Silencing the Dead by Will Harker (ereader ebook .txt) 📕

Genevieve held the lighter against her chest and struck the wheel.

CHAPTER FORTY

The glare of the inferno accompanied me into the darkness. I remembered lunging across the Waltzer’s revolve, grasping at a piece of tarpaulin that covered one of the gondolas, wrenching it free of its fastening. Already, Genevieve Bell was aflame. A vortex of fire engulfed her body, catching at the post that rose behind her like the stake in a witch’s pyre. It could only have been seconds before I reached her, but the accelerant was working fast. Her features could barely be glimpsed inside that raging cowl.

I had a vague idea of someone shouting my name before I hugged the tarpaulin around her. That was when I felt Genevieve’s body collapse and the fire catch at my own clothes. My injured knee twisted as we fell together, a jolt of internal pain vying for my attention against the searing kiss of the flames. My head must have struck something, perhaps the lip of the revolve, and almost at once my vision tunnelled. I thought I could make out a hand lying against my chest. Crabbed, unmoving, blemished from birth, wreathed in fire, the flesh sloughing from it like the wax of a melted candle.

Then, darkness.

Except not quite. Nothing came to haunt my dreams—not the faces of the victims from Bradbury End, not the demonic form of Peter Garris, no poppet dolls or slaughtered fortune tellers, no bloodied tarot cards or burning witches, not even the shattered corpse of Lenny Kerrigan clawing its way from beneath the marigolds. Instead, a simple white candle fluttered in the void.

It faded only as the light of the hospital ward broke in upon me.

“Take it easy, Scott. Here, have a sip of water.”

I blinked up at Thomas Tallis as he held the plastic cup to my lips. He looked as youthful and unruffled as ever, just a black smudge marking his chin. I wondered if it might be some atomised remnant of Genevieve Bell. The water was warm and yet to my parched throat it felt like heaven. Adjusting to the glare, my gaze played around the curtained-off cubicle, taking in my bandaged left leg that poked from under the bedsheet, a bulge the size of a tangerine at my kneecap.

“You’ve been having adventures before last night,” Tallis said, replacing the cup on the bedside cabinet and folding his arms. “Care to tell me about them…? No? Well, never mind. The doctors say that, with a little physio, that knee should heal up just fine. Your hand and neck, however?”

My eyes drifted to my bandaged right hand. I didn’t feel any pain, but then I imagined there was a drip somewhere feeding the good stuff into my veins.

“Some scarring, I’m afraid,” Tallis murmured.

I shrugged, then pushed with my right leg, raising myself up the bed while the inspector rearranged my pillows.

“Genevieve?” I croaked.

He stood back and refolded his arms. “She didn’t make it.”

I swallowed. “She’d had her entire existence torn away from her. The person she’d been was a lie and the one she became afterwards had only one purpose, to destroy every trace of that old life. When that was accomplished?” I locked eyes with Tallis. “She never thought she’d get away with it.”

“I don’t think she wanted to. She had no idea how to build a new life for herself.” He gripped the back of the plastic chair that stood beside the bed. “Her mother’s being looked after, by the way. I suppose she’ll end up in some kind of care home.”

“Just as Evangeline suggested.”

“Thank you for the call, Scott,” he said. “You made the right choice in the end. Course, I would have preferred you to contact me with the full details of your theory so that we could’ve brought her in for an interview, but I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies. When you’re up to it, I’ll need you down at the station to make a statement. Maybe we should talk beforehand, just to get our stories straight? As I remember it, a disturbed Genevieve Bell sought you out to make a personal confession because she was overwhelmed by the guilt of killing your aunt? Sound about right?”

“Thank you, Tom.” I nodded.

He was about to pull aside the curtain when he looked back. “I met your boyfriend, by the way. Harry? He’s been here ever since you were brought in last night. We got to chatting in the waiting room. I understand you’ve been going through a bit of a bumpy patch. Just so you know, I didn’t say anything about that drink. I’m not sure you really meant it, and anyway, the fact is, I don’t swing your way. I actually don’t swing any way, if you catch my drift. Relationships, romance, dating?” He made a face. “Not really my thing. Ah, and here he is.”

Tallis pulled the curtain aside and Haz stepped into the cubicle.

“I’ll leave you to it,” the inspector said. “Goodbye, for now, Scott Jericho.”

Haz stood there for a moment, those big jade eyes looking everywhere except at me. His long, nervous fingers twined together as a single tear tracked down the side of his face. He rubbed at it with the back of his hand, smiled a little, then came and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Haz,” I whispered. “Look at me.”

At last, he did, and laughing and crying, brushed back my curls. “You bloody idiot. Will you stop trying to get yourself killed?”

I took his hand and kissed the bowl of his palm. “I’m ready to talk now, if you are?”

“Do you know what’s been happening with me?” he asked.

I glanced at the sleeve of his canary-coloured coat, finding the ghostly mark of spilled wax on the sleeve. “You’ve been lighting candles?” I said softly, remembering something Miss Rowell had said about the white prayer candles she’d found in the cellar of the rectory. “In memory of your dad?”

His fingertips brushed the pale