Then He Was Gone

by Stephen Edger

  Becky blinked several times. ‘Hmm? What, sorry?’

  ‘I asked where you’re off to. Has the filming finished already?’

  ‘Uh no…um…where am I…’ She felt the cigarette packet in her hand, and quickly held it up. ‘Cigarette. I mean, I’m going out for a smoke.’

  Julia shook her head disapprovingly. ‘Those things will kill you one day. I can’t believe you still smoke after all these years, when you know you’re at a higher risk of contracting cancer.’

  ‘You’re right, I know you are, but I need it for the stress.’

  ‘Promise you’ll quit when this is all over. Please?’

  ‘I promise.’

  Becky turned to leave, but Julia pulled her back. ‘Wait, aren’t you going to ask how the appeal rehearsal is going.’

  ‘Of course, sorry. How is it?’

  ‘We’ve done a couple of run-throughs, with just Durand and Turner watching. I think it went okay. They’ve told me just to stick to the script, and to allow them to handle any questions. We’re doing it at three, once all the filming is done. Durand has arranged for the appeal to be broadcast live over the centre’s speaker system. It’s going to be weird hearing my own voice; I’ve never liked it.’

  ‘Everyone feels that way. It’s something to do with how we’re programmed.’

  ‘You’ll be here for the appeal, won’t you? It would be good to have a friendly face in the crowd I can look at.’

  She wanted to tell her the truth, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  ‘What’s wrong, Bex? What is it? You look like you’re about to burst into tears. Tell me.’

  Becky bit her lip. ‘It’s nothing. I’m fine. I just need some fresh air.’

  Julia gently rubbed her arm. ‘I know how you feel. I don’t remember this place being so…so stifling the other day. It’s been tough being back here. I’d better get back to Durand. He only let me leave because I was desperate for the toilet. I’ll see you soon, yeah?’

  ‘Uh, yeah…I’ll see you soon, Jules.’

  Becky watched her leave, the voice in her head screaming at her for not telling Julia about the note. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  When she opened her eyes, she could still just make out Julia’s outline in the distance. But instead of chasing after her friend, she turned and headed for the exit. Once outside, she immediately lit a cigarette and inhaled the beautiful nicotine. She climbed into the Twingo, no longer caring that she wasn’t supposed to smoke inside it.

  She started the engine and lowered the window. She programmed the satnav with directions to the Cap Blanc Nez, a tourist spot likened to Dover’s white cliffs. It was a sixteen minute journey from the shopping centre. By the time she arrived at the beach, she was on her third cigarette. She parked, and walked towards the large grey stone tower protruding into the sky. There was a pathway from the car park to the tower, etched out by a two foot high stonewall, that looked like something out of the Middle Ages. The pathway was surrounded by green, and in the distance she could see the green of the sea. It was cooler than she’d expected, and that probably accounted for the lack of tourists at the spot. She could see a grey-haired couple leaning against the railings of the viewing point, but there was nobody else in sight.

  She re-read the note as she lit a fourth cigarette, feeling lightheaded, and wishing she’d bought a baguette before leaving Cité Europe. The note said to meet by the beach. She walked over to the couple at the viewing point to ask where the beach was, when she spotted the stretch of orange-brown sand below them. She followed the line of sand back up to where they were standing, and saw a stone path leading down the hill. She couldn’t see anyone on the beach, but made her way towards the path nevertheless.

  Her hair blew in all directions as she entered the wind trap between the two large mounds. There was no railing to grab onto, and the steps bore the effects of years of erosion. She was convinced a sudden gust might send her sprawling.

  It was an odd place to meet. The spot was fairly isolated, and there only appeared to be this one path down to the sand, though the orange seemed to last for at least a mile in both directions. The fine drizzle in the air dampened her cheeks, as she finally made it to the stony perimeter of the beach. The tide was out, but it looked like when it was in, it would reach to the base of the mounds. There wasn’t a single person as far as she could see.

  The note hadn’t said what time to meet him here. Would the individual even turn up?

