‘What’s going on?’
All heads turned as Catherine Roberts appeared in the doorway of the church.
‘They want to see the window,’ Channing told her.
Cath nodded slowly.
‘Come on, I’ll take you through,’ she said wearily.
Channing shot her an angry glance.
Callahan smiled thinly and he and Laura followed Cath into the church.
As they entered both were struck by the smell of damp and decay and Laura had to tread carefully, cautious not to trip over any of the pieces of rotting wood which littered the stone floor. Dust several inches deep rose up like puffs of smoke each time they put their feet down. It was like walking on a bed of ashes.
‘I apologise for my companion,’ said Cath as they moved through the nave. ‘He’s become a little over-protective where the window is concerned. It’s important to him.’
‘It’s important to me, too,’ Callahan told her. Then he remembered he didn’t know her name. Hasty introductions were exchanged.
‘What’s your interest in the window, Mr Callahan?’ Cath asked.
‘You could say I’m a collector,’ Callahan said, smiling.
Cath, puzzled, opened the door which led through to the chancel.
Shafts of sunlight which had managed to force entry through broken slats on the far side of the chancel now struck the window, illuminating its colours so vividly it seemed to be glowing.
Callahan and Laura entered.
‘Jesus Christ,’ murmured Callahan, gazing in awe.
Laura stood as if mesmerized, her eyes never leaving the glass.
Callahan moved closer, reaching out to touch the panel which showed the clawed hand holding a child. The glass was cold against his fingertips.
Channing entered the chancel and looked at the two newcomers, then at Cath. He reserved the same look of distaste for all three.
‘What do the words mean?’ asked Callahan, pointing at the Latin legends within the glass.
‘We’re still working on that,’ Cath told him.
‘Who’s paying you?’ Callahan wanted to know.
‘No one,’ Channing said. ‘This is research.’
Callahan smiled.
‘It can’t be comfortable working in these conditions,’ he said.
‘We manage,’ Channing said.
‘You don’t have to manage. I’m offering you the chance to work at your own pace, in private, without press interference in a controlled environment. Anything you could want.’
‘How?’ Cath sounded intrigued.
‘Work for me,’ said Callahan quietly. ‘It’s your choice. But if you don’t then someone else will, and I warn you now I want this window. And what I want I get.’
Channing smiled.
‘What are you going to do? Wrap it up and put it in your suitcase?’
‘No. I’m going to have it flown out by private plane back to my estate in Ireland.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Are you going to stop me?’
‘How much would you be willing to pay for the work to continue on the window?’ Cath asked.
‘You can’t ...’Channing said, but she raised a hand to silence him.
‘Fifty thousand pounds. More, if you want it,’ Callahan said flatly.
‘You can’t buy this window and you can’t buy our expertise,’ Channing said.
‘The window doesn’t belong to you, and if you don’t want to work on it that’s your business. If you want to throw fifty thousand back at me that’s your business, too.’ He looked at Cath. ‘What about you, Miss Roberts? The offer stands.’
‘Make it a hundred thousand,’ she said.
‘Cath, for God’s sake,’ snarled Channing.
‘Right,’ Callahan agreed. ‘One hundred thousand it is.’ He looked at Channing. ‘And you?’
‘No. I won’t let you take the window.’ He turned and wrenched open the chancel door. ‘I’d rather see it destroyed.’
They heard his footsteps as he stalked off through the nave.
Callahan looked at the window, then at Cath.
He was smiling.
Fifty-Six
Channing paced the floor of his room agitatedly, occasionally stopping to look at Cath, who stood by the window watching him.
‘All Callahan’s offering us is better working conditions,’ said Cath softly.
‘You make him sound like a factory boss.’
‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous. You know what I mean. There’s nothing more we can do on the window in its present position or location. Besides, I’m sick of working inside that church.’
‘He has no right to take the window. It isn’t his.’
‘And it isn’t ours, either,’ she reminded him. ‘Work with him, Mark, not against him. You want to find out the secret of the window. So does Callahan, and he’s prepared to pay money to find it.’
‘You told him about it, then? About the secret?’
‘He mentioned it. After you’d gone he said something about the treasure, about some kind of secret de Rais had. Callahan’s no fool, Mark.’
‘So just because he happens to have read a couple of books about Gilles de Rais, you’re impressed with his knowledge, eh? For that you’ll allow him to take the window? For that you’ll sell your talents and your skills to him to help him find the secret?’
‘It’s not just for his benefit,’ she said. ‘I want to know what that window means, what it meant to de Rais. I want to know and I intend to find out. You said I was obsessed with it; well, perhaps you’re right. I’m not going to stop working on it until I find out.’
‘You bargained with him,’ said Channing scornfully, ‘like a whore doing a deal with a customer. Fifty thousand wasn’t enough, so you pushed him to a hundred. A whore’s bargain.’
She took two steps towards him and slapped his face hard.
Channing looked at her angrily, his cheek stinging from the blow.
‘Don’t ever call me that,’ she said.
