I called the helpful 24-hour support again and reported what had looked to me like an act of vandalism as I was taking my morning jog, and gave the exact location of the access point. They thanked me, and assured me a technician would be there before lunchtime, which would give me more than enough time.
I changed into my dock-worker overalls, which were not entirely appropriate for an internet cable technician, but were the nearest thing I had to the clothes that someone providing a technical service might wear, and then I gave the administrative people at the House of Our Lord half an hour to discover and report the loss of their high-speed connection to the outside world, and to get all hot under the collar about the poor service they were being provided.
I pulled up to the gates of the House of Our Lord a little after oh seven hundred hours. The cameras buzzed with interest and swung on their pivots to get a better look at my unmarked panel van as I approached. I kept my peaked cap low over my face and held an arbitrary identification card up to the camera to block my nose and mouth. I explained I had been in the area, and that I was ready to fix their internet problems if they would be so kind as to open their gates. The security guard was not keen to be that kind, because he had nothing about it on his list of approved visitors. But after a heated consultation with someone at the main house, the gates buzzed, and they welcomed me onto the property.
Once inside, I pulled to the side of the road, stopped the van, switched on the hazards, and climbed out. I waved towards the window of the security hut, and a moment later a security guard stepped out with an angry scowl on his face. I explained to him that their internet cable passed through a trench under the ground, and that I would have to check it all the way to the main house to find the problem, and would therefore not be arriving at the main house for some time. He shrugged. I gave him an encouraging smile, and climbed back into my van.
Security systems, even advanced ones, are mostly a waste of money. That was something else I had learnt from Chandler in the pursuit of our criminal activities. Because the problem with all security systems, no matter how expensive they are, is in distinguishing between those who should be allowed in and those who should not. In obvious situations, such as a man dressed in camouflage, wearing a balaclava, and carrying an automatic weapon, it is not difficult to make the distinction. The difficulty arises on the subtler distinctions, such as when deliveries are made to the house, as in the case of the delivery of gas bottles for the kitchens, which occurred at oh eight thirty that morning at the House of Our Lord. The sweaty, obese driver of the truck that bore the gas bottles onto the property was pleased to see a worker provided by the House to help him with the arduous task of rolling the heavy gas bottles inside. It was probably the first time the staff had provided such thoughtful service, but he would not complain about it. And the kitchen worker who opened the back door to allow the gas bottles in was not surprised to see that the man delivering the gas had brought someone along to help, and was too busy peeling potatoes to stand there and make sure that they both left the premises.
The gas delivery man left me in the storeroom to arrange the gas canisters more neatly against the wall. I found an empty box which looked as if it had held vegetables, lifted it onto my shoulders and set out to explore the House of Our Lord. I wandered back into the kitchens, where three cooks were cleaning up after the breakfast service. They didn’t challenge my right to walk through the kitchens with an empty box on my shoulder, and were very helpful in providing directions to the laundry when I explained it was my first day on the job.
The laundry was occupied by a single woman in her late sixties with glasses made from the bases of wine bottles, and the beginnings of a beard sprouting from her chin. She was happy to provide me with a full novitiate outfit, although she grumbled about the request not being submitted in the usual way and insisted that I sign a scrap of paper to the effect that I absolved her of all blame. Having done this, I confessed I was feeling confused on my first day and had already forgotten how to get back to the main office. She laughed, revealing that her teeth were in no better condition than her eyes, and told me it was one floor up and on the other side of the building. I admitted I had thought that was the Master’s private section, and didn’t want to wander where I was not welcome, but she reminded me that the Master occupied the second floor of the west wing, and that there was someone on watch there who would prevent my accidentally wandering into the Master’s private zone, because after breakfast he returned there to spend time with his daughters.
She then explained where the bathrooms were on this lower level, I thanked her again, and changed into the novitiate clothes in a stall of the bathrooms. I packed my dock-worker overalls into the cistern of the old-fashioned toilet because I didn’t want the kitchen staff raising alarms. Then I made my way to the second floor of the west wing.
Brother Isaiah – whom I had last seen raking up leaves in the orchard beside the apiary – was on guard duty upstairs. He was sitting at a desk, wearing the same brown robes that I was. I guessed that his period of silence during which he had engaged with God’s creation had gone some way towards cleansing the sin that had weighed so heavily upon his heart. He looked up at me, and a glimmer of recognition flitted across his face. But it didn’t linger. I raised my hand in an imitation of the science fiction salute I had seen them all give one another on my previous visit and hoped that the master had not watched any new movies and changed the protocol. Brother Isaiah returned the gesture and then narrowed his eyes slightly as a way of asking me what I wanted. I noticed his robes were a little bunched at the left shoulder, as they had been in the orchard, by the strap of his handgun holster.
“Our father,” I said, fighting the feeling that I was about to lead a group prayer, “has asked me to wait for him here.”
“Wait for him?” said Brother Isaiah, and his pronounced forehead wrinkled as he attempted to process that, his sinful eyes narrowing further.
“Until he is ready for me,” I said, by way of clarification.
