by Tim Weaver
I reached in and took one out.
Snap.
A noise from outside. Stones scattering.
I went to the window of the bathroom. Someone was approaching. A woman. She was young, probably nineteen or twenty. Dark brown hair in a ponytail. Pale, creamy skin. Tight denims, a red top and a white and pink ski jacket. On her feet was a pair of chunky, fur-lined boots. She crunched along in the snow, kicking loose pieces of gravel into the fields.
I didn’t have time to get out – didn’t even have time to get down to the pantry – so I put the bath panel back and moved into Room B, the room with the rings. Behind the door, I took out the Beretta and flipped the safety off. My hands were clammy despite the cold.
Then I remembered the extra bullets.
Still in the car, buried in the glove compartment.
Shit.
Footsteps sounded at the staircase. I had a narrow view between the door and the frame. Enough to see the woman get to the top of the stairs, move across the landing and into the bathroom.
I heard the squeak of the bath panel being removed. Vials clinking together. Then she started humming to herself. I moved out from behind the door, took a big stride from the door of the bedroom to the door of the bathroom and placed the gun at the back of her head.
‘Don’t move.’
She jolted, as if a current had just cut her in two. Her eyes swivelled into the corners of her skull. She looked back over her shoulder at me without moving.
‘Get up.’
She stood slowly, three vials clasped in one hand, her other outstretched to tell me she wasn’t going to be any trouble.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Sarah,’ she said quietly.
‘Okay, Sarah. Now tell me: what the fuck is going on here?’
She didn’t reply, so I lowered the gun and grabbed her by the back of the neck. The sudden movement made her drop the vials. They smashed against the bathroom floor. She winced, as if I was about to hit her, and did so again when I turned her around and pushed her into Room B. I forced her downwards, so she was almost doubled over. Her face was right in front of the help me message.
‘Can you read that?’
She nodded. Her breathing was short and sharp. Scared.
‘Good. So you speak English. Someone carved that message in the wall and left half their fingernails in there. You can see their fingernails, can’t you?’
She nodded again.
‘Speak up, I can’t hear you.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. You any idea how painful that is? You any idea how desperate someone has to be to carve a message in a wall with their own fingernails?’
She didn’t move.
‘Sarah?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes what?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Good. Which is why you’re going to start answering some questions for me. Because if you don’t, you’re going to scratch a new message in the door next to it, with your fingernails. Got it?’
She nodded.
I pulled her up and guided her out of the room. I couldn’t stand the smell any longer.
On the landing, I forced her to kneel down facing one of the walls. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, and didn’t like the person I was seeing. But things had changed now. I had changed. There was no going back to the man I’d been before. Not now. They’d made certain of that.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ I said. She was kneeling down, one of her hands on the wall in front of her. ‘But I will hurt you if you don’t give me what I want.’
I paused, let her take it in. She nodded.
‘Okay. First. What is the room with the rings used for?’
A little hesitation, then: ‘Acclimatization.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘We bring them here to dry them out.’
‘Dry them out?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are they – drug addicts?’
She nodded again.
‘We’re not doing sign language any more. Yes or no?’
‘Some, yes.’
‘Some, but not all?’
‘Not all. But most.’
‘You’re running a drug programme?’
‘Kind of.’
‘You are or you aren’t?’
‘We are. But it’s not…’
‘Not what?’
‘Not like a normal programme.’
I glanced into the room with the rings. Saw the handcuffs, the blood spatters. Smelt the decay and the sickness.
‘No kidding,’ I said. ‘So, what is it then?’
‘It’s a way to help people forget.’
‘Forget what?’
‘The things they’ve seen, and the things they’ve done.’
‘Like what?’
She paused, finally dropped her hand away from the wall, and turned her head slightly so she could look at me.
‘I’m not sure you’d understand.’
‘I guess we’ll see.’
Another pause. She turned back to the wall.
‘They’ve all suffered traumas,’ she said.
‘Like what?’
‘Life-affecting traumas.’
‘Specifics,’ I said.
She turned her head again, and this time her eyes fixed on mine. They moved across my face, flashing. In her expression, I could see the fear I’d glimpsed after I’d surprised her. But now, somehow, it looked less convincing… as if she might be playing me. As if all of this – the scared little girl, the soft voice – might be how she turned the game on its head.
‘Life-affecting traumas like what?’ I said.
She smiled a little, sadly. ‘Like Derryn.’
I grabbed her by the neck and pressed her head into the wall. A puff of plaster spat out at her face, forcing her to close her eyes. She coughed.
I leaned into her ear.
‘Don’t try to get inside my head. Don’t mention her name. Don’t ever try to use her as a way to get at me. I hear you say her name again, I’ll fucking kill you.’
She nodded.
I released the pressure on her neck and she opened her eyes again.
‘Keep your eyes closed.’
She frowned, as if she didn’t understand.
‘Keep your eyes closed.’
She shut them.
‘Specifics,’ I repeated. ‘Give me specifi–’
‘Sarah?’
