by Mark Roberts
Paul Dwyer’s face was ordinary, not that of a monster at all. But in a moment, as Rosen watched, the features of every mean, loveless, violent, grasping, lustful, self-pitying, despicable criminal he’d ever clapped eyes on manifested themselves in Dwyer’s. Every thug, every child-warping paedophile, every family-destroying arsonist, every self-obsessed killer, appeared as if as one in the smoke-filled basement of a farmhouse in East Sussex.
As Rosen aimed his gun at Dwyer, he felt the sudden blast of a burning chemical in his face, flammable spirit that ate into his eyes as soon as it touched them. He slipped backwards in Sarah’s blood but stayed on his feet. His gun fell from his hands as his fingers flew to his eyes. In the adjoining room, charcoal still crackled and sighed under the cover he’d thrown over the fire. Apart from this there was silence, a huge and ugly silence, broken only by a cry of agony that came from deep inside Rosen.
He swayed on his feet but remained upright, listening for the sound of Paul Dwyer moving.
Rosen rubbed his eyes, trying to soak up the chemical with his sleeves. The pungent smell became overwhelming as Dwyer threw more and more lighter fuel into Rosen’s face.
It dripped down onto his clothes. Rosen had a vision of himself burning, a huge human torch alongside his wife’s bleeding corpse.
He heard a rasp, then another as Dwyer struggled with a box of matches.
Rosen summoned up all the strength he possessed. He had one last weapon left.
‘Flint’s a liar, he’s lied to you all along, he’s made a fool out of you. You’ve been duped by a showman, Paul. Do you hear me? You’re an idiot, a mummy’s boy, and this time tomorrow the whole world’s going to know.’ He summoned up the will to laugh and barked that laughter into Dwyer’s face. ‘You’re not some Satanic superman, you’re a fucking mummy’s boy! And you’ve been had by a third-rate priest.’
His eyes burned afresh from the fumes and he held his breath to resist a howl of pain. Dwyer clamped a hand over Rosen’s mouth and he tasted blood on the killer’s fingers. Raw courage held him together, courage from knowing that somehow Sarah had wounded her murderer.
Dwyer’s hand pressed down on Rosen’s mouth. He yanked his head away.
‘You won’t silence me like that, Dwyer!’
Rosen threw out an arm and caught hold of a handful of cotton. He pulled hard and could feel that he was dragging Dwyer towards him by the shirt-front, held in the grip of his fist. Hanging on tightly, he said, ‘Do you want to know the truth, Paul, the whole truth about your Satanic revolution?’
‘Canathus—’
‘Capaneus? A for Alessio, the buckled A for Alpha, where you left the bodies; all that secret knowledge, that hidden dangerous knowledge? It’s a crock of shit, Paul. Sorry to break the bad news to you, but the Capaneus scam’s got about as much truth in it as the shit Pastor Jim used to peddle to your mother back in the Church of the Living Light. He’s been taking the piss out of you, just like Pastor Jim used to do to your mother. There’s no such person as Alessio Capaneus – it’s a fiction, and you fell for it! Like mother, like son. What a pair of saps.’
Dwyer tore himself away from Rosen’s grip and Rosen heard the sound of a box of matches emptying out onto the concrete floor. He lashed out with his foot, listening for any sound from Dwyer, aiming for his head but kicking thin air.
He heard a single match being struck on the rough ground. And Dwyer’s breath was in his face. A small flame sizzled in the corrupted air.
‘You’re flammable too, Dwyer,’ said Rosen. ‘I made sure of that when I held you close. Go on, torch me. I burn, you burn!’
A gunshot. The enclosed space resounded with the solitary clap of a gun. Rosen felt the air rattle close to his skull and then became aware that Paul Dwyer’s body had slumped and fallen away from him, collapsing to the floor. The match expired as Dwyer fell. And, for a moment, it was as if all the sounds in the world belonged in separate compartments, not in the living fabric of the air. The ring of the gunshot was deadened in the flat acoustics of the basement. The thud of Dwyer’s fallen body.
‘David?’ Bellwood’s voice. She was moving closer, steadily, but as fast as she could. ‘I’m taking you by the hand now, David.’
He felt Bellwood’s hand as assertive fingers tugged his hands away from his face.
‘Don’t rub your eyes, David.’
‘She’s dead,’ said Rosen.
‘I’m inspecting the body of Paul Dwyer. I’m shining my torch onto his face and head. Gunshot at close range, wound to the frontal lobes of his head.’
‘You shot him, Carol.’
‘No. You did,’ she replied. ‘I was just outside the range of vision, behind the smoke, when I heard the gunshot. You shot him, David.’
‘I didn’t shoot him,’ said Rosen. ‘I dropped my gun when the little shit threw lighter fuel in my eyes.’
‘Quick!’ said Bellwood. ‘Gold, get some water down here! Don’t touch your eyes, David! Sarah? Sarah Rosen?’
And he wondered why Bellwood was talking to his dead wife.
Bellwood let go of Rosen’s hand and crouched down. Rosen followed her voice.
