by Tim Weaver
‘I know.’
‘So, what do you want?’
I closed the wallet.
‘I want a gun.’
Michael left the church at six o’clock. The night was cold, steam hissing out of vents, warm air rising out of the ground as the Underground rumbled through
I had a ski hat on. I pulled it down as far as it would go over my face then stepped on to the train a couple of doors down. He sat and removed a book from a thick slipcase that probably had his laptop in as well.
With a jolt, the train took off. Michael looked up, then around at the other passengers. I turned away, staring down into my lap, conscious of him seeing my reflection in the windows. After a while, I flicked a look at him and could see he was sitting with his legs crossed, the book held up in front of him.
After we changed at Liverpool Street, I glanced at the scrap of paper Gerald had given me the first time I’d been to see him – written at the top was the address where he’d been told to drop the IDs: Box #14, Store ’N’ Pay, Paddington. I’d found it in the Yellow Pages and called them from Starbucks. It was a storage facility; a thousand lockers. People paid a daily or monthly rate for a unit and got a swipe card that gained access to the building any time they wanted. The lockers weren’t huge, but big enough to store holdalls and briefcases, coats and suits. They’d certainly be big enough for what Michael was going to pick up.
When we got to Paddington, commuters filed out; a tidal wave heading for the exit. Michael went with
The escalators were rammed. I could see him halfway up, his face still buried in his book. I followed him, taking two steps at a time all the way to the top. On the other side of the turnstiles he headed for the mainline trains, then moved through the crowds and out into the night.
He headed south-east. We were moving in the direction of Hyde Park, slivers of residential streets running like capillaries either side of us. I maintained a distance from him, following from the other pavement where it was darker and safer. I could see the park up ahead as he veered right into a narrow road with cars parked on either side and a shop front at one end. A sign hanging above the door said STORE ’N’ PAY. I stopped as he climbed the steps up to the front. He slid a swipe card through an electronic lock and pushed the door open.
Store ’N’ Pay had a big window at the front, a blue neon SECURE LOCKERS sign buzzing at the top. There was an unmanned front desk and a series of red lockers behind it. Michael stepped past another man, who was standing in front of an open locker, and up to Box 14. It was on the left of the window. He put his laptop case down, punched in a combination number and pulled open the locker. Inside was a small brown envelope.
As Michael looked through the envelope, the other man finished up and started coming towards the main door. I quickly crossed the street and headed up the steps, catching the door as he left. He glanced at me,
I’d need the car close by – for when we left.
I stepped inside and pulled the door shut. Michael was standing with his back to me, the locker open, still checking the contents of the envelope. After a few seconds, he pushed the locker shut, picked up his laptop and turned around.
He locked eyes on me.
‘David,’ he said. He looked shocked, his mouth dropping a little, the colour draining from his face. But, quickly, he regained control of himself. ‘I’ve got to admit, I didn’t think we’d see you again.’
‘Well, even the Church doesn’t get it right all the time.’
‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘We certainly don’t.’
‘Where’s Alex?’
He acknowledged the name, but only with a slight nod of the head.
‘Do you need me to speak up?’
‘No, I heard you. Why do you want to know?’
‘Where is he?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I’m not going to ask you again.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘why don’t we trade? You tell me why this is so important to you, and I’ll tell you where Alex is.’
Trying to force me into another trap.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to turn this into a confessional.’ He paused, smiled again. ‘Our Catholic friends seem to find forgiveness in the blink of an eye. A couple of Hail Marys and you’re away. I believe you should have to work a little harder at redemption.’
‘I don’t give a shit about anything you believe. Where is he?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re making big problems for yourself here, David.’
‘You tried to kill me.’
He shrugged.
‘You tried to kill me.’
‘That was nothing to do with me.’
‘Oh, of course,’ I said, nodding at the envelope in his hands. ‘You’ve got no idea what goes on outside the walls of your church.’
‘A name means nothing, David.’
‘You saying you came all this way for nothing?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand what drives you. I mean, why? Why come this far? This has nothing to do with you. You could have turned away at any time. But you didn’t and now… now you’re going to get torn apart. Why? Is it the money?’
I didn’t reply.
‘I don’t believe it’s the money. You’ve probably earned enough already. Are you a completist, David – is that it? You want to finish what you started. I respect
I could see where this was going: the same place it had gone before. This quest of yours, is it about the kid – or is it about your wife? They’d hit on something, and now they were going back to it again. Derryn mattered to me. She was the chink in my armour.
‘Did you think there was any hope for your wife, even at the end?’
‘Shut the fuck up.’
‘There’s always hope, right? If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here.’
‘Are you deaf?’
‘Death’s not something you can fight. It’s not a tangible thing. It’s an undefeatable enemy, an unfair battle, an adversary you can’t see coming.’ The corners of his mouth turned down: a sad expression, but only skin deep. ‘I know how you feel. I know about the fear of death, David – and the fear of what comes after. I know that you were scared for her.’
