by Potter, John
Adam could only keep running, sucking the air into his body. The road was empty ahead, a vista of hope and freedom. He could see the blond was going to cut him off. He readied to run through him, aware his breathing was a ragged double beat. His feet pounding the pavement sounded like four not two. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw Brian running shotgun. The blond was not looking at him at all, but at Brian. Relief washed through him, it gave him strength. He was not going to fail. He ran harder. The blond arrowed in and Brian now ran at Adam’s side, his breath rasping, but somehow passing him. Step over step. The blond lengthened his stride, slowing, trying to judge as Brian veered towards him, the predator and its prey on a collision course.
At the last moment Brian lowered his shoulder and wrapped his arms around the blond’s waist, swinging his feet off the floor. Both men hit the pavement hard and tumbled to a sickening halt against a bench. There was no movement.
Adam ran and did not dare look back, feeling like a tangible bond between him and Brian was being stretched. And then it was gone. He passed steps that climbed the grassy mound, knowing the two roads eventually levelled, running straight, easing his stride and trying to gain back his breath. Five hundred metres and he would be into streets lined by houses.
He was not sure what made him look back. Maybe it was the barely discerned echo of another set of feet, the smaller blond gaining ground quickly. Adam’s eyes widened in horror and then fixed ahead, opening his stride, trying to power through his thighs. But at fifty metres he could hear the feet slapping behind and another fifty the man breathing easy. Adam panicked. He lost coordination, panting, his rhythm disjointed. An arm came over his shoulder and another laced around his side and he was now the prey pulled to the ground. He bounced off the pavement, the skin torn from his elbows and the breath from his lungs. A strong arm snaked around his neck and a painful weight pinned him to the ground. A voice instructed him to stand, American and smooth.
Brian’s warning played constantly in his head, it was down to him now. With everything Brian had done, he had still failed. He could not let it happen, not for Brian, or Sarah or Andrea. It occurred to him and he did it without thinking. Survival willed his bad arm down, palm against thigh, the pain sharp and deep in his shoulder. He pulled his hand up the back of his leg. The blond’s body was close behind, starting to turn him. Adam slid his fingers first into his back pocket and then around the moulded plastic. He pulled it free and pressed the button, the blade leapt free and without hesitating he thrust it back, thigh high, into the body behind. He jerked it free and did the same again, this time twisting the blade before pulling it away. His reward was a primal scream. The grip loosened and he rammed his good elbow around, feeling pain explode up his arm as it connected, he did not care. He struggled free. A quick look as he stumbled away showed the blond curled on the pavement. Then Adam really ran, as if the devil were treading on his heels. Up the mound as the roads levelled, across the main road and into suburbia.
Ali watched it all happen, from a distance of course. He was parked higher up on the main road, with a bird’s-eye view down over the pub. He leaned against his Mercedes in his three-piece suit and long woollen overcoat. A ringside seat.
He did not know Adam, just who he was from the description. The dark stretch of Ali’s lips formed a smile as he watched Brian climb from the tangle of limbs beneath the bench, going to work with his little rounders bat. That bat had been to hell with his friend, although four on one were never good odds. Not all at once.
He watched the smaller blond chase Adam down the street, two decreasing figures that eventually merged, just as Brian went down to a blow from behind. The pack descended. Ali knew what the kicks and punches felt like, that Brian knew how to take them. The taller blond pushed back the crowd and Brian was dragged into the back of a green car, a guard on each side. The car screamed away and stopped where the other blond lay on the pavement.
Ali climbed into the Mercedes and CNN flickered to life on the console, the suck of air as the doors sealed and silence. He pressed the ignition and waited for the low hum of the engine, turning the car in the road and driving down the incline. He watched the green car, wondering if it would give chase or turn around. The small blond was loaded into the front seat and it lurched forward, stopping almost immediately. It turned back along the promenade. Ali touched the accelerator and the Mercedes eased forward.
