Her Moons Denouement (Fallen Angels Book 2) (12 page)

Chapter 18

Moonbeams stream in through the open window, teasing the darkness, scaring it to scurry away from the sullen light.  I watch the shadows crease and fold, shifting with the movement of clouds in front of the moon, with the movement of the netting at the windows swaying in the breeze.  All of these things inspiring the darkness to live, to have form, shape and substance, showing me glimpses of the time Jess and I spent in the room.  My thoughts live in those folding shadows, mostly dark, sometimes grey and occasionally light. 

A beam strays towards the Edwardian chair I sit in, rolling shadows over the table top in front of me, chasing them past the open whisky decanter and the dishevelled pile of notes to pause for a second on the revolver beside them, before being absorbed by the darkness once more.

A noise from outside the window distracts my mind from painting with shadows. A larger shadow, a head, blocks out some of the moon and then a body climbs over the sill and strides silently over the floor towards me.

I pick up the decanter and pour a shot of whiskey into an empty, waiting glass and place it opposite me, where the curvaceous slice of darkness sits down, her face enlivened in a moonbeam.

‘They let you out then?’  Rebecca asks as she picks up the glass and takes a sip of whiskey.

‘Eventually.  Although there was a lot of waiting around while everyone was being processed.  The DCI isn’t stupid.  I told her in the end that I had been left a card asking me to meet someone at the club.  I gave it to her and then got summarily bollocked for withholding evidence.  She believes that I didn’t know it was you.  I didn’t tell her what we talked about.  I said as soon as I got there, they arrived.  I think she believes that.’

‘Did you hear anything on the grapevine or in the cells about Madame Evangeline or the Fallen Angels?’

‘No.  The police have you tagged as possibly being Madame Evangeline.  It didn’t help that you were there while they were looking for her.’   

‘I don’t think that will ever stop until they see us in the same room together.’ She tilts her head. ‘Even for you?’

There she goes again, reading every thought flowing through my mind.  I’m back in a world where there is what I know and what I feel and at the moment both are dancing in the shadows, trying to avoid the light.  She picks up the gun from the table as she waits for me to answer and watches me weigh her up. 

‘I’ve watched all the video’s Dr Hanlon made.  Everything I saw in them tells me you are not Madame Evangeline.  In the earlier ones, he had to talk long and hard to convince you not to try and kill yourself, to bring you back from the brink.  You are here, sitting in front of me now. How did he do it?  How did he convince you to want to live, to not let the darkness consume you?’

She raises the gun to her eyeline and pops the barrel, taking out the single bullet and holding it up in front of me.

‘He walked me through everything that had happened.  He made me confront my fears.  He put a weapon in the hands of a psychopath and gave me the choice either to use it, or to walk with him on a journey of redemption.  He made it absolutely crystal clear that if I chose to use it, it wouldn’t trouble him in the slightest.  And I believed him when he said that.’

She puts the bullet back in the gun, spins the barrel and instantly smacks her hand on it to stop it, then holds it out to me.

‘Tell me the worst thing that has happened to you.  Tell me how it made you feel and I will tell you if I think it is worth a shot.’

I stare at the gun in front of me and stare up into her wide challenging green eyes, my mind in turmoil.  What is she doing?  Tempting me?  Testing me?  Teasing me?  Or trying to help me?  The worst thing?  How do you quantify what is worst: losing your son, your wife or your lover?  It is all the worst. I take the gun from her and run my fingers along the barrel, thinking. A tear springs to my eye as I speak.

‘Betraying my wife and son.  The worst thing that has happened to me is betraying them and watching them die at my hand.  With the seconds counting down to their inevitable destruction, knowing that it was me who had put them both in that position, knowing that it was me who killed them.  It made me feel like a murderer, like a monster, like I should be dead.’

I thrust the gun into my forehead and pull the trigger. 

Click. 

Sixteenth time, chance is still with me.

She looks at me impassively, studying my features. 

‘You didn’t blink.  You didn’t think for one second what the impact of blowing your brains out in front of me would be.  Neither did you wait for me to tell you if I thought it was worth dying for.’

‘Was it?’

‘Yes it was, but I don’t think it was the worst thing that has ever happened to you.’

