The birthday girl

by Stephen Leather

  'It's okay,' he said.

  'No,' she said, firmly. 'I mean I love you. I really love you.'

  She looked at him long and hard with a burning intensity that left him in no doubt what she meant. He returned the look.

  'It's okay,' he repeated. She struggled to find the right words to say, but Freeman shook his head. 'Don't say anything,' he said. 'Just hold me.' Katherine burst into tears. She held him in her arms.

  Mersiha knelt down beside Freeman and she and Katherine helped him to his feet.

  Utsyev had lost all feeling below the waist, and a cold numbness was spreading across his upper body. He could feel his lifeblood oozing out of his chest, and knew that he was dying. He could hear his brother's voice, calling to him from the distance, calling for him to come and play. It was Gilani as a child, a small boy who wanted nothing more than to play in the fields and catch fish in the river. Utsyev could feel himself slipping away, but something was holding him back. There was something he had to do. One last thing.

  He concentrated on his right hand until he could feel the hard metal between his fingers, and then he forced himself to open his eyes. The pain returned and the room felt as if it was spinning. His eyes closed and the blackness enveloped him, but he fought against it, pushing it away, telling himself that all he had to do was this one thing and then he could go and play with Gilani. His eyes flickered open and he looked down over his bleeding body to where Freeman was being held up by his wife and daughter. He felt himself start to slip away again. The hand that lay by his side felt as if it belonged to – someone else. He was controlling it, he was raising the hand ¦ with the gun, but it felt as if he were watching the action from somewhere else. From somewhere outside the body. He pointed the gun at them, his hand wavering. Freeman passed through the sights, then the woman, then die girl. He aimed between Mersiha's shoulder-blades and fought to keep the gun steady as his finger tightened on the trigger. He concentrated all he had left on the index finger of his right hand. At the last moment, Freeman saw him. His mouth opened to shout a warning, but it was too late. Utsyev fired, then the gun fell from his hand as he died.

  Freeman screamed as Mersiha pitched forward as if she'd been punched in the back. 'Dad…' she moaned as her legs gave way.

  He grabbed her, but she was a dead weight in his arms.

  'No!' Katherine shouted as Freeman laid her gently down on the wooden floor. 'No!'

  'Get me something to stop the bleeding,' Freeman said, cradling Mersiha's head in his lap. Blood was still pouring from his hand and leg but his own injuries didn't concern him. All he could think about was Mersiha.

  'What?'

  'Anything. A cloth. A towel. Anything.'

  Katherine ran past Utsyev's unmoving body to the kitchen.

  'Dad, it hurts,' Mersiha whispered.

  'I know, pumpkin. I know. You'll be all right.'

  Katherine returned with a towel. She knelt down by Freeman.

  'Press it against her back,' he said, lifting her. She positioned the towel over the entry wound and then Freeman laid her down again so that her weight would keep it in position.

  Katherine stood up, wringing her hands. 'What are we going to do?' she asked helplessly.

  Freeman shook his head. They were miles from anywhere and there was no phone in the cabin. Mersiha shivered. He pulled a rug along the floor and wrapped it around her. She smiled up at him. 'Am I dying, Dad?' she asked quietly.

  Freeman stroked her hair. 'No,' he said softly. 'Of course you're not dying.' He looked up at Katherine, his face a pained mask.

  'I'm sorry, Mom,' Mersiha said.

  It was the first time she'd ever called Katherine 'Mom'.

  Katherine knelt down beside her, tears in her eyes. 'Shh,' she said. 'Don't try to speak.' She looked at Freeman. 'We need help,' she said. 'We have to get her to a hospital.'

  'We can't move her. She'll bleed to death in the car.'

  'The car!' Katherine said. 'God, I'm so stupid. There's a phone in the car!' She ran out of the cabin.

  Freeman put his hand on Mersiha's forehead. She felt cold.

  When he took it away he left behind a bloody palm-print. 'I'm sleepy,' she said.

  'Try to stay awake, Mersiha. Everything's going to be okay.'

  'Can't I sleep, Dad?' Her voice was barely discernible.

