The Long Count (22 page)

Rolling the length of the causeway, Isaac put the Pontiac between the pair of iron gates. Next to him Clara’s gaze seemed fixed on the wall where moss and lichen scattered the bricks. Inside the grounds she saw the burned-out mansion and an audible breath broke from her lips.

‘Something, isn’t it?’ Isaac said. ‘Saw it myself when I first hit back in the world.’ He let a breath go of his own. ‘This is his handiwork, Mom. What you see there, all that’s left of the building, that’s what Ishmael did.’

Next to him Clara was sitting bolt upright, no color in her face and her hands knotted between her thighs. ‘Why have you brought us here?’

He did not reply. Pulling up out front of the main building he sat for a moment holding the wheel and looked sideways to where she twitched a little in her seat.

‘Relax,’ he told her. ‘It’s all right. I know what I’m doing. This is my kind of country. We’ll be fine.’

Getting out of the car he flipped the seat forward and reached to the foot well behind. When he stood up again he had his father’s Colt 45 in one hand and in the other the bayonet.

‘Recognize this?’ he said. ‘North Africa, the Sbiba Pass, or that’s what he told us at least.’ His eyes had glazed a little and from where she sat in the car, Clara’s voice was sharp.

‘What’s the matter? Are you OK?’

He did not reply.

‘What is it?’ She spoke louder now. ‘Are you all right? Is everything OK?’

He did not answer. He seemed to concentrate on the blade in his hand. His lips parted but he didn’t speak.

Clara got out of the car and stood watching him, her face pale, hands almost pasted to her sides. As if noticing her for the first time, Isaac looked up. He squinted. He looked at the blade again then slipped it into his belt.

‘Ish sure set this place alight.’ He strode towards her now with the tunic of his uniform undone and the bayonet hooked at his side. ‘Can you imagine all the buildings going up? They must’ve really pissed him off.’

His mother did not say anything. She was standing by the car still, her gaze shifting from the ruined walls to the barred, glassless windows and back. Isaac stood beside her, the gun in his hand and his hand hanging at his thigh.

‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Before Dr Beale got a-hold of him my brother never hurt a fly.’

His mother looked into his face.

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to be worried. Look at this place: if he shows up there’s a million different spots we can hide.’ He took her hand. ‘But the fact is I don’t think we need to. I figure I can talk to Ishmael because he used to listen to me.’ He looked a little wistful then. ‘Back when we were kids I’m talking about. He always used to listen to me. And the games we’d play, the adventures we’d get up to, whatever it was, always it was me made the suggestion, not him.’ Slowly he shook his head. ‘Ish never came up with anything, not a swimming tank or a camp spot or where to dip a fishing pole.’

Gazing towards the woodland he threw out a hand. ‘That vacation, the one in Lawton before you took off. You pretty much left us to ourselves. Do you remember that? Me and Ish would be gone from the house right after breakfast and only just back ahead of suppertime. What we’d do, the stuff we’d get up to, that wasn’t anything to do with Ishmael, Mom: it was always down to me.’

Sliding the gun into his belt now his hand hung loose at his side. He stared back up the causeway to the gates. ‘Anyway, what I’m saying to you: probably there’s no need to hide from my brother, but we best not be taking the chance.’ He worked his hand a little absently through his hair. ‘He’ll go back to the house for sure. He’ll figure we went back there but I doubt he’ll think to come here.’ Breaking off for a moment he frowned. ‘But then Ishmael’s got a habit of surprising me so we ought to hole up just in case.’

When Nancy switched off the tape Quarrie just stared at the floor. Sitting on the arm of the chair his mouth was dry and he could still hear the voices ringing out. A man and a woman, what had started as a stilted conversation had descended into screams and shouts. After that there had only been one voice, Ishmael’s voice, rising in an animal howl.

‘You were there,’ he said quietly. ‘You and Mary-Beth helped set that up?’

Nancy nodded. ‘We were in the next room. I had to supervise the meds so Mary-Beth worked the tape. Dr Beale had to be in the room with them and Briers was in the corridor outside. Someone had to work the tape so Beale asked Mary-Beth if she would do it and for Ike’s sake, she agreed.’

Quarrie looked at her now. ‘She knew Ike from before?’

‘Of course, we all knew Ike from before.’

