Souls of Men

by A. R. Ashworth

  “It is. I mean, I agree, Uncle Anton. Thank you. I’ll never come back.”

  “Good. I thought you would see it that way. By the way, the girl was not dead. She was found wandering naked and is in the hospital. She is expected to live. So at least you will not be wanted for murder. You are very much out of your depth, Bosko. Please learn from this experience. Go ask Goran and Nilo to come inside. Then go to your room and close the door. Pack the minimum that you will need and wait there until I have finished speaking with Nilo. Don’t worry. You will be away from here tonight and home in a day or two.”

  Once Nilo stood in front of him, Anton could see the gears turning in his head. The boy clearly did not know what to expect. That was good, so he began.

  “I am faced with hard questions, Nilo. You have been extremely irresponsible since you came here to England. You have murdered two women and seriously injured a third. Yes, that’s correct. The girl you and Bosko dumped is alive. She will no doubt talk when she awakes from her coma. Those are only the ones I know about. Granted, I may have been unspecific about what I wanted you to do with Geri Harding, but the fact remains, you are the one who killed her. You are wanted by the police, and I cannot allow you to fall into their hands. You may well be asking yourself what I will do with you. Before I decide, I want to know what you think we should do and what you had planned to do. Tell me.”

  Nilo stood still. He did not shift his weight or appear nervous. He gazed straight at Anton when he spoke.

  “I didn’t know that Greene had been arrested, so I think that as soon as possible, we need to deal with him and also make sure the police never find out what he knows. He’s a threat. Then I want to deal with those detectives. The two women who came to your office. They are a threat as well.”

  “I agree with you about Greene. I am not sure that ‘dealing with those detectives,’ as you put it, is a wise thing to do. The police are very protective of their own.”

  “We are too. Here’s how I see it. Greene knows a lot about our business. Too much. I think we take care of him and whatever records he kept. But you still have that older bitch to deal with, so we deal with her. I deal with her. I need to do it myself, and I think I know how to do it. Then while the police are putting it all back together, I can get out of the country.”

  Anton pursed his lips and studied the ceiling. It would take at least two operatives to deal with Greene properly. Disrupting the police investigation would be beneficial. He would partner Nilo with Goran. He could rely on Goran to do what needed to be done.

  He decided. “I realize this is personal with you. I disapprove of the way you let your passions and eccentricities get in the way of your head, but there is something to what you say. I will consider it.” He looked at Goran. “Please bring Bosko in.”

  Bosko shuffled into the room seconds later, carrying a small duffel bag. His eyes were red and swollen. He stood next to Nilo, looking at the floor.

  Anton stood. “Right now we will leave here. Goran and I will take you to separate hotels. You are not to communicate with each other in any way. Bosko, tomorrow morning Goran will deliver you a new passport, some money, and a train ticket home. You had best be there when he arrives. He will take you to the station and see you on board the train.” Bosko forced a nod.

  “Nilo, you are to stay in your hotel room until Goran collects you. If either of you get hungry tonight, order room service. No alcohol. Those instructions should be clear to both of you. It would be unhealthy to disobey them.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Elaine’s mobile warbled as she arrived at her flat. Peter’s voice was cheery.

  “Hi. I’m getting ready to cook dinner and I’d like some company. Would you care to join me? It’s nothing fancy, fried fish and a salad, but there’s plenty for two. I can do a beer batter if you want, and there’s a choice of wine or ale.”

  “No chips? I like chips. They’re my favorite part. Pepper and vinegar only.”

  “I can do chips. I have malt vinegar, which is pretty good for a Yank. What do you say?”

  I wonder how far he’ll go. “Hmmm. No mushy peas?”

  “No. I draw the line at peas soaked in sodium bicarbonate. Is it a deal breaker?”

  She looked at the moo shu pork she had picked up on the way home. The pancakes were already soggy. It would keep—that’s what fridges were for. “Give me a chance to change. I can be there in, say, an hour. Ish. Okay?”

