Faith

by Peter James

He carried the gun and the can into the passage, then closed the door behind him. In the silence as he walked he could hear the petrol sloshing and gurgling in the can. And there was another sound he could hear too, right above him. A creaking sound. Steady, rhythmic.

  He looked up, his mouth dry with hatred. Then he quickened his pace. Light spilled beneath the door at the end of the passageway. In his rough calculations of the geography of the place, he decided this must be the light from the entrance hall.

  He was right. The door opened on to a wide hall, with a beamed ceiling, terracotta floor tiles, several fine Italian marble statuettes on plinths, and large framed oil paintings of rural scenes. A wooden staircase led up to the next floor.

  Above him, he heard a moan as gentle as the sigh of a summer breeze.

  The creaking sound was louder now, and faster. Then it stopped, abruptly. He looked up, confused. He was in the kitchen of a small flat: dirty plates piled in the sink, an open tin of spaghetti rings sitting on the draining board.

  Then, suddenly, he was in the hall in darkness again. This wasn't the hall of his mother's flat but he could hear his mother's voice, muffled, but unmistakably her voice, crying out, 'Oh, yes, don't stop, oh, God, oh, God, keep doing that!'

  He climbed the stairs swiftly, stealthily, then stood at the top listening to her voice coming through the door.

  'Yes, oh, yes, do that! Do that, do that! I love you so much.'

  Ross unscrewed the cap on the petrol can, and walked the length of the landing, pouring the petrol steadily out. Then he stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the screams of pleasure, and watched petrol flow down each of the wooden treads.

  Scream, bitch. You'll be screaming differently in a minute.

  'Oh, God, yes! Oh, yes, don't stop, oh, God, oh, God, keep doing that!'

  He opened the bedroom door, and let the last of the petrol gurgle out, watched it spread across the bare oak boards towards the white rug that surrounded the bed. It was a huge, ornate wooden bed, with a carved spike rising from each corner, like four phalluses.

  Whore's bed.

  There was just a cosy glow in the room from one bedside lamp. In its light he could see two figures asleep. His bitch wife and Dr Oliver Cabot. Now, suddenly, they weren't asleep any more. He was in his mother's bedroom, watching the white bony buttocks of a naked man pumping away between her thighs. Saw her bare legs around his waist, her back arched, her hair scattered around her face and the pillow, her cheeks red with exertion.

  He let the can fall with a clank to the floor, and that was when she woke up and saw him.

  'Oliver!'

  The scream of terror was the sweetest music to his ears.

  'Oliver, oh God.'

  Dr Oliver Cabot was awake now, too, blinking in confusion. They were both naked, sitting up in the bed, mouths open, goggling at him in fear, holding the sheet right up to their necks, trying pathetically to keep themselves covered.

  He held the gun tightly, pointing it straight towards them.

  'Ross. No, Ross. No, please, Ross. Please no, please no, Ross, no no no.'

  Ross smiled. For the first time in a very long time he felt calm. 'Breathe deeply,' he said. 'Breathe deeply, both of you.'

  The charlatan smelt it first. Ross saw his eyes widen even more. Then the bitch smelt it.

  Her voice dropped several octaves into the bellow of a wounded animal. 'Oh, no, no, Ross, don't do this, no, Ross, no, no, no.'

  'Get out of the bed, Faith, and put your clothes on.'

  'Please, Ross, no.'

  'I said, get out of bed and put your clothes on, slut.'

  Without taking her eyes from his face, she slipped out and hobbled over the floor. Ross's gaze went from her to the quack charlatan and back to her. Her nakedness disgusted him, the wobble of her breasts disgusted him, her bare knees disgusted him, her bony feet disgusted him.

  She stooped, picked up her knickers, whimpering, lost her balance trying to put them on and had to clutch a bed post. He looked back at the charlatan and a flicker of recognition sparked inside his brain. Somewhere. Recently. They had been together.

  Photographs from Caven?

  No, they had met. Somewhere.

  'Mr Ransome,' the charlatan said, his voice quavering, 'don't harm your wife. I'm the guilty one. Let's talk about this.'

  'Shut up,' Ross screamed, aiming the gun even more closely. 'One word and I shoot. Just one fucking word.' He turned back to Faith. 'Come on, bitch, hurry! You got them off fast enough.'

