League of Lilith, The: A thriller with soul

by Sugrue, Rosalie

  “You brought the devil to me and I embraced your satanic gift.”

  Ben’s brain starts to thaw. Hawthorne is talking crazy. The Cheat has cracked.

  “I should kill you … I should kill us all.”

  Hawthorne is deranged and dangerous. If Ben wasn’t such a puny coward he would burst through the door and drop the maniac with a punch or karate chop, but Ben has never so much as pushed anyone in his entire life.

  Despite her terror Kat has enough wits to grab the bell. The buzzer sounds as a continual siren. A red light sparks above the door and a nurse rushes into the room. She arrives in panicked speed and freezes in bewilderment. The nurse is middle-aged, small in build, and possibly Indian. Hawthorne pulls back from the bed. “God has tested us, whore. You failed by selling your body. I failed by your work. You will rot in hell, but I can still be saved. What I have done, can be undone.”

  The madman rushes past the nurse, striking her with his bag as he turns. The woman stumbles and slips in the vomit. Kat tries to follow him, jerks upright but crumples back into the pillows. She tries again, taking it slower and tensing against the pain. She can’t even get out of the bed. Ben takes a last look at her desperate face. He must become her legs.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Sarai struggles through the maze of hospital corridors in a trance. Her mind is blank. She takes a wrong turn and becomes disoriented. She looks for signs but the words she reads label places she doesn’t want to be. She is trapped in the bowels of the hospital. Her bag is weighing her down. She leans heavily on her stick, knowing only that she must get away from this place. Finally she locates the main foyer.

  The clack of her car door unlatching jolts her to reality. She shoves her bag and stick to the back seat and sits behind the wheel. She has to go, she must go, but where to? She shakes her head, searching for clarity, and something catches the corner of her eye. A folder sits on the passenger seat: University Prospectus 2010. Sarai had picked it up out of interest – she had been farewelled by the faculty, very suitably indeed, but couldn’t help her interest in the next year’s curriculum. Her eyes hone in on the university crest emblazoned in the centre of the folder. All she can comprehend is a dead lamb. The swinging carcass, symbol of Canterbury’s wealth, grows to a huge spectre. Canterbury lamb is bred for death. In a supreme effort to be rid of the portent Sarai wrests the folder from the seat and hurls it from her car.

  She must exorcise the vision … replace it with another visual. Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. The words appear in carved relief from the altar chapel of long-distant Anglican boarding school days. Sarai does not consider herself Christian, not even post-Christian, but she is attuned to the power of symbol whatever the context. She breathes deeply and strives to open herself to Sophia. A new mind-picture forms. Beginning as a kaleidoscope, glowing flecks of colour fall into a pattern, the still pattern is a magnificent rose window. This is the sign she must behold. The window is the key to death or life.

  Wilkin whirls from the whore’s room with one intent: find the bastard child. He paid, paid well, to destroy the unwanted usurper. The cheating, lying whore deceived him. Now she will suffer and God will get his sacrifice. No woman will outwit him. There must be a nursery somewhere where babies are labelled and stored.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Ben uncoils from his hiding place and engages his brain. Hawthorne is dangerous, of this he feels sure, but what can he do? You can’t go to the authorities with a feeling. He has no right to even be at the hospital. He knows where Hawthorne’s car is parked. He can follow the man. If Hawthorne’s intent is evil he will gather proof.

  Skirting the exterior of the hospital is like tracing the outline of an octopus, but he must eventually sight its main-door mouth and the adjacent car park. Yes, the silver Chrysler is still angled across a wide mobility park.

  Ben jumps into his own car and reverses it in readiness. Hawthorne’s company car sits empty.

  An idea sidles into Ben’s mind, a possible ally. His father said SUS wants rid of Hawthorne but hasn’t sufficient reason. Ben sends a text direct to Ralph Stopforth: Hawthorne is visiting his mistress at maternity

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  32 — Demons

  2.00 pm

  Jen huddles on a corridor bench, folded as far as her pregnant belly allows, hands clutched over her head, fingers clawing hair as she rocks. “It can’t be, it can’t be,” she moans over and over. Wilkin is the father of Kat’s child. He can’t be. Wilkin is her husband. Kat is her friend. Kat is a prostitute. Kat was raped by a client. Kat called him Arthur. Wilkin’s second name is Arthur. She had punched Wilkin Arthur Hawthorne.

