Purged

by Peter Laws

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I know you don’t like—’

  ‘Since when were you … such a nob?’

  ‘Please …’ he put his palms up. ‘Don’t hold back.’

  ‘Matt …’ Her face softened. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Well … apart from just ripping a fox in two, I’m pretty chipper.’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘Since we got to Hobbs Hill you seem … distracted. I know you’re worried about the book. You’ve hardly done any work on—’

  He wafted the comment away with his hand, like an annoying wasp. ‘I’ve been busy. The police stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, about that,’ she groaned. ‘You’re supposed to be at home writing your chapter, not searching for this Nicola … Nixon girl.’

  ‘Knox.’ He frowned at her. ‘She’s called Nicola Knox.’ He had a sudden image of Tabitha Clarke for a second and Arima Adakay too. Both of them writhing on the floor, one in the bath, the other in the noodle bar. In his mind, they were flickering into the same person. He wondered why he hadn’t really told Wren about either woman yet. ‘The police needed help and I was happy to offer.’

  ‘I know you do,’ she reached for him. ‘You always do … it’s just …’

  He looked up at the ceiling, blew some air up at it. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Since we’ve been here … in Hobbs Hill. You seem a bit down.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Her fingertips landed on his shoulder. ‘I think you should maybe talk to Chris about—’

  ‘What?’ He shrunk away from her.

  ‘He’s a really good listener.’

  He looked at her, and said something he instantly regretted. ‘You’re not on the payroll yet, Wren.’

  She pulled her hand away. ‘Well excuse me, Mr Menstrual.’

  Crap.

  ‘Wren …’

  ‘Bye. Some people have work to do.’ She marched off in the other direction, stopping only once to catch a yellow notepad that was sliding down onto her hip.

  ‘Wren.’ He stepped after her but quickly thought better of it. He just leant wearily against a cold, stone pillar and watched her disappear through a door, feeling like a complete cretin and wondering why she always had this knack of figuring his feelings out before he did.

  Was it the book? Was it Hobbs Hill? Was it the fact he’d crunched the neck of a dying fox? Or was it just being in the same orbit as Chris Kelly again? Whatever it was, he had felt distracted and a little on edge ever since he’d driven into this village. With its blank-eyed smiley people, and its constantly hissing waterfall.

  Maybe it was all those crosses.

  He dropped his eyes to his feet and spotted a rogue thread of fox fur stuck to his shoe. He wiped it on the edge of a pew and made a snap decision.

  He’d head off to find Chris.

  The church was a warren of low ceilings and tilted corridors. Most of the odd, fun-house shape of the walls was caused by a mixture of subsidence, odd architectural choices and frankly psychotic paint jobs. He trotted down some stone steps with a strip of old carpet bolted down the middle and followed the signs to Chris’s office. A thick, shiny gold-coloured nameplate said SENIOR Pastor: Rev. Christopher Kelly. That first word wasn’t only in bold, it was slightly bigger than the rest.

  The door was closed.

  He waited, looked around, then pushed his ear towards it, just in case Chris might already be in there with someone. Didn’t he say earlier that he’d be chatting to Nicola Knox’s mum today? Was he in there doing that, right now, dishing out Bible verses and cups of peppermint tea, insisting that the worst of times and the best of times can occasionally come at the same moment?

  He was about to rap his knuckle on the door when a voice came from behind him.

  ‘He’s not there.’

  Matt jumped a little and quickly pulled his ear from the door. He turned around, cheeks on fire.

  Chris’s son, Ben, was coming out of what looked like a cellar. He was carrying a crate of Diet Coke with a transparent tub of lollipops on top, holding them down with his chin so they wouldn’t slip off.

  Matt’s startled brain made him say, ‘Wahey, lollipops!’ As if that was how young people spoke, these days. He felt like an instant dick.

  ‘They’re for the youth group. For the tournament. I’m helping out.’

  ‘Cool. Do you play?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Video games. Do you play? I’m a fan.’

  ‘Some. I like driving games … sports stuff.’ He lifted his chin to ask, ‘What do you play?’ but it made him almost drop everything.