‘I won’t let you do it, Catherine,’ rasped Channing.
He swung at her, his fist catching her across the jaw, a blow which sent her sprawling. She tasted blood in her mouth as he advanced on her.
‘I won’t let you take the window,’ he repeated, and grabbed her by the hair, tearing a great chunk from her scalp. She screamed in pain as he ripped it free, staring at the clump for a moment before lunging at her again.
Cath tried to roll to one side, to escape him, to reach the door of the room but Channing was too fast for her. As she made a dive for the bed he grabbed her leg and pulled her back, throwing all his weight on her, pinning her down.
He fastened his hands around her throat and began to squeeze, his thumbs digging into her larynx.
She struck at him, raking his cheek with her nails, pieces of his skin coming away. Blood dripped onto her face from the deep gashes but the pressure on her throat didn’t ease.
‘I won’t let you go,’ he said, shaking her now, exerting more pressure, driving his thumbs deeper until she thought he must begin to crush her spinal cord.
White light danced before her eyes and she could not get her breath. It felt as if someone were sucking every last drop of air from her lungs as Channing pressed down harder.
She hooked her legs around him and tried to bring her heels down hard into the small of his back. For brief moments, with Channing lying between her legs, her own limbs around him, they looked to be in some kind of murderous coital embrace, but then her legs seemed to lose their strength and slip to either side. Waves of nausea swept through her. She realized with horror that she was losing consciousness. The blood pounded in her ears. Through eyes blurred with pain and fear she saw Channing’s face above her. There was spittle on his lips, his teeth gritted together.
He looked like a madman.
In her last few moments of rational thought she guessed that madness had indeed finally taken him.
She couldn’t breat
he. His thumbs were gouging even more deeply into her throat.
She realized with unshakeable certainty that she was going to die.
One last effort.
She forced strength into limbs she had thought incapable of movement.
Summoning every last reserve of will she managed to bring her left knee up with terrific force, driving it into his groin.
The grip on her throat weakened noticeably.
She heard Channing’s strangled cry of pain and brought up her knee again, this time so hard she felt it connect with his pelvic bone.
He rolled off her, groaning and clutching his testicles.
She fell from the bed, hit the floor hard. Holding her bruised throat with one hand, her breath coming in choked gasps, she made for the door.
She’d almost reached it when she felt the hand on her shoulder.
Channing, his face still contorted with pain and rage, grabbed her by one arm and swung her round with such force that she was catapulted across the room. Unable to stop herself she smashed into the dressing table, her head snapping forward, striking the mirror with sickening force. The glass shattered, great long shards of it spraying out around her.
She slid to the floor, blood pouring from the savage wound on her forehead.
Through a mist of semi-consciousness she saw Channing coming towards her, bending to snatch up a particularly long, rapier-sharp piece of shattered mirror. The jagged edges cut his hands but he seemed to ignore his own pain.
‘You won’t take the window,’ he hissed, his face twisted and bloated.
He looked like something embodied in the window, Cath thought.
Something monstrous.
It was her last thought before he drove the razor-sharp length of glass into the top of her skull.
She didn’t scream.
Cath merely sat bolt upright in bed, her entire body coated with perspiration.
She looked frantically around, her eyes wide, still unsure for a second if she was immersed in the nightmare. Her hand went to her throat and she felt no marks, found that she could swallow without pain. There was no blood on her face. No wounds.
‘Jesus,’ she murmured and swung herself, naked, out of bed, feeling the sweat dry on her skin as she crossed to the door. She stood there for a moment, the residue of the dream still seared onto her retina like the muzzle- flash of a gun. Then, quickly, she locked the door and went back to bed, but it was a long time before she slept. Instead she watched the curtains billowing in the breeze like the wings of some gigantic moth.
Across the landing Mark Channing also lay awake, only shortly having emerged from the nightmare.
The nightmare in which he had murdered Catherine Roberts.
He lay motionless for long moments, then climbed out of bed and crossed to the wardrobe where his case was. He pulled it out and rummaged about inside.
The knife was almost eight inches long, double-edged and sharp as a razor. He examined it in the gloom, feeling the edges with his thumb. The blade itself was scratched and worn from many years’ use: whittling, prising rocks from the ground.
It was a useful tool in his field work. His father had presented him with it just before he’d died and Channing treasured it for that as much as for its practicality and usefulness.
He scraped the pad of one thumb across the edge a little too hard and drew blood. He wiped the crimson droplet away.
He hefted the knife once more, glancing towards the door, wishing he could see beyond it. Into Catherine Roberts’ room.
He turned the knife slowly in his hand and slid it carefully back into his case.
Fifty-Seven
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND:
Number Forty Glenarvon Road was as unremarkable and as uniformly ordinary as most of the other houses on the Turf Lodge estate.
It was terraced, with a blue-painted front door which was blistered and in need of redecoration. The window frames were in a similar condition. There were slates missing off the roof, as there were on many of the other houses on the street.
