Dead Silent (30 page)

‘If I leave you in the van, as soon as my back’s turned you’ll be out and telling the first policeman you see that I killed your father. That’s quite an allegation you’re making, Louise. So I want to be there when you make it. Do you understand?’

‘As God is my judge, we’d sit in the car and wait for you.’

‘You think I’m a murderer. Why should I trust you?’ He steered round the corner and down the ramp leading into the main car park. ‘I didn’t kill your father. Next you’ll be telling me I killed my father!’

‘Did you kill your father?’ asked Louise.

He was silent. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Let Abey out of the van. Please, Adam.’

‘Abey out! Abey out!’

‘Speak to him and calm him down and then we’ll go inside. The sooner we do that, the sooner we go to the police. I’ll park as close to the front as I can, that way we can be as quick as possible.’

‘Abey?’ Louise turned his face towards hers. She leaned in to him, pressed her lips close to his ear and whispered.

‘What are you saying to him?’

She continued whispering and with each in-breath he became a little calmer. ‘I’m telling Abey where we’re going. And, Abey, when we go inside, we must be very, very quiet. No crying. We have to go where Adam tells us and do what Adam says. And if you’re very good, we can light a candle.’

‘For Dada?’

‘For Dada.’

No longer crying, Abey pointed at her.

‘Yes, for my father too.’ She took a tissue from her pocket, wiped his face clean. ‘In the cathedral, no sad faces allowed.’

As Adam reversed into a parking space close to the main entrance, wind curled around the walls of the cathedral. ‘Listen to that,’ he said, with a note of tenderness that was shocking to his own ears. ‘It’s as if the Lord’s voice has carried down from heaven. ‘It’s all right. Everything’s all right.’ He felt the screwdriver in his pocket. ‘Everything will be all right. We’re going to settle a score, we’re going to light candles and then we’re going to say our prayers because we’re all good Christians around here, aren’t we?’

The wind changed direction sharply. And within its powerful shift, there was a sound like someone crying inconsolable tears.

‘Can you hear that?’ asked Adam.

Just behind the wind, and just out of earshot, was another sound.

Sirens.

Adam placed his left hand in the air in evangelical prayer. He looked at the bell tower and the heat of humiliation flooded through him as the security guard’s mocking voice echoed inside his head. ‘
Stop bothering the stonemason. Fuck off, faggot, he’s not interested in you.’

‘How like that other tower, Babel,’ said Louise. She looked up at the sheer face of the bell tower ornamented with elegant gothic arches. It seemed to support the weight of the sky.

‘Get out. It’s payback time,’ said Adam.

The Triumph of Death
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1562)

Nothing could escape Death.

The First Born had known this for as long as he could remember. He had first learned this fact from a picture in a book. As he closed his eyes, in the darkness of his bedroom, the picture came alive inside his head. An army of skeletons, some of them dragging carts piled high with skulls, some of them riding horses carrying curved weapons to knock down the living. He tried to shut out the voice that followed him every single day.

‘Look at the picture and know the truth,’ commanded the voice.
‘
Death has servants and here are just some of them. Look at them and tell me what you see!’

The First Born closed his eyes tight and did not answer. The voice grew angry.
‘
Speak or else!’

He heard his own voice whispering into the dark.
‘
I see Death’s servants. I see skeletons. I see people, terrified, they cannot escape...’ His voice wobbled, and he tried his best not to cry.
‘
Far away, fires rage in the mountains. There are no leaves on the trees. There are no fish in the lake. The boats are burning in the harbour. I see the Triumph of Death.’

The First Born’s mind stumbled and remained on one detail. A brick bridge with an arch. A man in a green coat, red hose and black shoes trying to escape from the water. A skeleton on the bridge pushing him back down, pressing on his right shoulder. A skeleton in the water beneath him, dragging down the man’s right leg. Another man already drowned, face down in the water, his body upside down against the bridge. The skeletons smiling. The man in green and red would be next.

