Blood Tears

by Michael J Malone

  I wonder what their expert is telling them about me, and how I fit their profile. People are able to extract remarkably un-Christian things from the Bible, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to make me fit into whatever box they have in mind.

  As soon as I enter the hotel’s door, I get that feeling again. It’s like something cold has burrowed under my skin and is worming its way up the line of my spine.

  My phone has Kenny’s number on speed dial. His answering service comes on. Leave a message. No, ya prick. I want to talk to you. Don’t you just hate mobile phones? All this technology and you still can’t speak to someone when you want.

  ‘Kenny. It’s me, Ray. Phone me. Soon. Soon as you can.’ I pause and add, ‘Bastard.’ For good measure. I wonder if Calum is back yet. Will he be lying on his bed scratching his balls, waiting to give me another quiet lecture?

  ‘Wherever you go, I’m there. When you go for a jog, I’ll be a few steps behind. When you go for a drive, I’m riding shotgun. When I go for a shower, you’re sitting on the shitter. No argument.’

  So where is he then? Something has gone wrong and it doesn’t take Psychic Ray to work that one out. No, Ray. Your mind is just working overtime. The prick’ll be up in the room.

  The room. I really don’t want to go up there by myself. Every time I think of it the feeling in my back intensifies and the muscles at the side of my mouth curdle.

  The receptionist pauses as she hands me my key.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ Polite concern in her raised eyebrows.

  ‘No… no thank you. Well actually…’ something occurs to me ‘…could someone come up to the room with me and help me with the door.’

  She looks at me strangely.

  ‘It seems… I seem to have a problem with these electronic keys.’ I grow in confidence with my lie and smile. ‘This is going to sound a little odd, but I have a problem with electricity. I produce too much apparently.’ I shrug in a what can you do kind of manner.

  My act satisfies her. She picks up a phone from somewhere under the counter and speaks into it.

  ‘The porter will be just with you, sir.’

  A couple of minutes later a door opens at the side of the desk and a young man who could well have been described in the serial killer books walks towards me. He is tall, thin, pale and awkward. The only colour on his face comes from a plague of acne. The cuffs of his purple shirt don’t reach his hands and as he swings his arms back and forward the white flag of his wrists wink in and out of view.

  ‘You need help with your key… sir?’ He is standing in front of me and his hands are now behind his back, as if he escorts people who have a problem with keys to their room every day.

  ‘Yep. If you don’t mind.’ I walk to the lift and press a button. In the lift he presses his back against a wall, while I stand by the control panel. We each find a spot to stare at.

  At the door to my room I hand him my key.

  ‘Do your stuff,’ I say. He does so and with a blink of a green light the door opens and he pushes it ajar.

  ‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ He takes a step back.

  ‘Actually yes.’ I crane my head in past the doorway. ‘Could you just come in and check something for me?’ I really don’t want him to go just yet. My nerves feel as if they’ve been strung tight against the bridge of a master’s guitar that’s in the hands of a monster.

  ‘Eh…’ He takes a step forward. Looks like he’s stuck in the grey area between courtesy and fuck-off-weirdo.

  ‘For fuckssake, I’m not going to try and shag you. Could you just go into the room and check that it’s empty?’

  His head performs a couple of quick nods as if he’s arguing with himself. ‘I didn’t think you were, sir,’ he says and enters. He steps to the middle of the room where he can see down between the beds and as I stay by the door he walks to the window. A wee smile creeps on to his face just as he turns to look behind the curtains. ‘Nothing here, sir.’

  ‘Try the bathroom,’ I say feeling like a twat. Confident now and with a bored expression, he walks to the toilet door and pushes it open.

  ‘Nothing, sir.’ Every ounce of energy he has is now being used to stop himself from laughing. I shut the door in his face. Bastard.

  Nothing. All that for nothing. And what if you were proved right to be worried? You would have put some young boy’s life at risk. The fella laughing at me is a small price to pay for being so stupid.

  Sitting on the edge of my bed I look around the room. That feeling is still there. What the hell is it? Lifting up the quilt covers that brush the carpet, I look under each bed. Nothing.

