The Siege of Reginald Hill Read online

  Unbidden, my eye picked at the word on the medical ID bracelet around her wrist—but I couldn’t make it out.

  “Get up…” A painful jab into my ribs with the too-solid muzzle.

  I bowed deeply to the tabernacle and crossed myself, ignoring their sharp warnings—they were probably going to kill me regardless, so I felt little temptation to be irreverent. Then I got to my feet. All sleepiness had left me. My heart thudded too fast, adrenalin sharpening my vision.

  I should lock the tabernacle… No, actually, I probably shouldn’t call attention to my Lord’s physical Presence. Don’t you touch that tabernacle, don’t you touch it!

  The woman couldn’t have heard my fierce thought, but thankfully she showed no interest in the fancy strongbox on the wall. She probably had no conception of the fact that she stood two metres away from God Himself. “Walk…” Squaring her jaw, she jabbed the gun into my ribs again, hard, drawing an involuntary flinch. The man just watched me impassively, the hand holding the nonLee remaining even steadier than the one holding the video camera.

  I’d have to leave the tabernacle unlocked. If they realised, who knew what they’d do to Him? I headed down the aisle, my back tingling in chill expectation—the back of my head even more so. But…a nonLethal. Perhaps they didn’t mean to kill me on the spot.

  Lord… I thought, as we passed the altar, but then I wasn’t sure what to say next. Save me? No… Your will, Lord. Just…keep me close to You. Keep me true to You. Please? I didn’t really want to die, but I wanted to fail Him even less.

  I reached the entry hut without any deadly scrap of metal smashing through either head or spine, and the woman pulled my hands behind my back, yanking a cable tie tight around my wrists. After that, I was unsurprised to see a shiny black jeep waiting when we got outside. Ah, the beauty of the night sky! I drank it in as the man switched the lights off and carefully shut up the church for the night.

  All too soon, he opened the back door of the hearse-coloured vehicle and shoved me within. The man and woman got in one on either side, pinning me between them. And their two guns.

  The heavy, ugly tint of the glass in the closing door blocked the stars from my appreciative eyes, to my momentary dismay. But…

  They could take the beauty of creation from me.

  They could take my life.

  But they could never take God. The knowledge lodged in my chest like a small hot water bottle—or a captive sun.

  “Put his seatbelt on.” A cold—and oddly familiar—voice spoke from the front passenger seat. “It would be such a shame if an accident befell him.”

  The menace in this apparently benign statement sent a chill down my spine—the woman laughed, a sound of cruel anticipation. I was getting a bad feeling about this whole thing. Okay, an even worse feeling.

  Hunched awkwardly in the seat with my hands behind me, I stared at the man who’d spoken as they fastened the lap belt around me, trying to make out his face in the dark. Did I know him? He sounded quite old. Well-spoken. But so cold.

  “Your sister would have known my voice at once,” the man remarked, as I continued to peer at him. “But then she and I have actually met, several times. Your slowness on the uptake is understandable.”

  A shadowy hand rose to touch the overhead light and I squeezed my eyes half-closed as brightness filled the vehicle. Squinting, I made out a lined face…

  My stomach didn’t drop this time. It plummeted.

  “Hello, Kyle,” said Reginald Hill, the EuroGov’s universally feared Minister for ‘Internal Affairs’. “It’s so nice to meet you at last.”

  MARGO

  “No, I can’t do that week.” I balanced the phone between cheek and shoulder as I checked my diary, then glanced at my study door as I heard Polly’s and Lizzie’s voices, raised. Uh oh. The children had come in from school a while ago but there were some things I’d wanted to finish before knocking off for the day.

  “Are you sure, Margo? They’re a major TV station in—”

  “Sister Mari, I know, but no. That’s when Kyle’s visiting. There’s got to be another date they can do.” I put the diary back on my desk, ear still cocked towards the door. Did I need to go out? No, I could hear Luc’s voice now, speaking at a normal volume. He was only eleven, but good at keeping the peace.

  Sister Mari sighed. “Well, I expect they can be persuaded; they’re very keen.”

