Trauma

Twelve

Main decided against wearing a suit; he felt that it would be too formal and might suggest that he was being interviewed for his own job. He opted instead for a sports jacket and cord trousers, checked shirt and university tie. Casual but acceptably establishment. He parked the car outside the school entrance and walked up the gravel drive past the playing fields where the third year were at rugby practice. Hargreave, the principal teacher of physical education was cajoling them into cohesive action instead of individual bids for glory. “Pass it you clown!” yelled the track-suited man as a large fair haired boy was caught in possession. “That’s what team mates are for!”

“Yes sir,” mumbled the boy as he got to his feet and looked down at them.

“Rugby is a team game, boy! Life is a team game!”

“Well, that’s taken care of that,” thought Main as he turned away and continued up the drive. The bottom line to centuries of philosophy had just been supplied by Hargreave. Why didn’t they ask him in the first place? he wondered facetiously.

After the five minute obligatory wait — important people never saw you immediately, Main thought — the headmaster welcomed Main with a handshake and the offer of sherry. Main declined politely, fearing it might be a test of his sobriety, a paranoid thought born of guilt about his less than sober habits of the past few weeks.

“How are you feeling Main?”

“Much better, Headmaster, thank you.”

“A bad business all round,” remarked the headmaster sympathetically. “So you feel well enough to come back to us now?”

“Yes sir, I’d like to, if that’s all right with you?”

“Well, naturally, we’d all be delighted to see you back,” began the headmaster. “But are you sure you’re well enough? You’ve been through an awful lot lately, more than any man should have to contend with and we all feel for you. Mr Close was saying as much yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” asked Main, suddenly suspicious of an uneasiness that had crept into the headmaster’s manner.

“There was a meeting yesterday of the board of governors and, with the newspaper story and all — it couldn’t have come at a worse time really — you were very much on everyone’s mind.”

“I see,” said Main cautiously.

“All this witchcraft business and now the suggestion of murder being bandied about and everything coming on top of the loss of your poor wife, well... we all felt that it might be for the best if you were to take your time about coming back. Maybe go on extended leave until this whole unfortunate thing is cleared up.”

“You mean it’s all a bit embarrassing for the board of governors?” said Main flatly.

“That’s a bit unkind Main.” The headmaster looked hurt.

“But accurate,” countered Main.

The headmaster leaned forward and spread his hands on the desk. “The governors have to consider the parents, John and they are the most fickle and delicate of creatures at the best of times. With the recession biting deeply, recruitment figures for the school are on a knife-edge. Next year will be touch and go. We have to avoid...” The headmaster searched the air for a word “... association of the school with any kind of... unpleasantness.”

“I see,” said Main tersely.

“This business about exploding cars and burning bodies smacks of... criminality.”

“A side of life you would rather the pupils at this school knew nothing about,” said Main.

“I really expected better from you, Main,” said the headmaster, looking hurt again. “I thought you would see sense.”

“I do, Headmaster. I see it very clearly. So I’m suspended? Or would you prefer that I resign?”

“There’s no question of that, Main. Let’s just give it some time and, with any luck, this whole business will be behind us by the end of term.”

“And if it isn’t?”

The headmaster spread his hands on the desk again and looked apologetic. “Then you must do what you feel is right, John. What’s right for the school as well as anyone else. But let’s not even consider that.”

“Very good sir,” said Main taking this as his cue to leave. He got up and shook hands with the headmaster but avoided his eyes. As he opened the door the headmaster called out, “And don’t forget, John, we’re all behind you!”

Main closed the door behind him and paused for a moment, “Yes sir,” he murmured. “Life is a team game.”

It was after nine in the evening when he returned home. His feet were sore and wet and he was hungry. After leaving the school he had driven out into the country and parked the car in a lay-by before setting off on a long walk. He had walked for over three hours in shoes that weren’t up to the conditions, at first oblivious to the fact but then becoming all too aware of wet feet and hurting ankles as the rough ground took its toll. It had also rained while he was out in the open so his clothes were wet through. For the first hour or so, he had not really noticed the discomfort; he was so confused and angry inside his head. He really feared that he was beginning to crack up.

Just as he’d been beginning to think he had a grip on things the visit to the school had pushed him deeper than ever into depression. He felt entirely alone in a world where everyone was playing a part and no one said what they meant. He was beginning to question just about every value he had previously believed in. What the hell was the school all about? Just what were they training the pupils to become? Thoughtless puppets existing in their own little world, isolated from reality by a sea of ‘niceness’, ignoring anything nasty in the firm and sure conviction that it would go away if you disregarded it for long enough? Jesus!

