Rapture Falls (15 page)

             
“I’m sorry son but the church is closed, we, we’ve suffered a terrible tragedy, but by God’s grace we’ll come through and so will Father Jacobs
who is lying in a hospital bed this very evening
, is that
..
, is that why you’re here to pay your respects?” she asked.

             
“Not exactly lady, I put him there” Baine answered absently, he was looking around the room seeking anything that would catch his
attention anything that he could use.

             
Delores heaved herself out of the chair shaking incredulously with rage “You, you did that, you heathen, you monster” she walked toward him trembling with hatred.

             
Baine turned
a dismissive amount of
his attention momentarily back towards her “Lady
,
sit the fuck back down and keep out of my way”

She continued to approach him, her eyes burned but her body seemed frail, however after this mornings festivities Baine was not in the mood to take chances, he stepped into her approach and smashed her full
in the face, b
y the way she instantly crumpled Baine knew that she
had been no
physical threat, he mentally shrugged to himself and stepped over her fallen form and around to the large wooden desk from which de Payens had pulled his mojo book this morning.
The desk held two large drawers on either side
,
beneath which sat a large cupboard door, of the four drawers and two doors only one door was locked, Baine started with that. Before his altercation with grandma his intention had been one of stealth and a lack of detection but now that she was laid out on the woven round rug all bets were off,
he carried a set of lock picking tools but they were no longer necessary. He gripped the small pewter handle and ripped the whole door from its moorings, he
disguarded
the door and sank to his knees in order to peer in to the cupboard at eye level.
The interior
revealed
only
one item, the priest’s book, it had been returned back into its resting place presumably by the
now
bleeding housekeeper, he pulled it out and hefted its weight, it was surprisingly heavy, the binding was an unusual dark coarse leather which carried a strange odor and no discernable markings.
Baine knelt before the firelight and opened the book, the pages were thick and dry, the words were of an indistinguishable language and written in red scratches, despite the ancient age of the workings Baine
’s nose
picked up the scent
of
faint
blood
remnants
contained within the pages
,
obviously
accounting for the text’s red colouring
.
The book was full of page after page of strange symbols and drawings that made no sense, the words were written in styles and forms that appeared to be in many differing languages
,
all of whom he did not recognise. Baine pondered, he was stood in the middle of a crime scene, a building that he had broken in to, a room that he had ransacked, a housekeeper that he had assaulted and he was holding a stolen book that he could not read, it was definitely time to leave.

             
McCullum hated the
hospital
room, despite the attempted warming touches of matching floral bedspreads, curtains and other decorative efforts, it was still a cold antiseptic reeking hospital room underneath.
Quite how the priest had managed to find himself in the hospitals finest private room were not hard to fathom based upon his casual manipulation of him at the church.
Two fawning nurses hovered over the priest’s bed, they were young, attractive and hung on
Jacobs’s
words with an eager carnivorous interest, they looked up slowly as McCullum entered, their eyes
devoid of any sexual attraction but
were glassy and pitched far away.

             
“If you’ll excuse us ladies I’m afraid the good Inspector will want to interrogate me further” the priests tone was light and jocular on the surface but carried a sour self amusement.
He lay nonchalantly under the yellow floral print playing the injured saint.

             
McCullum pricked his first finger in his pocket in order to keep the creeping
drowsiness
at bay
, “Just a couple of quick questions if that’s ok sir?” McCullum kept his tone light and friendly but though that he saw a small flash of genuine interest emanating from the prone priest.

             
The two young nurses reversed out of the room grinning
and clutching each other
like schoolgirls, they could not stop glowing towards Jacobs as they exited, McCullum did not bother to address them as
t
he
y were
ushered out
, closing
the door
behind them
. He turned his attention back to Jacobs who had now maneuvered himself into a fully sitting
throne
position and
was giving him his fully
trained
attention,

McCullum pricked his second finger, his palm grew slick as the blood trickled
b
ut his mind
stayed as sharp as the needle in his pocket.

“Is everything alright Inspector, you look a little strained, I do hope that you are not coming down with anything” Jacobs laughed
it sounded
hollow and unconvincingly, “At least you’re in the right place”

McCullum smiled amiably at the humor, he could feel the priests full will now boring down upon him, the mans aura was almost overwhelming, he felt as though he was slipping away, his questions were fading and his mind was fogging, he
clenched
his fist with all of his considerable strength and drove the needle fully into his thumb again, the pain was instant and clarifying. This conversation was going to be a lot shorter than he had originally anticipated, the priest was far stronger than he had imagined and he was
fast
running out of fingers.

