In her dream, she was holding a baby. She rocked it gently, against her breast, looking down on to its rosebud lips, its dark and knowing eyes. The love she felt for the baby, in her dream, was all-consuming. Its body was vanilla sponge and filled with cream, a puff of a body. She wanted to eat it, to have its love drop into her being like a well of sunlight. Please don’t leave me, Antonia thought in her dream. Please don’t leave me.
The mask was being wiped off her face now in slow, gentle, circular motions. The therapist stroked her fingers across Antonia’s cheeks as she emerged slowly from sleep into consciousness. The frangipani still whispered to her; the music still lulled. The therapist began to apply another solution to her face. Broad strokes, coating her cheeks and her forehead, her nose and underneath her eyes. She placed a warm flannel over Antonia’s eyes and over her mouth, leaving only her nose exposed, so as to breathe. Again, the therapist seemed to Antonia, in her sleepy state, to retreat, to leave the room.
And that was when the burning started.
The solution seemed to stick to her skin; crampons of fire which dug viciously into her pores, spiking down with branded irons. Antonia’s hands began to scrabble, ripping off the flannels on her face, moaning. She couldn’t breathe, chemicals gagging the back of her throat. Her eyes began to stream as she cried out, blindly throwing herself off the bed, trying to find the door, the way out. She reached the door and tugged at it, barely able to see. The aroma of flowers was now assaulted by something more pungent, a medicinal smell. Antonia screamed as she flung herself, naked, into the corridor. Another therapist emerged hurriedly from a room further down; the noise an aberration in the calm. She saw Antonia, wild, her hands to her face.
‘Let me help you,’ the therapist said to her, bewildered. ‘Let me see your face.’
Antonia removed her hands, all the while crying and sobbing and stamping her feet with the agony of it. ‘Get the mask off,’ she begged. ‘Please! Take it off!’
Once her hands were removed, the therapist could see that removing the mask would prove difficult. For there was, in fact, no mask. Antonia’s skin was disintegrating, blistered and covered with pus. Her face was shrivelling, red and angry; her eyelids now swollen beyond recognition; searing sores rivering up her face and into her hairline.
‘We need an ambulance!’ the therapist yelled, her training in calm abandoned at the horrific sight before her. Her voice became hoarse as fumes curled into her throat, too. ‘Call 999 now!’
Antonia sank to her knees at that; praying to her God that she would black out. What had happened to her? What had happened to her face?
‘Hydrochloric acid,’ Martin said in the incident room. ‘Someone came in, pretending to be carrying on with the facial, and carefully applied hydrochloric acid to Antonia’s face. She’s in intensive care. Second-degree burns. Her sight may be compromised.’
Jones looked at Martin in disbelief. ‘Hydrochloric acid?’ she said. ‘Where can you get that from?’
‘Any builder’s merchant. It’s used in industrial cleaning,’ Martin answered. ‘Really vicious.’ She shook her head. ‘She might need plastic surgery. The spa’s a write-off, too. Designated a hazardous area. It’ll need to be closed down for a while to be decontaminated.’
‘Who would do something like that? Who would even come up with that idea?’
‘Someone with a bunch of screws loose. Someone who hated Antonia. Or someone who wanted to keep her quiet,’ Martin said. ‘We’ll need to find out where the Snows were at the time Antonia was at the salon. And a team will be needed ASAP for that investigation on its own. I’ll talk to DCI Butterworth about it.’ She looked over at Jones, wondering if her voice betrayed her feelings about Sam.
‘Got it,’ Jones replied, seemingly unaware.
Martin stood up and walked over to the whiteboard, where Tristan Snow’s face continued to stare at them all in seeming defiance. The spider’s web of lines still travelled from his photo to the edges of the board, leading to faces of his family, to endless question marks.
‘It’s getting hard to see the wood for the trees,’ Martin said. ‘All of them spinning around Tristan like satellites.’ She tapped the board and sat back on the desk in front of it, her eyes searching the board for answers. ‘Sera mentioned the importance of families. I wondered about that. A lot of revenge-seeking here – Sera, Antonia and Violet.’
‘And Mercy,’ Jones said, warming to the task.
