‘I wonder why he was shot,’ said Georgie.
‘That’s what we’ve got to find out,’ Doyle told her.
‘And if it’s nothing to do with Maguire and his men?’
He shrugged.
‘Then we carry on looking. This is worth a go, Georgie. Anything is, no matter how remote. If it means getting to Maguire it’s worth trying.’
Doyle reached onto the back seat and retrieved the bunch of flowers they’d bought a couple of streets away.
‘Let me carry them,’ she said. ‘You don’t look like the caring type.’
Doyle raised one eyebrow quizzically and handed her the flowers. They both climbed out of the Datsun and walked across the street towards the main entrance of the hospital, moving slowly, apparently oblivious to the uniformed men in the cars on either side of the short flight of steps to the main doors of the hospital. They passed unchallenged and wandered through into the reception area.
It was cool in there, the air-conditioning set a little too low. On their right, as they entered, was the hospital shop and Doyle saw a woman there buying chocolates. There were several rows of plastic chairs set next to a large picture window that looked out onto a small enclosed garden. About half a dozen people sat in the chairs, one man with his head bowed, hands clasped on his lap. Doyle nodded almost imperceptibly to Georgie, who went and sat on one of the seats. To his left there was a vending machine. A weary-looking man not much older than Doyle was feeding coins into it.
Doyle crossed to him, standing close behind him.
As the man turned from the machine, Doyle stepped closer to him.
The man couldn’t help himself and spilled hot coffee on Doyle’s hand.
‘Christ, I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Doyle told him, wiping the hot liquid with a handkerchief. He patted the man on the shoulder. ‘I shouldn’t have been standing so close. I’ll get you another one.’
‘It’s ok.’
‘No, please,’ Doyle insisted, already pushing coins into the machine.
The man smiled thinly and discarded the half-empty plastic cup.
‘I hate hospitals,’ Doyle said. ‘I’m here visiting my wife. She was in a car accident. Broke a leg and an arm, shook her up badly.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘How about you? Who are you here to see?’
‘My father. He had a heart attack a couple of days ago. They moved him out of intensive care yesterday, though. He seems to be on the mend. Tough old sod.’
‘My wife’s mother was in intensive care here,’ Doyle lied. ‘I didn’t like the doctor at all. Didn’t seem to know what he was doing. Tyrone, I think his name was. That’s not who’s looking after your old fella, is it?’
The man shook his head.
‘It’s Doctor Collins. He’s a nice guy.’
Doyle nodded and sighed theatrically.
‘Well, I’d better go,’ he said. ‘Sorry about the coffee,’ he added, shrugging, managing a smile.
The man said goodbye, finished his drink and wandered out of the hospital. Doyle watched him go then walked across to the reception desk, his face emotionless.
‘Excuse me,’ he said earnestly, not returning the smile the receptionist gave him. ‘Doctor Collins spoke to me on the phone this morning. He told me that I could see my brother, that they’d operated on him.’
‘Doctor Collins is up in intensive care at the moment, sir,’ the receptionist said. ‘What’s your brother’s name?’
‘Jonathan Martin.’
The receptionist looked down at a list of names pinned to a clipboard, following the column with the end of her pen.
‘There’s no one here under that name, sir,’ she said, puzzled.
Doyle sighed.
‘Could you please check again. Doctor Collins said I could see him.’
‘When was he admitted?’ she wanted to know.
‘Last night.’
‘His name might be on another list of admissions. This one,’ she tapped the clipboard with her pen, ‘only covers those brought in today.’
Like Officer Gary Farrow, Doyle thought.
The receptionist got to her feet and wandered into an annexe beyond her desk. Doyle leant across the low partition and scanned the list of names.
FARROW. G. I.C. 4.
He spun round and walked away, tapping Georgie on the shoulder as he reached her.
‘Fourth floor,’ he said as they walked to the lifts. Doyle jabbed the call button and the lift arrived. The doors slid open, disgorging three passengers, one of them a uniformed Garda officer.
Doyle and Georgie got in and Doyle pressed 3 and 4.
The lift began to ascend.
It stopped at 3.
Doyle got out and headed for the stairs, scurrying up the stone flight, trying to time his arrival on the fourth floor with that of the lift.
He reached the landing and peered through the small window in the door, watching as Georgie emerged holding the flowers. To her right was a desk and switchboard with a nurse seated behind it. Standing close to this desk was a Garda officer. He saw Georgie approach the man. He couldn’t hear what she was saying but he could see the Garda officer nodding.
Doyle slipped through the door, moving almost soundlessly, eyes still on the tableau at the end of the corridor. He saw Georgie offering the flowers to the uniformed man. There were about five doors facing him, each one closed, but they all had a small square window. He moved hurriedly from one to the other, peering in.
A woman, old, dying.
A man in an oxygen tent. Forty years old. It was hard to tell from looking at his pale skin and sunken features. Doyle moved to the next window.
The man’s face was bandaged heavily, with only his eyes showing. There were intravenous drips attached to both his arms and tubes ran from his nose and mouth. Doyle could see the blip on the oscilloscope beside the bed moving in lazy waves.
