THEY DROVE BACK TO THE VILLAGE IN the morning, showered and had breakfast in the dining room. They were greeted by smiles and by children who laughed as they played. The group was adapting quickly. They felt comfortable in this safe haven. They were settling.
Reaper and Sandra were armed in their blue combat uniforms and looked ominously dangerous as they stood at the top of the steps of the manor house in the sunshine. Another warm and pleasant day.
The Reverend Nick, Pete and Jamie joined them expectantly.
Reaper said, ‘Sandra and I are going into Scarborough. We’ll assess the town, and we’ll look for two things specifically: weapons and a doctor.’
‘Where are you going to find those?’ Nick asked.
‘We’ll look at the hospital for a doctor. There may still be one alive whose Hippocratic oath induced him to stay with his patients.’
‘What about the weapons?’ Pete asked.
‘The police station. If others haven’t already been there. Scarborough will have a Police HQ that will have an armoury. It may be small but there should be guns there.’
‘Is that necessary?’ Nick said. ‘To get more weapons?’
‘Reverend, it is very necessary. Like it or not, we need the guns for protection, and it would be better if we took them to save them getting into the hands of those with less noble motives.’ He looked at each of the three of them. ‘Have any of you fired a weapon?’
‘I was in the army cadets at school,’ Jamie said. ‘And you should know there are four shotguns in a gun cabinet in the wine cellar.’
‘The cabinet’s locked?’
‘It is.’
Reaper looked at Pete Mack. ‘How about you, Pete?’
‘I’ve fired a shotgun. Clay pigeons. But that’s about it.’
Reaper took the keys for the motor home and gave them to Nick.
‘Look after these. There are weapons in the rear storage compartment in the van. I would prefer them not to be used in my absence, until those handling them have had some training. But, if we don’t come back, you may need to learn how to use them on your own.’ Nick looked at the keys as if he had been handed a poisoned chalice. Reaper looked at the other two.
‘Democratic decisions apply. Okay?’
Pete nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ said Jamie. ‘But try and make sure you both come back. Oh, and I should tell you, I’ve kept a radio watch. You know, tuned in to short wave for radio hams and checked on the main frequencies. So far nothing, but you never know. And I only do it from time to time.’
Reaper nodded. ‘Maybe we could organise a shift system,’ he said. ‘At least, listen in for a few hours a day. What do you think, Reverend?’
‘I think that’s a worthwhile idea,’ Nick said, ‘I’ll organise something.’
‘One other thing,’ said Reaper. ‘We need transport.’
Jamie said, ‘There’s a Ford MPV in the garage. Two-litre engine, plenty of room and the tank is full.’
‘That will do fine.’
‘I’ll show you,’ Jamie said.
‘You go with him, Sandra. I’ll catch up.’ Reaper looked around at the signs of normality. Four-year-old Ollie was kicking a football with six-year-old Sam and seven-year-old Emma. ‘This could be a good place,’ he said. ‘We fucked up the world, excuse the language, Reverend, but we have another chance here. Let’s not fuck up again.’
‘Amen to that,’ said the clergyman, and Pete grinned, Reaper took his time before he followed Jamie and Sandra. He collected the steel Enforcer battering ram that he had left in the motor home. As he strode towards the garages, he was surprised at the sound of a car engine. A Ford Galaxy with Sandra behind the wheel turned the corner in front of him and stopped. Jamie had a quick word with her and got out of the passenger side.
‘Take care,’ Jamie said to Reaper. ‘Take care of her.’
Reaper got in, throwing a pair of binoculars onto the back seat. He buckled up and Sandra drove them out of the village, one or two people waving as they went, up the hill and down towards the gate. Reaper said nothing, but he sensed meaningful words might have been exchanged between the two young people.
And why not? There might not be the chance for a slow romance. The moment had to be seized. He got out and opened the gates, she drove through and he closed them again, draping the cut chain, as Pete had done, to make it appear that they were padlocked together.
When he got back in, Sandra gave him a map.
‘Scarborough,’ she said. ‘Guide me.’
‘I didn’t know you could drive.’
‘You didn’t ask.’
