The Candle Man (25 page)

‘They . . . th-they’re no b-better than . . . than us . . .’ she uttered quickly. Almost challenging him.

Oh, such a plucky, clever girl, trying to join a common cause with me.
So often his victims tended to stare dumbstruck at him, waiting silently for their deaths like dumb animals. But
this one, this Annie, had a spark of courage to her.

‘Indeed,’ he said, reaching into his pockets for his box of matches. ‘The rich, the great and the good: they’re no better than us at all.’

Over the years, working for one paymaster or another, he’d seen the degrading abuses the rich and the powerful indulged in, the disgusting carnal perversions they wallowed in, and yet
there you would find them on any given Sunday morning, in their finest, on their knees in church, pillars of the community, patrons of charities. The great and the good, hands clasped piously and
eyes closed, savouring the choicest moments of the night before, or ruminating on self-serving plans, transactions to improve their standing, their wealth, their influence. No different in any
meaningful way to the petty arguments, the brawls, the acts of spiteful cruelty, the selfishness in any given public house or dockside bar on any night of the week.

‘You’re
all
the same, to be truthful,’ he uttered, pulling a match out of the box and striking it. Annie recoiled at the momentary glare, twisted her head a little to
see what he was doing.

‘Why . . . why y-you lightin’ a c-candle?’

He ignored her question. ‘I once listened to a holy man preach; a pastor, as it happens. When I first went to New York.’ Babbitt settled down cross-legged beside her. He pulled the
blade away from her ear. She seemed suitably cowed for him not to need to hold it there as he talked. ‘Only heard him preach the once, but he said something quite remarkable. And what he said
made perfect sense of this rotting world. Shall I tell you what he said?’

Annie jerked her head silently.

‘He said that all the souls that God had ever planned for this world had already been born.’ He looked at her and his eyes narrowed. ‘That’s one hell of a thing to say.
Isn’t that an incredible idea? That every new baby born is inhabited by a returned soul; one that has lived on this earth before. But returned here to live yet again because he or she was not
moral enough, decent enough, to proceed on to the hereafter. It made sense to me, what he said. I never forgot that sermon.’ He shook his head and then looked down at Annie. ‘Do you
see? That explains why this modern world of ours, Annie, is so wrong. Why people can do the things they do to each other so . . . so readily.’

He gazed at the candle flame flickering in its own pool of melting wax.

‘I can’t tell you how hard I’ve looked to find a truly good person. A
selfless
person. Someone who might just be a genuinely new soul.’ He sighed. ‘But there
are none, not anymore. We’re all spoiled, you see? We’re all doomed to die and return, die and return, to a world that is becoming more and more like a vision of Hell itself. And I just
. . .’ He shook his head, ‘I just can’t believe this is what was meant to be. You want to know what else I think?’

Her head nodded quickly.

‘I think something has gone wrong with the
machinery
of the afterlife, of purgatory. It has broken. It’s like a sewage pipe, blocked and backing up.’

He looked down at her and began tapping the tip of the blade into the palm of his hand. ‘This should be a deserted world by now, entirely empty. Not a single living human soul upon it.
Every spirit that was ever meant to have lived and been tested on our earth should, by now, have found its way to where it needed to go. Heaven or Hell.’

‘You’re going to k-kill m-me, aren’t you?’ Annie’s face finally crumpled and folded with fear. Tears rolled out of the side of her eyes and down into her hair, her
ears. ‘P-please . . . I’m a good girl, I am . . .’

Babbitt raised a finger to his lips to hush her. ‘This is no life for you, Annie. You can see that, can’t you? Whoring for a handful of small coins? Coins you spend on a little gin
to numb your senses?’

‘P-please . . . I never done any wrong to any—’

He pursed his lips. ‘Shhhhh. Just a little sting.’ He leant over her with the knife.

‘Please! Don’t ’urt me! You got that picture! You got what you come for—’

He clamped his palm again over her lips. ‘I’m not hurting you, Annie. I’m
releasing
you.’

The tip of the blade slid quickly into the soft skin beneath her left ear, up to the hilt. And with the flick of his wrist and a hard tug upwards, it emerged out the front of her throat.

‘Shhh . . . be still,’ he cooed softly, lifting her chin up firmly to open the wound. ‘It’ll be over very soon, my dear, and you’ll be free.’

He watched her hands scrabble and snatch ineffectually at his, her legs scissoring, her heels drumming and scraping against the ground.

‘Just a little longer.’

He watched by the weak, guttering light of the candle as her eyes darted first one way and then the other, until they finally rolled upwards, the pupils almost invisible.

She’s done.

He licked his forefinger and thumb, preparing to pinch out the flame, when a thought occurred to him. He reached down to pick up the small photograph. His clients wanted this picture back in
their hands – proof the job had been successfully completed. All the awkward loose ends tied up neatly and nicely. But an unprofessional curiosity was teasing him. No . . . he didn’t
need
to know which rich banker’s son, which lord of the realm, or member of parliament, had foolishly had an affair with a tart and produced an illegitimate child. Not being
particularly familiar with the faces of Great Britain’s privileged elite, he imagined the portrait was not going to mean a great deal to him. But still . . .

He held it close to the naked flame. The young woman he noticed first. So beautiful. Such delicate and refined features. But the man standing beside her, there was more than a gentleman’s
lust in his eyes; it seemed like genuine infatuation.

Then his mind managed to place the young man’s face in context. The distinctive bridge of his nose, the eyes, the moustache, waxed at its tips. And in a single beat of his heart, he
understood why so much money was being paid. More than that, he realised he was in as much danger as that reckless ape Bill Tolly had been.

