Rider

by Merrigan, Peter J

  And then the car came back around the corner and pulled to a stop outside the building opposite. He’d obviously been doing a tour of the block.

  Kane sighed. He actually laughed.

  And then his mobile vibrated on the bedside cabinet.

  It only occurred to him as he lifted the phone to wonder who would be calling in the middle of the night.

  He was greeted with silence. Again.

  ‘Who is this?’

  He thought he heard something in the background, but it could have been the blood pounding in his ears. He looked towards the window. Could he attract the officer’s attention from up here?

  ‘Hello?’ he said again.

  He was about to end the call when someone spoke. ‘Mr Rider. I do hope I didn’t wake you.’

  ‘Who is this?’ he repeated.

  ‘I see you have some company outside. Nice to see you’re not lonely. Do you read the Bible, Mr Rider?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  His throat was tight.

  ‘I’m an acquaintance of someone you know. Oh, I’m sorry. Someone you knew.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please, Mr Rider, you know who I mean. Did you get my note?’

  ‘What note?’ Kane went back to the window and stared down at the stationary police car below. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked.

  ‘Your friend owes me something. I’ll be in touch. And don’t bother telling your nice police friends. I’m sure you realise what I can do to you. Goodbye.’

  * * *

  He was pacing and he couldn’t stop it. His head hurt, his ribs felt like they were contracting around his lungs. With every step towards the window, he tugged at the curtain. The police car was still there. The driver sat in darkness.

  He had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, that no matter what he did, where he went, he would be seen. If he went downstairs and told the cop, they’d know. If he phoned Thorpe, they’d know. Was his phone tapped? Could they do that?

  They say a madman doesn’t know he’s mad. Kane began to wonder if there were microphones hidden behind books, if there were tiny surveillance cameras in tiny discreet corners. Was Jimmy Stewart watching him through a zoom lens from a window across the way?

  None of it was making sense. Ryan had been stabbed. Someone had been in Kane’s flat. Someone had just threatened him. And for all he knew, there was absolutely no reason why.

  Your friend owes me something.

  He glanced out the window again.

  I’ll be in touch.

  And then someone knocked on his front door. He hesitated, looked at the phone that was still in his hand, and cautiously entered the living room.

  When the knock rasped again, he called out, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s the police, Mr Rider. Officer Richards.’

  He unlocked and opened the door, leaving the security chain on so that the door could only open a couple of inches. When Officer Richards flashed his badge and his best smile, Kane let him in.

  ‘I saw your light was on,’ he said. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Uh, yeah,’ Kane said. ‘I mean…’ He didn’t know what to say to him.

  ‘It’s stifling outside. I don’t know how anyone can sleep in this heat. Do you mind if I use your toilet?’

  Kane eyed him suspiciously and Richards smiled again.

  ‘Toilet?’ Kane asked. ‘Yeah, sorry, it’s that way.’

  Richards could tell he was agitated. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘It’s just…been a long night. Can’t sleep.’

  ‘Too hot,’ Richards said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  He nodded sympathetically and headed towards the bathroom. He left the door open and Kane could hear him urinating.

  ‘Look,’ Kane said, ‘I’m not going to sleep any more tonight. Do you want a coffee or something?’

  From the bathroom, Richards said, ‘I should probably get back to the car.’ The toilet flushed. ‘But why not?’

  * * *

  Officer Richards stood by the window, inattentively scuffing the toe of his shoe in the carpet. Kane offered him another coffee, noting the tiredness on his face. He yawned, accepted, and toyed with the curtain.

  Kane stood next to him, his hands cupping his elbows, coffee cooling on the windowsill, and stared out into the ocean of buildings and late-for-work faces below like rats racing.

  Richards blew on his coffee before sipping from the mug, thin tendrils of steam pushing out towards the window. ‘You want a lift to the hospital this morning?’

  Kane sucked on his upper lip and shook his head. Instead, he said, ‘How long have you been—?’

