Ritual

by Graham Masterton

  He dozed and dreamed. He was trying to find his way through a furniture store, heaped high with musty antique tables and bureaux and chairs with twisty legs. His face was reflected in a dozen dusty mirrors. His feet made a reluctant swishing noise on the parquet floor. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a small figure in a hood, and for an instant he caught the shine of a curved machete. He began to hurry between the stacks of furniture, turning left and then right and then left again. A high voice kept screaming, ‘Daddy! Daddy! Save me!’ In one of the mirrors he saw the machete lifted up and down in a brutal chopping motion, and fingers go flying through the air.

  He woke up shouting. He sat up. He must have been sleeping for three or four hours, because the sky was already pale. He opened the door and climbed stiffly out of the car and stretched. The morning air felt cold on his sweaty underarms. He would have done anything for a hot cup of coffee and a shower. Maybe Robyn could oblige when he reached Waterbury.

  He sat behind the wheel and started up the Oldsmobile’s engine. He thought about Mrs Kemp and wondered whether he ought to go back to Allen’s Corners and report her murder to the sheriff. But a small voice in the back of his head warned him off. If he went to the sheriff now, the sheriff would delay him all day with questions and police procedure, and that was the last thing he wanted.

  Apart from that, he wasn’t sure how much he could trust Sheriff Podmore. Who else, apart from Charlie himself, had known that Mrs Kemp was out for revenge against the Célèstines?

  His most urgent priority was not a murdered woman whom he had scarcely known, but his son Martin. He steered back on to the road again and headed for Waterbury.

  Driving through Thomaston, he was observed from the roadside by two police officers in a parked patrol car. He kept checking them in his rear-view mirror as he headed south, but they stayed where they were, and made no attempt to follow him. The chances were that Mrs Kemp’s body hadn’t been found yet; and with any luck Charlie would be able to rescue Martin and get clear away from Connecticut before it was.

  He switched on the car radio. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band were playing ‘Hollywood Nights’. Charlie sang along with it for a while. ‘Oh, those Hollywood nights... in those Hollywood hills...!’ but as he approached the outskirts of Waterbury he fell silent, like a man who recognizes that his destiny is about to turn, and that life and death are sitting on his shoulders like a pair of predatory hawks.

  14

  They drew up outside a plain 1930s house with maroon-painted shutters and a scruffy front yard and Bob Garrett appeared almost immediately on the front porch in a blue Sears suit with a fawn raincoat folded over his arm. He walked quickly towards them with his free arm swinging. Charlie climbed out of the Cobra and folded the front seat forward so that Bob could climb into the back seat.

  Robyn pulled away from the side of the road and headed north toward Hotchkissville. Bob leaned forward from the back seat and introduced himself. ‘You’re early,’ he said, with a nervous laugh. He had a simple, uncomplicated face with pale blue eyes and a cow’s-lick fringe combed back from his forehead and a neatly-clipped moustache.

  ‘I’m real glad you decided to come,’ Charlie told him.

  ‘I knew I was going to, the second you asked me. I just had to think about it, was all. I had to think whether I wanted all those memories brought back. It’s the memories that hurt the most.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe this is your moment to get your own back.’

  ‘Do you have a gun?’ asked Bob.

  Charlie reached forward to the glove compartment and produced it. A hefty weapon for a newspaper editor: a Colt .45 automatic, capable of blowing a hole through five men standing in a line.

  ‘Do you know how to use it?’ asked Bob.

  ‘I think so,’ Charlie told him. ‘You point it at anybody who happens to be annoying you, and you pull the trigger. Every American kid knows that.’

  ‘Well, you’ve just about got it,’ said Bob. ‘The question is, will you have the courage to pull the trigger?’

  He sat back, and watched the Connecticut countryside flashing past the window. Charlie looked at Robyn and made a face. ‘Rambo the Second,’ she whispered.

  Charlie gave her a philosophical smile. ‘Maybe that’s what we need.’

  ‘Have you worked out how we’re going to get into Le Reposoir?’ asked Bob.

  ‘We’re going to walk in,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Walk in? You think they’re going to let you?’