She reaches over and takes the gun out of my hand, not taking her probing eyes off mine.

‘I fucked my own son and at the time it was happening, I absolutely loved it.  I sat astride him, taking the full length of his throbbing cock into my tight wet cunt and it was sheer ecstasy.  He was the first man I had ever had and it was heaven.  Then Madame Evangeline took off his mask and showed me who he was and my world exploded.  In that second, in that instant I felt like scum, like a maggot, like the scourge of the earth and I wanted to be eradicated from all existence.  I didn’t just want to die, I wanted that whole experience to be wiped from the whole of eternity.  Is that worth a shot?’

Tears stream down her cheeks, the heavy make up running in rivulets, exposing the scarred face below.  I can’t even comprehend what that must be like, to find that you had done that, to know that you had enjoyed it. I nod my head.

She puts the barrel of the gun into her mouth, sucking it in with her lips, watching me intently as she pulls the trigger.

Click.  She didn’t blink either.  Seventeen.

Is this chicken?  Is she testing me?  Trying to show me that whatever might have happened to me, she has had it worse and is still alive?  She’s right, I didn’t think about her.  I’m not thinking about anyone but myself.  I haven’t been for a long time, a very long time.

‘I betrayed my wife, the woman I had loved since we were at Uni.  The woman who I had given my solemn oath to be faithful too.  I did that because I couldn’t cope with her agony, her guilt.  I’ve only just found out that years ago she was pregnant and had an abortion late in the pregnancy.  She lost her innocence, her youth, her baby and the man she loved.  And I wasn’t the person that she could talk to about any of that.  I wasn’t the person who she could talk to about how that impacted our son and our marriage.  I am a coward.  Too wrapped up in my own world and in my own problems to help the one person in the world that needed my help.’

My body is shaking, not at the thought of the gun to my head, but at the thought of the impact my actions have had on others.  Rebecca is looking at me with open empathy as she hands me back the gun, nodding.

I put it to my forehead again and pull the trigger.

Click.  Eighteen. 

‘Hannah was my childhood sweetheart.  We had been going out since school, since Purple Rain in 1984.  She was pregnant with Michael and we were having a home birth.  There were complications and I decided to take her to hospital in the car.  We crashed, it was my fault.  She was bleeding but in the last stages of labour and it was a choice of either saving Hannah or saving the baby.  I chose the baby and she died in my arms, with my wonderful baby boy screaming as we cuddled him.  The same boy I fucked and killed years later.  She made the ultimate sacrifice and I promised her I would look after him.  I betrayed her.’

My stomach sinks.  I had heard the full story on Dr Hanlon’s tapes, but it made it no less wrenching, even more so as she sits crying in the shadowed moonlight.  I hand her the gun, worried.

‘I have to say yes, but I have to say stop.  Too many people have died because of us.  I don’t want you to be the next.’

‘Not your choice.  If you think yes, I take a shot.  Simple as that.’ she says through tears.

‘Yes.’ I answer, honestly, passing the gun back to her.

‘She puts it under her chin this time, caressing her jawbone with the barrel before pulling the trigger.

Click.  Nineteen.

‘I wanted Jacob to die.  I wanted to help him die.  I kidded myself that it was for him.  All I saw in his eyes was the emptiness of forever and I just thought that death had to be better than the non life that he had.  But it wasn’t about Jacob.  It was about me again.  It was about me not being able to cope with a son who had an empty, endless life.  It was my fears that I was trying to end, my fears of loneliness, my fears of rejection, my fears of an empty life.  I didn’t want that for him.  But I didn’t want it for me.’

She passes me the gun and strokes my hand as I take it from her and put it to my forehead.

‘Thirty three and a third percent chance that I will die now.’

‘So pessimistic, that’s a sixty six point seven percent chance you will live.’

I pull the trigger.

Click. Twenty.  Fifty/fifty chance now.