  ‘Sitting outside people’s houses?’ Richards said, smiling.

  ‘A police officer.’

  ‘Twelve years. Used to be a milkman, but all those early starts, you know?’

  ‘So now you sit outside people’s houses all night.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  It was small talk. Kane had nothing to say to him—nothing he dared to say. Even though he wanted him to stay, he also wanted him to leave.

  When the phone rang, Kane’s pulse quickened, his eyes darting between the phone and Richards.

  ‘You want me to get that?’ Richards asked.

  Kane just looked at him. After another ring, the officer moved and picked up the receiver. Kane held his breath.

  ‘Hello?’ Richards said.

  There was a pain in Kane’s chest.

  ‘No, I’m not Mr Rider. Who’s calling?’

  Kane clenched his jaw.

  ‘I’ll just put him on,’ Richards said. He held the receiver to his chest. ‘Margaret,’ he whispered.

  Kane breathed again and took the phone. The officer stepped back to the window and his coffee. Margaret was back in Belfast and ready to meet Kane at the hospital. David, she said, was still in Spain. She had insisted he stay there to close whatever important deal it was he needed to close.

  When he sat the phone back down, the officer looked at him questioningly. ‘Ryan’s mother,’ Kane told him. ‘She’s meeting me at the hospital.’

  Richards nodded and finished his coffee. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Shall I show myself out? I’m sure you have things to do.’

  He hesitated. Perhaps Kane’s face revealed his fear.

  ‘You have Detective Thorpe’s direct number, right? Just give him a call if you need him. For anything.’

  He shook Kane’s hand and turned to leave.

  ‘Officer?’

  He stopped. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I…Well, thanks.’

  He was going to tell him about the call, but he could hear that voice threatening him. Would he know? Kane’s eyes were pleading with Officer Richards but he couldn’t verbalise his pain.

  ‘No problem,’ Richards said. ‘Goodbye.’

  Kane locked the door behind him and went back to the window. He watched as Richards exited the building and walked to his car, got in and drove away. With his breath fogging the windowpane, he stared at the police car is it turned a corner and disappeared.

  Your friend owes me something. I’ll be in touch.

  Chapter 4

  The hospital morgue was cold, the walls sweating damp. Kane closed his eyes. Ryan looked like a teenager, like a sick kid, his skin a dappled grey, his cheeks slightly sunken. Kane looked away and ran a hand over his face.

  ‘I’ll wait outside,’ the doctor said.

  Kane sat in the chair and clasped his fingers together, inhaling deeply and breathed out through puffed-up cheeks. He looked at Ryan. He seemed restful and at peace.

  Kane bit his lip.

  The wound on Ryan’s chest, under the sheet, had been sown up, Kane was told. He wanted to see it but his hand wouldn’t pull the sheet back. His eyes filled with tears.

  The door behind him opened. ‘Kane?’

  He turned, brushing at his tears with his sleeve.

  ‘Oh, Kane, no…’

 
; Margaret Bernhard rushed to him, falling into his arms as he stood. They sobbed together, their tears fusing on their cheeks, her arms about his shoulders. Then she turned away, steadying her breathing.

  ‘I can’t look,’ she admitted.

  Kane touched her shoulder.

  ‘I can’t believe it, Kane. Is this real?’

  ‘I wish it wasn’t.’

  They were silent. Margaret took his hand and turned. Her lips trembled, eyes puffy and red. She stepped forward, bracing her strength against the chair.

  She looked at Ryan.

  ‘Oh, my baby,’ she exhaled and she sobbed again, her hand on his face.

  And right then, seeing the grief on Margaret’s face, feeling the pain like Death himself had jabbed him with his scythe, Kane couldn’t help thinking, Did Ryan bring this on himself? Was it his own fault that he lay now, as he did, naked in life’s own mortality?

  Kane put a hand to the pain at his breastbone. He could feel his heart beating.