‘Sarah?’ Bellwood’s voice sounded like a plea for mercy. ‘An ambulance, Gold, we need the ambulance.’
‘How did you get in?’ asked Rosen
‘I came in through the grain chute. I crawled down. He set the basement stairs on fire, blocked off the entrance you came down.’
Three taps on the floor, soft sounds.
Bellwood whispered, ‘Kneel down where you are, David.’
‘David,’ said Sarah. He turned his head at the sound of his wife’s voice.
‘Sarah?’ His voice reached out to her.
He kneeled down and fumbled around in the dark, placing his hand gently on his wife’s arm. The gun slid from her grasp. As he touched her hand, she let out an exhausted cry of pain as the fuel on his fingers entered an open wound on her flesh.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘David. The baby?’ The fading echo of a lost whisper.
He couldn’t speak to answer.
‘I killed . . .’ said Sarah. ‘David, I heard you. I saw the gun . . . on the ground. I shot him . . . in . . . the head.’
69
Two hours later, Rosen sat at his wife’s hospital bedside, dabbing his stinging eyes with a cold damp tissue, his blurred vision slowly returning. Under sedation, she slept peacefully. He folded his hand over hers as it lay, scratched and torn, on top of the blanket.
He considered what she’d suffered in the basement and wished he had a god to pray to for Sarah and their baby.
In the dim glow of an anglepoise lamp, she looked peaceful, except for a crease that formed slowly on her brow. He held her hand tightly, hoping that whatever she was dreaming at that moment would dissolve into something sweet and gentle.
The crease vanished as slowly as it had appeared.
Her breathing slowed a little.
Tenderly, he rested his cheek against her womb and whispered, ‘Without you, I am nothing, I am no one.’
He bent over her and kissed her brow.
As he sat in the chair at her bedside, with the whole of his being he willed her and their baby to pull through.
——
AS DAWN APPROACHED, there was a gentle tap on the door of Sarah’s room. Through the glass, Rosen saw Bellwood waiting, but not looking directly into the room.
Reluctantly, he left his wife and joined Bellwood outside.
She glanced around. There was no one about.
‘Sorry to disturb you, David—’
‘What’s happening, Carol?’
‘Parker and Willis have been all over Dwyer’s place. It’s a gold mine of evidence. The babies in the basement. Dwyer’s printed off everything from the Capaneusian Bible, both Old Testament and New. He even kept a handwritten diary, detailing the how, when and why in each of the killings.’
Rosen nodded. ‘The babies?’
‘They
’ll be returned to their families within the next twenty-four hours. Victim Liaison have been to see all the families. They know Dwyer’s dead.’
‘How were they, the families?’
‘Dignified.’
Rosen looked through the glass at Sarah. When his gaze returned to Bellwood, he recognized that she was troubled by whatever she was about to tell him.
‘Carol, what is it?’
‘Harrison, he’s been in to see Baxter. He’s admitted everything.’
Rosen’s scalp tightened and his skin crawled.
‘Go on, Carol.’
‘Flint suckered him into believing he was a PSU officer. Harrison intercepted a message from Sarah on your phone. Flint set up you and Sarah with that bogus appointment at St Thomas’s.’
Rosen considered the chain of events.
‘But he saw a picture of Flint at the team meeting before that appointment.’
‘I remember; he looked pig sick when the meeting finished,’ said Bellwood.
‘He didn’t say anything. Why?’
‘He can’t explain why, apparently.’
‘Where is Harrison?’
‘He’s in custody, being questioned.’
Silence. Bellwood looked tired but agitated and Rosen knew exactly where she was coming from.
‘Carol, you’d better get back to Dwyer’s place.’
‘We are up the wall, there’s that much evidence to gather.’
‘Thank you, Carol. This can’t have been easy for you. Keep me posted.’
Bellwood looked past him. Her expression changed, its solemnity lifting.
‘I think you’d better go back inside, David.’
Rosen followed Bellwood’s eyes.
Sarah was stirring. Her head turned on the pillow.
Rosen went in and closed the door after himself.
‘It’s all right, love,’ he said. ‘I’m back now.’
70
After seeming to take an age to wake, Sarah opened her eyes.
In the dawn, her side room was lit by a downturned anglepoise lamp.
‘I’m thirsty,’ she said. He helped her to sit up and raised a cup of water to her lips, his eyes still stinging.
She looked lost, and he wondered how much she remembered and what she knew.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You saved my life,’ he said.
She was quiet for a moment as a shadow crossed her face. ‘Did he—?’
‘He attacked you with a spoke.’
‘But I stuck it through his face . . .’ She was drifting back into sleep.
‘It seems he took it out and bit down on it, bending it with his teeth. But because the shaft was bent, when he turned the spoke on you, he kept missing his aim. The tip was buckled too, so the incisions he made were superficial. You know what you gave him, love?’
‘What did I give him?’
‘You gave him a bloody good hiding.’
