by Max Hardy
‘Excellent, Steven was the one who cracked the video feeds at Featherstone Hall, this could be the same type of thing. Thanks Ian.’ Strange answered as he turned toward the whiteboards as well, standing by Cruickshank.
‘You can see the parents of the Eve clones, and of Rebecca Angus, and a dozen or so other people who must be Fallen Angels, but there is no Saul. No Adam and no Gabriel. Why is that? Trentor, are you running the names on this board?’ Cruickshank enquired.
‘Yes Ma’am. They have all been fed back to HQ and the team are running them through the systems now. I’ve told them to call the second they get any matches.
Strange’s phone rang, the chilled out opening notes of Shaggy’s ‘Mr Boombastic’ breaking the sombre professionalism of the near silent study. Cruickshank shot him an annoyed stare, her lips puckering sternly. Strange just shrugged nonchalantly, took the phone from his pocket, checked the number and hit ‘Answer’.
‘Mick, what’s happening up at the Institute?’ Strange asked, looking through the names of the lineage on the boards.
‘Sir, you should get yourself up here. We’ve been checking through the CCTV footage from the grounds of the wider hospitals back beyond yesterday to see if Saul or Angus had been here previously. We’ve found a car leaving three nights ago, early hours of the morning, and although the image is blurry, it looks very much like Eve driving with Gabriel in the passenger seat.’ Munro relayed, Strange’s features changing from inquisitively listening, to agitatedly excited in a breath as he stabbed the speaker button on the phone and tapped Cruickshank on the shoulder, motioning for her to listen.
‘Have you got a registration, make and model?’ Strange questioned.
‘All three Sir. I’ve already done a PNC check. Car is registered to a hire company. We’re just waiting to hear back from them on who rented it. CCTV shows it coming from the direction of the old asylum, so I’ve sent a couple of officers over to have a look around.’
‘Great work Mick. We’ll head up there right away and help out with the search. See you in a couple of minutes.’ Strange answered, ending the call.
‘That was the night McFetrich was killed. He was down in Newcastle during the day on business. Could he have been killed in the Asylum? Come on, let’s get up there and check it out.’ Cruickshank pondered, striding for the door mid sentence, brushing brusquely past Trentor, not even glancing in his direction.
Strange followed slightly more sedately, but still with a boisterous excitement in his step. He reached out a hand and squeezed Trentor’s arm reassuringly as he passed, smiling at the detective. ‘Good work Barry. Call us straight away if you get anything back on those names.’ then followed Cruickshank toward her Fiesta, which was parked between two police vans on the road into the cul-de-sac.
Cruickshank slid demurely into the driver’s seat, straightening her skirt out methodically as she waited impatiently for Strange to get in. As soon as he closed the door she pulled out of the space quickly, and did a tight, erratic five point turn, revving the engine noisily, before the car faced the right direction, and she sped down the lane to the main road.
‘Three things Strange, before you say ‘I told you so.’ Firstly, it doesn’t prove that Saul and Angus weren’t involved. Secondly, these images are blurry, and just look like Eve and Gabriel. Thirdly, they have been scrupulously careful up until now, why would they make such a simple mistake? Could this be a play?’ Cruickshank offered as they turned out onto the main street.
‘Turn next right, then next left and head off up Cottingwood Lane, toward St George’s Park.’ Strange instructed. ‘The last thing you said, could this be a play, was the first thing on my mind. The first thing you said, about ‘I told you so’, was the last thing on my mind. You’ll get to know that about me Gaynor. I hold no grudges or beef. We all get things wrong, and we learn and move on. My next thought was, who the hell is making the play. Now, we’ve seen images injected into CCTV on this case before. We just have to be mindful of that. But let’s check it out before jumping to conclusions.’
‘Agreed. What you will get to know about me Jeremiah, is that I do hold grudges, and don’t tolerate mistakes.’ Cruickshank retorted as she steered the car up Cottingwood Lane, the road rising on a steep incline, the rows of houses either side thinning out, to be replaced by open green fields. Up ahead, the tall steel walls of the barrier around the Fielding Institute filled the middle of the verdant landscape, slightly obscuring the red brick old asylum behind it.