  She rested against a large white rock, near the foot of the steps. It was the cleanest looking of the two dozen large rocks the sea had piled up over time. Most of the others were covered in green moss and seaweed. Her stomach grumbled angrily.

  Becky pulled out her phone and checked the time. It was nearly two, but she had no phone signal, so she couldn’t even message Caleb and tell him where she was.

  She remained on the rock for half an hour, before deciding that he wasn’t going to show. She still had the note, and it had been handwritten, so maybe Durand’s team could analyse it and check for DNA, or some clue as to who had written it.

  She still had time to make it back to Cité Europe in time for Julia’s televised appeal. She stood and stretched, promising herself the first thing she would do when she reached Cité Europe was buy some food. She headed back to the steps, when she heard the sound of stones tumbling down the stairs above. Someone was coming down.

  Not knowing whether to head up the stairs and confront whoever it was, or whether to find somewhere to hide in case the stranger meant her harm, she remained frozen like a statue, waiting to see what fate had in store for her. Her legs crumbled and she crashed to the floor when she saw who was walking towards her.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  He stares out at the stretch of ocean over the top of the railing. He is wearing a thick overcoat to fend off the chill of the wind.

  She is down on the beach already.

  He saw her when she arrived.

  He has been sat waiting for her.

  He follows the crumbling staircase down.

  It is time to tell the truth.

  FORTY-NINE

  The figure offered his hand to help her up.

  Becky didn’t want to touch him. She couldn’t believe he was really there. Surely this was some sort of weird dream.

  He held his hand out, until she reluctantly took it, and allowed him to pull her up. He’d lost none of his strength.

  Becky wobbled unsteadily back to the rock she’d been sitting on earlier. She placed her head between her legs and retched, spitting bile onto the sand beneath her feet.

  He moved behind the rock and held her hair back.

  She pulled her hair out of his grasp. ‘I don’t need any help. Especially from…you.’

  ‘I’m sure my being here has come as a shock to you. I’d like the chance to explain.’

  ‘Explain what, Adie? Why it is you’re not dead? Why your widow has been grieving for you for the last six months?’

  ‘Okay, I’m sensing you’re a little agitated -’

  ‘Agitated? You’re damned right I’m fucking agitated! I’m talking to a goddamned ghost! Fuck!’

  He stepped in front of her, with his hands slightly raised. ‘I’m real, Bex. I’m not a ghost. You’re not imagining any of this. Look, you can touch me if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘Stop talking, Adie. Okay? I need a minute to wrap my head around this shit. I can’t believe you’re here. I mean, of all the people I thought might turn up here today, you’re…wait, why are you here?’

  ‘You got my note, right?’

  ‘You left the note in my pocket?’

  ‘I slipped it when you weren’t paying attention.’

  She scowled at him. ‘So why did you ask to meet me. The letter said…you know who took Noah. Where is he? Do you have him? So help me, Adie, if you’ve got him, and had us all -’

  He kept his hands raised in surrender. ‘I don’t have Noah, but I th
ink I know who has. That’s why I had to make contact. Noah’s in danger.’

  ‘In danger? That’s a fucking understatement! He was snatched from us a week ago, and there’s been no sign of him.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he’s still alive.’

  ‘Oh, you’re pretty sure? Oh that’s great. I’ll phone the investigator and tell him to call the search party off because Jules’s dead husband says he’s pretty sure Noah’s still alive.’

  ‘Calm down, Bex. You need to hear me out.’

  ‘Why should I? Why shouldn’t I just phone the police and tell them to come and pick you up?’

  ‘For starters you don’t have a phone signal, and secondly, I need your help. You’re the only one I can turn to, Bex.’

  She ground her teeth together, but did her best not to lose her temper. ‘How do you know I don’t have a signal?’

  ‘That’s why I suggested we meet here. It’s terrible for mobile phone signals. I figured nobody would disturb us down here. It means we can talk without me constantly looking over my shoulder.’

