Last Rites

by Neil White

  I'd parked a few streets away, as the parking spaces were all taken outside Sarah's house; Victorian terraces weren't made for two-car families. The steep hill reminded me that I hadn't been for a walk that day, and I was panting when I knocked on the door.

  I looked around as I waited. The street was quiet, dark now, the end of British Summer Time bringing the winter forward with a slam, but I thought I could see someone in a van further up the hill. It looked green, but that could be the orange sodium lights playing a trick.

  I looked back when I heard the door open. It was Katie. I saw that her hair looked wet and she was wearing only a towel.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ I said, embarrassed. ‘I must be early.’

  Katie smiled at me, her stare direct, challenging. ‘No, you're not,’ she said. ‘Come in.’

  I went inside and heard Katie lock the door. When I looked round, she said, ‘Force of habit,’ and then brushed past me. I watched her go up the stairs, saw how pale and slender her legs looked, her muscles well-defined. Before she got to the top she slipped off her towel, as if to get ready, and I felt my cheeks flush. She saw me looking at her, nude, unashamed, and then she turned onto the landing. I thought I saw the trace of a smile. When I heard the blast of the hairdryer, I went into the room I had been in the day before.

  I felt fidgety, my cheeks red. The look in her eyes and her naked body had aroused me, but I didn't want to think like that, and so I filled my mind with thoughts of Laura to stay focused. I needed to hear Katie's story about the letters, about what the police had said to her.

  I closed my eyes, but I saw an image of Katie again, naked, flirtatious. This wasn't fair on Laura, or Bobby. And it was unfair to myself; I had spent my life looking for someone to love in the way that my father had loved my mother. They had been happy, a strong couple, until cancer took away my mother.

  I knew what my father would have done: he would have put my mother first, before his job, and walked out. That was the thing to do. I moved towards the door, but Katie was there, wearing tight leggings that hugged her figure and a cropped shirt that showed her flat stomach, her skin creamy and pale, a steel ring in her belly button.

  She must have sensed what I had been thinking. ‘I thought you wanted to know about the letters.’

  ‘I do,’ I replied.

  ‘So sit down.’

  I faltered, and then did as she said. I checked my watch.

  Katie went into the kitchen. When she reappeared, she was holding two glasses of wine. ‘I don't like drinking alone,’ she said.

  As I took a drink, Katie sat just along from me on the sofa. She had her feet up on the cushions and was staring at me over her glass.

  ‘So tell me about the letters,’ I said.

  ‘All in good time,’ she responded.

  ‘Okay,’ I replied. ‘Answer me this question instead: what kind of person can live in a house where someone was murdered?’

  ‘What kind of person do you think I am?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘I'm still trying to work that one out.’

  Katie thought for a moment, and then she said, ‘What do you think about history?’

  ‘You're the history student,’ I replied. ‘You go first.’

  Katie shuffled closer to me. I could smell the soap from her shower, flowery and clean. ‘I think of this street and wonder how many people have walked up and down it, have looked at the same view. Go back a hundred years and the view would be the same. Same houses, same doorways. There would be cobbles instead of tarmac, and no cars, and maybe the houses are a bit ragged now, you know, the roofs sag and you can wake up to find kebab smeared over your front window, but the street hasn't really changed.’

  ‘Isn't that just like everywhere?’

  ‘I suppose so, but these things used to feel important. History felt important. It's what drew me, to go back to the start. That's what I was told, that to understand anything, you have to go back to the start, to know what went before. But now, I'm not so sure. So many lives have been lived in this street. Births, deaths, fights, marriages. All of those things behind these bricks, all of them important at the time, but now,’ and she clicked her fingers, ‘all gone. It means nothing in the end, and one day someone will look back and say the same thing about Luke's death, but we'll all be gone, and this conversation will mean nothing.’

  ‘So you can live here because ultimately what happened will fade?’ I asked.

  ‘Something like that,’ she replied. ‘Whatever happened doesn't really matter, not in the long run. Doesn't matter at all.’

  ‘That seems disrespectful to Luke,’ I said. ‘As if he never mattered.’

  Katie shook her head. ‘I just want to go back to how it was, when this was just a tatty little street in a worn-out mill town and I don't have to think of the things Sarah made me see.’ She sounded distracted, her voice sadder than before.

  ‘Why do you say that Sarah made you see them?’ I asked.

  She looked at me, and as she took a deep breath, some of her sparkle returned. ‘The letters,’ said Katie, ‘the ones you're so interested in. They're confessions to Luke's murder, and they're addressed to me.’

  I was silent, stunned. Confessions? That changed things. Did Sarah's parents know?

  ‘Where are they?’ I asked. ‘The letters?’

  ‘The police have them,’ she replied.

  ‘What do they make of them?’

  ‘The police don't tell me anything.’

  I chewed on my lip. If there were confessions, it would add something to the story, I knew that. ‘What did the letters say?’ I persisted.

  Katie smiled. ‘I'll show you, if you'll come upstairs.’ I must have looked confused, because she said, ‘I've scanned them into my computer, for reference purposes.’ She stood up and walked to the kitchen. When she re-emerged, she was carrying the bottle of wine. ‘C'mon, bring your glass, I'll show you,’ and then I heard her feet pad softly up the stairs.

