‘Can’t you drive any faster?’ Lottie asked.

Kirby floored the accelerator and skidded. He righted the car and clamped a cigar between his lips.

‘We can’t be sure he’ll be there.’

‘From what O’Malley’s told me, I think Jason’s being kept there and I know who abducted him.’

‘Bit of a leap of the imagination, isn’t it?’

‘If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. Hurry up.’

She was sure she knew who Brian was. He must have been tipped over the edge because of something to do with the development of St Angela’s. And he’d targeted Rickard by taking Jason. She was still trying to figure it out when her phone rang.

‘After a lot of wrangling with the service provider, we’ve triangulated Sean’s phone GPS,’ Lynch said.

‘And?’ Lottie gripped the edge of the seat. Please God, at least let Sean be all right.

‘Well, it’s a wide area. From the hospital to the cemetery and around the back of the town. About four square kilometres.’

‘See if you can get them to pin it down more. Thanks.’ Lottie hung up. ‘He is grounded for life,’ she said, but she couldn’t stop the dread in her voice. Could Brian have taken Sean too?

‘He’s fine. Don’t you be worrying. Probably off having a few cans with his friends,’ Kirby said.

‘He is only thirteen but I’d take that at this moment,’ Lottie said.

‘That GPS area . . .’

‘What, Kirby?’ Lottie twisted to look at him.

‘It includes St Angela’s.’

Lottie opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Had something awful happened to her son?

‘K . . . Kirby . . . faster.’ And she started to cry, uncontrollable sobs breaking from her body. She’d lost Adam, she couldn’t lose her son too.

St Angela’s loomed up through the darkness.

Kirby pulled up beside Lottie’s abandoned car. She quickly studied the black windows, her eyes drawn toward the little chapel, to the side of the main building. She recalled what O’Malley told her about the priest and the children and candles and whips. Dear God.

She blinked. Was that a light flashing in one of the windows? She sat up straight. A flash, then another. Someone walking with a flashlight?

‘Look. Kirby. Up there. Do you see a light?’

He was out of the car before her, heading for the steps. She jumped out and skidded on the ice, coming to a halt behind him.

‘Looks like someone with a torch,’ he said.

‘Come on.’ Lottie ran up the steps.

She furiously felt in her pocket for the key, found it, and shoved it into the lock. As they entered the doom of St Angela’s, she felt all the sinister foreboding she supposed the young Sally Stynes must have felt so many years before.

The man was back, dressed in a long white robe. Sean would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been convulsed in agony.

‘What are you doing?’ he groaned, watching the man wrap a rope around Jason’s waist, hauling him to his feet.

Jason staggered, but remained standing, eyes like glass. Sean was dragged upright, his feet tearing on the floor, the rope was curled around his wrists and pulled tight. He was tied up, behind Jason.

Sean swayed with dizziness. He suddenly felt like a little boy. He wanted to be at home, playing his crap PlayStation. He didn’t need a new one. He’d tell his mam, his old one would do just fine. Niall would fix it. He knew his friend could. Yeah, he’d ring him to come over with his tool kit and together they’d make it work. He’d help out around the house, no complaining. Empty the dishwasher, hoover the floor, clean his room. He promised himself, he’d do all those things, just to get out and feel his mam’s fingers running through his hair, holding him close. He wouldn’t cry. No. But he did. Sean Parker cried and he didn’t care.

‘Shut up, you wimp,’ the man growled and flicked the torch up and down the walls as he dragged the two boys behind him along the corridor.

‘Oh, no,’ Jason muttered.

‘What?’ Sean whispered through his sobs, each step shooting pain through his stomach.

‘Oh no . . .’ Jason began, his voice fading.

‘Oh no, what?’

‘This t-time . . . he . . . k-k-kill . . . me.’

‘This time?’ Sean asked. ‘Was there another time?’ It hurt to talk, but he wanted to know what Jason was talking about.

Sean pulled him round and witnessed feral fear in the other boy’s eyes, causing his own heart to miss a beat.

