(1482)
How they screamed for mercy that simply wasn’t there.
The First Born measured the ten years of his life with a sadness that he sometimes felt would kill him. He knew he must fight the pain, because he was terrified of what would happen after he died.
A sudden gust of wind raised the curtain, and light came in from the streetlamps outside. The three panels covering the wall facing his bed were immediately lit up. On the left was the Garden of Eden, and on the right was Hell. But it was the middle panel that scared him the most. Up in a blue sky sat Christ the Judge, and below him were all the people who would go to hell when they died. Some of them were burning and some were speared on horrible sharp hooks. There were so many twisted bodies, writhing in the dark. Hardly any bodies were flying up to join the angels in the blue sky. ‘No one knows the moment!’ The voice intoned inside his head. ‘The Last Judgment must come to all.’ It echoed from the plates of his skull. ‘The first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night.’
The First Born scuttled beneath the blankets and was filled with a sensation that comforted him. He felt as if his whole body was shrinking to the size of a pea. And he told himself, pea-sized and hidden in the double-darkness of night and blankets, nothing could find him.
Except for sound. A mean and heavy wind pressed down on the slates of the house he had never stepped out from, in a place he had learned was called Croxteth Road. It seemed to him that the wind was wrapping around the walls, squeezing the sides of the house. Beneath the blankets, The First Born felt his chest tighten and his breath started to come in short gasps. He was sure these were the first steps on the road to death, and to the darkness that lay beyond.
The First Born threw the blankets from himself and looked at The Last Judgment, his body heaving with silent sobs.
A demon with the face of a boar, and with burning coals instead of a heart, stood underneath a cauldron packed with bodies, screaming for help but boiling forever. The voice echoed once more inside his head. ‘This is the eternal fruits of sin, the final entrapment of humanity.’
The First Born closed his eyes but The Last Judgment was printed on his mind.
How they screamed for mercy that simply wasn’t there.
27
8.23 am
Slender shafts of daylight arrived from east of the Mersey and the temperature on Pelham Grove dropped. Clay walked towards Leonard Lawson’s house, glancing back at the slamming of car doors. Beyond the crime-scene tape, she saw a fat man hurrying under a streetlight.
She shivered as she stepped into her protective suit. Inside the house the air felt colder than on the street outside. Red-eyed and tired, DS Terry Mason stepped out of the kitchen.
‘Have you found anything, Terry?’ asked Clay.
‘He had a daughter, I assume he had a wife. I presume she’s the mother of his daughter. But there’s no physical evidence whatsoever that he had a wife, not a single photograph, not a love letter, not a piece of jewellery. It’s like she’s been written out of history.’ He handed Clay two old pages, one folded inside the other.
She opened them, separated them. Leonard Lawson’s birth certificate and his daughter Louise’s.
‘Where did you find these, Terry?’
On the street outside, a pair of footsteps echoed as they hurried in the direction of the house.
‘In a Queen Elizabeth coronation tin, in a drawer in the kitchen. The only other thing in the tin was Leonard Lawson’s passport, which expired in 1974. That’s the closest it gets here to a lifetime’s memento.’
From the front door, she heard Michael Harper’s voice. ‘But I’m Dr Lamb’s APT from the mortuary at the Royal.’ There was excitement and urgency in his voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ replied the constable on the step. ‘DCI Clay hasn’t listed you to enter the scene.’
Harper’s usually timid voice bordered on
How they screamed for mercy that simply wasn’t there.
The First Born measured the ten years of his life with a sadness that he sometimes felt would kill him. He knew he must fight the pain, because he was terrified of what would happen after he died.
A sudden gust of wind raised the curtain, and light came in from the streetlamps outside. The three panels covering the wall facing his bed were immediately lit up. On the left was the Garden of Eden, and on the right was Hell. But it was the middle panel that scared him the most. Up in a blue sky sat Christ the Judge, and below him were all the people who would go to hell when they died. Some of them were burning and some were speared on horrible sharp hooks. There were so many twisted bodies, writhing in the dark. Hardly any bodies were flying up to join the angels in the blue sky. ‘No one knows the moment!’ The voice intoned inside his head. ‘The Last Judgment must come to all.’ It echoed from the plates of his skull. ‘The first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night.’
The First Born scuttled beneath the blankets and was filled with a sensation that comforted him. He felt as if his whole body was shrinking to the size of a pea. And he told himself, pea-sized and hidden in the double-darkness of night and blankets, nothing could find him.
Except for sound. A mean and heavy wind pressed down on the slates of the house he had never stepped out from, in a place he had learned was called Croxteth Road. It seemed to him that the wind was wrapping around the walls, squeezing the sides of the house. Beneath the blankets, The First Born felt his chest tighten and his breath started to come in short gasps. He was sure these were the first steps on the road to death, and to the darkness that lay beyond.
The First Born threw the blankets from himself and looked at The Last Judgment, his body heaving with silent sobs.
A demon with the face of a boar, and with burning coals instead of a heart, stood underneath a cauldron packed with bodies, screaming for help but boiling forever. The voice echoed once more inside his head. ‘This is the eternal fruits of sin, the final entrapment of humanity.’
The First Born closed his eyes but The Last Judgment was printed on his mind.
How they screamed for mercy that simply wasn’t there.
27
8.23 am
Slender shafts of daylight arrived from east of the Mersey and the temperature on Pelham Grove dropped. Clay walked towards Leonard Lawson’s house, glancing back at the slamming of car doors. Beyond the crime-scene tape, she saw a fat man hurrying under a streetlight.
She shivered as she stepped into her protective suit. Inside the house the air felt colder than on the street outside. Red-eyed and tired, DS Terry Mason stepped out of the kitchen.
‘Have you found anything, Terry?’ asked Clay.
‘He had a daughter, I assume he had a wife. I presume she’s the mother of his daughter. But there’s no physical evidence whatsoever that he had a wife, not a single photograph, not a love letter, not a piece of jewellery. It’s like she’s been written out of history.’ He handed Clay two old pages, one folded inside the other.
She opened them, separated them. Leonard Lawson’s birth certificate and his daughter Louise’s.
‘Where did you find these, Terry?’
On the street outside, a pair of footsteps echoed as they hurried in the direction of the house.
‘In a Queen Elizabeth coronation tin, in a drawer in the kitchen. The only other thing in the tin was Leonard Lawson’s passport, which expired in 1974. That’s the closest it gets here to a lifetime’s memento.’
From the front door, she heard Michael Harper’s voice. ‘But I’m Dr Lamb’s APT from the mortuary at the Royal.’ There was excitement and urgency in his voice.
‘I’m sorry,’ replied the constable on the step. ‘DCI Clay hasn’t listed you to enter the scene.’
Harper’s usually timid voice bordered on
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