‘Come on, Doc.’
‘He fooled me completely detective. The first in my career. He built a world of bullshit and had me eating it. Did you know he even hacked our system and inserted that faked file, with records and pictures of his so called family. Two of them were Chinese for fucks sake,’ he scoffed, shaking his head. ‘And I still went along with it.’
Rainer paused at the printed photograph with Ray and Serena. He saw the easy smiles, the camaraderie, the love.
‘See what I mean?’ said Rivers.
Rainer beckoned Kamal over. He handed him the picture, pointed out Ray.
‘Find out who this is. Quietly.’
Kamal took out his phone and snapped a picture of Ray and left. Rainer turned back to Rivers.
‘I think the photograph is real. Seems he might have been telling you the truth. What I don’t understand is why.’
‘I have no idea. Patients often mix the truth with lies. The ones who know the difference,’ shrugged Rivers.
‘Maybe he needed someone to listen. Who better than you? A stranger and a psychiatrist. What else did he tell you?’
Rivers looked around, wondering how much more of this bullshit he had to endure. He wished to god he had never laid eyes on this fucking Blake. He still had nightmares about the maniac. His eyes settled on the book on top of a stack of files on Rainer’s desk.
‘Well for one thing, you share the same reading habits.’
‘It’s not mine. It’s Blake’s. He left it behind when he took on two vehicles full of armed men to save two trafficked girls and the policewoman that almost killed him.’
‘Well he certainly doesn’t disappoint.’
‘Your assessment, Doctor,’ repeated Rainer, his voice hardening.
Rivers took a deep breath. Fair enough, he wanted his opinion, he was going to get it.
‘He’s seeking catharsis. With each kill he hopes he will feel the loss of his daughter and wife a little less. And then one day when he has killed enough, maybe he will feel nothing at all.’
‘And then he will stop?’
‘Then he’ll no longer have a reason to live. And he’ll either kill himself or continue on the path laid down by Nathaniel Winter. Either way the man the living knew as a father and husband will have ceased to exist. If you hope to deter him from his path, I would suggest you get to him before that.’
Serena let the first rays of spring sunshine warm her upturned face. She had woken early and taken the longer route from their home on the seafront to the training hall. It was still some time before the first class and she didn’t expect to see any cars in the car park, especially not one as battered and seemingly dumped outside the entrance.
Occasionally locals left their cars overnight and there were a few times when stolen cars had been dumped but Serena could tell there was something different about this. She considered calling her dad but that was just a reflex drilled into her from when she was much younger. Unless there was an armed special forces unit hiding in the car she could hold her own.
Serena approached, it was seemingly empty. It was only when she got close enough to see inside that she saw a man in the driver’s seat, his head on the passenger side.
Great. A drunk. Then she saw the glistening blood and then she recognised the man.
She yanked the door open.
‘Blake!’
The city lay fat and bloated in the distance, shimmering in the superheated air. Plumes of dust, like exhaust marked the wagon trail.
He strained his head against the wooden contraption that held him flat, its frame biting into his sun-burnt neck and cheek.
A single file of riders approached.
Strong, robed arms gripped either side and lifted him upright, sweat coursed down his face, its salt stinging his cracked and broken skin. He licked desperately at the moisture.
Men, robed like the ones holding him, led the way, along a path worn into the baked earth.
The slave girls followed, some on pack-horses, others on foot.
He searched each face for the few moments he was able, his eyes flitting and straining as far as his sockets would allow.
He almost missed her, precious seconds labouring on another that looked familiar.
She was seated astride a mount, her hands bound to the saddle.
He screamed her name.
‘Sara!’
Tired eyes in a face streaked with desert dust turned to look at him. What may have been recognition disappeared in the periphery of his vision.
He roared, railing against the cage that held him. He twisted, arching his back, every sinew stretched tight, until he thought he was going to snap.
The men on either side lay him flat as he flailed like a wild bird.
Another appeared and raised a glinting edge high into the sky.
The spasm shook Blake awake. He groped in the dark, then he remembered where he was. He felt her stir beside him. ‘Are you okay?’ Julia whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘Bad dream?’
‘Something like that.’
She placed her hand on his chest. She could feel his heart hammer.
She lifted herself onto one elbow and looked down at him, stroking his hair.
‘It’s alright, you’re safe now.’
He stared at her silhouette in the dark.
Sunlight streamed through the open windows. The room slowly resolved around him. She was still there, the sun behind her head. Beautiful. Blake reached his hand to her face and placed it on her warm cheek. She placed her hand over his. She shifted and the sun no longer eclipsed her and Blake saw it was Serena. Ashamed he took his hand away, but at the same time wondered why he had never before noticed how much she’d grown into a beautiful young woman.
Blake took in the sparse bright room. He could hear the sound of waves and seagulls.
He looked down. His upper torso and shoulder were bandaged. He sat up and immediately regretted it, wincing from the pain in his chest and shoulder.
