Come and do what?
Come and hurt her, she thought.
A little of the dark fog lifted and she smelled something warm and damp: steam from hot water. She turned her head as far as she could and saw him lift a large plastic bowl from a workbench. He brought it in front of her and placed it on the floor, at her feet.
She remembered him now—the sour milk smell, the calming words, the knowing in his eyes—and fear broke through the fog. Her body jerked with the realization, but she couldn’t move her limbs. She twisted around, tried to see what bound her wrists to the chair, could barely make out a tail of plastic: a cable tie. It cut into her flesh as she tried to pull her hand away.
“Don’t,” he said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
She began to speak in Russian, but corrected herself. “What are you doing?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “You’ll see. Don’t worry, it’s something nice.” As he walked behind her, she followed him with her eyes until the muscles of her neck protested. He took a small bottle and a sponge from the workbench.
“Please,” she said. “What are those?”
He smiled once more and lowered himself to his knees in front of her. The linoleum covering had been rolled back to reveal the concrete beneath. Galya saw rectangular shapes in its surface where it had been dug up and filled in again. And she knew what for.
“Back home, did you ever read the Bible?” he asked.
She understood the words, but could make no sense of the question. “Bible?”
“The Bible,” he said. “About Jesus.”
“Yes,” she said. “I go to church.”
“Then you know about Mary Magdelene?”
“Yes,” she said.
He took a pair of wire cutters from his pocket and she tried to recoil.
“It’s all right,” he said, his voice low and soft.
She felt a pressure at her ankle, heard a hard snipping noise, and her foot was free for a moment before his hard hand gripped it. Her leg tensed.
“Don’t struggle,” he said. “Relax.”
She let her leg go loose, allowed him to take her foot and bring it to his lap. He examined her sole, blowing on the torn skin, wincing with her as he touched it with his fingertips.
“And do you know about Mary Magdelene anointing His feet?” He picked at fragments of broken lightbulb as he spoke. “And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment.”
With his free hand, he poured a golden viscous fluid onto the sponge before dipping it into the steaming water. He worked the sponge between his fingers, forming a lather.
“And stood at his feet behind him weeping,” he continued, “and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”
He brought the sponge to her sole. The lather stung, and her leg jerked. He shushed and clucked.
“Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.”
He worked the sponge harder against her raw flesh, and she cried out, her voice ringing hollow in the cellar.
“You see, Jesus was humble,” he said. “Even though she was a whore and a sinner, He let her anoint His feet. And then, at the Last Supper, He washed his disciples’ feet. And Peter said, No, Lord, I won’t let you wash my feet. But Jesus did. Even though it was beneath Him, He did it anyway. So even though you’re a whore and a sinner, I will anoint your feet.”
He lowered her foot to rest in the water. She gritted her teeth as the scalding heat blotted out the pain of her tattered skin. He lifted the wire cutters from the floor and freed her other foot.
“And so you’ll be saved,” he said. “I will deliver you unto Him cleaned and anointed.”
He reached up and placed his fingers beneath her chin, his thumb against her lips. She tasted soap and hot water. The thumb moved across the opening of her mouth, burrowed between and in, until it met the hardness of her teeth.
“So clean,” he said. “I’ll make you so clean.”
53
HERKUS STEPPED BACK onto the road and looked up at the house. In the orange glow of a streetlight, the place next door looked derelict, but this one was well kept. The windows looked odd, though. An old house like this should have sash windows with wooden frames, but instead it had modern PVC frames and double glazing.
He looked around.
A strange place, two houses standing together away from all the others, at the apex of a bend. They faced no other buildings, front or back. Probably very few people ever came this way.
A cold feeling swamped Herkus’s gut to match the icy wind that blew snowflakes all around him. He knew many things that no man should know. Things that can’t be forgotten, no matter how much you might want to.
And Herkus knew this was a killing place.
So he would be careful. He went back to the Mercedes and fetched the Glock 17. Its weight in his pocket reassured him.
A lane cut along one side of the house, leading to the back. Herkus followed it, noting the snowed-over tire tracks, and came to the rear of a walled yard.
The tracks formed two sides of a triangle where the vehicle had turned and reversed through the wooden gates that now stood closed. They would be locked, of course, but he tried them anyway.
He crouched down and put his eyes to the opening through which the padlock and chain were visible. Like the front, the back of the house showed no sign of life. A van stood parked in the yard, however. Its owner was in there somewhere, Herkus was certain of that.
If he stretched, he could just reach the top of the gate. He grabbed hold. The toe of his boot barely fit in the opening, but enough to get some purchase. He hauled himself upward, his arms straining to lift his bulk.
Balancing there for a moment, he caught his breath while taking in the whole of the yard. It was dark, but he could make out the vague shapes of things under the snow. A wheelbarrow, what looked like a cement mixer, and other white-covered forms.