He winced as she swerved towards the grass verge then swerved back into the road again. ‘Do you actually have a license?’ he said.
‘No. Does it actually matter?’
‘Only if you kill us on the way to the seaside.’
He directed her into Scarborough along the A64.
Pleasant rolling countryside followed by nondescript outskirts that could have belonged to any town. They went along a road of retail premises and hopeful private hotels and guest houses as they dipped towards the coast.
‘Stop there,’ he said, pointing at a shop with a display of suitcases in the window.
Sandra stopped and kept the engine running. He tried the shop door, found it locked, so kicked it in.
He took two medium sized suitcases on wheels and loaded them into the back of the car then returned for two more, before climbing back in.
They continued down the road and eventually went past the railway station that would have once been busy with visitors but was now deserted. They turned left onto Northway, a dual carriageway that was a town centre hub. The police station was a five-storey red brick building.
They parked and got out, Sandra taking the keys with her. Reaper humped the Enforcer, and they went into the police station. Being a public building, few people had actually died on the premises and there was a minimal smell of putrefaction, but it hung there, nonetheless, like the lingering perfume of an overripe femme fatale. The doors had keypads. One had been forced and Reaper though they might be too late in this particular mission. Sandra held her carbine at the ready and they proceeded with caution. Other doors had been bashed in, obviously with a great deal of effort, and offices had been wrecked, but the deeper they went, the less damage they discovered. The security, it seemed, had put off whoever had been before them.
Reaper led the way to the basement where he opened locked doors with the Enforcer. On the fifth attempt, they found the armoury: ten carbines and fifteen Glocks, ammunition, cleaning kits and ten tazers. Reaper realised that he had been over-optimistic.
‘Four suitcases?’ Sandra said.
‘I know.’
She gave him the keys and he carried the enforcer back out of the police station, put it in the back of the car and lifted out two suitcases. Movement across the street caught his attention. A drunk of indetermi-nate age, with long white hair and straggly beard and wearing jeans and a cloak, leaned against a wall and sipped from a bottle and watched. If someone moved the wall, Reaper guessed the bloke would fall over. He locked the car and took the cases into the station.
‘We’ve got company outside,’ he said, loading everything quickly.
When they were full, they pulled one each, the carbines hanging behind them, each holding a Glock.
Sandra left her case to scout outside, glanced left and right, and nodded to him that the way was clear. Across the road, the man in the cloak had been joined by another man with long hair and a middle-aged woman, both as intoxicated. The woman leant back against a wall and slid gracefully to the floor, a wine glass in one hand and what looked like a large joint in the other. She never spilt a drop.
Reaper loaded the cases and they got into the vehicle.
As he had the keys, he took the driving seat, which he had to adjust for his size, and Sandra didn’t object.
He was about to drive away when the younger man staggered across the dual carriageway towards them.
Since the only weapon he appeared to be carrying was a bottle of Jack Daniels, Reaper lowered the window.
He came close enough for Reaper to smell the liquor on his breath and the fumes of the ganja he was smoking.
‘Hey, man. I don’t, like, talk to police. Y’know? But you should know. Something bad is happening at the Imperial. Real bad.’
Reaper said, ‘What’s happening exactly?’
‘There’s a gang. They take what they want. They took these girls. From that posh school? Took them yesterday.’ He frowned. ‘ Maybe yesterday. It’s bad, man.
I heard the screams.’
‘How many?’
‘Girls?’
‘In the gang.’
The man shrugged. ‘Maybe five. Maybe six.’
‘Thank you for your information. You are a responsible citizen.’
‘Shit. I’m not responsible for anything. Just don’t tell them I told you. Y’know.’
‘I won’t.’
Reaper drove away, turned the vehicle and went back past the police station and the three responsible citizens. Two hundred yards further on, he stopped and inspected the map. He worked out a route, started the car and turned left towards the sea. He drove slowly, silently, easing the car down narrow lanes behind a shopping mall, past civic buildings, round the rear of hotels, occasionally stopping to check the map.
Sandra said nothing. She knew his intention. He finally stopped at the rear of a hotel.
