Page 94 of The Angel Maker

He put the phone away, his hand shaking slightly.

Then he turned and walked down the corridor to see Christopher Shaw.

And as he did so, his thoughts turned to fire.

It is July 6, 1985.

Leland is in church when he understands what he must do. As the last note of the organ music fades away, the congregation is silent for a moment. There is no soft sound of shuffling feet. No throats being discreetlycleared. If Leland were to close his eyes, it would be possible to believe the room is empty. But, of course, it is crowded. Because many people loved Charlotte Mary Hobbes.

But none more than him.

His gaze fixes on the coffin that rests at the front of the church, which houses the remains of the woman who was meant to be his. In a different world, she would have been—shouldhave been. In this one, he is reduced to sitting at the back of the room. An interloper.

This is not right.

The thought throbs in his head.

This is not what was intended.

Glancing around, even the architecture of the church feels wrong. The corners where the walls met; the angles of the pews; the timber of the wooden beams in the rafters. To Leland, everything seems to bestraining, tilting somehow, as though the entire building—God’s own house—is attempting to distance itself from the blasphemy unfolding within it. Candles line the periphery of the room, but while the flames burn brightly, there is even an oddness there too. The people here are motionless, the air entirely still. And yet every flame is flickering as though buffeted by an unseen, angry breeze.

And then the silence is broken.

At the front of the church, a baby begins crying.

A gentle murmur runs through the crowd at that, more emotion than sound, and a moment later a man stands up. He is cradling a tiny infant in his arms, rocking the child gently. Alan Hobbes wears a mask of absolute grief—a week’s worth of tears staining his sallow face—but somehow he is fighting through the pain and loss that appears to have racked him, cooing quietly at the baby in an attempt to soothe it.

Leland stares at his brother. It has been more than ten years since he first watched Alan and Charlotte laughing together at the dance, and while he is now married to Eleanor, with a month-old child of his own, he has never been able to forget the fact that Charlotte wasmeant to be his. Hehas always believed that, over time, the universe would correct its course and bring her to him. A part of him has been waiting patiently for the day. And so the news of her death was impossible for him to accept when he first heard it.

The grief was insurmountable.

Then the anger at what Alan had done.

At the future Alan had stolen from him.

And that emotion isragenow. It fills him from one burning side of his body to the other, and he has to force himself to watch the revolting pantomime playing out before him. How can Alan bear to show grief—especiallyhereof all places? He must have known what was going to happen. He must have known what would come about as a result of his tampering. Or else he had steered the world onto this terrible course with neither care nor concern beyond for his own benefit.

Either way, Charlotte’s death is Alan’s fault.

But not just Alan’s.

Leland’s gaze settles on the baby’s sobbing face and feels his own expression harden at the sight of it.Joshua Hobbes—although it has no business even having a name. No right to comfort or soothing. Itdeservesto cry. Its very existence is an abomination in the eyes of God, the unnatural product of his plan being interfered with.

It should not be in this world.

And that is when the idea arrives.

Sitting there, staring at the baby with his fists clenched hard against the trousers of his suit, Leland realizes that while not everything can be put right, there are some things that still might be. And that rather than waiting for the journey to correct itself, it is within his power to help it on its way.

Hisdutyeven.

He relaxes his hands.

And at the front of the church, the baby stops crying.

As the ceremony progresses, Leland pays little attention to the words ofthe priest, and makes no attempt to join in with the hymns that are sung in this black parody of genuine loss. His thoughts have moved elsewhere.

He knows where Alan Hobbes lives now. The home they both grew up in is an old, dilapidated property in which accidents can easily happen—or be made to. It will take time to organize if he is to do it right.

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