The First Born could hear his own blood thrumming in his ears and understood perfectly what the voice told him.

Man’s suffering and death on this earth were the just deserts of sin. But what came afterwards made these agonies seem like nothing.

Man. Sin. Death. Damnation.

All had been made perfectly clear to the First Born.

Especially this.

Nothing could escape Death.

As Clay drove down Catharine Street towards the Anglican Cathedral, she picked up a call from DS Stone.

‘Eve, I think I’ve got a name for the First Born. Adam Miller. It looks like he’s killed Gideon Stephens. He’s done a runner and taken Louise Lawson and Abey with him. I found a flyer with his name and contact details at the Knowsley Road murder scene. Man with a white van? In my head, I’m linking it to the white van that dropped the freezer off at the Otterspool tip.’

‘Gideon Stephens dead?’

‘I’ve seen his corpse in Miller’s garden shed. Smacked with a spade.’

‘Let’s run with your idea. Miller’s the First Born.’

As she burned a red light and turned on to Upper Duke Street, the sobbing behind Stone’s voice intensified.

‘Where are you, Karl?’

‘I’m in The Sanctuary with Danielle Miller.’

‘Where’s he likely to go?’ asked Clay out loud. ‘The Anglican Cathedral?’

‘He was supposed to be there. I’ve checked. He walked out around one o’clock. What do you want me to do, Eve?’

‘I want you to bring Danielle Miller to the Anglican Cathedral. We’ve got a hotspot. Whose body? Which garden? It’s in the Garden of St James. Meet me there, Karl. Put me on to Danielle.’

Stone passed his phone over.

‘Danielle, take a deep breath and listen to me. Is there anywhere other than the cathedral that your husband might go?’

‘No. Not that I know of.’

‘DS Stone’s going to bring you down to the Anglican Cathedral, Danielle. We’ll need any information and documentation you have on Abey, Louise or your husband. You’re going to have to tell us everything you know.’ She paused. ‘The truth, Danielle. Is your husband a violent man?’

‘Yes. Yes he is.’

Clay’s phone rang out again as she was walking across Upper Duke Street. She stopped to avoid a collision with a motorbike, then hurried to the other side against a wave of horn-blaring motorists. On the pavement, she connected to the unidentified caller and glanced at the Constables’ Lodge in front of the Anglican Cathedral precinct. At its gate stood two officers, unaware of the bomb that was about to go off on their sleepy patch.

‘DCI Clay?’ A man, his voice dense with anxiety. ‘It’s Alan Ferry, Anglican Cathedral, head verger.’

‘Thank you for calling me back. I need you to clear the cathedral of all visitors and personnel. I want all vehicles off the car park as I’m sealing off the entire perimeter of the precinct, including the Garden of St James.’

‘That could take some time.’

‘Get your constables, your clergy, your staff and volunteers together, get everyone on board, Mr Ferry. Officers are on their way right now to help you.’ She heard the echo of feet.

‘They’re here already. What’s happening, DCI Clay?’

‘It’s a murder investigation. Where are you assembling, Mr Ferry?’

‘In the nave, near the west door.’

‘Have you seen Adam Miller within the last hour?’

‘No. I saw him at lunchtime, but he left.’

‘If you see or hear from him, call me immediately. Does he have a friend?’

‘Not really. He’s not one of our more popular volunteers.’

‘Does he worship in a parish church?’

‘He worships here. He volunteers here. He doesn’t like parish politics.’

‘Does he go anywhere socially, any favourite place he’s mentioned?’

‘He keeps himself to himself. Is he in trouble?’

‘Yes, Mr Ferry, he’s in trouble. Please listen. If he shows up, don’t approach him. There are enough police officers around to deal with him. You must clear your building as quickly as possible. Do you have a mobile phone number for Adam Miller?’

‘It’s on my phone... hang on.’

Clay felt the passing seconds like drips of cold water on the centre of her forehead. The verger finally read out a number, which she keyed into her phone, then tried to ring. The phone was off.