  Becky reached for her cigarettes. She only had two left, and would need to buy more before she headed back. ‘Why does a dead man need my help?’

  ‘Because you’re my wife’s best friend, and my son’s Godmother. Also, you’re likely to have a better understanding of the legal ramifications of my resurrection.’

  She inhaled deeply. ‘I’m listening.’

  Adie wiped his hand over the top of the largest stone next to her, before hopping up onto it. ‘I didn’t die when my unit’s vehicle came under attack.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all that. One of your former colleagues told us.’

  ‘Who did you speak to?’

  ‘Owen. Jules recognised his face from a picture back home.’

  ‘How much did he tell you?’

  She eyed him suspiciously, before recanting the details of their capture, near-execution, and escape to the mountains.’

  ‘Wow, he told you the lot. I’m amazed.’

  ‘He also told us how you went rogue and started blowing up locals over there for some guy called Yasin.’

  ‘Jesus! He told you about Yasin.’

  ‘He said you tried to kill this Yasin, but ended up killing yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t try to kill Yasin. He tried to kill me. He knew I was planning to do a bunk, and sent his giant of a bodyguard in to finish me off. I barely got away.’

  ‘No, that’s not right. Owen said you changed; he said you started reading the Qur’an and carrying out secret missions for Yasin.’

  ‘That’s not true. That was Owen, not me.’

  ‘Oh please! You expect me to believe that? I’ve seen Owen’s wounds. He told us exactly what happened.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Owen said you were shook up by the near execution and that your personality changed -’

  ‘He’s lying. I didn’t lose my shit in that room. It was him! He actually shit himself. The smell was horrendous. When the shooting started, I had to drag his arse out of there. You don’t have to believe me, but I swear I’m telling you the truth. Yasin’s giant led us up to the mountains, and I was so grateful that he’d broken us out that I agreed to help train some of his men. They were simple farm folk who wanted to make a difference in their war-torn country. I didn’t see the harm in what I was doing. After all, NATO had worked with the Black Shadows, so I figured they couldn’t be too bad.’

  ‘He said he trained the men.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bex, but Owen lied to you. He was the one who locked himself away and studied. I should have kept a better eye on him, but I was keen to get Yasin’s men trained so I could get back to the base and back to Jules and Noah.’ He sighed. ‘I blame myself for how Yasin manipulated Owen. I could see him changing, but I didn’t do anything to stop it. I was just pleased to have my old friend back.’

  ‘What about Yasin’s secret missions in the area?’

  ‘It’s true that Yasin asked us to do…things for him. He always sent us to different places. With me, it was usually to do recon work, you know like working out who met who, where and when; that kind of thing. It was just intelligence gathering. I knew the area well, and I soon started to recognise the faces of key players. It was great to be able to do the kind of thing the NATO forces weren’t allowed to do. I thought we were making a real difference with Yasin, and the limited news reports we got hold of, suggested we were winning. But I started to worry about Owen. At first I noticed he was going with Yasin to prayer meetings. Owen said he didn’t join in, he just liked the idea of being closer to God. I knew he still missed his wife, and I thought it was his way of being closer to her.’

  ‘Surely you were missing your wife just as much.’

  ‘Of course I missed Jules, and Noah, but I knew they were still alive, and waiting for me back home. Owen had nobody waiting for him.’

  Becky frowned. ‘You’re saying Owen’s wife is…’

  ‘Dead. Yeah, didn’t he mention that?’

  ‘No. At no point did he say that she was dead. How did she die?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I remember it happened when we were back home around Christmas. I didn’t like to ask. I assumed she developed cancer or something. All I know is he was pretty cut-up before we deployed. He had this angry look in his eye, like he was determined to make someone pay for his pain. And boy did he do that.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘He thought less with his brain, and more with his gun. Whenever we ran into trouble, he shot to kill, rather than deter. We covered for him as much as we could, but right before we were captured, I know the platoon commander had serious doubts about Owen’s ability to continue serving.’

