‘Good men may do evil; not all as do evil, become evil …’
He had no idea and no care which one he chose, that did not matter, what mattered was that there were witnesses. Not for justice, because he was not there for justice, but for fear, so that his fear would be spread among them.
He saw the face under the head made of hessian and spit, the brown face crying and snivelling. The brothers took the one he’d chosen and the woman yapped at their heels so eager, so excited to be one of them.
‘How could she?’
‘Why, ma Cherie, there’s no evil men do that women do not.’
‘You’re gonna tell me what I want to know,’ Red told the face inside the bag. ‘And you will not lie to me.’
The face jabbered and pleaded with him, stretched out against the board like a butterfly waiting for the needle.
‘Please sir, please.’ There was an older man also, another man released from a hessian hood because he could speak English, and because of that, his face was not bleeding. Red made him kneel next to the man on the board. There were two more behind him, there so that they could see, dumb witness, dumb jury, dumb luck.
‘What you want?’ Red demanded of the old man who spoke English.
‘He does not understand you sir,’ the translator said. ‘Please, he does not know.’
Red took hold of the translator’s neck as if he was drawing him close over a thousand miles. Like a giant’s hand, Red’s white hand stretched out and caught the brown man’s throat.
In the dark, wet house in the backwoods, Red’s hand reached for the neck of the bottle as the wallpaper blistered from the wall, as the moth beat against the heat of the lamp and arced to the floor in a blaze of light. Slowed to a snail’s pace, the universe began to entropy, fraying at the edges, bleeding to sepia.
‘I don’t care what fool language he speaks, I don’t even care what he knows,’ Red’s voice oozed into the house in the swamp as if it seeped in with the damp.
‘He’s just a boy …’ the translator said but Red was furious, angry, driven by the yelping of the brothers and the clock on his back, the clock only he could hear.
‘You will not tell me ‘bout right and wrong, when I have seen your children with their arms and legs torn off by your mines, and your women with their fingernails torn off because they had the temerity to wear nail polish. He was never a child – he was born a bastard with a gun. If he does not know where my boy is, then he will suffer so as the next one of you knows you do not lie to me, and you do not take my boys.’
In the dark, wet house Red’s fingers closed but he missed his mark and the bottle rolled away from his grasp. Slowly, inevitably, the bottle swung on its axis as if falling through water, the sound of it rolling like a blade on a whetstone.
In the concrete prison, watched by the old man who spoke English, they stretched a wet cloth over the face of the boy on the board and the woman hid her eyes in the dark when she thought they could not see. They brought water and one of them drowned him in the air like a fish; like a fish with a hook in his mouth he drowned in the air, with the woman in the dark and the man who spoke English crying for him, and Red not seeing what they did because he was blinded by the tick of the clock.
‘Be wary, little fish, you swim with a fisherman.’
Red was not haunted by the wet slip of the boy’s body as they cut it free and it washed up newly baptized on the floor. Red was not haunted by the whisper of concern and fear in the faces of his brothers and the woman, or the tears of the old man who spoke English as he held the boy’s head in his lap. He was not haunted because he feared he had gone too far, but because he did not go far enough. Haunted that despite this night and all the other nights, he could not save the lost boy with the good heart but was forced to watch him beheaded on a flickering screen a week later, his brothers and the woman watching silent and heartsick beside him.
After that, he could not even try and save his brothers travelling on other roads any more, all his brothers who might step on bear traps. He couldn’t fight any more, because of the wet boy drowned in the air of a dark room. He couldn’t fight any more, because of what the man who spoke English said, when somebody thought to ask him.
‘Keys only unlock the door for which they were made, ma Cherie.’
In the deep, soft, dirty heat where I sat with Red and his dreams, my hand brushed against the side of the couch. My fingers found something, and the familiarity of the shape dragged me back through yellow layers of illusion. Red’s soul hardened and became opaque but his energy lingered, coursing over my skin as if a storm were coming. There was so much power in him, and so much of it was dark.
