“Then what are the other two?” asked May. For once he felt no desire to ridicule Maggie and her colleagues.
“The readings are not always literal.” Maggie watched her friend as she wiped her bloodstained hand with a cloth and fumbled with her hair band, as disoriented as a patient emerging from anesthetic. “You have to look beyond the corporeal to find another interpretation. These corridors might represent states of mind. They are perhaps intended for you to find a path through disorder. Or they may serve to remind you of something only half remembered, some signifying event that you have tried long and hard to bury deep within your subconscious. There are other times and places than those our bodies lead us to.”
Outside the army truck, the freezing brightness of the snow and the glaring white sky broke the spell that had held May for the past few minutes. Blinking in the light he felt foolish, ashamed that age and doubt had led him to believe the things he had ridiculed in his youth.
“There is help on the way, but your lives will be endangered before it can arrive,” Maggie called. “Pass safely. The message was personal, and directed at you both. We shouldn’t leave the truck now that Wendy has cast her circle of protection around us. But we’ll be here if you should need spiritual help.”
She watched them totter off through the snow arm in arm, and worried for their safety. Removed from the protection of the PCU, they looked so small and frail. “You must understand the meaning of all the corridors in your life, not just this one,” she shouted after them, pointing to the obliterated road with its cars marooned like fishing boats in a frozen tide. “You must look into your hearts. Only then can we help you further.” But her anxious words of warning were lost in the rising wind.
She knew the ways of men, knew that anger was clouding his mind in a raging fire. He would shove on through the snow, smashing his fists against the vehicles that imprisoned him here, scattering shards of ice across the road. She had hidden his new passport, his disgusting photographs. He would be looking in the fields and on the road, but would have sensed that neither Madeline nor her son were to be found outside, which meant they were sheltering in another vehicle. He was thinking that the roads were still impassable, so she had to be here within reach. All this she knew about him.
He would become more systematic in his hunt for her. He’d told her he had once gone hunting with his grandfather, and had killed a mountain boar from the safety of a hide. That was what he needed now, a vantage point from which he could watch their movements.
Madeline felt a kinship with her hunter. She knew he would find an abandoned truck and climb up onto its roof, lying on his elbows, where he could watch the entire column of cars. They had taken the food from the emergency blanket. Tracks led forward from it, towards the head of the traffic jam. He would count the vehicles in which she might have taken shelter, and check them one by one. Then, armed with a stolen weapon, he would slip down from the truck roof and make his way inexorably towards them…
“The motorway and the mortuary I can understand, but where are the third and fourth corridors?” asked Bryant, struggling through a particularly deep drift. “My toes feel like they belong to someone else. Is that frostbite, do you think, or are my boots too tight?”
“We’re not meant to take any of that literally,” said May. “Why is it that oracles are always so lacking in specific details?”
“How quickly you become a doubter again,” Bryant sighed. “A return to brightness is all it takes to dispel the shadows created by belief.”
“You have to admit, it’s pretty far-fetched that a bunch of tree-hugging spirit-chasing madrigal-chanters in the back of a truck can locate a murderer.”
“They didn’t say they could do that, only that they could provide psychological signposts. You discuss cases with fellow officers who are barely qualified to hold all the facts of an investigation in their heads, men and women for whom anything but the most logical and direct progression of thought is anathema. Here, you are doing the opposite. Those people in the truck spend much of their lives in a dream state.”
“You’re just confirming my worst fears by saying that, Arthur.”
“But don’t you see, it qualifies them to aid us in other ways. They can restore the logic of childhood with simple symbolism we must learn to read.”
“All right, I’ll try,” said May, struggling with the idea. “Perhaps the third corridor lies in the house where the killer grew up. Perhaps it is the key to his aberrant behaviour.”
“And the fourth?”
“I have an idea about that, too. But it’s not one I wish to entertain at the present.”
In all the time they had worked together, there had been few subjects that May had proven unwilling to discuss, but Bryant now felt he had stumbled onto one of them. He sensed a sudden veil of secrecy descending between them.
As the detectives made their way back around the road to Alma’s stranded Bedford van, they saw two hunched figures weaving and hopping through the drifts towards them.
“Thank God,” Madeline gasped. “We thought there was no-one else out here. Can you help us?”
37
Madeline told them the full story, omitting no detail. There was something about these elderly gentlemen that encouraged her to do so without hesitation. She felt safe in their company, although she could see that they would hardly be able to provide protection against Johann. Everything tumbled out as she sought to end the burden of her secret. The tall elegant one scribbled notes as she talked, asking her to expand on details, while the elderly gentleman squatted on a roll of bubble wrap with his hands buried deep in his pockets and his wrinkled head all but consumed by his gargantuan overcoat. They, in turn, saw a nervous thin blonde with large eyes and a graceful neck, who was clearly in a state of distress.
“When he killed his mother, he said a shaft of sunlight opened to Heaven, and he showed his defiance to God. It’s what he still watches for whenever he kills, a corridor through the clouds to God. I know it sounds insane-‘
“And this Johann-‘
“That’s not his real name; I think it’s the name of one of his victims, but I have nothing else to call him-‘
“But you’re saying he behaved normally towards you until you confronted him at the villa?”
“That’s right. I trusted him. He was very charming. Ask Ryan.”
“You liked him as well?” May asked the boy.
“He was nice. And he had a great car. Like my dad.” Ryan was more intent on examining the interior of the van, which smelled of leather, rust and peppermints.
“You think he followed you here for no other purpose than to prevent you from exposing him?” asked May. “May I see your evidence?”
“I have it in an envelope, or rather I’ve put it somewhere safe, in the car we rented-I can go back and get it for you.” She tried to set her handbag on the dashboard but it slid off, her book and purse falling out on the floor. Bryant shovelled everything back in and handed it to her. As he did so, he studied her eyes for clues to her state of mind, and saw a mother determined to show strength for the sake of her child.
“Perhaps we should get it later. Tell us about the contents of the envelope-‘
“The passport of one of the men he murdered, and a set of photographs, terrible photographs-‘ She pressed a hand to her face, lowering her voice to a whisper. ”Women whose faces he’d disfigured with some kind of tool; he takes their picture afterwards and keeps them on him. Why would a man do something like that? I had no idea how dangerous he was, until-he moves about in the snow like an animal, and I think he carries a hunting knife. He chased us through the village, and came to find us when we got off the ferry to hire a car. We were barely able to escape with our lives.“