Blood Tears (36 page)

Quite a career path, given that lots of the kids from that sort of background tend to live down to their carer’s expectation.

Most of the rosary beads were dark colours made from wood or plastic. If you were lucky someone gave you a gift at Christmas or your birthday of an ornate set. The ornament being some fancy metalwork on the crucifix hanging from the end of the final decade of “Our Ladys”.

Apart from one set. They were glass and opaque and belonged to Sister Mary. Whoever left them in my room — and we can take a wild stab at that — was giving me a clear warning of who the next victim was going to be.

On the drive down the M77 I thought of phoning the convent. But what would I say. Lovely night isn’t it? Mild for this time of year and oh, by the way, could you warn Mother Superior that there’s a homicidal maniac on his way to kill her?

What about the police? Would they even believe me? An anonymous tip-off that a nun was about to be murdered would sound like the mother of all crank calls. I can’t phone Allessandra and Daryl. They have already done more than enough.  From now on I have to maintain some form of distance from them.

I’ve also been thinking back to the state I was in at the hotel. What the fuck was that? That’s not me. Letting some poor boy check out the room before I went in. What if he’d got hurt? I would never have been able to forgive myself. But the feeling was so strong. It was like I was a child again and shrinking under the rage of Sister Mary, fear breaking out with the cold sweat on my forehead.

But you’re not six, McBain. You’re a man. And from now on, you are on your own and in the meantime, while you navigate your gaze through your navel, some poor woman could be getting murdered.

If I were McCall where would I do it in a place like this? How well does he know his way around? Judging from the way he has gone about his work so far, he has been well informed. In order to save himself from being disturbed he would need to do it in Mother Superior’s bedroom. How would he know where it is? There are loads of rooms in that building. Four floors of them. I’m sure some of them are never used, as there’s only a handful of nuns living here now.

Leonard. Where does he fit in? A dead body is made to look like him. He must be involved and chances are he is the one who spilled the beans on McCall’s parentage. Has Leonard used McCall to extract some terrible revenge? But what happened that was so bad? Maybe his brother dying when he was so young threw him off the edge.

In any case, something tells me I’m going to find out. Soon.

This rain is a bastard. I wish it would stop. I roll down my window to try and get rid of the steam that has varnished the glass.

What’s that? I squint my eyes. Someone has just walked round the side of the building.

I’m out of the car and running low across the grass, my clothes already plastered to my body. No hesitation. No fear. I’m a policeman and a fucking good one. No mad fucker is going to show me up.

Round this side of the building there is a covered walkway that leads to the little stone chapel where the nuns wear their knees out, day after day, year after year, and where I first learned to be an altar boy.  Footsteps clatter on the stone path. They’re moving in the direction of the chapel.

The grass muffles my passage, although I’m sure everyone within a mile of here can hear my breathing. And the thump of my pulse.

The heavy wooden door is open enough to allow an arrow of light to shine on the path outside. As quietly as I can I walk to the door and place my ear to the space. Nothing.

Then I hear a low sound, like a prayer. A prayer from someone in pain. I lean on the door a little and grimace as it moans in protest. Stop. I listen again. Nothing. Every hair on my body is erect, pushing against the soaked cloth of my clothes. I feel a drip run down the side of my face and launch itself into space. I almost expect it to splash to the ground with the sound of a church organ. Here he is. Come and get him. But still there is silence.

Then a whisper. ‘Dear God… Help me.’

I can’t wait any longer. Someone is in trouble. Pushing open the door I take a step inside. It’s like stepping back in time, it’s exactly the way I remember. The stations of the cross punctuate the walls between each of the windows. Rows of wooden seats lead to the front. The black shape of a nun is hunched in prayer in the front pew.

‘Sister. Are you alright?’ My voice bounces off the walls and grates loudly on my ears. No response.

‘Sister. Are you okay?’ This time I speak quietly and take a step towards her. Then I notice a shape on the floor beside the kneeling figure, in front of the altar. From the jumble of cloth and limbs issues another moan. Her face takes shape, the eyes like pinpoints of fear.

‘Help me,’ Mother Superior whispers.

But who’s the nun at the pew? And how can she kneel in prayer without rushing to help?

