Evidence of the robbery lay on the desk in the vicar’s office. Three large, buff-colored, cash-stuffed envelopes: one marked with a bold ‘J’, one ‘L’ (the dead man’s cut), one ‘M’.
Reaper had described the theft to Michael as a redistribution of ill-gotten gains, and Michael had said he wanted no part of it, but Reaper had clearly left a cut for him anyway.
Michael looked at the fat envelope now, recognized that it had to be a life-changing sum of money, remembered the dead child upstairs and knew, with a small sense of relief, that he had not changed his mind.
The phone on Keenan’s desk was off the hook, as he’d guessed.
Lives on the line here. Depending on what he did next.
He made up his mind. Put the receiver back.
The phone rang and he picked up, spoke rapidly, gave the man on the line no chance to speak, identified himself, described Patty Jackson’s possible heart attack and the need to get her out as soon as possible. Said that the longer this rolled on, the greater the likelihood that someone might do something crazy, that they needed to find a way of ending this without more bloodshed. Said that at this moment, there was only one armed man in the nave, a man he was almost certain would willingly lay down his weapon in the name of commonsense. Said that all the exits were still wired.
‘But there are no wires on or around the stained-glass windows,’ Michael told the man. ‘And the windows center of the north and south walls are some distance from the wired doors, but I have no idea what the explosives are, or how sensitive they might be.’
He took a breath and the negotiator dove in.
‘Mr Rider—’
‘Patty Jackson needs to get out soon,’ Michael said, and put down the phone.
Considered the fact that he had just betrayed Reaper, a sick old man who had probably descended to this madness because of his own father’s betrayal.
But Reaper appeared to have gone, maybe for good, and Liza had to be with him.
Something terribly wrong about that.
The phone started ringing again but Michael ignored it, picked up the vicar’s chair, carried it to the door at the bottom of the steps up to the nave and jammed it beneath the handle. Not much of a barricade, but something to slow the cops down at least briefly if they came this way.
Not ready to face the law yet, perhaps not ever.
He wavered. If he took the time to go up now, to bring Joel and Keenan up to speed, maybe give Joel a last chance to come down and escape through the tunnels, all hell would very likely break loose, with possibly catastrophic consequences.
And Liza was missing.
Right or wrong, that suddenly seemed to transcend all other considerations.
Decision made.
He unzipped one of his jacket pockets, and took out his flashlight.
Went looking for the trapdoor.
SEVENTY-TWO
‘So,’ Liza said, ‘this confession. Will you let me record it? I don’t know if it will transmit or not from here.’
‘You can record,’ Reaper said. ‘Though I’d ask you not to be specific as to our whereabouts.’
‘Is that “ask” as in you’ll shoot me if I do tell them?’
‘Perhaps,’ Reaper said. ‘Though I’d probably be gone before they reached us.’
‘The way Nemesis went?’ Liza asked. ‘And I’m presuming the others.’
‘Perhaps,’ Reaper said again.
He leaned his right shoulder against the rough tunnel wall, the backpack in the way.
‘Maybe you’d be more comfortable taking that off for a while?’ she said.
‘It’s fine,’ he said shortly. ‘May I begin?’
She blew on her fingers, trying to warm them, checked the microphone, then raised the camera.
‘Go ahead.’
‘The first thing you need to understand, Ms Plain,’ Reaper said, ‘is that I have, for the most part, been in control of the wicked things I’ve done. I have become, over time, devoid of conscience. I don’t know if I’m a sociopath, but I am a psychopath, though I don’t believe that was always the case.’
‘You mean when you were still “the boy”,’ she said, her heart beating faster.
‘Do you plan to interrupt often?’ Reaper enquired.
‘As little as possible. Just when I need something clarified. For the record.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When I was still young Joshua, I was a true innocent. Since those days, however, I have been subjected to imprisonment, electroconvulsive therapy, force-feeding, anti-psychotic drugs of all kinds, beatings and rape. All of which I survived physically, but I suppose it would be fair to say that my psyche, such as it was, was shot.’