  Thank you, Lord, for that, I thought, as we said good evening and rang off. Not only because Kyle’s visit wouldn’t be spoiled by me having to work, but also because I dreaded waning interest. Waning interest in me, I would love, except that interest in me and interest in the cause remained inextricable. Every time I thought I’d resigned myself to a life under the public spotlight, I found myself thinking wistfully of the quiet anonymous life in Africa I’d once imagined for Bane and myself.

  I pushed the phone back to the corner of the desk and drew my laptop to me.

  Simply not being able to live in Africa didn’t bother me, mind you, though it would’ve been nice to see the place. Eduardo, still the Vatican’s head of security and as cautious as ever, always vetoed us going to see Kyle out there, on grounds of ‘security challenges’. If only Kyle could visit more often.

  Of course, he’d been here only three months ago. A vice closed on my throat, just thinking about it, and my hands went still, my laptop lid unopened.

  As soon as he’d heard about little George’s diagnosis—anencephaly, the word made me shudder—Kyle had arranged to be with us for the birth—and he’d come in good time. And what a blessing, since Georgie, impatient to reach heaven, had arrived—contrary to all the predictions—so early that Mum and Dad hadn’t got here yet, and Jon had still been in South America on a research trip.

  Our little baby had looked so perfect in his soft white hat, lying there in Kyle’s strong arms as my brother baptised him. How tenderly Kyle had laid him back on my breast afterwards. A few agonisingly wonderful minutes were all I’d had with him—then Doctor Carol noticed how much blood I was losing. Little George was hastily bundled into Bane’s grasp and I was rushed away, crying and screaming for my poor doomed baby. Emotional and overwrought, I’d had a serious failure of both reason and upper lip.

  But Bane and Kyle and Luc and Polly and Javi and Lizzie had all held little Georgie. Even Joey had held Georgie, with Bane holding them both. All recorded on video for me, since by that point I was unconscious in the operating theatre. And by the time I woke again, our precious little boy had fallen asleep in his father’s arms, for the first and last time, with his uncle and brothers and sisters gathered around him.

  I’d cried almost non-stop for three days. Or so it felt. For months I’d known Georgie had been fast-tracked for heaven, but to miss those last few precious hours with my little one… I suppose it was all exacerbated by hormones and sheer exhaustion from the blood loss, but it broke me in a way nothing else had. Kyle sat with me in the hospital for hours upon hours, praying or just holding me as I sobbed—and sobbed and sobbed—while Bane tried his best to maintain some normality for the children.

  Once Mum and Dad arrived, they took over the child care, so Bane—always my tower of strength—took over most of the hugging. Kyle kept on with the praying, though. My big brother had always been a lot more…spiritual…than me. For years it’d felt like every time I saw him, he’d made new strides in his prayer life, while I was running in one place, just trying not to go backwards. I’d have blamed the demands of family—and fame—except Kyle was busy enough himself. He didn’t know how not to be—especially with an entire parish to look after.

  Since finally working through the old, old trauma of Joe’s death, Kyle had bloomed even more, both emotionally and spiritually, so much that—honestly?—I’d struggled not to be jealous. Now, I was just so grateful that he’d been there with his unshakeable faith and trusting calm, right when I needed it.

  We’d talked often on the phone, since—something else I appreciated, si
nce he wasn’t great at calling, usually—if he’d nothing else to do, he’d be too busy praying to phone, these days. But I was really looking forward to his visit, in a month’s time.

  And I was having all that time with my brother, not with a TV station, however major!

  KYLE

  The cable tie bit painfully into my wrists. Maybe if I could shift my position…but the guards sat so close, the woman a warm, plump mass, the man all wiry muscle. Ignore it, Kyle. Hill remained turned in his seat, watching me. He knew I’d recognised him and awaited my reaction. His snow-white hair—only thinning slightly—looked ghostly with the light above it, his pale skin only adding to the impression.

