Rider

by Merrigan, Peter J

  It was only in the morning, as the phone invaded his broken dreams, that he realised he must have fallen asleep. He awoke from the foetal position he had curled into around a pillow and stared dumbly at the phone for a minute before awkwardly grasping the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Rider. This is Detective Thorpe. We spoke yesterday? The interim report is in on your friend, Mr Cassidy. I think you should come down to the station if you don’t mind.’

  ‘The station?’ Kane asked, still groggy from sleep.

  Detective Thorpe paused for the slightest hesitation. ‘There’s a few things we’d like to discuss.’

  Chapter 2

  Detective James Thorpe showed Kane into his office at the police station on Antrim Road and he took a seat. When Thorpe sat down opposite him, behind his messy desk, he smiled.

  Kane looked at him. ‘You said there was a problem?’

  ‘I said there are a few things we’d like to discuss.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  He drank from a disgusting-looking mug of tea. ‘I’m sorry, would you like a drink? The tea’s like tar and the water cooler is warm, but you’re welcome to it.’

  ‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’ Kane pressed.

  ‘Mr Rider—Kane—how well did you know the deceased?’

  ‘Eight years. Why?’

  ‘And you’ve been…partners—is that right?—for eight years also.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had a good relationship?’

  ‘I loved him.’

  ‘Yes, and you shared a flat?’ He consulted a sheet of paper from a file on his desk. ‘Six years, you told my colleagues.’

  ‘Yeah, about six years.’ Kane looked at the paper but couldn’t make out what it said, then looked back at Thorpe. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Mr Rider,’ Thorpe said. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. Some routine blood-work on the deceased, Ryan Cassidy, showed up a few anomalies.’

  ‘What sort of anomalies?’

  ‘Were you aware of Mr Cassidy’s use to heroin?’

  He couldn’t think. His head felt light and his fingers went numb.

  When Thorpe spoke again, his voice was only a vague whisper in Kane’s ear. ‘We need a blood sample from you. It’s in your best interest to submit one voluntarily.’

  * * *

  Kane scratched uselessly at the corner of the plaster on his arm, the mark of Thorpe’s blood-sample request, and stared at the blank TV screen. The remote control was in his hand but he hadn’t turned it on.

  Heroin. How had he missed it? Why didn’t he see the signs? But then, he had to admit he didn’t know what the signs were. Had Ryan’s mood ever changed? Were those big wide eyes natural or induced?

  Thorpe had told him where Ryan had injected himself, had said it was only traces of the substance, but enough to suggest semi-regular use. There weren’t many needle-marks, but he should have spotted them if he’d been looking properly.

  His mind was listless, wandering from one splinter of thought to another. He thought back to two nights ago. He and Ryan had just come out of the nightclub. Ryan had been trying to talk him into going to a party at someone’s house. He forgot who.

  Ryan had taken his hand and they walked along the street towards the nearest taxi rank. That was when a man bumped into him. The guy could have been their age, could have even been a teenager or someone in his forties; his hoodie hid his face.

  It was a split-second affair. ‘Sorry, mate,’ the guy had said. And he kept walking. And then Ryan was on the ground, a gaping knife wound in his chest and fear in his eyes. Kane had given no more thought to that man until much later when he told Thorpe.

  The phone rang and pulled him from sinister thoughts. He scratched the edge of the plaster again and rose to pick up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  But there was no one there.

  * * *

  Two years ago, he had sat between Ryan’s legs facing out onto the Atlantic from a quiet corner of Portstewart where they often spent the weekends in the summer months. Ryan’s chin was resting on Kane’s neck, his arms around his shoulders, his breath warm and sensual on his cheek. Their skin was still wet from a recent swim, where he had caught Kane in the water, held him tight, and kissed him. The sun was going down, melting into the ocean, its liquid-gold rays reaching out to them like the spreading fingers of Neptune, shimmering, inviting.

