The Salt Marsh (18 page)

‘I wasn't going to shoot,' he said. ‘I was trying to make you stop.'

She opened her mouth to make some sarky comment about how she certainly would have stopped if he'd pulled the trigger. She closed it, reminded herself that he was a hitman, a contract killer who, she had discovered two years previously, had shot her father.

‘What do you want?' she asked.

‘Can't you see? I'm fucking trying to help you.'

The words sounded more desperate than angry and he was crying, rivulets, tracks in the grime of his cheeks. He was crazy and she couldn't find a sane response. He sniffed.

‘Your hand is bleeding,' he said.

She tried not to react – suspected a trick – if she cast her eyes down he could fire without having to look into her face. She held his gaze, let the warm blood trickle across her palm. She must have slashed it on a reed blade as she fell. He stuck a hand in his jacket pocket. She froze – he was reaching for his gun again. He smiled and he pulled out a cotton handkerchief.

‘Here. Use this.'

She didn't move.

‘Take it. I want to help.'

He raised his hand and the wind jerked at the white square.

‘Why on earth should I believe you? You're a hitman.'

‘I never shoot civilians.'

Perhaps he wasn't lying: two years ago he'd killed her father, she assumed, but he had helped her to escape. Yet he was still a madman who pointed his gun at her when he claimed he was trying to assist. She felt the blood running down her forearm, under her sleeve, reached for the handkerchief, wrapped it around her palm. She looked up, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

‘Why are you crying?'

‘I cry for the dead.'

No way. He created the dead. He was a corpse maker.

Crocodile tears. If he cried for anything it was for his own guilt and redemption.

‘Why are you here?' she asked.

‘I keep telling you, I came because I want to help you. I want to protect you.'

His eyes flicked to the spot she had seen Jim's shadow when she was cutting across the marsh.

‘Your father sent me,' he said.

‘But you know my father is dead.'

‘His spirit is still here.'

He must have heard her calling Jim's name, worked his way into the wounds of her mind, psyched her.

‘I don't believe in ghosts,' she said.

‘I've seen him. I've seen his shadow. I hear him talking.'

‘What does he say?'

‘He tells me that I have to help you.'

‘That's not Jim talking.' The guilty conscience of a deranged killer. ‘I think somebody sent you after me.'

‘Look, please, I came to help you. If I wanted to shoot, I would have done it by now.'

He reached into his jacket and pulled out the small black revolver he had pointed at her, threw it on the ground in front of her feet, on top of a clump of scarlet pimpernels.

‘Browning.'

He reached into the other side of his jacket, removed a pistol with a longer barrel. Threw that one down too. ‘Firebird.' Casually acquainted with deadly weapons, but then she knew that already. She stared at him and waited for the next move. Uncertain.

‘Take them,' he said.

She bent down slowly, eyes steady on him. He didn't move. She picked up the Firebird, heavy in her hand, the grip pushed against the handkerchief-wrapped palm as she pointed the gun at him and straightened herself.

‘Tell me what you know.'

He nodded his head at the Firebird. ‘The safety catch is still on.'

He flashed her a smile; he was good-looking when he smiled. Well, he was good-looking when he didn't smile, but the smile made him more attractive. She tried not to return the gesture but she couldn't stop her mouth twitching and she heard Jim laughing in her head. There she was, calling out the hired hitman with a gun she had no idea how to use. Eejit. She relaxed her arm, Firebird pointing at the ground, grip still pressing into the red sticky handkerchief. She had a sudden thought.

‘What about Dave?'

‘Dave?' His face showed no sign of recognition.

‘My friend, environmental researcher. He died yesterday morning. Shot in the mouth. Suicide, according to the cops. But now I'm wondering whether it was you who pulled the trigger.'

He shook his head.

‘Not me. I told you, I don't shoot civilians. And anyway, I was following you yesterday morning. I was behind you on the road. Land Rover.'

‘What's the number plate?'

‘C783 LLB.'

