by Darren Shan
Talk turns to Spirit of the Fire and my future plans. Joe wants to know if I’m still going back to the States. I tell him I’m not sure.
‘And the book?’ he presses.
‘I can’t focus on that now. I’m going to leave it for a while. Later, when I’m thinking straight, I’ll tackle it again.’
‘OK,’ Joe sighs. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’
‘It’s not what I want, but I’m in no state of mind to deal with all the complications of a novel. We’ll get round to it, I promise. I just don’t know when.’
He asks if I’d like him to come over. I tell him I’m a mess, tired, confused. I say I’ll ring in a day or two and we’ll meet up, sit down and discuss the matter over a bottle of wine, but for now I just want to be on my own. He wishes me well, makes me promise not to flee the city again, then hangs up and leaves me sitting naked on the edge of the bed. After a few minutes I switch on my cell phone and stare at it glumly, waiting for Andeanna to call, yearning to hear her voice, but dreading what she might have to say.
TEN
No word from Andeanna by the time I fall asleep. I spend all of the next day waiting. After an early dinner, I clutch my cell phone and sit by the window watching the twilight. As the sky darkens, I don’t move. I could see my ghosts in the glass if I looked up, but I keep my sights trained on the street below.
I’m so sure Andeanna isn’t going to ring that when the cell finally goes off in my hand, I drop it with shock. Cursing, I dive after it and answer curtly, ‘Yes?’
‘It’s me.’
I move to the bed, relaxing. ‘Hi.’
‘Are you back in London?’ Andeanna asks.
‘Yes.’
‘How did things go?’ Trying to sound blasé.
‘All sorted. What have I missed?’
‘Mikis is up in arms. He thinks Axel has betrayed him, that he fled ahead of a planned hit on the house. His people are scouring London. He even took my guards away to concentrate on the search.’
‘He doesn’t suspect you?’
‘No. He bought my lie, hook, line and sinker.’
Her choice of phrase puts me in mind of Axel Nelke. I try not to linger on the image of him floating at the bottom of the sea, fish stripping his bones bare.
‘We have to meet,’ Andeanna says.
‘Not at your place,’ I reply promptly.
A sick laugh. ‘No. Somewhere neutral, where we can talk freely.’
‘A park?’
She thinks about it. ‘Yes. St James’s. Outside Inn the Park — it’s a restaurant.’
‘I know it. Tomorrow?’
‘No. Tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ I glance out of the window at the darkness and rain.
‘Tonight or never,’ she says, then hangs up.
This smells of a trap, meeting in the open on a dark, wet night. Few people will be out at this hour, in this weather. Easy for the Turk and his men to ambush me. But I have to trust her. I’ve nothing to cling to if I don’t.
The streets are mostly deserted and the cab makes swift progress. When I get out, I pass no more than four people in the park. Andeanna is alone when I spot her, seated close to the pond, sheltered by a petite umbrella. No sign of lurking conspirators. But there wouldn’t be, not if they know who I am and what I used to do. If she’s told the Turk about me, he’ll have had time to research my past. He’ll know better than to underestimate me.
As my stomach tightens, I stride to where Andeanna is seated. She looks up, meets my gaze briefly, then looks away. Her face has healed, though there are still bruises around her left cheek. I wipe the bench clear and sit a foot away from her, holding my umbrella high above my head. There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. Finally, without looking at me, she asks what I did with Axel. I give her a condensed version of the story, leaving out names and places.
‘Very clever,’ she notes numbly when I finish.
I shrug. ‘Getting rid of a body isn’t so difficult. If you don’t panic, the chances of someone catching you are slim. Dump it at sea, drop it down a well, bury it in a forest. It’s the people who start trying to chop it up or dissolve it in acid who come unstuck.’
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. About being an assassin.’ At last her head turns and she stares at me. ‘Was it true?’
‘Yes.’
She flinches. ‘You killed people for money?’
‘I did.’
‘How many?’
I shake my head a fraction and glance at the ghosts which have followed me everywhere all these years, Nelke now nestled comfortably among them. ‘You don’t want to know.’