  ‘Baby,’ Margaret said again. She kissed Ryan’s forehead, both his cheeks, and finally his lips. And she took his hands and joined them together as if in prayer. She whispered something in his ear, a blessing maybe, and she turned away from him.

  * * *

  They sat together opposite Detective Thorpe in his office. ‘I won’t believe it,’ Margaret had said. She was wringing a tissue in her hands while Kane sat passively beside her, staring at the floor.

  Thorpe had invited them here to go over the case history with Margaret.

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ Thorpe said.

  Margaret shook her head adamantly. ‘No, it isn’t possible. Not Ryan.’ She turned to Kane. ‘Tell him, Kane.’

  ‘They have evidence,’ Kane said, his voice weak. It felt like a betrayal.

  ‘I don’t care what they have,’ she said. ‘I know he wouldn’t do drugs.’

  Thorpe stood and cleared his throat. ‘It’s a lot to take in. I understand. Believe me I do. Mrs Bernhard, I—’

  She shook her head again, looked at Kane. ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘You believe he was doing drugs?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t know.’

  She took his hands in her own, held them tight. ‘In all the time you’ve known him, have you ever seen him do drugs?’

  ‘No. But…’

  She let go of his hands, folded her arms. To Thorpe, she said, ‘As soon as you find out who murdered my son, you’ll call me. And you tell them—tell them I’ll visit them in jail every day for the rest of my life so that they’ll never forget the face of the mother they made childless. You tell them that.’

  She stood up, faced Thorpe over the mountain of paperwork on his desk, and then she turned and left.

  Kane caught up with her as she was heading towards the front door of the building and they exited together, walking down the steps and towards his car. Margaret’s resolve was ebbing, her shoulders slumped, head lowered, her movements slow and deliberate.

  Kane pulled his car keys out of his jacket pocket, triggered the central locking and opened the passenger door for her. She stopped, her hand on the edge of the door, and looked back at the police station. She looked at him, her face saddened, and then she eased herself into the car. He had never seen her look so old.

  When he closed the door and walked around the front of the car, he noticed a slip of paper tucked under one of the windscreen wipers. He hesitated before picking it up and unfolding it, looking around as he did so.

  It was a hand-scrawled note: I said no police.

  There was nobody around, nobody that looked to be following him or watching him. He took a deep breath, scrunched the paper into a ball and stuffed it in his pocket.

  In his car, when he got behind the wheel, Margaret said, ‘What was that?’ There was no real interest in her voice.

  Kane started the ignition, checked his mirrors. ‘Just one of those stupid flyers,’ he lied. ‘Ten percent off something or other.’ When he pulled away from the roadside, the skin on his hands stretched tight over his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel. His chest was still aching.

  * * *

  A light rain spat at the funeral party as they gathered around a newly dug grave, indolently watching the young Father Mitchell as he led them in prayer. Margaret, in her black trouser suit, strengthened perhaps by the arrival of David late last night, sympathetically squeezed Kane’s arm before she placed a white carnation on top of the coffin. White for purity, Kane thought.

  ‘Eternal rest,’ Father Mitchell prayed, ‘grant unto Ryan, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.’

  Reading from the Order of Service, the gathered people replied, ‘May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace. Amen.’

  Only a few of Ryan’s friends turned out. Some of them Kane recognised, but there were others, people he had never seen before. He wondered if they knew about Ryan’s addiction, wondered if they were in on it, if they supplied him. More to the point, he wondered if any of them knew about the phone calls he had been receiving. Or the biblical calling card.

  He loosened the tie around his neck, his face feeling flushed in the rain. When the funeral was over and people were leaving, they shook his hand or gave him a gentle hug, accompanied by words of condolences.

  John, the only drag queen Kane and Ryan really knew, who called herself Daphne Do-More when it suited, was a completely different person today, the only time Kane had ever seen him in a suit and without the face paint. His stubble must have been a couple of days old. Everyone hides behind a mask. It was Wilde who’d said you only see someone’s true self when you give them a mask.

