Waking Broken (13 page)

Silently he sat: regarding his works. The only light came from a skylight two floors above and it was night now. But illumination was unnecessary; the words were in his heart.

The writing began at the top of the stairway, painted across the bare concrete floor and continuing downwards along the walls. It started the process for those brought here. Each phrase a lesson, a clue to redemption for those with something of their soul left to save.

He found it sad that none had so far taken the opportunity on offer. The opportunity for salvation, a chance to make peace with the judge of all judges: it was there for the taking. And yet, steeped so far in sin as they were, the fornicators, the adulterers and the hypocrites, all refused to avail themselves of his mercy, choosing instead to depart with their souls still damned.

Getting to his feet, he followed the stairs down with soft, heavy steps. Almost blind in the darkness, he brushed his fingertips across the painted words to either side. It was like reading Braille but without the bumps; his hands knew the words and absorbed their power through proximity alone.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped again. He was on ground level here, although there were no doors or windows to the old building. There was just a small platform before the long drop into the basement. It was too dark now even to make out where the words were written but again the warning was there; he could hardly have made it clearer.

And he always made sure that they entered the pit in the light. He wanted them to see what lay ahead. It was essential to give them a chance to see what was written, an opportunity to realise what corruption brought, a chance to understand where salvation lay. He did not rush them either. They always had time to read the warnings.

He leant out from the platform and inhaled. He waited for the day when he would smell something other than the stench of corruption from below. Waiting for the sweetness of sin confessed, of crimes admitted, of a plea for forgiveness and mercy.

But all that met his nostrils was foul, the scent of whoredom. She had been practically naked when he found her, this one. She had tried to disguise herself, a thin coat to conceal the evidence of depravity beneath. But how many kinds of woman ventured into the dark streets at night wearing just a Jezebel’s raiment beneath her coat? There was only one kind and her crude garb marked her as surely as the foreign tongue in which she muttered feeble protestations when he took her.

From his silent position above, he could hear her moving. They were soft sounds: the rustles of her harlot’s clothing, the sighs of a temptress. She was still for a moment then a faint cry, almost a whimper, rose up from the darkness.

It sounded so innocent, pitiful even, but he knew better. And he would not be dragged down. He would not interfere. The trial was in the heart of each sinner. He gave them the necessary days in which to search inside: the opportunity to look for the tiny kernel of good that might still remain. Find that, admit what they had done and ask for forgiveness, throw themselves on the mercy of the Lord: surely not too much for which to hope.

He breathed out softly, sadly.

He had been busy recently. At first, when he began his work, he lacked the confidence to actively seek those to be reclaimed. The first time was almost an accident and the second practically delivered to him on a plate. Since then he had gradually learnt from experience, getting more proficient in his methods, more efficient in the resolution. Even still, he rarely tried to carry out more than one salvation every few months.

Now, however, his work seemed to be mounting. The tide of filth and depravity showed no sign of abating and he accepted that if he were to truly achieve anything in this battle he would need to work harder.

He had already stepped up his efforts. Already this month one had undergone her ordeal. Then this one arrived. And now a third was confined in a separate pen: only at the beginning of her trial.

He would give the one below a little longer. Then it would be time for her to make the choice. He still harboured a faint hope this one might seek the way; initially, despite her clothing, he had even wondered whether her selection was a mistake. She had seemed more submissive than the others: the sin in her eyes less obvious. But she had rejected the book and without it the way led only to damnation not salvation.

He had no illusions about the other: the third one. She was a lost cause. From her foul mouth to her sluttish apparel, it was clear which path she followed. Still, the judgement must be fair; like all the others, she would be given her chance to repent and seek forgiveness and would not be turned away if she chose rightly. Her days may be numbered but she would still have sufficient days in which to make her choice.

In the meantime, he would continue his work, search again and find other lost souls that could be given a final chance to be brought back closer to the Almighty.

As he climbed back up the stairs, he mouthed some of the words written around the walls. Their mantra calmed him, gave strength to his righteousness, guided him on his path to truth and purity.

