by Mark Roberts
His torchlight stroked the back pews, within touching distance of her.
She watched him turning slowly in her direction and felt a bead of sweat trickle from her neck down her spine.
‘Have you said goodbye to your husband and child, Clay?’ His voice was soft but his breathing was heavy. ‘Don’t worry. Your husband will be fucking some other woman before you’re cold in the grave. And your kid? Your kid’s going to forget what you looked like or who you were before Christmas. He’ll have a brand new mum, prettier than you, younger than you, at home to meet his needs rather than chasing after criminals because your ego says you must. You were the worst kind of mother imaginable and an absentee wife. You deserve to be forgotten. But you did do one thing right. I don’t believe you killed the cricket. You obeyed me and gave your son a parasitic cricket. How does that make you feel? Pretty good?’
She heard the fabric of his clothes rubbing against the brickwork on the outside of the arched pillar in which she stood, felt it like an alien vibration.
‘I can smell you. I can smell... fear, and the perfume on your skin.’
He reached the back of the arched pillar.
She moved silently, walking backwards, gun at the ready, to the front and behind him. She sidestepped past the brickwork to the right until she was directly behind him. She took out her iPhone, pressed record.
‘I’m armed with a Glock 17 pistol. It is pointed directly at the back of your head,’ said Clay.
‘So pull the goddamned trigger. Shoot me in the back of the head and live with the consequences. Go on, shoot me dead. I’m not going to drop my gun. I don’t follow orders from the likes of you, Clay. I only follow orders from God.’ Outside the crypt chapel, in the sky overhead, the blades of a helicopter sliced the frozen sky. ‘That’s not going to help you any.’
She could hear the smile in his voice and the contempt within it.
On the floor near the altar, there came a sound of rasping. It moved slowly and it moved with care away from the altar.
‘None of us are going to survive, none of us,’ said Aaron. ‘I wish I could have visited her, I wish I could have called her, told her how much I loved her.’
The noise on the ground came closer. ‘Kelly-Ann, how much I loved her with all my heart and soul.’
‘What about Lucy?’ asked Clay, keeping Aaron distracted with his own thoughts.
‘What about her?’ replied Aaron. ‘She was a human albatross from the day she was born. I loathe and despise Lucy. Lucy? The fat, useless bitch. She was God’s punishment for what happened to Kelly-Ann.’
Rasp.
‘I can see you now, Desmond,’ said Aaron.
He walked towards the dying man from the arched pillar in the torchlight ahead of him.
‘I see you...’
Clay raised her gun and, as she followed Aaron, she aimed at him, his shape in the darkness like the bogeyman from a child’s worst nightmare.
112
7.23 pm
Sergeant Harris walked quickly to Lucy Bell’s cell, as other women in custody shouted and banged on their doors.
‘Shut the fuck up, bitch!’
‘I want my dad! I want my dad! I want my dad!’
It had started ten minutes earlier and Harris had watched it escalate on the monitor at the front desk. At first it had been a quiet protest but, within the last minute, when there was no response, Lucy had started shouting, her face contorting with anger and confusion. ‘I want my daaaaad! Daaaaaaad! Daaaaaaaaad!’
Harris opened the door of her cell and called, ‘Lucy! Be quiet!’
She fell silent.
‘Sit down and be quiet.’
‘Keep it fucking like that, you bitch!’ called the woman in the next cell.
‘I want my dad...’ she whispered from the bed. ‘Where’s my dad? I want him.’
‘He’s not coming for you, Lucy, please accept that.’
Her face was blotchy and her eyes red raw, the wound beneath the gauze throbbing. ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t believe what Clay said. He would never abandon me, never. There hasn’t been a day in my life when I haven’t been with him. I am always with him and he is always with me.’
‘Lucy, I believe you’re going to have to try to accept that that situation’s going to change completely, and soon.’
