Last Rites

by Neil White

  I saw that his cheeks had flushed and his breaths were heavy. He licked his lips.

  ‘Better in your head?’ I asked. ‘In real life, there was no pleasure for them.’

  ‘You're catching on,’ he said, grinning again. ‘They don't piss and shit in my dreams, or cry for their mummies.’

  ‘So why do it again?’

  ‘Have you ever chased your fantasies?’ he asked me.

  ‘Not if it meant hurting someone,’ I answered, and then I looked him in the eye, tried to show a lack of fear. ‘So in your dreams,’ I said, ‘were they pretty young women, or were they coven members? It seems like you crossed between the two?’

  Dan rushed towards me. I put my head back as the knife dug into my neck. I could see sweat on Mather's face, his fingers straining around the handle.

  ‘It's not as simple as that,’ he said.

  ‘So now you're complicated? Bit of a cliché, isn't it?’ I mocked, trying to ignore the blade against my neck, hoping I could unsettle him, but it was a perilous game. I felt the tip of the blade break the skin. I swallowed, tried not to move.

  Then Katie shouted, ‘There's someone here.’

  Mather looked at her, the blade drooping as he was distracted. ‘Who is it?’ he shouted.

  Katie went to the window. ‘It's the police,’ she shrieked. ‘Carson. What do we do?’

  He looked towards the window, and then he grinned. ‘Tom, you deal with them.’ When Katie looked shocked, he said, ‘It's time.’

  Tom ran to a locked cupboard and opened it. He pulled out a shotgun and a box of shells.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Katie, her eyes wide.

  ‘Target practice,’ said Tom gleefully.

  Katie looked at me, and I sensed that her excitement had now mutated into alarm. ‘You can't kill the police,’ she said. ‘They won't stop hunting you.’

  Tom Mather looked at his father, and then at me. Both of them started to laugh. ‘There will be nothing to hunt,’ Dan said. ‘This is the end. This isn't just fantasies to fuck by, you silly little girl. Did you really think it would be any different?’

  Tom went to go to the stairs, but Katie shouted, ‘You said it wouldn't come to this,’ her voice filled with panic. When Tom ignored her, she looked towards the door, to the way out.

  Dan Mather shook his head. ‘Don't be stupid, Katie.’

  I saw sweat appear on her lip.

  ‘She's right,’ I said. ‘If he shoots at the police, you will have no chance of getting out.’

  Dan went to the window and looked out. ‘There's the door, Garrett,’ he said, ‘if you're worried about getting caught up in it. Just remember that Laura will definitely die if you go – and I won't make it nice.’

  I knew that wasn't an option. I looked at Katie. ‘You don't look like the suicide type,’ I said. ‘We've seen it before. Brady and Hindley Fred and Rose West. Impressionable young woman meets exciting psychopath. She goes along with it, enjoys the ride. It's nothing new.’

  ‘It wasn't like that,’ she said, squirming.

  ‘So what was it like?’ I asked. ‘Myra Hindley got the children into the van. They trusted her, she was a woman. What about you? Did you do the same?’

  Katie shook her head.

  ‘You played me all the way through,’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe I enjoyed it,’ she said, mocking, but I sensed a quiver in her voice, saw that her eyes were on Dan, not me.

  ‘But you took a risk,’ I continued. ‘You brought yourself out in the open by writing those letters.’

  ‘What letters?’ asked Dan, as he whirled around, looking angry now.

  ‘Didn't you know?’ I asked, surprised.

  Katie looked away, suddenly scared, her mouth hanging open.

  ‘Sarah wrote letters,’ I said. ‘Katie handed them in, pretended that they were delivered to her.’

  Dan looked at her, and he took a long, slow deep breath.

  ‘Just part of the game?’ I queried. ‘Not fun any more, is it, Katie?’

  ‘What did the letters say?’ growled Dan.

  ‘Tell him, Katie,’ I said.

  She backed away from Dan, shaking her head.

  ‘They were all about the witches,’ I said, answering for her. ‘And when the police didn't realise the connection, you used me to translate them, didn't you, Katie. That's what led me here. That day in the library, when you found all the passages. Just another set-up. You played me well. The flirt, the tears.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Dan, and he sounded confused. ‘You betrayed us.’

