Cherry Picking

by Tim Heath

  It was after going through all that, having felt much better than he’d thought he was going to feel, that he’d taken the call from Jessica and the morning’s events had been retold to him. Again through tears, as Tommy listened in horror, Jessica had shared some of the story, saying that Brendan came to take her home and they’d sorted out the man, not yet telling Tommy of what she’d done to him, though the way Tommy was feeling inside, all he wanted to do was to hunt the guy down and make sure he’d never be able to try and do it to anyone else again.

  Jessica cut in and asked him not to get angry, to just listen, which he did. She said how she felt safe with him, how she didn’t want to ever go back to work and didn’t want to be on her own. She wanted to move in with Tommy and asked whether that was a problem.

  Tommy was overjoyed, thinking it the best thing he’d heard since being told he was going to be a football manager and in no time he’d booked on the other line a car to pick her up and bring her to his home.

  Jessica sounded much better by the end of the call and was even sounding happy. When Tommy put the phone down something burned within him at the thought of what might have happened and fear rose in him, for the first time in a long time, at the thought of losing her. And yet he’d only just got her back.

  It’d been quite a morning by the time it came to lunch so Tommy decided to hand the afternoon’s training session over to his coaches and instead headed off home for some lunch, to tidy things away and to wait in anticipation for the arrival of his love, his girl, his Jessica.

  **********

  Robert Sandle was doing the buttons up carefully on his shirt as he realised the time, Katie lying soundly asleep on the bed, an empty bottle of Merlot sitting next to two glasses on the small table beside the bed.

  Tired, Robert walked out of the room trying not to make a sound, but Katie seemed dead to the world anyway. He went downstairs quietly, it was almost time to call Brendan.

  The call was answered within a couple of rings and Robert could hear drilling and an aircraft in the background, so much so that it was clear Brendan was shouting to make himself heard.

  “So you found it then.”

  “It’s a dump of a place and noisy as hell! I’m sure you have a good enough reason for all this?” Brendan didn’t allow time for an answer. “Anyway, I want to meet you, to talk further on the things you said before.”

  “Why the sudden change of heart?” Robert was cautious, such a quick shift seemed almost out of character but then there was no knowing really how he’d feel in such circumstances.

  “It’s like you said, I feel a fraud.”

  Robert thought to himself and knew he hadn’t actually said those words. Brendan continued. “I think you know a lot more than you are letting on about the man I work for and I want to know everything. Who are you and how do you know so much?”

  “All in good time, Brendan. But I’m glad we can work together on this. Believe me, I can answer all your questions and give you everything you need to bring him down.”

  “You know what he is capable of then? You know the protection he has around him? How do you think you can get close to him?” Brendan seemed to be speaking in such a way as if he was asking himself the same questions, as if this was stuff he’d tried to answer before for himself. Robert decided not to bother answering them all directly, not now anyway, instead just saying, “I know more than anyone what he is capable of. The level to which he’ll go will change the closer we get to him.”

  Brendan liked the sound of the word ‘we’ but didn’t say anything. Instead he just waited before Robert continued:

  “Okay, I’m prepared to meet with you face-to-face and we can talk some more then. I’m going to have to know that I’ve got your complete cooperation though, and that’ll be hard to show.”

  “Look...”

  “Don’t try and prove anything yet. I’ll be in touch when I’ve worked out where we can safely meet. In the mean time know this. Any electronic piece of communication you have has been bugged so be careful what you say as he’ll hear it within half an hour. He’ll also probably know you’ve spoken to me now and that’ll scare him. You’re going to have to calm him, though he won’t tell you, I’d imagine, that he actually knew you’d met me. But know this — he’ll do and say anything to get rid of me. There is nothing that he won’t do and he certainly isn’t the man you think he is.”

  Brendan was very intrigued by all this and couldn’t begin to think how he knew so much but only knew too well himself that Nigel Gamble put on a front when in public and was someone else in private. Brendan thought about Nigel’s whole charade with making himself look an old man when they met. He was genuinely wanting answers now and would await Robert’s further contact with interest.

  “I guess I’ll be hearing from you shortly then,” he shouted as yet another large aircraft came in low overhead just before landing. They said their brief goodbyes and that was that. Robert turned and only then noticed that Katie had been standing in the doorway, resting against the door frame and just smiling at him. “I wondered what was so important that you left me alone in bed? Business was it?”

  Not being aware of what she had heard and not really knowing if any of it had been too alarming anyway, he just nodded and left things at that, going over to her and giving her a kiss on the cheek. She pulled away, as if not satisfied.

  “What, no hug, no kiss on the lips? You going cold on me now?” Robert turned to look at her and saw the serious look on her face. ‘Oh no,’ he thought to himself, ‘she really is unstable. What have I got myself into?’

  She opened the dressing gown she had on and let it drop to the floor.

  “I know you’re married, Katie,” Robert said finally.