  No point asking Hill what he wanted with me. This man had caused nothing but pain to my sister and my family. He was the one who’d signed Margo’s death warrant, all those years ago. He’d tortured Bane for three long days. He’d ‘interrogated’ Lucas brave-but-batty Everington for three whole months and later allowed him to carry out the deadly transaction that had helped Bane so much, but at the cost of such grief to Margo. He’d sent poor old Georg Friedrich to kill Margo, then turned around and tried to execute him for it, for the sake of public relations.

  As the so-called ‘Minister for Internal Affairs,’ hurting, coercing, and betraying people was something of a speciality of his. And killing. Let’s not forget that.

  No, I’d no need to ask what he wanted with me. The famous pre-vote debate, Margaret Verrall vs. Reginald Hill, in which my sister had got the better of Hill in such a humiliating way, snatching Georg Friedrich from death with less than an hour to go, remained one of the thousand most watched videos online. Oh, I knew what Hill wanted with me and it had nothing to do with me at all. Revenge. Pure and simple. Simple, anyway. I was just a tool in his hands, a weapon that could hurt my sister.

  “Mr Hill,” I said politely, focusing on that shadowed face, “there’s really no need for this. If you’d like counsel or baptism, you’re very welcome to just come in and ask for it. It’s about time.”

  After a second’s silence, Hill barked a laugh. “So, you’re a bold boy. No surprise there. Not that I ever actually got to measure your sister’s exact quantity of guts. But I hope to make up for it with you.”

  That…did not sound good.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” demanded Hill.

  My body tensed…

  “Let’s get moving,” Hill went on, glancing at the driver—tall and more youthfully fair-haired than Hill; that was all I could see from behind. “We’ve a long drive.”

  I tried not to relax too obviously.

  Silly Kyle. Why would they put you in the car and then kill you? That would just make a mess all over this smart vehicle.

  For now, this was only a kidnapping. My heart was still thudding painfully, though. Lord, keep me close to You.

  The jeep began to move, bumping gently as it gathered speed along the rough track. We weren’t taking the main road out of the village. What were the chances anyone had even seen me taken? That they had realised what they were seeing if they had? I refused to despair—despair hardly being an appropriate reaction to death anyway, not for a Believer—but suddenly I didn’t fancy my chances of beating Our Lord’s record when it came to the length of my earthly life.

  How I would die—and how long it would take—was a fear far less easily soothed. I should probably start praying for that nice clean bullet to the back of the head. From Reginald Hill? I should be so lucky.

  Hill glanced around again and scowled. “Excuse me? Are we forgetting something back there?”

  The male henchman’s face betrayed nothing, but I glimpsed his fingers tighten around the camera. Then he put it aside and pulled a cloth bag over my head—close black weave filled my vision. Short stubby fingers touched my neck on the other side, as the woman drew the bag’s drawstring tight and fastened it. Tight enough to hurt, though not to strangle. I tried not to shrink from her touch, but in the next moment her hand was running over my chest.

  “You don’t recognise me, do you, handsome boy?”

  I think it was meant to be a purr, but it came out too grating.

  “Should I?” I spoke as calmly as I could.

  “My name’s Gladys. Major Gladys Wallis, EGD Security. Retired. Thanks to your sister.”

  Oh dear. The girl’s warden from the EuroBloc Genetics Department Facility where Margo had once been imprisoned as a New Adult. Great, another person who hated Margo. Was the guy ex-EGD as well? And the driver? How official was this little operation of Hill’s?

  “I hope you were able to find other employment, Major Wallis?” I said civilly.

  “Think that’s so easy, do you?” Her nails were suddenly biting through my cassock. “After your sister made me out to be a…a…” She broke off, breathing hard as though suffocated by her rage.

  “I remember how much my sister encouraged people to offer former EGD Security personnel a second chance.”

  “Oh? But what did she say about me?” snarled the angry woman.

  “The truth.”

  Smack.

  Pain flared across the side of my face. Yes, Margo had said this woman was quick to lash out. The truth indeed.

  “You won’t disprove what he said that way,” chuckled Hill, as though in echo of my own thought.

  A silence followed, as though the Menace (how Margo always referred to this woman) didn’t dare talk back to Hill—but it was a baleful silence.

  “Mr Hill,” I ventured, “this seems a rather…imprudent move…on your part. With the elections coming up.”

