As I climbed up the stairs, I saw a man in a purple priest's robe in the garden at the back of the church. He clutched a Bible in one hand and a set of rosary beads in the other, and was talking to an elderly woman holding a mountain bike against her legs and wearing a bike helmet. They had their heads together in deep discussion and every few seconds she'd nod her head thoughtfully. If Steven was waiting in the confessional box to blab about Chantal, somehow I needed to delay the priest so I could slip in there and pretend to be him, then listen to what Steven had to say. I wasn't entirely sure exactly how I'd be able to pull that off, but a girl's gotta try.
"Father!" I gave the priest a wave and rushed over to them.
He glanced up, his eyebrows scrunching together, trying to place me as someone he recognized.
The woman placed a hand on his arm and smiled at him. "Well, thank you, Father McGuire, it's been a fascinating conversation. Who'd have thought the Pope was into mountain-bike riding and other extreme sports?" She turned and smiled at me as I got closer to them.
He took her hands in his and smiled back. "Any time, Maude."
She disappeared through the garden and down the steps as he gave me his full attention.
"Hello." He beamed at me, his bushy eyebrows dancing as he spoke. "Can I help you?"
"I'm so glad I caught you," I said. "There's been a serious car accident in Ware Road, just by the bus stop, and there's this poor woman who's trapped in one of the vehicles in a bad way. The fire brigade is on its way to cut her free and there's an ambulance waiting, but they can't do much until she's out of the vehicle. She was asking for you, father."
The smile dropped from his face and his eyebrows scrunched together with concern. "Oh, my, that's terrible. Who is it?" He led me back toward the steps.
"Er…Sarah?" It came out more like a question than a statement.
He shook his head slightly. "Sarah? I don't recall a parishioner here called Sarah."
"Or maybe Sally?"
"Oh no. Not Sally Wilkinson?"
I nodded vigorously. "Yes, Sally Wilkinson." I clutched his arm. "You need to hurry. She may not have long left."
"Of course." He opened the door to a Ford Ka on the driveway next to the church and slid behind the wheel.
"Don't worry, if anyone comes in asking for you, I'll let them know you've been delayed."
"Thank you, my child." He slammed the door shut and shot out onto the main road.
Would I go to hell for that? I didn't have time to consider it as I yanked open the church door and poked my head inside, looking for Steven. There was no one on the pews or at the altar, so the only other place he could be was in the confessional box, waiting for Father McGuire.
I crept up between the pews and opened the intricately carved wooden door to the confessional box, shutting it carefully behind me. Sitting down inside, I slid open the hatch to reveal a latticed wooden window that separated the confessor from the confessee. On the other side, I could just about make out a figure in the gloom.
In the deepest voice I could muster, I said, "Do you have something to confess?" Okay, I sounded a teensy bit like the famous drag queen RuPaul, but maybe Steven wouldn't notice.
"Is that you, Father McGuire?" Steven asked.
"No, I'm afraid he's been called out on an emergency. I'm Father…"
Oh, crap, what's a fatherly kind of name? Damn, I swore in a church. Oh sh…sugar, I did it again!
"I'm Father Ted."
Oh, God, why did I say Father Ted? That was a comedy program on TV!
"Oh, okay. Bless me, father, for I have sinned. It's been a year since my last confession."
Phew! He didn't seem to notice.
"What would you like to confess, my child?" I asked, trying to make my voice deeper.
"Well…" He paused for a moment.
"It's okay, my child, take your time." Although how long would it be before Father McGuire discovered there was no traffic accident and came back? "On second thought, it's actually better if you get it out in the open as soon as possible to avoid the wrath of the lord."
"Oh no. Will I get sent to hell?"
"No, my child. I'll give you the appropriate number of Hail Marys and then you'll be absolved. Unless you take too long,
then
you might go to hell."
"Er…okay. Well, the thing is…my girlfriend has gone missing. Actually, she's kind of not my girlfriend anymore. We were going out with each other and then she split up with me. It wasn't anything I did. I mean, I wasn't horrible or anything, it's just that, you know, she was going through a hard time, and her friend had disappeared and—"
Oh, for God's sake, spit it out!