‘The Imperial is on the other side of this one,’ he told her. ‘If we go in here, we should be able to take a look across the square and suss the situation. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
They entered through a kitchen door. The light was dim and he had to use a torch, but it got better as they climbed a flight of stairs that brought them into a smart and bright reception area with wooden floors and red furniture. There was a dead body in a chair facing a dead TV, but the smell was not too bad. Putrefaction had yet to set in, although the flies were gathering. He led the way up carpeted stairs to the first floor and back into gloom: quiet corridors of deep shadow; that pervasive smell of death.
The first door he tried was unlocked and, as he opened it, light blazed in through the window. They could tell by the absence of stink that it was unoccupied.
The torch went back in his belt and they crouched low to cross the room. A double bed, a wall mounted TV, tea and coffee, and an open door that led to a bathroom.
Reaper looked across the square at the bedroom windows opposite and down at the main entrance: stone steps beneath the arched sign that said The Imperial Hotel. He used binoculars to look through the large windows on the ground floor. Interior light was dim but good enough, and he could see partway into the foyer, although he detected no movement. He scanned the windows above and saw a figure move past, a fleeting glimpse that could have been a girl. He kept the binoculars focused on the window but the figure did not return.
‘The bedroom directly above the sign,’ he said. ‘I thought I saw someone.’
Sandra was staring at the hotel through the scope on the carbine.
Then there was movement from near a Bentley that was parked outside. A man, who must have been sitting on the floor with his back against the limousine, got to his feet. Late teens, maybe twenty, unkempt, new clothes. He carried a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. He walked a few yards, turned and stretched, then sat down on the steps of the Imperial and lit a cigarette.
Reaper stood up, staying out of sight, and reached forward, unfastened the catch and slid the window up.
It was well-maintained and made minimal noise. Now they had a clear shot if they wanted one. But first, he had to find out where the others were and what they were doing. With the window open, they could hear the soft sounds of the sea and the cry of the gulls.
They shouldn’t be crouched here, plotting murder. They should be walking on the Promenade, enjoying an ice cream, eating fish and chips. Then another cry, different to that of the gulls. A cry of despair. Followed by laughter. This was why he had been spared. He didn’t need any more reason to act.
‘Can you shoot him from here?’ he asked. It was about a sixty metre shot.
‘I can try,’ Sandra said.
‘Just remember what he’s done.’
She licked her lips and nodded.
‘I’ll get in round the back. When you hear shooting, take him down.’
‘Right,’ she said, and he remembered how young she was and that this time she wouldn’t even have an audience of one to perform for. And this time it wasn’t a tree.
He dropped the car keys on the floor next to her.
‘If I don’t come out, get back to the Haven. No heroics.’
She looked up at him and said, ‘You’ll come back.’
‘Yes I will.’ He touched the top of her head. ‘Give me twenty minutes. Relax until then.’
He left his carbine on the bed. Two handguns, 34 bullets and a knife. That would be enough.
He moved quickly, left the building the way they had entered, ran down the block and crossed the road at the bottom of the square, using the cover of parked cars. The sun was warm, the day made for holidaymakers. Would they ever come back? The kitchen door at the back of The Imperial was unlocked. Were all kitchen doors unlocked? He went through a dim area that smelt of grease and spoilt food, and up a flight of service stairs that were even darker. He went past the ground floor and on up to the first floor, eased a door open and stepped into a corridor that was almost pitch black. At the far end was a faint glimmer of light. He used the torch to guide him along the length of the corridor and, as he neared its end, saw that the light came from a small window in a closed fire door.
He switched off the torch and put it back on his belt.
Reaper looked through the window at the first floor landing. Wide stairs led down into the reception and foyer area. It aspired to grandness, but the red plush of the baroque seats was faded and the carpet worn.
The chandeliers looked embarrassed. The Imperial, like the Empire, had seen better days. A balcony ran around both sides leading to first floor rooms and suites. He glanced up and saw the balcony was replicated twice more on third and fourth floors. The excellent lighting came from a glass-domed roof. The movement he had seen had been in a room directly above the front entrance.
He cocked both guns, opened the door and slipped out into the open space, suddenly feeling vulnerable.
