Hell's Fire

by Chris Simms

  ‘Jon,’ Rick whispered. ‘Give him a chance. He’s only trying . . .’

  Jon shook his head, then turned to the rearview mirror again.

  ‘What issues?’

  The Bishop squirmed in his seat yet again as he slid some notes from his file. ‘The Order declined him. It’s not unheard of.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘The notes are a little vague.’ His head was bowed, eyes on the piece of paper.

  ‘Bishop, stop pissing me around and answer the question. Please.’

  His eyes connected briefly with Jon’s before dropping again.

  ‘It seems his spiritual director was concerned with the forcefulness of some of his views.’

  ‘The forcefulness? In relation to what exactly?’

  ‘Franciscans are bound by their vows to help the marginalised, whatever their beliefs. What it says here is that Father Waters tended to be quite unsympathetic if those people belonged to other religions.’

  Jon thought of Waters leading the protests outside the Psychic

  Academy.

  ‘And,’ the Bishop continued, ‘his thoughts in regard to women were, according to this, quite negative too. They became concerned about his attitude.’

  ‘What? Women’s role in the church?’ Jon demanded.

  ‘Both. He was reluctant to have contact with any female.’

  A memory popped into Jon’s head. Waters lying in the road the night his church burned down. How he grabbed the female paramedic’s hand when she tried to help him. His strangled cry of anguish at her touch. Jesus, he’d thought it was the chest pains that had caused the sound. It had been a glimpse behind the man’s mask instead. ‘So Waters had a problem with nonChristians and women. And these views were so extreme the Franciscan Order wanted nothing to do with him.’

  ‘I think your wording is a little strong.’

  ‘Tell me Bishop Doyle, when did the Order send you their notes on Ben Waters?’

  ‘Wednes . . .’ His words dried up.

  Got you, you oily shit, Jon thought. ‘You had suspicions about Waters as far back as Wednesday. You claim the retreat in Spain returned your call yesterday afternoon, but you failed to tell me when you first rang them. You’ve been sitting on your suspicions for days, haven’t you?’

  ‘I was merely concerned for someone, the welfare of whom is my responsibility.’

  Trying to cover your arse and the whole rotten organisation you represent more like, Jon thought.

  ‘Where does someone train to become a Franciscan?’ Rick asked. ‘Do they have schools or something?’

  The Bishop looked relieved to break from Jon’s furious stare.

  ‘Waters did his training at Gorton monastery. There was an entire wing of cells at the side of the church for monks on retreat and for those looking into joining the order.’

  Jon felt his fingers beginning to clench on the steering wheel.

  ‘So what would he do?’ Rick asked. ‘Sit in a cell all day studying religious texts?’

  ‘For many hours, yes. But the monastery was a community too. Everyone helped according to their skills. He would have played a part in church services, assisted in the kitchen garden, helped the poor and needy in the surrounding area. Of course, there was the Sunday school too – I know he played an active part helping out there. With his musical talent it was inevitable that he got involved.’

  Jon’s voice was leaden. ‘Musical talent?’

  ‘The guitar. His Sunday school classes always revolve around singing songs. It’s what makes them so popular, I suspect.’

  ‘He taught the guitar at Gorton monastery’s Sunday school?’ The Bishop consulted his notes. ‘During the early Eighties. Really they were the years the monastery started going into decline.’

  It’s him. He’s the fucker who abused our kid, Dave. Jon had never felt so certain of anything in his life. ‘Get out of the car.’

  Rick’s head whipped round.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ The Bishop spluttered.

  ‘I need you to get out of my car.’

  ‘Here? You’re asking me to get out on this road?’ He looked at the dilapidated houses lining the street. A bunch of lads were sitting on a nearby garden wall, cans of drink in their hands, rat-like eyes watching.

  Jon’s voice was barely above a whisper. ‘I’m not asking. Get out.’

  ‘Jon, what are you doing?’ Rick whispered. ‘We can’t just—’

  ‘We’re going directly from her to apprehend a violent suspect. Now Bishop, are you getting out or am I dragging you out?’

