Colour of Death, The

by Cordy, Michael

  “It’s an observatory.”

  Fox looked up at the windowless structure and assumed he was joking. “A what?”

  “A spiritual observatory. It helps me look beyond the veil dividing the physical and spiritual realms. Its lens doesn’t look outward to the stars but inward to the soul.”

  “How does it work?”

  Delaney shook his head. “Only the chosen can enter and I doubt you would see anything of interest inside.”

  As they approached the Great Hall, Fox noticed people engaged in feverish preparations. “What are they doing?”

  Delaney led him through the doors into the building. “Getting everything ready for tomorrow’s feast of Esbat.”

  “I thought Esbat was a Wiccan ceremony for witches?” One of Fox’s patients had been obsessed with the occult and often talked of Esbat.

  “It is. We borrow practices from all spiritual traditions. Esbat is the time when we concentrate all our senses — physical and spiritual — to look beyond the veil that separates the human world from the divine. We all passed through this veil once, when we were born, and we’ll pass through it again when we die. But in our lives most can’t remember what we experienced before birth or predict what we’ll experience after death.”

  “And you believe your observatory can help you see beyond the veil during your lifetime?”

  A smile. “Once we master control of our astral bodies we cannot only see beyond the veil but pass through it and visit the other side.” Delaney expressed himself with such conviction that Fox could only nod in acknowledgment.

  As he considered his response, Fox glanced around the Great Hall. The soaring space seemed even larger because of two large glass panels in the roof, which revealed the blue vaulted sky and allowed light to flood the hall. Standing by the raised dais were three striking women in exquisite indigo gowns. Evidently preparing for tomorrow night’s ceremony, the trio were attending to a fourth woman. Fox watched, entranced, as they decorated her hair with violets and white lilies and fussed over her dazzling white robe. When they stepped back to reveal the creature in all her glory, her ethereal beauty made even their considerable charms seem ordinary.

  “Look who’s come to check up on you, Sorcha,” Delaney said. “I told him he’s got nothing to worry about, but Dr. Fox wanted to see for himself.”

  “Hello, Sorcha.” As Fox stepped forward to greet her she took a step away from him. His heart fell when he saw the fear in her eyes. After all they had been through together it hurt him to think that Delaney could be right and he might now be the cause of her anxiety. For the first time Fox doubted whether he should have come.

  Chapter 43

  Sorcha’s first reaction on seeing Nathan Fox was fear — for him. She was still trying to absorb her discovery about Kaidan and her father’s clinical dispatch of Eve, and it took all her self-control not to run to Fox and warn him about the danger he had stumbled into. She restrained herself. Her father had made it chillingly clear what would happen to the psychiatrist if she did.

  “Hello, Dr. Fox.” She kept her voice formal and made no attempt to introduce him to the others. She was acutely aware of Delaney watching her, along with the Wives, who had stayed by her side ever since Fox’s arrival, wrapping her in the white robes before marching her over to the Great Hall. Kaidan had disappeared with Eve’s body and Sorcha’s precious locket. It took all her concentration not to reach automatically for the missing silver heart. She felt naked without it. “What brings you here?” She tried not to think about her father’s plans for her and focused instead on reassuring this most perceptive of men that she was fine and that he should leave as soon as possible. The least she could do, after all he had done for her, not just in Portland but in coming here, was to steer him away.

  Fox glanced at the Wives, then at Delaney. “May I speak with Sorcha alone, in private?”

  “As you wish,” said Delaney.

  Sorcha led Fox out of the hall to a copse of trees near the tower. Within the copse was a shaded bench. Fox waited for her to sit then sat beside her. Though the place seemed private, Delaney had warned her that he had ears and eyes everywhere, and she had no reason to doubt him.

  “How are you feeling, Sorcha?” Fox asked softly.

  She had forgotten how reassuring his voice was. “Fine. You didn’t need to come all this way to check on me. How’s Samantha?”

  “She’s good. She asked after you. Has your memory returned at all?’