No actual confession yet, more self-justification, Liza thought, with a sense of being on a precipice, horrors yet to come.
‘After that, whenever I saw a church, I felt cold dread, and when I saw any kind of minister, I saw evil and ugliness.’ He paused. ‘Bear in mind, Ms Plain, that such experiences were very rare because I was locked away most of the time.’ He coughed, shifted his position, kept his grip on the shotgun, his gaze on Liza, and went on coughing.
‘Can I do anything?’ she asked, wishing again that he would collapse.
He shook his head, and in another moment, the fit reduced in intensity, then stopped.
‘There’s some blood,’ Liza said.
He didn’t flinch, just raised his right arm, his shotgun arm, wiped his sleeve across his mouth, nodded, then gave a slight smile.
‘Where was I?’
‘You said you were locked away,’ she said.
He nodded again. ‘In the Garthville library, I read about little Alice Millicent and felt surprised that Cromwell had been charged. Because even though I knew he’d helped put me away, and I hadn’t ever really known him, I couldn’t picture him as a child killer.’
Another cough erupted, but he controlled it, sped up.
‘When I was first on the run, a young man, I came here and was staggered by the safety and empowerment these tunnels gave me. I could be invisible, move around beneath the village. I found it easy to get my bearings, to map mentally, find my way up to John Tilden’s restaurant …’
The words tailed off, and then, suddenly, he asked: ‘Would you like to see my place now?’
Her heart seemed to fly up into her throat.
‘I’d rather you went on with your story,’ she said.
‘But I haven’t actually confessed to anything yet, and when I do we will need to be there, because, as I think I’ve told you, it was always very special, even to the boy.’
‘One more question first,’ Liza said, desperate for delay. ‘Why have you wanted all of this recorded?’
‘For justice, as I’ve said.’
‘For Donald Cromwell.’
‘I never lost sleep over Cromwell, though I have enjoyed the notion of getting posthumous justice for Isaiah’s sake.’ Reaper paused. ‘The real justice I’ve sought is for the boy who spoke to angels.’
‘What about Cromwell’s wife and daughter?’
‘Stop time-wasting, Ms Plain,’ he said. ‘My place beckons.’
The stench seemed to wrap itself around Liza’s head, choking her.
‘I can’t breathe this air,’ she said, faintly.
‘You’d be amazed,’ Reaper said, ‘what you can do.’
Michael had fallen down.
Less than twenty yards, give or take, from the foot of the ladder, his hunt for Liza barely begun, he’d tripped over an old broken brick, lost his footing and gone down hard.
He’d cursed and tried to get up, but he’d injured his right knee, and it seemed at first that it wouldn’t hold him, but he doubted that it was fractured, and anyway, this was a case of mind over matter, because he had no choice.
So he’d gotten himself up and limped on. The pain was nothing, nothing compared with what he’d done to those people up in that church, nothing compared to the death of a child. Nothing compared with w
hat he’d done to Liza, and yes, it was Reaper who’d brought her down here, but if anything bad, anything worse, happened to her, it was on Michael Rider’s head, and no one else’s.
But the fall had slowed him right down, and every time he tried speeding up, the knee gave way again, so he was having to maintain a slower pace, was using the shotgun now as a makeshift cane, keeping his fingers well clear of the trigger.
‘I’m coming,’ he told Liza under his breath.
And limped on in the dark.
Things going real slowly up in the nave of St Matthew’s, too.
More waiting for everyone, but especially for Keenan and Joel, because Rider hadn’t come back yet, and they didn’t know what was happening down below, but Joel knew about the tunnels, and loyalty to Reaper was starting to stretch a little thin, because that woman might be very sick, and there were limits …
He didn’t see them coming.
They came fast and hard. Leary, Roper and Nowak, adrenalin in motion, all iron fists and kicking boots; and Joel was on the ground in an instant, no fight in him, his arms instinctively shielding his head, and Nowak snatched his shotgun, brandished it in the air, and women nearby were screaming hysterically.
‘Please!’ Keenan was running toward them.