  “Perfect. I haven’t started cooking yet.”

  Thirty minutes later, she was in her BMW, her mind racing, careening between thoughts in the same way she was slinging the car from lane to lane. Well, Lainie, what have you started here? Where is it going?

  Keeping a relationship going hadn’t been a big issue during her first couple of years in the force, while she’d been in uniform. In fact, it had been a nonissue. She had concentrated on establishing her career and had intentionally discouraged the rare men who had shown any interest in her. The days in uniform were long but fairly regular. After she was accepted into CID, with its chronic short-staffing and unpredictable schedule, her love life had almost ceased to exist. Men with regular jobs didn’t understand her compulsion to work on a case all hours and weekends until she got a result. And starting something with another cop, well, from what she had seen, only compounded the problems.

  You don’t have to have a boyfriend, Lainie. It’s not like you have to constantly lean on someone, and you sure as hell don’t need someone who thinks he can tell you what to do all the time. She mentally laughed at herself. Stick with Scratch. He only screams to be fed once a day, and he keeps your feet warm at night.

  Her last attempt at a relationship had ended with a drunken boyfriend barging into the flat late one night, announcing that he’d had enough waiting around, and he’d found someone who actually wanted to be with him instead of spending all her time God-knows-where, doing who-knows-what with who-knows-who. Now he wouldn’t have to sit worrying about getting a call from the morgue. He wasn’t going to live his life like that and blah blah blah. She had said, “Then don’t,” and had thrown his bag of dirty laundry down the stairs after him.

  She couldn’t imagine Peter doing that, though. Maybe she should take a chance on him. Maybe she needed to see what might develop.

  And you know what they say about venturing nothing, Lainie. You’ll never find out if you don’t take the risk.

  She swung her BMW into Peter’s drive and gathered herself before she went to the door.

  * * *

  Elaine sat facing Peter over the kitchen table. “Thanks. The chips were lovely. But tell me—what prompted the invitation?”

  Peter sat back in his chair, his hands folded in front of him. “I wanted to see your face.” He tilted his head and looked straight into her eyes. “I think about you every day. I see something, or hear something, and I wonder what you’d think about it. I want to get to know you.”

  “Channeling Mister Bogart again? Do you think Rick and Ilsa ate fried fish with malt vinegar and washed it down with Sam Smith’s ale?”

  He laughed. “Maybe they did, sometime. Probably not in Paris.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “No, I can’t imagine the Parisians putting up with the possibility of mushy peas.” She paused. Okay, girl, take the chance. “I’ve thought about you too. That night I called you and I asked what you were doing exactly, I was looking out my office window. It came to me that you might have been sitting in that big chair I saw, looking out your window. And you were.” She looked into his eyes.

  He reached forward and took her hand in his. His touch was warm and dry and firm. His thumb traced a pattern on the back of her hand. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were someone special. I don’t mean to me, not then. But when I saw you standing by the piano, silhouetted against the window, studying me, I knew you were someone who mattered, wherever you went. And every time I saw you, I got the same feeling.”

  He picked up the plates and cutlery and
took them to the sink. “Yeah, I was angry about what I went through, what it did to me. I’ve never meditated so much in my life. If I believed that chakras really existed, mine would have been all out of line. But I couldn’t be angry with you. Not personally. Each time I felt like screaming at you, I would look at you and realize that you didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

  “You didn’t deserve the way you were treated either. By me or the system. You didn’t deserve to lose your job and have your life wrecked. You had a right to be angry with me.”

  “I know that. But I couldn’t bring myself to focus it on you. It was after you brought me home, after you released me. I had plenty of time to sit and think. I’m lonely. I’ve been playing it too safe.” Peter kneeled next to her, his eyes and mouth only inches from hers. “I’ve been alone long enough. Starting a relationship is a huge gamble, but I want to take that chance with you.”

  He took her hand. “I’m hoping you can take that chance with me.”

