The microwave gave a ping. Isobel took out their meal and arranged it elegantly on a square dish of cut glass. She garnished it prettily, and it suddenly looked delicious.
“You are as clever as you are beautiful!” exclaimed Drax in admiration.
He sat down, and leaned over to take her hand. They bowed their heads and thanked the Magnifico for the food before them, the clothes on their backs and the roof over their heads.
“And please help us to find the enemies of the Holy Cause, so that they may be brought to justice,” Drax added before starting to serve them both.
Isobel murmured a response and unfolded her napkin.
“Well,” said Drax, sitting back comfortably and twirling his wine glass, “as soon as we’ve got rid of the ungrateful pests, I’ll be gone.” He pointed towards the back of the sofa. “Once my visas arrive, I shall grab that briefcase and run.”
They enjoyed their meal. Their pleasure was derived not only from the food and the wine, but also from the soft music that gently surrounded them, and the sweetly scented air. For Drax, the most delightful part of the evening was his own enthusiastic exposition on the possible merits of Australia as a haven for tall men. Isobel smiled and nodded as she mentally ran over the events of her day and planned her projects for tomorrow.
*
While Drax and Isobel were savouring their microwaved dish of coq au vin, peace reigned in the big brick house in Wales.
Lucy lay with her eyes open, staring at the dim grey of the sloping ceiling. She listened to Paul’s gentle breathing. No way would she ever let that old Magnifico get at him! But how was she to know that Miss Clements wasn’t one of the Mag’s infiltrators? It was Mr Lovett who had checked her references and approved her. Lucy did believe he was genuinely trying to put Father Copse in prison, so she wanted to trust him, but anyone could make a mistake.
She couldn’t sleep. As soon as she shut her eyes, ugly memories slithered into her mind and she could hear the Magnifico’s voice churning out his threat of the fire of the melting flesh – I can see you, I can hear you. I can watch your every action. Of course, she was no longer so naïve as to really believe he existed, but he was always there – seeing, hearing, watching. The fire awaits all sinners and their flesh will melt away.
The old panic started to rise, and she slapped it down. Bad things had happened, but she must look for the good that arose out of them. It was one of the many philosophies that Aunt Sarah used to churn out, and it was true.
Just about the worst thing that had happened to Lucy the night Thomas burned the Copse house down, was his treachery towards her. The fact that he and his men had raided the house was nothing compared with the shock of discovering that he was not her one true friend and that all his kindness over the years had been a sham. The hurt of betrayal swept through her now, as powerfully as it had done when she realised the truth.
But good had come of that night. One good thing was that, with the utmost contempt for her stupidity, Thomas had told her that the Magnifico did not exist!
Another really good thing was that she’d found the file in which Father Copse recorded the births of all his children. It had shown that Paul was her real brother, not just a foster brother. Now she felt a pang of resentment. How mean they were not to have told her! It would have made all the difference to know she had someone of her own.
The file had also shown that she and Paul had a mother called Maria. That was the third good thing. They’d shared Maria with Dorothy and David when they visited her in hospital, but, of course, some things were too wonderful to last. The news that she had died was like a punch in the stomach for all of them, but even having known her briefly made Lucy feel more complete.
So, it was true that good could come out of bad.
The thought of giving evidence at Thomas’s trial – and Father Copse’s – made Lucy feel sick, but if it got them put away forever, then that would be a fourth good thing. It was amazing, when you thought about it, how much good could come out of evil.
Just as long as the Magnifico’s men didn’t find her and the others first!
*
Dorothy sat on the edge of David’s bed, and they discussed the day’s events in whispers.
“Mr Lovett said we’d be safe here,” said Dorothy, “and I hope I’m not imagining it, but I think I do feel safer. That Miss Clements seems nice – though her sister’s a bit weird. But, obviously, we can’t really trust them.”