  ‘We talked things through,’ she wailed, crying now. ‘It was Tom's idea.’

  Then we heard a noise upstairs.

  Chapter Eighty-five

  ‘Who designed this driveway?’ complained Carson as they got nearer to the house. ‘It takes forever to get there.’

  Joe looked around carefully for anything suspicious on the hill or in the house. ‘Maybe that's the point,’ he said, and then he put his hand out. ‘Stop!’ he ordered. ‘There's someone there.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Carson, looking towards the house.

  ‘Upstairs, at one of the windows.’

  Rod's eye shot to the house, and then he shouted, ‘Get down!’ just before there was a loud bang, the sound of a shotgun. They all ducked. Rod cried out.

  ‘Fuck, fuck,’ shouted Carson.

  ‘Keep down,’ Rod shouted back, his voice hoarse with pain, his face contorted.

  There was nowhere to shelter. The path was open, with no bushes or trees, just a stone wall along one side, dividing Mather's land from the one next door.

  They all ducked again at the sound of another blast, but it missed, sending up a shower of dust from the path. Then there was silence.

  Carson looked at the other men, saw the sweat on their brows, all of them breathing hard, Rod pale, grimacing.

  ‘Are you hit?’ Carson asked, concerned.

  Rod nodded and pointed to his trouser leg, shredded and bloodied. He pointed towards the wall. ‘We're going to have to get out,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Can you remember the training?’ Carson asked.

  ‘Move quick and stay low,’ replied Joe. He looked at Rod. ‘Can you do it?’

  Rod nodded, sweat on his lip, his face pale. ‘I'm not waiting for him to reload,’ and he set off at a fast hobble towards the wall.

  Carson almost smiled, before he set off on a run across the grass.

  Tom Mather ran down the stairs, excited now, waving the shotgun.

  ‘Got them,’ he shouted manically, his hands tight around the shotgun stock, his face flushed. ‘They know we're in here now.’

  ‘Tell me about the letters,’ Dan growled at Tom.

  Tom stopped, his face turned pale. ‘It was just a game,’ he said. ‘To tease them.’

  Dan took a deep breath. ‘We're all going to burn,’ he said, his voice filled with menace. Then he turned to me. ‘Have you made your choice?’

  ‘I haven't decided yet.’

  ‘You'd better be quick, because today we die. You can join us, if you wish.’

  I nodded towards Katie. ‘Does it include her too?’

  Dan smiled at me. ‘Especially her,’ he said.

  Katie was shaking.

  ‘She doesn't want to die,’ I said. ‘This has been an adventure, that's all, a bit of excitement, riding with the wild bunch.’

  ‘I can speak for myself,’ Katie shouted at me.

  ‘Go on then,’ I replied. ‘Say what you really think.’

  Tom strode forward and put the shotgun under my chin. ‘This isn't your show,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  I swallowed, tried to ignore the feel of the steel against my chin. ‘The problem with hostages,’ I said, ‘is that once you lose them, you don't have a bargaining chip. So you need to be careful with that gun.’

  I could feel the tremors in the metal as his finger squeezed on the trigger, his eyes tight with anger. Then Dan reached ac
ross and put his hand on the barrel.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said calmly. He nodded towards the stairs. ‘Get the slut.’

  Tom looked at his father and then glared at me, before lowering the shotgun and running off to the stairs.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed when I heard heavy footsteps, not wanting Laura in the room. Then I heard Laura cry out as she was brought up the stairs.

  I opened my eyes and saw that Tom was gripping Laura by the hair. Her face was swollen, there were violent bruises on her cheeks, and one of her eyes was just an angry red slit.

  I jumped, wanted to go to her, but I told myself to stay calm, not to provoke them. Dan must have seen my reaction, because he started to grin, spittle appearing in the corners of his mouth.

  ‘You bastard!’ I seethed at him.

  Laura looked at me and gave a small shake of the head. Don't antagonise them, she was saying, concentrate.