I looked at him.
‘Weren’t you scared for her, David? A man of no religion, of no beliefs, weren’t you scared about what came next for the person you loved?’
He could see he had got to me.
‘Wouldn’t you like to find out?’
He took a step closer.
‘That’s why you’re still interested in this, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here.’
Another step.
Why she had to go.’
Another step, bigger this time.
‘As hard as it is to hear, only God knows when and why our time comes to an end, David. And when He sees some of the people we have in our world, some of these young people getting out of their depth, walking a tightrope between life and death, deciding for themselves how close they want to brush with the afterlife, He is disappointed. I’m sure of that. Because you and I, we don’t decide when our time is up. That’s not our job.’
He paused, and started to reach out for me.
‘That’s the job of God. And the job of the people he choos–’
I slapped the envelope away, out of his hands. As he watched it go, the IDs spilling across the floor, I reached around to the back of my trousers and brought out the gun. He rocked on his feet, staggering a little, holding up both hands.
‘David, wait a min–’
I grabbed his shirt, pushed him around the front desk, and down on to the floor behind. We were shielded from the street. Hidden from passers-by.
‘I like what you’re saying,’ I said, shoving the gun under his chin. ‘And I want to believe you. I want to believe my wife is somewhere better than here. But all I see when I look at you is a fucking snake. You say one thing while you think another. And whatever good you think you’r
e doing, the truth is you’re wrapped up in this same as them. And nothing you’ve said to me tonight can wipe that away.’
I cocked the gun. Pressed it in harder.
‘So, now you’re coming with me.’
There were a series of empty warehouses about seven miles east where I used to meet sources during my paper days. I parked outside one, marched around the front of the car and pulled Michael out of the passenger seat and in through a broken, rusting door.
Inside there was no lighting. It had all been smashed, the glass from the bulbs and strip lights lying on the floor. I tied Michael’s hands behind his back with some duct tape I’d brought with me, and then kicked his legs out from under him. He hit the ground with a thud, crying out in pain. I rolled him over until he was positioned in a block of moonlight shining in from a window high up on the wall.
Then I put the gun to his head.
He looked at me. There was something in his face. He looked like a man standing on the edge. A man terrified of going over. But not of me, and not of the gun.
‘What are you scared of?’ I said.
‘I’m not scared of anything, David.’
‘What are you scared of?’
He blinked.
‘Are you scared of dying?’
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not scared of dying.’
‘So, what are you scared of?’
‘I want to know what you’re scared of. I want to know why everyone’s too frightened to tell me where you’ve put Alex. So… what are you scared of?’
His mouth flattened. A kind of half-smile.
‘You want to know what I’m scared of? I’m scared of my time running out before I’ve done all I need to do. I want to help people. But we’ve done things, and I’ve had knowledge of things, that I fear I might not be forgiven for. And the project… I still believe in its aims, because I still believe it’s a mission from God. A gift. But we’ve done things we shouldn’t have done. And we have people who have drifted from the course we set. So, the thought of my time ending now is what scares me. Because when I die I want to deserve to be where I am. And if you kill me now, I won’t deserve anything.’
‘You’re full of shit, you know that?’
He didn’t reply. Just looked at me.
‘You know that?’
‘I don’t care whether you believe me or not,’ he said, looking up at me. ‘It’s the truth. But it’s probably too late for me already – and it’s certainly too late for you.’
‘It’s not too late.’
‘It’s too late, David. You’ve messed everything up. If you’d walked away when we’d asked you to, the storm would have passed by now. I could get back to the reason I signed up in the first place, and you could be looking at a life that extended further than a couple of days. Instead, you’ve turned this into a war. A war you
I pushed the gun in harder against his face.
‘Listen to me: you want your shot at redemption, is that it?’
He just stared at me, silent.
‘You tell me what I need to know and maybe I’ll do it for you. Maybe I’ll turn this thing around and this whole… whatever the fuck it is you’re protecting, maybe it’ll start again. Better than it was before. But I can’t do that until one of you gives me what I need. I see the same look in you as I saw in Jade: you’re scared about what will happen when you open the door, but you won’t do anything about it. Well, this time I’m going to do something about it.’
I forced the gun in hard a second time.
‘And you’re going to tell me who’s waiting.’
It was almost eleven by the time we got to Michael’s apartment. It was on the corner of a new development that overlooked the Thames in Greenwich. We stopped at the entrance, a tall, narrow foyer with a glass-domed roof, which was connected to the main building by a corridor on the other side.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.
‘What do you think?’
