The Scream of Angels

by David Haynes

  Cunningham propped them up against the piano which he had pulled beside the chaise. Bishop knew he was there to witness something, something for which he was unprepared. Cunningham was setting the stage. Metier too, must have known, for he started whimpering. They were entirely at Cunningham’s mercy.

  “I beg you Cunningham, release us now and we shall speak of it no further.” Metier’s voice came in rasping breaths. It was as much from his uncomfortable position as it was panic.

  “Do not fret my angels. You will be released, although you will wish I had killed you by the end.” He vanished from view again.

  “Stop whimpering, Alexander. Eve is in her room. Once she comes to, she will see what is happening and alert the police.” Bishop spoke calmly, yet he felt as if he may start screaming for help at any time.

  “What if she does not wake in time? I cannot stand it.” He started wriggling frantically sending both angels into a spin. The roof beams on which they were suspended made a terrible creaking noise.

  “Stop it! We shall be smashed to pieces if we fall.”

  “At least it will all be over,” Metier started crying.

  Whatever small hope Bishop had held for Eve’s intervention was dashed the instant Cunningham came back into view. Eve’s body lay like a rag doll across his arms and he dropped her carelessly onto the chaise.

  “She has no part in this Cunningham!” he shouted.

  “Maybe she does and maybe she does not. We shall have to ask Victor about the letter when he wakes up,” he waved Eve’s note in the air.

  “Her suicide note? Of what import is that?” Now was not the time for questions, now was the time to plead. “For God’s sake Andrew, please, let us go!”

  “Suicide note? No, you are mistaken. Mademoiselle Bissette had not chosen to end her life. Apart from her sickness, she was quite well. No, this note was simply a letter to Victor; to her lover. Although I may have suggested laudanum as a medicine to help her nausea, I had no idea she was quite so naïve about its effects. Still, she drank the second bottle as if she were a baby at her mother’s breast. ”

  “No! It is you who are mistaken, you bastard!” Metier shouted. “She was not his lover. He loves my mother. He has only ever loved my mother!”

  “You shall see the truth before much longer.” Cunningham knelt beside Victor, Walter and Rose. He slapped both men roughly across the face before pausing beside Rose with his hand held ready to strike her too.

  Metier gasped and struggled against the bonds again, “I will kill you!”

  Cunningham slapped Rose across the face twice. A narrow ribbon of blood fell from her lips.

  Victor was the first to rouse, “What…what is this?” he stuttered.

  Cunningham crouched beside him, “Were your dreams filled with demons? Were they filled with rape and defilement in the filth of the abyss? Tell me all about it.”

  Victor looked into Cunningham’s eyes, “You? You are rotting in Bethlem. We…”

  Walter had woken too and struggled against his ties. His expression was one of disbelief.

  “You speak of my father. No longer does he rot within those walls. He tried to remove your voice from his skull with the cold tiled walls of his cell. And when his skull cracked, he used his fingers to find you and scratch you away.” Heath looked to his fingers. “They feel much more than the sterile metal of an instrument. They feel the soul, they feel the last beat of a man’s heart. But then you two would know that already.” He took a small jar containing discoloured liquid from his pocket and held it to his ear. “Old Blair told me many a fine tale of your tricks, after he died.”

  “You?” Victor spoke through gritted teeth and strained against his bonds.

  “Oh yes. You have always been quite the libertine haven’t you. From one bed to the next. How many bastards do you have now? Twenty? Maybe more. Perhaps there is one on the way?”

  Victor’s eyes settled on Eve. Her head lolled to one side and one of her arms fell from the chaise. “She has no part in this. Your quarrel is with Walter and me.”

  “I do not think so.”

  Bishop saw a glint of metal as Cunningham drew a blade and held it to his mother’s cheek.

  “She will be next.”

  Cunningham stood over Eve’s body and without further comment thrust the knife into the side of her throat. Blood sprayed outwards and coated his face. The throb of her still beating heart sent rhythmic pulses of blood in voluminous arcs into the air.

  Bishop could see her mouth opening and closing as Cunningham drove the knife deeper and deeper yet she made not a sound. It all seemed unreal. He had watched Cunningham inflict mortal wounds on Eve in the show night after night, and now he was simply watching again. In the distance he heard Victor roar and then scream.

  Cunningham withdrew the knife and dropped it by his feet, “Now let us hear what Mademoiselle Bissette has to say.” He reached into the wound with his fingers and started tugging and twisting. Bishop felt the impulse to vomit come again but his stomach was empty and all he emitted was a choking rasp.

  Eve’s head thrashed and tossed as if she were in the midst of a nightmare until finally Cunningham withdrew his bloody fingers. “There,” he said calmly and held a small lump of Eve’s throat to his ears.

