Black December

by Scott Hunter

  Moran already suspected what he would find in the switch room, but he needed to be sure of something else first. He walked to the side entrance of the church, the aisle by which celebrants would enter the abbey to conduct High Mass, preceded by their entourage of altar boys, novices, supporting priests and acolytes. The sheer vastness of the building’s vaulted roof space, coupled with the intoxicating smell of incense, assailed Moran’s senses.

  The community was bent in prayer at their last obligation of the day; Compline was almost over. Moran performed a quick head count. Forty or fifty monks, and, yes, there she was, in the corner by the baptismal font. Holly was kneeling, head bowed in prayer. It was so like her to seek comfort in the safety of the church. He shook his head at his naivety. She was hardly going to wait alone in the dark when she could be in the company of the saints. He made his way back to the switch room, took a deep breath and went in.

  Moran retrieved the Dunhill from his pocket and stepped into its circle of light, gingerly negotiating the rough steps. It would be just his luck to survive a seizure, only to break his neck in a cellar. He paused on the third step.

  “I’m coming down now, Bernadette. I don’t mean you any harm. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

  He listened for a response. A touch on his shoulder startled him. He turned.

  “Holly? What on–?”

  Holly placed a finger on his lips. She was wearing jeans and a white blouse. “I’ll talk to her, Brendan. I know how to handle this.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but Holly silenced him with a light tap of her finger. “I used to be a counsellor, remember?”

  She called into the darkness. “Bernadette? My name is Holly. I’m twenty-nine – my birthday was last week. We had a brilliant party. Listen, you’re going to be okay. Can we come down?”

  A stifled sob came back. Moran nodded grimly, and they continued their descent.

  “Don’t come any closer.” Bernadette’s voice was shaky but strident. “I know what I have to do.”

  Moran paused on the steps, rehearsing an appropriate dialogue. He’d read up on psychological profiling and attended the courses, but he maintained a healthy cynicism regarding formulaic approaches. It was an instinctive game; you couldn’t teach anyone the rules, because there weren’t any.

  Holly shot him an enquiring look. She projected an aura of calm, seemed completely at ease as if she did this sort of thing every day. He had a strong sense that not only did she understand the nature of this particular game, but that she also knew exactly how to play it.

  “Don’t come in!” Bernadette’s voice floated up out of the dark. “I’ll do it, just like he told me. I will.”

  “Do what, Bernadette?” Holly’s voice was soft, persuasive. She was going to be Bernadette’s best buddy. Moran stood back and gave her space. He felt the roughness of the unplastered brickwork against the back of his hand. His right arm was awakening. His heart was beating regularly. He was alive. For now . . .

  “If I don’t do it, he’ll kill me anyway.” Bernadette’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “Rory Dalton can’t hurt you, Bernadette,” Holly said reasonably. “He’s in police custody.”

  Bernadette laughed, her voice flat against the dryness of the cellar walls. “He won’t be for long – don’t think you can hold him. You won’t.” Her voice was thick with conviction. “You might keep him in gaol for a week or two, but he always comes back. I know he does.”

  Moran spoke up. “Yes, he has done before, Bernadette. Believe me; I understand your concern. I know him, you see. But I promise you, this time he’s going to prison for a very, very long time.”

  “Doesn’t matter how long,” Bernadette replied miserably. “He’ll still kill me when he gets out.”

  “We won’t let him, Bernadette,” Holly said smoothly. “He isn’t going to hurt anyone again. Ever.”

  Moran bit down on his tongue, thinking of another day in December – his black December: Janice opening the car door, autumn sunshine picking out the red in her hair, the big wave, the smile . . . he couldn’t allow Holly to stay. What was he thinking? But she seemed to be in control. Kay and Patrick’s faces slid over Janice’s in his mind, competing for his attention.

  “Are you all right, Brendan?” Holly’s voice in his ear, bringing him back.

  “Fine. I’m fine.” He cleared his throat, indicated that she should go on.

  “I’m going to do this, I am . . .” Bernadette’s voice was shaking now, mirroring the tremors running through her body.