‘Oh, I already know that.’ Strange teased jovially, as he scanned the car park opposite the Institute, looking for Munro. ‘Over there, just in front of the old building entrance.’ Strange instructed, pointing toward the figure of Munro leaning against the redbrick wall, puffing on a cigarette in his stained tan raincoat.
Cruickshank pulled the car up in front of Munro and the two of them climbed out. ‘Stand up smart man, and at least look like you are interested.’ Cruickshank admonished immediately on rounding the bonnet of the car as she approached Munro. ‘Well, have they found anything?’
Munro stuttered straight, flinging his cigarette onto the floor and stamping on it before answering, slightly nervously. ‘Yes Ma’am. We have. Follow me. Be careful as we go through the corridors, there’s lots of loose floor tiles and debris in there.’ Munro answered, then led them into the main entrance, where boards had been ripped off the door frame to allow access.
They walked into a dark, gloomy corridor, shafts of late afternoon sunlight squeezing through the gaps of the boards blocking up the ground floor windows, dust dancing enigmatically in the tapestry of interspersed brightness. An eerie silence danced with the dust, just the distant echoes of a brooding, creaking building invading, until the clacking footfalls of Cruickshank’s firm stride started to bounce off the old cracked floor tiles.
‘Up the stairs to the left, to the top floor. It’s even darker in the stairwell, so watch your step.’ Munro instructed and they ascended the thickening shadows upwards.
‘Ordinarily, I’d tell you to lay off my staff and remind you that it’s up to me to give them a bollocking, but I think your brusque, efficient mentality is having a positive effect on Mick. I’ve never seen him stub a fag out that quick.’ Strange whispered into Cruickshank’s ear as he walked closely behind her.
‘Horses for courses Strange. Not everyone needs a cuddle. Some of us just need a good verbal slap.’ she whispered back, a smug smirk forming in the darkness.
‘It’s just up ahead, and be prepared for a change of scenery.’ Munro advised as they reached the top of the stairs, and turned right into another dilapidated corridor, a closed, thick oak door up ahead. Munro approached it, grabbed the handle, and opened it outwards, the pure brilliance of the white floor and wall tiles in the corridor beyond invading and inverting the darkness around them.
‘Well, someone’s definitely been busy sprucing up the old place.’ Strange voiced, surprise in his face as he walked into the wall of whiteness, heading toward another open oak door at the far end of the corridor. They walked into the tall ceilinged, wide oak floored room, looking around the empty white walls, taking in the clean, glazed window opposite, before their attention was taken by the thick metal chain hanging from the ceiling, a large hook dangling from the end of it.
Cruickshank started to circle the edge of the room, looking at the walls, scanning the floorboards, taking in the cornice on the ceiling as she slowly paced the perimeter. Strange crouched down in the centre of the room, looking at the splintered floor boards below the hook, running a finger over the holes on the wood.
‘McFetrich was impaled through the genitals on some sort of hook and had nails through his hands. This could be where that happened.’ Strange offered, flicking a piece of loose wood from one of the holes.
Munro’s phone rang and he answered it, stepping to the door to take the call.
‘You could be right.’ Cruickshank replied as she passed the window and looked out over the main road
three storeys below. ‘The walls have been scrubbed. You can see the abrasions in the paintwork. Same with the floor.’
‘Sir!’ Munro shouted eagerly, turning back into the room. ‘We’ve had a sighting of the car Eve was driving. Number plate recognition picked it up entering a car park about an hour ago. The car park was down in Morpeth, just off the main street. There’s no record of it leaving.’
Chapter 34
Rapture is how he described it. Orgasm and agony. Joy, bliss and ecstasy is what the word conjures up in my mind. His sentiment is the same as Ennis’s, when he nailed me to a chair in the asylum and wanked me off with a vampire glove. It was hell, but I couldn’t stop getting aroused. I couldn’t stop feeling the ecstasy, no matter how hard I tried. Then there is the other context of rapture, where believers will be caught up and carried into the clouds to meet their maker, with the second coming of Christ. Is that their belief, is that the mantra the Fallen Angels preach? Is that why they do this, to open up the mind, ready for the rapture?
