Rider

by Merrigan, Peter J

  When Margaret had let Kane’s hand go, he pushed them deep into his pockets and smiled awkwardly at her. She turned back to her gardening and he and Ryan had walked the rest of the way to the house.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Kane asked.

  Ryan had shrugged and said nothing. He was smiling.

  ‘What does she know?’ Kane asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ryan said. He continued towards the house.

  Kane looked back over his shoulder. Margaret busied herself among the flowers.

  From behind him, Ryan said, ‘She doesn’t mind.’

  ‘Doesn’t mind about what?’

  Ryan had laughed. ‘About…stuff.’

  He smiled again and, after a second of processing it, Kane had smiled back.

  * * *

  When he returned to his flat, mid-afternoon, he took a beer from the fridge and sat on the floor of the living room with a box of Ryan’s things.

  His shoulder was stiff, but he worked as best he could, sifting through Ryan’s papers and books and gadgets, most of which had been packed up for years since they moved into the flat—they had little enough space as it was.

  He didn’t really know what he was looking for, or why he was looking for it. Whatever ‘damaging documents’ Ryan had stolen, whether they were from Lucas Dawson or from David, Kane was sure that if Dawson’s men had already been through the flat, what luck was he going to have?

  He drank from his beer, sat the half-empty bottle up on the coffee table beside him, and pulled out another sheaf of papers from the box in front of him. Bank statements dating back years; nothing out of the ordinary. He found a photo album of their formative years that Ryan had pieced together. Childhood photographs of two young boys, growing up on opposite ends of Belfast, growing up side by side in the album, Kane on the left pages, Ryan on the right, until at last they met and every new photograph in the album contained two teenagers, holding hands, arm in arm, laughing, smiling, kissing.

  Ryan was the sentimental sort.

  Kane sat the album aside after flicking through it twice. When his bottle was empty, he got another beer and another box of memories.

  An hour and a half later, five empty beer bottles beside him, boxes of Ryan’s life upturned all around him, Kane stood and worked some life back into his legs. There was no more beer in the fridge.

  He pulled a storage case from under the bed and pulled it into the living room. It was filled mostly with paperback novels and more photographs that had never made it into albums. In the side of the case was Ryan’s pocket digital camera. He had two cameras—a Canon with extra lenses and filters and external flashes, and the little compact Pentax that Kane now turned over and over in his hands. He had rarely used it. ‘You can’t get a feel for the camera,’ Ryan had often said, ‘if you can’t grip the lens.’

  Kane switched the Pentax on and began flipping through the photos on the digital screen. As he suspected, there weren’t very many photographs on the memory card. Shots of him and Ryan in various places, various poses. The occasional artistic and abstract shots of lampshades and curtain rails.

  There was a blurred image that Kane couldn’t quite make out, followed by another blurred shot. The next one was still blurry, but clearer: a few men outside a building. Using the controls on the back of the camera, he zoomed in on the photo but was unable to make out who the men were.

  He got up from the floor and jacked the camera into his laptop, downloading the photos to a folder on his desktop and opened the relevant photo. On the larger screen of the laptop, he was able to recognise all four of the men.

  Lucas Dawson was centre frame. Behind him, his two goons, Darren and O’Reef.

  And beside Dawson, shaking his hand, was David Bernhard.

  * * *

  Kane stared at a grainy printout of the photo. It sat next to his strong, black coffee on the kitchen table. He needed to clear his head after the beers.

  When he called the hospital to check on Margaret, they told him she was asleep. He enquired about her condition. ‘Doing well,’ they said. ‘Shouldn’t be too long before she’s able to go home.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Kane said. ‘If there’s any change, you’ll call me?’

  ‘You’ve nothing to be concerned about,’ they said. ‘She’ll be right as rain.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’ He was about to hang up when instead he said, ‘Oh, when she wakes…Tell her not to worry. I’m going to do what she asked.’

