Gone Again (19 page)

He pushed Ruth and Nathan down the street and ran after them.

The boy was fast, even in bare feet. He was up front.

Mark could hear Ruth puffing beside him.

They were heading towards the prom.

The crack of a gunshot made Mark flinch.

He ducked, glanced back, ran on.

Fisher and Blue, both with guns. A hundred yards behind.

He couldn’t see if Ferguson was there, or the other officer.

He looked at the houses as they ran past. No lights on. He thought about ringing a doorbell, but by the time anyone came Fisher and Blue would be on them. Game over.

Nathan turned to look at him and Ruth.

‘Don’t look back,’ Mark said.

He and Ruth were gaining on the boy. Nathan had energy, but his legs didn’t have the reach. Mark could hear the boy’s feet slapping on the pavement.

Another shot.

Jesus Christ.

Mark zigzagged into the road then between parked cars, drawing the aim away from Ruth and Nathan.

He saw Nathan looking over at him, worried.

‘Just keep running.’

They were already halfway to the bottom of the road. There was a downward slope driving them onwards, but it was doing the same for the guys behind.

A third pistol crack. Mark heard a fizz then a clunk as the bullet embedded itself in a parked Skoda.

He slalomed out on to the road then back in again.

He pulled at Ruth, who was lagging behind.

Up in front, Nathan staggered and fell.

Mark almost kicked him as he stumbled into him on the pavement. He clambered upright, dragged the boy by the arm on to his feet and pushed him on.

Crack.

Mark’s heart was thumping, head pounding, lungs raw. He wondered about Ruth. She was ahead of them now as Mark urged Nathan forward, glancing behind.

They were still the same distance away.

They hit the bottom of the street and ran over to the prom.

‘Head for the beach,’ Mark shouted.

The streetlights along the prom were fizzing with sodium light. Low cloud scudded overhead. Wind in their faces. The clouds were orange with reflected light over the city, but dark grey out to sea. The tide was way out, three hundred yards of damp sand between the edge of the water and high tide.

No moon meant it was hard to see out there. Mark tried to follow the ribs of a wooden groyne, his eye running along the spine as it stretched towards the sea. But it got lost in a black fuzz before the water.

Hopefully they could lose Fisher and Blue in that darkness.

He couldn’t hear the waves from here, the wind roaring in his ears.

He glanced along the prom as they got to the sand. No one.

Mark headed left. ‘This way.’

The dry sand under their feet sucked at their legs. Like wading. But it would be the same for the other two behind.

Then after twenty yards the sand was compacted, easier to run on.

They scrabbled over a ridge of seaweed, high tide, and Mark guided them into the darkness, further away from the glare of the lights on the prom.

Another look back. Fisher and Blue were standing on the prom, looking around. Frantic movements spotlit under a streetlamp.

They caught sight of Mark and headed towards the beach.

Mark backed away, still looking at Fisher and Blue.

A stench came to his nostrils.

He tripped and fell over something. Something big. It sent him reeling and tumbling, his face full of sand.

He lurched upright spitting sand and saw what it was.

A whale. A dead pilot whale. Its skin greasy in the half-light, its bulk ominous and alien.

The crack of a gun.

He flinched, turned and ran.

Then he saw the rest of them.

Dozens of dead whales, scattered all across the beach, stretching for several hundred yards at least, like sleeping giants. Their sleek, oily outlines looked like an invading army.

So they’d done it, they’d finally killed themselves.

Nathan and Ruth were holding hands ahead of him, darting in between the whales’ bodies, zigzagging across the sand.

Mark propelled himself towards Ruth and the boy, into the encroaching darkness.

The smell was overpowering. Saltiness, ammonia and rotting meat clung to the back of his throat as he heaved in air and staggered forward.

He passed another dead whale, then another, the black eyes staring at him.

Nathan and Ruth were over a groyne up ahead.

Mark approached another whale corpse and spotted something. A piece of flotsam, a thick wooden slat from a packing crate, about the length of a baseball bat.

He picked it up, rough wood against his hands, and felt the heft of it.

It would do.

He sped on to the next whale, then skidded down behind it as he passed, pushed himself against the animal’s skin, holding the slat in both hands.

The whale’s body was hard and dry, like rubber. Not oily at all up close.

His heart was hammering in his throat, his pulse singing in his ears.

He hoped they hadn’t seen him duck down.

He looked the other way. He couldn’t make out Ruth or Nathan. Good. If he couldn’t see them, Fisher couldn’t either.

He had to bring this to an end. Had to protect what was left of his family.

Footsteps and breathing.

