Trilogy: The First Three Books in the Amber For Go Series

by Paul Harris

Rat, upon hearing of Joe Large’s arrest and subsequent confession, handed himself in to the police but would admit only to the charge of handling stolen goods. Apparently, he was completely ignorant of any act of violence or the existence of any murder weapon. Two days before his committal hearing, he was discovered hanging in his cell by his legal representative.

  Bothwell was out on bail but neither he nor his brother had been seen since they mowed poor old Maude down as she waited for her bus. His bail had been set relatively high but had been met, without hesitation, by Henshaw House. There was no talk of firearms offences only death by dangerous driving.

  Timmy Cubberley had vanished without trace and was never seen again. I wondered if he’d shut himself away somewhere and started writing his memoirs. He had been right all along: he knew far more than any of us ever gave him credit for.

  After numerous endless days and the knock on my door didn’t materialise, I eventually ventured out. I found myself creeping rather than walking, keeping to the shadows, constantly looking over my shoulder. I would go to the supermarket to buy food in the dark of the evening rather than in the daytime. I was afraid to show myself, and yet…and yet, I was innocent!

  Escape Route

  Now, I’m not really up for gunfights, shootouts, and people getting killed and there only seemed to be one way out of it. To remain where I was, at the centre of the vortex, was to stand by and watch violence spiralling out of control, until all of us were dead; or, until I was serving a stretch that would never end.

  My preferred escape route was a trip back to France; back to the barn; to seek some kind of closure. But, I still wasn’t allowed to leave the country and was waiting for the Home Office to return my passport to me.

  Instead, I decided to square things with my probation officer and make my final journey to Euston Station and seek absolution and another, yet another, new beginning: to complete the circle. I wasted no time in making my preparations.

  I spent most of that final week trying to track down Thomas and Angker. Eventually I got an address off Marilyn and when I knocked on the door of the flat in Belsize Park that they were renting, they seemed genuinely pleased to see me. I begged them to stay in touch with me. We exchanged phone numbers and they promised that they would call and text regularly. I kissed them both on their cheeks. Thomas shook my hand with a manly fervour and the suggestion of a tear in his eye. I smiled at him with a huge feeling of pride that was only now beginning to devour the guilt that had been present for so very long. I finished the cup of green tea that Angker had given me and stood up to leave. She was glaring at me mysteriously and said, in a slightly Germanic accent, “We will see you soon. You know that.” It was the first time that I’d actually heard her speak.

  Euston Square

  I travelled all the way to Euston by bus because I wanted to be above ground for my final farewell. I wanted to see the buildings and the famous landmarks just like a tourist. I wanted to cross over Old Father Thames instead of underneath it. I wanted to see the people bustling about their business, the shops, and the street traders; the beggars and the thieves; the cops, the robbers, and the sunlight. I felt sad and was filling up with misgivings and doubt. I climbed from the bus and dragged my suitcase along the Euston Road, stopping only to buy cigarettes, and light one up before the long smokeless journey ahead of me.

  There was a nutcase cavorting on the concourse, hassling passers-by and extorting money from them. He was dressed in a genuine burgundy Lacoste polo shirt and looked unlike any street beggar that I’d ever seen before.

  As I approached the ticket office, he caught my gaze with his wonky eyes and lurched towards me. I veered from his path, but he changed course and began to follow me. He clutched his jacket pocket as if he were carrying a weapon, and our eyes met again. He was making such a determined effort to confront me that I changed my course completely, heading away from the ticket office, and back out of the station.

  Still, the vagrant followed, down the steps, and on towards Euston Square. As, I finally turned to face him, he called out to me. “Rodney? Rodney, innit?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  He was still clutching his pocket. “You don’t remember? You don’t remember me?”

  I was stunned into silence, one eye on his jacket pocket and another scanning his face. There was something about him I recognised, but only vaguely; like a face in a crowd, someone that passes you in the street, or someone in a television commercial. He was desperate, desperate for recognition, and desperate in general.

  “You smoked all my weed in Amiens! You and Pete smoked all night long. You remember! We was in a boat on the Somme and you threw a brick at my head.”

  My heart leapt as he bounded from a distant memory and into my consciousness. “What happened to you?”

  “The brick gave me a headache. A hell of a headache. I still got them. You got any money, mate? I gotta eat.”

  “I’ve just seen someone give you money by the ticket office.”

  He peered back up the stairs and through the station doors. “They didn’t chuck the brick! They didn’t smoke all my puff!” he replied angrily.

  I nodded towards his jacket pocket. “You carrying?”

  “I got a chiv. Protection, innit? You gotta take good care these days.”

  I looked at him and shook my head, doubtfully.

  “Hey!” he said, defensively. “There’s a lot of basket cases out there!”

  I took my wallet from my jeans pocket and produced from it a twenty pound note. “You robbing?”

  “Not you; we’re mates.”

  “Not me, I know that. Others?”

  “I don’t ask you your business, do I? Your line of work and that, do I?”

  I handed him the money. He took it and stuffed it into his pocket. As he walked off towards the station, I called him back. “Hey! I remember you, you know. I remember being in a bar with your mate, Peter. But, I don’t remember your name. You didn’t come out that night.”

