Chasing the Dead dr-1

by Tim Weaver

  I looked at him.

  ‘Weren’t you scared for her, David? A man of no religion, of no beliefs, weren’t you scared about what came next for the person you loved?’

  He could see he had got to me.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to find out?’

  He took a step closer.

  ‘That’s why you’re still interested in this, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here.’

  Another step.

  ‘You want to find out where she went. Why she had to go.’

  Another step, bigger this time.

  ‘As hard as it is to hear, only God knows when and why our time comes to an end, David. And when He sees some of the people we have in our world, some of these young people getting out of their depth, walking a tightrope between life and death, deciding for themselves how close they want to brush with the afterlife, He is disappointed. I’m sure of that. Because you and I, we don’t decide when our time is up. That’s not our job.’

  He paused, and started to reach out for me.

  ‘That’s the job of God. And the job of the people he choos—’

  I slapped the envelope away, out of his hands. As he watched it go, the IDs spilling across the floor, I reached around to the back of my trousers and brought out the gun. He rocked on his feet, staggering a little, holding up both hands.

  ‘David, wait a min—’

  I grabbed his shirt, pushed him around the front desk, and down on to the floor behind. We were shielded from the street. Hidden from passers-by.

  ‘I like what you’re saying,’ I said, shoving the gun under his chin. ‘And I want to believe you. I want to believe my wife is somewhere better than here. But all I see when I look at you is a fucking snake. You say one thing while you think another. And whatever good you think you’re doing, the truth is you’re wrapped up in this as much as the rest of them. You’re the same as them. And nothing you’ve said to me tonight can wipe that away.’

  I cocked the gun. Pressed it in harder.

  ‘So, now you’re coming with me.’

  32

  There were a series of empty warehouses about seven miles east where I used to meet sources during my paper days. I parked outside one, marched around the front of the car and pulled Michael out of the passenger seat and in through a broken, rusting door.

  Inside there was no lighting. It had all been smashed, the glass from the bulbs and strip lights lying on the floor. I tied Michael’s hands behind his back with some duct tape I’d brought with me, and then kicked his legs out from under him. He hit the ground with a thud, crying out in pain. I rolled him over until he was positioned in a block of moonlight shining in from a window high up on the wall.

  Then I put the gun to his head.

  He looked at me. There was something in his face. He looked like a man standing on the edge. A man terrified of going over. But not of me, and not of the gun.

  ‘What are you scared of?’ I said.

  ‘I’m not scared of anything, David.’

  ‘What are you scared of?’

  He blinked.

  ‘Are you scared of dying?’

  ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not scared of dying.’

  ‘So, what are you scared of?’

  He blinked again. ‘What difference does it make?’

  ‘I want to know what you’re scared of. I want to know why everyone’s too frightened to tell me where you’ve put Alex. So… what are you scared of?’

  His mouth flattened. A kind of half-smile.

  ‘You want to know what I’m scared of? I’m scared of my time running out before I’ve done all I need to do. I want to help people. But we’ve done things, and I’ve had knowledge of things, that I fear I might not be forgiven for. And the project… I still believe in its aims, because I still believe it’s a mission from God. A gift. But we’ve done things we shouldn’t have done. And we have people who have drifted from the course we set. So, the thought of my time ending now is what scares me. Because when I die I want to deserve to be where I am. And if you kill me now, I won’t deserve anything.’

  ‘You’re full of shit, you know that?’

  He didn’t reply. Just looked at me.

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘I don’t care whether you believe me or not,’ he said, looking up at me. ‘It’s the truth. But it’s probably too late for me already — and it’s certainly too late for you.’

  ‘It’s not too late.’

  ‘It’s too late, David. You’ve messed everything up. If you’d walked away when we’d asked you to, the storm would have passed by now. I could get back to the reason I signed up in the first place, and you could be looking at a life that extended further than a couple of days. Instead, you’ve turned this into a war. A war you can’t win. And I can’t do anything for the people we’re helping until the war is over, and you’ve been stopped. And if I can’t do anything for them, I can’t do anything for myself.’

  I pushed the gun in harder against his face.

  ‘Listen to me: you want your shot at redemption, is that it?’

  He just stared at me, silent.

  ‘You tell me what I need to know and maybe I’ll do it for you. Maybe I’ll turn this thing around and this whole… whatever the fuck it is you’re protecting, maybe it’ll start again. Better than it was before. But I can’t do that until one of you gives me what I need. I see the same look in you as I saw in Jade: you’re scared about what will happen when you open the door, but you won’t do anything about it. Well, this time I’m going to do something about it.’

  I forced the gun in hard a second time.

  ‘And you’re going to tell me who’s waiting.’

  33

  It was almost eleven by the time we got to Michael’s apartment. It was on the corner of a new development that overlooked the Thames in Greenwich. We stopped at the entrance, a tall, narrow foyer with a glass-domed roof, which was connected to the main building by a corridor on the other side.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He dug around in his pockets and took out his keys. I looked both ways, just to make sure we were alone. The apartment building was eight storeys high, and stretched for about fifty metres in both directions. Thin, conical lights ran the length of a path that snaked in from the main road. Tiny rock gardens had been constructed either side of the foyer doors, wren green spelt out in red flowers. The building looked less than a year old.

