The Winter Man

by Perry Bhandal

  Rivers slid another printed image from the file across the table. Blake, softer looking, with an older Julia, Ray, Serena and a teenage girl with an eternity necklace, Sara.

  ‘Tell me about them.’

  Blake looked at their faces.

  Sara slipped the photograph into the window of the new wallet. She adjusted it so it was straight. In the photograph a little girl stood at the window of the train carriage, her face illuminated by the low sunlight, caught unawares by her father taking his first photograph of her. The first of many. But this one remained her favourite.

  Sara’s room had changed much over the seven years since she first arrived but the one constant was the height markings on the door frame. She smiled at the first notch and the number ‘7’. Her new mummy had drawn a little heart next to it. Now it went all the way up to fifteen. Sara wrapped the wallet carefully.

  Her father was sitting alone outside in the garden. It was a beautiful day for his birthday. He was leafing through a notebook. She had seen this notebook many times, less in the last few years. She had not expected to see it again and it made her sad that he had it open today of all days.

  But that was not the most saddening thing. He did not live at home anymore. He had told her he would come back when he had worked out the problems with her mummy. Sara had asked why he could not stay at home to work them out. He told her that adults sometimes needed space to see clearly. She nodded, not really understanding, just knowing that she missed him terribly and did not want to see either of them unhappy.

  But today was her father’s day and no-one was going to spoil it. She finished wrapping the present, tucked it in her dungaree pocket, and went downstairs.

  Blake felt like a stranger in his own home and yet he had only been gone a few months. Most of that time had been spent continuing the affair with Stephanie which had caused him to leave his home and then only last week breaking it off. He had sat alone with his thoughts and tried to understand what it was that had allowed him to be seduced by the younger woman. His heart had jumped when she was introduced as the official liaison between him and his work for the Department of Justice. Not only was she stunningly beautiful, she was brilliant. It was almost inevitable given their proximity and shared passion for his work and the slow disintegration of his relationship with his wife under the weight of yet another attempt at a natural childbirth. Truth be told she had never wanted to adopt. She had always wanted her own biological child. Blake felt a surge of shame as he recalled how much he had fixated on that rift between them and used it to justify the affair to himself.

  The last two months had been like a blizzard, success after success with his work mixed with the abandon of this new exciting, intoxicating, beautiful woman had made it all feel so god damned right.

  But it was one thing to live a parallel life and have it all, an affair, a wife at home, a daughter all in their designated spaces. It was entirely another to have to make the choice between one or the other and live that life only.

  The edifice that he had created had crumbled with the sounds of early morning birds, the smell of fresh coffee and the warmth of the sun streaming through the window onto the bed that he had shared with Stephanie.

  He dreamt that he had stood before the graves of his wife and daughter. Later he had wandered the silent wake, as if invisible. Stephanie had trailed behind him. He had caught sight of himself in the mirror and instead of Stephanie a dark thing stood behind, towering over him. When he turned around it had gone leaving just his wife and daughter looking silently at him. Stephanie reappeared and had taken Sara’s hand and he lost sight of them amongst the black dressed mourners.

  Julia placed her hand on his face.

  ‘Go’ she whispered.

  And with that one word, the entirety of what he would lose emerged from the periphery of his mind, like a submerged mountain suddenly revealed. He could see and feel everything they had shared and what it meant for it to be wrenched from him.

  That was last week and the feeling of emptiness had not diminished. And now his Birthday. A manufactured date that he had never placed any importance on, quite happy to see the date come and go just like any other. But he had never been able to let it pass, first Ray and Serena insisted on making a fuss, then Julia and now Sara. He had no doubt that his being here was Sara’s doing.

  Arriving as a stranger he had felt his heart quicken at the sight of Julia. God she was beautiful. Not in the utterly stunning way that Stephanie was, with her storm of black hair, curvy gym toned physique and model’s beauty. Julia was the girl next door, classic, effortless. For the millionth time he questioned why he had risked what he had. Stood on the doorstep the feeling of being an imposter was soon dispelled as Sara rushed to hug him and pull him inside. He had been invited to sit in the kitchen as Sara disappeared upstairs but felt awkward sharing the same space as Julia when so much remained unsaid. So, he had told her he was going to make the most of the sunshine and headed into the garden.

  There he did the only thing he did every year on his made-up birthday and took out the notebook he had been found with on that fateful rain sodden day. Thirty years later the contents of the notebook offered no more insight into his past than it had done when he had first flicked through it. He didn’t expect anything different as he once again opened it and looked through the strange drawings and doodles that he had no memory of making.

  The drawing of the strange house, the corridors with the running man. The faces, so many faces. Had it been just this notebook, then perhaps he could have left behind the missing fifteen years of his life but for one object. The photograph or to be accurate the half photograph taken not too long before he had been found, judging by how similar he had looked to his image in the picture. It was the arm draped across his shoulder, the owner of whom was in the part of the photograph that was missing.