‘I never knew who my parents were.  I was told they abandoned me when I was born.  I vaguely recall being a very sick child, spending lots of time in hospital.  After that I remember lots of foster homes, lots of transient families who never really opened up and let me in, just took the money and interacted as little as possible.  Even friendships were hard because I was always the new girl.  Always having to start from scratch.  Always having to learn to trust people again.  Always fearing I would be leaving again very soon.  The worst thing, the very worst thing that has ever happened in my life is never knowing who my parents were and never knowing the love and warmth of their hearts.  I have always been alone.’

Tears stream down my face in time with hers as I feel her agony, feel the anguish infused in every single painful word.  I feel it because I know it.  Rickety doors in rickety rooms burst open and the floodgates of my fears are breached.  I hand her the gun.

‘I don’t know why we are here, I don’t know why she has involved us in her life, but if I had anything to do with your pain, I am truly sorry.’ she says as she puts the gun straight to her forehead and pulls the trigger.

Click.  Twenty one. 

Not even a fifty/fifty chance now.  Chance has run out just at the right time. I speak.

‘I never knew who my parents were.  I don’t know what happened to them.  For a long time I didn’t even know what a parent was.  I was a very poorly child and spent the first six years of my life in an isolation room, shut away from everyone apart from doctors and nurses.  I remember every single day, every single pain, every single injection and extraction from the marrow in my bones.  I remember the emptiness, the mind numbing emptiness.  To this day I have no idea what was wrong with me, I just remember the agony.’

Rebecca leans over the table and puts the gun into my hand, tears freely flowing down her makeup stained face.  She lifts my hand to my forehead and then leans her head right in next to mine, in line with the trajectory of the gun.

‘After that I remember lots of foster homes and lots of transient families.  I learnt what I thought a parent was meant to be from them, and I learnt to fear what a parent was.  I learnt that even in a world of people, you are always alone.  I didn’t want that for Jacob.  That isolation, that emptiness.  The worst thing, the very worst thing about my life is not ever knowing what a parent was, and living my life trying to find out.  I have always been alone, I have always been a loner.  And that has made me selfish and conceited, insular and heartless.  The world will be a better place without me.’

I feel Rebecca shaking, from the emotion that is wracking us both, but also with her final affirmation.

I pull the trigger.

Chapter 19

The gun clicked for the seventh time and Saul sat bolt upright instantly, his sobbing subsumed into surprise, making his breath catch as he stared at the quivering hand holding it.  Rebecca reached down and tenderly cupped the hand, steadying it as she took the gun off him.  She flipped the barrel open and slipped the single bullet out, placing it in a talon of moonlight on the table between them.

‘I don’t understand.  The bullet was in there.  Why didn’t it fire?’ Saul asked, his eyes bewildered and questioning, staring at Rebecca’s shadowed, weeping features.

‘I guess in the hardest of times, when we are so absolutely alone, when we feel there is no one and nothing that can comprehend the way we feel, and we feel nothing at all can help us, that’s the time we need an Angel.  I don’t know why he did it, but Ben Hanlon was mine. The main reason I am alive today is not because I want to find out why this is happening, it is that he asked me to look after someone.’ Rebecca answered obscurely.

‘He asked you to look after me?’

Rebecca cocked the trigger on the revolver and scratched the head of it with one of her cherry painted nails.  ‘Indirectly, yes.  You were never going to blow your brains out with this revolver.  I filed the trigger head down on the very first night I saw you thinking about using it.’

Saul took the gun off her and scraped more of the back paint off the trigger, then slowly released it and watched down the barrel to see where it connected. He laughed and snorted a glob of snot from his nostril in the process which joined the tears trickling down his lips.

‘So, you’ve been watching over me.  Does that make you my guardian angel: No, a Fallen Angel?  Outside of the law, outside of society, a criminal in many people’s eyes with a different moral outlook.  Yet still you try and help.  Is that what they are doing to us Rebecca?  Turning us into Fallen Angels?’

‘I don’t know.  Until yesterday I had never even heard of the term.  It was certainly not something either Madame Evangeline or Ben Hanlon mentioned to me.  What I do know is that as much as she hurt me, both mentally and physically, she taught me to be strong.  She taught me to challenge morality.  She taught me to face my insecurities, my fears, my demons and learn to control them.  He taught to me have a purpose, even if it is only to get you through the day.  He taught me to open my mind to its own darkness.  He taught me how to be selfless.  None of those things were taught by sitting down with a book and turning to chapter three and reciting wrote.  I learnt by living a different way.  Perhaps it is what they are doing.  Perhaps they aren’t playing us.  Perhaps they are preparing us.’

