Whirlwind

by Hilary Norman

  ‘Bastard,’ someone said.

  ‘Bastards.’ The word was repeated around the nave, and Liza watched in silence, recording as Adam Glover lifted his dead daughter in his arms, as his wife and old Seth Glover rose to accompany them.

  And then, as they climbed the chancel steps, guided by Keenan to the door that led to the vestry and parlor, Liza cut away again, back to the pulpit, and switched the mike back.

  ‘If Reaper won’t allow them privacy, we can,’ she said. ‘But I do have to confirm the tragic news that a young child named Grace Glover has died as a result of her gunshot wound. Her parents and grandfather are moving her into the vicar’s parlor, accompanied by Reverend Keenan and the gunman codenamed Jeremiah.’

  She caught movement from the left, saw that Michael had come down from the chancel and was covering Luke’s face with the dead man’s jacket.

  Liza turned off the microphone.

  ‘Michael,’ she called to him.

  Someone nearby hissed with contempt.

  He turned, hesitated briefly, then walked up the aisle towards her. Close up, she saw intense pain in his eyes.

  ‘You must realize now that it’s over,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve reported that her death was accidental, that Luke was trying to stop her from getting hurt.’

  ‘We brought guns into church,’ Michael said. ‘We all knew the risks.’

  ‘If you defuse the doors now,’ Liza said, ‘at least no one else need be hurt.’

  ‘Ms Plain.’ Reaper’s voice from the pulpit was sharp. ‘Please switch your microphone back on and do your job.’ He paused. ‘Isaiah, time is passing.’

  Michael closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and looked at Liza.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’

  ‘I’d say we’re beyond words, wouldn’t you?’

  He turned, made his way slowly back to the chancel.

  Liza switched the mike back on, hating herself for doing Reaper’s bidding.

  And wasn’t that just what Michael was doing?

  Not the same.

  ‘Apologies for the silence, people out there. I hope you’re still with us. From CNN to News Radio 920. FBI, Rhode Island State Police, Glocester PD. According to the man in charge of this nightmare, the man calling himself Reaper, they’re going to carry on.’

  ‘Tell them to bring a SWAT team,’ the man from the choir behind her said loudly.

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ Liza said.

  From above came a fearsome, groaning noise.

  Everyone looked up.

  Just the pitched roof doing its job, allowing gravity to slide some of the overloaded snow down over the filled gutters, then onto the packed white stuff below.

  Someone laughed and then, promptly, began to cry.

  Liza took a breath, spoke into the microphone again.

  ‘What next?’ she said.

  Michael didn’t know exactly what was coming next. He’d arrived in Shiloh with a little more knowledge than the others about Revelation, but nowhere near all. Only the tidbits, he realized now: the bait that Reaper had used to reel him in. And he was in, way over his head, and he hadn’t imagined that his soul could grow any bleaker than it had been before Whirlwind. But with that child’s blood right there before him, soaked into the timber floor, his conscience felt more heavily burdened than even after his mother’s death.

  Everyone was back in position, Reaper in the seat beside the pulpit, Luke’s shotgun across his knees, and Michael was at the pulpit again, silent …

  ‘Isaiah,’ Reaper prompted. ‘The dressmaker.’

  Michael took a breath, looked straight ahead, saw Liza recording.

  And began again.

  ‘Mrs Yore. What did you mean when you said you might have known what Susan Cromwell meant in her letter to Dr Plain?’

  ‘How can you?’ Eleanor Tilden was on her feet. ‘Another child is dead, and—’

  ‘Ellie, sit down.’ John Tilden tugged at her hand, pulled her down.

  ‘Mrs Yore,’ Reaper said. ‘Please answer the question.’

  ‘I don’t know anything for sure.’ The woman’s cheeks were red again. ‘But I did believe back then that Susan was in love with another man. And I don’t know who, so I can’t tell you, but she once let slip to me – when she’d had a few drinks – that she was in love with somebody else and was thinking of leaving Donald.’

  ‘Was that all she said?’ Michael asked.

  ‘No.’ Janet Yore sighed. ‘Susan told me that Donald had tried just about everything to stop her. He’d forbidden her, begged her, she said. He’d even made threats against the other man.’

  ‘It wasn’t another man,’ someone said.

  Heads turned to stare at Gwen Turner.

