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elvieshezza · 3 days

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[Sullivan has been investigating malicious ‘pranks’ in the village which go too far when someone is killed. Mrs McCarthy has whipped up fear of witches cursing people which neither Father Brown nor the Inspector believe. But he has arrested a woman who practices openly because all the evidence leads to her door. Father Brown finds that convenient and nags Sullivan into considering that the woman could have been framed. A way to be sure, a risky way, is to announce her release for lack of evidence and see if it drives the real culprit to show their hand.

This does not go as planned.]

***includes fire***

“Do you know much history, Inspector?”

Sullivan winces when he opens his eyes. His head throbs, a pain that sends a wave of nausea through him and forces him to swallow the saliva filling his mouth.

“Oh, I’m sorry, old chap. I couldn’t take the chance you’d fight back if I only held a gun on you. I doubt I’d win in a fight. You have the advantage of being younger, and certainly stronger. But you won’t have to worry about a concussion. Not for much longer, at any rate.”

No. Clearly not. Despite the pain, Sullivan becomes acutely away of his predicament. Something solid is against his back and his wrists are bound behind it. A rope is looped tightly around his waist, and his ankles are similarly restrained.

Bernard Wilton’s age certainly hasn’t stopped him doing a thorough job rendering him helpless.

Wilton moves with agitation, back and forth, and Sullivan realises he’s waiting for an answer.

“Any particular era?”

Wilton pauses to glance at him. “You’re not a stupid man, Inspector. Simple, perhaps. Lacking vision. But, even though I made it as straightforward for you as possible and you still let that bitch go…no. You’re not stupid so please don’t insult me by pretending that you are. Witches, Inspector. Or more specifically their trials. Their punishments when they were found guilty.”

And suddenly Sullivan feels very stupid indeed. For being led around by the nose. For not considering where this ruse of Father Brown’s, of his as well, might lead. For not understanding his predicament until it was spelled out for him.

“I’m not a witch,” he says, pointless but blurted out before he can stop it.

Wilton laughs. Long and hard, as though Sullivan has just told him the funniest joke he’s heard in such a long time.

“Of course you aren’t,” he wheezes, rubbing at his eyes. “And most witches were actually hung, not burned at the stake. But immolation touches something deeper in all of us, I think; the fear of fire that is carried in our souls. And it will produce a far fiercer outcry against dear Isabel than if they find your remains swinging from a tree somewhere. How better for her to avenge her murdered ancestors than to condemn another male upholder of the law to the same fate?”

There are several bundles of kindling, twigs, dry leaves, all heaped at Wilton’s feet. He grabs armfuls and starts to build them up around where Sullivan is restrained, with an almost insane focus.

Because he is, Sullivan realises. And he is going to do this.

“We didn’t let her go.”

Wilton pauses, as if unsure he heard the inspector correctly. “Hm?”

“She’s still at the station. We had our suspicions that she was not as guilty as someone tried to make her seem.”

At least, Father Brown had his suspicions but Sullivan isn’t about to make the priest a target of this madman.

Before he can utter another word, Wilton is on him. He grabs Sullivan’s jaw in a grip strong enough to make the policeman less confident than his kidnapper of who would have won that theoretical fight between them.

“Liar! Lying to save yourself? Lying! Lying!”

Sullivan can barely speak but he forces out the words. “Why? Because even if I’m not, you will have to kill me anyway now.”

That prompts Wilton to let him go and step back, almost tripping over the makeshift pyre.

“All she had to do was accept me,” he mutters. “I could have made her comfortable. She could have made me a father. All you had to do was what I intended. But you did not and here we are.”

“If you give yourself up,” Sullivan says, “I’ll do what I can for you.”

Which won’t be much, but he’ll promise Wilton the world to get out of this.

Wilton must reach the same conclusion. “No. I’ve already done enough to hang. But this… She’ll remember this. And she’ll remember it always, as being all her fault.”

He fishes clumsily in his pocket, and produces a box of matches.

“Wait,” Sullivan says.

Wilton shakes his head. He opens the box, shaking it and then withdraws a single match. There’s a slow determination in his movements as he strikes it and the head catches, a flame bursting instantly into life.

He stares at it, as though mesmerised, before tossing it into the kindling at Sullivan’s feet.

And then, as though it closes the door on the whole twisted mess, he walks away and never once looks back.

