Stations of the Soul

by Chris Lewando

  ‘Take a seat. Would you like a coffee? I need one, myself.’

  ‘Thanks. That would be great.’

  Robin sank onto a bum-shaped wooden seat, and put his elbows on the green Formica table. He felt slightly uncomfortable in the presence of the overtly religious. Especially Christianity, which was essentially pagan. Even more, he found it hard to believe a man could deny his sexuality to this end. Or why he should be obliged to do so. Celibacy had been proved to be un-achievable for many, like some sort of perverted Herculean task demanded by a crazy god. Or giving kids a bucket of sweets and telling them not to eat any.

  The priest filled the kettle, his back to Robin. ‘I’m guessing you want to hear about my experience?’

  ‘Not really. I suspect the reporters covered the minutiae, including some interesting variations.’

  Father Kelly half-turned, a contemplative smile lurking. ‘You don’t like reporters?’

  ‘People do have a right to know what’s going on, but not to the extent of violating personal privacy.’

  ‘It’s a grey area.’

  ‘Not to me. Invasion of privacy is not news. It provides ghoulish fascination to those who feel lucky not to have been involved.’

  ‘So, what exactly are you seeking, Robin?’ he asked, placing two mugs on the table, sitting down opposite him. ‘Not God, I think?’

  ‘No. You see, I saw something, too. While I thought I was dying, trapped in my car.’

  The ageing eyes widened slightly with surprise. No doubt that wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

  Robin knew that Father Kelly had told his story to many people since it had happened, and the responses had varied from crusading to cynical. He’d read that a specially convened council within the Church had set out to discover whether what Father Kelly claimed he saw could be officially recognised. They were still debating.

  Apparently, he’d been walking home when a lorry had gone out of control down a hill and, horrifically, run over a mother and two children, one hers, the other a friend’s, before ploughing into a building. The driver had no recollection of the incident when he regained consciousness in the hospital. He’d been done for manslaughter, all the same, as rigorous tests found nothing wrong with him or his vehicle. According to the papers, Father Kelly remembered freezing for a moment, before rushing over to see if he could help, but it was obvious there was nothing anyone could do. It had been then that the angel had come.

  At first, he’d thought she was an ordinary woman, but she had raised her hands and the souls of the dead children had flowed through her. She had glowed with an unearthly golden light. Her beauty was that of a Botticelli angel, he said, her expression one of sadness mixed with exultation. Father Kelly had glanced down at the children’s bodies, and when he looked up again, she was gone.

  ‘So, Robin, what did you see?’

  There was resigned amusement in his words, as if he knew Robin-the-unbeliever couldn’t possibly have seen an angel. He was probably wondering whether his ulterior motive was to undermine Father Kelly’s own credibility, diminish his miracle.

  Robin didn’t return the smile. ‘I was trapped in my car. He bent down and spoke to me. Told me I wasn’t going to die, as if he knew, for sure. And he was right.’

  ‘He?’

  Robin nodded. ‘Definitely. He looked like a young man, but there was something otherworldly about him. I’ve tried to work out what, but all I recall is an indefinable beauty. He had an aura of, I don’t know… Not calm, but euphoria, as though he was enjoying the moment; soaking up the death and destruction like a drug. I could scarcely see out of the car, so it might have been my state of mind. But one thing doesn’t change: he was shining. You know how, when you look at someone who has the sun at their back, they’re silhouettes with fuzzy edges? That’s what I saw.’

  ‘And you think he was an angel?’

  ‘No. If heaven and hell exist, he was surely from down below. Beauty is the most perfect disguise for evil.’

  Robin shuffled in the seat, trying unsuccessfully to relieve the ache in his spine.

  ‘Are you all right? Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Believe me, this is nothing I can’t cope with.’

  ‘I’m still wondering why you relate this to what I saw.’

  ‘I’m sorry if it bursts your bubble, but I’m wondering if we saw the same creature. Someone or something that feeds on death. You said you saw the souls rise from the bodies into the angel.’

