by Lin Anderson
‘What happened?’
‘I died. They revived me. When I eventually surfaced, I was in a private room in a hospital in London with SOCA in charge. I was moved to a safe house, which turned out not to be so safe after all.’
‘Fergus Morrison?’
‘Poor bastard.’ He tensed, his arms squeezing her even tighter. ‘They moved me to another house, but I decided I was better on my own.’
‘What about SOCA?’
‘They don’t know where I am now. I prefer it that way.’
She wanted to ask what he was going to do, but didn’t dare because she feared hearing the answer.
‘Einar Petersson?’ she asked.
‘He helped me. He’s OK.’
‘I thought he was lying.’
‘You buried me. Of course you would think he was lying.’
‘And Slater?’
‘Who knows? Maybe when it goes to court I’ll get some answers.’
He eased her round to face him. For a moment she saw a stranger who merely had McNab’s voice. Head shaved, thinner, a short beard dyed black, then she met his eyes and saw the real McNab still in there.
‘May I kiss you, Dr MacLeod?’
But it was she who kissed him, tasting the man she had known. When they parted, he said, ‘When I woke in the hospital, I vowed I would live long enough to do that again.’
‘What happens now?’
‘We could go upstairs.’
They undressed in suddenly awkward silence. His body was so much thinner. Taut and wiry like a long distance runner’s. She tried not to focus on the bullet wound in his back, but still her eyes were drawn there and she saw him lying on the pavement, the blood pumping out of his body.
‘Hey.’ He was beside her, bringing her back to the present. ‘Come on.’ He led her to the bed and threw back the duvet.
They lay facing one another. He traced her cheek, her neck, as though checking that each plane and curve was where it should be. His touch was familiar, but at the same time new. She wondered if his brush with death had changed him, made him calmer and more concentrated.
Afterwards they lay naked and exposed, the duvet thrown to the floor. Warm air from an overhead heater circulated above them, softly brushing their bodies.
‘What now?’ The same question she’d posed earlier. The one he’d chosen to misinterpret.
‘I lie low until the trial begins.’
‘They’ve picked up Kalinin?’
‘Soon.’
‘How do SOCA know you’ll turn up at his trial?’
‘They know if I’m alive, I’ll be there.’
‘Does Kalinin know you’re alive?’
‘He isn’t sure.’
‘But he’s looking for you?’
She saw it all happening again. The passing car, the shot. He sensed her fear and drew her close.
‘Glasgow’s my city. I’m safer here.’
‘You weren’t before.’
‘It’s different now. I’m dead.’ He raised himself on one elbow and grinned down at her. ‘You just had sex with a corpse, Dr MacLeod.’
She took a taxi home. He didn’t come down with her to the foyer nor would he promise to be back in touch until, as he put it, it was over.
She wondered if it would ever be over. If he did give evidence, what next? A new identity, a new life? She couldn’t imagine that, and nothing he’d said suggested that’s what McNab had in mind.
‘I can’t hide from every maniac I’ve locked up,’ he’d grinned.
She asked the taxi driver to drop her on Kelvin Way, deciding to walk home through the park.
Dry, crisp weather had hardened the ground, but the spring flowers were beautiful. Rhona felt absurdly joyful, a feeling she realised she hadn’t experienced for a long time.
59
The latest Reborn was almost ready to be shipped. It was going to a couple in London whose own baby had died of meningitis hours after birth. He hadn’t copied the photograph they’d sent because it was an ugly little bugger, like a shrivelled raisin. His own version was what he thought the baby boy might have looked like at two months. He’d toned down the redness of the face, filled out the creases and opened the eyes, making them a lovely dark blue. He laid the Reborn in its satin-lined box and put the lid on, then settled down at the table with a sheet of lined prison paper and a pen and began to write.
Hi Susi
Ive finished little Matthew I made him prettier than his picture his mum will luv him I can make you a baby you only have to ask
About the Author
Lin Anderson began writing whilst working as a teacher, and now writes full time. THE REBORN is her seventh novel.
Also by Lin Anderson:
Driftnet
Torch
Deadly Code
Dark Flight
Easy Kill
Final Cut