Impact

by Robert Clark

  No such oddities found here though. A couple of loose coins had found their way between the cushions, as well as a few dozen squashed cigarette butts. Nothing of note. But as I pulled up the cushion furthest away, I realised the sofa wasn't pushed up tight to the wall. Something was lodged into the gap. A small wooden magazine stand filled the tight space, but instead of being filled with magazines, it was home to a sleek, grey laptop. I pulled it out and held it up to Marie.

  ‘We might be able to get somewhere with this,’ I said.

  Being that it was her sister, I handed the laptop over to Marie, who took it and sat down on the sofa. The cushions sagged under her lightweight, so much so she was practically at floor level by the time it stopped. She opened it up and tapped away at the screens.

  ‘It's password protected,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know what she might have used?’ I asked.

  The look on her face told me she did not.

  ‘Maybe have a few guesses,’ I said. ‘You've got a better chance figuring it out than I do.’

  She did just that, spending minutes at a time thinking through a list of potentials, before tapping the keys with care. Each time, she sighed as it came up negative.

  I spent the time searching. The drawers upon which the table sat were a dead end. DVDs from all genres filled the space, none of which contained anything of use other than providing various levels of entertainment. Amie had quite the taste.

  I moved back to the kitchen. On the counter was a stack of opened mail. Bills and junk mail. I flicked through, but found nothing of interest, and put them neatly in a stack beside the photograph of her family. Even though she hadn't said anything on the subject, I guessed I should make a pile of things Marie would inevitably have to deal with. Keepsakes and busywork were chief amongst them.

  At the bottom of the stack of letters was a notepad. The page was blank, but I could see the groves made from a pen pressing down upon it. I had an idea.

  ‘You don't happen to have a pencil, do you?’ I asked.

  Marie looked up from the laptop.

  ‘I think there is one in my handbag,’ she said.

  She didn't make a move to stand up, which I guessed meant it was my job to recover it. Quietly, I opened the clasp and peered inside like a man looking into a cave full of hungry bears. A small red pencil protruded from one of the side pockets, so I slid it out and closed the bag. Marie didn't seem to notice.

  I returned to the pad and very gently, began rubbing from side to side across the page. Pencil lead dusted the paper, leaving the indentations untouched. A mixture of letters and numbers. Only once I was finished did I realise what it was. A phone number. And beneath it, one word.

  Neagley.

  Fifteen

  I stared at the page with giddy anticipation, like a child inundated with presents on Christmas morning.

  ‘I think I've got something,’ I said. ‘Wait, I know I've got something. We've hit the motherlode here, Marie.’

  She got up from her seat, discarding the laptop on the sofa, and hurried over to me.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  I spun the page round to show her.

  ‘That's the guy,’ I said. ‘Charles Neagley. That's the name I saw on the hotel records.’

  She stared at the page.

  ‘Why did she have his number?’ she asked.

  ‘Beats me, but it makes this theory practically ironclad. This can't be a coincidence.’

  ‘I don't understand,’ she said. ‘If he murdered Amie, how did she get his number?’

  ‘One way to find out,’ I said, looking from the number to Marie.

  Amie Giroux did not have a landline, and her mobile was either in a police evidence locker or burrowed in the dirt half a mile from the wreckage, so Marie dug her hand into her bag and retrieved a slim flip phone.

  ‘Who should make the call?’ she asked, holding the phone like it was a hatching egg or vial of salmonella.

  ‘I think I should,’ I said. ‘I’m a third party, after all. I’m not notably involved.’

  She nodded and held the phone out to me. I took it and dialled in the number on the page. Hit the call button and held it to my ear.

  The purr of the outgoing call drifted out into the world like a hand reaching blindly into the night, searching for something to hold. The purr sent a tingle down my spine. We were close.

  The call was answered. The dull bass of heavy breaths vibrated into my ear. No words were spoken.

  ‘Charles Neagley?’ I asked. My voice sounded strangely timid.

  A moment of silence.

  ‘Who is this?’ asked the voice on the other end of the line. Definitely male. Definitely American. Almost certainly the same man I’d seen in the car park and in the forest. The voice fit the man.

  ‘We’ll get to that,’ I said, regaining more bravado in my voice. ‘But first, I want to know if this is the man I saw lurking around in the dark the night before last, around a certain crime scene?’

  More silence.

  ‘Mr Neagley, let me put this nice and simple for you. In two hours, I’ll be standing at the exact spot you and your two companions parked up, and I’ll be waiting.’

  ‘Waiting for what?’ asked Neagley.

  ‘For you, Mr Neagley. For you to show up with fifty thousand euros in cash, otherwise I’ll go to the police with all the proof I have.’

  Neagley said nothing.

  ‘What proof, I hear you ask. Well, you’re a smart man. You wouldn’t leave behind evidence.’ I said. I looked up at Marie. Her face was plain. Her eyes on the phone, no doubt imagining the man on the other end of the line. ‘But I’ve got news for you, pal. I’ve got all the proof I need. I have photographs of you and your two friends. I’ve got pictures of the car you used, and I’ve got a recording of you discussing what you did.’

