Rider

by Merrigan, Peter J

  He saw Margaret and Dawson both fall away from each other, Margaret’s body slamming against the doorframe, Dawson hitting the back wall.

  Kane reached into the drawer and pulled out the Swiss army knife, extended the blade, and lurched over Dawson as O’Reef raised his gun. He jabbed the knife forward, into O’Reef’s chest, knocking his firing arm off aim as he spat off a round. The bullet glanced off Kane’s shoulder, tearing skin and spewing blood. Simultaneously, Kane pushed upwards with his other hand against O’Reef’s chin. His head bounced off the wall behind him and he fell, the knife still in his chest.

  Margaret, bleeding from the stomach, weak, her face distant, fired point blank at Darren before he had time to react. His face exploded as he went down.

  Kane turned, a cold sweat on his face, and saw Dawson slumped against the wall in an oddly wretched sitting position, his legs outstretched, spread-eagled. A lopsided grin played on the left half on his mouth. The first shot he had heard must have been from Margaret.

  Breathing hard, he watched as Dawson gurgled, something between a laugh and a cough. ‘Margaret,’ he said, his voice thick, clogged.

  Remembering Margaret, Kane dropped to the floor beside her. ‘Margaret? Are you all right?’ he asked.

  Dawson gurgled again.

  ‘Margaret, listen to me,’ he said.

  Margaret’s head turned, her eyelids closing and opening in a painfully slow blink. She looked at Kane. ‘You’re bleeding,’ she whispered.

  He touched his shoulder, pulled his hand back. He hadn’t felt the pain until she brought it to his attention.

  ‘Mah-gret,’ Dawson choked. His arms flopped to the floor at his sides, his fingers loosening around his gun. He wheezed as he breathed. ‘You think…it’s over,’ he said. His half smile returned. ‘It isn’t.’

  And then he was silent. Kane thought maybe he was dead. But his eyes flickered and his bloodied tongue protruded to moisten his lips.

  Margaret pushed her shoulders back and winced. ‘Why,’ she tried, stopped, started again. ‘Why do this?’

  Kane took her hand.

  Dawson breathed. ‘If David could see us now, eh?’ His words were interrupted by a fit of coughing, blood running down his chin to his suit jacket.

  Kane watched Margaret blink, the name of her husband almost lost on her. She tried to say something, then stopped.

  ‘Ryan had something,’ Dawson said. He had let go of his gun completely now, his fingertips coiling in towards his palms. ‘Something incriminating. Something David wanted back.’

  His head drooped forward and he whispered, ‘Documents. Damaging documents.’

  Kane twisted onto his knees, one hand on Margaret’s shoulder. ‘Why are you telling us this?’ he asked Dawson. ‘Why now?’

  ‘You think…I care?’ he said. ‘I owe nothing to David Bernhard.’ He coughed blood onto his shirt.

  Margaret choked.

  ‘Why did you have to kill him?’ Kane asked. ‘What’d he ever do to you?’

  Dawson’s head turned just a fraction to look at the prostrate form of O’Reef, the small Swiss knife protruding from his chest. ‘You’ve…had your revenge,’ he said.

  He looked at his gun on the floor beside his hand. ‘Kill me.’

  Kane rose, kicked the gun away. ‘Tell me what Ryan took from you. What was it?’

  Dawson didn’t move. His eyes were glazed.

  Kane crouched beside him. ‘You said Ryan had documents. What documents?’

  When Dawson said nothing, Kane punched him in the wound. But there was no reaction; Dawson was dead.

  ‘K-Kane,’ Margaret breathed.

  He turned and rushed to her side, dropping to his knees, reaching out for her but afraid to touch her. The gunshot wound in her stomach looked ripe and crimson.

  ‘Margaret.’

  He patted his pockets but couldn’t find his phone. He shuffled over to Darren’s faceless body and searched his pockets, gagging as his hands were covered in blood. He pulled out Darren’s phone and called for an ambulance.

  When he hung up and dropped the phone, Margaret said, ‘Who—?’

  He soothed her. ‘Don’t. Don’t talk. It’s okay.’

