John Connolly - The Wrath of Angels

‘I like these shoes,’ said Harlan. ‘They’re good shoes.’

‘Will you be buried in them, Mr Vetters?’ asked Brightwell. ‘Are those the shoes you’ll want peeping out of your casket when they come by to mourn you? I doubt it. I reckon you probably have a pair in a box in your closet for just that eventuality. You’re a careful man. You’re the kind of man who plans ahead: for old age, for illness, for death.’

‘I don’t think it’ll make a difference to me one way or another how I’m tricked out when I’m dead,’ said Harlan. ‘They can put me in a dress for all I care. Now would you mind taking your hand off my wife. I don’t like it, and I don’t believe she does either.’

Brightwell’s hand left Angeline’s skin, and Harlan was grateful. She grew calmer, and her breathing deepened.

‘This is a nice place,’ said Brightwell. ‘Comfortable. Clean. I bet the staff are kind. No minimum wage employees here, right?’

‘I guess not.’

‘No whore nurses stealing small change from the lockers, taking the treats left by little children for Grandma,’ Brightwell continued. ‘No bored deviants slipping into rooms in the dead of night, fingering the patients, giving them a little something to remember, a relic of the good times. You never know, though, do you? I don’t like the look of that man Clancy. I don’t like the look of him at all. I can smell the badness on him. Like knows like. I’ve always trusted my instincts when it comes to deviancy.’

Harlan didn’t reply. He was being baited here, and he knew it. Best to remain silent, and not get angry. If he became angry, he might give himself away.

‘Still, no harm done, right? Your wife wouldn’t remember anyway. She might even enjoy it. After all, it’s probably been a while. Let’s give old Clancy the benefit of the doubt, though. Looks can be so deceptive, I find.’

He grinned, and fingered the growth at his throat, exploring its wrinkles and abrasions.

‘To return to the matter in hand, what I’m saying is that it must cost more than small change, this kind of ongoing care. A man would have to work long hours to make the payments. Loonnnng hours. But you’re retired, aren’t you, Mr Vetters?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I guess you put the pennies aside for a rainy day. Like I say, a careful man.’

‘I was. Still am.’

‘You were part of the warden service, weren’t you?’

Harlan didn’t bother asking how the man knew so much about him. The fact of the matter was that he was here, and he’d done his research. Harlan shouldn’t have been surprised, and therefore he wasn’t.

‘I was.’

‘Did it pay much, being a warden?’

‘Enough, and then some. Enough for me, anyways.’

‘I accessed your bank account details, Mr Vetters. It never seemed like you had more than nickels and dimes in your accounts, relatively speaking.’

‘I never trusted banks. I kept all of my money close by.’

‘ All of your money?’ Brightwell’s eyes opened wide in mock astonishment. ‘Why, just how much of it was there? All: that could be quite a lot. That could be thousands, even tens of thousands. Was it, Mr Vetters? Was it tens of thousands? Was it more ?’

Harlan moistened his mouth and throat. He didn’t want his voice to crack. No weakness: there had to be no frailty in front of this man.

‘No, there was never very much of it. It was only the sale of my parents’ house after my momma died that left me with a cushion, you might say.’

Something that might have been doubt flickered across Brightwell’s face.

‘A house?’

‘They lived over by Calais,’ said Harlan. He pronounced it ‘Callas’, like the singer, the way everyone did in the state. ‘Me being the only child, it came into my possession. Fortunate, given what happened to Angeline.’

‘Fortunate indeed.’

Now Harlan met Brightwell’s gaze. ‘I told you at the start, sir: I don’t know what you came looking for here, but I warned you that you wouldn’t find it. I’d be grateful to you if you’d leave us now. I’ve had enough of your company.’

At that moment, Angeline opened her eyes. She stared at Brightwell, and Harlan expected her to start screaming. He prayed that she wouldn’t because he didn’t know how the intruder would react. He was capable of killing to protect himself, of that Harlan was sure. He could smell death on the man.

But Angeline did not scream: she spoke, and the sound of it brought tears to Harlan’s eyes. She spoke in a voice that Harlan had not heard for so long, in the soft, beautiful tones of her middle years, yet there was another voice behind hers, one deeper than her own.

‘I know what you are,’ she said, and Brightwell looked at her in surprise. ‘I know what you are’, she repeated, ‘and I know what lies imprisoned within you. Soul-keeper, binder of lost men, hunter of a hidden angel.’

Now it was her turn to smile, and it seemed to Harlan more terrifying even than any expression he had yet seen on Brightwell’s face. Angeline’s eyes were bright, and her tone was mocking, almost triumphant.

‘Your days are numbered. He is coming for you. You’ll think that you’ve found him, but it’s he who will have found you. Leave here. Hide while you can. Dig yourself a hole and cover your head with dirt, and maybe he’ll pass you by. Maybe . . .’

‘Bitch,’ said Brightwell, but his voice was uncertain. ‘Your dying mind is spewing inanities.’

‘Old hateful thing, trapped in a rotting body,’ said Angeline, as if he had not spoken. ‘Pathetic soulless creature, stealing the souls of others for company. Run, but it will do you no good. He’ll find you. He’ll find you and destroy you, you and all the others like you. Fear him .’

The door to the room opened, and the nurse named Evelyn appeared, carrying a tray on which she had placed two cups, and a plate of cookies. She stopped short at the sight of Brightwell.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Get help,’ said Harlan, rising from his chair. ‘Now!’

Evelyn dropped the tray and ran. Seconds later, an alarm began to sound. Brightwell turned to face Harlan.

‘This isn’t over,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe what you told me about that money. I’ll be back, and maybe I’ll steal what’s left of your wife and carry her in me, once I’ve finished with you.’

With that he swept by Harlan, Angeline’s bell-like laughter following him. Although the home had instantly been locked down no trace of him was found in the building, or the grounds, or in the town.

‘The police came,’ said Marielle, ‘but my father said that he didn’t know what the man wanted. He’d simply entered my mother’s room and found this Brightwell leaning over her. When the police tried to question my mother, she was already gone, and she never spoke again. The end came quickly for her after that. My father told Paul about what had happened, and they kept waiting for Brightwell to return. Then Paul died and it was just my father who was left to face him. But Brightwell never came back.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because the last word that my mother whispered to my father after that man fled was your name – “When it comes down, tell the detective. Tell Charlie Parker.” – and that, in turn, was the last thing that he whispered to me after he told us the story of the plane in the woods. He wanted you to hear this story, Mr Parker. That’s why we came. And now you know.’

Around us music played, and people talked, and ate, and drank, but we were no part of it. We were cocooned in our corner, surrounded by the silk-wrapped forms of the dead.

‘You knew who this man Brightwell was, didn’t you?’ said Ernie. ‘I saw it on your face the first time we described him to you.’