A man’s voice at the front of the house. The crunch of snow underfoot. It sounded like he was coming around towards the back door. I leaned in close to her.
‘Don’t make a sound, got it?’
Those eyes snapped open again and she looked at me. She wasn’t beautiful, but her face had a hypnotic quality. It lured you in, and forced you to lose precious seconds.
‘Sarah?’
He was inside the house. I covered her mouth and hauled her to her feet, then slowly backed up, with her in front of me, into Room A.
‘Sarah?’
A creak on the stairs.
I pushed her into the centre of the room, and moved back, behind the door. She looked at me and saw what I was telling her: don’t do anything stupid.
‘Sarah?’
She faced the door. ‘I’m up here.’
I looked through the gap in the door, to the stairs. A head appeared, but slowly, as if he knew something was up.
‘You okay?’ he said.
‘Yeah, fine.’
‘What are you doing?’
Eastern European accent.
He stopped short of the top of the stairs and looked around. I could see snatches of his face between the bars on the staircase. His eyes were darting between the doors.
‘Just getting the supplies.’
He took another step.
‘What’s taking so long?’
She paused. Looked at me.
I could see the man’s face now. It was Stephen Myzwik.
Older than in the mugshots, but leaner and more focused. He had a hand placed at the back of his trousers as he stepped up on to the landing. Reaching for a gun.
‘It’s warm in here.’
I shot a look at Sarah. What the hell are you talking about? She just stared back at me. Didn’t move. Didn’t say anything else. When I glanced back in Myzwik’s direction, I could see his gun was up in front of him, aimed in the direction of the bedrooms. His eyes flicked left to the smashed vials on the bathroom floor as he moved across the landing almost silently.
‘Where?’
‘Room A,’ she said.
They were speaking in code.
I gripped the gun, and watched as Myzwik moved to the door, then stopped. He looked in at Sarah. And without her saying anything, he seemed to immediately know where I was.
I ducked as he fired twice through the door.
The noise shattered the silence, piercing the walls of the building and cracking across the fields outside. Wood splintered above me as bullets passed through the door. A shower of plaster rained down into my hair and face.
I kicked the door closed. It slammed shut, rattling in its frame. Sarah glanced at me, then at the door, trying to work out if she could get there before I got to her. But she didn’t move for it. Instead, she turned, her hands up again, backing away. I raised the gun and pointed it at her, then darted across the room, grabbed her by the arm and brought her into me.
‘Myzwik!’ I shouted through the door.
Nothing. No noise from outside.
‘I’ve got her and I’ll k–’
A mobile phone started ringing on the other side of the door. It was Myzwik’s. Slowly, the door handle started turning. I squeezed Sarah in closer to me, one arm locked around her neck, the other out over her shoulder, aiming the gun at the door.
It opened.
Myzwik stood with his gun down by his side and his mobile phone at his ear. His eyes were pale, almost the colour of his skin, and he was growing a beard – jet black – which gave him an odd, alien appearance. A face cut through with light and dark. He didn’t take his eyes off me, even as his mobile phone started up again.
He answered it.
I could hear the faint murmur of someone else on the line, but it was impossible to make out words. Myzwik just listened, staring at me. It was an obvious play: him standing in the doorway, blocking my exit, telling me he didn’t believe I would shoot him. In front of me, Sarah could probably feel my heart thumping against her spine. Maybe I fell short of the man I needed to be. Because the man I needed to be was the one who aimed his gun at Myzwik and put a bullet in his skull before things spiralled even further out of control.
Myzwik nodded at the voice. ‘Yes, he has her.’
‘Put the phone down,’ I said.
He didn’t. The voice continued, a constant barrage of instructions.
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
‘Put the phone down.’
This time I spat the words at him with venom, and in Myzwik’s face I saw a flitter of surprise. As if he hadn’t expected it, even from a man determined enough to come right into their nest.
Finally, the voice stopped.
Myzwik flipped the phone shut.
‘What do you want, David?’
‘I want to know what the fuck’s going on here.’
‘Why?’
‘No. You’ve had your turn asking questions. Now it’s my turn.’
‘Turn? We don’t take turns.’
‘Wrong. You’ll answer my questions – and you know why? Because I will kill her if you don’t. If it’s kill or be killed, you better believe I will do it.’
Myzwik glanced at Sarah for the first time, and then back at me. Something was up. A movement in his eyes betrayed him. For a moment, I swore I saw some sadness in his face.
Then he shot Sarah in the chest.
The bullet entered high up, just above her left breast. She jerked back, her blood spitting into my face, and then fell away. In an automatic response, I tried to prevent her hitting the floor, tried to yank her back up towards me, but she folded completely. The transfer of weight was too much and too fast for me to cling on to. I laid her down. When I looked up, Myzwik was almost on top of me, his gun aimed at my head.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’
‘Get up,’ he said.
I glanced at Sarah. She was at my feet, clutching her chest, blood pumping out between her fingers. In her eyes some of the light had already disappeared.