SIXTY-FOUR
Simon closed and locked the front door. He was vexed. He walked through to the dining room and stopped, staring through the patio doors into the late afternoon gloom. Most of what he saw was his own reflection and the room behind.
He had spent most of the day at the dock. Sarah had constantly been in his thoughts while he ran through tests, as excited as he could remember, the thrill of expectation, of being with her again. Not necessarily in that way, but just to be with her. She was more than just an echo of his past, she was perfect.
Hakan’s call changed everything, angry in his barely contained way. Something had forced him to change the schedule, which meant Simon was now leaving that night.
Leaving early presented logistical problems but nothing he could not overcome. It had taken some rescheduling but the Passing Dream would be ready. His experience with this Ferretti was limited but he knew the range, he simply changed the testing to focus on getting out of the dock. The extended tests could wait until he was heading around Portugal.
Neither were supplies his concern. They had been delivered the week before, stacked in the old workshop on the quay. It was just a matter of loading and Hakan was organising that. Just as getting out of the dock ahead of schedule was also resolved, the amended paperwork was already filed with the harbour master. Critically, instead of knowing who would be supervising the customs checks on Wednesday night, he now knew who would be doing them that night, Monday night. These changes did not vex Simon.
His dilemma since making Sarah his problem was always going to be what to do with her. With two days to spare he had simply ignored it. Now he was being forced into a decision. Hakan had given him clear instructions. He must leave her in the room and the brothers would take care of her.
The silence stretched as he deliberated, looking at his shadowed reflection in the glass. He wavered between decisions, what he should do and what he wanted. Eventually he walked up the stairs, knowing there was only ever one answer, trying to talk himself out of it. He could not leave her to the brothers.
On tiptoe he lifted back the loft door, pulled down the ladder and retrieved his suitcases. He laid them side by side on his bed, moving through drawers and packing neatly folded T-shirts and trousers and shirts. He took a packet of yellow capsules from his bedside drawer and pressed four into his palm. Stopping in the bathroom he took two plasters from the cabinet and a syringe from the drawer. Then he went downstairs to the kitchen, the capsules and the plasters on the worktop, the jug lifted from the blender. He wiped the inside and dropped in the four capsules, placing the jug back onto the blender and the plasters stayed where they were. He climbed the stairs, syringe in hand.
In his study he reached past shelves of framed photos to a basket of unlabelled bottles, checking the base of the selected bottle to make sure he had the right one. He drew 5ml of the clear liquid into the syringe.
He returned the bottle to the basket and the basket to the shelf, slipping the syringe into the desk drawer. He moved the chair within reach of the desk then stepped from his clothes and into the bathroom and the shower, then changing into fresh Chinos and a T-shirt and downstairs to the garage.
The first thing that hit him as he jacked the door sideways was the smell. For several seconds he contemplated the bowl with the Rupert annual placed on top, then carefully lifted it and placed it on the garage floor. He leaned back in. Sarah and the girl were sitting side by side, two serious faces looking back at him.
‘Go away,’ Sarah said. ‘I can’t.’
He held out his hand. ‘I kn
ow, I need to talk, it’s very important.’ Sarah looked at him, studying his face and seeing the urgency. She said something to the girl he could not hear, brushing the child’s hair from a worried face. And then Sarah crawled towards him, ignoring his offered hand, which made him smile inside.
SIXTY-FIVE
He ran and ran. Through suburbia with Brian’s instructions resonating in his mind, turning left and then right, endlessly weaving with no idea where he was going, every approaching car a dread that peaked as it drew level and tapered as it passed uninterested. Running for hours it seemed. He ran along streets of houses, some behind walls and drives, others that crowded the curb. He ran along roads of shops, grocers and newsagents, stepping into the road to dodge unaware shoppers. He ran with his breath trailing like smoke, no strength left in his arms or legs, only momentum from fear. People paused, warily watching the running man with mad eyes and a bloody blade in his hand.