She sat on her hands and looked up at Sergeant Harris with the eyes of a bewildered child. ‘Can you get me my phone and laptop?’
‘No, Lucy, I most certainly can’t do that.’
‘But they’re mine, they’re my property.’
‘And the search warrant that we used when going through your house gave us the right to seize anything that we deemed as evidence in this investigation. That includes your phone and laptop.’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘Lucy, you’re an intelligent woman, and I believe you understand just how serious these crimes are. What did DCI Clay question you about?’
‘The child who went missing for over a week, and the old lady in Grant Avenue who fell face- and head-first into her own fireplace.’
‘Kidnapping and murder. It doesn’t get much more serious than that, does it?’
‘My dad didn’t do anything wrong. He wouldn’t. He’s a good man. He’s obedient to God. He’s a priest.’
‘You look troubled, Lucy. What’s the matter?’
‘My phone and laptop. They’re personal. They’re mine.’
‘Is there anything on there that you think might get you into trouble?’
‘Yes. No. No comment.’
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Is the evidence incriminating?’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ She sat tighter on her hands. ‘It’s all a big fix anyway.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘If you want to say I’m guilty, you’ll do what you always do, what you’ve done for years and years. You’ll plant the evidence. That’s how it works, isn’t it?’
‘No, that most certainly isn’t how it works.’
She stared at Harris’s feet and a fresh round of silent tears started.
‘Be quiet now, Lucy. Don’t upset the women around you. You’re stressed out. So are they. It’s not fair. OK? If you pull a stunt like this in prison...’
‘Prison?’
‘...You’ll be torn from limb to limb.’
But as he closed the cell door, she started up again, each word louder than the last. ‘I want my dad! I want my dad! I want my dad! I want my daaaaaaad!’
113
7.39 pm
‘Put the gun down,’ Clay said, calmly. ‘He’s going to die of his injuries.’
‘You got it wrong, Clay. You said he was already dead. You’re not the authority on death that you think you are.’
She felt mounting sickness at the seemingly inevitable prospect of firing a bullet into another human being for the first time in her life.
‘If you don’t drop your gun, I’m going to have to shoot you. Do you understand?’
‘Oh, I understand...’
‘I’m going to give you to the count of three. If your gun’s not on the floor, I will shoot you on three. One, two...’
She saw a blast of fire and heat from his Magnum, studded with sparks and aimed down at the victim. In the half-moment that followed the gunshot, the vertical line of petrol that divided the central aisle turned into a river of flame, a river that veered to the left and right as the petroleum cross caught fire.
Clay moved backwards and away from the horizontal arms of the burning cross that lit up Father Aaron Bell’s still figure. He walked onto the right arm of the cross, the hem of his trousers bursting into a fire that licked up his legs and chased up his body.
She heard a noise like a stereo explosion, saw that the cross had connected with the perimeters of the room, and that it was framed by a rectangle of fire that locked her into the building. She saw that the flames were al
ready up to waist height and felt a wave of sweat break from under her clothes.
As she stood in the middle of symmetrical lines of fire, she watched Aaron’s burning form turn in her direction and the crypt chapel was filled with fire and light.
She picked out the font at the back, a metre away from the perimeter of fire and, marching towards it, slipped out of her coat.
Aaron’s rising screams drew her to look back at a burning man, his arms outstretched like Christ on the cross. Fire danced from his head, leaped from his arms and torso.
‘My God!’ he screamed, as Clay made it to the font. ‘My God!’
She pulled the wooden lid from the font and eyed a section on the perimeter of fire, a way out to the wings of the chapel and back through the door she had entered.
‘Why...’ His voice was long, and turning from the thing he was into the thing he was becoming.
She sank her coat into the water of the font, picking it up and drowning it rapidly, repeating the action once, twice, three times.
‘Have you...’
Through the cackle of the flames, his voice grew louder.
‘Forsaken...’
