Ascension Day

by John Matthews

  Thirty per cent… forty per cent… that doubt fluctuating wildly along with his own mood swings and shattered nerves, reaching more for the bottle each time it raised a notch.

  But now this smooth-tongued Southern lawyer, Ayliss, had rocketed that doubt into the stratosphere. He seemed to be right about everything else – had pretty well worked it all out – then why not the DNA as well?

  Truelle noticed that his hand was still shaking as he raised his fresh glass. Six stiff ones and he was still shaking like Jello in an earthquake. He doubted that he’d get calm and level this time, no matter how much he drank.

  Some squeaky violin music scratched at the back of his brain. While a good bar in which to hide away, lots of dark corners – and better still as it started to fill with an after-office crowd – as it had become busier, they’d also turned up the frantic-fiddler Riverdance music.

  But he still needed to kill more time. Okay, he’d sat it out beyond office hours, but now that his office was closed, Nel-M would probably be waiting at his apartment for him. He wouldn’t be able to go back there either!

  Stay here and be driven mad by frantic Irish fiddlers? Or risk all out there with Nel-M: thrown from a rooftop or a quick bullet through the brain?

  With the aid of three more Jim Beams, he managed to brave it out at the Irish bar for almost another two hours, smiling like an idiot and tapping his feet to the music at one point, as the drink finally made his senses swim and sway.

  Then he went to a nearby restaurant, picking at a Chicken Royale, his stomach still too jumpy to swallow much. Though he did manage to wash down the five mouthfuls with a full-bodied bottle of Cote de Beaune.

  He finished off the evening with four lingering night-cap brandies between two bars on Maple Street, by which time, spilling himself into a taxi at almost 1 p.m. – hopefully Nel-M would have given up waiting for him by then – everything was drifting and sailing around him so wonderfully that he hardly cared if Nel-M put a bullet through his head. He’d hardly feel it, and such a great moment to go out on: the lights of the city spinning and sparkling all around him like he’d never seen before. Everything so beeyootiful… so fucking beeeyoootiful…

  Though he did snap to, sharpen his senses a bit as the taxi approached his apartment. If Nel-M’s car was anywhere nearby, he’d simply tell the driver to head-on, spend that night in a hotel. But it was nowhere to be seen.

  He eased out a breath of relief as he told the driver to stop, paid, leapt out, and, taking the stairs two and three at a time, opened his door and slammed it behind him as quickly, sliding back the three deadbolts; then leant against the door for almost a full two minutes, breathless, eyes closed, the city lights still spinning all around him.

  He went to the window. No sign of Nel-M’s car or anything else suspect. But still he didn’t put any lights on, except for a small back bathroom light which wouldn’t show through to the front.

  He noticed the red light on his answer-phone flashing as he went back into the lounge. He played the message.

  ‘Hi, Lenny… Chris here. Chris Tullington. You know I mentioned you coming up here one Christmas. Well, me and Brenda and little Giles – or not so little any more – we’re heading inland to Vernon for Christmas. It’s the ideal Christmas setting – fir trees, lots of snow and skiing and big log fires. You’d love it! We’d be real happy to see you, if you could make it. Give us a call here in Vancouver, if you think you’d be able to. We’re heading off there on the eighteenth for ten days.’

  Fir trees. Skiing. Warm Christmas fires and old friends. Yeah, he’d love to be able to make it, but it felt a million miles from where he was at that moment.

  He looked anxiously towards the front door. If the bell rang, he simply wouldn’t answer it, just phone the police straight away, say he had an intruder at the door.

  Surely Nel-M wouldn’t be able to shoot or hack his way through all the dead-bolts before the police arrived? He wouldn’t even risk looking through the spy-hole if it rang, in case Nel-M tried to shoot him through the door. He’d immediately shut and lock every connecting door and barricade himself in a back bedroom.

  And that’s where he lay as he finally put his head down to sleep, though with all the connecting doors open so that he could listen out for even the slightest sound from the corridor outside; and he was still in the same position over two hours later, eyes darting rapidly as he listened out for those small sounds that hadn’t yet come, the barrage of nerves again gripping him as the effects of the drink started to wear off, spinning city lights battling against dark demons, until his conscious mind finally gave up caring and he fell asleep.

