The Darkening Days of John Mann

by Charles Barrow

  Hunt threw the pills into his mouth and swallowed them down with some difficulty.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘How many will there be?’ Mann asked.

  ‘He has three brothers, Uri, Feo and Pyotr, that stay close to him. More is hard to guess at, though there will be others and they will be armed. The front approach to his place is patrolled, as you've seen, the back less so but it will still be guarded.’

  ‘But you have a plan.’

  ‘To open Chenko's throat.’

  ‘I meant the plan that will place your knife at his neck.’

  Gunnar shifted on his haunches. ‘I don’t like to be tied to any one particular plan.’

  ‘Then I hope you have several up your sleeve.’ Mann said.

  ‘No room.’ Gunnar replied and drew back a sleeve on his overcoat to reveal sheathed blades strapped to his forearm. Mann looked grimly at the gleaming steel knives. ‘Look,’ Gunnar continued, ‘this whole plan is hare-brained, few would attempt this, that is our only advantage and it is paper thin. You shouldn’t think to leave here alive John.’

  ‘Leaving here alive is the only plan I had thought to go in with.’ Mann said bitterly, giving Gunnar a dark look. Gunnar studied him quietly for seconds before a wide grin suddenly split his face. Mann caught the levity of the moment and found himself smiling too.

  They were hunkered down in one carport, in a row of them, sited two hundred yards from Chenko’s house. The moonlight bathed the street before them with a ghostly light that only served to make the shadows they hid in deeper and darker. The only sounds to reach them were the sluggish turning of the waves on the sea beyond their sight and the lonely banshee screech of a gull. Mann edged out of the darkness into the light and laid a small, plastic box on the oil-stained concrete ground. He opened the box and studied the micro-darts inside, then he removed a slim metal tin from his coat pocket, opened the lid and fetched out a syringe.

  ‘I regret you wasting the darts on Russell now. Just one would have ended her.’ Gunnar said.

  ‘I choose who I end with these.’ Said Mann, ‘So remember your mask, at all times.’

  ‘They are a sure way?’

  Mann bunched up the coat sleeve hard on his left arm, smiling grimly at the corded vein that rose in the crook of his elbow. ‘The surest.’ He said.

  ‘Remember Chenko is mine.’ Gunnar said as Mann slid the needle into his vein and withdrew a quantity of dark blood.

  ‘Why the hatred?’ Mann asked as he withdrew the needle from his arm and pressed a pad of wool over the bead of blood that welled on his pale flesh. ‘This is about more than him sending you blindly to tussle with me.’

  Gunnar shifted his weight again and for a moment Mann thought he would ignore the question, so he focused his attention on transferring the blood from the syringe into the micro-darts. He thought that if he gave Gunnar space enough he might fill it.

  ‘Her name was Greta,’ Gunnar said, ‘and I made an oath over her shattered body that I would end the man who broke her. That was near to a year ago and I’ve been worming my way closer to Chenko since, finding a place within his gang, earning some trust. I was once across a room from him, in Brighton. I watched him eat an entire meal, surrounded by his goons. I could have tried for him then, rushed him, maybe thrown a blade, but I would have died under a hail of bullets and couldn't be sure I'd have finished him. Besides, I want to feel his blood run hot over my hands when my knife goes deep.’

  Mann returned the syringe to its tin and replaced it in his pocket. He then picked up each dart in turn and threaded their fine needles into the underside of both lapels of his coat, four on each side, until all eight held firmly in the cloth. He turned to look at Gunnar whose face was shrouded in shadow.

  ‘First we find David and then you shall have revenge for your woman.’ Mann said.

  ‘Greta was my daughter.’ Gunnar replied.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  They trod the moonlit cinder path through tangles of brambles towards the beach. Keen led the way as she knew it well, had walked the path many times over the years. Every few paces she held back a thin, wiry, thorn spiked branch until Vincent caught up to her and could take it from her hand and pass safely beyond its whip. Her thoughts turned back to other nights she had walked this path with John. They’d been young then, she full of tales of skirmishes against ill trained, ill-equipped platoons of youngsters who took the King's shilling because their only other option was the back break of the brickfields. Killing such green youths brought no joy at all to her but green or no they followed orders and had riddled many of her friends. John had been full of a new-minted zeal for God and had spoken of his wonder at the way the world turned for him now that he knew it to be topped by a Heaven. They had strolled the tide line for hours, talking, laughing, collecting shells but never once touching on the truth of his impossible love for her. She’d always felt it, had tried to turn it aside, in the early days at least, and in an effort to smother it finally had followed her head and married Amir. She knew she had broken John’s heart but had been living with an ache in hers down all the years too.

  ‘It’s enough to make you weep.’ Michael Farmer’s words broke into her thoughts. ‘Look at her,’ he said, ‘every year she steals my breath.’ Keen stared out at the huge ball of a moon sitting low on the horizon, a Hunter’s Moon, like an immense, pitted, gold coin.