“Ready for you?” said Brother Isaiah, who was not turning out to be a talented conversationalist.
I gave a nod and then made a temple out of my fingers and turned to place my shoulders against the wall and bowed my head as if I was about to pray silently.
“Father is at morning study,” said Brother Isaiah, coming up with something original to add to the conversation.
“Of course,” I said, and bowed my head again as if that was an end to the conversation.
“Do I know you?” asked Brother Isaiah, who was not entirely buying my performance.
“You do not,” I said, and a long silence ensued during which Brother Isaiah studied me from beneath his Neanderthal brow and I gazed at the patterned carpet.
Brother Isaiah had still not dredged my face from his memories, which were perhaps buried even deeper than had been his sin, when we both heard the sudden chiming of a young girl’s laugh. It was a surprisingly joyful sound that echoed down the hushed corridor that Brother Isaiah was protecting, and I looked up to see who had produced it. The corridor was empty – it was a long corridor of dark wooden flooring with a patterned carpet stretched down the centre. There were five doors on each side of the corridor, all the same dark wood, all closed. A door at the far end opened and a beam of early morning sun sprang out of it, followed by a girl of about three years old, who laughed again as she trotted with small uncertain steps, her blonde curls bouncing with joy. Close behind her another girl followed, a few years older, with long, auburn hair that looked as if it had just been brushed, and which flowed about her shoulders like a viscous fluid. She was chasing after the younger girl, reaching out with both hands as if to grab her, but taking small steps as she ran to prolong the game. Brother Isaiah and I watched the two girls approach. Then a woman appeared behind them, silhouetted for a moment against the dazzling beam of sunlight. A slender body in a yellow spring dress, the details filling in slowly as she walked towards us.
A part of me had expected to see her, but the shock of surprise struck me like a physical blow, and I felt myself sag against the wall for a moment. Except that her hair was shorter, she was as I remembered her: the high cheekbones, her pointed nose, and full lips. Her eyes created the illusion of sadness, an illusion that was shattered when she opened her mouth to smile, which she did now as the girls’ happiness spread down the corridor. The smile started with a curl of the edges of her lips, then spread up to her golden eyes. She lifted a hand in acknowledgement of Brother Isaiah, who had risen to his feet and was stooping down, preparing to catch the young girl barrelling down the corridor towards us. She hadn’t seen me yet, and the smile grew into a laugh as the girl was swept up by Brother Isaiah with a squeal of delight from the girl. I stepped away from the wall and stood behind the kneeling figure of Brother Isaiah, and I saw the questioning glimmer of a frown. Then the blink of her golden eyes, the faltering step and the laugh and the smile dropped from her face. She stopped dead in the centre of the corridor, and her hand dropped against her side. She stared at me, and I stared back.
The little girl stopped squealing and the older girl’s laugh died as if the tension between us was silencing everything in its path. Brother Isaiah stood and looked from her to me and back again. The two girls turned back to her, then rushed to stand at her side, and turned to face me as if I was threatening them all.
“Hello, Sandy,” I said.
Sandy said nothing. Brother Isaiah reached under his robe and pulled out a Sig Sauer, which he pointed vaguely in my direction and his great brow wrinkled.
“Is there a problem, ma’am?” he asked. He was looking at me, so he hadn’t seen Sandy close her eyes, as if she thought she could make me disappear. “He’s waiting for the Father,” he explained, and the pistol wobbled in a way that revealed his lack of experience at handling it.
Sandy opened her eyes, and two tears rolled down her cheeks.
“There’s no problem, Brother,” she said, and the sound of her voice was another painful jab. “No problem at all,” she said.
“Do you know this Brother?” asked Brother Isaiah.
“I do,” said Sandy, and there was a long pause. Brother Isaiah glanced at her anxiously, but might not have noticed the tears which glistened on her cheeks because she smiled at him, and her smile was dazzling. “Would you mind watching the girls for a few minutes? This man has come to see me.”
“He’s waiting for the Father,” said Brother Isaiah again, and the gun wobbled with confusion.
“I know he is,” said Sandy, and she raised the smile again, which calmed Brother Isaiah enough for him to lower his gun. “Could you ask the Father to join us in the breakfast room when he comes up from study?”
Brother Isaiah said that he could, and he returned his gun to its holster. Sandy stooped and whispered something to the two girls, who then trotted back up the corridor and each took one of Brother Isaiah’s hands.
“Come along, Ben,” said Sandy, and she turned and walked down the corridor to the sunlit room.
Thirty-Two
Sandy was already standing with her back to me at one of the huge sash windows, her face tilted up to receive the sun, which was doing its best under trying circumstances. Her eyes were closed, her face turned slightly so that I could be reminded of the profile I had loved to see in the mornings of another life long ago: the long lashes, the high cheekbones, the delicate cheeks.
“Leilah is such a poor liar,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t believe her.”
“She mixed her lies with a lot of truth,” I said.
Sandy turned to face me, her eyes more golden than ever; the sun providing highlights on her cheek.
