Vanishing Point

by J G Alva

  “Is that what you think I do?”

  “You killed my husband.”

  “No. Some very sick individuals killed your husband. Yes, they did it because they thought they were getting to me, but I didn’t do it, I didn’t put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.”

  “You might as well have!”

  Sutton turned his head up to the rain in frustration. There was just no getting through to her. They said love made you blind…but he thought the same could be said for hate. Which made sense: they were both sides of the same coin.

  “And I’ll do whatever it takes,” Lisa continued. “I’ll bend whatever laws I have to, whatever rules I have to ignore, to see you pay for what you did!”

  He wiped the rain from his face.

  “You said that I thought I was privileged, that I thought nobody had suffered as much as I had. Which made me special.”

  “It makes you conceited. And arrogant beyond all measure.”

  “It also makes me prepared.”

  He dug in his pocket, and held up his phone.

  She could clearly see that he had been recording their conversation.

  She scanned through their conversation in her memory, checking what she had said…she looked stunned then.

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it so obviously was. Blinded by hate, he thought. She believed her cause was a righteous one, and as such, everything should bend to her crusade. Fate. Even God. No dirty tricks by a second rate meddlesome private citizen would be allowed. Because she was on the side of right.

  Instead, she had just incriminated herself in the rain.

  “Your idea,” he said, putting the phone back in his pocket.

  Her shoulders sagged. Her head hung low.

  She looked defeated.

  Her hair was wet with the rain, and hung in untidy strings around her face.

  “Stop,” Sutton said. “Just stop it. Right now. Whatever it is you’ve got planned. Or I’ll release this, and destroy your career. It doesn’t have to be legal, I don’t think. Just hearing that recording will make anyone think twice about what you’ve got to say about me.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Even if I’m caught doing something illegal, it won’t matter. If you’re involved, and then I play what I’ve just recorded, that’ll be the end of it. Your credibility will go down the drain.”

  She pushed wet hair away from her face but didn’t say anything.

  Eventually, she said, “who cares? Who cares about anything anymore? I’m exhausted. I just want to go to bed. You win, Sutton. Alright? You win.”

  “I was protecting a sixteen year old boy,” Sutton said.

  Slowly, her head came up.

  “What?”

  Sutton nodded.

  “A confused, troubled, sixteen year old boy. He was going to be initiated into the Church of the New Artisans. But I got him out of there before they could screw with his mind. That’s why Freddie died. He saved a boy, and countless others. If I hadn’t gotten involved then yes, he would probably still be alive…but their long term plans involved killing a lot more people, and Freddie helped stop that. You should be proud – not angry.”

  Lisa stared at him, and he thought he saw a glimmer of something encouraging in her eyes.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, but without scorn, or much conviction.

  “It’s the truth. I have no reason to lie. I have you in a box. I’m safe. But I want you to know why Freddie died. That it wasn’t for nothing. In fact, he died for the only thing worth dying for. The good thing. The right thing.”

  “What?”

  “Why did you become involved in the British Criminal Justice System in the first place? To look good in court? To brag about it? I don’t think so. I think you did it because some part of you understood that there are things important enough to devote your life to. Justice. Doing what’s right. But it can’t be without sacrifice. Without risk. If it is, then it’s just a board game, and it doesn’t mean anything. But it means something to me. Enough so that I’m prepared to risk the most important thing to be able to do it.”

  Lisa stared a question at him.

  He spread his hands.

  “My life. Such as it is. And you’ve already done the same, in your own way. How many hours of your life have you spent studying to be a Criminal Defence Solicitor, when you could have been doing something else? Going to parties, sitting by a pool in the hot sun. You’ll never get that time back and yet…do you regret that sacrifice? I don’t think you do. Because the result of your efforts is worth the sacrifice you’ve made for it. Goodness, for its own sake. In your personal life, as well as your professional one.”

  “But…Freddie…”

  “Yes. You never thought you had to make a sacrifice so big. And you shouldn’t have. Not if the world was fair. It’s a bigger sacrifice than most. Probably the biggest you’ll make in your lifetime. But it happened. So the question is now: will that sacrifice be worth something? Because if you keep jeopardising your career like this, it won’t be. It’ll just be a waste. In fact, you might just as well throw Freddie away.”

  She sobbed then.

  A shaking hand came up to cover her face.

  He let her cry for a moment, staring down at her small miserable figure. He didn’t like seeing it, but she needed the release. Puss from a wound that had festered for too long.

  “Is the shelter still running?” He asked, after the sobbing had begun to die down.

  She wiped her face.

  “What?”

  “Freddie’s shelter. Is it still running?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have a contribution to make. If you’ll accept it.”

  She thought about it, and then nodded.

  “I’ll accept it,” she said, but not without some difficulty.

  New ground: Sutton no longer an absolute enemy.

  He took it as a hopeful sign.