I edge into the dungeon, the Nagant pistol held firmly and steadily in the hands of my outstretched arms, pointing directly at Adam’s head. I am still in my old man disguise, the Jesus sandles I am wearing making sucking sounds on the black marble floor tiles, which are littered with discarded clothes. Rebecca, in her old lady garb, is directly beside me, her features a contortion of confusion and desolate disappointment.
‘What the fuck are you doing Doc?’ she asks incredulously while stooping down and picking up a cream blouse from the floor and heading off towards Eve. She reaches the pillory and starts to dab the pouring blood off her face.
‘Nothing that she didn’t want me to. Nothing that she didn’t enjoy.’ Adam answers, standing tall, bare skinned and brazen, his erection throbbing, slapping paddle in hand, looking between me and Rebecca with a tinge of humour in his green eyes. It is disconcerting seeing yourself standing so openly like that, looking at a body and a face that is exactly the same as your own. I keep the gun levelled and walk slowly towards him, kicking a pair of jeans on the floor in his direction.
‘Get dressed, this isn’t time for fucking foreplay. You’ve got some hellish explaining to do.’ I rumble, anger bubbling up inside.
‘You do realise, if I hadn’t put her in the pillory, she would have killed me.’ Adam states calmly, while he bends down and slides on the jeans.
‘Only after torturing your worthless body intolerably. Nothing less than you deserve for the atrocities you have performed on women and on your own family. Do you know what a monster this man is?’ Eve interjects. Rebecca finishes cleaning the blood off her face, then gathers her skirt and underwear and starts to clothe her.
‘I’m starting to. Is that why you led us here?’ I ask Eve, sidling up against a cage between myself and Adam, watching every twitch his body makes.
‘Yes. There’s only one reason I’m in this pillory, and that’s because I let him put me here. You need to see who the real monsters are John.’
‘From where I’m standing, I’m surrounded by them. I’ve seen first hand what you did to Darrie. I’ve seen the pictures of Ettrick and McFetrich. Don’t even begin to pretend you are any kind of Angel.’ I retort, my voice grumbling with an undercurrent of anger.
‘I think you’ll find its Adam who pretends he’s an Angel. I killed killers. Nothing more. I would kill every one of them again. I never pretended to be anything other than that. Get him to show you what he has done.’ she answers demandingly. Rebecca finishes clothing her bottom half, not able to put her top on due to the pillory. She steps back to my side.
‘Show us then Doc. Take off this one last mask and show us who you really are. Because this isn’t the enigmatic Ben Hanlon I knew, or the thoughtful, professional Rob Adams that looked after Jacob, or the slightly pompous yet friendly Harry Massah that helped us find Bentley.’ Rebecca demands, staring at Adam defiantly.
Adam says nothing, simply nods and slowly walks to the far mirrored wall. He pushes a hand against one of the mirror tiles, the low hum of an electric motor kicking in as the wall slides back, revealing a room beyond. Adam steps back and reaches out a hand, waving for us to enter. I reach to the nearest stand and grab a pair of handcuffs, throwing them over to Adam. He catches them, smirks and then fastens them on his wrists.
‘What you need to understand is that each and every one of us is looking for the same thing. Every individual, every religion, every cult, every faith, every belief. You also need to understand that religion is a human construct, a control mechanism that preys on an individual’s instinctive fears, that makes us do extraordinary things in its God’s name, in our pursuit of immortality. When you walk into this room that is what you will see.’ Adam relays as he steps off the black marble tiles and onto brown sandstone slabs, covered in hieroglyphics.
‘What you will see in there is barbarity and the sick, twisted depravity of a psychopathic mind.’ Eve interjects vehemently from the pillory as Rebecca and I follow Adam into the room.
