The Revelation Room (The Ben Whittle Investigation Series Book 1) (19 page)

‘In. Now!’ Ebb shouted.

Tweezer crawled into the Revelation Room.

Ebb waited for him to get a good way inside and then
followed him in. Peace and serenity washed over him. This was his private space.
A place of renewal and rejuvenation. A place of solace.

The Infiltrator tried to speak, but his efforts were in
vain. Sister Alice had secured his lips with duct tape as instructed. The chair
rocked precariously.

‘See how the Infiltrator fights his fate, Brother Tweezer?’

Tweezer didn’t respond. He lay face down on the floor,
motionless. Ebb jabbed his backside with the rifle. ‘Come on, sleepyhead.
You’ll have plenty of time for rest later.’

Tweezer didn’t respond.

Ebb studied him with caution. Experience had taught him that
Satan could strike without warning. There was a slim possibility that Tweezer
might have passed out, but Ebb hadn’t built his empire by taking risks. He
aimed the rifle at Tweezer’s backside and pulled the trigger.

As expected, Tweezer was feigning unconsciousness. He roared
back to life, screaming and bucking like a bronco. The shot echoed around the
Revelation Room. Tweezer made frantic efforts to clutch his backside and eat
the concrete floor at the same time.

Ebb waited for him to settle down before trying to reason
with him. ‘Why do you fight me?’

Tweezer whined and sobbed like a child with a scraped knee.

Ebb looked at him. There was little point in engaging with a
burnt bunny. Not when he was destined to shame the shovel. ‘Have some dignity,
Brother Tweezer.’

Brother Marcus called out from the Cannabis Room. ‘Father?’

Ebb steadied himself. He’d never allowed Brother Marcus
access to the Revelation Room before. That privilege had only been afforded to
Brother Tweezer. Marcus had never enquired as to what lay beyond the locked
door in all his time tending to the Crop of Christ. Brother Marcus knew the
virtue of keeping his nose out of private affairs. But he might react
unfavourably. It wasn’t every day you met three skeletons and the Infiltrator.

‘Brother Marcus?’ Ebb called, in the calmest voice he could
muster under the circumstances.

‘Where are you, Father?’

‘I’m in here. Come on in.’

Brother Marcus walked into the Revelation Room with Max
panting and slobbering on the leash beside him. He stopped just inside the
door, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

Ebb pointed the rifle at the floor. ‘Welcome to the
Revelation Room.’

Marcus pointed at the Infiltrator. ‘Who’s that?’

‘The Infiltrator? I’m not sure. Brother Tweezer shot him.’

‘Shot him? Why?’

‘He was up a tree overlooking the courtyard. I suspect he’s
an agent of the Devil. Or a cop. Which amounts to the same thing in my book.’

‘A cop?’

‘Yes; a cop. Blue lights? Nee-naw, nee-naw?’

Marcus didn’t look as though he was catching on. ‘But why
would a cop be up a tree?’

Ebb ignored him. He didn’t have time to discuss the
Infiltrator right now. He walked over to the far wall where the three skeletons
were secured to their crosses with twine. Each skeleton had a small
leather-bound book perched in its ribcage documenting its life and association
with Ebb.

Marcus gawked at the skeleton with the pink wig and
sunglasses.

Ebb snapped his fingers and introduced Marcus to Brother
Gerald. ‘He died about a year before you arrived.’

‘Died?’ 

Ebb pointed the rifle at Brother Gerald’s pelvic area.
‘Guilty of the sin of homosexuality. Tweezer subjected him to death by a
thousand cuts.’

Marcus’s mouth hung open. Ebb’s mother would have said he
looked as if he was trying to catch flies. The man would certainly need to
sharpen up if he wanted to take Tweezer’s place as his right-hand man. There
was no room for faint hearts in leadership. ‘Do you know the principle of death
by a thousand cuts, Brother Marcus?’

Marcus shook his head. His eyes seemed to be drawn to Ebb’s
mother. Particularly the wig perched on her head.

Ebb ploughed on. ‘It’s an old remedy. You hoist the accused
up in a net so that tiny portions of his flesh are poking through the holes,
then you just chop away at the pieces of flesh until the job is done. Can’t say
for certain how many times Brother Gerald was actually cut. A thousand might be
stretching it a bit.’

Marcus looked from Ebb’s mother to the Infiltrator and then
back at Ebb’s mother.  

‘That man could certainly scream. Two barn owls left their
roosts that night, didn’t they, Brother Tweezer?’