  Then I look in the wardrobe. My stuff is all there.

  Except.

  My leather sports bag. Where has that gone? Would Calum have borrowed it for something? It could have been missing for days and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  I pick my phone from my pocket and phone Kenny again. Again nothing. Fuck. Where is the prick?

  Standing by the window I can see over to the Kingston Bridge. The familiar flow of traffic. Back to the bed. I sit down. Lie down. Turn the TV on. The usual crap. Turn it back off. I have a seat by the table and fidget with a pen and a pad of paper.

  Back to the bed. I lie down. Maybe I could pass some time with a wee sleep. Who are you kidding, McBain. Sleep? With this sick feeling? I could meditate. Maybe that will lessen it. Maybe all I need to do is relax.

  I kick off my shoes, arrange pillows at the head of the bed and prop myself in an alert seated position. Just before I close my eyes something attracts my attention. On the bedside cabinet, under the umbrella of the lampshade, lies a Bible. I can’t remember putting that there. I swing my legs off the bed and lean my head closer. There’s something sitting on top of it. A circle of small glass balls, with a crucifix dangling off the end.

  Rosary beads.

  Chapter 40

  The rain is so hard it sounds like sheets of gravel are hitting the car. Through the din I try to phone Kenny once more. His phone is still on its answering service. This time I leave a message that is slightly more coherent. I tell him that Calum is still away chasing pussy and that I’ve gone down to Bethlehem House.

  I’m in my usual parking space just by the gated front entrance. There are few cars about at this time of night. I arrived here just as the moon was rising. It’s hard to believe that the sky was clear when I first arrived. Now just a few hours on — the clock in the dashboard reads nine pm — it’s like monsoon season minus the heat. Typical late autumn weather in Bonnie Scotland.

  What have I been doing all this time? Thinking. Knowing that it’s up to me doesn’t make it any easier. A woman I hate will die if I do nothing. The policemen in me says go and protect her; the six year old boys argues, leave her to rot.

  Those beads really gave me the shits. McCall is better than I thought. He knew where I was and yet he didn’t kill me. That means I can’t be a target.

  But that is just what all my instincts have been telling me.

  I look over at the building. Rosary beads were ubiquitous in my time here. Even the statues carried them. All the kids had their own set and each set of beads had their own purse. Woe betide you if you lost them. Every saint would be invoked to stop you on your sure and certain passage to Hell.

  Quite a career path, given that lots of the kids from that sort of background tend to live down to their carer’s expectation.

  Most of the rosary beads were dark colours made from wood or plastic. If you were lucky someone gave you a gift at Christmas or your birthday of an ornate set. The ornament being some fancy metalwork on the crucifix hanging from the end of the final decade of “Our Ladys”.

  Apart from one set. They were glass and opaque and belonged to Sister Mary. Whoever left them in my room — and we can take a wild stab at that — was giving me a clear warning of who the next victim was going to be.

  On the drive down the M77 I thought of phoning the convent. But what would I say. Lovely nigh
t isn’t it? Mild for this time of year and oh, by the way, could you warn Mother Superior that there’s a homicidal maniac on his way to kill her?

  What about the police? Would they even believe me? An anonymous tip-off that a nun was about to be murdered would sound like the mother of all crank calls. I can’t phone Allessandra and Daryl. They have already done more than enough. From now on I have to maintain some form of distance from them.

  I’ve also been thinking back to the state I was in at the hotel. What the fuck was that? That’s not me. Letting some poor boy check out the room before I went in. What if he’d got hurt? I would never have been able to forgive myself. But the feeling was so strong. It was like I was a child again and shrinking under the rage of Sister Mary, fear breaking out with the cold sweat on my forehead.

  But you’re not six, McBain. You’re a man. And from now on, you are on your own and in the meantime, while you navigate your gaze through your navel, some poor woman could be getting murdered.

  If I were McCall where would I do it in a place like this? How well does he know his way around? Judging from the way he has gone about his work so far, he has been well informed. In order to save himself from being disturbed he would need to do it in Mother Superior’s bedroom. How would he know where it is? There are loads of rooms in that building. Four floors of them. I’m sure some of them are never used, as there’s only a handful of nuns living here now.