  Wow. There it was. She looked at his deep-set blue eyes. She heard her blood rush in her ears, sensed her breath quicken, and felt the expectation deep in her body. His warm hand cradled her face. She pressed her cheek to his palm and sank into acceptance. His first soft kiss settled on her open lips, embracing each one in a delicate caress. She felt his breath move, warm on her throat, brushing a light path of kisses to her ear. Oh, god. His lips traced slowly back to her mouth. When he took her lip between his teeth, she gasped.

  She had not been kissed like that in a very, very long time.

  * * *

  They embraced in the half-light of the large window in his bedroom. Peter took both of her hands in his, saying, “I’m not a pretty sight without the clothes.”

  She said nothing. After a few seconds, he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. He turned away and pulled the jersey over his head, baring his back to her.

  The dim light through the window played over a patchwork of light and dark, shapes and shades and lines where his skin had been grafted. She remained silent, imagining the violence, trying to absorb what the flaying of his back must have done to him. Who was he before this happened? Did she need to know?

  Elaine softly touched her finger to one of the raised lines that ran across his ribs and felt the taut muscle reflexively twitch under the skin. She traced along the line to where it joined with another, and on, until it crossed another. So many lines, so many tracks that had taken his life and loves from him.

  Elaine realized she was trembling but was uncertain if it was sorrow or an acute desire that bordered on sorrow. To cease the shaking, she circled her arms around him and drew him to her, pressing his scars into her face, breathing his scent, kissing his back, at first lightly, then as she warmed and felt the tightening start within her, she opened her lips wider and kissed with more fervor.

  Later she lay curled beside him, her leg wrapped over his, her head in the hollow of his shoulder. She stared at the window, seeing nothing, sensing only its pale light falling across them. What happened, she thought. Who is he truly? Where will he go when he needs someone? She turned and kissed his throat. He responded with a nuzzle and strokes on her cheek.

  She looked up at his face, half-obscured by locks of his dark hair. All that pain. He has to be able to share it with me.

  “Tell me. Tell me now,” she whispered.

  He looked down at her, his face in shadow over hers. “You want to know right now?”

  She sat up in bed, draping the duvet around her shoulders. “Yes. If we’re going any further than here and now, I need to know. Start at the beginning and tell me everything, and don’t stop until there’s no more to tell.”

  He leaned his back against the headboard and told her of Diana, how they had met in a university lecture room and had fallen instantly in love. They had never doubted each other, especially after Liza was born. Then came Iraq.

  “What I saw in Iraq . . .” He paused and stared at the window. Seconds became a full minute.

  To Elaine, it seemed he was holding his breath, waiting for a sign. She pulled the duvet tighter around her shoulders and slid closer to him. “Who were the people in the photos? You loved them, didn’t you?”

  He exhaled. “Carl and I were friends in medical school. He’s the guy you saw in the photo on the piano. The one with me, him, and the woman, in Iraq. In those days, it was an almost endless stream of wounded kids. I mean, most of the troops were kids, and sometimes Iraqi women and children who’d been caught in the middle. I was the surgeon, and he was the anesthesiologist. We tried to help each other cope and do what good we could and think about home. We wanted to open a clinic after we got back. But they called us back again after the first tour.”

  Again he paused, so Elaine asked, “Who was the woman?”

  “Laudy. Laudacia Miller. Our surgical nurse. Man, she could sing gospel. She was going to be in the clinic with us.”

  “You said she died too. When I asked, that first time in the house.”

  Peter’s voice was hoarse and halting, words erupting from his mind to his lips and out into the half-light. “We were in the compound loading supplies on trucks for a hospital unit in Mosul when the mortars and rockets hit. We weren’t wearing our flak vests. Carl was killed in the first salvo. An explosion and he was gone, vaporized, pink mist, just like that. We were looking for wounded when the second wave of rounds hit. A truck exploded and Laudy was lying on the ground, burning. I rolled her over and put her over my shoulders to carry her to the bunker.”

