by Max China
For a moment, he really thought she was going to send the picture.
She tossed the phone to him.
He fumbled as he caught it. The handset slipped through his fingers, going through one hand, then the other, as he desperately swiped, trying to prevent it hitting the floor. He finally caught it, inches away from impact. He breathed a huge sigh of relief and looked at the screen. The photograph had disappeared. He glared at her. ‘Tell me you didn’t really have that set to send?’
The expression on her face told him everything.
Twenty seconds later, the phone rang. It was Stella.
‘I can explain,’ he said gingerly, while Carla fell about, holding her sides.
‘Stella, I did not send that shot, she’s pranking you ...’ One hand covered the side of his face. ‘Yes, a joke ...’ His head shook vigorously in denial. ‘No, I’m not laughing ... wait ... Stella!’ His eyes hardened as he fixed them on Carla. ‘She’s hung up on me.’
‘Might as well fuck me for real now. She’s never going to believe you haven’t—’
‘Why do you do things like that?’
‘Well, some people like me ...’ Tears welled. ‘I’ve been putting on a brave face – can’t you see that? I just need you to talk to me. I can’t live with what I’ve done. My ... I’m trying to ... all I wanted was a great story! I didn’t ask him to get involved. I tried everything to keep him out.’ She shook her head miserably, ‘But he wouldn’t listen, and I didn’t try hard enough.’ Anguish was written plainly on her face. She wasn’t acting.
Miller knew that, in some ways, she was just like him: basically good, but wired up wrong. She had so much going for her yet was always craving attention in the wrong ways, and never wasted time on the in-betweens.
‘Come here,’ he said, opening his arms, ready to embrace her.
She shot him a look, anger in her eyes. ‘Not in a million years!’
He shrugged. Her ability to turn so quickly within the hardened exterior of her defensive shell revealed a truth about her, one that she sought to hide. She was, beneath it all, vulnerable – yet she’d have everyone believe otherwise. Her balls, her fearlessness, while genuine, were designed to distract from the real her. Aren’t we all like that? Stella and I, always hiding behind something. Miller; just a name, but a brilliant disguise. For a fleeting moment he felt vulnerable, exposed in the light of his own close examination. He closed it down.
‘Well, if you want to talk to me, you know where I am.’ He made his way out, down the short passageway, and closed the door behind him.
Once in his own room, he tried to call Stella. She didn’t answer. He checked his watch. She wouldn’t be in bed yet. Oh, Carla. The things you put me through.
He showered and, dressed only in white boxer shorts, slid under the top sheet. Reaching for the phone as an afterthought, he glanced to see if he’d missed any calls. He tapped out a quick text to Stella – Call me x – and pressed send. His finger lingered over the menu button. He made a selection and viewed the photograph. With mock disapproval on his face and a cagey smile on his lips, he pressed delete. Within moments, he fell asleep.
He was at the rail of a chugging ferryboat. Sea spray sprinkled his face, the taste of salt strong in his mouth. In the darkness, he saw little beyond the tumbling waves. An unknown darkness beckoned him, and he knew if he followed he’d never return. He wondered if that was how the sailors of old felt, staring out to sea, loneliness conjuring comfort in the form of sirens and mermaids. The wise among them understood the dangers of surrender. Whom the gods seek to destroy they first make mad.
A persistent sound filtered into his subconscious, alerting him … gentle but insistent knocking accompanied by urgent whispers. ‘Miller, I can’t sleep. Let me in!’
He bit his lip and rolled over onto his side.
Chapter 13
A deep throbbing pulsed at the back of his head, drawing him from sleep. Disoriented, he gathered his thoughts.
‘What did you kill that kid for, he’d done nothing to you?’
Her! She’d taken to creeping up on him when he was at his most vulnerable.
‘He shouldn’t have been there,’ said Boyle. ‘If he hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have got killed.’
‘Got killed? You said that like it was an accident. Don’t you think he lived for a reason after you threw him off the roof?’
