The boy looked like an unfinished sculpture, the man thought. Just like he himself. Weak. Fragmented. Incomplete. Here in St Angela’s – his nemesis.

He’d spent his miserable childhood within this enclosure and he’d grown, like ivy inhabiting a cracked concrete wall, wild and untethered. His soul darkened day by day, as he became enshrined in his own world. Abuse and deceit engulfed him but as the years passed he learned to bury embryonic evil beneath a daily facade of normality.

And now St Angela’s had once again resurrected the devil, exhumed the darkness, bringing him on this final journey.

Back to where he had started.

And he knew it would finish here.

He kicked the boy lying on the ground and when he moaned, he dragged him to his feet, pushed him up the steps and back to the room. He thrust him down on the mildewed floorboards, banged the door shut and locked it. Leaning against the worn timber he breathed heavily.

He had spared the boy.

Kept the demons at bay.

But for how long?

30th January 1976

The four of them huddled together when they should have been running. The door swung open. Brian stood there, a white robe covering his body. His thin arm edged up the wall, his narrow fingers flicked on the light. Sally shielded her eyes against the brightness.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Brian said. ‘I’m not all right. Neither are you. You’re all to come down to the chapel. Father Con orders ye to come.’

‘Are you mad or what?’ Patrick asked, stepping in front of Sally. She wanted to tell him she was brave enough to stand up for herself but didn’t. Because she wasn’t.

‘I asked you a frigging question,’ Patrick said.

‘You’ve all to come with me,’ Brian said, his voice deadpan like his eyes.

To Sally he seemed a lot older, standing there in the doorway. She put her hand on his arm and felt bone beneath skin. He jumped as if she had pinched him. He grasped her hand and pulled her out the door. She screamed and Fitzy snapped out of whatever stupor he had been in and dragged her back into the room with Brian still holding on to her.

Sally fell and curled into a small heap at the boys’ bare feet. Her body jerked with shivers.

‘Please, Brian,’ she pleaded. ‘Let’s all go back to bed and forget about this.’

‘You better come with me. He’s waiting,’ Brian said, before he was pushed into the room.

From behind him, Father Con, eyes as black as the night, reached in and yanked Sally to her feet. A scream tore from her throat as he dragged her out and down the stairs. She heard the shuffle of the boys as they followed.

At the altar, he glared down at her and she up at him. She knew every line on his face, every hair in his eyebrows, every whisker on his jaw, every tooth in his mouth and she hated every inch of him.

‘Bad girl,’ he said, his mouth snarling, teeth biting his bottom lip, fingers cutting into her arm.

‘You’re the one who turned me into a bad girl,’ Sally said.

The hint of bravado was a lie. At least the boys were there, standing like a band of warriors though they hadn’t a weapon between them.

One of them shouted, ‘You tell him, Sally.’ Probably Patrick, she thought.

The priest reached out his hand and seized the boy nearest to him. Fitzy, with his red hair gleaming in the candle light. She could count the big flat freckles bridging his nose. And she saw fire burning flames in his eyes.

‘I’m not scared, you bully,’ Fitzy said, squaring his shoulders. Sally wished he would keep his mouth shut. He was too young to be this brave, or was he plain silly?

The priest surveyed him as if he was a prize fish.

Sally whirled her head around in a frenzy. They had to get out of here. Get help. But from whom? Not the nuns. Sure everyone was afraid of Father Con. He was the boss man. She didn’t know what to do. She looked at Patrick. He appeared as hopeless as she was. Then, secluded in the flickering shadows behind the altar, she spotted the young priest with the ugly eyes. Standing there, in the dark alcove, doing nothing. Staring, rubbing his hands through his thick black hair, as if he did not know what to do either. His silent, passive presence was as terrifying as the maniac holding Fitzy. What were they to do?

A scream from Fitzy drew her eyes back to Father Con. He was twisting the boy’s arm up his back.

‘I will teach you to respect your elders. You were bad news from the day you entered these walls. And you will be bad news until the day you leave it,’ he said.

‘You’re nothing,’ Fitzy said bravely. He looked very small.

The priest tightened his hold with one hand and with the other plucked a candle from the altar. He held it to Fitzy’s face. The flame flickered and danced, singeing his red hair black. Sally gagged at the smell.

‘Say you are sorry. You’re nothing only a bad bastard and your mother is a prostitute.’ Fitzy squirmed and wriggled. He couldn’t break free of the stranglehold.

Sally watched his helpless body convulsing and wished they could do something. Anything. They were as powerless as the stupid statues on the walls. Why didn’t the other priest do something? She glanced over. He was still standing there. Immobile.

Father Con threw the candle to the floor, kicked over his folded clothes and picked up his long leather belt.

‘Brian, use the cord from your robe and tie this murdering brat’s hands behind his back.’

Sally saw a film of sweat on Brian’s brow. She looked from Patrick to James, her eyes questioning. What’s going on? They shook their heads vigorously.

Fitzy kicked, lashed out and bit. The priest held fast. Brian did as he was commanded. Once bound, Fitzy was pushed, by Father Con, to his knees before the altar.

‘You murdered that baby, didn’t you?’ the priest shouted. ‘The one we found under the apple tree.’

Fitzy spat out a full mouth of phlegm. ‘I didn’t, you lying bastard.’

Tightening the belt round his hand, the priest drew out his arm and slashed the leather into Fitzy’s face. The brass buckle cut into his cheek and blood poured from the wound. The priest repeated his action, again and again. Sally scrunched her eyes behind her hands, then squinted through splayed fingers. When she couldn’t bear it any longer she screamed and, mustering up as much courage as she could, she ran at Father Con. He turned, lashing at her with the leather. Patrick pulled her away and dragged her down the aisle. She thought of dashing back, but it was hopeless. She caught James by the hand and the three of them scrambled up the stairs, shouting for help.

Over her shoulder, Sally witnessed Brian holding Fitzy by the shoulders, while the lunatic brought the leather up and down, again and again and again. As long as she lived, she would never forget the sound of leather tearing flesh and the boy’s helpless screams. And the ugly young priest with the thick black hair, standing in the corner, watching, doing nothing.

As they fled toward the corridor, Sally heard a voice, loud and clear behind them. ‘Stop!’

The three of them turned in unison, coming face to face with the young priest, a halo of light from the crypt below, encircling him like a satanic fire.

He walked up to them. Sally leaned into the boys’ bodies. They were three, dissolved into one shadow.

‘Be quiet. We do not want to wake everyone up, do we?’ The priest flashed a sly smile, his face colder than ice, eyes blacker than coal, voice sharper than a cut-throat razor.

‘You do not need concern yourselves with what you saw. I will deal with it. Do not utter this incident to anyone. Anyone! Do you hear?’ His voice a slow, severe whisper.

The three nodded their heads like wooden puppets with an unseen force holding the strings.

‘If I ever hear of this again . . . well, you have seen what happened to that boy. I will not warn you a second time. Now return to your beds.’

He melted back down the stairs. Sally and the boys looked at each other, eyes wide, brimming with tears.

‘What about Fitzy?’ Sally whispered.

‘You heard what he said. We’ll have to forget about him,’ Patrick said.

‘He’s one unlucky fecker,’ James said. He slid to the floor and fell against an iron radiator, his arms around his knees, shivering and sobbing.

Sally sat down beside James. Patrick joined them. And the three of them cried together for Fitzy.