Blood Atonement (31 page)

He looked at the books on the table. The first, the smaller book, was the Book of Mormon. The second was a larger book, thick and bound like a ledger. He opened it up. It appeared to be a handwritten register of the Church’s ceremonies. Baptisms, weddings, searings, endowments, going back at least three or four years. He flicked through the heavy pages until he reached the last used page, only a few before the end. He looked down absentmindedly, wondering how they archived the information for future generations. He stopped at the last entry.

He read it again to be sure. His stomach leaped three feet in the air, it seemed. ‘Heather,’ he called out. ‘Heather!’

Somewhere a door slammed abruptly shut. She was at his shoulder in a few seconds, recognizing the urgency in his voice. What?’

He pointed to the entry, the date written in American style. ‘Temple Ordinance. Baptism by Proxy. Catherine Mary Pratt b. 1969 d. 2008. Baptized 11.4.2008. Endowed 11.4.2008.’

‘Katie Drake,’ she said. ‘This was yesterday’ Nigel pointed to the names below. Martin Stamey. His son below that.

‘Can I help?’ The voice was soft and patient.

They turned with a start. The speaker was a small man with neat black hair, head tilted to one side. Both were rendered speechless.

‘Can I see your temple recommend?’

They looked at each other.

‘This temple is for Church members only. People without a recommend are forbidden from entering. There are severe punishments …’

We’re just leaving,’ Heather said.

The man watched them go. Nigel followed Heather as she busded through the door, into the blinding brightness and towards the car. Nigel looked behind. The man was standing at the top of the stairs watching them go. Two vehicles, one a beaten pick-up truck, entered the square at speed, the roar of the engine and the slamming of its brakes ripping the silence apart. Heather fumbled with the keys but got the door open. The small man hurried down the steps to the two vehicles, gesturing and pointing towards him and Heather.

Heather turned the engine over — to their relief it fired to life instantly — and headed straight out of the square.

A few minutes later they were hurtling out of Liberty, no one in their wake.

The safe house — Foster could not bring himself to do anything other than spit those words out in light of their palpable absurdity - throbbed with activity, yet all of those present steered clear of the large brooding presence on the sofa nursing a cup of tea. Outside, for the first time in days, a pale sun peered sheepishly through the steel-grey sky, though it did nothing to alleviate Foster’s sense of helplessness. He’d sworn to the kid that he’d be safe and that had turned out to be a lie. Now, for all he knew, Gary was dead and the killer had achieved his mission of wiping out or kidnapping an entire bloodline.

Foster shook his head and rubbed his weary eyes.

Had the Lord’s work been done?

However, all was not lost. Foster could not understand why Gary had not been killed and dragged out into the garden where his spilled blood would atone for the misdemeanours of the past. He clung to the idea that Gary might have got away.

An outline of what had happened the night before was beginning to emerge. Gary had arrived at the safe house on Monday evening with the two officers charged with protecting him for the next forty-eight hours. The officers were Adrian Sullivan and Sylvia Tweedy — he made it his business to find out their names, and personally call their next of kin to offer his sympathies, because he felt responsible. Sullivan was to take the nights, Tweedy the day, each sleeping while the other watched, entertained and kept an eye on Gary. After a couple of days they would be rotated and other officers drafted in.

The pathologist’s estimate was that Sullivan was shot dead shortly after ten the night before, Tweedy around the same time. He had been lured into opening the front door and been shot as soon as he did so. She had not gone to bed and after seeing her fallen colleague had tried to reach the panic button but had been cut down with two shots, one to the back and the other to her head.

It was the last fact that offered a lacuna of hope. The killer had decided to take out both of Gary’s minders, which gave the boy time to be alerted to the trouble and an opportunity to scarper, a skill at which he’d become extremely adept. But how had he got out? The window in his room was open. Foster prayed he had escaped that way rather than been dragged out by the killer.

He went over the possibilities once more. There were two options: either Gary got away or the killer got him.

He hoped to God it was the former. The idea that the kid was dead, when he knew how close they were to catching the killer and saving him, would be one he couldn’t bear.