Music was playing downstairs. Mungo Jerry playing In The Summertime.
Someone, also downstairs, shouted. ‘His name’s Jerry Dorsey!’
‘No it isn’t.’
‘It fucking is! Jerry Dorsey was the lead singer. The bloke with the gap in his teeth.’
‘You know what they say about girls with gaps in their teeth, don’t you?’
‘No, it is. It’s Jerry Dorsey!’
Reaper moved around the balcony, keeping well back and out of sight. Bottles clinked, there was a slap on bare flesh and a girl cried out and he heard footsteps ascending the stairs. He stepped round a corner and into a short corridor. A girl wearing only a shirt appeared at the top of the stairs carrying two bottles of beer. Her head was down and she moved quickly, as if frightened of being late.
‘You’re wrong, pillock brain!’ said a different voice from below. ‘His name is Ray Dorset.’
‘Bollocks! You’re making it up.’
The low-key squabble continued and Reaper stepped out from cover in front of the girl. She stopped and gasped, her eyes wide. She dropped the bottles, but the carpet cushioned their fall and they did not break. He took her into his arms before she had the chance to turn and run and whispered, ‘It’s okay. I’ve come to save you. You’re going to be safe.’ But the girl just shook in his arms. He found it impossible to tell how old she was: maybe sixteen or seventeen.
She was blonde and plump and her flesh trembled with fear.
‘You need to tell me who is in the room,’ he said urgently. ‘How many?’ He shook her shoulders gently but firmly but she still couldn’t speak. ‘What’s your name? You’re going to be alright now, but tell me your name. What’s your name?’
‘Helen,’ she said, the word coming out as a sob.
‘Helen.’ He caught her gaze and kept it, looking deeply and sincerely into her eyes. ‘Helen, you have to help me. Who is in the room?’
‘Caroline.’
‘Caroline is in the room. Is she your friend?’
The girl nodded.
‘Who else is in the room?’
‘Stacey.’
‘Is Stacey your friend, too?’
She nodded again.
‘Good, that’s good, Helen. How many men are in the room?’
‘Jerome. They call him Jerome.’
‘Just the one man?’ She nodded. ‘Okay. Now what I want you to do is take the beers into the room and leave the door open. When you go inside, walk to one side and stay there. I’ll come in behind you. Okay?’ She stared at him for a moment, uncom-prehending. ‘You go inside and walk to one side.
Okay?’
She nodded again and he holstered the guns, picked up the bottles and gave them to her, took out the knife and flicked the blade open.
Helen opened the door but it didn’t open properly and she eased herself in sideways. He peeked in and saw it was a sitting room and that, apart from the debris of a drinking session, it was empty. He should have realised it was a suite. He pushed the door open a little wider and entered. Helen took the bottles into the bedroom and Reaper began to close the door and then recoiled in horror.
Hanging from a hook on the back of the door was the body of a young girl. Her shirt had been torn but apart from that she was fully dressed and seemed unmolested. Her school tie was around her neck and had been fastened to a hook on the door. Her tongue protruded and her face was discoloured. He went numb, hardly hearing the exchange of words in the bedroom.
Hate pulsed through his veins. A searing memory returned. His mind screamed silently.
‘Stupid bitch!’ he heard from the other room, and he was striding towards the bedroom door without thought for caution. He entered a large room with a king-sized bed, the sheet crumpled and the bedding thrown into a corner. Helen was to the left of the room, still holding the bottles. Crouched on the floor by the bedding was a dark-haired girl who seemed to be naked. On the bed, lounging against pillows, was a large naked man in his forties, blue tattoos livid against the white flesh of both arms, his head shaved to the skin. All he wore were boots and socks.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said, but Reaper was already on the bed and plunging the knife into his stomach, withdrawing and plunging again, aiming upwards beneath the ribs. The man struggled but the strength drained from him under the viciousness of the attack and the repeated blows. As he lay back with his life oozing from him and a startled look upon his face, Reaper knelt over him and stuck the knife into his throat and the blood gushed afresh. The knife stuck there and would not come loose.
Reaper rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed.
