The Sun Will Still Shine Tomorrow (30 page)

Ashley shook his head; the silence at the table was deafening. No wonder Jacob was so protective of his wife that day in the café. Did he suspect something? Had he discovered the diaries and papers had been disturbed?

“He hasn’t a clue; he’s down there poncing about in his finery.” She laughed.”Jesus H Christ, if he only knew.”

“Take me back five years,” Ashley said.”Tell me what the diaries said.”

Sheila Moor cleared her throat.

“Two brothers first of all,” she continued.”By all accounts, nasty characters. The writings suggested they’d got a hold of Claire Macbeth, tried to rape her but she’d escaped and managed to alert the Keepers. They were quite clever really; they simply ran the two brothers out onto the causeway as the tide came in, made it look like an accident.”

“But it was no accident, was it?”

Sheila shook her head.

“No. The writings are very clear, the Keepers knew when they forced them across the causeway they would have no chance of survival. The Keepers are islanders, they know the tides like the back of their hand. And it happened the next year and the next, the crimes or so-called crimes getting pettier and pettier.”

“Six murders in five years,” Ashley stated. He looked across at Debbie O’Hanlan.”Isn’t that right, Debbie? You wrote about the sixth murder, only he was just missing at the time. You knew all along; the poor bastard was washed up in Cleveland so it didn’t make the papers here.”

“But how should… how did I ?”

“You knew when you penned the article he was dead. You slipped up, Debbie. You said he was a popular member of the community, said he was from Newcastle. Was, Debbie, not is. Your article said he was.”

Sheila Moor glared at the reporter, all of a sudden regretting disclosing so much information. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.

“A slip of the pen, David, that’s all. It happens regularly to reporters.”

Ashley wanted to tell her she was lying, have it out with her here and now and make the accusation he was so sure of. Sheila Moor spoke first. He decided to hold it for a little longer.

“Do you mind?” she asked.”I gave up six years ago but I simply had to buy a packet on the way here tonight.”

Ashley shook his head. Sheila lit the cigarette and blew out a long, straight plume of smoke up towards the ceiling.

“He’d courted Claire, apparently got quite close to her and some of the Keepers objected. I mean they would, wouldn’t they; she takes part in the ceremonies. He’d made the mistake of telling someone in this very bar how much he thought of her. Another man in love, another crime in the eyes of the Keepers.”

Sheila flicked a long line of ash into the ashtray, continued with the story.

“They picked a fight with him. Two fishermen, not even Island Keepers. The Keepers plied them with beer and goaded them. The fracas spilled outside and the Keepers got involved. They battered the poor wretch and took him downstairs to the temple. It was then that Claire Macbeth rescued him.”

“She did?” asked Ashley.

Sheila smiled, shook her head, took another drag on her cigarette and another mouthful of gin. She exhaled.

“It was a trap. She released him, helped him escape and persuaded the poor bastard he could run across the causeway in time.”

No, thought Ashley, no. It couldn’t be. That feeling again, the feeling Kate described as a teenager. The feeling of betrayal. He’d misjudged her. No, surely not.

“And then there was poor Frankie Short.” She dabbed a tissue at the side of her eye, continued, “The poor old bugger had had enough, seen enough, he wanted out. He’d resigned his position only last week and threatened to go to the police.”

Ashley thought back to his brief meeting with the old man.

“It was in the diaries?”

Sheila nodded. “And more. Jacob and Stephen Kyle went to see him the night he was killed. They tried to assure him it was God’s will. They went down the moral route even re-enacted part of the ceremony there and then. Frank had said they’d gone too far with the last one, he was a good boy. Frank shared a few beers with him in the bar the night before he was killed.”

Ashley and Debbie stared at Sheila Moor unable to take their eyes from her. She looked up, blew another long plume of smoke high into the air.

“He told them to disband or he would go to the police. He insisted that the organisation cease right there and then. Jacob was the Master; he had the power to do it, it’s written in the constitution.”

She stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray, her bottom lip trembled.”So they killed him. They used his own bed sheets to tie around his neck then pushed him through the window.”

She breathed out long and hard.

“It’s a bloody nightmare and what makes it worse is that my own husband seems to have been the major fucking influence.” Her hand covered her mouth, she apologised.”I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve used that word in twenty years…”

She continued.

“It’s there in black and white. At first I thought it might be Jacob making it up but then I checked all the facts. It’s true: my husband and his cronies are killers.”

Sheila Moor talked on, smoked another three cigarettes. Ashley listened intently, Debbie O’Hanlan sat in silence.

Just after 9.30 Sheila Moor explained her suspicions that her husband was having an affair and relayed the story about the private detective and the hidden camera.

A tear fell onto the table.

“I can’t ever forgive him.”

She took another tissue from her handbag and wiped at her eyes.

“What makes matters worse is that I know who he’s been screwing and I’ve known the girl since childhood.

“Claire Macbeth,” she whispered.

Ashley was speechless. An acrid sour taste seeped into his mouth. No, he thought to himself. No.

Sheila Moor nodded.”We took her in as a fourteen-year-old when her father died. Gave her a roof over her head. I treated her no differently to my own son and this is how she repays me. I don’t know what betrayal hurts me the most.”

She stubbed out yet another barely smoked cigarette into the overladen ashtray.

“He’s very persuasive, my husband though. Perhaps we shouldn’t prejudge her. God knows what the poor bitch has gone through.”

Just then Ashley heard voices and the sounds of people climbing the stairs from the basement. A key rattled in the lock and the door opened. The Keepers made their way one by one into the almost deserted bar. Jacob Moor was the last to appear and Sheila Moor rose from the table. He walked across the room towards her… smiling.

Ashley was lost in his thoughts. He’d harboured feelings for Claire ever since he’d set eyes on her. Something had pulled at his heartstrings. She was beautiful, innocent-looking even, and mysterious. He thought this would end up so differently: he had contemplated an evening out or dinner somewhere. Now, once again, his love life, or rather lack of it, had crumbled like a child’s sandcastle at high tide.

And now, in the cold light of day, Sheila Moor had revealed her for what she really was. So why, even now, could he not feel hatred for her? What was stopping him from despising this home-wrecker, this killer?

The story that had been relayed across the table that evening had been heart-stopping. A quite incredible almost unbelievable tale of an organisation playing judge, jury and executioner with people’s lives. An organisation that went back centuries, an organisation all-powerful that had been killing for hundreds of years.

Sheila Moor had to be protected, and her evidence secured and handed over to the police. Would it stack up in a court of law? Every death had already been deemed accidental. What would it take to revive the investigations?

The diaries.

At least the diaries would reopen each case. And thoughts now of his worst nightmare. Tom had been killed. How would he break the news to Kate or would the news and conviction of Tom’s tormentors bring final closure for her?

He was aware of Sheila Moor rising to her feet, taking a few steps towards her husband who moved towards her with a slightly puzzled look on his face.

“Darling, what are you doing here? You don’t normally–”

“I want a divorce, Jacob.”

He stopped dead in his tracks.”You what… I don’t–”

“A divorce, Jacob, it’s simple enough. I’ll spell it for you, shall I?” She raised her voice a decibel or two. “D.I.V.O.R.C.E.” She looked around the room. She had everyone’s attention, her husband was rooted to the spot.

“We’ll start with adultery, shall we?” She forced a grin.”You’ve been screwing her.” She pointed a finger at Claire Macbeth. “I have it on film. I hired a private detective to plant a surveillance camera in our bedroom.”

Father Thompson stepped forward, took her by the arm. “I think you’ve said enough, Mrs Moor. There’s a time and place, we really should–”

“Fuck you, Father, you’re one of them.”