  “Let me just see you, Bernadette, is that all right?” Holly had inched down another step; she gingerly put her head around the corner. “I really want to have a chat, okay? We can have a good natter, and then I’ll buy you a drink at the local, how does that sound? We’ll make a real girly evening of it.”

  Moran listened with admiration. Holly was good. Damn good.

  He became aware that the plainchant had stopped; Compline was over. The final prayer would follow, and then the monks would leave the church, retiring to their cells. They had to keep Bernadette talking . . .

  “What do you say, Bernadette? Look, I’m a girl. Just like you.” Holly had turned the corner. “Can Inspector Moran come in now? He’s made sure that Rory Dalton can’t touch you. Believe me, Bernadette. I was there. I saw what happened.”

  She was there? Moran frowned. It was possible. Maybe Holly had been watching from some vantage point before retreating to the church.

  “You’re lying,” Bernadette spat.

  “No, she’s not lying.” Moran inched his way around the wall. Bernadette was crouched by a bank of electricity and gas meters, arms wrapped around her body in a tight hug. But it was what she was hugging that made Moran’s throat contract and his saliva congeal. Her torso was a circle of wiring, around which cylindrical packages of explosive had been taped. In her white fist she clutched the detonator, her varnish-chipped thumb poised above the red button.

  Bernadette lowered her head in an attitude of resignation and Moran braced himself, took an involuntary step back.

  “When’s your birthday, Bernadette?” Holly asked chirpily. “What do you usually do? Me, well, I make sure I get rid of the boyfriend. After that I get the girls round. Know what I mean?” She winked. “Girls know how to have fun.”

  A faint trace of a smile moved across Bernadette’s face as she lifted her head. “I used to have fun, sure, a long time ago.” She sighed, a heavy, defeated shudder. “Me and Maria, we came over together. Dalton arranged it for us. Needed the work, you know?”

  “I understand.” Holly had taken another step. “Money isn’t everything, but it helps, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell me about Maria.”

  Moran assessed whether he had time to get to the detonator before the thumb came down. He didn’t need to prompt Holly – she was totally in synch with what was required. Her voice was steady, charming, normal. And Bernadette was visibly relaxing.

  “Maria was my best friend, you know. Crazy, great fun, do anything for a laugh. That was her.” Bernadette smiled sadly. When she looked up it was with a searching expression, appealing to Holly’s sense of right and wrong. “Why did she die? I don’t understand. She was so . . . alive.” A pause. “So, I don’t know, alive.”

  The tears came, racking, shuddering sobs. Moran hovered, judging the distance. The connection had been made – not with him, but with Holly. He was an onlooker, an outsider. He had to be invisible. She had to forget he was here. And Holly was intuitively working with exactly that in mind.

  “I know,” Holly continued. “I lost someone too, a long time ago. He made me feel special, like there was no one else in the world.”

  Bernadette nodded, her hands busy with the wiring, patting the coils, reassuring herself. “Yeah. That’s it.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “Keep the blokes away – we don’t need ’em. They’re all scum.”

  The atmosphere was subtly chang
ing, the sense of heaviness lifting. Above them in the cloister Moran could hear the sound of shuffling feet; he hoped the monks would quickly disperse to their rooms, that curiosity at the open switch room door would not get the better of them.

  “And he’s the worst.” Bernadette’s cheeks creased in sudden anger. “He wouldn’t leave her alone. And him a Father, and all . . .”

  “Who, Bernadette?” Holly cocked her head to one side, gently probing, not forcing an answer.

  “Who? Who? You mean you don’t know? Jaysus, everyone else knows.”

  Holly smiled. “I’ve heard rumours, Bernadette. But go on, fill me in.”

  Moran listened as Bernadette revealed the extent of Oswald’s obsessional attentions. He’d been right: jealousy at Maria’s dalliance with the boy Mason had fuelled Oswald’s motivation, to the point where his manipulative influence over the dead girl had become intolerable. The zesty, risk-taking Maria had been goaded into a crime of such reckless folly that Moran had to wonder afresh how anyone had ever bought into it at all. And now the perpetrator of this persecution lay dead in Boniface’s office, a bullet lodged in his brain.

