~~~~
62
'Cuff him to the bedpost, I don't want to take any chances.'
McLean rubbed at his wrists, wincing at the jabbing pains that ran up to the tips of his fingers. Blood stained the arms of his shirt and he hadn't dared to roll up his sleeves to see what damage Needy's candlestick had done. At least they weren't broken, he was fairly sure of that. It hurt way too much.
Ritchie scooped up one of the handcuffs that had been securing Emma to the bed and looped it round one of Needy's wrists. The sergeant didn't resist; he was too busy wheezing and puking onto the floor, his face a puffy red mess around his panda eyes. She clacked the other end onto the bedpost as instructed, then bent to pick up Emma.
'It's all right, I've got her.' McLean scooped her up, marvelling at how light she felt. She was still unconscious, and as he carried her across the empty chapel, he could see blood matting the back of her head. Needham must have hit her, but why? What had he said in his mad ravings? 'Only people who make jokes about you to your face.'
'Oh fuck. I did this.'
'I beg your pardon, sir?'
'I told her about Trisha Lubkin and the broken nose.' McLean could almost picture the scene now, down in Needy's little empire beneath the streets. 'Emma probably made some joke about it when she saw him yesterday morning. He must have hit her to stop her telling anyone else what she'd seen.'
'Shit. If she's been out cold for twenty-four hours...' Ritchie didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to. They needed to get Emma to a hospital, if it wasn't already too late.
Ritchie unbolted the front door, letting light flood the hallway as McLean staggered out into daylight. It felt like he'd been underground for hours, though in truth it had only been a few minutes. He staggered over to his car, dismayed to see that backup had yet to arrive.
Emma's skin was as white as the cloud-filled sky and twice as cold. He somehow managed to get the passenger door open on the Alfa, and lowered her gently onto the seat, then tilted it back as far as it would go. There was a blanket in the back – one of his Grandmother's. He wrapped her up in it as much to preserve her modesty as anything, then went around to the other side and started the engine, cranked the heater up to full. DS Ritchie came over as he was closing the door to keep the heat in; she was still very unsteady on her feet; light-headed from the blow to her head. Even so, she had her phone in her hand.
'Grumpy Bob says there's been a pile-up on the bypass and the traffic's fucked big time. Penicuik and Dalkeith are both on their way, and I asked for an air ambulance as soon as possible.'
'You did good, sergeant. Kirsty. Thanks.'
'All part of the job, sir,' Ritchie said, then sank to her knees. McLean caught her before she could fall over completely, helped her into the driver's seat of his car.
'I don't think I'm fit to drive anywhere, sir,' she said.
'Just wait there in the warm. Keep an eye on Emma.' He closed the door gently. 'I'm going to go back and secure the crime scene. You can let the others know when they get here.'
*
The air in the basement was oppressively thick as McLean trod lightly down the stone steps to the chapel. Brushing the stone vaulting of the passageway with his hand, it was warm to the touch, not the cold dampness he would have expected. It was almost as if he were in an oven, or the stonework was just a narrow barrier between this evil place and hell itself.
He paused at the door, should he have waited for backup? Why had he come back down here anyway? Needy wasn't going anywhere, not with a broken nose and a face full of pepper spray. And he was handcuffed to the bed, wasn't he.
McLean's hand went unbidden to his pocket, where the handcuff keys were safely stowed. He'd shoved them in there after freeing Emma, he was sure of it. And yet there was nothing but the thin strip of fabric that he'd taken from the evidence store. Kirsty's dress. A shiver ran down his back, despite the warmth, and an image coalesced in his mind of the key slipping out as he rolled under the bed. He tensed, listening for the faintest sound. It was silent, not the dull background roar of the city bypass, not even the rasping breath of a man with a broken nose and a lungful of pepper spray. Crouching low in self preservation, McLean edged around the half-open door and into the chapel, crossing as quickly as he could to the old cast-iron bed. A shiny new handcuff hung from the bedstead, one half open, a key protruding from the lock.
Needy was nowhere to be seen.
