The Wrath of Angels (8 page)

Harlan moistened his mouth and throat. He didn’t want his voice to crack. No weakness: there had to be no frailty in front of this man.

‘No, there was never very much of it. It was only the sale of my parents’ house after my momma died that left me with a cushion, you might say.’

Something that might have been doubt flickered across Brightwell’s face.

‘A house?’

‘They lived over by Calais,’ said Harlan. He pronounced it ‘Callas’, like the singer, the way everyone did in the state. ‘Me being the only child, it came into my possession. Fortunate, given what happened to Angeline.’

‘Fortunate indeed.’

Now Harlan met Brightwell’s gaze. ‘I told you at the start, sir: I don’t know what you came looking for here, but I warned you that you wouldn’t find it. I’d be grateful to you if you’d leave us now. I’ve had enough of your company.’

At that moment, Angeline opened her eyes. She stared at Brightwell, and Harlan expected her to start screaming. He prayed that she wouldn’t because he didn’t know how the intruder would react. He was capable of killing to protect himself, of that Harlan was sure. He could smell death on the man.

But Angeline did not scream: she spoke, and the sound of it brought tears to Harlan’s eyes. She spoke in a voice that Harlan had not heard for so long, in the soft, beautiful tones of her middle years, yet there was another voice behind hers, one deeper than her own.

‘I know what you are,’ she said, and Brightwell looked at her in surprise. ‘I know what you are’, she repeated, ‘and I know what lies imprisoned within you. Soul-keeper, binder of lost men, hunter of a hidden angel.’

Now it was her turn to smile, and it seemed to Harlan more terrifying even than any expression he had yet seen on Brightwell’s face. Angeline’s eyes were bright, and her tone was mocking, almost triumphant.

‘Your days are numbered. He is coming for you. You’ll think that you’ve found him, but it’s he who will have found you. Leave here. Hide while you can. Dig yourself a hole and cover your head with dirt, and maybe he’ll pass you by. Maybe . . .’

‘Bitch,’ said Brightwell, but his voice was uncertain. ‘Your dying mind is spewing inanities.’

‘Old hateful thing, trapped in a rotting body,’ said Angeline, as if he had not spoken. ‘Pathetic soulless creature, stealing the souls of others for company. Run, but it will do you no good. He’ll find you. He’ll find you and destroy you, you and all the others like you.
Fear him
.’

The door to the room opened, and the nurse named Evelyn appeared, carrying a tray on which she had placed two cups, and a plate of cookies. She stopped short at the sight of Brightwell.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Get help,’ said Harlan, rising from his chair. ‘Now!’

Evelyn dropped the tray and ran. Seconds later, an alarm began to sound. Brightwell turned to face Harlan.

‘This isn’t over,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe what you told me about that money. I’ll be back, and maybe I’ll steal what’s left of your wife and carry her in me, once I’ve finished with you.’

With that he swept by Harlan, Angeline’s bell-like laughter following him. Although the home had instantly been locked down no trace of him was found in the building, or the grounds, or in the town.

‘The police came,’ said Marielle, ‘but my father said that he didn’t know what the man wanted. He’d simply entered my mother’s room and found this Brightwell leaning over her. When the police tried to question my mother, she was already gone, and she never spoke again. The end came quickly for her after that. My father told Paul about what had happened, and they kept waiting for Brightwell to return. Then Paul died and it was just my father who was left to face him. But Brightwell never came back.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because the last word that my mother whispered to my father after that man fled was your name – “When it comes down, tell the detective. Tell Charlie Parker.” – and that, in turn, was the last thing that he whispered to me after he told us the story of the plane in the woods. He wanted you to hear this story, Mr Parker. That’s why we came. And now you know.’

Around us music played, and people talked, and ate, and drank, but we were no part of it. We were cocooned in our corner, surrounded by the silk-wrapped forms of the dead.

‘You knew who this man Brightwell was, didn’t you?’ said Ernie. ‘I saw it on your face the first time we described him to you.’

‘Yes, I’ve met him.’

‘Will he be coming back, Mr Parker?’ asked Marielle.

‘No,’ I said.

‘You seem very certain of that.’