  I looked at my empty glass and wondered at the wisdom of following her. But when I thought of the story, I knew I would do only one thing.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Sarah lay in the middle of the floor, laughing out loud.

  The images had passed, the nightmare was fading. The room was beginning to look normal again, becoming the shape it had been before her meal. The lights were still on, but they were no longer the kaleidoscopes they had been for the previous few hours. She was back in her cell, so it seemed, with only her fears to keep her company.

  But she didn't feel fear any more. Just an overwhelming sense of relief. He had attacked her mind, where it was harder to fight back, but now it was over and she had survived. She rolled around and laughed, pointed at the walls, at the door. She held her stomach as it ached. Too much laughing.

  The walls had stopped moving, the door stayed closed.

  Sarah carried on laughing as the day turned cold once more.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Katie's bedroom surprised me. She seemed smart and pretty, but her room was untidy, with nothing really settled or put away. Clothes were scattered over the floor, as if she had just discarded them en route to the bed, and there was a stack of history textbooks at one end, some open, some closed. There was a feminine smell, a mix of cosmetics and mild perfume, but the hum of the computer fans disturbed the karma. The machine was blinking away on an old desk in front of the window, and Katie jiggled the mouse to get rid of the screen-saver. She sat on a battered old stool, and I leaned against the wall nearby.

  ‘When I said they were confessions,’ she began, ‘they are not like confessions in the strictest sense. In fact, I'm not really sure I understand them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It's the language used. It's English, but not spoken English. It just doesn't sound right, like there's something off-key.’

  ‘Did you say this to the police?’ I asked.

  Katie laughed. ‘When did that become my job?’ She put her win
e glass down on the desk and beckoned me over, patting her hand on the end of the bed. ‘C'mon, you want to see it, don't you?’ Her top fell forward as she leaned towards me, and I could see that she wasn't wearing a bra. Or maybe I was supposed to see that. She smiled, her pupils large, and she held my gaze.

  My stomach fluttered, but it wasn't through lust; it was fear. I knew I should go, I was worried about what would happen if I stayed. I hadn't been out of the game so long that I couldn't recognise the signs. Katie was flirtatious, staring into my eyes, toying with her hair. But it didn't feel right. I was being played, I sensed that, but I didn't know why.

  I sat down on the end of the bed as Katie started to navigate through folders.

  ‘I encrypted it so the police wouldn't know I still had it,’ she said, ‘but it made it invisible, so I'm trying to remember where I put it.’

  I watched the screen change and flicker like a quickly turned book, until eventually she stopped clicking and leaned back. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘That's the first one. See what you think.’

  An image of hand-written text appeared on the screen. It looked neat and tidy – necessary writing for a schoolteacher, I supposed – set down on lined paper. I shuffled towards the screen and scratched my chin absent-mindedly as I read.

  Such was the nature of my offences, and the multitude of my crying sins, that it took away all sense of humanity. The murder I had committed, laid open to the world, did certainly produce contempt amongst people.

  Sarah

  I stared at the screen, puzzled, and looked at Katie, who just shrugged, so I read it again, but it still made no sense.

  I turned to Katie. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘Just about the same as you,’ she said. ‘I don't get it.’

  I sat back and exhaled loudly. I had the scent of a story, but it was too insane.

  ‘Are you sure it's from Sarah?’ I asked. ‘Murders attract crackpots.’

  ‘The handwriting,’ she said. ‘I recognised it straight away. It's controlled, a bit like her, all repression and formality.’

  I fell silent and wondered about the message. It was as if she was quoting something, had taken something old and inserted her name. ‘Crying sins.’ That certainly wasn't everyday language.

  ‘Where's the second letter?’ I asked.

  Katie went to the same folder on the computer and brought up another image. It was the same handwriting as before.

  Such is the horror of murder, and the crying sin of blood, that it will never be satisfied but with blood.

  Sarah

  I ruffled my hair, confused. I didn't know what to say. I read it again, tried to decipher it, and then asked, ‘When did these arrive?’

  Katie thought about that and then answered, ‘The first one was around three days after I found Luke. The second came a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Was Sarah religious?’ I asked. ‘The phrase “crying sins” appears in both. Did she ever go to a church? Will there be a priest she might be confiding in?’

  Katie shook her head. ‘We didn't agree on that. I go to church, always have done. Sarah never went, and she used to say that she never would. She said that her family were Church of England but didn't really practise, and the Bible was just something that washed over her at school.’

  ‘So her talk of sin is something that she wouldn't normally say,’ and I glanced back at the screen. ‘And there: such is the horror of murder, and the crying sin of blood, that it will never be satisfied but with blood. It sounds like a threat, that she has sinned, and that she will sin again by killing again?’

  Katie took another sip of her wine. ‘I hadn't thought of it that way,’ she said, ‘but you could be right.’ Then she looked at me quickly, a frightened look in her eyes. ‘Do you think it's a threat aimed at me?’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because the envelopes were addressed to me,’ she said, and then let out a deep breath, brushing away her fringe once more. The flickering light from the monitor was reflected in her eyes, and I saw a film of tears in them too. She put her glass down and moved closer to me.