When she reached the top of the stone corridor leading down into the Garden of St James, Clay took a roll of scene-of-crime tape out of her bag. In her bag, Louise Lawson’s cross-stitch tugged sharply at her need to know, but she pressed down the urge to look at it more closely and sealed off the main entrance into the graveyard.

‘DCI Clay?’ A voice found her out. She turned, saw two police constables advancing.

‘Go to the outer gate, main entrance,’ she instructed them. ‘As uniformed officers arrive, you’re to direct half to go inside the cathedral and assist the head verger, Alan Ferry, in evacuating the building. The other half are to come down to the Garden of St James to assist me with the search for a body.’

A police motorcyclist at the head of a convoy pulled up near the Oratory and the vehicles behind slowed and stopped.

‘Come on, come on, come on...’ Clay’s breath was white as the huge up-lighters came on, illuminating the exterior of the Anglican Cathedral.

Hendricks stepped out from his car and, in the next moment, Gabriel Huddersfield was on the pavement, handcuffed and in a borrowed coat that was three sizes too big for him. Hendricks grabbed Huddersfield’s elbow. ‘Walk with me, Gabriel.’

Clay touched the top of a gravestone inlaid into the wall of the corridor and felt the utter coldness of death, certain that the First Born now had a human name and a face. Adam Miller.

As Hendricks delivered Huddersfield to Clay, Huddersfield asked, ‘How long do I have to stay here for?’

‘Until I say it’s time for you to leave,’ replied Clay. ‘First things first, Gabriel. The first man. The first name in the Book of Genesis. Adam. This is the name of the First Born, your lover, your savage, the man you have taken life with?’

‘First things first,’ replied Huddersfield. ‘You found it then? The garden?’

‘I’ve found the garden. But in the garden there are thousands of bodies. I’m looking for the one that you and Adam Miller buried.’

‘Adam Miller?’

‘The body? Where is it?’

‘In the garden.’

‘You wish to serve and please the Lord and save your soul. Because one day you will die and you will be summoned for the Last Judgment.’

Inspiration sparked deep inside her. She glanced at Hendricks. ‘Follow us, Bill.’ They walked deeper into the stone passage.

‘But I have served the Lord,’ said Huddersfield.

He was holding back, but she could sense him unravelling before her. Everything she knew about him, everything she had heard and seen, the chaos that was Gabriel Huddersfield, made perfect sense.

‘And so have I,’ said Clay. She hung on to the silence, walked deeper into the darkness of the stone passage.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, catching up with her. He overtook Clay, walked in front of her. ‘What do you mean,
And so have I
?’ He turned, walked backwards, drilled his gaze into hers. ‘I said,
But I have served the Lord.
And you said,
And so have I.
What do you mean?’

‘Pray in silence,’ said Clay. ‘The best prayers are silent. The greatest form of prayer is to answer in silence the questions that need to be asked.’

She felt like she was being swallowed by darkness, but the conflict that danced across his wounded face kept her moving.

‘What questions? What prayers?’

‘I will ask aloud. You will answer in silence.’

She walked him to the bottom of the passage, the edge of the graveyard. It was quiet and the day was closing down at the edge of the Garden of St James. Gravestones were scattered within the natural stone boundaries of the garden, bodies buried under the snow, marked by nineteenth-century marble angels and sealed in beneath headstones carved with the briefest of biographies.

‘In silence, Gabriel. Did the First Born deceive you?’

A blackbird flew quickly overhead as its mate called from the trees overlooking the dead.

‘What is hell like? In silence, Gabriel,’ said Clay. She waited, sensed the wheels of his mind turning in the mounting tension of his face. His eye movements slowed, processing fear. ‘Can you be spared from hell, Gabriel? Angels have fallen in the past. Have you fallen? Do you know? Is there doubt? Can fallen angels be saved? And what is more loathsome in the eyes of the Lord? Sexual perversion? Or murder?’