  Michael pulled open the entrance doors. On the wall, immediately inside, was a floorplan and a picture of the top-floor roof garden. The garden was smart: stone flagging, interspersed with squares of pebbles, and a covered area where cream awnings stretched across sets of wooden benches.

  ‘Who pays your rent?’ I asked him.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Bullshit. You work in Redbridge, not Canary Wharf.’

  He didn’t reply.

  He unlocked the doors into the corridor, and I followed him along to a set of lifts. Doors to our right and left led through to the ground-floor apartments. He called one of the elevators, then turned to me. I was carrying his slipcase over my shoulder and his mobile phone in my hand. The phone had been empty, just like the others, and the laptop, during my brief look at it, needed a six-digit password to get beyond the loading screen.

  We rode the elevator up.

  When we got to the apartment door, he took out his keys again.

  ‘This is ridiculous, Da—’

  ‘Just open the door.’

  He unlocked it and we stepped inside.

  The apartment was warm. He’d left the heating on. A decent-sized living area bled into an open-plan kitchen, a door leading from it into a bathroom and another into his bedroom. I locked the door and told him to sit in the corner of the room with the lights off. There was enough street light coming in from outside. He did as I asked, his hands no longer tied.

  I set the slipcase down and unzipped it. I t
ook out his book and dropped it on the floor, then removed his laptop.

  ‘Where’s the lead for this?’ I said.

  ‘At work.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Where is it?’

  ‘At work.’

  I took out the gun, moved across the living room and thumped the butt into the side of his head. He jerked sideways, falling off his seat, and rolled on to his back, looking up at me.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, clutching his face.

  ‘I’m not playing,’ I said. ‘Where’s the lead?’

  He glanced at me, shocked, blood pushing through the skin at the side of his head — then nodded at the TV. There was a power lead snaking out from behind a flatscreen. I took the laptop over to it and plugged it in. It loaded for thirty seconds before stopping at a password screen.

  ‘What’s your password?’ I asked him.

  ‘Eleven, forty-one, forty-four.’

  I put in the code and the password prompt disappeared.

  ‘What’s the significance?’ I said.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘The numbers.’

  He didn’t reply. I turned and looked at him. He was still nursing the side of his head. He looked woozy. I placed the gun down on the glass table next to me with a clunk. Through the corner of my eye, I saw him looking between me and the gun.

  The desktop appeared, loaded with folders. There were four on the right of the screen — Monthly Budgets, Twenties Group, December Sermons and December Scripture — and a further two on the left, Pictures and Contacts. I clicked on Contacts. A second password prompt came up. I tapped in the same code. This time the prompt box juddered and told me I’d put in the wrong password.

  ‘What’s the password for the folders?’ I asked him, trying Monthly Budgets. It opened immediately, and was full of Excel spreadsheets. The others all opened too. I looked across at Michael. ‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

  He just stared at me.

  ‘You want me to hurt you again?’

  He stared at me. Unmoved.

  ‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

  ‘Go to the folder marked Pictures.’

  ‘Give me the password for the Contacts folder.’

  ‘Humour me.’

  ‘Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?’

  ‘Please,’ he said quietly.

  My eyes lingered on him, then I double-clicked on the Pictures folder. There were a series of files, about thirty, with filenames like ‘thelastsupper.jpg’ and ‘jesusandpeter_water.jpg’. I opened a couple up. They were paintings of biblical scenes: the virgin birth; Jesus being tempted by the devil; the parable of the two sons; Jesus on the cross.

  ‘Open “widow-underscore-nain”,’ he said.

  ‘I haven’t got time for a sermon.’

  ‘It might answer a few questions for you.’

  I looked for the file and found the name halfway down the list. It was a painting of Jesus standing over an open coffin, a widow beside him. A man was sitting up in the coffin.

  ‘Do you know what the significance of the numbers eleven, forty-one, forty-four are?’

  I glanced at him. The expression in his face worried me. He looked like he’d worked out a plan in his head. A way to get back at me. A way to force my hand.

  ‘Come on, David. We both know why you’re here, why you didn’t turn around and walk the other way the moment you started to feel like you’d waded too deep into the swamp.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘You know what that painting is of? It’s the raising of a man in Nain. Jesus and his disciples visited there after leaving Capernaum, and came across a funeral procession. When Jesus saw the widow weeping for her dead son, he felt compassion for her. He understood her torment, experienced it, almost as if he’d experienced the loss of the boy himself. And he felt so much compassion for the widow that he raised her son from the dead. He raised him from the dead.’

  ‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

  ‘There are three accounts of Jesus bringing someone back to life in the Gospels. The young man in Nain, which is in Luke; the daughter of Jairus, which is in all of them except John; and, of course —’

  ‘What’s the password for the Contac—’

  ‘— the raising of Lazarus.’

  I looked at him and he smiled a little.