  ‘Jon,’ Rick said. ‘Buchanon’s ordered us to check the Sunday school at St Mary’s. What the hell has got into you?’

  Jon’s eyes were fixed on his hands as they gripped the steering wheel. The knuckles were white, tendons like wire straining beneath the skin. ‘You can get out of the fucking car with him, or you can come with me.’

  In the periphery of his vision, he could just make out Rick staring at him in astonishment. His partner sank back in his seat.

  ‘Bishop, you’d better get out.’

  The car door clicked open and Jon’s eyes cut to the side. The Bishop climbed uncertainly on to the pavement. He closed the door, then stepped towards Rick’s window, fingers curled, ready to knock. Jon lifted his foot off the clutch and floored the accelerator.

  Skye Booth was slumped in the chair. Small folds of flesh were pushed out by the loops of rope round her midriff. He looked at her for a while, his eyes lingering on her breasts. Her nakedness disgusted him. Placing the nightie on the table, he crouched before her. The smell of urine was strong. Her eyes were shut and her breathing came in short gasps. He slapped her cheek, a brisk blow that sent her head lolling towards her other shoulder. She didn’t open her eyes, though her cracked lips began to move. Even if the words had been coherent, he didn’t care what she was murmuring.

  Reaching down, he untied her feet, then loosened the cords binding her to the chair. She could have fallen to the floor if he didn’t catch her. Propping her up with one hand, he reached for the nightie and pulled it over her head. It was loose enough to go over her arms which were tied behind her back. He stood and hauled her up, but her knees immediately began to buckle.

  Grunting, he hefted her on to his shoulder, then stepped out of the room into the long corridor. Stairs at each end led down to the ground floor. He turned right, stepping over broken tiles from the collapsing roof above. More debris littered the stairs and he had to edge down sideways, careful to avoid several gaps where the wood had begun to rot away.

  On the ground floor he moved along several cloisters until he reached a corner entrance to the courtyard. The grass hadn’t quite obliterated the path that led to the wooden stake at its centre.

  Jon raced round the M60, an image of Waters floating before him. He tried to press his foot down even further, but the accelerator was already on the floor.

  ‘Jon,’ Rick coughed uneasily. ‘You OK mate?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You know what you’ve just done? Buchanon’s orders, the

  Bishop . . .’

  ‘I know what I’ve just done. I take full responsibility. I gave you no choice.’

  ‘I’m not saying that. I’m with you. But I just need to know that you’re in control of what you’re doing.’

  Jon breathed deeply a few times and dropped his speed a fraction. Rick was right. He had to keep a clear head. ‘Don’t worry, I’m in control.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Gorton monastery.’

  He came off at junction , then sped along Hyde Road. With every passing second the monastery spire became an ever more dominant part of the view ahead of them. When it started drifting to their side Jon veered off the main road on to a secondary route. The road curved to the left and finally the entire building was revealed. Waste ground surrounded it and, in the gathering dusk, it appeared for a moment like an immense ship, trapped in a blood-red sea.


  ‘It’s huge,’ Rick stated.

  Jon nodded. ‘She’s somewhere inside, I’m certain.’

  Before the monastery was an abandoned petrol station, holes in the forecourt’s tarmac where the pumps used to be. Jon spotted a blue Volvo parked to the side of the single-storey building.

  ‘Waters’ car. He’s here.’

  He skirted round the edge of the forecourt and came to a halt by the vehicle. They jumped out and peered through its windows. Nothing inside. Jon turned to the derelict monastery itself. The spire was at the front end of the building. Stretching out a good hundred metres behind it was a grey roof. The upper section of the side wall consisted of a series of arched windows. Buttresses tapered between them, topped by gargoyles that stared down at a secondary, lower roof. It connected to another side wall of arched windows, this one dropping to ground level itself.

  Most of the glass was missing, in many places leaving a crisscross of struts. To the rear of the building was another structure, this one with little more than exposed beams for a roof. Chimney stacks rose up like sentinels at regular intervals.

  ‘The wing of cells the Bishop mentioned,’ Rick commented.

  ‘Where the monks were housed.’