  Ryan had kissed his neck. ‘Don’t you wish it could be like this forever? Just us, with the world at our feet?’

  ‘Why can’t it?’ Kane asked, stifling a sleepy yawn. He collected some sand in his hand and let it trickle through his fingers.

  ‘Because things happen,’ Ryan said wistfully. He hugged Kane tighter. ‘Because people are always changing. Because nothing ever stays the same.’

  ‘The song remains the same,’ Kane joked.

  Ryan’s fingers trailed along Kane’s collarbone. ‘No matter how hard you try, it’s all going to be different. You can’t keep a bird in a cage and expect it to sing like it did when it was free. The world is a nightmare place and we’re all too fucked up to care.’

  ‘Stop going all Baby Jane on me,’ Kane said, collecting more sand.

  ‘But don’t you feel sometimes that things would be better if nothing ever changed? Because once it changes, you’ll never get it back. Once it’s gone…’ His voice drifted away, his grip around Kane’s body loosening.

  ‘That’s a bit deep,’ Kane laughed, his back pressing against Ryan’s chest.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Ryan said. When Kane dusted his hands off and turned to face him, he noticed the tears in his eyes. ‘Would you still love me if something changed you? Or me?’

  * * *

  Against his boss’ express wishes, Kane went back to work at Kestrel Solutions that afternoon. He had taken on a three-week temp contract in telesales with them over two years ago but loved the job so much they let him stay. He could sell redemption to the devil, Ryan had told him and he was doubling his earnings on commission from that first week. They were a telecoms solutions company that prided themselves on UK call centres and both their incoming and outgoing sales calls were routed through local centres. Kane’s base in Belfast served the whole of Northern Ireland.

  After fixing himself a coffee from the breakout area, he returned to his station and placed his next call, a follow-up on a recent sales prospect in Limavady. Behind him, at the water cooler, a couple of his colleagues stared at him behind his back. They had all heard the news about his boyfriend’s death—murder, they were calling it—and no one had expected him back so soon. But the office gossip would slither around him and nobody would dare mention it to him beyond asking him how he was.

  ‘Mr Campbell, please,’ Kane said into his headset when he spoke to a receptionist. ‘This is Kane Rider from Kestrel Solutions.’

  He waited to be put through and stared at his computer screen. If he looked at any of his colleagues he would see the pity in their eyes and it would break him.

  ‘John?’ Kane said when Mr Campbell came on the line. ‘Kane Rider. How’ve you been? Have you had a chance to go over the quote I provided last week?’

  He could feel their eyes boring into his back.

  ‘I have,’ John Campbell said. ‘And I just have a few questions, if that’s okay?’

  ‘Fire away,’ Kane said, positioning his fingers on his keyboard to take notes.

  He could hear their whispered words all around him.

  ‘You said it was the latest model?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Kane said. ‘I can guarantee it’s fresh off production and if you take the six-year warranty you won’t have any problems.’

  He could sense their desperate need to find out the truth.

  ‘The twenty-five percent discount is a special limited-time offer, John. I’d hate for you to miss out.’

  ‘Can yo
u leave it with me for another twenty-four hours?’ John asked.

  Kane said, ‘Let me just see if I can hold the discount open for you, John. I’ll be two seconds.’ He put the call on hold, removed his headset and buried his face in his hands.

  Breaking through the force field he had erected around himself, his boss came up and sat on the edge of his desk. Jill Ruthers was middle-aged but could still pass for twenty-something.

  ‘Kane,’ she said.

  He kept his face in his hands, his elbows on the desk.

  ‘I just…We all wanted to say…’

  He looked up at her, nodded, begged her with his eyes not to finish her sentence.

  She saw his desk phone was on hold and said, ‘Finish the call and go home. I’ll pay you for the rest of the week. Call me on Friday afternoon and we’ll talk about next week, see if you need any extra time off.’

