Her Moons Denouement (Fallen Angels Book 2) (25 page)

Chapter 40

Is it courage or cowardice?  To have nothing left to live for, to have everything you have ever believed in and have ever loved taken away from you, to be left bereft and alone, in a world where there is no one left to love you, no matter how warped the love.  Is it courage or cowardice to end your own life?  I look over at Bentley’s still twitching body while I walk into the rickety rooms in my own mind, the ones with the Russian revolver pointing at my head, the ones which hold everyone I have lost.  The ones with the empty childhood, locked in a lonely room, nothing but the sound of my own voice for company.  The ones where I have never known the love of a parent.  In so many ways I have lived every single emotion that flashed across Bentley’s face as he fell to his oblivion.  I don’t think he knew the heart of a loving parent either.  Perhaps we are not as alone as we think.

Eve throws her legs over the side of the autopsy bench and hops lightly down, smarting in pain as she does.  She kneels beside Bentley and feels for a pulse, sadness bubbling into her expression, telling me there isn’t one.  She looks up to me and smiles mournfully.

‘How’s Rebecca doing?’ she asks me as she stands and walks towards us.

Rebecca lifts her head out of my chest as she hears the question, her face smeared with tears, her eyes puffy and red, but lucid. 

‘I’m not the one who has lost a hand.  How are you?’  Rebecca answers as she reaches out and pulls Eve into us, wrapping her arms around her back.  I join in the embrace, join in the tears and join in the relief that she is alive. 

‘It’s just a flesh wound.’ she answers dismissively, pulling back from the embrace, her features turning from empathetic to authoritative in the blink of an eye.

She looks at Rebecca sternly.  ‘Can you do me a favour?  Coleen is still highly traumatised in that cage, can you try and get through to her and calm her down.  Here, cover her with Bentley’s coat.’ Eve instructs, passing Rebecca the coat, leaving herself naked. 

‘John, I need you to search the room.  Somewhere in here there will be trophies.  It’s what he teaches them.  They all keep trophies.’ she orders me, rising and walking over to the caged Pastor Bentley before I have time to answer.

She looks down, totally unconcerned about being naked in front of him.  ‘I was wrong.  I don’t think you have a fear.  I thought it was Dessie.  I thought you would fall to bits when she died.  He taught you well.  But tonight, the world will see what you have done old man.’

‘So be it.  Perhaps I am ready for the next experience.’

‘That’s just it old man.  You don’t get that choice.  You will be kept in a prison for the rest of this life and have to suffer an existence with no experiences at all.’

Rebecca opens the cage and I see her trying to coax Coleen out, gently stroking her arm to reassure her.  I look around the room to see likely places to search and walk towards the line of cupboards.  I open one, which turns out to be a freezer.  It’s just about empty apart from a blue bag which looks like it has a forearm inside of it.  Coleen’s forearm?  I shudder as I open the next one: the shudder turning into a wretch.

In the cupboard there are dozens of transparent Tupperware containers all filled with a cloudy liquid.  In the cloudy liquid I can see fingers and palms and thumbs and severed wrists.  Their trophies are severed hands.

‘I think I have found them.’  I call out.  Eve walks over to me, her snake tattoo ululating on her stomach as she sways with each stride.  She crouches down beside me, grabs a container and takes the lid off, sniffing the contents. 

‘Formaldehyde.’ she says, picking the hand out of the liquid.  ‘She examines the fingers closely, noticing a few pubic hairs caught in the nails.  ‘Different coloured pubes.  These aren’t just trophies.  I think they used them over and over again on their victims.’ she shakes her head disconsolately.

‘Who is he, this man you keep referring to.  Is he the person in the pictures with the killers?’ I ask her, studying her countenance as she answers.

‘Every faith has its extremists.  Even the extremist groups have uber extremists within them; someone who will go that one step further.  He takes the things we believe in, living a life without fear, and embraces the absolute chaos of that.  He is the man that makes murderers: and he was one of us.  Do you have the time?’ she asks, quickly changing the subject, her eyes visibly doing a spot check on where things are in the room.

‘It’s eight fifteen.’ I answer.

‘Adam, time for you to come in.’ she says, looking directly at me as she does, but not talking to me.  She smiles, leans over and kisses me on the lips and then stands and walks over to where Rebecca is helping Coleen out of the cage.