Main tried to clear his mind as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. He searched in his pocket for his door key and had difficulty extracting his hand because of the wetness of the material. He cursed out loud, and then the words froze on his lips as he saw that the door was already open.

He looked at the lock for signs of splintered wood but saw that it appeared to be undamaged. He considered that he might have left the door open earlier, but almost immediately dismissed the idea as a non-starter. He could remember closing the door and checking it as he always did. The flat had been burgled less than two years before and he could still remember the awful feeling of knowing that a stranger had been in your home, helping himself to anything he fancied, opening everything, reading everything, touching things.

He remembered the look on Mary’s face when she realised that the burglar had been going through her clothes. It had been physical assault by proxy. The fact that some cash and electrical equipment had been taken had been a minor consideration in comparison to the mental anguish the break-in had caused them. There was no question of him having left the door unlocked today. It had been as secure as only a stable door can be the day after the horse had bolted. But it had happened again!

There was a light on inside the flat! Surely the burglar wasn’t still here? He pushed the door open a little and was puzzled. There was something odd about the light. It was too dim to be one of the room lights and... it was flickering!

Oh my God! The place is on fire, thought Main as he pushed the door wide open but something in his sub-conscious stopped him believing it. There was no sound of fire — no crackling or roaring — and there was no smell of smoke. The flat was cold and absolutely silent.

Still moving cautiously in case anyone was still inside, Main stepped quietly into the hallway and moved towards the source of the light. It was in the living room. He listened at the door for a moment before pushing it slowly open. The light was coming from a candle. It was mounted on some kind of a stick in the middle of the floor and had five flames coming from it. It was shaped like a human hand. The flames guttered in the draught that came in from the open front door, and filled the room with dancing shadows.

Main looked into the other rooms in the flat before returning to the living room and turning on the light. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed although he would have to check further. Nothing, as far as he could see, had been damaged and all the drawers were still in place. Last time every drawer in the place had been taken out and emptied on to the floor. The television and hi-fi equipment sat where they always did and he could see that a five pound note he had put under an ash tray on the mantelpiece earlier was still there.

“So what the hell...” he murmured as he moved closer to inspect the candle, “is all this about?” He leaned over and blew out the flames.

There was a strong smell of candle wax from the still smoking object as he lifted it off its spike. It was much heavier than he expected; he nearly dropped it. He was filled with a sudden feeling of horror as he turned it to look at the underside. The candle wasn’t just shaped like a human hand; it was a human hand!

Main felt himself go weak at the knees as he dropped it and took an involuntary step backwards. His hand flew to his mouth and he gagged back the impulse to throw up. The seconds passed and he steeled himself to take another look at the thing. There was no doubt about it. It was a human hand that had been severed at the wrist and covered in candle wax to make it the most macabre object Main thought he had had ever seen.

Main picked up the telephone to call the police and then had second thoughts. He called Ryan Lafferty instead.

“Could you come over here please? Something’s happened. I need to talk to you.” Main had difficulty speaking. Shock had constricted his throat.

“Can you tell me anything about it?” asked Lafferty, a little surprised at the request.

“Not over the phone,” replied Main still staring at the hand on the floor. “But please come.”

“On my way,” replied Lafferty. He was there within fifteen minutes.

Lafferty found the door to the flat open. He knocked gently but there was no reply so he tried again, this time calling out Main’s name.

“In here,” came the reply. It sounded weak and distant. Lafferty followed it through to the living room where he found Main sitting on the edge of an arm chair staring at something on the floor. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Main pointed at the floor and Lafferty saw what he was looking at. “Oh my God,” he whispered softly. “Is it...”

“It’s real,” said Main. “Look at the underside.”

Without touching it, Lafferty moved ground to where he could see the severed portion of the wrist which had not been coated in candle wax. The raw flesh had taken on a dull brown appearance but it was unmistakably real. “I could do with a drink,” he said. “How about you?”

Main, still staring at the hand replied. “I’m trying to give it up.”

Lafferty looked at him, trying to make sense of what he had said but failing. It was obvious that Main was in a state of shock. He went to the drinks cabinet and brought back two large brandies. Main accepted the glass and drank without taking his eyes off the hand. “Whose?” he croaked.

Lafferty sat down on the other chair and looked at it. “The hand of a murderer.”

The comment seemed to bring Main out of his trance. “What?” he said, turning to look at Lafferty.

“By rights it should be the hand of a convicted murderer.”

“You know what this is all about?” asked an incredulous Main.

