Under no circumstances will Luc’s Uncle arm this madman with weapons and we’re all praying that no one else will help him, for who knows how powerful he might become?
Thankfully, four years after his meeting with Rufus, Grey isn’t yet crusading against the rest of Britain in a holy war. So we can only hope his weapons production never gets off the ground.
According to Rufus, James Grey, a one-time hospital worker, came down to Salisbury from his hometown, the City of Durham, where the Cathedral and many churches had been taken over and, in Grey’s words, ‘desecrated by the masses.’ They were being used either as places of shelter, as fortresses, or they had been targeted by terrorists, demolished or dismantled.
‘… But nowhere, nowhere I tell you, were they being respected as Houses of God. Blasphemy everywhere I turned!’ Luc’s Uncle had pounded the table with his fist to add weight to his impression of Grey.
Grey was furious with this blatant disrespect to his God, but he received word from his sister, who lived outside Salisbury, that their ancient Cathedral was still intact. She could still see its four hundred and four foot spire from her little house. Rumour spread that it was being protected against terrorists and other ignorant heathens, by people such as himself, who were flocking to its aid to ‘preserve Christianity in these barbaric times.’
After he received this message from his sister, Grey felt something he had never felt in all his thirty nine years - hope, in the form of a spiritual calling. He packed up his sparse belongings and trailed his frightened wife and four children more than halfway across the inhospitable country until they reached the little village on the outskirts of the city where his sister lived.
His sister’s house had been demolished and there was no sign of her, so they assumed the worst. They hiked the five extra miles to the Cathedral Close to find it bolted shut from the inside against the outside world. No amount of begging, cajoling or shouting gained him entrance from the guards. He and his family were forced to make camp outside the walls, along with the hundreds of other homeless families and pilgrims, many of whom were injured, mortally ill or just plain crazy.
He made sure he and his family camped well away from the others, wary of attracting the wrong sort of attention or catching some vile disease. Occasionally, one of the gates would open to allow somebody out, or back in, but he could never catch a glimpse of the person, as they would always be surrounded by a heavily armed security force. Grey traded some of their precious food for a map of The Close.
He prayed night and day for God to admit him to His place of worship and one day, seven months later, his prayers were answered. The inhabitants of the eighty acre Cathedral Close were struck down by an unknown illness.
One morning, the gates opened wide and a robed man staggered out calling for a doctor. Weak, crying and sweating profusely, he had hideous, swollen lumps on his neck and black bruises on his face. He suddenly broke down into a coughing fit, which had him bent double and clutching his chest in agony. As soon as Grey saw the distraught man he knew what he was witnessing - the plague.
He went straight to find his wife, children and meagre possessions and they left the area. They slept rough for several weeks and avoided all contact with other people. One day they stumbled across a deserted, mouldering two-bedroom mobile home hidden by trees in the corner of a field. They cleaned it up and moved in. Grey waited patiently, planning his next move.
Three months later, he was confident Salisbury Cathedral would be his to restore to the good Christian people of Britain. He told his family to remain in the mobile home for their own protection. He said he would return for them within a year. If he did not come back within the allotted time, they were to ‘make a life for themselves.’ (He never saw them again. When he finally did send someone to find them, the messenger returned saying the mobile home was empty with no sign of recent habitation. Grey assumed they must all be dead, kidnapped or fled).
When he returned to the Cathedral Close, the area outside the walls was as he had expected it to be - deserted. The stench of rotting bodies overpowered him, and Grey repeatedly threw up every time he tried to approach the St Anne Gate. However, he persevered and, when he reached it, he found it unlocked.
And so, after months of waiting, he had finally made it into The Close. At the entrance, a shallow pit had been dug, now overflowing with partially burnt, decaying bodies. He jogged quickly past with his face averted, but he knew he would soon have to deal with it.