“I wonder if you would be able to run through your version of events again Sir, we do find that sometimes people are able to remember more details than they had first thought given a little time”
McCullum
reluctantly release the needle in his pocket and
pulled out his notebook and a pencil waiting expectantly.

Jacobs’ eyes looked as though they sparkled with the challenge laid down, McCullum was too damn good at his job to miss the gleam, the priest knew plain and simple, bang, in that instant the conversation was underscored with subtitles. They would continue to dance, a waltzing passage of words would ebb and flow between them until one chose to end the charade with honesty, McCullum had no idea of the path that this would lead them for he had no idea just where his revelations were heading.
The priest obviously had an ability to control those around him, McCullum knew
only at the minute
that it was his responsibility to discover just what this meant and just what his real intentions were
, just how he would go about this and what he could actually do about it were a mystery for the time being
.

“Well as I told your
superiors
”, the
remark did not go un-noticed, “
I was attempting to council one of my wayward flock, a lost soul to be gathered into our embrace and into the word. However not all paths run smoothly Inspector and I’m afraid that I was left rather embarrassed and looking a mite foolish too I’ll wager”

All the while he spoke, McCullum watched the mans eyes they whirled with delighted fascination, “I know” they whispered, “You know that I know but what are you going to do
about it
”

They edged around the subject for a few minutes, neither man wanted to show their hand, the conversation had been
both
pointless
and
very revealing, McCullum had been furnished with the full notes from Jacobs’ earlier interview by Superintendent Irving and DCI Jones, he had his assignment to track down the errant youth but this had been all about looking the priest in the eyes. Jacobs had
now
wound his story
down
with platitudes and gratitude’s for the police and the hospital playing the kindly vicar to the last and playing it to perfection, but McCullum was now wide awake
and saw cleanly through the man.

“Well Father Jacobs
” McCullum folded away his notebook that remained noteless, “I believe that I have everything I need, you’ve been most enlightening and you need your rest”

“Not at all Inspector, please if there is anything else that I can help you with please do not hesitate to visit me again, I am being released tomorrow as I understand so I shall be back upon St Paul’s scared floors if you wish to ask me anything else” this challenge did not require subtitles.

McCullum smiled and strode through treacle to reach the door, the handle weighed a thousand pounds as he turned it slowly, all the while the priest’s gaze burned holes in his back, he barely made it outside of the room, he managed through sheer force of will to reach the hospitals main reception area, once there he sank into a plastic chair that groaned in protest over his sudden and heavy insertion. People glided through wrapped in their own thoughts and sorrows, he was just another mourner in a sea of terrible news and so he was gratefully ignored whilst he gathered himself with thoughts of the priest.

Father Jacobs’ reputation was exemplary throughout his parish and beyond, his work within the community had proven to be of the highest order turning around the area and its inhabitants in record time, crime was down and people were up, his personal life was bursting at the seams with awards and citations from the council, police and country. All of this should have been cause for celebration as McCullum hated societies casual decline into an ASBO filled landscape with a passion, if the priests ability to charm and control those around him into a better world then great, but he could not shake the notion that som
ething was rotten underneath that
polished veneer.
He held no truck with the liberal left in this country that seemed to believe that those who committed the crimes should be firstly understood and helped, he had stood at the bedsides and graves of enough victims to believe that society’s first responsibilities lay with those offended rather than the offenders.
Let the penal system try every woolly liberal lefty rehabilitation scheme that they could thing of as rehabilitation was very important, but try the schemes after you lock them up and protect the majority of the good people of the country. As one of those on the frontline McCullum knew the cleaning up operations on a Friday and Saturday night accounted for little more than
a
rubbish collect
ion
scooping up the trash only to see it re-cycled and refilled the following week.
There were however major questions over the intentions of the good Father, McCullum was yet to be convinced, no so much over his methods but over his ultimate objectives.
He had wanted to stand again in a room with the priest, to stand within the mans presence to double check the strange entangling emotions that had
since
melted away with times passing. S
itting here with a
n evening that had so far resulted in a
number of fles
h wounds, blood staining a
perfectly goo
d pair of trousers and
being toyed with by
a lying man of the cloth he was lost for immediate direction.