Soul Seeker (37 page)

Eisenmenger suddenly understood. ‘You couldn't resist, could you? This is all an excuse for glorying in killing.'

‘No!' His eyes moved to Shaun and Eisenmenger braced himself for pain, but Pilcher suddenly held up his hand to stay his assistant as attention once more turned to the screen.

Lancefield's remonstrations had produced no effect.

Pilcher had in his left hand a scalpel.

Fisher moaned quietly and Eisenmenger closed his eyes, imploring a God he did not entirely believe in to make it go away. Pilcher was staring at the screens intently. He glanced around at Eisenmenger, saw that his eyes were closed and said, ‘Please watch. You are here to bear witness.'

Shaun tapped him on the shoulder with the shotgun and he opened his eyes. He looked into Carter's face and saw feverish excitement; he had been wondering what he got out of this, and in that look he now understood. There was a degree of savage pleasure written across his features that chilled Eisenmenger, as if he were looking into the heart of darkness; Pilcher might be mad, but Carter was just plain
bad.
On screen, Pilcher's right hand was gripping the side of Lancefield's face, pulling it up and away from the shoulder; the left with the scalpel was just penetrating the skin. He must have been tremendously strong for it was clear the Lancefield was struggling violently, yet producing almost no movement of the neck. The blade bit deeply and blood welled up immediately; that it was blood there could be no doubt; no fake blood, no matter how expensive the film ever quite got the viscosity and the shade quite right, never managed to capture the fact that blood is alive, is in many ways
life.

Eisenmenger was thankful that at least he could not see Lancefield's face, for that he suspected would have been beyond him, would have made him faint to escape the horror. A glance at Shaun Carter gave him a glimpse of such intense excitement, it was almost pornographic to behold. The blade began to slice through the flesh and it had not gone far before the flow of blood increased exponentially, became a fountain, ebbing and flowing but never dying; the carotid, he thought, but it was a melancholy whisper, ashamed of itself. The struggles, still effectively suppressed, became spasms. The hands withdrew. Lancefield's face was a caricature of humanity, had become animalistic in its agonies, its terrors, its dying, as the blood spurted; there was no sound but he could hear her as she keened; he could also smell that ferric odour of the blood that coated her, feel it's tackiness as it began to clot.

Real-time Pilcher turned to them. ‘Watch. Watch the EEG, and the eyes.'

And what else could they do?

Beverley groaned softly on the floor.

It lasted for long, long moments, a time that was stretched yet thick, in which he held his breath while his heart pounded slowly in his chest and in his head. Gradually the flow of blood subsided, the spasms became twitching, the opened mouth became slack. Pilcher stared intently, then suddenly pounced on the keyboard. Everything froze. ‘There!'

There it was again. A faint spark in the eye. Just that.

Pilcher indicated the EEG read-outs. Eisenmenger was not overly familiar with the complex read-outs of electroencephalograms, but that was alright, he had Pilcher to help him. ‘At the same time as we observed the ocular phenomenon, and just as the activity in the beta wave tails off, there is a small but undoubted spike in theta wave and then in delta wave.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘Theta activity is typically seen in young children; delta activity in babies. Interestingly, these spikes are occurring in untypical areas of the brain, which I have yet to explain. The timing of the spike, however, suggests to me some sort of regression; I think it is the unburdening of the soul, a cleansing so that it reverts to its virginal state.'

Eisenmenger wanted to argue, but he knew better than to argue with a delusion so entrenched; he wanted to scream, too – scream that this codswallop had to end – but he knew too that it would make no difference either. He tried a different tactic. ‘Maybe you're right.'

Pilcher seemed pleased. ‘Yes . . . Yes . . .' He was thoughtful for a moment then he said to Shaun Carter, ‘We could repeat the experiment, could we not, Shaun?'

Shaun's look was one of perpetual discontent, but the prospect of further death seemed to cheer him. ‘Which one?' he asked eagerly. Eisenmenger had the feeling that Shaun's idea of a good night in was one involving slaughter and plenty of it. Beverley moaned again; she began to move her arms but this caused only more moaning. ‘Her?' he asked Pilcher.

Pilcher's expression suggested that he was humouring his assistant as he said with a slight smile, ‘Why not?'

SIXTY-SEVEN

P
ilcher walked across to the far side of the room where there was a door that led deeper into the cellars.

The shotgun came round to bear on Eisenmenger and Fisher. ‘Pick her up.'

Eisenmenger glanced at Fisher; he was unsure what to do, was looking to the sergeant for a lead; Beverley might have had a low opinion of him, but he was all Eisenmenger had. He was surprised, then, to see a change had come over Fisher. The slightly startled, slightly unsure, totally uninspiring look that he normally presented to the world was missing, replaced by something that Eisenmenger judged to be determination. The sergeant stood slowly. He waited while Eisenmenger did likewise, never taking his eyes from Carter. The end of the gun was about no more than a metre from his chest.

