Black

by Sophie Lark

  From his peripheral view, he saw Clark at the bar, getting a pint.

  Black took a seat in the farthest booth—not that it was very far away in the cramped space. He tried to position himself behind a pillar so he could hide while keeping an eye on Clark.

  Daniel Clark sat alone for about twenty minutes, nursing his beer. But, as Black hoped, two other men joined him shortly thereafter. One of the men was medium height, about fifty years old. He looked pale and reedy, like a plant raised in a basement. He had an air of nervousness to him and kept taking off his glasses to clean them on his shirt. The other man was much younger, in his early twenties, and he seemed excited, energetic.

  They ordered their drinks and brought them to Clark’s table, sitting down without much greeting like people who saw each other often. They began to talk in low voices, heads bent together.

  Black would have liked to get closer to hear what they were saying. It was difficult, however, since there was virtually no one else in the place, aside from the burly bartender and one old drunk half-asleep at a high top.

  Black got up and ordered another pint, taking care to stand at the end of the bar that was behind Clark’s seat. Daniel Clark would have to turn all the way around to recognize Black.

  Black could see the faces of the other two men clearly enough. The younger man, because he was so excitable, was speaking louder than his friends, and Black was almost positive that he said the name “Morris” before the skinny, pale man nudged him to quiet down.

  The bartender filled the pint glass, looking at Black suspiciously.

  “Haven’t seen you in here before,” he said.

  “Mostly regulars in this place?” Black asked, keeping his voice quiet so as not to attract Clark’s attention.

  The bartender grunted, which Black supposed was an affirmation. He was short, but broad in the chest and shoulders, with the squashed nose of a boxer.

  “I’ll be back for that in a minute,” Black said, nodding at the half-filled glass. “Got to visit the bog.”

  Black went to use the toilet. When he came out, he lingered in the hallway outside the bathroom. He couldn’t exactly hear the men any better from here, but he could watch them more easily without being seen himself.

  He could see that the Clark had brought a paper with him, and he was sketching something on it. It could have been a diagram or a map, but it was too far away for Black to see.

  Black got out his cellphone to take a picture of it. Maybe he could zoom in on it later, whatever it was.

  He held the phone up, making sure it was silenced so it wouldn’t make any noise as he took a picture.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” a rough voice said from behind him.

  Black turned around. The bartender had gone into the storeroom while Black was in the bathroom. Now he was standing directly behind him, his burly arms crossed over his chest.

  “Just looking at my phone,” Black said, calmly.

  “You were trying to take a picture of my customers,” the bartender said.

  “Customers, or friends?” Black asked.

  He had a sense that Clark and his compatriots did not only meet here because it was close to Clark’s apartment.

  “Give me that phone,” the bartender said.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Black said, tucking it away inside his breast pocket.

  The bartender raised his fists, each one looking about the size of a Christmas ham.

  Instinctively, Black brought his own fists up in a defensive stance, his elbows tight to his body. It was only just in time, because the bartender charged at him without warning, swinging a haymaker up at Black’s jaw. Black partially blocked it with his arm, but there was enough force behind it that the man’s first still crashed into the side of his face, making his left ear ring.

  Black gave him two shots back to the body, so the bartender bent over a little and let out his breath in a sharp huff. But as Black expected, the man had obviously been in a brawl or two and wasn’t going to be incapacitated that easily.

  He swung back. Black blocked the punches but was driven back against the wall hard enough to knock down a framed picture photo of Yeats (the racehorse, not the poet).

  The photo smashed on the floor. That, or perhaps the previous noise of the scuffle, sent Daniel Clark and the other two men running over to the hallway. They plugged up the entrance so there was no way to get past.

  “You!” Clark yelled, furious as seeing Black in his pub.

  “He took a picture of you,” the bartender told him.

  “Give us your camera,” the younger man demanded. His face was flushed, and Black could tell he was longing to charge at him as well.

  “It’s on his phone,” the bartender said.

  Black wasn’t particularly intimidated by Clark or the older man—both were skinny and twitchy-looking. But the bartender and the young man were spoiling for a fight, and four against one were never good odds, especially when Black didn’t know who might have a weapon handy.

  He was pinned in the narrow hallway, with the three men on one side and the bartender on the other. His best chance seemed a break toward the bartender, though Black wasn’t certain if there was any exit in that direction.

  Still, it was his best route. He barreled past the bartender, shouldering the shorter, stockier man out of the way and dashing toward the warren of dark rooms at the rear of the building.

  He could hear the other men hot on his heels. He looked wildly around, trying to guess which door led to what, without checking each one. He assumed one was an office, one a storeroom. He saw tile flooring off to his right and thought that must be a kitchen. And most kitchens had a back door out into the alley, for taking out trash.

  Black sprinted in that direction with the bartender close enough behind him that he could feel fingers grasping at his coat. Black ran through the filthy kitchen, noting a single startled-looking teenager washing glassware in a sink. His feet almost slipped out from under him on the greasy floor, but he recovered his balance and kept running.