Serena put her hand in his.
‘Are you hungry?’
Blake nodded.
The kitchen looked out over the beach. Ray was seated at the table. With his arm around Serena’s shoulder and with her holding him up more than he would have liked to admit, Blake stepped into the kitchen.
‘Morning,’ greeted Ray as if a heavily bandaged man entering the kitchen was the most natural thing in the world.
He got up and took some of the weight from Serena and helped him into a chair.
Serena poured coffee and placed it in front of him. He took a sip. She busied herself with the eggs and bacon that Ray had cooked and placed a piled up plate before Blake who tucked in.
They let him eat in silence. Blake finished and took a few more gulps of coffee before leaning back in the chair grimacing with pain.
‘How long have I been out?’ asked Blake.
‘Three days,’ replied Ray
Blake shook his head. Serena filled his coffee.
‘Thank you.’
Blake cradled the mug in his hands.
‘Tell me what happened,’ asked Ray.
Blake took a sip of coffee then started talking.
CHAPTER 27
penance...finding blake...second chance...winter freed...false endings...
The sky was starless, lifeless. Not even a wisp of cloud. Just the dull yellow of reflected city lights. Rainer sat at his desk. He looked up at the sound of a knock. The silhouette of a huge form stood outside. O’Riley.
Rainer shook his head and went back to examining the lifeless sky. O’Riley opened the door and stepped into his office.
‘What do you want?
‘That any way to speak to your senior officer?’
‘What the fuck do you want?’
‘Shit, Rain,’ sighed O’Riley as he pulled out and sat heavily into the chair opposite making it creak.
‘Facial recognition came back on that tag you gave Kamal,’ he said before Rainer co
uld insult him again.
‘So? What has it got to do with you? Where’s Kamal?’
‘He can’t help you. The record’s classified. Army seal. And they’re pretending like they don’t know who he is.’
‘So you’re shutting me down again? What are you? A messenger boy now? Got it thanks. Job well done. Now get out of my office.’
O’Riley shook his head and took a slip of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table.
Rainer didn’t look.
‘Rain.’ The pitch and tone in O’Riley’s voice was different. Soft. Tired. ‘Help me out here, brother.’
Rainer turned in his chair and saw the slip of paper and moved forward to take it. O’Riley kept his finger on top.
‘Called in a lot of favours for this. It gets out and I’m done.’
O’Riley took his finger off the paper. Rainer took it. He read the single name.
‘Why?’ asked Rainer.
‘Call it penance,’ replied O’Riley.
He stood up.
‘I don’t give a shit what you do with this Blake character. But him,’ he said, jabbing at the piece of paper in Rainer’s hand, ‘he’s not to be touched.’
O’Riley turned on his heel and opened the door.
‘Charlie.’
O’Riley stopped and looked back. Rainer nodded.
‘Thanks.’
O’Riley walked out of the office. Rainer re-read the name on the slip of paper ‘Major Raymond Hunan (Ret)’ and the address underneath.
Blake held the door open for Serena and followed her out of the house into the bright winter sunshine. They had grown close over the weeks he had been recovering. He didn’t think Ray had noticed. He wondered what it would mean to him when he eventually did. Blake had discarded the arm sling. He still needed pretty heavy painkillers but at least he could wear a coat without looking like a pantomime villain anymore.
Blake slipped on a pair of sunglasses, more in the event someone may recognise him rather than the light being too bright.
It took him a moment to notice the solitary man walking purposefully toward them. He took off his sunglasses as he approached to get a better look at the man from the picture Stephanie had sent him.
Rainer sat opposite Blake. Serena placed two hot drinks in front of them and a hand on his shoulder before turning to Ray and stepping out. Rainer waited until they left.
‘Do they know?’ asked Rainer
Blake shook his head.
‘Your men on the way?’
‘Why, you going to run? You don’t look like you’d get very far.’
Rainer shook his head.
‘Quite a butcher’s bill you’ve racked up, Blake. Difficult to equate with you here, now. ‘
‘What did you expect? The devil?’
‘The devil would have been easier to condemn.’
‘And I’m not.’
‘The woman you saved. That Simmonds took. She couldn’t condemn you either.’
‘That why she shot me?’
‘She didn’t know who you were then.’
Blake sighed.
‘What did you expect me to do? Nothing? Just leave it to you?’
‘Something like that.’
Blake shook his head.
‘Would you have left it? If she had been yours?’
Rainer shook his head.
‘No.’
‘Then how can you ask me?’
‘So what is left for those unable to articulate their right to justice? Where the crimes are so awful...the suffering so deep that it is impossible to forgive. To forget. Do you lie down and die or do you avenge them?’
‘You found my book.’
‘Sooner or later you will make a mistake and kill someone, an innocent.’
Blake said nothing.
‘It is fortunate that you have not yet got to that point.’
Rainer took the book from his pocket. Examined the cover.
