flooding back into his mind; memories he’d repressed since the end of their affair.

  Jane, eyes wide with awe as she stood, staring out over the city from the top of the London Eye. Jane, laughing with abandon at the Marx Brothers when he’d taken her to a National Film Theatre screening of Horse Feathers. Jane, her face illuminated with soft candlelight, gazing at him lovingly across the table in their favorite restaurant in Soho. His fingers tracing the line of her cheek as she lay beneath him the first time they’d made love. The petulant tilt of her chin when he’d said something that displeased her.

  So many memories jostling for space in his mind. How could he have let her go? Why did he let the work they shared come between them? He realized suddenly that he had wasted much of his life. It was a crushing thought, but a true one. Priorities. He’d always made them, shuffling the elements of his life into a certain running order. As their relationship continued, and he started to feel comfortable and secure in it, he’d let her slip down that list of priorities and allowed other elements to take her place. And as he let her slip through his fingers, she’d been easily seduced by the attention of someone else — her husband.

  The others stood back in the doorway, allowing him this private moment.

  It was McKinley who took charge. He instructed Kirby to copy what ever images and sounds were on the laptop so they had backup records. It gave him great pleasure to tell Bayliss to make coffee for them all, and after what had happened he wasn’t surprised he got no resistance.

  In the library McKinley helped Carter move Raj’s body. For want of any better ideas they rolled it in a Persian rug and laid it as gently as they could on a couch.

  ‘Let’s go get that coffee,’ McKinley said.

  ‘I’m not sure…’

  McKinley clasped a large hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘It wasn’t an idle suggestion. You need to be with the others.’

  Carter half nodded, half shrugged and followed the big man out, through the hallway, and into the bar area.

  Bayliss had four mugs of coffee lined up on the bar counter. Kirby was warming her hands on one of them.

  Carter walked across to her. ‘How’s your face?’ There were a few cuts and scratches on her cheeks and her forehead was coated in blood.

  Kirby attempted a smile but it looked more like a grinning Halloween mask. ‘How could Jane kill Raj?’

  He walked behind the bar, wet a clean cloth with cold water, and then began to wipe the blood from her face. ‘It wasn’t Jane…not consciously.’

  Kirby leaned her face to one side so he could finish cleaning her up. ‘Is she dead?’

  Carter laid the cloth down on the counter and picked up one of the coffees. ‘There, that’s as good as new.’

  Bayliss was seated at one of the tables, spinning his finger in a warm wet circle made by his mug. ‘He can’t answer your question because he doesn’t know.’

  Carter led Kirby across to a chair near Bayliss and motioned for McKinley to join them.

  When all four were seated Carter said, ‘We’ve heard your story, Bayliss. Now it’s my turn to tell you what I know.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Carter wrapped his hands around the mug of hot coffee and looked at the faces staring at him. He had no idea what they were expecting from him. They were going to be told a mixture of speculative conjecture based on what he had read, facts extracted from his recent research, and intuition. Personally he trusted the last one the most but doubted they would share his faith.

  Kirby looked younger than ever; almost like a child waiting for her father to tell a favorite story, only Carter wasn’t sure this time there would be a happy ending. McKinley was impassive, his strong features seemingly relaxed, although Carter could tell by the pulses at his throat and temple that he was struggling to keep his emotions inside. Only Bayliss seemed relaxed, smiling as he breathed in the aroma of his coffee.

  Carter took a sip of his drink, breathed out through his nose and summoned his thoughts. ‘Judaism originated in Israel about four thousand years ago; Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic, takes a lot from Judaism. Incidentally so does Islam.

  ‘Jews believe there is only one God, who created the Universe, and keeps it going for all time. God has always existed, and always will. God cannot be seen or touched but can be reached through worship. God chose the Jewish people as his special people and to be an example to the world.

  ‘Judaism doesn’t have any set doctrines, or creeds; it’s a religion that follows Torah which is guidance from God found in the scriptures. Humans are made in the image of God, and should try to seek holiness in every
thing they do every day.’

  Bayliss caught Carter’s gaze and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘There’s a point to this?’

  Carter ignored him. ‘All Jews have an affinity to Israel, the land God promised to Abraham and to the holy city of Jerusalem. Jews are divided according to their beliefs and practices and also to their racial origins; some, the Ashkenazi Jews, having roots in central Europe, and others from Spain and the Middle East, the Sephardic Jews.

  ‘DeMarco was a Sephardic Jew.’

  Bayliss snorted in derision. ‘There’s no evidence for that.’

  ‘None that you found,’ Carter said quietly.

  Bayliss placed his mug untidily on a small side table and stood. ‘I’ve researched him for years and there are no suggestions that he was anything other than Spanish. Spain has a rich history of explorers and in his way that’s what deMarco was about. Only he took it to extremes.’

  ‘I haven’t said he wasn’t Spanish. Sit down and let me continue. I admire the work you’ve done, you told me things I hadn’t pieced together, but accept that I have an advantage.’

  McKinley laughed, a gentle bass rumble. ‘He means his psychic ability.’

  ‘It allows him to get into corners ordinary research can’t reach,’ Kirby said.

  When Bayliss was seated again Carter began speaking. ‘During the time of the Spanish Inquisition Jews living in Spain were persecuted for their faith. To continue living there many of them lived a double life of pretending to be Catholics but secretly practicing their real religion in private. Because Catholicism was considered the one true faith many Jews became conversos, people who actually converted to Catholicism but still practiced Judaism underground. Those who refused conversion were tortured and killed.

  ‘Those who converted but secretly maintained their true faith were called Marranos. In Spanish this means pig; it’s taken from the Arabic muharram, which means ritually forbidden, based on the Jewish, and Muslim of course, habit of not eating pork.

  ‘Many Jews did actually convert to Christianity but they were never fully accepted. The conversos on the surface were practicing Catholics; they went to Mass, but didn’t embrace the faith. They still ate no pork, celebrated Passover, and gave oil to the synagogue. The Marranos employed a man to slaughter the animals, drain away the blood and deliver the meat, and another man to secretly perform their circumcisions.