There was a scuff of sand kicked up, then Fisher was past, gun held out in front of him as he stumbled forward.

Then Mark heard Blue wheezing, almost at the whale.

He stepped out, lifting the slat back and swinging it with all his power into Blue’s face.

Blue’s cheek crumpled and burst open, his jaw caved in and teeth went flying. He collapsed on to his knees and swayed as Mark lifted the slat and whipped it across his face again, sending more teeth and blood spraying on to the sand, ripping his jaw away from his face on the near side. Blue slumped sideways and dropped the Browning.

Mark picked up the gun.

Fisher was turning round at the sound of the attack.

Mark pulled the trigger and Fisher span as a bullet caught him in the hip, a small spurt of blood at the entry wound.

Fisher fired his gun as he fell, way off balance.

Mark staggered back as a burning sensation spread through his left shoulder. The stench of gunpowder and blood was overpowering. Shot. His shoulder was on fire with pain, but he didn’t fall down, just walked towards Fisher, lying in the wet sand.

Got to him in three strides and stamped on his gun hand, digging the heel of his foot in as hard as he could.

Fisher screamed and pulled his arm away, leaving the gun behind in the sand. He shuffled backwards, clutching at his hip, glistening with blood.

Mark tried to pick the gun up with his injured arm, made a grimace. He had no power, couldn’t move his fingers for the pain shooting through his body. Instead he kicked the gun away across the sand.

He pointed the Browning at Fisher. Had the urge to squeeze the trigger. Felt the pain sweeping along his left arm, swarming into his body. Glanced down at the wound. A fucking mess.

He looked at Blue. Out cold on the beach. Like a miniature version of one of the whales.

Turned back to Fisher.

‘Don’t,’ Fisher said.

‘Give me a reason not to.’

Fisher swung his leg round across the surface of the sand and caught Mark on the calf, sweeping him off his feet. The Browning flew out of Mark’s hand, somewhere out into the dark, and he landed with a thump on his back.

Fisher scrambled over, clutching his hip, leaking blood. He punched Mark on his injured shoulder, making him howl and squirm.

Fisher was on him now, throwing punches at his face and shoulder. Mark tried to push him off but he had no energy left. With each punch he was losing the fight, the pain soaking into his bones and sapping his strength. He took another hit to the shoulder then one to the face and felt a tooth come loose and slip down his throat. There was blood in his mouth and nose and his eye was closing up. He held his good hand up to stop the blows but Fisher was much stronger, despite the bullet in the hip, and he punched through Mark’s hand as if it wasn’t there.

Crack.

A spray of blood sputtered out the side of Fisher’s head. He sat there for a moment looking surprised, then fell on top of Mark in an awkward embrace.

Mark heaved him off and turned.

Ruth stood a few feet away, eyes glazed, pointing the gun. A smudge of smoke curled up from its barrel.

Mark checked Fisher’s body. Small entry wound on his right temple, large exit wound on the left-hand side of his skull.

Mark hauled himself over and up on to his knees, spitting blood on to the sand.

‘Where’s Nathan?’

Ruth didn’t move.

‘Ruth?’

She lowered the gun then nodded behind Mark.

Mark turned and saw the boy emerge from behind a dead whale fifty feet away, face white against the darkness, as if he was a source of light himself.

Mark looked at Blue. Still out cold, his jaw and part of his ear hanging off. Maybe dead.

He turned back to Nathan and struggled to his feet.

‘Come on, Big Guy. It’s OK. It’s safe now.’

Nathan crept towards Mark and Ruth, like he was sneaking out of bed after lights out.

Mark raised a hand to his beaten face, blood and swelling across his eye and cheek. Then he beckoned Nathan.

Nathan began jogging, then running, then he launched himself into Mark’s embrace. Mark got a jolt of pain at the contact, his shoulder pulsing blood out the wound.

Nathan threw a look at Fisher and Blue.

‘Are the bad men dead, Daddy?’

Mark wasn’t sure about Blue, but it was too complicated to go into.

‘Yes, they’re dead.’

‘Did Gran shoot one of them?’

Mark looked at Ruth, still dazed, gun held loose in her hand. ‘Yes, she did.’

‘Just like I shot the man at home?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But it wasn’t bad, what we did, was it?’

Mark knelt down and put a hand to the boy’s cheek. Tears and snot there, his eyes red. Mark thought about what those eyes had seen, what had soaked into the boy’s mind. Unbearable, like everything else.

‘Listen to me, Big Guy. What you did wasn’t bad at all. You saved Daddy, remember that. And Gran did the same thing. She saved both of us from the bad men, OK?’

