So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2) (22 page)

35

Flanagan sat at the kitchen table, a mostly empty bottle of Shiraz in front of her, a mostly full glass beside that. Her tongue felt gritty from the wine, a pleasing sway behind her eyes. She took another mouthful, swallowed.

Alistair was upstairs with the kids, putting them to bed. She could hear their voices, him ordering them to brush their teeth, them screeching as he tickled them instead of getting them into their pyjamas, the soft murmur as he read them stories. Ruth said she was too old for them now, she only played along for Eli’s benefit.

Flanagan smiled, but the smile faded from her mouth, unable to gain purchase there.

She had arrived home not long after them, and everyone had behaved as if nothing was wrong, only that they had entered a world of silence. Alistair had barely looked at her. The children had insisted their father do their bedtime, had given her begrudging kisses goodnight at Alistair’s instruction.

Is this really it? Is this how it ends?

Not with an explosive row, nor a discovered affair. No final betrayal to sever them. Just a slow decline of bitter reproaches
and fake apologies until there was nothing left but a festering resentment between them all.

Flanagan buried her face in her hands, thought about the cool space of the church, the salve of prayer whether she believed in it or not. She kept her eyes closed, brought her hands together. Formed the words in her mind.

Not like this. Please, not like this. Help me save us. Please, God, I don’t want to lose my family. Please tell me what to do. Please show me—

She cried out, raised her head, as glass clinked against glass.

Alistair poured the last of the wine into a fresh glass. ‘Don’t mind, do you?’

Flanagan inhaled, steadied her breathing. ‘Course not.’

‘What were you doing?’ he asked, taking the seat opposite.

She considered lying, but said, ‘Praying.’

‘You?’ He smiled, a gentle smile, no mockery in it.

‘Yes, me. I’ve been doing it more often lately. It helps.’

‘My mother prayed a lot,’ he said.

‘I remember. She swore by it. Said it could cure anything.’

He took a sip of wine. ‘And can it?’

‘I don’t know what it does,’ she said. ‘Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Who knows?’

He gave her a coy look. ‘Were you praying for us?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘You think we need praying for?’

‘Christ, we need something,’ she said with a weak laugh.

He smiled then, and she wanted to kiss him.

Want?

Do it.

Flanagan stood, went around the table to him. As he watched, confusion in his eyes, she got down on her knees beside him, took his face in her hands. Brought her mouth to his. He remained still for a few seconds, then he wrapped his arms around her, brought her in close.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘what you said earlier, about your work, about trying to do better for everyone. I think it got through to Ruth.’

Flanagan sat back, arms still around his neck. ‘Oh?’

‘She asked me about it upstairs. If what you did really helped people. I told her yes, and she said, well, then that’s what Mummy needs to do. And maybe we shouldn’t expect to have you all to ourselves.’

‘And what did you say to that?’

Alistair sighed, rested his forehead against her cheek. ‘I told her she was a very smart and grown-up girl. That maybe Daddy’s been asking too much of Mummy. Maybe Daddy needs to get his head out of his arse and acknowledge the fact that he’s not the centre of the universe. Well, I didn’t put it like that, exactly, but you get the gist.’

‘I do.’ She kissed him once more. ‘Thank you.’

Then her phone vibrated on the table.

Alistair stiffened. She did not pull away. She kissed him harder, feeling his teeth through his lips. The phone vibrated again.

Now she let go, and so did he. She got to her feet, reached for the phone. A mobile number she did not recognise. Alistair started to get up from the chair, but she put a hand on his shoulder, pushed him back down.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Just wait.’

She thumbed the green button and brought the phone to her ear.

‘DCI Serena Flanagan,’ she said. ‘Who is this?’

A pause, then, ‘Peter McKay. I’m sorry to disturb you on a Saturday night.’

‘Yes,’ she said, not allowing him an acceptance of his apology.

‘I need to talk to you.’

She hesitated, looked down at Alistair. ‘I’m sorry, now’s not a good time.’

‘It’s important. Can you come to the church?’

His voice sounded thin and far away, as if a shadow of a man spoke in his place.

Alistair went to say something, but she put her fingertips on his lips.

‘No, I can’t, I’m sorry. I’ve had a glass of wine, so I can’t drive.’