He became aware of the muscles in his face pulling expressions that didn’t belong to him. Yet he couldn’t move. His arms and legs refused to obey him. His mother. She lived on in what little conscience she could find, always chiding him for his misdeeds.
‘He should have died the first time. Do you think I wanted to do it again?’
‘But you always hated anyone hurting kids—’
‘I’d kill 'em!’ he hissed through parched lips.
‘Judge. Jury. Executioner…’ she spat. ‘Who gave you the right?’
‘God, the Devil ... Who cares?’
‘Stop acting like your father. It isn’t too late. It’s never too late to put right wrongs.’
At last, he was able to shrug. The paralysing episodes were becoming more and more frequent. He again cursed the girl who’d almost done for him. ‘Eilise. I haven’t forgotten about you, what you done to me,’ he said quietly. Then, louder, into the darkness of his lonely room: ‘I haven’t forgotten any of you.’ He thought about Carla. She could escape for now. It didn’t matter.
He’d cool his heels, return to England, and then he’d put those wrongs right. Numbness crept into his brain, and he lost consciousness.
His eyes cracked open cautiously, and he cursed not having drawn the curtains. The light, and associated heat, forced him to leave his bed when all he wanted was to remain in it for a little longer. He’d move on to another town, give it another week. Then he’d return to England’s shores, safe in the knowledge that his Foreign Legion passport and name weren’t on the wanted list. To be on the safe side, he’d shave his beloved moustache, leaving his top lip clean. Without it, he’d feel naked and exposed, but it was for the best. He thought about his hair. It wasn’t long enough to dye. Besides, he had with him two wigs. He’d use the dark one. It meant he’d have to dye his eyebrows, but that wouldn’t trouble him.
Twisting the chair away from the dressing table, he sat down and gazed into the mirror, deep into his soulless eyes, and grinned. The price of love and hate. Maybe he’d even track Kathy down to end her misery. He nodded. She’d like that.
He stretched over to retrieve the book from his bedside table.
‘What else you got to say, beautiful?’ he said, caressing her face with his fingertip. Opening the book, he found where he’d left off and began to read.
Stella’s initial anger had dissipated by the time Miller’s text arrived on her phone. She read it and turned her phone off. Let him sweat. At the bookcase in the hall, she ran a fingertip along a line of books. There were row upon row of them. Books in the vein of Supernature, and The Romeo Error by Lyall Watson, Gurdjeiff’s The Fourth Way, Ouspensky, Freud and Jung ... Having worked with a psychiatrist for years, and having scourged her own soul searching for answers, she could see more than a little of herself in Miller. The titles displayed all the signs that they’d been well read by a man seeking answers to himself. Two of his more recent acquisitions sat together in among them. One was a taller volume by comparison, faded from a darker blue with embossed lettering in discoloured silver or palest gold – she couldn’t tell: Mountain Interval by Robert Frost.
Miller had told her the story behind it. She gently hooked her finger over its top and tilted it. Securing it between two fingers, she lifted it clear. If a book could tell the story of every hand that had ever held it, what tales would it tell? She opened the cover and flicked through the pages, preparing to read. A note slid out. On the page it marked was a poem entitled ‘The Road Not Taken’.
She read the poem and felt its great poignancy. The irony of it, with regard to he
r own life, was not lost on her. Understanding that the contents were a personal message, she left the note unread. An image flashed before her of a note left unread for years on her mantelpiece. She’d thrown it away in the end without ever reading it, and yet the contents had been revealed to her by another’s voice.
After a moment of further thought, she read the slip of paper.
When I was young, I thought I’d live forever, do something. Now, just waiting for the night to come, I realize that I did nothing with my life. Remember what I told you, boy? You’ll know when you find her, that special one, and when you do, no matter what, don’t let her go. If things get sticky between you, come and read my book, read my last words. Try harder. If there is another side, I’ll be thinking of you.
Sincerely, Douglas Kirk
She wept.
