by Lulu Taylor
Letty is confused. ‘You mean . . . I should give myself to Arthur?’
‘I believe it may be a way to save his soul. To keep him among us and bind him to us. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
Letty nods. Her hands are burning where the Beloved is still clutching them. ‘I see.’ Her heart falls within her with disappointment. No, something stronger than that. Disillusion.
The Beloved seems to sense it. He peers even more closely at her. ‘Is your faith still strong, my child? Are you still of my flock?’
‘Yes, of course, Beloved,’ she says obediently.
He does not seem convinced. But he lets go of her hands and stands up. ‘Then go on your way. I will pray for you. Come to me whenever you waver and I will give you strength.’
That night in the church, the Beloved does not deliver his usual fierce sermon, with its shouts and frenzy. Instead, when the time comes for him to address his congregation, he gives a signal and the lights are dimmed so that the candles on the altar provide the only illumination: tongues of flickering golden fire behind the Beloved. The atmosphere is intense and expectant. The Beloved disappears and when he returns, he is dressed entirely in white: a long robe that falls snowily to the floor. He spreads his arms and turns his face upwards. He begins to speak in a low but thrilling voice and they all listen intently.
‘The time has come to reveal the next step in the plan, the manifestation of the will. We must listen and accept it. What I say to you now comes from that great power. It flows through me. Yea, it is me. I know that you are weak, that you falter on the path. That is why I tell you now the great revelation, so that you will understand what we are bound to here, why you are the elect. I am He. You know of whom I speak! I am He, come again in my own body to save. Behold! I live forever more! And I am the holy bridegroom, and the great judge, and every one of you will be judged by me. And you find me here, among you. You are truly the blessed, the new disciples. Come to me if you wish to know truth and know glory and have everlasting life!’
Letty gasps and the whole congregation quivers but no one speaks after this great declaration. The Beloved stands, his arms outspread, his head drooped on his breast, unmoving.
Then one of the ladies gets to her feet and says in a shakily joyful voice, ‘It is true! I see it, the glorious day has dawned. He is here.’
Another stands. It is Mr Kendall, his face alight. ‘Hail!’ he shouts. ‘Hail to thee!’ Then he drops to his knees and begins to pray loudly.
More of them stand, declaring their belief and faith. Letty can only stare. Each one of them present has heard, and must now make a choice – to turn back or go on. She knows what she has heard, and finally, at last, she can fool herself no more. She turns to Arthur, whose eyes are shining with triumph. His hand reaches for hers.
‘It’s time,’ he says to her, his voice more intense than she’s ever heard it. ‘Can you do it?’
She can’t speak, only nod. The serpent of doubt has unwound and disappeared. Now she is certain.
‘At last,’ he says. ‘We can blow this place wide open.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘Any luck?’
Caz shakes her head. ‘No. Nothing. I’ve sent six texts today. I’ve emailed. No reply.’
Rory sits back on the sofa and sighs heavily. ‘Oh God. We’re wasting our time.’ He looks over with blank, defeated eyes. ‘I think she’s dead, Caz.’
‘Hey.’ Caz goes over and sits on the arm of the sofa, her phone in her hand. ‘Don’t say that. There’s absolutely no evidence that she’s dead. Someone would have seen her, they’d know something. It’s not that easy to kill yourself with no one knowing.’ She rubs his shoulder comfortingly. ‘I think we should assume she’s out there somewhere. She took her pills with her. Why would someone suicidal do that? She was just adamant she needed some time. I think she’s turned off her phone and her computer, and she doesn’t even know I’ve been in touch.’
‘I want to believe that,’ he says. ‘But even if it’s true, it doesn’t help. It doesn’t bring us any closer to finding her.’
‘I think we can find out more,’ Caz says. ‘We have her email address. We should hack it.’
‘How are we going to do that?’ Rory shrugs. ‘Caz, I really think we should take all this to the police. They’re the ones with the systems to sort this out. They’ll help us find her.’
