Prayer

  “Yes,” I said. “We did. Now, take it easy.”

  She nodded and wiped her face with a towel I gave her.

  “Yes,” she sniffed. “When you went out the first time to put the top up on my car, I came in here, to the bathroom, to brush my teeth and stuff. But I didn’t go to bed. Just now I came in here again to run a bath. But before I did, I glanced in the bedroom. Which is when I saw the bed.”

  She was calm now, but her face was a sickly color of gray.

  I nodded and then stood up and put my head around the bedroom door. Her pants, jacket, and shoes lay on the floor by the bed where she had dropped them and a big Hermès handbag was open beside her watch and jewelry on the dressing table. The TV was on, but the volume was turned down and the remote control lay on the floor next to her shoes. The blind was drawn, and even though the rain sounded heavy against the window, everything looked normal to me.

  “What about it?” I asked.

  I came back into the bathroom and knelt down at her side.

  She shook her head. “Tell me that this is not some kind of sick joke,” she said.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “There’s no joke. I’m not in the mood for jokes, nor are you, I think. But forgive me, I really don’t see what the problem is here, Sara.”

  She swallowed a brick and then let out a big, teary sigh. “The problem is, my darling man, that the bed has been slept in, but I didn’t sleep in it.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Which means, if you didn’t sleep in it and I didn’t sleep in it, then who did?”

  I got up and put my head around the door of the bedroom again. There was no doubt about it: the sheets and quilt that I had carefully arranged on the bed were now disordered as if someone had slept there for a good eight hours, which made no sense at all.

  I was thoroughly disturbed by what she was suggesting. On top of everything I’d just been through in Mr. Hindemith’s back garden, this was a lot more than I had bargained for. Was she part of some mad conspiracy to fuck with my head? And if so, why? And why her? Someone with her background could never have been one of Nelson Van Der Velden’s followers; and besides, if she was to be believed, someone had been doing a very good job of fucking with her head, too.

  I went back into the bathroom and sat on the toilet.

  “Tell me everything that happened after I left the house the first time,” I said patiently.

  She nodded and, resting her head against the wall, stared up at the ceiling light. “The first time you went out I was in the bedroom about to get undressed. I wanted to ask if you had a hair dryer so I could wash my hair so I went downstairs again and opened the front door to ask you about that, only you weren’t there. Which scared me. It’s very quiet around here. So I came back upstairs and sat around for a moment or two wondering what to do and if I might have made a mistake coming here. After a while, I got undressed, like you see. I took off my clothes and my shoes and socks, and came in here, and then when I heard you return, I went downstairs again. And you looked like you’d been attacked by a wild animal and were hitting the whiskey bottle.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “So, when I went downstairs, the bed—the one we’d made up—it hadn’t been slept in, and now it has.” She shrugged. “It’s as simple as that.”

  I nodded.

  “You don’t think that you could have sat on the bed and sort of messed it up while you were waiting for me to come back in earlier?” I suggested. “Sort of absently? The way you do when you’re preoccupied with something?”

  “No,” she said. “I remember. I sat on the chair in front of the bedroom TV. I watched it for about fifteen minutes. Not once did I sit on the bed.”

  I went back into the bedroom and pressed my hand onto the bottom sheet of the bed; it wasn’t warm but a chill passed over me all the same. The bed was damp to the touch, as if someone had jumped out of the bath and got straight into the bed.

  “You’ll be relieved to know it doesn’t actually feel like it’s been slept in,” I said as coolly as I was able.

  “I don’t know if that helps or not,” she said.

  Instinctively, I glanced at the window, which was shut, and then I looked up at the ceiling to check for a leak; I even stood on the bed and pressed my hand against the plaster, but it was dry.

  “That is, I mean, the bed’s not warm. All the same, I think I’ll change it again. To make you feel more comfortable.”

  When I was through, I came back into the bathroom. “It’s okay now. I’ve made it up again.”

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” she said.

  “No, not at all, Sara.”

  “In view of what’s happened these past few days, it’s a wonder I’m not; but if someone is trying to drive me out of my mind, then I’m not going to let them, do you hear? I’ve got a first-class mind and nothing and no one is going to be allowed to fuck with that.”

  Some of that sounded as if it was directed my way, so once again I knelt down beside her and took her hand. “Sara, please believe me,” I said. “I had absolutely nothing to do with this.”

  “I do believe you,” she said. “Actually, that’s half the problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After I came downstairs, you were never out of my sight. I really don’t see how you could have come up here without my noticing it. Either there’s someone else in this house or—I can’t think of any other explanation; at least there’s not one I want to think of.” She swallowed uncomfortably. “As a matter of fact, I think I’m going to be sick.”

  She crawled over to the toilet, lifted the lid, and then retched into the bowl. If she was acting, then she was worth a Golden Globe.

  When she’d finished, she flushed the toilet and I helped her to wash her face and drink some water.

  “Feel better?”

  “A little.”