  Leonard. Where does he fit in? A dead body is made to look like him. He must be involved and chances are he is the one who spilled the beans on McCall’s parentage. Has Leonard used McCall to extract some terrible revenge? But what happened that was so bad? Maybe his brother dying when he was so young threw him off the edge.

  In any case, something tells me I’m going to find out. Soon.

  This rain is a bastard. I wish it would stop. I roll down my window to try and get rid of the steam that has varnished the glass.

  What’s that? I squint my eyes. Someone has just walked round the side of the building.

  I’m out of the car and running low across the grass, my clothes already plastered to my body. No hesitation. No fear. I’m a policeman and a fucking good one. No mad fucker is going to show me up.

  Round this side of the building there is a covered walkway that leads to the little stone chapel where the nuns wear their knees out, day after day, year after year, and where I first learned to be an altar boy. Footsteps clatter on the stone path. They’re moving in the direction of the chapel.

  The grass muffles my passage, although I’m sure everyone within a mile of here can hear my breathing. And the thump of my pulse.

  The heavy wooden door is open enough to allow an arrow of light to shine on the path outside. As quietly as I can I walk to the door and place my ear to the space. Nothing.

  Then I hear a low sound, like a prayer. A prayer from someone in pain. I lean on the door a little and grimace as it moans in protest. Stop. I listen again. Nothing. Every hair on my body is erect, pushing against the soaked cloth of my clothes. I feel a drip run down the side of my face and launch itself into space. I almost expect it to splash to the ground with the sound of a church organ. Here he is. Come and get him. But still there is silence.

  Then a whisper. ‘Dear God… Help me.’

  I can’t wait any longer. Someone is in trouble. Pushing open the door I take a step inside. It’s like stepping back in time, it’s exactly the way I remember. The stations of the cross punctuate the walls between each of the windows. Rows of wooden seats lead to the front. The black shape of a nun is hunched in prayer in the front pew.

  ‘Sister. Are you alright?’ My voice bounces off the walls and grates loudly on my ears. No response.

  ‘Sister. Are you okay?’ This time I speak quietly and take a step towards her. Then I notice a shape on the floor beside the kneeling figure, in front of the altar. From the jumble of cloth and limbs issues another moan. Her face takes shape, the eyes like pinpoints of fear.

  ‘Help me,’ Mother Superior whispers.

  But who’s the nun at the pew? And how can she kneel in prayer without rushing to help?

  I sense rather than see a presence approaching my left side. In slow motion I turn in response to a stab in my thigh.

  McCall’s face is wearing the hideous leer of a Halloween mask.

  ‘Goodnight, Detective Inspector.’

  My legs are rubber. What did he stick me with? Everything blurs as if I’m looking at the world from inside a tank of water.

  Then all is blackness.

  Chapter 41

  The first thing I’m aware of is the pressure of a hard, plastic seat against my back and thighs. The next thing is my laboured breathing. It crashes against my ears like waves on to rocks. My limbs are heavy, almost blended into the plastic on which I sit. My tongue has grown to fill my mouth. I will my jaw to open, the words to spill out, questions to bloom into the air and fill my ear. But nothing.

  A face leans forward to fill my vision. A face in the cowl of a nun’s headdress. A man’s face. His breath is hot on my cheek. It’s the gardener.

  ‘Welcome to the party, Ray. Don’t worry,’ he says softly. ‘You’re going to be just fine. For the moment.’ He steps back and points to the bed behind him. ‘She, on the other hand, won’t be.’

  I can’t move my head, but I can see that we are in a small, cell-like room. A naked light bulb blares from the ceiling. The walls are a dull yellow. The only adornment, a crucifix. The only piece of furniture in the room apart from my chair is a single bed. This room is familiar. I’ve been here before.

  Someone is lying on top of the bed. A woman. An old woman.

  Mother Superior is lying on top of the bed. Naked.

  The poor woman probably bathed with clothes on, being naked now must almost be as bad as the terror. Stripped of her dignity and the badge of office she must have worn for nearly half a century, how must she feel? Beyond help and beyond fear.

