The Wrath of Angels

‘Bitch,’ said Brightwell, but his voice was uncertain. ‘Your dying mind is spewing inanities.’

‘Old hateful thing, trapped in a rotting body,’ said Angeline, as if he had not spoken. ‘Pathetic soulless creature, stealing the souls of others for company. Run, but it will do you no good. He’ll find you. He’ll find you and destroy you, you and all the others like you. Fear him.’

The door to the room opened, and the nurse named Evelyn appeared, carrying a tray on which she had placed two cups, and a plate of cookies. She stopped short at the sight of Brightwell.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Get help,’ said Harlan, rising from his chair. ‘Now!’

Evelyn dropped the tray and ran. Seconds later, an alarm began to sound. Brightwell turned to face Harlan.

‘This isn’t over,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe what you told me about that money. I’ll be back, and maybe I’ll steal what’s left of your wife and carry her in me, once I’ve finished with you.’

With that he swept by Harlan, Angeline’s bell-like laughter following him. Although the home had instantly been locked down no trace of him was found in the building, or the grounds, or in the town.

‘The police came,’ said Marielle, ‘but my father said that he didn’t know what the man wanted. He’d simply entered my mother’s room and found this Brightwell leaning over her. When the police tried to question my mother, she was already gone, and she never spoke again. The end came quickly for her after that. My father told Paul about what had happened, and they kept waiting for Brightwell to return. Then Paul died and it was just my father who was left to face him. But Brightwell never came back.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because the last word that my mother whispered to my father after that man fled was your name – “When it comes down, tell the detective. Tell Charlie Parker.” – and that, in turn, was the last thing that he whispered to me after he told us the story of the plane in the woods. He wanted you to hear this story, Mr Parker. That’s why we came. And now you know.’

Around us music played, and people talked, and ate, and drank, but we were no part of it. We were cocooned in our corner, surrounded by the silk-wrapped forms of the dead.

‘You knew who this man Brightwell was, didn’t you?’ said Ernie. ‘I saw it on your face the first time we described him to you.’

‘Yes, I’ve met him.’

‘Will he be coming back, Mr Parker?’ asked Marielle.

‘No,’ I said.

‘You seem very certain of that.’

‘I am, because I killed him.’

‘Good,’ said Marielle. ‘And the woman? What about the woman?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘With luck, maybe somebody killed her too.’

7

South, south: down Interstates and winding roads, past cities and towns, hamlets and scattered houses, across rivers and open fields, to a car on a lonely, dark stretch, to a woman leaving home, a woman who, if she could have heard the tale being told in a quiet bar in the Port City, might well have said, ‘I know of these things . . .’

Barbara Kelly had just left home when she saw the red SUV. A woman perhaps a decade younger than herself was hunched over the right front tire, struggling with a lug wrench. When the headlights found her she looked frightened, as well she might. This was a dark, relatively unfrequented stretch of road, used mainly by residents making their way to and from the houses at the top of the narrow laneways that fed into Buck Run Road like tributaries. On a night like this, with clouds gathering and a brisk breeze making it feel colder than it was, there would be even fewer cars on the road than usual. Sunday evenings tended to be quiet around there at the best of times, as the residents resigned themselves to the end of the weekend and the imminent resumption of the weekly commute.

The lanes all had names inspired by the natural world – Raccoon Lane, Doe Leap Lane, Bullfrog Lane – a decision made by the developers without any apparent reference to the reality of their surroundings. Barbara had never seen a doe here, leaping or otherwise, had never heard a bullfrog, and the only raccoons she ever saw were dead. It didn’t matter much, in the end. She had not raised the subject with her neighbors, or with anyone else. She had grown used to blending in. It made it easier for her to conduct her business.

Now here was an SUV with a flat tire, and a woman in trouble. A child stood beside her, a boy of five or six. He was wearing black shoes and blue jeans, and a blue windbreaker was zipped up to his chin.

The rain began to fall. The first drop landed with a loud pop on Barbara’s windshield, and her view became almost entirely obscured before she had time to hit the wipers. She saw the boy huddle into himself under a tree to escape the downpour. He pulled up the hood on his windbreaker while the woman doggedly continued trying to change the wheel. She seemed to have managed to get one of the lug nuts loose, and wasn’t about to stop now. Barbara admired her gumption, even though she could see how clumsily the woman was handling the wrench. Barbara herself would have done a better job. She was good with her hands.

She slowed down just as the jack slipped, the woman stumbling back as the SUV came down heavily on the damaged tire. She put her hands out behind her to stop herself from striking her head. Barbara thought that she heard her swear, even above the noise of the rain and the engine. The boy ran to her. His face was contorted, and Barbara guessed that he was crying.

Under ordinary circumstances Barbara would have driven on. She was not prone to helping others. It was not in her nature. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her life had, until recently, been devoted to their slow ruination. Barbara was an expert in the small print that taketh away, the legalese in contracts that permitted them to be manipulated in favor of the creditor but not the debtor. Then again, this assumed that the contracts she negotiated were available to be read and examined, which was only sometimes the case. The particular contracts in which Barbara Kelly dealt were largely verbal in nature, except when it was advantageous to have them otherwise. Sometimes they involved money, or property. Occasionally they involved people. For the most part, they were promises of assistance made and accepted, favors to be called in at opportune moments. Each was a small cut to the soul, another footstep on the path to perdition.

Her work had made her wealthy, but it had also sapped most of her humanity. True, she would sometimes choose to engage in random acts of philanthropy, both small and significant, but only because there was a power in pity. Now, as she drew to a halt beside the woman and the child, she felt something of that power, mingled with an element of sexual excitement. Even tired and wet, the woman was clearly beautiful.

The surge of desire was both unexpected and welcome. It had been a long time since Barbara had felt it, not since the lump had appeared in her armpit. It hadn’t even hurt at first, and she’d dismissed it as just one of those things. She’d never been hypochondriacal by nature. By the time it was diagnosed as lymphoma, her lifespan was already being counted in weeks and months. With the diagnosis came fear: fear of pain, fear of the effects of treatment, fear of mortality.

And fear of damnation, for she understood better than anyone the nature of the bargain that had been struck. Voices had begun to whisper to her in the night, sowing seeds of doubt in her mind. They spoke of the possibility of redemption, even for one such as her. Now here she was, slowing down for a stranded woman and child, a warmth spreading from between her legs, and she did not yet know if she was stopping for reasons of goodwill or self- interest, or so she told herself.

Barbara rolled down the window.

‘You look like you’re in trouble,’ she said.

The woman was back on her feet. Because of the headlights and the rain, she hadn’t been able to tell if it was a man or a woman at the wheel of the approaching vehicle, but now the relief showed. She came forward, the rain streaming down her face. Her mascara had run. Combined with her dark dress and coat, it made her look like a mourner at the end of a particularly difficult funeral, but one radiant in her grief. The boy hung back, waiting until his mom told him that it was okay to approach. No, it wasn’t just that: Barbara was very good at picking up on the responses of others, and there was something in the boy’s reaction that went beyond obedience to his mother, or a