‘Where are we going, Rafe?’
‘There is one place we didn’t look. The cellar.’
‘What cellar?’ said Suzanne.
‘He just told us. The cellar, he said.’
‘I didn’t even know there was a cellar,’ said Suzanne.
‘I think there’s a set of steps going down from the corridor as well as up,’ said Emily.
‘And Glen mentioned it on the first night. Said it was a no-go area. This could just be where it all happens. They have to be hiding somewhere, and this is the only part of the castle we haven’t explored.’
We armed ourselves and set off in a convoy. The hallway was already dark and the afternoon light slanted across the passage. Emily was right. We found a set of cold stone steps going down, and at the bottom, a door, wide open. Light flickered inside.
Emily clutched her coat. ‘He’s expecting us. He’s been watching us.’
‘It’s a trap,’ said Suzanne.
I held up the axe like a wand to dispel all evil. ‘Come.’
Now Emily was shaking. ‘We can’t go in there!’
‘Shield your eyes.’ I raised the axe and smashed the lock on the open door. The wood splintered onto the floor. I hit it again and the door collapsed.
‘Rafe, the door’s open.’
‘We don’t want to be trapped inside after we go in.’
‘We’re not going in,’ said Suzanne.
I stepped over the debris I had made and they followed me. ‘Trust me.’
The cellar was lit by crude neon lights overhead, one flickering and sparking. The room was a low-ceilinged, damp dungeon of a place, but sparse so that I could see there was nowhere for anyone to hide and waylay us. I kept to the side of one wall, and stared at the rows and rows of wine bottles. They were dusty. Stickers with dates told me the wine was home-brewed.
The room was not heated, and should have been cool, but heat emanated from a separate room at the end of the shelves. And a noise. Shuffling, rustling and creaking. Someone was here. I peered around the shelves and looked into the room.
A quivering voice greeted us. ‘Wh-who is it?’
I expected Oz. I expected the killer’s lair. I expected an attack, a booby trap, but not this.
This was a voice in distress, a pleading, terrified voice. A muffled, gagged voice. And one I knew very well.
‘Reverend James,’ I called out.
The Reverend was in the centre of a bare storeroom, tied to a rack, the rack we had all seen upstairs in the torture museum. His arms were stretched above his head, his legs splayed out. His clothes had been removed, but he was covered in a hairy coat.
‘Thank God you’ve come,’ he said, his eyes wide, his head covered in sweat.
I reeled. Was this a trick?
‘Please, I’m in agony.’
The rack had been designed to stretch and break the victim’s bones. Emily pointed to the top of the device where a handle ratcheted up the pressure. She turned the handle. It was tight. ‘Other way, other way,’ I said.
‘Slowly, please.’
‘Hold this.’ I gave Suzanne the axe. ‘Guard him, be alert. Watch the doors. This could be a trap.’
Reverend James shook his head. ‘It is a trap. He’s waiting for you. For us all.’
‘Who?’
‘Satan.’
He couldn’t have tied himself up. Did Linda do this? He looked to be in real distress, and the rack had been tightened just enough to keep him in pain but not enough to break anything. I loosened the pressure.
‘Untie him,’ I said.
‘You sure?’ said Emily. I nodded.
She used the dagger to slit the cloths that bound him. When I helped him off the rack, he could hardly move and collapsed onto the floor. Emily went to work, examining him for injury, but keeping her guard up in case he attacked. I spotted the characteristic red dot in his neck.
Suzanne gripped the axe tight, guarding the doorway.
‘Where’s Linda?’
His eyes were wide with terror. ‘She isn’t with you?’
This was not the Reverend James we had conjured up in the last day; not the murderer, the voice playing games with us.
‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.
‘You locked me in my room, then I felt Satan’s presence, the fiery darts of Satan, and found myself here. I thought hell. Forever. I don’t know. I’ve been praying, for a miracle. An angel.’
