Angel

by Jon Grahame

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The Jews fought, despite the odds, but the situation became hopeless and the wooden tower was set alight. Many of the Jews killed their wives and children and then themselves. Mass suicide. Like those in Masada, in Judaea, when faced by the Romans. Those who were left, either died in the flames or were massacred by the honest citizens of York.’ He nodded towards the woman on the steps. ‘Brother Barry says that in a previous life, Sister Alice was one of the perpetrators of the genocide. To make amends, Barry told her to climb the fifty-five steps every day on her knees.’

  ‘Religion has a lot to answer for,’ Reaper said. ‘So does Brother Barry.’

  ‘It does indeed,’ said Abraham, ignoring the comment about the medium. ‘Religious madness has been around for centuries. I hold a service here once a week in remembrance of prejudice and the Jews. And for the glory of the one God. York is the perfect city for recovery. It’s full of history, monuments, churches, reminders. Signposts for the soul.’

  Reaper had no answer to that. At least, none of which Abraham would have approved.

  They passed the Tower and rode towards a three-sided square of imposing buildings. The central area was a circle that was overgrown with grass that rose thigh high, a single tree at its centre. Ahead of them was the Castle Museum: an older structure with a modern glass fronted addition to serve as the entrance.

  The monk pointed and said, ‘These used to be prison buildings. Built in the 18th century on the site of the castle. The Crown Court is to your right. There used to be geese here. Sadly, they were eaten.’

  Below the Crown Court was Tower Street, a main road that provided another entrance to the city. Vehicles blocked all lanes. Here, there was no formidable castle wall or gateway. Here, you could drive over a grass border or make your way along the river embankment to enter the city. Here, more than anywhere else, Reaper thought, the security of the city was shown to be an illusion.

  But then, as Tanya had pointed out, the city was vulnerable at many places. The blockages and occasional guards were meant as a psychological deterrent rather than a barrier. Perhaps to stop people leaving, as much as to make new arrivals think twice about their motives for entering.

  They rode along the road to the left, towards the museum entrance. On a raised area was an artillery field gun that was obviously long out of use and part of the museum display. They stopped at the entrance, dismounted and a young man came from inside to take charge of the horses.

  ‘Brother Mark,’ Abraham said to their companion, who had walked at a discreet distance behind them. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to prepare Brother Ronald for his deliverance?’

  ‘Straight away, Brother.’

  Mark disappeared inside. Abraham indicated with a hand that they should follow. They entered a foyer in which there was a pay desk, a cafeteria and a gift shop.

  ‘I like it here,’ said Abraham. ‘I often take a walk through time. When it actually was a museum, all the rooms inside were blacked out. We’ve removed much of the interior cladding, reclaimed the windows and the natural light. Of course, there are parts where you still need a lamp, but it remains an interesting experience. Although I wouldn’t say it is inspirational, it reflects the history of a very turbulent city through centuries that have often been violent. Times when life has invariably been unfair and death arbitrary. If nothing else, it provides an incentive to try harder next time. This time. To try to build a society that is fair and godly.’

  Reaper wandered into the gift shop. Abraham followed and picked a selection of guidebooks and tourist maps.

  ‘Please,’ he said, handing them to him as a gift. ‘No charge.’

  He smiled and Reaper, glancing at the dead tills and the empty shelves of the cafe, smiled back.

  Abraham led him through a staff door, along a gloomy ground floor corridor, and down a short flight of stairs. A door that led outside into a yard was open, letting in daylight. Brother Mark waited there. A man in a cassock, who held a book and cross in clasped hands, was standing by another open door that Reaper presumed, was Ronnie’s cell.

  ‘Is all well, Father?’ said Abraham.

  ‘I would have liked more time with him, Brother, but I think this experience may have done some good.’

  Reaper and Abraham looked inside. Ronnie Ronaldo was sitting on a stool. His narrow face was full of contrition and had bruising around the left eye. Dim light filtered through a barred window. A palliasse and blanket were on the stone floor and a bucket covered by a piece of wood was in the corner. The wood cover was unable to contain the odours that leaked into the confined space.