  A few minutes later he had switched his laptop back on and had entered his credit card details on an airline website for a flight to London. He didn’t have a clue what he’d do when he got there, let alone how he’d actually find David, but he had to try. Now that he had proof of David’s involvement with Dawson, albeit a grainy photograph, proof that Ryan was killed for a reason, he had to try.

  He packed a small suitcase, carefully tucked the photograph of David and Dawson down the side of it, and took one last look around his flat. He stared up at the Bette Davis picture on the wall, chewed on his lip. And he turned and left.

  * * *

  ‘Tell me,’ Ryan had said. He was drunk.

  Kane smiled, teasing. ‘Tell you what?’

  They were both drunk.

  ‘Tell me everything. Tell me you love me. Tell me you’ll always love me. Tell me…Tell me I make you smile.’

  Kane laughed. ‘You make me smile. And I love you. And I’ll always love you.’

  ‘And tell me,’ Ryan said, eyes blinking, head inclining to the left, a lop-sided smile on his face, ‘tell me how much I mean to you, ’cause you know I need it. Say something nice.’

  ‘“Something nice.”’

  ‘No, seriously,’ Ryan laughed.

  Kane made a pretence of thinking about it. He trailed his hand down Ryan’s arm and wove their fingers together. ‘You know what you mean to me, Ryan. You know how much I love you, how much I need you. The moment you walked into my class, God, my heart—it was pumping so fast I thought it was going to explode.’

  Ryan smiled daintily.

  ‘And,’ Kane continued, ‘you didn’t have to come and sit next to me. There were plenty of other seats in the class. But you did. You sat beside me. I could have kissed you right then. Look at me.’ He touched his chin. Ryan looked at him. ‘I love you, Ryan.’ He kissed his forehead. ‘I need you.’ He kissed his neck. ‘God, I love you.’

  And he had pulled Ryan into a tight embrace, his arms around his neck, Ryan’s hands on the small of his back. Their chests—pressed together—rose and fell in opposites as one breathed in, the other breathed out, like they were yin and yang, like they were a true unison, working together.

  And he whispered against his cheek, ‘I’d do anything for you, Ryan. Anything.’

  PART TWO

  LONDON

  Chapter 10

  He can’t find him.

  He looks everywhere. In the toilet, at the bar, on the dance floor. He is nowhere, as though he has just disappeared.

  A body presses against Kane on the dance floor. He steps away, repulsed. ‘Have you seen Ryan?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  He pushes through the swell. Why did he have to disappear like that? He scours the faces before him. A fat woman dances in front of him, white powder caked in her nostrils, a wild look in her eyes.

  He presses on. ‘Ryan?’

  His voice is lost in the din. The music pumps. The floor vibrates.

  Sweaty bodies gyrate before him, each dancer a solitary battleship in a violent sea, swaying against the onslaught of music, hands in the air as though in prayer to the god of dance. Energized men bounce around the floor, their upper bodies clothed in nothing more than the glossy sheen of perspiration, their shirts tucked into their back pockets like tails.

  And then he is behind him, carrying a drink in each hand. ‘Kane! Where’d you go?’

  ‘Where’d you go?’ he shouts over the noise.

  ‘The bar.
I told you.’

  He takes the glass Ryan offers him, drinks it in one gulp. ‘I’m tired,’ he says. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Wait. One more dance. Come on.’

  Ryan kisses him.

  ‘This music’s killing me,’ Kane offers.

  Ryan laughs. ‘It’s great. It’s retro. Let’s dance.’

  He takes his hand.

  ‘I’m tired.’

  Ryan frowns, puppy-doglike. But he holds his hand and they head for the door. And Ryan, on the way out, pats the doorman on the backside. ‘Same time next week, sexy,’ he says.

  The doorman laughs. Ryan laughs.

  And the cool night air feels refreshing. It was too stuffy inside. It was too close.

  ‘Where to?’ Ryan asks.

  ‘Home?’

  ‘Party.’

  ‘Home.’

  Ryan shrugs. He kisses Kane’s cheek. ‘You’re the boss,’ he says.

  And a man comes out of nowhere. Bumps into Ryan. Says, ‘Sorry, mate.’ Walks on.