‘Yes. Mercy. If she’s even called Mercy any more.’ Martin shrugged. ‘Lancashire don’t have any info on her. No record that we can see. The last we can find is her at a local secondary school – a Saint Joseph’s. Left at sixteen with no qualifications. And then nothing.’
‘She’ll turn up,’ Jones said, positive as always. ‘Revenge . . . revenge for what?’ she asked, feeding Martin her next line. They did this dance, the two of them. Martin using Jones as a soundboard, as the reflection of her assembling thoughts.
‘Revenge for Tristan’s behaviour. His affairs. His betrayal. His abuse?’ Martin sighed, standing up and stretching her arms above her head. ‘And what about the pigeon? What do we know about pigeons?’
‘Hmm,’ Jones replied, flipping through her notes. ‘Well, as we know, it’s the symbol of the church. A bird is, anyway. The bird that sought land after the flood that wiped out mankind. Deucalion was the hero that brought in the new era, the new age of mankind . . .’
‘In other words, Tristan Snow . . .’ Martin said, her tone wry.
‘Well, yes, I suppose. It says here,’ Jones read down the page, ‘that the flood wiped out the Bronze Age and brought in the Heroic Age . . . according to Hesiod?’ She looked up with a question on her face. ‘But then . . . pigeons come from the same family as doves – although, while doves are linked with ideas of peace, pigeons are the black sheep of the family, the naughty cousin. Dirty yet determined.’
‘Rats of the sky, my mam always called them,’ Martin said.
‘Yeah. Well, they’re also thought to represent the home, the house.’
Martin narrowed her eyes. ‘Really?’
‘Yep. So, although we don’t know yet whether the pigeon died there or was placed there deliberately – probably the latter given the broken neck – if it was the latter . . .’
‘It might be a message of some sort,’ Martin said. ‘Interesting.’ She hopped off the desk and moved to the door. ‘I’m going to head to Snow’s vigil, or whatever you want to call it, show my face to the press. Did you see the headlines this morning? Painting him like some kind of saint, wanting to give him a posthumous OBE or some such rubbish,’ she sighed.
‘Are you going to talk to Sean Egan?’ Jones asked.
‘Ugh. Yes. Tomorrow, after I’ve put on a protective, hygienic suit.’ Martin walked to the door. ‘Are you coming?’
Jones had turned back to her computer and mumbled distractedly. ‘Yep, I’ll meet you up there. Just want to finish off something first.’
Martin left the station via the front entrance and turned left to walk up to the Market Square. The summer evening was still light, and she wondered how effective any candles would be against the pale sky. As she walked the short distance up Saddler Street, she saw that in fact, it wouldn’t be the candles that would make the impression – more the volume of people who were making their way into the centre of the city.
Martin stopped briefly and made a quick call back to the station on her phone. Tristan Snow had booked out nearly three full nights at the Gala Theatre – roughly five hundred people a night. If they were all going to come into the Market Square tonight to pay their respects, Uniform would need reinforcements for crowd control. As she began walking again, she had difficulty edging into the outskirts of the square through the throng. A makeshift stage had been set up in the middle of the square, around Raphael Monti’s copper-plated – call it green and mouldy – statue of the Marquis of Londonderry sitting atop a great beast of a horse.
The statue always made Mar
tin smile, not least because of the size of the Marquis’s Hussar’s hat and phallic sword at his side. But also because of the legend that Monti had declared proudly, at the unveiling of the statue, that there were no imperfections in the work. A blind beggar had, at that moment, toddled up and felt inside the horse’s mouth. He announced with glee to the surrounding masses that Monti had forgotten to give the horse a tongue. Poor old Monti, Martin would think as she passed it. The arrogance of men. It was the epitome of being hoisted on your own phallic petard. And a salutary lesson that nothing was ever perfect.
Martin managed to find a spot next to the ATM machine at the entrance to the square, and looked again at her watch. The vigil was late in starting. Next to her, a middle-aged woman in a purple skirt and short-sleeved cream blouse stood crumpling a tissue in her hand.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ she said to Martin.
‘What’s that?’
