A Killing of Angels (31 page)

My hands fumbled blindly across the cupboard’s top shelf. I was hoping for scissors, or a vase to smash over his head − but there was only a pile of towels, neatly folded. Then I heard something that made me hold my breath. The noise was so faint I thought it must be imaginary, but it came again, shrill and unmistakable. Hiding wasn’t an option any more, because a baby’s cry was drifting from the floor above. There was no way I could leave Molly by herself.

45

Sophie must have hidden Molly somewhere safe when she realised her husband had lost his mind, praying she wouldn’t make a sound. But I wasn’t the only one who’d heard her crying. The footsteps were moving faster now, thundering across the landing, starting to climb the stairs. The muscles in my throat constricted like a vice tightening – Kingsmith had switched his search from me to the baby. My first impulse was to fling the door open and chase upstairs to find the baby, but I stopped myself. I had nothing to fight with − not so much as a bottle to smash over his head. He was pacing the floor above me, relentless as a sleepwalker. If I set foot outside I’d be on the losing end of his game of cat and mouse. I scrabbled frantically in the cupboard again and my fingers closed around a small metal cylinder. It was too dark to see whether it held hairspray or deodorant, but it didn’t matter. At least I had something to spray in his eyes.

I pressed my ear to the thin wood. For a moment there was no sound, then I heard him rushing down the stairs. A thread of torchlight appeared under the door but it was gone in seconds. I wondered why he was hurrying, then a sick feeling of panic churned in my stomach. Maybe Molly was dead already. He was running through the house with her body in his arms. My eyes were growing used to the dark; I could make out the swirling flowers on the wallpaper as I strained to hear the next sound. I didn’t have to wait long. Molly was wailing pitifully, as though she understood exactly how much danger she was in. I yanked the door open and floundered through the dark, without questioning what I was doing. I tripped twice on the stairs, but managed to keep going. The baby’s yells grew louder with each step, guiding me towards her.

Sophie had chosen a good hiding place. Molly was safe in her Moses basket, under a gabled window, with moonlight flooding into the room. There was a key in the lock, and suddenly I could breathe more easily. It would take a while to kick down such a sturdy door. The baby’s cries had softened to a dull whimper – maybe she’d sensed that she wasn’t alone. When I reached into the basket, her hand grabbed my finger tightly, unwilling to let go.

Suddenly the lights flashed on again. At first they were so bright I could hardly see, but when my vision cleared, Molly was blinking up at me and I was standing in the middle of a junk room. A whole wall was lined with cardboard boxes and crates, old furniture stacked in piles. I was still desperate to find a weapon, but when I opened the first box, my fingers sank into softness. I pulled back the lid and stared inside. The container was packed with long white feathers, tickling the palms of my hand. For a second I was too shocked to move. When I flipped back the cardboard lid of the next box, an angel stared straight into my eyes, his expression calm and forgiving. Dozens of angels were crammed inside the container, competing for space. My thoughts were slowing down. Kingsmith had been so arrogant − he hadn’t even tried to hide his paraphernalia.

I heard him pace across the landing, then I saw the doorknob twist, and my heart pumped even faster. He knew I was in here with Molly. All he had to do was fire his gun at the lock. But he moved away, and a familiar smell hit the back of my throat, strong enough to make me gag: the sharp reek of paraffin. That explained why he was wandering from room to room. Fire would cleanse everything, just like it had when he killed Freiberg. It would consume the bodies of his family, and the items he’d been leaving at the murder scenes. The place would be an inferno by the time the emergency services arrived, and he’d walk away unscathed. He’d be free to build himself a new world. I dragged in a deeper breath. I had to act now or I’d end up like Henrik Freiberg, a lump of human charcoal no one could identify.

Running back downstairs wasn’t an option. He’d shoot me on sight. The window rattled in its frame, but refused to open. When I peered through the glass, the drop to the flat roof below looked suicidal. It was at least twenty feet, but it was my only chance. I’d have to jump, with Molly in my arms, while he was busy splashing paraffin into every room. I raised a chair over my head and hurled it at the glass, the panes shattering into jagged pieces. There was an outside chance that I’d land without injuring myself.

