Second Solace

by Robert Clark

  ‘Fighting crime,’ I replied. ‘Is Gail in?’

  ‘Just got back,’ he said.

  I pushed past him and kicked off my shoes before I let myself in. Gail was in the kitchen. She looked up and smiled at me.

  ‘Back already?’ she asked. ‘That climb usually takes people the better part of a day, and that’s not in the middle of winter.’

  ‘Didn't make it to the top,’ I replied. ‘I might try again another time, but I'd need better clothes.’

  ‘I’ve left some spares in your room,’ she said. ‘Didn't want you walking around all the time in wet clothes. It'll kill you up here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘If you leave those clothes down here, I'll dry them out for you.’

  ‘You don't have to do that,’ I said. ‘I don't want to trouble you.’

  ‘It's nothing’ she smiled. ‘I have to do it with mine, anyway. Least I can do is help you out as well. You must be tired after your hike.’

  I was. I thanked her again and stripped down to my boxers and handed my clothes to Gail. Her eyes flickered down my body, scars, burns and all. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t shy away either. I headed up stairs to the bathroom.

  One gloriously warm shower later, I could feel my toes again. I got out, wiped the condensation from the mirror and looked at my reflection. My body was a mess of scars, but thankfully with time, many had started to fade. Only the deepest lingered. Like stamps on a passport, they were a permanent reminder of my past. The deepest and darkest was little more than a fine line running across the back of my neck. Two inches in length, it looked like nothing more than a paper cut, but it was far from that. It stood as an effigy to the day I died.

  I let the steam clear my pores, then headed to my room. A pair of thermal leggings greeted me on the bed. I welcomed them like an old friend. Followed them up with a thick pair of socks and a thermal top, and climbed into bed.

  The soft blanket carried me away into a dreamless sleep, and when I awoke, the sky had turned black. The smell of hot food drifted up through the floorboards, which was as good an excuse as any for me to get up and head downstairs.

  Sure enough, Gail was up and preparing what looked to be roasted potatoes and vegetables, with a slab of meat cooking in the oven. The smell was intoxicating. She looked over and smiled.

  ‘Shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes,’ she said.

  ‘It smells great.’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Thanks. It’s nothing special. Roast lamb and vegetables. You can wait at the table.’

  I slid into the same seat I’d taken that morning and looked around. For late December, the house felt comfortably warm. I wondered what type of insulation it had. But not for too long, as Gail placed a plate down in front of me piled high with food. I devoured the meal as quickly as I had the night before and finished long before Gail. She laughed at my eagerness.

  ‘I was always told to chew my food,’ she giggled.

  ‘I do, just very quickly,’ I replied. ‘The way my life’s been going this past year, you never know when someone’s going to cut a meal short and try to murder you.’

  ‘Don’t you get heart burn?’

  ‘Always. But it beats a bullet in the head.’

  ‘Sounds fun.’

  ‘Not as fun as this.’

  She smiled and looked down at her food.

  ‘You were spying on someone,’ she said. ‘When I caught you earlier. I should have realised then. Nobody climbs that mountain in winter.’

  She kept her eyes down on her food.

  ‘You talked to your father?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t need to. It’s the only logical answer. Daddy’s worried someone might betray him. So the only person he can trust is the person he sent to collect. I’ll admit, you aren’t who I thought we’d find.’

  ‘You knew about the ambush?’ I asked.

  ‘I was in the meeting. I’m daddy’s secretary sometimes. I take the meeting minutes when he needs so he can review them later on. I never get involved.’

  ‘Do you have a copy of them?’ I asked, but she shook her head.

  ‘Daddy keeps all his files in the office, minutes included. But I can remember most of it if you had any questions.’

  ‘What do you know about the Dawson brothers?’ I asked.

  ‘Jack and Carl, they’re who you’re watching?’

  ‘They’re on the list.’

  ‘They seem like pretty regular guys,’ she shrugged. ‘They turned up a couple of years ago and just stuck around. I think they’re both ex-army. But I never had much contact with either. They’re part of Cecilia’s unit.’

  ‘How were they in the meeting? Did they act out of place?’

  ‘Not that I can remember, but I don’t exactly spend time watching everyone. I need to stay focused on the minutes.’

  ‘Nothing suspicious?’ I asked.

  ‘They arrived a couple minutes late with Cecilia. They were out on a job I think. Came back early when they got the call about the meeting.’

  ‘What kind of job?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said. She took another bite of her food. ‘They’ve been working on something to convert running water into power up in the mountains. Probably something to do with that. Like I said, I don’t have much contact with their unit.’

  ‘Can you run me through the meeting?’ I asked. ‘How did it go down?’

  ‘From what I remember, Corser got the Intel a little over an hour before the meeting started. Daddy called everyone in urgently, which was why Cecilia and the Dawsons turned up late. Corser explained the situation; that a truck carrying a person of interest would be driving through a known dead zone, and that the detail would be light enough to do a snatch and grab without any resistance. Cecilia was mad that we’d called her in at first, but when she found out more about it, she suddenly changed her tune.’

  ‘She wanted the ambush to happen?’ I asked.

