The Man Who Built the World (29 page)

But outside was lost to him.
Inside the chapel were only Matthew and the voices in his head.

And the books.

3

‘Drive faster, Ian.’

‘I can’t drive any faster, come on, you can see the fog –’

‘Drive
faster
.’

Red’s voice growled like the engine, and despite himself Ian pressed down the accelerator a little more than he wanted to.
Red had assumed a whole new persona since they had decided what to do, and it had begun to slip out of control. Red wanted revenge; he wanted blood, and Ian was beginning to wonder if Red cared about whose he spilt first.

He had never seen his friend like this.
Red, normally so calm, was on the verge of losing control, like a gas main set to blow.

Red lived on the edge of the village, his whole life unmarried, in a house left to him by his aunt, who had raised him after his parents, as far as Ian knew, had died when he was very young.
A farming accident
, Red had always told him, though details had remained vague, and Ian had often wondered if there was more. Perhaps he had been abandoned, or adopted, and couldn’t face the truth. Whatever the real reason, it had made Red attach himself to the Cassidys as though they were a surrogate family, striving to be part of something he had never had for himself.

O
n more than one occasion he had proved himself as worthy as any brother. He had been the strength Ian needed in the aftermath of Gabrielle’s death and Matthew’s departure, the person who had kept Ian sane during those dark days. When Ian had been at his lowest ebb, Red had been everything. He had been a rock Ian had leant on, a walking cane, a safety belt. Red’s friendship had been the one thing that had stopped Ian following his wife by his own hand. Red’s friendship had kept him alive.

So why did he feel such a sudden antagonism towards his friend?
From nowhere Ian felt a surge of anger and hatred, and an assurance that what Red intended to do was wholly wrong. Yet he didn’t understand his feelings. If the Meredith sisters had stolen Red and Bethany’s baby, then surely they deserved everything coming to them, and worse?

He shook his head.
He kept his eyes on the road, but his ears heard only the growl of the engine, the pattering of the rain outside, and the tap–tap–tapping of Red’s fingers on the gun barrel.

The road rose up through the fog and soon the moors appeared ahead of them.
They rumbled over the cattle grate and the road flattened out. Generally, under a full moon and a particularly starry night, it was possible to see as far as the old control tower, but the fog blanket had lowered visibility to no more than a few yards. They couldn’t even make out any lights in the distance. It was as though by leaving the village behind they had condemned themselves to a cloudy limbo, and Ian wondered bitterly if they would ever see anything around them besides the cracked road and the undulating waves of soggy moorland, all of it vanishing into nothing just twenty yards from their vehicle.

‘Switch off the headlights,’ Red said.

‘What?’ Ian glanced across in the darkness, but his friend still stared straight ahead.

‘Switch off the main lights and use your fog lights only.
Then turn off the road.’ He pointed to the right. Head that way, swing round the tower and approach the house from the back. That way we’ll surprise them.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?
It’s been raining for days, the moor’ll be waterlogged. We’ll sink, not to mention the havoc it’ll cause to my suspension.’

‘This thing was built for off–road.’
Ian felt Red’s eyes turn on him in the darkness of the truck’s cab. ‘And we don’t want them to have a chance to get away. You do want to find my baby, don’t you?’

Ian glanced across, but quickly looked back.
The madness he saw in Red’s eyes, in this moment directed purely at
him
, terrified Ian more than he could put into words. The sound of the engine and the pouring rain seemed to fade into the background, and the tapping of Red’s fingers on the gun barrel seemed so desperately loud.

‘We’ll get him back, Red.
If they’ve got him, we’ll get him back for you. For Bethany.’

An uncomfortable silence followed before Red, apparently satisfied, turned back to face the road.
Ian let his breath out slowly, a breath he had not realised had caught in his throat.

Ian switched on the front fogs and did as Red instructed.
Without his main beams he could only see clearly for about five yards, so he slipped the vehicle into first and they continued their journey at a crawl. Ian scowled as he wove the truck in and out of dips and between chunks of exposed rock, the vehicle jerking them around like a funhouse ride. Occasionally they came across a sheep or goat sleeping under the protective overhang of a rocky outcrop, and the animal would dart out and away at the sight of the car, causing Ian to brake sharply. In his mind he cursed his friend’s decision.

‘Head around the back of the house.
I don’t ever remember seeing any windows looking out this way.’ Again Red pointed off to the right. ‘Stop about a hundred yards back from the house. They shouldn’t hear us over the wind, but we don’t want to take that chance. Surprise is our best chance against those fucking witches.’

They drove on in silence for a few minutes before Ian brought the car to a stop behind a stand of short trees, their branches bent over like claws from years of relentless wind buffeting.
During the day or even without the fog, the truck might be easily seen, but in this weather it was practically invisible.

They climbed out and went around to the front of the truck.
Ian flicked on a small flashlight and held its beam low to the ground, too difficult to be seen from a distance but enough to light their way. Although Red scowled, he said nothing; it would be dangerous to try to negotiate the bumps and dips of the moorland completely blind.

A slope began ahead of them, a soggy green carpet that arced down towards the distant sound of rushing water.
Though the ground disappeared into fog within a few metres, they could see a light glowing dimly not far ahead.