David propped himself up on two pillows. “Wow! This bed’s so comfy! Not only do I feel safer, but this is a taste of luxury – even if it is just until the trials. I wish I knew what Lucy was thinking. She still seems so remote sometimes.”
“Well, she’s got years of living with that horrible Father Copse to get over yet. At least you and I had the other kids in the commune. And we had Aunt Bertha. She was really kind – not like the other commune aunts!”
David laughed. “Yeah! Do you remember how she spent all that time trying to teach me how to behave like a gentleman? She reckoned it’d carry me through the most awkward of situations.”
“Well, she should know. She told me once that, before she was converted to the Holy Cause, she came from a family where that sort of thing was really important.”
“It didn’t help us when we were in the disposal cells.”
“No, but that was a bit extreme.” Dorothy stood up. It had been a long day. “We’re both shattered,” she said. “You never know, we might actually be able to sleep tonight. Anyway, back to Lucy. I can’t imagine what it must have been like living in Father Copse’s house with just him and Aunt Sarah. She had no one till Paul came along, and she’s certainly not remote with him. She absolutely adores him!”
“Well, I wish she adored me,” muttered David.
“Of course she does. She loves you and me too – all of us. We’re her family.”
“I don’t mean like that.”
“I know, but she’ll come round. You just have to be patient. It takes a while to get over never being allowed to show your feelings and always being threatened with the fire of the melting flesh. Maybe, if they’re good to us here, she’ll get a chance to unwind.”
David snuggled down into his pillows and blew her a kiss. “Goodnight!” he whispered. “We’ll sleep like logs in these beds.”
Dorothy laughed softly and crept off to her own room, but she knew that as soon as their eyes were shut the walls of the disposal cells would close in on them.
Her bed was indeed comfy, just as David had said, but, as she tried to sleep, the nightly horror swept over her and took her breath away. She could feel the cold, black cloth as the commune aunts dropped the disposal gown over her head. Aunt Bertha was weeping quietly and she could hear Father Drax’s voice in the corridor outside, “She won’t feel a thing. So humane!”
The slimeball! If she ever got hold of him and a syringe, she’d make sure he felt more than a thing, and it certainly wouldn’t be humane!
If only she could push the negative thoughts away, and replace them with something warm and kind. It was good that David had reminded her of Aunt Bertha. She had come to the Drax commune from somewhere in Kent. Dorothy must have been three or four years old then, because it wasn’t long after the Magnifico’s men had taken her away from her mother. The other aunts were always telling her she was a bad girl, but Aunt Bertha made her feel special. One evening, when most of the other aunts were at a prayer meeting, Aunt Bertha had found Dorothy emptying the kitchen bin and throwing waste food all over the floor.
“I’m looking for my mamma’s picture,” Dorothy had explained.
Aunt Bertha had helped her to go through the rubbish, but there was no picture. After they’d put it all back in the bin and washed their hands, Aunt Bertha took her onto her lap. “I’ve got a very important job for you,” she’d said. “There’s a new little boy, who’s just
been brought in today. He’s only two. I want you to look after him for me while I get on with the suppers. He’s never had a mummy, because she gave him away as soon as he was born, so he needs someone special.”
Dorothy had waited for David to finish his nap. When he woke, she took his hand. “I’m looking after you now,” she said, “and you’re looking after me.”
Now, in her comfortable bed, Dorothy marvelled at how much she had to be grateful for. Aunt Bertha was living proof that not all the Magnifico’s followers were evil. And she now had Lucy and Paul, as well as David. This was her family. Perhaps, for the time being at least, they could stop feeling afraid. They just needed time to beat the bad memories and move forward.
If she were to be of any use to the others, she had to be strong. She took a deep breath and pushed all thoughts of the disposal cells away. They had been saved, so why dwell on the ghastliness of it? Think of the good things. Over and over again, she forced herself to remember the most wonderful sound she had ever heard – Lucy whispering her name through the grille of the cell door.
