Down Cemetery Road

by Mick Herron

  Sarah was swimming on dry land; her thoughts as waxy and monstrous as jellyfish. Was this it? Was this the end?

  ‘Sarah?’ Zoë said. She had her hand to Michael’s forehead.

  ‘. . . What?’

  ‘He’s sick. Did you know that?’

  Buzzing now, loud as a car. She felt sick herself. Had to snap back to reality; pull herself out of whatever pit she was falling into, just as she felt the draught at her back, and the door to the chapel opened.

  Amos Crane came walking down the track.

  This was it, this was the end; here was where he closed with flesh and bone. And it was odd, but it was happening the way it always did, with a slow gathering of detail, and the heightening of all his senses. He’d thought this would be different. It was his brother’s killer, after all. He’d thought there would be a mad rush, and a sudden descent; that for one berserk moment, he’d be free of all thought, all feeling, and come back to himself only once it was over . . . When the flesh and bone were done.

  But everything was as it always was, and Amos Crane was walking down the track.

  The chapel didn’t look much bigger in the world than it had on the map: that was his thought as he stood in the clearing, casting a critical eye. Not that size mattered. All that deskwork, all those months of waiting – all those blips on the screen. And here they were, under one roof. With a woman in a red jumper for an extra.

  It was a pity about the child. But sometimes things didn’t work out quite as cleanly as you’d have liked.

  He put a hand on the roof of the 2CV. It felt cool to the touch. This was where Downey had come, then, after taking the child. Crane wondered how easy that had been. He wondered if Howard had made it easier somehow; if Howard had his own ideas about how the end should be played. As well for him if he did. As far as Amos Crane was concerned, Howard was part of the ending.

  On the main road, he heard a car slow, then stop . . .

  But it was too late for that, too late for anything else. He walked to the door, put a hand to it. All the blood within him, all the atoms, singing free.

  This was where he closed with flesh and bone.

  Or was that somebody else coming down the track behind him?

  Sarah, dully, said, ‘Oh. Hello.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘We thought you’d gone.’

  ‘I came back.’

  Zoë frowned up at him. ‘Well, you shouldn’t have.’

  He shrugged.

  Sarah forgot him then, put David Keller out of mind just like that, and stepped forward to crouch by Michael and look at the child. Dinah was not asleep. She lay quiet – a small blonde girl with large green eyes, who looked unblinkingly back at Sarah for a moment, then turned her head to stare into Michael’s chest.

  ‘She looks like Maddy,’ Michael said.

  ‘. . . She’s beautiful.’

  And she was. She was even worth it. Because if Dinah isn’t worth it, nothing is . . . Just a tiny girl, how can they use her like this? Thoughts she’d had way back when, staring at the night sky, adding up the stars . . . Last night. That had been last night. And yes, she was beautiful.

  Michael wasn’t. He looked ill and drawn, was fading at the edges. Around his T-shirt collar was a spray of blood, and Sarah knew he’d had another coughing attack . . . As if he could start to let go, give up, now that his search was over.

  He was talking to her. Saying something like: ‘I didn’t kill anybody. Not this time.’

  Zoë shrugged.

  ‘Just walked in and took her away . . . Didn’t I, sweetheart?’

  Sarah said, ‘Okay. It’s okay.’ All those bodies on the island, but he hadn’t killed anyone. Okay. She stroked the child’s shoulder, drawing her attention away from wherever it was it had gone. ‘Here, I brought you this.’ The blue teddy. The kidnapped bear. Who had come from the island where all the bodies lay, though Michael hadn’t killed anyone.

  Dinah reached a hand out, and touched the bear on the nose.

  ‘Do you want to hold it?’

  She shook her head.

  Zoë stood, keeping her movement as smooth as possible. Not wanting to disturb anyone, to cause ripples round the scene.

  ‘Are you sure? I brought it for you.’

  Dinah shook her head again, then regarded Sarah gravely. Who felt something give in her heart; as if strings were being stretched; as if her heart were an instrument, played by a child.

  ‘. . . Can I hold her?’

  Michael nodded. It seemed an effort. Not the dip of the head, but bringing it back upright, to rest against the wall.