Father Thompson’s mouth fell to the floor. Before he could respond she laid into them again.

“Murderers. You killed those poor boys. No matter whether or not you took a hand in the actual deaths. You all knew about every one of them.”

Ashley couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to. He looked at Debbie, her cool unemotional façade had slipped, her mouth had gaped open in shock at the spectacle she was witnessing. The congregated group of men stood shocked at the language pouring from the mouth of the wife of the Worshipful Master and not one of them had the nerve or the presence of mind to intervene.

And then Jacob Moor stepped forward. He took his right hand down to his left trouser pocket. Ashley thought the action strange. He looked his wife straight in the eye and, in a swift well-timed movement, powered the back of his hand into her face, his ring connecting high on her cheekbone, splitting her face wide open.
His ring
, Ashley thought to himself, the mark on Tom Wilkinson’s face, a
symbolic ring
.

She let out a muffled yelp and Ashley was momentarily aware of a spray of crimson liquid propelling across the room. As Sheila Moor hit the floor, Ashley leapt from his seat and sprang at Jacob Moor.

It was instinct. Pure and simple. He launched himself at the aggressor. It was for Tom Wilkinson, it was for Kate, it was for Sheila Moor who lay half-unconscious on the floor of the inn. But just as his clenched fist ranged within inches of Jacob Moor’s face, the bodies were upon him. His head crashed into a table leg as the momentum of his attackers knocked him sideways. He lay gasping on the floor, his lungs crying out for oxygen, and he was aware of a deadweight sitting on top of him.

Claire Macbeth rushed forward, forcing herself between the gasping body on the floor and Jacob Moor.

“Leave him. Leave him,” she cried out, joining the melee, scratching and kicking at the big man who was sitting on him. The man caught her leg in mid-air and yanked quickly, pulling her off balance. She crashed to the floor beside him, the air forced from her lungs.

“I’m sorry, David, really sorry, truly I am.”

Ashley turned away, trying hard to hate the face he’d just looked at.

It was Sheila Moor who captured the moment, stunned the whole room into silence.

“I’ve called the police,” she announced from the floor… almost in a whisper… but a whisper that deafened the whole room.

Her husband stuttered, “You’ve what?”

“The police, Jacob. I called them before I left the house. They’ll be here within the hour.”

“No,” Jacob Moor begged.”No. Which police? Who, where?”

She raised herself to her knees, the blood dripping from her nose onto the cold stone floor. The cavalry was coming. Ashley felt a warm glow building up inside. John Markham on his way and whoever it was Sheila Moor had called.

“You’re murderers.”

She cast her eyes around the room that had fallen into a sinister silence.”Every single one of you.”

She made eye contact with Claire Macbeth.”You too. You led them to their deaths, you tricked them.”

Claire Macbeth shook her head, the tears rolling onto her cheeks, her mascara blending into a damp, blackening mire. As if in slow motion each individual seemed to regain their composure at the mention of the police.

The big man who’d been sitting on Ashley stood up. He reached out an arm by way of an apology and lifted Ashley up. Ashley looked at his watch. The tide was clearing… not yet safe to cross but within twenty minutes it would be fine. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere to run to. They’d meet the police crossing in the opposite direction. Their reaction made perfect sense.

Sheila Moor found her feet and flopped back into the seat, breathing hard. Jacob Moor walked towards the bar waving away the concerns of his Brethren. Claire Macbeth was the last to regain her composure and, as she stood, she smoothed down her dress before making her way over to the toilet.

She returned within a few minutes, her eyes devoid of mascara but red and swollen. No one had uttered a word in her absence.

Jacob Moor had made a quick call on the public phone in a small cubicle between the entrance and the door to the kitchen. No one had heard what he’d said or who he’d called. He sat at the bar nursing a large whisky he’d poured himself. The young barman hadn’t seemed to mind. It was the type of evening where money changing hands was irrelevant. Strangely, Jacob seemed to be smiling.