  “And yet you still had me. Big deal.”

  “Look, I have a lot on my plate at the moment. I didn’t mean this all to happen, I just thought...”

  She picked up the gown in obvious anger and stormed back upstairs shouting:

  “Don’t say it, I don’t need to hear it. You’re just the same as all the rest!”

  The bedroom door slammed and he could only imagine she was putting her clothes back on.

  A truck pulled up outside the front door at that moment and Robert recognised the rattling old sound of Norman’s delivery vehicle. The wind had died down but there were plenty of broken branches on the ground as Robert opened the door and waited for Norman to walk around the truck and come over towards him. “Quite a storm,” he said. “You still got power and telephone?”

  “Yes, I just made a call so all seems in working order.”

  “Half the village is out, some trees coming down bringing lines down with them. A tree’s gone right through the Taylor’s house, that’s why I’m here. I’m gathering some folk to do some searching as there’s no sign of Katherine or the dog.”

  Hearing what had been said and shocked at the news, Katie walked out from the house as Norman was finishing, the old man looking up and knowing then all he needed to know.

  “I was walking the dog and bumped into Robert before the rain started to really come down. He suggested I sheltered here.”

  For most people, including Norman, that usually would have been enough to convince him but he’d known her long enough. Quite apart from her reputation in some circles as a wandering wife, he’d seen the dog many times and if it was indeed here, as she had said it was, it would have been running around him by now barking. He left it there and turned to Katie.

  “It’s good that you are both safe then. Do you want a lift back to assess the damage?”

  “Yes please,” she said.

  “I’ll come along as well and help you out,” Robert added calmly and they all jumped into the truck and Norman gently rolled it down the drive again, not daring to ask where the dog was, certain of what had in fact been the case anyway.

  **********

  The following day life was calm again in the village and things were returning to normal. The
sky was clear and bright, the only break in the blue were the lines left behind by the odd high altitude aeroplane as it crossed the country.

  Robert had awoken early with the morning light flooding through a gap in the curtain but he had too much to do to sleep much longer anyway.

  After breakfast, he’d taken the car into a nearby village that had a library and he’d spent a couple of hours further researching on things he’d started to turn up on the Wentworth’s. There was actually quite a lot of information but most of it he’d seen before. But what had really taken his interest was a minor reference to Switzerland, the family having once taken some trip there and it was from here that his research really started to get interesting and he found possible homes where young Austin might have been sent. This opened up a whole realm of possibilities.

  Robert had spent the final hour with several books and maps of Switzerland open on a desk there and he scribbled notes down meticulously. He did not yet know what conclusions to draw but these would be good places to start further research later, with the aid of the internet on his home computer. He did think it no coincidence though, that the older brother, who had died in a boating accident, had done so reportedly in Switzerland as well. This only confirmed that it was a good enough place to start when he got back home.

  He picked up his notes and left the library, spotting on the noticeboard on his way out a bad picture of himself with the words ‘wanted’ in big bold letters above the photo, just the reminder he needed that wherever he was he needed to be careful. He jogged over to the car to get back as quickly as he could, dropping his things onto the passenger seat, and was off down the road in no time, driving fast but safely the twenty minutes it took to get back to the house and the relative security it offered him.

  Having eaten something for his lunch, Robert was so deep into his research that when his phone rang, he didn’t register the fact at first. He reached for it in frustration and answered it. It was Nigel Gamble again. They said their strained greetings, more like gladiatorial champions eyeing up the opposition, not wanting to give anything away to the other person. Before long they were talking a little more freely.

  “You know I’ve been sleeping much better since we spoke. Isn’t that funny?” Nigel said. Robert couldn’t really see the humour in it. Nigel continued:

  “It’s probably because I know you are not that close. There’s something about the unknown enemy that has a crazy way of messing with the mind.”

  Robert ignored the word ‘enemy,’ just acknowledging how Nigel saw him and instead focused on the first thing he’d said:

  “And why do you think I am not close?”

  “Because I’d know. You’d be caught by now or something worse. You can’t be in the city because you’d be practically house bound. My guess is that you’re in the same place as the Door, probably in a suburb of the city or maybe a nearby village.”

  “Well, you’ll never quite know, will you.”

  “Might not need to — I could after all just decide to destroy everything outside the city. If I didn’t get you I’d get the Door and that way you’d be trapped either here or better still back there.”

  He was talking much more aggressively now and Robert didn’t like it, but he put it down to empty threats designed to intimidate him. Nigel instead suddenly changed the conversation:

  “Anyway, enough playing games, as if I needed to impress upon you my superior position. I’ve been thinking about you and your being all alone, the poor orphaned boy that nobody loved.” Robert let it ride and stayed quiet.

  “You know, I could change all that for you, I really could. I could give you a family, a life. You’d know no different. All I’d need to know was a little information and with some research I’m sure I could find your parents’ killer and get rid of him. Who knows what your life would have been had they been around? If you were back through the Door when I did it you’d get all the memories back — you’d have your parents.”