  38

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… fuck…. fuck!

  When Nel-M got round the block, Ayliss was nowhere to be seen. He trawled as far as ten blocks up and four or five each side before finally giving up with the thump of his palm against the steering wheel… fuck!

  Twenty minutes already gone, he went to a coffee bar and gripped a steaming cappuccino so hard that he thought the cup might shatter, his eyes fixed steadily, stonily ahead, until he’d killed a further half-hour and was sure all the police and ambulances would have cleared from in front of Truelle’s building.

  But when he got back there, Truelle’s secretary said that he wasn’t in. He barged through to Truelle’s office in case she was lying, then asked where he was and what time she expected him back.

  ‘Don’t know… he didn’t say. For either.’

  Faint ring of truth about it, but it wouldn’t get him anywhere pulling out her fingernails. Truelle wouldn’t get back any quicker. He’d just have to sit it out.

  Another flat-handed bash of the steering wheel as he got back into his car… fuck! Two more as an hour rolled past and Truelle still hadn’t returned, three each at the two and three hour marks, and then finally, as it got close to office closing time and Truelle still wasn’t back, a machine-gun roll of them as Nel-M felt his nerves finally snapping.

  He daren’t even phone Roche or answer his call if he rang. If he told Roche he’d lost both Ayliss and Truelle and that Ayliss’s wife had ended up in hospital, the resultant incredulous gasping fit would send Roche into seizure; one good result from the afternoon, perhaps, but not the one he was after.

  He waited another hour in case Truelle was late getting back to his office, left with another flat-handed fuck, one more as he arrived in front of Truelle’s apartment building and saw no light on at his window, and was halfway through another couple at the one hour mark with Truelle still not back, when his cell-phone rang. Vic Farrelia.

  A slow smile crept across Nel-M’s face as Farrelia related the call that had just come in on Truelle’s line. Truelle’s second, so far elusive, insurance policy: Chris Tullington, wife Brenda; Vancouver, Canada. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Now they had them both: full house.

  Nel-M checked his watch. Both would have to be taken out at the same time, no question, and if possible that very night. But which one did he take himself and which did he leave to Tommy Garrard, who’d so effectively taken care of Dr Thallerey? Vancouver or upstate New York? Not much to choose between them travelling-time-wise.

  He called Roche to tell him the good news and see if he had any preferences. Leave him with that last bit of power and decision-making he so coveted.

  Every joint and muscle of Melanie Ayliss’s body seemed to scream and ache as she made her way up the steps of the Eighth District station house and approached its front desk at just after 10 p.m.

  ‘I have a complaint to lodge.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ A bright-eyed young sergeant called Brennan quickly killed his faint smile and the surprise in his voice as he realized his sarcasm had been lost on the sour-faced woman before him. Rule fifty-eight of the police manual: never joke with heavily-bruised women in neck-braces. He lowered his voice an octave; feigned gravity. ‘And what would that be ma’m?’

  ‘I had an accident earlier...’

  ‘Oh?’
<
br />   She looked at him sharply, unsure whether he was still kidding or not. ‘And part of the reason for it was that I’d just been told that my ex-husband – who in fact I haven’t seen for the past seven years – was on a certain street. But when I looked at who I thought was my ex-husband, it wasn’t him.’

  ‘And this… this caused the accident?’ It was hard for Brennan to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice, but he kept his face serious, slightly furrowed. Striving to understand.

  ‘Yes… yes. Because when I saw that it wasn’t him, I braked.’ Melanie Ayliss was striving equally hard to emphasize, make her point. ‘And the car behind went straight into me.’

  It was taking every bit of Brennan’s willpower to keep a straight face. Any of the phrases rolling through his head at that moment – ‘Fancy that?’ or ‘Why on earth would they do a fool thing like that? – would have sent him into raptures of laughter, rolling on the floor.

  ‘The main point I’m trying to make,’ she said, her voice getting testy for the first time, ‘is that someone is driving round impersonating my ex-husband.’