Nathan looked unsure for a moment, then nodded, but there wasn’t much conviction in it.

‘Jesus.’ It was Ferguson, out of breath, feet slapping up to them.

She stopped and got her breath back, bent over with her hands on her thighs.

She looked round and took in the scene. After a while she spoke.

‘Armed response unit is on its way.’

‘Where’s the kid cop?’ said Mark.

Ferguson pointed towards Marlborough Street. ‘He’s got Mr Taylor.’

Mark nodded.

Ferguson approached Ruth and put a hand out for the gun. ‘I’ll take that, Mrs Bell.’

Ruth handed it over.

Ferguson scouted round and spotted Fisher’s gun. Picked it up by the barrel. Then went over to Mark and looked at his shoulder and face.

‘We’d better get an ambulance.’

There was a moan. Blue raised a hand to his mashed face, then the hand dropped on to the sand. His eyes remained closed.

‘For him as well.’

Mark was still holding on to Nathan, the boy’s shivering body against his chest.

‘Can I take him away from here?’

Ferguson nodded. ‘I’ll call an ambulance, you three wait on the prom.’

Mark, Nathan and Ruth trudged across the sand, not looking back.

Behind them, Ferguson sighed. ‘Christ, what a mess.’

The armed response unit turned up in a bluster of flashing lights and shouting, guys in bulletproof gear clumping around and pointing rifles.

Mark was slumped against the wall next to Ruth, his good arm pulling Nathan close. He pointed a thumb in the direction of the beach, then heard a crackle on one officer’s walkie-talkie, Ferguson’s tinny voice saying something he couldn’t make out.

Mark felt Nathan tense at the sight of all the police, and held on tight.

The officers stomped across the sand, leaving one silent guy watching over the three of them, rifle at ease.

After a few minutes, another police van trundled along the prom. Guys in white overalls jumped out with bags of gear and headed for the beach.

Where the hell was the ambulance?

With the adrenalin ebbing away, Mark started to feel faint from the pain in his shoulder. Should he press something against it, stop the bleeding? That’s what they did in the movies.

He breathed through clenched teeth, concentrated on the molecules of air coming and going, mingling with his bloodstream and keeping him alive.

Then at last an ambulance.

‘Thank fuck.’ Under his breath so Nathan didn’t hear.

Two paramedics checked him out, gave him a painkilling injection and fussed him into the back of the ambulance.

‘These two come as well,’ he said.

Ruth and Nathan clambered up and sat next to him. Mark held on to Nathan and looked at Ruth. She put on a weak smile. She still hadn’t spoken since she’d shot Fisher.

Ferguson came over as a second ambulance appeared, and she pointed the medical team towards the beach, where Blue was lying. The paramedics scuttled off with a stretcher and an oxygen mask.

Ferguson turned to Mark. She had a thin smile on her face.

‘When you’re sorted, DI Green and I will need to talk to you at the station.’

‘Fine.’

‘All three of you.’

Mark sighed. ‘I want to keep Nathan out of it as much as possible.’

Ferguson nodded and closed the ambulance doors.

‘Can I get a story, Daddy?’

All those years of sticking to the bedtime book routine. Even now, with the afternoon sun bleaching in through closed curtains.

Mark tucked Nathan up into his and Lauren’s bed and stroked the boy’s mess of hair.

‘Sure, Big Guy, what would you like?’

‘
What Was I Scared Of?
, please.’

Still saying please and thank you, despite it all. A polite, well-balanced boy. We done good with this one, Lauren, we done good. Another little joke between them, a line they trotted out in a hokey hillbilly accent every time they took a cute photo of him. Another little joke lost to the world.

Mark reached the same bit in the story that always got to him – large, dark double page, a bleak, apocalyptic landscape. Two frightened white eyes staring out. Those insistent words‚ the ones that killed him‚ about being truly afraid and lying about it.

Nathan’s eyes were already closed. Not quite asleep, but on the way. Mark was struck again by the resilience of kids, of his boy in particular. The elasticity of them, stretching and bending with whatever the world hurled at them, not letting it break them. He felt brittle in contrast, like an ancient tomb ready to crumble into dust at the slightest touch.

He stroked Nathan’s head for a few minutes, then noticed the dry lips. Reached for the Vaseline and rubbed some on. Thought about Lauren’s lips. Always thinking about that beneath it all.

He rose slowly from the bed then snuck out the door. The boy hadn’t slept since the break-in. Mark hoped he would have good dreams, but didn’t know if there was much chance of that.

He left the room and went to the kitchen. Ruth sat at the table, a cup of tea gone cold in front of her, untouched. She was staring out the window. The clutter of beech trees was still, their leaves soaking in the sunshine. The wind had finally given up, the storm blowing itself out.

