The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1)

by Robert Parker

  ‘Wait there.’ The guttural whisper, woven with hate, needs no introduction. ‘I assume you just... killed my son.’

  I begin to turn slowly. Surely airport security will be here any minute, and I’ll be in custody again, if I don’t get out of here as soon as I can. Even this quiet corner of the airport at this early time must have some activity I cannot see.

  ‘That’s right, Felix.’ As I turn to face him, I see that the events of the last few moments have taken a serious toll on his elderly frame. His feathery hair is slick with sprinkler-wash, as the water itself smudges away the remnants of some blood that is escaping slowly from a cut on the top of his pate. His dark coat is crumpled and sodden, and his eyes are the same. There is an element of futile, resigned breakage about the way he looks at me. Hate is too weak a word for his gaze.

  ‘You took a legacy - a family - and have stripped it from me. Who are you to decide? Who the fuck are you?’ he whispers, his words fragmenting as they leave his lips, and that Scandinavian accent reveals itself more fully.

  ‘You talk about family - what about the family you ripped apart? What about Royston?’

  ‘You didn’t know Royston... Don’t get misty eyed about Royston...’

  ‘Believe me, I’m not. But all I’ve seen from you is allusions to a grand mythical loyalty. Some loyalty you showed the Brooker family.’

  ‘It’s how it is supposed to be. It is what they wanted.’

  ‘Not everyone thinks the way you do, Felix. Not everybody wants the same things. Zoe, Jack, Carolyn. Even Royston. And certainly not me.’

  ‘Royston left me no choice. He took everything I did for him and tried to shove it back in my face. And he expected me to smile while he did it. He expected to walk away, but you reap what you sow.’

  I’ve had about enough of Felix, his cliches and the whole sorry affair.

  ‘I don’t know what it is you want,’ he continues, ‘or what I can tempt you with, but...’

  He reaches into his pocket at speed. My reflexes act in response to a perceived threat. I lower my aim in an instant, and squeeze off a solitary shot into his right thigh. The impact fires his leg backwards, and sends his torso pinwheeling forward onto his knees. He gasps, as the pain courses through him. I approach him, and stick my hand into his jacket to disarm him - only I don’t find any firearm. Instead, there is a brown envelope, which I pull out. The sprinklers slow now, and the last drops from above speckle the manila. It is unmarked.

  ‘Last chance,’ says Felix, wobbling.

  The envelope is unsealed, so I pull the contents out. First thing I see is a passport. Then a driving license, both card and paper counterpart. Then some paper records. Birth certificate, some inoculation certificates, some medical records. All in the name of Sean Miller, bearing my picture.

  My new identity.

  ‘It’s yours if you get me out of here,’ says Felix. The old bastard, slithering to the last.

  ‘It’s equally mine if I put you out of your misery here and now,’ I reply. He has no answer to that. ‘On Thursday, I walked out of Strangeways a free man. Not because of my release, but because I escaped. The warden there was another corrupt old bastard, and I blackmailed him. I smuggled a dufflebag out of prison which contained five prison guard uniforms caked in the blood of one of the inmates, which I had stolen from a blood donations fridge. I arranged for the poor blood donor to be killed, and in doing so framed half of his workforce. I would keep the evidence safe and hidden if they let me go, and didn’t report I was missing. If they do that, I will bring their whole regime down, opening the practices of that entire facility wide open for scrutiny. It would ruin everyone’s careers. And do you know why I did it?’

  Felix stares, broken, exhaling.

  ‘Simply to take down pieces of shit like you.’

  I look at him hard, with pity. Without his legacy, his empire, his surroundings, his assistance, he is just a frail old man. Nothing more. I could leave him. Jeremiah will have everything he needs to seek justice against him. But is traditional justice good enough for what he has done? The crimes he has committed? The lives he has ruined, at all ends of Manchester’s society, from the drug users who fell too deep to the people whose deaths he has ordered?

  No. I don’t trust the justice that my country can give him. He’ll hire the best lawyer and get off on some loophole, paying for the services with illegal funds that he will protest in court were procured by some kind of accident. I’m not sitting through another sham trial. Justice is not supposed to be a ‘tag and release’ system. He will not be returned to the wild. Not on my watch. He is detrimental poisonous shit, and I am the law this time.

  I shoot him in the head.

  He drops hard, face first, his heels popping up, as his nose hits the floor.

  Carolyn. I must check on her. I run to back to the car, pocketing my new identity as I go, and slinging the gun to the ground. I round the side of the car, being careful not to slip on the soaked floor, and throw the passenger door open.

  Lying on the seat, trembling and bound, is Carolyn, her autumn eyes jiggling in their sockets. I tell her it’s OK. I pull her upright, and untie her as quickly as I can. She rests her head on my shoulder, and I let my chin drop to her forehead. I almost forget that her mouth is still taped up, but she doesn’t seem to care. She is safe, and quivers with relief. She must have heard it all.

  I get her out of the car, and steady her, and with a sharp yank, I remove the tape. Her hot gasp hits my cheek, and she falls against me. Her arms clutch me around my neck, and I hold her close. She sobs hard into my chest, an outpouring of emotion. She is safe, not just from the immediate horrors, but the life she was trapped in. She is free from Michael, at last. She looks up at me, as if she may kiss me. Her eyes are beautiful and I see truth and gratitude in them, tinged with an indebtedness that words would never be able to fully justify.

  She leans up to my mouth, and I lower myself to her. As our lips come close, and our noses graze, I find myself pulling back. I don’t know why. I’m scared, I suppose. Scared of the feelings that are coming forward. The rational solider in me is chastising me for being so weak in even considering this, arguing that our combined vulnerability is tricking us here.

  But I don’t feel tricked. Yet I still can’t kiss her. I just hold her, for a long, weary, relieved second.

  I whisper to her. ‘Stay and wait for the police. Tell them everything. Get your life back on track. I will find you.’

  I half-kiss her forehead, turn and run, grabbing my rucksack as I go, and head deep into the terminal. I’ve got a passport, cash and a terminal’s worth of outbound flights to choose from. The day is breaking and my revolution has only just begun.

  Ben Bracken is back in

  Apex

  coming Spring 2014

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