He glanced down the corridor to where Georgie was still speaking with the uniformed man and the nurse, then at the door of the room.
STRICTLY NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORISED STAFF
This had to be the one.
He slipped inside, recoiling immediately from the antiseptic smell. The blip of the oscilloscope was audible now, as was the man’s laboured breathing. Doyle noticed that he had a catheter attached to him, the bag half-fill of dark fluid.
He knew he had to move quickly.
‘Farrow,’ he whispered.
No reaction.
‘Farrow,’ he said again, touching the man’s shoulder this time.
The injured man’s eyes flickered open for a second, closed and then opened again.
‘Listen to me,’ said Doyle. ‘The man who shot you,’ he fumbled inside his jacket, pulled out a small photo of Maguire. ‘Was this him?’
The blip of the oscilloscope.
The laboured breathing.
‘Was this the man who shot you?’ Doyle persisted.
He heard footsteps in the corridor. Heavy footfalls.
‘Was this the man?’ he continued.
The blips increased in rapidity.
Farrow blinked at the image of the picture. Doyle realized that the footsteps were coming closer.
Come on, come on.
He gripped Farrow’s hand.
‘This man shot you, didn’t he?’ Doyle said. ‘Squeeze my hand if he did.’
Footsteps drawing nearer. Had Georgie’s ruse failed?
The blips increased in speed. Doyle shot a glance at the bouncing green dot.
‘Was this the man who shot you?’
Farrow squeezed his hand once.
The door opened.
Doyle spun round, pulling the CZ from its shoulder holster.
The door swung. He caught sight of the Garda officer standing there, looking back down the corridor.
Doyle had time to straighten up and take a couple of steps back, ducking behind the door as it opened. He held the autom
atic close to him and waited.
The Garda officer entered. Doyle didn’t hesitate.
He struck him hard across the back of the head with the butt of the pistol, catching the man before he could drop, easing him to the floor. Then he turned and slipped out again.
The corridor to his left and right was empty. He sprinted for the door which led to the stairs, took the steps two at a time until he reached the second floor, then sucked in a deep breath, wandered calmly towards the lifts and rode one to the ground floor.
Georgie was sitting in the Datsun when he emerged from the main entrance of the hospital.
He slid behind the wheel, started the engine and drove off.
‘It was Maguire who shot him,’ he said flatly. ‘I fucking knew it was.’
‘I thought they were going to catch you,’ Georgie told him. `I managed to stall him as long as I could. I said I’d heard what had happened, that my husband had been in the Garda, that the IRA had killed him and I wanted to pay my respects.’
Doyle seemed unimpressed with her story.
‘Maguire must be close,’ he said, his eyes narrowed. ‘I can smell him.’
He drove on.
SACRIFICE
It was cold like the grave.
The chill seemed to penetrate his very bones.
His very soul.
He huddled in the centre of the room, shivering in his nakedness, his body sheathed in sweat despite the cold.
Candles were arranged in a circle around him. Their dull glow did little to cut through the darkness. When he looked around their tiny flames seemed to flicker in his wide eyes.
Gradually he stood up, his shivering diminishing. The stone floor was wet beneath his feet, the dark stains quite black in the dull glow of the candles.
He held the knife in his right hand for a moment, inspecting its razor sharp edge.
He glanced only briefly at the small bundle at his feet.
The other occupant of the room watched impassively as the tall man took the knife and rested it gently against his chest, the blade cold against his flesh. He pressed the point against his left breast then pulled it away, the pin-prick causing a tiny indentation in his skin.
The other did not move.
The tall man held the knife to his chest once more, pressing harder this time, gritting his teeth as he pushed the point with infinite slowness into his pectoral muscle. Blood began to bubble from the small cut, flowing more rapidly as the knife was drawn easily through the slippery skin. A cut about four inches long was opened up on his chest. He relaxed as he withdrew the knife, feeling the blood running warmly down his chest.
He reached for the large goblet which stood at his feet.
Lifting it, he inspected the contents.
The human eye which lay in the cup stared back at him, tendrils of nerve salt attached to it.
He smiled and glanced down at the body at his feet.
The body with the left eye missing.
The tongue was also gone. That too was in the cup.
The tall man smiled and held the goblet to his chest, feeling the coldness of the gold against his hot breast. He looked down to see his blood dribbling slowly into the receptacle.
He opened another cut on his chest, slightly deeper this time, and the blood flowed much more swiftly, half-filling the goblet, running over the gouged eye and the severed tongue.
The man grunted in pain but gritted his teeth and remained standing, watching as the dark fluid rose almost to the top of the container.
He took it away from his chest, feeling his own life fluid dripping down his torso, over his belly and into his pubic hair, onto his throbbing erection. Some dribbled from the end of his penis like crimson ejaculate. He watched the droplets fall and strike the ground, splashing in the puddle of gore he stood in.
He held the goblet at arm’s length, feeling the already unbearable chill deepen.
His breath frosted in the air and his heart began thudding faster against his ribs.
The other drew closer until the tall man felt his hand enveloped by another.
It was like being touched by fingers of ice.