Under the couch, I found a small piece of duct tape, and as my fingers explored it, it came loose. Inside it, was a key, which had been stuck to the underside of the frame, waiting for me to find it.
Chapter 6
THE BOTTLE SLIPPED from Red’s grasp and hit the floor. As it thumped down the universe snapped back into place, with a rush that made me gasp.
‘Damn it!’ He scrambled for the bottle, then righted as I got the key free from under the sofa. ‘Least it ain’t broke. You okay?’
The red clay lips laughed a dry whisper in my ears.
‘I was just getting’ comfortable, you know, with my side an’ all?’ I curled my fist around the key and, when he glanced down at the bottle again, slipped it into the pocket of my jeans.
‘So … you comfortable now?’ he asked.
‘Not really,’ I said, shifting away from him a fraction. ‘Can’t get used to the idea that someone shot me, someone I can’t remember.’
‘Hell darlin’, I wouldn’t hold it against them. One never knows what one might do when it comes to it. You might have cause to shoot a man y’self, someday.’ His words sent a shiver tracing up my back.
To cover it, I said, ‘What, you scared of me now?’ sure that he wasn’t.
‘Oh, I ain’t scared of you,’ he shrugged, pulling his mouth into a grimace, ‘well … maybe just a little. Scared of what you make me think of?’
‘What’s that?’ I said, biting my lip. Red leaned forward and filled both our glasses again. He’d seen me bite my lip and he looked as if it had made him hungry. Instead of sitting back on his pillows, he brought his feet up and crouched next to me. He didn’t touch me, but his arm snaked along the seat behind.
‘After you,’ he said, tipping his glass to me. ‘Then, maybe I’ll tell you.’
We drank, and I knew that being this close to him, I’d have to drink it all. I swallowed, and he watched closely. It burned, and hit me right between the eyes.
‘Alright,’ I said, ‘what do I make you think of?’
Red smirked. ‘That there must be someone out there who’s lookin’ for you.’ He moved his head to gaze off somewhere behind me, moving his mouth closer to my ear. I breathed the scent of him, of sweat and whiskey and hot skin.
‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘maybe there’s nobody lookin’ for me?’ and when I said it, I had the odd sensation that there really wasn’t, not anyone in the whole world. If there still was a world out there.
His chuckle rattled deep inside his chest. ‘I can’t believe that.’ He ran his tongue over his teeth, as if checking how deep his smile went. ‘Can’t see no reason as to why something as pretty as you would have been thrown out on the wayside.’ He risked a glance sideways. ‘Be a terrible waste.’ He turned toward me, tilted his glass, so we drank. I’d taken his nightmare from him, without knowing how I did or wanting to do it. I’d lingered behind his eyes, or imagined what it might be like to be there, and perhaps that had given me a dangerous sense of familiarity?
Lips tingling, I asked, ‘Why you care if there’s someone lookin’ for me?’
‘Cause it might matter what the nature of that search is … mother seeking her daughter … daddy seekin’ his little girl …’
Daddy. I didn’t like him saying that, not in the way he did. I got an odd sense of memory then
, a scent perhaps, old leather and Sunday heat, and being smaller, enclosed in an armchair, a low voice I could feel as much as hear, reading a story.
Red clicked his tongue. ‘Maybe he’s lookin’ for you, that big old brother of yours or …’
‘Or?’
‘A husband, seeking his errant wife?’ He took hold of my left hand, and I let him. I let him raise it and turn it over, inspecting my fingers as if he meant to read my palm. His skin was rough and dry, like the belly of a snake. He frowned. ‘What d’you know? I don’t see no ring.’
‘Maybe I was robbed?’ Red’s thumb caressed the base of my finger.
‘Maybe …’ Red closed my fingers into a fist, held my fist in his hand. ‘It ain’t left no mark, no tan line or nothin’.’
Did he know, was that why he was asking, looking for the ring he knew he’d not find? Oh hell, why didn’t I just come out and ask him? ‘When you first saw me …’ I paused, immediately not sure I wanted to ask after all. ‘When I first saw you?’ Red’s gaze fixed on mine. ‘When you saw me here, yesterday … what did you think?’