  ‘They’re not going to let me break my way in, are they?’

  ‘Well, I guess not,’ said Bob, in that deep, hesitant voice. ‘I guess if you can swing it, walking in is the best way. That’s the way I did it, anyhow.’

  ‘The most important thing is to take them by surprise,’ said Charlie. ‘It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes to get hold of Martin and drag him out of the house, but we have to be fast and we have to work together.’

  ‘So tell me what you’re planning to do,’ said Bob.’

  ‘I’m going to walk straight in there and tell them that I’ve seen the light, and that I want to join the Célèstines, too.’

  ‘You think they’re going to buy that?’ asked Bob, leaning his elbows on the front seats.

  ‘Is there any reason why they shouldn’t? They have two major weaknesses – their fanaticism and their over-confidence. Fanatics always find it hard to believe that other people don’t agree with their point of view. They find it a great deal easier to accept the idea that you’ve seen the light, and been won over. And that’s exactly what I’m going to tell them. If eating himself alive is good enough for my son, then it’s good enough for me.’

  ‘I’m glad you can joke about it,’ said Robyn.

  ‘I’m not joking,’ said Charlie. ‘If those people think for one moment that I’m threatening them, they’ll kill me.’

  ‘You sound like you know something that we don’t,’ Bob said.

  Charlie said, ‘Let me put it this way. I didn’t get this cut on my leg by accident.’

  Robyn glanced at him as she drove. ‘You told mom that it was an accident.’

  ‘Sure I did, I didn’t want to upset her. And she bandaged it up so well.’

  ‘What happened? Did somebody attack you?’

  ‘That dwarf – you remember the one I was telling you about? He was waiting for me when I got back to Allen’s Corners last night.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me straight away?’

  ‘With your parents straining their ears? Come on, I’m not saying they’re interfering or anything, but they are interested in finding out what kind of a man their daughter is working with, all of a sudden. I didn’t want them to get upset, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve seen that dwarf, too,’ said Bob. ‘Well he’s not exactly a dwarf, is he? He wasn’t born like that. He cut off his arms and legs.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Charlie nodded. ‘And he’s a mean son-of-a-bitch, believe me.’

  They drove through Allen’s Corners without stopping and made their way up towards the Quassapaug Road. Charlie managed to catch a glimpse of Mrs Kemp’s house; but there were no police cars outside, no crowds, and no ambulance. Mrs Kemp’s body probably hadn’t been discovered yet, and that suited him fine, although the guilt and the pain that he felt for Mrs Kemp were as red-raw as fresh-cut meat. He didn’t allow himself to think about her hacked-up body, soaking into the mattress. He didn’t allow himself to think about her arms, still raised in rigor mortis, fighting off an assailant who had long since hurried away.

  The Cobra’s tyres complained as they climbed the corkscrew towards Le Reposoir. The sky was as dark as a Rembrandt painting; the trees were as pale as faces. Robyn said, ‘Just about now, my editor’s going to look in his desk and realize that his gun has gone.’

  ‘He won’t suspect you, though, will he?’

  ‘Not to begin with. But one of our advertising people came into the editorial o
ffices while I was looking through his desk.’

  Charlie patted his breast pocket. ‘Don’t worry. I bought three tickets to San Diego. After that, we can make our way down to Baja, and thence into oblivion. Your editor won’t be able to find you in a thousand years.’

  They reached the gates of Le Reposoir sooner than Charlie expected. Robyn slewed the Cobra around in a wide curve, and shut off the engine. Charlie took the .45, turned it one way, then the other, then pushed it into his inside pocket. He looked back at Bob. ‘Are you ready? We want to take this real easy, a step at a time.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Bob told him.

  Charlie got out of the car, and went over to the intercom. He pressed the call button and waited for somebody to answer. This time, he didn’t have to wait long.

  ‘Mr McLean? I’m surprised to see you back so soon.’ It was the voice of M. Musette, but careful this time, and suspicious.

  ‘M. Musette,’ said Charlie, ‘it seems that I owe you an apology.’

  ‘An apology, Mr McLean?’

  ‘Last night I had a run-in outside Mrs Kemp’s house with that assistant of yours, David.’