Thursday, 8.52am:

Rebecca turned slowly. She levered one unwilling eye open and squinted sideways. She saw a pillow and a slice of unfamiliar room. Consciousness slowly dawned and with it some memory of the night before.

She frowned, started to lift her head, winced and stopped. Sudden movement was not a good idea with a brain that appeared to be floating loose inside a skull lined with jagged points. Her throat rasped and there was a blur to her vision. She closed her eyes and groaned. She had not meant to drink much last night but her good intentions had got lost relatively early on.

A quarter of an hour later she was starting to feel a little more human. A door in the corner of the room revealed a small bathroom. A long drink of cold water from the tap and ten minutes beneath a cool shower helped the revival process greatly. She still felt a little unsteady and nauseous but more capable of movement and thought.

She looked around the room. Now that she was fully awake she could remember Paul Cash leading her along the corridor and steering her gently to the bedroom. Embarrassingly she could also remember her own uncontrollable giggles as the painter endeavoured to move her in a straight line. Getting into the room had been quite a challenge, although Rebecca recalled suddenly feeling more sober when she saw the double bed ahead. But after a kiss on the cheek Cash had left her there alone, surprised and very quickly unconscious.

Rebecca gave a wry smile to herself as she started to remember the previous evening. Part of her felt almost disappointed. She had been wary about coming to Haworth Manor on her own, out of hours so to speak. Staying to share food, confidences and wine with the artist seemed even more risky. After the flirtation and flattery that ended their first encounter, Rebecca fully expected Cash to try to seduce her, or at least make some kind of pass.

In the event, despite the roguish attitude, the artist acted the perfect gentleman. Now she was unsure whether to be relieved or slightly offended.

She found Cash on the terrace in front of the house. He was poised, arms above his head, half-bent and joined at the palms. His legs were at similar angles. The artist wore a pair of loose, baggy trousers and a long linen shirt. He resembled some kind of silver-haired Balinese dancer.

Cash lowered his arms and swivelled smoothly on one foot to face Rebecca as she approached across the gravel. He let out a long breath and pulled himself up straight in a surprisingly graceful motion. ‘Good morning, my dear. You slept well, I hope?’

Rebecca nodded cautiously. ‘Well… I think so. I don’t really remember much about it to be honest.’

Cash grinned. ‘Hmm. You did seem fairly ready for sleep as I recall.’

Rebecca shook her head gently. ‘Please remind me not to drink so much wine again.’ She looked at Cash suspiciously. ‘And how come you’re looking so damn fit and healthy this morning?’

He laughed. ‘Oh, a couple of reasons. One is that I’ve got years more experience of dealing with hangovers. The other is that I didn’t actually drink that much last night.’

‘What?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Cash sighed. ‘The sad truth I’ve reluctantly had to begin facing is I’m not as young as I used to be and all those years of… good living have taken their toll. I’m lucky enough not to have done any major harm but I’ve had it quite firmly pointed out by my doctors that if I want to reach my centenary I’ll need to go a bit easier in future.’

‘Your centenary?’ said Rebecca. ‘That’s still a way off.’

Cash stepped over and draped a long arm around her shoulders. ‘Yes, which is all the more reason to listen to the medical profession if I want to reach it.’

Rebecca suddenly stiffened. ‘Oh my god! What time is it?’

Cash showed her a bare arm.

‘I’m supposed to be at work by nine!’

Cash laughed. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘Why not?’ Rebecca pulled free. ‘It’s all right for you to laugh but I don’t want to get sacked.’

‘Don’t worry,’ repeated Cash. ‘I’ve already rung the dear Ms Hamilton to tell her I’ve asked you to come here for a meeting this morning. Anyway, you were off sick yesterday so you could always have called in ill again.’ He gave a sly smile. ‘Besides, if you get sacked you can still have the job I’ve offered you. Although… hmm, I suppose if you end up out of work I probably wouldn’t have to offer you as much pay.’