"Actually, this is a speed confessional box so you'll need to get to the actual confession in under a minute," I said.
"A speed confessional box?"
"Yes, it's like speed dating. We find that with people's busy lives these days they like to do speed confessions rather than the usual longer ones. So you need to confess quickly, I'm afraid, to be eligible for Hail Mary redemptions. Otherwise, the penalties could be very severe from the man upstairs. You're lucky I could fit you in; we've been taking phone bookings for the speed confessions and we're up to our eyeballs in appointments. So if you could hurry it along, please."
"Right. Okay. Well, my girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—has gone missing and I know something, but I don't know whether to tell the police."
"Well, you must tell them, my child."
"But if I tell them, then I'll get into trouble."
"Yes, but it's not all about you, is it? If you know what's happened to her, then you need to tell the police immediately. What
do
you know about her disappearance?"
"What if I did it for her own good, though?"
"What did you do, my child?" A bad, burny sensation rippled through my stomach.
What the fuck has he done to her? Agh! More sweary words coming out of my mouth. Why does being in a church make me want to swear? I'll definitely be going to hell for that. Oh, well, at least it's hot down there, not like the crappy British weather.
Oh, fu…fudge, I've done it again!
He ignored my question. "I was trying to help her but…maybe it's all my fault."
"What's your fault? What do you know? What did you do to her?" I pressed on. In my excitement, my voice rose to RuPaul level again.
"I…oh, God." I pictured him holding his head in his hands.
"Yes, he's listening. Carry on, my child." I forced my voice lower.
"I…"
Come on!
"If you did something you thought was good but it's not, is that bad? Will he punish me?"
"As long as you tell me about it, no, he won't punish you. Now get on with it!"
"Pardon?"
"Er…I mean, hurry up, my child. The lord wants to hear your confession now, and your time for speed confession is nearly up. You don't want to go to hell, do you?"
"I…I'm sorry. I was wrong. I can't do it. I thought I could but I can't."
I heard the confessional door open and close on the other side of the box and Steven's heavy footsteps hurrying to the entrance.
Bugger! Damn, I did it again!
I slipped out of the confessional box and walked slowly to the entrance, pondering his words.
I did it for her own good.
What the hell—oops, I mean, what the heck did that mean? Had he killed her? Had he done something to help her but it had ended up going badly wrong in some kind of accident?
As I was stepping out into the cold air, my pocket rang. Or, more accurately, my mobile in my pocket rang.
"Foxy," Brad said. "My guy watching Marie's house says he's followed her into town. At the moment, she's shopping. If we want to get in and have a nose around her house, we'd better be quick."
"Okay." I started the engine. "When I threw that tea out into the garden, I noticed the house backs onto some woods. We can get in from there and climb the fence at the end of her garden to avoid being seen by the neighbors." Yes, it was dark now, but I didn't want to take any chances. If Marie knew we'd been in her house, she might put a hex on us. Damn. It was too late to go back home and put my Wonder Woman knickers on.
"I'll meet you at the entrance to the woods." Brad hung up as I floored the Toyota, squealing up the road.
I parked near the woods, grabbed my stun gun from my rucksack, and put it in my pocket. I gripped it as I got out of the car and walked to the entrance of the woods. Brad was already waiting for me, thank God. Not that I was scared, you understand, just a teensy bit nervous about what to expect once we got inside. The night was starless and dark, magnifying the ominous feeling I had, and we were about to enter a house that could've been used for black magic rituals. Okay, I admit it, I
was
scared.
"Isn't Hacker coming?" I asked as I hustled forwards to where Brad was waiting. Don't get me wrong, I was more than capable of looking after myself, and Brad could protect himself blindfolded, but that was protecting ourselves from people and weapons we could see. What about creepy, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night invisible spirits and curses that we couldn't see?
"No. He said there's no way he's going in there."
Crappety crap. Hacker wasn't scared of anything. If he didn't want to go in there, it must be bad.
Brad handed me the chicken's foot Hacker wore around his neck. "He wanted you to wear this for protection."