‘I am, because I killed him.’

‘Good,’ said Marielle. ‘And the woman? What about the woman?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘With luck, maybe somebody killed her too.’

S
outh, south: down Interstates and winding roads, past cities and towns, hamlets and scattered houses, across rivers and open fields, to a car on a lonely, dark stretch, to a woman leaving home, a woman who, if she could have heard the tale being told in a quiet bar in the Port City, might well have said, ‘I know of these things . . .’

Barbara Kelly had just left home when she saw the red SUV. A woman perhaps a decade younger than herself was hunched over the right front tire, struggling with a lug wrench. When the headlights found her she looked frightened, as well she might. This was a dark, relatively unfrequented stretch of road, used mainly by residents making their way to and from the houses at the top of the narrow laneways that fed into Buck Run Road like tributaries. On a night like this, with clouds gathering and a brisk breeze making it feel colder than it was, there would be even fewer cars on the road than usual. Sunday evenings tended to be quiet around there at the best of times, as the residents resigned themselves to the end of the weekend and the imminent resumption of the weekly commute.

The lanes all had names inspired by the natural world – Raccoon Lane, Doe Leap Lane, Bullfrog Lane – a decision made by the developers without any apparent reference to the reality of their surroundings. Barbara had never seen a doe here, leaping or otherwise, had never heard a bullfrog, and the only raccoons she ever saw were dead. It didn’t matter much, in the end. She had not raised the subject with her neighbors, or with anyone else. She had grown used to blending in. It made it easier for her to conduct her business.

Now here was an SUV with a flat tire, and a woman in trouble. A child stood beside her, a boy of five or six. He was wearing black shoes and blue jeans, and a blue windbreaker was zipped up to his chin.

The rain began to fall. The first drop landed with a loud
pop
on Barbara’s windshield, and her view became almost entirely obscured before she had time to hit the wipers. She saw the boy huddle into himself under a tree to escape the downpour. He pulled up the hood on his windbreaker while the woman doggedly continued trying to change the wheel. She seemed to have managed to get one of the lug nuts loose, and wasn’t about to stop now. Barbara admired her gumption, even though she could see how clumsily the woman was handling the wrench. Barbara herself would have done a better job. She was good with her hands.

She slowed down just as the jack slipped, the woman stumbling back as the SUV came down heavily on the damaged tire. She put her hands out behind her to stop herself from striking her head. Barbara thought that she heard her swear, even above the noise of the rain and the engine. The boy ran to her. His face was contorted, and Barbara guessed that he was crying.

Under ordinary circumstances Barbara would have driven on. She was not prone to helping others. It was not in her nature. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her life had, until recently, been devoted to their slow ruination. Barbara was an expert in the small print that taketh away, the legalese in contracts that permitted them to be manipulated in favor of the creditor but not the debtor. Then again, this assumed that the contracts she negotiated were available to be read and examined, which was only sometimes the case. The particular contracts in which Barbara Kelly dealt were largely verbal in nature, except when it was advantageous to have them otherwise. Sometimes they involved money, or property. Occasionally they involved people. For the most part, they were promises of assistance made and accepted, favors to be called in at opportune moments. Each was a small cut to the soul, another footstep on the path to perdition.

Her work had made her wealthy, but it had also sapped most of her humanity. True, she would sometimes choose to engage in random acts of philanthropy, both small and significant, but only because there was a power in pity. Now, as she drew to a halt beside the woman and the child, she felt something of that power, mingled with an element of sexual excitement. Even tired and wet, the woman was clearly beautiful.

The surge of desire was both unexpected and welcome. It had been a long time since Barbara had felt it, not since the lump had appeared in her armpit. It hadn’t even hurt at first, and she’d dismissed it as just one of those things. She’d never been hypochondriacal by nature. By the time it was diagnosed as lymphoma, her lifespan was already being counted in weeks and months. With the diagnosis came fear: fear of pain, fear of the effects of treatment, fear of mortality.

