by Mark A. King
Fire engines? Ambulances? Police?
They stopped on the landing of the first floor. Something wasn’t right. “How did Westbourne’s men know where you were or that you had evidence to link Armitage to Westbourne as the centre of Operation Scythe?” Iona asked.
“Are you accusing me of something?” Danielle replied. “I’d hardly invite arsonists to my own home, would I?”
Cal coughed and looked down at his feet. “I think it might be my fault.”
“How?” Iona asked.
“When we found the evidence, someone else was there. He was watching. He heard everything. I thought that he was trustworthy, that he’d never do anything—”
“Who—Henry?” Danielle said. “You’ve got to be kidding me. We really can’t trust anyone, can we?”
“Where is the other exit?” Iona asked.
“On the other side of the floor,” Danielle replied. “I’ll lead the way.”
At the rear of the building, the emergency services lights were faint swishes of colour skimming the edges of the brooding dark shadows of the building. The fire escape backed into a car park, where it was difficult to see if they were being watched. “Let’s get away from here,” Iona said, thinking of the arsonists. She thought about Maria, too, and the merciless exploitation of vulnerable people for money, greed and power. She thought about Gerry, Verity’s husband, who had taken his own life. This arson, which was also the attempted murder of Danielle and Cal, had rattled her. And the fact that the arsonists had vanished was disturbing, to say the least. “The problem is, where can we go that is safe?”
Cal dusted himself down and brushed the bowler hat he was carrying under his arm. His face scrunched like crumpled wastepaper. “This is just the start. Armitage and the people she’s trying to protect will clearly stop at nothing. Do you think they have access to other weapons? You know, handguns, semi-automatics, that sort of thing?
“I’m sure they could get hold of almost anything they needed,” Iona replied. Her eyes scanned the imposing shadows. “I think this is even beyond the help of my friends. So how the hell are we going to get out of this alive? She can control everything from the police calls through to the traffic lights. There isn’t a place we can go where we will be safe, let alone try to turn the tables on her.”
Cal closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked at his bowler hat. Then his face relaxed, the tension easing away into a coy smile. “I know just the place,” he said.
Charlie and Robbie
Since Robbie had gone the tension had eased.
The injury from the traumatic events at the newsagents’ pummelled Charlie in her sleep, and in her lucid hours of physio and recovery there were no daydreams of motherhood or single-parent picnics with her boy.
In the nightmares, Robbie was there, of course, with his man-boy desires for strength and independence, for respect and discipline. He tugged at Noah and scrawled obscene graffiti on the walls of her flat, in what might have been their home had he chosen to be a real man. In the dreams, it was Robbie, not Leo Jeffers, who held the hilt of the knife as it plunged into her—Charlie guessed it was Robbie who held the blade in their relationship. A shiny object, turned weapon.
When they’d first met, she had seen something, a light in his eyes, a sense of gentleness in the way he brushed against her, a sense of decency in his dreams for their futures. Futures devoured by work, tiredness, responsibilities and distance.
Nurse Ciarán was a decent man, someone who coped with the demands of his role—the unsociable hours of hard work and witnessing the loss of futures—yet he remained positive and caring. Was everything as it seemed? Could such men really exist? Charlie wished she could dream of Ciarán, but no such dreams came.
Deb had been incredible. Some people had best friends in name only. Charlie had one who had dropped everything, surrounded her with love, cradled Noah, and took them on time-consuming visits for food or supplies. Deb knew how hard it was for Charlie to be out again. The physical difficulties were frustrating, but it was the mental side of stepping outside, into the world again, that Charlie feared. Deb never asked. She didn’t need to; she just knew.
They had trawled the discount-voucher websites—not for shoes, clothes, or debt-inducing, binge-spending, but for something more fulfilling. Charlie knew the giddy, false-prophet highs and the hollowed-out feeling of worthlessness that followed days of bingeing. It wasn’t the answer. They found courses on everything from Project Management through to child care. Charlie knew, without any doubt, that nursing was the way forward for her, but she didn’t have even basic qualifications and would need to self-study for English and Maths. The thought terrified her. School had not been easy, but Deb encouraged her and signed up for courses herself.