  Jill had met Ryan on several occasions when he had stopped by after work to catch a ride home with Kane. They had got talking one day as they waited for Kane to finish a call and had managed to arrange a night out, but it had never happened.

  Kane closed his eyes and Jill touched his shoulder. ‘Go home,’ she repeated.

  He watched her as she walked away, called after her. When she turned back to him, he said, ‘Thanks.’ He put his headset back on and took the call off hold. ‘John, mate, good news. I’ve spoken to my manager and she’s agreed to extend the discount until tomorrow. Can we give you a call around noon?’

  As he hung up, his mobile phone buzzed silently in his pocket. He took it out and answered it.

  But the line went dead.

  * * *

  To take his mind off everything, Kane went to the gym. Margaret was due back from Spain in the early hours of tomorrow morning; it was the first available flight she could secure. He didn’t know how he could face her. Ryan was her only child and they had relied on each other through Ryan’s father’s descent into and eventual consumption by dementia praecox and a brain tumour that swiftly killed him in his early forties. They had nursed each other through the ensuing heartache while Ryan was nothing more than a child but suddenly the man of the house. When Margaret’s new husband came along, it was a welcome relief for all.

  Only a couple of people worked the machines—a woman on a rowing machine, her short ponytail swinging behind her head, and a man, muscles straining beneath sweaty skin, puffing air in time as he bench-pressed.

  Kane started up on a treadmill at the other side of the gym, his earphones in, iPod strapped to his arm, his feet slapping out a rhythm to match the music. He stared blank ahead, could feel sweat trickling down his back. It was total focus. When he ran, he felt nothing. His legs did all the hard work.

  He wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead, running like he was going somewhere, running like he was leaving somewhere.

  On the floor beside the treadmill, sitting on top of his sports bag and almost lost in the folds of a towel, his phone lit up from an incoming call. It caught his eye and he glanced at it, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He looked straight ahead again, his feet punishing the treadmill, and he cranked up the speed on the display.

  The phone kept flashing, ringing.

  Kane kept running.

  And the phone stopped, its screen dimming, a small light flashing to tell him he’d missed a call.

  He ran faster. Going nowhere. Going anywhere.

  When the phone started ringing again, he shook his head. He wouldn’t stop. But he did. He slowed the pace, looked at the phone, hopped off the treadmill and pulled his earphones out.

  He picked up the phone and the towel, wiping sweat from his face before answering it. ‘Hello?’

  He raised a leg, folded the knee—it felt stiff—and someone skinned past him, knocking him off balance. He dropped his foot to the floor for support and the phone slipped from his hand. The man, in a hoodie and baggy black jeans, pushed his way into the male changing rooms at the far end.

  It was him. He knew it was. The man who killed his boyfriend was in his gym.

  Momentary shock gave way and Kane ploughed across the gym after him. When he burst into the changing rooms, a man with a towel round his waist was about to remove it but he stopped. He stared at Kane but Kane ignored him. He looked along each bench, down each row of lockers, in the shower stalls. But no one was there.

  ‘Did you see a man?’ Kane asked the towel guy.

  ‘What man?’

  He shook his head. Daunted, he returned to the gym room and picked up his phone where it had fallen. The call was still active.

  Bringing it back to his ear, Kane said, ‘Who is this?’

  The woman was no longer rowing. She was standing next to the machine and stretching her limbs.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ he said into the phone.

  The woman stopped stretching, one hand on an elbow, arm across her body. ‘Excuse me?’

  Kane hit End on the phone. ‘Sorry,’ he said. He picked up his bag and headed back to the changing room. He was losing the thread.

  * * *

  The late summer sun leached across the darkening sky as he pulled up outside his block of flats.

  The song never remains the same.

  He got out, grabbed his sports bag, locked the car and turned, glimpsing a light in the window of his flat. A shadow passed across it and the light went out.