  “Not yet but each day feels better. Coming back here was definitely the right thing for me to do.”

  “Have you experienced any more death echoes?”

  “No.” She pointed back to the hall. “As you can see, I’m happy and busy. We’re preparing for Esbat and I have a starring role in the festivities.”

  “That’s good.” His blue eyes searched hers. “You haven’t felt threatened by anything or anyone since you returned?”

  “No. Compared to Portland this place feels very safe.”

  He nodded. “You’ve no worries about the cult or your father’s beliefs? Nothing you find uncomfortable?”

  “No. I’m happy here. Why?”

  “You seem a little nervous.”

  She looked away, afraid her eyes betrayed her. She had to convince Fox she was fine and make him leave. “To be honest, it’s you that’s making me nervous,” she said. “This place is full of everything I want to remember. You remind me of all the bad things that happened in Portland. All the things I want to forget.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, softly. “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “What was your intention? Why did you come?”

  “I was concerned about you.” She listened as he explained his theory. “The colored letters in the messages indicate the killer has grapheme-color synaesthesia. I think he also shares your death-echo synaesthesia, but unlike you the death echoes don’t repulse him. The excite him. I think that’s why he committed copycat killings — to recreate and intensify the death echoes of the original crimes. I came because I suspect he’s one of the Indigo Family and wishes you harm. I don’t think you’re safe here.”

  As she listened, she squirmed inside. Everything he said, every deduction he had made was chillingly accurate and yet she couldn’t say a word. She couldn’t tell him that if the killer shared her death-echo synaesthesia then it was because he was her half-brother. Or that her father was aware of the crimes. “You’ve told Detective Jordache all this?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “You promised you’d tell no one about my death-echo synaesthesia.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  She pretended to be angry but she didn’t care anymore. She only cared that he had come. And now she had to make him leave. “Does he share your concerns about the killer?”

  “Not exactly. He found some of my theory a little hard to swallow.”

  She imagined Fox trying in vain to explain death-echo synaesthesia to the skeptical police. And yet, despite his famous detachment, Fox had still come all this way to warn her. On his own. “So this is just your theory. The police don’t think I’m in danger at all.”

  Fox reached into his jacket and pulled out a photo of a large, heavyset man. “Do you recognize him?”

  “Who is he?”

  “The prime suspect the police have in custody. Look closely at his face. Is he the man who tried to abduct you from your room at Tranquil Waters or the killer you sensed in the crime scene death echoes in Portland?”

  Sorcha didn’t need to look at the picture to know he wasn’t the killer. Kaidan was. “I barely saw the man who tried to abduct me and only glimpsed them killer in the death echoes.” She pointed at the picture. “It could be him though.”

  “Really?” Fox looked crestfallen, like a gambler who has played his trump card only to see it beaten. “I was sure you’d say he wasn’t the guy. I was sure the killer was still at large. That’s why I came to warn you.”

  She stoked t
he hurt and rage she felt for her father and directed it at Fox. “The last time we spoke you said I should return home and rediscover my past. I’ve done that and so far I’m doing fine. Now, just as I’m settling back into my old life, you come out here and tell me to be scared of something the police have already taken care of. What do you want me to do, Nathan? Leave my family — the one place I feel safe — and come back to Portland with you? You’re a psychiatrist, not a bodyguard. Why should I be any safer with you? At least my father and his people can protect me here. Why would I want to go back to Portland anyway? What do I have back there? Nothing, except bad memories.”

  Fox didn’t respond, just sat back and watched the people bustling in the sunshine, preparing for Esbat. His face was hard to read. He turned to her again and frowned. “Where’s your locket?”

  “It’s back in my room. I took it off to try on my robes.”

  “You never took it off back in Portland.”

  “Like I said, I feel more confident here. I don’t need to wear it all the time.”

  He leaned in close and whispered. “You sure everything’s OK, Sorcha?”

  When she looked into those concerned blue eyes she almost lost her resolve. “I’m fine, Dr. Fox, really. I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me but now I think you should go home, stop worrying and let me get on with re-discovering the rest of my life.”