  She closed her eyes. Kane thought he could hear sirens already.

  A deep guttural sound came from her throat. She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘Kane…’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said again.

  ‘Prom…Promise me,’ she said, her voice a whisper. He had to strain to listen to her. ‘Don’t let them res…resuscitate me.’

  He blanched. ‘Margaret, no—’

  She twisted uncomfortably. ‘Yes. If I…die. Please. Don’t let them resuscitate me. Promise.’

  Kane was crying. ‘Please, Margaret. I can’t.’

  Margaret reached up and feebly clasped his hand. ‘Promise me,’ she said.

  His lips trembled. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Promise me.’

  He looked away, clenched his eyes, bit his lip. ‘I promise.’

  When he looked back at her, she had her eyes closed. Shallow intakes of breath made her throat rattle. He kept hold of her cold hand. ‘They’ll be here soon,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll be here soon.’

  In the moments of silence that followed, he was reminded of the last time, just recently, that he was kneeling beside a dying person. Ryan resembled his mother so much that it was hard to look at her without seeing his face, the eyes, the shape of the nose, the curve of the lips.

  Margaret pushed her tongue out between her lips and quickly drew it in again. She looked up at him. ‘Kane…’ she said, her voice a rasping whisper. ‘David is…in London.’

  Blood glistened on her shirt.

  ‘I won’t let you die,’ Kane exhaled, his own voice sounding strange, distant.

  ‘Damaging documents,’ Margaret said as though to herself. Her fingers gripped tighter around Kane’s hand. ‘Find him.’

  ‘What?’

  He could hear the whistle of ambulance sirens getting closer.

  ‘Find out…what he’s doing.’

  ‘Margaret, I—’

  ‘Stop him. Whatever it is.’ She paused, breathed. ‘I never…I didn’t…’ She choked. Kane waited as she caught her breath. ‘Stop him,’ she said again.

  ‘I will,’ Kane said. ‘I’ll stop him. Look, the ambulance is here.’ Someone was pounding on the front door.

  ‘Don’t leave me.’

  ‘I’m not leaving. Just hang on, okay?’

  She released her grip and he got to his feet, the pain in his shoulder forgotten. He stumbled down the stairs, opened the door and let two paramedics and some police officers in.

  ‘She’s upstairs. Quick!’ he yelled at them.

  When they got to her side, Margaret looked dead.

  Chapter 9

  His arm stung and his fingers were numb but the bullet hadn’t done any lasting damage to his shoulder. They stitched him up, put his arm in a cloth sling, and prescribed some painkillers. And now, in a family room in the hospital, two police officers sat opposite him and smiled at the lies he told them.

  ‘So let me get this straight, Mr Rider,’ the taller of the two officers said, notebook in hand, pen tapping against the arm of his chair. He had a cropped brown beard and large, penetrating eyes. ‘You went to Mrs Bernhard’s house—you said you were sleeping with her son?’

  Kane looked at him. ‘I said I was her son’s boyfriend.’

  ‘Yes. Right. And now he’s deceased. Stabbed?’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ he asked, looking from one to the other. ‘Call the station. Speak to Detective Thorpe.’

  ‘We believe you,’ the talkative officer said. ‘We just need the facts.’ He paused, looking back over his notes. ‘So, you go to Mrs Bernhard’s home and—what?—let yourself in? Because she wasn’t home?’ Kane nodded. ‘Where was she?’

  ‘Where was who?’ Kane asked, although he knew. He was stalling, thinking.

 
‘Where was Mrs Bernhard before she came home?’

  ‘She was supposed to be going to London with her husband.’

  ‘What changed her mind?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kane said.

  ‘Did she come home because she knew the men would be waiting for her? Was that her plan?’

  ‘No.’ Kane’s voice rose at the accusation. ‘She didn’t know them, had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Nothing to do with what?’ the officer questioned.

  ‘Nothing to do with whatever they were looking for.’

  The officer paused. ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘So, these guys rock up, Mrs Bernhard comes home unannounced, and everyone starts shooting each other. Is that right?’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah. Pretty much.’

