Broken Angels (Katie Maguire) (44 page)

‘We were orphans. Nobody had ever loved us, not even our own parents. We had never known anything but material poverty and emotional rejection. Suddenly these priests were offering us the earth. No – much more than the earth. They were offering us heaven, too.’

Inspector Fennessy said, ‘Let go of the fecking wire, Sweeney.’

‘No.’

‘I said let go of the fecking wire.’

‘Wait a second, Liam,’ said Katie, ‘I want to hear this.’ She turned back to Denis Sweeney and said, ‘Bishop Kerrigan promised you that if you agreed to become castrati, you would get to meet God? Like, for real?’

‘Yes. But we never did, and then we were told that Bishop Kerrigan had died and the choir was disbanded. All of us were left emasculated, with nothing at all to show for it – not even The Glory. None of us ever told anybody what had been done to us. Would you, if that had happened to you? But we never stopped believing that we could meet God one day.’

‘So what made you kill Father Heaney and Father Quinlan and Father O’Gara? And why have you strung up Bishop Kerrigan and Monsignor Kelly and Father ó Súllibháin like this?’

‘Because we heard that CD, of course. We heard our own voices again, and we realized how much we uplifted people, and we remembered why we had given away our manhood. We wanted to try it again, that’s all. We
knew
we could do it. Don’t you try to tell me that God would allow sixteen innocent boys to be castrated for nothing. That is not the God that I believe in.

‘I went to see Monsignor Kelly and told him that I was thinking of re-forming the choir with as many of the boys as I could find. He said he would help me as much as he could, but I wasn’t to mention to anybody what had been done to us at St Joseph’s. He gave me some money and he gave me the van and he wished me luck, but that was all.’

‘But why did you have to commit murder?’

‘Why do you think? I got together with the Phelan brothers and we formed Fidelio and we sang our hearts out, but God
still
didn’t show Himself. Monsignor Kelly stopped answering my calls, so I went to meet Father Heaney, but Father Heaney said he couldn’t and he wouldn’t help us, so I gave him nothing more than what he justly deserved.’

‘Did Monsignor Kelly know that it was you who killed him?’

Denis Sweeney glanced up at Monsignor Kelly with an expression of total disgust. Monsignor Kelly was still conscious, but he was beginning to tremble as if he were having a fit.

‘I called Monsignor Kelly, yes, and this time he took my call and I told him that it was me who did away with Father Heaney. But he said that if anybody found out that Bishop Kerrigan had tried to create a choir of castrati, and why, it would be a disaster for the church. An absolute catastrophe. He said so long as I promised to keep quiet and not to harm the other three priests, he could arrange for somebody else to take the blame.’

‘Oh, yes. Brendan Doody.’

‘I don’t know what his name was. Some handyman.’

‘But you didn’t keep your part of the bargain, did you? You didn’t stop killing? You went after Father Quinlan, and then Father O’Gara?’

Denis Sweeney suddenly lost his temper, and his voice became even more shrill. ‘Because Monsignor Kelly let it slip that Bishop Kerrigan was still alive. He said that I shouldn’t keep on trying to see God because Bishop Kerrigan hadn’t been right in the head and that was why they retired him and told everybody that he was dead. But I think that he was lying to me. I think that all of the clergy in the diocese were terrified that Bishop Kerrigan would actually make God appear – scared shitless, because God would then see for Himself how greedy and corrupt they were – how they lined their own pockets, and abused innocent children, and lived off the fat of the land.’

He looked up at the night sky, blinking against the raindrops that fell in his eyes. He was breathing deeply with emotion. ‘You ask me what we’re doing here tonight? We have punished the wicked and we have cleansed the unbelievers and tonight we are going to sing for God and if God appears tonight then these three sacrifices will be allowed to live.

‘If not...’ He looked down again, and suddenly gave Katie that sweet, disarming smile. ‘If not, we will bring them down to earth, which will complete our retribution. Water, air, fire and earth. The four elements, about which we sang so sweet.’

The Garda sergeant came up behind Katie and touched her shoulder. ‘Paramedics on the way. Fire brigade too. Five minutes tops.’

