Twelve Days

by Paul Williams

  I pulled the reel of black cotton from my pocket and tied it at ankle level across each doorway. If anyone left their room in the night, I would know about it. Or if anyone entered anyone’s room, I would know about it too.

  Back in my room I did the same. Strung cotton across the entry, locked and bolted the door, and pushed the dresser against it. Emily was already in her pyjamas and sitting up in my bed. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Making sure the murderer can’t get into this room, or any other, without me knowing it.’

  ‘She may already be inside the room,’ she said, pointing to herself.

  ‘He may already be inside the room.’

  ‘We have to trust that neither of us is the murderer.’

  ‘Faith is the belief in things unseen…’

  Lying in bed, I doubted my strategy, leaving everyone alone and isolated. But I did not trust us all together either.

  ‘That was a very long hug,’ she said after a long silence. ‘What game is she playing?’

  I lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Maybe she’s just scared.’

  ‘Maybe she wants you to think she’s scared.’

  ‘By the way, it’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘The seventh day of Christmas. I’ve been keeping track.’

  ‘Great way to start the new year, then. Hope it’s a happy one.’

  7

  Seven swans a-swimming

  New Year’s Eve: the seventh day of Christmas. I woke up with Emily whispering in my ear. ‘Wake up, sleepy head. I’ve been watching you for ages. Wondering how you sleep so peacefully, like a baby.’

  I leaped up and checked the room. The door was still barricaded and locked, the windows shut tight.

  ‘I don’t know how you slept through the night,’ she said. ‘Don’t you ever feel afraid?’

  I combed the hair out of her eyes with my fingers. ‘Fear is an external imaginary, like pain. You can respond to it, or you can put it at arm’s length, observe it at a distance. Or reason your way out of its grip.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. I was so restless all night. My mind couldn’t let go of those images of Danny, and Stephen, and Mike.’

  ‘You’re a nurse, you must be used to gore and body parts.’

  ‘True. I usually can disassociate. But the horror gets into your veins, like the cold. Just seeps in. I felt so safe with you, though. I pity the others all on their own. Funny, Linda should be with Reverend James, but they insist on sleeping apart, even at a time like this.’

  ‘Maybe she’s wise not to trust him,’ I said. I moved the dresser, unlocked the door, and felt for the cotton thread outside. It was intact. ‘Better see how they all are.’

  I checked each door in turn along the corridor and nodded with satisfaction as each cotton line was also intact. No one had been in or out of these doors last night.

  ‘They’re all still asleep,’ whispered Emily, tiptoeing so the board would not creak so loud. ‘Why did we have to get up so early?’

  ‘Just doing my job.’

  ‘Let’s go and make some coffee.’

  I followed her downstairs and into the living room. While she blew the fire into life, I went into the kitchen to find clean cups and put the kettle on. Then I heard her cry out. ‘My God.’

  I found her staring at Alison’s place at the table. On the mat was a bowl of six large eggs.

  Emily clung to me. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Ali?’

  ‘We’d better get to her room, quick.’

  We bounded up the stairs and along the corridor. I rapped on the door, shouting Alison’s name.

  Emily knocked on the other doors, raising the other women.

  Linda and Suzanne were the first to unlock their doors and step out into the corridor. Then Reverend James appeared at the end of the corridor, wearing only a towel and holding a razor. His chin was nicked and blood oozed down his neck.

  ‘Six geese a-laying,’ I said. ‘Six eggs on Ali’s plate.’

  ‘Ali, open the door!’ Suzanne rattled the door handle, turned it to get Alison to come and open it. But to her surprise the door opened a little. ‘She didn’t lock it!’

  I felt the thread across the doorway; it was intact. ‘It was locked last night. I checked it.’

  The dresser was still in place against the doorway, and I had to shove it away to get into the room. Suzanne stumbled as she broke the thread, but caught herself as she rushed in after me. The room stank of Suzanne’s perfume. There, on the bed, lay Alison covered in blood. She wore an iron mask with a devil’s face etched on the front. ‘The heretic’s mask,’ I said, recognising it from the display cabinet in the torture museum. Blood seeped from her chin onto the floor. Suzanne’s screams filled the room.