‘She’s going to die.’
‘Get to your feet or you’re next.’
I stood. Sarah’s eyes followed mine, but then she seemed to lose focus and her gaze drifted off. I wiped some of her blood from my face.
‘She’ll die here, Stephen,’ I said, trying to reason with him, using his first name as a way to get at his humanity.
But it didn’t work.
‘Then she dies,’ he replied quietly.
I looked down at her. Her life – maybe only twenty years of it – was running out over her hands, down her shirt and into the floorboards. Collecting with all the other blood that had been spilled in this room.
36
We headed down the track, towards the second building. It was an old slate farmhouse with an extension on the back. At the front was a veranda, like the one in the Polaroid of Alex, and a wooden sign, nailed to the inside of the railings. It said LAZARUS. Beyond, grass dropped away to the sea, heather scattered across it, spreading in all directions. Either side, more fields ran like squares on a quilt. A few had been dug up. Spades, pickaxes and garden forks had been left on the hard ground.
A hush settled across the farm as we approached. The only sound came from a set of wind chimes, swinging gently in the breeze coming off the water, and, at the side of the house, the grinding sound of metal against metal as a weathervane turned in the wind. As the wind died down, I looked up to the top of the roof and saw what the weathervane was: an angel.
I stepped up on to the veranda and looked in through the front window. Alex had been in there once to have his picture taken. Frozen for a moment in time. Framed by the window, the wooden railings of the veranda and the blue of the sea and sky. The picture must have been taken right back at the start, when he’d first arrived on the farm. Before the programme. Before whatever came after.
Myzwik pushed me along the veranda.
‘Open the door and go inside,’ he said.
I tried the door. Like Bethany, Lazarus opened into a kitchen. It was small, dark, with all three windows covered in black plastic sheeting. Two doors led from the kitchen. One was closed. The other was open, and I could see into a stark living room with a table in the centre and a single chair pushed underneath. On the walls of the kitchen were picture frames and shelves full of food. Above the cooker was a newspaper cutting. BOY, 10, FOUND FLOATING IN THE THAMES.
The same one I’d seen in the flat in Brixton.
Myzwik flicked the lights on and closed the door. He grabbed my shoulder, pressed his gun into my spine and sat me in a chair at the kitchen table. Behind me I heard him open and close a drawer. The tear of duct tape. He started to wrap it around my chest and legs, securing me to the chair. When he was finished, he threw the duct tape on to the table and stood in front of me. Looked down at me. Touched a finger to one of the bruises on my face. As I jolted away from him, avoiding him, he grabbed my face and moved in.
‘You’re going to die,’ he whispered.
I wriggled free from his grip and stared at him. He held my gaze for a moment, then turned away, removing his mobile phone. He flipped it open and speed-dialled a number.
‘Yeah, it’s me. He’s here.’
He killed the call.
He looked at me. ‘You’re not here to hurt people, David, is that right? You’re here to – what? – liberate?’
I didn’t reply.
He shook his head. ‘You believed you were doing something good. On some kind of crusade. But all y
ou were doing was pissing in the wind.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
‘Do I?’
‘If I was pissing in the wind, two of your friends wouldn’t have driven me to the middle of a forest to execute me.’
His eyes narrowed. Then he moved around to the other side of the table and his expression changed. Softened. I realized why: he could say what he wanted now, because when I left the farm, it would be in a body bag.
‘I don’t think we ever really clicked, Alex and I. A lot of us here tried to help him, but you’ve got to meet in the middle. He didn’t want to do that.’
‘So, where is he?’
Myzwik shrugged. ‘Not here.’
He pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘I’m sure his mother painted a beautiful picture for you. But Alex is a killer. He made mistakes.’ He glanced at the newspaper cutting on the wall, and back at me. ‘When he had nowhere else to turn, we were there for him. Just like we’ve been there for everybody else in this place.’
I turned away from him. Said nothing.
Dismissing him.
‘What does that look mean?’
He leaned towards me.
‘Huh? ’
‘You don’t care about anyone.’
‘We do.’
‘By giving them more drugs?’
‘Yes.’
‘By taking out their teeth?’
He shoved the table towards me. It juddered against the lino, sticking. Rocking back and forth.
‘Don’t sit there and judge what you don’t understand!’ he screamed. ‘You don’t know the programme, you piece of shit! We give them a chance!’
I didn’t reply.
He came around the table, teeth gritted, hand reaching for my hair. I turned in the chair and ducked beneath his grasp – but the binds stopped me from moving any further. He clamped a hand around my throat and pushed me back so I was looking up at him. He was out of breath. Rage boiling. But as we stared at each other his eyes narrowed again, and he saw everything clearly. He saw I’d got to him.
He let go of me.
‘You’re clever, David.’
‘If I was clever, I would have put a bullet in your head before you murdered a teenaged girl in cold blood.’
‘You mean Sarah?’ He shook his head. ‘You murdered her by turning up here.’
‘I didn’t pull the trigger.’