1
BRISTOL –
ENGLAND
Jack Catholic held Lucy’s arms just beneath the shoulders and
pulled her close, pressing his lips to hers.
Her murder was less than one hour away.
She nibbled his lower lip then giggled. He smiled and kissed
her again, wrapping his arms round her back. Jack held onto that second kiss.
He didn’t want to break it. It felt critical suddenly to keep it going as long
as he could. Beside them the river flowed, the late afternoon sun coming down
through the struts and cables of Clifton Suspension Bridge, two hundred yards
away and hundreds of feet up, spanning the valley.
Lucy turned her body just a little and gave him a pat on the
wrist. He loosened his grip and pulled away. She laughed. “Are you trying to
suffocate me? If you were, you did a pretty good job.”
“If I’d been trying to do that you’d be dead by now,” said
Jack.
“And what would you do with my body?”
He gave her a quick up
and down glance then shrugged and thumbed over his shoulder at the river. “I’d
dump you in there.”
“In front of all these witnesses?”
He looked at the cars moving past parallel to the flow of
water. The valley sides were steep. Across the river were woods and a railway
track. This side was pavement, the road and then another steep slope crowded
with houses. The two of them were the only people visible on foot. “What
witnesses?”
“On the bridge!” Lucy pointed.
“Those dots?” said Jack. “Those aren’t people. They’re ants.”
“They’d see everything. Not to mention all the people driving
by. You’d never get away with it.”
Jack pulled her close again. “Maybe I wouldn’t care about
that. Besides… I bet they’d applaud me. They might even help to cover it up.”
“Then you’d better get on and do it,” said Lucy. “I’m bored.”
They kissed again. When they pulled away Jack felt a
tightening across his stomach. It crept round his sides and into his lower
back.
“What’s up?” asked Lucy.
His cheeks were tense but he shook his head. “Nothing.” He
looked at her. “I just—“
“What?”
Jack’s gaze locked on her eyes, dropped to her lips, rose
again. Something wasn’t right. “I don’t know.”
“Do you feel sick?”
“No. I think maybe…” He turned away from her but couldn’t
keep his eyes elsewhere. It wasn’t real, it was probably indigestion, but it
felt real: it felt like a premonition... or foreboding. It was silly and almost
certainly something he ate.
Lucy ran her fingertip from his shoulder to his elbow. “You
should lie down. Let’s go back up to the hotel.”
“Yeah. Probably a good idea.” Jack gestured to the bridge.
“Why don’t we get an ice cream or something first? I think I can just about stretch
to that. What do you think?”
“Okay.” Lucy slinked her wrist through his arm. “Sounds
wonderful. Then afterwards we can go back to our room and—“ She stretched up to
his ear and whispered.
Jack’s smile broadened to a grin. “Who could refuse such a demure
and respectable lady?”
“If you think that’s respectable I must not be trying hard
enough.”
They both laughed and turned toward the cut-through that
would take them back up to the top of the hill.
“By the way,” she said, “I hope you don’t mind. I know this
is our first trip out of London and everything but I sort of invited someone to
call in and see us.”
Jack was a little disappointed but he made himself not mind.
“Sure,” he said as they started the steep climb. “Who?”
2
Several miles away, Sam Decker pulled in under the trees at
the side of the quiet suburban street fifty yards from his destination. He cut
the engine and reached for the bag in the foot well of the passenger side. He
kept his head up, eyes slowly scanning left to right.
No one in the street; no one visible in the windows of any of
the houses; unlikely he would be seen but he kept the bag low just the same;
kept watching, opening it by touch.
He withdrew a black automatic pistol, ejected the magazine,
checked the rounds, then reinserted it. He pulled the slide back then let go.
It snapped forward, chambering a round. He checked the safety catch was in
place then set the gun on his lap and took the shoulder holster out of the
sports bag. He returned the bag to the foot well, eyes still on the street.
This was the moment. Every action he’d taken over the past five
years led to this exact point in time and space. The past and the future had
only this one pivotal instant between them. It was an arbitrary point – one
that he’d chosen – but a point that needed to be set. He couldn’t keep pushing
forever. The likelihood of discovery was increasing each day. The opportunity
to continue amassing capital was becoming outweighed by the risk.