‘Thanks,’ said Katie. ‘Be sure to tell them no sirens.’ Then, to Denis Sweeney, ‘I’m going to give you one last chance, Denis. I want you to let go of the wire and lie on the ground. Otherwise we will have to shoot you. Do you understand that?’

Denis Sweeney kept on smiling, and as he did so he wound the end of the wire around his wrist, and twisted it tight. ‘If you shoot me, and I go down, Bishop Kerrigan is coming down with me.’

‘I thought you believed in Bishop Kerrigan.’

‘I do. I did. But God is more likely to appear, isn’t He, if He sees that somebody who really believes in Him is going to be sacrificed if He doesn’t?’

‘Do you know something, Denis?’ put in Inspector Fennessy. ‘You’re a fecking header, and no mistake.’

Denis Sweeney still didn’t stop smiling. ‘I want you to do something for me now, please. I want all of you to go back at least as far as the trees. My dear brothers and I are going to start singing, and if the Lord appears to us, it will be like the sun itself coming out, and I wouldn’t wish any of you to be hurt or blinded.’

‘Header,’ Inspector Fennessy repeated.

But Katie said, ‘Do as he says, Liam. We have to keep this very, very calm. We’ve lost enough priests already, don’t you think?’

‘Whatever you say, ma’am.’ said Inspector Fennessy. He turned around to the Garda sergeant and flapped his hand to indicate that all of his men should step back a few paces.

Denis Sweeney looked at Katie and she saw something in his expression that she had never seen in anybody, ever. It was a longing so intense that it was painful. Perhaps he was longing for the man he never was.

The Fidelios began to sing. They started with ‘
Gloria
’, by Guillaume de Machaut, and then they sang ‘
Ave Maria
’.

Although there were only three of them, their harmony was hair-raising, even more moving than the
Elements
CD. The scenario was surreal, with those three naked priests hanging suspended from their scaffolds, but Katie couldn’t help herself being transfixed by the sound of their voices, soaring higher and higher, and when she looked around she saw that the gardaí were standing in the rain as if they had all been turned to stone.

Ye watchers and ye holy ones,

bright seraphs, cherubim, and thrones,

raise the glad strain, Alleluia!

Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,

virtues, archangels, angels’ choirs: Alleluia!

‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

At the final ‘
Alleluia
!’ Bishop Kerrigan unexpectedly lifted up his head. His face looked like a bloody skull, with empty sockets for eyes. He opened and closed his mouth three or four times without uttering a sound, but then he screamed, ‘
It cannot be
!’

His voice was reedy and thin, but he screamed loud enough for Katie to be able to hear him over the singing.

‘
It cannot be
!’ he repeated. ‘
The Lord will never show His face
!
It is not for us to
call on Him
!
How can we presume
?’

Exhausted, his head dropped back on to his chest, so that all Katie could see was his crown of razor wire. But in a few desperate words he had probably explained everything.

He may have believed once that God would show Himself, but perhaps he had gradually come to realize that it was never going to happen, no matter how sweetly we sing to Him. Perhaps he had seen at last how arrogant it was, for humans to expect that their maker should prove His existence, how lacking in faith and how futile. That was what could have driven him over the edge, mentally, and led to his resignation, or his removal
.

Now the Fidelios were singing the ‘
Kyrie
’. Even though each of them was still grasping one of the wires that would have brought down the crossbars, they were able to hold out their arms and join hands. Their singing rose to a pitch that was almost beyond human hearing, so that it was not so much a sensory experience to listen to it but a spiritual one. Katie felt as if the air around them was crackling with static, and she could literally feel her hair standing on end. Even the rain was sparkling.

Kyrie eleison
!

Christe eleison
!

Kyrie eleison
!

And then – without any other warning at all, no rumble of thunder, no sudden downdraught – a dazzling fork of lightning struck all three scaffolds. The
krakkkk
! of electrical energy was deafening, and Katie was knocked over backwards into the grass.

Each of the three scaffolds crawled and crackled with blinding sparks, which jumped between the three Fidelios, too. Their faces became blazing masks, and smoke poured out of their wide-open mouths. On the scaffolds themselves, Monsignor Kelly and Bishop Kerrigan and Father ó Súllibháin were all shrivelling up, faster and faster, until they resembled nothing more than figures made out of brown autumn leaves.