*
No one was sleeping in the flat on the Cromwell Road. Drax and Isobel sat crouched over a computer screen searching out the Magnifico’s agents. Their numbers had diminished drastically since the night Copse’s house was burned down, when the Holy Cause had hit the news. Before September, all the big organisations – the police, public services, companies, and even schools and hospitals – had been riddled with agents, infiltrators and abductors. Now there was hardly anyone left to keep track of anything, including missing children.
“Either the agents we’ve got left have lost their touch or the other side has been very clever,” grumbled Father Drax, closing down the computer. “Come on. We must get some sleep. You’ve got work in the morning.”
“It’s nearly morning now,” said Isobel, straightening her back. “I don’t need sleep. They want me at the Manchester disposal centre tomorrow, so I have to catch an early train. I’ll be off as soon as I’ve had a shower. You go and lie down.”
“You’re my superwoman,” he murmured, kissing the back of her neck, “but I’m not superman, so I’ll do as I’m told. I’ll have another go at the computer when I wake up. There might be some news by then.”
He loped off and fell onto the king-sized bed. By the time Isobel was showered and dressed and ready to leave for work, he was asleep. She looked down at him. He was as beautiful as ever. Her upper lip curled with contempt.
Murmuring her early morning prayer to the Magnifico, she ran her hand over the top of the medicine cupboard in the bathroom and checked her stock of syringes. There were still some boxes left, but if the situation deteriorated further it might be difficult to get hold of supplies. She had a quick look through her medical bag. There was enough equipment for today’s disposals. Everything was in order.
It was still pouring outside, and she took a fur-lined mackintosh out of the hall cupboard. It was sure to be cold as well as wet in Manchester. She popped a neat little rain hat on her head, wound a soft turquoise scarf round her neck, and looked in the mirror. It made one feel good to wear pretty colours.
She unlocked the front door. As she left, she mentally thanked the Magnifico for the freedom to pursue a career, unlike the aunts in the communes and the wives in the breeding rooms. She did sometimes wish she hadn’t been lumbered with one of the Fathers. But there we are, we can’t have everything, and she never failed to act the perfect wife to Drax. The Magnifico was her one true and passionate love, and she needed no one else. As she shut the front door softly behind her, there was joy in her heart and she smiled.
It was so annoying! Isobel tutted. There was mud on her designer shoes. Why did they always put disposal centres in abandoned farms? There must surely be suitably remote mud-less places in this world. She ploughed through the yard towards the processing rooms.
The files were on the desk waiting for her. They had to be checked before she could do anything. The criterion always was whether the patient would be useful in any way to the Magnifico and His Holy Cause. She was meticulous before administering a disposal. In the past, she had come across a few who had been wrongly assessed. She’d had to send them back to their various communes, of course, and the holy leaders had held inquiries.
The subject of the first file was a badly deformed baby. No problem there. She put the file straight into the out tray. The second was a four-year old boy with a neurological disorder. She sat down to think about that one. Was there a role he’d be able to fulfil when he reached adulthood – in the warehouse of one of the meat-processing plants perhaps? She read the file again. No. He’d be more of a nuisance than an asset. Definitely one for the out tray.
She helped herself from the coffee machine. It was time for a break. The train journey had been tedious. And all those awful people! She sipped her coffee slowly. There was a lot to be said for Drax’s idea of a foreign country, just to get away for a bit – preferably without him, of course. But there would be awful people there too, and she did enjoy her work, except for having to travel out of London all the time. She checked her hair in her little hand mirror – immaculate, as always – and touched up her lips with a delicate shade of palest pink. Nothing garish! That vulgar woman opposite her in the carriage had been wearing such a vivid lipstick it was quite offensive to the eye.
At last, she sat down at the desk and opened the third file.
Well, well! This was interesting. Aunt Bertha of all people!