  Father Kelly’s voice became a hushed whisper. ‘She was reaching out to the dying children, to take their souls into the bosom of God.’

  ‘But that’s not how it works in your religion, is it?’ Robin said, cynically. ‘Surely, they would have gone straight to God, not one of His underlings? You see, I’m wondering if there’s something stalking this earth that shouldn’t be here. Not angels or devils but something older, maybe, that feeds off death and chaos. Maybe you and I saw the same creature. Maybe there’s more than one of them. But what I saw wasn’t something benevolent and kind. I think I saw the perpetrator of the event. He killed all those people because he wanted to. He was enjoying it.’

  ‘No.’ Father Kelly didn’t want to hear this.

  ‘I was trapped in my car. When he walked away, that was the last I saw of him. I tried to make myself believe I’d hallucinated. I’d almost succeeded, but I saw your story in the press when I was searching for something else.’

  ‘You think it a story?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think you’re lying. But I wonder what we saw. You call yours an angel, I call mine a demon, but they were both feeding off the newly-dead. And did you read about Helen Speakman, at the hospital? When her daughter died, she said a demon came and took her daughter’s soul. They said she was mad, out of her head with grief. But I met her recently. She was suffering deeply, as any mother suffers when her child is taken, but she wasn’t mad.’

  ‘I read that. I wondered, obviously.’

  ‘So, there were three similar sightings within six months. What are the odds?’ He paused for a moment, then added, ‘She said, and I quote, It was greedy for my child. And, contrary to some of the reports, she didn’t say it was an angel. It was her daughter who called it an angel, just before she died.’

  ‘The mother later said she’d seen nothing.’

  ‘She attacked the nurse and wouldn’t let them near the child’s body to help, until someone overpowered her, but it was too late. They pretty much accused her of stopping them from saving her child’s life. She said she saw the child’s soul go out of the body, so nothing would have helped, but she got poison pen letters from people accusing her of killing her child. She was crucified by the press. I think she had reason to be a little strange for a while. I suspect that when she denied everything, it wasn’t because she doubted herself, but to escape ridicule. You were ridiculed by the press, too, even though some needy people choose to believe you. And you wonder why I never said anything to anyone about what I saw? After the accident I was badly injured, unable to speak. Once I could speak, I realised I shouldn’t. I told the police about the young man, not all the rest.’

  When the priest spoke, his voice was that of a lost child. ‘I don’t know what you want of me.’

  ‘I don’t know, either. I just wanted to talk about it to someone who wouldn’t prescribe pills. I want to know what this creature is, whether it caused the crash, and I want to know why. If this creature exists, I want to find it.’

  ‘How do you intend to do that? Angels aren’t known for leaving footprints in the flower-bed.’

  ‘Angels, priest, are not known. Not in this century or the last. They’re residual race memories out of myth. Beings dreamed up out of ignorance and fear and wishful thinking. As was God.’

  ‘You’re so very, very wrong.’

  ‘I hope so. I sincerely hope so, because that youth I saw scared the shit out of me. Half of me wants to know what he truly is, why he crippled me and ruined the lives of so many p
eople, and the other half of me is saying, you really don’t want to find him.’

  Father Kelly reached over the table and grasped Robin’s hands with both of his own. ‘Come into the church and pray with me. Let God talk to you.’

  Robin pulled his hands gently from the priest’s. ‘I’m sorry, Father. I know you mean well, I do, truly. But unlike you, I can’t bury my head in faith. If this thing turns out to be something benevolent, an angel, even, I’ll be pleased as punch. But if there’s something evil walking among us, people should know.’

  As he heaved himself awkwardly to his feet, Father Kelly beseeched, ‘The world needs a miracle now and then. Don’t destroy all the good my angel has done.’

  ‘Good?’ He took a deep breath. ‘What if your angel caused the crash that killed the woman and those children, so that it could feed on their deaths? Don’t you want to know the truth?’

  Father Kelly muttered, ‘God is truth,’ with a waver in his voice.

