Whirlwind Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Further Titles by Hilary Norman from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  He craves the …

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Further Titles by Hilary Norman from Severn House

  The Sam Becket Mysteries

  LAST RUN

  SHIMMER

  CAGED

  HELL

  ECLIPSE

  FEAR AND LOATHING

  Standalone Titles

  RALPH’S CHILDREN

  WHIRLWIND

  WHIRLWIND

  Hilary Norman

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2016 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  First published in the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2016 by Hilary Norman.

  The right of Hilary Norman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8673-6 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-776-0 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-844-5 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  For Helen.

  With so much love, always

  Acknowledgements

  My special gratitude to the following (in alphabetical order):

  David Balfour, for sharing his knowledge; Howard Barmad; Jennifer Custer; Daniela Jarzynka; Pippa McCarthy; Special Agent Paul Marcus; Nick Pin, for his kind and expert help; Sebastian Ritscher; Helen Rose; Dr Jonathan Tarlow; Euan Thorneycroft; Jan Wielpuetz. And Jonathan. For everything, and much more.

  Author’s Note

  Shiloh, Rhode Island, is a fictitious place, as are all characters.

  As for the weather, my ‘Blizzard-to-End-All-Blizzards’ was created before any mentions of the very real ‘SantaBomb’ or ‘Snowmaggedon: Parts I or II’.

  He craves the dark, needs it, loves the way it wraps itself around him like the death-sweetest, foulest, most perfect swaddling blanket.

  In darkness, he is most fully himself.

  Not a good person. Not a normal person, but an intelligent one, fully cognizant of what he is.

  A psychopath.

  A monster, at times. Both in the light, and in the dark.

  He does his best work though, his killing, in the dark, where he’s most wholly alive. And if, by chance, they die before they reach his Erebus, then sometimes he kills them a second time. Because he needs to do it. Wants to do it. To do that to them.

  In the light, even among people, he always feels alone, but darkness brings comfort. There’s no fear in it for him, it is simply home and infinity, its possibilities endless, its sounds fantastical, the scurrying and squeaking within and the soft, distant sounds from without, in the other world.

  He might have liked to have been a mole.

  Except that moles are gentle creatures, and he is not.

  Though it isn’t just the darkness that brings him to life.

  It’s the killing.

  Which brings the only light worth seeing: star-bursts of ecstasy bright enough to burn his corneas.

  He is an insane person, he knows that.

  Sometimes, that knowledge brings with it a measure of pain.

  Not for much longer.

  ONE

  1965

  The mother was never quite certain if her son’s voice truly soared above the others in the choir of St Matthew’s, and it was not, of course, right or proper to let her pride show, or even to feel it. Her husband had once said that a cho
ir dragged from a congregation as limited as Shiloh’s could have little to commend it.

  ‘All the boy needs to do is hold a note in all that caterwauling and he’s going to sound like Johnny-fucking-Mathis,’ he said.

  She seldom dared to argue or to admonish him; she knew her place.

  But he was wrong about their son’s voice. And on this Good Friday, right or not, she felt pride to the very depths of her soul, listening to him singing ‘We glory in your cross, O Lord’ with the other choristers.

  Pride not the only sin she was guilty of.

  ‘Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.’ Ephesians, chapter five, verse twenty-two.

  She tried not to complain, but sometimes it was hard.

  ‘Let your ways be known upon earth,’ her son and the choir and congregation sang.

  The mother sang too, returning her thoughts to the service and their lovely church, gazing around at its peaceful walls and up at its vaulted ceiling – before allowing herself another snatched glance at her boy, for whom she thanked God every single day.

  And did so again now.

  The boy felt the glow.

  Of singing for the Lord. And for his mom, too, because all this was thanks to her. For reading to him from her Bible when he was a little kid, explaining it to him, making it easy, telling him the stories in her own words too, which was why, later on, while other boys at school were swapping Spider-Man or Hulk comics, he’d be daydreaming about Joseph and his coat or Daniel in the lions’ den.

  Or about how best he could serve Him.

  His dad hated it, got mad if he caught him reading the Bible, then took it out on his mom. Which was why he’d started taking it to his secret place to read.

  No one – not even his mom – knew about that place.

  Safer that way, because soon as anyone knew, they’d stop him going there, for sure.

  He’d been there when the Angel had come.

  He thought, later, that it might have happened so he could help his mother, because of how mean his father was to her sometimes, and because she deserved better than him.

  Not his place to think that, but honoring his father wasn’t always easy, and it hurt to see how sad his mom looked sometimes. Except when she was here, in church.

  That had to be why the Angel had come to him.

  He’d known right away that it was the Angel of the Lord.

  That voice, so loud in his head. Louder even than the banging of his headaches, left over, his mom had once explained, from the sickness that had nearly killed him as a baby. So loud, filling his whole skull, that it was impossible to tell if the voice was male or female, but the boy figured it had to be male, because the angels in the Bible always were …

  Not that it was important.

  It was what had been said to him that was important.

  What the Angel had told him to do.

  The boy had no words to describe how important that was.

  And how terrible.

  His very own covenant.

  Which maybe made some kind of sense because he lived in a village called Shiloh, which was the name of the place in the Bible where the Ark of the Covenant had first been kept. And he wondered for a while – trying to keep from thinking about what he had been told to do – if anyone living in any other US towns named Shiloh might have gotten messages from the Angel too, had maybe been given the same command.

  To give up what they loved most.

  He wondered if they felt the way he did about it.

  Part resentful, part afraid, part awestruck.

  Mostly awestruck. At having been chosen.

