She filled it with water from the bathroom. When she returned, he was sitting on the narrow wooden chair at the desk, his coat thrown over the end of the bed. He hadn’t uttered a word since they’d left the lobby. She flicked on the switch, busied herself tearing open the miserable coffee sachets and poured the small grains into cups.
A wave of exhaustion seeped through her sinews. She rubbed the back of her neck. He was out of the chair and standing behind her.
‘Ssh,’ he said, massaging the spot where her fingers had been.
Tremors travelled like lightning down to her toes. Holy God, she thought, I’m like a cliché. He’s a priest. It’s okay. He’s only rubbing my tired neck.
She felt the sleeve of his sweater, rough against the silk of her blouse. She smelled his soft soap. She stood still, entombed by his touch, and wondered if she was craving this contact so that he might absolve her of all the horrors of the last few hours, the last few days, the last few years and of the horrors yet to be revealed.
‘That’s enough now, Joe,’ she laughed nervously and wriggled away from him. She began busying herself with the kettle. ‘Let’s have that coffee.’
‘Of course,’ he said, sitting down on the chair.
Handing him a cup, she said, ‘I hope I haven’t given off wrong signals. I like you as a friend. Nothing more. My life is complicated enough.’
He laughed then and the tension in the room seemed to slip out the window with the billowing curtain.
‘Dear God, I hope I wasn’t being improper. I was only trying to release the pressure from your neck. It’s been a tough day for you.’
She felt a blush sweep up her cheeks. Shit, she had made a fool of herself. She put down the cup and turned away.
He stood up and placed his hands on her shoulders, forced her to look at him.
‘You are a good woman, Lottie Parker. I want you to know that I will be your friend and I’ll do my best to help you solve the murders.’ He held out his hand. ‘Friends?’
‘Yes,’ Lottie said and shook his hand. He clasped her hand, holding it in his own.
He left then, without saying anything further.
Leaning against the door, she listened to his steps disappearing down the marble corridor. She waited for her breathing to return to normal. She waited for the chiming of the Maggiore bells.
When at last she could move, Lottie tried phoning Boyd. She just wanted to hear a familiar voice.
No answer.
She looked out over the city and counted the silhouetted spires. She counted the car horns and the sirens. As her body relaxed she flipped open her laptop. She needed to go home. Tonight. Finding a flight leaving in two hours, she booked it and hurriedly stuffed everything into her rucksack, left the hotel and ran to catch the shuttle-train.
She called Boyd again.
No answer.
Seventy-Five
A bell tinkled and a light flickered above his head. Jason opened his eyes and turned his head slowly, focussing through the shadows.
‘Time for a little ceremony, server boy.’
The voice chanted a hum of incantations. A light dimmed and flickered.
‘What do you want?’ Jason croaked.
‘Whatever you have to offer me will never be enough.’
‘My father—’
‘This is partly his fault. So you can blame him.’
‘What . . . what do you mean?’
‘You don’t need to concern yourself with it.’
Jason squeezed his eyes shut to keep tears from escaping. Hands unshackled him, hauled him to his feet. A finger trailed down his spine. The man exhaled a loud sigh and pushed him out the door, along a corridor, and down steps.
He was in a small chapel. The man carried a bell, clanging it in time to some unknown beat within his body.
The wooden pews offered Jason no comfort; he was forced to stand, hypnotised by the scene before him.
Dressed in a flowing white robe, buttoned from hem to neck, the man sang his mad tune, his voice rising and falling, almost in time to the candles blowing soft and slow in a captured breeze.
‘I killed a man tonight,’ said the singsong voice.
Jason grew cold, though his skin radiated sweat. Combined with whatever drugs he’d been fed, the flickering candles and incessant chanting, he felt dizzy.
‘Actually I might have killed two.’ The hysterical laugh resonated throughout the stone vestibule.
A crow circled high in the rafters and flew into a stained glass window, a feather floating through the air in its wake. A mist descended over Jason’s eyes as the marble welcomed his fall. He hit the floor and lay unconscious beside the black feather.
Seventy-Six
Lottie leaned against the oval airplane window. Closing her eyes, she thought of the few hours she had spent in Rome, her mind consumed by the old ledgers. Numbers scrolled through her mind. Susan Sullivan was a number. Her child was a number. Suddenly, she sat bolt upright in the seat, waking the woman beside her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lottie said. ‘I think we’ve another hour to go.’
The woman scrunched her chin into her chest and went back to sleep.
Lottie stared at the seat in front of her. What was within her grasp? A clue. Something she’d already seen but hadn’t yet registered. It would come. She knew it would. The photographic evidence was on her phone. Once it was uploaded, she was sure she could tie it all together.
Jealous of the woman with the soft snores, she couldn’t rest easy. She needed to talk to someone. She needed Boyd. She needed to get back to work. She needed to sleep.
Her heart sank deeper as the plane rose higher above the dark clouds and she struggled with the sins she’d committed and the ones to which she’d practically succumbed.
Would she ever be able to sleep again?
Seventy-Seven
The boy looked like an unfinished sculpture, the man thought. Just like he himself. Weak. Fragmented. Incomplete. Here in St Angela’s – his nemesis.
He’d spent his miserable childhood within this enclosure and he’d grown, like ivy inhabiting a cracked concrete wall, wild and untethered. His soul darkened day by day, as he became enshrined in his own world. Abuse and deceit engulfed him but as the years passed he learned to bury embryonic evil beneath a daily facade of normality.
And now St Angela’s had once again resurrected the devil, exhumed the darkness, bringing him on this final journey.
Back to where he had started.
And he knew it would finish here.
He kicked the boy lying on the ground and when he moaned, he dragged him to his feet, pushed him up the steps and back to the room. He thrust him down on the mildewed floorboards, banged the door shut and locked it. Leaning against the worn timber he breathed heavily.
He had spared the boy.
Kept the demons at bay.
But for how long?
30th January 1976
The four of them huddled together when they should have been running. The door swung open. Brian stood there, a white robe covering his body. His thin arm edged up the wall, his narrow fingers flicked on the light. Sally shielded her eyes against the brightness.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Brian said. ‘I’m not all right. Neither are you. You’re all to come down to the chapel. Father Con orders ye to come.’