He saw deserted buildings - Bishop Wordsworth’s School, The Sub-Deanery, Sarum College; he knew the buildings and the layout by heart, from the worn and crumpled map he kept in his pocket. He went straight into the cavernous cathedral and dropped to his knees to give thanks to God for entrusting him with this holy task to undertake.
Over the next few days, he began the unforgiving and near impossible task of burning the corpses. He slept each night in the North Canonry and scavenged food from the empty buildings and gardens. One day, he hit the jackpot and found huge rooms in The Bishop’s Palace piled high to the ceiling with bottled water, tins of fruit and vegetables and all manner of supplies that would have taken an army several months to get through.
But then, during that first week, he contracted strong flu-like symptoms. He knew this was inevitable and had expected it to happen. A couple of years previously, after the initial terror attacks, he’d had the foresight to steal an array of medicines from his place of work. He prayed for forgiveness every night, but saw the theft as a minor transgression, needed in case he or his family should need treatment in the future.
So, sweating and in fear, he prepared a syringe and gave himself his first shot of antibiotic, straight into his thigh. He had enough for two shots over a ten day course and prayed this would be enough to protect him from the disease.
He sweated it out, not having anticipated feeling so dreadful. He thought he would die, but the plague didn’t manage to take hold of him. He was ill for two weeks, with dizzy spells and a strange deafness and light-headedness that disorientated him. But he attributed this to the pitiful amount of food he had consumed. The food was abundant, he just hadn’t the energy to eat it.
At the end of his second week, he had a visitor - a middle-aged man who turned out to be one of the Cathedral Close gardeners by the name of Dickinson. He had survived the plague without the help of antibiotics. But, unlike the other survivors who had fled, he remained, not sure what else to do. When he found Grey on the brink of death, he took on the task of nursing him back to health.
Soon, Grey’s mind cleared enough to focus upon the huge task ahead of him. Although he was impatient to start, he knew that he would have to get fit and healthy before the real work could begin. Dickinson offered to help him. It took months.
First they daubed the exterior walls will the words ’PLAGUE, KEEP AWAY’. Next, they dug pits and burnt the dead. It was exhausting, stomach-churning work, but they kept at it until every last corpse was just a charred remain. Thankfully, there can’t have been that many people within the walls in the first place, but even so, it was almost six months before Grey decided to remove the warning graffiti and open the gates.
During that time he had amassed a small group of some twenty five or so followers. They had each ignored the warnings and entered the Close by cunning or brute force; either because they had already survived the plague, or because they felt it worth the risk. Either way, they were greeted warily by Grey, who interrogated each of them at gunpoint while deciding whether or not to let them remain. They all ended up more than willing to do Grey’s bidding. How or why? Who knows? Were they brainwashed, bribed or threatened?
These first inhabitants became his core disciples and Grey considered them to have been chosen by God for him, as they had made it into the Close without fear of the plague.
He had some weaponry left over from the deceased security forces and so they all took up arms and prepared to receive their first influx of resident
s. Each visitor was grilled thoroughly on arrival and, if they were worthy, they were housed within the walls and given a role to fill, be it gardener, farmer, cook, child carer or tradesman.
The one common factor required was the willingness to embrace Grey’s new religion. Few people refused to stay, as his way of life promised an easier existence than the one they faced outside the walls. He planned to disregard all previous incarnations of Christianity and devise a new, all-encompassing faith, to unite every denomination. And in true Grey style, he named it ‘Grey’s Church of the Epiphany’.
His Church grew quickly and soon the eighty acre Close became overcrowded. So Grey expanded his new empire. Before five years had elapsed, his walls enclosed almost the whole of Salisbury and beyond.
He’s as strict about letting people out, as he is about letting them in. The army lets him get on with it, as long as he doesn’t cut off their transport routes and he often pays them to turn a blind eye.
This is the gospel according to Rufus. But he still knows very little about what actually goes on behind The Close walls. Maybe it’s all peace and harmony. But Luc’s uncle is a good judge of character and he thinks we haven’t heard the last of James Grey, not by a long way. He’s a man out for glory and he’ll get it by any means necessary.