Carter repeated, ‘Pick her up.'

Beverley was quite still now, lying between Carter and his captives.

Fisher took a step forward. It was not a large step. He leaned down, glancing briefly at Eisenmenger to suggest that he should do likewise. He said quietly to Beverley, ‘Sorry, sir.'

He grasped her around the torso, and Eisenmenger did likewise. As gently as they could, they lifted her; she seemed to be conscious, although barely. They brought her to her knees where she slumped down. Fisher said to her, ‘Come on.'

And then in an instant, he straightened up to face Carter; in the same movement, he grabbed the barrels and forced them upwards. He said to Eisenmenger, ‘Run!'

But Eisenmenger could not. How could he escape and leave Fisher and Beverley? His morality refused to allow him to run. All he could do was stand and watch, spectate; it suddenly occurred to him that that was all he had ever done.

Fisher and Carter were fighting to control the direction of the barrel, the former trying to force it up, the latter down. Beverley beside them was swaying slightly. Pilcher was striding across the room, his face no longer one of benevolence. Eisenmenger realized that he had to do something, that to stay the bystander would be to be an accomplice. He added his strength to Fisher's, but Carter was strong. Although Fisher and Eisenmenger had forced the gun to point towards the ceiling, he managed to twist them both so that it swung around in an arc. Just then, Beverley rose from her knees, then toppled forward, crashing into the three of them. She screeched with the pain but her weight was enough to unbalance the three of them and they, too, lost footing and crashed to the floor. The gun, pointing at Pilcher, went off; both barrels discharged simultaneously. The noise in that confined space was for a moment beyond endurance, a physical force that subsumed them all completely, made them for an instant insensate, as blind as they were deaf. Pilcher was standing two metres from them, his face one of surprise. There was a hole where once his abdomen had been; it seemed to Eisenmenger that there was smoke rising from the bloodied ruin of muscle, skin and gut. Pilcher was looking down at it as the look changed from surprise to puzzlement, then lastly to something akin to joy. He looked directly at Eisenmenger, then whispered, ‘I can feel it! I can feel it!'

He dropped to his knees quite suddenly. A jolt of pain passed across his face, then he sucked in a huge chestful of air, as if savouring something. ‘Oh, the Rapture!'

He slumped backwards, still upright, head bowed down, and was dead.

For a second no one moved, then Fisher, with a titanic effort, rose to his knees. He grabbed the gun by the barrels and swung it in a huge arc against Carter's head.

EPILOGUE

L
ancefield was cremated with full honours, her role in the apprehension of Marcus Pilcher told sparingly, her obvious psychological problems overlooked. There was a good crowd at her funeral and perhaps no one noticed that her father was not in it; Beverley, still confined to the hospital following surgery on her shattered collarbones, was also absent. Fisher was commended for his bravery, Beverley's promotion made permanent. After the funeral, Eisenmenger went to see her. She had a room in the Nuffield Hospital, a private hospital near GCHQ and they sat together, the open windows bringing in hot summer scents. He had smuggled in a bottle of champagne and with this they toasted Lancefield.

‘She was a fool. She had a bright future ahead of her,' she mused.

‘Her life fell apart,' he pointed out. ‘That's hardly her fault.'

Beverley was scathing. ‘Shit happens. How you deal with it is all that counts. Nothing else. She paid the price.'

‘
De mortuis nil nisi bonum.'

‘I never did believe that crap. If you ask me, too much good is spoken of the dead. They're like all the rest of us; fools, shits and madmen.'

Before he knew he had spoken, he asked, ‘And in which of those categories would you put Helena?'

For a moment she said nothing, merely staring at him; she was wondering what to say, whether to be honest or kind. She admitted at last, ‘Good question, John. Was she mad or just a fool to give you up?'

‘Or was she mad or just a fool to take up with me in the first place?'

She sipped more champagne, wondering why her mouth was dry. ‘Feeling sorry for yourself?'

‘I do seem to be bad news for those around me. Clive at the mortuary calls me Dr Death. Maybe he's not far wrong.'

‘Even in the midst of life . . .'

‘Some more so than others.'

There was a silence, neither finding anything more that was easy to say until she put down her glass, wincing at the pain she still felt whenever she moved her arms. ‘John . . .'

He looked up, breaking away from reverie, raising his eyebrows in question. She took a deep breath, wondering why she felt so fucking awkward. ‘I seem to be immune to your curse.'

He thought about this. ‘Yes,' he agreed. ‘You do, don't you.'

She wanted to say so much more, but found that she couldn't. He poured more champagne.

As he was leaving, his mobile phone rang; it told him mutely that it was Charlie. He thought about answering for a few moments.

But he only thought about it.