  More silence.

  ‘I saw you,’ said Neagley. ‘Outside the hotel. You crossed the street.’

  ‘Glad to hear I’ve got the right man then,’ I replied.

  ‘What an interesting turn of events,’ he sneered.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I knew I recognised you,’ he said. ‘Small world.’

  It was my turn not to speak.

  ‘This is the infamous James Stone, I presume?’ he asked.

  I felt my stomach twist around a helix. I looked up at Marie. She had no idea what was being said.

  ‘The little London bomber himself. Very interesting,’ Neagley mused. ‘Alright, Mr Stone. I’ll play your game. Fifty thousand up by the woods in two hours.’

  He ended the call, leaving me with an endless void of silence.

  I flipped the phone closed and handed it back to Marie, and hoped the internal dread I was feeling didn’t spill outwards.

  ‘What did he say?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to meet him in two hours,’ I said, my voice much calmer than I expected it to be, ‘up at the place where I saw them in the woods. He’s agreed to meet.’

  ‘Why did you ask him for money?’

  ‘Because it changes things for him. It makes me a surmountable problem. If I said we knew who he was and had the proof, and that all we wanted was to see him locked up, he’d run for it. If he thinks all I want is money, he can pay me off.’

  ‘Or kill you,’ Marie said.

  ‘Or that, yeah.’

  ‘You mentioned you had a recording of them?’ she asked. ‘You told him on the phone you had proof?’

  ‘Yeah, in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have said that,’ I said. ‘But the photos on their own aren’t enough. Mere conjecture at best. We need genuine proof he was involved.’

  ‘I take it you have a plan?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘We’ll drive up there and scope the place out. Then I’ll go and wait at the rendezvous point while you wait in the car nearby. That way, you can keep watch in case this guy tries something, or if we have to get out of there quickly.’

  ‘What
will you do?’

  ‘I’ll confront him. try to get him to confess on tape, then we can take that to the police.’

  Marie nodded, deep in thought.

  ‘I need to pick up a few things,’ I said. ‘Shall I meet you back at your place in an hour?’

  It took the better part of said hour to get what I needed. Armed with Marie’s advance, I left Amie’s dilapidated abode and headed out in search of an electronics shop. Prisches, while adorably quaint, was lacking in technological advances. What qualified as its main high street was a mixture of local family businesses and a select few big name brands that had squeezed into the spots between. Getting what I needed took more time than I’d hoped.

  But it was not impossible. I bought a cheap burner phone wrapped in a nigh unbreakable layer of plastic. The kind of protection they should give to presidents and world leaders. I wouldn’t be surprised if that stuff was practically bullet proof. It certainly made a mockery of a pair of scissors. The second item was found by chance. The slim grey recording device sat amongst a box of electronic junk in the third charity shop I found. I pulled it free and, after swapping out the decade-old batteries oozing chemicals inside, gave it a go. It worked perfectly. It would do the job.

  Marie had written down her mobile phone number, so instead of heading back to hers, I called her up and arranged to meet her nearby. I bought myself an early lunch of freshly baked croissants and another pan au chocolat, and was ready and waiting for her sporty yellow coupé as it pulled around the corner.

  Marie had changed clothes. Gone was the business dress, and on were a pair of black jeans and a grey knitted jumper. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of large designer sunglasses. As I got inside and looked over at her, I noticed something for the first time. With her hands gripping the steering wheel, I could see her fingers. A faint, pale line marked her finger, exactly where a wedding band would once have sat. Marie didn’t notice me looking, and I didn’t bring it up. She had enough to deal with.

  ‘Do you know the way from here?’ she asked.

  I nodded and directed her back through the town towards the spot in the woods. The classical music had gone, replaced by music from the last decade. I recognised a few of them, which was saying something from a man who’d grown up on a healthy diet of The Rolling Stones and Queen. In between the hits, two young, upbeat presenters whipped up some lively banter that I struggled to follow.

  Not at least until I heard my own name.

  Sixteen

  In school, I studied French for five years. It wasn’t my favourite class and, given the option, I would have chosen to study Spanish instead. But the powers that be had put me in a class destined to learn worlds like pomplemouse or sacrebleau, and while I never felt like I was very good at it, I’d always managed to be in the top classes throughout my secondary school years.

  The tricky part had always been understanding what someone was saying to me. I could speak it well enough, and I could read it with nary a problem. But hearing someone fluent in the language ask me to describe my last holiday, or tell me about the pet hamster they had as a child was like listening to a television program with intermittent static. I couldn’t string it together coherently, so my mind would usually just shut it off and tell me to wing it when it came to answering the question or remarking about the hamster. Chalk it up to being an inherently lazy teenager.

  It happened just a second after I pointed out the next turn to Marie. With my mind elsewhere, my ears pricked up at the sound of my own name like it would if someone called to me from the other side of a crowded room.

  ‘What?’ I asked Marie.

  She just glanced at me.

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ she replied.

  Which was when the piece slotted into place, and I realised where the voice had come from. Which was when my spine went cold, and a tsunami of sweat cascaded down my back.

