“Deon, I always knew you were a fucking liability,” he said under his breath and started down the street to the seafront path, hoping he was not too late.
53
“Well, you died, originally I mean, on the 14th June 1999,” said Jessica. “I don’t remember it, but I checked the details a little while back. I was four and a half. I remember my mother was devastated, although I don’t think I really understood at the time, not completely. Mum told me that you’d been ill, but that you were better now, although you couldn’t come home, or else you’d be ill again, and I accepted that. And as it happens that’s pretty much how it was. Anyway, I was never told about all this cryonic suspension claptrap. Not ever, mum never mentioned it.”
Mathew went to speak but Jessica held her hand up and took another sip of her drink. “Questions and comments at the end please, Mr Lyal,” she said before continuing.
“I cried, I remember that. And I had a record that I played all the time. You told me once that it was written especially for me.”
The memory of the song came back strong in his mind. “Louis Armstrong?” She nodded slowly in the dimness. Mathew remembered buying the album and how that one track had touched some emotion within him as he watched his young daughter play. “All the time in the world. I used to play it to you when I came home from work.”
“Yes, I remember that well. And the way you always called him Satchmo, although I was never sure why.” Mathew smiled at the memory of attempting to introduce his young daughter into the world of the jazz greats. “I suppose it’s fresher in your memory than mine,” she continued. “Well, anyhow, mum and I carried on in the house for a couple of years, but I think she found it hard making ends meet. It’s hard being a single parent you know. Eventually we ran out of chances and the house was repossessed.”
“No, that’s not right. I made provisions,” interrupted Mathew.
“No you didn’t, you just thought you had. I have checked this all. Everything came to light years after the event. I know what I’m talking about. Your little treatment to cheat death with Live Right, which I believe is now part of the Walden Centre Clinic, couldn’t be secured on an insurance policy, which I gather was the norm, because you were already ill, so you used your life assurance. Right?”
“Yeah, but there was sufficient cover. The policy could cover the house and the treatment and have some left over.”
“No it didn’t. It could have, if it had been handled right, but everything in it was tied into stocks and shares and when the stock market declined in the early part of the century it became virtually worthless. I believe a lot of people lost pensions and endowments in the same way at the time. The agreement that you had with Live Right meant that they took precedence in caring for you over us. Their costs went up and we lost everything. Mum tried to fight it but it was an executed mission. The house, and everything else, went. We stayed at my grandmothers for three years, I was about 8 or 10 by this time.”
“But Paula should have been cryonically preserved. That was the point; that’s why I took out extra assurance.”
“Well then maybe you shouldn’t have taken it out, or used a different company, because they took everything and gave us nothing. Do you still want me to go on?” Mathew nodded.
“Mum worked, some supermarket job, it was all she could get, and then she met someone.”
“What do you mean, she met someone?”
“She met someone! She met a man. Daniel Ashby his name was.”
“But what about me? What about Paula and me?”
“I’m sorry but you’d been dead over five years by this time. What did you expect? Did you think she’d play the grieving widow forever? How arrogant are you that you can expect this sort of devotion after you’d died, and all but bankrupted us? She met a man, Ok? He was nice, they got married. She moved on! That’s what people do, they grieve and then they move on. It doesn’t mean that they didn’t care, or that they forget. It just happens.” Jessica gulped down a mouthful of scotch and tried to compose herself again. She continued more quietly.
“It just happened. They got married and they were happy. They weren’t rich, they just lived their lives. I got a job as a photographer and worked at that for about ten years. Then mum got ill. She was 56 and she developed Alzheimer's. Do you know what that does? It destroys you, from the soul out. First she would forget where she left things, then what day it was, then names, Daniel’s, mine, it didn’t matter. She was often incontinent, she was confused, and she’d walk around asking what she should be doing. Daniel looked after her, but it tore him up seeing her fall apart like that. He was drinking to blank it out, and one day I found him dead in the living room. He’d just given up, everything in his world had fallen apart. They’d been together for years. It killed him. That was when I found out about your cryonics and the insurance balls-up. I had to give up work and looked after mum full time.”
“Could you get help? A rest home or something?”
“We had no money! I stayed with her most of the time until she died. She had a respiratory problem, which eventually killed her,” Jessica said in a matter-of-fact way.
“Then what?”
“Then I buried her. She’s not in some fridge waiting for you if that’s what you think. She’s sleeping next to the man that she spent the last part of her life with. The man who loved her so much that watching her become ill killed him. That’s what she wanted. They were together for over twenty years – about four times longer than you were with her. And what would you have done, eh? You’d have her rejuvenated by the Walden, with dementia, twenty five years older than you are – or than you appear to be anyway. Is that really what you want from this woman that you claim to love?
“She loved you once, I’m sure of it. But nothing’s permanent. You learn that with age. Everything passes, you just have to accept. I know you feel that you’re…what?…36?”
“38.”