He swore softly.

A
rgyll savoured the warmth of her back with the tip of his finger, ran it gently down the long slender ‘S’ of her spine as she lay on
her side. Dawn wasn’t far off. By the faint grey light seeping in through the gap in the drapes of her room, he could see the coral pink rim of her ear, at sea amidst the waves and troughs of
auburn hair. He watched her narrow shoulder rise and fall and listened to the soft rustling sound of her breathing, and felt the strangest thing.

He felt complete.

Last night they had made love. Mary taking the lead, showing him the things she liked, showing him how moments could be made to last hours. And finally, exhausted, contented, they both fell
asleep, Mary wrapped in his thick, muscular arms.

Argyll’s sleep, for once, had been entirely untroubled. No dreams or nightmares, no zoetrope flickering images of mutilation and murder. No Indians. No shaman. No shrill, hectoring voice.
Just a deep, restful sleep.

The slither of grey light through the drapes had awoken him; that and the rattle of the wheels of a milk cart going past. And now he had the pleasure of watching Mary sleeping. He eased himself
up on one elbow and looked down at her face. He noticed that the slight furrow of concern, that always seemed to exist in its own narrow space between her brows, was gone, her face now at rest. And
her top lip, delicately curved like Cupid’s bow, pushed by the pillow a little to one side to make her mouth look like it was pursed thoughtfully. A fretful decision to be made:
which yard
of muslin do you think, darling? The teal . . . or the cerise?

Beautiful. Innocent. Wise beyond her years and so very strong-willed. He imagined young Mary could be anything she put her mind to. And yet here she lay, having given herself, her heart, to him.
It was such an odd, lovely feeling. Even with his past life still a mystery – and who knows, perhaps it always would be – right now, for the first time, he felt entirely complete. He
realised everything he wanted, everything he needed, was in this one bedroom, embodied in this sleeping, porcelain angel beside him.

‘Mary?’ he whispered. She stirred and murmured, her brows flickering, her eyes dancing beneath her lids, chasing rainbows across barley fields. He had something he wanted to say out
loud. To hear it. To make it real, make it something that existed
outside
of his muddled head, instead of inside. Something this precious, this wonderful, he wanted kept as far away as
possible from the horrors that flitted across his mind. Not a thought. He wanted it to be something heard. Something real.

‘I love you,’ he whispered quietly, testing those words on her now, while she slept. The words made him tremble. He wanted to try it again. Softly. ‘I love you.’

It was the purest sound. Those three words said without any hidden agenda. Honest. Argyll heard the tap of a solitary tear on the pillow beneath him. He wondered when the last time he’d
cried was. If ever. He touched a craggy cheek and felt the damp. And felt more human than he ever had since waking from his troubled coma.

Once more. Still the gentlest murmur. ‘I love you, Mary.’ Too much of a coward to say it to her awake in case she laughed at how childlike it sounded coming out of his mouth. But
perhaps over breakfast this morning. Perhaps he would reach out across their little breakfast table, hold her hands and say it.

Love, is it?

Argyll frowned irritably at the intrusion of the voice. He leant back on the pillow until his eyes were gazing up at webs of hairline cracks in the old paint on the ceiling. That voice . . . He
fancied he could make its face out of the faint dry lines of peeling paint above. Yes. There. Two eyes, a pig’s snout for a mouth beneath them, and above, the vague suggestion of the horns of
some tormenting demon. Very apt.

Love, is it?

Yes, he replied. I love her.

You pitiful fool. Love doesn’t have a place here. There is no love here.

The voice was louder in his mind than last time, as if it had found somewhere to sit and be comfortable, that was closer to him than before.

Those who can love, those capable of love, have long since gone away. All that remains is a world populated by these pitiful ghosts. Wraiths that prey on each other, cannibalise each other.
There isn’t love here, fool! There isn’t a single act of love here. There isn’t a single act of kindness here. You know that, don’t you? You remember, don’t
you?

Mary . . . she’s kind.

He hated its laugh.

Kind, is she?

Yes. All that she’d done for him these last few weeks, the last month. Caring for someone she loved and who had no memory left of the love he must have once had for her. That was kindness,
wasn’t it? That was love.

She is like all the others. Selfish, scheming for what she can get.

Damn you! Leave me, will you?

No.

Why will you not?

He thought he saw the eyes shift, the pig’s snout snap shut. The horns twitch.
She’s playing you for the fool you are . . . ‘John’.

Go away!

She’s a clever one, too. Very clever. Look around you.

He wished there was something to distract him, more noises from outside in the street. He wished the clock downstairs in the hallway could tick a little louder to drown out this horrible dry
rasping in his mind. It sounded childlike and spiteful.

Look around you, you empty-headed fool. This room, this house – this isn’t a home. This isn’t your home!

Yes, it is.

It’s not a home; it’s a cage. And she’s made it for you, trapped you like a wild animal.

No.

Look! LOOK!

He didn’t need to, because he had a suspicion that what this poisonous little imp was telling him might have a grain of truth to it. Small things he’d already noticed: dust sheets
hastily bundled into a cupboard; a child’s playroom right at the top of the house; dark patches on the walls where paintings must have hung until very recently.

Mary told him they been living here for what? A year? But wouldn’t there be more of themselves stamped on this home? More of
him
, possessions, artefacts of the old John Argyll?
Instead, this home – comfortable, secure and cosy as it was – felt strangely like a stage set, like the sort of diorama one would see within a glass display case for some stuffed
species of ferocious wild animal. A museum exhibit.

Do you see?

He ignored the voice. It didn’t need encouraging to come and find somewhere closer to sit.

Do you remember? I think you do.