They’d been out a few times, with Deb never more than a few feet away from Charlie. The mazy aisles of the supermarket provided plenty of opportunity for Charlie to see shapes, shadows, people going about their business. Sometimes she’d catch a glimpse that looked like Ryan, the tall man in the suit who had stalked the wards of the hospital and had threatened to attack Noah.
From reading the literature the hospital had given her and talking to an NHS trauma therapist, Charlie knew that flashbacks, panic attacks, and paranoia were common responses. It wasn’t just the man in the suit; sometimes she’d see Robbie or Leo Jeffers. One time she even saw the girl in the newsagents’—Maria.
What could she do? Tell the police? They wouldn’t be interested. There was no evidence; there wasn’t anything but her fears to tell them.
Noah had been dreaming, too. The night-terrors stalked him with the power and ferocity that only children could conjure. He would wake drenched in sweat, screaming, clawing, and crying in fits until his exhaustion made him vomit or collapse. In such moments, Charlie felt guilty. For putting him through this, for the inability to comfort him, for the stress and strain she’d brought to Deb’s house, for wishing, selfishly, that she could get just one good night’s sleep.
Sometimes, Deb would offer to drive them out into the night to see the lights of the city. Charlie would watch as the bright lights would glow in his eyes and the fear would ease and sleep would take him once more. Such simple distractions were easy to come by if you were five, but for her, the early hours of the city were filled with memories she would rather forget.
One day they drove to St. Paul’s cathedral. Noah felt safe when he saw the large white dome gleaming into the dark night sky, an umbrella of light holding the blackness at bay. A place of God, of safety, of angels and saints. Charlie didn’t have the heart to tell him the history.
Outside, on the streets, there were few cars and nothing but the occasional sporadic haphazard pedestrian. In the smudge of shapes whizzing past the passenger window, Charlie saw him as though captured by an SLR camera, his face crystal clear in the blur of the passing background city.
It was no dream. Nightmare, perhaps, but Robbie was there. It couldn’t be an accident. Had he followed them here on another night?
He must have tailed them from Deb’s house. He wasn’t stupid enough to go near Deb’s place in case Charlie called the police for harassment.
“Stop the car,” Charlie whispered.
“Here? Seriously?”
“Just do it, Deb. Drop me off and keep moving. I have my phone, I’ll call if I need you.”
Deb slowed as Robbie approached the car. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Charlie. I’m not leaving you here with him.”
“Please, Deb. I need to face this, or it will never go away. Take Noah, put him to bed from me. I’ll be fine, honestly.”
Deb stopped the car. “If you’re not back in an hour I’m calling the police.”
Charlie nodded, tapped a kiss to her fingers and touched Noah’s leg before stepping out into the chill of the evening air.
Robbie stood about a dozen feet away. His clothes were crumpled, his grey hair needed a wash, and his head was lowered, yet he wore a quarter-smile that re
minded her of when they had first met.
Charlie’s lungs burned and her vision darkened. She slowly released the breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding captive. She took another, sucking in cool air in a long, controlled inhalation and a longer exhalation. The therapist’s advice and the perpetual sound of the downloaded audio-file played in her head. Control your breathing. Control. Control. Control.
She watched as Deb and Noah rounded a bend in the road and disappeared back towards safety. Charlie tucked her trembling hands under her arms, hiding her fear and exaggerating her defensive posture.
“I’m sorry,” Robbie said. His voice was soft, only just louder than the whispered hum of the spotlights.
Charlie thought about Noah and everything he’d been through, yet he still smiled and took time to ask how she was, brush her hair, and make her pictures. His bravery and strength filled her with pride. If only her bravery would come as easily.