Exhausted beyond even fear Adam stopped at a small park, a playground beyond a stretch of grass and then a copse of brown trees. Heaving gulps of air he walked wearily to the swings, the chain protesting as he rocked forwards and backwards while watching grey darken in the sky. Some urgent need nagged but he was too spent to care.
Slowly his senses recovered as his breathing slowed and then he realised, he still held the knife in his hand. The blood was tacky now and almost dry, covering his hand as well. He cleaned the blade and then his hand using grass and the inside of his jacket and then he sat back on the swing and wept, a bubbling over of something inside that grew and boiled with his relief and comprehension – he had made it. The promise of death had touched him, its gnarled fingers had reached out and tried dragging him down. Somehow he had clung on. He cried like he had not since a child.
It was dark when he was done and ready to move on, welcoming the veil of night. He kept to side streets, walking always with an eye on the people and cars around him. He passed through an industrial park full of warehouses, emerging to a fenced car park and a flyover that ran from behind him, curving up and around on high concrete legs. He walked along a path beside the chain fence beneath the flyover. On the other side was a large brick building. He almost passed it, thinking it was a hospital. It was a hotel. He walked inside and checked in.
Once in his room he lay on the bed without removing a single item of clothing, the image of the trawler and the story of Conley Thompson now running in a constant loop in his mind, given some priority he could not fathom, trying to juggle its context with everything else he now knew. He was not aware of falling asleep, just of busily working through the different streams of thought, only realising he had slept when he woke with a start. It was as if his mind had needed his interfering thoughts out of the way as it created order from the detail, now neatly realigned. What he had to do now seemed obvious. Two words bobbed at the forefront of his mind like cork on an ocean: Cutting Blue.
He needed a computer. He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs off the bed. He ran his hands through his hair and left the room, the door clicking closed behind him as he jogged down the long hallway.
SIXTY-SIX
Francis Boer knew plenty of stories about people who had known. Who had taken meticulous care of their affairs, written farewell notes, gone to bed, and never seen another day. Boer had never really known what to make of those stories and had never really given them any thought.
Until that Monday morning. A night of ravaging sickness was the forewarning. A night that made his body feel emptied. A few fitful hours of sleep and he suddenly jerked awake at four. He knew then, as if some systems check had uncovered a fatal change in the trip of his heart, the blood thicker in his veins, and then woke him to warn him. This would be his last dawn, the last day in a lifetime. It was as good a day to die as any.
When he was up and able he rested in his study with a glass of water, letting his thoughts vie for his attention. He was proud of his children. They did not talk to him or did so rarely. That was his failing, not theirs. Some men are family men and some are not. He had found every opportunity to be anywhere but home, mostly at work and never short of justification. That was probably his biggest regret. For all the effort his wife invested in changing him, he only understood the need to change when she was no longer there.
That sparked a thought in him. He lifted writing paper from the drawer and laid it on his desk. He wrote four letters, one to each of his children and one to his former wife, now living in Canada. He signed his name with love and carefully folded them into envelopes, addressing each and then slid them into the drawer.
Then he did something that went against every professional principle he possessed, despite it being the third time he had done it. He called a suspect and warned them away with detail of the investigation. The conversation was short. When he placed the handset back in its cradle he had no better feeling for whether it was right or wrong. If he was right then Sarah and Andrea might be saved. If he was wrong he could not see it would change much. It was not a spur of the moment decision. It had been growing as a thought since the night before.
Boer wrapped himself in a coat and stood outside watching east. He was rewarded with a brief flicker of pink and orange but it was overcast and the dawn was not much to speak of. Back inside, Boer’s morning continued where the night had left off, racked convulsing with nausea. As if presented with this countdown to life his body was desperately trying to expel the cause of its premature conclusion, although there was little left to expel now save for the strength of his body.