  I led her into my bedroom and tried to make her comfortable under the sheet. Next I switched on all the lamps to eliminate any shadows. It was just a pity I couldn’t do anything about the overgrown tree outside my window that was tapping at the pane more insistently than usual because of the wind.

  “I’ve never slept in a cop’s bed before,” she said. “Or, for that matter, a priest’s.” She smiled a thin halfhearted smile as if she was trying to recover her sense of humor.

  “With three husbands, you surprise me,” I said, rising to the challenge.

  “Not that I think I am going to sleep,” she admitted. “I’m very tired, but I’m not at all sure yet that I’m going to stay here.”

  “No? It’s hardly a night to go anywhere on your own.”

  “I was thinking you could come with me,” she said.

  “Yes, but where? A hotel?”

  “Maybe.”

  “In Galveston?” I made a face.

  “Good point. Well, maybe we could drive to Houston. Or find a motel on the way.”

  “All right. If you want. I’ll drive you wherever you want to go. Houston. Austin. You name it. Just say when and where. Your car or mine. Although your car does look a lot nicer.”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s all right. Let’s stay here for now. I just wanted to hear you say it. I guess if you were planning to murder me here you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Until you called me this evening, I thought I wouldn’t ever see you again,” I admitted. “So I don’t know how I could have been planning anything that involved you.”

  “Really?”

  “What I mean to say is, you called me, remember?”

  “Yes.” She smiled again. This time it looked more convincing than before. “And I’m very glad I did. You’re very sweet. Where the hell were you all day, anyway?”

  “I had lunch with a guy from our computer forensics lab,” I said. “And then I went to see a
movie at the Cinemark in Webster just off the Gulf Freeway.”

  She nodded.

  “Look,” I said. “I need to fetch another gun from the car. Just in case. And to lock up around here.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t leave me alone.”

  “I’ll be no more than a minute.”

  “There’s a gun in my purse,” she said. “You can borrow that if you like.”

  “All right.” I handed the bag to her and watched as she brought out a little Walther P22 compact pistol from its capacious interior.

  “Here,” she said.

  “Nice little gun,” I said.

  “You can only say something like that in Texas.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. But it feels good in your hand.”

  “Ditto.”

  I checked the magazine. Then I tucked the gun into the waistband of my trousers. I might have let her keep it if I hadn’t been worried she was scared enough to shoot me by accident.

  “Are you expecting trouble?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, there’s what happened with the bed to consider, isn’t there?”

  “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. But I’m not sure how you’re going to shoot someone that neither of us can see.”

  “Fair point.” I smiled, but only to conceal the fact that suddenly I was convinced she really did believe that someone other than us had been occupying my bed; and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “On the other hand, I still don’t really know what happened to you earlier.” She nodded at the scratches on my torso. “I mean, those don’t look like they were done by anything invisible.”

  “I already told you about that. It was the branch of a tree that did this.”

  “If you say so. But look.” She held up her hand.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “My nails.”

  “They’re very nice.”

  “I got them done today in Galveston. While I was waiting for you to come back.”

  “For Galveston that counts as the return of civilization. I’m impressed. “

  “Yes, they do look nice. But they’re also sharp. I’ve scratched enough men in my time—in anger or while having sex—to know what the effect of a human scratch looks like.”

  “I can count myself lucky, I guess.”

  I turned the volume up on the TV so that she’d have company while I was out of the room, and then walked to the door. Leno was still on.

  “Where are you going now?”

  “To lock the front door. Like I said.”

  “You won’t be long, will you?”

  “I’ll be just a minute.”

  “And you won’t be going outside or anything?”

  I shook my head. “I’m coming straight back up to make love to you again.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  As I went downstairs, I had the strongest sensation of there being something unwelcome in the house and immediately noted a trail of very wet footprints that led in from the front door along the parquet floor. Were they mine? I might have said they were except for two things. The footprints led into the sitting room whereas I was quite certain that on entering the house in response to Sara’s scream I had run straight upstairs. The other thing was much more disturbing—these were large, barefoot, Man Friday–style prints and I was wearing shoes.

  For a moment, I just stared at them as if doubting the existence of the shoes that were still on my feet, but the very instant that it registered that these could hardly be my own footprints, I drew Sara’s gun from the waistband of my trousers and quietly worked the slide. Was this the man I had chased in Mr. Hindemith’s garden—perhaps Mr. Hindemith himself? The man who had scared the living crap out of me? If it was, I owed him a hard slap in the mouth with the Walther. But suppose the intruder was armed? Suppose he had found the Glock I’d dropped in the garden? Suppose I ended up getting shot with my own gun?

  Then three things happened—they were practically simultaneous, but they seemed to occur in slow succession, as if time had decelerated to allow me longer to feel more afraid than I was already—these were accompanied by several missed heartbeats, a prickling on my skin, and a sort of vacuum around my head and shoulders that seemed to suck the sound right out of my ears.

