I nodded.
“They were shocked by the stinking, weather-beaten gringo wearing layers of filthy rags. You started rambling in English and they couldn’t understand a word. Then they saw your injuries and realised they were serious. One of them rid overnight to inform the carabineros at Puente Negro and to get medical help. Meanwhile the other two fed you with bread and cheese. After that, as far the doctors here can gather, you fell into a sort of exhaustion-induced unconsciousness.”
He looked up from his notebook. “You don’t remember any of that?”
I shook my head.
“Well, you woke up the next morning, to their great relief. In case you had a relapse, they decided to take you down the valley. The idea was to meet the medical help halfway. You couldn’t walk so they tied you on a horse. That didn’t work too well so at the first house they came to, the farmer agreed to take you in, and they waited there until help arrived. That’s when your appetite really perked up. You had more milk and cheese, and a plate of beans. Five plates of beans, to be exact. After that, macaroni and bread dripping. The only thing they say you refused was some meat.”
His head lifted momentarily but I avoided his glance.
“Anyway, you stuffed yourself and dozed. Later you had more milk and cheese, followed by dulce de leche and coffee. They kept track of all this as they wanted the doctors to know they’d taken good care of you. Later on, some carabineers, police, arrived. Their captain spoke some English. You told him about the plane and described where it was way up in the mountains, and he sent a couple of his men back to fetch a helicopter. Apparently you ate most of the carabineers’ food too.”
He smiled again and winked at me.
“Next day, not one but three helicopters arrived and that’s when you started on your journey here, where you’ve been ever since.”
I pushed myself up with my hands until I was sitting upright, the metal bars of the bed pressing into my back. “Why do you know so much about it?” I asked him.
“As I say, I talked to some of the people involved. It’s part of my job to help them too if they need it. Don’t worry, I’m a priest. It’s all confidential.”
“Strange, I don’t remember any of it.”
“The doctors can explain that better than me. Or maybe a psychiatrist; we have one standing by that we can call.” He glanced at his watch. “Anyway, I’d better leave you now.”
“Father . . . before you go . . .”
“Yes?”
I wanted to tell him so badly about María, wanted to confess what I’d had to do to survive. Would he understand, would anyone? My mouth opened and shut again. I just couldn’t do it.
“Can you bring the flowers back, please? I’m getting used to them now. The smell . . . it’s been so long. It’s almost makes me a little drunk.” I could feel my cheeks turning red.
Fr. Sergio smiled and moved the flowers back onto the side table. Then he leaned over the bed and touched my arm, his expression suddenly grave.
“One more thing you should know,” he said, “Word of the crash has inevitably got out. People are describing your survival as a miracle. You’ve become quite the celebrity.”
“But they can’t know much?”
“No, they don’t, but they want to. There are news people everywhere. Some of them are camped out on the lawn. I had to physically block an El Mercurio reporter from barging in here this morning. Be careful what you say.”
“I will.”
“And if you’d like to talk to me later, just ask for me and I’ll come.” He patted the back of my hand and left.
I lay back, feeling nervous and scared, my heart pounding in my chest.
Chapter 46
A female nurse entered the room, carrying a tray. She put it down on one of those feeding trolley things, wheeled it across my bed, and adjusted the pillows at my back. I looked down at steaming hot chocolate, porridge, and a piece of soft, smelly cheese. The aromas were heavenly and I quickly tucked in. It was delicious and I asked for more. She said she’d try.
Minutes later a middle-aged doctor with slicked back hair and wire framed glasses came in, followed by two younger medical assistants. The doctor listened to my heart while the others pulled back the sheets and began massaging my limbs.
“How does it look, doctor?” I asked hopefully.
“I’m Dr. Morel,” he said, “And I’m one of three doctors assigned to your case. What did you weigh before the crash?”
“A bit under two hundred pounds.”
“You were well built, okay. You’re now one hundred and twenty, which means you’re severely underweight. That’s easy to fix. The rest of your injuries will take longer but should heal in due course.” He gave me a piercing look. “What did you eat up there?”
“Emergency rations.” The lie slipped easily out of my mouth.
He gazed impassively at me for several seconds. “You’re forgetting,” he finally said, “We had to strip you of your filthy clothes. Which was fine until we got to your rather unusual socks.”
I looked away, unable to speak. A hard lump formed in my throat.
“Those had to be cut off,” the doctor continued, “Like a second skin, in fact.”
I cursed myself for forgetting about the skin socks I’d made from María’s limbs. They should have been buried with the remaining meat.
Mercifully, the doctor let it go at that. “The crash investigators want to talk to you again,” he said, “I think you’re well enough now.”
“Again?” I said, “I’ve already talked to them?”
He nodded. “Yes, briefly I think, when you were in San Fernando. Don’t worry; at least some of these memories should come back to you in due course.”
