Dead Silent (21 page)

‘You seem very sure of yourself, Father.’

‘
Seem
. The operative word.’ Silence. ‘Speak, Bill. What’s on your mind?’

‘Gabriel took part in a murder, eight to ten hours ago. Tell me what you think about his state of mind now.’

‘If he’s done something that wrong, he’ll be especially vulnerable.’ He touched his heart. ‘Here. For all his confusion and his extremely strange questions and obsessions, Gabriel Huddersfield has got a very special gift.’ He paused as a tourist passed close by their bench. ‘He’s got a conscience. And deep down, he’s very afraid.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of going to hell when he dies. Which is why he constantly asks about historical figures. Like,
If there are many mansions in my Father’s estate of heaven, how many different mansions are there in hell? Which part of hell does Adolf Hitler live in? Whereabouts in hell is the soul of Caiaphas?
He’s a very talented artist. Did you know that?’

‘Yes, I’ve seen his work.’

‘Let me guess. A painting of hell?’

‘One part of it. One part is of the earth, but that’s not much different to hell. One part is paradise.’

The elderly priest looked at the confessional box a few metres away. ‘I have to go now. Discussing the sins of others has reminded me. It’s time to confess my own.’ He held out a hand and shook Hendricks’s. His fingers were icy. The skin on his hands was like paper and thin blue veins ran like deltas into the rivers of his fingers. Although his touch was full of tenderness, Hendricks felt almost as if he’d been caressed by a ghost.

‘I don’t think you’re capable of sin,’ said Hendricks.

‘Pardon?’

The priest smiled with his eyes and an inexplicable sadness coursed through Hendricks. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Never mind. Oh... if you can’t find him here, have a walk down Hope Street and try looking for him in the Anglican.’

Hendricks stared after him as he walked towards the door of the confessional box. Then he turned and said, ‘Give my love to Eve Clay.’

‘You know Eve?’

‘Tell Eve to come in and see me sometime, Bill. I’m proud of the way she turned out.’

It felt like the final seven grains of the sands of time were falling through the egg-timer. ‘How do you know Eve, Father?’

‘She’s been in the
Liverpool Echo
more than once.’ As he opened the door of the confessional box, his voice seemed to roll around the circumference of the cathedral.

‘Father, what’s your name?’ But Hendricks’s voice was lost in the gaping space, and the door of the confessional was shut.

In the light-soaked reception area at the main doors, Hendricks glanced back at the ethereal space and chided himself.
Since when did you believe in
ghosts?
A trick of the light and the stillness of the place.

Hendricks watched his feet as he walked down the treacherously steep white steps to the pavement. At the bottom, he stared down the length of Hope Street, towards the Anglican Cathedral.

A woman trudged through the snow, leading a class of junior school children into his path. As he allowed them past, Hendricks saw a man in a black coat crossing the junction of Hope Street and Mount Pleasant.

The man looked up at the blue glass tower of the cathedral and made the sign of the cross as he walked towards the steps.

Hendricks waited, double-checked the man’s features as he looked directly at Hendricks.

The man stopped.

‘Gabriel?’ Hendricks stepped towards him. ‘Gabriel Huddersfield?’

Huddersfield turned, ran into the road and back towards Hope Street.

A car swerved to avoid Huddersfield as he sprinted towards the Everyman Theatre and ploughed into the base of a traffic light. Hendricks watched as a stream of traffic screeched to a halt behind the lead car.

Huddersfield was across the centre of Mount Pleasant and Hendricks weaved through the frozen cars, avoiding the drivers as they jumped out of their vehicles and got directly in his way.

A double-decker bus steamed towards the junction with Hope Street. Hendricks looked at the bus, the black ice on the road and Huddersfield’s departing figure. He ran into its path, heard the horn screaming at him and felt the disturbance of air as he avoided the vehicle and made it to the corner.

He scanned the length of Hope Street and clocked Huddersfield heading towards the huge black and gold Art Nouveau gates of the Philharmonic Pub. A column of traffic forced Huddersfield to pause. He looked back as Hendricks made a diagonal cut across the road towards him. Their eyes met.

Huddersfield streamed past the pub’s decorative turrets and domes, turned the corner into Hardman Street and left Hendricks’s sight.

The sounds around Hendricks lifted and all he could hear was the pulse of blood inside his head. He felt his body melting into the air and the weight of his legs vanish. He got closer and closer as Huddersfield headed down the hill then cut across the road, drawing angry blasts of car horns.