‘I can’t do it over the phone,’ McKay said. ‘Can I come to you?’

‘No,’ Flanagan said. ‘I’m sorry, really, but not right now, not tonight. The morning. I can come to you first thing in the morning, before your service.’

Silence as he considered. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘The morning. Eight-thirty?’

‘The morning,’ Flanagan said, looking to Alistair, her eyebrows raised. ‘Eight-thirty?’

Alistair nodded his assent.

‘Yes, eight-thirty.’

‘Okay,’ McKay said. ‘Thank you.’

She hung up and dropped her phone to the table. Alistair drew her down to him, sat her on his lap as if they were a boy and girl, still in love with the joyful newness of it all.

He kissed her and said, ‘Thank you.’

Flanagan returned the kiss and tried not to think of Reverend McKay and the terrible things he knew.

36

McKay placed the phone on the passenger seat beside him. Tomorrow. He could tell her tomorrow. One more night wouldn’t change things. He got out of the car into the darkness outside his house, the keys in his hand. The glass of the front door showed the black inside there, that cold and hollow house, where his wife had died and he had years later betrayed her with a monster dressed as a woman.

He looked across the grounds to the church, a spired silhouette against the dark blue. A beautiful building, it really was. He remembered when he had first inherited this parish. He and Maggie had sat inside on that first night, the building dark around them, street and moon light illuminating the stained glass, making strange shadows. They had embraced and thanked God together.

Do it for me, the woman had said.

No, he thought. I’ll do it for Maggie.

He dropped his house keys back into his pocket and found the long spindly keys for the church. His fingers wrapped around them as he crossed to the building, feeling for the familiar lines of the vestry key. He found it by the time he reached the door and let himself inside. Dark in here, a weak orange sheen from the street lights outside. The burglar alarm buzzed until he entered
the code: 1606, Maggie’s birthday. He found the small desktop lamp, flicked it on. As he passed the open closet he brushed his cassock and surplice with his fingertips, coarse black fabric and smooth white silk.

Out into the church where the stained-glass windows rose above and looked like angels come to observe his hypocrisy. Weariness crept into his arms and legs as he crossed in front of the pulpit and into the aisle.

He chose a pew three rows back, slid down and into the hard wooden seat. Rested his forearms on the back of the pew in front. Lowered his knees onto the padded bench. Clasped his hands together. Closed his eyes.

‘Maggie,’ he said. ‘Maggie, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’ve become. I’m not who I used to be before you left me. I’ve changed. Everything’s changed. You would hate me. No. You never hated anybody. But you could never love me. Not the way I am now. I betrayed you. I turned your picture away so you wouldn’t see what I did. I didn’t want you to see me with her.

‘Oh, Maggie, I’ve done an awful thing. I’ve done a thing so awful I’m glad you’re not alive to see it. Do you understand? Do you see what I did to myself ? I made myself glad you died.’

He wept then. Hard choking sobs trapped his voice in his throat. He swallowed, forced the tears back, the words out.

‘I want you back,’ he said. ‘I prayed for you not to die and you died anyway. And now I want you back. I want everything back like before. I know it’s not possible, it’ll never be, but that’s what I want. I want it so badly it’s been killing me all these years. And God, I’m so angry at You. You took her from me for no reason at all, You took her just because You could and I’m so fucking
angry and I hate You, God, I fucking hate You for doing that to me, I fucking hate You, I hate You, and I want her back, please give her back.’

A movement in the darkness by the vestry startled him.

‘She’s gone,’ a voice said. ‘There is no giving back.’

He got to his feet and said, ‘Come out where I can see you.’

She moved into the dim light. Roberta, dressed in a hooded top and jeans.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘To talk,’ she said.

A quiver in her voice, as if she held back tears.

‘We’ve nothing to talk about,’ he said. ‘Go home.’

‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’ve got no one else.’

He stepped out of the pew and into the aisle, but went no closer to her. ‘You never really needed anyone else, did you? Not unless you had some use for them. Now go.’

‘I’m going to kill myself,’ she said.

‘No, you’re not.’

‘I am. And I want to do it here. Before God.’

‘You don’t believe in God,’ he said.

‘Do you?’ she asked.

