The Saint

  LP Lovell

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Eden

  2. Eden

  3. Saint

  4. Saint

  5. Saint

  6. Saint

  7. Saint

  8. Eden

  9. Saint

  10. Eden

  11. Saint

  12. Saint

  13. Eden

  14. Saint

  15. Eden

  16. Saint

  17. Saint

  18. Saint

  19. Eden

  20. Saint

  21. Saint

  22. Eden

  23. Saint

  24. Eden

  25. Saint

  26. Eden

  27. Eden

  28. Saint

  29. Eden

  30. Saint

  THE POPE

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  The heavy scent of wood polish and incense surrounds me like a blanket, bringing a rare sense of peace and familiarity. Sunlight plays through a gap in the curtain, hitting the lattice divider and sending tiny speckles of light across my face. I close my eyes, bathing in the temporary warmth.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” The words leave my lips, taking with them the lead weight that’s been sitting in my gut ever since I left this very confessional twenty-four hours ago.

  There’s a heavy sigh, and the faint waft of stale coffee drifts across the short space between us. “Son, you’ve been here for the last four days. There is only so much forgiveness I can grant. It’s not accumulative.”

  But I’m not forgiven. I can feel the sin festering, rotting my soul with each passing minute. I need divine intervention. A healing touch from the Lord’s hand. Salvation. And that requires a true confession, a purging.

  “I didn’t tell you my sin,” I breathe, stepping out onto the tentative tightrope between the Lord and his messenger.

  “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world—”

  “I killed a man.” Silence. “I killed him because he hurt her.”

  I count eight heavy beats of my heart against my ribs before he finally speaks. “Do you repent?” Father Maxwell whispers, a noticeable tremor in his voice.

  He finally sees me. For the first time, he truly sees the monster that I keep leashed. I’m no longer just the strange boy who has attended his church for the last thirty years, or even the unsettling man he’s come to know. That niggling sense of danger he gets when he’s near me; the one he’s always told himself is so irrational, irrevocably, all makes sense. I’m a killer, a sinner, a predator living amongst his prey. How can that be? One of his own flock. A traitor. A false pretender. I can almost hear it all clicking into place in his mind.

  “No,” I answer truthfully. “I’m not sorry that I killed him.” I feel nothing, only the sickening disappointment that God will judge me. That I am so very wrong, and without his guidance, I would have unleashed all my dark urges on his children a long time ago. Bad boys go to hell, my mother’s voice whispers in my ear.

  “Then you cannot be truly absolved of sin.”

  “I’m destined for the fires of hell,” I murmur, voicing the very thought that plagues me relentlessly.

  He takes a shaky breath, the sound like a gunshot in the silence of the confessional. “Unless you truly repent in your soul.”

  Pushing to my feet, I grab the curtain, pausing for a moment. “I have no soul.”

  And without a soul, what do heaven or hell, really matter?

  1

  Eden

  My footsteps echo off the walls of the long, ominous corridor, a backing beat to the thundering of my pulse. My chest constricts until even the smallest of breaths feel like a chore. The brushed steel doors loom ahead of me, like the gateway to hell itself, and I wish I could delay this and never reach them. Time seems to slow to a crawl, though the weight of inevitability weighs down on me.

  “Miss Harris?” I blink and glance at the police officer standing, watching me, the smooth features of his young face crumpled in sympathy. “Are you ready?”

  I nod, sucking a deep breath into my lungs. He pushes one door open with a squeal of the hinges. Instantly, the temperature drops, the cold air reaching out and running icy fingers down my spine. I step forward, my heels clicking over the clinical white tile. Bright overhead lights make me squint before I still. Everything freezes and my body locks down, braced and waiting for the incoming impact. A single table sits in front of me in the middle of the cold, sterile room. A sheet drapes over the body, hanging down almost to the floor, but doing nothing to hide the morbid outline of the boy beneath.

  “Just say when you’re ready,” the policeman says, cutting through the deathly silence.

  I’ll never be ready. My heart beats so hard I feel like I’m going to vomit. On a stiff nod from me, he takes the sheet and slowly peels it back. As soon as I see the boy’s face, a choked sob tears from my lips, and I slam my hand over my mouth to stifle the sound.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I turn away and shove through the door. A few moments later and a hand lands on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Harris.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not him.” I can still picture the white, waxiness of his face, the blue lips, the neat bullet hole between his eyes. Dark blonde hair, the exact shade as Otto’s, and the tattoo on his chest that’s somehow familiar to me, though I can’t place it. “That boy’s name is Marcus Jones.” My eyes meet the officers. “He was Otto’s best friend.” A giddy kind of relief swells in my chest because it’s not my brother. It’s someone’s brother, son, friend… It’s not Otto this time, but it easily could have been.

  His lips press together, and he offers me a small nod. “Thank you.”

  I hear the words he doesn’t say though. My brother is missing. He’s been missing for nearly a week, and now his friend is dead, found washed up on the bank of the Thames. Every fibre of me wants to believe that it’s purely coincidence, but I know it’s not, and that feeling of dread settles into the pit of my stomach like a lead weight.