  He maintained eye contact for a while longer, then gave a small nod. “Very well. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.” He stood up, rested a hand on her shoulder, then walked away.

  Chapter 44

  How could he have been so unprofessional and so wrong? As Fox rode away from the settlement he didn’t look back. He kept thinking about the wisdom of Sensei Daichi’s words: Never let them get too close. Never lose control. By abandoning that code and allowing Sorcha to get under his skin he had compromised both his judgment and his perspective. His elaborate theory about the killer being part of the cult now appeared to be a circumstantial house of cards. Had Jordache been right? Because of what had happened to his family, had he projected his hatred of cults onto Delaney’s and made the evidence fit his prejudice? If so, how did he let that happen? He was supposed to be a psychiatrist, for Christ’s sake. For all he knew, the man Jordache had in custody probably was the killer and Sorcha was in no danger at all.

  Delaney had invited him to stay for lunch but Fox left as soon as he could. He didn’t want to cause Sorcha any more distress and wanted to get back to Road’s End early enough to reclaim his car and get home that night. After accepting food, water and directions he had climbed back on the horse and set off. Delaney had instructed him to cross the bridge and ride through the woods on the far side of the valley but the skittish animal seemed intent on going back the way they had come. Fox didn’t fight him. Downriver, he crossed the shallow ford and soon found his way back up to the path above the settlement. After checking his GPS, he patted the animal’s flank and re-entered the forbidden forest.

  He was lost in his thoughts, still trying to work out how he could have got it so wrong, when he heard someone coughing. He reined the horse in and listened. The coughing was coming from ahead — and above. Reaching for the binoculars, he trained them on one of the towering giant sequoias. At least fifty feet up its massive trunk, a man was descending in a makeshift timber lift. He was big, wore gloves and carried a burlap sack. As Fox followed the lift’s descent to the ground, he noticed a horse tethered to a wooden hut and realized it was the same clearing where he had spent last night.

  The man got off the lift, took a shovel from the shed, walked to the center of the clearing and began digging into the soft earth, a few yards from where Fox had lain in his sleeping bag. The man didn’t dig very deep before he turned his back to Fox and emptied the sack’s contents into the hole. After refilling the hole, he threw the shovel, gloves and sack into the hut and locked the door — all with the casual efficiency of someone putting out the weekly garbage. Something about the man’s size and the way he moved seemed tantalizingly familiar. Fox waited for him to mount his horse and ride away in the direction of the settlement, then edged into the clearing.

  Intrigued why anyone would bring something down from a high tree and then bury it, Fox dismounted and walked to the center of the clearing. Getting down on his knees he scooped the soft earth out of the hole. The first object he uncovered was a bone, so small he assumed it was part of the earth. More digging revealed a larger bone, then a skull. Fox didn’t need medical training to know it was human. He dug faster, bare hands scrabbling at the earth, revealing more bones: a femur; a humerus; a full set of phalanges from a left foot. All were clean of any soft tissue. As he removed the bones he discovered more underneath, and then more beneath them: too many to have come from one sack. He excavated wider and discovered yet more bones. All human. To his horror, he realized they were varying sizes. There were large male adult femurs, an adult female pelvis, and bones so small they could only belong to children. The unformed sutures on two tiny skulls told him they were from newborns. Both were clearly deformed.

  He straightened up, light-headed, chest tight. What was this place? Stepping back, he took in the circular clearing. Walking from one side to the other, he kicked the ground, feeling the hardness of the earth beneath his feet. Wherever it felt unusually soft, he kicked away a patch of topsoil to reveal more bones. From its center, he estimated that the shallow grave extended six feet in every direction, forming a circle twelve feet in diameter. He shuddered. No wonder he had woken in pain this morning: he had slept on a bed of human bones, covered with only a loose layer of soft earth.

