Twelve Days

by Paul Williams

  ‘We didn’t even hear it,’ said Suzanne, ‘and we were right here.’

  ‘There’s a back door from the kitchen to the hallway.’

  Emily touched her face gingerly. ‘I can’t believe I let him do that to me. I feel so… powerless. So stupid.’

  Suzanne was trembling. ‘So what do we do now?’

  I paced the room. ‘We make a citizen’s arrest until we can get hold of the goddamn police. No wonder he didn’t want to try to contact them. No wonder he hid all the cell phones. No wonder.’ I punched my fist into my palm.

  Suzanne looked up at the window. Snow spattered the pane, and beyond the frame all we could see was white fuzziness. Her eyes were wet. ‘We’ll never get out of here.’

  ‘We will now. We have the murderer. Or at least the mastermind behind the murders. Meanwhile I’ll keep him locked up, and we sit tight. Until tomorrow. Or until I throttle him with my bare hands.’

  Suzanne stared at me in alarm. ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘I swear, I could.’ I hit my palm again with my fist.

  Emily held her head. ‘Such a throbbing headache. Mouth hurts like hell. Nausea, headache. He must have used fentanyl, or maybe even etorphine. Midazolam, maybe.’

  I helped her sit comfortably on the sofa. ‘Speak English, please.’

  ‘Etorphine is what they use to dart wild animals. But this feels more like fentanyl, which is an opioid, used for pain medication. It’s about seventy-five times stronger than morphine and can induce unconsciousness, or if in high enough doses, coma or death. But for some reason he didn’t give me a strong dose, thank God.’

  ‘You’re a walking medical journal,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll call you Lancet from now on.’

  ‘It’s my job. Side effects are… nausea, yes, dry mouth, yes, confusion, amen to that, asthenia or weakness, double amen.’

  ‘What can we do to help?’ said Suzanne.

  ‘There should be a first-aid kit in the kitchen.’

  ‘I’ll check,’ said Suzanne.

  Emily pulled me closer and squeezed my hands. ‘He revolts me. He’s always revolted me. The thought of his hands on me… that he would stick that thing on my face. I want to stick it on his face. Squish it into his holier-than-thou lying face.’

  Another night to get through. We had the killer, but I could not rest. My heart was still beating fast, and rage flowed through me. I paced Emily’s room, restraining myself from bursting into my own room and confronting him again. How dare you? Who do you think you are? And like Emily, I wanted to torture him, impale him, box him into one of those torture instruments and watch him suffer while his blood ran over my feet. I wanted him to know how it feels. Then I’d lie him on the guillotine, keep him alive so he could watch the blade come down on his neck. I, who prided myself on logic and deductive reasoning, on a cool head, was burning for revenge. It scared me.

  The horrible suspicion that he was not alone nagged at me. He had to have an accomplice. One person alone could not have achieved all this, given the gruesome circumstances of the murders and attempted murder. The concierge. The owner. And Linda must have been complicit in some way, so, despite her distress, I locked her in her room and took the key.

  I would leave the Reverend in my room to ponder his sins tonight.

  I made sure Emily’s door was locked, and then pushed her wardrobe against it. But I felt too wired to sleep. Emily fell into a deep slumber in my arms and I lay awake, recalling the details of the events of the last seven nights. Knowing now who was behind it all, it had been obvious from the start. The Reverend had planned every move, down to which torture instrument was appropriate for each person and which day was appropriate for each person to die, and had engineered each person to be isolated each night. Cold-hearted, scheming bastard. But I was puzzled still about many things. How had he known Mike would be outside on the fourth day? How did he get into Ali’s room? And he must have forged those notes from Suzanne in order to lure the male victims away from the others. He had made a classic faux pas by admitting knowledge of Danny’s note, and he had been absent at exactly the time some of the murders occurred. But I believed now he could not have done any of this without an accomplice. That was my next mission, to find out who, and stop him… or her.

  I fell asleep late, and woke early with a fright. Emily woke too and clutched my arm.