“Right. Well you’re not. You’re one hundred and seven! You’re not the oldest person to have ever lived, but everything you knew, most of the people you loved, all of your twentieth century culture, all your ideals and standards, they’re all gone, Mathew. Nothing’s how it was. The world’s changed, like it always does. It’s like you, before all this, meeting someone from the 1930s. It’s a different world. It may not be fair, but whose life is? Mum’s wasn’t. Daniel’s wasn’t. Mine certainly hasn’t been. My father died when I was a child. I gave up a promising career to care for my mother. You should understand what that’s like – you’re mother died when you were young. As you get older you just accept that your friends and family move on or pass away. But you never grew old; you’re learning everything the hard way, in a world that I imagine you don’t really understand. Mum’s dead; she’s been dead nearly 30 years, and the woman who you knew ceased to exist years before that. She spent most of her life married to someone else. She isn’t coming back. Accept it.”
Mathew traced the rim of his glass with his finger, unable to think what to say. The two of them sat in silence for what seemed like forever.
“I have to go,” Mathew eventually said.
“Yes, I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry for being the person to tell you.”
“I mean I’m sorry for missing you grow up. I missed so much of my life.”
“Accept it and let it go. What will you do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a ride arranged from Southampton if we can get there.”
“Take this then,” said Jessica pulling a neatly wrapped package from a draw by her chair. Mathew took it and opened it to reveal an old polished pistol. “I told you I kept one in the house. I don’t need it. You may.” And she closed his fingers around it. “It’s been in the house for years.”
He looked at the Luger.
“It was your great grandfather’s. Dad had this pistol in the house. He said I’d have it one day.”
“Well then it’s yours no
w. Perhaps it’s been waiting for you. Maybe I was just its keeper. I never needed it. I hope that you don’t need to use it.” She bent forward and kissed his cheek, and before he knew what he was doing, Mathew was outside the cottage, closing the door behind him. The rain was still falling heavily and the lights were still out. He slipped the pistol into his pocket and walked slowly out of the garden. As he shut the gate to the cottage the wind howled around his ears and the rain stung his eyes, and for a second he thought he could hear Louis Armstrong’s gravelly voice in the wind, but perhaps he was imagining it. He stood at the gate, took two deep breaths, and then headed away from the cottage into the storm.
54
It had been a strange day, mused Deon as he absently played with the red pills in his hand. Aaron had found him a lamp to replace the faulty bulb in the room that he was using and he could at least now see his surroundings better. The paint was peeling from the wall and the room smelt of the damp that was climbing the exposed parts of the brickwork. Deon fiddled with the c-pac he still had, unable to understand the malfunction that it had developed while he checking on Caroline for Philip. He hoped that the journalist had been able to get to Mathew before Warwick had. Deon had made a bad error of judgement trusting the doctor. Somehow he had always felt that some people could be instantly trustworthy because of their positions, and doctors came into this group. But he’d been wrong. And that meant, he supposed, that he could be wrong about some of the other people he’d trusted. Yet he’d always been suspicious of the stories he’d heard broadcast from the news groups, and now he’d come across a journalist who appeared to be telling the truth when no one else would do. Caroline had often told the congregation at Unit not to trust reporters, and to have no dealing with them at all if possible; but that made little sense now. He looked down at the yellow capsules on the table beside him. They seemed very small to be so potentially destructive.
“Shut up!” he snapped at the voice that called him. They seemed to be getting more intrusive, and he wondered where they came from. They always had the same message for him, and that must mean something, he figured. Maybe it was linked into the conversation that he’d had with Caroline earlier.
That afternoon Aaron had found him outside the building screaming.
“Deon, what are you doing? You’re drawing attention to us. We need to remain clandestine.”
“I don’t care,” he yelled. “I don’t care about anything. Everything’s fucked up.”
“Deon, come inside and tell me what this is about.” Aaron took Deon’s arm and led him into the building and away from the curious eyes of the onlookers that had started to gather around him. Inside he could hardly tell where he was headed. His eyes filled with tears and his head ached, and all the time he could hear the voices yelling at him through the fog. And they were right. He had betrayed Mathew, even if he hadn’t meant to, and he was useless, and yes he probably did deserve to die. He had endangered the life of the man sent back from God. How would history portray him, except as an evil fiend who valued the cash he’d received above his conscience? What paths were open for him to take now? What outcome could there be? Where, if anywhere, could redemption lie?
“It’s not good, Deon, to attract so much attention,” Aaron said, holding him tightly by the arm and steering him along the corridors. “Too much attention will jeopardise the entire operation, you know. We have work to do here, Deon. Deon, are you listening to me? Do you realise the importance of secrecy here?”
Deon shook his head. None of it mattered. Here he was, part of Caroline’s scheme to help save the Christian faith, and he’d wiped out the future of the Church with one action. For over 2,000 years people had waited for the next time the word of God could be delivered via a direct link to Him, and he’d managed to destroy the whole plan in one action. He could tell from Philip’s voice that he may as well have told Lucifer himself where Mathew was. He looked into the lights that hung from the ceiling as they paraded down the corridor. He’d been brought to the saviour because of who Mathew was, and now he had destroyed both Mathew and himself. There was nothing he could do.