She picked her spot on the burning perimeter, felt the water pouring through her hands as she made her way there. She heard the rapid discharge of bullets heading in her direction, dipped down, tasting blood in her mouth as she bit her tongue.
She reached into the fire with her coat, dropped it to the ground as she felt a series of explosions on her torso and smelled the corruption of burning fabric directly under her nose. A sensation of fists battering her body hit her chest and abdomen; bullets hit her flak jacket and she felt the blood draining from her extremities to her vital organs.
Clay stood up and saw a gap forming in the wall of fire where she’d thrown down her wet coat, the flames falling to centimetres above the ground.
‘Mmmeeeeeeeeeeeeee?’
The heat from his body and the cry from his core were behind her.
She turned. The flames that consumed him danced in her face, a metre away.
‘Mmmmeeeeeeeeeeee?’
She saw the Magnum behind the wall of fire, pointed at her head.
Clay raised her Glock 17, pointed it at his face, a man completely on fire, his face melting before her eyes. She glimpsed into his eyes as she prepared to pull back the trigger, and saw the furthest corner of hell where profound madness ruled.
His arm withered, his hand dispensed bullets into the ground.
He swayed and his head drooped as he dropped the Magnum.
Clay looked down at him, the skin and muscle around his face dissolving into his skull, his weapon skidding across the wooden floor. He raised his burning gun hand towards Clay and made a noise as he fired the last delusional bullet in her direction.
As Aaron Bell died at her feet, she looked at the hostage through the arches and hurried to him, hoping to find a sign of life. She held his wrist and looked for a pulse, opened his mouth for signs of breathing, but none were there.
Clay looked at his face, torn by agony in the closure of his life, and hoped that when he was in the chapel of rest, his widow would somehow not see the torment that she had witnessed at first hand.
She walked back to the burning body of the man who had just tried to kill her and stared at him, watched and listened as the last breath left his body.
‘Kelly... Ann...’
The overwhelming smell of roast pork rose from his fallen flesh, and Clay pushed down her gag reflex.
She picked up the aluminium bowl at the centre of the font and carried it to the space where she had dampened down the cage of flame. She turned the bowl upside down and the fire died before her eyes.
As she walked through the gap over her waterlogged coat, her body ached in every place and her throat felt lined with barbed wire.
‘Lucy,’ she said to herself, heading for the door, imagining the scene in an interview suite in Trinity Road Police Station. ‘I’ve got some very bad news for you about your father.’
114
7.51 pm
Outside the Metropolitan Cathedral, Detective Sergeant Bill Hendricks felt the pulse of his iPhone and connected the call.
‘Hello, Poppy.’
‘How’s Eve?’
‘We don’t know. What’s happening?’
‘I’ve cracked open Lucy Bell’s phone and laptop.’
He watched the door leading into the crypt and sensed great excitement beneath the anxiety in her voice.
‘What have you found on them?’
The door opened and Clay emerged. She appeared to be in a world of her own, looking into the space in front of her.
‘Eve?’ He heard Riley’s voice as she hurried down the stone steps towards Clay. She paused, pulled at the straps of her flak jacket as Riley reached her.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Poppy.
‘Eve’s just walked out of the crypt. She’s come out alive but I don’t know if she’s been injured. Paramedics are heading to her right now’
‘I’m all right,’ Clay called out. ‘We need to call Scientific Support and the mortuary. We’ve got two dead bodies in there. Father Aaron Bell and, I’m guessing, supposing, someone connected with the Metropolitan Cathedral, a black male, mid-thirties, who probably died because of the colour of his skin.’
Clay handed her flak jacket and Glock 17 to Riley. At the top of the steps, she looked around and picked out Hendricks.
‘Who are you on to, Bill?’
‘Poppy Waters.’ He listened to the civilian IT expert, and smiled. ‘Thanks for that, Poppy,’ he said, as Clay walked towards him. ‘Sooner rather than later if you don’t mind.’