  Cautiously, M. Musette said, ‘So I understand. You weren’t hurt, I hope?’

  ‘A slight cut, but I think I can forgive him for that.’

  ‘Did you... see Mrs Kemp?’

  ‘She wasn’t at home,’ Charlie lied. The last thing he wanted was for M. Musette to know that he had found Mrs Kemp’s body. ‘I stayed overnight at the Bethlehem Motel.’

  ‘You have my regrets,’ said M. Musette. ‘David can be impetuous. I think it was after he lost his hands, you know. He started to throw tantrums, and act rather violently. He’s not altogether to be trusted.’

  Charlie paused for a moment, and then he said, ‘The fact of the matter is, M. Musette, that I began to wonder why I was fighting you. I sat in that motel and I bandaged up the cut that David gave me, and then I sat there and said to myself, “Charlie, these people are religious, they believe in happiness and goodness and the life everlasting.” And do you know what else I said to myself?’

  ‘Do continue, Mr McLean.’

  ‘Well, M. Musette, I said to myself, “If my son has chosen the Célèstines as the way to heaven, then perhaps there’s something in it. Perhaps I’ve been the one who’s been blind. Perhaps there really is something in all of this business, after all.” Because what have I seen? Sights that have shocked me, sure, I have to admit. But a new way of looking at the word of the New Testament, and that’s for sure. A new way of taking communion, the flesh and the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me, Mr McLean?’ M. Musette asked him with unconcealed impatience.

  ‘I’m trying to tell you, M. Musette, that I’ve been saved. I’m trying to tell you that I’ve seen the light. Your way is the only way, and I don’t want my son to go to heaven without me. I want to go with him. Damn it, M. Musette, I want to volunteer.’

  M. Musette was silent for what seemed like five or ten minutes. After a while, however, he said, ‘I find it very hard to trust you, Mr McLean. You have been nothing but hostile ever since I first met you. I am inclined to think that you are feigning this sudden enthusiasm in the Célèstines in order to gain access to your son.’

  ‘M. Musette, my son can make his own decisions. If he wants to dedicate his life to the Célèstines then that’s all right by me.’

  ‘You are singing a different song, Mr McLean.’

  ‘That’s the nature of religious conversions, M. Musette. Suddenly, you see the light. Saul did that, didn’t he?’

  There was another long pause, and then M. Musette said, ‘Wait there. I’ll send my security guard to open the gate. But, please––remember that you are on your honour to conduct yourself with propriety.’

  Propriety, thought Charlie, with bitterness. You can talk to me about propriety after slaughtering Mrs Kemp?

  The intercom clicked off, and Charlie was left waiting in the wind. The dry trees rustled like the voices of gossiping ghosts. There was a smell of smoke in the air, smoke and fall and sadness.

  Eventually, a black Chrysler appeared between the maculata bushes, and the thin youth with the close-cropped hair and the Buddy Holly suit climbed out and unlocked the gates.

  ‘Mr McLean?’ he said, in a nasal voice. ‘Drive your vehicle slowly down to the house. I’ll be following right behind. And, please, no faster than ten miles an hour.’

  They drove at a crawl down to the gravelled turning-circle in front of Le Reposoir. Robyn looked at the house in amazement. ‘You know something, I never even knew this place existed, and I was brought up around here.’

  M. Musette was waiting for them in the doorway. ‘All we need now is speed,’ said Charlie. ‘We walk straight up to him, push him aside, and then go straight up the stairs to the corridor where all the new Devotees go. I know which room they’re keeping Martin in. We force our way in, take one arm each, and frogmarch him out of there. Bob, you take his left arm, I’ll take his right. That way, I can have a hand free to hold the gun.’

  ‘You realize Musette is going to recognize me straight away,’ said Bob.

  ‘Just keep cool. Speed, and surprise, that’s what we need. Robyn––as soon as we’re inside, you turn the car around and get ready to burn rubber.’

  ‘I’m terrified,’ said Robyn.

  Charlie reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘It’s going to work like a charm, just so long as none of us loses our nerve.’

  ‘A charm, he says.’