Isobel’s mind flashed back to the Kent commune where she was born and to those gentle years when Aunt Bertha had brought her up until she left for medical school. As soft as butter and so tender-hearted, she had been the easiest person in the world to manipulate. In fact, now that Isobel thought of it, it was from copying Aunt Bertha that she had acquired her own sweetness of manner. Unlike Bertha’s, hers was fake, of course, but very convincing.
She’d known for a long time that Aunt Bertha had been transferred to the Drax commune, but it never occurred to her to wonder what happened to her after the police raided the place last September. According to the file, she’d escaped to a commune in the North of England, and, now, here she was in the disposal centre, no longer useful to the Holy Cause. Arthritis in her hips and knees had made her slow.
Isobel tossed the file into the tray. A baby, a boy and Aunt Bertha, all outgoing and waiting for her in the next room. She checked her watch. Goodness! All that time dwelling on the past! She’d better get a move on or she’d miss her train back to London.
*
Late that evening, there was a little dissension in the flat on the Cromwell Road. Isobel had arrived home from Manchester carrying a large bag containing a wig, a hat and a false moustache.
“It’s a hat or a wig, or both,” she insisted, when her offerings had been rudely rejected.
“I’m not wearing a wig, and I’d feel a fool in a hat,” said Drax. “It’ll make me even taller.”
“Well, you’ll feel more of a fool if you’re caught strolling through Harrods and one of your old buddies sees you being arrested. If you insist on leaving the flat, you’ll have to wear a wig. I often have to wear one for hours on end for my work, and I don’t complain. Lots of people wear wigs. It’s a normal part of bald people’s lives. And hats are trendy at the moment.”
“I am neither bald nor trendy. Today, I cut my hair shorter than usual – as you can see – and that will have to do.”
“Dye it, then.”
“No.”
“OK. Well, it’s up to you. Don’t grumble to me about being stuck indoors on your own all day”.
He stood in front of the mirror and tried on the hat.
“It suits you.”
“It doesn’t.”
They sat down to their meal in grumpy silence.
Eventually, he mumbled, “I wish I weren’t so tall, and then no one would not
ice me.”
Her face softened. “I’d notice you, my darling, if you were as tiny as Tom Thumb.”
He smiled grudgingly. “You’d probably tread me underfoot and squash me flat.”
Isobel giggled. “That’s better,” she said. “Now let’s switch on the computer. Something new may have come through.”
There was nothing.
“Whoever’s hidden them has done a good job, but we’ll find them yet,” said Drax. “And, when we do, it’ll be the chop for them and perhaps Barcelona for me.”
“I’ll visit you whenever I can get the holy leaders to give me a project over there.”
“What’s your Spanish like?”
“Still good, I hope, though a bit rusty. At least they taught languages really well at the Mag’s school, in case we took up missionary work.”
They snuggled together on the sofa, and she stroked the hair on his head. She smiled lovingly. “I’m getting used to the feel of these bristles. I think I’ll dye them black while you’re asleep.”
“Don’t you dare!” he laughed. “Come along. Let’s go to bed. You’ve been up since yesterday morning.”
“Ah, but I’ve done a lot in that time – three disposals by lethal injection, four fake death certificates, one fake birth certificate and two drug-induced comas, as well as our researches, of course.”
“Then you need to rest. Let’s go.”
Chapter Three
It was the Jones family’s first full day in the big house. After breakfast, Miss Marilyn went off to the university – to do research, they were told. Miss Clements settled Donald in his basket and gave him a dried pig’s ear as a treat. “We’ll be back soon,” she said lovingly. “You guard the house, there’s a good boy.”
Checking the money Beverley had given her, she shared some of it out equally into four separate envelopes, which she zipped up inside her bag. She put what remained into a cornflakes box labelled ‘Children’, and hid it in a safe place behind some tins in the larder – to foil burglars. The next time she went to the bank, she’d put it into her separate fostering account. As she was about to close the larder door, she remembered the scrap of paper with the three phone numbers. That might as well go in the box too. Best to keep everything together. Good. All sorted!
The Big House Page 3