The man chanted, a slow menacing mantra and led them in a procession, down a stone staircase and into a small chapel. A blaze of candles threw light out and upwards. Above the altar, a rope hung suspended from the rafters, a noose knotted at its end.

Sean’s anguished sobs echoed through the cold air.

This was not good.

Not good at all.

‘Ssh,’ Lottie said, standing still on the stairs, in the hallway.

‘I said nothing,’ said Kirby.

‘Shut up and listen.’

They listened.

‘I thought I heard a scream.’

‘I heard nothing,’ Kirby said. A noise boomed down towards them. ‘It’s only a door banging.’

Lottie ran up the stairs, two steps at a time.

‘No. Before that . . . I heard a scream. There’s someone here.’

‘Sure we know there’s someone here. The flashing light told us that.’

‘Kirby? Shut up.’

At the top of the stairs she looked along the corridor. She could see nothing in the darkness. No movement. No sounds. Only Kirby’s laboured breathing from the exertion.

‘Singing. I hear singing or chanting or something,’ Lottie whispered.

‘With all due respect, Inspector, I think you’re hearing things.’ Kirby stopped to catch his breath.

Flinging him a filthy look, Lottie crept along in the direction of the sound. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe not. She was going to find out. With or without Kirby.

‘Wait for me,’ he said, his body struggling to keep up with his voice.

She sighed, wishing for the hundredth time she had Boyd behind her, not Kirby.

Sean’s hands were still tied.

The madman unbound Jason and careered him ahead. The boy stumbled towards the altar, fell and the crack of his skull against marble sent a shock wave through him.

Shoved into the front wooden pew, he tried not to think of his pain. He looked around. There had to be an exit. An escape route. At least he’d stopped crying. He needed to be in control. That’s what his mam preached about her job. Be in control of the situation.

The chapel was a warren of alcoves and wooden confessionals. He couldn’t see an exit door. He had to take the man out. But he had no way of overpowering him with his hands tied. Think. Think fast. His brain was blank. His breathing quickened as suffocating terror built up in his chest. He tried to still his breaths to a slow even pace. He tried counting them. He couldn’t. They tumbled out of his mouth, one on top of the other, until his eyes watered and snot ran down his nose.

He allowed himself a glance towards the altar. And knew at once he shouldn’t have. All the virtual games in the world couldn’t have prepared him for the scene being played out before his eyes. Bile rose in his throat and he was sure he would be sick.

The man was looking straight at him, a curved upturned crest of pale lips, eyes reflecting the candle light and his hair streaked damp against his scalp. He’d looped a rope around unconscious Jason’s neck, deft fingers tightening the noose. Sean watched as he untied the end of the rope from the front pew and pulled, hoisting Jason into the air. He restarted his chanting, low and laboured as he heaved him upwards. Sean looked away, stifling vomit in his throat.

Out. He had to get out.

When the soles of Jason’s feet were free from the ground, the madman tied the rope around the pew, tugged it secure and his incantations intensified.

Lottie tracked with her hands, up and down, and all over the wall at the end of the corridor. Kirby tried too.

‘It’s definitely chanting. Coming from here. But I can’t see a door,’ she said.

‘There’s no way through,’ he panted.

‘There has to be. This is where I saw the lights. The windows . . .’

She realised she couldn’t have seen anything from this location. It was the end of the corridor. She mentally conjured up the number of windows again. She ran frantically along the length of the corridor and back again, counting. She remembered Rickard’s plans and the odd sequence of windows.

‘There’s a room blocked off,’ she said.

She tried the door beside her. Locked. Kirby shouldered it and it splintered open. She stepped in. To her right, three windows. She shone her phone light around and saw a second door.

‘This is it,’ she whispered to Kirby.

The scent of burning candles wafted towards her when she turned the handle. A flickering light highlighted a stone staircase. Turning to Kirby, she placed a finger to her lips. Creeping silently forward, she peered over the banister into the pit below.

Lottie stifled a scream. Kirby placed a hand on her shoulder.

‘What am I looking at?’ he whispered.

‘Madness,’ Lottie said, as she watched the man she knew pull a noose round Jason Rickard’s neck.

And then she saw her son.