  Kane thinks Ryan is tugging him, pulling him in a new direction, out into the road. And he is suddenly heavy. And his hand comes free from Kane’s. And he is spinning—spinning like he is still dancing, spinning like he is still having fun.

  But he stumbles. He falls.

  And Kane watches him. And he sees the blood. And he sees his face. And Ryan says sorry.

  He says sorry…

  * * *

  Kane snapped his eyes open.

  He hadn’t dreamt of that night since it happened. He had had other, nicer dreams, but not of Ryan’s murder. Perhaps it was his brain’s way of accepting it as fact.

  He had fallen asleep not long after checking into the cheap hotel, stretched across the bed, fully clothed, mobile phone in his hand. The phone had slipped from his fingers in sleep and had fallen to the floor. He picked it up, worked a creak from his neck, and pulled his laptop from its case.

  Finding David was his priority, though he had no idea where to start looking. Central London hotels looked like his best bet but you couldn’t just rock up and ask if someone was a guest there. Hotel employees were like doctors when it came to confidentiality, he assumed.

  He searched for hotels on the laptop and called the first one on the list.

  ‘Hi. Yes, I’d like to leave a message for one of your guests but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten his room number,’ he said. When the girl on the phone asked for the guest’s name, Kane said, ‘David Bernhard.’ He spelled the surname and they answered in the negative. ‘Oh, really? I’m sorry, I must have the wrong hotel.’

  This was going to be a long and arduous process, Kane thought, but he would stop at nothing for the outcome he deserved. He dialled the next hotel on the list.

  ‘Hello, can you put me through to one of your guest’s please? He’s called David Bernhard.’

  Again he received a negative response and he quickly moved on.

  Almost an hour later, when his arm was hurting from holding the phone to his ear and he thought he’d worn a patch on the carpet from where he paced up and down, he gave up. Did he really think he could find David in a city of millions? It was hopeless.

  He called the hospital back in Belfast and spoke to Margaret for a few minutes, assuring her he was fine, ensuring she was fine, and then he showered and changed. He needed to get some air, some lunch.

  Outside the small hotel, the sky was overcast and the street was murky. He looked both ways, consulted the pocket guide book he’d picked up from the airport, and went in search of a tube station.

  When a black Transit van pulled up and crawled along beside him, he gave it only a cursory glance and carried on. And when the door slid open and a man on the street took his arm, he still didn’t connect the two.

  ‘This way, Mr Rider,’ the man said, leading him towards the van.

  ‘What? Get off,’ Kane said. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  The man, stocky, tall, thinning hair, bundled Kane into the van and jumped in behind him. ‘Drive,’ he said to the guy behind the wheel, and he told Kane to sit.

  One side of the van was taken up by computers and other electronic equipment. Another guy sat at a terminal wearing headphones. He looked at Kane momentarily, then returned to whatever it was he had been doing.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Kane asked.

  But they didn’t acknowledge him.

  * * *

  Thoughts of Dawson had flipped through his head, awful memories of being taken from his flat and dumped in a warehouse. The men in the black van remained silent throughout their journey. The rear door windows had been blacked out, and through the front of the van, one street looked the same as the next to Kane.

  They pulled into the back of a large but nondescript building and drove down into the underground car park. When the van came to a stop, the man who had taken Kane off the street opened the door and ushered him out. Their footsteps echoed as they crossed the car park to a lift, the man’s hand on Kane’s arm the whole time, and they rode up to the third floor.

  He was pushed into a room and the door was locked behind him.

  Alone, he looked around. There was a desk protruding from one wall of the small white-walled room, four chairs around it, two on either side, and a recording deck sat at the inner side of the table.

  He sat down, because there was nothing else to do, and noticed a video camera watching him from the ceiling, its small red light blinking at him.

  After a few minutes of silence, the door opened and a man and woman entered. The man was the same one from the van. He had put a tie on and appeared to have combed his hair. The woman was dressed in a grey skirt suit with a white shirt and her hair was tied back from her face. They sat down opposite Kane.