She smiled. ‘Yes, I did . . . But—’
‘The baby? He didn’t pierce your womb, Sarah. He went for it but he didn’t make it. The scan came back as all clear.’
He held her hand, feeling her fingers squeeze his.
‘Tell me everything,’ she said.
‘Try to sleep, we’ll speak in the morning. You’re here, the baby’s safe. That is everything.’
For several minutes, she appeared to be falling asleep again but, just as he thought she was dropping off, she opened her eyes and focussed on him.
‘What did he stick in my foot?’ she asked.
‘Sarah, sleep . . .’
‘David, talk . . .’
‘Pentothal. Fast-acting, short-term.’
‘Lucky for you,’ she said. ‘I woke up with a gun just here.’ She pointed at her temple. ‘On the floor. I saw your face and his through the smoke. Because he had a lighted match in his hand. I smelled the fuel. I knew what he was going to do. He was going to set you on fire. I picked up the gun, aimed it at his head and pulled the trigger.’
‘What if you’d missed?’
‘What if I’d done nothing?’
‘I’d rather that you shot me than let that bastard burn me alive’
‘I know. That’s why I did it.’
Her eyes closed and within moments her breathing had slowed and deepened until she was asleep. He watched her face in the second-hand light of the anglepoise lamp that was turned to the wall, and saw in it the imprint of Hannah’s, whom he’d watched sleep hundreds of times. It was the face he’d seen when he went to check on her in the dead of night, the face he’d seen when he’d found her in that final endless sleep.
Unlike his wife, in all the years that had passed since the death of their daughter, Rosen had never dreamed of the event, never seen nor heard her in his sleeping hours. Through good times and bad, and the acres in between, he could never recall encountering his lost child even though, if only in his dreams, he yearned to do the one thing that had been snatched from him in the real, cold, conscious world.
For years, he had longed to say a loving goodbye and hold Hannah before letting her go for that final time.
The light in the room was warm and the shadows were seductive.
Rosen sat at his wife’s bedside, wide awake and wishing he could sleep, and to be with his daughter just one more time.
71
After seven days and nights, Rosen took Sarah home on an afternoon that promised a dramatic change from the overcast skies and rain that had dominated southern England for weeks.
In the kitchen, he marvelled as she filled the kettle, drinking in the beauty of the everyday, the joy of the ordinary.
Sarah winced as she reached up into a cupboard for teabags, and he said, ‘Here, let me.’
‘Sit down!’ she said. ‘No fussing in my kitchen.’ She got on with the business of making two cups of tea.
The main window behind her gave a broad view of the sky. A weather system was moving in from the west and snow was predicted. When he’d heard the news that morning, Rosen had translated it into the fun he could have with his child five years hence, three even, two . . .
The kettle switched itself off with a gentle snap, a small noise amplified by the calm and quiet around them.
‘Did you see that?’ asked Sarah. ‘This late in the year, this unexpected . . . Come to the window, David.’
A bank of white clouds made the sky seem, in contrast, a dense blue. The cold wind flung a cluster of dead leaves at the kitchen window, scraping it with dry fingers. An image, a recent memory of the window of Sebastian Flint’s room at St Mark’s, invaded Rosen’s mind. He recalled the priest’s words, the sound of his voice. ‘It’s an upside-down and back-to-front world.’
For a moment, he pictured Flint standing on the other side of the kitchen window, looking in, staring at him, impassive, deadly. He dismissed the image. He knew Flint was out there somewhere, casting his shadow on anyone who came close. For the time being at least, Rosen sensed that Flint was done with him. But, at the bottom of his being, he feared that, one day, the priest would be irresistibly drawn back by the darkness that drove him.
He vowed never to speak of this to another living person.
At the window, he made a futile wish: never to have to leave Sarah’s side, or even the house. If only the world outside would just roll on without him, forgetting he’d ever been in it. One day, he knew, at least some of his wishes would finally be granted.
She pointed at the kitchen window. The first snow was spiralling down from the clouds but not yet reaching the ground, a chaotic symphony of thick ragged snowflakes.
As he moved behind her, she took both his hands and placed them on her middle. He waited and felt the pressure of their baby kicking in her womb.
‘Can you feel him?’ she asked.
‘I can,’ Rosen said. ‘I can feel him.’
The baby kicked and kicked again.
Rosen kept his hands in place and waited for their son to kick once more. Withi
n a matter of moments, he felt the life within her stir again.
He closed his eyes to see Hannah looking up at him, their eyes locked, father and daughter. He kissed her face and whispered in her ear, a quiet blessing to the past and the love that was. Then she was gone.
‘What was that?’ asked Sarah.
‘I just said, Goodbye, Hannah.’
The baby kicked and the tremor of life ran deep within his wife once more. Sarah’s hand folded across his and, as hope danced on his fingertips, he blessed the child within her and the love that was yet to be.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank Steve Melia, former police Inspector, Rao Vallabhaneni, consultant vascular surgeon, Veronica Stallwood, Peter, Rosie & Jessica Buckman, Sara O’Keeffe and Linda & Eleanor Roberts.