  Jen looks at her fist, it is darkening with a bruise but she feels nothing. It is too much to take in. Despite spending ten minutes cleaning up in a toilet she stinks of vomit. She feels faint. She wants to pass out. She wants to escape from this nightmare. She wills the world to go black. The hospital lino spreads from her feet in unrelenting dull green, curving up the wall opposite until halted by a metal rod.

  Her husband uses prostitutes! She is going to be sick again. She gags into a bout of dry retching. When the spasm passes she lolls against the wall. How could Wilkin do this to her? How could Kat do this to her? She replays the scene, it comes to her in grey … Wilkin bursting into the room, screaming, You lying, thieving slut, I paid you to get rid of it. Paid? An unwanted memory wants to surface. Jen chokes it down, forcing herself to think of Kat … the grey replay goes black. Kat is the epicentre of Jen’s life implosion. She can’t force herself to remember. Everything is black. Has she fainted? No, the black is lightening to shades of grey. The lino, walls and handrail are still there. They are grey. Everything is grey. The colour has drained from her life. The shape of her life has been permanently distorted. There is nothing left to hang on to.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  2.05 pm

  Wilkin is aware he’s not acting rationally but can’t separate reality from nightmare. Too much trauma has impacted in too short a time. Thoughts shunt through his mind as he passes Hagley Park, turns through Riccarton. Headstones glare at Church Corner. To suppress rising ghosts of memory he sinks his foot down.

  Arthur’s Pass — Open, he reads. The city is behind him. So are the memories of the last two days. His mind is as blank as the dry fields with their inconsequential sheep. Turning into the broken hill-country he slackens off and fiddles with the CD player. He doesn’t want recent memory seeping back into the heavy void occupying his mind. He floods the space with music, drowning any struggling buds of thought.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Ben is right behind the Chrysler. Traffic lights are the biggest hurdle — so easy to get separated. When the car in front pulls away from the city, Ben senses elation: the West Coast road has no traffic lights and sparse traffic. Unless Hawthorne gives the Chrysler full throttle, Ben will be able to keep him in sight.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  “A baby has been taken from a treatment room!” The words float past Jen’s grey world. She doesn’t hear them but they enter her space. She tries to pull them through her haze. The words have little meaning. Babies are moved round the maternity wing as required. It is the urgency of the voice that cuts through the haze. Someone is alarmed.

  “Call security, lock the exit!”

  Running footsteps cause Jen to look up, then a nurse is gripping her by the shoulders. “Did you see anyone carrying a baby?”

  “No, no I haven’t.’

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Stay here, don’t move. No one is to leave the building.”

  “Why?”

  “The hospital is under lock-down until the police arrive. A baby is missing.”

  They think Wilkin has stolen a baby. Wilkin wouldn’t do that. Wilkin has a baby, her baby, their baby. Wilkin is the father of Kat’s baby. Does she know Wilkin at all? Wilkin is her husband. The blood in Jen’s veins runs backwards. H
er toes curl into the soft soles of her shoes, her calves start to cramp. Move comes the command from her brain. She staggers to her feet, clinging to the corridor rail. Her black vision of Kat takes on a blue tinge in her mind. She is not processing the experience but colour is returning. The grey hues wash from blue, through red, to purple. Natural multi-colour begins to seep then flow into the hospital corridor and into her mind’s eye. She has a vision of Kat red-eyed and wrecked, stranded in bed having been delivered of child, and the child has vanished. Why? Who?

  Where is Sarai? Sarai hasn’t returned from the chapel. Jen is startled by the thought. Sarai has to know what’s happened. Sarai is magic. She will be able to fix this. Sarai is magic? What rubbish she is thinking. Magic is illusion created for entertainment used by stage magicians and hypnotists. Yesterday Sarai took them on a spiritual journey and gave them a profound experience. What if Sarai is a hypnotist? A mad hypnotist — and uniting with One-Soul was an illusion. Jen bangs the heels of her hands against her aching forehead and forces her senses back to the exterior world. She must find Sarai. She heads down to reception and the branching of the corridors. A knot of people including two security guards are listening to a nurse. The air is charged. The nurse reads from a clipboard. “A baby girl, 18 hours old, in stable condition, missing.”