His breath was ragged, his body was shaking – not with revulsion but anger that the man had died so quickly. He had wanted him to suffer more. He noticed the girls looking at him, horror in their faces. He raised a hand. His voice rasped.
‘I’m not going to harm you,’ he said. ‘You’ll be safe.
Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.’
He got up and looked at his hands and went into the bathroom. He washed them. He didn’t want them to be sticky for the next part of the operation. He also washed the butts of his pistols which had become smeared with blood. When they were dry, he held one in each hand and returned to the bedroom.
‘I’m going downstairs now. How many are there, Helen?’
‘Five.’
He looked at the other girl.
‘Caroline?’ he said, and the girl acknowledge the name. ‘Are there any more of your friends down there?’
‘Miss Hall,’ she said.
‘Miss Hall?’
‘Our teacher.’
‘What’s her first name?’
‘Jennifer. Jenny.’
‘Okay. You wait here and I’ll be back soon.’
They continued to stare at him in utter shock and there was no point trying to assure them that they were safe. He turned to leave the bedroom and saw himself in a full-length mirror. No wonder the girls were horrified; the sight shocked him. His face was a mask of blood; his arms and chest still dripped red.
He was the devil incarnate. And he wanted more blood.
He checked his watch. It had been 25 minutes since he left Sandra. She would be getting nervous. He left the suite and walked unhurried around the balcony to the grand staircase. Mungo Jerry had finished and a Beach Boys song was playing. He began to descend the stairs and just past halfway down he shouted,
‘Jenny Hall! Get down and stay down!’
A young man was lounging full-length on a red plush banquette that directly faced the stairs, empty bottles at his feet. Reaper shot him in the chest.
Reception was to the right, the entrance to a bar was to the left. He entered the bar and was confronted by another man who was so alarmed that he dropped the bowl from which he had been spooning food. Reaper levelled and fired another chest shot and the man went down. The third man had picked up a full-length shotgun from the bar and was swinging it in his direction but it was too unwieldy. He should have had a sawn-off. Reaper raised his left arm and blew him backwards. Two others. One outside. Where was the last one?
He was by a cigarette machine in the corner. He fired a revolver at Reaper but the shots were wild.
One hit the CD player on the bar and Surfin’ USA came to an abrupt end. As Reaper levelled his right arm and aimed, the man seemed to sense the outcome: he dropped the revolver and raised his arms. Reaper shot him in the head.
His ears were ringing from the shots but there was still the fifth man to make sure of. Reaper went to the front door, staying out of direct line of sight, and saw the young man with the sawn-off lying on his face on the steps with a bullet-hole in his back.
‘Sandra!’ he shouted through the open door. ‘It’s over!’ He stepped into sight with both arms raised at the top of the steps and stared across the square, finding her outline in the first floor window. He put the guns back in their holsters. ‘You’re needed, Sandra!’
He paused in the fresh air, trying to get his anger to dissipate. Eventually he went back inside.
‘Miss Hall?’ he called. ‘Miss Jenny Hall?’ A woman came from the bar. She too wore only a shirt, which she now held together in front of her. ‘Jenny? Don’t worry. You’re safe now. Helen and Caroline are upstairs. I think they need you.’
‘Who are you?’ she said, gazing at the bodies and the lingering gun smoke.
‘I’m Reaper,’ he said.
She shook her head and murmured, ‘The Reaper.’
He did not correct her.
‘Where did you come from?’
‘We have a place that’s safe. Men, women, children.
We’ll take you there. If you like?’
‘We?’
Sandra entered through the front door, carrying the two carbines. She was pale but in control and Reaper guessed that having an audience again had helped her composure.
‘This is Sandra,’ he said. ‘Jenny . . . the girls?’
‘Yes.’
Jenny Hall went upstairs to find Helen and Caroline.
Sandra looked at the bodies. She visibly relaxed and handed him his carbine.
‘You okay?’ he said.
‘I’m fine.’ She was looking at the gore on his face and arms. ‘What happened to you?’
‘There’s another one upstairs. He bled a lot.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Good shot.’
‘It took two.’
