Dark Winter (9781101599891)

by Mark, David

  “Tell me how it happened,” he says. “How you worked it out.”

  “It was Chief Inspector Ray. During the interview he was reeling off a list of names. People Simeon may have hurt. I think it was your research. He mentioned a young woman in a coma. Anne Montrose.”

  “And you recognized the name?”

  “I knew she was called Anne. The rest sort of made sense.”

  “He told you her name was Anne? In rehab?”

  “He would cry out in his sleep.”

  “Did he tell you what happened. In Iraq?”

  “He told me about his life. People do that, tell me things. They think I’m going to make them famous. They think I’m going to write a book about them and they’ll somehow matter . . .”

  “But Gibbons didn’t want that?”

  “He just wanted somebody to talk to. He was a mess. Did you see him, when you came to visit me? No, he’ll have been covered up. His face, Sergeant. It’s a mess of burns and scars. From the explosion. The one that nearly killed him.”

  Nearly, but not quite, thought McAvoy.

  “I’m a writer, Sergeant. I ask questions. When we were paired up, we got to talking.”

  “You became friends?”

  “Yes, I would say so. It was boxing that got us started. I was telling him about my book. The journeyman one I told you about. He mentioned he used to box in the army. That was how it started.”

  “Was he in there for alcoholism, too?”

  “He wouldn’t touch it, Sergeant. Whatever it was that kept him going, he didn’t want it dulled.”

  “So, depression? Posttraumatic stress disorder?”

  “Perhaps. I just knew he was very, very sad.”

  “And Anne?”

  “We got to talking about past loves. I didn’t have much to say, but he told me he’d only ever been in love once. That she’d been hurt in an explosion. He’d walked away but she’d never woken up. Thought he meant she was dead. He didn’t. It came out she was in a coma. That she was in a private health-care center. I didn’t know what to say. Made some crack about Sleeping Beauty. He liked that. Smiled for the first time since I’d known him. Seemed to come out of himself a bit. Started talking. Telling me about the things he’d learned over there. In the desert. How his mind was opened.”

  “Opened to what?”

  “To everything.” Chandler closes his eyes. “Have you ever wondered about pain? About who it afflicts? About why some are lucky and others aren’t? Have you ever wondered if you take one person’s pain away, whether that pain goes somewhere else? Whether there’s an agreed amount of agony in the world? That’s what he used to talk about. That was what used to torture him. I suppose I indulged him. Let him talk. He used to bring me bottles . . .”

  McAvoy nods. “You told him about your work? The people you’ve interviewed? Funny stories?”

  Chandler closes his eyes again. “It was just chat.”

  “Fred Stein?”

  Chandler nods.

  “Trevor Jefferson?”

  Another nod.

  “Angie Martindale?”

  Again.

  McAvoy swallows hard. “Daphne Cotton?”

  Chandler says nothing. Just keeps licking his lips. His hands, without a pen and pad to hold, are lifeless, feeble things.

  “Sole survivors, eh?”

  Chandler nods.

  They sit in silence for a moment, listening to the wind and the rain kick listlessly at the grubby windows.

  “When did he decide to kill them all?” McAvoy asks, staring unblinkingly into Chandler’s eyes. The writer folds his face like a tissue and begins to cough. McAvoy helps him to more water and then sits back, all without ever breaking eye contact.

  “We were talking one night,” he says, more to himself than to McAvoy. “He liked to hear my stories. Remarkable people, you know. I said that it made you think. Made you ponder the big picture. What it’s all about. The nature of existence.”

  “And Gibbons was a Christian man, yes?”

  “Middle-class boy. Went to church every Sunday and said prayers before bed when he was at boarding school.”

  “But did he believe?”

  “I don’t think he’d ever questioned it until the explosion. And then none of his life made sense anymore. And he found a religion of his own.”

  “Did he still pray at Linwood?”

  “Not in front of me.”

