Shortly after midnight Colm seemed to rouse, and Declan sat up.
‘You’re feeling better?’ he said, but he could already see that Colm was much worse. His eyes were wild and he seemed to be having difficulty breathing. The unmarked side of his face was taking on a waxen tinge and there was a pinched blue look to his lips. I can’t lose him, thought Declan, in anguish. Only I don’t know what to do.
In a weak voice, Colm said, ‘What were we saying about death, Declan?’
‘You’re not dying,’ said Declan again.
‘I am. And here’s the thing, Declan, I’m dying with all those sins on my soul. Mine and Romilly’s, and Nicholas Sheehan’s . . .’ He struggled into a semi-upright position and reached for Declan’s hands. The fingers, closing around Declan’s, were cold, but beneath the surface the bones seemed to be on fire. ‘Let’s remember Romilly aborted a child and Sheehan reneged on his vows,’ said Colm. ‘And let’s remember that I murdered five people in London . . .’
Declan said, ‘Will I get a priest?’ and Colm gave a half-laugh that turned into a scraping cough.
‘Father O’Brian? Oh sure, he’d break his neck to come all the way up here for a sinner like me.’
‘He would come,’ said Declan.
‘Declan, by the time you get to his house and bring him back out here, it’ll be too late. Oh God, it’s burning into my bones . . .’ He broke off, struggling against the pain. Then he said, in a quieter voice, ‘I don’t want to die like this – I don’t want to die at all. Life’s bloody unfair, isn’t it?’
‘You’ll get through it,’ said Declan valiantly.
‘But in case not . . . Declan, will you do one last thing for me?’
‘What?’ But a cold horror was creeping over Declan, because he already knew what Colm wanted.
‘You did it twice before. Once for the priest. Then for Romilly. Do it for me, now. The ritual – the sin-eating ritual.’
Declan stared at him, his mind in tumult. After what felt like a very long time, he said, ‘I can’t.’
‘Why can’t you? You did it for those others. Aren’t I your oldest friend?’
It would be impossible to say, ‘Yes, but you’re a murderer five times over.’ Instead Declan said, again, ‘I can’t.’
‘But you’d confess straight afterwards.’ Again the pain overwhelmed him, and he hunched over, gasping.
Declan thought, confess to murder? Five murders? Priests hearing confession were bound by absolute secrecy, but he could not believe a priest, hearing a confession of murder, would not find some way to invoke temporal justice. And who would believe Declan was confessing on behalf of a man who was himself dead?
He said, ‘Colm, let me try to get a priest to you . . .’
But Colm seemed not to hear. He said, ‘Declan, if I gave you something . . . Get my jacket – don’t argue, just do it.’ He waited until Declan passed him the jacket, and thrust his hand into the pocket.
‘What . . . ?’
‘The Title Deeds to Holly Lodge,’ said Colm. ‘You got them out of the house, remember? And that house is mine – it was left to me fairly and legally. But you take them and take the ownership of it. Find a way of getting your name on to the – I don’t know what it’s called – on to the ownership part of the Deeds.’
‘I’d never get away with it,’ said Declan, but something had tugged at his mind, saying, wouldn’t it be a marvellous thing to own a whole house . . .
‘Yes, listen. You’ll have to leave it a while – maybe as long as a year or even more. Then you turn up at a solicitor’s office, and give them some story. Say you met someone while you were travelling and he gave you the Deeds as he lay dying. That’s true enough, anyway,’ said Colm, bitterly.
‘But Flossie’s family—’
‘She didn’t have any,’ said Colm. He had fallen back on the sofa and his eyes were becoming distant. ‘I’m telling you, you’ll get away with it.’
Declan said, ‘Colm, even with this, I can’t do what you’re asking.’
‘I shan’t give up,’ said Colm, and broke off with a dreadful rasping cough. His hand, which Declan had taken again, seemed to be loosening. ‘I promise you, Declan Doyle, I shan’t give up.’
The present
He never did give up, thought Benedict, still seated in the soft dimness of the shack. He died here in this cottage, but he couldn’t be at peace. He believed he was the one who had taken the guilt of those other sins and he believed he needed someone to repeat the ritual to remove them. And to remove his own sins, thought Benedict. All those killings . . . It’s medieval and it’s impossible, but he believed it.
Declan wouldn’t do it . . . He wouldn’t repeat the ritual . . . Declan’s son wouldn’t do it, either, and nor would his grandson . . .
Benedict said, very firmly, ‘And nor will I.’
No . . . The word drifted through the desolation and the shadows, sadly accepting.
‘Did my great-grandfather bring the chess piece back to Holly Lodge all those years ago?’
He did. He couldn’t face destroying it. He got his name transferred to the Title Deeds and he went back to London. The chess piece went with him. You know the rest.
Aware of absurdity, Benedict said, ‘Can’t you – let go now?’
I don’t know. Aren’t I the ghost doomed to walk the night? The familiar irony was there.
Benedict said, ‘If I were to destroy the chessman? If I take it up to the watchtower and smash it? Would that – I don’t know the right expression – would it release you?’
There was a long silence, and for a moment he thought Colm had gone. Then, Let’s try, said Colm’s voice. Let’s try that now.
So they stood together in the burned-out watchtower, where a renegade priest had lived out a lonely existence in an attempt to contain an ancient evil, and where two boys had clung to a rock spur and listened to him die in screaming agony.
And, thought Benedict, where a set of figures that once haunted a castle library perished.