  ‘Susan was having an affair with a woman,’ she said.

  A collective gasp rose and was swiftly suppressed.

  ‘Who was she?’ Michael asked.

  Numbness in him, nothing surprising him.

  ‘I’d remind you, Rider,’ Stephen Plain broke in, ‘that your grandmother’s still alive.’

  ‘And long past caring, from what I’ve heard,’ Osborn said dryly.

  ‘Come on, Gwen,’ Eleanor Tilden encouraged. ‘Spill.’

  ‘Ellie, don’t,’ John Tilden said. ‘Let’s not get involved in this.’

  ‘We’re all pretty involved, I’d say,’ she said.

  Tilden made an exasperated sound and sat back.

  ‘Was it you, Gwen Turner?’ Ann Jackson asked loudly.

  ‘No, as a matter of fact,’ Gwen answered.

  ‘So who was it?’ asked a young man, probably about sixteen, Michael estimated, with dyed black hair and an ear stud, seated in the eighth row with the choir. ‘Come on, lady.’

  ‘Don’t let them bully you, Gwen,’ John Tilden said.

  ‘I won’t, John,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘I’m sure you should,’ Jill said beside her, clearly fascinated.

  ‘Everybody except Gwen Turner be quiet,’ Reaper ordered loudly. ‘Miss Turner, do you know the identity of the other woman in Susan Cromwell’s life?’

  ‘You might as well tell them, Gwen,’ Eleanor Tilden spoke up again. ‘They’re obviously not going to let this go.’

  ‘For the love of God, Ellie, will you shut up!’ her husband snapped.

  ‘I will not.’ She glared at him. ‘I think that if Gwen knows who Susan was sleeping with and has already said as much, then she should tell them, especially if it’s going to help put us all out of our misery.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Ellie, your mouth.’ Tilden’s cheeks were scarlet.

  Eleanor looked at him. ‘John? What’s wrong?’

  ‘It was Lynne.’ The words were stark. ‘OK?’

  ‘Lynne?’ Eleanor stared at him. ‘Your Lynne?’

  ‘My Lynne, yes. Till that bitch got hold of her.’ Tilden looked up at Michael, hate in his eyes. ‘My late wife was being bedded by Susan Cromwell, and there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t still damn your grandmother to hell for it.’ He glared at his wife. ‘Satisfied?’

  Silence fell for a second or two, quickly overtaken by murmurings, even a little reined-in laughter, because scandal was suddenly rocking the church, allowing the captive congregation, however briefly, to blank out their fear and focus instead on something older than many of them.

  ‘I’m sorry, John,’ Gwen called to Tilden. ‘I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.’

  ‘Not alone there,’ he said.

  ‘Surely it was all a very long time ago,’ Jill Barrow said lightly. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it now.’

  ‘No,’ Tilden said. ‘I guess you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ Eleanor said softly. ‘I’m so sorry. If I’d known—’

  ‘You never know when to keep quiet,’ he said. ‘You know I hate church. You know I didn’t want to come tonight.’

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Let’s settle down and let them get on with
their nonsense. It has nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Hasn’t it?’ Tilden stared up at Michael.

  ‘Something to say?’ Reaper said. ‘John Tilden?’

  Eleanor watched her husband close his eyes, heard his breath quicken, saw his fists clench, their liver-stained knuckles whitening.

  ‘Please leave him alone,’ she said to Reaper. ‘He’s an old man.’

  ‘Plenty of old people here,’ Reaper said. ‘Minds filled with things they’d sooner forget. Running out of time to let them out.’

  ‘God,’ Tilden muttered.

  ‘Do you have something to say, John Tilden?’ Reaper asked, his tone mild.

  ‘God.’ Tilden’s face had reddened again.

  ‘Calm down, John.’ Eleanor reached for his hand, but he jerked away from her. ‘You’re going to make yourself ill.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want to do that, John Tilden,’ Reaper said.

  Michael stared at him, perplexed, then transferred his gaze back to the man in the front pew, still trying to process what he’d just learned about his grandmother.

  ‘Oh, Christ.’ Tilden’s voice was duller, flatter.

  ‘Hey,’ Eleanor said. ‘It’s all in the past. It’s OK.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t OK.’

  ‘Sure it is,’ she said kindly, comfortingly.