  Jon set off across the bumpy terrain, stepping over clumps of weeds until they reached a chain-link fence topped with coils of barbed wire. Danger. Unsafe structure. The signs had been attached to the barrier at ten-metre intervals.

  ‘How the hell do we get in?’ Rick asked.

  ‘There.’ Jon pointed. ‘He’s cut a hole through.’

  They ran to the opening, ducked through, and jogged between stacks of timber and piles of bricks until they reached the wall of what appeared to be a courtyard. The branch of an apple tree hung over it.

  ‘We need a side door,’ Jon whispered, leading the way towards the front of the monastery. Most of the ground floor doors and windows were boarded over, but the last one before the main entrance had been removed.

  They stepped through and found themselves in the main part of the church. Amber light was flooding in through the stained glass upper windows, dappling the opposite wall with patches of red, orange, yellow and blue. Jon remembered his mum mentioning how the Franciscans had built the monastery on a north to south alignment so it would dominate the skyline from the centre of Manchester. Now the west-facing wall was being drenched by the sun’s dying rays.

  Before them a series of six massive arches on either side of the nave led back to the intricate reredos, many parts of which had been smashed or broken off. All the pews were gone and the floor itself was strewn with chunks of rubble, masonry, broken bricks and pieces of wood. Stalagmites of pigeon shit dotted the way ahead and Jon was aware of movement among the rafters of the wooden canopy high above their heads.

  ‘I can’t believe they just abandoned this place,’ Rick whispered.

  ‘Left it to the looters,’ Jon replied, making his way forward and glancing up at the empty plinths where the twelve apostles used to stand.

  Rick followed his gaze. ‘They were all stolen?’

  ‘Lying around in back gardens, reclaimers’ yards, God knows where.’

  Rick’s eyes dropped back down to the mosaic of tiles at their feet. Two arms, one in a flowing brown sleeve, were crossed before a red crucifix. The letters below the image spelt, Deus Meus Et Omnia.

  ‘My God and my all,’ Rick said.

  Jon scanned the confessionals on his left before turning to the doorway leading off to the right. Footprints were visible in the dust. ‘This way.’

  They crept through into the gloomy corridor beyond. A flight of steps immediately on their left, a row of doors stretching away in front, and another flight of steps at the other end. Seeing scuff marks on the stairs by their side, Jon jabbed a finger and they silently began to climb.

  Except for light shining in through the many gaps in the roof, the first floor was identical on the one below – just a narrow corridor of doorways. They advanced slowly forward, listening for movement before glancing into the first cell.

  Inside the tiny room was a partially dismantled, rusty bed frame and smashed bookcase. The second cell was empty, as were the third and fourth. At the doorway to the fifth, Jon froze. ‘Someone’s been using this.’

  A patch of intact roof tiles ensured the room was protected from the elements. Inside, the bed frame had been reassembled and a mattress placed on top of it. Blankets had been folded neatly back and resting on the pillow was a large book.

  Rick crossed the room and picket it up. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What is it?’ Jon hissed, noticing the copy of Pilgrim’s Progress on the tiny shelf unit in the corner.

  ‘Malleus Maleficarum. It’s the same book the guy in the Met sent up. The Witch’s Hammer. The textbook witch hunters used in the seventeenth century. It tells you all about how to identify witches, try them, record their confessions, then execute them.’

  Jon stepped over. ‘Fresh flowers in that vase.’ He leaned forward for a better look at the large pink blossoms and there, in the courtyard below, he saw a cowled figure tying Skye Booth to a stake.

  Ben Waters secured the ropes with a couple of tugs sharp enough to rock Skye’s head as it hung down. When he stepped away from her, she began sliding slowly into a sitting position, the downward movement halted by the wood piled up around her legs.

  He added more pieces, propping them against her sides before ripping open a large pack of firelighters and crumbling the white cubes into her hair, tucking pieces into the neck of her nightie, then wedging whole cubes into the stack of wood.