  Zoë frowned, as if she’d heard something outside.

  Sarah held her arms out. ‘Do you want to come to me, Dinah? Give Michael a rest?’

  It felt like the longest moment, crouched like that, with outstretched arms. Did Dinah want to come to Sarah? Sarah had come far enough for her, but the child didn’t know that, the child shouldn’t care. All that mattered was the here and now. Her mother dead and gone, and Dinah wouldn’t even know that yet . . . And yet she snuggled there in Michael’s arms as if she trusted him, and knew he’d hold her safe.

  ‘It’s okay, sweetie. You stay where you are.’

  But the child wriggled in his arms then, and held her hands out for Sarah.

  She placed the bear in the dust by her side, and lifted Dinah to her. There was a lot of weight and warmth in the exchange; a whole new world of smells, of heavy sounds. She could feel Dinah’s body working, that was what it was; could feel her lungs filling and emptying, her stomach churning away at nothing . . . Christ, the child would be hungry. Needed feeding. Needed sleep. All the things small children needed, though all Sarah could offer was a moment’s peace.

  ‘That man again,’ Dinah said, pointing at the teddy.

  ‘That’s a bear,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Man. That man again.’

  And Dinah pointed at the man she meant, and Sarah and Zoë turned to look at David Keller . . .

  . . . Though Keller, in fact, lay dead some miles away, not far from the roadstop where he’d drunk that final cup of coffee.

  Pharmaceuticals . . . You’d be surprised the way people raise an eyebrow when they hear that. But Amos Crane had not raised an eyebrow, had given the matter no thought at all, and had killed David Keller, whose only sin had been to give Crane a lift, with a similar absence of reflection, or indeed regret – because it was, after all, necessary, or if not necessary desirable, or if not desirable . . . about to happen. That was what it was. You could not argue with what was about to happen. David Keller hadn’t. Amos Crane needed a temporary identity, and David Keller had yielded his with no more than a wet murmur. Amos Crane needed a car, and dead David Keller wasn’t using his any more. Sarah and Zoë had needed a lift, but dead David Keller hadn’t been there to oblige.

  They looked at David Keller now, but Amos Crane looked back.

  He came forward and crouched down too, all of them almost on their knees now, bar Zoë, in a chilled empty space built for worship. He smiled kindly, and Sarah saw his history in his smile; saw Rufus – Axel? – leering at her in her kitchen, shortly before he began to kill her. And she thought: all this distance, to end the same way it began. Everything stops where it started. It wasn’t an answer she was happy to find.

  Zoë dipped for her gun, but it was already in Amos Crane’s hand.

  Michael reached for his – but Zoë’s little pistol was nuzzling into Sarah’s ear, burrowing there like a maggot in the apple of her head.

  And here was another moment she was called on to live through: the one that might be her last. Her exit.

  ‘Pass that gun,’ Crane said.

  Michael slid his gun across the floor. It made a clattery, bumpy sort of noise – this gun, too, had come a long way; all the way from Gerard’s collection . . . Michael, then, slid Gerard’s gun across the floor, making a bumpy, clattery sort of noise: at least until Zoë stood on it.

  The barrel of the l
ittle gun pressed harder into Sarah’s ear, and she might have screamed, but she didn’t drop Dinah, who was starting to twist and wriggle in her arms.

  Zoë picked the gun up.

  ‘I will,’ said Amos Crane, ‘blow a hole in her head.’

  ‘Not with that you won’t.’

  Oh please please don’t tell him please don’t bluff him please don’t say

  ‘It isn’t loaded.’

  So Amos Crane pulled the trigger.

  Howard heard the shot from outside, where the day was brightening at last after a slow start – he was under the trees now, of course, but their leaves cast mottled shadows on the ground before him as he walked; lent even the air itself a dappled quality, as shadows brushed his face. He had parked the car back on the road. He no longer needed his suitcase. The gun, his hand tightened round now, though he did not draw it from his pocket.

