Murderers Anonymous (38 page)

Someone knew where they were, however. And he lay ahead and waited, his business already taken care of.

'Bloody hell, Mulholland,' said Proudfoot eventually, deciding it was time to be at least part Jade Weapon. 'Maybe we should just go back and wait at the car. One of these rare bastards who keep driving by and completely ignoring us is bound to stop some time.'

He stopped and turned, let her make up the few yards.

'It's bloody miles,' he said. Not angry, not frustrated. Face a blank look of determination; a determination to not care. 'We'll get there, and if you blow your cover with this lassie you're trailing, who gives a shit? You're quitting the force anyway, aren't you?'

She lifted her shoulders. The rain ran off her hair and down her forehead, cascading off the end of her nose. A steady stream of water. She was wearing his jacket, which had long since given up the ghost and was leaking water like the ill-fated 1970's prototype PG Tips overcoat.

'Look at you,' she said. 'Standing there in a jumper. You'll catch your death, for fuck's sake. And I'm not much better in this thing. We shouldn't have even started to walk in the first place. Let's just turn back and go and wait in the motor. It's miles to the house.'

He stared through the rain. She looked gorgeous. Cold face, water streaming all over it – vulnerable, beautiful, gorgeous. And somehow unattainable with it, despite their affections of earlier. And if she was vulnerable, was he the one to protect her?

Catch his death? Might be an idea. He could get ill with respiratory problems, be really cool for a few days like Val Kilmer in
Tombstone
, and then die. There was a way to go.

Didn't say a word. Just turned back and kept going the way he had been. Proudfoot considered turning away, but did not deliberate long. She couldn't lose him now. And so off she went, head down, charging after him. They could go together to that bloodied police station in the sky, in apathy; cold and wet and hypothermic.

'You're being an Advert Man, you know,' she said, drawing up alongside him.

Head down, he didn't even bother to lift it. Overcome once more by misery, melancholy and grumpiness.

'What?'

'An Advert Man. You know what men are always like in adverts. Stupid. Can't put the toaster on, can't work out how to get stains off the carpet. Can't put their underwear on the right way round. That's what you're like just now. Pig-headedly, blindly, ridiculously, stupidly heading to some place that's bloody miles away, even though you know it's wrong.' Laughing as she said it. Had given in to the rain and the possibility of dying as a result of wet clothes. Started banging her hand against the side of her head and saying 'daaaaaawwhhh'.

Mulholland shook his head and trudged on. Ignoring her, although a smile came to his face for the first time since they'd left the riverbank.

'And you'd be the Advert Woman, I suppose? Smooth, intelligent, cool as fuck and worth it?'

'Too right. Glad you know me so well.'

Equanimity resumed, Mulholland shivered with the cold. The day was turning to night, the temperature beginning to drop, the rain pelting down. His clothes clung to his skin and he dreamt of a hot drink beside a warm fire.

'Why do we always end up bloody freezing?' he asked.

She shivered too, as if being reminded of the cold had increased her sense of it.

'Must be fate,' she said.

Mulholland looked up and stopped immediately. Her head down, bent into the wind, she hardly noticed.

'There's bloody fate,' he said, as the killer's trap opened up before him, large and inviting. They had walked along the given road, and now they would drink in their salvation, and they were in no fit state to see the lair into which they were about to walk.

She stopped and followed his gaze. They had turned a corner, and there in the distance, some half-mile down a long straight stretch of road, was a house, lights in the windows glowing bright.

Relief, redemption, they were saved.

'Think there'll be room at the inn?' asked Proudfoot, as they began the trudge down the road, feet squelching noisily on tarmac.

'Don't give a shit,' said Mulholland. 'If they don't let us in we'll arrest them. Got my badge in that jacket pocket.'

'Thought you'd resigned?'

'I did. But I still have my badge. Thought I'd hang on to it for a year or two.'

And on they plodded through the rain. Trees at the side of the road thinned out, there was no protection at all, and so the rain thundered with unbroken intensity. A wall of water, spanking down in glorious sovereignty, creating pools and small lakes all over. But on they went regardless. The lights got slowly closer, the shape of the buildings ahead became clearer.

A large, detached house, late nineteenth century. And the closer they got, the more clearly they could see the spire of the church which lay some few hundred yards behind the house. A classical spire, reaching up into the gloom, atop a large church, hundreds of years old.

Proudfoot saw it first, Mulholland's eyes rooted to the mud and water, and occasionally the beacon of the lights in front of them.

'See the church?' asked Proudfoot.

'Church?' he said without looking up. 'Think you're dreaming.'

'Could mean that this is a manse. They're bound to ask us in and give us a nice bowl of soup.'

Mulholland's mouth hung open, breathing hard, swallowing rainwater.

'Don't give a shit,' he said. 'It can be a minister, a priest or a bloody hockey-mask-wearing psychopath. I'm going in there, I'm sitting down in front of the fire and I'm having a cup of tea. Don't give a shit if it's a manse.'

'That's the spirit,' she said, plodding after him through the loch.