  ‘Eventually, yeah. She was all for it. She said she’d go down in person and handle it, but daddy didn’t want her to. She’s got a lot on her plate at the moment, and a two-day round trip is the last thing she needed. So Corser was sent instead.’

  ‘And the Dawsons, what were they doing while this was happening?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing much. They don’t speak up much in these meetings. Don’t have much to contribute, I guess. I’m surprised they get to be involved. But Cecilia demanded it, and daddy usually does what she wants.’

  I thought about the Dawson brothers. Jack and Carl. Neither man looked like the sort that would run for office, yet they’d found themselves a seat at the high court of Second Solace.

  ‘What happened next?’ I asked.

  ‘They planned out the ambush. Corser was a sniper back in the day, so he decided to scope it out from afar, and pick up the package when he was sure there wasn’t any backup hiding around the corner. Daddy wasn’t thrilled with the plan, but under the circumstances, he agreed. Cecilia was angry she couldn’t do the job herself, so she insisted she would meet Corser halfway as a security measure. Nobody wanted to disagree with her. She usually gets her way.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then the meeting ended. Like I said, it didn’t last long.’

  ‘Why does your father have so much trust in Cece?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t call her Cece,’ Gail giggled. ‘She hates it.’

  ‘I’ll risk it. What’s the deal between them two?’

  ‘She sided with him when the group split. She risked her life to back daddy, and he repaid her with his loyalty. But if you ask me, I think he’s a little smitten with her too.’

  ‘The group split?’

  ‘Didn’t daddy tell you? It was years ago now. The population was around the same as it is today, but it wasn’t as ordered. There was a rift. Some people didn’t like the way he was running the place, and they rebelled. Daddy managed to fight them off, and they left to start their own place somewhere
else.’

  ‘What was the problem?’

  ‘They didn’t like the fact daddy wanted to keep some modern day technologies in the group. They argued we were falling for the same mistakes. Daddy said we should learn from them. He believes in progress.’

  ‘That seems like a strange thing to fight about,’ I said.

  ‘Not really. When daddy started this place, he preached that it would be the place that outlasted the rest of the world. He was one of them too. He knew the world was tainted. But as the years went on and Second Solace grew, so did his vision for the place. It upset those who had followed the man of passion into the wilderness. They thought he had failed them. So they went to try it again someplace else.’

  ‘I wonder why your father didn’t mention that fact.’

  ‘He doesn’t talk about them much. It was as much a failure for him too. He nearly lost this place to them. Cecilia helped him pull it back from the brink. That’s why he trusts her so much.’

  She finished the food on her plate. I snatched it away from her before she could pick it up.

  ‘I’ll clean up,’ I said. ‘It’s only fair.’

  She smiled and raised her hands in mocking concession. I took the plates over to the kitchen. I could feel her eyes on me as I washed the dishes and dried them off with a cloth. Then she pointed out where to store them. I placed the dishes in the cupboard, and as I turned around, the room went dark.

  ‘Everything okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, yeah,’ Gail replied. ‘Guess the power cut out.’

  ‘That happen often up here?’

  ‘Every now and then. It’s an antiquated system they built. It’ll be the weather causing it. Hold on, I’ve got some candles.’

  I heard her fumble around in the dark for a minute, then a warm orange glow appeared off to my right. The candle’s flame illuminated her features. She moved around and lit four others, leaving the room with a calmer, intimate feel.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, sitting back down at the table.

  ‘How long is it usually out for?’ I asked.

  ‘A couple hours, maybe a little more depending on the problem. It’s not as simple as flipping a breaker.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘There’s whiskey in that decanter, if you fancy a drink?’ she said.

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  I fetched the decanter and two glasses and headed back to the table. I placed a glass in front of Gail and poured us both a drink. She held up her glass in a toast.

  ‘Anything you’d like to toast?’ she asked.

  I raised my glass.

  ‘To great food,’ I said.

  ‘And greater company,’ she grinned.

  We clinked our glasses and drank. The whiskey tasted warm and tingled my throat.

  ‘Tell me about yourself,’ I said as the alcohol hit my bloodstream.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just thought it might be good to get to know the woman I’m living with.’

  She blushed.

  ‘Well, you already know my name, and you know what I do here, so I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘What do you do when you’re not cooking strangers meals or typing up minutes?’

  ‘I like to hike, and I like to paint. I’m working on a piece right now that I want to hang up in the courthouse. If daddy will let me, that is.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a secret.’

  ‘I promise I won’t tell.’

  She smiled and looked into her drink.

  ‘I wanted to paint the world we want to live in. You know, if this whole place succeeds, I wanted to paint the world we will come into. Like a visual goal every time we have to sit around in court and pass judgement on this or that, I thought it would be awesome to have it there, reminding us that we are paving the way for a better future.’

  ‘That sounds nice. How far through it are you?’

  ‘Maybe halfway. I’ve got the basics done. But there’ll be a lot of smaller details to work on. I want it to be perfect.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe later. First, I want to know about you.’

  ‘What about me?’ I asked.

  ‘I want to know your side of the story.’