  “How much?”

  “Enough. To keep it running for a while. There will be more, further down the line. If that’s okay.”

  She stared at him.

  “Alright,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “Good.”

  He hesitated…but there was really nothing else to say.

  So he turned to walk back to his car.

  “We can’t be friends,” she said.

  He stopped, and then eased around to face her.

  “We can’t be friends,” she repeated. “Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “I knew him a lot longer than you,” he said.

  “What?” She was suddenly furious again. “Does that mean you lost more than me? That you think –“

  “No,” he interrupted her. “No. That’s not what I mean at all.”

  He waited.

  She stared at him.

  The rain came down, harder now. Her eyelids flickered as it gently pattered her face.

  “Then what?” She said, finally.

  “There’s things about him you didn’t know,” he said. “Stories I could tell you…so many stories. If you ever wanted to hear them.”

  She stared at him, watching him, debating.

  Finally, she said, “maybe.”

  There was a moment between them. Sutton couldn’t decide what it was. He hoped it was some sort of reconciliation.

  “Alright then,” he said.

  He wandered back through the rain to his car.

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 25

  Epilogue

  The chairs in the waiting room were pine, with comfortable blue cushions and blue seatbacks. There were five of them in total: three along the wall opposite the office door, and two in front of the main window, a table nestled between them. There were a selection of magazines on the table, so random they had to be donations: Guitarist, Doctor Who Magazine, Esquire, Hello, Fast Car, Woman’s Own, Woman’s Realm, Woman’s Weekly. The facility was a converted house, so the Waiting Roo
m was actually the lounge, and felt pleasantly informal. It gave Sutton the strange sense of two realities at war: the past and the present. A deserted receptionist desk faced him; she was out to lunch. He had been squeezed in to her already busy schedule during her lunch break, and so the place was quiet.

  The door to the main office opened, and two women came out. One of them was Dr Robin Sails, and the other was a woman Sutton had never seen before. She was slim, of medium height, dressed in black, and had chestnut hair down to the small of her back; it fell in a straight line, like a waterfall.

  The two women spoke a moment in muted voices and then the unknown woman left…but not before exposing him to a full appraisal. Her face was compact and intelligent, not as good as the body but still very attractive in its own way, the eyes a clear, bright green. Then she was gone.

  Robin smiled at him, but it was professional and detached. As if she had a difficult task ahead, but she was going to meet it with aplomb.

  “Sutton. Come in.”

  He rose and followed her inside the office.

  There was a comfortable armchair in the corner of the room and Robin took it. In front of the wall opposite her was a long grey sofa. A work desk had been placed in the portion of the room behind the door. Large French doors allowed the sun to illuminate the entirety of the room. Outside, Sutton saw a pleasant garden area, with trees, bushes, and a small pond.

  Sutton shut the door behind him.

  Robin smiled and indicated the sofa.

  Instead, Sutton rolled the office chair out from behind the desk.

  He turned it around and sat astride it, and said with humour, “I’m making a statement.”

  “Oh. What’s that?”

  He folded his arms over the back of the chair.

  “That the sofa’s not right for me. That I’m not a conventional case.”

  She allowed herself a small smile.

  “You didn’t need to sit backwards in my work chair to indicate that. I think it’s pretty self-evident.”

  “Well. I thought, in case there was any ambiguity…”

  “Anyway. You’re not a case.”

  “Everyone who sees you as a Psychotherapist is a case. Otherwise there’d be no professional detachment.”

  “You’re telling me how to do my job?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Just pointing out the obvious.”

  “Which is?”

  “If everyone you treated was a friend, you’d be burned out already. Who was that woman?”

  “No one in particular. A colleague.”

  “She’s very beautiful. What is it with all you Psychotherapists that you are so attractive?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “No.”

  “We’re trying to find answers.”

  “Why?”

  Robin gave him a not quite painful smile.

  “Because we’re damaged.”

  “Is she?”

  “Never you mind about her.”

  “Are you?”

  “You know I am. But it’s not a weakness. You shouldn’t think of it as such.”

  “I never did.”

  “Hm.”

  “He was a haemophiliac.”

  “What?”

  “The puzzle your niece told you. About the two men claiming to be the king’s long lost son. The king must have been a haemophiliac…so his true son would never have agreed to a blood test. Not without bleeding to death. Hence why they sent the man who readily agreed to a test away.”

  Robin gave him her first genuine smile.

  “You’re feeling better,” she said.

  “I think so,” Sutton said honestly.

  “You said you were fine,” Robin pointed out.

  Sutton leaned his chin on his folded arms and stared at the floor. He just couldn’t look at those penetrating blue eyes for a moment.

  “I wasn’t,” he confessed.

  “You admit it. That’s good. That’s the first step. So what was it? Can you tell me?”

  Sutton shook his head but said, “guilt, I suppose.”

  “Guilt. For what?”