“Useless cunt. Fucking pathetic wanker. You know you need to die. Deon, you need to die. The only rest you’ll get is when you kill yourself.”
“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” he screamed at the taunting voices.
“Deon, stop screaming and walk with me,” demanded Aaron, as he escorted his shabby companion, while he appeared to be flailing at invisible assailants. He brought him into a small room and pushed him onto an uncomfortable wooden chair.
“Deon, just sit there,” Aaron shouted. Deon yelled again and threw his hands across his face. Aaron, leaned out of the doorway and called out for assistant, and two young men abruptly arrived. “Hold him down,” he ordered. While the two held him, Aaron pulled a box from a drawer, inserted a capsule into the hypodermic, and injected Deon with a small dosage, which quietened him, although not yet to the point of unconsciousness.
The two men released their grip.
“One of you, go get Caroline,” Aaron instructed.
Deon was still crying and shaking as he sat waiting for whatever fate may bring to him, which was how he remained for the next five minutes until Caroline arrived.
“I’ve sedated him, so he may sleep for a while because if it,” Aaron explained. “I can’t make out what’s the matter with him though. He seems really anxious about something.”
“Well we need to talk to him before he goes under. Ok, leave him to me. Deon? Can you hear me? It’s Caroline. What’s wrong?”
Deon groaned and shook his head. “It’s all my fault,” he mumbled. “It’s all going to go wrong and it’s because of me.”
“What’s gone wrong Deon? What have you done?”
“I’ve done what you said not to. I’ve helped the enemies of God.”
“How have you done that Deon?”
He shook his head and mumbled something incomprehensible through the sedative-induced drowsiness.
“What have you done, Deon?”
“I’ve let them know where to go,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, I’ve let them know. I’m sorry, Reiko.”
“Have you given our location away? Deon, have you told people where we are?”
“I didn’t mean to Reiko. I thought I was helping, but now they’ll come for you, Reiko.”
Caroline turned to Aaron. “He’s given away the location of the base to someone. If he’s named us there may be people coming.” Deon slumped into unconsciousness. “We won’t get any more out of him for now. How much sedative did you give him?”
“He was going berserk; I had to calm him down.”
“Well, that’s brilliant. Only he knows what he’s done, and now we can’t get anything out of him at all.”
“What was he saying? It sounded like rayco. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Are you sure it was rayco? I thought he said Waco.”
“What’s Waco?”
“I don’t know. Let me look it up.”
Aaron checked through the c-pac details and archive.
“Here!” he said. “Waco was the site of a cult in the 1990s. The authorities stormed it in ’93 and killed everyone.”
“Would Deon know about that?”
“He’s just spent most of the last month in the company of a man from the 1990s. I’d guess that he knows an awful lot about their history. I think that Deon may feel that something along those lines will happen here.”
“Do you think that’s going to happen here? What do you want to do?”
“Prepare to get everyone out. I want the files and databases taken, and the armaments, obviously. How long will he be out for?”
“Not long, maybe an hour; two at the most. He might be a bit confused when he wakes.”
“That’s fine, we can use that. Let me know as soon as he’s awake, I have a mission for Deon. He’s obviously feeling guilty about what he’s done. He wants forgiveness and redemption, and
I can arrange a penance for him that will achieve that and remove any problems that he may cause us; however good his intentions. How long will it take to get ready to leave?”
“About six hours.”
“Ok. Let’s hope we have that long.”
Deon awoke with a start. The world swam into focus and he looked about at the drab décor of the room he was in. He wasn’t sure where he was or what had happened, but he did remember letting Mathew down by informing Warwick where he was, and he also recalled that Philip was angry with him for it. Deon knew that it wasn’t really his fault; Warwick had lied so convincingly about his motives that he had genuinely thought that he wanted to help. He would have to find a way to make amends, if not with Mathew, then at least with his conscience, and then ultimately, with God.
He heard a voice behind him ask how he felt, and for a second he thought that the voices that taunted him had decided to be benign for a change, and then he saw Caroline walk around him.
“How are you feeling, Deon? We were very concerned for a while.” She smiled kindly at him, and her voice was soothing. She handed him a glass of water and he felt her sweet breath on his face as she moved near him. He remembered how he’d thought he could see a halo around her, and realised how angelic she was.
“I think I did a bad thing, Caroline.” He concentrated hard. He had thought that he’d told Rei what he’d done, but he couldn’t have, could he? No, he was wrong about that, he’d told Philip and then let Caroline know. Why did he get so confused about people sometimes?
“The enemies of God are everywhere, Deon and they have many tricks and deceptions that they can use. You may have led our enemies to where they want to be, but we can still fight them.”
The Relic Keeper Page 32