‘We thought,’ said Emily. ‘We thought–’
Reverend James looked down at himself. ‘I’m sorry you have to see me like this. But I need to get this thing off me.’
I recognised the hair shirt we had seen on display upstairs. It had been worn by monks so they would not become too comfortable in the flesh, designed to irritate the skin, made of coarse horsehair, and this had reddened his skin. ‘Here, I’ll help,’ I said.
‘I’m not decent.’
I found his clothes in a pile on the floor. Suzanne and Emily looked the other way while I assisted him to get out of the hair shirt and into his own pants and shirt.
‘I know where there are some painkillers,’ Emily said, ‘if you need some.’
We helped Reverend James to his feet. He could not stand by himself, so I supported him.
‘That only leaves Linda,’ said Emily.
Reverend James gave her a dazed look.
‘She disappeared shortly after we locked you in your room. We thought she helped you escape.’
‘Who did this to you?’ said Suzanne.
‘Demons,’ he said. ‘Lots of them. Satan himself presiding.’
‘He’s not right in the head,’ whispered Suzanne.
‘The drug,’ Emily said to her. ‘It can make you feel woozy and hallucinatory.’
I nodded. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Linda?’ Emily said to me.
I shook my head. ‘Not by herself.’
‘I still think this is a trap,’ Suzanne said. ‘The cellar door was open. We were led here. As if we were meant to find the Reverend. We were lured into the cellar. He gave us the clue in that speech.’
The hair at the back of my neck stood on end. I saw shadows leaping out of the dark corners of the room. But we managed to help Reverend James out of the cellar and up the steps into the living room without incident. The light outside was already fading.
In the living room, he sank into the couch. I wedged the doors open. Stood guard.
Suzanne made him a coffee, which he held with trembling hands. Emily found the first-aid kit and dispensed the painkillers.
He fell into a feverish sleep, and Emily examined his wounds. We sat beside him, in shock at discovering that our prime murder suspect was a victim. He woke an hour later in the gloom of twilight, bewildered and still trembling. Emily felt his forehead. ‘Maybe a hearty meal will help, Reverend?’
Suzanne leaped up. ‘I’m onto it.’
‘Not alone.’
‘You rest, Rafe. You’re also recovering.’
We ate supper in silence. Colour came back into the Reverend’s cheeks. I felt a whole lot better too.
‘We thought it was you,’ said Suzanne. ‘Rafe read all your sermons, and how each one pointed to someone’s death by torture.’ She picked up his Bible and leafed through to the notes on each day of Christmas. ‘And when you disappeared when some of the murders were committed, we thought it must be you.’
Reverend James snatched his Bible from Suzanne. ‘I know what you were thinking. But I swear, whoever is doing this is mocking me, is mocking the Lord, using my sermons to do evil. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. I simply meant to give a homily on “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and what they mean. Not… this.’ He looked sincere, bewildered.
‘I thought it was you, Rafe,’ he said. ‘The unbeliever come to get revenge on us believers. Your book…’
I frowned. ‘I’m a philosopher, not a murderer. I was nearly killed too.’
He
looked afraid. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘The brazen bull,’ I said. ‘Eight maids nearly turned me into milk.’
His face was sour. ‘He took my sermons and used them against me.’
‘Who?’ said Suzanne.
‘Satan.’
I tried to steer him away from his supernatural hallucination. ‘Listen to me, Reverend, concentrate. You set up the order of those cards. You planned this whole thing. Each death matches each of our transgressions, matches the Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and matches the days of Christmas. So neat. So obvious. It had to be you.’
I thought he was going to have a fit. He leaped up and dribbled from the mouth as he stammered, ‘Satan himself! Look!’
He pointed a shaking finger at the dining room table. I did for a second expect to see hellfire and brimstone, but he was pointing to Linda’s placemat. I rushed towards the table, and Emily and Suzanne followed. Reverend James tried to lift himself up from his chair, but fell back again. ‘Linda…’
On the table, on Linda’s placemat, stood a knife stand that had not been there an hour before. From each of nine hooks on this stand hung a naked Barbie doll attached to fishing line.