  Tom jumped forward and rammed the butt of the gun into my knee. I dropped to the floor, my teeth gritted, pain shooting through my leg. I squirmed around so that I could see him properly, to make sure that he couldn't come at me from behind, taking deep breaths to drive away the pain.

  He stepped over to me again. I shuffled away, my leg dragging and throbbing in protest as I moved in an arc to put my back against the wall. He stared at me intently, wanting to see my fear, the pain in my eyes. He wasn't going to get either. I stared back at him, angry, challenging.

  He snarled at me and stamped on my hand, his boots heavy. I shouted in pain and felt my fingers swell. My head hung to the floor, black spots flashing in front of my eyes. Was this it? Was this how it was going to end, slowly and in pain?

  I stopped crawling and lay down, out of breath. I looked over at Laura, who had her eyes clamped shut and was slumped against a wall. I thought I could see tears through the swelling of her eyes. I looked at Dan. He was leaning against the wall, just watching.

  Tom Mather pulled a wooden chair towards me and sat down, so that he was looking down at me as I lay on the floor, panting. He pointed his gun at me and slowly brought it towards my head. It crept closer, the chasm of the barrel getting darker and more hypnotic as it came closer, drawing me in.

  The gun only stopped when it reached the tender spot between my eyebrows. He pushed against it slightly, so I could feel it there, could sense the menace. It was cold.

  He looked down the barrel at me and smiled.

  ‘Katie?’ he shouted, never taking his eyes off me.

  ‘Yeah?’

  He tilted his head towards Laura. ‘Get me some rope to tie that bitch up.’ When Laura glanced towards the door, he added, ‘If you run, you'll hear your boyfriend's brains hit the wall before you reach the grass outside.’

  Tom got to his feet and turned his chair so that the back of it was facing the door to the room. He grabbed Laura by the hair again and pushed her down into the chair, back-to-front, so that she was facing the door, her legs splayed around the back of the chair.

  Katie passed Tom some cord. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Improvise,’ he said, his eyes never leaving me.

  He put his gun on the floor and took hold of Laura's arms.

  ‘If you rush me,’ he said to me, ‘I'll pick up that shotgun in a second, and the first person to die is her.’

  I didn't move. I glanced over at Dan, who was watching his son in action, a proud smile on his lips. I turned back to Laura, and watched as Tom bound her arms to the back of the chair so that they were sticking out in front of her. He rummaged in a drawer and pulled out some parcel tape. He strapped Laura's wrists together with it. Before I could work out what he was doing, he rushed to a drawer and pulled out a handgun.

  Tom looked at me and said, ‘It's not real, but it should do the trick,’ and then he laughed to himself before strapping it into Laura's hand. He glanced round to his father. ‘What do you reckon?’

  Dan nodded in approval. ‘I like it.’

  I looked at Tom again, searched for a sign that Laura was about to die, but there was nothing. Tom picked up his gun and joined his father by the window.

  Then I realised something that made me feel sick. He wasn't going to shoot Laura, I knew that now. He was going to make someone else do it. Tom had put the handgun between Laura's bound wrists, so that from a quick glance it would look like someone holding and aiming a pistol. And it would be the first thing the police would see when they burst in, rushing, adrenalin pumping, looking for a target to shoot at. They wouldn't see it was Laura. They would just see a gun pointed at them, arms outstretched and forward, and they would shoot. Quick reaction, self-preservation. They would mistake Laura for the enemy and shoot her, riddle her so full of bullets it would take a public inquiry to work out who fired the fatal shot. The Mather family's last joke.

  Laura tried to lift her head, but Tom went to her and slapped her on her swollen cheek. Laura's head fell forward onto her arms and I could hear her groaning, blood gushing from her swollen lips. My good fist clenched, and I started to kneel, getting ready to launch myself. Tom must have sensed my thoughts, because he pressed the shotgun against Laura's head. ‘Don't,’ he warned.

  I looked at Dan and said, ‘I've made my choice.’

  ‘What choice?’ asked Dan, stepping away from the wall.

  ‘The one you gave me. Who dies, me or Laura. I choose me. Just let her go.’

  Laura lifted her head and looked towards me. She shook her head. I could see blood running from a cut above her eye.