  ‘It was. Not any more.’ Tilden looked back at her. ‘I’d blotted it all out, you know.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘It’s history.’

  ‘Lord knows I’ve been so happy with you, Ellie.’

  ‘We’ve both been happy.’ She looked around, embarrassed and confused.

  ‘But these people …’ He shook his head. ‘And you just had to push.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘But it’s forty years ago.’

  ‘It’s forty years, and it’s yesterday,’ Tilden said softly. ‘And it was all his fault.’

  ‘Whose fault?’ Eleanor was mystified. ‘His?’ She looked up at Reaper.

  Tilden shook his head.

  ‘Whose fault, John Tilden?’ Reaper asked, more loudly.

  Michael heard Reaper’s resolve, the curious inflection behind the multiple repetitions of Tilden’s full name, and he felt a great longing suddenly to go sit down with the other people, just to watch and listen and not be a part of this …

  ‘Please.’ Eleanor was suddenly afraid. ‘Leave him alone.’

  ‘Cromwell’s,’ Tilden said, and sat up straighter. ‘It was all Donald Cromwell’s fault.’

  ‘John, you have to stop this,’ Eleanor hissed. ‘Let them get on with it and keep us out, like you said before.’

  ‘Too late now.’ Tilden looked up at Michael. ‘It was your grandfather’s fault that Lynne went to Susan Cromwell. She’d never have gone that way if they’d let us have kids.’

  ‘They?’ Michael said.

  In the midst of his confusion, he saw Liza tilting the camera lens, knew she was probably focused on him now, supposing that he knew what lay beyond this, but he didn’t know, didn’t understand, was just a man now with questions.

  ‘Who wouldn’t let you have kids?’ he asked.

  ‘The council, may they rot in hell.’ Tilden pushed his wife’s restraining hand away again. ‘And their president, Lord High and Mighty Donald Cromwell, keeper of all our morals.’

  ‘Stop this now, John.’ Eleanor was sharper. ‘Stop and think.’

  ‘I can’t stop, Ellie,’ Tilden said. ‘It’s too late for that. I have to let it out.’

  ‘No,’ his wife said. ‘You don’t.’

  ‘Lynne couldn’t get pregnant’– Tilden went on, words and history suddenly tumbling out – ‘so we decided to adopt, but Cromwell said we weren’t good parent material – except he meant me, not Lynne, but he didn’t care that he’d just broken her heart, because children were what she wanted more than anything in life.’

  ‘For God’s sake, John,’ Eleanor begged. ‘This is your business. You don’t have to tell them any of it.’

  ‘I’d say he does, Mrs Tilden,’ Reaper said.

  ‘It’s private,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘Cromwell ate in my restaurant every day,’ Tilden went on. ‘Took every free drink on offer, knew how much I loved my wife, knew what having a family meant to her. Big-shot Cromwell, always bragging about how much he could do for the people of Shiloh, how much influence he had, but when it came to us, he wouldn’t lift a finger. And that was what turned Lynne, because she couldn’t face it.’ Tilden stood up, swung around, found Stephen Plain five rows back. ‘You know how she was, Doctor.’

  ‘She was depressed,’ the old doctor admitted. ‘It was a bad time for her.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘For you, too,’ Plain agreed. ‘But it was harder for your wife.’

  ‘It changed her, drove her half crazy.’ Tilden’s face was still red, his eyes bloodshot too now. ‘And Susan Cromwell took advantage of her, evil bitch that she was.’

  ‘Hey.’ Eleanor had grown pale. ‘That’s enough, John.’

  ‘More than enough, I’d say.’ The vicar had come through from the parlor and shut the vestry door quietly behind him. ‘So is this your great aim?’ Keenan asked Reaper. ‘To turn Christmas into this travesty?’

  ‘A good time for confession, surely?’ Reaper turned toward him. ‘You said it earlier, over and over. “Lord have mercy.”’

  Keenan’s cheeks grew hot. ‘You’d do well to ask for that yourself.’

  ‘No mercy for me, Vicar.’ Reaper turned back to the man in the front row. ‘But maybe for you, John Tilden. Think confession might be worth trying? “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world …”’ He stopped. ‘So what was it that Cromwell knew about you? What was it he knew that made him say you shouldn’t be allowed to adopt a child?’

