“What was her name again?” said Baz.
“Poppy,” said Conner. “She’s one of Daisy’s friends.”
“I thought you and Daisy were a thing,” said Al. “What happened to that?”
“Daisy and I were never a thing!” said Conner.
“But Poppy?” said Baz. “Is that a thing?”
“Maybe,” said Conner.
“Ah, there it is,” said Al.
“Like I said,” said Conner, “we’re friends, we’re not in love or anything.”
“Just good friends,” said Baz, and played some soft chords on the keyboard, the first bars of “I’m Not in Love” before coming in with a falsetto version of the lyrics.
Conner shook his head, but he thought of Poppy.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s get packed up and get out of here.”
Al and Baz began putting their instruments away.
Mark wandered over to Conner who was unplugging a microphone.
“So go on then,” he said quietly, “what is the deal with you and Poppy?”
“I don’t know,” said Conner, “it’s all gone a bit sideways since I got attacked.”
“Have you talked to her about that?” said Mark.
“Yes, I told her,” said Conner. “She’s been very understanding about it.”
“But?” said Mark.
“But,” said Conner, “it’s not how she’s reacted, it’s me, I just don’t want to go near her at the moment, I don’t feel…”
Mark said nothing and waited.
“I don’t feel right,” said Conner. “I don’t feel clean.”
“I’m sorry,” said Mark, “we all are. I know the others get a bit antsy with you, but we are all on your side.”
“Thanks, mate,” said Conner.
“I think you should try to hang on to this girl,” said Mark. “She sounds like a good one.”
“I don’t know,” said Conner loudly. “I don’t know how I feel about her.”
“Maybe I know how you feel better than you do,” said Mark. “Don’t let her go.”
“Okay,” said Conner, “advice noted.”
In the car park, Conner declined the offer of a quick drink and thought about getting home. He wanted to have a quiet night, and a chance to think.
Three miles away, Darius Lench sat in the driver’s seat of a cheap little car with faded green paint that was just beginning to flake away at the wheel arches. The interior smelt of junk food and stale sweat, and he wrinkled his nose. His eyes moved over the crass design of the upholstery, the overly optimistic array of dials and icons across the dashboard, and he felt another wave of pure contempt for everything that he saw as cheap and ignorant and stupid.
He hated this car. The garish interior spoke of thinly disguised poverty, but there could be no beautiful Mercedes tonight; he must not be noticed, he must simply blend in.
The neck pain he’d been suffering more frequently of late came upon him again and for the first time he resolved to talk to his doctor.
His mind turned to the job at hand. Conner Adams, the weak link, already compromised by Marie’s attack, was especially vulnerable right now, and he knew it was essential, urgent even, that he press home their advantage.
He drove to the corner of Conner’s street. A previous dry run told him that there was an unlit space near this junction where he could park and prepare himself. His course of action would depend on whether he actually got to talk to the boy. He got out of the car and walked to the telephone kiosk a few metres away.
In his flat, Conner was sitting in front of the TV, nibbling a piece of pizza when his mobile went off again. He answered it without thinking.
“Hello?” he said, spitting pizza onto the floor in front of him.
Lench gripped the phone a little harder. The victim was there. The game was on.
“Do you think I have the wrong number now, Conner Adams?”
Conner did not answer, and so Lench continued.
“Be assured that I do not have the wrong number. You are Conner Adams, and you are lead singer in the band Joel’s Garden.”
“Yes, and you are?” said Conner. The familiar surroundings of his own home made him feel more confident.
Lench ignored the question and continued:
“And you have in your possession a 00L-17 acoustic guitar made by Martin & Co?”
This also was true.
Conner said nothing. He looked over at the guitar, sitting on its stand in his living room.
“Well?” said Lench with all the spite he could muster. “That is the case, isn’t it? You do have in your possession a 00L-17 acoustic guitar?”
Eventually Conner answered. “Yes.”
Then he waited. What else was this guy going to tell him?
“Are you there, Conner Adams?” said Lench in a clear, assertive tone.
“Who are you?” He was just whispering now. “What do you want?”
And Lench knew then that he had the boy, so he waited, counting slowly in his mind, one…two…three…before speaking in a slow, measured tone.
“What I really want is for you to die. I want your heart to stop beating and for you to die,” he murmured, “but failing that, I want you to understand that your performances, your art, indeed all of the offerings to your God, are utterly without integrity. You are bankrupt, barren, worthless.”
Conner could find no response to what was being said because his brain could not process any of it, other than to know that what the voice said was true. Something there in the back of his mind told him he was indeed guilty and that everything was compromised; but he didn’t know why or how.
“Are you still there, Conner Adams?”
“What have I done?” said Conner.
“Why, don’t you remember?” said Lench, feigning surprise. The boy was breaking, and Lench wanted to pile on the damage, as much as possible, right now.
“All those clever notes, all that beautiful music; all those songs played on your lovely guitar. Did it all sound wonderful in your ears? You hypocrite, Conner Adams, where did you get that instrument from? How did you get it?”