  We listened to the scraping and thumping coming from the corridor. I leapt up and pulled on my shoes and dressing gown. ‘Someone’s moving the dresser in the hallway.’

  Emily was wide-eyed. ‘Reverend James?’

  I pulled the wardrobe away from Emily’s door. I opened the door to see Suzanne across the hallway. She was peering out of her doorway and looked flustered. ‘Suzanne, what’s going on? Did you make that noise?’

  She indicated the heavy wardrobe behind her. ‘That was a mother to move,’ she said. ‘But I felt a little claustrophobic in there.’

  Emily in her pyjamas peered out of the door, and Suzanne gave a double-take, realising only then that I had slept in Emily’s room. ‘You two?’

  Emily nodded. ‘Platonic,’ she said, ‘in case you’re wondering.’

  Suzanne gave me a dubious look.

  ‘Oh,’ said Emily, ‘by the way, guys, happy New Year!’

  ‘It’s New Year’s Day today?’ said Suzanne.

  She nodded. ‘Eighth day of Christmas. Happy New Year.’

  ‘What a way to spend New Year,’ I said. ‘But at least we’re safe.’ I peered up the corridor. ‘I have to go and check on him.’

  They followed me to my room. The wardrobe was still barricading the door. Cotton thread unbroken. Door locked. I listened at the keyhole.

  ‘Reverend?’

  Not a sound. I was about to enter, then decided to let him stew in his own juices a little while longer. I wanted to interrogate Linda first.

  The three of us marched back down the corridor to Linda’s room. I took out the key and unlocked her door. Knocked gently. She did not respond. My heart beat faster. I pushed open the door and – thankfully – found Linda awake, praying by the side of her bed.

  Linda glowered at us and did not get up off her knees.

  Suzanne walked over to her and squeezed her shoulder. ‘Glad you’re okay. I’ll make us some breakfast.’

  I turned to Emily and Suzanne. ‘Yes, breakfast would be good. Meanwhile, I need to speak with Linda in private.’

  ‘Sure, boss,’ said Emily.

  Suzanne shrugged her shoulders. ‘Okay.’

  I waited until they were gone. I had planned this interrogation in the night. She must have known something about her husband’s intentions. She must be in a tortured state, knowing that he had murdered her lover, as well as her brothers and sisters in the Lord. Maybe she had been covering for him. Or else she was in on it. ‘Let me tell you where I’m at, okay, Linda, and you can help me, help us, help your husband even.’

  She did not look up at me. She had her finger on a passage in the Bible open on her bed.

  ‘Linda?’

  In response, she began reading the passage aloud, tracing each word with a trembling finger: ‘When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.’ Then she stared up at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

  ‘Linda, I’m not accusing you of anything, I just want to know how this all happened.’

  She closed the Bible. I imagined the hatred she must feel towards me. ‘We should have known,’ She said.

  ‘Maybe it all began with your affair with Glen.’

  She covered her face with her hands. Wiped tears away. A different Linda looked back at me. A defiant Linda, one who had the strength to stop being the meek pastor’s wife and have an affair. I was expecting denial, but to my surprise, she admitted it. �
��It was in the past. It was a terrible mistake. I paid for it so many times over.’ She pointed to her Bible. ‘As you can see. How do you think I feel? Can you know the pain of what you took such delight in exposing here?’

  I felt sorry for her. I wanted to show compassion. I reached out my hand. ‘I did not take delight in this.’

  She shrank away from my touch. ‘God made sure the wages of sin were paid long before you came along with your judgemental prying.’

  ‘The wages of sin is death.’ I recalled the verse we had memorised as teens. It had haunted me then. It must be haunting her now.

  She shuddered. ‘I had to earn my right to be a good wife again. I had to be ten times the helpmeet. But he forgave me. It was all going so well. Until this retreat.’

  ‘How did you feel about meeting Glen here again?’

  She gritted her teeth. Looked up at me. Wiped a tear that was running down her cheek. ‘I didn’t want to ever see him again. But he emailed me, told me it would be good, that seeing each other again would give us all closure, that he would not bring it up or embarrass me. He swore this. But Jay was tense. When I knew Glen was coming, I was afraid. Jay had been so angry with him, and this was the first time they would see each other since that time. Ten years. No, more. I was so afraid he would do something.’