  ‘Help me with this, she may still be alive.’

  Emily checked her pulse. Shook her head. I checked Alison’s body for other wounds, and found the telltale little red puncture wound in her neck. I crumpled, defeated. I had tried to ensure her safety. She had feared for her life, and had predicted this. And I had reassured her that she would be okay. How hideous.

  I held the mask lightly with both hands. ‘Ready?’

  ‘I think you shouldn’t watch this,’ Emily said to Suzanne and Linda. Linda hid behind her husband, and Reverend James closed his eyes in prayer, but Suzanne watched, steely-eyed. Emily held one side of the mask, me the other, and we pulled upwards. My stomach turned at the sucking sound, the resistance as the spikes pulled out of her eyes, nose and mouth and the blood flowed onto my hands.

  ‘What are you doing to her?’ started Reverend James. ‘Please–’

  ‘A cloth, a towel, please.’

  Suzanne grabbed a towel that was draped over the back of the chair and flung it at Emily, who dabbed the eye cavities, nose and mouth. Alison was dead. Had been dead for hours.

  ‘Look!’ Emily whispered. There, gouged into her forehead, were the numbers six six six.

  Reverend James fell back. ‘Satan be gone!’

  Emily dabbed the cuts with the cloth. ‘Superficial wounds, cut with a sharp knife,’ she murmured to me. She turned to the others. ‘I think the mask would have killed her, suffocated her.’

  Reverend James closed his eyes. ‘Jesus, help us.’

  Emily gave a small cry when she noticed the note Alison was concealing in her clenched fist. She pulled it out from between the dead woman’s fingers and unfolded it.

  I immediately recognised the handwriting. It was the same as that of the letter I had found by Danny’s bed, the same as the note in my pocket. Suzanne’s handwriting.

  But it was Reverend James who said it aloud. ‘Another note!’

  I stared hard at him. Only Emily and Suzanne knew about the note, and I doubted either of them would have told the Reverend.

  Suzanne stepped back against the door frame to the hallway, eyes wide. ‘I didn’t write it.’

  It was an odd thing to say. She hadn’t seen the note. ‘It’s in your handwriting.’

  Her eyes pleaded with mine. ‘You know it’s a set-up. You know that, Rafe.’

  I snatched the note from Emily’s fingers, but she held it tight. ‘Read the damn thing,’ I snapped.

  Emily read aloud: ‘On the Sixth day, God commanded us to subdue our vile base nature and have dominion over every living lustful thing that moveth upon the earth. The sixth commandment is Thou Shalt not Kill. The mark of the beast is six six six. The number six symbolises the frailty of human weakness. Man was created on the sixth day. Men are appointed six days to labour. The sixth day of Christmas. One short of perfection.’

  The air was heavy with the smell of death. Linda was shaking violently. Reverend James looked about him with arms up in defence as if demons were swooping on him. No one spoke for a long time. Emily folded up the note.

  Finally, Suzanne said in a trembling small voice, ‘Who would do such a thing? What sick mind?’

  ‘Al
i,’ wailed Linda. ‘Poor Ali.’

  Suzanne put her arms around Linda.

  ‘Dear Lord Jesus,’ said Reverend James. ‘Help us.’

  I helped Emily wrap Alison in some towels and blankets we found in the cupboard.

  ‘Now what do we do?’ said Emily.

  I looked from the window to the room. ‘The door was locked. I heard her push the dresser against the door.’

  ‘So how did the monster get in?’ said Suzanne. ‘Did she let him in?’

  ‘I thought you said you had made the rooms safe,’ wailed Linda to me.

  Emily checked the window, which was locked tight. ‘So she must have known him,’ she said, looking directly at Reverend James. ‘Or her.’ And she looked straight at Suzanne.

  Suzanne gave Emily a scornful look. ‘I had nothing to do with these stupid notes.’