‘Why us though.  What is it about you and I that they are interested in? Are we just the next in a long line they are recruiting into their cause?  Or something different.  You look remarkably like Madame Evangeline.  There seems to be someone out there who looks the spit of me.  Are we related in some way, is that what this is all about?  Or is that just another tactic they are using to draw us in.  They seem to be able to look like anyone they want to, they seem to be able to construct any identity they want to and they seem to be able to disappear at will.  It’s hard to think why we would be special in that, two orphans with ordinary lives.’

Rebecca lifted the decanter and poured them both another whiskey, then reached over to the sideboard and took a couple of tissues from a box on top and proceeded to delicately wipe the wetness from Saul’s face. 

‘I don’t think they are questions we can answer tonight.  I think the only people who can help us answer those questions are Ben and Evangeline.  What we’ve got to figure out is how we find them.  But more important than that, before I leave here tonight, I need to know that we have found a reason for you to want to live.’

Saul raised one of his hands and placed it over the one Rebecca was using to wipe his tears, directing it to his clammy cheek, where he forced it in tight, nuzzling into the flesh of her fingers.

‘I have never told anyone about my childhood.  I have never known anyone who I thought would understand.  I have never met anyone who I thought could help me walk through that pain and face those fears because they have done it too.  Until tonight.  For the first time ever, at this precise moment, I don’t feel a loner.’

Rebecca raised her other hand to his other cheek and stroked it tenderly, then leant over the table and pulled him in close, wrapping her arms around his back and hugged him tightly.  He willingly fell into the embrace.  They stayed cuddling in silence for more than a minute, just drinking in the essence of each other before Rebecca broke the embrace and sat back, still holding his hand.

‘That’s a start.  A big start.  But what about the next step?’

‘The next step is taking control.  At the minute, someone else is doing that and I am letting them, we are letting them.  We’ve got trackers in our bodies that let them know every move we make.  There will be people we are involved with that will definitely be feeding information back to them.  They have an agenda, a purpose and they are following it through regardless of the consequence.  We need to understand the bigger picture.  Why are they exposing these murderers, what is their goal and are we just peripheral, or part of that plan.’ Saul’s voice was becoming more and more animated, full of energy and vibrancy, full of ferocity. ‘I want to live so I can take my life back.’

Rebecca smiled at his fervour, adding simply, ‘How do we do that?’

He jumped up from his seat, slapping the light switches on the wall as he turned, brilliant light illuminating the gloom immediately, chasing shadows from every corner of the room. 

‘Wow.’  Rebecca whispered, in awe as she looked at the walls of the room, every single one of them covered in notes, pictures, post-it notes, documents, pins and strings.  ‘You have been busy.’

‘Busy looking at the wrong thing.’ he answered, darting around the room and rearranging artefacts seemingly randomly. 

Rebecca stood up and moved to the middle of the room, taking in the display, watching Saul work.  ‘Did you bring all of this with you?’

‘Yep, and added to it over the last twenty four hours.  There is only one thing I have been interested in:  was Jess Madame Evangeline?  That’s it.  Everything else was unimportant.  It was my guilt over the decision I made that was driving that.  Primarily, I am here today because I wanted to see how she could have conceivably got out of this room without me knowing.  I know that now.  I also thought I would be able to talk to her and just ask why?’

‘That’s still a relevant question.’

‘It is, but the bigger question is why us?  I’ve not even looked at that.  We have so much evidence from the Hanlon tapes, from your initial case, from what I have found out about the ‘Fallen Angels’ by being with the police today that we should be able to work out what they are doing.  We should be able to find out who and where they are.  I’ve got a Private Detective looking at some evidence on where Jess might have gone to on her trips to Edinburgh.’

‘There is something I have too.  Something which made me sure in my mind that Ben Hanlon knew Madame Evangeline, or Eve, which was another of her names.’

Saul stopped his frantic rearranging and turned to her in surprise.  ‘Did you say Eve?’