  ‘Wanted in connection to last November’s attack in London, Police are advising that local residents keep on the lookout for the James Stone, and insist that, if you see him, you should not approach him under any circumstances. He is likely armed, and extremely dangerous. If you have any information about his whereabouts, please call the police immediately.’

  I held my breath, but Marie didn’t seem to have noticed the radio.

  ‘I haven’t been up this way in years,’ she mused. ‘Amie and I used to come up here when we were children.’

  I didn’t respond. My head was too much of a mess.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ the Wolf snarled in my ear. ‘They’re closing in on us.’

  ‘Not yet.’ I said.

  ‘Charles Neagley knows who you are. He knows this will be some kind of trap, and of the two of you, you are the one the police are more interested in than some guy who may or may not be connected to a woman’s suicide.’

  ‘He’s involved,’ I said. ‘I have to stop him.’

  ‘Stop him from what?’ snapped the Wolf. ‘The woman is already dead. There’s nothing else you can do now.’

  ‘He needs to be held accountable for it.’

  ‘And who should be held accountable for those victims in London?’ he hissed. ‘If you do this, the police will arrest you, and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. They will kill you, James. You and your family.’

  I buzzed down the window and let the cool air wash away my demons. I couldn’t think about home, or about London. I had to stay focused on the task at hand.

  When we were close, I pointed to a spot for Marie to park up, and climbed out. We still had over forty minutes until the rendezvous, and I wanted to be prepared for anything. The yellow coupé stuck out like a toxic spill amongst the wooden, wintery backdrop, but that in itself did the trick. Who would be dumb enough to arrange a meeting like this in such a secluded space with a car like that parked out on the side of the road? Marie insisted that the road spindled through the woods and fields to the next town over, so it stood to reason that anyone could pass by without suspicion. Make it look like car troubles, and she was practically a ghost. And I wanted Marie close enough for whatever came next.

  Together, we hiked up to the spot I’d seen Neagley’s associates’s car parked. In the dark, the place hadn’t looked like anything special, but in the light of day I could see it had been used a number of times as a spot to park up at, with a narrow footpath leading off into the trees. I recognised the trees and, looking off further to my right, I could see the land dip where the train tracks lay. Marie noticed it too and stiffened slightly.

  ‘You should get back to the car,’ I said. ‘In case he tries to arrive earlier than expected. Call me if you see anything, okay?’

  She just nodded to that and drifted away down the track. When she was out of sight, I turned and headed for the train tracks.

  A tall mesh fence topped with barbed wire stretched along either side of the tracks. If my geography was correct, the bridge I’d jumped off was to my left, so I followed the fence around to the right instead. It didn’t take long to find the spot.

  Yellow police tape fluttered in the wind, sectioning off an area of the woods maybe thirty square yards in size. No one was about, so I ducked underneath and walked to the scene of the crime.

  Tyre tracks on my side of the woods worked their way between the narrow trees to a spot where the fence had stopped. I could see the exact spot the car had been parked. Gravel surrounding the train tracks had been dug away, where the car had burrowed in on impact. Most of the remains had already been removed, with only the smaller bits of shrapnel peppering the surrounding area. Glass had exploded out so far, I could see it glistening in the midday light far off in the distance. It must have been instantaneous. There one moment. Gone the next. Faster than blowing out a candle. As quick and certain as a bullet to the head.

  I imagined the train driver, seeing the anomaly on the tracks ahead. What would he have done in that moment? The train had been going at some considerable speed when I jumped off. I’d prob
ably have died myself if I’d landed on solid ground. Definitely if I’d hit a tree. How strong were the train’s brakes? Could they slow down in time to save a life?

  I looked up and down the track. Coming the other way, the driver would have had a near straight shot for a good couple hundred yards. Maybe that would have been enough, but coming from the left, he’d have come round a bend in the tracks with only a football pitch of space to do anything about it. Maybe he could have slowed, but would it have been enough to stop the inevitable?

  But then, maybe a quick death was preferable.

  I retraced my footsteps back to the rendezvous point. Come what may, I couldn’t hang around for much longer. If Marie so much as turned on a television or opened a newspaper, she was going to see my face looking back up at her. That was the power of the media. They had the numbers working on their side. The only people their magic didn’t work on were the hermits living up in the hills that repelled human contact, and a fat lot of good that did for me.

  I had to think, about the present, about the future. I needed a plan of action. If Neagley called the cops, I was walking into a trap of my own creation. With fresh clothes, a good chunk of Marie’s advance still in my pocket, and an early lunch sat in my stomach, I could try to run for it. But it wouldn’t be one cop with early onset arthritis coming to catch me. It would be an army. A whole battalion of athletic officers with dogs and helicopters and guns. Running wouldn’t be enough.

  But what if it wasn’t a trap? What if Neagley was on his way? What if I could get what I needed?

  Two options. Two parts of my brain fighting each corner.

  Fight, or flight.

  Which was right?

  The phone in my pocket buzzed. I pulled it out and saw Marie’s number.

  ‘Everything alright?’ I asked.

  ‘A car just turned up,’ she said. ‘The one from the photographs. They’re here.’

  Seventeen