  “I have to go.” I push off the wall and almost jog down the corridor to the lift. I need to get out of here right now.

  When I get home, I collapse on the sofa and allow the tears to fall. It’s been a week without my baby brother, but it feels like a year.

  I wish I had handled everything differently. When I close my eyes, I can still recall the night he left like a twisted play that goes around my mind on repeat.

  The waiting area smells like cheap bleach and beer. A man leans against the far wall with a freshly cut eyebrow and a torn shirt. Otto sits in one of the cheap plastic chairs, his lanky frame hunched over and his chin dropped to his chest, spilling curly blonde hair over his eyes. Pulling my gaze from him, I try to calm the raging beat of my heart as I face the police officer at the front desk.

  “Just sign here.” The older man points at the form in front of me. I scrawl over the white paper, marring it with my shaky signature. “All done. You’re free to go,” he says, glancing past me to Otto.

  “Thank you.”

  Turning around, I barely acknowledge my brother as I head for the door, but his heavy footsteps fall in behind me. Silence fills the car as I drive back to our apartment. I’m not sure what to say at this point. It’s not until we’re inside and he’s taken a seat on the sofa that I finally speak.

  “Possession,” I say. He ducks his head. “Cocaine!”

  His scrawny shoulders rise and fall on a deep breath. “Calm down, Eden.”

  “Calm down!” My voice reaches a pitch I’m sure only dogs can hear. “You’re taking drugs now?”

  “No, it’s not like that. I just…” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck.

  “What? You were just what?”

  “I was selling it.”

  “You’re dealing cocaine,” I whisper, and as I close my eyes, I can picture my mother’s face, the soft lines set in a heartbreakingly disappointed expression. Would she know what to do here? Because I sure as hell don’t. I shake my head. How could he be so stupid? “You could go to prison, Otto.” That horrible reality has tears prickling my eyes. I really thought I was saving him from this.

  Emerald green eyes meet mine, not a trace of fear or worry to be seen. “I know.”

  I turn and pace across the living room, fighting the urge to just slap some sense into him. “You are seventeen, Otto. You should be studying. Getting into college. Now what are you going to do?” A lump rests in my throat, and my heart breaks because I feel like I’m watching his entire future wash down the drain. Everything I tried so hard to do; the future I tried to provide, it’s all just gone. “Why would you do this?” My voice hitches.

  When I turn to face him, his brows are pulled together in a tight frown. He drags a hand through his messy blonde hair and releases a long breath. “We needed money.” He shrugs one shoulder before standing up and disappearing down the hall.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  A few seconds later he comes back and drops a wad of twenty-pound notes on the coffee table. There must be at least a grand there. Oh my god. This is worse than I thought. And I already thought it was terrible.

  I shake my head, my mouth opening and closing as I try to find words, any words. But I’m at a loss.

  “Eden, you go to Uni and you work nights and weekends, just to pay for th
is shitty flat.” He opens his arms wide, doing a sweep around us. “I just wanted to help you.”

  “I do all that so I can graduate and get a better job. I’m giving us a future.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. I only have six months of studying left. So close. We were so close.

  “I just wanted to help.”

  “For what, hey? What’s the point when you were just going to throw it all away regardless?” Tears prickle my eyes. “I’m sure this is exactly what mum envisioned for you, Otto. Jail and a life of dead-end jobs because you’re an ex-convict.” God, I’ve let her down. He drops his chin to his chest, but his shoulders tighten, so I let my frustration out. “She would be so disappointed.”

  I shouldn’t have said it because Otto walked out, and that’s the last time I saw him. I was angry and heartbroken, but I should have just…calmed down. Now he’s gone, and he’s all I have, and I’m all he has. It’s me who failed him.

  Standing, I go to the mantelpiece and open the small ornate box that my mother once used to keep various little knick-knacks in. I take out the brown envelope that I stashed there and open it, fingering the wad of bank notes. Some that he dumped on the table that day, but the rest I found taped to the underside of Otto’s bed. Hidden. There must be ten thousand pounds here. And it must be illegal.

  The police have been no help so far, which means I’m going to have to find help elsewhere.

  My brother is obviously wrapped up with criminals, so I’ll need a criminal to find him.

  Picking up my phone, I pull up my contacts, and there he is, right at the top: Ash. Ex boyfriend. Drug dealer. First love. Heartbreaker.

  The dial tone rings and bile rises in the back of my throat. It’s been four years since I spoke to him last.

  “Eden?” And apparently, he still has my number.

  “I need your help,” I blurt.

  There are no lengths I wouldn’t go to for my brother. Even this.

  2

  Eden

  Icy air whips up the concrete stairwell, bringing with it the faint scent of piss and lost dreams. We live in a shitty apartment in a bad area, but it’s all I can afford, and Otto and I, we make do. Or at least we did. It’s short-term. I have a plan. Had. I had a plan.

  Reaching the car park, I take out my keys, getting into the old, bright yellow VW Beetle that used to be my Mum’s. When I turn the ignition over she coughs and chugs to life with a resigned sigh and a splutter of the exhaust. I’m probably over the limit, but the adrenaline that seems to be permanently firing through my veins has me feeling stone cold sober.