  This place had to belong to the settlement. This was Delaney’s private land and there were no other humans for miles around. As he stared down at the discarded bones he remembered how the man had unceremoniously dumped the contents of the sack into the pit. If this was the Indigo Family’s graveyard, then they had little respect for their dead. Fox looked up at the towering redwoods. What had the bones been doing up there? He wandered over to the tree from which the man had descended and found the rudimentary lift: an open timber frame with a three-foot-square base. Looking up, he saw a channel had been cut through the branches to accommodate its ascent. Beside it, a series of ladder rungs had been nailed strategically to the massive trunk , presumably as a back-up. From what he could see, the contraption relied on a complex system of weights, ropes and pulleys, none of which inspired much confidence. Hanging from a cable in the lift was a metal control box with two arrow-shaped buttons.

  He swallowed hard. Ever since he was a child he had had a fear of heights and this promised to match his worst nightmares. He had to see what was up there, though. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the lift and pressed the ‘up’ arrow. He heard a low hum, then the rope above jerked into life and the platform began to rise. As the lift ascended, his grip tightened on the wooden frame. The urge to press the ‘down’ arrow was almost overwhelming. He turned toward the trunk, studying its soft, spongy red bark so as to avoid looking out and down. As he rose higher, the breeze blowing through the trees became stronger. Though it was fresh, he smelt something foul in the air.

  He looked up. There was a thick branch to his right then, directly above, a platform extended from the trunk. As the lift passed the branch and rose through an opening in the platform, Fox realized that, except for branch tips from neighboring trees, there was only blue sky above. The top of the tree had been lopped off. The lift stopped level with the platform, a few feet below the top. Fox stepped out, grateful for the rickety rail around the platform’s edge, and risked a glance down. As he glimpsed the ground he gasped. He estimated he was at least a hundred feet up.

  He detected the bad smell again, then two crows flapped past and alighted on the sawn-off treetop, a few feet above him. Turkey vultures circled the sky above. With the aid of two steps and a handrail, he climbed tentatively onto the flat, sawn-off crown of the trunk. The treetop was about ten feet in diameter with a woo
den deck attached to one side, extending the area an additional five feet. There were no railings and the panoramic vista across the roof of the forest was breathtaking.

  Fox wasn’t looking at the view, though, or even thinking about his vertigo. His total focus was on what lay at his feet.

  Chapter 45

  Watching Fox leave had been heartbreaking. Sorcha had felt as if all her hopes were leaving with him. As she wondered what lay in store for her, she consoled herself that at least he was safe.

  “You did well, Sorcha,” her father said, after Fox had gone. “Remember, you’re one of the family and we look after our own.” As Delaney walked away he turned to the Wives. “Keep an eye on her.”

  Sorcha ignored them and as soon as the lunch bell rang walked briskly toward the refectory, immersing herself in the crowd hurrying to lunch.

  “Wait,” said Zara as she and the others followed.

  Sorcha didn’t look back. She allowed the crowd to sweep her along, carrying her away from the Wives. They tried to keep up but the crowd pulled them further apart. Just before she entered the large barn, she turned and pointed to the small block of restrooms at the back of the refectory. Zara’s face lit up with relief and she nodded when she realized where Sorcha was heading.

  Knowing she had only a few minutes, Sorcha hurried into the women’s block and locked herself in one of the restrooms. The six-foot by four-foot room had a toilet and a basin. The walls went all the way to the ceiling but the door stopped inches from the floor, leaving a gap. She pulled off her white robe, revealing jeans and T-shirt, and hung it on the door hook, arranging it so the hem was not only visible through the gap but also obstructed prying eyes. Then she stepped on the toilet and tried to pull open the narrow window, but it had been bolted so it would only open an inch. Frantic, she searched the small room. In the cupboard under the sink she found two rolls of toilet paper, a can of Lysol and a metal nail file. Looking at the window, she realized the file wouldn’t help dislodge the bolt and even if it could the window was probably too narrow to squeeze through. Then she felt the floor move under her right foot. Bending down, she noticed that two floorboards by the basin, secured with two screws, were loose. She managed to unscrew them with the tip of the nail file, and then pull up the boards. The space was tight but she squeezed herself down the hole.