  “You’d love that, wouldn’t you. This is my life, I have no parents!”

  “You talk like things can’t be changed? And yet if your parents’ killer’s grandparents were no more, there would be no killer to take your parents’ lives! You still live by the notion that your past is set in stone and yet I set the future, I can change what happens. Haven’t you learnt anything by now?”

  “There’s a million things that you’d change in the process. And besides, who’s to say you just wouldn’t wipe out my grandparents and have done with me?”

  “Oh please, I’m a man of my word. If you left me here I’d give you back your parents.”

  “Your word means nothing to me. I have a job to do!”

  “You’re a foolish man, you know that, Robert. Why don’t you think about what you want for a change? There is no job, there is no winning. What are you going to do even if you could catch me? Who can you take me to? I’m not wanted any more in your time, if you remember.”

  “In my time? You talk as if you don’t belong there as well.”

  “I don’t! This is home now, this is my life, can’t you see that?”

  “It’s the life you took from others, that’s all. You’ve left nothing but mess, death and destruction in your wake as you’ve played your little games.”

  “But it can’t be undone. This is now reality, Robert. You make it sound like I’m over-typing some later chapters and yet now there are no later chapters. There are only new chapters yet to be written.”

  “And yet we both know that we can go back to a place that is very real and changing all the time because of what you are doing here.”

  “That means nothing to me, I care very little for that place. This is my home, my life now.”

  “Of course it is. You were nobody there except a murdering thief!”

  “Please, let’s not get nasty.”

  Robert thought that was rich coming from the man who had talked in terms of him being his enemy and saying he’d destroy thousands of homes in order to get him or the Door. But he didn’t let his emotion show, surprising himself at how calmly he was now speaking.

  “I bet you don’t even know how it works, do you?” Robert said, himself changing the subject now.

  “And you do I suppose! Look, we all drive around increasingly complicated computer-controlled cars and yet none of us has the slightest idea how they work. We use technology every day that we don’t even question, but all we care about is how to use it. You don’t need to know how to build a computer in order to just use one. So no, of course I don’t understand fully how the Door works but I know it does and I know how to use it and that’s all I need to know. And I got the first door working which means I’m always ahead of you.”

  “But here, now, we are in the same field of play. You have no great advantage on me here.”

  “Apart from the twenty years I’ve had to set up teams of people to do whatever I ask them, military and security forces who’d drop a bomb without the need for any government clearance, foreign countries allied with just me and happy to assist an attack on the UK with weapons that I’ve sold to them.”

  That little outburst gave Robert another insight into the man’s thinking. There was nothing that he seemingly hadn’t considered in his effort to stay free, to stay alive. Aware of how long he’d been talking and not wanting to give away his location, Robert decided to leave him with something that he hoped would unsettle him before hanging up.

  “That’s very interesting to hear you talk about your country like that. But I must correct you on something you said before. Who said your Door was the first one anyway?”

  The phone went dead as Nigel started to reply, not really taking seriously the empty threat he thought he’d just heard. But then, fear started to creep in on him. ‘What did he mean by that?’ he thought to himself. It seemed impossible that there could be another Door because the two that he knew about had been the crowning achievements of long scientific careers.

  But it was the way Robe
rt had so plainly said it, as if he knew something Nigel didn’t, that really put him into a hot sweat. The thought that there could be more than two Doors was horrendous enough, let alone the thought that any such Door might be even earlier than his — no, the possibility was just too shocking to even contemplate but if such a thing did exist, Nigel now knew that he’d have to find it first and destroy it for fear that it would in fact destroy him.

  **********

  Brendan Charles had been in the office for some time having thought all day about what Robert had said to him the previous day. Wanting some fresh air he went out as always to the small park next to the office and walked around happily, thinking, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows as it was warm and sunny.

  People walked around slowly together, the kind of simple life that Brendan often wished he could have, spending more time with his wife and children without all the frustrations that had dogged his life for so long.

  And yet there was so much to the character that was Robert Sandle that Brendan knew he had to take him seriously. He’d seen first hand the man’s ability to remain hidden, from that first moment he’d spotted him at the back of the crowd of journalists at that press conference, to the way his team of guys hadn’t turned up anything in the search for him since. It was as if the man had just turned up from nowhere, appearing without any obvious history, no shadows or footprints left behind that would help them find him.

  He was a mystical figure therefore in Brendan’s eyes, a man that offered answers to questions that he’d thought impossible to ask. He didn’t feel in any way a traitor with regard to his relationship with Nigel now, more as if he was doing the right thing at last against a man who had done so much wrong and making his own hands dirty with people’s blood in the process by carrying out his orders. Though late in his life, having lost so many years already, he knew more than ever the empowerment that came from the thought of teaming up with Robert, this almost invisible person, in order to bring an end to the man who was Nigel Gamble.