What was that?  Has she got some kind of communication device on her?  If she has, how long has it been working?  Could she have called for help at any time?  I hear footfalls coming from outside the door and a few seconds later Adam walks almost nonchalantly into the room carrying a large holdall which he drops onto the top of the autopsy bench.  ‘Is everything under control?’ he asks Eve, smiling toward me as he sees me looking at him.

‘All under control.  Did you bring the spare clothes as I asked?  Coleen needs them.  What about the GHD?  Have you mailed off the final video to the BBC?’

‘Yes, got them both here.’ he answers, pulling a pair of jeans and a T-Shirt out of the bag and passing them over to her, along with a small syringe.  ‘The video is timed to be sent at 20:45 so we are now on the clock.  We will only have fifteen minutes until the police and press arrive after that.’ 

Eve grabs the syringe and without any warning sticks it into Pastor Bentley’s arm through the bars of the cage.  ‘The start of your journey into oblivion old man.’ she says.  He scowls back, opening his mouth to reply, but then flops unconscious.

Eve turns back to Rebecca and helps her dress Coleen.  I watch Adam unpack the bag.  I watch him take out a black metal spring loaded box.  I watch him take out a black and white Pierrot outfit.  I watch him take out a bag of makeup.  And my mind starts adding up.  At nine o’clock tonight the fourth mass murderer will be revealed.  That’s in forty five minutes.  Where is the Angel who is going to expose him?  Why did Eve ask Bentley if he wanted to expose him?

Adam walks over to me, seeing the cogs of my mind wheeling in my animated face.  ‘What’s troubling you John.  Plan B worked.  Bentley showed us where he was keeping Eve and Coleen.  We have rescued Eve and Coleen and Pastor Bentley has confessed to his crimes.’

‘Yes, I know.  What I don’t know at the minute is whether it was really Plan B, or we have been part of Plan A all along.  Eve has some kind of microphone.  She has been talking to you.  If she has been talking to you, then you must have known where she was.  If you knew where she was then perhaps her kidnapping wasn’t coincidental, perhaps it was planned.’ I throw the thoughts of my cogs out to him, my frustrations creeping into the words.

‘Perhaps John.  But does it change the outcome.  Does it change what you have learned from the experience?’

I don’t answer his question.  I don’t answer it because I am distracted.  Coleen is now dressed and Rebecca is leading her to the wooden seat at the other side of the room, away from Eve, but that isn’t what has distracted me.  What has distracted me is Eve.  She is getting dressed.  She is pulling on the legs of the Pierrot outfit.  There are no other Angels here.  There have been no other Angels involved in discovering what Pastor Bentley has done, only Eve.  Which can mean only one thing.

I push past Adam, who raises his hands conciliatory and steps out of my way.  I slam my hands down hard onto the top of the autopsy bench, on the opposite side to Eve, facing her, my mind full of fear as I stare at her, willing her to speak.

She looks at me steadily and with an understanding patience as she continues to get ready, strapping the boxed up wings onto her back.  Adam comes alongside her and helps to position the release straps on her arms.

‘Aren’t you going to stop her?’ I implore him, my frantic gaze darting back and forward between them both.  Rebecca must have heard the panic in my voice because a split second later she is alongside me.

‘What is it John?’ she asks as she strokes my arm affectionately.

I look into her open, questioning face as my mind screams agony, not wanting to speak the truth that they know.  ‘She’s putting on the wings Rebecca.  Eve is the person who is going to expose Bentley tonight.  Eve is the person who is going to commit suicide.’

Rebecca physically slumps and I reach out a hand to steady her as the fear in my mind starts to dance in her eyes.  She looks over as Eve pulls her Pierrot outfit up over the wings and starts to fasten the buttons down the chest.

‘It was always going to be me.  Now is my time.  I have done everything I had to do in this life and I am ready for my next experience.’ Eve says with a serene calmness in her tone.

‘But you can’t, we’ve only just found you again.  There must be so many experiences left to live for!’ Rebecca exclaims as she pushes herself closer and hugs me tight, her fingers digging into my skin.

