'Where are they?' I hissed close to his ear.
He wasn't so mad that he didn't know I'd crack his blood-drenched face against the floor again if I didn't get an answer. Through bruised lips and cracked teeth he managed to say: 'They ... they took them.'
'Took them where?' I deliberately pushed my anger, allowing it to overcome my own revulsion at what I was doing. Tightening my grip in his hair, I tugged his head up another couple of inches. He got the message and mumbled something so fast I couldn't catch it.
I pulled his head back even further so that I could look into those terrible eyes. I winced at the leaking blood and the burst veins in his cheeks. The fingers of his hands spread out before him were blackened and swollen, smelling of gangrene. I wanted to choke.
'Where?' I spat out through clenched teeth.
I guess he didn't like the wildness in my own eyes, because his diction suddenly improved. 'They ... they needed ... God's help.'
I stared at him.
'Sir Max ... Sir Max said God...'
His words trailed off in a whining moan, the saliva that drooled from his cracked lips turning pinkish as it flowed, becoming a deeper red by the time it reached the floor. His body began to convulse beneath me, gently at first, a trembling that became a shaking, and then a violent thrashing. He began to cry out, then to scream, and I had no choice, I had to stifle the sounds, stop him arousing others who could be anywhere inside the keep.
This time I put all my strength into smashing his head against the bloodied flagstone and the sickening thud it made was a hundred times worse than the soft groan that came from him. His body went limp and his head lolled sideways; on his bloody face was an expression of contentment, as if he were glad to be off somewhere else. At least, that's what I told myself to ease my conscience. I didn't know if he was dead - his body wasn't even twitching - but I guess I hoped so. Better for him, that way.
I untangled the Sten's sling from the pikestaff as I got to my feet. And it was then that I heard the strains drifting through the open doorway above my head. It was organ music.
I remembered the chapel across the great courtyard.
25
IT WAS A WEIRD, tormented sound that wafted through the warm morning air across the wide, open space between the keep and surrounding buildings, muted and agonized organ music that had more in common with Lon Chaney than religious adoration. It came from the little church tucked away in a far corner of the yard, an overgrown, weed-ridden green with untidy trees spread before it, a bell tower rising over its rough-stoned walls and slanted roof, the bell inside its open turret visible from where I stood at the top of the White Tower's steps. I took a deep breath, dreading what I might find over there, before descending those stairs and scooting across the courtyard, the soles of my boots sticky with blood, heading for the nearest cover, which was the grand neo-Gothic building opposite, expecting to be challenged at any moment.
Nothing happened though, no sudden challenge interrupted my flight across open ground, and as soon as I reached the opposite wall, I went down on my haunches, facing out, the submachine gun weaving left and right, ready for the slightest disturbance. Apart from the faint, creaky organ music from the chapel, all was quiet and still.
I caught my breath and moved on, keeping close to the wall like always, using all the cover I could get, and before long I was crossing the passageway between the blockhouse tower and the chapel itself.
Standing on tiptoe beneath the first of the five tall leaded windows, I peeped in, but the glass was too thick and too filthy for me to see anything clearly. All I caught was movement inside, although I heard other sounds over the organ music, voices shouting, others pleading.
Afraid my shadow might be seen, I ducked again and made my way along the row of windows, skirting round two big, lichen-covered tombs set on plinths along the path, searching for the chapel's entrance. I found the door around the corner, between the west wall and bell tower, a cart for carrying small boxes or sacks standing close by. The door was open a few inches and the droning music was bad enough to make me want to block my ears. I thought I heard a child's wailing as I crept closer.
Back against the door, I used an elbow to widen the gap, the Sten upright, close to my chest I lowered the barrel as the door swung slowly inwards, turning my body at the same time towards the chapel's interior.
The aisle before me, a few feet wide, led straight to a small, plain altar, a gold crucifix at its centre, a decorative leaded-glass window overlooking it Light from all the high windows was dulled by the dirty glass, and the ceiling beams of dark wood cast their own oppressive gloom. To my left was a set of high arches, inside the first an alabaster tomb-chest, a stone knight and his lady laid out on its surface; further along the covered area was a massive wood-carved organ with tarnished pipes; beyond that, at the end wall, another door.
Dust motes floated in the subdued rays of light that played on the heads and shoulders of the congregation and there was movement everywhere, bodies shifting on the benches, distraught children waving their arms in the air, Blackshirts patrolling the centre aisle, weapons at the ready. Some of these people were moaning, others could only cower in fear, but all were looking at the diminutive figure standing before the altar.
Hubbe had his back to them, and the tall Blackshirt, the one called McGruder, was helping him remove his shirt, exposing a thin, bruised arm and a hand that was now darkened almost to the wrist. Hubble's bare shoulder was hunched and covered with nasty blemishes, the blood beneath the skin visibly thickened. It was an ugly sight, which stirred up the nausea I could still taste in my mouth.
He began to turn in my direction and I stepped behind the half-opened door in case he saw me.
With some effort, Hubble straightened himself. His chin jutted as he stood with one hand on his cane in a pose that he probably imagined made him look strong, invincible, a leader of men. But his sunken cheeks and the dark bruising around his eyes, the blueness of those tight-drawn lips, the sickly pallor of his skin, almost translucent now, so that the network of tiny broken veins beneath was clearly visible, his thin hair -
once immaculately groomed, now straggly and brittle, falling forward over his waxen forehead - and the stubborn stoop of his shoulders, not to mention the palsied quivering of his limbs - all this only mocked the old image, reduced him to a hideous parody of the man who'd enthralled i thousands of similar bigots with his Fascist oratory before the outbreak of the second - and last - world war, a man who'd marched at the head of a neo-Nazi army, subordinate only to Sir Oswald Mosley. Yet those bloodshot eyes still burned with a zealot's fervour and I realized he was more dangerous than ever. Hubble didn't have long for this decimated world but his dementia was driving him on, giving him the strength and the will to inflict even more misery.
I remained hidden behind the angled door, figuring out my next move.
The tuneless organ music finally droned to a wheezing halt when the Blackshirt leader raised a trembling hand towards the player, an obese, bespectacled woman with shorn hair, who wore the same black garments of terror as the men of Hubble's army. She twisted her bulk to face the altar, the effort difficult for her, and even from where I stood peering round the door at the far end of the chapel, I could see the marks of death on her loose-fleshed face. A couple of guards shouted for quiet, another striking out at hostages close to him, as Hubble began to speak.