  “I’m so sorry.” Holly had squatted next to Bernadette. “We can help you, babe, we really can.”

  Steady. Moran watched Holly’s arm move across Bernadette’s shoulder. Steady . . .

  “No!” Bernadette lashed out with her arm, and Holly, caught off balance, went sprawling. “I know what you’re doing.” She was sobbing now, her voice trembling and shaking. “You can’t fix this. You can’t help me. I don’t want to live any more. I’m as good as dead anyhow.” One hand trembled over the detonator; with the other she flicked a greasy lock of hair away from her eyes.

  Holly eased herself up with a graceful, gentle motion and brushed her jeans. “Hey, hey; take it easy, Bernadette. Listen to me. You’ve got everything to live for. You’re young; you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You can start again. We’ll help you, I promise.” She gave Moran a look. “We promise, don’t we, Chief Inspector?”

  “We do. I give you my word, Bernadette.”

  “I can’t,” Bernadette said flatly. “I can’t trust anyone anymore.”

  Moran shifted uneasily. The heaviness was back, the air pregnant with tension.

  “Perhaps you should move away a little, Brendan.” Holly’s voice was strangely calm. Her eyes locked onto his for a moment before she turned back to Bernadette.

  Bernadette grasped the detonator box. “You’re like all the rest,” the kitchen maid said. “You’re like him. It’s all just words. Just lies. Oh God – God forgive me . . .” Her thumb whitened as she applied a stabbing, downward pressure.

  In the fragment of time that followed it seemed to Moran that Holly’s features shimmered and shifted, becoming almost transparent as she spread her body over the Irish girl like a candle-snuffer. A warm wind lifted him off his feet, pushed him further back, up the stairwell. He was vaguely aware of an intense pain in his legs, a thunderous roaring in his ears and a blinding white light that coalesced into a simple, wavering line. The line twisted, jerked, and then levelled off until it was completely straight, like a giant ruler stretching to the horizon. To Moran it seemed a fitting ending; an infinitely flat line, above and around which nothing moved, where all was stillness and calm.

  Epilogue

  Phelps closed the car door with a practised flick and drew his overcoat around him. A gust of wind ruffled the bare branches of the two great oaks that presided over this corner of the cemetery like silent guardians of the dead. Phelps shivered and looked at his watch. He was the first to arrive. Others would appear shortly, conversing in hushed tones, perhaps offering a quiet word or comment about the service, remarking that the vicar had handled it well given the tragic circumstances, had set the right tone.

  Phelps stuck his hands in his pockets and began a slushy amble towards the recently disturbed earth, a bright, almost orange hue in the late morning sunshine. Set against the overall whiteness of the cemetery it seemed an ugly thing, an unnatural and undesirable blot on an artist’s canvas. The snow was virtually undisturbed save for a few furtive tracks made by some small animal, and as his footsteps scored a pathway between the gravestones he began to feel a sense of trespass, as if his presence were an aberration, an insensitive mark of disrespect to the resting souls beneath. He gave his head a brisk shake to dispel the melancholy, and toyed with the notion of a quick cigarette before the mourners arrived.

  As he drew nearer Phelps saw that he had been mistaken. Two figures were already at the graveside, hidden from view by a snow-clad camellia bush planted centrally between the intersecting paths that wove between the orderly rows of memorials. Phelps hung back for a moment, and then, suddenly ashamed, strode forward at a brisker pace.

  They were an elderly couple, he could see now. The taller of the two glanced at him as he approached, nodded briefly and then turned his attention back to the yawning hole, the two lengths of planking and the frost covered tarpaulin with its four symmetrically-placed bricks.

  “Mr Lawson. Mrs Lawson.” Phelps nodded a pinched greeting.

  “Hello, Sergeant Phelps.” Mrs Lawson managed a stiff smile. She was a well-preserved woman in her early seventies, he guessed. The skin was pale and powdered, the lipstick a little too thickly applied. Her hair, gathered into a strangely old-fashioned bun, protruded from beneath her hat like that of a waitress from a bygone era.