‘Last night was our beautiful and memorable goodbye.  It was my last time with you, it was your first time together.  Please, and I know this will be hard, but try and be selfless.  What you feel right now is only natural, it is your needs and your desires controlling your mind.  You have to learn to control them and to remove them.  That will come in time.’

I can’t control them.  I feel cheated.  I have lost her once already and I do not want to lose her again.  All I feel is betrayed.  All I feel is played.

‘Are we just pawns to you, playthings in a fucking plan?  A means to an end.  Dispensable.  Is that what we are?  Was this always about Bentley, was your reason for living to expose him and now that it’s done, fuck the rest of us?’  I can’t keep my feelings in, I just don’t understand.

‘John, I only ever had one purpose in my life and I couldn’t be happier that I have fulfilled it.  My one purpose was to make sure the two of you met.  My one purpose was to make sure you got to know each other.  Do you want to know how important the two of you are?  I have heard you ask if you are pawns, knights, kings or queens.  Well, I am the queen in our family and all three of you are more important than me.  I would gladly give my life a hundred times over for the two of you and your son.’

She was looking at Rebecca:  when she said ‘your Son’, she was looking at Rebecca.  Eve can see the questions in our eyes, the confusion in our minds.

‘I didn’t get that wrong Rebecca, Jacob is your son too.’

Chapter 41

The small motor boat pulled out from the shoreline and headed off into the Firth of Forth, towards the looming frame of the Rail Bridge.  A full moon shimmered in a cloudless sky, its reflection floating on the gently lapping waves as they smacked into the wooden panels of the boat, rocking it gently.  Pastor Bentley sat at the back of the boat, naked and unconscious, his body wrapped in barbed wire.  Twenty six Tupperware containers with the severed hands inside them sat in the bottom of the boat along with a manila folder containing pictures of the women Pastor Bentley had killed.  Adam was at the helm, directing the boat toward one of the supporting bases of the rail bridge out in the middle of the Firth.  Eve sat behind him in her Pierrot outfit.  One of her eyes was covered in white makeup.

The boat butted up against a small jetty floating on the granite base of the bridge and Adam tied the mooring rope to it.  He jumped onto the jetty and grabbed Pastor Bentley’s shoulders, heaving his heavy body over the side of the boat.  He dragged him a short distance to the base of the main steel span of the bridge.  A lift used for painting the bridge was sitting parked on the base, its safety doors open.  Fastened to the metal cage of the lift was a wooden crucifix.  Adam dragged Pastor Bentley up to it and hauled his body against the down beam.  He grabbed a length of barbed wire that was sitting in the cage and wrapped it around Bentley’s midriff, fastening him to the crucifix.  He then secured his arms to the cross beams. 

Adam picked up a hammer and some nails.  He positioned one of the nails in Bentley’s right palm and smacked it through the flesh into the wood, unflinching.  Bentley awoke and screamed, the noise lost in the open, empty expanse of water.  Adam repeated the action on the other hand, Bentley screaming again.  ‘Time to face the music old man.’ he said, Pastor Bentley scanning his surrounding in confusion.

Eve arrived beside him, carrying some of the Tupperware containers and the Manila folder and dropped them into the bottom of the lift next to a megaphone.  Both of them returned to the boat and retrieved the remaining containers and brought them back to the lift.

Eve climbed into the lift and closed the safety door, stepping to the far side of Bentley, where the controls were situated.  Adam followed her on the outside. 

‘Look after them.  They have a lot to learn and not all of it is going to be pleasant.  But they did well today.  Our family is stronger now they know we exist.  It will be stronger still when they know everything.’ she said to Adam, leaning over and kissing him full on the lips, letting her tongue dance inside his willing mouth.  She pressed the ‘up’ button, tongues still entwined as the lift started to rise, their lips touching until the last possible moment. 

Across the Firth the noise of blaring sirens broke the quiet tranquillity of the lapping waves, the flashing blue lights of police speedboats visible on the horizon. 

‘You better get going Adam, the police and press are on their way.’ she said, smiling sadly down towards him.  Adam blew one last kiss and then jumped for the boat, quickly unfastening the mooring rope as he landed on board, then sped off out into the mouth of the river, away from the oncoming lights.