Every surface is sandstone slabs, every one of those slabs filled with hieroglyphics. A long sandstone bench runs down the left on the room. On top of it wide, circular glass tubes. Inside each tube is the limbless and headless torso of a woman, floating in a thick, viscose liquid. Some torso’s have holes in the chest, where the heart cavity is located. All have a hole in their stomach. Still pointing the gun at Adam’s head, with a morbid terror eating away at my stomach, I approach the tubes and read the names on the small plaques in front of them, following the line to the one at the end. It reads ‘Sheila Warren’, and as well as the torso, her dismembered legs and arms are also floating in the tube.
‘I tend to agree with Eve. What the fuck is religious about this. This is just a psychopath’s abattoir, a trophy cabinet of the deranged. What the hell is that for?’ Rebecca asks, her voice dripping is disgust as she looks to the wall opposite the grotesque torsos. There is a large circular stone leaning at a thirty degree angle against the wall, carved into it, hollows in the shape of human limbs, torso and head, the hollows combined in the shape of a body, the arms outstretched and the legs wide apart. Between the leg hollows a slice of the stone has been removed, on the ground beneath it a small plinth. I look over to the tubes filled with torso’s, at the dismembered limbs, remembering the instrument cases, and the collections at the other killers homes. I stare at Adam in fascinated disgust.
‘You put body parts into that contraption? Different body parts from different women? What is it, a mix and match my perfect dead partner device? Why the hell is there a gap between the legs?’ I ask with a maelstrom of despair screaming in my stomach, already knowing the answer.
‘Pharaohs were living Gods John. They believed in the afterlife where they would rule for an eternity. Every single pyramid verse in Unas’s pyramid is replicated in this room. Verses that his funerary cult over the centuries have kept alive. Verses that his funerary cult recite when they give their life force, through the channels of the dead, to keep his spirit eternal, so that they will one day join him and feast at the table of immortality. That is what the cult of Unas believe. That is their faith. That is their religion.’ Adam relays calmly, walking up to the funerary wheel.
‘That’s the excuse they use to fuck dismembered human remains you mean, and you were part of it, part of a cult that could do that to women. Monster doesn’t even come close to describing what you are.’ Rebecca rages, picking up, as I did, on what he meant by ‘giving their life force through the channels of the dead’.
‘I did what I needed to do, in order to find Gabriel and protect the Fallen Angels.’ Adam responds calmly.
‘So who are the Fallen Angels and what do they believe. How do they aspire to immortality? We know that you’ve been selectively breeding for centuries. We know that you’ve recently been genetically modifying and cloning us. We know that somehow, Jacob seems to be the key. But why Adam? What does rapture mean for the Angels?’ I ask, every sinew in my body wanting to rip his e
motionless face to bits.
‘We believe in achieving mental and physical purity John. We believe that will open up our body and minds to receive the rapture. Our rapture is immortality too. The ability for our spirit to pass from body to body and remember what it has lived before. To recall every single experience that has shaped it. Cotton Mather set off down that path centuries ago simply believing that if we made the blood line pure, back to that of the first children of this earth, then it would open up the mind. But we found the mind couldn’t cope, and madness would inevitably take over. So we started to experiment with the body and mind, to make them stronger. There isn’t a single thing you can’t remember about your life John. Right the way back to when you were a single cell and that single cell split, igniting your consciousness. You are the first of us that have been able to do that. Rebecca, you are a mental masterpiece. Your ability to absorb and cope with every single thing we have thrown at you is just astounding. I took me less than two weeks to bring you back from insanity up at the Asylum, and we threw everything we could think of to make you insane. Directly, Jacob is your son. Indirectly, he is the result of four hundred years of belief. A belief that in him, we have the first Fallen Angel ready to receive the rapture, ready to receive and cope with the eternity of his spirit. We don’t fear death John, because in Jacob, we have created a body that can transcend it.’ Adam recites, his voice tinged with a lilt of fervour.
That’s all we are to him, an experiment. A means to an end. Still a pawn in their creation game. I don’t know what I had expected. Some kind of consuming, loving family: a place to eventually feel at home. Nothing about me is me. Nothing about Rebecca is Rebecca. We have been moulded and manipulated for a fucking crazy, tin pot bloody religion. Our little boy is the way he is because of how they have messed with our lives: no, played God with our lives.