  ‘Oh, right. I see.’ Brennan was glad she’d extracted the main point from all of this; it might have taken him a while. ‘So this man doesn’t look like your ex-husband, but is nevertheless passing himself off as him?’

  ‘No, no. It does look like him – well, a close-enough resemblance. But it wasn’t him.’

  Brennan blinked slowly. ‘Oh, right. You actually spoke to him?’

  ‘No, no. I didn’t.’ Testiness quickly verging into annoyance at this wet-behind-the-ears desk sergeant still grasping the wrong end of the stick. Or was he purposely being obstructive? ‘Just that two-second look before… before the car behind went into me.’

  This was getting harder by the minute. Brennan ran one hand through his hair, sighing. ‘And you haven’t seen him, you say, for seven years?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She went to nod, only then realizing that she couldn’t with the neck brace.

  ‘Yet you’re sure it wasn’t him… even though you say it actually looked like him and you were only able to eyeball him for a couple of seconds?’

  ‘Yes, yes… a hundred per cent sure.’ Her voice practically a hiss, her eyes narrowing. Having spent two hours unconscious and the rest of the day being scanned, probed, stitched, strapped, and jabbed with a succession of needles, the last thing she needed was another prick. ‘Believe you me, when you’ve been married to someone for twelve years, you know it’s not them in the first millisecond, let alone two seconds. Even after seven years.’

  ‘Oh… okay.’ Brennan wasn’t about to argue with that.

  Her eyes flickered briefly to one side. ‘Also, there… there was no recognition on his face when he saw me.’

  What, he didn’t suddenly slam on his brakes as well? But from the glint in this woman’s eyes, her patience worn, Brennan knew that he’d be taking his life in his hands to show even the trace of a smile. He’d be joining her in wearing a neck-brace. ‘And any idea, ma’m, why this other person might be impersonating your husband?’ Brennan made sure, too, to keep any further doubt out of his voice; his best formal procedural.

  ‘No, uuuh… not really.’ One thing she hadn’t thought about. She smiled tightly. ‘Hopefully that’s something you’ll be able to tell me… when you’ve caught up with him.’

  Spinning city lights… spinning all around.

  Floating. The sensation pleasant. But suddenly Truelle sensed that something was wrong. The lights were spinning rapidly towards him… and now that horrible, gut-wrenching sensation of falling… falling! Nel-M had taken off his hood just before throwing him from the building!… falling… falling…

  Truelle’s eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright at the jolt of hitting the ground, his breath short, heart pounding like a jack-hammer. And there was a woman’s voice in the background, coming from the lounge – ‘…when you get this message, Lenny… if you could call me…’ – leaving a message on his answer-phone. He jumped out of bed, legs unsteady, everything still spinning slightly around him, ran towards it. ‘Strangely enough, when… when Alan spoke to you a couple of weeks back and got that letter of yours, he talked about us all getting together again and–

  ‘Hello…. Maggie. I’m here. It’s Lenny… what is it?’ He could tell from her voice that she was distraught, almost as breathless as he was at that moment, sniffling slightly. Then he felt his legs almost give way completely, still falling, as she related the horror of what had happened earlier that night: Alan shot dead. Her and the kids were out at the time, she’d gone to pick their son up from a Scout’s evening and had taken their daughter along for the ride. The police, putting it all together, believe that the alarm on Alan’s car in the driveway was set off to get him outside, then he was taken inside by his assailant and some papers rifled through in his office before he was shot.

  ‘I… I found him when I came back with the kids.’ Fresh breath to fight back the tears. ‘But the crazy thing is, there doesn’t seem to be anything of value taken.’

  Falling… ‘Oh, Maggie… Maggie. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Something like this, it’s… it’s unbelievable.’ She forced an ironic snort through her shaky voice and sniffles. ‘That’s why we moved upstate, because we thought it would be safer.’

  ‘I know… I know.’ Falling… the breath grunting out of him as his legs finally gave way, sinking to his knees as he clung to the telephone table with his other hand.