Chapter Twenty One
Riley
*
Luc has just finished telling Fred and Jessie about Salisbury’s recent history. He left out the bit about his Uncle Rufus’ weapons production, just giving them the bare facts about James Grey and Salisbury. I see him pause as he thinks about how to tell them the next bit.
‘So what has all this got to do with our Liss and Freddie Junior?’ asks Jessie. ‘Unless you think they may be with this Grey character.’
‘We only know about him though rumours,’ I say. ‘My Pa always put the fear of God into us about Grey. He said if we ever set foot outside the Perimeter we could be snatched. He's like the bogeyman, or something.’
Luc continues. ‘My uncle saw someone when he was in there. It was a girl, who’d gone missing from a local compound. She just disappeared, like your children. And then, a month later, my uncle recognised her in Grey’s courtyard. He managed to smuggle her out and I'm not sure of all the details, but she had definitely been abducted. She said there were hundreds of other children who’d been taken or lured in, now trapped or brainwashed. And anyway, over the past few years there have been a lot of unexplained disappearances of children.
‘I don't know what to think,’ Jessie says. ‘It's a possibility, but then again, it could just as likely be raiders that took them, or ...’ She starts to cry again.
‘Jess, darlin', don't cry.’ Fred wipes her tears.
‘I know we don't know for sure, but it makes sense that it could’ve been Grey,’ I say. ‘Raiders want food, weapons or valuables, not more mouths to feed. Grey isn’t trusting anymore; he turns people away from his gates. But he’s got hundreds of followers and they’re mostly children or young adults. Children are easier to brainwash and train up to be loyal to him and his religion.’
‘Anyway,’ Luc says, ‘we've told you what we know about Grey and I don't know if we've made you feel better or worse, but maybe there might be some hope for you that ...’
‘That what?’ Fred interrupts. ‘That we can march up to Grey's house and say, 'excuse me, Sir, but have you got our kids? We think you might have took 'em without asking and we'd like 'em back’.’
‘I don't know,’ Luc says. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh Go-o-od!’ says Jessie, exhaling loudly. ‘This is just too much. I can't deal with this now. I can't think anymore. Thank you Luc, Riley, for what you've told us, but I can't listen to any more.’ She trembles as she stands and makes a move to clear the table.
‘Just leave them dinner things, Jess.’ Fred gives us a glare. ‘No offence, kids, but would you mind going upstairs and leaving me and Jess to talk. We'll see yer in the morning.’
We stand up awkwardly and say goodnight, not really knowing if we should add anything more to ease the situation. But Fred wants us gone. As we walk up the stairs, Luc gives me a look I can't decipher, but I don’t think he’s too happy.
‘We shouldn't have mentioned Grey,’ he whispers. ‘I think we've just given them false hope. Even if Grey has got their kids, there's nothing they can do about it.’
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘But we had to tell them. It’s their kids. Surely they have a right to know all the possibilities.’
His jaw clenches tight. ‘Yeah, I guess. But I feel bad for them.’
‘I know. Me too.’
To make matters worse, the rooms we’re going to sleep in tonight are Liss and Freddie's bedrooms. When Jessie showed us to our rooms earlier, we hadn't known their children were missing. We just assumed they had moved out or were with friends. Now I know the truth, I’m a little creeped out that we’re sleeping in their bedrooms.
‘Hope you sleep okay, Riley,’ he says, squeezing my hand. ‘Sorry if I seemed a bit off.’
‘Don’t worry about it. It’s a weird situation. You sleep well too.’
My room is immaculate, but looks exactly as it must have been nine years ago. It’s a seven-year-old girl’s bedroom, with cuddly toys, dolls and pretty things. A shrine. A pink and mauve delight that makes me sad. I gaze out of the window into the black night, the darkness relieved by starry pinpricks and a sliver of moon. I close the fairy curtains and lie on top of the covers, thinking of Luc in the next room, of Fred and Jessie’s lost daughter and of my Skye.