And fear of damnation, for she understood better than anyone the nature of the bargain that had been struck. Voices had begun to whisper to her in the night, sowing seeds of doubt in her mind. They spoke of the possibility of redemption, even for one such as her. Now here she was, slowing down for a stranded woman and child, a warmth spreading from between her legs, and she did not yet know if she was stopping for reasons of goodwill or self-interest, or so she told herself.

Barbara rolled down the window.

‘You look like you’re in trouble,’ she said.

The woman was back on her feet. Because of the headlights and the rain, she hadn’t been able to tell if it was a man or a woman at the wheel of the approaching vehicle, but now the relief showed. She came forward, the rain streaming down her face. Her mascara had run. Combined with her dark dress and coat, it made her look like a mourner at the end of a particularly difficult funeral, but one radiant in her grief. The boy hung back, waiting until his mom told him that it was okay to approach. No, it wasn’t just that: Barbara was very good at picking up on the responses of others, and there was something in the boy’s reaction that went beyond obedience to his mother, or a child’s innate caution. He was suspicious of Barbara.

Clever boy, thought Barbara. Clever, sensitive boy.

‘Damn tire blew,’ said the woman, ‘and the jack doesn’t seem to be worth shit. Do you have one I can use?’

‘No,’ Barbara lied. ‘Mine gave out a couple of months back, and I never got around to replacing it. I tend to wait for a helpful cop when I get into trouble, or I just call Triple A.’

‘I don’t have Triple A, and I haven’t seen any cops, helpful or otherwise.’

‘Haven’t you heard? They melt in the rain.’

The woman tried to smile. She was already soaked through. ‘They may not be the only ones.’

‘Well, this is down for a while, and it’s not such a good idea for you to wait with your car,’ said Barbara. ‘There have been a lot of accidents at the bend in the road just ahead. People take it too fast, especially in bad weather. If someone hits you, you’ll have bigger worries than a flat tire.’

The woman’s shoulders sagged.

‘What do you suggest I do?’

‘I live just up the road from here. You can almost see my house from that big pine back there. Come up, get dry, and I’ll call Roy, my neighbor, when the rain stops.’ Once she had told the lie about her own jack, she could hardly offer to change the tire herself. ‘He lives to help out damsels in distress. He’ll have that tire changed in no time. In the meantime, you and your son can have a warm drink and wait in comfort. He is your son, isn’t he?’

There was an odd pause before the woman answered. ‘Oh yes, of course. That’s William. Billy to me, and to his friends.’

That pause was interesting, thought Barbara.

‘I’m Barbara,’ she said. ‘Barbara Kelly.’

‘I’m Caroline. Hi, pleased to meet you.’

The two women shook hands slightly awkwardly through the open window. Caroline gestured to the boy. ‘Come here, Billy, and say hello to the nice lady.’

Reluctantly, or so it seemed to Barbara, the boy came forward. He was not a good-looking child. His skin was very pale, and Barbara wondered if he was ailing. If this woman was really his mother, and there was already some doubt about that, then there was little of her in him. The boy seemed destined to grow into an ugly man, and something told her that he was not a child with many friends.

‘This is Barbara,’ Caroline told him. ‘She’s going to help us.’

The boy didn’t speak. He simply stared at Barbara with those dark eyes, like raisins set in the dough of his face.

‘So,’ she said, ‘hop in.’

‘You’re sure we’re not imposing?’

‘No, not at all. I’d just be worrying if you insisted on staying out here, so I’ll be happier if I know that you’re safe. You need anything from the car?’

‘Just my purse,’ said Caroline. She turned away, and left Barbara and the boy alone. With his hood up, and his windbreaker zipped, he looked older than his years. He reminded her uncomfortably of a doll come to life, or a homunculus. He regarded her balefully. Barbara did not let her smile waver. She had all kinds of medicines in her house, and she could easily put a child to sleep.

His mother too, if it came to that, for she could almost taste Caroline, and the warmth had begun a slow, insistent throbbing.

Repentance could wait.

The two women chatted as they drove to the house. It seemed that Caroline and William had been on their way to visit friends in Providence, Rhode Island, when the tire blew. Barbara tried to figure out where they might have been coming from to have found themselves in her neck of the woods. When she asked, Caroline said that she had taken a wrong turn somewhere, and Barbara did not pursue the matter further.