On either side of the pavement, pedestrians stopped to watch as Hendricks held up his hand to a line of oncoming traffic, raced to the middle of the road and was then penned back by a single-decker 86. He darted through its slipstream to the other side, ran into the gutter, where red grit had turned the ice to slush, and kept his eyes pinned on Huddersfield’s back as he hit the corner of Pilgrim Street. Expecting him to turn the corner, Hendricks was surprised to see him cross the road towards St Luke’s, the bombed-out church.

Without warning, Huddersfield stopped in the middle of Pilgrim Street and tried to turn. But a motorbike hit him. Bike and rider curved to the ground as Huddersfield’s body flew into the air then slammed on to the tarmac.

As Hendricks closed in on him, Huddersfield got to his feet and hobbled down the side of the ruined church, past the black railings of its garden. An old man stopped and moved in his direction. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Police!’ called Hendricks. ‘Get away from him!’

Huddersfield pulled a knife. The old man backed off. Hendricks was ten paving stones away. Closer. He could see the cold cast of Huddersfield’s eyes.

Hendricks felt his body rise as he leapt towards Huddersfield, feet first into his back. He connected, full on with both feet in the base of Huddersfield’s spine, and Huddersfield crashed to the pavement. Hendricks landed half on the pavement and, adrenaline pumping, was on him, both hands pinning his chest, his knees on his hips.

Coldness poured off the pavement.

‘You’re under arrest, Gabriel.’

A ring of onlookers started to form. Hendricks kept one hand on Huddersfield and flashed his warrant card. ‘Beat it right now!’

Driving to the Royal Liverpool Hospital to meet with Hendricks and Huddersfield in A&E, Clay slowed down at a red light. Her phone rang out, she connected, hit speakerphone and burned the light.

‘I got your text,’ said Stone. ‘You want me to come to the Royal?’

‘Yes,’ she replied and then, remembering the victim’s daughter, ‘No. Go to The Sanctuary and tell Louise Lawson that we’ve got one of the men who killed her father. Confirm we’re looking for his accomplice. See if you can press her for anything else.’

As Clay sped down Lodge Lane, she considered the explosive cocktail of mental illness, religious mania and sexual deviancy on which Gabriel Huddersfield was so extremely drunk and wondered how hard it would be to crack him open.

At the junction with Smithdown Road and Upper Parliament Street, her phone rang again. Excitement gripped her when she saw the name ‘Cole’ on the display.

‘Barney! The white van, the CCTV from Fulwood Court?’

‘The central stretch of Jericho Lane leading away from the tip was swamped in fog from the playing fields alongside the road. The driver was CCTV savvy and held his hand up to his face when he passed Fulwood Court and their camera. He needn’t have bothered. The fog was so thick, I can only tell you that the van was a Mercedes-Benz, probably a Citan. And I could only pull two digits from the licence plate. K and C. The woman from the DVLA laughed at me, told me she wasn’t capable of performing miracles.
Go find the rest of the numbers and letters, Plod, and maybe I can help you then.
Quote unquote. Bitch!’

Clay buried the crashing disappointment that Cole’s news brought and tried to sound bright. ‘Barney, stop feeling sorry for yourself and get to work on the symbol from the shaft of the spear. Unravel the dragonfly at the open window.’

In the communal kitchen of The Sanctuary, Abey sat alone at the table, a plate of toast and a milky cup of tea in front of him. Another plate of toast and another cup of tea sat on the table in the empty place opposite.

‘So, where did you slip off to when everyone else was having their snack?’ asked Gideon, loading the dishwasher.

‘Eat up toast, Ken,’ said Abey to the empty place. ‘Drink tea, Ken. Hungry if don’t, Ken.’ With a delicate gesture, he pushed the plate and cup a little closer.

Gideon stopped what he was doing and, smiling, watched.

‘Come on, Ken. Be good boy now and me tell Lou-Lou, Ken be good boy.’ Abey nodded. He fell still and Gideon positioned himself so that he could see the expression on Abey’s face. He appeared rapt, listening attentively, nodding and making affirmative noises with his mouth.

‘No, Ken. Can’t. Can’t see. Can’t see no Dada. Dada dead. Body bury, soul in heaven. With?’ Pause. ‘Jesus!’

Abey’s head turned. His eyes tracked the space from the chair opposite to the door. ‘Where going, Ken? Come back, Ken! Ken! No eat toast. No grow big strong like Abey.’