Lafferty nodded and replied, “I think so. It’s a Hand of Glory.”

Main repeated the phrase, obviously still bemused.

“It’s a witchcraft symbol. The hand of glory opens any locked door. It gives the one who made it access to anything and everything it desires access to. There’s no escape.”

Main considered what had been said before concluding, “So they want access to me.”

“I think it’s a warning,” said Lafferty. “They’re telling you to back off because they can get at you any time they want.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Main.

“I came across it in the book on Scottish witchcraft I told you about. The last time one of these was used was in North Berwick, not more than twenty-five miles from here... four centuries ago.”

“North Berwick?” exclaimed Main, “but it’s...”

“I know,” interrupted Main. “It’s a sleepy sea side resort where the kids go to make sand castles and businessmen play golf on Sundays. But it hasn’t always been that way. In days gone by it was a hotbed of witchcraft.”

“Ye gods.”

“In the late sixteenth century there was a Grand Sabbat called at North Berwick. There were three complete covens in the area at the time; that’s thirty-nine witches. The Grand Master of the Sabbat was a man called John Fian, a school-master by day in nearby Prestonpans. It was said that he could open up North Berwick Church at will using a Hand of Glory. They used it for their meetings. His followers used to raid the church yard and dismember corpses for their charms.”

“Do you think that’s what they did to Simon?”

Lafferty didn’t know what to say. He could see the pain in Main’s eyes but he could think of nothing comforting to say apart from, “All this was a very long time ago and even if it was, it wouldn’t change the fact that your son’s soul is safe. These people couldn’t touch it.”

Main shook his head and said, “I still can’t believe this is happening. I mean, God! This isn’t the middle ages and we’re sitting here talking about witches and warlocks. It’s crazy! This was all centuries ago!”

“Jesus Christ lived nearly two thousand years ago yet his followers persist. I’m afraid we have to consider that the followers of darkness persist likewise,” Lafferty replied.

“What should I do, Ryan?”

Lafferty saw that that Main was looking hopelessly vulnerable but, at a loss, he shrugged his shoulders. “Frankly, I don’t know.”

Main broke into a smile which took Lafferty by surprise. “Good old Ryan,” he said. “No bullshit. I think that’s what I like best about you.”

Lafferty smiled back. “I’ve always thought of it as a curse. The truth can be such a hard taskmaster.”

“Well, I appreciate it,” said Main. “Neither of us knows what to do.”

“I can’t quite see why they’re trying to warn you off with powerful signs of witchcraft,” said Lafferty. “It doesn’t seem to make sense.”

“Maybe they’re trying to impress me,” said Main. “They’re demonstrating how powerful they are, earning my fear and respect? After all, my front door is undamaged, but they walked in.”

“But why?” asked Lafferty. “The matter is really out of your hands. You’ve told the papers all you know and the police are handling the inquiry, so why warn you off?”

Main thought for a moment. “Maybe they see me as the prime mover, the instigator of the investigation, the one who won’t let go.”

“Maybe,” said Lafferty but he didn’t sound convinced.

“I can’t think of any other reason.”

“Me neither,” said Lafferty. “Do you want to come back with me to St Xavier’s?”

Main smiled. “Sanctuary?”

“Something like that,” agreed Lafferty.

“No, but thanks all the same. I’m going to stay and take my chances. And when you think about it, I don’t have a lot left to lose. Do I?”

Lafferty smiled wryly and said, “I suppose from your point of view you haven’t.”

“What are we going to do about that?” asked Main, pointing to the hand. “I don’t see any point in calling in the police. Do you?”

“There’s the question of whose hand it is,” said Lafferty.

“But the chances are, from what you’ve said, that it was taken from a corpse.”

“Almost certainly,” said Lafferty thoughtfully. “Although they would have been hard pushed to come up with the hand of a convicted murderer. It was usual to cut the hands off a corpse while it was still hanging on the gibbet.”

“If we bring in the police and the papers get a hold of this they’re going to have a field day,” said Main.

Lafferty nodded. “I wonder if that’s what they intended?”

“But that doesn’t go too well with trying to warn me off.”

“No,” Lafferty agreed. “No it doesn’t. Have you got a plastic bag?”

“I suppose so,” said Main. “You’re going to take it away?”

“I’ll put it in the furnace at St Xavier’s,” said Lafferty.

Main went to the kitchen and emptied a plastic Tesco bag which still had groceries in it. He gave the empty bag to Lafferty who picked up the hand gingerly and dropped it into the bag. It hit the bottom with a slap and Main screwed up his face.

“I know,” said Lafferty. “You and me both.”