  ‘Boss?’ Ronnie said, with surprise.

  ‘How are you, Ronnie? How have they been treating you?’

  ‘They’ve treated me fine, boss. Why are you here?’

  ‘To take you home. We’ve missed you.’

  Ronnie suppressed a smile. ‘Are we going now?’ he said. ‘I’m taking Bible classes, like, and Father Michael says I need a few more.’

  ‘We’ll get the Reverend Nick to carry on the good work back at Haven, if you like.’

  ‘Nick?’ The voice of the priest queried the possibility. ‘I pray this is not a euphemism for Old Nick? You hear such stories from beyond the walls.’

  ‘Certainly not, Father,’ said Reaper. ‘The Reverend Nick is a God-fearing man like yourself, properly ordained and well versed in the word of the Lord.’ Just for a moment, he wondered whether Nick actually was ordained. After all, anybody could pretend to be anything and no one would be any the wiser. Like Abraham. Like Brother Barry. Maybe like Father Michael. ‘He’ll be happy to see to Ronnie’s welfare.’

  Abraham said, ‘Shall we go, brothers? The staleness of the air is getting a little oppressive.’

  A combination of Brother Mark and the bucket was making breathing strained, even with the open door. But, if it came to a choice, Reaper would have picked the bucket.

  Brother Abraham left Reaper at the Castle Museum to ride back to Holy Trinity alone and prepare for the six o’clock service in the Minster. Reaper declined his invitation to attend. Abraham again said he would put to the Council the possibility of trading, which might be undertaken on neutral ground outside the city walls.

  Brother Mark led the way back and they retraced their steps down Goodramgate. As they approached Monk Bar, Reaper saw that the small man in black with the crossbow was still in place.

  ‘Who’s the little chap in black?’ he asked. ‘The one who tried to skewer me?’

  Mark looked up at the walkway on the wall and said, ‘That’s Brother Cedric. If he had tried to skewer you, you would have been skewered.’

  Cedric was watching Reaper again, the malice apparent in his eyes.

  ‘Happy little soul, isn’t he?’ Reaper said.

  Reaper and Ronnie slipped between the barrels and walked along the middle of the road towards the two parked cars.

  As they increased the distance, Ronnie said softly, ‘You’re right about that Cedric. He’s an evil little bastard.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I met him. Him and a mate came to the cell and gave me a kicking.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Light entertainment?’ Ronnie said.

  Reaper glanced sideways at the skinny man, to confirm what he meant. He didn’t look back. He knew the crossbow would be pointed at him. Neither did they increase their pace. And Brother Abraham thought he led such a wholesome little community.

  Then they were beyond accurate crossbow range and met the three girls, who embraced an embarrassed but happy Ronnie. While Tanya and Jenny questioned him about his experiences, Sandra stayed with Reaper as he once more fastened on his weapons and caressed the carbine. He hadn’t realised how much they had become a part of him and that without them he didn’t feel complete. Did
that make him sad or safe?

  He took a deep breath and blew it out.

  ‘Difficult?’ Sandra said.

  ‘It’s just nice to breathe clean air again.’ He looked back from where they had come. He had seen no signs of self-flagellation but he had sensed something else. ‘Something behind those walls has a bad smell about it.’

  And it wasn’t just body odour.

  Chapter 9

  REAPER WOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY TO LEAVE BROTHER ABRAHAM and his strange followers alone but others at Haven were intrigued by the practices of a group of what had presumably once been rational people.

  ‘Mind you, who’s rational now?’ commented Doctor Greta Malone.

  ‘There have always been cults,’ said the Rev Nick. ‘Particularly in modern times, when people were looking for alternative beliefs.’

  ‘You mean New Age religions?’ said Cassandra. ‘Stonehenge, Glastonbury Tor? Gazing into crystals?’