  ‘Kill him, you mean?’

  She shuddered. ‘No. Confront him. And that’s exactly what he planned. I dreaded it. When I saw what he was doing that first night, I was terrified.’

  ‘You mean asking us all to write our sins on paper?’

  ‘Yes. He wanted Glen to confess. He wanted me to confess. Jay wanted repentance, apologies, and then forgiveness, reconciliation. He wanted to purge the demons that had been attacking us all. Clear the way. Restore The Twelve to its former glory. He would never, ever harm the hair on anyone’s head. I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t true. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. Jay would never take it into his own hands. Never. True, we did pray for justice, for truth, but when people started dying, we knew it was Satan… or an agent of Satan.’

  This was longest speech I had ever heard her make. Normally quiet, submissive, now she was shaken and angry. And clearly she hated me. ‘So you went to see Glen in the night. You knew this would make things worse. Were you still having an affair?’

  Her eyes were wide. ‘I never went to see Glen.’

  ‘You swear?’

  ‘On this Bible.’ She placed her hand on it.

  ‘Then who did I see in the corridor with him?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ But she looked pointedly towards the door.

  ‘Suzanne?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You think Suzanne had something to do with all this?’

  She nodded. ‘You and Suzanne and Emily.’

  I stepped back. ‘That’s ridiculous. Delusional. Linda, your husband just tried to kill Emily.’

  She threw herself on the bed, pushed the open Bible away. ‘I don’t believe her. Or you. She… she’s pure evil. Like you. She made it up.’ Linda backed herself up against the headboard of the bed. ‘I hate you. I try not to, but I hate you.’

  ‘Blame the messenger, is that it?’

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘No. That horrible book you wrote. You destroyed our reputation with that book. I wanted him to confront you about that book. He wanted you to repent.’

  ‘God is Dead? My book destroyed the Church?’

  ‘And so when you agreed to come here, he wanted to sort everything out. Then you bring all the dirt into the open. It’s all your doing.’

  ‘Or maybe he came here to get revenge on Glen, punish me. You know it’s the eighth day. If I hadn’t locked him up, my life would be in danger. You’ve just told me his motives now for killing Glen, Emily, me. Any more? Why did he want to kill Ali, Mike, Danny, Stephen?’

  I was not expecting it. She sprang to her feet and lunged at me. Slapped my face hard. I gripped her hand to restrain her, but she fought and struggled. ‘You– You monster!’

  ‘Knock, knock!’ Suzanne was at the door with a tray of coffee and toast.

  ‘Whoa!’ Emily rushed in to hold Linda back. She pulled her off me and sat her down again on the bed. Linda buried her face in her hands.

  Suzanne frowned at me. ‘What did you say to her?’

  Linda spat the words at us. ‘Just leave me alone, all of you.’

  Suzanne placed Linda’s coffee and her plate of toast on a bedside table. ‘Here, Linda. We’ll leave it here, okay?’ And to me, ‘Let’s have ours in the living room.’

  I held my burning cheek. ‘We’re finished here anyway. After breakfast, I want to interrogate the Reverend.’

  ‘Interrogate?’ said Linda.

  ‘Interview, then. Find out exactly what happened. And if he has any accomplices. We’re not out of the woods yet.’

  We ate toast and sipped coffee in the living room. Then I hunted around and found what I was looking for on the dining room table – the Reverend’s Bible, his sermon notes, his annotated Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, his diary. This was evidence indeed. I snatched it up and sat by the window to read.

  The leather-bound Scofield’s Bible was worn, and I remembered it from those early years when Reverend James brought it out every Sunday and pored over it. Inside the Bible I found scraps of paper, dog-eared pages, and handwritten notes labelled one through twelve. His sermons for each day! The sermons began with a diagram of the twelve days of Christmas. Ten of the days had been marked with the name of a member of The Twelve present at the beginning of the retreat. And in order of their murder – so far. Furthermore, each name was cross-referenced with pages referring to passages in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

  The bastard! He had planned it all so neatly, just as I thought. And right in front of us, outlined in this book. I turned the page and gave a start. For today, the eighth day, January 1st, I found my name scrawled next to a heading:

  The 8 Beatitudes – Matthew 5:3–10.