I didn’t know what to say. If I hadn’t done so already, I’d have to give the investigators my last altimeter height and point out where the crash was on a map. When they got up there, they’d find María’s body and see the state it was in. Then the truth about the skin socks and everything else would come out. A truth I couldn’t yet bring myself to speak out loud.
The nurse brought me another hot chocolate then all four left me alone with my thoughts.
I had just finished the hot chocolate when a man around my age came in, wearing a suit and tie and carrying a shoulder bag. In his hurry he left the double doors swinging closed behind him and rushed right up to my bedside. As soon as I laid eyes on him I knew he was no hospital worker.
“Mr. Knox, I’m Michael Simpson from BBC World News. How are you feeling today?”
“A lot better,” I replied, studying him warily. He had a trimmed blonde moustache, the bright eyes of a crocodile viewing its prey, and a fervent, caring look on his face to match the tone of voice. Sincerity personified, as much as he was able to fake it.
“How many days altogether were you up there? Can you give me a number?”
“I don’t remember. I got delirious, lost track of time. Too long.”
“I see. Can you tell us something about your sensational journey down from the mountains?”
For the first time I noticed a microphone sticking out of his carefully positioned bag. A round hole at the end of the bag looked suspiciously like a concealed video camera lens. “I’m still a bit confused by that myself.”
“Really? You’re sorting it out then? Mind if I take a couple of stills?” Without waiting for a reply, he held up a small camera and clicked away. I found myself instinctively forcing a smile.
“Can I call you Calvin?”
“Cal is fine.”
“Thanks, Calvin. Cal I mean. One more thing before I go.” He looked anxiously over his shoulder. Through the rectangular windows in the double doors I saw two ward orderlies hurrying towards us.
“Tell me this, Cal, is it true that you ate human flesh up there?”
For a second I almost choked. Then I managed to sputter out, “How do you know about that?”
“So it’s true then?”
“I have nothing to sa
y about that,” I managed.
“You don’t deny it?”
The orderlies came in and, without a word being said, Simpson gathered up his things. With a tall orderly on either side of him, he walked to the doors. As he was about to leave, he turned and flung back a last question at me;
“What was the person’s name?”
One of his white-clad guardians placed a large hand on Simpson’s back and almost shoved him out the door.
I leaned forward, my head swimming and feeling like I was about to faint. My heart seemed ready to burst in my chest. I groped around, found a buzzer next to my bed and pressed it several times. When the nurse came in I waved her over and grabbed her bare arm, pulling her close.
“Find Fr. Sergio. Tell him I must talk to him at once.”
PART FOUR
ONLY ONE WILL SURVIVE
Chapter 47
Fort Stuart, British Columbia, a year later.
Bautista Saurez watched expressionless as I lowered my automatic. “Don’t you care whether you live or die?” he said.
“Very much. I still have a bestselling endurance story to write.” It was a stupid, intentionally provocative reply. I knew it and didn’t care. This man instantly brought out the worst in me. At the same time, it was a shorthand way of expressing something true; I’d spent the last year desperately trying to fall back in love with ordinary, everyday things; with living for its own sake. I’d be damned if I’d give up all that effort for this lowlife.
What I’d needed was for him to come at me with a gun in his hand and fire the first shot. Then I could have retaliated in clear self defense and it would have been over. Instead he had cleverly chosen to tuck his pistol away in his belt. Now, in this isolated spot with no witnesses, if I ended up killing him, or even doing him any significant harm at all, Canadian law might well be against me.
Anyway, I could never open fire on someone standing in front of me who was now little immediate threat, never mind shoot him dead, plant his gun in his hand, then tell lies to the police. Apart from all the unwanted notoriety and endless public controversy it would bring down on me yet again, I’d never make it convincing. I’d have to wrap his dead hand around the gun and press his finger hard on the trigger until it discharged . . .
No, I couldn’t and wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t like him and he knew that. The tiger had studied his prey well and knew he was safe once he’d put his weapon away.
But I wasn’t crazy either. As soon as I turned my back on him, I’d be dead. If he went for his gun again, I would raise my automatic just as quickly, and use it.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I think you know that already.”
He wanted revenge. He wanted me dead. That was obvious. What did I want? I wanted to know what was inside his head. What he believed about me that was so bad he would come all this way to do this. I was still naive enough to think that reasoning could change something like this.
“I want to talk to you,” I replied.
He spat on the ground again. “You won’t convince me of anything.”
I nodded, remembering the postal deliverer and her fate. No, I wasn’t going to convince this man of anything, he was totally committed and would not change his course now. Nevertheless, for my own satisfaction I had to try, and hear him speak his refusal directly to me. I pointed the automatic at him again. He looked surprised.
“Make a move and I’ll shoot you,” I told him, “The fact that you’re armed will exonerate me.”
He looked at me with utter, unbelieving contempt. “If I wanted to kill you now, you’d be dead already.”
“This is what we’re going to do,” I continued, ignoring his words, “See the back exit over there? There are benches either side of the path. We’re going to sit there in the sun, you on one side and me on the other. If I see the slightest sign of you going for your gun, I will shoot you and take my chances with the Mounties. Is that clear?”