Sam put the shoulder holster on over his shirt, took his
black suit jacket from its position over the passenger seat and slipped into
it. He inserted the barrel of the pistol into the holster and let gravity drop
it into place.
The decision was made. It was time now to take his activities
to the next level. He could no longer think like an innocent man. From this
point on he was potentially a fugitive. Every situation had to be planned from
its worst-case-scenario. There could be no surprises.
Down the street the building he had come to visit stood
tightly amongst its neighbours; one more three level terraced house made
descript by its shabbiness. The whole street was thirty years beyond its prime.
That particular house exhibited decay that looked many times that age: too far
away to make out exact detail but there was a fuzziness, a lack of focus that
meant peeling paint, splintered damp-stained window frames, cracked glass,
dishevelled garden.
It suited its owner.
Sam reached into his jacket and touched the pistol with the
first and second fingers of his right hand. He withdrew them, running them along
the grip then opened the door and got out of the car. Nobody was in the street
but it didn’t matter now. They wouldn’t be aware of the gun if he were standing
next to them. He started walking along the pavement toward the dirty grey
house.
Three more stops to make and then he could leave the country;
that was all: this one… both of his stashes back in London later that night…
and before he left Bristol, his sister’s hotel.
To see her one last time.
3
“I didn’t even know you had a brother,” said Jack.
There were less than thirty minutes now to the killing.
Lucy stretched, leaning into the bench, her ice cream way
above her head and wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t I tell you?” She sounded evasive.
“Nope.”
Jack looked over the railings in front of them at the bridge
and the valley below. They were next to its foundations. The river was narrow
today, bordered by slick mud flats. It was tidal; joined a few miles downstream
to the sprawling River Severn and beyond that to the sea. It looked slow and
weary. The opposite bank was thick with trees and bushes, almost completely
wild.
He couldn’t shake off the unpleasant feeling he’d picked up
on the road below. It had dulled the shine of the day. Every time he looked at
Lucy he felt it more. He’d never had a psychic episode; wasn’t entirely sure he
believed in them, but… that was what this felt like.
He’d bought the ice cream; he was doing his best to ride the
conversation; but he didn’t feel comfortable. He couldn’t relax. He looked at
his watch, frowned, and looked back at the bridge.
“Jack?”
“Yes?” Lucy was looking at him expectantly. “Sorry. I was
thinking about something else. Did you speak?”
“Uh huh.” She nodded, licking her ice cream. “About my
brother.”
“Sam.”
“Yeah.”
“When’s he going to be here?”
“What time is it now?” she asked. Jack showed her his watch.
“We ought to start drifting back. It should be soon.” Lucy shuffled her bum on
the seat, bumping up against him. “Though there’s still plenty of time for you
know what, you know how I like it, with you know who.” She giggled.
“Who?”
Lucy dabbed his nose with the wet end of her ice cream.
“Guess.”
Jack wiped it off and sucked the end of his finger. “You’re
on. I’ll race you back to the hotel.”
“Are you serious?”
Jack got up and ran to the top of the bank behind the bench,
looked back and grinned. “You’re falling behind already.”
Lucy got up slowly and only sauntered after him. “I don’t
feel like racing.”
“Only because you know you’d lose,” said Jack, thinking just
for a moment that she played all the games she wanted but only on her terms. He
changed the subject quickly. “So tell me about your brother.”
“He’s one of a kind.”
“In a good way?”
Lucy smiled, flashed her eyes and didn’t respond directly. “He’s
a few years older than me. We don’t see that much of one another. I write to
him. He never writes back. He chucks them away unopened. It’s a nice little
arrangement: sort of like a diary.”
They started to walk down the grassy slope toward their
little hotel. It was on the bend of a narrow road facing the park, nothing more
than a converted townhouse, but it was pleasant enough and well-located.
“Where does he live?” asked Jack.
“London.”
“And you never see him?”
She shrugged. “We used to be closer. He’s not the sort to keep
in touch, that’s all. He never sees our parents. It gets a bit depressing at
Christmas.”
“Why did he fall out with them?”
Lucy turned her face away, looking across the valley. When
thirty seconds had passed, Jack realised she wasn’t intending to reply.
Suddenly she looked back, eyes sparkling playfully. “Do you want to hear a
secret about him?”