‘We can try that,’ Caz says, ‘but think about how hard it was to get them interested in the first place.’
Rory has told her how reluctant the police were to start a hunt for Kate. Grown women are at liberty to go off in their cars whether their separated husbands like it or not. It was only when Rory managed to get the local press interested – ‘Tragic local woman in fire death hell vanishes’ – that the police issued a formal request for information on Kate’s whereabouts through the media. There was a brief flurry of human interest – the pictures of Heather they put alongside Kate’s were enough to touch the hardest heart – as the press speculated about whether she was suicidal but then the story faded quickly away from sight.
‘But now we have this new information,’ Rory says, frowning. ‘Surely they’ll listen to that.’
‘It will only make them more likely to think that she’s perfectly safe,’ Caz says. She believes it but she’s also aware that the police might not look kindly on her concealing what she knew when they went public with Kate’s disappearance. ‘Don’t you see? They’ll be even less interested if they think she’s busy phoning and emailing. They’ll never see our point of view.’
‘You’re probably right,’ says Rory despairingly. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
‘Don’t give up, Rory. I know someone who might be able to help.’
Lucas looks at Caz coldly. ‘Just because I’m in tech does not mean I’m a hacker for hire. I’m not one of these wikileaks types. I happen to respect privacy. And the law.’
‘I know that, and I wouldn’t usually ask. But this is an emergency.’ Lucas has always been her friend in the IT department, happy to come and fix whatever problem afflicts her work computer. She feels as though she can trust him. She outlines some of Kate’s story. It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by it, and she can see that Lucas is as horrified as you’d expect. ‘She’s ill now, Lucas, suffering from depression and on her own. She doesn’t even know that her little boy has woken up. Can you imagine that?’
He lets out a long breath. ‘Jeez. That’s pretty bloody awful.’ His expression is grave. ‘I’ve got a daughter. She’s four. If anything happened to her . . .’ He shakes his head, unable to go on. They sit in contemplative silence for a moment, offering thanks to the universe that so far they’ve been spared that horror.
‘So what do you want me to do?’ he asks.
‘I’ve got an email address. I just want you to break into it so we can see what’s there. It might give us some clue about how to find her.’
‘It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. I’ll need more than an email address. Any ideas about a password?’
Caz shakes her head. ‘If I did, I wouldn’t need you.’
‘Well, you might.’ He sighs again. ‘It would be easier if she were going on the internet and accessing the account herself.’
‘I don’t think she is. Unless she’s purposefully ignoring my messages. I have a mobile number too; is there any chance we can find her with that?’
Lucas shakes his head. ‘You’d need official clearance to get that data. Look, without being able to access her computer, or the network she’s using, it’s going to be pretty near impossible to hack into her email in the way you imagine. But . . . there is something we can do. It relies on her picking up her texts, and on her security settings.’
‘I don’t think she’s doing that.’
Lucas shrugs. ‘Caz, it’s illegal to hack someone’s email. I’m prepared to help you, though, bearing in mind what you’ve told me. I’ll set a simple trap and you can sit back and wa
it. If it springs, well and good. If not, that’s as far as I’m prepared to go.’
‘Okay,’ she says helplessly. ‘Let’s do it.’
Lucas opens up the email provider for Kate’s account and taps in her email address. ‘Right, we’re pretending that we’re Kate, and we’ve forgotten our password.’ He clicks on the link for a forgotten password. It asks for verification using a mobile phone number. He types in the number Caz has written down for him and pushes send. ‘There.’
‘What good will that do?’ she asks, confused. ‘It’s going to send a message to Kate’s mobile, isn’t it?’
‘Yep. So now we send her a message as well, pretending to be her email provider. We’ll say that there’s been unusual activity on her account and that she needs to send her verification code to us.’
‘And if she does?’
‘Then we’ll have access to her account. We can reset the password, then go in, change the settings to forward emails to another address, then send the reset password to Kate as a temporary password. She can change that if she likes. Unless she suspects it’s not the provider or she checks her settings, you’ll carry on receiving all the messages she gets and sends.’