It was a little after one in the morning when Lafferty got back to St Xavier’s. The house was cold; the heating had gone off at ten. He lit the gas fire in his room and paused in front of it for a few moments to warm his hands. He didn’t look at the plastic bag sitting on the floor beside him, but was terribly aware of its presence. He decided that the sooner he got it over with the better. He would take it outside to the old hut that stood between the church and the house: it housed the central heating boiler — although calling it that bestowed an air of modernity on it which was entirely unjustified. The heating system was ancient, so old in fact that no heating firm in the city would take up the challenge of servicing it. The same applied when the system broke down. When repairs became absolutely essential they were carried out by an old, ex-marine engineer in the congregation who did what he could.

Feeling as if the night were alive with hidden eyes watching him, Lafferty left the house and took the plastic bag to the hut. He opened the door and was assailed by he twin smells of oil and mustiness. Closing the hut-door behind him, he turned on the light — a bare, forty watt bulb that hung from an old flex draped over a roof support strut. He felt his pulse rate quicken as he grew closer to the moment when he would have to touch the thing. He was unsure if some form of ‘service’ would be in order, so he hastily improvised a few words of prayer, asking that the owner of the hand be granted peace.

As he removed the hand from the bag, his reluctance to touch it made him fumble and it fell to the floor. The candle-wax covering split open and he saw there was a scar on the side of it. What was more, it was a scar he recognised! The last time he’d seen this hand its fingers had been clutching at the moon on the banks of the canal. It was John McKirrop’s!

Lafferty fought his revulsion to consider the significance of his discovery and found some horrific logic in it. If McKirrop had survived his injuries, the odds were that he would have been charged with the murder of the woman, Bella. This object at his feet was as near to the hand of a murderer as the constructors of the hand of glory could get. Such dedication to detail frightened Lafferty. It also forged another link between this nightmare and HTU.

He steeled himself to pick up McKirrop’s hand between his thumb and forefinger, opened the small iron door at the front of the furnace and threw it in before closing it again quickly and resting for a moment to recover his composure. God! he needed a drink. He closed up the hut and returned to the house where he poured himself a large brandy and took it into the bedroom; the gas fire had warmed it up a bit.

Lafferty sipped the brandy slowly while he thought over the events of the evening, one he feared that he would never forget. But why? The question nagged at him. Why go to such lengths to advertise the involvement of witchcraft in the Simon Main affair? If the police could find out nothing about the practice of the black arts in the area and no one else could either it was obvious that these people managed to conduct their affairs in complete secrecy. Yet suddenly, here they were, doing something totally out of character. They must have realised that the newspapers would have a field day if Main had called the police, just as they had when McKirrop had given them his tale of ritual disinterment. Why would they want that?

The truth dawned on Lafferty with a suddenness that took his breath away. What had, only a moment before, been so Byzantinely complicated and puzzling was now quite simple and terrifyingly obvious. He rubbed his cheek nervously as he sought to come to terms with an entirely new hypothesis. Taking a sip at his brandy, he noticed that his hand had developed a slight tremor. He had to think everything through logically, but his mind insisted on taking giant leaps. The new theory might be simple but, in its own way, it was also very frightening.

There was a notebook lying on the table beside the old hymn books. He had been using it earlier to make notes about what he should say at Mary O’Donnell’s funeral in the morning. He brought it over to the fire and sat down with it on his knee to make notes. McKirrop had been in the cemetery that night and had seen all that had gone on; there was no doubt about that. The four men, the ‘yobs’ as both McKirrop and Main had called them, had been there too; they had admitted it. It seemed likely that they had all been murdered to keep them from telling what they really saw that night. McKirrop had been hiding something despite apparently telling all to the newspapers, and the yobs insisted that Main had got it all wrong. So what had they really seen in the graveyard? Main had concluded that there must have been more people present that night, important, powerful people who wouldn’t want their identity revealed. People who were prepared to kill to keep their association with the black arts secret. This was still possible, and might even explain the Hand of Glory as a grim warning, but Lafferty preferred another explanation. The Hand of Glory had been a stunt designed by someone with a knowledge of the history of local witchcraft. The gruesome object had been used to keep himself and Main — and the police, for that matter — on the trail of devil worshippers. But there had not been other people in the cemetery that night. There had been no black mass or satanic ritual. Simon Main’s body was missing from its grave because... it had never been there in the first place!

Lafferty assessed and considered the implications of the new theory. It meant that the powerful people behind this whole awful affair probably had nothing to do with devil worship or black magic. And whoever had killed the yobs knew why Simon Main had never been buried at all.