  He ought to be very frightened, very nervous. In truth, he was at one remove from any kind of emotion: the nearest he could call to mind was sitting an exam – a very important exam, or at least one that seemed so at the time, and he’d felt, walking into the examination hall, a great weight lifting from his shoulders, or anyway his mind, because it didn’t matter any more, it was out of his control. Anything he hadn’t already done wasn’t going to happen. Whatever was put in front of him, he’d just cope with the best he could.

  But everything about him was intense: the sunlight through the branches, and the breeze that stirred the stones. The gunshot from the chapel, which sent birds clamouring into flight for as far abroad as he could imagine. Like an exam, he reminded himself. Like an unseen. He took the gun from his pocket slowly, slowly. Watched as the door in front of him started to open. Then faded back into the shadows like a ghost, like an unseen.

  From the ceiling now, a shower of dust, of grit and plaster, falling like a benediction; it settled on Zoë to give her an extra few years’ grey. Which was about how much she felt she’d just aged. Above them all something creaked ominously, as if the shot she’d fired above her head had weakened the structure, though that was surely too much damage for a single shot to cause, even from a gun as heavy as Gerard’s.

  Sarah, who had slumped to the floor at that deafening click, scooped Dinah into her arms once more. The child was frightened, whimpering, and shook like a leaf on the bough.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Zoë asked.

  She nodded, unable to speak yet.

  Amos Crane, still on his feet, dropped the useless silver pistol and put both hands in his pockets. Sarah, cradling Dinah, looked up at him. Now that he wasn’t David Keller, for all he occupied the same body, there was a near palpable change to him; still far too close, she could almost feel his heat. As if whatever drove him ticked quietly in the cool air. The engine of his hatred. Hatred, certainly; it was impossible to kneel by his feet and not sense that. Whatever he was here for, it wasn’t just a job. But it was ridiculous to say whatever, for she knew full well what he was here for: he was here for their deaths. He was here to guide them to their exits.

  ‘Take your hands from your pockets. Very slowly.’

  Michael said, ‘Shoot him.’

  ‘Now take two steps back.’

  ‘Give me the gun. I’ll shoot him.’

  ‘I said out of your pockets. And two steps back.’

  ‘Give me the gun!’

  Amos Crane rocked on his heels. He might have been silently laughing.

  Sarah pulled away from him, scrabbling a little in the dust, still with one arm wrapped round Dinah, though the child was fighting it now; didn’t want to be held any longer. Something knocked against her hand. Zoë’s little gun. Why didn’t you load it, Zoë, she wanted to say. What was the point? But Zoë was busy, and not answering questions.

  ‘Back. Off.’

  And still Amos Crane rocked on his heels, and showed her wolfish teeth.

  ‘Kill him,’ Michael said.

  Sarah said, ‘It didn’t fire.’

  ‘Always leave the chamber empty,’ Zoë said. She bit her lip. ‘Sarah? Will you just get out of here?’

  ‘But what about –?’

  ‘Sarah. Just go. Take Dinah, and go.’

  ‘I don’t know –’

  ‘Go!’

  She went. She took Dinah and went. Didn’t pause at the door to look back: just opened it, and went.

  Amos Crane said, ‘Always leave the chamber empty?’

  Outside, it was impossible to believe there was such a place as inside; the sun had come out, leaves were painting the air green. There were bushes, clawing their way out of stony ground; there was a stained-glass window.

  There was a blue 2CV, half parked in a ditch.

  She wasn’t thinking, she was running on automatic. She opened the back door, still on automatic; put the grizzling child on the seat on automatic. Leaned forward and brushed the child’s hair with her lips . . . ‘Hush, Dinah. Everything’s going to be all right.’

  ‘Gnah!’

  ‘Sit still. It’s okay. We’re both going away.’

  But as she shut the back door on Dinah, opened the front door for herself, she knew they weren’t going anywhere, because she didn’t have the keys.

  Back inside. But she didn’t want to go back inside. Wasn’t taking Dinah back inside, and wasn’t leaving her out here alone . . . She could walk, she decided. Up to the main road. It wasn’t very far. Flag down a lift . . .

  But she couldn’t flag down a lift. Look who the last lift turned out to be.