  I played with the lock, turning the key. If this was electronically activated, the killer could easily have remotely opened the door. But then the dresser was in place. The cotton thread too.

  Reverend James looked pointedly at me. ‘She knew not to trust Rafe. So much for your plan to keep us safe.’ He dabbed the blood on his chin.

  I resisted the urge to retaliate. I knew I had failed Alison, had failed the others. ‘I don’t need to be reminded how terrible I should feel, especially by some sanctimonious, holier-than-thou preacher.’

  ‘Now you look here,’ said Reverend James, once again stepping towards me. He lifted his chin and clenched his fists. What, was he going to punch me?

  ‘Save it for later,’ said Emily. ‘Right now we need to move Alison to our makeshift morgue.’ With that, she placed a towel over Alison’s face, and then the women followed this funeral procession as Reverend James and I carried her to the torture museum. It was a struggle for us to carry Alison across the corridor. She smelt of blood. Here was another death I had been unable to prevent. She had tried to run away, would rather have died in the snow outside than like this, and I had made her stay and face the most horrible execution imaginable. The only consolation was the murderer’s modus operandi. He killed them, or at least rendered them unconscious before he applied the torture instrument to them, I was sure. But it was little consolation: he had done this not in mercy but practicality. It was easier to affix the heretic’s mask to an unconscious or dead victim than to one who would scream herself to death.

  Emily walked ahead, pushed open the door, I went ahead to check it was safe, and we placed Alison gently on the floor near the window. Linda unwrapped the towels and blankets. ‘We have to keep her cold.’

  Reverend James inspected the line of torture implements in the open cabinet. ‘I remember the mask being over here.’ Sure enough, the tag was still on display on an empty cabinet: ‘Heretic’s mask’.

  Such irony, I thought: Alison was faithful to the end, and died in a heretic’s mask.

  I quickly scanned the room. It looked as if nothing else had been touched. The three other corpses kept guard over the remaining torture instruments, frozen in position like trophies collected by some sick serial killer. Emily checked each corpse to make sure the cadavers were being kept cold enough to avoid any deterioration setting in. Snow had blown in the open window. It had gathered in corners like ghost cobwebs as well as behind Stephen’s head and body, making an icy cushion. The blood that had pooled around Danny’s sarcophagus was ice-purple.

  While the others were engaged, I looked across the room and spied a set of medieval handcuffs and two sets of keys in a display cabinet. The handcuffs were shaped like horseshoes; the iron was dull with rust, but they looked serviceable. I slipped them into my coat pocket along with one of the key sets. I also pocketed a small dagger.

  Just in case.

  ‘Please, can we go,’ said Linda to her husband. ‘Now can we leave this despicable place?’

  ‘We meet in the living room,’ I said. ‘The Truth Session begins in fifteen minutes.’

  They all knew what I meant. In the old days, Reverend James used to conduct what he called Truth Sessions. He would gather the kids into his office in a big circle and demand public confessions, interrogate them about their transgressions. Kids would end up crying, baring their souls, humiliating themselves, purging their secrets.

  In the living room, as they sat in a semicircle around the fire, I stood before them and outlined what was going to happen.

  ‘You know the rules. We question one another and we have to answer honestly, no matter how confronting. We must get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘Who are you to do this?’ said Linda. ‘Reverend James should conduct this session–’

  I ignored her. ‘You will all have a turn at asking questions.’

  Reverend James nodded. ‘It’s okay, Linda. I agree, we need to talk. I have nothing to hide.’

  Linda sulked beside her husband, throwing me resentful glances. I faced the group. All eyes were on me. Now was the moment of reckoning.

  ‘Reverend James, tell us the precise meaning of the note in Ali’s hand. Earlier, you mentioned the six days of creation.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, that’s right. On the sixth day, God made man and gave him dominion over the earth.’

  ‘So how would you say this connects to Ali’s death?’

  ‘Why ask me? I have nothing to do with Ali’s death.’

  ‘You have explained every death so far.’