  ‘Pretty much,’ the officer repeated, writing it down. ‘What were they looking for?’

  Kane dipped his head into his one usable hand and said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I see. And you never saw these people before?’

  He shook his head. The officer flipped his notebook closed and they stood.

  ‘Mr Rider, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that perverting the course of justice is a very serious crime. When forensics gets through with the scene, we’ll want to speak to you again. We have your details.’ They walked towards the door, and then the bearded officer stopped and turned back to Kane. ‘You know how lucky you were?’ he asked. ‘I’ve seen some nasty shoulder shots in my time. Torn tendons and ligaments.’ He touched his own shoulder. ‘Shards of bone lodged in muscle tissue. Nasty. Really nasty.’ He adjusted the hat on his head. ‘Another quarter inch,’ he said, ‘and that baby would have taken your shoulder clean off.’

  * * *

  He sat by her hospital bed and held her hand. When he had left her side to let the ambulance crew into her house, she had not died, merely passed out. She had lost a lot of blood, they told him later, at the hospital, but they would perform a transfusion and, in the young Asian doctor’s words, ‘She’ll be back to her old self in no time.’

  ‘Don’t let her hear you calling her “old”,’ Kane had said.

  When the police had finished interviewing him he returned to Margaret’s bedside and sat vigil while she slept off the anaesthetic. Occasionally he removed his sling and worked some life into his arm, or paced up and down the room to stop the pins and needles settling into his legs. Mostly, he just sat there and watched the monitor beside the bed as it traced her heart rate in a constant fashion. She’d be fine, they had told him. They had removed the bullet and the internal damage, while traumatic, would heal in time.

  Find him, she had asked him as she lay bleeding on Ryan’s bedroom floor. Stop him.

  David’s involvement with Dawson, whatever that might be, was a mystery. Perhaps, Kane thought, Dawson had been making it up to frighten them at the end. If David and Dawson were in cahoots, then surely David himself would have searched his house for the missing documents, unless Dawson was double-crossing him. There was no need for the guns and the violence.

  Find him. Stop him.

  Kane took Margaret’s hand again, squeezed it gently, and whispered, ‘I can’t do it, Margaret.’ He lowered his head, pressed his forehead against her hand. ‘Whatever David’s done…I just can’t. I don’t have it in me.’

  If David was involved, Kane reasoned, he’d most likely have more hired guns at his disposal. How was Kane—twenty-four years old, barely an adult—supposed to stop him? What could he do?

  He watched the trace of her heart rate as it drew across the oscilloscope’s screen. ‘I won’t do it,’ he said.

  He sat in silence, watching the slight rise and fall of her chest, watching as nurses came in to check on her.

  Later, when she was awake, he continued to hold her hand.

  She was weak, her voice like gravel. ‘It’s his birthday next month.’

  Kane nodded. He had been planning Ryan’s birthday present for months. ‘What kind of bastard kills a twenty-five year old?’ he asked.

  ‘The evil kind,’ Margaret said.

  She closed her eyes and rested for a while and he dozed with his head on the bed beside her.

  He woke when she touched his hair. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

  She smiled, touched his forehead, his temple, his cheek. ‘He loved you so much,’ she said.

  He leaned his face against her hand.

  ‘And I know you love him, too,’ she said. ‘It’s in your eyes.’ When he looked up at her, she said, ‘I don’t care what they’re saying. About the drugs. We know him better than that, right?’ Kane sucked his lower lip into his mouth, a comfort action, and she continued, ‘No, honey, don’t look so sad. We need to put our feelings to rest now.’

  ‘To rest?’ he asked. ‘Forget all about him? Forget the last eight years of my life? Margaret, we were sixteen when we met. That is my life. I can’t pick up the pieces from this. He was everything to me.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying. We’ll always have our memories,’ she told him. ‘But we can’t let the past cloud the future. God knows it’s not much of a future, but it’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Ryan doesn’t have a future any more,’ Kane said, petulant.