Lafferty ran through everything again, making sure that it all fitted. The Black Mass story had most likely been an invention of John McKirrop. He had made the whole thing up to attract attention to himself, or perhaps he’d even been paid to do it? Come to think of it, that might have been the reason he’d ended up in hospital for a second time. Maybe he had got greedy and asked for more.

The four ‘yobs’ as they had been described by both McKirrop and Main had been just that. They had been drunken louts who had dug up a grave for kicks — something they hadn’t really denied according to Main, but the coffin had been empty! That would be why they’d told Main he’d got it wrong. That was why they had referred to McKirrop as a liar in the pub.

The big question was what had really happened to Simon Main’s body? Some kind of mortuary mix-up perhaps? It was not entirely unknown for such things to happen. In fact, it probably happened a great deal more often than anyone cared to admit. If couples could occasionally leave hospital with the wrong baby in the back of the car then surely which body went into which coffin was even more open to occasional error.

Lafferty dismissed the notion almost as quickly as it arose. If five people had been murdered, it was nothing to do with any kind of mix-up or mistake, however embarrassing it might have been. It was something much more serious and organised than that. He checked the time and saw that it was a quarter to two. He had a funeral to conduct in just over eight hours.

A slight lightening of the sky warned Lafferty that morning had come. He hadn’t been to bed at all and felt relieved that daylight had returned — problems always seemed worse during the hours of darkness. He got up from the chair where he had spent the last few hours wondering what he should do about his new hypothesis and went over to the window to look at out at what was a cold grey world. His legs felt stiff and the stubble on his face rasped against his collar when he turned his head. It made him think about shaving and hot water but that only served to remind him of the furnace heating the water and what was fuelling it. It wasn’t a bad dream; it had really happened. He shivered and rubbed his arms before shuffling through to the bathroom in his stocking feet — removing his shoes had been his sole concession to undressing.

Feeling better after a shave and a hot bath, he made himself toast and tea and sat down at the kitchen table while examining his notes for the O’Donnell funeral, not that they were copious. He had failed to come up with a magic formula for providing comfort in the circumstances. He had no idea why God had allowed such a thing to happen. It was going to have to be a variation on the theme of the ways of the Lord being strange. Have faith and trust in him; there are some things that we are not meant to understand just yet.

His mind started to wander again. He was still undecided about telling John Main about his new theory. The man was on an emotional knife edge; he would have to be awfully sure of his ground before saying anything. He did decide however, to contact Sarah Lasseter and tell her of his suspicions. If he was right about Simon Main never having been buried in the first place then the starting point for any investigation would be in HTU, where the boy had died. He suddenly realised that he had come up with a motive for the death of John McKirrop at the hands of one of the staff in HTU, something that he and Sarah had failed to do at in their last conversation. It made him more certain than ever that he was on the right track but time was getting on. He started to look out his vestments for the funeral.

The O’Donnells had decided that their daughter’s body should be cremated but they had also expressed a wish that there should be a short service at St Xavier’s before going down to the crematorium. Lafferty had readily agreed, hoping at the time that this was a sign that Jean’s faith was winning through if she could demonstrate her affection for the church. His hopes had been dashed however, when Jean had explained that she hated the chapel down at the crematorium. “It’s a toilet,” she said when Lafferty had asked her why not.

It was a view he could sympathise with. The crematorium chapel did not have much going for it in the way of atmosphere. It was a bare, almost circular room with doors diametrically opposed to each other so that mourners entered by one door and left by another. This was so that the chain of the day was unbroken. As one funeral party left another arrived. As for decor, there was none. It was as impersonal as a hotel room. Not even the flowers were a constant. When each funeral was over the flowers left too.

It had already started to rain as Mary O’Donnell’s coffin was brought into St Xavier’s and laid down gently on its catafalque in front of Lafferty. He watched the mourners file in. Their dress ranged from charcoal grey suits to fluorescent yellow bomber jackets. Some of the relatives had obviously not seen each other for some time and gave exaggerated smiles of recognition as their eyes met before mouthing silent greetings. A number of women were sobbing and Lafferty could see that it was going to be a distressing service. Sobbing, like laughter, could be infectious.

Jean O’Donnell was not weeping. She stood beside Joe, who looked red eyed and vulnerable but she herself remained quite composed. Lafferty sneaked a look at her and saw that her eyes were cold. She was being sustained by bitterness. At that moment he would have given a lot to see tears run down her cheeks.

“We are gathered here today to give thanks for the life of Mary O’Donnell...”