  He turned and stared at me, then grinned wearily through the last of his broken teeth. “Tom Potts. Thanks for the score.” He turned to walk away, but then paused as if something of profound importance had suddenly occurred to him. He showed me the insides of his bare wrists. “See? We’re the same, me and you.” His arms were red and raw and scarred and bloody. “Never get out of the boat, Rodney.”

  “Absolutely goddamned right, Tom Potts.”

  I followed him back onto the station concourse and watched him as he headed towards McDonalds, still clutching his jacket pocket, and accosting people as he went.

  The End

  THE STORM GATHERERS

  with thanks to,

  julie for spotting the “deliberate” mistakes, bwian for bweaking the code, tumper for supplying the endless dialogue, tj for a steady stream of artwork, edith for the mince pies and socks, for delivering the tulips, for milano, hamburg, and hayling island, percy shelley, alexander pushkin, phil etheridge, truman capote, niki lauda and countless others for allowing me to pilfer their genius, my children for giving me a reason, black coffee and cigarettes for driving me on, dave gedge for selling me a t-shirt and writing those lyrics, rkb for inspiration, djeg for the mystery critique, jess for the potions, jo, sue, and wendy for providing the fine ales, “the bosses” for the pizzas and kebabs, john peel for making the introductions, the golf society for encouraging me to stay at home and write, steve and carol for their continuing support

  to haris patel who is forever in our hearts

  to major, without whom the place just isn’t the same

  Chapter One

  Graz

  The dark green Daewoo crossed the river and headed the wrong way along a one way street. It accelerated constantly. A rush of adrenaline coursed through the driver as the speedometer reached seventy miles per hour on the busy city road. He wrestled with the steering wheel as he mounted the pavement outside a shoe shop and narrowly avoided colliding with a lamp post. He maintain
ed his reckless speed as vehicles travelling in the opposite direction swerved from his path. His focus was intense and his aim was one of grave intent. He never blinked, nor ever wavered from his destiny. Bitterness, frustration and resignation would drive him into the global media.

  His heart pounded and a bead of perspiration trickled down his brow as he made a left turn over the tram tracks into Herrengasse. Tyres squealed against the block paving over the wide pedestrianised avenue. The crowds dispersed as rapidly as they could, diving for safety. People screamed and shouted. Customers sitting outside cafés and bars, enjoying their lunch in the pleasant afternoon sun, turned to see what the commotion was, but it was too late. Their tables and chairs were swept from beneath them and they were flung into the air like discarded teddy bears.

  Still the intensity of his expression faltered not once. His emotions lay dead just as those around him did. He ploughed on through diners and shoppers alike. The cracking of furniture sounded like gunfire and was as equally destructive. He swerved to avoid an oncoming tram, turned into the main square, hit a stone edifice and came to a reluctant halt beside the entrance to the town hall. The dead and injured lay littered along the street behind him. Blood stained the bricks and the concrete and the glass. Debris was strewn from pillar to post and beyond, and a whole city’s indignation began to boil. A small boy lay motionless and bloodied, his hand still clinging to the toy car that his dead mother had purchased for him not ten minutes earlier.

  A woman’s eyelids flicker as she subconsciously pictures the scene in her mind. Sleep is no refuge from the horrors foretold.

  From the Schlossberg, the once fortified hill at the top of the funicular railway, the city’s neat red rooftops are as peaceful as ever they once were. The lazy river cuts between a line of trees, disparagingly departs the city, and skips between the ring of dark grim mountains, and onwards to form boundaries between nations and people. The Kunsthaus teeters on a pedestal, teasing and provoking: a mole on an otherwise perfect visage, raising its forefinger to the ancient clock tower. The hands of the clock tower, resplendent in gold, keep on moving, keep on counting down every second of our lives. A bronze lion raises its head to the gathering clouds above. And in the streets far below, the world has changed.

  A spider’s web of red and white barrier tape has been woven around the main square where police and medical personnel are now standing idly by, discussing the events of the day; where blood stains are being jet washed off the pavements; where people of all ages stand open-mouthed, confused, torn away from normality. The mangled remains of a bicycle are loaded into a truck. What happened here today?

  Not hours earlier, these same streets had bustled and thrived. Shoppers had crowded together to gaze admiringly at the burgeoning market stalls and the finely polished shopfronts that were indicative of a gentile prosperity. Now, they are gathered silently around the fountain, contemplating whether things would ever be the same again. Trams are stationary, their journeys prematurely curtailed, jammed up, nose to tail. The street artists are gone and the only colour left on the pavements is the blood of the innocent.

  Vigils are held and every church and civic building is packed to capacity. Crowds spill out onto the streets around the town hall where fields of burning candles grow and spread and flicker and mourn. Among the candles on Herrengasse is a toy car.

  Angker Fischer awoke with tears drenching the pillow beneath her head. She still could see the child’s open eyes, although they were bereft of life, as he lay in the street beneath a blanket waiting for the ambulance to take him to the morgue. She could feel the silent grieving and the candlelit vigils and knew that this would come to pass one miserable day, as all dreams do in Angker Fischer’s world; every night presenting her with a fresh horror. She wrestled with the darkness and loneliness. The bed beside her was cold and empty.