‘Yes, Eve.  I have a DVD of Michael and Eve together.  Eve being Madame Evangeline.  The only way he could have that is if she gave it to him.’

‘At the club tonight, a woman mistook me for someone called Adam.  Perhaps she didn’t mistake me.  At the time I thought Adam, Evangeline.  Adam and Eve.  Temptation, snakes and forbidden fruit.  Just reinforces that thought.’ he pondered, grabbing a pen and post it and writing the thought down, then slapping it onto the wall below a picture of Jess.  ‘Do you have the DVD here?’

‘Not on me, but where I am staying, yes.  When you talk about snakes, what do you mean, the one on her abdomen?’  Rebecca asked quizzically.

Saul was back at the walls, moving more of the evidence around.  ‘Yes, it was the only concrete piece of evidence that I had at the time to say that Jess was Madame Evangeline.’  He heard a zipper being opened, then stopped and turned.

Rebecca was undoing her cat suit, the leather parting the reveal the swell of her breasts, the scars and scabs of her self harm, her flat, bony stomach and the top of a snake head tattoo just below her belly button.

‘One like this?’ she asked.

Shock shot across Saul’s face, immediately followed by confusion and trepidation.

Rebecca saw the panic and spoke quickly.  ‘It doesn’t mean that I am Madame Evangeline.  It doesn’t mean I am Jess.  It doesn’t mean that I am Eve.  It means I have a tattoo the same as hers/theirs.  What you need to know is that I have had this tattoo all my life.  I don’t know when it was done.’

‘Sorry, just the shock of seeing it.  I know you aren’t Jess and I know Jess was Madame Evangeline.  It is a big coincidence though.  You didn’t mention it at all in the Hanlon tapes.’

‘No reason to really.  I can’t even recall mentioning that Madame Evangeline had one.’

‘You did, but only in passing, you didn’t make a big thing of it.  It was at the foot of King Arthur’s seat, when you saw Dr Ennis coming off the field.  Madame Evangeline was opening her coat, showing you her naked body.’

‘Yes, I remember now.  God, you’ve got a good memory.’

‘You have no idea.  It remembers everything.  Did you not think it strange that she had the exact same tattoo?’

‘Not really.  She presented her tattoo to me as a love token.  She said that she liked mine so much, that she had one done exactly the same.  Bear in mind she saw it the very first time we met and I hadn’t seen her naked at that point. I had no reason to believe any different at the time.’

‘That does add some more weight to the theory that you may in some way have connections.’  Saul said, noting that down and sticking the post it on the wall under a picture of Jess, drawing an arrow on the wall pointing to Rebecca.  His eyes went back to another picture, of the woman in Jacob’s room.  He picked it off the wall and turned back to Rebecca.’

‘So this was you in Jacob’s bedroom?’ he asked, showing her the picture.

‘Yes, that was me.  I know you spent a lot of time in there.  I went in to angle the blinds so I could see you from the tree house when you were lying on the floor.’

‘Ah, thought so.’ he said, nodding as he turned back to the wall and started to put the picture back, under other pictures of Rebecca this time.  He paused, not turning.

‘Why did you take Ian?’

‘Sorry, I don’t know what you mean.’ she answered, confused.

‘The small tan teddy, he’s called Ian.  I saw you pick him up and sniff in his scent.  You put him in the right pocket of the coat you were wearing.  Why?’ He was still facing the wall, looking at the picture.

‘Promise me one thing John.  Promise me there is enough in your life right now not to want to kill yourself.’  Rebecca asked, seriously, her voice full of crackling emotion. 

Saul turned around slowly, once again surprised at her tone, his countenance confused once more.  ‘Right now Rebecca, I have you, and you have given me hope.  Right now, I do not want to kill myself.  I want to get my life back.  Why?’

Rebecca approached him, taking his hand in hers and squeezed them tight.  ‘The person Ben Hanlon asked me to look after should never be the reason you don’t want to kill yourself.  That has to be about you.  But they should always be the reason you want to stay alive.’

‘Rebecca, what are you talking about, that doesn’t make sense.’

‘It will.  Your son, Jacob.  He is alive John, he is alive!’