Rebecca raised her fist.

Cash backed away grinning. ‘Hey, you can’t threaten your future employer!’

She curled her lip. ‘Why not? I reckon that if I
do
decide to come and work for you, you’re going to need keeping in order.’

Cash raised an eyebrow and leered at Rebecca. ‘Ooh, yes please.’

She was about to try and summon up a suitable response when the sound of tyres crunching on gravel turned Rebecca’s head towards the approaching vehicle. Moments later, a taxi appeared around the corner of the mansion.

Cash stepped to Rebecca’s side again and rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘I thought maybe we could continue from where we left off last night.’

‘How do you mean?’ She looked at him in surprise then back again at the taxi. ‘Did you…’

The taxi drew to a halt and Rebecca stepped away from Cash, looking through the tinted glass, past the driver and towards the passenger in the back.

Harper had got the call from Cash at eight that morning. He had hardly slept the night before. Although it was gone midnight by the time he got home, he was wary of sleep: unsure whether it would bring him the rest he sought. Finding a part-full bottle of whisky, he had sat and nursed a healthy couple of drams, hoping the malt would soothe his mind. Alone in the still-strange flat, he sank into mental torpor, a kind of state between thought and total blankness that took him through to beyond two in the morning. In the end though, he fell into bed and, for a while, slept peacefully.

But then the dreams returned: at first only quick-fire snapshots that came sneaking in like fireworks shattering the peace of the night sky, swift glimpses of lives that may or may not have been real. They troubled him; even in his sleep he was unsure what to make of them, not quite able to dismiss them but not able to place the images either. And then the same nightmare followed. The dual dream of pursued and pursuer, both equally disturbing in their implacable intensity.

He woke not long after seven, only partly refreshed, tangled in body and soul. By the time Cash rang, he had been up for a while and was moving slowly around his flat. Not sure what he hoped to find, he sifted through the physical detritus of his other life, further exploring the flat and its contents. And while shuffling possessions from place to place, his mind tried to do the same with the emotional cacophony created by the previous night’s revelations.

The shock of spotting a serial killer sitting only feet away had wrenched Harper’s mind away from his own problems. He was stunned to see Van Hulle in the restaurant. The discovery of the bodies and the developer’s subsequent arrest left no doubt it was a cut-and-dried case. Harper was as certain of Van Hulle’s guilt as of his own story. Which meant that, if this was an alternative reality, seeking to check on his victims must be a logical next step. Clearly, Harper’s choice of method had been a mistake. On the other hand, while not really clarifying matters the events his actions provoked had proved illuminating.

In the end, the interrogation in the gym was resolved relatively peacefully. After being told Harper had not seen Stacey Cole for a couple of months, the man with the torch seemed to lose interest. Harper suspected his punch was less to do with his anger over finding a journalist prowling around her back garden and more a way of venting frustration.

Wiping away the blood trickling down from a cut above his eyebrow, Harper asked if something had happened to Stacey.

‘None of your fuckin’ business.’

The policeman, Glasgow, came forwards again. ‘You know anything about where Stacey might be, Mr Harper?’

‘No. Like I said, I was hoping to talk to her. I didn’t know if she was going to be at home or not… I didn’t have her telephone number.’

‘So why did you want to talk to her?’

The question stumped Harper for a moment. The initial temptation was to say he was investigating stories of women disappearing and hope they would tell him what had happened to Stacey Cole. But that risked opening a Pandora’s box of questions there was no way of Harper answering. They would want to know what else he knew and who his sources were. The truth was unlikely to be believed and he did not want to risk being caught in a lie. Although there was a policeman present, having Glasgow in the room did not make Harper feel any safer.

The only solution was vagueness. ‘Just a story I’ve been thinking of doing on the, er… escort business. I wondered if she might know something about it and be willing to give me some background.’

Harper gritted his teeth. He still had no idea what these people’s connection was with Stacey Cole. He could also only presume her profession was still the same and they knew how she earned her money. But with everything that he thought he knew already thrown into doubt, nothing seemed guaranteed any more. He just had to hope he was not saying anything likely to incur the wrath of his captors.