McLean whirled around, expecting to be attacked, but he was alone. The candlestick still lay on the ground where Needy had dropped it. The smell of the pepper spray hung acrid in the air, hurting McLean's eyes and tickling the back of his throat. How could Needham have done anything with a face full of that, let alone found the key and freed himself?
A pool of vomit and blood marked where the sergeant had been lying, and sticky wet footprints led away from it. McLean followed them, though they went in the direction of the altar rather than the door. There was no junk piled up at this end of the chapel, just a few wooden pews facing the altar. The walls were lined with delicately carved plaques. Playing Ritchie's torch over the nearest, McLean could see that it was actually wooden, not the stone he had assumed. It bore an inscription to one Torquil Burroughs, and the next one was dedicated to a Septimus Needham. A particularly ornate plaque read "In Memoriam: Angus Cadwallader - Grand Master of the Guild of Strangers," and was dated Sixteen hundred and sixty six. Beneath it was some Latin McLean couldn't immediately translate, but it brought a welcome smile to his face. Later, perhaps, he'd be able to point it out to his friend the pathologist, but for now there were more important things to do.
As he shone the torch back down on the floor to try and follow Needy's footprints, the light flickered once and then died. McLean shook it, but nothing happened. He crossed over to the altar, to grab one of the candles. The eagle-carved lectern was empty. He was sure there had been a book on it earlier, and stooping low he could see that the footprints led first there, then around the back of the altar. Then they disappeared.
He studied the carved panelling behind the altar as best he could in the yellow flickering candlelight, but it was hard to see anything in great detail. Then he noticed that the flame guttered as he moved it past a certain spot. There was a gap in the woodwork, and when he pushed at it, something gave. A door opened up on darkness beyond.
~~~~
63
'It is the judgement of this court that you are found guilty of all charges. Namely the abduction, rape and murder of Laura Fenton, Diane Kinnear, Rosie Buckley, Jane Winston, Sarah Chalmers, Sarah Smythe, Josephine English, Henrietta Adamson, Corrine Farquhar and Kirsty Summers.'
The press are back again, filling the courtroom as if it were some cheap theatre. He sits at the front listening as the judge reads out the names, each one a stiletto in his soul. And then the last. Kirsty Summers. His Kirsty. He looks up at the guilty man. No longer the accused, no longer the slightest potential of innocence. Donald Anderson stares back with blank eyes, his face unreadable.
'There is only one sentence for the crime of murder, and that is life imprisonment. Given the evil nature of your crimes, and since you have shown no remorse for your actions, and indeed have attempted to a quite preposterous plea of insanity, I am recommending that you serve a minimum of thirty years with no opportunity for parole before that time. Gentlemen, take the prisoner down.'
The bang of the gavel is a starter pistol for a thousand voices. It is all over, and now the chatter starts. He watches as two policemen lead Donald Anderson away. He is sixty-three years old; he will die in prison. Justice has been served.
It is not enough.
It can never be enough.
~~~~
64
The blood and vomit footprints dried up after a half dozen steps, but there was no doubting that this was the way Needham had escaped. A gentle breeze fluttered the candle flame so that McLean had to hold his hand out in front of it to stop it going out. Enough light escaped
to show a well-built arched tunnel with stone walls and floor. The silence was eerie, as was the unusual warmth of the breeze, as if it were midsummer outside, not the depths of winter. There was a slight brimstone smell, too, and the air felt oddly unsatisfactory, leaving him short of breath. The candle flame was tiny, as if it too were struggling to breathe. He moved slowly, all too aware that even the dim light would mark him out to anyone watching and waiting at the other end, yet still reluctant to extinguish it. After a short while, the passageway stopped at a spiral staircase, climbing up.
Disorientated by the twists and turns of the basement under Needham's house, McLean wasn't sure quite where this might bring him. The garage perhaps? Or were there any other outbuildings in the garden. Too late to back out now. He took a step upwards.
It was after he'd been climbing for more than a minute that McLean began to understand what was going on. The house had been built by the man who owned the ironworks; he remembered Needy telling him, years earlier, how they'd once been the wealthiest family in Midlothian. Quite how the Guild of Strangers fitted in, he had no idea, but this tunnel, and the chapel down below, were obviously some early Victorian folly. A rich man's conceit; maybe even a way of spying on his workforce unseen.