Lench hoped this was enough to provoke the boy into a more profound despair. He didn’t know precisely what happened with this guitar, maybe it was used to sing deliciously profane songs, maybe it was stolen, or maybe it was in fact, the god that this boy truly worshipped, an idol in the place of the God he professed to bow before. He said nothing more, hoping that the silence, and the boy’s own pain would do the work for him.
And in this assumption he was correct. Conner remembered, as if it was yesterday, entering the music shop, seeing the instrument, knowing that he was alone for a moment, and simply taking it and walking out.
It was an act of theft. He stole the guitar. It was a truth he had buried, covered over, left in his past, but it had come back now to haunt him, and what was worse, his enemies seemed to know all about it.
All the songs he’d sung, all the worship he had offered, all of it felt like dust now. His sacrifice, which he secretly felt so proud of, had been shown up for the hypocrisy that it was.
“Nobody knows, do they, Conner?” said Lench, pressing home his advantage. “We have already humiliated you, and now we will finish you.”
And at that moment Conner remembered the little lecture he had given Poppy about how terrible stealing was, and how pleased he had been to show off his moral credentials to her, and his head fell.
He switched the phone off and looked across the room at the guitar, the instrument he loved, sitting on its stand, next to its case. The case he’d bought from the same shop a week later. He closed his eyes and thought of Poppy, and the tears rolled down his cheeks.
* * *
Lench wasted no time. He was, on the whole, satisfied with his performance, and the boy’s response, but now, he needed to drive the poison home with one last engagement. He remembered the words of his master:
“You must be bold, so that you can comple
te his humiliation…”
He turned up the collar on his coat, adjusted the sunglasses, wig and beard that Josef had applied for him and set off at a brisk pace down the road. This was the most critical phase of the procedure.
Conner was holding his guitar, just staring at it, when the doorbell rang.
“Oh, go away,” he whispered. He wasn’t expecting, and neither did he want, any visitors tonight. He tried to ignore the noise, but the bell rang again with an insistence that made him wince, so he pressed the intercom.
“Yes?”
“Delivery for Conner Adams,” said a voice.
Conner pressed the entry button wondering what he’d ordered that he had forgotten about.
In the same place, but in another world, Conner’s angel was provoked by the Spirit to move away from him, pass through the door to the apartment, and out into the corridor outside, where she saw a man in a long black coat entering the building.
He was attended by such a display of horrors that for a moment she paused and was quite still. She recognized in them instantly the remnants of her ancient brothers, morning stars now faded and perverted from their former glory.
One of them, presenting itself as a mirror image of the human it infested, stared to her as it passed with its host.
“Sister,” it said, and in a realm outside time all was still and the thing stared at the angel with contempt in its heart.
The angel whispered a breath of prayer: “Lord, Lord, deliver me from evil.”
The demon twitched, and some of the others with it shivered and clung to the one who had spoken.
“Our host,” it whispered, “our host has come for your boy.”
Then it looked away from her, and time restarted, and Lench walked up to the door of Conner’s apartment.
The angel resisted the temptation to rejoin the one in her care. She had her instructions and she needed to fulfil them. She turned her back on the gibbering collection that accompanied Conner’s visitor, and, just for a moment she interacted with the world, giving a light tap on a neighbour’s door.
Conner, meanwhile, went to his own front door. He was still holding the guitar in his hand as he opened it, and there before him was a man with pale skin, long brown hair, a trimmed moustache and a rather bushy beard. He wore a trilby hat and reflective sunglasses that shielded his eyes, although the night was dark by now, and Conner could not see much of his face.
Conner stared at him.
“May I come in?” said Lench in an almost apologetic tone.
Conner recognized the man’s voice immediately.
“Tell me who you are,” said Conner in a quiet voice.
“I am the voice of reason,” said Lench, raising his hat and bowing slightly. “I look for sin in the lives of people, and help them to atone.” He smiled and stepped forward to the threshold. “I see you have the instrument there.” On impulse, he reached out and gripped the headstock of the guitar.
“Let go of my guitar,” said Conner, looking behind Lench down the corridor. He felt vulnerable and alone.
Darius Lench laughed.
“Your guitar, Mr Adams?” he said, still holding the end of the guitar. “Is that true, and if it is, what do you think is the worth of what you’ve done with it?”
Lench increased his grip on the instrument.
“It’s beautiful though, isn’t it?” he said. “Far too good for you though, don’t you think?”
Conner felt his grip on the instrument weaken, and as he did so he heard the click of his neighbour’s door open.
An old man, in black shorts and an old football shirt squinted at Conner and his visitor. He was holding a much-folded newspaper that showed a page with a half-finished crossword.
“Evening, Conner.”
“Evening, Mr Brooks.”
Mr Brooks frowned and then nodded at Lench.
“Evening,” he said. “Only came out because I thought someone knocked at my door.”
He stared hard at Lench, and then glanced at the guitar, which both Conner and Lench were still holding.