  If it had not been for this maybe he would have let it go. Instead it had driven him to an obsessive search for his missing past. And when that missing past had remained buried through conventional lines of enquiry his obsession drove him to harness the power of technology to search deeper and deeper, expanding the scope further and further. But his past had remained stubbornly opaque, a memory hole from into which every enquiry disappeared. And now that very same prodigious apparatus that he had brought to bear on his own past with zero success was being trialed by the highest state security apparatus in the country because for them it had brought answers but only to their questions. Not his.

  A pair of hands suddenly covered his eyes.

  ‘Boo!’ sounded out Sara.

  Blake laughed as she took her hands from his face and put her arms around his neck, the eternity pendant dangling from her neck. She still smelled as he remembered. ‘The smell of the innocent’ Julia had called it when she had sat in his lap and he had nuzzled her neck breathing deep.

  ‘Whacha doin?’ she asked.

  He held out the photograph.

  ‘Still don’t remember who was with you that day?’ she asked.

  ‘Afraid not,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you think you ever will?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably take something major for that to happen.’

  Sara kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘I hope not. I hope one day you will just remember. Or maybe whoever that person is will find you.’

  Blake put his hand over hers. She kissed him again and then came to sit beside him. She took the notebook from him. She was the only person who was so casual with it. The others who knew of its existence, Ray, Julia, all treated it like something out of a horror film. A tome that contained the spirits of the dead. And it disturbed them to see him with it.

  ‘What about you?’ he asked.

  ‘What about me?’ as she leafed through the drawings.

  ‘Aren’t you curious, you know, about your past?’

  ‘You’ve asked me that before.’

  ‘And I always get the same answer.’

  Sara fin
ished looking through the pages. ‘And it’s no different this time. You wanted me when no one else did. You and mum. You’re my parents. That’s all I need to know.’

  ‘How did you get so wise?’ Blake smiled, shaking his head.

  ‘I was brought up that way,’ she shrugged.

  Sara turned at the sounds of new people being greeted in the house. She leapt up when Ray and Serena emerged from the kitchen and into the garden.

  ‘Uncle! Serena!’ she exclaimed, rushing over and embracing them. Blake stood up as Ray embraced Sara.

  ‘How’s my girl?’ he said in his deep mellow voice.

  ‘She’s doing good,’ replied Sara.

  ‘Hey, Sara,’ said Serena as Sara shifted to give her a hug.

  ‘Hey you.’

  Behind them Julia appeared in the kitchen doorway. She looked tired, unhappy.

  ‘Girls. Give me a hand.’

  ‘Sure mom,’ replied Sara.

  Serena turned to Blake as he got up.

  ‘Happy Birthday uncle.’

  Blake stepped over and embraced her. She had grown into a beautiful woman.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Sara grabbed Serena’s hand and they both followed Julia into the kitchen.

  ‘Happy Birthday’.

  Ray and Blake embraced. Blake held him tight. They separated and Ray handed Blake a card.

  Blake looked surprised.

  ‘This is a first.’

  He opened it. Inside was an old picture. A teenage Blake in a black martial-arts ’Gi’, a medal around his neck and standing next to a much younger Ray in a military uniform.

  ‘My god. Where did you find this?’ asked Blake.

  ‘Going through some very old albums and there it was,’ replied Ray.

  Blake turned it over. On the back was written ‘A good a day as any to celebrate. Happy Birthday’. Blake smiled.

  Ray saw the notebook. His face dropped. He picked it up, opened it and took out the torn photograph.

  ‘I thought you were done with this?’ he asked unhappily.

  ‘Just reminiscing. My birthday after all,’ replied Blake, suddenly on the defensive.

  Ray turned the photograph in his hands.

  ‘How many times have I cursed this? I think you would have let it go had it not been for this.’

  And he meant every word. Ray truly believed that had it not been for this torn photograph and the promise of the missing half that Blake would have moved on.

  He pushed the thought aside. There was nothing he could have done. By the time Ray had come across Blake the damage had been done. He recalled like it was yesterday the dark-haired young man stood alone in the yard, carrying a bearing of barely restrained violence that kept the other boys from him. Ray had made a few enquiries and learned the boy was considered a dangerous liability. On two occasions he had had to be pulled off older boys. The last time the home security officer had interceded just in time. Had he got there any later it was likely the young Blake would have killed the boy. A transfer request had been made and Blake would be shipping out to an even more disciplined institution in the next couple of days. Ray had suggested to the home that they give him time to see what he could do. The home had balked, desperate to get rid of the problem, but Ray had stood firm and his track record with troubled young men was faultless.

  So, one morning Blake took his place amongst the young men that Ray trained. Ray’s aim was simple, give the darkness inside this young man another focus and then exhaust it into submission.

  And so began Blake’s training. To Ray’s surprise Blake turned out to be a natural. Lightness, elegance and sparsity of movement were all natural elements in his physical being. When Ray added the power and discipline of Wing Chun, Aikido and Kali the boy took to it as if born to. Within the year he was his master’s number one pupil. Soon after that Ray tested his discipline and emotional temperament in a competitive arena. He was utterly untouchable. And so for a time they trained and competed and became closer and closer. When Ray’s wife died suddenly leaving him to bring up his daughter Serena it was to Blake that he found himself turning. And the young man did not waver in his loyalty to Ray.

