Erasmus tumbled through the darkness and tried to tuck his neck under his body so he would land on his back. Not a great choice, but a broken neck was death, paralysis at best.
He landed hard on his back and heard bone snap. The pain came a moment later, agonising streaks of hot fury up his spine causing him to cry out. He was elated. Pain meant intact nerves.
He turned his head. Rachel was laying next to him, her arm stretched out underneath his back.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked her.
She groaned. ‘I think you broke my wrist when you landed on me.’
Gingerly he stood up. The building behind them was fully consumed with fire now. In the light that it cast he quickly spotted a magazine and picked it up. He bent down and pulled out one of his shoelaces and placed it between his teeth.
‘Here, let me,’ he said to Rachel and he gently took her hand.
He could see the break, swollen and distended. She let out a cry of pain.
‘Sorry.’
He folded the magazine in half and then placed it along her arm and next to her wrist. He dropped the shoelace from his mouth so it landed on the improvised splint and then tied it around the magazine.
Rachel was looking at him questioningly.
‘What is it?’
‘You have just made a splint for my wrist out of Big Jugs monthly. I'm touched.’
He looked at the magazine. Sure enough, large glossy breasts now adorned her wrist.
Suddenly Rachel's face went pale.
‘You will be in shock. We need to get some fluids in you.’
‘Behind you,’ she whispered.
Erasmus acted without hesitation. He dropped backwards, swinging his legs quickly around him in a scissor kick and swiping the legs of the man standing behind him who fell to the ground.
‘What are you doing!’ Pete was on his back, gasping for air. ‘You fucking winded me,’ he wheezed.
‘Where were you? Someone set the church on fire. We could have died! You were meant to be keeping watch! Someone tried to kill us?’
Pete rubbed his head. ‘Some fucker got the drop on me, coshed me.’
Erasmus could see in the flickering light the sticky matt blood down the side of Pete's face.
Rachel groaned.
‘Pete, this is Rachel, she's the journalist I mentioned.’
‘Charmed, I'm sure. Nice splint by the way,’ said Pete.
In the distance there was the sound of sirens.
‘Come on, let's get out of here,’ said Erasmus.
They walked back out to the front of the church and jumped into their cars. Rachel climbed into Erasmus’ car. He chucked the two framed pictures he'd taken from the church onto the back seat then climbed in beside her. They drove out of the city and Erasmus tried as best he could to fill her in on the developments he'd made since they last met. Eventually they stopped in a layby out towards Runcorn. It was a quiet spot with little passing traffic.
Pete pulled over behind Erasmus’ car and then joined them, taking a seat in the back of the car.
Erasmus handed the photographs he had found to Rachel.
‘Look at the boys in this photograph. Francis – missing, Tomas – murdered in childhood, Ford – dead, this one,’ he pointed at Petersen, ‘dead, and here, Bovind, the current saviour of Liverpool. It's not a coincidence. I was hoping to find out who the final boy in the picture was.’
‘Fuck, I can help you with that,’ said Rachel when he had finished. ‘Check this out.’
Rachel pulled an iPhone from her bag and quickly navigated to the Liverpool Echo website. She handed the phone to Erasmus.
Erasmus read the story out loud. ‘Man drowns on Gormley statue – Crosby Beach. The body of a Crosby man was found yesterday morning on Seaforth Beach. The police spokesman confirmed that they were working on the assumption that the man, provisionally identified as Marcus Wareing of Hall Road, Crosby, drowned as he tried to rescue his dog whose lead had become entangled with one of the world famous Anthony Gormley bronze sculptures. It is thought the man was trapped by the quickly rising tide. The dog's corpse was also found at the scene. Police have issued a reminder to the public to take care on all Merseyside beaches and to be aware of fast rising tides.’
‘I have been checking every death that fits the demographic. Care to take a wild guess which school Marcus went to or which volunteer Catholic boys group he belonged to? Want to take a wild guess at whether Marcus was that boy in your photograph?’ Rachel spoke through teeth gritted against the pain in her wrist.
‘Someone is killing the boys in that photograph and somebody wanted to kill us tonight,’ said Erasmus.
‘It's Bovind,’ said Rachel. ‘It has to be. Stephen said he knew something about Bovind and that's why he died.’
‘We don't know that Stephen is dead and we don't know it is Bovind. Why would he risk killing all these men now after so many years and why would he do it? What could justify it?’ said Erasmus.
‘Powerful fat cats think that they can do anything. You see it happen time and time again. Stephen knew something, he told that to me. We know he was in debt and Father Michael paid off that debt. It's blackmail, it has to be. Stephen was killed because he tried once too often to blackmail Father Michael or Bovind?’
‘And Ford, Petersen, Wareing. Why them?’ asked Erasmus.
‘I don't know,’ said Rachel.
Pete leaned over from the back seat. ‘You may want to take a look at these photographs.’
The first photograph was the photograph of the young boy with writing on it that Erasmus has found on the floor.
‘Is that Russian?’ said Erasmus.
‘No, but I recognise that language. It's Serbian,’ said Pete.
‘Serbian, you sure?’
‘Yeah, I did a tour of Kosovo when I was seventeen. I recognise the graffiti.’
‘Any idea what it says?’
‘None, whatsoever,’ said Pete.
‘Hang on, I'll Babelfish it!’ said Rachel. She took the photograph and started typing.
‘Where did you find this?’ she said.
‘In Father Michael's office. I think it's Tomas’, the Bosnian kid who was murdered by Burns.’
‘What does it say?’ asked Erasmus.
‘Hang on,’
Rachel typed in the Serbian to her phone.
‘“Uvek ću te volimti si moj otac i majka”, which is “I will always love you. You are my father and my mother”.’
‘Well, Father Michael was a Catholic priest,’ said Pete.
‘Eww,’ said Rachel.
Erasmus pulled out the other picture, the one of the group of boys he'd recovered from the wall of Father Michael's office and showed it to Pete.
‘That picture is starting to get on my nerves,’ said Pete. ‘But what's that there?’
A damp stain on the photo had brought the writing on the boat's hull into focus.
‘The Everlong,’ said Pete. ‘They named the boat. I wonder what else we've overlooked.’
‘I wonder?’ Erasmus removed the picture from its frame and turned it over. There in black pen was a list of names and a date: 23rd July 1990.
‘Jesus, their names are all here: Ford, Francis, Radzinski, Bovind, Petersen, Wareing and…holy shit!’
Erasmus showed the writing to Rachel and Pete.
Pete looked shocked. ‘You've been lied to, Erasmus,’ he said.