He pulled once more, threw his leg over the top of the gate, and let his body follow. Herkus was not a graceful man, and he landed heavily, jarring his ankles and knees. He steadied himself against the gate for a moment before crossing the yard to the van.
He placed his hand against its hood. Cool. He looked at the ground. Footprints led to and from the gate, then back to the house, all covered with a fresh layer of snow. No new tracks except his own.
Herkus walked to the back door. He tried the handle, found it locked solid, then went to the window.
Cupping his hands around his eyes, he could make out a kitchen beyond the glass, and deeper inside, a hint of light. He scoured the yard until he found a pile of bricks submerged in snow, neatly stacked to form a cube. He tested the heft of one, then returned to the window.
Putting his weight behind it, he threw the brick at the center of the window. He had to make a hurried sidestep to avoid being struck as it bounced back. A scuff on the glass was all the evidence of the blow.
Tempered glass, he thought. Whoever lived here wanted to keep those on the outside where they were, and perhaps those on the inside, too. But Herkus knew how to break tempered glass. He could use the Glock to do it, certainly, but the sound of the shot would carry across the streets and draw attention.
All he needed was a stout screwdriver, the point of which he would place at the very corner of the pane, and something substantial to strike the other end with. The brick would do, and he had a screwdriver back in the car.
“One minute,” he said to the glass.
54
BILLY CRAWFORD STOOD quite still, listening.
What had he heard?
It was loud enough to be audible above the girl’s choked cries. He had been working for some time w
ith the toothbrush and bicarbonate of soda, her head pushed back, her mouth forced open.
Ideally, he would have liked to brush her teeth several times over the course of a day or two, but circumstances were not entirely under his control. Given that extra bit of time, he might have been able to whiten her teeth even more. Besides, they were already exceptionally pretty teeth, so he couldn’t be too disappointed.
She had fought him at first. That was only to be expected. They always fought him, until they found out the powder was harmless. She had sealed her lips shut, clenched her jaw tight, keeping the toothbrush out until he yanked on her hair. Then she opened her mouth to yell in pain, and the toothbrush slipped in like a cat through a neglected doorway.
She had squirmed, but he maintained his grip on her hair, peering in, guiding the brush back over her molars and up to her incisors. Her spittle made cool points on his skin when she coughed.
Then the noise: a ringing, hollow bang from somewhere above.
He froze, his head cocked to one side. The toothbrush remained in the girl’s mouth, and she gagged.
“Quiet,” he said, pulling the brush free.
She coughed hard, bucking in the chair.
He reached down, lifted the towel from the floor by the bowl. She tried to bite his fingers as he forced it between her teeth, but the material got in the way. Her muffled cries continued.
“Quiet,” he said again.
She would not obey.
Anger flared in him, and he raised a hand to strike her. She shrank from him, suddenly silent, her eyes screwed shut.
“Good,” he said. “Now stay that way.”
She breathed hard through her nose, her shoulders rising and falling. He stepped away, his attention directed to the top of the stairs.
Had the noise come from the back of the house? It sounded like something striking a window. At Halloween, children from the nearby estate ventured over and threw things at the house. He watched them from the top floor, little demons sneaking through the laneway, thinking themselves invisible. But he saw them, and he imagined the punishments he would inflict upon them if not for fear of drawing attention to himself.
He went to the bottom of the stairs, straining to hear anything above the sound of the girl’s whimpering and his own thundering heartbeat. He had given the thing upstairs a second dose of barbiturate; it would remain silent, not stirring until tomorrow. He considered telling the girl to be quiet again, but decided it was pointless. It was no good, he would have to go up there, find out what the noise had been. He climbed.
The house stood in darkness, just as he’d left it. The place had a stillness about it that he’d loved since he first set foot in it three years ago. The thing upstairs had been human then. Before it changed. Before the Lord gifted this place to him.
He walked to the kitchen, slow and careful, placing each foot before him like a tightrope walker. The world outside glowed orange on black, the streetlight on the path to the rear coating the snow. He approached the window, his breath held tight in his chest.
Footprints on the snow.
A scuff at the center of the glass.
He released the air from his lungs as his head went light. Someone had been here. Someone had tried to break his window. Someone wanted in. Maybe a teenager from the estate, a hooligan seeking valuables to steal.
The tempered glass had been expensive, but it had saved the life of whoever had tried to gain entry. If the trespasser had succeeded in breaking the glass, it would have—
He inhaled, held his breath again.
A figure appeared at the top of the gate, silhouetted by the streetlight. A big man, hauling his weight over, dropping to the other side. Not a teenager, not a hooligan out for some easy thieving. This man wore good clothes. This man had broad shoulders and big hands.
Why had he come here?
The man who called himself Billy Crawford did not panic. Instead, he dissolved back into the darkness of his own house and watched. And waited.
55
HERKUS STOOPED TO pick up the brick with his right hand and returned to the window. With his left hand, he placed the point of the screwdriver against the glass at the lower corner of the pane.