  ‘But he does,’ Margaret said. She reached out, touched Kane’s chest. ‘In here. You’ll never forget him. I doubt he’d ever want you to. But in time it’ll get easier. I don’t want you moping around. Keep Ryan in your heart, but don’t lay your own life aside. I’ve already lost Ryan’s father. Now this. We have to be there for each other now, you and me. We have to get by or there’s just no point.’

  A nurse entered before Kane could respond. He knew the wisdom in her words, but it would be easier to speak them than perform them.

  ‘Time to change your dressing, Mrs Bernhard,’ the nurse said.

  Somewhat forcefully, but polite, Margaret said, ‘Can you give us a minute, please, love?’

  The nurse frowned, looked from Margaret to Kane to Margaret again. She nodded, said, ‘Two minutes,’ and then left them alone.

  Kane stood, yawned.

  ‘I asked you to go to London earlier,’ Margaret said. ‘Will you do it?’

  He stared at her. He was surprised she had remembered.

  ‘Go back to the house,’ she said. ‘In the nightstand by my bed there’s a…’ She lowered her voice. ‘There’s a small derringer.’

  ‘A what?’ Kane asked.

  ‘A pistol,’ she said. ‘David bought if for me a few years ago but I never used it. Get it and take it with you.’

  ‘Margaret, I—’ Kane said, and then the nurse returned. ‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.

  As he stepped out of the room, Margaret called after him, ‘Don’t forget, Kane. We have to be there for each other.’

  * * *

  In the morning, after little sleep, Kane called into work, checked that it was all right for him to stay off for an extra day or two. His boss was understanding. ‘Take all the time you need,’ she said. ‘If you want anything, just let me know.’

  He got in his car even before breakfast, filled up on fuel, and drove to Portstewart, to their beach.

  When he got there, he sat in the car for some time, staring out at the ocean. He wasn’t sure why he had come. Maybe in an attempt to feel Ryan’s presence. Maybe in an attempt to forget him.

  He got out of the car and ambled over the sand dunes, walking down towards the shoreline. It wasn’t exactly beach weather, a brisk wind kicking sand around, and the beach was practically empty.

  He pushed a hand into his jeans pocket, sighed deeply and stared out across the choppy water. A lone windsurfer rode the waves.

  In one fluid movement, he was sitting on the sand, his legs crossed, his hand out of his pocket and both now hugging his elbows.

  He watched the windsurfer flip over a wave in the distance.

  His shoulder was still painful, but not unbearably so. He removed the sl
ing and worked his arm up and down. How long had it been since he last sat here with Ryan? No more than a few months, he guessed.

  A young kid came along the beach, dangling at the end of a dog lead. The dog, large, loping, bounded towards Kane.

  The kid stopped, looked at Kane as the dog sniffed around him. ‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ he asked.

  Kane kept his gaze out across the water. ‘I hurt it,’ he told him. The dog was nuzzling its wet, sand-crusted nose against his neck.

  ‘How come you’re sitting there on your own?’ the kid asked.

  Kane ruffled the dog’s fur, his eyes sad. ‘Because I have no one left to sit here with me.’

  ‘Bummer,’ the kid said, and he yanked on the dog’s lead and walked on along the beach.

  Kane, alone again, pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around them. There was no one left. Ryan was dead, Margaret was in hospital, and David was God knows where.

  The kid had disappeared over a dune.

  And the windsurfer had crashed and burned.

  * * *

  Margaret Bernhard had always been a tender and loving person. Kane could remember his first encounter with her as though it were yesterday, not long after Ryan had moved to his school and turned Kane’s world upside down.

  Margaret was pruning a bush as they came up the drive.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ Ryan had asked after dutifully kissing her on the cheek.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

  ‘Can Kane stay?’

  Margaret had looked up at Kane, a twinkle in her eyes. ‘So,’ she had said. ‘You’re the young man I’ve heard so much about.’ She pulled a gardening glove from her slender hand and motioned for him to shake. Her grip was firm, her eye contact steady. Kane felt as though he was under intense scrutiny. ‘You make sure you keep my boy smiling, okay?’ she said. ‘I want nothing but happiness for the both of you.’

  The words were so heavily laden with innuendo that Kane did a double take with Ryan to make sure she knew no more than she had to know. Ryan was feigning inattention.