  One of the men chasing after him wasn’t so lucky—there was a crash as someone slipped and went slamming into the steel refrigerator door. But Black didn’t look behind him to see who it was. He simply pushed through the back door and ran out into the dark alleyway.

  He could hear footsteps chasing after him all the way to the street, but once he was out by the road, with cars passing and a few Saturday night revelers walking about, the other men fell back. They weren’t rash enough to accost him in front of so many witnesses.

  Still, Black kept jogging, heading into more and more populous areas. Once he was sure that Clark and his cronies hadn’t followed, he got out his phone, and checked his pictures.

  He had taken a snap of the back of Clark’s head and the two other men. But with the gloom of the pub’s interior, and the distance of the shot, the paper they’d been looking at was nothing but a pale smudge on the table.

  14

  I know what it is to feel unloved, to want revenge, to make mistakes, to suffer disappointment, yet also to find the courage to go forward in life.

  Tim O’Brien

  The next day was Sunday, when Black was supposed to go to Andrea and Emerson’s house for dinner. He woke late, his head throbbing from where the bartender had hit him in the ear.

  He pondered whether it was worth trying to tail Clark again that day. He doubted the man would be stupid enough to meet up with his friends again, now that he knew Black was following him.

  It was infuriating, having got so close to what Black was sure was some kind of meeting, without getting any useful intel or evidence.

  Black spent the morning scanning through Clark’s social media, trying to find the identities of the other two men he’d been meeting with. He hoped to find a picture of a birthday party, a fishing trip, something. But they were nowhere to be found.

  This alone made Black suspicious. Clark had obviously known the other two well. Why
weren’t they among his 438 Facebook friends? Black was starting to think that Daniel Clark’s peevish, professorial vegan persona was a front, a sanitized version of himself that he used to conceal his actual online activities.

  But how to prove it? The summit was the next day, and Black had gotten precisely nowhere.

  The best he could hope at this point was to go to the summit himself, stick close to Morris, and keep his eyes peeled.

  Black took a short break after lunch to pick up flowers and a bottle of wine for Andrea. Then he showered, changed, and took a cab over to Holly’s place to pick her up.

  Holly came down the steps of her apartment building looking absolutely lovely. Black was so used to seeing her in sleek professional wear that he was charmed by the sight of her in a simple sundress and cardigan. Her copper hair lay loose around her shoulders, glinting in the sunshine. She looked younger than usual, and very like how she had been when Black knew her before—same brilliant smile, same air of excitement.

  “You look stunning,” Black said.

  “Thank you,” she replied, smiling up at him.

  She twined her fingers in his as they walked toward the car. They slid into the backseat together.

  “Is that a bruise on your face?” Holly said in concern, looking at the dark smudge on his jaw, just below his left ear.

  “It’s nothing,” Black assured her.

  “What happened?”

  “I was following Daniel Clark last night.”

  “And he hit you?” Holly cried in disbelief.

  “No, it was...somebody else.”

  “Where did you follow him?”

  “Just a pub.”

  “And?”

  “And not much,” Black admitted. “He met up with a couple of guys. I’m almost certain they were talking about Morris. But I couldn’t get close enough to hear.”

  “Could it just have been work-related?” Holly asked.

  “Anything’s possible,” Black said. “But that’s not what it looked like.”

  Holly looked troubled. “We’d better tell Tom,” she said.

  Black looked at her beautiful face, the way she bit the side of her thumbnail while she considered their options. Her slim wrist and hand, and the line of her jaw, looked so fragile in the sunlight coming through the window.

  “What?” Holly said, catching him staring.

  “I’m worried about you going to the summit tomorrow,” Black said. “It’s the perfect place to stage something big.”

  “I have to go,” Holly said. “We’ve been working towards this for months.”

  “I know,” Black said, but he wasn’t happy about it.

  “Hey,” Holly said, trying to cheer him up. “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

  Black leaned across the seat and kissed her, heedless of the cab driver up front. As soon as their lips met, the tense ball of stress in the center of his chest seemed to relax just a little. Holly had an incredible ability to make the rest of the world melt away.

  They pulled up at Andrea and Emerson’s flat—a pretty, stylish building in Clapham. The couple had lived there together for two years before they were married, so the apartment was already beautifully furnished, without any muss from moving.

  Black knew it was much more to Andrea’s taste than Emerson’s, being familiar with his sister’s traditional aesthetic versus the utter rubbish heap that passed as Emerson’s living quarters in his single days. Black was sure Emerson was wise enough to see this as an improvement.

  Only Andrea was there to greet them—Emerson would be coming straight from work, and Violet was late as usual.

  Black gave Andrea the bunch of peonies he’d brought and kissed her on the cheek.

  “How’s work?” he asked her.

  “Good!” Andrea said. “Busy. Though not as busy as you, I hear.”

  “It’s been…interesting,” Black said.

  “Well, if you can try and help Vincent get this wrapped up,” Andrea said, “I would like to actually make it out on our honeymoon next time.”

  “What happened before?” Holly asked.

