Lilith
My solid oak door shook on its hinges as I kicked it shut. ‘Arsehole!’ I hollered, loud enough for Finn to hear, wherever the bastard was.
As I undressed, adrenaline coursed through my body and I trembled like a malaria victim.
I had hit Finn.
Everything I knew about him and his life, everything that I had witnessed, had meant nothing in that one dreadful moment of betrayal in a shadow-filled corridor. I had no doubt that it had been engineered by him so that he could triumphantly declare that he had been right all along, but this did nothing to assuage my guilt.
‘You twisted fuck.’ I climbed into bed, having decided that I didn’t give a damn what happened to him anymore.
By three in the morning I still didn’t care. And I still hadn’t slept.
The soft tut of the outboard motor cut through the silence, and I sat up. I couldn’t imagine Henry needing to go into the village at this hour, and Royce and Selena had paid too much to leave so early out of choice.
The whisper of disquiet that had begun the previous evening returned as a full-throated roar and I retrieved my paint-stained tracksuit bottoms and vest-top and ran barefoot to the cavernous reception hall, where Henry had just let himself back into the building.
‘Lilith! What on earth are you doing awake at this hour? You’re not ill, are you?’
I ignored his concerned questions. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘Just sorting out the launch so our latest guests could get back to the mainland. Apparently Selena had a migraine and she’d left her medication in their lodge.’
I fought down the panic that had begun to flutter in my throat. ‘You let them leave? And take the boat?’
Henry took a step back, startled by my aggression. ‘I don’t think there’s too much of a problem. They decided she’d be better off staying on shore for the rest of the night, and they said they’d bring the launch back first thing in the morning. She was looking rather peaky.’
‘For God’s sake, Henry!’ I exploded. ‘They pay a small fortune for a night of high-level filth, disappear at half time without so much as a goodbye, and you don’t think there’s too much of a bloody problem? How bloody docile do you have to be not to question something like that? This place has fucking lobotomised you!’ My voice, hard with fury, echoed through the still night. ‘Where’s Finn now?’
‘I assumed, well, I thought he must be back in his own room,’ Henry stammered. ‘Oh my goodness, you don’t think…’
‘Go and get Blaine,’ I snapped. ‘Go and wake that bitch of a woman up and tell her I need to see her. Now.’ I was already walking away.
‘Lilith, she really won’t like being disturbed at this hour. What on earth do I tell her when she asks me why?’
‘Anything you like. Just go and get her, Henry.’
‘But where will you be?’
I began to run. ‘Wherever they’ve dumped Finn,’ I called over my shoulder.
*****
I sprinted down the spiral staircase to Finn’s squalid tip of a room, hoping to see his stoned body crashed out across the mattress.
Empty.
Sick with dread, I hurtled down the corridor to the dungeon, bare feet slapping loudly against damp stone. I heaved on the wrought iron handle and the door swung open.
Empty again.
I stepped inside, hoping for some trace of Finn’s whereabouts, but saw only the crumpled bed, an abandoned bottle of champagne and two smeared, empty glasses, illuminated by a guttering, dying oil lamp. I began to back away, glad to be out of that place, then realised. I forced myself to step up to the great St Andrew’s cross.
My first thought was that they had killed him.
Finn hung from his wrists, his head bowed and still as death. Just as I was about to scream, he gave a juddering breath and looked up at me, wide-eyed. ‘Got cut.’ He slumped down again, and I had to fight hard not to retch as I breathed in the ferrous tang of congealing blood.
He made a feeble attempt to pull himself up by the straps around his wrists as I began fumbling at the first buckle. ‘Had a... a knife or somethin’. Bas’ard.’
‘Fall into me, Finn. Let’s get you on the floor and see what’s going on.’ The second buckle flicked open. I half-caught him as he fell with a wet, dull thud onto the stone slabs, and finally I could see the damage Albermarle Hall’s latest guests had inflicted.
‘I think it might be a very good idea if you don’t move,’ I managed, with considerable understatement. The back of Finn’s left leg had been ripped wide open, and his stomach was daubed in blood. ‘Oh crap,’ was all I could manage as my mind raced away from me, dredging together scraps of anatomy classes and the first-aid learnt from my mother’s litany of suicide attempts.
Dark red suggested venous rather than arterial blood, which was a blessing, but the sheer amount from the two wounds was horrific and even worse, I couldn’t tell whether Finn’s blitzed state was due to his cavalier approach to self-medication, or simple blood loss. Right now, an interesting combination of the two was looking like a good guess.
‘Okay sweetheart, I don’t know how much you’re getting of all this, but I need you to stay really still for me,’ I finally managed, and Finn narrowed his eyes.
‘You’re being nice to me. Now I’m scared.’
‘I’ll call you a pig-shagging Irish cunt if that makes you feel any better.’ I began to tear a length of fabric from the bed sheet. I turned the strip over and over until I had a thick wad, then pressed it firmly onto the gaping hole in Finn’s leg. He gave a surprised yelp of pain and tried to haul himself away but I grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back onto the floor. ‘Still, Finn,’ I ordered.
‘Wha’ you doin’ here anyway? Thought you hated me.’
‘I do, just not enough to let you bleed to death.’ I made another pad from the ripped sheet and gently covered the wound on his stomach. There was only a tiny hole, but I had no idea how deep it was, or what Royce might have managed to pierce. I wasn’t about to take any risks.
‘What you doin’now?’ Finn asked. ‘He only punched me.’
‘Yeah, with a scalpel in his hand.’ I nodded at the little blade that had been thrown across the room. I was surreptitiously checking the pulse at his wrist when Blaine’s voice, clipped and irritated, rang down the corridor.
‘This had better be important, Henry.’
‘Lilith was terribly agitated, Lady Albermarle,’ came Henry’s response.
‘Yes, well Lilith seems intent on creating her own melodrama. And if they’re not here, I’m going back to bed.’ Blaine strode into the room and her face immediately blanched as she took in the bloodbath.
‘Tell Coyle he needs to review his screening procedures,’ I said.