Down Cemetery Road (27 page)

But Downey had killed Axel Crane, remember, and while Amos was better than Axel, that didn’t make him invulnerable. Michael Downey, after all, had a cause. What Amos had been banking on from the start: that Downey wouldn’t stop until he’d found the child. And a soldier with a cause was a different proposition from a lot of the targets Amos Crane had drawn a line through. Perhaps Crane was stepping in something deeper than he’d realized. The state he was in at the moment, you couldn’t accuse him of thinking straight.

Downey surviving this was unthinkable, obviously, but if he despatched Amos Crane in the meantime, it wasn’t going to spoil Howard’s day. He closed the file, locked it in his cabinet, and after a good hard think about it, crept down the stairs to check on Amos Crane. But Crane was gone, his office in darkness; the dead eye of his computer screen reflecting just the debris of his desk. Among it, Crane’s spectacles, neatly folded. He wore them only for screen work, and wouldn’t need them now.

Daylight was bleeding out of the sky. Above the rooftops of the houses opposite a few last red smears were fading to black, as if an old wound were going bad, and it took an effort for Sarah to remember the obvious: that this was the way it always was, and the sky would be healed by morning. With the pictures in her head mingling with the onscreen images, it was easy to imagine instead that this was the end. Some wounds never got better. The boy soldiers had melted.

She did not press Michael for details: there were some things it was better never to know. And anyway, the word ‘melted’ contained enough bitter knowledge to last a lifetime. They had sat in silence after its utterance, the pair of them on the floor somehow; Sarah leaning against the bed, and Michael cross-legged, back to the window, so he couldn’t see the sky as Sarah could. She wondered if he too would have thought it mortally wounded. Or perhaps he’d have expected a helicopter, and the sound of breaking glass: same thing.

‘Are you all right?’ she prompted gently at last.

‘I’m fine.’

‘What happened next?’

Michael didn’t know what happened next.

He had passed out; wished he had passed out seconds earlier, and been spared the nightmares since. When he came to he was a red sore: his skin flaking, peeling; his hair scorched. He was tied to a hospital bed. He didn’t know where he was. He thought . . .

‘I didn’t know what I thought.’

‘You thought you were a prisoner.’

‘It was our helicopter. One of ours. I know that now. But back then, tied to that bed . . . I wondered. I thought maybe I’d got it upside down.’

‘But you hadn’t.’

‘We were guinea pigs. That bomb, it was some kind of chem- ical agent. And the stuff we’d been painted with, that was supposed to protect us.’ He paused. ‘You used to hear stories, back during the war. About the super-weapon. They called it a Patriot Bomb. You ever hear of that?’

Sarah shook her head.

‘It’s the Holy Grail. Something that kills the enemy, but not your own troops. I don’t think it exists, not yet. But not everybody’s stopped trying.’

‘But that’s illegal, chemical weapons, they’re . . .’

They were against the law. She didn’t bother finishing.

He pulled his shirt up and showed her his stomach. Ugly red weals coloured it, strange blotchy stripes, like the camouflage of a new beast. He didn’t comment, having no need to. He pulled his shirt down again. Sarah couldn’t say sorry: mostly she felt sick, but not for the sake of his appearance. She said nothing.

‘I don’t know how long I was there. We were all there, the six of us, but I didn’t know that until later. There were tests. Blood tests. A machine, like they use for a brain scan, but for the whole body. They never spoke to me. It was as if I’d dropped from outer space, and they wanted to know all about my planet. You know what happened? I became an un-person out there in the desert. I was just a result, the result of an experiment. And they didn’t give a fuck I was also human.’

She would have reached to touch him then, but sensed he didn’t want that.

‘It was only when I saw through a window I knew I was in England. After that, they moved us anyway. All of us.’

‘Where to?’

‘An island. Off the west coast of Scotland. I was better by then. Better as I’ll ever be. I’m not sure why they didn’t just kill us.’

‘They pretended you were dead.’

‘We learned that on the island. One of the guards told Tommy. Funny, we didn’t really think they were guards until then. They were just guys, a bunch of guys, there to make sure we were all right. That’s what they told us. And every time we asked, which was every day, they’d say we were going home soon, and it was just a few things needed sorting, that was all. Tomorrow. Maybe the next day. I can’t remember how many tomorrows I lived through, waiting for the boat. Must have been hundreds. Then one of the guys, one Tommy got really friendly with, told him we were all supposed to be dead anyway. In that helicopter.’ He laughed, but didn’t sound amused. ‘I’ve never been to Cyprus. Never been dead, either.’