So it was his Land Rover she'd spotted at the service station.

‘Do you have any idea what happened to Dave?'

He shook his head, but she spotted a sideways flick of his eyes that made her wonder exactly how much he was hiding.

‘I don't know anything about your friend, but if he has been killed, then you are in trouble.'

She didn't need him to tell her that.

‘I can understand why you might not trust me,' he said.

Understatement.

He frowned. ‘I've come here to help you.'

She shut her eyes, wished everything away and opened them again. He was still there. She was still slowly sinking in an oozing reed bed in the middle of a saltmarsh with her father's killer who quoted Ecclesiastes.

‘I need to make up for your father,' he said.

He didn't use the word
killing.
An unexpected crack of anger made her grip the Firebird, her thumb searching for the safety catch; he couldn't make up for killing her father, she wanted to make him pay. She was surprised by her own reaction, an alien creature lurking in her stomach, snarling and leaping when her mind was elsewhere. She felt uncomfortable, momentarily ashamed by her vengeful instinct. She thought she was above an eye for an eye. Thought she had the inner demons under control.

‘Look...' She started and she faltered.

‘You need somebody on your side who knows how to use a gun. You need protection.'

You are in danger.
She fingered the shaft of the Firebird.

‘You have to believe me.' He was on the verge of tears again. ‘You have no other choice.'

How had she ended up in this mess? She took a deep breath.

‘Are you still going round...' She paused, uncertain how to phrase it. ‘Doing contracts?'

‘No. No.' He put his hands in his pockets.

She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, tipped her head skywards; the wind had swept away the clouds to reveal the craters and seas of the waning moon. She looked back at her hunter.

‘What have you been doing then, for the last couple of years?'

‘I've been working as a courier. I've done some other stuff as well, mechanic, repairing motorbikes, cars. Whatever pays – a bit of guitar playing. Not that I get much money for that, although it's always welcome, a few quid for a pub gig. And the music's good for the soul. Mine at least, if not anybody else's.' He flashed a smile. She ignored it.

‘Why are you walking around with two guns in your jacket?'

‘I kept one for self-defence. The Browning. And I picked the Firebird up the other day, in case I needed it.'

‘How long have you been trailing me?'

‘Only a couple of days. I followed you down to Dungeness and I guarded you while you were out on the marsh.'

She had a recollection, a glimmer of green in the dark.

‘How did you find me in the first place?'

He hesitated, a split second too long.

‘I was on a night out with a friend in Soho a few weeks ago, we walked into a club and I saw you behind the bar. I recognized you, and I was overwhelmed with a sense that you needed help, so I followed you.'

He didn't sound even slightly convinced by his own story, and neither was she, but this wasn't a great time to push him. What was it Jim used to tell her – don't latch on to the lies, let them pass. Especially if you are knee-deep in sludge water facing a hitman. Come back to them later. If there was a later.

‘What's your real name anyway?'

He scratched his head, as if he wasn't sure, as if the answer didn't matter. ‘Steve. But most people call me Sonny.'

‘OK. I'll call you Sonny.'

He half smiled, pleased at the first offering of friendliness. He reached in his jacket. Marlboro carton. He removed a fag. Offered her one. She shook her head. He lit his with a Zippo, took a drag, cracked his jaw, sent a smoke ring drifting. The circle broke, dispersed in the weak dawn, and she felt the tension release and realized she was crying now. A couple of wrecks brought together by some cosmic joker, out there on the saltmarsh. She couldn't deal with it.

She said, ‘Sonny. Please leave me alone.'

‘But don't you understand, I want to help you.'

‘If you want to help me then go away. Please.'

She thought he would argue again, but he didn't.

‘If that's what you want,' he said.

‘It is.'

His eyes were still wet.

‘I wish you would stop crying.' She didn't want to be touched by his tears, wanted to maintain the distrust. He wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve.

He said, ‘Keep the Firebird.'

‘I wouldn't know what to do with it.'

‘You need to know.'