‘Well now, since you ask, I thought as Christmas had come early.’ He laughed.
‘No, I mean, I thought … I thought that you … I thought you recognized me …’
Red shifted his feet. ‘Well now, it was a bright day, an’ you were in a dark house when I saw you, half in shadow and me all sun blind an’ all.’ He frowned. ‘Though, I must confess … there’s a little something about you which brings her to mind.’ He frowned.
‘Your mother …’
‘What makes you say that?’ he said, then a smile eased his frown away. ‘That weren’t it, no, someone else altogether. See, that’s why I figure he’s out there lookin’ for you.’
‘Who?’
‘Your husband.’ He tilted his head away from me.
‘But I ain’ got no ring.’ I moved as if to pull my hand free. He didn’t let me go.
‘Don’t mean he ain’t lookin’ to put one on your finger.’
‘I don’t remember,’ I said. The skin on the underside of my arm prickled with sensation, as if it remembered something, some echo of a touch. Red let go of my hand and moved until his words buzzed in my ear, hardly more than a whisper, hardly more than a thought passing between us.
‘Darlin’, sure I been one to play when the cat’s away, but I’d rather know what’s coming back to the mouse-hole first. Don’t seem right, seein’ as you don’t know yourself whether you’s cheatin’ or not.’
His lips grazed the side of my neck. ‘That would stop you?’ I asked, as his laugh breathed over my skin.
‘Mercy, you better watch you’ self. I’m not sure as you know what you doing?’ I flinched as his hand slipped onto my shoulder, turned my head away and watched his index finger inscribe a circle on my shoulder where fabric met skin, staring as if he were caressing something that was not part of me, letting him as if we’d done this before, as is this was something we did.
‘I don’t know nothin’, remember?’ I said, as my pulse throbbed in my neck.
‘I don’t believe that.’ His finger slowed. ‘But you better watch out I don’t turn my mind to teachin’ you what you’s forgotten. You think you’s playin’ with a mouse, girl, but you might find I’m a great big ole Tom Cat.’ Red’s finger slid under the strap of the undershirt I was wearing, and eased it down.
‘Red …’ I jerked away from him, but he gripped the strap. ‘Red, this isn’t…’
‘Oh, I know, but part of you ain’t so sure, is it? Part of you don’t want me to stop.’
‘Red …’ His grip tightened, dragging the shirt against my neck.
‘I think you done talking for now. You better just listen up.’ He brushed my throat with the fingers of his free hand. ‘See, I been watching you all this day, and I ain’t sure how much you know and how much you care to remember, but you got to ask yourself, what if you’re better off not knowin’?’
‘Knowing what?’ My heart hammered in my throat, my breath caught in the squeeze of my lungs.
‘I thought about it, while you was lying in your deep sleep.’ He reached up and brushed the side of my face with his knuckles.
‘No …’ My mouth was whiskey-dry; I swallowed, but even that felt treacherous, provocative. His smile creased the edge of his eyes.
‘Sure thing, seein’ as we’s being so honest n’all. I took a long hard look at you. It would have been right easy – right easy, slippin’ you out of them nasty ole’ clothes while you were out cold.’ I should have pulled away from him, shoved at him to get off me, but the sense that this was a game we’d played before pulsed in me. I exhaled, forcing myself to do it slowly, making myself stare straight back at him. I could almost imagine that I was watching us, me and him, together on the floor of the shack, two little creatures crawled out of the dark. It was as if I wasn’t alone with him after all. I felt a smile curl onto my lips, wicked, dark, daring him to just go ahead and goddamn well try it.
‘Know what? I figured you might even have liked it, my hands on you when you didn’t have to pretend like you minded, when you could forgive yourself.’ His words were thick and black, tar sticky. ‘Who would have minded, just you and I, in the wet, subtle heat of a lost afternoon,’ he murmured, his lips moments from mine. ‘But …’ He stood up in a great rush and sent me sprawling onto my side. ‘But hell, like I said, I don’t want t’ waste my time on a mouse-hole, when I don’t know what other rat’s been sniffin’ round now, do I?’ And he laughed.