  “Beautiful! Even though stupefied I can hear her screams so clearly.”

  Victor roared again, “I will kill you!”

  “What’s that, Eve? You have written a letter to Victor?” Cunningham took the note from his pocket. His fingers left crimson smudges all over the paper. “I shall read it for you since they cannot hear you. Dear Victor, my love. I know that you have tricked me. I know you will never be mine, yet I love you still and will do so forever. You must know by now that I am with child and I will be unable to hide it much longer. You must tell Alexander for he deserves to know the truth.” Cunningham paused and dropped the letter into Victor’s blood soaked lap, “There’s some ridiculous French proclamation of enduring love at the end too but that scarce matters.”

  Bishop felt the angels moving again. They swayed and rocked and came together as Metier struggled once more.

  “Lies, it is all lies. Tell him it is a lie, father,” Metier whined but Bishop could hear resignation in his voice too.

  “You are a devil,” Victor slumped forward.

  “Let us see if it is a lie or if Lord Cresswell is a liar and a libertine, as we all suspect.” He crouched and took the bloody knife in his hands again, before plunging it into Eve’s silk dress. He tore at it until the pale skin on her stomach was exposed.

  “It is a good job I have done this before!” he called and eased the knife through her flesh until the blade was entirely submerged.

  Bishop groaned. His father had not moved and had not uttered a word. He merely sat there and wept. He was thankful his mother had not woken for this was hell.

  Cunningham worked quickly. His hands delved into places where none should touch and the stench of human waste filled the air like Lucifer’s breath. Cunningham wrenched and cut and grunted with effort. Perspiration and blood mingled on his brow. He hurled entrails and innards into the air like a lunatic butcher. Blood sprayed Bishop’s face in warm droplets.

  “It is similar to your play, is it not?” he tilted his head and addressed Bishop and Metier. Bishop shook his head. He could no longer find words and his body felt numb. Cunningham turned back to the mutilated body beneath his hands. “I am not a physician but I cannot find the baby. Perhaps there was not one after all. Or perhaps there was, once? Who can say? None of us except Lord Cresswell and of course, Mademoiselle Bissette,” he held the cartilage to his ear again. “Yes she is quite adamant about it,” he put the organ into his pocket and took Eve’s legs. The sound of her body being dragged from the chaise onto the stage was terrible. He kicked her body to the side.

  “Now, shall we see if your mother is quite as virtuous as she would have you believe?”

  Metier thrashed violently causing the ange
ls to spin wildly. Bishop no longer cared if they fell and they were crushed beneath the heavy oak of their wings. Their bones would be smashed and their bodies crushed then at least they would be forced to endure this torment no longer. He joined Metier and writhed with fury as their mother was carried toward the blood drenched chaise. Cunningham’s feet slipped on the slick boards as he lowered her gently and stepped back.

  Above him, high above the angels, where the thick ropes were wound tightly around the ancient rafters, the theatre groaned. The ropes whined and frayed, strand by blood-splattered strand. The angels had flown above the stage for longer than anyone in Paris could remember. They had been there when the Grand Guignol was a house of God; when the priests anointed them with holy water and gave them eyes to see.

  Bishop felt a sudden lurch as the angel dropped. He closed his eyes. His descent would be rapid but it would miss his mother and father by a few feet. All below turned their heads towards the angels.

  The scream as Bishop’s angel finally let go echoed through the theatre. The rope which had held it safe for so long whipped across the ancient wood and the pulley which held it secure screeched like an angel being defiled by the devil.

  Bishop felt his legs go first as they jerked underneath him. But the rest of the angel held fast and he was jolted into an upright position. He cried out in agony as his back jarred against the angel’s rigid contours.

  He opened his eyes again. He had come to rest, posed as Christ crucified on the cross, yet he seemed to float just a few inches above the stage, just above the blood.

  Cunningham’s mouth dropped open and his eyes were as wide as saucers. “You looked as if you flew,” he whispered.

  Bishop's body pounded with each beat of his heart. Something inside felt wrong and the taste of blood was strong in his mouth. He coughed and spat onto the stage. “Perhaps I did. Perhaps I did not. Only he can tell,” Bishop nudged his head against the angel’s cheek. If Cunningham was as mad as he suspected then speaking to him with reason would bear no fruit. Why not try another tack?

  Cunningham turned away. “I care not.” He held the knife above Rose.

  From the corner of his eye Bishop caught movement in the wings. It was nothing more than a shadow but where there was movement, there was life. Had someone remained in the theatre when everyone else had gone home? Was there still hope?”

  “Wait!” he bellowed. If he could delay Cunningham, whoever was lurking back there might have chance to do something, anything.

  “What for?”