  ‘I mean much more sinister ones. Better organised ones. In the 1960s, the Process Church of the Final Judgement worshipped both Christ and Satan and attracted mainly middle class followers. They had a Christ-like leader, whose name escapes me now, but he fitted the Western image of Jesus.’

  ‘The Western image of Jesus has always confused me,’ said Judith. ‘He’s a six foot tall white man with perfect features, often with blond hair, when the actual Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew who was probably about five foot one.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a nice person,’ said Pete Mack.

  ‘Children,’ said Nick, in a tone that suggested mockery was not appropriate, and continued. ‘The Process Church was said to have influenced the Manson Family. You remember them? The Sharon Tate murders? Manson preached a doomsday religion.

  ‘Then there was Scientology, invented by a writer of science fiction, and derided as totally crackpot, but it still became powerful and had famous followers. The preacher Jim Jones? He took nine hundred people to Guyana and got them to commit mass suicide. Waco, Texas? Those people were not alone. Others committed suicide – Heaven’s Gate, the Order of the Solar Temple. These are just in the West. There were many others in Russia, Eastern Europe, South America, Africa. Satanic cults, vampire cults. Fringe religions you wouldn’t believe. So why do we find it difficult to believe that, after an apocalypse, people would follow Brother Abraham’s message of love and cooperation?’

  ‘Abraham talks about love and cooperation,’ said Reaper, ‘but it didn’t feel like such a happy place.’

  And Ronnie shed a different light on life behind the walls. The priest who had attended to him had been charitable enough, but he hadn’t experienced much godliness from others he had encountered. Two jailers had visited him briefly, twice a day, to deliver food and escort him while he emptied his slop bucket. They had spoken little but had prodded him with baseball bats and he had been in no doubt that if he had been in any way awkward, they would have been happy to use them differently.

  One night, Brother Cedric and another man had visited him and, after cuffing his hands behind him, had beaten him, directing their blows to his body so that the results would not be seen by the priest. A woman had been with them but had waited in the doorway to the cell while they enjoyed their sport. At its conclusion, she had stepped into the cell and kicked him.

  ‘I don’t like repeating the language they used, not in front of ladies,’ said Ronnie. ‘One of them kept saying, don’t mark his face, but Cedric – the evil little one – was in two minds whether or not to go the whole hog.’ He shook his head. ‘And it wasn’t nice what they were saying to the woman. I mean they’re supposed to be religious aren’t they? What they were saying to the woman wasn’t very religious.’

  Not their problem, Reaper thought. But others in Haven were concerned. At the very least, they said, they should make contact again to confirm the trading deal. The sheep were due to be sheared at the start of summer and they could offer fleeces. They didn’t need homespun cloth or blankets because there was still no shortage of woollen goods in shops, stores and warehouses. But trade was one way of making contact and it would be beneficial if they could arrange for someone to train as a blacksmith – and to thereby have a pair of eyes on the inside.

  ‘From what I saw, and from what Ronnie told us, I don’t think York is a good place to be,’ said Reaper. ‘I, for one, would not want to visit there on a daily basis, even if it is to learn how to be a blacksmith. It won’t be straightforward and it’ll be potentially dangerous.’

  Even so, the organising council discussed it with possible candidates and a young man volunteered for the double role of apprentice and spy. Adrian Freeman – ‘call me Adie’ – was twenty-four. He had been a tyre fitter in a suburb of York and knew the city. In the aftermath of the plague, he had drifted to the coast before finding Haven. He was not academically inclined but he was bright, and he could be relied upon not to ask suspicious questions or to provoke any of the inhabitants. All he had to do was learn a new skill while keeping his eyes and ears open. All that had to be arranged was a way of getting him inside.

  Reaper and Sandra returned to York with the Rev Nick Waite, in the hope that one cleric would get on with another, and Cassandra Cairncross, who had an astute mind and was a natural leader. They stopped at the same place as before, across the road from the Indian restaurant, and within sight of the gate in the city walls.