  Matt nodded and stepped forward. ‘Hey, let me give you a hand.’

  Chin still in place, he shook his head. ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ he nodded towards the office door. ‘My dad’s down at Bethesda.’

  ‘That’s the healing centre, just down the hill?’

  ‘That’s right. So you won’t be able to see him till later in the day. Sorry.’

  ‘I just need to ask him a really quick question. I’ll pop down.’

  ‘No.’ Ben shifted the crate in his hands. ‘They won’t let you.’

  ‘Who won’t?’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to run. The kids’ll freak if they don’t get their sugar. You know how it is.’ He turned and headed off in the opposite direction, calling back, ‘You can catch my dad later. He said he’ll be done at around four. You could come to the house.’

  And then he was up the stairs and gone.

  Matt turned back to the office door. He gazed down at the handle then back at the corridor to make sure it was empty. Before he was even aware of it, his hand was on the brass, creaking it down, waiting for the click—

  Locked.

  He pulled his hand back quickly and looked back up the corridor, half expecting Ben’s eyes to be hovering in the dark.

  Watcha doin’, Noseybonk?

  Matt rushed up the steps and back outside into the car park.

  The clouds were wringing out the final dregs of the rain while the sun crept slowly across the lush, hilly field towards him. He thought of Nicola Knox and Tabitha Clarke, out there somewhere, and he felt a pulse of worry for them both. He pictured those two faces on his laptop and started to realise that it was, of course, them who were causing him to feel so edgy. A depressed teenager who supposedly had anorexia and possible suicidal tendencies, and a cancer-ridden artist, no doubt hounded for her sexuality by chumps like Taylor.

  These two women felt like anomalies in the otherwise perfect, crucifix world of Hobbs Hill. Just as he felt like one. So he slipped into his car and pulled away, heading down the short, steep road that led to the Healing Centre.

  It had that nondescript modernish look. Like an out-in-the-sticks wing of the county council. Or a Job Centre from the late 1980s. Orangey bricks, lots of glass, green spiky plants you never had to tend. Over the doorway was a strip of black stone slate saying Bethesda. This, he knew full well, was the name of the pool of healing waters in the Gospels where disabled people were thrown in and supposedly came out well again. At the bottom of the slate was a Bible verse from John with white mock handwriting: ‘Only if you are born of water and the Spirit, can you enter the kingdom of God.’

  He stepped out of the car and quietly closed the door, looking across at the waterfall pounding into the lake. From here he could have wandered right around the shoreline, and thought up some angles for his book.

  But he thought he could hear music so he tilted his ear towards the Healing Centre. Which is when his heart stopped for one single beat. Because a sound swept from one of the upper windows and raced out towards him, across the gravel.

  A single, long scream.

  Muffled but unmistakeable.

  He had to blink to let the sound compute and then the scream came again. Louder this time, and more manic.

  ‘Holy shit,’ he said, and sprang towards the building, pounding his feet to the main door and finding it locked.

  Another screa
m ripped through the air. This one pitiful and full of bitter tears. Someone turned the music up louder.

  He grabbed a rock and barely even thought about it. He slammed it through the glass strip in the door and reached through, fiddling with the lock on the inside. The Do NOT Disturb!!! sign fell from the handle and wafted into the gravel. The door popped open.

  The music grew far, far louder as he stepped inside, crunching his shoes on the glass shards. Then as he scrambled to the top of the stairs it sounded like someone was still turning it up, to cover the screams. The booming sound devoured the air like it was a nightclub.

  He recognised it, too.

  ‘I can’t live …’ Mariah Carey warbled as 90s power drums punched holes into the space–time continuum. ‘… if living is without you.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ he said.

  In answer, another blood-thinning scream tore through the corridor, followed by a crashing sound. Something breaking. Everything was coming from behind a door at the far end of the corridor. The etched plastic sign said: The Reality Room.

  ‘Hey!’ a voice boomed from downstairs.

  Matt stopped for a second and leant over the balcony. The fat guy Billy, the youth worker, from church. He was looking up, carrying a Bible in one hand and cardboard coffee holder in the other, about to spill.

  Their eyes met.