Warning off the suspect did make him feel guilty during Ferreira’s visit, despite it being the highlight of his last morning. If he were honest he would admit she was the highlight of his last years, wondering how she would remember him in years to come. He worried for her but only as a coach would a promising student.
After Ferreira left and the marmite toast had been cautiously devoured, he sat in the comfortable silence of the study, the steady progression of a second hand his only company. He pulled the writing paper across one more time and produced one more short letter, sealing it in an envelope marked Helen and placing it in the drawer with the others.
He missed the majority of the press conference, spending it in the bathroom revisiting the toast, although his only imperative was to watch the mother and Ferreira’s star turn. He needed a drink, his demons straining at the leash in their last hours. He intended embracing them but not yet. First he would let his mind do what it did best. He worked the detail.
The answers to the most puzzling problems are usually the simplest. People often miss them because human minds often seek complicated solutions for the most puzzling problems. Simple solutions and a nod to all human vagaries had been his mantra for twenty years.
Once Boer started a case and began processing the detail his mind would invariably draw him towards a particular aspect. The first with Andrea’s abduction had been realising she had not been picked by chance. The second had been gleaned as he flicked through Andrea’s stories in her bookcase, a page at random, a partial sentence in a whole page of words. The last had been the number hidden in her bedside picture frame.
Ordinarily he would then begin moulding and squeezing those thoughts until he had a hint of the truth. Then he would sit down with the people most likely to give that truth shape. Very often that took him through a maze of twists and turns to something entirely different. Sometimes it took him nowhere and more sleepless nights wondering what he had missed, always feeling he could have done more when the truth remained elusive.
For Andrea it would now fall to Ferreira to find the truth. Although he knew where he would start in giving the case substance, he had already ringed the name in the case file many times lest she miss his point.
Exhausted, he dozed, waking for the last time just before five in the afternoon. He checked the clock and cursed the irony of sleeping away his last day. The irony of a lifetime with a restless mind toiling through sleepless nights, silenced only with alcoho
l. The irony would have him shake a fist at the sky if he thought there was anything in the sky worth shaking a fist at.
The clock ticked past six and he decided now was the time. He pushed the chair from the desk and eased himself to his feet, weaker than he had expected, his legs attempting to buckle at any opportunity. He used the walls and door frames to support himself through the short journey to his bedroom, the journey back to his desk made more difficult by the almost empty bottle and the glass in his hand.
He cleaned the glass with his shirt and unscrewed the cap – a sound that stirred endless memories of late nights. The sound of drink splashing into the glass shifted loose a good many more.
Discovering the full meaning of the word terminal at the age of fifty-three had brought to him the realisation he wanted to live. That meant saying goodbye to his liquid friend. He had driven straight to the supermarket, bought one last bottle of his favourite and drank all but this glass of its golden contents.
He sipped it at first, like he did all drinks, but the hunger having been tempered for so long leapt free and he gulped it down. Immediately he craved another and even considered convincing Helen to stop at the supermarket. He sectioned that need and placed the glass on the table, the empty bottle on the floor beside the table leg.
The glow of the drink spread warm inside his stomach. He felt lightheaded, although it was too soon for the drink to have any effect. He picked up his pen and tapped the nib against the page, circling the name absently. Mentally he tried skimming through the detail but his mind would only remind him of his wife, smiling and exhausted, their first child pink in her arms, a picture he kept in his bedside drawer. His heart skipped to an uneven tempo and a tightness crept up on him, a tightness that embraced him and ratcheted ever tighter, a sudden fear at the realisation even though he had been waiting for its arrival, then unimaginable pain that clamped tight across his chest as if he was being crushed by giant hands. It pitched him forward onto the desk, the pen dropping onto the desk and then rolling to the floor. He fought through his failing body to cling on to dignity, for how he wanted her to find him, using the last of his strength and slowly pushing himself back into the chair, then the creak of wood and a blink of unseeing eyes, the second hand marking time. A short exhalation and then Francis Boer only existed in the minds of those that had known him.