‘I can’t believe he’s dead,’ the woman said, raising her voice over the sound of the crowd. ‘He was such a good man.’
Martin nodded and smiled at the woman, thinking as she did, that this was the first person she’d met, since investigating Tristan Snow’s death, who had shown genuine grief at his passing.
‘When my Ronnie died, I came to see the Reverend at one of his shows. Would have been about five years ago now.’ The woman turned her body towards Martin, although her gaze sought out the stage in the middle of the square. ‘He was amazing. He healed me.’ She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue and shook her head. ‘Because of him, I meditate every day. And,’ she said, finally turning to look at Martin, her eyes wide and shining zealot-like, ‘my diabetes has completely disappeared!’
‘Because of Tristan Snow?’ Martin struggled to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
‘Say what you like,’ the woman said, challenging Martin with her stare. ‘But I believe it. Tristan Snow cured me.’ She moved her head to take in the stage once again, where Fraser Mackenzie had jumped up and was holding his hands out to the crowd. ‘And now he’s gone,’ she sniffed, edging away, giving Martin a nasty look.
A text buzzed on Martin’s phone and she tapped out a reply to Jones, telling her where she was. With relief she saw some extra uniformed police arrive. It would be a hard task trying to disassemble this bear pit in the square without incident.
Mackenzie began to speak, thanking everyone for coming. Martin barely listened. She was busy keeping her eyes on Sera and Violet, who sat on chairs on the stage, their heads bowed; the embodiment of familial grief. Had they been to visit Antonia at the hospital already? Martin wondered. Flashes from the press photographers sparked up at the front of the crowd. Martin shoved her hands into her pockets as Jones joined her.
‘It’s just downright weird,’ she whispered to her sergeant. ‘What did they see in him? Look at her,’ Martin jerked her head towards the woman who had been talking to her. ‘She looks normal, doesn’t she? But she’s a complete fruit loop. Reckons Snow cured her of diabetes.’
Jones shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Boss. Gives them a sense of joining in, I suppose. Reminds me of girls screaming over the Bay City Rollers.’
Martin looked over at her. ‘How old are you, Jones? Seriously. We’ve got to work on more up-to-date pop music references with you. Bay City Rollers . . .’ she muttered. ‘The thing I can’t work out,’ she continued, as Mackenzie’s speech roused the crowd noise to ever-greater volume, ‘is why the mother and daughter sit there like saints or something? I mean, what have they got to do with it? Sure, Snow was a healer, a soothsayer, whatever. But why are they revered? They don’t do anything except sit there, saying nothing..’
Something was shoved into Martin’s hand, and she glanced down at it. It was a bucket, filled with coins and notes. On the side was written Collection for the Snow Family. Martin gave a short laugh. ‘Ha, of course. Good opportunity.’ She looked up at the stage to where Mackenzie was swaying with his hands folded in front of him in a prayer position. He happened to look over at the same time and caught her eye. Martin inclined her head in a small bow, the bucket in her hand. Bravo, she appeared to be saying to him, bravo.
25
The morning after the vigil, Sean Egan sat in the Market Tavern, halfway through a pint of Guinness, his iPhone on the bar top before him. His hand shook as he scrolled through his emails. He was pissed off with himself. He’d left the Market Square in good time last night. Had been heading to his bike when his phone had buzzed. He’d slapped the visor down on his helmet, promised himself he wouldn’t answer it. As he straddled the bike though, the voice came to him: he could just go for one. One wouldn’t hurt. He’d meet Danny, have a jar and then head home for . . . for whatever he had in the fridge. Maybe he’d get a kebab en route, thinking about it.
At 3 a.m., when he’d finally let himself into his ground-floor one-bedroom flat, he’d collapsed on the sofa. Hadn’t eaten. And woke up there five hours later, feeling like shit and knowing he must have ridden home because there was his bike outside on the street, winking at him as he squinted into the morning light.
Now the day was bright again and the only way he’d get through the next few hours was with a couple of pints. And the longer he deluded himself that he wasn’t an alcoholic, the harder he would fall when the realization finally dawned. He wasn’t an idiot, Egan. He knew in his soul that he was a sharp and clever lad who had it in him to change the world – to write stories that would change the world. But the booze always called to him; that deep, dark hole that was so nice to fall into. That let you forget everything; how much of a failure you were.