As he sat on the sofa while the dawn sun came up, it crossed his mind that there wasn’t much more he could take of this. Yet another sorrow, just one in a long line, would be the one that pushed him out of the force for good. His future, and any hope for it, was tangled up in the fate of that brown-eyed boy.

He took a deep breath and let it out. There was no sign of forced entry. The abductor entered through the front door like a guest. There had been a chain on the door and a spyhole. Cops in places like this didn’t open the door to everyone who stopped by. Foster had pieced together what happened. The killer had set the car alarm off. It was a windy night. Sullivan, hearing it go and thinking it had been set off by a sudden gust, would have gone out to see to it and been gunned down as soon as he showed himself.

But how had he found Gary?

Foster had spent the night hours pondering that question.

Gary was taken down to an underground car park and then driven here. He never laid a foot outside police headquarters. Yet there was still only one convincing answer. The killer must have followed Gary there. God only knew how.

He needed a diversion. It was late in Utah, but not too late for him to call Heather and get an update. She sounded breathless, irritated almost. He apologized for calling late.

She appeared to calm herself.

‘Just wondered what the latest was?’ he asked.

She explained their foray into Liberty City and what they had found in the temple ledger. The names of the dead, baptized and converted to the TCF by proxy. Foster was so numb it took some time for her words to sink in.

‘Is everything OK, sir?’ she inquired, after a long silence.

‘Not really. Gary Stamey has gone missing from the safe house.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Yeah, two cops shot dead. Either the killer got Gary or he managed to get away. It’s not clear. I’m holding on to the hope that at least we didn’t find the body in the garden but, who knows?’ He sighed. It wasn’t something he wanted to spend too long thinking about. ‘So someone in Liberty knows that Drake, Stamey and his boy are dead. We have to assume they know who’s doing it then. I’ll get on to Harris but God knows what the Yanks are going to think about going in all guns blazing. The locals can close ranks and deny anything. Not much we can do if that’s what happens.’

‘There’s one thing,’ Heather said. ‘The name of the person who was baptized on behalf of the dead was Leonie Walker.’

‘You don’t think … ?’

‘Could be coincidence.’

‘Could be. Where are you now?’

At a motel, about six miles out of Liberty. Wondering what to do next. We don’t think we were followed. I don’t fancy going back without a posse. This is smalltown America. We have to presume they’re armed.’

‘Don’t move a muscle,’ Foster urged. ‘Harris didn’t want you going there in the first place — when he finds out, he’ll go apeshit, but at least you got something out of it. You confirmed a link. Let us think of the next step. Sit tight.

Have a hot dog and some root beer or something.’

Heather laughed. We have a room and a TV. No amusement for miles around.’

‘Sounds cosy. Amuse yourselves.’

She laughed again. When she stopped, the silence was long and profound. ‘He’ll be OK, sir. One thing we know about that kid is he knows how to escape and evade capture.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ he said, and meant it.

Outside, from the fields behind the house, Foster could hear barking. Sniffer dogs. Maybe they’d find the kid in a hole, or up a tree. With a lurching stomach, he also knew they might have found his murdered corpse. He didn’t speak, trying to glean from the animals’ excitement whether Gary had been found.

‘Got to go,’ he said, lifting his weary frame, breathing deeply to retain his brave face.

He went into the garden, breath misting in the frosty air, through a back gate towards a lone oak tree, branches bare, standing sentry on a hill. A group of uniforms were already gathering and he could hear the lone yelp of a frustrated police dog. As he neared, he saw one of the cops bend down but he couldn’t see what he was tending because it was beyond the brow of the small hill. He felt sick, he felt empty, and he felt forlorn. Another cop went down on his haunches.

A policewoman stationed outside the back gate called across to him. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing.

Foster followed her finger. On the straw-coloured grass were a few spots of blood. He said nothing. Just carried on walking towards the group on the hill. He plunged his hands deep in his voluminous pockets, so no one could see they were shaking.

He reached the crest of the hill. Foster closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened them.