  ‘God’s a fiction propagated by the unscrupulous to control the weak,’ Robin said. ‘That’s what I believe, anyway.’

  Father Kelly drew a deep breath. ‘The woman with the child that died; Helen. I’ll talk to her. Ask her what she really saw.’

  ‘Helen was murdered a couple of days back.’

  Father Kelly was visibly shocked. ‘Murdered? But why?’

  ‘That’s the real question, isn’t it? I’ve been asking myself whether she was just one very unlucky woman, or whether someone was tidying up loose ends? She saw something that possibly wasn’t human. So did you, and so did I. Maybe that means we need to watch our backs.’

  Robin limped down the aisle, his stick clacking on the cold flagstones. He glanced back at the exit, to see the old man kneel before the Altar, head bent. He felt bad for having tipped the priest from his state of grace, and wondered if his God would provide any answers. He doubted it.

  Chapter 18

  Inspector Redwall awoke out of sleep with a start, his eyes wide with shock. What had put that idea in his mind? He dressed quickly, kissed his wife, and left in a hurry. All the way in to work, his mind was buzzing. It wasn’t possible, was it?

  Redwall was irritably pacing, when Jim breezed in, late, as usual. ‘Do you remember when the last strangle occurred?’

  Jim’s brows rose. ‘Yeah, a couple of days back.’

  ‘No,’ he said irritably, ‘The one before that.’

  ‘Back in October. We thought he’d moved on, remember? I sent out a memo asking if any other units were looking into similar murders. Didn’t get a dicky bird back. Why?’

  ‘A murder by strangulation, an eight-month break, then another prossy, then Helen Speakman a couple of days later. Does the time scale mean anything to you?’

  Jim stared at him, blankly. ‘No.’

  ‘The murders stopped around the time of the Stinger Killer. And now he’s back.’ He had Jim’s total attention, and gathered, from his slowly dropping jaw, that he’d already guessed what was coming. ‘Pure conjecture, of course, but what if our strangler was involved in the crash, hurt too bad to be out on the prowl. What if the hospital put him back together and sent him back on the streets?’

  Jim was startled into silence.

  ‘Quite. Who was the last person to see Helen alive?’

  ‘Robin Vanger. Really?’

  ‘I mean, we’re seeing him as a victim. Maybe that blinded us to his true character? What do we actually know about Vanger?’

  ‘Squeaky clean, I thought. Good credentials, good prospects. Until the accident, that is.’

  ‘And under the surface? Did we ever look? Has he got any priors? Anything at all?’

  Jim shook his head. ‘It can’t be that simple.’

  ‘He was a really good-looking guy, before, too, apparently. Intelligent. Never lost his temper, from what his manager said. Too good to be true?’

  ‘And underneath that pretty-boy façade lurks a psychopath?’

  ‘What’s better than hiding in plain sight? He was good with customers. He’d know the right things to say to put someone at their ease. He has a really high IQ. They say psychopaths climb the commercial ladder more quickly than nice guys.’

  They were both silent for a moment, then Redwall said decisively. ‘I want a full report. I want to know about his parents. I want to know everything about him. What he was like at school, who he’s friends with, who he’s slept with…’

  Chapter 19

  Each scheduled visit to the hospital had involved a scan, a load of waiting, to be finally told he was doing really well, better than expected. The muscles were strengthening by the day, and external scar tissue around the pin sites was almost undetectable.

  Except that at the latest visit, the surgeon admitted to being astounded. He’d never seen such an amazing recovery in such a short time span, and wondered what it was in Robin’s make-up that helped him to heal so quickly. The bones in Robin’s leg had not only knit with speed, but scar tissue was eroding at a phenomenal rate. Theoretically, bones never lost all the additional thickness and ridges born of such massive trauma, but Robin’s were smoothing out. He said he’d like to take two or three more scans over the next few weeks to aid with a paper he was writing about bone trauma, and he’d like to take samples to see if he could discover quite why Robin healed so quickly. It might, after all, help other patients. It could lead to a fresh understanding of the healing process, and aid future victims of this type of trauma.