  ‘I'm scared,’ she said, her voice soft and vulnerable. ‘Luke is dead, and I will see his corpse in my mind for the rest of my life. The only person who can really tell me what happened has run away, and the only contact we have with her are these letters, and I can't make sense of them.’ She turned her face to the screen again and dabbed at her eyes with her finger.

  I couldn't respond to that. I wasn't there to protect Katie. I was there to write a story, and it was getting more mysterious every time I looked at it.

  ‘Could I have copies?’ I asked, and nodded towards the monitor.

  Katie nodded, and after a few clicks a printer by her feet whirred into action. Within five minutes of entering Katie's room I had copies of the so-called confessions.

  I took another sip of wine and looked again at the letters. What could Sarah see when she wrote them? Where was she? What was she thinking? Would she make contact again?

  Something outside distracted me. The yard was a short concrete one with a high back wall that led to an alley, but I could see over it from Katie's bedroom upstairs. I thought I saw movement in the alley.

  ‘Did you see that?’ I asked.

  ‘See what?’

  I looked at Katie, and caught her wiping her eyes. I wondered for a moment about her. Maybe it was harder on her than I realised.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I must have been mistaken.’

  I thought she was going to start crying, but she steeled herself and reached for the wine instead. ‘I liked Luke, he was a nice man,’ she said, smiling thinly, and then sniffing as a small tear appeared in the corner of her left eye. ‘Oh, I'm just being selfish,’ she said tearfully. ‘You know, why did it have to happen to me? Why did it have to mess up my college year? Why must I have to get over seeing Luke's body?’

  ‘Why don't I ask the questions?’ I said. ‘Perhaps talking about it will help.’

  Katie smiled back. She wiped her face and took a deep breath, as if to start over. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Tell me what you found, in detail,’ I began.

  Katie exhaled and thought for a moment, and then began.

  ‘I'd been away for a few days,’ she said, ‘back to my parents in Leeds. I moved here for college, and Luke was planning to stay over while I was away. I got back early afternoon, about one thirty on the Sunday, and when I came in it was quiet. I thought nothing of it, and I'd been in the house for a couple of hours before I thought about going into Sarah's room.’

  ‘What made you go in?’ I asked.

  Katie curled her mouth as she thought about it.

  ‘With hindsight, I probably suspected something was wrong. I don't normally go into her room. I remember seeing her toothbrush in the bathroom, so I knew she hadn't gone away. But for all I knew, she could have just gone for a drink.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe I just wanted to chat to someone. I'd left my family again, and had a shitty journey, been on the train for a few hours. I knocked on her door but there was no answer. I waited a few moments, and then I went into her room, and …’ She paused there, her voice breaking. She steeled herself and took a sip of wine before she continued, trying to be matter-of-fact. ‘Luke was on the bed, there was blood on the floor and on the walls, and there was a knife sticking out of his chest.’

  At that her voice broke again, but this time the tears came.

  ‘Hey, come on,’ I said, trying to cajole her. ‘None of this is your fault.’

  She wiped her face and I saw her steady herself again.

  ‘I didn't know what to do,’ she said quietly. ‘I could tell he was dead. He was still, his face had kind of sunk, you know, and the blood on the floor was dry. The room was a mess. There was blood on the walls, like small teardrops, as if the knife had been pulled out and plunged back in again. It was on the door, on the floor, it was everywhere. But he was just in bed, a sheet still covering his legs, his ar
ms spread out as if he'd been laid on a cross.’

  ‘Was he naked?’

  Katie just nodded.

  ‘Was there blood anywhere else in the house?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn't notice, but the police said they found traces in the bathroom, around the sink and on the taps. Only traces though.’

  ‘Was anything taken?’

  ‘Not as far as I could tell. Her toothbrush was still there, her books, clothes, letters, all still there.’

  ‘Purse? Handbag?’

  ‘I couldn't see it, but the police said they found it on the other side of the bed.’ She paused. ‘I didn't go that far into the room.’

  I thought for a moment. Things were looking bad for Sarah. It couldn't have been someone else breaking in for money, because her purse was still there. But if Sarah was running, she didn't have any cash. So what about the blood around the taps and plug? Washing away the evidence is calculated. But if it was Sarah, why not be calculating enough to take some money if her life was about to be on the run? Empty her account and hit the road? Cash is more invisible than plastic.

  Something was bothering me. I knew it sounded like Sarah was the killer, but the facts didn't fit. No known motive. No known history of mental health problems. No means of support. Calculated cover-up after the event.

  But Luke must have known the killer. His feet were still wrapped in the sheet, so he hadn't got out of bed to struggle with an intruder. He felt safe enough to stay in bed until the moment the knife had gone into his chest. The fact that only his feet were covered might be the result of trying to move out of the way when he realised that he was in the last split-second of his life, but until then he was happy to lie in bed, naked, vulnerable.

  ‘Can I look at the room?’ I asked.

  Katie wiped her eyes and pointed to the front of the house. ‘Help yourself,’ she replied.