Free Broken Angels (Katie Maguire) by Graham Masterton Page A

don’t you kill me and put me out of my pain?’ Father Quinlan asked him.
    ‘Because I need to hear you confess your sin, father, and I need you to tell me the names of all of those who were complicit with you in committing that sin, and most of all I need to know who instigated that whole terrible madness.’
    ‘I can’t,’ croaked Father Quinlan.
    ‘Can’t, father, or won’t ?’ the Grey Mullet Man demanded, coming closer, with his rubbery apron rustling. He smelled of stale sweat and onions. The fish on his forearms looked like the sea monsters on medieval mariners’ maps, with bulging eyes and thick lips. One of them had been cut open so that torrents of smaller fish were pouring out its belly.
    Father Quinlan said, ‘I took an oath of silence. All of us did. None of us can speak of what we did or who we did it with, or why.’
    Without warning, the Grey Mullet Man violently shook the rope from which Father Quinlan was hanging, so that Father Quinlan let out a girlish squeal of pain.
    ‘At the very least you could confess your own sin, couldn’t you, father? Then who knows? I might be minded to let you down, if you did.’
    ‘But it wasn’t a sin. We never once thought of it – ever – as a sin.’ Father Quinlan had to pause between each sentence to catch his breath, and to cough, but the Grey Mullet Man waited as if he had all the time in the world, gently swinging the rope backward and forward to make Father Quinlan feel even more defenceless than he did already.
    ‘Oh, so it wasn’t a sin. But if it wasn’t a sin, what was it?’
    ‘Let me explain to you why it was done. It was done – it was all done—’
    ‘Go on, father. Don’t stop now.’
    Father Quinlan closed his eyes. The pain was too much for him. He could see nothing behind his eyelids but solid scarlet, the colour of hell, but he could still hear the choir singing ‘O Sanctissima’, and the honking of traffic on Patrick Street outside, and the pitter-pattering of shoppers’ feet, like the eager crowds hurrying in their sandals up Calvary Hill, to see Christ and the robbers crucified.
    ‘It was all done for the greater glory of God. And of the diocese.’
    ‘Come here to me? What you and your fellow priests did – exactly how was that supposed to glorify God? Or the diocese for that matter? What you and your fellow priests did, that was the work of the Devil, that was, and no mistake about it.’
    ‘You don’t understand.’
    ‘No, you’re absolutely right, father, I don’t understand, and unless you tell me I won’t understand, either.’
    ‘What difference does it make? You’re going to torture me and kill me whether I tell you or not. I would rather keep my oath to my brother priests, and to God.’
    The Grey Mullet Man shrugged. ‘It’s your decision, father. But I don’t think you realize that there’s a difference between torture and torture. Hanging there, I’ll bet you that feels like torture. Oh, yes! But at least when you’re hanging there, you still have a hope of surviving, like, and living a normal life afterwards. Maybe your arms will never be the same again, but you’ll still be able to walk and talk and eat fish and chips and wipe your own arse.’
    The Grey Mullet Man leaned forward. The flap that covered his face rose and fell as he breathed. ‘Supposing, though, you had your feet cut off? Or maybe your hands? Supposing you lost your ears, or your nose, or had your eyes poked out? All without the benefit of anaesthetic, of course. That wouldn’t just hurt while it was being done to you, would it? You’d know while it was being done that you would never be the same man again, ever.’
    He said nothing for twenty long seconds, his face flap rising and falling, his eyes glinting through the cut-out holes. Then he whispered, ‘Then, father, then you’d be begging me to kill you. I promise you.’
    He pushed Father Quinlan hard, and Father Quinlan swung around and around, his legs kicking,