The Sin Eater(21)

‘You imagined it,’ said Declan. ‘Or it really was Sheehan’s hand you felt, but it was – um – already partly burned. It’d feel dry and small.’


‘It’d be that, wouldn’t it?’ said Colm, eagerly. He seemed to relax a little, then he said, ‘Did you feel the sins go into you?’

‘No,’ said Declan.

‘I didn’t think you did. But you’ll have to find a priest to confess to. Because if you die with all Sheehan’s sins on you, you’ll go straight to hell.’





The present


Coming out of Declan’s world was like coming up through fathoms of thick swirling green water. Benedict was aware of jagged lights somewhere far above his head, like glinting sunlight on sea. That’s Holly Lodge, he thought in confusion. That’s where I belong. I should try to get back there.

But it seemed a very long way, and it took every shred of his strength and resolve to reach upwards. Then the scents and the shapes of Holly Lodge closed around him and he realized he had been lying on the floor where he must have fallen. His head ached and the light, coming through the tall windows, struck painfully across his eyes. He winced and put up a hand to shield them. Nobody had ever said how very different the light had been a hundred and twenty years ago. But of course no one would, thought Benedict. They wouldn’t know. Unless you had actually been there and seen it . . .

The scent of the burning watchtower was still in his nostrils, and horridly mingled with it was that other dreadful scent that might have been roasting meat . . . He shuddered and fought down a lurch of nausea, then, moving cautiously, attempted to sit up. He was dizzy, but the sick feeling was passing. Using the side of the desk for ballast, he tried to stand up, but the dizziness overwhelmed him and he fell back, grasping at the desk’s edge to save himself. The drop-down desk flap tilted and the desk partly overbalanced. Several of the small drawers flew open, and the sheaf of newspaper cuttings about the Mesmer Murderer slid to the ground. A shower of old pens and notepaper came with them.

And something else. Something that fell to the ground with a soft thud and lay inches from Benedict’s hand.

A carved figure, some eight or ten inches high, dulled with the dust of years, but unmistakably fashioned from a smooth black substance. Ebony, thought Benedict, staring at it. The figure was studded with tiny glinting black gems and beads of something that might be jet. There were the folds of a cloak around it, and the sharp outline of a crown encircled the head. In one hand was a slender staff, tipped with a further crown.

The black king from the devil’s chess set. The figure that the dying Nicholas Sheehan had given to Declan and Colm over a century ago.

Benedict reached out to it and, as his hand closed around it, he thought he felt tiny fingers curling around his. Fingers that were almost small enough to belong to a baby, but that were as dry as old parchment.

The darkness started to close over him once again, but before it did so, someone bent over him, and Declan’s strong blue eyes looked down into his.





SEVEN


The French windows opened on to what was clearly a dining room. It smelled a bit damp, but Nell, who was fairly used to entering old houses in her work, had encountered a lot worse.

She expected Benedict Doyle to come down to greet her, but he did not, so she went through the dining room into a big shadowy hall, and called out to him.

‘Hello? I got in all right. I’m Nell West – Nina’s friend, about the antiques.’

There was still no response, although she had the feeling there was someone quite nearby, listening. This was disconcerting and probably simply nerves, so Nell walked across the hall, deliberately clattering her footsteps to make extra noise. She waited for a few moments, but when he still did not appear she opened all the doors on the ground floor and looked into each room. Nothing moved in any of them, unless you counted a few drifting cobwebs, and the impression of an army of spiders indignantly scuttling away from the sudden ingress of light. There did not seem to be anything of particular interest in any of them, but Nina had said Holly Lodge had been rented for a number of years, so probably the main stuff was stored behind a locked door somewhere. Nell paused in a smaller room that might have been a study, running her hand over the dulled surface of a mahogany desk, wanting to restore the grain to life.

It was already growing dark and shadows were crawling out from the corners. She would switch on the next light she came to and hope the electricity was on. She still did not understand why the man she had seen had not come down to meet her. She went back to the hall and started up the wide stairway. There was a big landing, with a second flight of stairs at the far end. He must be up there on the second floor. Nell called out again.

‘Hello? Are you here? Is it all right to come up?’

Her words echoed eerily and there was still no response. She glanced at the row of closed doors. Perhaps the man was in one of those rooms and perhaps he really had not heard her. She was about to open the first, when a movement from the second flight of stairs made her jump. But it could only be Benedict so Nell went purposefully towards the stairs, wishing this house was not so full of shadows.

The stairs turned sharply to the left and, as she negotiated this turn, an uncertain light came in through a narrow window. It slanted across the unconscious body of a young man with dark hair lying on the half-landing. Bending over him was a second, older-looking man.