The Sin Eater(86)

‘You killed three people?’ said Nell, in horror.

‘More than three. I killed a greedy rapacious female who could have helped Romilly, but threw her out on to the street. And do you know, the creature had left me her house – in a drunken moment she actually wrote out a will and left it to me.’

‘Holly Lodge,’ whispered Nell.

‘Yes. Me, who had lived in a shack with an earth floor – a ramshackle place in the wilds of Ireland – to be owning a house like that.’ There was a pause. ‘Last of all I killed a man who might have shopped me to the police for that murder. I only knew his Christian name. Arthur, he was called. He had a walrus moustache. I was sorry about that killing, but he had seen too much and Cerise threatened to tell him about the others . . . I couldn’t risk it. When I sent a note, he came to meet me like a lamb. They all came, Nell, just as you did. The newspaper said I mesmerized my victims.’

‘Did you?’ In another minute I’ll make a dash for the tunnel entrance, thought Nell. If I could just get outside I could yell for help – someone will hear and come. Only I’m not sure if I can get very far on this ankle.

‘I did,’ he said. ‘I had the chess piece, you see. It gave me the power.’

For an incredible moment Nell forgot about the sinister situation she was in and stared at him. ‘The chess piece? The ebony chess king?’

‘Yes. I took it from a man burning to death . . . No, that’s not true, he gave it to me. The other figures burned with him, but the king survived and there was still so much power left in it. You shouldn’t have taken it from the house, Nell. If you had left it there, I might have left you alone. But I had to get it back. I need it to reach Benedict.’

‘Why?’ I’m tapping into Benedict’s illness, thought Nell. This is all a weird form of telepathy.

‘Because I still carry the sins of the others and I must pass them on. Romilly’s wouldn’t be so much, but God knows what that priest in the watchtower might have done . . . I tried to reach Benedict’s father – and his grandfather – but they got away from me.’

The whispering broke off for a moment and Nell glanced towards the faint light from the tunnel entrance. Was this the moment to try to escape? She said, ‘I don’t understand all that about passing on sins. And why Benedict?’

‘Because it was Declan who pronounced the ritual all those years ago. An old, old ritual it is, Nell – so old you’d think it would long since have frayed to nothing. We didn’t believe in it at the time – it was just meant as comfort for someone facing death.’

‘But it did work?’

‘Yes. We thought if there was any power in it at all, it would be Declan who’d take the weight of the sins. But I was the one who took them. I felt it happen, Nell. I felt the sins burn down into my soul and that’s a feeling so terrible you’d never recover from it. It’s like having a black stone dropped into your heart – a stone that drinks all the goodness from you and feeds on the evil. I think Declan had his own armour – perhaps simply because he was genuinely good.’ For a moment a faint amusement seemed to ruffle the darkness. ‘Myself, I was never a saint,’ said Colm. ‘Even in the Kilglenn days.’

‘Kilglenn?

‘Yes. A tiny sliver of a village in Ireland. So beautiful though.’

Nell said, as firmly as she could, ‘You aren’t real. This is all a dream, and I’m not listening to you. I’m going to wake up – I’ll make myself wake up – and you’ll have vanished.’

‘I wish,’ said Colm, with the same deep sadness, ‘it was that simple.’ He stepped forward, and the uncertain light from outside fell cruelly across his face. ‘Forgive me, Nell . . .’

Nell flinched, and then, even knowing no one would be in earshot, shouted at the top of her voice for help.

There was a flurry of movement at the opening to the tunnel, and a figure stood silhouetted against the grey wintry light.

Declan had expected the inside of the sewer tunnel to be dim, but he had not expected it to be so filled with blurred shadows. He certainly had not expected to find his vision clouded so that he felt as if he was looking through a wavy, distorted mirror. But probably the river fog had seeped into the tunnel.

He did not immediately see Colm or Cerise, but he heard them. Colm was talking to Cerise, his voice soft and low. It was the voice Colm generally used when he was luring one of his females into bed with him. Declan heard Colm say something about Kilglenn, and then something about shutting people up. He’s confessing, thought Declan in horror. He’s admitting to Cerise that he committed those murders – Bullfinch and Flossie – and he’s telling her he’ll do the same to her. He went stealthily forward, hoping not to be heard, praying he could take Colm by surprise and shout to Cerise to make a run for it. As he got closer, he heard Colm say, ‘Arthur, he was called. I couldn’t risk him talking. I sent him a note and he came to meet me . . .’

Fresh horror broke within Declan. He killed that other man, he thought. The walrus moustache man who was in the house with Cerise that day. Oh God, what do I do? This is Colm, he’s better than a brother to me . . . But I can’t let him kill again.

No longer caring if he was heard, he ran towards the voices. In a corner of the inner tunnel, Colm was bending over a female who was lying on the ground, half against one wall. There was an extraordinary moment when Declan thought he had got this whole thing wrong, because although the man was wearing the dark great coat Colm had taken from the lodging house, he looked like a stranger.