  It was almost as if he hadn’t seen it. After two steps forward, he had to stop and think. He was tired. He wasn’t thinking straight. It was the neighbour’s place. It had to be.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  He headed towards the entrance, his heart rate elevated, pulling out his keys and fingering for the right one without even looking down at them. As he approached, the door swung open and two men came out, hoods up, heads down. They quickly disappeared into the night.

  He stood there, catching his breath, feeling a sharp pain at the bottom of his sternum from the fear. Inside, the buttons for the lift showed it was on the sixth floor. He took the stairs.

  Kane’s front door was still locked, no sign of forced entry. Along the corridor, a neighbour’s voice raised and was echoed by his wife. Something smashed.

  It was someone else’s light he had seen. Or maybe no light at all.

  He opened the door, pushed it wide. He didn’t step in until he felt sure there was no one inside. He switched on all the lights and opened every door. He even looked under the bed like a frightened child.

  Nothing.

  It was only when he returned to the living room to look out of the window that he noticed the small white envelope on the coffee table. Kane Rider was printed in bold lettering across the front of it. His heart thumped in his chest. He didn’t know whether to open it, call the cops, or just get the hell out of there.

  He thought about doing all three.

  As he reached across for the envelope, he glanced around the room. Was he really alone? He tore the envelope open with shaking hands.

  Inside, there was a piece of white cardboard the size of a business card. He pulled it out. Nothing else.

  And scrawled across one side were the words:

  Vengeance is mine, and recompense,

  for the time when their foot shall slip;

  for the day of their calamity is at hand,

  and their doom comes swiftly.

  Chapter 3

  Kane looked across at Thorpe as he talked to a forensic technician who was dusting the door for fingerprints. A couple of uniformed police officers milled around, looking, for all their sense of importance, as useless as Kane felt.

  ‘You’ll be getting your locks changed, of course,’ Thorpe said when he approached him. ‘And I’ll station a man outside for the rest of the night.’ He held up the small card in an evidence bag. ‘I’ll have this looked at, but if our man is clever enough to get into your flat unseen, my guess is we’re not going to find anything.’

  ‘So that’s it?’ Kane asked, incredulous.


  Thorpe shrugged. ‘Like I said, we’ll take a closer look at this. Do you want a car placed outside?’

  ‘Do you think I need one?’

  Thorpe knit his ginger eyebrows together. ‘Look, I know what you’re thinking. It’s probably not connected. All we can—’

  Kane interrupted him. ‘You seriously think this isn’t connected? “Vengeance is mine”?’

  ‘We’re looking at the options, that’s all,’ he said. ‘Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, violent crime ends there.’

  ‘What about the other one time?’ Kane asked.

  ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Kane. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet. But without any hard evidence there isn’t a lot we can do tonight. We just have to wait for forensics to get back to us. I’m really sorry for your loss, but until we turn something up, there’s little to be done. Just sit tight until we know more.’

  Kane turned away from him but quickly turned back, looking him directly in the eyes. ‘The other one time out of a hundred: does that end with the boyfriend getting killed, too?’

  * * *

  To wake at four in the morning and smile, to have the feeling that your loved one lies beside you, in sleep, and then to shudder in a rush of reality—the feeling is agonizing. He turned on his pillow, away from the place Ryan should have been lying.

  He was dead.

  Kane had to keep repeating it in his head, unbelieving, questioning. And then the thought of the sinister calling card, the thought that someone had gotten into his flat, his home, the thought that perhaps his own life was at risk. And why?

  He could not know.

  In the parking lot below, a police car loitered. A visible deterrent. The officer inside, Kane could imagine, would be drinking lukewarm coffee. Maybe he had one leg out of the open door. Maybe he was radioing the dispatch girl. Maybe he was reading a Tom Clancy.

  Maybe he was asleep.

  He went to the window. The car wasn’t there.

  Panic set in like a heart attack. He wanted to go to the phone, wanted to stay at the window. His reflection in the glass stared back at him. Had something happened? Was the officer called away on an emergency?