The baby must have cried herself into an exhausted sleep because she made no sound when I reached into the Moses basket and picked her up. There was a blanket and a pillow in the basket and I swaddled them round her. She was a soft, warm mass against my chest as I cleared fragments of glass from the windowsill with the flat of my hand. The stink of paraffin was growing stronger, and I knew that jumping was my only choice. Soon the house would go up in flames, and there was no sign of rescue. Even if the police broke down the front door, Kingsmith would shoot them immediately. I tried to remember what a surgeon told me once, about people who survive falls. It was best to relax. If the body’s tense, the impact breaks more bones. I swung my legs through the opening with Molly clasped in the crook of my arm and stared down at the drop. Then I heard a voice. It was raw with fear, but I recognised it instantly.

‘Help me, please.’

Sophie’s voice was coming from nearby. Her words were a breathless sob, almost too weak to hear. She must have been hiding in a room on this floor. Somehow she’d managed to crawl out onto the landing. God knows what the bastard had done to her. I lowered Molly back into her basket.

‘Sophie, are you okay?’ I called.

There was no reply, but I knew I had to help her. With any luck I’d be able to drag her back into the junk room. At least then we’d be together. The lights flicked off again, and this time the darkness was complete. The moon had gone into hiding. My hands groped along the wall, and there was a low grumble of thunder, then all I could hear was Sophie’s incoherent moans. It was the thought of her lying there injured that made me unlock the door.

46

A powerful light dazzled me, and my hands flew up to shield my eyes from the glare. Sophie was on the floor, slumped against the wall, clutching a torch. Her image swam as I moved towards her.

‘Stay where you are.’ Her words were distinct and hard as ice cubes.

‘Has he hurt you?’

I was afraid that Kingsmith was waiting to spring out of the shadows. The light blinded me again as I tried to look at her. She was taking rapid, panicked breaths, and I understood why she was on the edge of hysteria. Watching her husband rampage through the house with a gun would have challenged anyone’s sanity.

‘Come on, Sophie, you have to stand up.’ I took another step towards her. ‘We need to get out of here.’

‘Don’t touch me,’ she snapped.

I squinted into the light. Her outline was clearer now. There was a can of paraffin beside her, a gun clutched in her right hand. My panic dropped away instantly − maybe I realised that calmness was the only thing that could keep me alive.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m not moving.’

‘I brought you here to listen to me.’ Sophie’s voice was almost too low to hear.

‘I am. You can tell me everything.’

‘No one heard me, except you. But you were as bad as the others. You flirted with him at the party, just like all the rest.’

Her anxious smile had been replaced by a sneer, and I wondered how I’d made such a fundamental mistake. She wanted someone to confess to before the place went up like bonfire night. My thoughts scrambled to rearrange themselves, but logic’s hard to achieve when a gun’s pointing at your chest.

‘They called themselves angels, but they all fucked her, every one of them. The whole gang. Leo and the new boy—’

‘Jamie Wilcox.’

‘Who cares about his name? It was a club. Max and Henrik were the founding members.’

‘I know, Sophie. I saw what you did to Poppy.’

The beam of her torch dropped from my face, and I realised how broken she was, shoulders slumped like an abandoned rag doll, the gun hanging loosely from her hand.

‘They thought they were God’s gift.’ Her words faded into a sob. ‘But they were filthy, all of them, and Max lied through his teeth.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured.

‘Stephen’s pictures made up my mind. They walked out of there, grinning like idiots, but she was so stupid. I told her I was delivering a present that was so big, two men were carrying it upstairs. The greedy little bitch believed me.’ She gave a cold laugh. ‘Andrew saw her for months, you know. He was part of it.’

I stared back at her. I’d been trying not to consider whether Andrew had visited Poppy. I forced myself back into the present, and when I glanced down, I saw that Sophie’s clothes were soaked. It wasn’t just the carpet she’d doused with paraffin. When she struck the match, her skin would be the first thing to burn. Setting light to Will’s van and Freiberg’s car had been dress rehearsals for the main event.

‘It’s over now, Sophie. There are no angels left. Put down the gun and let’s go.’ I heard a police siren on the street outside, but they were too late to help me.

‘You’d say anything to walk out alive, wouldn’t you?’ Her short hair was standing on end, her eyes staring. ‘But you won’t. Neither of us will.’

