Moments passed.
Outside, the storm still pounded.
Inside, the longest, most terrible silence Liza had ever known.
And then the sounds began again, the stunned congregation returning to life. Awful sounds of loud sobbing and soft weeping, a sense of utmost shock and renewed terror, pockets of intense anger rolling like waves from pew to pew, swiftly suppressed by fear, because what might rage achieve except more bloodshed?
Around Grace Glover there was quiet, frantic activity, Stephen Plain on his knees, Rosie Keenan giving first-aid assistance. The retired doctor alternating chest compressions with mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths, the vicar’s wife fighting to stem the blood flow with pressure from clean handkerchiefs folded beneath her right hand.
‘You get away from her,’ Adam Glover snarled at Joel, the ashen-faced Whirlwind man standing by helplessly.
Liza watched the gunman step away, shaking his head over and over, staring down at Luke’s body, and then, finally able to react, she averted the lens from the huddle on the floor, looked up at the chancel, saw that Reaper was back in the pulpit and that Michael was sitting on the floor, his face in his hands.
She realized, abruptly, that she had not spoken since the first gunshot, knew that if there was anyone watching, they’d have seen and heard what had happened, but still, she had to make sure they had fully comprehended it.
She put the earphones back on, checked her settings.
‘Two people have been shot,’ she said. ‘A child panicked and ran toward one of the wired exits. One of the gang members tried to stop her and she struggled and grabbed at his shotgun, which went off. She is critically injured, and two people are working on her right now.’ Liza’s voice choked and she cleared her throat. ‘The shooter, who was trying to help the child, then shot himself in the head and is almost certainly dead.’ She paused. ‘To anyone who’s listening to this, please, we’re in Saint Matthew’s Church, Shiloh Village, Rhode Island, and a child needs urgent medical attention now.’
Stephen and Rosie Keenan were still working on Grace Glover, the vicar there too now, one arm around Claire Glover, who was rocking back and forth, both hands clasped over her mouth.
‘But please remember,’ Liza went on, and panned to the door, zoomed in on the cables and wiring, ‘if anyone is already outside, that all the exits have been booby-trapped with explosives and—’
‘No!’ Claire Glover’s cry was agonized. ‘You can’t just stop!’
Liza’s heart turned over.
Because Adam Glover had turned away from the group on the floor, his face contorted with grief, and Liza realized that he was making a move toward the shotgun still lying on the floor beside Luke’s body.
The man called Joel saw too, got to it first.
No violence in him, Liza saw that clearly, just common sense, and was grateful to him, because if Glover had reached the gun, what could he have done except maybe get himself shot?
Keep talking.
She did so, quietly but clearly.
‘And to the best of our knowledge, that means that as of’ – she checked the time – ‘two-twenty this Christmas morning, there are still at least six armed gang members inside this church.’
‘You’re doing great,’ Nemesis said, behind her. ‘Are you OK?’
Liza wanted to hit her.
‘Get back in your position, Nemesis,’ Reaper said. ‘You too, please, Ms Plain.’
The big man named Amos passed both women on his way to the front, retrieved Luke’s shotgun from Joel, directed him back to the south-east exit, then walked up the chancel steps and handed the spare weapon to Reaper.
Liza panned across, canceled out her own voice on the mike switch and listened intently to Amos’s low, harsh voice.
‘How in hell could that have happened? The guy was a marine, for fuck’s sake.’
‘He’s paid the price,’ Reaper said. ‘And now we have to go on.’ He began to cough, then mastered it. ‘The girl’s dead?’
Liza caught the question, stared at them in the viewfinder, saw Amos nod, felt the thump of the tragedy deep inside herself.
‘Bad scene,’ Amos said. ‘A fucking mess.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Reaper said, ‘we go on.’
Cold as stone, Liza knew now, for sure.
No chance of reprieve for any of them.
‘Sir.’ Simon Keenan was facing the pulpit. ‘Do you have any objection to our moving this child into my parlor?’
‘By all means.’ Reaper turned around and found Jeremiah. ‘Go with them.’
‘Surely you can grant her family privacy now?’ Keenan’s face was hot with outrage.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Reaper said. ‘For their own safety.’
‘Bastard,’ someone said.
‘Bastards.’ The word was repeated around the nave, and Liza watched in silence, recording as Adam Glover lifted his dead daughter in his arms, as his wife and old Seth Glover rose to accompany them.
And then, as they climbed the chancel steps, guided by Keenan to the door that led to the vestry and parlor, Liza cut away again, back to the pulpit, and switched the mike back.