  “What did it, Chandler? What did he fill himself up with?”

  For a moment there is no sound in the room save Chandler’s wheezing breath. Finally, he says: “I mentioned miracles. Cheating death. Cheating God, I suppose. I said something clever. It might even have been a title for the book. It was just a phrase . . .”

  “Which was?”

  “The Unjust Distribution of Miracles.”

  “And Gibbons liked that?”

  “It was as if he’d just found the head of John the Baptist under his bed. I’ve never felt so fucking worthy in all my life.”

  “Worthy? He took your words and made a religion out of it. He found a cause. A mission! A way to bring her back.”

  “I didn’t know,” says Chandler, shaking his head and sniffing back snot. “I didn’t know what he was planning.”

  “But he spoke to you about it,” says McAvoy, biting his lip. “He ran his ideas past you. Asked his preacher’s opinion.”

  Chandler flashes him a look of anger but just as quickly bites it back. “I liked the attention.”

  “What did he ask you?”

  The answer comes from the pit of the writer’s stomach, and reeks of bile and regret.

  “He asked me whether I thought mercy was a finite resource. He read me passages from the Bible. From books he’d found. About righteousness. About justice. About miracles.”

  McAvoy can already see the answer to his next question.

  “He asked you whether you thought taking away one miracle would leave room for another,” says McAvoy, with his eyes closed. “Whether canceling out an act of mercy would create another.”

  There is silence in the room.

  “And you said yes.”

  “I said it might do.”

  “And then you phoned the Russian for him. The one-armed bloody pop star.”

  Chandler looks confused. He shakes his head as if not understanding and then slowly stops as a drunken memory emerges from his ruined, pickled mind.

  “I was pissed,” he wails.

  McAvoy shakes his head. He can feel his throat closing up. The old wound in his shoulder begins to throb with an icy pain.

  “Who’s next, Chandler? Who else did you tell him about?”

  Chandler licks his teeth. Raises his hands and begins to rub at the crusted saliva on his chin.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and turns away.

  “Chandler?”

  “It was just talk. Just chat. I didn’t think . . .”

  “What is it, Chandler? What have you done?”

  “After we spoke,” he sniffs, between the sobs. “I told him about you. About your wife. About how strong she was. About how she endured so many miscarriages and still kept trying . . .”

  “What do you . . . ?”

  McAvoy stops. It feels as if fingers made of ice have closed around his neck and begun to squeeze.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Adrenaline surges through McAvoy’s body. All he can see is Simeon Gibbons, smothering his newborn daughter between Roisin’s thrashing, bloodied legs . . .

  He runs. Sprints for the exit, pulling his phone from his pocket, blood rushing in his ears, boots squeaking on the floor, Chandler’s sobs echoing down the hall.

  The prison guard sees him. Begins to pu
sh himself away from the desk where he lounges with his plastic cup. Sensing something wrong, he moves to slow him, but McAvoy clatters into him and through, pulling open the door and thundering down the steps three at a time.

  He looks at his phone. No signal. No fucking signal. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry . . .

  Tries to find a way to make himself believe that what is happening to his wife and children is not a direct result of his own vile vanity.

  Runs through all he knows about the man who intends to kill his child. Recalls the physical strength, the ease with which he had avoided McAvoy’s blows.

  That boxer’s gait . . .

  McAvoy stops. Pulls up short on the green linoleum, a statue of sudden, horrid comprehension.

  Chandler’s protégé. The boxer. The roommate. The guy with his face in shadows . . .

  He tears through the lobby, staring at the screen of his mobile. He tries the home number, but the damn thing won’t ring. He presses the wrong digits with his shaking, frantic fingers.