He went to speak, but realised he did not know the answer to that question. This morning he had certainty, absolute faith in his disbelief. Now the certainty crumbled.

‘Everyone believes,’ she said. ‘Even if they say they don’t, there’s always that idea inside them. Maybe they’re wrong. Well, maybe I’m wrong. So I want to do it here.’

‘Enough,’ he said, taking a step forward. ‘This won’t work on me. Not any more.’

‘I know how to do it,’ she said.

She raised her hands, and for the first time he saw that she held a belt between them. His belt, the one from the waist of his cassock. Two inches in breadth, thick coarse material, a plain metal buckle at one end. She had fashioned the other end into a noose.

‘It shouldn’t hurt too much if I do it right,’ she said, a strange calm to her voice now. ‘I just put the buckle over a door and close it. Put this end around my neck and sit down. Simple as that.’

‘You won’t,’ he said, feeling his anger fade. ‘And you certainly won’t do it here.’

She moved towards the top of the aisle. ‘All you have to do is walk out. You don’t have to have any part in it. I can manage by myself.’

McKay knew his rage should have burned bright, he knew he should have dragged her by the arm, thrown her out of the church. But instead of anger, he felt something else, something familiar yet strange to him.

Compassion, if he had to put a name to it.

She’s right, he thought. Deep down, everyone believes. And I believe.

The urge to weep came upon him once more, but he resisted it. The urge to pray surged in its place. He stepped towards her.

‘You’re confused,’ he said. ‘You’re angry. You’re afraid. I know how that feels.’

She shook her head. ‘You don’t know how I feel.’

‘Maybe not.’ He came close, close enough to see the glittering in her eyes. ‘But God knows. Why don’t you pray with me?’

She turned away, but he stepped around her, wouldn’t let her avoid his gaze. Her mouth opened and closed, her eyelids flickered.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’

McKay lowered himself to his knees. ‘Then let’s do it.’

She nodded and said, ‘All right.’

Then he saw the movement of her hands, felt the coarse cloth slip across his nose and cheeks and lips, felt the belt settle around his neck.

Quick, so quick he couldn’t get his fingers between the belt and his throat, she yanked the noose tight. As he grabbed at the belt, she slipped behind him, pulled hard, taking him off his knees. His heels kicked at the floor, the back of his head cracked on the tile. Pressure inside his skull, in his ears, his temples.

She hauled him across the smooth tiles, crying out at the effort. His jacket whispered on the sheen of the floor as he opened and closed his mouth, trying to vent a scream that could not escape his chest. As she grunted and dragged him across the threshold of the vestry, in the dim light of the lamp, he caught a glimpse of her hands and saw she wore the same surgical gloves as he had the night he killed her husband.

Amid the crushing pressure in his head, through the clamour of his fear, a thought speared into his mind: scratch her. Get some trace of her under his nails. Get it for the police to find. He reached back over his head, but she kept her hands out of his reach.

She stopped inside the vestry, kicked the door over. Then she planted both her feet firm on the floor, tightened her grip on the
belt, and hoisted him up by his neck. Somewhere through the storm behind his eyes, he heard her growl. Pain as the fabric cut into his skin, constricted his throat. He scrambled to get to his feet, swung his arms in wild arcs, trying to get hold of her, get hold of the belt, anything at all.

She gave an animal roar as she threw herself towards the door, dragging him staggering after. Up and up, she pulled up, he could see her arms stretching up, pushing back. She howled and wrestled, and for a moment his heels left the floor.

Then the door slammed shut behind him, the handle digging into the small of his back, and she stepped away. Feeling the noose loosen a fraction, he lunged forward, but the belt tightened again, yanked him back against the door. He realised she had fed the buckle over the top, closed the door, trapping it in place.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, her face burning red, panting as he tried to dig his fingertips between the belt and his throat. Then she raised the hood over her head, dropped to her knees, and reached for his ankles. The noose tightened, harder than before, as she pulled his feet from under him, held his ankles in front of her. The belt pulled tighter still, and the storm inside his head swelled into a hurricane. He reached behind to the small of his back, his fingers trying for the door handle, but the weight of his body kept the door closed. He grabbed for her, but his fingers swiped at the clear air between them. His legs kicked of their own accord, but she held her grip firm on his ankles.