“Well, goodnight then,” said Mr Brooks and with one final glance at Conner’s visitor he shut his door.
Lench turned back to Conner and released his grip on the instrument.
“Listen, Conner,” said Lench, grabbing Conner’s attention again, “I don’t think you should play that instrument again. Do you? In fact, I don’t think you should be playing guitar at all anymore.”
“I…” said Conner.
“Lay it down, Conner,” said Lench quietly. “You are no longer worthy of it.”
Before Conner could answer, Lench had walked away down the corridor and back down the stairs to the exit. He didn’t even take note of the fact that there was no one in the lobby as he left.
Conner went back into his flat. He placed the guitar back on its stand and went into his bedroom. He knelt down on the floor and curled himself into a ball and wept, adopting the same position that Daisy had adopted when she crouched in the cubicle of a public lavatory, oppressed by the demons that harassed her.
The tears squeezed out of his eyes, and he shook under a sense of worthlessness, guilt and loneliness.
The visitor was right. He could not call this his guitar anymore, he could never call it his guitar again, and the visitor was also right that he could never play it again. Conner had stolen this instrument. He remembered all the details of that incident so clearly now, and he knew that all of his offerings, all of his music, was compromised, and worthless.
And all this just before the band was going to go on tour.
He went into the lounge, and as the tears formed in his eyes again he got a cloth from the instrument’s case, picked up the guitar and gently wiped it, cleaning the dust and grease and fingermarks from it. He moved the cloth over the body of the instrument, and as he did so he thought, strangely, of the women who loved Jesus, who performed one final act of love when they went to anoint his body after the crucifixion.
With the body of the guitar cleaned he placed it carefully into its case. Then he went back into his room, opened the cupboard and dug behind the clothing to find and pull out his old rucksack. Then he began to pack.
Darius Lench jogged back down the street to the little car. The last part of the mission was at hand, the part that he had been savouring the most, the part of the mission that would actually give him a great deal more pleasure than dealing with this feeble boy. He was going to visit an old acquaintance. He would afford himself this visit only because he believed that his master had allowed him to do this, to go and twist the knife one more time.
This would, he hoped, be the sweetest moment, a little innovation of his own. While some of his associates craved wealth or sexual gratification, his real lust was for the exercise of power, and the art of dominating another person. These were his pleasures, exercising a stronger will, his will, over those who were weaker than him, here was his treasure.
He felt the excitement well up within him. He could not touch her, he could not physically harm her, but then he didn’t need to and in truth he didn’t really want to now. He was permitted to present his dominance, to damage her mind and spirit. This would be like the swift insertion of a sharp instrument, a clean but very deep cut.
Eventually he drew up at the kerbside in another part of the town and looked at the lights in the windows of the building opposite. The evening breeze had turned bitterly cold now, and above him the stars were bald specs on a deep black canvas. He was reminded of his visit to Tarmo, and the bitter cold weather of the New Year.
Lench stayed in the car and reached for his mobile phone. This would be the last call on this number before he changed it. Before he could dial the number, the phone vibrated in his hand.
“Good evening, Marie,” he said and paused, listening. “I see, well that’s good.” He listened for a couple more minutes.
“I am going to have to cut our conversation short, I have something that requires my attention. Ye
s, I will call you later, good evening.”
He switched off the phone and breathed deeply; he needed to focus now. When he was ready, he hit the buttons with precision. He did not need to check the number; he had a good memory for the personal details of his enemies.
The phone was answered.
“Hello.”
“Alex Masters?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, and she recognized the voice instantly, and he knew it.
“Miss Masters, I thought I would call to tell you that I have this evening, presented a member of your family with evidence of the gross sin that is manifest in their lives; can you guess who it is?”
In her flat, sitting on her sofa, Alex froze, knowing the caller and sensing the poisonous intent. But as Alex heard one voice, Angel heard many of them.
Angel shut his eyes and listened to the tortured chorus of the legion, speaking over and through this man, their host. He had heard them before, and knew them of old; this was the man who had accosted Alex and Daisy on that fateful day just over a year ago.
“What have you done?” she said, fascinated and horrified by his intrusion.
“It’s not what I have done, Miss Masters,” said Lench, sounding reasonable, “it is what your little brother has done that is the issue.” He was thinking again about how best to administer the maximum amount of pain to this woman. Of all the individuals involved here, she was the one he hated most. She was the one he most wanted to debase and hurt. She was the one who had, in some sense, beaten him, humiliated him before his peers and brought him to his knees in ignominy before his master, and for that, she would pay.
“Are you there, Miss Masters?” he hissed.
“I don’t believe you.”
He laughed out loud. This was delicious, just the reaction he wanted.
“No, of course you don’t, but then you cannot quite dismiss what I say either, can you?” His tone mocked her.
“What have you done to my brother?” Alex shouted down the phone, the anger kicking in.
Lench’s mind filled with all of the degrading things he would love to do to her, but for now, he would have to settle with this little chat.
Cain's Redemption Page 17