He looked through the window one more time, letting his gaze wander over the variations of darkness beyond. Was there a disruption in the shadows that hadn’t been there before? Probably a trick of his fatigued mind. Either way, it was too late now. He had set his course of action, and he would stick to it.
The window held at the first attempt. Herkus cursed and drew his right hand back once more. Harder this time, he struck the butt of the screwdriver, and in an instant the glass transformed from a solid pane into thousands of tiny crystals showering down to the ground. It sounded like a waterfall.
He scraped fragments away with the point of the screwdriver, then lined it up on the second pane. The glass gave with the first blow, and as the pieces glittered around him he felt a wall of warm air fall from the house.
Once the tinkling and clattering of the glass fragments had ceased, he stood still and listened. There could be no surprises. Whoever dwelled here would have heard the window shattering. Herkus did not believe he would call the police. The man whose home this was had gone to great lengths to secure it. Clearly there were things in here he did not want others to see.
He put one foot on the windowsill, gripped the frame, and hauled himself up. Glass crunched beneath his feet as he stepped on the draining board on the other side and lowered himself to the floor. He grunted as he straightened his back. A man of his size was not built for climbing over gates or through windows. He shivered. A sweat had formed on his body, and now it chilled him.
In the dark interior, he could make out the door to a hallway. He crossed to it, his footsteps as light as his bulk would allow, his breathing slow and shallow, his hearing strained for any movement around him.
A crack of light caught his eye as he left the kitchen. It formed a rectangle in the black. He went to it, ran his fingers over its surface until he found a handle. The door opened with a hard creak to reveal a wooden staircase. Below, a muffled voice.
A girl’s voice.
56
GALYA’S THROAT TIGHTENED against the sickly salt tang. She coughed, but couldn’t expel the towel from her mouth. For a few moments she thought she might vomit, and the idea of choking here in this cellar terrified her as much as anything she had experienced in the previous twenty-four hours.
She forced herself to breathe deep through her nose, letting the oxygen flood her mind, dampening the panic enough to allow her to think. She thought she had endured all the fear she could, more than she would ever have thought possible. It might have been easier had sanity deserted her, but her mind clung on, even though it seemed it could do her no good.
But then the madman left her, and hope stole back in. For a moment she cursed it, wished she could banish it from her consciousness, but still it came.
Once more, Galya prayed to her grandmother’s departed soul. She screwed her eyes shut and begged Mama for some miracle, some way out, anything. Her prayers had gone unheeded up to now, but she offered them regardless.
Tears stole her vision as she opened her eyes. She blinked hard and felt the hot lines on her cheeks. The haze cleared, but only for a moment, because what she saw caused yet more tears to fill her sight.
A man, tall and broad, coming down the steps, his big hands ready to free her.
Galya Petrova wept for joy, thanked Mama’s soul, and offered one last prayer.
Please, Mama, let him be real.
57
THE MAN WHO had once been Edwin Paynter watched from the top of the stairs. He had flattened himself against the kitchen wall, become part of the darkness, when the big man broke the window and entered. He had remained there unseen until the big man left the room.
Back when he was Edwin Paynter, he had worked hard on not being seen. He had often enjoyed following people, observing them from o
nly a few feet away, while they were oblivious to his interest in them. Particularly women. He had taken tremendous pleasure in stalking young mothers as they toured the aisles of supermarkets, unaware that he followed their every move. Now and then the woman would pause, bring her fingers to the back of her neck, as if trying to brush away some irritant, and he would have to suppress a giggle.
Once, he had tailed a woman in a business suit from the first aisle, all the way through the store, to the checkout, and out to her car. It had been one of those new Volkswagen Beetles. Many things crossed his mind when he realized she and he were alone in that corner of the car park. A dozen impulses fought for release as he watched her pack away her shopping, none stronger than the urge to save her, show her the way of the Lord. But his higher mind, the part that concerned itself with his own preservation, reminded him that if he acted in such a rash manner, all would be lost.
That woman had no idea how thin a wall stood between her and the beast he held caged in his heart. Had he not been so strong, she would have felt the blessing of its rage.
These people, he thought later that night, these aimless animals, they don’t know what watches them from the dark corners of their world. They only live because I, and the Lord I serve, allow it.
He had taken three by that time, but they had been messy, risky enterprises. The second had been better than the first, and the third better yet, but the spell in prison had taught him to restrain himself until he could carry out his work with the skill it demanded. Then the Lord had guided him to this city, and to this house, and he knew then that he could begin his journey.
But that was all over now.
The big man was no burglar. He had not chosen this house at random. And if the big man had sought this place out, then there would be others.
In the time it took for a window to shatter, Billy Crawford ceased to be. Edwin Paynter was reborn. And Edwin Paynter had prepared for a time such as this. A time when he would have to run.
But first, the big man.
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