‘If Reaper won’t allow them privacy, we can,’ she said. ‘But I do have to confirm the tragic news that a young child named Grace Glover has died as a result of her gunshot wound. Her parents and grandfather are moving her into the vicar’s parlor, accompanied by Reverend Keenan and the gunman codenamed Jeremiah.’
She caught movement from the left, saw that Michael had come down from the chancel and was covering Luke’s face with the dead man’s jacket.
Liza turned off the microphone.
‘Michael,’ she called to him.
Someone nearby hissed with contempt.
He turned, hesitated briefly, then walked up the aisle towards her. Close up, she saw intense pain in his eyes.
‘You must realize now that it’s over,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve reported that her death was accidental, that Luke was trying to stop her from getting hurt.’
‘We brought guns into church,’ Michael said. ‘We all knew the risks.’
‘If you defuse the doors now,’ Liza said, ‘at least no one else need be hurt.’
‘Ms Plain.’ Reaper’s voice from the pulpit was sharp. ‘Please switch your microphone back on and do your job.’ He paused. ‘Isaiah, time is passing.’
Michael closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and looked at Liza.
‘I don’t know what to say to you.’
‘I’d say we’re beyond words, wouldn’t you?’
He turned, made his way slowly back to the chancel.
Liza switched the mike back on, hating herself for doing Reaper’s bidding.
And wasn’t that just what Michael was doing?
Not the same.
‘Apologies for the silence, people out there. I hope you’re still with us. From CNN to News Radio 920. FBI, Rhode Island State Police, Glocester PD. According to the man in charge of this nightmare, the man calling himself Reaper, they’re going to carry on.’
‘Tell them to bring a SWAT team,’ the man from the choir behind her said loudly.
‘I’m sure they will,’ Liza said.
From above came a fearsome, groaning noise.
Everyone looked up.
Just the pitched roof doing its job, allowing gravity to slide some of the overloaded snow down over the filled gutters, then onto the packed white stuff below.
Someone laughed and then, promptly, began to cry.
Liza took a breath, spoke into the microphone again.
‘What next?’ she said.
Michael didn’t know exactly what was coming next. He’d arrived in Shiloh with a little more knowledge than the others about Revelation, but nowhere near all. Only the tidbits, he realized now: the bait that Reaper had used to reel him in. And he was in, way over his head, and he hadn’t imagined that his soul could grow any bleaker than it had been before Whirlwind. But with that child’s blood right there before him, soaked into the timber floor, his conscience felt more heavily burdened than even after his mother’s death.
Everyone was back in position, Reaper in the seat beside the pulpit, Luke’s shotgun across his knees, and Michael was at the pulpit again, silent …
‘Isaiah,’ Reaper prompted. ‘The dressmaker.’
Michael took a breath, looked straight ahead, saw Liza recording.
And began again.
‘Mrs Yore. What did you mean when you said you might have known what Susan Cromwell meant in her letter to Dr Plain?’
‘How can you?’ Eleanor Tilden was on her feet. ‘Another child is dead, and—’
‘Ellie, sit down.’ John Tilden tugged at her hand, pulled her down.
‘Mrs Yore,’ Reaper said. ‘Please answer the question.’
‘I don’t know anything for sure.’ The woman’s cheeks were red again. ‘But I did believe back then that Susan was in love with another man. And I don’t know who, so I can’t tell you, but she once let slip to me – when she’d had a few drinks – that she was in love with somebody else and was thinking of leaving Donald.’
‘Was that all she said?’ Michael asked.
‘No.’ Janet Yore sighed. ‘Susan told me that Donald had tried just about everything to stop her. He’d forbidden her, begged her, she said. He’d even made threats against the other man.’
‘It wasn’t another man,’ someone said.
Heads turned to stare at Gwen Turner.
‘Susan was having an affair with a woman,’ she said.
A collective gasp rose and was swiftly suppressed.
‘Who was she?’ Michael asked.
Numbness in him, nothing surprising him.
‘I’d remind you, Rider,’ Stephen Plain broke in, ‘that your grandmother’s still alive.’
‘And long past caring, from what I’ve heard,’ Osborn said dryly.
‘Come on, Gwen,’ Eleanor Tilden encouraged. ‘Spill.’
‘Ellie, don’t,’ John Tilden said. ‘Let’s not get involved in this.’
‘We’re all pretty involved, I’d say,’ she said.
Tilden made an exasperated sound and sat back.
‘Was it you, Gwen Turner?’ Ann Jackson asked loudly.
‘No, as a matter of fact,’ Gwen answered.
