Chapter 103
Reynolds pulled into an overgrown farmyard – weeds coming up through cracks in the concrete, and the remains of a rose bush in a long-dry water trough.
Reynolds was out of the car in an instant, hammering on the front door with his fist. Cook stood back, looking up at the house.
Dark, dirty windows. The white render on the house was stained green with moss.
More moss hung from the eaves. This was what his farm would have looked like if it had been left to rot.
‘Ruby?’ Reynolds shouted. He kicked the door but it didn’t give. Flakes of green paint fell from where his boot made impact, only to get caught in a mess of cobwebs. This wasn’t a door that was used often, Cook thought.
‘Round the back,’ Cook said. There was a side gate, sagging on its hinges. A rut in the ground where it had dragged, until the day when it stopped dragging and sat open.
Frankie stepped out of the car. He’d insisted on coming.
‘Stay in the car,’ Cook said to the boy. ‘’Til we know what’s going on.’
Frankie looked pale. He nodded quickly and retreated. Cook didn’t envy him. If they didn’t find Ruby, she was likely gone forever. And if they did find her . . .
The garden was half an acre, secluded, hemmed in by a thick beech hedge. A private place. Further in the distance, beyond the hedge, crows squawked at the invaders, lifting off from a line of trees and circling in the sky.
Cook saw it straight away. They both did. The same as the house in Regent’s Place. The same as Beaumont’s place. The shelter, at the end of the garden.
Cook ran, his boots heavy on the grass, his breathing ragged. Reynolds passed him.
‘Wait,’ Cook shouted. Something was different about this shelter. A slight thing, but he felt a warning in his subconscious. Something was wrong. The door was open.
Reynolds didn’t slow. He reached the door while Cook was twenty yards back. Cook watched as he peered in, then turned back, shaking his head.
Cook reached the shelter, his eyes on the open door. No good was inside, he thought to himself. A premonition perhaps.
The shelter was pitch-black. Cook stood in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust. Reynolds was kneeling. Cook followed him in. The ground was soft, and Cook felt the familiar sensation of standing on freshly dug soil.
‘It’s not her,’ Reynolds said, his hope gone.
‘I tried to stop him.’ A woman’s voice from the darkness. Weak. Elderly.
‘Let’s get her up. Get her into the light,’ Cook said.
They carried her out and laid her on the grass. She was covered in blood. Cook looked frantically for the injury, but he couldn’t see it. She was old. Frail.
‘He’s in there,’ she said, her distress evident. She clutched a shard of porcelain. A smashed plate. ‘He’s a monster,’ she said. ‘Please. Don’t let him hurt me.’
Cook left Reynolds tending to the woman and returned to the shelter. Less hurry now. He stood in the dark and let his eyes adjust.
The place looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood dripped from the ceiling. Blood had been sprayed on the walls like some kind of abstract painting. It was a pattern Cook recognised. A severed artery.
Father Ryan was dead, his skin blanched white from loss of blood, his throat severed from ear to ear, a grinning mess of meat and gristle. A stark contrast with the dog collar below the ruined throat.
It was a relief to step back into the light.
‘Where’s Ruby?’ Reynolds asked, shaking the woman by the shoulders.
‘Give her air,’ Cook said.
‘Damn the air, tell me where Ruby is,’ Reynolds shouted.
Cook put his hand on Reynolds’s shoulder.
‘Christ only knows what this woman’s been through,’ Cook said. He knelt in the grass.
‘Mrs Ryan?’
The woman looked at him. She was terrified. She nodded. Looked at the shelter.
‘He’s gone,’ Cook said.
The woman relaxed. Still scared, but the panic subsided. Cook had seen it before, in men back from a raid across no-man’s-land. Gradually accepting that the worst was behind them.
‘Was Ruby here?’ Cook asked her.
She looked him in the eye. Nodded.
‘Where is she?’ Reynolds asked. Cook put his arm out to keep Reynolds back.
‘What happened?’ Cook asked.
The woman’s eyes flicked past Cook, past Reynolds. She thought the priest was coming for her. Couldn’t quite believe it was over.
‘He can’t hurt you any more,’ Cook said.
Cook stood up, looked around. The garden. The orchard. The distant trees, crows circling in the grey sky. Then he saw it.
‘We’re too late,’ Cook said.
‘Where is she?’ Reynolds yelled.
‘She’s here,’ Cook said.
Reynolds pushed himself to his feet and turned to see for himself. The two men stood in silence, looking at the patch of ground on the edge of the orchard.
A row of graves. Five covered with grass, just humps in the ground. The sixth looked different. A line of disturbed earth. Six foot long. A recently dug grave.