I spied the nine ladies dancing card, which had been slipped under the knife stand. On it, a Bible verse had been written, as always, in Suzanne’s handwriting and smothered with her sickly perfume. I read it aloud: ‘Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’
‘Jesus,’ I said, and looked at Emily, at Suzanne, at the Reverend whose pupils looked dilated.
He pointed a finger at the air, stared into nothing. ‘Begone, Satan, in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord. Flee, Satan, flee.’
‘Who did this?’ said Suzanne. She walked over and then looked pale as I showed her the card with her handwriting. She sniffed it and shook her head.
‘Linda’s card was the ninth day of Christmas,’ said Emily. ‘Remember? And today is…’
‘The ninth day of Christmas. January 2nd.’
‘Where is she?’ said Reverend James, clutching his heart. ‘Where is my wife?’
‘We thought,’ Emily answered him, ‘that you two were working together, so we don’t know where she is.’
‘So she’s the one,’ said Suzanne. ‘She’s the murderer.’
‘We have to find her,’ said Reverend James. ‘I know what is going to happen to her.’
‘You know because you’re in on it,’ I said.
He tried to stand up again. ‘She got the dancing ladies card. She showed me after supper that first night. She shouldn’t have, but we talked about it. It was ghastly–’
‘What?’
‘About Herod, about Salome dancing seductively for John the Baptist’s head. I was going to use it in my ninth-day sermon. But then after John was beheaded–’
‘Stephen, you mean.’
‘Stephen. Then we knew, we both knew that Satan was here, he had taken our words, and she felt she had caused his death by sinning, by… dancing. A metaphor for lust, seduction.’
‘Satan’s fault, no doubt,’ I said, unable to keep the caustic tone from my voice.
‘No, look,’ said Reverend James, standing up and tottering towards me, wincing with the pain as he leaned on his left leg. ‘Dancing. I know where she is.’
‘Where?’
And then I knew too.
We found the torture museum just as I had left it when I had escaped – ice cold, a bellowing bull broken and on its side, the iron maiden casket holding a frozen, sagging corpse, the head of Stephen on the floor in blankets, his body wrapped in blankets on the guillotine, Alison lying by the window in a thin sheet, and an abandoned Catherine wheel broken and dismembered too. A gap where the rack had stood, the cabinet raided and toothless. A mummy in a shroud.
But this was not where Reverend James and I were looking. We were gazing up at the rafters where there were eight unclothed store dummies strung up with nooses. Only now there were nine torsos dancing there, the latest addition an emaciated woman hanging by her neck.
10
Ten lords a-leaping
Reverend James stared, his face ashen. ‘Linda?’ he whispered.
My throat constricted.
She hung limp like a dead bird, her hair over her face, a leather noose around her neck, wearing the clothes we had last seen her in when she disappeared. How long had she been here?
Suzanne’s teeth chattered. ‘I’m going to throw up.’
The Reverend grasped my arm, and then collapsed on the floor in a faint, dragging me down with him. My arms stung with the pain from the burns, but I stayed there and held him gently. Emily rushed over and supported his head. ‘Easy, Reverend. Just take slow breaths.’
I struggled back onto my feet, looked up again. The other dummies swayed gently, but Linda hung heavy like a rock, her head drooping, her shoulders slumped in what looked like disappointment. The beam looked old. Would it support her weight or come crashing down? I reached up and touched her foot. She was ice cold. ‘She’s been here for hours.’
Emily left the Reverend and stood by me. We both knew that hanging by suspension, strangulation, is a slow death. It can take up to twenty minutes, and the victim can struggle as they try to breathe and hoist themselves up to escape the noose. A painful death. But Linda looked peaceful and calm. I searched for the telltale red dart mark on her neck. When I found it, I pointed it out to Emily.
‘I think she was dead already before being strung up,’ Emily said, more to comfort the Reverend than anything else, I realised.