*
We spend the following morning helping Fred and Jessie with their chores around the house and farm. I get stuck in, pleased for the distraction the physical work provides.
‘There's always too much to do,’ says Jessie. ‘It’s amazing how much more we can get done with you here. Thank you.’
They haven't mentioned last night's conversation at all and I don’t feel it’s my place to bring it up. An awkward feeling hovers in the air between us and our hosts. Luc and I agree we should probably head off soon. In the cold light of morning, I feel as if I’ve made a huge error in judgement by telling this sweet couple what we know. Luc was right, we shouldn't have said anything.
Jessie looks pale and tired and Fred is cordial, but tight lipped. I know I’ve opened old wounds. Did I genuinely think I was doing something good? Or was I just excited at the thought of giving them the news that could lead to a dramatic reunion with their children?
They ask us to join them for a sandwich in the kitchen and we politely follow them in. The easy good humour from yesterday has completely gone. We all sit down around the Formica table, not knowing what to say. After a long minute of silent chewing, Fred clears his throat.
‘Jess and I didn't get much sleep last night, as you can imagine.’
‘We're sorry,’ Luc says. ‘It was insensitive of us to ...’
Fred raises his hand to quiet Luc. ‘Let me finish, lad.’
Luc and I cast our eyes downward while Fred continues.
‘We're grateful you told us about Grey. It's a lot for us to take in. We really never expected to hear anything about our children again. We'd sorta said goodbye to them a few years ago, you know, in our heads. Your revelation has changed everything. We had no leads before, nothing to go on, no help; they could have been anywhere. But now, well. We can't go on as before, not if there's the smallest possibility they could be alive; if there's a chance they're there. We have to try. We have to.’
Jessie is staring at me and Luc. ‘We need your help,’ she says. ‘We could try by ourselves, but we'd have more of a chance if you would tell us how we could get in there. We wouldn't expect you to put yourselves in any danger, but if you could just help us to formulate a plan. Advise us how to go about it. You know about the place.’
‘We'll do anything we can to help you,’ I say. ‘Of course we will.’
‘Hold on, Riley,’ Luc says. ‘Of course we’d love to hel
p, but I don’t see how we can.’
‘Luc,’ I start to reason with him. ‘Surely we can …’
‘No, Riley,’ he snaps. ‘This isn't fixable. None of this is fixable. Not finding abducted children or bringing in escaped murderers and not bringing Skye back to life.’
I raise my eyes to Fred and Jessie, who return my look of shock. I've never seen Luc like this. I've seen him irritated and annoyed, and after Skye, I saw him sad beyond measure, but this anger is an entirely different Luc. He’s biting his lip and shaking with emotion. I can see he hadn’t meant to blurt out our business like that.
‘I don't even wanna ask,’ Fred says.
‘This is such a mess,’ sighs Luc, his rage dissipating as quickly as it flared up. ‘The whole thing is just completely screwed up. Riley, we must be mad to be doing any of this.’
‘I’m sorry, Luc,’ I say.
‘Not your fault.’
We’ve got no choice but to tell them what Luc and I are doing. It would feel wrong not to say anything. We tell them a watered-down version of our story, starting with Skye's murder, but leaving out the part about not having our parents' permission. Jessie now looks even more stricken than before, if that’s possible.
‘What kind of world are we living in? Riley, I'm so sorry about your sister, you poor girl. And there's us, trying to rope you into our affairs, when you've obviously got so much on your plate.’
‘Sorry,’ Fred echoes. ‘Looks like we're not the only ones suffering.’
We all sit quietly, lost in our own thoughts for what feels like a long time.
‘Okay,’ Luc breaks the silence. ‘I'm definitely going to regret this, but Riley's right.’ He turns to me with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes and then returns his gaze to the couple. ‘We should help you. You've been really kind to us and we're here now, on the road. There's no going back for Riley and me.’
‘Luc,’ I smile at him. He looks at me but doesn't return the smile this time.