He dug around in his pockets and took out his keys. I looked both ways, just to make sure we were alone. The apartment building was eight storeys high, and stretched for about fifty metres in both directions. Thin, conical lights ran the length of a path that snaked in from the main road. Tiny rock gardens had been constructed either side of the foyer doors, wren green spelt out in red flowers. The building looked less than a year old.
Michael pulled open the entrance doors. On the wall, immediately inside, was a floorplan and a picture of the top-floor roof garden. The garden was smart: stone flagging, interspersed with squares of pebbles, and a covered area where cream awnings stretched across sets of wooden benches.
‘Who pays your rent?’ I asked him.
‘Bullshit. You work in Redbridge, not Canary Wharf.’
He didn’t reply.
He unlocked the doors into the corridor, and I followed him along to a set of lifts. Doors to our right and left led through to the ground-floor apartments. He called one of the elevators, then turned to me. I was carrying his slipcase over my shoulder and his mobile phone in my hand. The phone had been empty, just like the others, and the laptop, during my brief look at it, needed a six-digit password to get beyond the loading screen.
We rode the elevator up.
When we got to the apartment door, he took out his keys again.
‘This is ridiculous, Da–’
‘Just open the door.’
He unlocked it and we stepped inside.
The apartment was warm. He’d left the heating on. A decent-sized living area bled into an open-plan kitchen, a door leading from it into a bathroom and another into his bedroom. I locked the door and told him to sit in the corner of the room with the lights off. There was enough street light coming in from outside. He did as I asked, his hands no longer tied.
I set the slipcase down and unzipped it. I took out his book and dropped it on the floor, then removed his laptop.
‘Where’s the lead for this?’ I said.
‘At work.’
‘At work.’
I took out the gun, moved across the living room and thumped the butt into the side of his head. He jerked sideways, falling off his seat, and rolled on to his back, looking up at me.
‘Shit,’ he said, clutching his face.
‘I’m not playing,’ I said. ‘Where’s the lead?’
He glanced at me, shocked, blood pushing through the skin at the side of his head – then nodded at the TV. There was a power lead snaking out from behind a flatscreen. I took the laptop over to it and plugged it in. It loaded for thirty seconds before stopping at a password screen.
‘What’s your password?’ I asked him.
‘Eleven, forty-one, forty-four.’
I put in the code and the password prompt disappeared.
‘What’s the significance?’ I said.
‘Of what?’
‘The numbers.’
He didn’t reply. I turned and looked at him. He was still nursing the side of his head. He looked woozy. I placed the gun down on the glass table next to me with a clunk. Through the corner of my eye, I saw him looking between me and the gun.
The desktop appeared, loaded with folders. There were four on the right of the screen – Monthly Budgets, Twenties Group, December Sermons and December Scripture – and a further two on the left, Pictures and
‘What’s the password for the folders?’ I asked him, trying Monthly Budgets. It opened immediately, and was full of Excel spreadsheets. The others all opened too. I looked across at Michael. ‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’
He just stared at me.
‘You want me to hurt you again?’
He stared at me. Unmoved.
‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’
‘Go to the folder marked Pictures.’
‘Give me the password for the Contacts folder.’
‘Humour me.’
‘Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?’
‘Please,’ he said quietly.
My eyes lingered on him, then I double-clicked on the Pictures folder. There were a series of files, about thirty, with filenames like ‘thelastsupper.jpg’ and ‘jesusandpeter_water.jpg’. I opened a couple up. They were paintings of biblical scenes: the virgin birth; Jesus being tempted by the devil; the parable of the two sons; Jesus on the cross.
‘Open “widow-underscore-nain”,’ he said.
‘I haven’t got time for a sermon.’
‘It might answer a few questions for you.’
I looked for the file and found the name halfway
‘Do you know what the significance of the numbers eleven, forty-one, forty-four are?’
I glanced at him. The expression in his face worried me. He looked like he’d worked out a plan in his head. A way to get back at me. A way to force my hand.
‘Come on, David. We both know why you’re here, why you didn’t turn around and walk the other way the moment you started to feel like you’d waded too deep into the swamp.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘You know what that painting is of? It’s the raising of a man in Nain. Jesus and his disciples visited there after leaving Capernaum, and came across a funeral procession. When Jesus saw the widow weeping for her dead son, he felt compassion for her. He understood her torment, experienced it, almost as if he’d experienced the loss of the boy himself. And he felt so much compassion for the widow that he raised her son from the dead. He raised him from the dead.’
‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’
‘There are three accounts of Jesus bringing someone back to life in the Gospels. The young man in Nain, which is in Luke; the daughter of Jairus, which is in all of them except John; and, of course –’
‘What’s the password for the Contac–’
‘– the raising of Lazarus.’
I looked at him and he smiled a little.
I thought of the photograph of Alex. ‘What’s Lazarus?’
‘Two resurrections.’
‘What’s Lazarus?’
‘I guess, in a way, that’s what you’ve been looking for.’