‘And the three of you – Ishmael knew you were there?’

Again she nodded. ‘The door to the corridor was open. He saw us when Briers walked him past.’

Quarrie considered the tape recorder on the coffee table. ‘Mary-Beth there for Ike’s sake,’ he murmured, ‘so Ike wasn’t there himself?’

Nancy shook her head. ‘He couldn’t deal with it. And besides, Dr Beale didn’t think it was a good idea.’

Quarrie blew out his cheeks. ‘Given what I just heard he was probably right.’ He looked back at her. ‘Nancy, Beale was killed because he showed up at the Bowen house to try and stop Ishmael finding Clara, only he left it too late. Ishmael killed him and stuffed that page from the address book in his mouth. Beale should’ve spoken to us. He should have called the police right off.’

‘He was convinced he could deal with it.’ Nancy lifted a palm. ‘He told me he thought the police would shoot Ishmael and nobody would be able help him after that. Sergeant, you have to understand that, in the beginning at least, he had no idea about Mary-Beth.’

Moving to the window Quarrie gazed across the grounds where some of the male patients were gathered in their oversized robes. Still he could hear that howl. Not a scream or a cry so much as a deep primordial wail.

‘It didn’t work,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘That experiment. Like you told me back in Tulsa, far from snapping him out of anything it only served to lock him in.’ His gaze carried the dividing wall to the women’s wing. ‘I don’t see it,’ he said. ‘I don’t see the reasoning. What was Beale thinking about?’

Nancy gave a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t know, I’m no psychiatrist, but I told you how he wanted to prove to his colleagues that his theory was right. I think he wanted that so badly he didn’t quite think it through. He told us that something had happened to lock Ishmael into his prison and nobody knew what it was. When he explained his reasoning to Ike, he agreed it was worth a try.’

Quarrie looked sideways at her then. ‘And both of them paid with their lives. Nancy, you did the right thing when you took off. If you’d stuck around your apartment we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. You did the right thing driving to Tulsa. You did the right thing trying to warn Clara. But she should’ve told me who she was when I saw her in Cain’s Ballroom, and she should’ve answered her door when I knocked.’

Nancy did not say anything, she just stood there gazing out of the window with her arms folded about her as if she was cold. Quarrie looked on as the side doors opened and a male orderly came out. Behind him Miss Annie seemed to stumble into the grounds, pushing that old metal stroller ahead of her with the breeze catching wisps of her wasted hair. They both watched as she guided the wheels down the series of stone steps with the orderly falling in behind.

Aware of a chill working through him Quarrie turned from the window once more.

‘Nancy,’ he said, ‘I got a question for you. Where was Ishmael born?’

Isaac woke to the light from a single, flickering candle. Blinking slowly he peered left and right, taking in the shadows of a room. Brow furrowed deeply, he seemed to contemplate the way the ceiling hung as if the walls labored under the weight. He was sitting in a worn-out chair in front of an empty fire where aged ashes gathered in flakes of gray. A plethora of unlit candles coating the hearth with strings of calcified wax, he sat very still, aware of the sound of rain falling on the roof.

Turning round in the chair he considered the rest of the room, all in shadow, some darker, some lighter; an old woodstove and beyond it opaque-looking panes of glass.

On his feet he could see something staining the floor. Unable to make it out, he reached for the lighted candle and held it aloft. Marks leading from the door to the chairs then all the way back to the door. Boot prints; he recognized the tread from the patch of earth Quarrie had shown him outside the Bellevue wall.

From the doorway he could barely pick out where the woodland stopped and the perimeter of the hospital began. Rain was falling and the wind seemed to skate through the trees.

‘Mom?’ he called. ‘Are you out there, Mother? Are you there?’

No answer. Nobody returned his call.

Hurriedly, he made his way along the path with one arm outstretched like a blind man until he came to the gap in the wall. On the other side he could just about see where the ruin was squatting against the partially clouded sky. Rain still fell but with the way the wind was blowing those clouds were moving away. ‘Mom?’ he yelled. ‘Where are you? Where are you, Mother? Are you there?’

Still she did not reply. No voice lifting through the darkness, he hesitated for a moment, his already faded uniform soaking up water as his eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness. Halfway to the building he scanned the facade as far as the night would allow. He called out again but still there was no reply. He was about to go on when he heard a sound on the path behind.