She wound her hands tighter around her frame, stood tall, jutted her chin upright, and faced Robbie with a concrete stare. “Sorry for what, you low-life scum? Sorry for treating me like dirt? For being an even worse dad to Noah than his real one?” Robbie looks hurt by that. Keep going. “Sorry for having a mentality that makes Noah’s look distinctly adult? Sorry for not being there when I most needed you? For being aggressive with my boy?” Charlie wanted to stop, but fear and frustration came out of her in a torrent. “I trusted you, Robbie. I let you into my life, allowed you to be a parent to my precious boy, and you trashed the place that could have made us feel safe and protected. Wrote words on the walls that were disgusting and degrading. I hope your life with your gangland friends was worth it.”
Charlie stood firm. Her cheeks flushed, her pulse raced, and she was breathless from the verbal assault she’d inflicted on Robbie. It felt good, so good, to unleash her anger at him. He was hunched and barely upright, a shrivelled raisin of a man who looked like he had no answer to her.
“I guess I deserved that,” he whispered.
“That and more,” Charlie replied.
“You’re probably right. I’m sorry, for all of those things. For everything.”
“Is that it? You’ve been watching me? Following me? And this is what it’s all about?” Looking at him, she felt stronger and in control. “I’ve heard your apology. So why don’t you just piss right off and leave me alone?”
“I can’t.”
“Nowhere else to go? Your low-rent criminal buddies not quite the family they made out to be? You can’t just walk back into our lives again, Robbie, no matter how sorry you are.”
Robbie kicked the heels of his scuffed and worn trainers together. “I’m a dick, a loser, a idiot. I’ve screwed up, Charlie. I know that. Part of me would like to get back together—”
“It’s not happening. It’ll never happen.”
“I know. I’ve got the message.” Robbie scanned the pavements and roads nervously. “But you’re in danger still. The attack at the newsagents’ wasn’t planned, but it had outcomes linked to organised crime networks. These people want to hurt you. They’d probably think nothing of hurting Noah as well.”
Charlie thought about the hospital, the old guy called Jimmy who had warned her of the same thing, and his nasty bodyguard, Ryan. “Nothing has happened since leaving hospital. A man threatened us there. But it was just words.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Well dressed. He had slicked-back hair.”
“Ryan Thistle,” Robbie muttered. He looked up at the night, as if trying to find the right words. “He didn’t do anything because he couldn’t. Not while his boss, Jimmy Kinsella, was still alive.”
“How do you know?”
“I know because I’ve been helping Ryan Thistle.” Robbie stopped looking at his trainers and looked at Charlie. “They gave me little choice, Charlie. I can’t deny that it felt good. For a while I had respect and power. But you were one of the people on my list.”
“So why didn’t you do it? I bet you couldn’t wait when he first told you.”
Robbie’s eyes filled with tears. Charlie had never seen him cry. “Part of me was angry. I thought I’d changed. That I was doing everything to be a good, decent man, unlike my father. But nothing good came to me.”
“Apart from me and Noah.”
Robbie rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. “I realise that now.”
“So what do we do now?”
“He’s angry with me, Charlie. “
“You can’t stay with me, Robbie. I can’t help you.”
“I don’t want your help. I came to warn you. He wanted you eliminated. But I stopped him from killing the runaway girl, Maria Mathan. He’ll get to me anyway he can. He said he’d kill you and make it look like I did it.”
Charlie let the silence hang in the air. She thought about phoning Deb. It was a relief to know that Maria was still alive and that Robbie had saved her. Charlie turned to face the halo light of St. Paul’s in the night sky. “I need to get back to Noah, Robbie. I can look after myself.”
Charlie waited for him to say something like, that didn’t work out, before did it? But he smiled and said, “I know you can. I’m just here to warn you. Given everything that’s happened, you look good, Charlie. I know you don’t want my help, but I’m not sure you can rely on the police. Ryan Thistle and his employers have people on the payroll everywhere.”
In the ambient light of the cathedral, Robbie looked softer. He looked and sounded like the man she first met. Better than that, he looked like the man he could become. “What do you suggest we do?”