‘How many?’ she presses.
‘Half a dozen,’ I reply stiffly. (I actually only killed five of them for money. One was for revenge. But this isn’t the time to slip that in.)
‘Did you just kill bad people?’
I don’t answer.
‘Tell me you didn’t kill women and children, Ed.’
My gaze snakes to the slim young girl. She was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt her. But that’s no excuse. ‘I killed who I was paid to,’ I mutter.
‘How could you murder for money?’ she gasps.
‘It was business. If I hadn’t taken the contracts, someone else would have. I was only a tool in the hands of the real assassins.’
‘Bullshit,’ she hisses. ‘You killed. Blaming others is –’
‘The truth,’ I cut in. ‘My victims were marked for death. I couldn’t have saved them. The world is full of greedy, vicious scum prepared to slit a few throats if the price is right.’
Her face crinkles. ‘But why were you one of them? Why involve yourself in such distasteful affairs? You’re intelligent, gifted, wealthy.’
‘Where do you think the money came from?’ I counter.
‘You mentioned an inheritance . . . ’
‘I lied. I made a fortune killing people and I’ve been living off the profits. My books could never have been written otherwise. I’d have been tied to some lousy job, struggling to keep afloat.’
She opens her mouth to object. Closes it and shakes her head. ‘I thought I knew you, Ed.’
‘You do.’
‘No. The man I fell for was kind, gentle, loving.’
‘That’s who I am, who I’ve become.’
‘But you’re a killer!’ she shouts, then immediately glances around to make sure nobody has heard.
‘I was,’ I correct her. ‘That’s in the past. Six years dead and buried.’
‘Until Axel,’ she sniffs.
‘Which was for you,’ I remind her.
‘I don’t know what to make of you,’ she sighs. ‘The way you talk about what you’ve done . . . You show no remorse.’
I hold in a bitter laugh. ‘You don’t know shit,’ I grunt. ‘There were nights when I sat alone in the dark, a gun pressed to my head, hating myself, trying to work up the courage to end it all. But there’s only so much self-hatred you can take. If you don’t pull that trigger – and in the end I couldn’t – you have to accept what you’ve done and find a way to live with it.’
The rain starts coming down heavily. Andeanna draws her legs in under her small umbrella. Reaching across, I take hers and force mine into her hands. She doesn’t shy away when our fingers meet. ‘Tell me how it started,’ she whispers.
‘It’s a long story,’ I warn her.
‘We have plenty of time.’
‘OK. Remember that night on the boat, when I told you I was married once?’
She has to think back. Then she recalls our first meeting and nods.
‘Well, it started for real when I met Belinda Darnier – my wife – but I have to go back further than that, to when I was in the army . . . ’
I enlisted about a year after my father died, eager to put the difficulties of my teens behind me and see more of the world. I’d have made a good soldier. I enjoyed being part of a finely tuned system of command, where everyone knew his place and all
worked for the good of the whole.
I wasn’t a withdrawn, softly spoken figure in those days. I was a good-natured young man, mixed freely, got on well with others. Awkward around women – I was never a natural charmer – but fine with the guys.
My closest friends were Bill Phelps, at twenty-three the oldest of the recruits. Abe Lambourne, quiet and studious, but a wild man when he’d had too much to drink. And Lars Liljegren, Lily Lars, a born joker. We were no Musketeers, but we were tight.
Bill’s twenty-fourth birthday fell on a weekend when we all had passes out of the compound. We drank until we fell into a stupor on Friday, spent Saturday recovering, launched back into action that night.
There were two cadets we despised, Simon Dale and Parson McNally. They were widely loathed, more loyal to our commanding officers than to the rest of us. That pair would rat you out without a second thought, just to get a salute from a sergeant.
Lily Lars was itching with devilment. Dale and McNally were sitting at a table near ours, drinking light beers, acting like a pair of generals. He wanted to shake them up. He started plotting ways to get under their skin, and cooked up a plan with Abe. Bill and I were in on it. If any of us had been sober, we’d have stopped him, but we were all drunk.