  ‘We’re all right so far,’ said Charlie. ‘I mean, we got in here, didn’t we? And they didn’t close the gates behind us. That was one thing I was afraid of.’

  The thin youth came up and tapped on the window. ‘Will you follow me, please?’

  Charlie glanced tensely at Robyn, and then at Bob. He had been so busy reassuring them that he hadn’t realized how tightly his own nerves were wound up. He gave the youth a salute of acknowledgement and climbed out of the car. Bob followed close behind him, keeping his face to the ground so that M. Musette wouldn’t recognize him until it was too late.

  M. Musette extended his hand as Charlie came up the steps. Charlie’s heart seemed to have leaped up and caught itself on one of his ribs. He was breathing in short, shallow gasps. He could feel the weight of the .45 in his inside coat pocket, and he was sure that M. Musette could see it bulging out.

  ‘Well, Mr McLean,’ M. Musette greeted him with a diagonal smile. ‘Perhaps I can congratulate you on your conversion.’

  Charlie’s mind snapped into overdrive. He swung his left shoulder forward and knocked M. Musette sideways. He felt M. Musette’s collarbone jar against his arm. Then he was running across the hallway with Bob right behind him. As he reached the foot of the stairs he heard M. Musette shouting, ‘Harold! Harold! Lock off the upstairs landing!’

  Charlie turned around, tugging the .45 out of his coat, and tearing the lining as he did so. He pointed it directly at M. Musette and yelled at him, ‘You try to stop me, and I’ll blow your head off!’

  ‘It’s no use, Mr McLean!’ M. Musette replied. ‘You can’t get away with it! Martin is out of your reach now! You can only get him back by killing us all!’

  ‘If that’s what it takes,’ said Charlie. ‘Come on, Bob!’

  Together, they climbed the stairs. They crossed the landing, but when they reached the door which led to the corridor where the new Devotees were kept, they found that it was locked. Charlie wrenched at the handle, but the door was solid steel, and he couldn’t budge it.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Bob asked him.

  ‘Musette,’ Charlie replied fiercely. He ran back downstairs, but M. Musette had disappeared. He went out through the door. Apart from Robyn waiting in the car, the grounds were deserted. Bob said, ‘They’ve locked it all up and left us to it.’

  ‘Round the back,’ said Charlie.

  They ran around the side of the house to the garden d
oor which Charlie had used to enter the house the first time. That, too, was locked. Charlie cocked the .45 and pointed it at the lock, but Bob said, ‘Forget it, that only works in movies. You’ll probably end up with a ricochet right between the eyes.’

  ‘God damn it, how do we get in?’ Charlie raged.

  He ran back to the front door, back up the steps, and back inside. He tried a downstairs door but that was locked too. Solid oak, with a five-lever lock. He kicked at it, but it didn’t even rattle. He turned back to Bob in anger and frustration.

  ‘I’ve blown it, damn it! I should have taken Musette hostage!’

  ‘We’d better just get out of here,’ said Bob. ‘Let’s go back and work out some other way of getting in.’

  Charlie was almost in tears. His vision of bursting into Martin’s room and dragging him out had been foiled by the simplest expedient of all. M. Musette had done nothing more than lock his doors and disappear, so that he could neither be reached nor threatened.

  ‘Come on,’ said Bob, taking hold of his arm. ‘This is one of those times when discretion is the better part of valour.’

  Charlie looked up at the florid Victorian stained-glass window at the head of the stairs. It depicted Sir Gawain on his way to do battle with the Green Knight, a brightly coloured scene of valleys and lakes and bulrushes. Charlie lifted the .45 and fired at the window. There was a deafening, echoing bang. Charlie had never fired such a heavy calibre handgun before, and his arm was painfully jarred. All that he succeeded in doing was blowing out one small pane of blue glass. Bob looked at him, and said, ‘Are you satisfied now?’

  ‘I’m going to get my son back if it kills me,’ said Charlie.

  He left the house, and walked down the steps. They were probably being covered by guns from M. Musette’s security men, but Charlie didn’t care. He stood at the bottom of the steps and shouted out. ‘M. Musette! If you hurt my son, it’s going to be your head next time, not just your window!’