  Next he reached for the three-litre bottle of white spirit and, pressing with both hands, started squirting a stream of liquid over the pyre. Miniscule droplets rebounded off the dry surfaces, misting his robe and peppering the surrounding grass. His fingers began to ache and he tilted the bottle. It sucked in air like a person being drowned.

  ‘Father Waters, stop! You must stop!’

  He whirled round and spotted the younger of the two officers from the night he had to burn his own church. The man was standing about twenty feet away, both hands raised up. Waters searched the shadows behind him, but no one else was there.

  ‘Please Father, you cannot do this to her.’

  He stepped back, the pyre now at his side. One hand began playing liquid directly on to Skye, the other reached deep into the monk’s robe. ‘She is a servant of Satan and you will not stop me in my duty to God.’

  ‘She’s just a young woman, Father. Confused maybe, searching for some meaning in her world. This is not the answer. Show her the error of her ways, but don’t kill her.’

  ‘She is already beyond redemption. Don’t be fooled by the physical form you see. It’s merely a vessel that must be destroyed.’

  He gave a couple more squeezes of the bottle, but the thing was now empty. Dropping it on to the pile of wood, he lifted up a box of matches.

  Having crept along the first floor corridor, Jon made his way carefully down the other flight of stairs. He found himself looking into the adjacent corner of the courtyard to Rick, a row of waist-high cloisters separating him from the overgrown garden beyond. Waters was still in the middle, and in the half-light he could just make out the man’s back facing him. Waters dropped a plastic bottle on to the mound of wood Skye was slumped on.

  Jon went towards the archway that gave access to his corner of the courtyard, but fallen roof beams created a barrier in front of him.

  ‘Is she still alive?’ Rick’s voice had a note of desperation in it.

  ‘Yes,’ Waters replied, both hands now held before him.

  ‘And she has confessed? To being a witch?’

  ‘She has.’

  ‘Then it is your duty to strangle her before the fire is lit.

  That’s what the Witch’s Hammer says, doesn’t it?’

  Good, thought Jon, as he climbed through the waist high cloister into the courtyard itself. Keep that sick fucker talking. He weighed up the dist
ance. Fifteen metres maximum. If I go in low and hit him slightly from the side, we’ll both end up well clear of the pyre.

  Waters was now fumbling with something. ‘She didn’t accept

  God as her true saviour! The fire must take her, not me.’

  Jon was now fully through. The long grass in front was dark with shadow and he couldn’t see what obstacles might be concealed beneath. Slowly, he took a step forward.

  The sound of a match striking caused him to look up.

  ‘Ask her now! Give her the chance!’ Rick shouted as Waters held his hand out, yellow flame flaring up just above his bunched fingertips.

  Jon broke into a sprint, his eyes fixed on the tiny beacon in the priest’s hand.

  ‘It’s too late for her,’ Waters cried, flexing his elbow in readiness to toss the burning match.

  Eight metres away, Jon clicked into rugby mode, dropping his upper body low enough to snatch a tuft of grass at his feet. The strands were still between his fingers as his body straightened and a shoulder smashed up into Waters’ kidneys.

  He felt the man’s torso folding over his back as, for a second, they were both airborne. Then the ground connected and he heard a soft whump off to his side. A veil of yellow was suddenly all around him and he felt his eyebrows begin to crackle.

  Immediately he rolled off Waters and into a kneeling position. The man was beating at his robe which was sheathed in a delicate yellow flame. Trails of it were spreading back towards the pyre and Rick was desperately kicking away pieces of wood. But doing so only removed what was holding Skye up and she sank into the fuel-soaked grass, arms tied around the base of the stake. Cursing, Rick started fumbling at the ropes. Flames were now surging across the outermost pieces of wood, yellow flickers growing a blue centre as the fire took grip.

  Jon jumped to his feet, realised the ends of his sleeves were alight and clutched his hands under his armpits. ‘Pull the stake over!’

  Rick grabbed it in both hands and started yanking back and forth. It began to rock as a bright form rose at Jon’s side. He turned. Waters was on his feet, shrieking as his hair disintegrated, burning strands floating up into the sky. Two claw-like hands were attempting to pluck the burning robe off his shoulders.