Tweezer didn’t answer. He seemed too concerned with trying
to breathe and plug up the holes in his leaking body.

Ebb excused him on the grounds of compassion. ‘Brother
Gerald tried to seduce me.’

Marcus looked at Ebb with those peek-a-boo eyes. ‘Seduce
you?’

Ebb crossed himself and gazed at Brother Gerald’s grinning,
cavernous mouth. The mouth that had performed oral sex on him. The mouth that
had whispered promises of love. The mouth that had threatened to betray him
when Ebb had refused to acknowledge that they were an equal partnership. The
mouth that had made demands and threatened to take all his money and leave The
Sons and Daughters of Salvation. The mouth that had voiced suspicions about
Brother Cyril’s death after a blazing row had loosened his tongue.

‘I tried to save him, but he was beyond salvation.’

Marcus gawped at the skeleton. He pulled on the end of his
nose as if trying to flush thoughts from his brain.  

Ebb smiled. The Revelation Room was a lot to digest in one
sitting. Tweezer hadn’t reacted in any way to it, but then Tweezer was a
psychopath and a rapist.

Ebb didn’t think it prudent to tell Marcus that Brother
Gerald had rescued him from the streets and given him a home in his flat. Or
that Brother Gerald had educated him and taught him the importance of widening
his vocabulary. Or that he’d introduced him to religion and the art of
lovemaking. These facts were like discussing the foetus in relation to the man.
Important, but not necessary to know.

Brother Gerald had even sold his flat and persuaded Cyril
Penghilly that his rundown farm would be better served as a commune and a place
of worship. Brother Gerald had befriended Cyril in church after the farmer’s
wife had died, but Ebb hadn’t been interested in such trivialities. All he’d
been concerned with was making The Sons and Daughters of Salvation into the
thriving community it was today.

Ebb had been genuinely surprised the day Jesus had come to
him in the form of a water melon to tell him of Brother Gerald’s traitorous
nature and his propensity toward sin. Even more surprised when Jesus had
insisted he elicit a confession from Brother Gerald by tying him to the bed and
torturing him with a razor blade and battery acid. By the time they hoisted
Brother Gerald up in an old fishing net in the barn, the man had admitted to
the crimes of perversion, jealousy, greed and envy. Praise Jesus.

‘Things were good with Brother Gerald for a while. But when
Satan is buried deep within, I’m afraid there can only be one outcome. The
transformation was terrible to see. Terrible.’

Marcus held Max’s leash a little too tight for Ebb’s liking.
‘Let go of Max, Brother Marcus. You’re in danger of throttling her.’

Marcus dropped the leash. He looked as if he might be about
to throw up. Or run. Or challenge the very wisdom of Jesus Christ.

‘Are you okay?’

Marcus nodded. ‘Yes, Father. Just a bit—’

‘Shocked?’

‘A little, Father.’

‘Don’t be. Even I doubted Jesus’s wisdom at first. But He
does not lie. Take that poor wretch on the floor. What do you see, Brother
Marcus?’

‘Tweezer?’

‘What else?’

‘I see a man who’s badly wounded, Father.’

‘Do you take pity on him?’

‘A bit. I still don’t believe—’

Ebb held up a hand. ‘He tried to rape Madeline.’

‘I know, Father.’

‘Rape her and subject her to the most terrifying ordeal
imaginable. Now he garners pity, because that is always Satan’s trump card, is
it not?’

Marcus nodded.

‘So let’s not be fooled. The man is alive with demons, just
as Brother Gerald was before him. We must root out evil as we find it before it
takes hold and destroy us all. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Father.’

Marcus’s eyes seemed to contradict his words. He’d have to
watch him very carefully indeed. He moved on to Cyril. ‘This is Brother Cyril.
He wasn’t a
member
of The Sons and Daughters of Salvation. It might be
prudent to describe him more as a founder.’

Marcus stared at the skeleton. ‘What did he do wrong?’

Ebb was in no mood to go into detail. He didn’t bear Cyril
Penghilly any malice. It had simply been a clash of ideals. Cyril believed the
farm belonged to him. Ebb didn’t. What Cyril failed to remember was that Ebb
had given him the sum of eighty thousand pounds to secure the services of the
farm. Well, technically Brother Gerald had given him the money from the sale of
his flat, but you didn’t want to split hairs on a bald head.

‘He wanted to go east, I wanted to go west. He died without
fuss or fanfare.’