‘Erebus. The primordial deity, representing the personification of darkness.’
‘I know what it means,’ replied Blake
‘Really? I had to look it up,’ said Rainer as he placed the book on the table.
‘You saved the life of one of my people. For that,’ he glanced up at Ray who had appeared in the doorway, ‘and because you haven’t killed anyone that didn’t have it coming you get a second chance.’
Blake’s eyes remained firmly on the book.
Rainer pulled the picture of Sara from his pocket and placed it on top of the book.
‘One she’d want you to take.’
Rainer got up.
‘So long Blake. I don’t expect I’ll hear from you again.’ The meaning was clear.
Rainer stepped to the doorway. Ray moved aside and Rainer walked out of the house.
Blake watched Rainer walk along the beach and out of sight.
‘Did you hear any of that?’
‘No. Who was he?’
‘Somebody from my past.’
‘Will he be coming back?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Nathaniel Winter lay in his cot. His head and shoulders in the shadows. A roll of manuscript in his hand.
His cell door opened. The dark silhouette of a prison guard stood in the doorway.
‘Winter. Your appeal came through.’
Nathaniel rose, and walked out of the cell, manuscript in hand.
Rainer sat in an empty train carriage idling on the platform. He took out his mobile phone and switched it on. It started beeping straight away. He called a number. A voice answered on the other end.
‘I’m on my way back.’
He listened for a few moments.
‘No, nothing. He’s gone.’
Rainer closed the connection and switched off the phone. He sighed and rubbed the tiredness from his eyes. The doors slid shut. The engine revved and the train eased out of the platform.
The distant figure of Rainer entered the hospital.
He stood in the doorway, silhouetted. Josie asleep in the darkened room. Rainer turned to leave.
‘Don’t go,’ said Josie.
Rainer stood over her.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Can’t sleep.’
Rainer placed his hand gently on her cheek.
‘Did you find him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘I let him go.’
Josie squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.
‘What now? Back to work?’
‘No,’ replied Rainer, stroking her head ‘It’s time to call it a day.’
‘You and me both, eh? What a pair. What are you going to do?’
‘Well first,’ he took a seat beside her hand in his, ‘we get you better.’
Josie’s eyes welled up, she squeezed his hand.
‘I’m not going to get better.’
‘We’ll see.’
Blake and Serena walked along winding path down to the sea. She talked; he was content to listen. He felt the warmth of her hand through the wool of her glove. Ray had seen them hand in hand and had smiled. His eyes gentle, his brow devoid of the consternation that he had expected. Serena had told him of the intimacy that had grown as she slowly pieced him back together.
Sometimes he thought he could hear Sara’s voice. Many times he had sat up in bed feeling sure she had whispered in his ear. The words were clear when he heard them but like a dream, vanished when he woke leaving behind a familiar sadness but curiously devoid of the self loathing and hatred that filled his gut in the aftermath of his dreams before he came here. Many times it vied with the feeling of the last breaths of the small dying boy he had held in his arms. He had learned to bury those. And this time the dark thing had not risen to help. It had not raised its head since the killing of the boy.
Serena smiled and right then and there, on this beach, he knew he had been given a second chance. He held her gaze, her liquid eyes, afraid to let go, afraid that if he did, the thi
ng inside him would rise once more. He did not want to go back, the thing inside him did. It wanted him back and in time it would order him back. Its arguments would be compelling, after all they were his. And at the end of it all, if he managed to stave it off it would present the final reason, a reason against which he had no defence. Then it would rise once more and demand he do its bidding.
He would never blame this thing inside him. It was what had kept him alive, what had granted him his revenge. When he lost the world, it had come to him. It had embraced him, it had given him the strength to do what he had to. It was part of him. It had always been. It always would be. He realised, in this clear and lucid moment that he had been wrong to try and suppress it, drive it away. All he could do was let it sleep until the time when it might be needed again.
They continued, walking along the beach her arm in his towards the small coastal town. Early morning walkers strolled past, the occasional nod, the quiet hellos.
To give this a chance Blake realised that he must let his baby go.
The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon, it’s fading light caught the underside of the grey white clouds, making them glow.
Out across the calm grey sea, a lone windsurfer’s sail cut across the horizon slowly making its way back to shore.
‘Are you okay?’ whispered Serena.
And with those words he was back in the train carriage. But it was the older Sara looking out of the window and this new Blake seated across from her and he knew it was for the last time.
‘Sit with me,’ he said.
The older Sara came and sat next to him. Blake kissed her.
‘I love you.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know.’
Sara put her head on Blake’s shoulder. Both watched the sun flicker through the trees.
CHAPTER 28
where did you get this...forsaken, abandoned...
Rainer sat dozing beside a sleeping Josie. His phone buzzed. He answered it and listened for a few moments and then closed the call, leant over and kissed Josie on the forehead.
The Winter Man Page 28