His suspicions were confirmed moments later when he emerged into a windowless room lined with empty wooden shelves, and felt the temperature drop by several degrees. There was only one door, artfully disguised as part of a bookcase in the large office into which it opened. Shafts of light broke through gaps in the boarded-up windows. The candle cast shadows over some plain nineteen-fifties office furniture, but it was obvious from the decoration that this room had originally been the domain of the boss.
The beep, beep, beep of a truck reversing broke the silence, and with it McLean realised he could hear distant traffic again. He moved as fast as his candle flame would allow, across the office and into the next room. It, too, was boarded up, disused since the ironworks had closed down. This would have been the reception area for the administration of the business, he guessed. The door to the outside was locked, leaving only one other way that Needy could have gone. Into the great steel hall itself.
The space was huge; cast iron pillars rising like spruce trees to support the roof high overhead. The lower windows had been boarded up, but higher up they were still clear, letting dazzling sunlight through. Most of the heavy machinery had long since gone, and the floor space was now taken up with piles of building materials and machinery. Scanning around, he couldn't see Needy anywhere, but there were plenty of places to hide. Only one way out, though; the big roller doors that opened onto the compound beyond. They were closed right now, so with a little luck, Needy was trapped.
McLean put the altar candle down carefully on the concrete floor, then went to get his mobile phone out. Only then did he remember that it was in his jacket pocket, draped around Emma's unconscious body. He took one step towards the roller doors, looking for help. Something whistled out of the shadows at him.
Twisting out of the way, he took most of the blow on his shoulders and back, but it was enough to drive the wind out of him and send him to his knees. Coughing and retching, he tried to stand as Needy danced into view, an old leather-bound book clasped under one arm, a length of two by four in the other. His face was a mess of swollen redness, his eyes puffed up so much he surely couldn't see. And yet he was grinning like an idiot.
'You came back! I knew you would. It told me you would.' Needy shrugged the arm with the book under it, then raised the two by four again. McLean rolled out of its way as it cracked on the floor, and felt his arm knock something over. There was no time to see what it was, Needy was coming back for another blow. He rolled away again, and again, as the blows came faster and faster. He had to get to his feet, had to find something to fight back with.
The two by four hit the ground inches from his head, splinters cracked off the end of it cutting his face. For an instant it seemed that Needy had run out of breath. McLean seized his opportunity, grabbed at the length of wood, and pulled hard. He'd been hoping to catch Needy off balance, but the old sergeant yanked the stick free with surprising strength. Still, it had given McLean enough time to get to his feet. Now all he needed was a weapon of his own.
And then he saw the fire.
It was a small flame, but growing rapidly. The candle lay on its side, rolled up against a pile of sweepings that had caught and then spread to a pile of sawn timber. As he watched, tongues of blue flame licked up the walls, spreading both ways with a speed that couldn't be natural. It looked like a giant gas burner had just been turned on, and he was standing in the middle of the oven.
McLean was so transfixed by the sight that he lost track of Needham and the two by four. It struck him hard in the stomach, driving him to his knees. Before he could react it had whipped back the other way, clattering the side of his head and sending him back to the floor. The blood roared in his ears, he couldn't move, couldn't breathe. It was hard to focus, the edges of his vision dimming so that all he could see was Needy's legs and the fire behind them.
The two by four clattered to the ground, and then McLean felt hands grab him under his armpits. He tried to fight, but all the strength had gone from him. He was dragged a short way, propped up against a pillar. He managed to raise one hand, though it felt like it was encased in concrete, and touched the side of his head. Sticky wetness coated his fingers and pain exploded across his vision in a shower of sparks. When they cleared, he could see Needy, bending down and looking at him through those horrible, puffed-up eyes. He had the book in his hands, a quizzical expression on his face.