‘Stop it!’ Rosie pleaded, horrified.
‘Mind he doesn’t bleed on you,’ Mark Jackson shouted.
‘For the love of God, be quiet, you ignorant man,’ Gwen Turner told him.
‘You’re lucky we don’t kill you,’ Eddie Leary told the man on the ground.
‘We need to tie him up,’ Roper said.
‘No one is tying anyone up,’ Keenan said. ‘That man wants to end this as much as we do. He wants to help your daughter, Mr Jackson.’
‘Sorry, Rev, we’re not letting him go,’ Eddie Leary told him, gasping, as Adam Glover, joining the fray, took off his belt and gave it to Roper to bind Joel’s wrists. ‘Give me yours, for his ankles,’ he told Nowak.
‘Not his ankles,’ Keenan protested. ‘I told you, he wants to help, and he has to be able to walk if anything happens.’
‘The vicar’s right,’ Nowak said, and held out the shotgun to Keenan. ‘You’d better take this.’
‘I’m a vicar, not a sheriff,’ Keenan said angrily.
Three pews nearer the front, beside his folded wheelchair, the former sheriff shook his head and closed his eyes.
‘Fuck’s sake, take the goddamn gun, Vicar,’ someone said.
‘Is the safety on?’ Keenan asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Joel said from the floor.
Keenan took it, warily.
Someone whooped triumphantly.
‘Better you hold on to it, Reverend, than anyone else,’ Joel said.
‘You shut the fuck up,’ Leary told him.
‘In case anyone’s forgotten,’ Adam Glover said, ‘my daughter’s lying dead and alone in the vicar’s parlor.’
‘And my husband’s been missing for hours,’ Freya Osborn added.
‘My granddaughter, too,’ Stephen said.
‘Your granddaughter was having a ball,’ Eddie Leary said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gwen Turner said. ‘I’ll bet our house she’s the reason the FBI are out there.’
‘Much good that’s done us,’ Jackson said.
‘Patience,’ Keenan said, and stepped forward to help Joel off the floor.
‘Hey,’ Roper said. ‘Leave him where he is.’
Keenan ignored him, got the fallen man to his feet, looked at the young men and the organist, and held the shotgun high, barrel upward.
‘I’m the man with the gun now,’ he said. ‘So please, all of you, sit down.’
He waited, marveled at their obedience, put his left arm around Joel and walked with him to the front.
‘Mr Tilden,’ he said to the killer in the front pew. ‘Move up, please.’
‘I don’t want him next to me,’ John Tilden said.
‘Move up, you bastard,’ his wife told him.
For one second, he stared at her, then he shifted across, and Joel sat down between him and Eleanor Tilden.
‘Thank you,’ Joel said to her.
‘You’re welcome,’ she said.
‘Now I, for one,’ Keenan said, ‘am going to pray.’
SEVENTY-THREE
Reaper had lit candles in his place – seven white pillar candles that had been ready and waiting.
‘Welcome,’ he said.
And Liza knew for sure.
Not a fractured sewage pipe, that last vain hope quashed as she saw him.
She clamped her left hand over her nose and mouth, let out a great moan and felt her heart beating out of her chest.
Stared at the old man, tethered to a large wooden cross.
Naked, but for his stained gray shorts. His fragile arms tied to the crossbeam with thin rope, his withered legs fastened to the upright, and his head, too.
Not yet dead, Liza realized, an irregular fluttering visible in his bony chest.
‘Not quite a conventional crucifixion,’ Reaper said.
His voice came to Liza like eddies through thick, nauseating liquid.
‘If his arms were his sole support, his head would have cut off breath, and he’d have asphyxiated long ago, and I didn’t want that. He’s had bread and a little water now and then.’
The remnants of a groan came from the man.
‘Untie him.’ Liza’s voice was harsh.
‘Not yet,’ Reaper said. ‘Soon.’
Liza tore her eyes from the man, and stared at his captor, his tormentor.
‘You wanted to know,’ Reaper said. ‘You kept asking, over and over.’