Lars had brought a handgun to impress the ladies. It was loaded with blanks. Lars and Abe faked an argument. They yelled at one another, then exchanged blows. Lurching to their feet, they thrashed around the bar. Bill and I followed, pretending to be concerned, pushing customers out of their way.
As they stumbled towards Dale and McNally’s table, Lars drew his gun. People screamed and ducked. Not the arrogant cadets. They glared at the grappling pair, waiting coolly for the fuss to die down. Abe darted away from Lars, towards Dale and McNally. He deliberately slipped as Lars took aim, exposing Dale. As Dale’s face registered the first flickers of fear, Lars fired twice. Dale shrieked and threw his hands over his face. McNally also yelled and rolled away, terrified. Lars’s scheme had worked to perfection.
Lars and Abe collapsed laughing. Bill and I laughed too. When Dale realized he’d been made a fool of, his face darkened. Getting to his feet, he ran a hand through his cropped hair, furiously studied the howling pair in front of him, then took a knife from a strap on his left thigh, stepped forward, took hold of Abe’s nose, jerked upwards to expose his throat and lashed the blade across the soft flesh.
As a surprised-looking Abe fell, spraying blood, Dale went after Lars. Bill hauled him to the ground. I got hold of Dale’s arm and bit into it. Lars was too shocked to join in. He was staring at Abe, who was jerking feebly in his death throes.
As we grappled with Dale, McNally jumped us. He may have been coming to the aid of his partner, or he might have been trying to assist us. Nobody would ever know, because as he rushed in, he ran on to the knife, which drove into his chest an inch or so below his heart.
The sight of his dying friend brought Dale to a halt. The fight drained from him and he slumped to the floor, covering his eyes with an arm. Lars, Bill and I didn’t look away. We watched the two men die, stunned by how our world had turned so fatal so swiftly.
Parson McNally’s death was declared an accident. Simon Dale was charged with the murder of Abe, but the judge took Lars’s provocation into account and handed down a soft sentence. He was free within two years. That disgusted me then and it still does. Dale deserved to suffer a lot more than he did.
The rest of us had disgraced the army and we knew what we had to do. Our resignations were accepted without question and we were released within days of each other. Ashamed of the part we’d played in Abe’s death, we went our separate ways and I haven’t seen Bill or Lars since.
I stop and study the violent splashes of rain on the pond. Andeanna stares at me silently. Her hand rests on my knee. It must have crept there while I was speaking. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she says. ‘You didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.’
‘I know,’ I sigh. ‘But I let it happen, so I have to share the blame. There’s no getting away from that.’
Andeanna’s fingers squeeze my knee sympathetically, then slide away as she asks what happened next. Glad to be moving on, I tell her of the next couple of years, my withdrawal into myself, the drinking binges, the fits of rage, the short spells in prison, usually for creating a nuisance and destruction of public property. I wandered aimlessly, trying to lose myself in foreign lands where my guilt couldn’t haunt me.
I ran into one of my old instructors, Carter Phell, in a bar in Mexico. I thought it was coincidence, but I soon learnt that he’d tracked me down. He got me to take a long, hard look at myself and helped me realize how pathetic and self-pitying I’d become. He weaned me off the booze and steered me straight. Once I’d sobered up, Carter revealed his motive for rescuing me. He’d moved into the business of recruiting assassins, and thought I’d be a perfect addition to the team.
‘A growing market, is it?’ Andeanna asks sarcastically.
‘Yes, actually,’ I murmur. ‘Professional killers are always in demand, but hiring one is a complicated procedure. A well-connected, trustworthy middleman can charge what he likes. Carter died last year and left an estate in excess of eight million dollars.’
‘How much of that did he make from you?’ Andeanna enquires.
‘Not as much as he’d planned,’ I mutter, and return to Mexico.
I turned Carter down. He accepted my rejection and we parted on good terms. He gave me a contact number and said the offer stood indefinitely. I threw away the piece of paper, but not before glancing at the number. Not before my brain had a chance to store it away with all the other phone numbers in my memory bank.