  'Mr Ransome —' Oliver Cabot said.

  Ross pulled the disposable lighter he had bought at the petrol station from his pocket and brandished it, thumb on the top. 'I said shut up, quack.'

  Oliver stared at him in silence, eyes darting from him to Faith, nostrils twitching.

  Faith had on her jeans and was pulling on her blue knitted top, then pushed her feet into her shoes. 'Please let's talk, Ross.'

  'Tie him up,' Ross said.

  Trembling she said, 'How — how do you mean?'

  'Just tie him up, you slut. Bondage. You used to like it.'

  Ross saw a dressing-gown at the end of the bed. He pocketed his lighter, reached forward, stripped the belt out of the loops and threw it at her. 'Around his wrist, then around one of those posts.'

  Swinging the gun from Faith to Dr Oliver Cabot, Ross marched across the room to a wardrobe with sliding doors. He pulled one open and saw a rack of ties. He yanked a bunch down and flung them at her. 'Tie him with those.'

  'Mr Ransome — Ross —' Oliver said.

  Ross pistol-whipped the barrels of the gun into his jaw, splitting open his lips and sending a fragment of tooth flying on to the floor. 'I said silence, quack. Aren't you used to silence with all the transcendental-meditation shit or whatever other shit it is you do?'

  'Ross,' Faith begged. 'Ross, please —'

  She tied Oliver, spreadeagled on his back as Ross directed, an arm to each post and a leg to each post. Then Ross pulled back the sheet, leaving him naked.

  'No erection, quack? How sad.'

  Blood dribbled from Oliver's mouth. Faith looked at her husband. 'Please talk to me, Ross. This isn't any way forward for anyone — this is crazy.'

  'Get out of the room, bitch.'

  Faith looked at Oliver with desperation in her eyes, then back at Ross. 'I'm not leaving him, Ross. If you're going to kill him, you're going to have to kill me too. I'm dying anyway — a few more months, what the hell does it matter?'

  'Get outside.'

  'No.'

  Ross pulled out the lighter and held it up again, his hand shaking. Faith looked at Ross's face, at the gun, then at the lighter. There was a flicker of something in her eyes, something he couldn't read, something he didn't like. And before he had any chance to work it out she launched herself at him, sinking her teeth into his hand.

  With a howl of pain he released the lighter, which fell to the floor, and squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  And he knew, in that split second, what the bitch queen from hell had seen. He'd taken her shooting clays in the past, and she knew this gun. She'd seen that the fucking safety catch was on.

  Faith jabbed her thumb into his eye, and punched him with her free hand, then again, so hard her fist hurt, but she barely noticed. She scratched him, tore at his hair, still gouging the eye with her thumb.

  He staggered and went over backwards. Clinging to him she fell over with him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the gun.

  Pushing herself away from him, she grabbed it, and threw herself at the door. Out on the landing, she crashed against the top of the banisters. Turned. Ross was lurching towards her. She lifted the barrels of the gun towards him, then realised. The petrol. Mustn't fire, God, must not fire.

  She hurled herself down the stairs, and ran over to the front door. Noooooo. Oliver had put on the safety chain.

  Ross was half-way down the stairs now. She yanked at the chain, pressed the release button, gra
bbed the latch and the door opened.

  A hand grabbed her by the throat.

  Screaming, struggling for breath she was propelled forward, her legs were kicked away, and she fell face first on to the gravel. She heard the gun clatter down somewhere beside her, but before she could do anything, Ross jerked her head up by the hair then smashed her face down into the gravel. She felt blinding, giddying pain, and when she looked up, Ross was stumbling to his feet with the gun in his hands.

  'Get out of the fucking way, slut.'

  She stood, blocking the door, gagging. 'No, Ross, don't do this.'

  He raised the barrels at her. 'Move out of the way.'

  Suddenly, finding strength from deep inside her she said, furiously, 'Ross, you are bloody well going to listen to me.'

  For an instant he looked startled by her sudden change of tone.

  Softening her tone she said, 'Ross, if all these things you've ever said to me about how much you love me are true, then you've got to turn round and walk away from here.'

  He blinked. There was fleeting hesitation in his face. Then he said, 'Get away from the door.'