  There were no introductions.

  ‘What are you doing in London?’ the man asked.

  ‘You’re police?’ Kane asked.

  ‘What were you expecting? Why are you in London?’

  ‘You just snatched me off the street,’ Kane said. ‘I thought you were a bunch of nut jobs.’

  ‘Answer the question,’ the man said. ‘What are you doing in London?’

  ‘Am I under arrest?’

  ‘I’ll ask the questions, thank you.’

  Kane repeated, ‘Am I under arrest?’

  ‘No,’ the woman said. ‘We’d just like to ask you a few questions. Then we’ll see what happens after that. How old are you, Kane?’ she asked.

  The fact that they knew his name registered only vaguely with him. ‘Twenty-four,’ he said.

  ‘Been to London before?’ the woman asked.

  Kane folded his arms. ‘Thought I’d come and stalk the Prince of Wales.’ He looked at them both. ‘Is this some sort of terrorist thing? I don’t even know how to spell IRA, let alone how to make bombs.’

  ‘Very funny,’ the man said. ‘We’ve been watching you, Mr Rider.’ For a moment Kane thought he meant they had been watching him from the camera while he sat there in the interview room, but when the brevity of what he had said sunk in, Kane simply blinked and looked at him. ‘Got yourself in a bit of trouble back home, didn’t you? How’d you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  The man smiled. ‘Lucas Dawson,’ he said. ‘AKA Connor O’Leary, AKA Thomas Davis.’

  Kane felt the blood drain from his cheeks and his face must have visibly whitened because the corner of the man’s mouth twitched in a satisfied smirk. He drew circles on the paper in front of him, moving the pad around, holding the pen in one place, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Kane’s throat was tight, his chest burning. Absently, he touched his shoulder where O’Reef had shot him. He was no longer wearing the cloth sling, but it still ached from time to time.

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’ the man said. ‘I hear you flirted with a bullet.’

  Kane’s vision clouded and he clenched his eyes. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  ‘UK NCB,’ the man
said.

  ‘We’re from the National Central Bureau of Interpol,’ the woman told him. ‘Part of the National Criminal Intelligence Service. We’ve been tracking Lucas Dawson and his associates for some time.’

  ‘What do you want with me?’ Kane asked. ‘You want to lock me up for killing him? Well, you can’t. That pleasure lies with someone else. But believe me, if I’d had the chance, I would have. He murdered my…He killed the only person I ever really loved.’

  The woman nodded and they both stood to leave. When they had reached the door, the man turned back to face Kane. ‘I’ll be honest. I don’t get that whole gay thing,’ he said. ‘Never have. Probably never will. But Ryan—he was one of the good guys. It was a real shame when he died.’

  And then they left him on his own.

  * * *

  He was numb. His fingers were tingling and his head was spinning. They knew Ryan. That was the one thought turning over and over in his mind.

  When they both returned, hardly ten minutes later, Kane was still sitting in the same chair, in the same position, staring at the tabletop in front of him.

  They sat without speaking, and they waited.

  When Kane looked up, he asked ‘What is all of this? Who are you?’

  ‘Detective Superintendent Wilson,’ the man said. ‘Pat Wilson. This is Detective Ann Clark.’ The woman smiled warmly at Kane and Wilson continued, ‘Now, I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, and this time I’d like some answers.’

  ‘How do you know Ryan?’ Kane asked.

  ‘What brings you to London?’

  ‘Did you meet him in Belfast? He’s never been to London.’

  ‘Why are you in London?’

  ‘How do you know him?’ Kane retorted.

  Detective Wilson sighed. ‘Answer the question, please.’

  ‘You answer my questions,’ Kane said.

  ‘You’re not in a position to argue with us, Mr Rider. Answer the question or you’ll be spending the night in an eight-by-eight cell.’

  He stared at Wilson, incredulous. ‘Fuck the cell. You sleep in it. If you know something about Ryan, I want to hear it. Tell me how you know him and then I’ll answer your questions.’