  They pushed the last twenty paces through the undergrowth, past stunted saplings, and out into the open expanse of the beach. Keen let her eyes follow the wide, rippling path of golden light from the shoreline out across the deep waters to the moon on the very furthest edge of the ocean.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, without turning to look at him, ‘thank you for suggesting we come, I wouldn’t have missed this.’ She just had time to wish she were sharing this sight with John before the cold steel of a pistol barrel pressed into the nape of her neck. She tensed.

  ‘Don’t move.’ He said. ‘Stay just as you are.’

  ‘With a sudden and feverish need to stave in your head, is that how you wish me to stay?’ She said and tensed again at the sounds of snapping twigs and laboured breathing as someone crashed out of the undergrowth and onto the beach behind them.

  ‘Vincent,’ Russell said, slightly breathless, ‘Who have we?’

  Keen recognized the voice in a moment. Would recognize it anywhere, even after all the years, had often wished to be the one to silence it for good and all.

  'Keen, Ma'am,' Vincent said, 'whose house we searched last evening.'

  Russell grabbed Keen’s shoulder and spun her around so they stood face to face. The harsh screech that suddenly erupted from Russell startled Vincent and the speed of the blow she aimed at Keen's face surprised him even more. Russell swung her gun hand in a short arc with power enough to have smashed Keen’s nose if she had connected, but Keen caught a hold of the older woman's wrist and stopped her arm in mid-flight, holding it tightly in a painful grip.

  ‘Be very sure Madam,’ Keen hissed, ‘that the first blow you land cracks my skull for if it comes to a cat fight I shall take both your eyes.’

  Vincent raised his pistol to Keen’s temple and Russell wrenched her arm free of the younger woman's grasp, retreating half a step, unnerved by the ferocity of the threat and rubbing furiously at her tender wrist. Vincent looked quickly from one woman to the other, he saw an obvious history between them that he couldn't guess at. Both women, for their part, exchanged looks of hatred and contempt, soaking in the changes in the other that a decade had wrought.

  'Ma'am?' Vincent sought an answer.

  'Becky Sharp.' Russell shook her head slowly in disbelief. 'After all my years of wishing her dead, you bring me the bitch who sprang John Mann.'

  This news that Keen and Becky Sharp were one and the same, and the mutual animosity between the two women in front of him gave Vincent pause. He watched as Russell levelled her pistol at Keen and she, in turn, smirked back and spat on the ground. The ai
r between them crackled with loathing. He himself had no love of the American, she was his paymaster for the moment and that made Keen his enemy, which was a shame and he could wish it wasn't so. He had warmed to her and flattered himself that she had felt some pleasure in his company.

  Russell broke into his thoughts. 'What of John?'

  Vincent cleared his throat, ‘Not here.’

  ‘For a certainty?’

  ‘I scoped the Abbey and the grounds and found no evidence of him.’

  ‘He’s not on the Island.’ Keen laughed.

  ‘Your word isn’t worth shit.’ Russell said, ‘You’d lie barefaced to cover for him.’

  ‘I’d lie all day just to piss you off, but that still doesn’t mean you’ll find him here.’

  'Then where is he?'

  Keen gave Russell a defiant look in response. Russell turned to Vincent, ‘Batter the truth from her.'

  Vincent hesitated for a fraction. ‘Ma’am, I’d rather not.’ He said, not meeting Russell’s fierce look.

  ‘Don’t tell me the slut has beguiled you.’ Russell said.

  ‘It's my belief she’s pregnant.’ Vincent said. Keen narrowed her eyes at Vincent and he reddened a little under the heat of her glare.

  Vincent's news, for a bare moment, did not seem at all relevant to Russell but then the implication of it crashed into her thoughts and her mind raced. Could it be that John and this whore…? Not possible surely. Russell's mind whirred on, weighing what she knew to be fact ten years ago against what may be true now.

  'Who is the father?' Russell snarled and Keen betrayed not a flicker of emotion in response. Russell knew then she could never force her to give up that information either willingly or truthfully. A way would have to be found to coerce her. Russell thought again of John, recalled that in the field outside Brighton he had alluded to someone clearly dear to him, could he have meant Keen? Was she carrying his child? Because if she were then this bald fact changed everything. They would need to return to the Facility, and quickly.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Vincent sought Russell’s attention, ‘Ma’am, what are we going to do with her?’

  ‘She goes with us. But check her for arms first.’ Russell said urgently.

  ‘With respect Ma’am,’ Vincent said, ‘she’s been with me all day I hardly think…’

  ‘Check her.’ Russell’s command cut across Vincent’s reply. ‘The first thing you should learn about this harpy,’ Russell continued, ‘is never on any account to believe she is without the wherewithal or the intent to unman you.’ Russell raised her pistol again and aimed it squarely at Keen while Vincent moved warily forward to search the younger woman.

  ‘She’s right Michael Farmer or whoever you pass for now,’ Keen said, fixing him with a glittering stare, ‘leave me the means and I will gladly carve my name into the back of that coat, my coat, while the old drab still wears it.’

  Vincent found the knife strapped to Keen’s thigh and removed it gingerly while Russell looked on smugly. The sky suddenly darkened as a wide span of black cloud scudded over the moon’s face. Keen turned her head to view the darkening scene and thought it apt. Without further words Russell gestured with her pistol for Keen to move off along the tree line and she and Vincent fell in step behind her.