  Finds himself listening to the message Trish Pharaoh had left after her meeting with Monty Emms:

  . . . he’s alive, McAvoy. You were right. There are messages from Gibbons in Emms’s phone going back weeks. I left the lieutenant colonel sitting in the Fleece, halfway up the hill in Haworth. Can’t hold his drink, can he? Got his phone without a squeak. We need to get it officially because it’s going to be exhibits A to bloody Z. It’s dynamite. Apologies and gratitude, to begin with. Thank-yous for getting him out. For putting some Iraqi in a body bag and telling the world he was dead. For setting him up with a new life. A new home. For taking care of Anne. Paying her bills. And so many “I’m sorrys.” Sorry for letting him down. Sorry for not being able to pay for Anne’s care himself. Sorry for the things he’s done wrong. They change, though. Maybe a month ago, if the dates are right. Starts talking about making sense of it all. About having a way to change it all. Monty’s too pissed for any more, but I’m going to work him. We’ll mop this all up later. If you’re still sure about seeing him, you’re going to need a confession . . .

  McAvoy slams the phone closed to silence it and opens it again. He almost exclaims with joy as he sees that he has a full signal. Sprinting across the car park, pulling his keys from his pocket, he dials Roisin’s mobile.

  Three rings . . .

  “Hi, baby, how did it go?”

  Relief floods him. His wife sounds tired, but very much alive. Safe.

  They are safe.

  Breathing heavily, sweat running down his face, he pulls open the car door and slumps into the driver’s seat. “Oh darling . . .” he begins. “I thought . . .”

  He looks at himself in the rearview mirror.

  Too late sees the movement in the backseat.

  And then the blade is at his throat.

  A face, turned to melted plastic and charred meat by flame, eases out of the darkness, and a hand partially covers McAvoy’s own, closing the phone.

  McAvoy stares into the wet, blue eyes of Simeon Gibbons. Feels the knife move down his body.

  Feels the pressure as it slices through his coat, his shirt. As it nicks at his skin.

  Feels Gibbons lean forward, and part the ruined clothing with his hand. Sees him stare at the wound left by a murderer’s blade a year before.

  Realizes, too late, that he, too, is a survivor. A man who walked away.

  He closes his eyes as he realizes that Chandler has misled him. That his wife and children are safe, but that it is he who will be dispatched in the manner that he survived twelve months ago.

  There is a thud. A sudden dull pain as a rigid thumb rams into his carotid artery with an expert swiftness and precision. And then blackness.

  27.

  McAvoy wakes into nothingness. He can’t move. The pain in his throat, his neck, is the center of his being.

  He tries to lift his head. Fails. Tries to move his arms. He can’t seem to send the message to his limbs.

  He listens. Tries to focus. He senses the hum of car tires. He is crumpled in the passenger seat of his own car, moving at speed.

  There is a voice nearby. A soft, sibilant, animal whisper. It sounds as though it has been talking for an age.

  “. . . just this one, my love. This one, then wake. Wake for me. Wake for me. Take it back. Please. Take it back . . .” McAvoy tries to will himself back to his limbs.

  He manages to lick his dry lips. Moves his head the tiniest fraction.

  “He survived. Survived when you didn’t. Survived like me. Like all of them. We’ll take him to where it happened. Cut him like he should have been cut the firssst time . . .”

  Through the fog, the haze of his thoughts, McAvoy understands. Understands that Simeon Gibbons is taking him to where it all began a year before. Where Tony Halthwaite slashed him with a blade for daring to discover that he was a killer of young girls. Where he became the one that got away.

  McAvoy shifts his head. Catches a glimpse of the road. Of dark trees, swaying in a wind filled with slashing rain.

  Recognizes the familiar silhouette of the Humber Bridge.

  Half an hour from home.

  Five minutes from the spot where, a year ago, he’d caught a killer and almost bled to death for his trouble.