‘What’s she come up with, Bill?’
He handed Clay his phone, smelled burned hair and saw the bullet marks on the flak jacket in Riley’s hands. ‘Shit!’ he muttered.
‘Poppy? What’s happening?’
‘Lucy Bell, Eve. She’s an out-and-out monster, a monster without a proverbial leg to stand on.’
115
8.59 pm
When Lucy Bell stopped howling and had taken many deep breaths, Clay made eye contact with her.
‘Lucy, I’m sorry your father’s dead but that doesn’t mean that we can let you go,’ said Clay. ‘Please look at the items on the desk in front of you and identify them.’
‘I don’t know what they are. I’ve never seen them before in my life.’
‘We took them from your house, Lucy.’
‘That doesn’t mean they belong to me.’
‘If the laptop doesn’t belong to you, why has it got thirteen drafts of your PhD dissertation, your lecture notes going back three years, your research notes going back even further, notes relating to your training and role as a Eucharistic minister in the Roman Catholic Church, the photographs you took of Jack Dare when he wasn’t aware you were doing so and your secret diary outlining your graphic sexual fantasies about him?’
‘This is such an invasion of my privacy, and at a time like this when I’m distraught because my father has just died.’
‘No, it’s not an invasion of your privacy, it’s a serious criminal investigation and you are right at the dead centre of it.’
Lucy looked at her solicitor. ‘Tell her to go away.’
‘Miss Bell, I’d advise you to answer DCI Clay’s questions.’
‘How did my dad die?’ asked Lucy.
‘I’ll testify to the coroner’s court that it was probably suicide,’ replied Clay.
‘Liar! He would never do such a thing...’
‘I was there, Lucy. I saw it. He must have doused himself in petrol, knowing he was going to catch fire.’
‘Where is he?’
‘At the mortuary.’
‘I want to go to him.’
‘That’s not going to happen. Lucy?’
‘What?’
Hendricks picked up the large brown envelope in front of him and shuffled out a wedge of A4 pages.
‘What
’s that?’ she asked.
‘Over to you, DS Hendricks.’
‘You keep two diaries, Lucy. The one you showed to Detective Constable Winters.’
‘What’s that nigger had to say for himself?’
‘Pardon?’ said Hendricks.
‘I didn’t say a word,’ Lucy replied.
‘You did say a word,’ said Hendricks. ‘A very bad word, and I don’t want you to disrespect my friend and colleague like that again.’
Lucy looked at her solicitor.
‘That was racist and completely unnecessary, Miss Bell. Please don’t use that language in my presence.’
‘Whose side are you on?’
‘Lucy, we have a full account of your life during the past two weeks and stretching back before. In your very own words.’ Hendricks pushed the pages towards Lucy. ‘We have multiple copies of the same document printed off from your laptop. Have a look through it.’
She thumbed the pages, taking random stabs at the writing with her eyes.
‘It’s a fantasy. That’s all. I was bored. I didn’t know it would come true – how could I? If you think I’m going to sit here and implicate my father or Jack Dare in crimes that they didn’t commit, you can think again.’
‘Lucy, I’m going to remind you of a good piece of advice that you gave to your students at the end of your lecture on Joseph Stalin. A piece of advice that DCI Clay and I are going to follow really closely. Never let your subject off the hook,’ said Hendricks.
‘I’m going no comment.’
‘Which you have the right to do, absolutely,’ said Clay.
‘My father loved me. I will not allow you to sully his memory. He loved me above and beyond all other human beings.’
Clay took out her iPhone. ‘Do you want to hear some of his final words, Lucy?’
Lucy looked at Clay with the eyes of a woman seeing a ghost. ‘Yes.’
‘You’ll hear my voice and the voice you’ll hear in the background is the man who your father burned alive and later went on to shoot in the head at point-blank range. Who’s Kelly-Ann?’
‘I’ve never heard of anyone called Kelly-Ann.’