  Mr Lawson senior extended a gnarled hand, which Phelps shook a little less firmly than usual. “I just want to thank you again, Sergeant, for your kind words concerning the passing of our son. I know you have been working closely with him these last few weeks.”

  Phelps could only nod in response as Mrs Lawson produced a lace handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” Mrs Lawson said quietly. “It’s like a bad dream.”

  Phelps cleared his throat. “I’m – that is, we are – so sorry for your loss, Mrs Lawson. Your son was an, er, exceptional man in many respects.”

  “We’re very proud of him.” Mrs Lawson’s voice caught. “I just wish – oh, such a stupid accident. What was that other driver doing? In December, for goodness’ sake? William was always so careful with his driving, wasn’t he, Eric?” She turned to her husband for confirmation.

  Don’t laugh, Phelps told himself. Don’t . . .

  “It could have happened to anyone,” Phelps heard himself ramble. “An ice cream van, a patch of ice–” He shrugged. What could you say? “Ah. Here’s my guv’nor.” Phelps pointed, glad of the distraction.

  Car doors slammed softly in the middle distance and Moran came into view, walking stiffly on a pair of gunmetal crutches. Phelps watched the guv’nor hobble towards them with something akin to puzzled admiration. How many lives did Moran have?

  “I’ll tell you something, Mrs Lawson.” Phelps laid a large hand on the woman’s shoulder. “There’s no one thought more highly of the Chief than DCI Moran.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mr Lawson said. “I thought DCI Moran was in intensive care?”

  Phelps hesitated. Again, what could he say? That Lawson’s ludicrous demise had done more to accelerate Moran’s recovery than any surgically applied remedy? Phelps cleared his throat.

  “Well, you’re right; he was in the ICU, until last Monday. The thing is, I don’t think hospital suits his temperament.” Phelps narrowed his eyes against the glare slanting from the hearse’s windscreen. “But he’ll have a word for you, I’m sure, Mr Lawson. He likes a chat, does the guv’nor.”

  “So,” Moran said quietly. “You saw the medical report?”

  The mourners had departed; only Moran and Phelps remained by the grave.

  “Signed and sealed , guv. Top of his in-tray.” Phelps found his cigarettes, lit up with relish and inhaled deeply.

  “Anyone else see it?” Moran adjusted his crutches, planting them with difficulty in the hard ground. “Or–”

  “You know me, gu
v. Compulsively tidy. Can’t have irrelevant papers cluttering up the Chief’s office.”

  Moran smiled. “Thank you, Phelps.”

  A moment’s silence.

  “And Holly?” Moran’s breath hung like Phelps’ smoke in the still air.

  Phelps took his time. Eventually he said, “Nothing, guv. Not registered at Charnford. Aloysius has never heard the name. No trace in Cork, either,” he added.

  “And Bernadette was the only casualty?” Moran coughed, painfully.

  “Apart from yourself, guv. Yes. The monks had all left the church. The blast went up, not across, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be talking to you now.”

  “If I’d just–”

  “Ifs and buts are no good, guv. That’s what you used to tell me.” Phelps blew out a funnel of smoke. “Bernadette was always going to hit that button. Whatever you said or did.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Look, guv.” Phelps looked Moran in the eye. “She was terrified of Dalton. He’d been on her case for years, even before she took a job at the abbey. He’s the godfather of the Eire mafia, the big man.”

  “Not anymore,” Moran said with some satisfaction.

  “Are you going to the trial?” Phelps buried the stub of his cigarette and covered it over with a wedge of snow.

  “Wild horses wouldn’t keep me away, Robert.”

  If Phelps was taken aback by Moran’s use of his first name he didn’t show it. Both men lapsed into a wordless vigil beside the freshly-dug grave. Hard to believe that the implacable Lawson had just been lowered into that cold and inhospitable trench. Moran felt a sudden pang of remorse. They’d never seen eye to eye. Well, it was too late to make amends now.

  Phelps was the first to break the silence. “And the relic?”

  Moran looked up. “Delivered safely into Cardinal Vagnoli’s hands. I understand that Father Aloysius negotiated a generous donation from his friends at the Vatican.”