  “Tom,” she called out, so softly that even had Tom been at home, which he wasn’t, he would never have heard her. She rolled over and went back to sleep, re-entering the world of as yet untold horrors.

  Nothing Comes to Those Who Wait

  Tom was losing, and losing heavily. He had spent most of the night watching the cards being turned over and almost always running against him. If he had an eight, the dealer showed a nine. When Tom revealed a pair of queens, the dealer dealt themselves a king and an ace. He had suffered blow upon blow and his once cheerful mood had darkened. He had become sullen and pensive and, over the course of several hours, his eyes had dropped from the dealers face to the cards on the table and then almost to the floor. He had backed away, retreated, taken stock, regrouped. He had walked to the bar and put a large whisky on his tab. There he had sat alone, and sulkily recounted the evening’s events, arriving at the usual conclusion that he really ought to have remained at home with his wife as she had wanted him to do.

  He had bowed his head and looked across the floor. It was morning now and, in the world outside, people were waking up, getting dressed, eating toast, brushing their teeth, and going off to do an honest day’s work. But here, there was no morning; no morning, noon, or night. It was all the same and time was endless. There were still people shuffling between tables and dancing with the fruit machines. Those whom had entered the previous night, impeccably dressed in Armani suits, had now discarded their jackets, and their neckties hung loosely knotted at their chests. Their pride had been squeezed out of them by the humility of humbling defeat.

  Occasionally though, there was a bellow of sound, excited cries, broad smiles, and fizzing champagne being generously poured into glasses. These were the winners; some small, some big; and they were worth their weight in gold. Their little victories and the unrestrained joy they elicited incentivised the losers to plough on further into the darkness.

  It was time that he left, but Tom knew not where to go, nor what to do. And now he was watching the roulette wheel burying him further, still deeper, along with his dreams, hopes, and aspirations. Every spin of the wheel was a torture. Every time the ball dropped onto a number, and despite Tom’s anxious willing, refused to budge, it was a dagger in his heart. He pushed his last chip across the table. He no longer bore the misplaced optimism of a gambler. He knew that it was of no relevance at all where he laid that chip. He just knew that it was over. He sighed, settled for an evens gamble to keep him in the game for just a little longer, decided on red, and removed his finger from the chip.

  “Black four!” called the croupier as he raked Tom’s chip across the table.

  Tom silently excused himself and went to the bathroom where he hung his head over the wash basin and splashed cold water over his face. He dried himself with paper towels from the dispenser, removed his tie, buttoned his shirt up, re-knotted his tie around his neck, and then combed his hair. He gazed at his reflection for a moment in the mirror. Was that a grey hair just above his left ear? He shouldn’t wonder at all if it was.

  He was still young, but he felt old; he felt finished; as though life had already run its course, and so soon. The young man went to the cloakroom and retrieved his coat from the girl behind the counter. He then left without paying his eight pound tab and without speaking to a soul.

  Instead of heading directly to the car park, he walked the streets for an hour through the drizzle in the half-light of the early morning. He watched his feet splashing through dark puddles, his expensive leather shoes splattered with mud and rainwater, only raising his eyes from the ground as cars sped by. He stopped at a burger stand and bought a coffee from a street vendor with the loose change that had been jangling in his trouser pocket. His hand was trembling as he placed it around the hot plastic cup. The vendor noticed Tom’s heightened state of anxiety as coffee spilled over the rim of the cup. “You okay?”

  “Never been better,” Tom lied. “I’ve just had a very bad night, that’s all.”

  “I’d better mind my own business. You want that topping up?”

  Tom shook his head. “It’s fine, thanks.”

  “Y
ou know,” smiled the vendor, “when you’re in deep water, the best thing to do is keep swimming.”

  Tom nodded but wasn’t sure what the street vendor meant by his comment, and felt disinclined to return his smile.

  Down the Wooden Hill

  I immediately leapt to my feet, or at least I thought that I had. It may have been half an hour later, or even longer. I can’t imagine that I passed out for that amount of time but there remains a substantial period of the evening that I still can’t account for. I began my walk home, a fifteen minute walk, at around ten o’clock and when I shut the front door behind me, the kitchen clock was saying that it had just passed midnight.

  I clambered to my feet and began to make my way back to the top of the stairs. Each step was a chore. I gripped the wooden balustrade and, with all my strength, tried to haul myself upwards. My only instinct was to lie down and go to sleep. My head was groggy and there was a grey mist in front of my eyes.

  As I reached the top step and almost found safety, I faltered, and lost my balance again. The pain in my ankle as it folded beneath my weight was superseded only by more pain as my head crashed against a wall or the stair rail or a step and continued to bounce from one hard surface to the next again and again. I reached out desperately with my hands to try to grab something, anything to give me support, but all I found was the smooth, bare walls, and my fingers were bent back on themselves against them. My elbow smashed into a wall and sent pains shooting up my arm. My jaw slammed shut under the impact of another collision and I could taste blood as I bit my tongue. What could have taken only seconds seemed to last forever, it went on as if it would never stop.