The goblet was taken from his hands. He smiled, pleased that his token had been accepted, happy that the offering was satisfactory.
He watched as the other held the goblet, steam rising in the cold room, wisps of it floating from the hot blood in the goblet.
The other was satisfied with the offering.
The tall man smiled again.
It was a small price to pay.
Gilles de Rais was satisfied, too.
Sixty-Eight
BRITTANY, FRANCE:
Catherine Roberts yawned and rubbed her eyes. The notes looked blurred for a second, but as she blinked myopically at them they gradually swam back into focus. She looked around the hotel room, vacated by the Callahan, which she now occupied.
The ticking of her watch, lying on the dressing table beside her, sounded loud in the silence of the night. It was almost 11.48 p.m. The curtains stirred gently, blown by a cool night breeze which had also brought with it the first spots of rain. Cath looked up and watched the rain spitting against the glass for a moment.
Glass.
She reached forward and touched her reflection in the mirror on the dressing table.
Glass.
Her whole life seemed to be like a piece of glass at the moment; brittle and about to shatter if too much pressure were applied to it. She was at this place because of glass, because of the window and now she sat staring into glass, staring at the tired face reflected there. Notepads were spread all around her, scribblings about Machecoul, about Gilles de Rais. Written on a fresh sheet of paper were the words she had seen on the window.
COGITATIO – Thought
SACRIFICIUM – Sacrifice
CULTUS – Worship of the gods
ARCANA – Secrets
ARCANUS – Hidden
OPES – Treasure
IMMORTALIS – Deathless
They made as little sense to her now as they had when she’d first seen them. She tapped on her pad with the end of her pen, running her free hand through her hair.
The part about the hidden treasure was almost self-explanatory. Something in the window in Machecoul unlocked the secret to a vast fortune, of that she had no doubt. De Rais had been a remarkably wealthy man; perhaps the window held the key to where some of his vast fortune was hidden. She shook her head. He had died relatively penniless, bled dry by charlatans and con men who had promised to help him look for the real treasure he sought. That of eternal life.
IMMORTALIS.
‘Deathless,’ she said aloud.
She paused for a moment, her eyes fixed on one of the words;
CULTUS
Worship of the Gods
She chewed the end of her pen thoughtfully.
But worship of which gods? Not her god, that was for sure.
Satan?
She dropped her pen and rubbed her eyes again. Her neck was beginning to ache from constant leaning over. Her head was throbbing with the persistent strain of so much thought. She felt as if she were trapped in some kind of maze, unable to find her way out, not even sure of what she sought.
Gilles de Rais was not immortal; he had not gained immortality. He had been strangled and then ordered to be burned, after being found guilty of many crimes including murder, invocation of demons, sodomy, bestiality, conjuration and ...
Conjuration.
He had been accused of witchcraft, of summoning demons. Perhaps he had actually been successful. She almost laughed, realizing that she was clutching at straws. She reminded herself that she was supposed to be approaching her subject with a scientific mind, not relying on superstition and legend.
She thought about Mark Channing.
The vision of his mutilated body came into her mind unbidden, forcing its way into her consciousness and sticking there like a splinter in skin. Who had killed him? And why? Whoever it was had done so i
n a manner she could never have imagined. Channing had not been murdered so much as destroyed. Destroyed by someone extremely powerful.
‘Something beyond our understanding.’ She chuckled humourlessly, remembering a cliché from a hundred bad horror films. Thoughts of Channing made her shudder and she tried to push them from her mind but they persisted.
Had he found something before she arrived at the church that day? Something which would unlock the secret of the window?
She got to her feet and walked to the window. The breeze blew droplets of rain into her face and she closed her eyes, hoping that the night air might clean her head. It didn’t. She felt as tired as she could ever remember feeling.. A heavy, almost numbing exhaustion which had sucked her energy like some kind of invisible leech. She realized that she could work no more this night and she began to peel off her clothes, stopping for one last look at the column of words written on one of her notepads. At the words which she had copied from the window. The key? Her eyes were drawn to the one word which didn’t belong.
BARON
It had to be a name. But whose?
Charges against Gilles de Rais included conjuration of demons ...
She pulled off her skirt and sat at the dressing table in just her panties. She felt perspiration beading on her back despite the cold breeze blowing through the window.
De Rais was an alchemist. He sought the secret of turning base metal into gold. Each alchemist had a familiar, a creature which would give him that secret.
A demon?
She remembered her own words:
‘A monument, that’s what the window is.’
ARCANA
ARCANUS
IMMORTALIS
And the name: Baron.
BARON.
‘A familiar,’ she whispered. She was sure of it now, BARON was a name. The name of de Rais’ familiar. That was why he had venerated it so. The window had been built in its honour. Because it had given him a treasure without equal. She sighed.
It had to be the answer.
Cath got to her feet, her eyelids feeling leaden. She crossed to the bed, slipping off her panties as she reached for the edge of the sheet.
She pulled it back.
Lying there, one eye still dangling from an empty socket, was the body of Mark Channing. Blood had soaked into the bedclothes around his remains and she could smell the stench of blood.
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