  ‘I started my calls at six, not long after the police left. Relatives, friends… and I called you, Lenny, not only because you’re a good old friend of mine and Alan’s, but because I wondered what you wanted done now with that envelope you sent – if I can find where Alan put it?’

  ‘Oh?’ Not daring to tell this mother of two – this widow –that it probably wasn’t there any longer and that her husband had very likely been killed because of it. Truelle looked towards the clock for the first time: 8.08 a.m.

  She forced an awkward, tremulous chuckle. ‘I remember him smiling about it at the time, because you’d given instructions of what to do if anything happened to you… but not what to do if anything happened to him.’

  ‘Well, I… I hadn’t really thought about that.’ He swallowed hard, closed his eyes. City lights still spinning in his head, along with an image of Alan being shot and Maggie screaming and spilling tears over his prone body when she found him, her two children shaking and fearful in the background. ‘And I… I can’t really think clearly about it now.’ He took a fresh breath. ‘And you… you’ve got other things to worry about right now.’

  ‘I know.’ Sniffling, the tears close again.

  ‘There… there’s no urgency. I’ll give you a call in a few days time when I’ve thought about it and things have settled down more your end.’ He sighed heavily. ‘And again, Maggie, I’m sorry… so sorry. If there’s anything I can do over these coming days, anything… don’t hesitate to contact me.’

  But Truelle found it difficult to stand up again after they signed off, still gripping to the table as if it was that last raft or the edge of a high building. Oh God… Oh God!

  But why now? If they’d known of Alan’s whereabouts all along, then why not just after he’d first sent the envelope? Or maybe it was just a terrible coincidence. People got shot in upstate New York too. Or was it because of Ayliss visiting him yesterday and him then going AWOL. Nel-M fearing the worst and not able to catch up with him, so…

  Truelle got up then, in fact leapt back a full two paces from the phone as if it had given him a high-voltage shock, staring back at it accusingly as he recalled the message that had come in the night before from Chris Tullington in Vancouver.

  ‘Be careful where you call from with anything too juicy or incriminating. Your phones might well be bugged.’ McElroy too had warned him earlier, but he’d already had his lines checked and cleared! Office and home.

  He’d also spoken to Chris two weeks back wh
en he’d first sent the envelopes. He racked his brain for what might have been said then, shaking his head after a moment; it hardly mattered now. If for whatever reason everything was going down now, Chris was in danger, and himself: if his line was bugged, they’d now know he was back at his apartment. Nel-M could be on his way already.

  He shrank back another pace from the phone, then rushed over to the window, looking out. No Nel-M in sight, nothing else that looked out of place or worrying. He grabbed his keys, a handful of coins from a side-drawer, and leapt breakneck down the apartment building steps. He gave the street a furtive each-way scan, then ran round the corner, finally settling on a kiosk three blocks away, in case Nel-M meanwhile pulled up by his place.

  His hand shook wildly as he anxiously fed in the coins and dialled Chris’s number.

  ‘Hello.’ A woman’s voice, but it didn’t sound like Chris’s wife Brenda.

  ‘Is… is Chris there?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ The tone subdued, grave. ‘I’m afraid something’s happened. Who is it calling?’

  Truelle’s stomach plummeted. Something’s happened! ‘It’s, Len… uuuh, a friend. What’s happened?’

  ‘I’m a RCMP liaison officer, Jackie Melkin. And I’m sorry to have to report that there was a serious incident earlier this morning involving Mr Tullington, a homicide, and his wife’s not able to speak to anyone – because she was injured too in the incident. You say you’re a friend of the Tullingtons… Len, was it? Could I have your full name, please, sir? I have strict instructions to make a list of all callers.’

  ‘I… uuuh, it… it doesn’t matter.’ He hung up abruptly. Not sure where the conversation would head, or if he’d even be able to talk any more. His writhing nerves had tightened around his chest and throat like a vice, so that he could hardly breathe – all that came out was a strangled, breathless gasp as he clenched his eyes shut and banged one fist repeatedly against the kiosk glass. No, no, no…. no…. no! But you had your lines cleared of bugs! You had them cleared!