‘Give him water,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘No,’ Reaper said. ‘No more water.’
Rage engulfed Liza, impelled her forward, the camera dropping from her hands, dangling from its shoulder strap and the cable that still attached it to the device in her backpack.
‘No.’ Reaper stepped forward, stuck the snout of the shotgun between her and the gibbet. ‘You’re not here to save him, Ms Plain.’
Thomas Pike moaned.
Liza caught the stink that came from him, retched and took a step back, away from the man who had once been the vicar of St Matthew’s. Anyone who could do this to another person would shoot her without hesitation, and she wanted to survive this, wanted to report this, needed people to know.
And then she saw Pike’s chest more closely.
And his shoulders.
Looked up and saw his forehead.
She tried to speak, but had no words, and no courage left to say them anyway.
The old man had been branded, the wounds raw and seeping blood, pus and dirt, but no doubt as to their shape. Crosses burned into him.
‘I’ve already told you what I am, Ms Plain,’ Reaper said. ‘A psychopath.’
‘You’re a monster,’ Liza said, her voice returning.
‘Man-made. At least partially.’
Liza forced her mind to begin working again. ‘You said you wanted to make a confession. You can’t confess your sins and keep him tied to that.’
‘I shan’t keep him there much longer,’ Reaper said. ‘Once he’s finished, he’ll be buried with the others.’
Others.
Liza shut her eyes, slammed a hand back over her mouth.
She had realized the instant she came close to Pike that the particular stench she’d smelled earlier, far stronger here, was not emanating from him. She was as sure as she could be what it was, though she had never previously experienced the stink of decomposed flesh.
No doubt about it now.
She turned, stumbled against the wall and threw up.
In the bar at the Shiloh Inn, one of the guests, a middle-aged part-time piano tuner whose work required, among other things, manual dexterity, had finally, after hours of struggling, managed to untie his own hands and remove his gag, had swiftly attended to his wife, and after her the duty manag
er; and pretty smartly after that, considering all they’d endured till then, all thirteen prisoners in the room had been freed.
That freedom still in question.
No one entirely sure when they’d last seen the two Halloween-masked gunmen who’d stayed to guard them after their colleagues had departed and the exits had been locked, bolted and rendered lethal to open – or so they had been told.
No one daring to venture out of the bar.
‘If we stay in here,’ the manager said, ‘at least we’re safe till help comes.’
‘Unless they come back,’ his wife said, and burst into tears.
‘I think they’ve gone,’ the manager said, and put his arms around her.
‘But how could they have,’ one of the guests, white-faced and trembling, asked, ‘with the doors wired?’
‘Maybe they’re not wired,’ the duty manager said.
‘But maybe they are,’ his wife said.
No one had heard so much as a floorboard creak for hours, they all agreed, but still, no one felt willing to take a chance, either of meeting the gunmen or getting blown up.
Meantime, the phone in the bar didn’t work, and no one had a cell phone or tablet, and what they all cared about most was getting to a bathroom, but that meant venturing out of this safe room.
‘I’m going to open the shutters,’ the manager said. ‘Take a look.’
‘What if they see you?’ his wife said.
‘Everyone move to the far end,’ her husband directed.
‘For God’s sake,’ his wife said, ‘be careful.’
He drew back the drapes a little way, took a breath, opened one of the shutters a crack, peered out and saw that the sun was rising.
‘Holy guacamole,’ he said. ‘You never saw so much snow.’
‘What else?’ the piano tuner asked.
He went on peering.
‘Something’s going on,’ he said, ‘up at the church.’
SEVENTY-FOUR
‘Pike was the last,’ Reaper said. ‘As seemed fitting. The final act of vengeance, if you like.’
Liza felt beyond speech again, knowing now that she was in the presence of an unfathomable insanity.
Her eyes having grown accustomed to the dim, flickering light, she had begun to search around for something, anything that might help her, knowing even as she hunted that there was no real possibility of escape. And though she had found nothing to help her, she had seen what lay beyond poor Pike on his gibbet.
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