Over the coming years, I saw more of the world than I’d ever dreamt of. Africa, Asia, South America, Europe. I wandered at whim, staying in hostels or sleeping rough, hitching rides, dodging fares on public transport. It was during those years that I first began to write. I kept a diary, in which I jotted down my experiences and thoughts. That developed into longer descriptions of the places I visited and the people I met. It never struck me that I might make a living as a wordsmith. It was just a way to pass the time.
In Seattle, everything changed when I ran into Belinda Darnier.
Belinda should have been out of my league. She was beautiful and exotic, and moved in the sorts of circles I normally would have had no access to. But I’d recently struck lucky at the racetrack and was living the temporary high life.
‘I used to like the occasional flutter,’ I tell Andeanna. ‘In Seattle I won on an accumulator, almost fifty thousand dollars. That brought me into Belinda’s world – we met at an art launch. She liked the fact that I was awkward. I’d never had much experience of women or money, and while most of her acquaintances viewed me with disdain, Belinda was amused. She let me wine and dine her for a couple of weeks. I was an entertaining aside – a bit of rough, as you say over here.’
‘Sounds like I have a lot in common with her,’ Andeanna sniffs, and I detect a hint of jealousy in the way her eyes narrow.
‘Belinda was beautiful, but not as beautiful as you,’ I whisper.
‘Forget the compliments and get on with the story,’ Andeanna huffs, but she can’t hide a quick, pleased smile.
It was an incredible fortnight. Top hotels, fine restaurants and champagne every night, amazing sex, not a dull moment between rising and falling asleep. I was sure it wouldn’t last – once the money ran out, I couldn’t hold her interest – but that was fine. I was determined to enjoy the ride and let her go without a whimper when it ended. I figured even a small slice of a woman like Belinda Darnier was more than I had any right to hope for. I was looking forward to savouring the memories.
Belinda loved casinos. She was a born gambler, though she only bet with other people’s money. My luck from the track followed me when she took me along. I won a further twenty thousand on roulette and blackjack, which kept Belinda sweet for an extra week. I spent money wildly, tossing fifty-dollar tips t
o cab drivers, splashing out on clothes, watches, wine, blowing my stash as lavishly as I could. I even went on a short cocaine binge, which wasn’t my style, but Belinda had told me not to be a prude.
One night, high on coke, I told Belinda about my past, how I got kicked out of the army, my hatred for Simon Dale, Carter Phell’s obscene offer. Her interest in me skyrocketed. She wanted to know the going rate for an assassination, how Phell trained his men, the sort of people a killer would have to deal with. She regarded me with renewed respect, as if I was a celebrity. In the face of such a response, my ego soared. I couldn’t answer her questions fast enough.
In three weeks the money was gone. I expected Belinda to go too, but to my shock, she hung on. She kept threatening to leave, but didn’t. I was stunned but ecstatic. I’d been planning a trip to Australia, but cancelled it, got a job, rented an apartment and kept my fingers crossed.
A couple of weeks became a month, and Belinda suggested giving up her pad and moving in with me. ‘While we’re at it,’ she added with a mischievous smile, ‘we might as well get married too. If you’ll have me.’
‘How romantic,’ Andeanna says, and her annoyed look tickles me. I have to hold back the laughter and remind myself that this isn’t the time to be chuckling.
I could only nod numbly at Belinda’s unexpected proposal and wonder if I was dreaming as she arranged the wedding. It was a quick registry service, just a few of her friends in attendance, but I felt like a man who’d won the lottery. That day was one of the happiest of my life. It still is, even given all that followed.
For a long time I was sure I’d wake up one morning and she’d be gone, but as the weeks ticked by, I came to believe that she was into me for the long haul. I couldn’t imagine what I’d done to merit such good fortune, and I didn’t care. She had made herself mine. That was all that mattered.
A short while later, Belinda began complaining of headaches. She was tired and irritable most days. I told her to see a doctor, but she wouldn’t. Eventually, when her condition didn’t improve, she agreed to seek medical advice.