  At that time Ray still worried for Blake’s future. He knew what could be built in years could be brought down in days. But he needn’t have been concerned. Blake had found his path. He consumed any and every method and technique that would help him in his search for his missing past. Ray saw the brilliance of his work and suggested the best way to hone his skills was to join the very institution that had made Ray who he was. The Army. Specifically, the intelligence division. So, Blake enlisted. He flew through the physical and aptitude assessments and when it came time to be assigned it was at the request of Major Raymond Hunnan that it be to the fledgling section of the cyber warfare section.

  Raymond had never used his influence before on behalf of another person. He believed fiercely in individual merit and ability. When he was still small, his family had fled persecution in China soon after a young connected politburo official had decided that his favourite was a better fit for promotion than Ray’s father. His father had fought the system of patronage and nepotism, but realised too late that he had pitted himself against a system so entrenched that to question it was tantamount to treason.

  But Ray loved Blake with his soul and in his heart knew he was more than good enough to join and contribute to the unit. So, he intervened, met with resistance and prevailed. Blake joined and in a shorter time than even Ray had predicted vindicated him. He was nothing short of brilliant.

  For the first time Ray felt his attention and his guiding hand lift as Blake flourished in an environment where he was challenged and counter-intuitively safe.

  Then it had all come crashing down when it was discovered that Blake had been using the cutting-edge technologies at his disposal to hack every law enforcement and intelligence agency in the search for his missing past.

  His superiors were faced with a quandary. He was the most effective member of the cyber warfare team and would have gone on to take command of the entire unit. Losing him would mean the unit took a significant hit. So instead they offered a sanction. He was to cease and desist and leave his past where it belonged. Ray had argued against the sanction because he knew Blake would not accept it. But they had ignored him and indeed the sanction had been met with silence and defiance.

  Blake was honorably discharged and his file sealed. His activities were monitored for about a year after he left to make sure he wasn’t picking up where he left off but he was strangely inactive. They put it down to his new girlfriend Julia and after a time the resources allocated to watch him were redeployed to more pressing international matters.

  What they hadn’t realised was Blake was continuing his search and extending it to the dark web. Work that eventually led him to where he was now, being courted by the very same agencies that balked at his intrusions all those years ago and given unrestricted access to the very databases he had previously hacked.

  His work had been handsomely remunerated and Ray felt pride at his adopted son’s accomplishments. He had grown into a smart, athletic, though admittedly softening round the middle, balanced man who had learned to keep his demons at bay. Demons he could sense were still present deep under the surface. Which is why it worried Ray so much when he saw him brooding over the notebook and the photograph in particular.

  Ray slipped the photo back into the notebook and closed it.

  ‘Nobody from the years you can’t remember has cared to search you out. So why should you?’ he said, an edge to his voice as he handed the notebook back to Blake. ‘Take a leaf out of your daughters’ book. And let it go.’

  Before Blake could respond, Sara walked out of the kitchen into the garden carrying a large birthday cake shimmering with lit candles. Julia and Serena joined her as she placed the cake on the table.

  ‘Ta dah! Happy birthday pops!’

  Blake bent down and blew the candles out in one breath. Every
one clapped. He took a mock bow.

  Sara pulled a small package from her pocket. She held it out to him.

  ‘I know you hate presents but I got you one anyway.’

  Blake unwrapped it. Inside was a leather wallet. He opened it expecting to find it empty. But there was a picture inserted in the clear pocket. It was of the young Sara stood at the window of the train.

  Blake held out his arms and pulled Sara to him.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Blake kissed the top of her head and smiled at the faces of his small family, everyone smiling back except Julia who stood apart.

  The sadness in her smile made her even more beautiful, thought Rivers.

  ‘I can’t help but noticing your wife is stood apart,’ he asked, bringing Blake back from his reverie.

  ‘Care to explain why?’

  Blake debated how much to tell this strange balding man sat before him. He could sit in silence, tell him lies or the truth. His truth. A truth that perhaps needed voicing. The words might transform it somehow. A transmutation of a heavy mind, aching heart and worthless guts into words voiced to an empty space occupied by an observer. A confession perhaps. Blake looked down at the picture and his beautiful wife and his life a mere six months earlier.

  Blake stopped at the top of the stairs, a part of him wanting to leave, another knowing that he would end his marriage by doing so. He picked up a bottle of pills he did not recognise on his wife’s bedside drawer. Heavy duty sleeping tablets. The bedroom that they once shared was a distant land now.

  A paper pad lay beside it. He picked it up and read what his wife had written.

  ‘I made the world the day I was born. Before that nothing existed.

  Even now many things exist that don’t exist.

  The pinpricks of light at night are not stars a million miles away, they are little bulbs just inches out of the reach of my hand.