‘Clever. But how will we text her? She knows my number.’
‘Okay. We’ll use mine. If she texts me, I’ll send it on to you immediately. I’ll show you how to change settings now. After that, you’re on your own. All right?’
‘Thanks, Lucas. I really owe you one. And so does Kate’s family.’
Rory is on compassionate leave from work, now that Ady has woken up and Kate has disappeared.
‘I get a new job and spend most of the time away from it. Thank goodness they’re understanding.’
‘That’s what charities are like, aren’t they?’ asks Caz. ‘Understanding?’
Rory nods ruefully. ‘Sometimes. When they’re not making you redundant.’
She tells Rory what Lucas did for them.
‘That’s it?’ he says, disbelieving. ‘He didn’t hack straight in?’
‘He couldn’t. And anyway, it’s not fair to ask him to do something illegal. He agreed to set this trap for us and it’s pretty much fraud. But it all depends on whether Kate falls for it or not.’
Rory sighs helplessly. ‘Great. That might never happen. And meanwhile, I’m spending all day with Ady telling him that she’s going to be back soon.’ His face contorts with pain.
Caz puts her hand onto his over the kitchen table. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes . . . no. I had to tell him today. About Heather.’
‘Oh God.’ She squeezes his hand, gripped by sorrow for them both. ‘How did he take it?’
‘He just looked me in the eye and said he already knew.’
‘How?’
‘He guessed, I suppose.’
‘Poor boy. Poor thing.’
‘He seemed very calm about it. Weirdly calm. I mean . . . sad, of course. But accepting. I don’t think it will sink in for a while.’ Rory frowns. ‘The strange thing is how confident he seemed about Kate as well. When I said she’d be back soon, he nodded and said yes, he knew that too. Then he said . . . he said, “You and Aunty Caz are going to get her, aren’t you?”’
Caz stares at him. ‘That’s strange. Have you mentioned me to him?’
‘No. Well, I said you might visit him and bring Leia and Mika when they’re back from their dad’s, and the hospital said it was okay. But that’s all.’
She smiles. ‘It’s a good omen. Maybe we will bring her back.’
‘Check your phone,’ he says, and they bend over it together. There’s nothing from Lucas.
‘Give it time,’ she says comfortingly. ‘We’ll get Kate home where she belongs. Keep the faith.’
‘I’ll try.’
Caz’s boss looks pained. ‘You know how it is, Caz. We like at least two months’ notice of any holiday booked.’
‘I know. And I wouldn’t usually ask. But these are exceptional circumstances.’ She explains, and once again Kate’s history has that strange talismanic power. People are fascinated by it, attracted and repelled at the same time. They want to know and yet, it’s too much to take in. They can’t make themselves empathise too closely, or they’d be on the floor, sobbing, in bits. Each time she tells it, she understands Kate and what she’s done just a little more. If you don’t realise how vile and cruel reality can be, you can’t comprehend the mechanisms our spirits can use to cope. She’d thought she was in unbearable agony when Phil left. But she can see now that it was nothing, not really. The best things in her life went on: the children, her health, her job. She lost someone who wasn’t really worth keeping, that was all.
The thing that she doesn’t understand is why Kate has cut Ady out of her life. Surely he was the only thing that could bring her back, bring her joy after losing Heather. Yet, she won’t even hear his name.
Caz secretly believes that if Kate laid eyes on Ady, she would come back to her old self and break out of the tough armoured shell she’s created for herself. She thinks Rory believes this too. But for Ady’s sake, it has to happen soon. It’s that urgency that has pressed Caz to ask for time off, and that gave her the strength to ring Phil up last night and ask him if he would keep the girls for longer.
‘You don’t want them back?’ he said, disbelieving.