  “The election is my business, Kyle.”

  “Yes… Um, you know, you’re not close family—or even related to me at all, to the best of my knowledge. So it’s Father Kyle, if you don’t mind.”

  Hill laughed harshly. “I’m not endorsing your superstitious lunacy, Kyle.”

  “I still think you should just let me out and forget this happened if you want to be re-elected. I can walk back, and I won’t hold a grudge.”

  Hill laughed again, but…there was a slightly manic edge to it. Yes, I should be listening. This man, for all his crimes, was just that, a man. Like any of my parishioners. I should be listening, not just to what he said, but to what he meant, what was driving him. Anyone who could do the things he did had to have serious spiritual problems.

  “You are a brave one. No crying. No begging. Well, I didn’t really expect it. Always makes a nice change. But no struggling, either. A strong young man like you. But you’re not putting up a fight at all.”

  I could tell from his smug tone that he was simply probing me. “As you know, Mr Hill, I am not allowed to fight. I am a priest.”

  “But you carried—and used—a weapon on your sister’s so-called Liberation missions.”

  “I carried and used a nonLethal on Bane’s Liberations, yes. To save innocents—and with Papal approval. Facility guards and soldiers, well, they’re not going to have an undiagnosed heart problem, are they? All the same, I don’t think I would fire even a nonLee merely in my own defence. Just in case.”

  Hill laughed yet again. “Do you really think it’s smart to tell us that, Kyle? In your position?”

  I shrugged, the bag tight around my neck. “My sister’s the smart one. I just care for people’s souls.”

  “Souls don’t exist.” Hill’s voice took on a sharper note. “You’ve wasted your life caring for non-existent things. How does that feel now?”

  “I have no complaints about my life.” My voice sounded so…serene…to my ears, and…yes, what I said was true. I did wish I could’ve seen more of my sister and family—but not so much that I regretted—even remotely—giving my life to God.

  Giving my life to God. Synonymous with martyrdom when I was growing up. I needed to get back into that way of thinking. And quickly.

  “No complaints…” Hill’s tone was vicious. “What a poor fool you are, Kyle Verrall.”

  “But a content one. What about you
, Mr Hill? Do you have…complaints about your life?”

  “Enjoy your last night alive, Kyle.” On the heels of his cold words came an electrical whine, then he spoke again, harshly, but not to me. “If you want to cross your legs—well, that’s just too bad. Pass me that blanket.”

  From the sounds, I guessed Hill had reclined his seat almost onto the Menace and was tucking himself in for the night. When he said long drive, he clearly meant it.

  Well…it would give me time to prepare. Compose my soul, as the old saying went. After all these years of safety, I was reeling in shock to find my life suddenly demanded of me after all. Part of me, screaming and wailing in protest, sought to cling to this world like a child throwing a tantrum. Like any tantrumous child, my fingers needed gently but firmly prying apart so that I could be carried away to something better than that to which I clung in such small-minded foolishness.

  Joe, little brother, pray for me? I think I’ll be seeing you soon. Dear little Georgie, pray for your uncle. Blessed Peter, Father Mark, Lucas, pray for me, please? Any help my family’s—mostly uncanonised—saints could give me would be welcome indeed.

  To have a whole night to do the finger-prying was certainly a great blessing. How many people were simply struck down so suddenly they could think of nothing in those last brief moments but the pain and the fear? How many people suffered that even more dreadful fate, a silent departure as they slept, passing to God just as they were when they so blithely plonked their heads down on their pillows? No, although my heart still thud-thudded in my chest and sweat covered my brow under the smothering bag, I was very blessed indeed.

  But I had others to pray for first. Lord, please comfort Margo. Please comfort them all. My parents, especially them. They’re not as young as they were, and this will be such a shock. But above all be with Margo, Lord. She’s still dealing with losing little Georgie. Please enable her to grasp firmly and unwaveringly that it is Hill who is responsible for this. I can imagine all too clearly how awful she will feel, knowing that he kills me because he cannot get to her. Or maybe simply because he knows it will hurt her more. He’s cunning enough for that.