Main made himself some coffee and sat down on the couch to drink it. He wanted to call the police and give them a description of the four men but common sense prevailed. He decided that it would be best to wait until morning. The police were becoming used to his harassing them for action and he didn’t want them dismissing what he had to say as the ravings of a dishevelled drunk in the early hours of the morning.
Main actually felt stone cold sober despite having had a lot to drink earlier on — and that seemed like a year ago — but it would be better if he were to go to the police when he appeared calm and rational. At the moment, the bathroom mirror said that he’d fought a war single handed and lost — the whites of his eyes were appallingly bloodshot. He found some eye lotion in the bathroom cabinet. It had been there since last summer. Mary and Simon had both suffered from hay fever. He paused for a moment with the bottle in his hand but then opened it quickly to avoid maudlin reflection. He wet two swabs of cotton wool with the cool fluid and sat back down on the couch to apply one to each eye.
As he sat there in silence, the pain, discomfort and humiliation the evening had brought all took second place to the knowledge that he had found the men who had disinterred his son. It was true they had got away but only for the moment. The fact that he had found them at all proved his hypothesis. They must live locally. The police would find them and discover what had happened to Simon. His sense of hopelessness had gone.
Main started to go over everything he had heard the men say. There was one little thing kept niggling away at him. They had kept insisting that he ‘had got it all wrong’. What had he got all wrong? It wasn’t just the words, it was the expression on their faces when they said it — and both had said it. They had looked aggrieved, even innocent but they hadn’t tried to deny that they were there that night. So what did it mean?
They had referred to McKirrop as a ‘lying old bastard’ and he assumed that they had been referring to McKirrop’s tale of bravery in the cemetery but now it worried him. Was there something else McKirrop could have been lying about? Surely McKirrop couldn’t have been the one who had disinterred Simon?
Tiredness began to overwhelm Main, but before giving in he forced himself to write down everything that had been said and as detailed a description as he could remember of the four men. He found no trouble with that. The faces of at least two of them would be with him until his dying day. He wished he could draw, but he couldn’t; It would have to be a verbal description that he gave the police.
Ryan Lafferty turned over in his sleep for the umpteenth time and finally conceded that he was not going to get a good night’s rest. He had not really been sleeping at all but had been caught in the uneasy no man’s land between sleep and wakefulness where troubles lie in wait like beasts in the forest. His earlier reading had compounded the problem. He had been going through a chapter in his witchcraft book about Aleister Crowley, perhaps the most infamous witch of the twentieth century.
Crowley, once labelled the wickedest man in the world, had been included in the book on Scottish witchcraft by virtue of his connection with Boleskin House, on the shores of Loch Ness. It was written that, on one occasion, Crowley and his disciples had set out to raise Pan. He and one other man had been locked away in a room to perform the satanic ceremony while the others had to wait until morning before opening the door. When they did, they found Crowley a ‘jibbering lunatic’ and his colleague dead.
Lafferty opened his eyes and looked up at the patterns on the ceiling of his room. The shadow of the bare branches of the beech tree outside wove an intricate moving pattern when the wind moved them. They looked like a spider’s web about to ensnare him.
The telephone rang, startling him. He reached out his hand, trying to think which of his parishioners it could be. He could not think of any who were seriously ill.
Jean O’Donnell’s voice brought him to full wakefulness with the urgency of her tone.
“Father? It’s Mary!”
Lafferty propped himself up on one elbow. He said, “What about her? What’s happened?”
“Oh Father...” Jean O’Donnell broke down in sobs.
“Take your time and tell me, what’s happened?”
“An accident, Father. There’s been an accident.”
“On the bike?”
“Yes. She’s bad Father. She’s really bad.”
“Where is she now?”
“In the Infirmary. The police have just told me.”
“What exactly did they say, Jean?”
Jean O’Donnell sobbed again before answering, “That she’s been involved in a serious road accident. She has bad head injuries. She’s in something called the Head... tr...”
“The Head Trauma Unit?”
“That sounds like it.”
“That’s the best place for her Jean. They’re experts on head injuries up there.”
“Oh Father...”
“I know Jean. Are you going to the hospital just now?”
“Joe’s just getting dressed.”
“I’m on my way. I’ll see you there.”
When Lafferty arrived at the hospital he found Jean O’Donnell and her husband already there. They were huddled together in the otherwise empty waiting room.
“No, don’t get up,” urged Lafferty as he approached. He drew one of the plastic chairs out of the line and sat down facing the couple, leaning forward with his arms on his knees. “Any news?” he asked.
“We’re just waiting for the doctor to come down.”
Lafferty held out his hands and took a hand each from Joe and Jean in his own. He said a prayer and Jean said ‘Amen’ at the end but Joe just stared at the floor as if in a world of his own. The sound of footsteps made Lafferty turn his head. A young woman in a white coat was coming towards them. He stood up.
The woman looked at Lafferty and then at the couple. She said, “Mr and Mrs O’Donnell? I’m Doctor Lasseter.”
Sarah turned to look at Lafferty and Jean O’Donnell said, “This is Father Lafferty, Doctor, our parish priest.”
The name registered with Sarah and Lafferty smiled at the recognition in her eyes. He said, “I think we’ve spoken on the telephone, Doctor.”
“How is she?” asked Jean.
“Not very well at all I’m afraid,” replied Sarah. “She’s on a life-support machine at the moment. It’s too early to say how severe her head injuries are, but I think it would be foolish to give you false hope. She’s very badly hurt.”
Jean started to sob into her handkerchief and Joe wrapped his arm more tightly around her.
“Do you know exactly what happened, Doctor?” asked Lafferty gently.
Sarah said, “I understand from my colleagues in A&E that she was the pillion passenger on a motor-cycle. There was an accident involving another vehicle. Mary was catapulted off the machine.” Sarah’s voice fell to a whisper. “I believe she collided with a tree.”
Joe O’Donnell who had stared resolutely at the floor throughout the conversation suddenly looked up and said, “I’ll kill the bastard! I’ll take his bloody life!”
Jean restrained him and Lafferty put a hand on his shoulder too. Sarah said softly, “If it’s the young man who was riding the motor cycle you’re talking about, I’m afraid he’s dead. He was killed outright.”
Joe O’Donnell put his hands over his face and shook his head as anger, grief and frustration threatened to overwhelm him. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed through his fingers. “I just...”
“Take it easy,” said Lafferty gently.
“Can we see her?” asked Jean.
“Of course,” replied Sarah. “But she is on a life-support machine.”
“What does that mean exactly?” asked Jean.
“Quite simply it means that a machine is breathing for her. We place an airway tube into her throat and she is ventilated artificially by a respirator. We also have tubes going down into her stomach and another tube going into a vein so that we can feed and medicate her. So be prepared.”