  I slammed the Bible shut. As predicted by the card I’d received on day one, I was to be the New Year victim. Today was my day of doom. I had caught him just in time.

  But what was this? In a pocket at the back of the Bible, I discovered eight folded notes. I opened one and read: Did not tithe the full amount. Another one read: I cannot control my impure thoughts.

  On each note, a name had been written with a query after it. Stephen? Danny?

  Then I understood. On that first night we had written our transgressions on scraps of paper, and Reverend James had burned them. Or said he burned them. But when our eyes were closed in prayer, he must have switched them for a fake set of notes ready to toss into the fire, and kept the originals so that he could read each and every Twelve member’s secret confessions.

  And then he had planned an appropriate punishment for each.

  No, he had this planned well in advance of that.

  I felt bad: I should not read people’s secret confessions.

  Did not tithe the full amount.

  The Reverend had guessed this brief confession had come from Stephen. To Danny he had assigned:

  Impure thoughts. Lust. I self-pollute every night, and hate myself for doing it. I fantasise about women, even married women. Lord help me.

  Mike was:

  Pride. I feel I am better than everyone else. I am so impatient at other people’s weaknesses and follies. Arrogant. Yes. Proud. Yes.

  On a scrap smaller than the others he had written ‘Alison’:

  I talk about people behind their back. Back-biting. Then smile and act all false when they are around. I’m a hypocrite. I pretend well. But I’m a mess inside.

  Linda’s matched the account she had given to me:

  You know me, Lord. You know everything. I have tried to be all you want me to be but I cannot be, I cannot. I fail. Every day. I doubt. I need faith, I need to trust you more, but I don’t.

  The Reverend had written Suzanne’s name confidently on her sc
rap, and the writing was similar to those on the notes I had found:

  I never really believed. There was a time I went along with all this. But I never believed in sin, in confessing sins. Maybe I am just so far astray that I don’t even know I am in sin. You want confession – here goes: I don’t love my husband. I don’t love my kids. I am self-obsessed. I know that. I use people. But is that sin? Or just smart?

  And here was Emily’s confession.

  I am an adulterer, a liar, cheater, philanderer, back-biter, sexually immoral, an idolater, have sex with other women, a thief, greedy, a drunkard, a slanderer, a swindler and much more.

  And finally, mine.

  There is no god.

  Emily and Suzanne walked into the room. I quickly stuffed the notes back into the pocket and snapped the Bible closed again.

  ‘Linda wants us to take up some food for her husband and see if he’s all right,’ said Suzanne.

  Emily reached over. ‘Reading your Bible, Rafe?’

  I brandished it in the air. ‘He set this whole thing up, for revenge. To teach us all a lesson. Accused us of the seven deadly sins. He’s deranged. He had plans for each day, exactly as we said. And he almost got away with it. But with you, Emily, he bungled it.’

  ‘It was weird. He didn’t tighten that face pear thing, whatever it was. That would have suffocated me.’

  ‘I wonder why. Was it a bungle or did he relent?’ I did not say what I was thinking with Suzanne present. Reverend James had had an affair with Emily. Maybe, just maybe, he had relented. At the last minute, found he still loved her and couldn’t go through with it. ‘And I’m next.’ I waved the Bible. ‘He had plans for the eighth day of Christmas, wrote my name next to the date, something about the beatitudes.’

  Suzanne lowered her voice. ‘And Linda. Where is she in all this?’

  ‘We have to watch her carefully,’ I said.

  ‘You think she’s involved?’ said Emily.

  I lowered my voice. ‘I’m sure she must have known something. After all, it began with revenge against her ex-lover Glen. But she’s on the hit list. He means– meant to get rid of her too.’