Mark sat down and placed a hand on top of Ruth’s. Felt the looseness of her skin again. He would never feel Lauren’s hand like that, slack on the bone with age.

Ruth turned to him. The mundanity of the last few hours had seen the shock ebb away, replaced by deep sadness and resignation on her face.

‘Will we be all right?’ she said.

She meant with the police, not anything else. There was no answer to that other question.

They had told the truth. No point trying to cover up for Nathan and the corpse in the flat. Mark had explained everything – the break-in, the brothel, Taylor, Fisher. Thankfully, Taylor was backing up Mark’s version of events, more or less. With Fisher dead, he wasn’t scared for his life any more. He was playing down his role in it all, obviously, and was playing up the getting shot in the shoulder part. Mark wondered what would happen to Taylor, if he would be punished enough. He wondered what Taylor’s wife would make of it all.

And he wondered about himself, whether he was going to go to prison for what he’d done. Always more stuff to worry about, it was never-ending. His son and mother-in-law had both shot and killed people to save his life. Ferguson’s boss couldn’t say for now if either of them would end up in court. If they did, they could claim self-defence, surely. But then Mark had read plenty of newspaper stories about people who shot burglars and did time for it. And of course, things were worse for Mark. He had shot someone, plain and simple, no self-defence about it. DI Green thought there might be scope for a deal with Taylor, but that was up in the air.

Mark had used a laptop at the police station to download the files Lauren had emailed to herself, passed them on to the cops. They had specialists looking at them. What they found would have a bearing on Taylor and everything else, but that would take time to work out.

In the meantime social services would have to investigate. Mark still had that playground assault charge hanging over him. Christ.

He realised he hadn’t answered Ruth.

‘We’ll be fine, we’ll look out for each other.’

He squeezed her hand, but it didn’t feel like a comforting gesture, more like he was the one seeking reassurance.

He got up and went through to the living room. Forensics had removed the body after several hours fussing over the scene. Left behind was a huge pool of congealing blood. Ferguson had explained at the station that it wasn’t the police’s job to clear up. There was a specialist company they could hire in, but they cost £300 an hour. No chance. He’d have to do it himself. Towels, bucket, bleach, mop.

The imprint of the dead guy’s body was still at the centre of the pool. The blood had run all the way to the skirting boards. Soaked in between the floorboards. They were never going to get it all out, it would haunt them as long as they stayed here, along with everything else.

‘Should we make a start on it?’ It was Ruth behind him. ‘It’ll only be harder to clean up later if we leave it.’

Mark rubbed at his swollen eye. Then stroked his shoulder, now wrapped in tight bandages. Apparently the wound was simple and clean, didn’t take much at the hospital to patch it up. They’d given him three blister packs of codeine, and he’d swallowed four pills on the way to the police station with Nathan and Ruth.

He looked at the time. Almost three o’clock. School would be coming out soon.

‘I’ll get some things,’ Ruth said.

And so they cleaned. As Nathan slept, Ruth worked the mop and Mark spread old towels out to soak everything up. Slow going for him with only one functioning arm, but after an hour or so they were down to scrubbing the floorboards and bleaching everything. They had the windows wide open to get rid of the smell. There had been some shit and piss as well, the guy’s body slackening as he decomposed. The man had broken into their home, beaten Mark, threatened to kill him, tried to hurt Nathan, and here they were cleaning up his shit.

After another hour most signs were gone. There was nothing they could do about the gaps between the floorboards. Their eyes and hands were stinging from the bleach. They’d done enough for now.

Mark carried the cleaning stuff through to the kitchen and put it away. When he came back Ruth was lying on the sofa with her eyes closed and her hand on her forehead.

‘I might just have forty winks,’ she said.

Mark got a blanket and spread it over her, then he looked out the window at the old church across the road. It was a beautiful day outside, crisp and warm, one of those late spring days that give you a taste of approaching summer.

‘I think I’ll go for a walk,’ he said.

Ruth opened her eyes. ‘Really?’

‘I need some air.’

‘Don’t be long. Nathan might wake up.’

He went to the front door.

‘Daddy?’

He turned and saw Nathan at the bedroom door in another pair of those jammies that were too small for him.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Just out for a walk, Big Guy.’

‘I want to come.’

‘No, go back to sleep.’

‘I want to go and see the whales,’ Nathan said. ‘Can we?’

Mark leaned against the door. ‘Sure. Go and get dressed.’

He fingered the broken lock on the front door while he waited. Something else on the list of things to fix.