  A receptionist pitches into the conversation. “What do you mean missing?”

  The nurse looks aggravated. “I can’t keep repeating this. The empty crib was found in a treatment room … I gather there was a domestic dispute in C Wing and now a baby is missing. It looks like the estranged boyfriend has taken the child.”

  They are convinced Wilkin took the child. Wilkin wouldn’t. Where is Sarai? Jen follows the signs to the chapel. It is empty. “Sarai, where are you?” She calls aloud to the vacant pews and turns to go. A male nurse stands in the doorway.

  “Are you OK?” he asks.

  “Yes, yes I am,” says Jen feeling stupid. “It’s just I’ve lost my friend, Sarai,” she offers in explanation. “Sarai said she was coming here.”

  “Your friend, she isn’t an elderly woman is she?”

  “Yes, have you seen her?”

  “An elderly woman was here a little while ago. She appeared to be having some sort of a turn. I found her on the floor and urged her to sit for a while, but she appeared to recover quickly and she took off. I was concerned about her. She looked rather strange … unwell,” he amends.

  “Which way did she go?” The nurse points. “Thank you.”

  Jen realises she is almost running. She circuits the gaggle of security and management in reception, hot-foots it down C Wing, bursts into C7 and is overwhelmed by the appearance of Kat. Her shoulders are heaving. She is sobbing but no sound is escaping. Her face is deathly white, her eyes bloodshot and transfixed. Jen skates on the freshly mopped floor, regaining her balance at the bed, arriving with arms outstretched. There are no words, no apology, no reprimand, Jen gathers Kat in her arms and pulls Kat’s face into her neck. A gasping, gurgling sob fights its way out of Kat. She is shaking, Jen tightens her grip. The hug vibrates an urgency and energy that neither woman has experienced before. Kat finds enough air to begin crying. Tiny sobs pit the silence. Jen strokes the amber hair and together they gently rock.

  Kat tries to talk. “Ar … ar … Arthur … has her. Arthur has my baby.” Jen pulls back from Kat, grasps both shoulders and looks straight at her. “It’s not Wilkin, Kat. It’s Sarai!”

  The silence that follows is broken by an explosion of people arriving in the room. Nurses, security and management personnel pour into the room, eight or nine people cram into the cube of single room. One of the suits babbles something about caring for Kat and the hospital’s commitment to support her through this crisis. He is cut short by a new intruder. “The security footage is up. We need someone to ID the people leaving the treatment area.”

  “The patient can’t move,” calls a nurse. “She had a caesarean last night.”

  “Make a space, bed coming through,” snaps another.

  In seconds the whole rabble are trundling the corridors. Concerned faces peek from doorways. Sirens can be heard outside. The trip to the security base takes forever. At the door the group has to be rationalised. “Who are you?” rasps the police officer who seems to be in charge.

  “Family,” replies Jen with non-negotiable confidence. “I have been here all morning. I know everyone who has visited Kat and the baby. I also know who has the baby.”

  The group wheel, all eyes clamp on Jen. “You know?” barks the officer.

  “Her name is Sarai. She is a 72-year-old woman. I fear she may have had a breakdown or some psychotic episode. She may be planning to hurt the baby.”

  Kat’s voice cuts through the questions that pour fourth. “Jen, Jen, stop it!” Her wild eyes pull from Jen to the group. “She is protecting her husband. He has my baby.”