His eyes blazed like burning coals and for the first time I felt the volcano of molten hatred churning inside him. For a grim moment I thought he would pounce at me. Slowly, the madness died away, the insane fire went out, and was replaced by a contemptuous sneer.
“I have nothing to say to you. Anyway, you won’t shoot.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s stalemate. You could walk away right now. But I’ve made it hard for you to pin me down and I can keep doing that until you make a bad mistake. On the other hand, we’re in this remote spot, where no one is likely to see or hear us. If I’m careless, if I stumble, you might get a chance to put a bullet in my heart. Then you can be on the next flight home. That’s what you’re hoping for right now, isn’t it? So I don’t think you’ll leave me just yet. Come, sit.”
I waved the barrel of the automatic at the two old wooden benches. Reluctantly, he walked over and sat down, keeping his legs bent and apart. I followed suit. The gravel path was narrow, probably a workmen’s route, but we were far enough apart that Bautista couldn’t make a sudden grab at me. The springy seat felt pleasantly normal in what was otherwise a nightmare situation. I crossed my legs and rested the pistol on my topmost knee.
“I know how you found me here,” I said, “Before that, how did you find out I was staying at Joe Donnelly’s place?” It was something I wanted to know and as good a way to start as any.
“Money talks,” Bautista replied, “And I have lots of it.”
I visualized the gleaming white Mercedes and nodded. I was pretty sure that Bautista had called around the aviation businesses in the Vancouver area and asked about me, making up whatever story suited best.
“You told Joe you were a journalist?”
“For a New York magazine he’d never heard of,” Bautista replied, “I said I wanted a scoop. The old fool believed me.”
Bautista must have offered Joe a bribe, and it had been too much cash for him to resist. He’d taken the bait, not knowing he was setting up my execution.
“No wonder María hated you,” I said, wanting to lash out at Bautista.
Immediately his face darkened. “You killed her.” He spat the words out.
“No, I didn’t.”
Again, the madness flared in his eyes. “A life for a life,” he replied, “Your life for hers.”
“The avalanche–”
“You think I believe your lies? You murdered her so you could survive. Then what you did to her . . . it’s unforgivable. The only reason I don’t shoot you now is that your end must be just as slow and painful.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, “It was just like I’ve told it, just like you’ve read. I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on her head. María and I had become love–”
“Shut your mouth!” he screamed, “That your filthy hands even touched her!”
I was stunned by his reaction. Somehow I had made things even worse. The fact that María and I had been lovers seemed to upset him more than his belief I’d killed her.
“But she was only a few years younger than you, right?” For some reason I had to get to the bottom of this. “Your sister must have had several boyfriends?”
He lunged forward, head down like a bull. Instinctively, my finger tightened on the gun trigger and I felt it move back. At the very last instant he stopped and fell back on the bench, his face a sweaty mask of contempt and derision.
“You fool!” He flung the words at me like the hard slap of a hand. “Fool! She was not my sister. She was my wife!”
Chapter 48
The words pierced me like a knife in the heart. Bautista sank back, the tension in his body dissipating. Slowly a smile appeared among the black stubble.
“You think Bautista is my first name? It is my family name. It was her name too!” He looked down at the bulge in his belt. “And now I may just shoot you and get it over with.”
I waved the automatic. “Don’t make me do it,” I said. It was a desperate plea but somehow escaped my lips as a cold, emotionless command. He contented himself wi
th a shrug of indifference and another fiery glare.
I had no time to think about what Bautista had just said except to acknowledge that it made a ghastly, numbing sense. I recalled María looking behind us outside the hotel, checking her cell phone at odd moments, refusing to allow a street photographer to take our picture together. The vague aura of hurt and disappointment I’d picked up from her during the brief time we’d been together. Her constant will to seize the moment. These things hadn’t come from nowhere.
Now that Bautista had revealed the real reason for his hatred of me I knew full well that, like a mad dog, he’d never let go of it. God knows, if I had been him I might have felt the same; might have crossed the world to kill whatever devil I thought had destroyed María.
“You’ve bided your time to get revenge,” I said, thinking of the full year that had gone by since María’s death.
“You are no longer the TV celebrity, the great hero,” he spat, “Now the cameras are all gone and there is only me and you. Soon, only me.”
Unfortunately, Bautista’s sense of honour was as perverted as the rest of him. He felt that he ought to kill me, that he was morally bound to do so, and would never allow himself to fall into what he would consider backsliding compromise. I put any notion of further attempts to reason with him out of my head.
As well, I was pretty sure by now that his biggest perversion was, deep down, he enjoyed it. He was a psychopath who actually found pleasure in killing. No doubt he had done it before, and not just the postal deliverer. There was a powerful sense of sadistic cruelty emanating off the man like a hot mist. Yes, he would enjoy killing me slowly.
Shadow of a Killer Page 16