'Why do you fight it? It's nothing to be afraid of.' Needy opened the book and then held it up so that McLean could see. His vision was still blurry from the smoke and the blow to his head, but there was something about the size and shape of it that filled him with a terrible certainty. This was the book he'd found the slip of Kirsty's dress in. This was the Liber Animorum, the Book of Souls.
'I can't read it, Needy,' McLean said, his voice cracking. The heat was rising quickly now, the fire spreading between the piles of materials stacked up against the walls nearby. Needy didn't seem to have noticed at all.
'No, no, no. You don't read it. That's the whole point. It reads you. See?' The sergeant turned the book back around, his eyes went down to the words and he started to mouth cod-Latin gibberish.
'Itis apis potet avere bygone. Iacet summare quaelam coveris.'
McLean saw his opportunity, lunged for the piece of two by four lying off to his side. The wood was heavy in his hand, too heavy maybe. He rolled over, getting his other hand to it too, ignoring the pain that shot through his head. Scrabbling to his knees, he brought the weapon round in a sweeping arc just as Needy realised what was going on. The sergeant let out a surprised squawk, jumped up and let go of the book. He took two steps backwards in an attempt to steady himself, then tripped over his cloak and toppled over into the fire.
The flames leapt on him as if they were alive and hungry. His cloak caught first, then with a horrible fizzing sound audible over the roar of everything else, Needy's hair burst alight. He struggled upright, pulling himself out of the fire with hands that were bubbling and blistered. And yet he didn't scream, just kept on mouthing unheard words. McLean staggered back, legs giving out as the last of his strength left him. A pillar of human fire limped towards the book, stretched out its weeping hands, sank to its knees and then toppled forward onto the open pages. The paper caught in an instant, wrapping Needy's head in a wreath of yellow flame. McLean could only watch as the skin bubbled away, oozing red blood and yellow pus, Needy's jaw still working away as he tried to read the words that had consumed his soul.
*
McLean watched the book and the man who had been his friend as they burned. A part of him, deep inside, was shouting at him to get up, get out, but he could hardly breathe now. It felt like he was at the top of Everest, every muscle in his body screaming in pain. It was to
o much effort. He was so tired. He had no strength left. He'd fought so long to right the wrong that Anderson had done. Perhaps now it was time to stop fighting and just give up.
With the last of his dwindling strength, he put his hand in his pocket. Pulled out the thin strip of fabric that had been torn from Kirsty's dress. Barely able to hold it between his fingers, he watched as the fire-driven wind rippled it this way and that. He remembered her wearing it, how it hugged her figure, how it twirled when she danced and the smile in her eyes.
And then she was dancing again, that last tiny fragment. Pirouetting in the air currents, up and up, around and around, closer and closer until the roaring flames took her too. Tears stung his eyes, but they could not run. The heat evaporated them before they could wet his cheeks. Thwarted even in that last lament, he slumped onto the floor and prepared to die.
~~~~
65
She comes to him in his pain, like an angel of mercy. She is naked, but there is no shame in that. Her face is filled with joy, her hair tumbling over her shoulders like a deep black waterfall.
'Don't panic, Tony. It'll be over soon. One way or another.' He hasn't heard her voice in too long. He used to have a tape, but the fire took it, like it took everything else about her, left him only his memories. She bends down beside him, soothes his forehead with a hand as cool as the first good snow of winter.
'Kirsty.' He croaks the word, his throat like baked sand. It's so hot, he feels like he's burning up.
'Shhhh. I'm here. We're all here. It's going to be all right.'
And she's right, they are all here. One by one he sees them. Trisha Lubkin, Kate McKenzie, Audrey Carpenter, Laura Fenton, Diane Kinnear, Rosie Buckley, Joss Evans, the list goes on as all the people Needy and Anderson killed walk past him, one by one, and touch his brow with cool fingers. They are all naked, but all smiling, lively, excited. All free. And there are more, too. People he doesn't know, and people he does. John Needham as he was a decade earlier, staring at nothing, an expression of terror on his face. Donald Anderson, younger, dressed in a monk's habit and wide-eyed as he sees what he has done. What the book has made him do.
The Book of Souls (The Inspector McLean Mysteries) Page 30