  The group pause, the distraught mother is becoming hysterical. The cop does his job. “We need to see the video and she comes with us.” He indicates Jen. The bed is rolled in. Two cops, two security guards, hospital administrator, and Jen pack around it in a room no bigger than a lift.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  2.35 pm

  Greg McRae, acting head of Canterbury Hospital, curses his boss under his breath. Bastard philandering truant! Worst PR incident in years and Riley is in Vegas on ‘conference’. Greg doesn’t want to step up and he definitely doesn’t want to run this situation. He knows that no matter how much he proves himself or however cleanly he gets the hospital through this mess, he will never get the top job. Riley is 52 and will never retire or relocate. Greg has nothing to gain from solving this incident, and much to lose. This situation could spiral out of control: the hospital will be all over the news for days and he will be the fall guy. This is a nightmare. “Roll the tapes, Stevo. Let’s get this sorted right now.”

  Steve has the correct time period dialled up. Everyone watches silently for a couple of minutes at x4 speed. Staff and visitors jerk across the screen. Steve slows the tape. “Isn’t that our star winger with backpack and flowers?”

  “We aren’t interested in him. His wife had a baby yesterday.” He doesn’t add what he has been keeping from the media – the man’s child died within a couple of hours of its premature birth.

  “That’s him!” Kat’s voice cracks out.

  Greg stares at the freeze-frame and drops his head into his hands. “For God sakes!” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Wilkin fucking Hawthorne! That stayed inside his head and so does a series of partially known facts, High-profile businessman Hawthorne; Cathedral Chapter Hawthorne; personal pal of the fucking Mayor Hawthorne. The suspected kidnapper is one of the biggest names in Christchurch. Even if he is innocent, someone is going to accuse him of a ghastly crime. Greg curses his boss, his mistress and Vegas. The image is clear enough to identify him. The man on screen moves erratically, looking into rooms. He appears distressed and disoriented.

  “He’s moving toward the treatment rooms,” Greg informs the room.

  No, Jen says to herself. No Wilkin, no.

  “We don’t have camera coverage round that corner,” says the technician.

  “Scroll forward, Steve.” The images flash forward at zigzagging digital pace. “STOP!” several voices chime in urgent unison.

  “Here he comes again,” mutters a police officer.

  “One minute, 40 seconds later,” offers Steve at controls.

  A security guard speaks up. “That would be enough time to snatch a kid and get back to the main corridor.”

  Greg flicks his head around so sharply his bulging eyes nearly pop out. He stares at the hapless guard. “Would you like to try … try just a little bit of sensitivity?” he nods his head at Kat.

  Kat has no time for politics. “It’s OK, and it’s the truth. Look at the bag. My baby is in …” the sentence is unfinishable.

  The chief cop steps in. “Ms Mergagh I know this is a terrible time, but the
sooner we can get good information the sooner we can get your baby back to you. What is your relationship to Mr Hawthorne?”

  Kat is trying to control her sobbing and looks as if she is about to speak. Greg interjects abruptly. “Officer. This is not the place for private discussions. Let’s go to my office. Steve, you help with Ms Mergagh. Officer Haslow, please come with me. This is a very distressing business for Ms Mergagh and everyone involved. I must insist that nothing you have seen here is shared beyond these walls.” He casts a threatening look around the room. Heads nod, mouths mumble. “Not a word, it is our responsibility to Ms Mergagh and her baby.” The room empties. Urgency propels the cluster forward. Jen hangs back and takes out her phone, Wilkin still isn’t answering. Where the hell is he? What is he up to?

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  2.40 pm

  Jen slips back to the bank of security monitors and presses ‘play’. Wilkin exits frame right. People skitter through the pictures. Sarai, plain as day, entering the main foyer. She looks around furtively and exits through the main entrance. As usual she is carrying her jute bag. She wears the strap over her head with the bag swung to her right side. It hangs heavy, supported by her right hand. Her left hand holds the walking-stick she favours these days. She is leaning heavily on her stick.

  Jen presses ‘pause’ and pulls out her cell phone and winds the media back and presses ‘play’. With her camera she films the images on the screen. In a few minutes she has recorded both Wilkin and Sarai’s appearances with a little pre and after footage. It is clear to her that Wilkin is not carrying a baby in her hospital bag. Jen has not a shred of doubt; Wilkin has not stolen the baby.

  Sarai on the other hand … her demeanour sends a chill down Jen’s back. She sees something indefinable but sinister in Sarai’s body language. She must find Sarai — but first she must check on Kat.