  ‘I thought you Second Solacers aren’t supposed to talk about people’s pasts?’

  ‘Well yeah, but how many times will I get to sit in a room with one of the world’s biggest falsely accused criminals?’

  ‘Happens every week or so for me.’

  ‘Come on, I want to know. I told you about my painting. I haven’t told anyone I’m even painting it. Let me hear your side of things. Start at the beginning.’

  ‘It’s too long and boring,’ I said.

  ‘Then give me the important parts. Why is the world so sure you are a criminal when you say you aren’t?’

  It was my turn to stare into the depths of my glass.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ I said. ‘I don’t know where it starts really, because I was just a pawn in it. The people who did this to me, they aren’t the sort of people you ever meet. They’re the puppet masters, hiding in the darkness. Trust me, I know how morose and cliché that sounds, but I don’t know how else to describe it. They chose me as their scapegoat and, well, put everything into place. I don’t know the half of it myself. All I know is that they targeted me, and left me for dead after they were finished.’

  If they were finished.

  ‘We heard about the attack,’ she said, her voice quieter than before. ‘They called you a monster.’

  ‘They called me worse than a monster,’ I said.

  ‘It’s crazy to think the one-year anniversary of it was just last month,’ she said, more to herself than to me. The thought of it conjured up too much for me to cope with. I took another sip of my whiskey. She noticed my reticence, and said, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. We were having a nice meal and I ruined it. Tell me something else instead. You have a son, don’t you?’

  ‘Peter,’ I said. The shadow of a smile drifted across my face at the thought of him, but it quickly vanished.

  ‘How old is he?’ she asked.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘That’s nice. I bet he’s such a little cutie.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him in a year.’

  Which killed the mood as much as a madman wielding an axe bursting into the room could have. Gail let out a small noise that sounded halfway between a groan and a cry, and busied herself with her whiskey. I watched her, but didn’t really see her. My mind was elsewhere.

  ‘I’ve got a question for you,’ I said, breaking the silence that had grown to a near suffocating level between us.

  ‘Fire away,’ Gail replied almost too eagerly.

  ‘It’s about the ambush. You said earlier you didn’t expect to find me in the truck. Who did you think was in there?’

  Gail shifted in her seat and looked away.

  ‘I don’t think I should say,’ she said sheepishly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it would paint the wrong picture. You’re new here. This place doesn’t mean the same to you as it does to us. I’ve lived here my whole life. My daddy built this place to be a new start for people, and the worse the world gets out there, the more important it is that this place survives. You have to understand that.’

  ‘I’m not exactly a model citizen myself,’ I said. ‘I promise I won’t look down my nose at you. I’m just trying to help your father.’

  ‘It’s more than him you’re helping,’ she said, and for a moment I thought she was going to call me out for being an FBI spy too, but then she said, ‘It’s the whole place. It’s all of us. If you find our traitor, you’ll be saving a whole town.’

  ‘So who did you think was in that truck?’ I asked.

  She paused. Plucked up the courage. Then she said it.

  ‘A weapons expert from Afghanistan.’

  Thirteen<
br />
  Tension

  An awkward silence drifted between us like a ghost. Gail looked away, unable to bear the thoughts that must be cascading through my mind. There were none, of course. I already knew the brief Whyte and Miles had leaked. I already knew the reason behind the brief, probably more so than the woman sitting opposite me. So I gave it a couple of seconds to look like I was absorbing the information, then I asked the question that she would expect me to ask.

  ‘What did you want with an Afghan Weapons Specialist?’

  ‘I can't say,’ she said. ‘And before you ask, it's because I don't know. I'm not part of their inner circle. I don't know what they're up to. I stay out of it through choice. I want no part of it. I like my life as it is; not bogged down with whatever complications daddy and Cecilia are working on.’

  ‘They ever mention what it is when you were taking minutes?’ I asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘That's completely off the books,’ she said. ‘Whatever they're doing, it never even gets mentioned outside the-’

  She caught herself just in time, but not so gracefully as to stop the deer-in-headlights look flash across her face.

  ‘The what?’ I asked.

  ‘I can't say,’ her eyes darted up to the antique clock on the wall. The swinging pendulum chipped away the seconds. The time was nearly nine o'clock. ‘I think it's time I went to bed. I've got a long day tomorrow.’

  And before I could say anything, she finished her drink and headed for the stairs. Her empty glass sat opposite me. The floorboards creaked as she hustled around upstairs, and the door slammed shut behind her.

  I took my time with my drink, and helped myself to a second, because there was no one around to stop me, and it had been about a million years since I last had the opportunity to drink without someone coming to murder me. But also because it was Boxing day, and I didn't want to think about what kind of horrors my wife and son had been through because of me. We should be together at home, me and Sophie watching Peter play with his new toys. But instead, I was here, and Sophie was in FBI custody, and Peter was... somewhere.

  I wanted to finish off the bottle, but I capped myself at two. I returned the decanter to the shelf and washed the glasses in the sink. I picked a coat off the hook that looked like it would fit and laced up my boots. I blew out all but one of the candles, and headed out into the dark.