I didn't know which was worse: wearing a poor, sacrificed chicken's bones, or not wearing it and being hexed. Either way, I quickly pulled it over my neck, just in case.
Brad nodded toward the woods and we silently crept through the trees to Marie's fence. Brad hauled himself over the fence first, closely followed by me. As I was swinging over the other side, my jeans caught on a nail and I heard a ripping sound.
Great! A pissy boot and now ripped jeans! Never mind a love curse, Marie's giving me a fashion curse.
I tugged my leg off the nail and with the momentum fell over the other side of the fence onto the hard, muddy ground right on my ass.
"Ouch!" I sat on the ground for a moment, waiting for the pain to subside from my coccyx.
"Are you okay?" Brad looked down at me, holding out a hand.
"I think I've broken my ass." I grabbed his hand and got to my feet, rubbing my bum. "Bloody voodoo!"
We walked toward the house and I saw a faint light glowing in one of the upstairs windows.
"You're sure she's not here?" I whispered.
Brad nodded. "My guy's going to phone when she's on her way back."
I gave an involuntary shudder and looked around the garden for any signs of Snowy. I didn't particularly fancy getting sprayed twice in one day. As we got closer to the French doors, the rhododendron bush shuddered in a sudden breeze that whipped up my hair around my cheeks. Maybe I'd watched too many bad horror films in the past, but I had a sudden thought about skeletons rising from the dead and leaping out of the bush to attack us. Scenes from
Night of the Living Dead
kept popping into my head, and it wasn't pretty.
Don't be a scaredy-Fox. Nothing like that is even remotely possible.
My imagination seemed to be getting an ickle bit too overactive. I chuckled to myself and shook my head as the voice of reason took over again.
"What?" Brad threw me a questioning look.
I shook my head again. "Nothing. Just my crazy imagination."
He got his magic lock-picking tool out of his pocket and I watched him make light work of the French doors. In a couple of seconds they clicked and he pressed the handle down.
We were in.
Turning on his Maglite torch, he led the way into the kitchen, which was still as messy as earlier. If I were Marie, I'd magic up one of her zombie mates to do a spot of housework. I mean, I'm not the tidiest person in the world, but this place was a mess. The local rubbish tip looked positively spotless compared to Marie's house.
We poked around the worktops and in cupboards and drawers but didn't see anything connected to Chantal. As we searched, I filled him in on Steven's non-confession.
"So we still don't know what he knows?" Brad said.
"Nope. What do you think he meant when he said 'I did it for her own good'?"
Brad shrugged. "It could be anything."
"That's what scares me. What if he thought killing her was for her own good?"
We walked down the hallway lined with books. At the end of it, by the front door, sat Snowy, staring at us. In the darkness, with the torch reflecting on his eyes, he looked like a ghost cat.
An icy chill slammed through my veins and goose bumps broke out on my skin.
Snowy scowled at us then bared his teeth, hissing as we opened one of the doors that led to the lounge.
"Scary cat," I said.
"I thought you loved all cats."
"Yeah, but that's a voodoo cat. And it sprayed on me."
"The funny thing is, I used to hate cats until I met Marmalade."
I smiled. "Yes, but Marmalade's a cutie cat. Everyone loves him."
"I think Marmalade wants us to get married so he won't be illegitimate anymore." Brad tilted his head, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Nice try!"
Inside was the same amount of clutter. Books, candles, various dolls, some made of plastic, some made of straw or cloth, bowls of stones, bits of bark, empty bottles, dice, flowers, money—you name it, Marie was hoarding it on every available bit of space.
"And I thought you were bad with clutter," Brad said. "Look at all this stuff."
So what if I had obsessive clutter disorder? I just felt comfortable with my stuff around me. And if you couldn't be comfortable in your own home, then you might as well live in a cardboard box somewhere. Although, strictly speaking, it wasn't actually my home, it was Brad's. Even though he'd been pretty good about ignoring all the knick-knacks I'd dotted around his house since I'd moved in, I was making an effort to curb my clutter fetish, and my stuff had nothing on this lot. I was positively a domestic goddess compared to Marie. It looked like she'd filled the place with a whole lifetime's supply of crap.