  “Tell me your dreams. That is what your father said to me; tell me your dreams. And I told him. I told him I dreamt of murder, of mutilated bodies writhing in agony. Of such atrocities that only Lucifer could have put them in my mind. I told him I wanted to cut my father’s heart from his chest and feed it to the crows. I wanted my mother to feel the pain of my knife cutting through her flesh. He heard it all and he wanted more, he wanted more and my father gave it to him. They gave him what he wanted but he could not cope. He was weak and pathetic, just like you.”

  Cunningham turned, which was what Bishop wanted. A snarl was daubed in blood across his face, “Well now you shall see my blade cut through your mother’s flesh. You shall hear the angel scream beside your ear.”

  The shadow charged across the stage and as the lights fell upon him. Bishop recognised the weary figure of Inspector Devaux. Cunningham turned just in time to slash his knife through the air but Devaux lowered his shoulder into Cunningham’s gut and knocked him back.

  Devaux straightened and touched his cheek. Cunningham had managed to cut him and the wound was deep. It filled quickly with the deep dark blood of a surgical cut. He showed no sign of pain and the wound galvanised him again. He charged once more sending Cunningham and his knife tumbling to the stage.

  Cunningham stumbled to his feet but the boards were slippery with Eve’s blood and his soaked shoes could gain no purchase. He fell again and in an instant Devaux was on him.

  Bishop took a deep breath, “I saw you in the wings, Inspector. I saw you.”

  Devaux did not look at Bishop. Instead he raised his fist and started beating them into Cunningham’s face. Blow after blow fell upon him making a perverse percussion on the boards. Finally nothing was left and Cunningham’s body shivered in its throes. Devaux fell back and wiped his hands across his suit. His eyes widened at the spectacle before him. He had turned the man into nothing more than a bloody pulp. There was silence again. Even Metier had ceased with his snivelling at the sight of Devaux’s brutal but life-saving attack.

  Bishop felt his angel tremble and once again a terrible scream echoed around the theatre. The angel started to fall forward and to hide its lidless eyes. Bishop followed suit for he had seen enough. The angel would surely and with great relief crush his body and kill him outright.

  As the angel finally fell from grace, Bishop felt hot breath on his cheek. ‘So, the angels breathe like us all’ he thought. But it was not the breath of an angel on his cheek it was the breath of an Inspector.

  “Inspector?”

  With a grunt, Devaux heaved the angel back upright and cut the bonds at Bishop’s wrists and feet. Bishop at once stepped free of the angel’s embrace. Devaux’s bloodied hands shook and his voice trembled, “I have a fur stole in my room; it was the finest I could afford. I once gave it to Mademoiselle Bissette but she never wore it for she loved another.” He plunged his blade with terrible strength into the eye of the angel and collapsed to his knees, “I was not in time to save her.” He withdrew the blade and kicked the wooden statue away, “and they do not care.”

  The angel fell back onto the stage where its wings were coated in blood.

  Epilogue

  June 1905

  Russell Square,

  London.

  Robert Bishop sat at his desk in his London office and looked out from the window. Russell Square gardens were beautiful at this time of year. The colours of the flowers and the lush green grass were perfect. Couples walked happily arm in arm and discussed their futures, which were undoubtedly bright.

  He straightened the paper before him and signed his name. Dr. R. Bishop. His father had been right of course. He had always been right about his true vocation. He should never have resisted it.

  He checked his pocket watch. The next patient would be here soon. There was never a shortage of people wanting to pay for a consultation with him and it had made him a wealthy man. Wealthy enough in fact to purchase a theatre of his own and install Alexander as director and writer.

  It had been difficult at first. The people of London were not quite as ready to see human nature laid bare as the people of Paris had been. Yet they had come to appreciate it eventually and now they clamoured for new plays, more gruesome and vivid than ever before.

  Cunningham may not have killed his father, mother or Victor but he had destroyed them. Bethlem, a noose, and Laudanum had been their fate. But pity, regret and sadness were not in Bishop’s heart for he had moved on from their poisonous influence.

  He whistled and sat in the leather armchair. Material for Metier’s plays was easy to come by for they had seen the worst man has to offer. Yet, occasionally they still needed stimulation; gentle inspiration.

  A light rapping sounded on the office door, “Come!” he called.

  A young boy stepped into the room. He twitched and flinched and dark rings beneath his eyes indicated his lack of sleep. He looked as Bishop had looked on his first visit to Cunningham.

  “Please, take a seat, Richard. There is nothing to worry about, I assure you.”

  The boy nodded. A tear rolled down his cheek.

  “Now,” started Bishop, “tell me your dreams. Tell me all of them,” he leaned forward toward the boy, “and do not be afraid.”

  The End

  Special Thanks to Kath Middleton