.-.-.-

It has to be the Hag’s Dwelling, Father Brown keeps telling himself. Now they have it figured out, now they know who has actually been terrorising their town, and why, and now that Sullivan has been taken…

The note left behind, with ramblings of sacrifice and a blood debt, and various susposedly demonic symbols scribbled around the edges, simply confirms it and that Bernard Wilton is surely insane.

Insane and with Sullivan in his grasp, and when he persuaded Sullivan to carry out this ploy he never imagined this would be the outcome.

He and Goodfellow abandon the police car at the edge of the woods. The two constables are off into the trees like hounds after a scent; he and the sergeant are soon left behind.

Brown is too old for running, and Goodfellow is built for strength, not speed.

Still, they follow as closely as they can, managing to go a little faster when they hear a commotion ahead.

They find Bernard Wilton pinned by the two constables, panting, but the fight now put out of him.

“How convenient.” He smirks at Father Brown. “A priest. You’ll come in handy. I hear you went to war, Father. So likely you’ll have a strong stomach. You’ll need one.”

Goodfellow grabs Wilton by the collar, seizing him from the constables and yanking him to his feet.

“What did you do?”

A sly smile is the only response.

“We’ll find him,” Father Brown says. “Come.”

He claps Goodfellow’s shoulder, and then hurries on.

What did Wilton mean? What has he done?

——

Even without the flames touching him, the heat itself is enough for pain. That, and the smoke; Sullivan strains his neck, tilting his chin as much as he can but still inhales a stinging lungful and loses several moments to a whooping cough that leaves his though raw and his eyes full of stinging tears.

He yanks hard at the ropes around his wrists, ignoring the sharp bite, trying to work one wrist loose, finally managing. He doesn’t look at the damage. It’ll be nothing compared to what’s next if he doesn’t get free. He works his other hand out of the ropes and pulls at the rope around his waist, tugging in short forceful jerks until it slackens enough for him to raise it over his head and lean away from the tree, it’s a tree, that he was bound to.

And still is. His feet are hidden beneath the kindling, fire licking hungrily closer; with no choice he digs his hands down into the smoking heap, gasping at the seared air that greets him. Tries to find the rope, a knot, but it’s not so easy this time. In the end, he starts pushing the kindling away, all he can do.

Not enough.

Until he hears someone calling for him. Not Wilton. Voices he recognises. Because of course when they realised he was missing, they would be searching.

“I’m here. Help! Hurry!”

Never a more welcoming sight than Goodfellow striding from between the trees, Father Brown puffing along behind. Goodfellow grabs a thick as yet unburned branch and uses it to clear a path to him and Father Brown manages to loose the ropes around his ankles enough for him to step out of them, even if he’s ungainly due to pain, panic and the lack of circulation in his feet.

He goes down and takes Brown with him. But the priest is unharmed and Sullivan can only lay there, panting as Brown’s hands move efficiently over him, noting any pain responses and searching for burned flesh.

Goodfellow leans over him. “Sir.” It’s an ‘I was worried, we found you, it’s alright, are you hurt’ all in that one word.

“Wilton. Take some constables. Search the woods. Make sure Miss Simmons doesn’t leave the police station.”

“Inspector.” It’s a gentle though frustrated chastisement and Sullivan allows himself a moment of pettiness. He was almost burned alive today.

Let the priest see how it feels to have someone be obstinate for once.

“We caught him not far from here, sir,” Goodfellow says. “He’ll be in the cells by now.”

“And you are going to the hospital,” Brown says.

Sullivan shakes his head. He’ll need seeing to, but the latest police surgeon is competent; the man can take care of him while he…

“No,” Brown says. “No more police work today. Not to the station. To the hospital. Or I swear on our new altar cloth that I will have Sergeant Goodfellow carry you there.”

He glances between both men and sees it’s an order Brown will give and that Goodfellow will provoke his wrath by following.

He relents. He has no choice.

The two men ease him to his feet, keeping hold of his arms as they guide him through the woods. By now, another police car has come, and an ambulance summoned.

His would-be murderer is in the back of one of the cars and the rage in his eyes when he sees his victim has survived is fathomless.

Wilton has failed twice now to kill those who thwarted him, even if Sullivan hasn’t escaped unscathed.

Physically or otherwise. But he has survived, and he will later see Wilton hang for his crimes.

For now though, to the ambulance, Father Brown settling in beside him.

“Worried I won’t keep my word, Father?”

“No.”

#OBSESSED #whump #inspector sullivan

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