  Dan Mather started to grin. ‘The game has changed. You need to keep up. We're all going to die. This is the day.’

  ‘You bastard,’ I whispered.

  He waved me away. ‘This is no time for compliments. Just be glad that you'll die together.’

  Chapter Eighty-six

  Carson peered over the wall as he tried to work out the layout of the house. They had made it back down to the road. Rod was on his radio, calling for the firearms unit. Joe was pacing around, trying to decide on the next step.

  The house looked dark and dirty, just a two-storey stone cottage, the white paint old, with small dusty windows and a tumbledown extension at one side. The field leading up to it was steep, but the house wasn't quite at the top of the ridge, so that the bottom part of the house was built into the hill. If there was a cellar, then it would be a good place to keep someone captive, the landscape providing the soundproofing.

  Carson worked out the windows. One at the front downstairs, and a door next to it, with another window at the side. One room, two windows, was his guess. Upstairs, there were two larger windows, one with frosted glass. The bathroom, he presumed. Five places from which they could be shot at.

  Rod shuffled along to join him, grimacing in pain, a tourniquet fashioned out of his shirt sleeve wrapped around his thigh. ‘Firearms are on their way,’ he said. ‘Will be twenty minutes, maybe more.’

  ‘And an ambulance?’ asked Carson.

  ‘I bloody well hope so,’ said Rod. ‘Your bedside manner isn't doing me much good.’

  Carson smiled, but it faded when he looked back towards the house. ‘How did this turn into a hostage situation?’ he asked, almost to himself.

  Joe arrived next to him. ‘By us not realising the danger,’ he replied.

  ‘So what now?’ asked Carson.

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘Did Dan Mather never come up on your radar?’ asked Carson, looking at Rod.

  ‘I don't know any more than you,’ Rod replied, gasping.

  ‘This doesn't feel good,’ Carson said.

  ‘It's worse than that,’ said Joe. ‘If McGanity is in there, this is a desperate last stand.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because he knows we are on to him,’ replied Joe. ‘He has already killed, if we are right, and so he has nothing to lose.’

  Carson didn't respond to that, all his attention focused on the house; he looked round only when he heard Joe speak into his radio.
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br />   ‘Are you sure about that?’ Joe asked, his eyes wide.

  Carson waited impatiently as Joe listened. They had found something.

  When he signed off, Carson asked, ‘What have you got?’

  Joe turned to look at Carson, and then said, ‘It's his son, Tom Mather.’

  ‘The shoplifter?’

  Joe nodded. ‘There was more on him than on his father. His school called the cops a couple of times, thought he had killed some of the school pets. But they had no proof, just schoolboy rumours. And anyway, his mother had killed herself not long before. He was bound to be a bit screwed up.’

  ‘There's a young man in the coven,’ said Rod, suddenly remembering. ‘He would be about the right age.’

  Joe whirled around. ‘Tom would be a descendant, just like his mother.’

  Carson looked at Joe. ‘What the hell are you thinking?’ he asked.

  Joe bit his lip, his thoughts flowing fast, and looked towards the house. ‘He's the scout,’ he said. ‘He tells his father who's in the coven, the pretty ones.’

  ‘But why did he turn on the coven?’ asked Carson, confused.

  ‘Resentment about April's suicide would be my guess,’ said Joe in reply. ‘Remember that April Mather gave her husband an alibi the first time the police asked questions about a murder. Perhaps she believed his story, that it was nothing to do with him? When it happened a second time, Beth Howe's murder, did she realise that she'd got it wrong, that she had allowed him to kill again? Remember that April was a witch, all about harmony and nature, doing things for good. She died on Halloween, her special night, the first time it came around after the second murder. After some booze, maybe the guilt came out.’

  ‘It would fit,’ said Rod.

  ‘What would fit?’ asked Carson.

  ‘With what she shouted when she jumped,’ Rod replied. ‘“An' it harm none.”’

  ‘How do you think Dan Mather felt about that?’ Joe asked, and then he answered his own question. ‘Betrayed would be my guess, and all because she was in a coven.’

  Carson sighed and looked at the house again, at the clouds gathering just behind it. ‘How the hell are we going to unravel this mess?’