  Kane wasn’t so sure.

  Margaret resembled a pillar, brave-faced and strong. Kane imagined she was tearing herself up inside, but outwardly, she gave nothing away.

  She approached him and pointed to a group of Ryan’s friends who were clambering into a car. ‘They’re going to a pub. One that they say Ryan used to go to.’

  He looked away from her. He was crying. David, grey-haired and upright, stepped away to give them a moment, his hands behind his back like an army general. Kane’s words were gritty when he spoke. ‘They’re going to get drunk in his memory?’

  Margaret touched his shoulder. ‘They’re going to toast him. He’d like that.’

  ‘I think he’d prefer to be alive.’

  ‘We’d all prefer it if he was alive.’

  Kane turned away from her. He clenched his teeth and his eyes, his hands knuckling his temples. ‘It’s not f-fair,’ he said, his voice pathetic, ripped through with sobs. Margaret Bernhard took him in her arms and said the truest thing he’d ever heard.

  ‘Life isn’t fair.’

  * * *

  He needed some time alone, some time to collect himself. He told Margaret he wouldn’t be long, that he’d see them back at theirs within the hour. And now, sitting on the damp grass in another part of the cemetery, he stared at the headstone in front of him. In loving memory of Laura Rider, cherished mother. B. 6-9-1956 – D. 24-3-2008. Taken too soon.

  Cancer had consumed her a few years ago and Ryan had been his rock. And now here he was, going through the motions all over again. Without Ryan, he wasn’t sure he could manage it this time. Without Ryan, without the strength that he had given him, Kane wasn’t sure he even wanted to manage this time.

  In his trouser pocket, his phone vibrated and he closed his eyes. If heaven really existed, like his mother had believed, he hoped she was there to meet Ryan.

  And yet—the drugs.

  Part of him still couldn’t believe it. If it was true—and it had to be—then he was more stupid than he could have imagined. You can’t live with someone, sleep with someone, and not notice the puncture wounds on his arm—on his groin, for heaven’s sake. Thorpe had told him that the coroner had found a couple of small needle-marks in the area between his leg and his testicles. Not an uncommon thing, Thorpe
said, for users to hide their addiction among pubic hair.

  The thought made him sick.

  His phone continued to vibrate but he refused to answer it. He knew whose voice would be on the other end, knew beyond any doubt.

  And he could go screw himself today.

  * * *

  Everyone had gathered at David and Margaret’s house after the funeral. David, a financial magnate with a keen eye for a good deal, had been clever with his money; he had bought a plot of land on the northern outskirts of Belfast and employed a team of builders to construct not just a house, but a mansion. Hidden from the road by a line of trees and an electronic gate, he had been conscious of security and installed CCTV. In their teenage years, before moving in together, Kane and Ryan had spent many summer evenings by the covered pool under the watchful gaze of motion-sensor cameras.

  It was there that they had their first kiss, there that they shared their first sexual experience, hurried and immediate as it was, lying naked beside each other under nothing but a blanket and the wan light of the moon. It was there that they had first said, ‘I love you.’

  The funeral had been wonderful, people said. Ryan would have loved it, they told him. Good old Irish logic. He stopped himself from stating the obvious.

  Kane stood by the glass display cabinet of hunting trophies and photos of David and Margaret with their clay-pigeon friends. It was a sport that never appealed to Ryan or Kane.

  His head was hurting. ‘You should have another whiskey,’ Daphne Do-More’s alter ego, John, said. He had come back from the pub that the guys had gone off to in order to extend his condolences. He scratched the stubble at his neck and said, ‘All I can think about doing is getting pissed.’

  Kane smiled, obliging, and looked around. It was odd seeing John without the wig and make-up, odder still seeing him without Ryan around.

  Margaret, from a place near the front door, caught Kane’s eye and smiled at him. She and David were circling the room, Margaret with a platter of sandwiches cut into little triangles, David with a whiskey decanter.