  'I mean it, Ross. I'm dying, you know that and I know that. Maybe these pills will work, but I don't believe so and I don't think in your heart you believe so either. If you really love me, Ross, then you have to let me go, so I can live whatever I have left of my life the way I want to.'

  'Get away from the door.'

  His tone had changed a fraction. The hesitation was growing.

  'If you kill Oliver, Ross, you are killing me.'

  'Move.'

  'Do you think it takes guts to stand there pointing a shotgun at me? I thought you were a man with guts, Ross. The kid who came from nowhere and made it to the top of the toughest field of medicine. A man everyone admires. Are people going to admire you if you gun down your wife?'

  'Move out of the way, Faith.'

  'If you want to show guts, Ross, then leave us. That's what would take real guts.'

  Ross stared at Faith, then at the tiny red sight at the end of the barrels, then back at the slut. He heard the pity in her voice, then saw her lying on her back with her ankles around the naked waist of Dr Oliver Cabot, heard her moans of pleasure… And then another sound, ringing through the night, the wind and the rain. He turned his head and over his shoulder saw a spangle of blue light shoot across the darkness. Then another.

  A wailing that was getting louder.

  A siren.

  'You called the police!' He hardened his grip on the gun, took up the slack on the trigger.

  'I didn't — for God's sake, how could I?'

  He raised the barrels so the red sight was dead centre between the breasts he had sculpted so beautifully. Then, suddenly, he was sinking into the ground the way he had sunk into the floor at the pub. He saw two Faiths. Then four. He swung the gun wildly at each of them.

  The siren was getting closer.

  And now Faith was pin sharp again. Then something hurled her sideways. A tornado was coming out of the door at him. The charlatan, naked, hurtling headlong at him.

  Ross squeezed the trigger. The fucking safety catch! He jabbed it with his thumb, pulled again. The deafening boom of the gun sounded right in his ear as he crashed forward over the body of the naked man. And searing heat singed his hair, sucked the air from his lungs.

  The interior of the house erupted in flames.

  And he heard a howl way above the shriek of the approaching siren.

  It was coming from Faith.

  'Alec! Ross, our son is in there.'

  Ross hauled himself to his knees and saw in her face what he already knew from her voice. She was telling the truth.

  'You idiot! You bloody fool! He's in there, for God's sake, he's asleep in the loft.' Frantic, she ran towards the raging flames.

  Ross stumbled after her, hauled her back, feeling the heat on his face. 'Where?'

  'In the loft, you bloody moron.' She turned on him, raining punches on his face and biting him. 'Lemme go! lemme go! My son, he's in there!'

  Trying to hold her at bay, to calm her, he said, 'How do you get to the loft, Faith? Answer me, woman! how do you get to the loft?'

  She tore free, ran again to the inferno in the doorway. Ross grabbed her and jerked her back. She turned, jabbering, hysterical, trying to break free to run into those flames. Ross punched her in the face, knocking her out cold.

  'You goddamn fucking madman, your kid's in there.'

  He turned. Dr Oliver Cabot was standing, dazed, blood pouring from his mouth and nose, and from the top of his head where a swathe of his hair had gone as if he'd been scalped.

  'Jesus, oh, Jesus,' Ross gibbered, near hysterical himself now. 'Alec. Oh, Jesus.' He looked up at the Velux with the light on.

  Pushing the charlatan away, Ross ran to the right, then the left, frantically staring up at the house, looking for his son and a way in that was free of flames. The window he had broken. At the back. 'Alec!' he called. 'Alec, it's Daddy!'

  He sprinted round the side of the house, vaulted the barbed-wire fence, raced along the back wall, calling frantically, 'Alec! Alec! Alec!' No flames on the ground floor yet. Round into the paddock, along the side of the house, and he climbed back in through the broken study window. Then he crossed to the door he had shut earlier and opened it.

  He'd operated in the past on scores of burns victims who'd done exactly the same thing: they'd opened a door from a room with an open window, giving a fire the fuel it needed. Creating a tunnel of oxygen.

  The solid wall of fire avalanched down the passageway towards him, sucked the air from Ross's lungs, and pulled him, screaming in shock and agony, right into the searing, blinding vortex of the flames.

  Oliver, climbing up a drainpipe, heard an explosion of glass below him, and looked down. A screeching adult human form, alight from head to foot, was running in a crazed zigzag across the grass. 'Alec!' the figure screeched. 'Alec! Alec! Alec!'