There were too many like him; that was the problem, he thought, as he ordered another. Too many of the living dead who reached to him with their bony fingers, offering him the booze; telling him that it would all be fine. That he was just like them. That he could just have one.
Antonia whatshername. She was like that. They’d met here a few nights ago. He couldn’t believe his luck when she’d turned up in the pub. He’d chatted her up in the hopes of getting some gossip about Tristan Snow . . . MBE – as she’d kept saying – clearly dropping the name to get yet more drinks in her. So she’d ended up at his, but ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to shag her. She’d had nothing useful to say and had wound up snoring on his sofa.
And then it had transpired that Snow had been killed that very night.
Egan rubbed his hand over his two-day-old beard. Since then, he’d heard Antonia had been attacked, was in the hospital. He might pay her a little visit, come to think of it – see if he could get anything out of her about the murder. Given she had had acid thrown in her face, he wouldn’t want to be seeing her for any other reason, that was for sure. He might be desperate, but a shag with a Freddy Krueger lookalike was not something he was up for.
Tristan Snow’s death was an interesting prospect. Bumped off by his wife, most likely, after she’d found out about the affairs and the teenage girls. It was an open secret that Snow liked them young. He recruited them from stage doors, teasing them with free tickets and invites to parties. Egan had been digging, found a few noteworthy contacts. Something that Inspector Martin might be keen to know, if he could be bothered to tell her. He’d seen her last night, wafting round the vigil like a bad smell.
He took another swig of his pint. God, his next crap was going to be like chocolate sauce at this rate. His stomach cramped as it was. He hadn’t eaten for a day or so now. He would need to get something before heading to the office. There were only so many days he could pull this shit off before he’d starting getting the fish-eye from McClaggan. Then he’d do a few days’ detox; make a big show of drinking smoothies at his desk, going for a run at lunchtime. So far, it had always worked. Until the detox ended with the wagon derailing outside The Marlowe, or The Court, or The Three Swans, or . . .
A new email arrived in Egan’s inbox and he looked at it idly, debating whether he could fit yet one more pint in. He was about to press delete without read
ing it, not recognizing the sender. But something stopped him. He read on:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Information regarding the Deucalion Church
Dear Mr Egan,
I do apologize for contacting you out of the blue. But I may have some information about the Deucalion Church which you might find useful. I am a pastor myself – although unfortunately without a flock at present.
I knew Tristan Snow intimately. In fact, his wife is my daughter. I admit to being very shocked at the news of his death.
I wonder if we could speak at a time convenient to you?
With God’s blessings,
Jonah Simpson
Egan bit his lip and read through the email again. Without even looking at his watch, he gestured to the barman. There was definitely time for another one now.
26
Martin looked with suspicion at the cup of tea that Eileen Quinn slid across the table towards her. She nodded her thanks, however, and leaned back on the kitchen chair, a smile on her face. The kitchen was stiflingly hot, the windows closed, the heat of the summer pressing against the glass.
It was a small room with a low ceiling, lined with cupboards and a counter sticky with food stains and jellified sauce splashes. Martin and Eileen sat at the kitchen table in the centre of the room – Eileen looking for all the world as if she had recently been crowned the domestic goddess of the year. Pots and pans hung from hooks behind her head and a bouquet of dried rosemary dangling from a shelf crisped up even further in the dry, unrelenting heat.
As Martin talked to her, explained what they needed from her, she saw that Fielding had been right. Eileen’s eyes moved constantly to the cream, chipped sideboard that lined the back wall of the kitchen. The smeared glass of its cupboards revealed shapes of mugs and plates stacked higgledy-piggledy inside; its surface was littered with piles of papers; straw baskets with the detritus of vegetables sticking to their sides; a set of knitting needles with lavender mohair wool attached; some sheet music; a sewing basket; a china cat. What was it that Eileen Quinn was so desperate to check? What was it that she didn’t want Martin to see?
The Taken: DI Erica Martin Book 2 (Erica Martin Thriller) Page 12