  ‘I have no idea.’ His face was red in the reflection of the firelight.

  ‘I do,’ said Emily quietly. Everyone turned to her. ‘The heretic’s mask inflicts six wounds on the face. It has six prongs. That’s the first thing I noticed when I was examining her.’

  I had seen it too. I could see the others working out which six wounds in their minds.

  Emily continued: ‘Whoever did this planned it well in advance, setting us up in this deserted castle, in the middle of winter, with an array of torture weapons to use against us, to make his point. Each torture weapon numerically corresponds to the day.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Suzanne.

  ‘She’s saying,’ I said, ‘that this had to be planned so well in advance that only Reverend James could have known the plans.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Reverend James. ‘I was always here with you.’

  Linda held her waist tight as if she had a stomach cramp. ‘How could any of us have carried out these hideous deaths? We were always together.’

  Emily shook her head. ‘Were we? Maybe this person, one of us, had an accomplice. Maybe even the concierge, or the person who owns the torture museum. Did anyone actually see the concierge leave?’

  ‘You mean he could be hiding in the castle somewhere?’ Suzanne looked over her shoulder at the dark passage.

  The Reverend suddenly lunged past me and picked up the poker. He stirred the logs violently in the fire, making sparks fly. ‘So, Rafe, what gives you the right to question everyone first?’

  ‘Because I know something you don’t know. About Glen. The night he was killed, that first night, he called me urgently to speak to him. It was the first thing he said when we met.’ I looked at Emily and she widened her eyes in feigned surprise, looked grateful that I had decided not to involve her with this… yet. ‘So I went to his room and we stood on the balcony. Yes, the one that he fell from later. And Glen said he was scared of something about to happen, and told me to be careful. To lock my door. What was he afraid of? He knew. But what did he know? I never found out.’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Reverend James.

  Linda looked terrified. Bit her lip.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ said Suzanne. ‘He knew about all this?’

  ‘I didn’t know what he meant then. I thought Reverend James had trapped us here to reconvert us, to expose our past sins.’

  Reverend James nodded. ‘Partly true, yes. God called me to bring you together for a recommitment of our faith.’

  ‘There’s more,’ I continued. ‘I saw him with someone, a woman, arguing with
him, and she went into his room that night. Who was that?’

  Linda would not meet my eye, but her face reddened. Reverend James looked visibly shaken.

  ‘One of you women went to see Glen that night. Who?’

  ‘I don’t think any of us would admit it if we did,’ said Emily. ‘And why would we meet him?’

  ‘To sort out old wrongs, maybe.’

  Linda stood up. ‘I’ll go make coffee.’

  ‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘I think that person was you, Linda.’

  ‘What?’ said Reverend James. ‘How dare you accuse my wife?’

  ‘I saw you. I heard you arguing. Then you went into his room. I want to know what happened in that room.’

  ‘I never left my room,’ said Linda, her face pale now, her eyes wide. ‘Why would I visit Glen?’

  ‘Because you were still having an affair with him.’

  Reverend James turned from the fire to face me, the poker red hot in his hand. ‘Rafe, I’m warning you. These baseless accusations–’

  ‘Put that poker down. Let me continue.’

  The Reverend lowered his hand, as if only now realising he was brandishing a weapon, and placed the poker back in its stand.

  My heart was beating loudly, but I stood my ground and continued speaking calmly. ‘Some unfinished business, Linda. You were having an affair with Glen, and you visited him that night. I want to know what you were doing and how long you were with him. You’re the key to everything.’

  I had never felt such hatred directed at me as at that moment. Linda’s eyes. Reverend James’ frown. ‘Rafe, I’m warning you.’

  ‘Reverend, this is a Truth Session. You will have your turn.’

  The others stared. No one had crossed the Reverend in public before without retribution. I had been waiting to do this for twenty years. It felt good. I returned my gaze to Linda. ‘Let me assume that your visit had something to do with his death later on. You were the last person to see him alive. Did you kill him? Or did your visit make your husband jealous enough to go and kill him?’