  First of all, the power went out, plunging the entire house into darkness; the next instant I knew without any doubt that there was a figure standing by the window in the sitting room; and the third was that Sara screamed again. This time I could guess the reason for her fright, and stiffening myself, I took a step back onto the stair and called up to her.

  “Sara? Listen to me. It’s just a power outage caused by the storm. I’ll fix everything just as soon as I find another flashlight and the fuse box. So take it easy, honey, and close your eyes and everything will be cool. I promise.”

  I wish that could have been true; but I knew this was now highly unlikely. The air was still as a stagnant pond, and much as I tried, I could hear no clue for the sight that was awaiting me now in the sitting room; at the same time I knew I had to confront whatever it was just to prove to myself that I was still in the real world where a mad evangelical pastor’s prayers did not come true.

  As it happened, there was no other flashlight at hand; but being a priest, Father Dyer had left several beeswax candles about the place, and I quickly lit two with the matches in my pocket and very cautiously carried one into the sitting room, where I noiselessly closed the door behind me with my elbow so as not to alarm Sara any further. I hardly wanted her to come down the stairs and find me facing a barefoot intruder. I was a little less concerned about the figure still standing in the darkness and I’d have happily shot whoever or whatever it was just out of sheer annoyance.

  “Who’s there?” I snarled. “Speak up, you bastard.”

  The candle made little impression on the shadows, and the silent figure remained just a silhouette beside the window, his head jerking one way and then the other for no apparent reason. But this was accompanied by an odd sound that seemed to be coming from the figure itself: it was as if I were listening to someone—a man, perhaps—violently exerting himself to be free from some sort of bond or restraint.

  “I’ve got a gun,” I said quietly. “And I won’t hesitate to use it. Now, slowly step into the light so I can see you.”

  That might have worked on a real person, but after everything else that had occurred, I already had the impression that this was something different, for wouldn’t a real person have said something by now? And done what they were told? After all, the gun in my hand was clearly visible to whoever was in the shadows.

  “I’m losing patience with you. Now who the fuck are you?”

  I stepped forward and felt my own jaw drop at least an inch as the yellow light from the candle lit up the intruder’s twisted face. And seeing him, I felt as if some unseen hand had picked me up like an hourglass and turned me upside down, with all the sand inside me now reversing. Everything I had believed—which is to say, everything I had come to believe about belief—was wrong. I was beginning to see that now. You might say that it was the moment when my life changed forever. And the impact of this dreadful knowledge quite literally disarmed me because I put the gun down on the mantelpiece and then covered my mouth, possibly to stop myself from crying out or even puking with terror.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed through my fingers. “Holy fucking shit. I don’t believe it. What the hell are you doing here?”

  I had not seen the weird little man standing in front of me for years and yet I recognized him instantly. He twitched uncontrollably for several seconds, snarled a silent remark at some unseen devil, and then appeared to calm a little.

  It was my mad uncle Bill, hardly changed from when I’d last seen him almost thirty years ago, wearing a pink nylon shirt, loose gray trousers, and
thick, ill-fitting glasses that so badly needed cleaning they were almost opaque. He was thin, too, as undernourished looking as he’d always been, eaten up with raw, nervous energy and bughouse madness.

  “Hello, Gil,” he said, in a strong Glasgow accent. “How are ye, son?”

  “Bill.” I shook my head. “Jesus, it can’t be you. You’re five thousand miles away. You’re in Scotland.”

  “Not anymore, son,” said Bill. “As a matter of fact, I’m dead. Just a few minutes ago, as it happens.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, as if I were in a dream.

  “No, no. Don’t be sorry, son. Wis nae your fault. I’ve had more enough of the fucking Dykebar Hospital. Had enough of myself, too, if ye ken what I mean. There’s so much of that shite you can stand; fucking psychiatrists and other mental cases who’re in the bin with you.” He started to twitch again for a moment and then addressed the invisible figure near him, just like always. “Stop it. Let me fuckin’ tell him my own way.”

  “Bill,” I said. “I just wish there was something we could have done. I wanted to visit you. Really I did, but—” I sighed. “This can’t be happening.”

  “No problem, boy. Really. I was never one tae hold a grudge. I wasn’t what you’d call a people person, know what I mean? Your father tried his best, but he could nae cope and so he did what he thought was best. Which was put me in the hospital. To be fair to him, he did try to get me out of there again, but it was no good; by that time I was what they call institutionalized. And that was me fucked, right enough. I don’t suppose anyone thought I’d last this fucking long. Least of all me. Matter of fact, that’s why I offed myself with some pills. I’d been saving them up for a while so that I could do it properly.” He shrugged. “That and a large injection of methadone, just to make sure. Can’t beat it, son.”

  “Bill,” I said, closing my eyes. “This isn’t real. You can’t be in Texas. I hear what you say and some of that makes perfect sense but you can’t be in this house. Not now. I must be imagining all of this. Yes, that’s it. Something must have happened to me.”

  I closed my eyes and opened them again, but Bill remained in front of me, as clear as the picture of the angels on the wall.