  “. . . Sparky let us down, didn’t he? The room. The bed. The best money could buy. And you still asleep. Asleep and beautiful, but no more than a picture in a frame. He said he was our friend. But they couldn’t fix you. Couldn’t make you wake, could they? It was beyond that. Beyond medicine. We needed somebody’s miracle, didn’t we? The writer knew. Made it make sense. There’s only so much justice. Mercy is finite. It falls like rain but the sky is dry. Only so much luck. People lived when others died. Why not you? Why did they steal your mercy?”

  McAvoy feels the car swing round a roundabout. Sees the density of the tree cover begin to change overhead.

  McAvoy thinks of Roisin. Remembers the last time he kissed her mouth. Pictures her in the kitchen, grating and mixing and chopping like his good little white witch . . .

  Remembers the potion in his pocket.

  The glass vial of ammonia.

  He opens his eyes. Turns his head.

  Looks into blue eyes set in a face of pulped skin, of molten flesh and risen welts.

  Reaches into his pocket with an arm that tingles and throbs. Closes his near-dead fingers around the glass.

  Turns.

  Lashes out . . .

  Smashes the glass vial into the ruined features of the man who killed them all.

  Tries to grab the wheel and flicks his head to look at the road . . .

  Doesn’t even have time to exclaim as the vehicle plows at sixty miles an hour into the brick and glass building at the edge of the car park and all but folds in two . . .

  For several seconds there is silence, save for a soft rain of falling glass and the settling of tangled metal. Then the fire takes hold.

  McAvoy doesn’t know if he is alive or dead. There is no pain. Just a cold numbness throughout his body and a weight upon his chest.

  He blinks. Wills himself back into his skin.

  Feels the first stabs of pain.

  And in the same instant that he realizes he has survived, he realizes that the other man has, too.

  In an instant, Gibbons is upon him, a snarling, gnashing mess of ruined flesh and smoking skin.

  McAvoy tries to move, to take stock of himself, to comprehend whether he is up or down, and then his face is being smashed against the window of the buckled passenger door. The windscreen itself is so much shattered glass, and the flames from beneath the bonnet are starting to curl, like flapping laundry, into the vehicle. There is heat against McAvoy’s cheek, blood running down his neck from where the shards of glass puncture his ski
n.

  He struggles on instinct alone now. Writhes and kicks and fights for air. Finds a gap he can fit his fist into and brings it short beneath Gibbons’s extended right arm.

  He feels something break as his punch slams into Gibbons’s elbow.

  For a moment, the connection is broken, and McAvoy grabs at the door handle. He pushes, but the door refuses to give.

  He takes his eyes off Gibbons and spins in his seat to face the door. He brings both feet back and kicks at the window. Once. Twice. The glass explodes outward, and as fresh oxygen rushes into the car the flames are given fresh fuel, tongues of red and orange heat flutter and tear over the steering wheel, the dashboard, and the two men in the front seat.

  McAvoy feels the flames catch at the trousers. Scorch his hands. Kiss his face.

  He kicks at the door this time. Kicks with everything he has.

  Creaking, hurting, the door folds outward, and McAvoy scrabbles for the gap.

  Hands close around his boots. Strong arms encircle his legs.

  He slithers forward, pulling Gibbons behind him, until both men slide and thud onto the wet car park.

  McAvoy kicks his legs free and instinctively rolls away from the vehicle.

  He tries to stand.

  Then Gibbons is upon him. In the light of the flaming car, his scars are monstrous. There is no moisture in his eyes now. The black of his pupils has almost engulfed the blue of his irises.

  They are twenty yards from the burning vehicle. Gibbons is hauling him to his feet. The wounds at the ex-soldier’s throat seem to be reopening.

  McAvoy feels himself being dragged toward the dark shadow of the wood that stands at the edge of the car park.

  He struggles for purchase on the wet tarmac. Tries to tear himself from Gibbons’s grasp. The other man seems to sense what he is doing and swings another pointed thumb in the direction of McAvoy’s neck. He sees it coming and yanks his head back, lashing out with two swift right hands that catch Gibbons on the side of the head and send him reeling backward.