  For fear she would. Who could look into those eyes and not feel it? They are large and black, like wormholes down to a tainted soul. The black of the iris is set off by the red irritation on each of the bottom lids. No, it’s not an irritation. It’s more like thin lines of crusted blood.

  She is shaking so hard I can almost hear her bones rattle. The part of her that polite society and centuries of living in stone houses has helped to bury, the part of her that saved her ancestor from teeth and claw is flooding her system with adrenaline, increasing the blood flow to her limbs, the light to her eyes, the life to her nerve ends.

  Fight or flight. Panic sparks in her eyes, because neither is possible. She is weak and old. She knows how to use the force of personality on recalcitrant children. But this is a man, and he has a knife. And he is going to use it.

  She looks so tiny. So frail. The paper skin of her face is stretched over the bones of her face in anticipation of what is to come. I can almost see the skull that will be all that is left once decay does its work. This woman trod through my childhood like the monster from a scary story, her small feet taking loud giant steps, doling out a good portion of the fear she is now feeling. And look at her now. So weak and powerless.

  She turns her head to look at me. ‘Help me,’ the look in her eye demands. Why aren’t you doing something? She doesn’t know I can’t move.

  The face leans into my vision again.

  ‘The journey you started twenty years ago, Ray, is about to end. Are you excited? You should be.’

  The journey I started?

  ‘I believe you know my lovely young assistant.’ His face is replaced by another from a different nightmare. McCall.

  ‘Joseph has been invaluable to me.’ McCall’s smile widens with pleasure at the compliment. He nods his head as if we’ve just been introduced at a party.

  The other man must be…

  ‘You’ll either know me as Lenny or X-File. Or you might even remember me as Jim Leonard. I knew you straight away. Who could forget Ray McBain?’ He danc
es out of my limited line of sight. My view now consists solely of my lap. My head must have slumped forward. It is pushed back up.

  ‘A tricky business,’ says Leonard. He holds up his hand. In it is a small box of pills.

  ‘It’s amazing what they can do nowadays. The date rape drug they call this. Wonderful stuff.’ He bends forward and fusses at my collar.

  ‘Comfy? Good. We want you to see everything. And remember everything.’ His eyes dance within their sockets. He bares his teeth. ‘Everything.’

  Remember what?

  He bends forward again as if speaking to a child. ‘So here’s what we have in store for you both. Just so you know. She…’ he points to Mother Superior ‘… is going to die first.’

  First.

  Mother Superior’s eyes are clenched shut and her lips are moving in silent prayer. The drugs he gave her must be wearing off.

  ‘You are going to watch. Then you are going to kill yourself. The remorse of having murdered all of these people has become too much to bear.’ He laughs as if this notion is just too ludicrous. Then he fishes in my pocket and pulls out the rosary beads.

  ‘Excellent. I knew you would bring them.’ He lets them fall back in. ‘Keep them. A wee souvenir. You know how all you psychos like to keep your souvenirs.’ That was a quote. Allessandra said that to me back in the hotel. Has he been so close to me all this time?

  ‘It’s all been sooo easy, Mr Murderer slash Detective.’ He makes a slashing action with his hand. ‘Get it?’ He laughs. ‘You played into my hands every time.’

  ‘Not a murderer,’ I manage to mumble.

  ‘Did you hear that, Joseph. The man says he’s not a murderer. Oh, how quickly they forget.’ His face appears in front of mine again. ‘Tut, tut. Your proudest moment. My inspiration and you deny it?’

  ‘Deny what?’ I try to say, but it comes out lower than a mumble.

  My head is rocked back with the force of his slap. Good job I am numb. My head rights itself and I see a bag at the nun’s feet. My sports bag. The zip sounds and McCall leans over and pulls out a circle of wire. Barbed wire. He licks his lips uncertainly. Passes it to Leonard and steps back, rubbing his hands on the side of his hips. He’s not so sure of himself now. Where’s the cocky bastard that had me running through those back gardens? The realisation hits me. None of it has been him. It’s all been Leonard.