Anger and humiliation flared in me as I struggled up off the floor.
‘What the fuck was that, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ I yelled, clutching my arms round myself while he grinned at me – anger, humiliation and what else? ‘You had no right to …’ And disappointment?
‘What you pissed for?’ he asked, arms spread wide. ‘You pissed ‘cause of what I said or ‘cause I turned you down?’ Goddamn him! His smile faded. ‘I did you a favour. You might not remember squat, but you sure as hell don’t want to remember messin’ about with me. You better learn comin’ on like a two-bit whore ain’t the best way of going about things.’
‘Don’t call me that!’
He jabbed his finger at me. ‘I never said as you was, I said you were startin’ to act like one. If your daddy were here, he’d tan your hide.’
‘You’re not my daddy,’ I said, and folded my arms.
‘I sure as hell ain’t,’ Red said, then something in him softened and he raised his hand. ‘Look, we both got cabin fever here. Trust me darlin’, if you knew who you were, what you was about, I’d love to entertain you, take you to dinner and what-not, but that ain’t the way it is.’ He padded off to the kitchen. As I watched, as the house exhaled, he ran water into the sink. I peered at him in the gloom; the stranger who thought I was a criminal, or a two-bit whore, or a little like someone else, I wasn’t sure any more. I wasn’t even sure who I thought I was. Maybe this was all I’d ever been, a girl in a stained shirt alone in the world, sitting in a bleak house craving human warmth from an old soldier.
We watched each other, perhaps trying to decide which of us were the bait, and which the trap, and all the while we did, I was sure there was someone else there, watching the both of us.
Chapter 7
RED PUT THE BOTTLE on the counter by the kitchen door, and rubbed his eyes with his hand.
‘Listen. If you wanna take my room …?’
‘No, this is fine,’ I said, the hard edge of the key pressing against my leg.
‘Really, you’re the one with the busted-up side, I’m happy with the couch. The bed ain’t much, but it’s a bed.’ But I didn’t like the thought of him lying in wait down here; I wanted to get that door open.
‘What about the other room upstairs?’ I asked. ‘Is that another bedroom?’
‘That?’ He glanced up. ‘That’s just empty. That’s nothing, I keep it locked, floor needs work,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter, you didn�
��t think I mean to bunk in with you?’
‘I’d prefer it down here,’ I said, the key I’d found making me bold. As soon as he was out of sight, as soon as it was quiet, I’d have the door open and be gone. As long as he thought I was down here, the night would give me cover, even if I walked with blistered steps. I felt giddy, both with the whiskey and the sense of imminent escape.
He shrugged, perhaps too weary to push the point.
‘Suit yourself, I’ll wish you sweet dreams then. You can keep the lamp, ‘case you wanna read or something. I got my flashlight, anyhow.’
He picked up the sleeping bag and walked to the foot of the stairs. He took a few steps up, then looked back at me.
‘Look,’ he breathed out, his hand flinched and relaxed. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
He licked his lips and might have been going to smile. ‘For the accommodation.’ He walked upstairs.
I lay on the couch and listened. He went to the bathroom, the water clanked and wheezed through the ancient plumbing, then the floor creaked his passage into the bedroom and the door closed. In the kitchen, something scuttled across the floor, out of sight if not out of mind, then something else came after it.
I counted and waited for as long as I could stand it, then I made myself wait even longer, lying on the couch under the blanket, pretending Red was watching me.
‘Count to ten, count to ten, then he’ll go away again …’
When I could stand it no longer, I sat up. My feet touched the floor as if it was sleeping and might wake. I tiptoed to the kitchen, deciding to get the door open first and then worry about what I might take with me. I slipped the key out of my pocket, took a last look round and tried it in the padlock.
It did not fit.
Nemesister: The gripping women's psychological thriller from Sophie Jonas-Hill Page 6