I sense rather than see a presence approaching my left side. In slow motion I turn in response to a stab in my thigh.

McCall’s face is wearing the hideous leer of a Halloween mask.

‘Goodnight, Detective Inspector.’

My legs are rubber. What did he stick me with? Everything blurs as if I’m looking at the world from inside a tank of water.

Then all is blackness. 

The first thing I’m aware of is the pressure of a hard, plastic seat against my back and thighs. The next thing is my laboured breathing. It crashes against my ears like waves on to rocks. My limbs are heavy, almost blended into the plastic on which I sit. My tongue has grown to fill my mouth. I will my jaw to open, the words to spill out, questions to bloom into the air and fill my ear. But nothing.

A face leans forward to fill my vision. A face in the cowl of a nun’s headdress. A man’s face. His breath is hot on my cheek. It’s the gardener.

‘Welcome to the party, Ray. Don’t worry,’ he says softly. ‘You’re going to be just fine. For the moment.’ He steps back and points to the bed behind him. ‘She, on the other hand, won’t be.’

I can’t move my head, but I can see that we are in a small, cell-like room. A naked light bulb blares from the ceiling. The walls are a dull yellow. The only adornment, a crucifix. The only piece of furniture in the room apart from my chair is a single bed. This room is familiar. I’ve been here before.

Someone is lying on top of the bed. A woman. An old woman.

Mother Superior is lying on top of the bed. Naked.

The poor woman probably
bathed
with clothes on, being naked now must almost be as bad as the terror. Stripped of her dignity and the badge of office she must have worn for nearly half a century, how must she feel? Beyond help and beyond fear.

For fear she would. Who could look into those eyes and not feel it? They are large and black, like wormholes down to a tainted soul. The black of the iris is set off by the red irritation on each of the bottom lids. No, it’s not an irritation. It’s more like thin lines of crusted blood.

She is shaking so hard I can almost hear her bones rattle.  The part of her that polite society and centuries of living in stone houses has helped to bury, the part of her that saved her ancestor from teeth and claw is flooding her system with adrenaline, increasing the blood flow to her limbs, the light to her eyes, the life to her nerve ends.

Fight or flight. Panic sparks in her eyes, because neither is possible. She is weak and old. She knows how to use the force of personality on recalcitrant children. But this is a man, and he has a knife. And he is going to use it.

She looks so tiny. So frail. The paper skin of her face is stretched over the bones of her face in anticipation of what is to come. I can almost see the skull that will be all that is left once decay does its work. This woman trod through my childhood like the monster from a scary story, her small feet taking loud giant steps, doling out a good portion of the fear she is now feeling. And look at her now. So weak and powerless.

She turns her head to look at me. ‘Help me,’ the look in her eye demands. Why aren’t you doing something? She doesn’t know I can’t move.

The face leans into my vision again.

‘The journey you started twenty years ago, Ray, is about to end. Are you excited? You should be.’

The journey I started?

‘I believe you know my lovely young assistant.’ His face is replaced by another from a different nightmare. McCall.

‘Joseph has been invaluable to me.’ McCall’s smile widens with pleasure at the compliment. He nods his head as if we’ve just been introduced at a party.

The other man must be…

‘You’ll either know me as Lenny or X-File. Or you might even remember me as Jim Leonard. I knew you straight away. Who could forget Ray McBain?’ He dances out of my limited line of sight. My view now consists solely of my lap. My head must have slumped forward. It is pushed back up.

‘A tricky business,’ says Leonard. He holds up his hand. In it is a small box of pills.

‘It’s amazing what they can do nowadays. The date rape drug they call this. Wonderful stuff.’ He bends forward and fusses at my collar.

‘Comfy? Good. We want you to see everything. And remember everything.’ His eyes dance within their sockets.  He bares his teeth.  ‘Everything.’

Remember what?

He bends forward again as if speaking to a child. ‘So here’s what we have in store for you both. Just so you know. She…’ he points to Mother Superior ‘… is going to die first.’

First
.

Mother Superior’s eyes are clenched shut and her lips are moving in silent prayer. The drugs he gave her must be wearing off.

‘You are going to watch. Then you are going to kill yourself. The remorse of having murdered all of these people has become too much to bear.’ He laughs as if this notion is just too ludicrous. Then he fishes in my pocket and pulls out the rosary beads.