  It all sounded so sincere, but behind the calm request Robin sensed avarice. The surgeon, if possible, wanted to claim ownership, and patent what he found. Why Robin knew this, he wasn’t sure, but if he did have something interesting in his DNA, then he would decide where that information went, rather than have someone make a fortune on the back of it. So, instead of keeping the next appointment, Robin went looking for a car. It was time he was mobile.

  The garage had a large forecourt filled with lines of polished cars, but Robin limped to the second-hand lot at the back. It was just as well the salesman didn’t realise how much ready money his customer had, or he might have made a bigger push to sell one of the more expensive models. As it was, he eyed Robin’s stick and pronounced limp with a degree of concern. ‘Are you sure you should be driving?’

  From the driver’s seat of a dark red Suzuki automatic, Robin threw the salesman an amused glance. ‘You’re supposed to try to sell it to me, not talk me out of it.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘I appreciate the concern, but it’s my left leg that’s damaged. Hence a requirement for an automatic clutch.’

  The only thing he couldn’t do, he discovered, was swivel to look through the back window, but he was sure that soon wouldn’t be a problem. Until he recovered fully, he’d just have to rely on the mirrors and be careful when backing. He clambered awkwardly out of the car, and limped rapidly to the sales office, the assistant scuttling hastily after him. He threw down a visa card, fleetingly enjoying his moment of power.

  ‘Ok, I’ll take it. Or shall I go somewhere else?’

  Robin dealt with the paperwork with a rapid efficiency that left him with a slightly bitter taste in his mouth – he’d been good at his job. For a moment he sat in his recent purchase, nursing a massive dose of uselessness; a long future stretching out in grey boredom. He needed to get back to work, even if it was just to sell second-hand cars. How are the mighty fallen, he thought, before pulling out onto the road.

  He experienced no fear in being on the road again, just the utter relief of being mobile. He hadn’t realised quite how curtailed his freedom had been, until this moment. Reliance on others, or public transport, had been galling. Even the fact that it was a hatch-back rather than an up-market luxury vehicle, seemed appropriate. His aspirations had taken a change of direction that would have been laughable a year ago. He drove home with a degree of care he might previously not have exercised, partly due to his unfamiliarity with the automatic clutch, and partly through a new awareness of hi
s fragility as a human being.

  This new acquisition of freedom, though, turned Robin’s mind from the realms of self-pity towards his goal of unravelling the mystery. Sure, a psychopath caused the accident, but nothing explained the phenomenon Helen, Father Kelly, and he had individually seen, and it seemed that he was the only one who’d put it together. He wondered if there were other such sightings, but how could he find out? Put an ad in the paper: has anyone else seen any angels, lately, or people who glowed? It was tantamount to saying, here I am, come and get me.

  Helen’s death, after everything else she had suffered, was a cruelty that even overshadowed the directionless anger generated by his own disfigurement. It bothered him greatly. Her death meant more than just another story in a newspaper. Robin had met her. She’d been a real flesh and blood person, with a life, with feelings. She was a woman he’d spoken to, argued and sympathised with. It had been her own dogged determination to live that had given his own depleted sense of self-worth a much-needed kick up the backside. And then she’d been killed. He wasn’t going to allow her murder to push him into a state of depression, though. If anything, it spurred him into action. He wanted her murderer brought to justice. He wasn’t sure why he thought he’d do better than the police, but he had little to lose by trying. At the back of his mind there was a nagging recollection that finally surfaced: the reports about Father Kelly’s and Helen’s angel had both been covered by the same reporter, Freman. But if he told Freman what he’d seen, too, the reporter might see it as a copy-cat situation, especially when so much time had passed. But surely there was a way to make Freman take up the quest?

  As he searched online, the reporter’s name cropped up many times. Freman wasn’t a young man, and had earned his reputation for street-cred by being at the forefront of every breakout story, as though he had some kind of inner radar guiding him.