There was a final
snapp
! like a short-circuited fuse and then there was silence. Smoke drifted away through the rain, and the flaking ashes of the three incinerated priests softly tumbled after it.

Inspector Fennessy helped Katie back on to her feet. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Maybe they did it. Maybe God
did
pay them a visit, after all.’

Cautiously, still seeing after-images of lightning floating in front of their eyes, they approached the three scaffolds. Inspector Fennessy kept on looking upwards, as if he was half expecting a second bolt to hit them from the sky, but Katie said, ‘You know what they say. Lightning never strikes twice. And even if it did, you wouldn’t see it coming.’

‘Well, these poor gowls certainly didn’t.’

The three Fidelios were lying between the scaffolds, their faces blackened, their white robes covered with elaborate brown curlicues like Hebrew lettering, as if they had been sent a written message from God.
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin
.

Inspector Fennessy bent over them, one after the other. Then he said, ‘Serious, do you think it
was
God?’

The following afternoon Katie drove up to Knocknadeenly to see John. It had been raining for most of the morning, but now the sun was shining and the road ahead of her was blinding.

When she reached Meagher’s farm, Aoife, his collie, came running across the farmyard to greet her, and in the back of Katie’s car, Barney barked and jumped around and threw himself against the windows in excitement.

John came out wiping his hands with a cloth. He hadn’t shaved, but she always liked it when he didn’t shave. He was wearing a pale blue checked shirt and jeans, and a tan leather belt with a silver buckle in the shape of a longhorn steer.

‘You’re looking very western,’ she said. She came up to him and he took her in his arms and kissed her.

‘I’ve just been cleaning up,’ he told her. ‘I’m all packed and I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.’

They went inside the farmhouse, and through to the kitchen, which was very clean and bare and empty. No spice jars, no saucepans hanging on the wall, no geranium pots on the windowsill. A strong smell of Dettol.

‘I saw the news,’ said John. ‘That was truly freaky, wasn’t it? RITUAL PRIEST KILLERS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. Jesus. But they didn’t mention you.’

‘There’s a lot they didn’t mention, and there’s a lot they never will. Like Bishop Kerrigan still being alive, for instance. And what was
really
going on there.’

‘At least you weren’t hurt, sweetheart. And at least this goddamned priest killing thing is all wrapped up. You couldn’t have timed it better.’

Katie put her arms around his neck and kissed him, and kissed him again.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ she whispered.

He kissed her back, first on the forehead and then on the lips.

‘Why?’ he smiled. ‘Are you tired, girl?’

They made love with the sun shining through the bedroom window. All of the pictures had been taken down, so there was a pattern of faded rectangles on the wallpaper.
No room so empty as a room that no longer has pictures in it
, thought Katie.
When the pictures are gone, that means that you will never be coming back
.

Halfway through lovemaking, she reached down with one hand and took him out of her. Then she immediately turned over so that she was lying on her stomach, with her face turned away from him.

‘Katie?’

At first she didn’t answer, so he leaned over her and said, ‘Katie? What’s wrong, sweetheart?’

‘Hurt me,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘You heard. Hurt me.’

She opened her legs, reached behind her and grasped his penis. She positioned it between the cheeks of her bottom and said, ‘Go on. You know you want to.’

‘Katie – what’s this all about?’

‘I want you to hurt me, that’s what.’

‘What the hell for? I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’

‘Not even if I said I wasn’t coming with you?’

There was a very long pause. Then John said, ‘You’re not coming with me? You mean like you’re not coming with me now, or ever?’

‘I can’t. Not ever.’

‘You don’t love me, is that it?’

She twisted around and her eyes were crowded with tears. ‘Of course I love you. I love you like I’ve never loved anybody else. But I can’t come with you, it’s impossible. All of my life is here and all of my family is here and how can I just abandon them?’

‘Katie. Oh, Katie. Oh, Katie.’ John put his arms around her and they held each other tight as if the tighter they held on to each other the slower the time would pass by, or even stop altogether, so that they could hold on to each other forever.