In the end, he did not learn anything else and they let him go soon after: simply shoving him out onto the street and leaving him to make his way home. On the way, Harper phoned Brendan and gave him a quick summary of what happened.

‘You’re lucky I’m a quick thinker, boy.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Your friend, the policeman…’

‘No friend of mine.’

‘Maybe not. But when he called me, he was using your phone. As soon as the number came up and it was some other feller’s voice on the other end I knew something was up. And, from what I’ve heard he’s not exactly a man to play games. Anyway, I didn’t want to give anything away until I knew what he wanted: which was an alibi for you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Harper, ‘I worked that much out. I was praying I’d been with you. I’ve got no idea where I was supposed to be. As far as I remember, I was at home with Rebecca.’

‘Ah, well, maybe you were and maybe you weren’t. But the thing is, Danny boy, you weren’t with me.’

‘But I thought…’

‘Sure you did, and it was a good guess. But where you were last Thursday I have no idea. I was down the Schooner and so were a whole load of people from
The Post.
You were supposed to be there but you never made it. Did one of your disappearing tricks. I thought maybe you’d found yourself a sympathetic pillow for the evening.’

Harper frowned at Brendan’s choice of words. ‘What do you mean my ‘disappearing tricks’?’

Brendan’s laugh had sounded a touch weary. ‘Ah, come on, Danny. Maybe it’s different in this other life of yours but in this one… well, let’s just say you’re not always the most reliable of fellows. It’s not exactly unknown for you to agree to meet someone and then not turn up. I mean, sure, there’s always a reason but most of us do a bit better at letting our friends know when something else comes up.’

‘Right.’

‘Danny, Danny, I’m not meaning to have a go at you, boy. It’s just very late, I’m tired, you’re tired and to be honest, things have been a wee bit strange over the past couple of days. Anyway,’ Brendan gave a long sigh, ‘your place in the reliability stakes isn’t exactly what’s important. The point is I’ve given your man from the
polis
an alibi for you. It should do the job but remember that it’s not exactly watertight.’

Harper nodded, his newly re-battered body feeling stiff and weary as he made his way along a back street towards the station. ‘Thanks, Brendan. I appreciate it…’ He blinked, fingers tight on the hard casing of the mobile phone. ‘I really do. I don’t know where I’d be at the moment without you.’

There was a moment’s silence before Brendan’s response. ‘Hey, don’t worry about it, boy. That’s what friends are for. Anyway, where are you now?’

‘Nearly home.’

‘I was needing to talk to you anyway. It’s about your father.’

‘What about him?’

‘Well… it would maybe be better if you came round.’

At that moment Harper turned the corner into the road where his flat was located. He felt physically shattered as well as emotionally drained. He was not sure he could handle anything more the same night. His father was dead; whatever Brendan had to say would not change that. ‘Can it wait until tomorrow?’

‘Sure,’ said Brendan. ‘I guess so. I’ll be around in the afternoon once I’ve finished my shift. Why don’t you pop round some time?’

Now, as the taxi followed the drive down towards Haworth Manor, Harper looked around curiously, unsure why he was wanted here. Then the car turned the corner of the old mansion and he saw Rebecca standing at the end of a broad terrace. Next to her was Paul Cash: one hand resting on her shoulder.

Harper stiffened. He had met Cash in passing several times in the past: including at a gallery opening, backstage at a music festival and a couple of other public events. On each occasion, an entourage of sycophants accompanied the grey-haired artist.

A distinctive figure, even without embellishment, Cash always appeared to revel in the attention of fans and detractors alike. Tall and lean, with compelling eyes and a chiselled face, the painter had a penchant for flowing, robe-like garments that accentuated his messianic appearance. That combination of a flair for public display, married with his undeniable charisma and notoriety, inevitably attracted a gaggle of hangers-on at any public event. Many were women, often attractive and much, much younger than the artist.