  He saw the figure fall, roll, steam rising all around him, roll again, frantically trying to beat out the flames. 'Help me, I can't see, I can't see. Where am I? Help me. Help me find Alec! Help me find my son!'

  Oliver looked away. He had to keep going up.

  Alec, I'm coming, just hold on, I'm coming.

  Choking on the dense smoke rising all around him, he got one hand on the guttering, grateful that Gerry Hammersley had put up decent, solid, cast-iron guttering, not plastic crap. He scrabbled for a foothold, found a tiny ledge, levered himself higher, then somehow, he was up on the roof, climbing on all fours like a monkey up the slippery tiles. At last he reached the Velux where the light was coming from, in the loft roof where Alec was sleeping.

  Christ.

  Through the glass he could see Alec standing by his bed in his pyjamas, flames licking up through the hatch. If he broke the glass, he risked a fireball. He ripped a tile from the roof and rapped on the window with it. Alec looked up.

  Oliver realised the child probably couldn't see him. He pressed his face close to the glass and yelled, 'Alec! It's me, Oliver! Can you close the loft hatch?'

  Alec was staring, mouth open in terror, but couldn't hear him.

  He would have to risk a small hole. He chipped at the glass until a small fracture appeared. Then he pushed his thumb through it and put his mouth over the hole. 'Alec, you are going to have to be brave. Get a pillow-slip, soak it in the wash-basin, put it over your head, then reach down and pull that hatch shut.'

  Alec shook his head, stammering with fear. 'No, no, no.'

  'Alec, come closer, put your face really close to mine.'

  The boy didn't move.

  'Alec, you can trust me, come closer.'

  He backed away towards the hatch.

  'Stop!' Oliver called in near panic. 'Alec! Stop!'

  One more step and he would fall through the opening into the flames. Oliver thought, desperately. He couldn't break the glass — the boy would be engulfed in a fireball.

  Then he hea
rd an explosion as something — a gas cylinder, perhaps — detonated, and a shower of burning wood and debris hurtled up through the hatch and fell all around Alec. Screaming and shaking burning embers off himself he ran towards the skylight and reached up on tiptoe towards Oliver, his face a mask of terror.

  'Come closer still.'

  Alec reached up further.

  'Can you see me, Alec? Can you see who it is?'

  The boy nodded.

  Behind him, Oliver could see the flames starting to catch on the beams above the hatch entrance. 'OK, Alec, I want you to be calm, I want you to be calm, Alec, to be calm, Alec, you are going to calm down, Alec, down, down, down, listen to my voice, you are calm, listening to my voice, don't think about anything, just do what I tell you, think how calm you are. Are you calm now, Alec?'

  The boy stared, as if unsure what to answer

  Oliver cursed. It wasn't working. 'Alec,' he said, 'Alec, can you hear me OK?'

  Alec mouthed a silent, 'Yes.'

  'Look at my eyes, just keep watching my eyes, don't look at anything else, eyes, just my eyes.'

  He was engaging him now. His eyes swung right then left, mirroring Oliver's. 'My eyes, just keep watching my eyes, just be calm, don't listen to anything but my voice, be calm, think about your eyes, just your eyes on my eyes, keep your eyes, your eyes, keep your eyes on my eyes keep calm keep your eyes on my eyes and do what I tell you. We're going to play a game. This is an important game, keep your eyes on my eyes, keep your thoughts on my thoughts.'

  Staring at the boy, concentrating as hard as he could, squeezing out the flames, the flecks of scalding ash that touched his face and hands, Oliver continued for a full minute until he could see from the dilation of the boy's pupils that he was now under.

  'We're going to play a game, Alec, we are going to play firefighters. You are going to take a pillow-slip, soak it in cold water, put it over your head, and go over to pull that hatch shut. I want you to do that now, then come back.'

  Alec nodded and did exactly as he had been told. He walked without fear towards the hatch, put the pillow slip over his head, ducked down, pulled up the ladder, and moments later the hatch door slammed shut.

  Then Oliver smashed the glass, grabbed the child, removed the pillow slip and took a quick glance at his badly burned hands. The boy was silent, still in trance, still feeling no pain.