‘We can leave right now. Tell the police whatever you like, I won’t stop you.’

‘Shut up, you bitch,’ she snarled. ‘Don’t patronise me.’

Her anger had revived her strength. She was on her feet again, towering over me, the gun aimed squarely at my face, and I realised there was nothing to lose. I could say exactly what I thought.

‘You loved it, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘Killing them was the only thing you could control, while your husband was out there, screwing anything that moved. Do you know how many girls fucked him in his office, just to get a job?’

‘Shut up!’

The barrel of the gun was less than a metre away. If she pulled the trigger, she’d leave a two-inch gap between my eyebrows. Everything speeded up after that. With perfect timing, Molly started to cry, and Sophie’s expression changed. For a split-second she looked like any other anxious mother, eager to comfort her child. And that’s when I reached for the gun, but someone knocked me to the floor. I heard the gun fire, and a man’s voice groaning. When the torch rolled past my face I managed to grab it. The man was lying on the ground, and Sophie was coming for me, but this time I knew what to do. I smashed the torch into her face with all my strength. There was a crunching sound. I must have broken her cheekbone or her eye socket, but I was too busy searching for the gun to care. When I finally grasped it, she looked pitiful. Tears were streaming from her eyes, the side of her face grossly swollen. She was fumbling with the box of matches but I knocked it from her hand.

‘Don’t move a fucking muscle,’ I snapped.

Darren was lying on the other side of the landing. He’d pushed me out of the way when the gun fired, and now he was staring at the ceiling, moaning softly to himself. I couldn’t go to him because I was afraid to take my eyes off Sophie, even for a moment. The squad cars seemed to take forever to arrive, sirens blaring on the street outside. Someone called my name, but I couldn’t reply − I hardly noticed the gang of uniforms streaming past me, leading Sophie away. When I knelt beside Darren, I could see the exit wound in the middle of his chest, through the torn cloth of his T-shirt. The bullet must have shattered his spine. His ribcage was rising and falling much too fast.

His eyes were losing focus when I knelt beside him. His hands felt icy, as though he’d been lying for hours on frozen ground. The expression on his face was hard to read, but he seemed to be smiling as he looked up at me.

‘You needed me after all, didn’t you?’ His voice was a raw whisper.

I tried to reply, but no words arrived, so I leant down and kissed his forehead, keeping my face inches from his. I saw how young he was. God knows why he’d scared me so much. The years were dropping away from him already. He could have been twelve years old; a schoolboy with no concerns, about to fall asleep.

‘Stay here, Darren,’ I said. ‘Come on, keep talking to me.’

He clutched my hand tightly, then slipped out of reach. I’d seen people die before, when I was doing my medical training, but this time it was different. His history erased itself from his face – all the filthy hostels he’d lived in, the crooks who’d bullied him in jail, the freezing park benches where he’d slept rough. The burdens disappeared one by one, and when his eyes closed, he was innocent again.

I don’t remember how long I knelt there, holding his hand, but a paramedic helped me to my feet. When I turned round, Burns was leaning against the wall, watching me. His lips were clamped shut, like he was doing his best not to scream.

‘Why didn’t you wait, Alice? You’re lucky to be alive.’

‘Disassociation.’

He frowned. ‘Spare me the long words.’

‘It’s like when you cut yourself. You’re numb, until the pain kicks in.’

Burns carried on gazing at me, as though I was speaking in Latin. When I showed him the angel cards, he stared into the box in disbelief, as though he was waiting for them to fly away. I spotted a blonde wig hanging from a hook on the wall. It was beginning to sink in that Sophie had been prepared for her child to die with her when she set the place alight.

‘Where’s Molly?’ I asked.

‘Safe,’ he replied. ‘She’s being looked after, you don’t need to worry.’

It felt like hours before I could leave, and my body was starting to let me down. I had to lean on Burns’s arm when we got outside, too dizzy to care about the rain. Burns gave me an anxious look as he settled into the driving seat, water gushing down the windscreen. He asked me something as we pulled away, but I couldn’t reply. All I could see was Darren’s scooter, still parked on the corner, his crash helmet dangling from the handlebar, slowly filling with rain.