Reverend James sat up. ‘He was a murderer from the beginning. He will destroy, but be broken without human agency.’ Then he collapsed back down, closing his eyes.
‘Easy there, Reverend,’ called Emily. And to me: ‘He’s lost it.’ I had to discount Reverend James now, this blubbering wreck of a man on the floor. And Suzanne looked incapable of such machinations.
As I looked up, I noticed that above the rafter where Linda hung was a square hatch above the door. It looked like a possible entry into the ceiling. ‘She’s been lowered from above, not lifted up. There’s a trapdoor in the ceiling.’
‘You’re right,’ said Emily. ‘The police will have to look into that.’
‘We’ll all be dead before the police get here,’ said Suzanne.
‘Don’t say that,’ said Emily.
‘Let’s get out of this vile chamber,’ I said. ‘And contemplate how to make it through another night in purgatory.’
It was a grim night. All of us in one room, but this time Reverend James as an uncomfortable addition. I secured the room with as much furniture barricaded against the door as I could, locked the door (a futile gesture) and laid the mattresses out in a row of four, Reverend James tight in the middle.
Emily stayed awake. I too, was unable to sleep.
‘It’s unreasonable, but I still have the feeling that these two have something to do with it all,’ Emily whispered.
‘Hard to think of him as innocent, that’s for certain. His reactions seem inconsistent,’ I said.
‘And she’s just a class act,’ whispered Emily.
I gave her a puzzled look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Her behaviour. She’s harbouring guilt. Not shock. I’m not saying she’s the killer, but she knows something, feels guilty about it.’
‘We’ll see.’
Eventually Emily fell asleep. I woke Suzanne around three. She opened her eyes in terror at my touch. ‘I need to get some sleep. Can you just keep an eye on things?’
‘Shit. I’ve had such nightmares,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course. Go on, go to sleep.’
But I still found it difficult to sleep next to people who could be, I still believed, complicit in some way in this terrible business.
In the morning, I woke from a dead sleep. The others were just waking, looking haggard and confused. ‘The Lord has given me strength,’ Reverend James said. ‘Praise be
the Lord.’
‘Well, we’re alive,’ I said.
‘Not Linda,’ said Suzanne.
‘Not Linda.’ Reverend James stared at her as if he only now remembered his wife’s death. Then he clutched the air and fell back on the bed, pale. He closed his eyes and his mouth twitched.
‘Come, Reverend, we’ll get you some coffee,’ said Emily. ‘I wish I had some Valium.’
I removed the furniture enough for us to get out of the door, and I stood guard while each used the toilet, this time gripping the axe tightly. I pressed my back against the toilet door so no one could jump me. We moved quickly in single-file down to the kitchen. No one was going to be out of my sight for a second, I vowed.
I was at a loss, back at square one. No, not even square one; minus one.
I worked alongside Emily and Suzanne in the kitchen as we made eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. Reverend James sat at the dining table staring into the mirror as if he did not recognise himself.
He has nothing to do with it, I thought. My prime suspects are either dead or their minds are wrecked.
Minutes later, we sat down. I sipped my syrupy coffee.
‘What?’ Suzanne said. ‘Rafe, you’re staring at me.’
‘I don’t mean to,’ I said, and shook my head. I had not looked closely at the ceilings before, but now I saw it: a trapdoor right above me, carefully designed to blend in with the ceiling boards. It had a small keyhole.
Suzanne passed me the toast. ‘Rafe, I need to ask you something. You were number eight. Linda was nine. What was supposed to happen on day ten?’
Reverend James stared blankly ahead. ‘I never meant this to happen. I never meant–’
‘Well?’ I said. ‘What did you mean to happen?’
‘The Lord told me to bring you all together and He would show you the error of your ways. To use “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to flush out sin and drive you back into His arms. I was just doing His work – repent and return to the Lord.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Forgive me, Linda, I was going to make you confront your adultery.’
Twelve Days Page 21