The lift slowly ascended the bridge, passing the main railway bearing, on which more flashing blue lights were visible in the distance, approaching quickly down the rail track.  Blaring sirens coursed around the frame of the bridge, echoing off the steelwork as the police boats arrived at its base and the police vehicles on the track.  Up above, the distinctive sound of helicopters filled the glowing night sky, heading in from Edinburgh Airport a few miles away.

The lift was near the top of the main beam now, almost one hundred feet in the air.  Eve looked down at the larger flotilla of vessels arriving and at the TV cameras mounted on their surfaces, pointing at the lift.  Helicopters started circling around and above, less than twenty metres away, the cameramen visible as they captured the vista.

Behind her, the full moon hung low over the Firth, the bridge bathed in its glorious glow.  With her one remaining hand, she picked up a megaphone from the bottom of the lift and raised it to her mouth, speaking.

‘Fear and Faith.  Faith and Fear.’ she repeated, then recited in full the poem that the other Angels had said in part. ‘In whose faith is your fear founded, which gods atonement do you seek, whose penance keeps your soul grounded, when spirits avarice is preached.  What mortal flesh would you divest, to appease your saviours wrath, who’s pious wrote would you impress, while seeking raptures righteous path.  Which numen’s dogma is decreed, to despoil innocence last breath, forced to embrace your litany, on the sanctity of life's death. Interring loved ones in the ground, in whose faith can your fear be found.’

Eve put the megaphone down and took a handkerchief out of a pocket in the Pierrot costume.  She wiped the last of the face makeup away from her eye, picking up the microphone once again. 

‘We all wear masks.  We all hide behind out fear and insecurities.  Mine is now removed and you see me as I really am.  I am Eve.  I am the mother of the ‘Fallen Angels’.  Tonight I bring you the last in a line of religious leaders who use faith as fear.  This man has killed twenty six women.  He has tortured them, he has mutilated them, cutting off body parts which he then subsequently ate.’ Eve announced, her voice filling with fervour.

‘He lured these vulnerable women with the opportunity of freedom, with the opportunity of a future without abusive partners.  Then he imprisoned them and made their remaining life a living hell.  And why?  Why did this man, Pastor Bentley inflict such atrocities on these women?  He did it because they were women.  He did it because in his world, in his religion, like every other religion, women are considered substandard.  He expected these women to be subservient, to do everything their men told them to do.  He had no sympathy at all that their partners beat them, in fact, he believed their partners were weak for not taking it further.  He definitely took it further.  He took it to the extreme.’

Eve paused, looking out over the Firth, watching as more vessels approached the bridge with more cameras pointing towards her.  Spotlights started dancing over the structure of the bridge, illuminating Special Forces Officers starting to scale the steelwork towards the lift.  She took the whole scene in, her whole demeanour serene.

‘We will no longer stand in the shadows of his god and let these atrocities prevail.  We will no longer let the prejudices of the sexes, of women, be a weapon for fear.  We will no longer allow innocent Angels to bleed in the ignominy of his seed. Even Fallen Angels have wings.’

Eve raised her arms, pulling the release cords tied around her wrists.  The Velcro on the back of her Pierrot suit ripped apart and two glorious white wings unfurled along the length of her arms, shimmering in the orb of the moon behind her.  She moved her arms and the wings flapped in the gentle breeze.  She opened the safety door at her end of the lift and stepped up to the edge, looking down to the granite base of bridge one hundred feet below.  Eve raised the megaphone to her lips one last time.

‘We are the Fallen Angels.’ she finished, throwing the megaphone away.

Eve jumped, thrusting her arms out as she did, the wings ruffling furiously in the turbulent air as she descended.  Steel flew past, her Pierrot outfit buffeting in the wind.  She forced her eyes to stay open, tears streaming out of them as the cold air smacked onto the balls.  She looked down at the onrushing granite base, a contented smile sailing across her face as first a wing, then a torso followed by her legs and lastly her head smacked into the uncompromising stone, killing her instantly. 

Her body twitched once, then sagged lifelessly on the edge of the base, her open emerald eyes catching a mirage of the moon one last time in the slowly dilating irises.   After a second a trail of blood snaked from under her crushed skull and trickled down the granite, meandering slowly through the grooves in the old stone, seeping into the water, where it pooled on the surface.  It flowed further, catching the edge of the rippling white reflection of the full moon, turning it blood red: Her Moons Denouement.