‘Let’s do this,’ Red muttered, and stepped out into the beam of the flashlight.
After an unnoticeable moment of hesitation, Ian followed, an overwhelming sense of foreboding holding him heavy to the ground.

###

Bethany’s Diary,
November 25th, 1998

Dad knows about us. Although we haven’t yet . . . done anything, we have been seeing each other for some time, sitting together as we always did, only now sometimes we touch, we kiss, we lie close to each other on my bed. And now Dad knows.

He went mad at first, and with only Red to explain he didn’t want to understand.
They had a fight, then Dad went out and he didn’t come back until late. When he did he was very drunk, and he came into my room and . . . and began to cry.

He said he understood.
He said he didn’t like it, but if it made me happy, he would try to accept it. I managed to smile but then he began to cry again, and so I cried with him. Then he begged me to speak, took my hands in his and implored me; I wanted so badly to speak to him, to comfort him, to tell him that, yes, at last I did feel happy, and I almost did, actually opening my mouth to speak only for Mother’s warnings to come rushing in along with the images of her last days, and my mouth clammed up tight. Dad cried for some minutes, but in the end he took my hands, kissed each of them and went off to bed.

I haven’t seen much of him in the few days since.
Red came over to see me yesterday and they spent a little time together. They resolved most of their issues I think. Dad still doesn’t like it, but I know he’ll come to accept it sooner or later. He must. He has no choice, because it will happen with his blessing or not, and I know he is desperate that I not be lost like Matthew and my mother.

Talking of whom, she still keeps her distance from me, still has a condescending air about her.
She is difficult to find, and rarely comes to the house anymore. I have to search for her, but she won’t talk to me, just turns her head away and refuses to respond to my questions. She is sad. She doesn’t like what is happening between myself and Red either, but she won’t tell me why. I think she has the same opinion as my father. He is too old. He is too close to our family. She doesn’t like it at all, and sometimes she threatens to leave me completely.

Well
, I don’t care. She can do what she wants. What I feel . . . love? I read about it, wonder about it all the time. I hope I do. I want to. Desperately.

4

He threw the last of the books aside. Sickness, hatred and revulsion pumped through his stomach like sparks from a broken electric cable shoved underneath his skin. His cheeks felt hot despite the cold and his fingers clenched and unclenched, his knuckles whitening as utter rage boiled in him and he felt a desperate need to explode, to smash, to destroy.

He turned away from the books, unable to look at them any longer, back towards the light.

Back towards
them
.

He looked at them directly for the first time, ephemeral, translucent, but bathed in a white glow as though someone had whitewashed invisibility.
His mother beautiful beyond words, memories of her deformed physical form during her last weeks pushed from his mind like water washing chalk off a blackboard, and his sister, younger – though much older than he remembered – and with a look of lost innocence about her, but still a close comparison. They stared at him from within the light, shimmering as though gusted by the wind.

Ghosts.

No, not that. Angels.
Angels
.

Their lips did not move when they spoke, and the words had no physical form, they were just images projected into his head.

Now you know the truth. Help us
.

We are trapped here until it is over.
We are so sad, so lost. So lonely.

He gritted his teeth, stared them down and reminded himself that he was
actually
here
, facing these two magnificent beings, impossible, unbelievable storybook images of his own past.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said.
‘I’ll finish this.’

Within their shimmering faces they seemed to smile.

We both love you, Matthew
.

Anger held the tears back from his eyes.

‘I’ll help you,’ he said. ‘If I can. If I have the strength to do it.’ The face appeared in his mind, the hated, depraved face of the man whose blood he wished already wet his fingers. He looked down at his hands and for a moment he imagined the water dripping from vines overhead to be dark red.

We love you.
Son.

Brother.

Tears came, a dam breached, a torrent unable to cease until the walls of the valley crashed in around it. ‘I miss you. I miss you
so much
!’

Through the tears he saw his mother extend a hand forward, shimmering like an image b
ehind a waterfall, reaching for him. It dropped on to his shoulder, and although he felt nothing physical, a warm glow surged through him, warming every part of him, from his face, chapped from the rain and the cold, right down to his toes, nestled in their damp shoes. And in through his bones, to his heart.

‘I’m so alone!’

His mother’s head shook, lost focus.
You have family. Children
.

‘I have lost them.’

They are beautiful
.

He smiled, unable to stop himself, a rainbow bursting through the rain of his face.
‘Yes, they are beautiful. More beautiful than . . .’ He looked up at his mother. ‘Than anything.’

You love your wife.

‘Yes, more than life.’

She comes for you.
She follows you here. She loves you too. More than . . .
his mother hesitated, then she too offered a flickering smile in return.
Than life.

But she is in danger.
His sister’s voice in his head.
You must hurry, there is not much time
.

Matt froze, stared at them, wishing for one second that they would
solidify
, stop blurring before his eyes, slipping in and out of focus. He felt drunk, desperately drunk.

‘What?’

She comes for you. You must go for her. We are all . . . linked.

Go, Matthew
. His mother’s eyes implored him.
Go, my beautiful son.