‘So who was it?’ asked a young man, probably about sixteen, Michael estimated, with dyed black hair and an ear stud, seated in the eighth row with the choir. ‘Come on, lady.’
‘Don’t let them bully you, Gwen,’ John Tilden said.
‘I won’t, John,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I’m sure you should,’ Jill said beside her, clearly fascinated.
‘Everybody except Gwen Turner be quiet,’ Reaper ordered loudly. ‘Miss Turner, do you know the identity of the other woman in Susan Cromwell’s life?’
‘You might as well tell them, Gwen,’ Eleanor Tilden spoke up again. ‘They’re obviously not going to let this go.’
‘For the love of God, Ellie, will you shut up!’ her husband snapped.
‘I will not.’ She glared at him. ‘I think that if Gwen knows who Susan was sleeping with and has already said as much, then she should tell them, especially if it’s going to help put us all out of our misery.’
‘Jesus Christ, Ellie, your mouth.’ Tilden’s cheeks were scarlet.
Eleanor looked at him. ‘John? What’s wrong?’
‘It was Lynne.’ The words were stark. ‘OK?’
‘Lynne?’ Eleanor stared at him. ‘Your Lynne?’
‘My Lynne, yes. Till that bitch got hold of her.’ Tilden looked up at Michael, hate in his eyes. ‘My late wife was being bedded by Susan Cromwell, and there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t still damn your grandmother to hell for it.’ He glared at his wife. ‘Satisfied?’
Silence fell for a second or two, quickly overtaken by murmurings, even a little reined-in laughter, because scandal was suddenly rocking the church, allowing the captive congregation, however briefly, to blank out their fear and focus instead on something older than many of them.
‘I’m sorry, John,’ Gwen called to Tilden. ‘I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.’
‘Not alone there,’ he said.
‘Surely it was all a very long time ago,’ Jill Barrow said lightly. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it now.’
‘No,’ Tilden said. ‘I guess you wouldn’t.’
‘I had no idea,’ Eleanor said softly. ‘I’m so sorry. If I’d known—’
‘You never know when to keep quiet,’ he said. ‘You know I hate church. You know I didn’t want to come tonight.’
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Let’s settle down and let them get on with their nonsense. It has nothing to do with us.’
‘Hasn’t it?’ Tilden stared up at Michael.
‘Something to say?’ Reaper said. ‘John Tilden?’
Eleanor watched her husband close his eyes, heard his breath quicken, saw his fists clench, their liver-stained knuckles whitening.
‘Please leave him alone,’ she said to Reaper. ‘He’s an old man.’
‘Plenty of old people here,’ Reaper said. ‘Minds filled with things they’d sooner forget. Running out of time to let them out.’
‘God,’ Tilden muttered.
‘Do you have something to say, John Tilden?’ Reaper asked, his tone mild.
‘God.’ Tilden’s face had reddened again.
‘Calm down, John.’ Eleanor reached for his hand, but he jerked away from her. ‘You’re going to make yourself ill.’
‘Wouldn’t want to do that, John Tilden,’ Reaper said.
Michael stared at him, perplexed, then transferred his gaze back to the man in the front pew, still trying to process what he’d just learned about his grandmother.
‘Oh, Christ.’ Tilden’s voice was duller, flatter.
‘Hey,’ Eleanor said. ‘It’s all in the past. It’s OK.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It isn’t OK.’
‘Sure it is,’ she said kindly, comfortingly.
‘It was. Not any more.’ Tilden looked back at her. ‘I’d blotted it all out, you know.’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘It’s history.’
‘Lord knows I’ve been so happy with you, Ellie.’
‘We’ve both been happy.’ She looked around, embarrassed and confused.
‘But these people …’ He shook his head. ‘And you just had to push.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘But it’s forty years ago.’
‘It’s forty years, and it’s yesterday,’ Tilden said softly. ‘And it was all his fault.’
‘Whose fault?’ Eleanor was mystified. ‘His?’ She looked up at Reaper.
Tilden shook his head.
‘Whose fault, John Tilden?’ Reaper asked, more loudly.
Michael heard Reaper’s resolve, the curious inflection behind the multiple repetitions of Tilden’s full name, and he felt a great longing suddenly to go sit down with the other people, just to watch and listen and not be a part of this …
‘Please.’ Eleanor was suddenly afraid. ‘Leave him alone.’
‘Cromwell’s,’ Tilden said, and sat up straighter. ‘It was all Donald Cromwell’s fault.’
‘John, you have to stop this,’ Eleanor hissed. ‘Let them get on with it and keep us out, like you said before.’