  ‘For pity’s sake!’ Eleanor burst.

  ‘Have you ever considered confessing, John Tilden?’ Reaper’s cough started up, but he forced himself on. ‘“O Lamb of God, have mercy on us.”’ His voice rasped, but he controlled the cough, relentless now. ‘Do you think you deserve His mercy, John Tilden?’

  Silence fell all across the nave.

  ‘Well, John Tilden?’ Reaper took the shotgun in his right hand, his cane in the other, stood up and took a step forward, leaning on the cane, no other sign of weakness in him.

  Tilden was staring up at him.

  ‘Well, John Tilden?’ Reaper’s voice was stronger, more compelling.

  The color in the other man’s face drained away.

  ‘You know,’ he said, quietly. ‘You know, don’t you, you son of a bitch?’

  ‘John.’ Eleanor Tilden’s voice shook. ‘Please, whatever this is, stop now.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he told her, then gave a short, brittle laugh. ‘Or rather, it isn’t. It never will be again.’ He gave her a weak smile. ‘I’m so sorry, Ellie. More than you’ll ever know.’

  ‘Well, John Tilden?’ Reaper said for the third time.

  ‘What is this?’ a young man said, halfway back on the other side of the nave. ‘The fucking day of reckoning?’

  ‘Remember where you are,’ another man said.

  ‘In the middle of a fucking siege is where we are.’ The younger man’s voice trembled. ‘A little kid dead, and who knows what comes next? I’d say I’m allowed to curse, don’t you think?’

  And the hush came again.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Liza watched in fascination as John Tilden got back on his feet, saw that his whole body was trembling and zoomed in as well as she could manage.

  ‘All right.’ The innkeeper’s face was pasty now. ‘I’m ready.’ He stared up at Reaper. ‘I always knew this day would come. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’ve won, you son-of-a-bitch.’

  They waited. Captive audience and captors alike.

  ‘Come along then, John Tilden.’ Reaper’s tone was colder. ‘Get it out. Spill, as your own wife said a while ago. The vicar would prob
ably say you’ll feel better, though I’m not sure that’s true.’

  ‘If you know,’ Tilden said, ‘why don’t you tell them?’

  ‘We need your words,’ Reaper said. ‘For the record.’

  Liza stirred, and checked the equipment again. Nemesis had told her that everything she recorded would be stored, and suddenly that seemed more vital than ever.

  Tilden was staring up at Reaper again. ‘But you can’t know. How could you?’

  ‘Your words, please,’ Reaper repeated. ‘Now.’

  The ‘now’ seemed to crack right through the nave.

  Tilden remained silent for a long moment.

  ‘I blamed them all.’ He still trembled, but his tone was bitter, defiant. ‘I think most men would have in my position. I’d loved Lynne so much, but I blamed her for betraying me, for letting herself be corrupted, and I certainly blamed Susan Cromwell for her wickedness. I’m no churchgoer, as the new vicar already knows, but I’m sure I remember something in the Bible that calls that wicked.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’d know that, John Tilden,’ Reaper said, ‘since you never thought much of the Bible. Though your first wife, Naomi, was certainly a devout woman.’

  ‘What does Naomi have to do with anything?’ Tilden looked thrown.

  ‘She was your first wife, was she not?’ Reaper asked. ‘First of three, am I right? Eleanor being the third. Lynne the second, after Naomi died.’ He looked down at Tilden, then smiled. ‘You were saying that you blamed Susan Cromwell.’

  ‘Of course I did, but most of all, I blamed her husband. For being a sanctimonious bastard and for not having any control over his wife. It was fine for him to say that other people didn’t deserve to have children – he had his little Emily, after all.’ Sudden tears threatened and his voice shook violently. ‘Oh, I blamed Donald Cromwell all right. And I hated everyone who had what I couldn’t have – a clean, normal family.’

  ‘Ms Plain.’

  Reaper’s voice startled Liza.

  ‘Time for you to move your equipment,’ he said.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked.

  ‘To the front, below the chancel. Nemesis will assist you.’

  The move was swift, Liza transferring to a place near the undercroft door from where she could see the men on the chancel and the Tildens in the front pew. She glanced quickly up at Michael, saw his stillness and incredible tension, told herself to focus, and turned her lens back onto the man of the moment, who’d sat down during the break.