‘Of course I want them back – but I have something I have to do. I’m helping Kate and Rory.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’ He sounded guilty. He should, considering they had all been friends for years, and although he had sent a card and a bunch of flowers, he didn’t go to Heather’s funeral. He said he wouldn’t come without his girlfriend, and he didn’t think it would be appropriate. Caz thinks he was right. The day was terrible enough without that. ‘How are they?’
‘Not so good,’ she said briefly. He didn’t really have the right to know more than that. He hasn’t even rung Rory. ‘So can you keep the girls for the next week? I’ll drop their uniform off and everything they’ll need for school. Leia knows when their ballet lessons are.’
There was a pause and she knew Phil was considering saying no. Maybe he had a couple of nights out planned, and the girls would get in the way. White-hot rage rose up inside her, but then, to his small credit, he agreed.
Her boss pulls open the staff holiday calendar. ‘It’s not easy because Steph’s off already.’
‘Annabel can cover. She’s volunteered.’
‘Well . . .’ He hates breaking the rules. Give one an inch, he thinks, and they’ll all expect a mile. But he knows Caz’s request is as close to compassionate as you can get without actually fulfilling the criteria. ‘Okay. I’ll allow it this time. But don’t spread it around, will you?’
‘No. Of course not. Thanks.’
‘I hope you find her.’ He gives her an encouraging smile. ‘You’re a good friend, Caz.’
Caz thinks about that in the car on the way home. Is she a good friend? Really?
Outwardly, yes. But when Kate found out about Rory’s hidden redundancy, Caz couldn’t help seeing it from Rory’s point of view. Yes, he’d omitted to tell Kate some very important things, and he was wrong in that. But it was plain that he wasn’t acting out of selfishness, like Phil had. He wasn’t being maliciously destructive, the way Phil must have known he was. He was, after all, being protective. He just didn’t realise how much it would rock his marriage when it did all come out at last. He was wilfully blind, and stupidly naive and, yes, in the wrong. But it wasn’t straightforward.
Kate wanted Caz to rip him to shreds with her.
And I couldn’t. I was torn between pity for them both and envy of Kate’s emotional security because, in the end, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not Rory loved her. It was just how he showed it.
They both looked at it through different sides of the lens. The lie was the worst thing to Kate. To Rory, it was the shame of losing his job and the stress of finding a new one, and managing to keep afloat financially, that nearly clawed h
im under.
‘He won’t say he’s sorry,’ Kate said tearfully. ‘Where’s the remorse? I can’t forgive him till he says he’s sorry.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t understand that,’ Caz suggested. ‘Maybe he’s being practical. Trying to show he’s sorry by solving the problem.’
‘He should understand it! It should be obvious. How can I ever trust him or feel secure in our life together if he doesn’t understand that?’
Caz did her best to talk the talk, but her heart was divided from Kate’s for the first time. She thought Kate was lucky. She daydreamed about a life where she had a man who treasured the humdrum companionship of family life, who didn’t need to look beyond it for excitement.
But now the positions are reversed, and Caz is the lucky one. She would not wish herself in Kate’s position for anything.
I owe it to her to find her and bring her home to Ady. She’s my friend. I don’t have a choice. But before that can happen, Kate has to answer the text.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Arthur disappears after the great church service, with everyone still stunned by the Beloved’s revelation. They knew that he was part of the great dispensation to mankind, the next in line after Adam, Noah, Abraham and Christ. But to be not just the preparer of the way, but the way itself is unexpected, and overwhelming.
Life has offered all members of the community a great boon: to be born at the same time as the Beloved, and to know him. Like those Galilean fishermen of centuries ago, they are now called to bear witness, and it is the most exciting thing ever to happen.
Letty watches the jubilation, the way they all crowd around the Beloved, eager for his touch, and she feels apart from it all. Arabella, shocked but apparently happy, moves among them, accepting the congratulations with a remote air, as if it is on the news of her husband’s promotion to a more senior position in his office, rather than that she is married to the Divine.
The congregation are in a buzzing state of anticipation, for now it seems certain that the Day of Judgement cannot be far off. It looks as though their devotion to the Beloved and his promises is about to be repaid.