  “We had tickets booked to Malta and had to push them off because of that package bomb. Not that I’m complaining,” Andrea hastened to add, “I know a delayed holiday isn’t much compared to what you’ve been going through at your office. But I would like to go—eventually.”

  “Sorry about that,” Holly said guiltily.

  “Not your fault!” Andrea said. “I know I sound ridiculous even mentioning it. I’ve just barely seen Vincent since the wedding.”

  “Isn’t that an improvement?” Black teased her.

  “No!” Andrea cried. “I do actually like him. Mostly.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t tell him,” Black said.

  “Tell who what?” Emerson said, coming through the door behind them.

  “Tell you that Andrea is taking the postman to Malta instead of you,” Black said promptly.

  “God, whatever it takes,” Emerson said, looking exhausted. He had deep circles under his eyes, and his hair was rumpled. “At least someone will be having fun.”

  “I’m not taking the postman,” Andrea assured him, kissing him on the cheek.

  “Well, keep it in mind,” Emerson said. “He’s a decent-looking chap.”

  Emerson made them all a drink while Andrea put the finishing touches on dinner.

  “Any news?” Black said to Emerson.

  “Well…” Emerson said, glancing at Holly.

  “She’s fine,” Black assured him.

  “I went to Belmarsh to pay a little visit to a couple of former Citizens. Allerton and Shelly are still there.”

  Black nodded, remembering their arrest after the NSC bombing.

  “Allerton got religion a few years back. He’s a chaplain now and swears he hasn’t heard a thing about the group getting back together.”

  “And Shelly?”

  “Shelly played dumb too. But he seemed awfully smug about something.”

  “Does he have internet access?” Black asked.

  “He does. Of course, their online activity is monitored, but there’s plenty of ways to sneak a smartphone into prison. Even a laptop sometimes.”

  “Did he tell you anything?”

  “Well, you know Allerton was never a major player. His sentence is almost up. But Shelly was a key member of the group. A real zealot. So it’s hard to tell what’s real with him and what’s fanaticism.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said ‘John Wright’s legacy is alive and well’.”

  “Meaning the Citizens are thriving?”

  “I would guess so. But as I said, Shelly drank the kool-aid. It could be wishful thinking.”

  “I wish it was,” Black said.

  He filled Emerson in on the very little he’d observed with Clark.

  “If Clark was an original Citizen, then so could the older guy be. Maybe the bartender, too. And the younger one would be a new recruit.”

  “You got a pic of them?”

  “Yeah,” Black said. “But it’s rubbish.”

  “Still, I can try to run it through facial recognition software. See if it hits. The meeting itself isn’t enough to arrest anybody. It’s not illegal to hang out with a couple of mates at a pub.”

  “I know,” Black said.

  “I can at least put a tail on him tomorrow,” Emerson said. “Don’t tip him off,” he added to Holly.

  “I wouldn’t!” Holly said indignantly.

  “We’ll have a team combing every inch of the summit tomorrow. Full security at the doors.”

  “We should have had more at the Dorchester,” Black said.

  “Well, we didn’t know what we were dealing with then.”

  “Have you gotten anything else from that bomb?”

  “We’re trying to trace the materials from both explosives—the one at the Dorchester and the one mailed to Morris’s office. We interviewed all the employees at the Dorchester, but nobody s
aw anyone messing around on the stage. Not that anybody was paying attention—there were dozens of people going in and out of the ballroom all day, including people from Morris’s office, the Children’s Hospital, the catering company, and the hotel. No one would have known if there was a stranger there—they would have just thought it was somebody from another group.”

  “I’ve been keeping track of the Citizens online,” Black said. “I haven’t seen them take responsibility for the bombs.”

  “Do you think it could be someone else?” Emerson asked.

  “It seems too coincidental. It could be a copycat, I suppose.”

  “The bombs have similarities, but they’re not identical to the ones made before,” Emerson said. “If it is a copycat, they have knowledge of the original bombs that was never released to the public.”

  There was a pause while they mulled this over, Holly included.

  “I spoke to Morris’s grandmother,” Black added.

  “You did?” Holly said in surprise.

  “She’s a real piece of work. Didn’t have much information for me, since she was estranged from Morris’s mother since before he was born.”

  “I can’t believe they never took Tom in,” Holly said.

  “It’s probably better that they didn’t,” Black said. “What were his foster parents like?”

  “They’re lovely people,” Holly said. “I met them once.”

  “Is Morris close with them?”

  “Well…” Holly hesitated. “I wouldn’t say close, exactly. He always speaks well of them. But you know, that was just such an awful time in his life.”

  “What’s their names?”

  “Uh…Matthew and Helen Ruger, I believe.”

  Black made a note of that, thinking he might want to speak to them as well. They might know if anyone had ever shown an abnormal interest in Morris in the years after the bombing.

  “You can all come sit down!” Andrea called from the dining room.

  They all filed in to see formal place settings, an elegant fern centerpiece, and a meal that would have put Martha Stewart to shame: lemon and basil-stuffed chicken, almond pilaf, grilled asparagus, and whipped sweet potatoes.

  “Andrea!” Holly cried. “How on earth do you have time to do all this?”