Rider
Page 15
He approached Ryan’s graveside and looked down at the marker. Inlaid above Ryan’s name was a photograph of him, a head-and-shoulder shot taken last year. Below that the words, Cherished son and soul mate. Forever in our hearts.
Kane drew his upper lip into his mouth and breathed deeply through his nose, inhaling the sweet scent of the flowers.
When Pat Wilson cleared his throat behind him, he turned and smiled. He and Ann Clark had come over from London a few days ago. They sat with him then and discussed his future, his options. Seeing them again brought the nightmare back to life.
What they had talked to him about when they first arrived had sent his head into a spin. The things they said, the offer they made, both repulsed and moved him in equal measure.
The Spanish team’s luck had run out and their target, Ramirez, had managed to get away. He had gone underground, they told Kane, and it looked as though operations were stepping up again. Lyon wasn’t happy with the outcome of the London debacle and the failure of those in Spain only added to their fury. The pressure was on to stem the war and protect the innocent—and Kane was a likely target.
‘How’re you holding up?’ Wilson asked.
Kane shrugged. ‘I’ve been better.’
‘It’ll take some time to get use to,’ Clark said, ‘but you’ll be fine.’
He nodded. ‘How’s the case going?’ he asked.
Clark touched Kane’s arm. ‘Like we said the other day, operations have collapsed in Spain, but we’re still making headway in France and the Ukraine. Jim Dixon was tried last week.’
‘I’m sure he loves it in Wandsworth,’ Wilson said. ‘Bent copper behind bars; they’ll be having a field day.’
‘Did he confess?’ Kane asked.
‘Still protesting his innocence,’ Clark said. ‘But his house and his computer were searched and they found enough evidence to put him away for a long time.’
Kane nodded again. ‘She’s still coming, isn’t she?’
Wilson checked his watch. ‘Should be here any minute. I told you, we have friends where it counts.’
‘I can’t believe,’ Kane said, ‘that this is how it ends.’
‘You can change your mind if you want,’ Wilson said.
Kane flattened his lips. ‘No.’
When a police van drove into the cemetery and stopped a short distance from where they stood, Kane felt his chest constrict. Margaret was taken from a ramp at the back of the van, still in a wheelchair, and she looked tiny and feeble. She had been taken into custody after shooting David and transferred back to Belfast three days later. The date for her trial had not yet been set and being in remand was clearly doing her no favours. She had promised him that she was being treated well and assured him her solicitor said she had a good case.
A police officer wheeled her along the path and set the brakes. He nodded at Wilson and Clark and stepped aside, allowing them some privacy. Interpol had pulled some strings to have her here today and the PSNI were under strict instructions to comply.
Margaret took Kane’s hand in one of hers, Clark’s in the other. To Wilson, she said, ‘Thank you.’
Wilson smiled.
‘Are you okay?’ Kane asked.
She squeezed his hand and looked down at Ryan’s headstone. ‘He’s at peace now.’ Her smile was delicate.
As a cool breeze stirred around them, Kane removed his jacket and draped it over Margaret and she pulled it around her shoulders. He looked at Wilson, Clark.
Wilson nodded. Clark smiled.
He turned back to the grave and looked down. ‘Happy birthday, Ryan.’ He crouched, touched the headstone, and placed the bouquet of flowers at its base. ‘I love you.’
‘Are you ready?’ Wilson asked. ‘It’s time we should go.’
Kane looked at Margaret. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
Staring at Ryan’s headstone, she said, ‘Honestly? I’ve no idea. But Ryan isn’t here any more. The only thing left is his memory. And we can take that with us.’
Three days ago, sitting in Kane’s living room with coffee and sympathies, Wilson had told Kane their plan. As long as Bernhard’s associates were running free, they could never guarantee his safety, could not guarantee the safety of Margaret in her cell.
Kane had held his coffee mug between numb fingers and listened as Wilson said, ‘Witness protection.’
Clark had specified, ‘There’d be certain conditions. You’d be given a new name; we’ll get you some start-up money; a new job. But you can’t come back here. Not until it’s over. You can have no contact with anyone.’
Kane had thought about it before asking, ‘What about Margaret? I can’t leave her. I’m all she has.’
Wilson and Clark had shared a look, a smile. ‘It’s highly unethical,’ Wilson said, ‘but we’ve already broken so many rules.’
‘What are you saying?’ he asked them.
‘She’s going with you,’ Clark said.
‘How will you get her out of prison?’
Wilson drank the last of his coffee and said, ‘Leave that to us.’
Now, he reached into his back pocket and withdrew a photograph, unfolded it, stared at it: he and Ryan, arm in arm, on Ryan’s seventeenth birthday. He placed the photograph beside the flowers and stood. It had been taken eight years ago when they were newly in love and felt that they had the whole world at their feet. And eight years ago, as they lay in bed together that night, they knew their love would last forever.
Kane put a hand to his chest as Margaret touched his back.
‘I’m ready now,’ she said.
Kane looked around, saw the police officer scuffing his shoe in the dirt, and recognised him as Officer Richards, the policeman who had watched over him that first night in his flat, a time that felt so long ago now.
Richards smiled at him, turned his back on them.
Wilson smirked. ‘Richards is one of ours,’ he said. ‘I told you we were watching you before you came to London.’
Clark checked her watch. ‘Look, if we’re going to give you a new life, we need to do it now.’ She waved her arm and Kane’s guards stepped from shadows and trees.
‘Ready?’ Wilson asked.
Kane nodded.
And looking down at the photograph, at Ryan’s smiling face, he began to remember.
* * *
Margaret had kept Ryan in the kitchen when Kane had come in through the front door carrying his birthday present, a five-foot by three-foot rectangle wrapped in silver paper.
When Ryan burst through the kitchen door and into Kane’s arms, wearing a silly party hat, Kane laughed and said, ‘I didn’t realise it was your fifth birthday!’
‘You love it,’ Ryan said, and he forced Kane to wear one, too.
Kane gave him the present and said, ‘When I saw it, I had to get it for you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Open it.’
They settled together on the plush sofa and Ryan tore at the paper. When he had exposed the present and turned it the right way up, he smiled wider than Kane could ever think possible.
‘I love it!’ Ryan said and threw his arms around Kane’s neck. Eight years later, that canvas painting of Bette Davis still hung in their flat.
Ryan kissed him and Margaret backed her way in from the kitchen. She turned, grinned, and held up a cake with ‘Happy 17th Birthday’ iced onto it and seventeen candles glowing and flickering like a fence around its edges.
She began to sing. ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…’
Kane stood and pulled Ryan to his feet as he joined in with the song.
Ryan was grinning and singing and laughing.
And Margaret was singing and dancing and twirling.
And Kane put his arms around Ryan and pressed his forehead to his temple. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said.
And they kissed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Northern Ireland at the same time Johnny Mathis held the UK number o
ne chart with When a Child is Born (a coincidence, we assure you), Peter was first published at the age of 17 in the Simon & Schuster anthology Children of the Troubles, edited by Laurel Holliday, and followed in quick succession by numerous other publications.
Peter moved from Ireland to London in 1997 and, in 2010, fell out of the rat race for a quieter life in Yorkshire.
Find Peter online at
www.peterjmerrigan.co.uk
On Twitter: @pjmerrigan140
And on Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorpeterjmerrigan
ALSO BY PETER J. MERRIGAN
The Camel Trail
COMING SOON
LYNCH
The exciting sequel to Rider
Follow Kane Rider on Twitter and find out where he is before the brand new sequel is released! Find him at @KaneRider