  ‘He never mentioned any of this.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised when I finally learned what he and Yasin had been up to with the intelligence I’d been gathering. That was when I knew I had to act. If I’d have known then what I know now…’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know, maybe this was always destined to happen.’

  ‘What was? You still haven’t told me what any of this has to do with Noah’s abduction.’

  ‘It has everything to do with Noah’s abduction, because I’m the one who snatched him.’

  FIFTY

  Becky studied his face. ‘You took Noah? You’re the man in the baseball cap?’

  Adie rubbed the stubble on his chin as he nodded. ‘I don’t miss that beard. It was itchy as fuck.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up a second. Oh my God, I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start. He called you Bahadur.’

  He nodded. ‘It means “valiant warrior”; it was a nickname my dad used to call me.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you took him.’

  ‘I had to. It was for his protection.’

  ‘Have you any idea how difficult this week has been. Jules has been vilified by the press, accused of having an affair, accused of killing Noah and covering it up, not to mention the rollercoaster of emotions losing a child leads to. You’d better be lying right now, or you aren’t the man I remember.’

  ‘I’m not; lying I mean. And, to be honest, I’m probably not the same man you remember.’

  ‘Why did you do it? Why did you take him? If he needed protecting, why didn’t you contact Jules and tell her?’

  ‘Oh that would have been great wouldn’t it? Can you imagine? Hi, Jules, it turns out I’m not dead, but our son is in danger; any chance you can let me take him away and protect him? She’d have had me locked in a loony asylum before I’d hung up the phone.’

  She ignored the sarcasm in his voice. ‘I think she’ll need to be committed after the week we’ve had.’

  ‘I know you don’t understand, but it was the only way I could keep my boy safe.’

  ‘Safe from what? He’s a three year-old boy! What danger could he possibly be in?’

  ‘It’s because of me…I have something they n
eed, and I knew if they got hold of Noah I’d have to give them what they wanted.’

  ‘You stole something from them? What is it: money?’

  ‘I wish!’

  ‘So, what then? What have you got that they’d threaten the life of your son?’

  ‘The missions that Yasin was sending Owen on…he was getting Owen to bomb and assassinate prominent figures in Helmand, and its neighbouring regions. You know I said I was gathering intelligence? Yasin told me he was passing on the intelligence to our old friends at Camp Bastion. There was no television or radio at the Black Shadows camp. We were in a bubble. We didn’t have smartphones, or iPads or computers. We had no access to the outside world, apart from the snippets of news that Yasin drip-fed to us. We became reliant on him for confirmation that the work we were doing was serving the higher purpose. He would show us newspapers, but neither Owen nor I could read them, so we had to trust that Yasin was translating them correctly. We’d usually hear of a successful NATO incursion a couple of days after I’d passed on the intelligence to Yasin. It felt good to be helping out the war effort, and it was exciting that we were working covertly. I had my suspicions that Yasin was filtering the news, but at first, I didn’t care. I figured a man like him would embellish, just to massage his own ego, and I was cool with that. I’d never seen Owen so happy either. He seemed at peace for the first time since we’d first met in training. I knew little of the conversations he was having with Yasin, but it seemed to be doing the trick. I’d ask Owen about his missions, but he’d blag that he’d been gathering intelligence too. I suspected he was lying to me, but as I said, it was easier to ignore the fear.

  ‘Then, one night, I overheard Owen talking with Yasin. I’d gone looking for Owen to see if he fancied a game of table tennis – Yasin was obsessed with the game, and had several tables around the camp. Anyway, I couldn’t find him, so I thought I’d ask Yasin if he knew where he was. The door to Yasin’s office was ajar, and I heard Yasin talking, so I was waiting for a moment of silence so I could knock and enter. Then I heard Owen’s voice, and I froze when I heard what he said. They were talking about a target – a politician of some kind – in the next province. Owen was asking whether he should use an explosive or something more personal. From what I gathered, Owen had assassinated several targets using a thin piece of wire known as a garrotte. Yasin said to use both. Whoever this target was, Yasin wanted an example made of him.