‘But you got him. When you learn what they did, you won’t regret it.’
He went outside and sat on the step next to the dead body. Sandra sat next to him.
‘Should we go help them?’ she said.
‘One of the girls, Stacey, she’s dead. She’s been dead some time. She’s up there. I’ll go and get her in a while.
No need for you to see.’
He could sense she knew there was more to it than that, but she didn’t ask
Instead, she said, ‘How many of them?’
‘Two girls and the teacher.’
There was a silence between them and he wondered if Sandra was remembering her own ordeal. He reached out and took her hand.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I try to blank it, but it’s difficult. It’ll be difficult for a long time. I came out with my life. I suppose a lot haven’t.’ She smiled at him.
‘Playing soldier helps.’ She looked at the body of the man she shot. ‘That doesn’t bother me. I remember.
And I know he deserved it.’
‘These girls are going to need looking after.’
‘We’ll look after them.’
‘I’d better go upstairs,’ he said.
‘I’ll come with you.’
This time he didn’t try to dissuade her.
Jenny Hall, Caroline and Helen were on the landing.
They had dressed in an assortment of clothes, some ripped, some complete. They still looked confused and nervous.
Sandra said, ‘You need some proper clothes. We’ll sort it.’
The two students stared at Sandra in wonder. The girl was not much older than them but seemed so much more assured and mature. She carried her weapons with an unforced ease. Reaper wondered if the turmoil the world had just gone through had accelerated development. More likely it had forced people to accept or give up. Sandra was not about to give up.
Reaper said, ‘We have transport.’
The girls still looked more uncomfortable than he would have expected. Was he missing something?
Sandra said, ‘Why don’t we go across the road. The hotel we were in, it’s okay. You could have a bath, a shower, clean up.’
That was it. How dumb could a man be?
They went across the road, Reaper and Sandra keeping watch, but the square was clear. Sandra led them upstairs and into the bedroom they had used.
He stopped at the door.
‘I’ll bring the car round,’ he said.
‘There’s something else you could do,’ she said. ‘Wait there.’
She closed the door and left him in the shadows.
What now? He went to wait on the landing where the light was better. After a few minutes, she came to him and handed him the car keys and a sheet of headed hotel notepaper.
‘Their sizes,’ she said. ‘It might be good if you got them something to wear. Fresh clothes, fresh start.’
‘Got it,’ he said, happy to take orders. ‘I won’t be long.’
He went out of the back entrance of the hotel and drove the car down a lane, took a left, and left again, ignoring no entry signs, and went past the fronts of the hotels. At the top he turned right towards the centre of town and the shops. He went past a large department store with a plate glass window that seemed to have been smashed out of pure vindictiveness. He paused at a junction: pedestrianised shopping centre to his left; more shops and pubs straight ahead; and a steep road down to the Promenade on his right. He turned left and drove up the pedestrian way. Someone dodged down a side street at his approach. It was inevitable people would be cautious while gangs led by animals like Jerome wandered the town.
Near a shopping mall, he found a camping store and filled bags with boots, socks, T-shirts, trousers, sweaters, baseball hats, rainproof coats like the one Sandra had chosen, all in blue, and a handful of sports watches that promised to work up to thirty metres under water. He chose new kit for himself, because of the blood. He found a staff bathroom, stripped and washed, then dressed in clean clothes. He packed everything up and stared at the shopping mall. Great place for an ambush, but how many gangs like Jerome’s would Scarborough have? Besides, these were girls and they might not appreciate looking like conscripts in his private army.
He hefted his carbine and went in, heading straight to the Debenhams store at the back. Now he chose jeans, plain blouses, soft sweaters, tracksuits, white socks and trainers. He added packs of underwear.
Sandra had added bra sizes and he spent an embarrassed few minutes trying to choose something that might be practical and inoffensive. How could he get embarrassed when he was on his own? Sports bras seemed a safe option.
One bag he kept apart from the others. This was for Sandra. Sweater, slacks, even a dress, although he thought he had probably got the size wrong. To make sure, he took the dress in two sizes. He remembered her shoe size from when she chose the Doc Martens.