Marcus looked at the skeleton as if trying to seek the truth
from its bones.

Ebb moved on and pointed the rifle at the skeleton in the
pink wig. ‘And this is the mother of all creation.’

Marcus stared at the wig. ‘Who is it?’

Ebb smiled and shook his head. ‘I shall discuss her in more
detail when we have more time.’

‘It’s his fucking mother,’ Tweezer shouted. ‘His own fucking
mother.’

Ebb pointed the rifle back at Tweezer. ‘Lies fall from your
tongue like confetti at a wedding, my friend.’

Tweezer propped himself up on one elbow. ‘I’m not lying.
It’s his own mother. He battered her to death with a shovel.’

Ebb considered emptying the rifle into Tweezer. But bullets
were too good to waste on his sorry soul. ‘Perhaps I should set Maxine upon you
to flush out the truth?’

‘It’s the truth.’

Ebb turned his attention back to Marcus. ‘God will be the
judge of him.’

Marcus bowed his head. ‘Yes, Father.’

Ebb tried to justify his decision to trust Brother Marcus.
He was a good drug dealer and a competent musician. He was also fearful of God.
But was he up to the mark for dealing with the finer points of faith? The plain
truth of it was this: at the moment, it was a straight bat between Marcus and
Bubba to take over Tweezer’s duties and responsibilities, but the thought of
Bubba trying to assist with exorcisms was too comical to contemplate. What
would Bubba do? Grunt Satan into submission?

Ebb walked to the far corner of the room and rested the gun
against the wall. He then picked up his shovel. It was a pity he hadn’t been
able to retain the services of the shovel that had shamed his mother. That
would have been the icing on the wig. But this shovel still felt good in his
hands. Weighty. Balanced. Bubba had sharpened the edges with an angle grinder
in the workshop. Sharpened them to guillotine status.

He walked over to where Tweezer lay mewling on the floor
like a tomcat that had just had its balls bitten by a shit-house rat. Ebb
hummed. A tuneless hum, born of contentment rather than melody. He liked the
analogy of Tweezer and a tomcat. Unfortunately for Tweezer, his strutting days
were over. He’d pounced on the wrong bird when he’d assaulted Madeline.

Ben lay on his bunk. Every bone in
his body felt broken, every joint on fire, every nerve on high alert. The dark
accentuated his suffering. He had no idea of the time or how long he’d been
lying there. He wanted to get up and try to get his joints moving, but pain
pinned him to the bed. Crucified him, you might say.  

His father was dead; he’d been living next door to death
when he’d interrupted youth club with that awful phone call. What Ben couldn’t
understand was what had possessed him to think that he could somehow rescue
him. Now they were
all
going to die, right here on this stinking farm.
Cause of death: stupidity.

There was a sliver of moon framed in the sash window. It
looked like a small ‘C’ carved upon the black canvas of sky. ‘C’ for
‘condemned’. Ben arched his back to relieve the stress on the base of his
spine. The movement ignited flames in his tortured limbs. He sank back onto the
lumpy mattress and tried to relax. Tried to breathe into the pain the way
Pastor Tom had taught him to all those years ago when he’d jumped from the
conker tree. The pain didn’t seem to have much regard for relaxation
techniques.

He gasped for air in the stifling heat of the room. He
always slept with his bedroom window open at home. His father used to complain
about letting in moths and bugs at night, but Ben didn’t care. He’d rather be
attacked by a moth than die of suffocation.

He turned his head to one side. He could just about see
Bubba silhouetted in the dim light of the moon. Bubba seemed to be looking
right back at him. ‘Are you awake?’

Bubba nodded.

Ben eased himself over onto his right side. He squeezed his
eyes shut and then opened them again. ‘Why can’t you talk?’

Bubba didn’t respond.

Ben’s mother would have asked Bubba if the cat had got his
tongue. They had a cat at home. CJ. No one quite knew why he was called CJ, but
CJ didn’t care. He killed things for fun at night and came home for his
breakfast in the morning just the same.

Ben suddenly realised how dumb the question was to a man who
couldn’t speak. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’

Bubba grunted.

‘Do you want to try and communicate with me?’

Bubba nodded again

‘I’ll ask you some questions. Just nod your head for “yes”
and shake your head for “no”. Okay?’

Bubba sat up on his bunk and nodded.

‘Ebb said you worked for Cyril when he took over the farm. Is
that right?’

Bubba nodded.

