The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(103)

‘No, no, no. You don’t read it. That’s the whole point. It reads you! See?’ The sergeant turned the book back around, his eyes went down to the words and he started to mouth cod-Latin gibberish.

‘Itis apis potet avere bygone. Iacet summare quaelam coveris.’

McLean saw his opportunity, lunged for the piece of two-by-four lying off to his side. The wood was heavy in his hand, too heavy maybe. He rolled over, getting his other hand to it too, ignoring the pain that shot through his head. Scrabbling to his knees, he brought the weapon round in a sweeping arc just as Needy realised what was going on. The sergeant let out a surprised squawk, jumped up and let go of the book. He took two steps backwards in an attempt to steady himself, then tripped over his cloak and toppled over into the fire.

The flames leapt on him as if they were alive and hungry. His cloak caught first, then with a horrible fizzing sound audible over the roar of everything else, Needy’s hair burst alight. He struggled upright, pulling himself out of the fire with hands that were bubbling and blistered. And yet he didn’t scream, just kept on mouthing unheard words. McLean staggered back, legs giving out as the last of his strength left him. A pillar of human fire limped towards the book, stretched out its weeping hands, sank to its knees and then toppled forward onto the open pages. The paper caught in an instant, wrapping Needy’s head in a wreath of yellow flame. McLean could only watch as the skin bubbled away, oozing red blood and yellow pus, Needy’s jaw still working away as he tried to read the words that had consumed his soul.

McLean watched the book and the man who had been his friend as they burned. A part of him, deep inside, was shouting at him to get up, get out, but he could hardly breathe now. It felt like he was at the top of Everest, every muscle in his body screaming in pain. It was too much effort. He was so tired. He had no strength left. He’d fought so long to right the wrong that Anderson had done. Perhaps now it was time to stop fighting and just give up.

With the last of his dwindling strength, he put his hand in his pocket. Pulled out the thin strip of fabric that had been torn from Kirsty’s dress. Barely able to hold it between his fingers, he watched as the fire-driven wind rippled it this way and that. He remembered her wearing it, how it hugged her figure, how it twirled when she danced and the smile in her eyes.

And then she was dancing again, that last tiny fragment. Pirouetting in the air currents, up and up, around and around, closer and closer until the roaring flames took her too. Tears stung his eyes, but they could not run. The heat evaporated them before they could wet his cheeks. Thwarted even in that last lament, he slumped onto the floor and prepared to die.





65





She comes to him in his pain, like an angel of mercy. She is naked, but there is no shame in that. Her face is filled with joy, her hair tumbling over her shoulders like a deep black waterfall.

‘Don’t panic, Tony. It’ll be over soon. One way or another.’ He hasn’t heard her voice in too long. He used to have a tape, but the fire took it, like it took everything else about her, left him only his memories. She bends down beside him, soothes his forehead with a hand as cool as the first good snow of winter.

‘Kirsty.’ He croaks the word, his throat like baked sand. It’s so hot, he feels like he’s burning up.

‘Shhhh. I’m here. We’re all here. It’s going to be all right.’

And she’s right, they are all here. One by one he sees them. Trisha Lubkin, Kate McKenzie, Audrey Carpenter, Laura Fenton, Diane Kinnear, Rosie Buckley, the list goes on as all the people Needy and Anderson killed walk past him, one by one, and touch his brow with cool fingers. They are all naked, but all smiling, lively, excited. All free. And there are more, too. People he doesn’t know, and people he does. John Needham as he was a decade earlier, staring at nothing, an expression of terror on his face. Donald Anderson, younger, dressed in a monk’s habit and wide-eyed as he sees what he has done. What the book has made him do.

‘Kirsty.’ His voice is little more than a whisper, and now he can hear a great roaring wind, feel it gusting on his face, searing off the skin. It sweeps up the people all around him, whipping them into the air like a tornado. They go willingly, their arms spread wide, their faces upturned and rapturous. Too late he realises that she must go too. He reaches for her arm, taking her hand. It is cool to the touch, so smooth. He’d forgotten what she felt like. He misses her so much.

‘Don’t go.’

‘I have to go,’ she answers with that slow, patient way of hers. ‘You have to let me go. It’s time to move on.’

Her fingers are slipping away from his. She is floating up into the air, her hair whipping round her face. She stares down at him and smiles, fading away from his sight.

‘I love you, Kirsty,’ he says. And then she is gone.

‘What did you say, sir?’

McLean’s eyes snapped open and he found himself staring up at the sweat-streaked face of DS Ritchie. He felt like someone had shoved him into an oven at gas-mark nine, and it wasn’t hard to see why. All around was flame.

‘We’ve got to get out. Now.’ Ritchie stooped down and hauled McLean upright. He dimly recalled that she’d been injured herself. What was she doing coming here endangering herself? He’d tell her off later, he decided.

Everything hurt, but his legs seemed stronger than they had any right to be. Once he was up, he was able to stagger towards the nearest doorway, back into the admin block. Smoke billowed around the lower ceiling, flames eating at the wooden desks and shelving. They half walked, half fell down the spiral stone steps to the tunnel. The air was slightly better down here, a steady draft being dragged through by the fire up above. Still, it was difficult to breathe.