‘What did you do?’

‘That was the end. The end of pretending. They weren’t armed just because the regulations demanded, and we weren’t kept in cells for protection. We were already dead, it was just nobody had pulled the trigger yet. I don’t know. Maybe there were more tests they wanted to do. Maybe they wondered if we’d all die anyway, through long-term side effects. Or maybe – and this is what I think really happened – they couldn’t kill us without heavy back-up. Like a signed letter from the Prime Minister, for instance. We were members of Her Majesty’s forces, for Christ’s sake. They weren’t going to execute us without covering their backs. But they weren’t going to let us go, either. Not now they’d told the world we were dead.’

Sarah said, ‘Jesus wept . . .’

‘Yeah. Right.’

He stood abruptly, and went to look out of the window after all. It occurred to her, the way she might cotton on to the plot half-way through a TV drama, that the reason people wanted to kill him was because of everything he knew. And now she knew it too.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘We left.’

‘Just like that.’

‘No. Not just like that.’ He turned back to look at her. ‘Tommy and I left. That was all.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Dead.’

‘And the guards?’

‘Dead.’

‘Did you . . .’

‘We were still at war, don’t you get it? It’s just that nobody had explained whose side we were on. There were four guards, six of us. Only Tommy and me walked.’

‘I don’t blame you.’

‘I wasn’t asking your forgiveness.’

‘I wasn’t saying that. I meant –’

‘Or your understanding. I’m telling you what happened, that’s all. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ she said softly. She could hardly make him out, now. The room so full of shadows, she couldn’t tell where they stopped and he started.

He shook his head, then turned and drew the curtains. There was a small lamp on the bedside table he turned on, then offered her water. She wasn’t thirsty. He poured a glass to the brim, and drained it in one long swallow.

‘What was it called?’ she asked. ‘The island?’

‘I could find it on a map.’

‘And where’ve you been since?’

‘When?’

‘All the time you’ve been playing dead. Where did you hide?’

He didn’t answer, but picked up the remote control, and buzzed the TV back to life: artillery traces swept across a black sky like screaming angels. And Sarah thought of snipers cloistered high over city streets; of mortar shells wrecking schools and marketplaces. She thought of dark nights and roadblocks, and civilians poured into mass graves. There were only so many livings a soldier might earn.

‘Did she know?’

‘Who?’

‘Maddy. Tommy’s wife. Did she know you were –’

‘No. She thought we were dead.’

He snapped the TV off again, as if underlining a point.

She felt she needed breathing space, a time to absorb the information he’d given her. In a former life, she’d have headed for open air: walked her limbs ragged and cleaned her lungs out, given her mind a chance to catch up. Tonight, she didn’t want to leave this room. The story he’d told her: it was as if the reality of it was waiting outside, and it was only in here she’d be safe. As for what had happened to
her
, her own sad tale, she’d hardly begun to believe it. Though already a full day had passed since Rufus attacked her, making ancient history of everything that had gone before. And she wondered what poor Maddy had thought, finding her husband delivered from the grave. She must have believed her life was starting over; all the time Rufus was waiting to take it away.

It was as if he’d read her thoughts. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘Rufus?’

‘If that was his name.’

‘He called himself Axel,’ she remembered.

‘Tell me anyway.’

So she told him about Wigwam instead; not about the wacky clothes and the sixties mind-set, but about the woman who was her friend, who had struggled to bring up four children despite an abusive partner who had popped out one day for the legendary can of lager, and never come back.

‘Literally,’ Sarah said. ‘A can of lager.’

Michael looked away.

And then Rufus showed up. To call it a whirlwind romance underestimated the weather. Sarah had dropped in one morning and found Wigwam had a husband.

‘Cover,’ Michael said.

‘I know that
now
.’

‘He was waiting for Tommy. An agent in place.’

‘They knew he’d turn up?’

‘They knew where Maddy and Dinah lived.’

Some men buggered off in search of the Eternal Off-Licence; others just buggered off, period. Some went into hiding to save their lives, but had to come back for their children.

‘So what about you? Why didn’t you just disappear again?’

He didn’t answer.