He picked her a pair of trainers, a pair of pumps, and a pair of summery high heels to match the dress.
He loaded everything into the back of the car and drove back up the pedestrian way. On impulse, he stopped outside a jewellery shop. The door had been forced but it was surprisingly tidy inside. He chose a Christian Dior Christal ladies watch with a price tag over £4,000. Sandra deserved a present.
Reaper was surprised that the shopping had taken so long. He parked outside the hotel and carried in the bags. Sandra was waiting in the foyer. Her eyes widened when she saw the amount of goods. She helped him carry them upstairs, knocked at the door and put her head round it. He waited while she took the bags inside.
‘How are they?’ he asked when she returned.
‘Stunned, shocked. But they’ll be okay. They’ll have to be, won’t they?’
It was a brutal reality, but she was right.
‘I got you a present,’ he said.
‘What?’
His statement had taken her by surprise. He gave her one of the sports watches and saw her disappointment.
‘That’s for operational purposes,’ he said. ‘This isn’t.’
The disappointment turned into delight when she opened the box he gave her and saw the Christal watch.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘But when will I wear it?’
‘Whenever you like,’ he said. ‘Old rules don’t apply any more. Remember?’ She gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Oh yes, and there’s a bag of stuff in the car for you.’
Sandra stared up into his face and said, ‘Reaper, you are amazing.’
He looked away, changing the mood, then looked back.
‘I’m going across the road to collect any weapons they had. And there’s something else. The girl, Stacey.
Did they tell you?’
‘They said she couldn’t face it. That she hung herself.
The man they called Jerome left her hanging there. He thought it was funny. She was fourteen.’
He nodded, getting his emotions under control, then said, ‘There’s a church up the hill. I’m going to take her there.’
‘You don’t believe in God,’ said Sandra.
‘No, but she probably did.’ He paused. ‘When the girls are ready, they might want to come. I’ll wait outside.’
He went back to the car, took one of the suitcases from the back and pulled it into the Imperial. He opened it in the foyer and put in it two sawn-off shotguns, a Webley revolver, ammunition and two large knives in sheaths. He steeled himself to go upstairs, not because of the sight of Jerome, but because of Stacey. The man had a sawn-off shotgun, a Walther PPK and ammunition, and a 10 inch Bowie knife with a leg sheath. He strapped the sheath and knife onto his own right leg. The guns and ammunition he took downstairs and put in the case, which he stowed in the back of the car along with the full-sized shotgun.
Now, for the final part of what he had come to see as an act of cleansing . . . He went into another bedroom and found a clean sheet. He lay it on the floor of the room where the young girl hung. He stood for a moment before her and, in his mind, apologised for having to touch her. He promised he would be gentle and that she would now be able to rest in peace.
It was as close to a prayer as he could manage. Tears sprang to his eyes as he took her light weight over his shoulder, using the Bowie knife to cut the school tie from which she hung.
Reaper lay her on the sheet and arranged her clothes decently. He knelt by her side and, leaning forward, kissed her on the forehead, then carefully wrapped the sheet around her. He took the tie-backs from the room curtains, but they were not long enough. In the next suite, he found two white bathrobes and took the belts.
As gently as he could, he tied the belts around the girl’s chest and thighs to keep the sheet in place.
He swung the carbine onto his back, knelt down and picked up the body. She weighed hardly anything at all. A small victim in the aftermath of the end of the world. He glanced upwards. Are you there, God?
Can You make sense of this? He carried her downstairs and lay her on the wall outside the hotel and waited in the sunshine beneath an egg-blue sky and the sound of the gulls.
Sandra brought the girls across the street. The two young girls were wearing jeans, sweaters and trainers.
Jenny Hall was wearing combat clothes. They carried the Debenhams bags of spare clothing.
‘There’s a church not far away,’ he said. ‘I’ll carry her. Sandra, why don’t you drive the girls there? Then we don’t have to come back.’
He picked up the body and strode off up the road.
Behind him, he heard the doors of the car open and close as they stored their gear and climbed aboard.
Footsteps caught him up and he glanced to his side to see Jenny Hall.
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll walk with you.’