  The restaurant caused Reaper to remember nights from long ago, when he went out for a few pints with the lads and they inevitably ended up in a curry house where Charlie Benson would inevitably bring the strong right hand of the law down on a plate of papadums, turning them instantly into crisps. At the time, they thought it was funny. Normal days before the world ended, before his personal tragedy had unfolded. Normal days, when he had been a simple bobby with a simple code to follow: a code of law and order. He still had a simple code to follow; only now it was more deadly.

  Days long gone.

  He looked at the gate through the binoculars. A woman carrying a pike stepped onto the wall and stared back. She pointed, turned and spoke to someone he couldn’t see.

  ‘Now we are here, it does look a little intimidating,’ said Nick.

  ‘I’ll go, if you like,’ said Reaper.

  ‘Not at all. It was just a comment. Cassandra and I will go this time. Beauty and the beast?’ He smiled to hide his nerves.

  ‘We’ll be all right, Reverend,’ said Cassandra.

  Reaper had no qualms about the cleric’s bravery. He had seen him put his life on the line to save others.

  He wore his dog collar and a dark suit on this formal occasion, although normally, he didn’t bother. Cassandra, a good-looking woman in her late thirties, wore a modest Laura Ashley dress and flat shoes so that she wouldn’t be taller than her companion.

  ‘Right?’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ said the Rev Nick.

  ‘We’ll be here,’ said Reaper.

  The two walked forward briskly and Reaper vowed silently that if Brother Cedric took any aggressive action towards his friends, he would gut him with the ten-inch knife that was in the sheath on his leg.

  Reaper and Sandra left the car where it was, but moved back out of sight of the guards on the wall. Though it seemed unlikely, there was always the chance that Brother Mark, or some other faction, might send out people to capture them.

  They retreated to a block of modern flats that was out of the line of sight of the gatehouse. The way in was in a side street through a metal-framed glass door. There was an entry pad and phone. The door was locked. Reaper tried his boot at the same height as the door handle and it burst in with little resistance. They went upstairs and chose a flat that looked out over Monkgate. It was empty – no bodies – and Sandra cast an eye over the furnishings and decorations.

  ‘It’s a rental,’ she said.

>   ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll bet a lot of these flats were holiday lets. Close to the Minster and city walls. They would have been popular.’

  ‘I suppose they would.’

  The lounge and dining area were combined in an L shape. From the window they could see their car on the other side of the street. The guards wouldn’t know where they were. There was a bathroom, kitchen and a bedroom with twin beds. Everything was neat and tidy, nothing out of place. If it had been a rental, as Sandra surmised, it had been cleaned and readied for a visitor who had never arrived.

  The rooms were not big but were furnished with taste. A sofa and a reclining armchair, a lamp on a coffee table, a standard lamp, a bookcase of paperbacks, a dining table and four chairs, a CD player, and a 32 inch, flat screen instrument of Mammon that could no longer spread the corruption that Brother Abraham despised. Like TVs everywhere, it was stone dead.

  Reaper picked up an old copy of the Yorkshire Post from the coffee table, laid it on the sofa and sprawled in comfort, the newspaper protecting the cushion at the far end from his booted feet.

  ‘That’s daft,’ said Sandra.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Protecting the sofa. Who’s going to complain? Who’s likely to ever come here again?’

  ‘Habit,’ he said. ‘Besides, it was once somebody’s pride and joy.’

  She moved a dining chair to the window so that she could look down into the road to keep an eye on their car and watch for the return of Nick and Cassandra. Reaper got up again and inspected the books on the shelves. He picked one and returned to his sprawl.

  ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Bernard Cornwell.’ She raised an eyebrow that said she hadn’t a clue. ‘Did you ever watch Sharpe on television? Sean Bean?’

  ‘Good actor,’ she said. ‘Quite fit for an old bloke.’

  Old bloke? Reaper squirmed.

  ‘Well he starred in a TV series set in the Napoleonic Wars.’ He held the book up so she could see the cover. ‘It was based on these books.’