Sliding the book back into the shelf, she turned her attention to the one next to it, Carla’s The Life and Times of William Boule. Taking it, she wondered what story this hand would tell and if it would reveal anything about the writer that she didn’t already know, that she might better understand.
She took it into the bedroom with her, and settled into bed to read.
Given her close encounter with him, it made uncomfortable, but fascinating, reading. She hadn’t known he’d been a soldier. He was a hero in an early version of counter-ops, schooled in espionage and surveillance techniques.
No wonder he became a killer. And then Carla skilfully dismantled the vague empathy Stella had felt by revealing that he was a killer before that, giving details of a trail of women who’d inexplicably disappeared wherever he was known to have been. She revealed that he’d killed his own father – the body recovered from a hellhole known as Devil’s Pond – and traced the inextricable links to Miller and the fact that Boyle had been on the ferry on the fateful night Miller’s first love disappeared. No wonder he ran to Carla when she called to say she’d found him. She laid the book face down in her lap. Her mood elevated. It wasn’t about Carla at all. She thought about Ryan, about faith, and fate.
Leaning over the side of the bed, she felt with her hand for the box of Ryan’s possessions. Unable to lift it from her semi-prone position, she swung her legs to the floor and crouched, reaching in and pulling it clear.
Never very good at facing up to things, she finally found herself ready to read the last writings of Ryan, found with the letter he’d left for her and Miller. She folded back the flaps and lying on top of everything else was a pocket notebook, the cover a faded royal blue, the top right-hand corner a beige leatherette texture, the pages gilt-edged. It was old. He’d started with the title: The First Time I Met Vera Flynn ... She skimmed the passages he’d written. The Sister … He’d suspected the Sister was psychic, even then.
Winding her way further in, she saw that he’d recorded two predictions she’d made that had come true, and a mysterious third that she’d sealed into an envelope, trusting him not to open it until the time was right.
‘But how will I know?’ He’d written and recorded her reply: ‘I will know.’
He’d underlined the first letter of her reply.
He mentioned the stone she carried everywhere, his theories on time and space, chance and coincidence. He concluded that she was already psychic when she came into the stone’s possession. She questioned his turn of phrase. It was the other way round, surely?
He noted that while in her presence, others showed a marked increase in psychic awareness, himself included, reporting further that it had dissipated when he no longer saw her.
It became clear that what he’d recorded in the pocket book was intended to be expanded upon at some point in the future. Then she found a page headed ‘Bruce Milowski’.
She read with increasing interest. A lot of it she’d picked up when she’d read his official file just before Ryan had died. He’d used Vera Flynn as an aid to his psychiatry, cutting to the core of disturbed young minds, enabling him to speed up the healing process. Young Bruce, now known as Miller, had been next in line to receive her attentions. Experimental ... cutting edge ... her eyes flew over the pages. Bruce had never gone to see Vera, his appointment with destiny deferred until the future. More theories ... Bruce was already psychic, possibly as a result of genetics. She didn’t want him healed, Ryan had noted, she had another purpose for him ... but what?
Stella reflected on all that she’d read that evening. The note that had fallen from Kirk’s old book, its message appearing connected to her doubts ... for a fleeting moment, she thought she understood how it all came together. It was engineered, meant to be. Can that be right? With her question, clarity disappeared like smoke in a mist, leaving her with a tantalizing aftertaste. I’m a part of it, too. What unseen hand led me to pick up those books?
She swapped Ryan’s notes for Carla’s book, and resumed reading.
Stella turned the phone over in her hand and, expanding the photo to its full extent, scrolled down the creamy flesh from the woman’s navel and analysed the letters forming the vertical tattoo. Mi leche. Her schoolgirl French translated it into milk me but, unsure, she Googled it. ‘Lick Me!’ The dirty bitch! She shuddered at the thought of Miller and Carla yet, at the same time, wondered if perhaps she herself wasn’t interesting enough. For a moment, she envied the reporter’s ability to drift in and out of other lives without attachment, without conscience. That was it. The reason she could never be like Carla. She cared too much for people. It made her weak by comparison, predictable. A smile curved at the corner of her mouth and lit her eyes. She knew what she had to do.
