Louise Welsh - Death is a Welcome Guest

Jeb was struggling to get to his feet. ‘You’re a murdering bastard.’

‘You’ve forgotten yourself, son. If it wasn’t for me you’d be lying in a ditch with your throat slit and your belly cut open.’ The priest and the soldier in Jacob had fused. He might have been in church preaching a sermon on vengeance, or in a dugout about to lead his men over the top. He turned to Magnus. ‘Tell Belle where you two met.’

‘Jeb can tell her.’

Magnus put his hand on Jacob’s arm and tried to steer him into the hallway, but the soldier-priest shrugged him off.

‘They met in prison. Magnus was in for rape, Jeb for double murder.’

Belle’s hand went to her mouth.

Magnus snapped, ‘It was a mistake. I was trying to save her…’

Father Wingate limped into the room, his breath creaking in his chest. ‘The devil has got into this house. I thought we could keep him at bay, but he is here among us.’

Jeb pulled himself upright. He was naked and the battering he had taken was written in black and purple across his body. Magnus glanced again at the papers splayed on the bedside table. He was sure that the gun was beneath them.

‘Jeb…’ Belle’s voice was soft and wavering. She reached out and touched his arm. ‘Were you in jail?’

Jeb’s hand was resting on the bedside table. ‘It’s not like he says.’

‘But you went to prison for murdering a woman and her child?’

Jeb turned to look at her. The pain on his face might have come from his bruised ribs and broken leg. ‘I went to prison for it, but I didn’t do it.’

Jacob said, ‘He did it.’

Belle looked at the soldier. ‘Did you kill Henry?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Belle gave a high-pitched laugh. ‘This entire fucking world is ridiculous. Why shouldn’t I be?’ She gathered her dress around her and crawled from the bed. ‘I need to go.’

Jeb said, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I was going to ask you to marry me.’

Belle shot him a look that was half hurt, half hate. ‘And it’s not like I would have given you shit from the soles of my shoes, before the sweats.’

She pushed past the men and went barefoot into the darkness. Will had returned and was standing in the doorway. He watched Belle go, but made no effort to follow her. ‘It was the dogs that made the noise,’ he said. ‘They knocked over a table in the next room.’

Father Wingate stretched out his arms as if to gather the four men to him. ‘Let us all get down on our knees and ask what God wants of us.’

Jacob pointed at Jeb. ‘I should have sent you packing as soon as I realised who you were…’

Magnus said, ‘All he did was to go to bed with Belle…’

‘He deceived that girl the way he deceived the woman he killed.’ Jacob’s words were full of spit and fury. ‘He’s a predator, and that makes him a risk to our community.’

Jeb said, ‘You’re just trying to draw attention away from yourself. You’re a stone-cold killer.’

Magnus grasped Jacob’s arm again and tried to lead him from the room, but the priest shrugged him off with such force that Magnus guessed a third attempt would result in a punch. Instinct told him to shut his mouth, but he said, ‘You don’t have a community.’ His family were in his mind again and Magnus struggled to speak. ‘There’s no kinship here. You’re just a bunch of people huddled together because you’re scared of being alone.’

Will said, ‘That is how communities begin. People must co-operate in order to survive.’

Magnus laughed. ‘You just pulled a knife on your spiritual leader.’

‘I wouldn’t have touched him.’ Will looked at his hands as if he could not believe they had ever grasped a knife. ‘I never used to get so angry but now…’

Father Wingate pressed his way into the centre of the room. ‘We must all listen to God. His will is paramount.’

Jeb had pulled on a sweatshirt and was sitting on the edge of the bed struggling to ease a pair of jogging trousers over his plastered leg.

Magnus said, ‘Want to hitch a lift out of here?’

Jeb’s mouth was set, the skin around his eyes tight, and Magnus saw what Jacob had meant when he had described him as looking like a battering ram. Jeb gave an unhappy smile. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

Jacob put a hand on Magnus’s shoulder. ‘You still owe us two and a half fields.’

‘Tonight breaks any deal we had.’ Magnus nodded to Jeb. ‘Can you get yourself downstairs?’

‘Reckon so.’ Jeb knotted the string of his tracksuit trousers. ‘On my arse if needs be.’

‘I’ll grab a van and pick you up at the front.’

‘Sure thing.’

Jacob’s grip tightened on Magnus’s shoulder. ‘One of us will drive him somewhere in the morning.’

Magnus tried to shrug off the soldier, but the hand was clamped tight on the cords of muscle in his neck, the fingers a painful threat against his vertebrae.

Father Wingate fluttered, ‘This is a time for prayer…’

Jacob said, ‘Go to bed, James. You’re right, everything will be better in the morning.’

Father Wingate’s voice was high and urgent. ‘God did not save us to fight among ourselves.’

Jacob reached into his pocket and took out a bunch of keys. ‘Nor did he save us to starve.’

‘You’re not locking me in here.’ Jeb steadied himself against the bedstead.

Magnus saw Jeb reaching beneath the papers on the bedside table where the gun was hidden and shouted, ‘Don’t!’

Jeb faltered and some instinct made Jacob jab a hand towards him. Jeb toppled against the bed with a shout of pain.

‘Jacob!’ Father Wingate tried to push his way towards Jeb, but Will put an arm around his narrow shoulders and half carried him to the hallway.

‘This is not the best place for you tonight, Father.’

Jeb was pulling himself towards the table and the hidden gun, but he was too slow for threats or action. Jacob had Magnus’s arms pinned behind his back in an arm lock that made his muscles sing. The soldier applied a knee to his kidneys and huckled him out into the hallway, slamming the door behind them. Will turned the key in the lock.

Magnus shouted, ‘Sit tight for one more night or this mad fucker will shoot you. I’ll get you out in the morning.’

He hoped that Jeb had heard him and was not on the other side of the door, cocking the hammer of the ancient gun, ready to blow himself, or them, to eternity.

Father Wingate was trembling at the top of the staircase. ‘Jacob, I want you to know that I do not condone anything you have done tonight.’

‘I realise that, James.’ Jacob was more priest than soldier again. ‘But there are facts you’re not privy to. That man is dangerous. I should never have allowed him to stay, but I let compassion colour my judgement.’

‘You’re drunk,’ the old man said. ‘Drunk and jealous that he made love to living flesh, when all we have are memories to console us. It would have been better if we had died with the rest.’

‘Perhaps.’ Jacob’s voice was a rasp. ‘But drunk or not we’re alive and our obligation is to live on.’ He opened a door in the wallpaper and pushed Magnus towards a hidden set of stairs inside.

Magnus stumbled against a step. ‘It’s okay,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll go with you,’ but Jacob must have known that he was lying because he kept Magnus’s arms pinned behind his back until they reached a door at the top of the house. He pushed him on to a dusty landing and then along a dark corridor, hollow with echoes. Jacob unlocked a door and shoved Magnus into a room bathed in moonlight and darkness.

‘This used to be the nursery.’ The priest’s fury was evaporating into the gloom. He sounded tired. ‘Father Wingate probably slept here when he was an infant. The bars on the window were to protect children from the fate your friend elected for that poor little girl.’