‘Excellent. I knew you would bring them.’ He lets them fall back in. ‘Keep them. A wee souvenir. You know how all you psychos like to keep your souvenirs.’ That was a quote. Allessandra said that to me back in the hotel. Has he been so close to me all this time?

‘It’s all been sooo easy, Mr Murderer slash Detective.’ He makes a slashing action with his hand. ‘Get it?’ He laughs. ‘You played into my hands every time.’

‘Not a murderer,’ I manage to mumble.

‘Did you hear that, Joseph. The man says he’s not a murderer. Oh, how quickly they forget.’ His face appears in front of mine again. ‘Tut, tut. Your proudest moment. My inspiration and you
deny
it?’

‘Deny what?’ I try to say, but it comes out lower than a mumble.

My head is rocked back with the force of his slap. Good job I am numb. My head rights itself and I see a bag at the nun’s feet. My sports bag. The zip sounds and McCall leans over and pulls out a circle of wire. Barbed wire. He licks his lips uncertainly. Passes it to Leonard and steps back, rubbing his hands on the side of his hips. He’s not so sure of himself now. Where’s the cocky bastard that had me running through those back gardens? The realisation hits me. None of it has been him. It’s all been Leonard.

‘Joseph has been an
excellent
pupil.’ Leonard stands with his arms spread wide as if addressing an imaginary congregation. ‘And now for the final lesson.’

Joseph folds his arms, puts his hands in his pockets and takes them out folding his arms again. He looks from Leonard to the nun and back again.

‘But she’s an old woman, Jim.’

‘They punished the Nazis in their eighties and nineties. There is no time limit on reparation.’

He bends forward and places the “crown” on Mother’s head. A small squeal escapes her lips, like air being squeezed from a punctured tyre. Blood oozes from a series of small wounds and feeds a river that is forming in her hair. Then he pulls a nail gun from the bag.

‘But, Jim.’ McCall is running his fingers through his hair.

‘Have strength, Joseph.’ Before McCall could complain again he fires the gun through both wrists. Mother’s body shakes with pain. ‘Are you watching, Ray? See what you started?’

‘Holy Mary… mmmother… of Jesus.’

‘Save your prayers you old witch. You’re going to Hell. For what you did to my brother.’

My head has slumped again, my view returned to my lap. Thankfully I can’t see any more, but I can hear.
His brother
.

‘Have strength, Joseph. You were named after Christ’s father. Just think of the courage that he needed while Herod’s men killed all of the newborns.’ Leonard senses McCall’s apprehension.

C’mon, McCall. If you are going to stop him now is the time.

‘Think of your mum, Joe. What agonies did she go through? Eh? And it’s all this bitch’s fault.’ I hear a kick. Mother moans. ‘All her fault. She killed my brother and she let that old sick twisted man Connelly rape your mother. She deserves to die.’

A couple of steps sound on the floor and my head is pushed back up. Leonard swims into view.

‘As for you,’ he pats my cheek. ‘You had so much anger in you. Really impressed us.’ Spit bubbles at his lips and flecks my face. ‘You wanted revenge. And boy did you get it. Except you got the wrong man.’

What the hell is he talking about? Why am I asking that? Because I know, don’t I? I’ve always known. The movie that runs in my dreams. The blood. The struggle. The fight for breath. The cloud of feathers.

Leonard is off on a tangent. ‘You wet your bed. Again. But you’re just a child. A child.’ His voice has a note of pleading when he says this word. ‘A child. And you’ve got a really heavy cough. Which turns out to be pneumonia. And this excuse of a woman wraps you up in your own piss-soaked blankets and leaves you there for hours. To suffer the taunts of your so called friends.’ He bares his teeth at me.  ‘And to die.’ He steps towards McCall and grips his neck with his free hand.

‘Remind me. Inform Mother Superior…’ as he mouthed her title his voice took on a choking sound, ‘… tell her what it was like. Let her know about the chain of events she set in motion.’ Back to me. ‘Joseph found me, you know. He saw me following Devlin. We became friends. We have a lot in common.’

McCall’s expression darkens and he throws off Leonard’s hand. His eyes look to the past that plays out somewhere above my head.