  ‘Hey. Get out of here!’ Billy called up, coffee sloshing onto the carpet. ‘Right now.’

  There wasn’t time to speak. Matt bolted towards the door and the screams behind it. From below he could hear Billy thumping his humongous Yeti feet up the stairs behind him. Shouting over and over in his horrible, gravelly voice as the screams went on, ‘Leave her alone. She wants it. She wants it!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Matt heaved his weight against the door and the music swelled to ear-splitting volume. Then his jaw literally, un-metaphorically, dropped.

  Everything: the floor, the walls, the windows were covered in a blue plastic tarpaulin kept in place with silver gaffer tape. And tables were set up against the walls, each one filled with white dinner plates, propped up against wooden blocks. There were at least a hundred bits of crockery lining every wall with hundreds more shark-fin shards lying shattered on the floor.

  Wedged in the far corner, Chris Kelly was perched boyband-style on a high chrome bar stool. Black shirt tucked, clerical collar tight … and a yellow hard hat. A pair of safety goggles were strapped across his eyes while a baseball bat hung from both hands. His head was bowed, eyes tight in prayer. And in the middle of it all there was a woman in a wedding dress, cheeks streaked with eyeliner. Like Chris, she held a baseball bat. But she was swinging it wildly, obliterating pots and plates with squeals and yelps.

  Matt called out, ‘What’s going on here?’ But the music was too loud. He shouted it again, straining his throat. ‘What’s going on?’

  The woman slowed the swings to a confused stop. The bat trembled in mid-air. Then she turned her Alice Cooper face fully around. When she saw Matt she retched, dropped the bat and ran sobbing from the room. She almost floored Billy who by now had appeared in the doorway, panting and gripping the door frame.

  ‘How dare … you come … in … here,’ Billy said, between gasps.

  ‘I can’t live …’ Mariah’s car alarm trilling went on.

  Matt turned and shouted at Billy. ‘Turn that damn thing off!’

  Billy groaned, grabbed a remote from his pocket and, seemingly pointing it into thin air, jabbed at a button. Mariah vanished. When Matt turned back, he saw Chris slipping off the stool, tossing the hard hat and goggles to the floor. His hands were gripping the bat.

  ‘Chris. Put that down.’ Matt’s voice sounded suddenly huge in the silence.

  Chris looked at the bat and one eyebrow sprang up. ‘What. You think I’m going to hit you?’

  ‘Drop it. Now.’

  ‘You think I’d actually hit you with this?’ He gave a flabbergasted, bitter little laugh then flung the bat to the floor. It clattered against the shards of plates.

  ‘You need to explain this. Right now.’ Matt stepped forward and kicked both bats to the side.

  Chris opened his arms theatrically. ‘Oh, here he comes everybody. Here he comes, to the rescue. Religion Professor who doesn’t even believe in anything!’

  Matt narrowed his eyes. ‘How about you just calm the fuck down.’

  The swear word was a deliberate, if childish, choice. A sort of manifesto statement to distance himself from the weird Christian faithful in front of him. It worked too. It brought a hiss of shocked breath from Chris.

  Billy manoeuvred his hefty body between them, his Welsh lilt raspy and dry. ‘You should go, right now. This is none of your business.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere till you tell me what’s going on here.’

  Billy took a single step forward, and drew in a breath to puff out his chest. Cavemen probably did that when they challenged a wild boar. ‘Please don’t make me carry you out of here, Professor.’

  ‘I’m not moving,’ Matt said. ‘I’m checking on that woman too. And if one of you doesn’t tell me what all this crazy stuff is, then I swear to God I’ll call the police.’

  ‘To God?’ Chris said. ‘To God?’ He looked like he might fling his head back in some manic cackle, but the sarcastic smile soon faded and slowly his shoulders sank in defeat. ‘You ruined it for her.’

  ‘Ruined what?’

  ‘The session. The healing. She was close.’

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  Chris and Billy shared a glance. A flicker of the eyebrows and a twitch of the lips. Some unspoken conferring. Then Chris sighed. ‘Her name’s Isabel Dawson. She’s a physics teacher from Oxford.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Six weeks ago she was due to get married in London. Horse-drawn carriage, gospel choir, doves getting released. Except her fiancé of sixteen months didn’t turn up. Completely jilted her in front of two hundred guests.’