At the Google search box, she typed: Tattooist, Romford. She selected one and clicked through to its website. She didn’t want to emulate her rival’s explicit branding, merely express her femininity in a more interesting way.
She’d have an eagle and a dove inked into her skin in the morning.
Chapter 14
Lieutenant Mustafa Mohand had barely got into the station when one of his colleagues called out to him. ‘Hey, lieutenant, you picked the right day to visit your mother. All hell broke loose here yesterday.’
Mohand’s white shirt was damp with perspiration and he smoothed the creases from it, careful not to press too hard or his hands would stick, making new creases. ‘What did I miss, constable?’
Hamed quickly brought him up to date and few minutes later Mohand said, ‘So, a white truck with an open back and French plates? If it’s the same one, I have seen the man who drove this.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Yes, and on my way in this morning … I’ve seen him again on the wall. On a poster ...’
‘I’ve seen those, too! Who is it that puts those up? They’re everywhere!’
The lieutenant frowned, knowing instinctively there was a significance to the appearance of the posters, but unable to make a connection. ‘Hamed, come with me.’
The two men walked from the station together. On the corner opposite the store where Mohand had first seen the man, someone had scrawled graffiti across the poster. The resemblance was so good; he couldn’t believe he’d not realized it was him before. The pugiliste.
‘It is him, Hamed. I saw him in Ali’s shop over there, buying a book. Come, let’s go and see Ali.’
‘Yes,’ said Ali, turning the book over. ‘It was this lady. She came and asked if she could sell her book here, C-A-R-L-A Black.’
‘Wait,’ Hamed said, grabbing at the book. ‘Carla Black, she’s the woman we’re looking for from the hotel ...’
‘Now we know what she looks like, we’ll find her. Can you read English, Hamed?’ Mohand asked.
‘No, I can’t. Do you want to read this book?’
‘Ali, do you know anyone who can translate this for me?’
The lines in Ali’s forehead deepened. ‘From English to French, maybe. You know the American woman with the red hair, who lives near Ecole Primaire Oued Eddahabmore?’
‘With the red hair? I know her. She isn’t American, she’s a German lady.’
&nb
sp; Taking the book with him, Lieutenant Mohand assured Ali he would return it.
‘Hamed,’ he said pointing to the poster, ‘copy that writing down. Can we find out where this woman lives?’
‘I know where she lives,’ Hamed said.
Mohand raised an eyebrow in his direction.
‘She’s a teacher at the school ...’
‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle,’ the lieutenant said as a woman with hair the colour of burned oranges opened the peeling, blue-painted door. ‘I wonder if I may beg your assistance in translating some English text for me?’
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘That’s all you want?’
‘Mais, oui ... What else could there be?’
She invited the policemen in and, once inside, Mohand explained exactly what he required.
‘Hamed, give her the note.’
The constable handed it to her.
‘This word ... it’s someone who likes children in an unnatural way,’ she said.
The two men exchanged glances.
‘C’est impossible!’ Mohand exclaimed. ‘This man is a pugiliste.’ He pulled his nose across his face. ‘He has many fights ...’
She shrugged. ‘You asked me what it means, and that’s what it is. Pass me the book, we’ll see what page seventy-seven says.’
After locating the page, she read it and then told him what it said.
‘It says nothing about children. There must be more. Can you translate the whole book for me?’
‘This is about four hours to read, and translate as well, is a big job.’
‘I just want to know what it says. Can you read it to me in French?’
‘Yes, but you understand, I must charge for my time.’
Lieutenant Mohand picked up a piece of hash from the table. ‘You understand this is not allowed for foreigners?’ he said, with a hint of irony in his voice.
Knowing full well the penalties, she stared at him. ‘You want me to start now?’