  The thoughts rushed through her mind much faster than it would take to say them. Even as they did, she was seeing what she saw: over there, in the trees, a shadow, moving. Not in time with the other moving shadows. A shape, then, rather than a shadow: the shape of a man.

  She shut the front door of the car. Moved round to the back.

  It was a man; it was the man from the island. Like everybody else these days, he carried a gun.

  Back on automatic – it was important to do these things on automatic – she turned as if she hadn’t seen him, and opened the car boot. It’ll be locked, she thought – but it wasn’t locked. It’ll be gone, she thought, raising the lid – but it wasn’t gone. I won’t be able to use it, she thought – but picked it up anyway.

  Sarah turned smoothly, and pointed the shotgun at Howard.

  He stopped, and pursed his lips . . . a pretty minor reaction, on the whole.

  Behind her, Sarah heard a soft thump from the car. Dinah, falling off the seat, maybe . . . and knew, as surely as she’d ever known anything, that whatever was going to happen next, it couldn’t happen anywhere near Dinah. Better the child was left in the car on her own than be near what happened next.

  So she turned and ran into the trees.

  Follow follow follow . . . She didn’t know what she’d do if he didn’t follow. She didn’t know what she was going to do if he did. But that was what happened: he did. Waited the beat of her heart in the clearing, then took off after her into the trees.

  He was still carrying a gun, she knew, but he wasn’t firing it: that was good. And she was still holding the shotgun, though knew she wouldn’t be able to use it herself. She remembered those other woods, that little copse, where Michael had made her point it and shoot, and she’d blasted a hole through leaf and branch, none of it offering any more resistance than the human body would . . . No, she wasn’t about to shoot anyone.

  – But if he killed her, what was to stop him killing Dinah, too?

  The thought made her faster. She jumped a fallen log. The denim jacket she wore – Michael’s – snagged a branch, but she tugged it free. Behind her, she heard him fall, maybe on that same log, and for a moment his English swearing filled the Scottish air . . . She half stumbled, and nearly dropped the gun. This wouldn’t do. Wouldn’t work. Any moment now she’d fall, and blow her own brains out . . .

  And burst out of the trees with that thought in her head, into a clearing of stubby grass, and rabbit shit, and picnic litter. With th
e shotgun in her hand, and Michael’s jacket, and maybe a minute to spare . . .

  A minute was all it took. Then Howard was in the clearing with her.

  ‘Always leave the chamber empty?’ said Amos Crane. Slowly, he drew his hands from his pockets.

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  ‘Would that mean what I think it means?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  ‘Shoot him,’ said Michael.

  ‘Shut up.’

  Amos Crane smiled. It was amazing where you found the edge. Here in a disused chapel miles from anywhere, with the man he’d come to kill and a woman he’d dreamed about. And women always hesitate; leave that whisker of a chance.

  ‘Are you comfortable with that?’ he asked.

  Zoë tried not to answer . . .

  ‘. . . Comfortable with what?’

  ‘A head shot,’ said Crane. Without pointing, with just a nod of his head, he indicated the direction of the gun barrel: levelled straight between his eyes, in hands steady as most rocks. ‘Don’t get me wrong. Head shot’s what I’d go with.’

  ‘. . . So?’

  ‘Just shoot him for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘So most people aren’t as fast as me. You hit me, I’m dead, no question. But it’s kind of a small target, don’t you see? And if you miss, well . . .’

  Zoë didn’t twitch a muscle.

  ‘. . . Well, if you miss, you’re dead. You and him both.’

  ‘Kill the fucker!’

  ‘On the other hand,’ blithely as if Michael had not spoken, ‘you go for the chest, say, and it might not kill me straight off. Oh sure, shot to the heart, pouf! I’m dead. But otherwise, well, there’s lots of complicated body parts in there, as I’m sure we both know, and you’d do me so much damage I’d probably die whatever. But maybe not immediately, you know what I’m getting at? And then we’re back to plan B. You’re dead. You and him both.’

  ‘Look, you dumb bitch –’

  ‘Shut up,’ Zoë said evenly.

  The silver gun just lay there in the dust by Amos Crane’s feet. She had no idea on earth how long it would take to reach his hands.