  Which meant he had no choice. None at all.

  And now he was almost out of time.

  Because tomorrow was Holy Saturday.

  TWO

  Reverend Thomas Pike’s soft rubber-soled footsteps were almost inaudible as he entered St Matthew’s at six p.m. on Saturday evening.

  The church – his church as he privately thought of it, his appointment as vicar having been approved by the diocesan bishop himself – was empty, awaiting the start of the Easter Vigil, just two hours away.

  It would be dark then, as they began, but for now the vicar turned on all the lights, needing to see the place fully illuminated for his final inspection.

  He saw the boy immediately.

  Up on the chancel, on his knees, one hand clasped to his forehead, apparently praying, oblivious to the vicar, and even to the lights that had been switched on.

  For a moment, Thomas Pike stood still, silent.

  And then he moved closer, and looked up at the altar.

  The white cloth was stained the color of sacramental wine.

  An animal – a cat – lay in the center of the cloth, its fur blood-soaked.

  Anger rose sharply in the vicar, swiftly quelled by an admonition to be compassionate because clearly there had been an accident. The boy must have found the injured cat and, not knowing what else to do, brought it into the church to pray for its survival. An affront, certainly, but driven by distress and faith.

  Pike took a few steps closer and recognized the boy, a member of his choir.

  He took a breath, then cleared his throat.

  The boy shuddered, but went on with his muttered prayers.

  The cat, Pike saw now, was beyond help.

  ‘Son,’ he said, gently, ‘you need to stop that now.’

  The boy removed his hand from his forehead, turned his head and looked at the vicar, and Pike gasped because the animal’s blood was on his face, smeared over his forehead and cheeks, on both his hands and all over his white shirt and tie.

  His Sunday clothes.

  Shock ousted compassion.

  ‘In the name of God, what have you done?’

  The boy’s mouth opened, but no words came.

  ‘Answer me,’ Reverend Pike ordered.

  ‘The Angel.’ The boy’s voice was a whisper. ‘The Angel of the Lord came to me and told me to do it.’

  Outrage flared in Thomas Pike’s chest. Then, hard on its heels, fear.

  Because he’d seen the knife tucked in the boy’s belt, blood on its blade.

  He steadied himself. ‘Stand up.’

  The boy’s eyes were dark and unreadable. ‘The Angel told me to put her on the altar. Like Genesis, chapter twenty-two, verse nine. “And Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac …” Only I don’t have a son, obviously, so the Angel said it had to be something I loved, which meant it had to be Molly.’ The eyes filled with tears. ‘And I asked the Angel if I really had to burn her, but he said—’

  ‘Enough!’ Reverend Pike’s face was scarlet, his spectacles misting with heat. ‘This is sacrilege, and you will get that thing off my altar and out of my church.’

  ‘It’s God’s church,’ the boy said, softly. ‘And I have to finish.’

  Pike watched him turn back to the altar and fought a violent urge to take hold of him, clenched his fists, struggling to bring himself under control. This was a choirboy, he reminded himself, the son of one of the most devout women in his flock.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You can stay.’

  The boy crossed himself, closed his eyes and went back to his prayers.

  The vicar turned around, walked up the center aisle to the narthex, took a large key from his pocket, his hand shaking, and locked the main door, then walked slowly back through the nave, up the steps to the chancel without another glance at the boy, opened the door that led to the vestry and his parlor, went through, closed the door behind him and locked that too.

  For a moment he leaned against the cool wall, and then he looked at his wristwatch.

  Six-twenty on Holy Saturday and a choirboy had gone mad in his church with little over an hour to go before the commencement of the Vigil.

  A dead cat and a pool of blood on the altar cloth.

  ‘God help us all,’ said Pike.

  And then he went into his parlor, opene
d the side door that led to Elm Street, stepped out into the fresh and pleasant April air – and began to run.

  And over the next few hours, during the long, anguished night and day that followed, a woman lost her life, and others conspired to blot out what had happened, and to change forever the course of the woman’s son’s life.

  And his trinity of losses began.

  Two right away.

  Mother and home.

  The third coming later, more gradually, perhaps the greatest loss of all.

  Faith.

  Because after that, he felt entirely alone.

  And the boy who had spoken to angels began slowly crumbling to dust.

  And flew down, into the dark.

  THREE

  2014

  Liza Plain was wandering around Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in Boston’s North End, browsing some of the seriously old tombstones, when she saw him.

  Sitting on the grass by a gravestone about thirty feet away.

  She thought it was him, though he was very changed.

  But then, when he turned his head, noticed her and jumped to his feet, dumping a laptop into a bag, slinging it over his shoulder and wheeling his bicycle quickly away in the opposite direction, she knew it, for sure.

  Michael Rider. Thirteen years older than when she’d last seen him, looking every day of it and then some. Still attractive, but thinner to the point of gauntness, and unshaven, his straight brown hair shorter than it had been, his clothes almost shabby.

  Definitely not wanting contact with her.

  Liza considered, momentarily, following him, wanting very much to speak to him, knowing of no valid reason why she should not. Yet still, she did have an idea, even some understanding, of what might have been behind that rapid departure.

  There was a possibility that he might consider her guilty, by association, with the people who’d helped wreck his life. Because she’d let him down, even if that had been a long time ago and out of her control.

  He’d told her, back then, that he’d never had much time for journalists. And her own grandfather always said that all journalists were scum.

  Not that she was a real journalist these days, but still …

  Something else struck her. The headstones she’d been looking at, not for the first time. Belonging, she was fairly certain, to past generations of the Cromwell family.