‘Ebb said Cyril had an accident with a tractor. Is that
right?’

Bubba shook his head.

‘What happened to him?’

No answer.

‘Did Ebb do something to Cyril?’

Yes
.

‘Did Ebb kill him?’

Yes
.

The insides of Ben’s things went clammy, like when he was a
kid and about to throw up. ‘Did you see him kill Cyril?’

Bubba nodded and thumped the wooden bed frame.

Ben forced himself to get up. He hobbled across the room to
Bubba’s bunk. ‘Why did Ebb kill him?’

Bubba shrugged.

‘Did Ebb do something to you?’

Bubba nodded.

‘What did he do?’

Bubba pointed inside his mouth and then rested his
forefinger on his lips.

‘Sweet Jesus. He cut out your tongue?’

Bubba nodded.

Ben reached out and touched the big man’s shoulder. ‘I’m so
sorry.’

The moon cast an eerie glow across Bubba’s face. Tears
shimmered in his eyes. He drew his index finger across his throat.  

Ben didn’t need words to understand Bubba’s simple message.
They were all going to die.

Bubba stood up and walked over to the window.

Ben stood by the bunk and held onto the frame for support.
He wanted to tell Bubba that it would be all right if they all stuck together.
If they made a plan. Together they could be strong. Ebb had control because
individually they were weak. If solidarity could bring down the Iron Curtain,
toppling Ebb ought to be a doddle.

So what are you going to do, smart arse?
 

Ben tried to force his mind to conjure an answer, but the
simple truth was this: everyone was under Ebb’s control. It would take a team
of psychiatrists months, possibly years, to untangle the web of lies which Ebb
had spun to gain that control.

Come on, Stutter-buck, what you going to do?

Images swirled in his head. Thirteen again. Stuck in the
conker tree. Kids standing around the tree like a lynch mob in an old Western
movie. Kids throwing sticks at him. Throwing conkers at him. Calling him
“Stutter-buck”. Calling him “chickenshit”. Calling him “yellow-belly”.

Come on, Stutter-buck, whatcha gonna do? Stay up in that
tree all night?

Such a long way down. Fifteen feet, give or take a tall
tale, but from where he was standing, at least a hundred. Two hundred, even.

 ‘L-leave me alone.’

It had been all right climbing the tree. One of the kids,
Charlie Cory, had helped him up onto the first branch by lifting him onto his
shoulders. They’d all promised to help him down. They’d made him feel
important. Like Superman for the day. But worse than that was the awful feeling
of being fooled. He’d thought climbing the conker tree would help him to be accepted
by them. He’d been dumb enough to believe that the stuttering kid with the mop
of frizzy hair could be one of the normal guys. Wrong. He would never be one of
the normal guys. Not then. Not now. Not ever.

Come on, Stutter-buck. Jump. Use your hair as a
parachute.

‘St-st-st-stop it.’

He sounds like a helicopter. Time for lift-off,
Stutter-buck.

‘I c-c-can’t.’

He needed to pee. His bladder felt like a swollen river
about to burst its banks.

Do you want mummy to come and hold your hand,
Stutter-buck?

‘L-l-l-leave me alone.’

Stutter-buck, Stutter-buck, useless fuck…

His father would be waiting at home for him. Grumpy old
daddy bear waiting to pounce on him if he arrived so much as a minute late.
And, boy, was he going to be late. To add to his woes, his new trousers would
be all messed up if he jumped out of the tree. God help anyone who broke the
eleventh commandment of Geoff Whittle: thou shalt not commit carelessness.

Ben held onto Bubba’s bunk like it was a giant crutch. He
was nothing more than a useless Stutter-buck that was too chicken to jump out
of a conker tree. Too chicken to fight back. Too chicken to reclaim his
identity from the thieves who’d stolen it.

The other kids had all gone home for tea around five,
leaving Stutter-buck glued to the branch of that conker tree. High above him,
birds twittered and poked fun at him long before social media cottoned onto the
idea.

Stutter-buck didn’t jump from that tree.
Not on your
nelly,
as his father was apt to say. No; cowardly custard, Stutter-buck, slipped
off the branch after his legs had gone as numb as his brain. He slammed into
the ground and fractured his right knee on impact. Pastor Tom had found him
lying at the base of that tree an hour later, sobbing his heart out like a
little baby.

Ben looked at Bubba. ‘I never jumped. I s-slipped. I’m a
c-c-coward. A useless c-coward.’