  I drive through the dark streets of Peckham, making my way to Paddy’s; the bar that I used to work at with Ash. When I pull up outside, the familiar neon green sign with the four-leaf clover makes me pause. This feels like another life, another me, and a sense of teenage nostalgia washes over me.

  Parking the car, I get out and lock the door. I don’t know why I bother. Any car thief worth their salt could jimmy it in two seconds, but I guess no one really wants to steal a yellow bug with more rust than paint.

  The second I step inside the bar, the scent of beer and cigarette smoke hits me. No one around here ever cared about no-smoking laws, least of all the old-timers who practically live in the bar. The worn carpets and dark wood panelling are exactly as I remember. Several booths sit against the wall on the left hand side, their high backs and dim lighting hiding a multitude of sins in the smoky shadows.

  “Eden? That you?” I turn at the sound of my name and am greeted by Big Jim. He’s perched on a bar stool, one elbow propped on the polished wood of the bar top and his meaty hand wrapped around a pint glass. His grey beard and lined face make him look like a dodgy biker-version of Santa. The scent of worn leather and tobacco wafts from him as he spreads his free arm, inviting me for a hug. I step into him, and his leather jacket creaks as he swallows me into his hulking embrace. “Where have you been, kid? We’ve missed you around here.”

  “University. Working.”

  I step away, and he nods. “Heard about your mum. Sorry.”

  It’s been four years since Mum died. Four years since I quit working here to take care of her in those last weeks. It never gets any easier, although the years have passed, and I think of her less. At first, it was like a bleeping alarm, every minute, coupled with a pain that I was sure I wouldn’t survive. But then every minute became every hour. Hours turned to a morning or an afternoon, and now I sometimes go days without thinking of her. I hate it. I hate it for me, but I’m heartbroken for Otto, losing his Mum at only thirteen. Maybe that’s why we are where we are now. Perhaps it affected him more than I thought, and I was too young and wrapped up in my grief to notice.

  “Thanks.” I don’t know what else to say. I never do.

  “What you doing with yourself these days?”

  I swallow around the lump in my throat, allowing the remembered pain to slip away. “I’m studying law, working at Elysium.”

  “So, you’re getting a degree, being smart.” A smile sinks creases deep into the corners of his eyes. “What you doing back in this shit bucket?”

  “She’s here to see me.” Jim’s eyes lift and narrow over my shoulder. Huge shoulders tense fractionally and his lips flatten. Taking a deep breath, I slowly turn around and come face to face with Ash. Fuck him for being every bit as heart-stopping as I remember. His long dirty blonde hair is pulled back in a bun that should look ridiculous but doesn’t. He’s had even more tattoos since I last saw him, and they now crawl up his throat and the side of his neck. I make a conscious effort to look at them and not meet his eyes.

  “Ash. How are you?” Gnawing on my bottom lip, I nervously drag a hand through my hair. My heart is pounding so hard I swear it can be heard over the low thrum of heavy metal in the background. Five years. I guess my heart has remembered what my mind forgot.

  “Come out back,” he says, turning away. With his back to me, I can breathe a little easier. I follow him, my eyes locked on the worn green carpet.

  He leads me behind the bar and through a door in the back that leads to Dave’s flat upstairs.

  “Oh, you don’t have to bother Dave…”

  He glances over his shoulder. “He’s not here anymore. I bought him out.”

  “Uh…Oh.” Ash bought the bar? I honestly thought Dave would never sell it.

  I follow him up the stairs. I’ve only been in here once when Dave tried to hit on me. That one time was enough for me to see that Ash has gutted the place. It’s completely different; everything modern and sterile — bachelor pad. His bachelor pad.

  “Do you want a drink?” he asks.

  “No. Thank you.”

  He takes a seat on a stool at the breakfast bar, and I just stand here awkwardly between the hallway and kitchen…still refusing to look at him. Silence lingers in the space between us like a physical entity in the room.

  “It’s been four years, Eden,” he starts.

  I nod. “I know. I wouldn’t have called… but I need your help.” My feet remain planted, and I refuse to close the gaping distance between us.

  “I’m glad you did.” The look in his eyes is so utterly enraptured, laser-focused on me. Slamming my eyes shut, I tilt my head back and try to calm my racing pulse once more. He’s too much, too intense, too…Ash. I startle when I feel the warm rush of his breath over the side of my neck.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Eden.” He couldn’t be more wrong. I open my eyes and find myself staring straight into the dark brown of his. “There you are,” he whispers.

  I’m not doing this with him. Taking a step back, I clear my throat.

  “Otto is missing,” I whisper, cutting through the sudden tension.

  There’s a beat of silence. “How long?”

  “A week.” Reaching inside my jacket pocket, I take out the inconspicuous looking brown envelope and shove it against his chest. “He was arrested the day he disappeared, for possession of cocaine. He had nearly ten grand in cash hidden in his room, Ash. And now he’s gone.” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “One of his friends just washed up on the riverbank, shot in the head.” Fear has my hands shaking and tears welling in my eyes. I’m terrified for my brother.