  “Freddie’s death.”

  “And why did you feel guilty? It wasn’t your fault.”

  Sutton took a deep breath.

  “I felt responsible.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “How much is this session going to cost me? Do I get a discount if I’m done in half an hour?”

  Robin looked very serious when she said, “humour is a good way of deflecting things.”

  Sutton didn’t reply.

  “And I’m not charging you,” Robin pointed out.

  Sutton cleared his throat.

  “I don’t like this,” he said, indicating the room…but of course what he really meant was that he did not like talking to a Psychotherapist. Not even one as competent as Dr Robin Sails. Not even one that he considered a friend.

  “I know,” she said kindly. “Very few people do, when they first start. I suppose it’s because it forces you to look at yourself. And most of the time people only ever see their faults.”

  With a smile, Sutton said, “I’m very well aware of my faults, thank you very much.”

  “Then this should be easy for you.”

  “Yes. It should.”

  But despite what he said, it wasn’t easy, and so he fell silent. He didn’t want to continue for many reasons…cowardice being only one of them. He felt that to continue would be to open Pandora’s Box. He’d already told Fin more than he’d told anyone else…but if he knew everything the boy would run a mile. So would Robin. How many terrible things can someone hear before they turn away from you in disgust? Of course he supposed he should never have done them in the first place…but he had been young and stupid and prone to action, a deadly combination at that age. Hesitancy and reservation, at such a time in his life, would have served him better. But the long years in between had given him perspective, and he had been able to reconcile himself to most of his mistakes. It was this newer, fresher mistake that had made him doubt himself. He had to be better than he was before, or the past mistakes meant nothing, he had learned nothing…and that was a fact he could not reconcile.

  And so he stopped wanting to get out there. He stopped wanting to find things to fix. And why should he, if people were going to get hurt? He had money, and so he spent it, as a way to distract himself. Lucia had been part of that too: another distraction.

  But now he was over it, for better or for worse. He missed Freddie…but he wasn’t going to feel guilty about his death for the rest of his life. That would be a waste of it, and Freddie would have been the first one to point out this irony. He had to know, he had to understand, that he couldn’t control everything, as much as he might want to. Freddie would have called it relenting to a higher power. Sutton thought of it as succumbing to a wider world. Both modes of thought indicated an acceptance of things outside of their respective spheres of influence.

  And next time Sutton would be so much more cautious for it.

  “Thus (through perspective) every sort of confusion is revealed within us,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  “It’s a quote. From Plato. About representational art.”

  She looked a question at him.

  “How you draw perspective. The vanishing point. A place on the horizon where all lines connect.”

  “Okay.”

  “No,” he said, meeting her eye then. “I wasn’t responsible.”

  She nodded smartly, fully in Psychotherapist mode.

  “Good.”

  “So you can stop worrying.”

  “Good,” she said again, with a smile.

  “And I’ll wear a shirt next time you visit.”

  “Well.” She looked down at her hands, examined her nails. “You can come and see me here. You know. If you want to talk.”

  He watched her examining her nails.

  “Still only comfortable outside looking in?” He asked
lightly.

  She tried to smile.

  “My life is very small. And safe. And I like it that way. It’s all I’ve ever wanted really.” She narrowed her eyes to study him. “And you? What do you want?”

  Sutton was about to answer flippantly, but then stopped himself.

  It was a question that required some thought, and that deserved a serious answer. An honest answer.

  After a moment, he said, “to be the best that I can be. The best man. The best friend. The best human being I can be, in the sphere I inhabit.”

  “That might involve some risk, you know.”

  He nodded.

  “Then I want the courage for that too.”

  “You have courage.”

  “I have less than you think. I’m afraid of myself…and what I might do.”

  “Then you have more courage. No one is a harsher judge than we are of ourselves. If you can face that, well…” She spread her hands. “All my clients should be so lucky.”

  He looked at her.

  “They are lucky,” he said.

  She might have blushed.

  “Speaking of which…I’m sorry to say, I have another client in ten minutes.”

  Meeting over. He nodded and rose.

  He pushed the office chair back behind the desk.

  When he turned back around, she too had risen.

  “Do you want to come back and talk?” She asked quietly.

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t think you want me in your life.”

  “You can read minds?”

  “No. But I’ve seen you at a low point in your life…seeing me must remind you of that. As if I was showing you a painting of it.”

  She sidestepped that rather smartly, and said, “I still have the picture you drew for me. It’s hanging in my hall.”

  Sutton smiled.

  “It’s nice to know it has a good home.”

  “It does.”

  “I’m painting again, by the way.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. A portrait of Tommy Johnson.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Tommy Johnson was a blues performer in the nineteen twenties.”

  “Is this a commission?”

  Sutton nodded.

  “I know a guy who will buy it. I just finished it today. As soon as it was done I knew why I’d picked him, of all people, to paint.”