The early morning sunrise, which had spread its orange glow through the sky and made even the worst areas of the city look inviting, had passed. The sun itself had disappeared behind banks of clouds which periodically spattered the earth with rain. The sky was grey. The street was grey. Even the people in it looked grey; colourless entities who led grey lives.
There was movement behind the curtains of Number Forty.
Simon Peters watched quietly, drumming on his knee.
‘Someone’s at home,’ said Luke McCormick. He flicked on the windscreen wipers every now and then to clear the spots of rain from the glass and to give the men an unobstructed view of the house.
There were just the two of them in the car. Hagen and Rice were a few miles away in Ballymurphy, checking on the whereabouts of Michael Black.
The four men were to meet up at the Divis flats in two hours’ time.
Peters continued to watch the house, moving slightly in his seat every now and then. As he did he felt the weight of the Browning Hi-Power against his left side. Tucked in his belt was a Charter Arms ‘Pathfinder’, a .22 calibre pistol.
The use to which the IRA put. 22 pistols was limited.
But the smaller calibre weapons served their purpose admirably.
After all, anything larger would mean the whole of the lower leg being blown off, and why do that when a knee-cap was sufficient?
The curtain of Number Forty moved again.
‘I wonder if young Billy is home,’ said Peters.
‘Perhaps he is and he’s seen us,’ McCormick suggested.
‘If he’d seen us, Luke, he wouldn’t be standing there looking out of the window at us, would he, now?’ Peters observed, smiling. ‘He’d have legged it.’
Peters glanced down at the clock on the dashboard, checking it against his own watch.
9.26 a.m.
The door of Number Forty opened and a tall youth dressed in jeans and a denim jacket nosed his way out, looked both ways then turned back to peer into the house. He was speaking to someone.
‘Is that Billy’s brother?’ McCormick said.
Peters shook his head.
The youth waited a moment longer then wandered out, slammed the door behind him and ran off down the street, disappearing round a corner.
Peters pushed open his door and climbed out.
‘Come on,’ he said quietly, and his companion joined him as they moved slowly across the street from the parked car.
A woman cleaning her front step looked up and saw them. McCormick waved to her and she waved back, continuing with her task.
As they reached the door of Number Forty Peters slid one hand inside the jacket. With the other hand he knocked.
No answer.
He tried again.
There was a hasty movement behind the door and it was opened a fraction.
Maria Dolan looked out at the men, her hair tousled, her face flushed, with only a towel wrapped around her.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, brushing a strand of blonde hair from her forehead.
Peters ran appraising eyes over her. She was in her late teens, not particularly pretty, a little on the thin side. Her legs needed shaving, he noted, seeing the shadows on her shins. The dye was beginning to grow out of her hair and the dark roots were showing where it was parted.
‘Is your brother in, Maria?’ Peters asked.
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Is he here?’ McCormick added. ‘We just want to talk to him.’
She regarded both men warily, her brown eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them.
‘Are you with the RUC?’ she wanted to know.
Peters grinned.
‘No, we’re not. We’re friends of Billy’s. We just want to speak to him.’
‘He’s not here,’ she said and tried to push the door shut.
Peters saw what she was doing and managed to get one foot across the threshold.
‘Open up, come on. If Billy’s not here we’ll have to talk to you,’ he said, his hand gripping the pistol in his belt.
‘Fuck off,’ she said, trying to shut the door again.
Peters pulled the pistol free and, keeping it hidden, aimed it at her stomach.
‘Open the door, you little tart. Now.’
She obeyed instantly, allowing them both inside. McCormick closed it behind them.
The sitting room was small and untidy. There were clothes lying around on the sofa. Peters noticed a pair of knickers on the arm of a chair. In an ashtray on the small coffee table there was a condom wrapped in tissue paper.
‘Been entertaining, have you, Maria?’ he said, smiling and pushing the .22 back into his belt.
She pulled the towel tighter around herself, the colour drained from her face. The bravado had gone from her voice.
‘Who are you?’ she asked quietly.
‘Like I said, we’re friends of your brother.’ Peters looked around the room. A painting of Mary Magdalene stared back at him from one wall, encased in its plastic frame. On another wall there was a crucifix. Over the fireplace hung a calendar showing different views of Ireland. It was a month out of date. He crossed to it and turned it to the correct month.
‘Parents out, too?’ he observed.
‘Dad’s on the early shift, Mum left about two hours ago,’ she said.
‘So you invited your boyfriend round?’ he chuckled.
McCormick looked into the small kitchen, then left the sitting room and Maria heard him walking about upstairs.
‘You’re not going to hurt me, are you?’ she said softly.
Peters shook his head.
‘We just want to talk to you,’ he told her. ‘Has anyone else been here to see you in the last few days?’
She shook her head.
McCormick returned from upstairs, looked at Peters, shook his head and went into the kitchen.’
Peters picked up the jeans from the sofa and a T-shirt, threw them to Maria and turned his back.
‘Get dressed,’ he told her, gazing out of the small front window. She did so hurriedly. When he thought she was finished he turned to face her again. She stood quivering before him like a naughty child in front of a headmaster.
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