  It irked Keen that she had to let the bitch and her whelp believe she'd been completely gulled by Vincent’s cover story, but she knew there was advantage in letting your enemies believe they held the high cards. At the moment in the library when she judged Vincent had guessed her pregnant she had decided to play this game. Russell’s appearance on the beach had been a surprise without doubt but even this turn of events may play in her favour since all she’d wanted from the first was the fastest track back towards John and these two were surely about to gift her that.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was raining like the roof had gone from the top of the world. Ma May watched the rainwater wash in sheets down the outside of the windows and she shivered. She moved around the perimeter of the room for a final time, looking for any hazard she might have missed. There was none, Pad would be safe here alone once she left. He slept at the moment in a nest of blankets where she’d settled him earlier. She thanked her stars that he slept much and cried little, it might be the saving of him long term, and it made it easier leaving him now. If he should wake and crawl about the room there were no immediate dangers to him.

  Mann and Gunnar had left her in the house with Pad for their own safety. ‘Stay away from the windows.’, ‘Don’t leave here.’, ‘We’ll be back.’ And Mann had said ‘I will send the boy David to find you here, then Gunnar and I will return.’ No one had questioned that promise, they had let it hang in the air like a bright bubble reflecting a rainbow. No one cared to burst it for it would vanish soon enough if left alone.

  On a tabletop beside Pad’s nest she had placed the only food she had left, a handful of chestnuts and a strip of hog rind. Also a small pocket-knife. These were gifts for David should he make his way here before she returned. She had nothing that Pad could eat and if he awoke hungry in the night she would have a dilemma. Better to source something now and return before she was missed. She crossed to the infant once more, smoothed his hair gently then retrieved her walking cane and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  John Mann watched the huge black clouds roll over the moon as the darkness came on by inches. It seemed an obvious signal that the time for waiting was over. Despite Gunnar claiming to have no plan he moved quickly into action as the first fat raindrops began to fall. ‘Do as I do and do as I say.’ was all the instruction he had given Mann as they left the safety of the carport. Timing their exit to avoid the armed men patrolling at the front of Chenko's house, they passed down a narrow shingle passageway between two darkened buildings and onto the wide sweep of beach beyond.

  Mann now saw a long line of houses backing onto the beach. A lifetime ago they had been the summer homes of the wealthy but now they stood empty and decrepit, save for one. If the long jetty out over the water behind it, with the white launch that they’d watched leave Brighton bay, hadn’t betrayed Chenko’s base then the house ablaze with light would have done. It was monstrous large with a balcony on the first floor and turrets crowning the second. A palace fit for a corrupt king thought Mann bitterly. Large windows on each level would give spectacular views out over the sea if they hadn’t been shuttered against the night. The back yard was bricked over and contained sunken wells and raised beds where owners past had grown plants that could tolerate the sea spray, now they were all devoid of life.

  As Gunnar and he approached the house, Mann could see a high chain fence and a tall wooden gate they would have to pass through to access the yard. He could see also a guard on sentry who had already tensed and drawn his pistol at the sound of their approaching tread upon the shingle. Here was the test for Gunnar’s claim that his face was their passport.

  Gunnar hailed the sentry by name and slipped his mask briefly so his features could be seen, and the sentry relaxed a little on recognizing a fellow foot soldier in Chenko’s pay. High hands were slapped and a few words of greeting were exchanged and Mann was introduced as Adam Moore, come to trade news that Chenko awaited. Mann feared for a minute that this tale wouldn’t fly, the guard looked wary, his hand hovered over the radio on his belt, but Gunnar bluffed the moment, ‘Come, let us get out of this rain, we’ll all catch a death standing here.’ The guard relaxed and moaned that he’d drawn sentry on such a night, then became more serious when he apologized and said he’d have to search them both. ‘Of course,’ Gunnar replied, ‘you must do your job.’ The guard holstered his pistol and moved towards Mann, asking Gunnar why he’d not seen him recently. Gunnar’s reply was to step up behind the guard and bury his knife in his neck. The guard sank to the ground where he died with a bubbling sigh. Gunnar saw John Mann’s grim expression, ‘Children were not safe around this man.’ he said, then added, �
�Tell me you have the stomach for this.’

  Mann stooped and grasped the guards ankles, ‘Where do we stash him?’ Gunnar grabbed the dead man’s wrists and between them they carried the body a little way and lay it in a hollow in the shingle where deep shadows swallowed it.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Keen had hoped to know the boatman who had carried them back to the mainland, or that he may recognize her at least, but neither was the case. Her best hope now was that he would step forward when Jakob went asking if anyone had carried a woman fitting her description across the water. She wanted her brother to know where she was headed.

  Russell had kept a pistol hard against her ribs all the journey over, daring her to raise the alarm, or attempt escape. Once back on dry land Russell had ordered Vincent to bind Keen’s hands and place her in the boot of the car for the rest of their journey. He had mildly questioned the necessity and had received a tirade from Russell for his pains, but his hesitance had heartened Keen, it might be a chink that she could work at.