‘Too late now.’ Tilden looked up at Michael. ‘It was your grandfather’s fault that Lynne went to Susan Cromwell. She’d never have gone that way if they’d let us have kids.’
‘They?’ Michael said.
In the midst of his confusion, he saw Liza tilting the camera lens, knew she was probably focused on him now, supposing that he knew what lay beyond this, but he didn’t know, didn’t understand, was just a man now with questions.
‘Who wouldn’t let you have kids?’ he asked.
‘The council, may they rot in hell.’ Tilden pushed his wife’s restraining hand away again. ‘And their president, Lord High and Mighty Donald Cromwell, keeper of all our morals.’
‘Stop this now, John.’ Eleanor was sharper. ‘Stop and think.’
‘I can’t stop, Ellie,’ Tilden said. ‘It’s too late for that. I have to let it out.’
‘No,’ his wife said. ‘You don’t.’
‘Lynne couldn’t get pregnant’– Tilden went on, words and history suddenly tumbling out – ‘so we decided to adopt, but Cromwell said we weren’t good parent material – except he meant me, not Lynne, but he didn’t care that he’d just broken her heart, because children were what she wanted more than anything in life.’
‘For God’s sake, John,’ Eleanor begged. ‘This is your business. You don’t have to tell them any of it.’
‘I’d say he does, Mrs Tilden,’ Reaper said.
‘It’s private,’ Eleanor said.
‘Cromwell ate in my restaurant every day,’ Tilden went on. ‘Took every free drink on offer, knew how much I loved my wife, knew what having a family meant to her. Big-shot Cromwell, always bragging about how much he could do for the people of Shiloh, how much influence he had, but when it came to us, he wouldn’t lift a finger. And that was what turned Lynne, because she couldn’t face it.’ Tilden stood up, swung around, found Stephen Plain five rows back. ‘You know how she was, Doctor.’
‘She was depressed,’ the old doctor admitted. ‘It was a bad time for her.’
‘What about me?’
‘For you, too,’ Plain agreed. ‘But it was harder for your wife.’
‘It changed her, drove her half crazy.’ Tilden’s face was still red, his eyes bloodshot too now. ‘And Susan Cromwell took advantage of her, evil bitch that she was.’
‘Hey.’ Eleanor had grown pale. ‘That’s enough, John.’
‘More than enough, I’d say.’ The vicar had come through from the parlor and shut the vestry door quietly behind him. ‘So is this your great aim?’ Keenan asked Reaper. ‘To turn Christmas into this travesty?’
‘A good time for confession, surely?’ Reaper turned toward him. ‘You said it earlier, over and over. “Lord have mercy.”’
Keenan’s cheeks grew hot. ‘You’d do well to ask for that yourself.’
‘No mercy for me, Vicar.’ Reaper turned back to the man in the front row. ‘But maybe for you, John Tilden. Think confession might be worth trying? “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world …”’ He stopped. ‘So what was it that Cromwell knew about you? What was it he knew that made him say you shouldn’t be allowed to adopt a child?’
‘For pity’s sake!’ Eleanor burst.
‘Have you ever considered confessing, John Tilden?’ Reaper’s cough started up, but he forced himself on. ‘“O Lamb of God, have mercy on us.”’ His voice rasped, but he controlled the cough, relentless now. ‘Do you think you deserve His mercy, John Tilden?’
Silence fell all across the nave.
‘Well, John Tilden?’ Reaper took the shotgun in his right hand, his cane in the other, stood up and took a step forward, leaning on the cane, no other sign of weakness in him.
Tilden was staring up at him.
‘Well, John Tilden?’ Reaper’s voice was stronger, more compelling.
The color in the other man’s face drained away.
‘You know,’ he said, quietly. ‘You know, don’t you, you son of a bitch?’
‘John.’ Eleanor Tilden’s voice shook. ‘Please, whatever this is, stop now.’
‘It’s OK,’ he told her, then gave a short, brittle laugh. ‘Or rather, it isn’t. It never will be again.’ He gave her a weak smile. ‘I’m so sorry, Ellie. More than you’ll ever know.’
‘Well, John Tilden?’ Reaper said for the third time.
‘What is this?’ a young man said, halfway back on the other side of the nave. ‘The fucking day of reckoning?’
‘Remember where you are,’ another man said.
‘In the middle of a fucking siege is where we are.’ The younger man’s voice trembled. ‘A little kid dead, and who knows what comes next? I’d say I’m allowed to curse, don’t you think?’
And the hush came again.