‘I don't want to know. I don't shoot people. The Firebird belongs to my father's world. Not mine.'

‘You're in his world.'

‘I don't want to be.'

‘You have no choice.'

‘There's always a choice. And I'm choosing to stay out.'

‘It's too late.'

She shook her head, denied it.

‘You know too much,' he said.

‘I don't know anything.'

‘Maybe you don't know what you know. But perhaps other people do.'

His answer caught her unawares, reminded her of a conversation with Jim, something he had mumbled once, all those years ago.
You don't always know what you know.
What was Sonny talking about? How could she not know what she knew? How could anybody else know what she knew, if she didn't know herself? Her tired mind was tying itself in knots. She searched for answers in his face, but found none. She sighed, exhausted with the chase, the sadness of Dave, the effort of assessing risks and motives.

‘I want you to leave me alone. And take the Firebird with you.'

‘OK.'

He picked up his weapons, turned without another word. She watched him slog through the reeds, clamber back up to the causeway, a silhouette against the pallid sunrise, blown along the path by the gusts. She waited until the Land Rover pulled out of the windmill forecourt and found the road inland. Maybe she'd made a stupid call, sending him away, but there was no call that made any sense. What could she do? A hitman who claimed he wanted to help, wouldn't shoot her, but kept a loaded Browning in his jacket and had hair-trigger reactions to situations he couldn't control. She reckoned he would follow her anyway, watch out for her perhaps if he felt guilty enough about her father. And if he wasn't up close then perhaps she would have a chance to run if he flipped his lid. Right now, she felt that was the best she could hope for – a head start, a moment's grace to find her footing and flee from unknown hunters.

She searched the marsh; the strip of light growing in the east, terns flocking overhead, but there was no movement out on the headland. She must have imagined the figure heading from Bane House, the ghost of Jim. She couldn't let it go, wanted to check even though she knew her father wouldn't be there, waiting for her. She retraced her steps, too tired to care whether she was sloshing through water or not, scrambled up the bank, along the causeway, to the sea. The fresh wind dried her coat until it was stiff with salt and silt.

She reached Bane House, walked round the back, pushed the door, entered. The brown tape was obvious, lying in the middle of the floor, pulled from its spool, chopped and left in a pile, glinting in the first light. She retrieved a curl, let it dangle over her finger, located the cassette flung in another corner. She thought of the open lid of Dave's answering machine, the red light blinking. One message. Who had removed the cassette and dumped it here? Why? What was on the tape? She pictured the dark-haired figure she had glimpsed crossing the headland when she walked to Bane House with Dave, the person who had dropped the matchbook from Heaven. The same person, she suspected now, who had taken the cassette from Dave's answering machine and dumped it here. Somebody who was connected, in some way, to Dave's death, she was sure.
Listen, there's something else... Dave...
And Dave's death was connected in some way to Luke's disappearance. She had to find Luke before they got to him, whoever they were. She had to make sure he was safe. She squidged the tape between her fingers, wished she could rewind time, reverse the repetitions. She gave the floor one last sweep, cast her field-walker's eye around for objects – and spotted the silver underside of a badge lying near the cassette tape. She stepped over, bent down and examined its topside. White background, black clenched fist in the circle and cross of Venus feminist symbol. She attached the badge to her coat, above Jim's Che Guevara and her nuclear power no thanks sun. Perhaps she had been right, the figure she had spotted walking the path between Bane House and the jetty was a woman. A militant feminist?
Anybody can pick up a badge and wear it.
That's what Jim had said that day – the man at the fair, the CND badge, the steely eyes, the scar. She felt a wave of faintness, black dots dancing, covered her face with her hands, breathed in the saltiness on her skin, pushed the memories away.

She traipsed the beach. The rays of the rising sun were mirrored on the ocean, a golden explosion across sea and sky. As above so below. She thought of Dave, their last conversation; we are nothing more than stardust, elements passing through an endless stellar cycle, and she cried.