Nothing. Just a dirt track.

The two policemen were still on their haunches. One saw Foster.

‘The scent stopped around here,’ one explained. ‘There are some fresh tyre tracks. A car, we reckon.’

Foster followed the snaking route of the dirt track. It seemed to run eastward away from the house back towards the main road.

‘There are some spots of blood back there. Get forensics out here. I want the whole field roped off and a fingertip search started straight away.’

‘Do you reckon it’s the killer’s car?’ a cop in uniform asked.

‘I do. He’s got him. If he’s not killed him here, then he needs him for something. Don’t ask me what. But once he’s got what he needs I know he’ll kill him. He has to achieve atonement.’ He glanced around the field, at the pale-blue sky and the denuded tree. We need to find him and find him today.’

The motel room was part of a single-storey, U-shaped complex looking out over a deserted car park. It smelled of cheap cigarettes and cheap sex. The threadbare carpet had seen the soles of a thousand shoes, and the bed linen - well, Nigel didn’t want to think about what that had seen.

He wondered how many residents of Liberty had sought a fleeting moment of escape in these cabins, far from the prying eyes of the town elders, before a shameful retreat to their city of virginal white.

The fact they appeared to be the only guests did nothing to assuage a feeling of creeping dread. Heather found the most inconspicuous corner of the lot and stuck the car there. She tried to grill the guy on reception about the TCF

but conversation was not his forte; he said he knew nothing about them apart from the whole lot being fruitcakes.

There was nothing else for them to do but hole up and wait for further instructions. Heather’s room, being slightly less soiled than his, became their base.

Heather had tried to call Foster, to report what they had discovered in Liberty, but his phone was ringing out.

Heather was becoming increasingly agitated, pacing back and forth across the room trying to come up with an idea of what to do next. Nigel shared her frustration, the feeling of being so close yet so far away. He got hold of a telephone directory from reception, suggesting they see who in Liberty had a phone and start cold-calling for information, but Heather dismissed it. Nigel passed the time by flicking the television on, and meandered through a mass of channels. Back home, the prospect of doing the same would appall him, but here in a different culture he found escape in local news and weather broadcasts, adverts for local businesses and a host of religious programming.

Heather reclined on her bed, one eye on the set, the other on her phone, which was charging on a simple wooden table in the corner. Nigel occasionally wandered out for a cigarette, watching the light fade away, listening for cars on the road, watching with some relief their tail lights fade to black as they passed by in either direction. The sky was cloudless; the moon had already punched a hole in the night and a few stars were visible before the sun had even set. It was going to be cold.

Heather went for a shower. He offered to leave, to give her privacy, but she told him not to be silly. When she finally emerged from the steam-filled bathroom, it was dark outside. She was wearing just a towel, wet hair falling on her shoulders. Nigel, lying on one of the twin beds, tried not to stare. She went over and sat at the table, fanned her face. Water’s hot, at least,’ she said. Nigel nodded, kept his eyes on the TV set, showing a basketball game. It promised to be a frustrating night in more ways than one.

She watched the basketball for a while, then moved for a better view on the end of the bed Nigel was lying on. The game was reaching the final few seconds and the scores were level. Her phone rang, and she grabbed it quickly. It was Donna Faugenot, asking how the trip had gone. Heather filled her in with the details and ended the call. ‘Don’t want to be rude,’ she explained. ‘But if a call comes in from England I don’t want to miss it.’

She looked at Nigel.

He felt uneasy.

‘Think Donna had the hots for you,’ she said playfully.

You think so?’ he said, trying to sound disinterested.

‘I do. Heck of a woman, Donna.’

‘She is, isn’t she? Not your stereotypical Latter-day Saint.

You know she’s divorced?’

‘I know,’ Heather said. Her playful smile turned into a grin. ‘I heard your conversation in the car.’

Nigel felt his heart almost stop. You did?’ A knot welded tight in his stomach.

She nodded. ‘Uh huh.’

He sat up. ‘All of it?’

‘Most of it.’

‘Oh.’ He didn’t know what to say.