***

Another ten minutes and they found themselves standing outside the door of the Old Manse. Shoes sodden, clothes clinging to them, still in the belly of the storm.

'Your shoes are soaking,' she said, looking down at his feet.

'Aye,' he said. 'Should have kept my waders on.'

'Aye,' she said. 'Shouldn't have left them behind that tree either. The river'll be up and away with them.'

'I'd trade them for a cup of tea at the moment.'

The door opened. A man in his slippered feet stood in the way of the light. C&A slacks, a crew-neck jumper his gran must have knitted for him a long time ago, under which could be seen the edge of his dog collar; a shock of black hair, kind face, blue eyes, white teeth. Young and old at the same time.

'The Lord bless you!' he said, a look of horror on his face. 'What a night to be out. Come in, come in. You can't be standing out there, whoever you are.'

Mulholland and Proudfoot dripped into the house and stood in the middle of the hallway, water pouring off them onto the carpet. Hit by a marvellous wave of warmth and the smell of home cooking. Pictures of rivers on the walls, thick patterned carpet, stairs leading up into the heights of the old manse. Low lights and an air of comfort.

'What has happened to you, in God's name?' asked the vicar. Fussing about, without actually doing anything. 'You're not from around here?'

'We were fishing,' said Mulholland. 'Car broke down, and there was no one at the petrol station.'

He could see into the sitting room, where a fire blazed in the hearth. A cup of tea, something – anything – to eat, and a seat beside the fire. Not even thinking of how they were going to get back.

'At the old river way by?' said the minister, pointing in the direction from which they'd just come. 'That's a fine distance, indeed. You must have been walking for an age.'

He gazed at them for another few seconds; soaked to the skin, water dripping, shoes creating massive puddles on the floor. Mulholland wondered where the wife was; the creator, he presumed, of the wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen.

'Look, you can't just stand there, the two of you. You get your shoes off, because if you walk through the house like yon my wife'll have a fit, God bless her. Jings! I'll go up to the bathroom and get a couple of towels and then I'll see about getting you some clothes.'

And off he went, mincing up the stairs, muttering about the weather and the night and the folly of fishing. They watched him go, then went about removing their shoes and socks without spreading water over a radius of three or four miles.

'Nice old guy,' said Proudfoot. Wouldn't have been surprised to have been chased from the front door, minister or not.

'Recognise him?' asked Mulholland, voice a little lower.

She looked up the stairs, although he had now disappeared into the bathroom.

'Don't think so. Should I?'

'Not sure. Just something about him, about the face. Might have seen him before. Maybe on a case, maybe somewhere else, don't know.'

'Everyone looks like someone,' said Proudfoot, getting to the root of most appearance-based relationships. 'Or maybe he appeared on one of those docu-soaps on TV. Everybody else has.'

The minister appeared at the top of the stairs again, clutching a great pile of thick, cushiony towels, behind which he minced back down the stairs. Shoes removed and dumped in a pile on the welcome mat, they watched him come. Wondering what it was that was creating the smell, and hoping they were going to be offered some of it.

'There you go,' said the minister, handing out towels all round. Light pink for Proudfoot, dark blue for Mulholland. Old-fashioned was the Reverend Rolanoytez.

'Now you two get in there in front of that fire and get out of those wet things. I'll go and get the kettle on, then I'll find you some dry clothes to wear. If only mother hadn't gone out tonight, she'd be in her element. Still, she's left me with a fine rabbit stew for myself, and I'm sure there'll be enough to go around.'

'Thanks a lot,' said Mulholland, 'we really appreciate this.'

'Don't be daft, laddie,' said the minister. 'Don't be daft. The Lord smiles upon us all.' And off he minced towards the kitchen. They watched him go, then dripped their way into the sitting room.

A warm room in every way. Red carpet; walls lined with books and hung with old paintings; velvet curtains; fire roaring and the dinner table set for one, with a small candle burning. And they immediately began to strip off with no sense of embarrassment that he might walk in on them. They were freezing and this indeed was a Godsend.

Clothes off and dumped in a heap, and within a minute they were huddled in front of the fire, wrapped in light pink and dark blue, watching the flames and feeling the warmth and life return to their bodies.

Backs to the door, they didn't see the Reverend Rolanoytez make his way along the hall and back up the stairs. Small mincing steps, until he got to the main bedroom. Flicked the switch and in he went in bright light, hardly giving a thought to the two visitors downstairs. Except he had to find them something to wear, something not too incongruous. The younger ones today, he thought wrongly, they'd want something they liked, regardless of the situation.

'What have we got, then?' he said quietly, and began to rake through the two sets of clothes drawers. 'What have we got?'

Then he started to hum a quiet tune as he went about his business.
Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart...

Lying on the bed behind him, the real Reverend Rolanoytez and the dear Margaret Rolanoytez said nothing. Had they just been bound and gagged, perhaps they might have tried to make some noise; if they'd dared. But as an extra precaution against the possibility of them alerting the outside world, their throats had been slit, and both lay dead; eyes and mouths open, staring wildly up at the ceiling, faces blue.