‘A man’s gotta do?’ she asked, surprised at her own venom. ‘Nobody blows up your best buddy while you’re around?’

‘Oh, macho, sure.’ He looked at her. ‘There was something Tommy used to say. “Remember Buddy Holly’s last words? Fuck it. We’re all going to die.”’

‘And that’s how soldiers talk.’

‘He was a soldier, yes. It’s how he talked, that’s all. What’s Dinah to you, anyway?’

‘She was a child,’ Sarah said after a long pause. ‘I just thought somebody should make sure she was all right.’

Michael said, ‘That guy. Rufus. Axel? The day after the bomb, he was hanging round the house, or what was left of it. And every day after.’

‘But there were loads of people like that. Sightseers.’

‘He wasn’t watching the fire crews. He was watching the people
watching
the fire crews. He was waiting for me. Besides, I recognized him.’

‘You knew him?’

‘Knew the type. He was a killer.’

‘
Rufus?
’

‘Was I wrong?’

He hadn’t been wrong.

‘I knew he killed Maddy and Tommy. If anyone knew where Dinah went, he did.’

She had Dinah to thank for her life, then. If Michael hadn’t been following Rufus, he’d never have heard her alarm.

‘I’d have killed him anyway,’ he said.

She knew that too. It troubled her that it didn’t upset her more.

‘Why haven’t they found him?’ she asked.

‘They have.’

‘It would have been on the news.’

‘Depends.’ He’d been thinking about this, she could tell. ‘Depends who found him first.’

‘Mark must have got home –’

‘Within the hour,’ he said. ‘That was him at the station, right?’

She hadn’t told him that. He knew anyway.

‘So, he gets home and finds a body. You’ve done a bunk. Does he go to the cops?’

‘He goes to the cops.’ She was sure about this.

He showed her his open palms. ‘And first thing they do is pass the buck. This guy, Axel, the killer, he’ll have had ID. The local cops take one look at it, they’re on the phone to the Home Office.’ He yawned suddenly. Hugely. ‘Next thing you know, there’s men in suits all over your house, deciding what did and didn’t happen.’

‘You’re tired.’

‘Exhausted.’

‘You should sleep.’

‘So should you.’

For a quick moment their eyes met, as their situation hit them anew: two of them, and just one bed. But it was only a moment.

‘I’ll take the chair,’ he said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. The bed’s big enough.’

‘I’ll –’

‘Oh for God’s sake, I won’t bite you.’ She bit her lip instead. ‘Look. Suppose they come? Suppose they find us? You’re dead on your feet. You need to sleep.’

‘I’m okay.’

‘You’re not.’ You never will be, she thought. ‘Just lie down, all right?’

He gave her a crooked sort of smile, an out-of-practice one.

She was thinking of the weals on his stomach, wondering if his whole body was like that. As if he’d been flayed with a red-hot whip: and she shuddered, and hoped he didn’t notice.

For some reason, looking up at the hotel in the darkness, he was reminded of a ship: one of those ocean-going monsters he’d never been on, but imagined readily enough; ploughing through night and weather, impervious to both. Lights here and there showed where crew were still on watch. The canopies and flagpoles were the rigging. Amos Crane shook his head to dispel the fancy. Middle of the night, one long drive done, another yet to go: in between he’d get to kill people, if his guesswork proved solid. It was hardly the time to indulge his imagination.

The hotel was part of an upmarket chain; upmarket enough that the register was on a database, into which Crane had found his way with no trouble. Late last night – the night
before
last – there’d been a couple who had paid cash for a double room, without reservations, and – according to an unticked box on the screen – nothing in the way of luggage, either. Smithson. As if somebody had started saying Smith, and their brain caught up half a beat later.

It was a one-shot deal. If they weren’t here – and he’d stopped looking once he’d found this pair – then he’d not find them before they were on the move again. But that was okay. He liked these odds.
Never let them tell you it’s not a game
, Axel had said once. It was good remembering that, after too many months pretending to be a suit. And one way or the other, he didn’t expect his desk to be waiting for him once he got back home. He got out of the car and carefully buttoned his raincoat. It was the kind of detail that lingered in the memory of others. Once, he’d done a job in full view of four witnesses, wearing a bright red scarf.
Wearing a red scarf
, the descriptions said afterwards. Other than that, he’d been a ghost.