Ishmael studied the shadow that was his father’s sedan. At the corner of the building he rested a shoulder against the burned and rotten boards. From there he scanned the grounds very carefully before he crossed to the car. Rooting around in the glove box he located a flashlight but did not switch it on. He just crouched by the door and stared at the building where the roof was gone and the upper stories were supported by the pillars below. His gaze travelled from those pillars to the second floor and the fifth window out from the door. For a little while longer he remained where he was, then shot a glance back along the path. Finally, with rain beginning to fade now, he started for the entrance once more.

At the top step he halted, taking in the darkness of the wood where it had burned. A hint of kerosene still lacing the air, he peered into the deeper shadow left by the missing doors. Inside the lobby he flicked on the flashlight, though only for a moment so he could pick out the flight of stairs.

His back to the wall he kept to the right of each step as he made his way up to the second floor. On the landing he paused, the broken-down wall ahead of him and the twin sets of doors either side. Again he cast a little light, the doors intact as if the fire hadn’t bothered them at all. He listened, hearing nothing at first, but then he caught the sound of her voice, a sort of mewling cry that only became recognizable as a human sob when he pushed open the door.

Gaze fixed on the corridor, he hovered where the hallway seemed to drip with shadow. He could hear her crying clearly and the sound was pathetic and lost. It was even more fearful now. At the empty doorway he paused. She was at the window, hands half lifted above her head where he had bound them to the bars. When she realised he was there the crying stopped.

Switching on the flashlight Ishmael cast the beam across all four walls. Every inch of space covered in faded scribblings of stick children, he stared for a minute or more. He did not say anything. Clara did not say anything; she just hunched where she was. His gaze falling on her finally, Ishmael worked his elbow across the grips of the Colt in his jeans and hefted the shotgun in his palm where the duct tape was beginning to wear.

He shut off the flashlight and darkness settled the room. Deliberately he picked his way past the broken-down frame of the bed and Clara shrank back. He could not pick out her features, the white of her face hidden by the weight of her hair.

‘What do you want from me?’ she said.

Ishmael did not reply. Rain fell on the world outside and he just stood there looking down. Then he stepped away. Standing a few paces back he cocked his head to one side.

‘You know I killed my dad.’ His voice seemed to echo in the confines of the room. ‘I guess Isaac figured it out otherwise why else would you be here? I know he’s home. I saw him. I knew he was back from the war.’ His voice seemed to fade into the darkness for a moment, then he spoke again. ‘He shouldn’t have done what he
did. The old man, he had me brought down here and he knew what would happen and he should never have done what he did.’

He stood over Clara for a moment then he sat down heavily on the floor. Shotgun over his knees he looked across the room where stick-children gathered to stare.

‘I asked him where you were. I asked him but he wouldn’t tell me. I asked Ms Gavin but she wouldn’t tell me either and I got so mad I started the fire.’ He shook his head. ‘Didn’t mean to do that, or at least I never meant for the records to burn. Ms Gavin, she took off right after but I followed her. I knew where it was she went. I left her alone. I let her be and went home. I went to see Dad to ask him where you were, but he wouldn’t tell me so I had no choice but to go back for her.’

‘Ishmael,’ Clara cut in, ‘why’re you telling me this? What do you want?’

He looked coldly at her then. ‘I’m telling you so you know how it’s been. What do I want? I want you, Clara. That’s what I want.’

Through the gloom he stared. ‘Ms Gavin it was who admitted me.’ He spoke now as if to himself. ‘She was the one did the paperwork, though Nurse Nancy was with her and Mr Briers, the orderly who looked after the dogs. Nice to me he was to begin with, had him those three or four hound dogs, told me how he’d let them loose if any of the inmates broke out. He said there was no better trail dog than a Walker hound, not a Blackmouth or Catahoula Cur.’ He fell silent again then he said, ‘I never got to Nurse Nancy. I saw her, wanted to get to her, but she was with another nurse and I had Briers already in the car. I guess talking to her would’ve been a whole lot easier than talking to him but when your mind is set on a thing …’ In the darkness he shrugged. ‘Anyway, Briers didn’t know where you were at; he said he didn’t know who you were.’