  Peter’s voice stopped. He took deep breaths and pulled the bed sheet up around his shoulders. Elaine waited.

  “It was heat and noise, then nothing. They told me that Laudy’s body protected me from most of it. She saved me. The hospital in Baghdad gave me primary trauma care, sedated me, and put me on the next plane to Landstuhl in Germany. The army notified Diana, and she and Liza flew to London. Liza was going to stay with Kate. Diana and my mother were going to continue on to Germany. After they landed, Diana and Liza took a taxi into town from Gatwick.”

  He was the one shaking now, his arms wrapped across his chest. “There was fog and a huge chain collision on the M23. A truck plowed into the back of their taxi. The driver never slowed down or even touched his brakes. But you know about that, right?”

  How did this not destroy him? Wordlessly, Elaine slid closer to him on the bed. And now, his confession. She took his hand and held it in both of hers. Let him know you’re here. There’s no feeling lonelier than guilt.

  Peter continued, his voice tremulous. “When I came out from under the sedation a week later, Mom and Kate were there, but I knew something was very wrong. Finally, they had no choice but to tell me, and once I understood what they were saying, I wanted to die. I know it sounds trite, but their deaths were my fault. If I had simply died in Iraq, they would still be alive. I feel like I need to pay them back. Since then, I’ve existed on my work, Kate, and Mom.

  “I’ve tried to start a few relationships since I came to London, but none have worked. Most of the women I’ve met either pitied me or couldn’t handle the scarring and the dreams. The last time was a couple of years ago. Since then, I’ve avoided thinking it could ever happen again for me.”

  He looked at her. “Now you’re in my life. And I cannot ignore you. I can’t deny what I feel for you.”

  All those years of pity and rejection. He’s reaching out to me. To Lainie. No man’s ever bared his soul to me like this. And I know he’s not done yet. It has to be all or nothing. “Is that it? Is that everything?”

  “I still have PTSD. I probably always will. I don’t have violent flashbacks or anything like that. Just a nightmare every once and a while, and it’s always the same one. I wake up in a panic.

  “Sometimes, if I’m really under stress, I see Diana and occasionally Liza too. While I’m awake. I’ve been told it’s a grief hallucination, which is common, and it’s supposed to go away at some point. They started when I was in t
he hospital. I didn’t see them for a couple of years, but now I’ve seen them again a couple of times after you and Benford came that day.”

  He looked at her. “So that’s it. I have some issues, but I’m not a raving madman.”

  Yes, that’s all that matters. And I know what he means. “My mum never got over losing my dad. She still talks to him every now and then. Like he’s right there. It’s never easy, losing half your soul. It’s not going to be easy for us either. You know that, right?”

  Peter smiled and said, “I may hallucinate from time to time, but I’m not deluded.”

  She snuggled next to him again, pressing her breast against his chest, her nose and lips brushing his neck. After a few minutes, he kissed her and whispered, “I have to work the late shift tonight. See you tomorrow?”

  “I have to work, early. But I’ll call if I can.” She kissed him and watched him pad silently across the floor to the bathroom. Damn. Work interruptions already. She lay back on the pillows and crooked her arm over her forehead.

  I was right to take the chance. I owe him now, she thought. He showed me his demons because I demanded to see them. I’m not sure if he would have done so on his own, so yeah, I had to ask. I need to show him mine. Maybe not right now, though. I’m not sure either of us could deal with any more drama tonight. I’ll find the right time.

  When she heard the water running in the shower, she joined him.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Elaine had a splitting headache. She sat at her desk and pressed her fingers against her temples, massaging them slowly. It was dusk, and she had spent most of the day being interrogated by three levels of her superiors. Her individual accountability had been reinforced to her by each level. They had all distanced themselves as far as possible from the decision to take down Nilo’s house.

  She thought back twelve years to her time as a Detective Constable. She had wanted advancement and had worked hard to get it. If you make enough decisions, eventually one will be wrong. Move on, Lainie.