‘These people,’ the detective says. ‘The victims. You knew their psychiatric histories.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you select them?’
There were many answers to this. ‘We selected them because they all made a deal with the devil.’
The detective looks at his hands for a moment, then back at Ruby. His eyes are cold jade stones in the candlelight. ‘And you collected what the devil was owed.’
‘Yes. It was the only way to rid my son of the demons he has carried all these years.’
Night after night, after Ruby prayed, she had read the transcripts of Dr Goodwin’s consultations with her patients. She had been privy to all their thoughts, their desires, their shame, their guilt. She had seen inside their souls, all of them children of disobedience. The young girl had asked the devil to stop the abuse she was suffering at the hands of the building’s superintendent, the coupling that had produced the baby. Ruby had visited the building earlier in the day and granted Adria’s wish. Edward Turchek would no longer abuse anyone.
Ruby did not hurt Adria Rollins.
The young man who was a police officer, the one called Daniel, had told Dr Goodwin that he would do anything if his HIV did not become full-blown AIDS. It did not. He paid.
The old pedophile said he would do anything to not have to go back to prison. He got probation. He, too, paid.
‘Why DeRon Wilson?’ the detective asks.
‘Who?’
‘The man at St Simeon’s. The man who took Gabriel.’
‘A thief is a thief,’ Ruby says. ‘He made his deal the moment he held out his hand for golden coins. When you told Dr Goodwin about your relationship to the boy, and why you were trying to save him, we knew you would do anything for him.’
The detective glances at the young boy, and back to her. ‘So, this has all been about the preacher?’
‘Yes.’
‘All of this was designed to get him out of prison?’
‘Not all of it.’
The detective glances around the vast expanse of the basement room. ‘And there are just two churches left?’
‘Yes. Just two.’
‘Will we be going somewhere?’
‘No,’ Ruby says. ‘This church merged with another years ago. It must all end in this place, at this time.’
Ruby considers the detective for a few moments. She has seen his face over the years, in her mind, in her prayers. The face of St Michael the Archangel. There is no doubting his strength.
‘You are the last of your kind,’ she says. ‘You are the last saint.’
The man shakes his head. ‘No.’
Ruby stands, listens to the ancient stone walls. Something is happening. She feels a stirring within. ‘You have brought him here?’
‘Yes,’ the detective says. ‘He’s in the next room.’
‘My son is here, too. It is time they met as men. A boy should know his father, don’t you think?’
The detective says nothing.
Ruby smoothes her hair, then instantly berates herself for this small weakness. It has been so many years since she has seen the Preacher. The last time was when he was standing on that carrousel.
Frailty, thy name is woman.
‘Please bring him to me,’ she says.
The detective stands, crosses the room, opens the door, and steps into the darkness.
SIXTY
Byrne lifted Roland Hannah to his feet. He walked him across the large basement room, toward the candlelight. Hannah’s hands were bound behind him, his mouth gagged.
When they reached the circle of light Byrne uncuffed the man’s hands, sat him on the old wooden chair. He removed the gag from Hannah’s mouth, sat down next to him. Byrne looked at Gabriel. The boy was crying.
While he was gone the woman removed her dark coat. Dressed in a flowing white gown, she now sat next to Gabriel. Around her waist was a corded white belt. In her lap were a pair of golden knives with razor-sharp edges.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire … and white raiment.
Roland Hannah cocked his head, as if he’d suddenly heard something.
‘Ruby,’ he said.
Mary Longstreet blushed. ‘Preacher,’ she replied. ‘How did you know it was me?’
Roland Hannah smiled. His teeth were small and yellowed. ‘A flower does not lose its bouquet, does it?’
‘Only when it dies, I reckon.’
‘Even then it lingers.’
Mary Longstreet reddened even more deeply. She remained silent.
‘You have become a woman,’ Roland said.
‘A long time ago.’
‘How long has it been?’
Mary Longstreet looked at the floor for a moment. ‘A spell, Preacher.’
Byrne noticed a slight change in the woman’s accent. The West Virginia had begun to creep back into her voice.
‘And your boy?’ Roland asked.
‘The devil is still inside him.’
Roland Hannah said nothing. Without the dark amber glasses, the man’s eye sockets were deep, scabrous holes in the candlelight.
They sat, the four of them, in a circle. Every so often Byrne would glance at Gabriel. The boy looked small, and terribly frightened. His hands were shaking.
Mary Longstreet gestured to a room off the large space that was the basement of the cathedral. ‘That room yonder,’ she said to Byrne. ‘It must happen there.’
‘Beneath the sacrarium,’ Byrne said.
‘Yes, sir.’
The sacrarium, Byrne now knew, was the sink in which all consecrated items had to be washed. What flowed from these sinks could not be treated as other waste waters. The marks on the lampposts were made from the earth beneath the churches, washed by decades and centuries of Christ’s blood and flesh.
Mary Longstreet stood, put both knives through the corded belt. Byrne saw that one of the knives sliced through the thin white fabric. A blood rosette bloomed. She had cut herself. She didn’t seem to feel it.
As she crossed behind Roland Hannah, Byrne noticed that she now had something else in her hand. At first, in the dim light, he didn’t know what it was. Soon he was able to focus. It was an antique hairbrush.
‘Remember how I used to brush your hair, Preacher?’ she asked.
To Byrne there was no question that this woman standing in front of him — a woman who had killed at least five people, a woman who now had a pair of razor-sharp daggers within reach — was regressing before his eyes. Her body language had become more adolescent, her voice had risen a half-octave. Her accent was becoming more Appalachian with every word. She pronounced the word hair as har. She was returning to the age she was when she met Roland Hannah for the first time.
‘I do, Mary Elizabeth,’ Roland said. ‘You still have your mammaw’s brush?’
Mary Elizabeth, Byrne thought. Not Ruby. Hannah was trying to manipulate her.
‘Yes, Preacher. Save for my boy, it’s all I have left. Ever what I’ve done, I’ve done for him.’
She began to slowly brush Roland Hannah’s hair.
‘Your hair’s gone right gray, Preacher. White, some.’
Roland Hannah smiled. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
Byrne looked at the brush, and understood. Mary Longstreet had kept it all these years. It was from this brush she’d gotten Roland Hannah’s hair, evidence she used as bookmarks in the missals. Evidence she used to get him out of prison, and into this chair.