  'No. Try not to.' Blood was seeping through the front of her jacket. Freeman was frightened to open it. He couldn't face seeing the damage done by Utsyev's bullet.

  'Dad?'

  'Yes, pumpkin?'

  'Will you sing to me?'

  'Of course I will.' She shivered in his arms and closed her eyes. He shook her and she moaned softly. 'What shall I sing?' he asked.

  'You know,' she breathed.

  Freeman knew. With tears streaming down his face, he sang 'Happy Birthday' to her.

  Freeman stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out over the jagged granite rocks and the white-topped waves of the North Sea below. He never tired of the coast's rugged beauty. It brought home to him the power of the sea. It was nature at its most brutal, a far cry from the soft beaches of the east coast of America. A massive wave crashed down on the rocks, sending salty spray across his face. He wiped the water away with his left hand. His right hand had healed nicely, though it was still a little stiff and he couldn't move his thumb more than a few degrees.

  The young doctor at the hospital in Aberdeen had said that he'd eventually regain full use of it, though he'd probably always feel a twinge or two during the winter months. The same went for his leg. He still had to walk with a stick and he became tired if he walked any distance, but that he could live with. He smiled as he remembered telling the doctor that he knew it would be all right |l eventually because he'd been shot in the leg before. The doctor had thought Freeman was joking until he'd seen the old scars.

  He heard Katherine walk up behind him and he smiled as she slid her arms around his waist. 'Maybe we should build the house right here,' she said, putting her head on his shoulder. 'Then you'd have the view without going outside.'

  'Wouldn't be the same without the wind and the rain,' he said, waving his walking stick at the raging sea. They stood in silence together, Katherine pressing herself against his back as they looked out over the waves. 'You don't mind?' he said eventually.

  'Mind what?'

  'Leaving America? Leaving the company?'

  Katherine thought about her answer before replying. 'No. As long as I'm with you, I don't care where we live.' She squeezed him around the waist.

  'Good,' he said. They'd talked about it back in the States and they'd both agreed that there were too many bad memories in America. Too many tainted places. But he still wanted reassurance that he'd done the right thing. After they'd returned to Maryland they'd sold their house and put all their belongings in storage. Walter Carey had been surprised when Freeman had said that he wanted to leave CRW, but the bank had appointed a team of professional managers and all the signs were that the company would survive. Katherine sold half of her block of CRW shares, and the proceeds would provide enough of an income for them to live on, for a while at least. Maybe in time they'd start up a new business, build something together, but he was in no hurry.

  All he wanted to do for the time being was to take life slowly, one step at a time.

  'Is there room for me in there?' Mersiha asked. She was standing on the path that led to the cliff-top, her arm in a denim sling that Katherine had made to match her Levi jeans. 'I mean, God forbid that I should intrude into this tender moment.'

  Katherine laughed and waved her over. Mersiha moved slowly. She was still getting used to walking again after a month in hospital in Colorado and another six weeks in Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. The surgeons had done an incredible job. The bullet had ripped through her left lung and exited through her shoulder, and she'd been on a ventilator for several days in a shock-trauma unit. She was still pale, and the muscles of her arm had atrophied while the shoulder healed, so s
he required regular physical therapy, but every day Freeman thanked God that she was alive. She was recovering slowly, but like Freeman she'd bear the scars, physical and mental, for ever.

  'Are you going to stand here all day?' she asked.

  'Maybe,' Freeman said.

  'That's okay, then,' she said. She sighed. The three of them stood looking out to sea, the wind and spray lashing their faces.

  Freeman breathed in the salt air. It had been important to get away from America, to start again. It wasn't that he feared retribution.

  The police hadn't been over-concerned about solving the murders of the Utsyev brothers, as both were known criminals, and they had been more than happy to accept that the Freemans were innocent bystanders caught up in a gang war. As far as they were concerned, the case was closed. Freeman had reported the Heckler amp; Koch stolen, but the gun was never found. It was over, and now they could put it all behind them. Eventually he planned to build a house in the north of Scotland, a new house, for a new life. But first, all he wanted to do was to spend time with the two people he loved most in the world, and to get to know them. To really get to know them.

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  Document creation date: 20.11.2010

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