He nodded.
The car started and followed in low gear.
The day was right for a walk. Good weather promising a bright future. If only they could survive the present. The girl was light but grew heavier in his arms. He welcomed the weight, wanted the journey to be painful, to remind him what had happened, to make the journey his Calvary. A re-commitment to cleanse the land. He had killed five men without compunction. One he would willingly have tortured before death. Two of the others he had put down without giving them a chance to defend themselves.
Executions. He would do the same again wherever he met their kind and the reason why lay in his aching arms.
Jenny talked as they walked.
‘I taught at St Hilda’s,’ she said. ‘It’s a public school about five miles away. When the illness started, some of the girls went home. Most of them stayed. Most of them died. I was the only teacher left. Helen was head girl. She’s seventeen. Caroline is sixteen. We waited for help to come to us but it didn’t. Two days ago we decided to look for help and came here. We met Jerome and his crew.’ She took a breath, maybe to get the explanation done. ‘They told us what they were going to do. They put Stacey in the room at the hotel and took Caroline, Helen and me downstairs. For a party, they said. Jerome said he was saving Stacey for later.
For something special. When they went to get her they found she had hanged herself. Maybe she heard the screams. She was only fourteen. She thought that was a better way out. Maybe it was.’
She sounded on the edge of tears.
Reaper said, ‘You’re alive. That’s better than being dead.’
‘Is it?’
If he were to give her an honest answer, he would have to say he didn’t know. He knew only that he had been spared for a purpose and that this was a limbo he was living through, a penance he was paying.
‘I failed her,’ Jenny said.
‘No you didn’t. You walked into events outside your control.’
‘But I led her, and Helen and Caroline, on that damn silly walk into danger. We could have stayed at school.’
‘Not forever. The bad elements are always the first to rise to the surface. It’s happened in other towns, other places. But they will be put down eventually.’
They walked in silence for a while and then she said, ‘You said I walked into events outside my control.’
‘You did.’
‘I don’t want to do that again. Next time, I want a chance to protect myself. Like Sandra.’ He supposed Sandra, booted and equipped, looked invincible to someone walking away from multiple rape. ‘Will you teach me?’
‘I’ll teach you.’
It took twenty minutes to reach the church of St Paul’s, a Victorian building of grey stone in a walled churchyard of 100-year-old graves. They walked up the path and the birds seemed to stop singing. Maybe his disbelief had shocked them into silence. One gull wheeled overhead and gave a last mournful cry. Sandra had parked the car. She, Caroline and Helen now walked behind them.
Jenny Hall opened the door and he stepped into the cool interior. He had half expected to find refugees inside, but it was empty and undamaged. Why vandalise a church when there were high street shops to plunder?
He paused and felt the religion of the building. Not in God’s presence but in the worship of generations who had knelt here and offered prayers in the hope of a better life, now and forever. He walked slowly down the aisle and stepped up onto the carpeted area before the altar. The imagery, candles and crucifix told him it was High Church. The paraphernalia seemed appropriate to the gesture he was making.
Reaper lay Stacey’s body gently on the ground before the altar and the crucified figure of Christ. The four young women had knelt in pews. He glanced back at them. Helen and Caroline were crying. Jenny was distraught. Sandra looked at him as if to suggest, ‘say something’. A few words?
He knelt on one knee, his left hand cradling the carbine, his right resting on the body, and he looked up again at Christ on the cross. If Christ thought He had suffered, He should look down here. But that was not what the girls wanted.
‘This is Stacey,’ he said. ‘She’s a young girl. Too young to have committed any sin. Too young to have properly lived. She didn’t deserve this end, but at least now she has no more pain. No more fear.’ He paused.
What was he talking about? He had no authority to spout these words. ‘Stacey’s friends are here. They remember her. They’ll always remember her. They’re sorry they couldn’t look after her. But now, they’d like you to look after her. Let her rest in peace.’
As he got up, the girls softly said, ‘Amen’.
He took a last look at Stacey’s shrouded body, nodded farewell, turned and walked out of the church, his boots echoing in the empty space that had swallowed his prayer, and blinked the moisture from his eyes.