Gideon made his way to the seat opposite Abey and the skin on his arms puckered into goose bumps when Abey looked directly into his eyes and smiled.

‘Can I sit there?’ Abey nodded and Gideon sat in Ken’s place. ‘Oh, look!’ said Gideon, indicating the tea and toast he had made earlier. ‘You said Ken would eat and drink it if I made it.’

Abey took a few moments and responded. ‘Ken naughty. No eat tea toast.’ He pointed at his own empty plate. ‘Me good. Me eat up and say thank you.’

‘What’s Ken like?’ asked Gideon. Abey licked the tip of his finger and dragged it through the crumbs on his plate. ‘Is he a good friend?’ Abey stuck the finger in his mouth and Gideon, noticing the friendship bracelet on his wrist, wondered just how much Abey would ever understand of Louise’s trauma.

‘Ken mean to Abey this morning.’ The door creaked open, but no one came in. ‘Ssshhhh!’ Abey placed his finger to his lips. ‘Hello, Ken!’ Abey lit up, tracked the phantom friend from the door to the chair opposite. Gideon watched Abey’s eyes make the journey through thin air. ‘Where been, Ken?’ An imaginary step. ‘Been good, Ken?’ Closer came the illusion.

‘Oh, I do beg your pardon, Ken,’ said Gideon, standing up for Abey’s imaginary friend. ‘Your seat. Here, please...’ He paused. ‘Sit down, Ken. That’s good, yes, just great.’ Gideon pushed the empty chair into the table and smiled. Abey made a switch. The tea and toast was in his place, the empty plate and cup in Ken’s place.

‘Ken eaten up. Abey eat he toast now.’

The door opened and Adam walked in, a smile on his lips. Abey stood up quickly and, head down, walked past Adam and out of the room.

‘What’s wrong with you now, Adam?’ asked Gideon. ‘You look like you’ve lost three pints of blood.’ Adam looked at Gideon with an intensity that stopped him in his tracks. ‘You don’t look yourself. I think I know what’s troubling you.’

‘Do you really?’ Adam closed the kitchen door. ‘Tell me, what’s troubling me?’

‘I’m worried about you, Adam.’

‘What a coincidence.’ Adam advanced towards Gideon. ‘What’s troubling me?’

‘Danielle. She doesn’t know, does she?’

‘Doesn’t know what?’

‘777 Croxteth Road,’ said Gideon.

The smile on Adam’s face froze and the colour rose in his throat. He moved closer, his eyes not leaving Gideon’s. ‘Go on.’

‘The longer it’s been going on, the more careless you’ve become.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about the purple-haired pot-head who screws you for weed money.’

Adam stopped. The tension in his body reached saturation point and he appeared to turn to stone on the spot. ‘Don’t even think about using that against me.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. But I’m confused, Adam. She’s a bag of bones. I’ve been behind her in the checkout at Tesco on Aigburth Road and she stinks. What’s her name? Sheila? Sally? Sandra?’

‘How do you know about me and Sally?’ There was a tone in his voice, a feline purring or a bomb about to go off.

‘I’ve seen you letting yourself into the building with your own key.’

Adam smiled and the effect was unnerving. ‘Go on, Gideon, keep that slanderous tongue wagging.’

‘I don’t get it. The attraction.’ In little more than a whisper, Gideon asked, ‘Is it the grubbiness of her?’ Adam said nothing, but his eyes were dancing with a muddy light. ‘You’re married to Danielle. She’s attractive, a lady, and you keep disappearing to that
woman
. I’m warning you, it’s out on the neighbourhood tom-toms: you, a pillar of the Church of England, and the local skank.’

Adam laughed and was then suddenly silent. ‘I’ve been visiting her because she wants me to pray with her. She’s desperate to come off the drugs. We had a chance meeting in the same Tesco’s where you made judgments about her because she lacks the basic skills to care for herself. You should listen to yourself. You’ve got a diseased mind, Gideon. Shame on you!’

The doorbell rang, three sharp blasts. The sound galvanised Adam and he was in the garden at speed. Gideon watched him and listened to Danielle’s footfall as she headed to the front door.

You’re a liar, Adam!
The truth of this overwhelmed Gideon as he tracked Adam heading through the snow. The man was poisonous.
A dangerous liar and a total
hypocrite
. Adam opened his shed door and, not for the first time, Gideon wondered what he did in there. Fear pricked Gideon’s skin like hot pins. His heart beat faster at the coldness in Adam’s eyes and an old-fashioned word came into his head
. Evil
.