“He’s coming, Charlie. I’d rather know the time and date rather than be continually watching the world, just waiting for him to catch you off guard. You have Noah to think about, too. And Deb, she’s a good person, and she doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this. I say we draw him to us. Do it on our terms. Somewhere public where he can’t use too much force, somewhere we can see him coming.”
He must have changed. He never had a good word to say about Deb, even in the early days. “Why would he come? Wouldn’t he be suspicious?”
Robbie realised that Charlie was right. Ryan might be suspicious.
She’d given him more time than he deserved. Robbie thought about the way she’d treated him before—she’d been overcome by the stresses and strains of life. It had been no worse than most relationships. But it wasn’t love was it? What was love anyway? Had they had love, once? It didn’t seem like the love of movies or posters or old people holding hands in a park. But they’d both sacrificed elements of who they were for each other. There was once hope that they were stronger together than apart. That had to count for something, right?
Ryan Thistle’s only interest was saving his own skin—and that of his employers. Thistle’s mission had become a vendetta, and nothing would stop him unless Robbie intervened. He’d got the better of the tall freak back in the gardens. Could I be as lucky again? Perhaps. Or would it make Thistle more aware and harder to outwit?
Robbie picked up his phone, hesitating to scan for Ryan Thistle’s number. His own behaviour had been shameful. How could he make up for it, even by protecting Charlie—it didn’t seem enough. But Ryan was different. There was nothing but cold business behind his decisions. Robbie remembered the way he’d threatened him, made him go after the witnesses, including a teenager and Charlie. People were nothing to Ryan.
Robbie pushed these thoughts away. He had to make Ryan Thistle believe that he was like him, that he was only interested in himself and saving his own skin. He found Ryan’s details and pressed the Call icon.
“Too late to say sorry, Pigeon. I’m on my way to deal with your ex. Fuck all you can do about it. Just think of that when you try to go to sleep at night. Should’ve listened to me. Followed orders. Simple stuff. Now you’ll be reading about her in the papers with your picture as the prime suspect.”
Robbie let him finish. “That’s why I phoned, boss. I shouldn’t have done what
I did. You were going to kill Charlie whatever I did, so there was no stopping it. But what can I say, maybe you’ve taught me something after all. I want to live. I’d rather you didn’t kill her, but that’s better than you killing us both. I figured if I could get her, hand her over to you, it would be my simple peace offering. Then maybe, if you were feeling generous, boss, you might let me live. Oh, and another thing—”
“What?”
“I have the phone. The phone that the girl took off of Leo Jeffers and his junkie mate.”
“Are you fucking with me, Pigeon?”
“No. It’s no good to me, is it? I figured you’d want that as well. I’ll give it to you, but I’d need money first, you know, so I can start again. I’m not stupid, boss. If I just hand over Charlie and give you the phone then what’s to stop you from killing me as well?”
Thistle snorted. “Pretty smart, bird-boy. Okay. How much?”
“I’m not being greedy, sir. Five grand should sort it. But I won’t bring the phone with me. I’ll put it somewhere safe and tell you where to find it.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Robbie looked over at Charlie and smiled to reassure her that everything was going to plan.
“Okay, I’m not going to argue. We meet. You hand over your ex. I hand you the money and you tell me where you’ve stashed the phone. Where?”
“Millennium footbridge. Be there in twenty minutes or the phone will find itself in the hands of the highest bidder.”
“You’re a ruthless tosser, Pigeon. See you on the Wobbly Bridge, in twenty.”
Robbie started to walk towards the pedestrian bridge that spanned the Thames.
“Hang on a minute, Robbie. If I don’t phone Deb, then she’ll be calling the police and, according to you, anything could happen then,” Charlie said.
They walked towards the bridge and Robbie listened to Charlie as she told her friend to contact the anti-police reporter Danielle Greene to bring a camera crew onto Millennium Bridge, in forty minutes if she didn’t hear anything.