Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag

Author:Tami Hoag
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Minneapolis (Minn.), Psychological Fiction, Serial Murders, Government investigators, Fiction, General, Suspense, Fiction - Psychological Suspense, Mystery Fiction, Serial murderers
ISBN: 9780553579604
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2000-06-26T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

I moved quickly and quietly in and out of the sleeping and sometimes groaning bodies on the floor. I’d seen George leave and I’d decided to follow him. I couldn’t stay in there, not with the kind of fear that bloody boy had left me with! I can’t stand people looking at me at the best of times, but under these circumstances it was proving to be impossible. Not knowing who, if anyone, was going to murder me, was not something I could bear.

‘George!’

I could see his long body with its long mac and cassock underneath swishing against the floor as I ran to try and get close to him. But as I began to run, he, first looking behind to see where I was, began to run too.

‘George! Why are you running away?’ I said as I puffed and panted after him. And then I said, hoping against hope that it might actually shock him, ‘What have you done?’

This made him stop. There were other blokes about but it was suddenly as if, to George at least, the two of us were all alone. His face, by the dim light from the little lamp underneath the dome, looked much older than his years. He said, ‘I’m so, so sorry. I believed, still believe, it is for the best. But . . .’ He paused, weeping a little now. ‘I didn’t even try to stop it. I didn’t even try!’

‘Stop what?’

He turned immediately and then ran full pelt for the door beside the Great West entrance. It was open and he shot through it like a rocket. I didn’t even attempt to follow. He was outside, God knew where, and, besides, the world was melting out there. Whether I stayed or left made little difference as far as I could see. Whatever was going on in the cathedral, I had the feeling, at that moment, that soon none of it would matter. I might feel trapped but at least I wasn’t burning – yet. It was the end and, although I fear death and the nothingness I can’t help but feel that it will bring, I knew in those seconds that followed that I wouldn’t be going into it on my own. Not if the fires took me and my whole world away with them – and they were the most powerful thing I could see then. Outside the door that George had shot through everything was as hot and red as a blast furnace. It took me a while to realise that there was a hand on my shoulder.

‘Everything’s not as it seems,’ Mr Smith said.

He smiled, this bloke who was one of those who claimed to have seen Mr Phillips. I cringed away from him. ‘Somebody tried to kill me!’ I said. ‘I don’t care much about how it looks, Mr Smith. An explanation would be nice, if you have one!’

Whether he knew about ‘Mr Phillips’ and my brief sojourn into that cupboard with two corpses, I couldn’t be sure.

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