  Matt shrugged. ‘And what’s that got to do with all of this?’

  Billy set his shoulders coat-hanger straight. ‘Izzy’s been part of our deep-wounds programme. Pastor Chris’s counselled her for a few weeks now. And today’s the penultimate part of her therapy.’

  ‘This is therapy?’

  ‘What did you think it was?’ Chris said, then he instantly lifted his hand. ‘Actually, don’t answer that. I’d rather not know.’

  Just as he did that, Isabel appeared at the door, cheeks wet, sweaty hair pressed to her forehead like tentacles.

  ‘Izzy,’ Chris said. ‘How about we get you that cup of coffee?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Izzy, it’s going to be fine, love. Mr Hunter here’s just leaving, and then we can get back on with it.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Isabel?’ To Chris’s clear disapproval, Matt took a step towards her. ‘My name’s Matthew Hunter. I apologise if I’ve interrupted something here but I just need to know if you’re okay and happy with all of this. Is this what you want?’

  ‘Of course she’s happy with—’

  ‘Chris!’ Matt glared at him. ‘Let her speak.’

  They waited. A full minute. Maybe more. Chris put his hands on his hips and puffed out a few frustrated breaths.

  Matt smiled gently at her, ‘You have to admit that this looks kind of unusual. So I just want to make sure you’re okay. Okay?’

  Finally, she spoke. Whispering to the floor. ‘Entropy.’

  Matt frowned. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Entropy.’

  ‘You’re harassing her.’ Chris stepped closer. ‘Come on, Izzy. Let’s get you in the car.’

  ‘I was teaching entropy, the week before my wedding.’ Her eyes stayed locked straight down. ‘A-level physics.’

  Matt nodded, voice calm. ‘I see.’

  ‘Entropy means,’ her voice grew louder, ‘that everything in the universe naturally wears down. That everything dies. Which it does, does
n’t it?’

  ‘Get her in the car, Billy … and Matt, give her some space.’

  She ignored everybody. Just looked up at Matt, never seeming to blink. ‘Dogs die. Fingernails die. Stars even.’

  He nodded, ‘You’re absolutely right.’

  That prompted her to give a sad smile.

  ‘And faith dies too, you know?’ she said, then finally turned her gaze toward Chris. Her eyes narrowed. ‘And I can feel my faith right now. It’s pouring out of my shoes.’

  Chris screwed up his face. ‘Izzy, don’t you even say that. We’ll get you back on—’

  ‘On track? On track? There is no track! That’s what I keep telling you people.’ After a long tense silence Isabel turned from Chris back to Matt. ‘I’m okay.’

  Matt gave her an encouraging nod, ‘Would you like me to take you home?’

  ‘I said I’m okay, shithead!’ She turned and marched for the stairs. They all went out to the landing and watched her descend one slow step at a time, her thin lace-covered hands shaking as they slid down the golden bannister. Billy went down to open up the front doors for her, glaring back up at Matt at the shards of glass on the floor.

  Matt and Chris just stood on the landing in silence, the tension between them crackling like an electrical hum.

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Matt. I’m furious with you right now.’

  ‘I picked that up. But what did you expect … I heard screaming.’

  ‘Look … I’m the senior pastor here.’

  ‘You’re the only pastor here.’

  ‘Exactly. And maybe you’ve forgotten it but pastors help people.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not qualified in mental health, are you?’

  ‘Aren’t I? I’ve used this programme for rape victims, child-abuse survivors. Name it. And it works and it’s mine.’

  ‘And what if you do more damage? I mean look at her.’

  She was hobbling to the door, bent over and groaning like a Disney witch.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Chris said. ‘I let people externalise their emotions so they can get it out of their system. Before they do something stupid. That’s the real purging by the way. And you think that’s … amateur?’ He sounded more sad than angry now. ‘Have you ever considered that if you got all that bitterness out after your mother was murdered, in a controlled way, you’d never have been suspended? Maybe I could have helped you back then.’