  ‘Some scholars argue that the story of the young man in Nain and the raising of Lazarus are, in fact, one and the same. If that were the case, that would reduce the number of resurrections down to two, Jesus’s own notwithstanding.’

  I thought of the photograph of Alex. ‘What’s Lazarus?’

  ‘Two resurrections.’

  ‘What’s Lazarus?’

  ‘I guess, in a way, that’s what you’ve been looking for.’

  I picked up the gun.

  ‘What’s Lazarus?’

  ‘Two resurrections, right? Alex — and your wife.’

  I shot across the living room, rage boiling in me, and wrapped a hand around his throat. He looked up at me, his face reddening as I started to shut off the air to his brain. I pushed the gun into his mouth.

  ‘Mention her again.’

  He blinked once. I stared into his eyes, knowing I was on the cusp of losing control, but knowing even more that what he had said was right. That I’d got this far, waded this deep into the swamp, because somewhere, deep down, I wanted to find Derryn like Mary had found Alex. This wasn’t just a disappearance to me. This was something more.

  He blinked again.

  This time his expression changed. He was backing down. I released the pressure on his throat, and he breathed; a long drawn-out grasp for air.

  ‘Don’t ever mention her again.’

  He held up both hands.

  ‘Now tell me what Lazarus is.’

  ‘Eleven, forty-one, forty-four,’ he said, slightly hoarse.

  ‘No more riddles.’

  ‘John, chapter eleven, verse forty-one to forty-four. The raising of Lazarus. When we recruit people, when we help them, that’s what we promise them.’

  ‘To raise them from the dead?’

  ‘To give them a new life. A new start.’

  ‘Is that what you did to Alex?’

  ‘We helped him.’

  ‘Is that what you did to him?’

  ‘We helped him, David.’

  ‘You’ve got a fucked-up idea of help, you know that?’

  He laughed. ‘The one thing we’ve been is consistent. We’ve never drifted from the course we set, whatever the challenges. You…’ He looked me up and down, as if I’d just crawled out of the sewer. ‘You’re running around pretending you’re some sort of — what? — vigilante.’

  ‘No, I’m not a vigilante.’ I paused, looked at him. ‘You think I wanted any of this? I didn’t want this. But the moment your friends walked me into the middle of nowhere to bury me, everything changed. So, I will hurt you, Michael. If it’s you or me, I will hurt you.’

  He nodded. ‘But you’re not a cold-blooded killer, David.’

  ‘What’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

  ‘You’re not a killer.’

  ‘What’s the password?’

  He smiled. Said nothing.

  I cocked the gun. ‘What’s the password?’

  ‘You’re not a killer, David.’

  I placed the gun against the outside of his thigh.

  And pulled the trigger.

  The noise was immense: a huge, tearing sound that shattered the silence into millions of pieces. Michael cried out in agony — a tortured wail — and scrabbled around at his leg, clutching the wound as blood oozed out between his fingers.

  ‘Fuck!’ he shouted, both hands on his leg now, one pressed against the lip of the wound, the other trying to stem the flow of blood. He looked up at me.

  Now he was scared.

  I sat down at the laptop.

  ‘What’s
the password for the Contacts folder?’

  He looked up, as if he couldn’t believe I was still asking.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of gunshot wounds,’ I said to him. ‘During my time abroad, I saw a man get shot in the chest and still survive. The outside of the thigh is probably one of the best places to get shot — lots of fat, no major organs nearby. So, unless it’s gone all the way through to the femoral artery, you won’t die. But you’ll definitely die from the next one, because I’ll put it in the middle of your fucking head.’

  Michael transferred hands. Both were covered in blood.

  ‘I’m sick of running from you people. Of being led around in circles while you tell me you’re doing good. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not a cold-blooded killer. But I’ve killed, and I’ll do it again, because I know I’m too far into the darkness not to. So, I’m going to ask you again and for the final time: what’s the password for the Contacts folder?’

  He looked, gawping, hesitated. Then: ‘Two, five, one, five.’

  I put the code into the password prompt and the Contacts folder opened up. Inside was a Word document. I double-clicked on it. At the top of the document was an address: Stevenshire Farm, Old Tay, nr Lochlanark, Scotland. Beneath that were two other names: Building 1 (Bethany) and Building 2 (Lazarus). And beneath that was a further line: the numbers 2-5-15, followed by a URL.

  ‘Go to the farm,’ Michael said, his voice starting to fade a little.

  I clicked on the URL and the web browser booted up. Within seconds another painting started to load. A man was knelt in front of Jesus, his face lifted to the sky. He was tormented. Eyes like fires. A mouth like the opening of a tomb.

  ‘What’s two, five, one, five?’

  ‘The second Gospel, Mark; the fifth chapter; the fifteenth verse. “And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil…”’

  And see him that was possessed.

  Then it hit me like a sledgehammer.

  The man in Cornwall. The same inscription had been tattooed on to his arm.

  ‘I tried to help you, David. I tried to tell you to turn around and walk away. But you didn’t want to listen. You wanted to wade across the swamp to the darkness beyond. You wanted to see what was on the other side. Well, now you get to find out.’