“I learnt that from you,” she said. “Don’t make it up – isn’t that what you always said? Make it all true, but leave the harder truths out.”
“I heard some of the harder truths last night,” I said.
Sandy smiled her sad smile. The lips curled and her eyes shared the sadness, but then amusement flipped it over and the sadness fled.
“I thought she might tell you the full story. She wants you to stop me. That’s why she told you.”
“Yes,” I said. “I think so. She is struggling with the burden of having helped you kill those men.”
“But you won’t stop me, will you?”
“Won’t I?”
“When the judge told me about you going to see him, it was such a surprise. Did Leilah say it was because of you he carried a knife with him and tried to kill us with it? But you are not to blame for his death, you must know that. Nor is Leilah to blame, for holding him down. No, the blame is all mine. I think it was inevitable that I would do it.”
“Or perhaps some of the blame was his,” I said. “Was Amanda the only one? Or were there other girls?”
“There were others. Many others. These men developed a taste for it. Isn’t it true that when a lion develops a taste for human flesh, it must be killed? That there is no other way of stopping it?”
I didn’t provide an answer to her question, and we were silent for a moment.
“You always told me that killing leaves a mark,” said Sandy. “And I have realised you were right. I couldn’t come back from it – from that first time, after killing those two men in the shack.”
“Why didn’t you try?” I asked. “Why didn’t you come to me and ask for help?”
“I did. Didn’t you know that?”
“You collected your clothes.”
“No, I came back to you, came back to our apartment. I stood in the lounge and I wept. That was all I could do. I climbed into our bed and smelt you there, and I wept some more. It was pathetic. I couldn’t stay. I knew then what had happened to me, Ben. Something inside me died the night I killed those men. I knew you were out looking for me, talking to the police, pushing for justice, fighting for what was right in the way you always did, and I realised then what had happened to me.”
“You can get help. People who’ve been through that kind of trauma can be helped.”
Sandy shook her head and gave another sad smile.
“I know you speak from experience, Ben, but everyone’s struggle is different. I thought I was fine, I really did, that all I needed was a bit of time to recover. I didn’t mean to leave forever, just for a short while. I thought that I would expose those men for what they had done, and that would be my path to recovery – isn’t that what they call it? The path to recovery, like it’s a simple, straight line you walk along.”
“It’s not a path you should walk alone.”
“Isn’t it? You walk it alone, don’t you? You are still trying to recover. I know you are. Besides, I was not alone. I had Leilah.”
“And you lost your way?”
“Yes. When the judge pulled out his knife.”
Sandy paused, and her eyes studied me.
“Do you understand, Ben?”
We stood in silence as she searched me for a sign of understanding, or perhaps a sign of anger, even of forgiveness.
“I took my clothes,” she said, when I gave no answer. “Because I knew the police would stop searching for me.”
“And you hoped I would too.”
“I needed time,” she said, and her eyes filled suddenly with tears. “You are still angry with me, aren’t you? Is that why you’re here? Or have you come to save a monster’s life?”
“Bill is the one who’s angry.”
Sandy blinked, and the tears spilt from her eyes.
“I know what damage I have caused, how much hurt.”
She hesitated, then smiled, and there was maybe a little joy in it.
“You do understand.”
I didn’t confirm that I understood, but neither did I deny it.
“And you do want to stop me,” she said. “That is why you’re here.”
“You will deprive those two girls of their father. Is that what you want?”
“A monster is not a father.”
“Don’t
be so sure. Fathers come in all forms. Would you take their father away as yours was taken from you?”
She blinked again, spilt more tears.
“That’s where you started,” she said. “I didn’t understand how you found Leilah, but it was through my father, wasn’t it?”
“He is a good man,” I said.
“He is. Hurting him has been another sacrifice in order to stop this evil.”
“No, it hasn’t. Sacrifice is when you pay the price, not volunteer others to pay on your behalf.”
“You don’t think I’ve paid the price?”
I didn’t answer that. The sun passed behind a cloud and the golden rim to Sandy’s cheeks disappeared as the room was plunged into a sudden gloom.
“This man is a monster, Ben – as was the judge and that politician. This one was given the chance to redeem himself with the gift of fatherhood. But he didn’t. They are monsters, and they believe nobody can stop them. Who was it said the world won’t be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who stand by and watch? Should I have done that? Stood by and watched them, like everyone else, and not done anything?”
“You’ve sent your message,” I said. “Why not show your grace? Allow him to live and change his ways.”
Sandy shook her head.
“No. Because he won’t. There will be no changing of his ways.”
We fell to silence again, and the sun made a weak attempt at getting back into the room, but failed.
“Can I ask you something?” said Sandy.
I didn’t say whether she could, but she asked anyway.
“Who were you protecting when you said nothing to the police? I’ve seen your name all over the news. They have you as the person who’s been doing this, and you’ve said nothing. Did you think it was Leilah? Or did you know it was me? Leilah says you believed her when she told you I was dead.”
Vengeful: A Conspiracy Crime Thriller (The Gabriel Series Book 3) Page 27