“Is it something he’d want me to know? Considering I’m about
to meet him for the first time?”
Lucy stopped, chewing her lip, smiling mischievously at the
same time. “Do you want to hear it or not?”
Jack looked blankly then shrugged his right shoulder. “If you
want to tell me.”
Lucy came close. She slipped the fingers of her left hand
into Jack’s belt and lightly touched his cheek with the other, standing on
tiptoe. Jack bent down so she could reach his ear.
She told him the secret.
4
Sam knocked and waited.
Robson opened the door of the shabby terraced house: eyes
dull, lips slack, fat-encased bald head mottled with uneven stubble. When he
recognised his visitor he showed his teeth, gave the thick-wit human equivalent
of an animal growl, then stepped back to allow access.
Sam entered. “How’s business?”
“Fairly shit.” Robson lumbered into the front room with Sam
behind.
It wasn’t a conventional lounge or dining room: floor length
curtains that had been closed long enough to accumulate crap on top of where
they rested; fire-damaged corner desk in the centre of the room; two PCs, a
printer, a digital camera and several heaps of clutter; wheelie bin, dragged in
from outside, against the back wall: full. More rubbish scattered around it: pizza
boxes, miscellaneous food wrappers, old computer magazines, etc. A second desk:
this one with three angle-poise lamps; one with a large magnifying glass built
in. Tweezers, glue, plastic film, scalpel; zero clutter.
Robson dumped himself into the leather chair behind the
central desk. “You got the money?”
Sam nodded.
“Hand it over.”
“Let me see them first.”
Robson gave another of the sneers that showed his teeth,
hesitated, then reached into the bottom desk drawer and pulled out an envelope.
He slapped it on the desk.
Sam had met Robson as part of his work. When he found out
what it was Robson did he dropped the investigation and covered it up.
He checked his watch. Twenty minutes distance to Lucy’s
hotel. He considered how long he would need there and the travel time to the
airport as he picked up the envelope and slipped the contents into his hand.
Three UK passports.
He opened the top one to its back page.
BARNADO. GEORGE ANTHONY.
The picture showed a dark haired man with a side parting,
beard and glasses. He could only recognise himself because he knew who it was. It
looked perfectly authentic. He allowed himself a brief smile then checked the
other two, dropped the empty envelope back onto the desk and placed the
passports in his inside left pocket. He withdrew a smaller envelope from his
inside right and tossed it to Robson.
Robson grunted, ripped it open and tipped the cash out loose
onto the desk, gathered it up laboriously into a neat pile and started
counting. He grinned broadly while he was doing it.
“That should keep you in Coke and pizza for a day or two,”
said Sam.
Robson licked his lips. “More like a couple of months.” He
flashed his eyes. “Wanna tell me what you need three passports for?”
Sam walked to the door. “Not really.”
5
Jack rolled onto his back and shocked himself when it
occurred to him that he was glad it was over. Lucy sighed, naked beside him. The
sex had always been good before. They’d been going out for what… three months
almost? Just over? His distraction left him mildly troubled. He checked the
time. “We’d best get a move on. Your brother’s going to be here any minute.”
“I’m trying to enjoy my afterglow if you don’t mind,” said
Lucy. She didn’t make any move to get up.
Jack frowned and reached for his underpants. He got dressed,
looking out the window at the sloping park and the bridge beyond as he did up
his shirt. It was important to make a good impression. Relationships between a
man and a woman could be broken on the bad opinions of the opposing family. He
put on his shoes and socks and ran his hands through his hair to straighten out
the tangles then sat on the edge of the bed.
Lucy got up and carried her clothes into the bathroom. “I’ll
just be a minute. If Sam comes, make him a cup of tea.”
“I think the single teabag the hotel provided lost the last
of its flavour yesterday,” replied Jack.
Lucy said something obviously meant to be witty but it got
lost in the click of the door.
Jack reached for his wallet. He popped the press stud and
tilted it back with one hand until it flipped open. There was a frayed plastic
window built in below the credit card slots. Slightly out of synch with the
frame was a photo. He took it out, slipped the wallet into his front jeans
pocket and held it, resting his hand on his thigh.
The picture was of Lucy on the beach: just her head and
shoulders, straight blond hair gently lifted by the wind, smiling. He
remembered the day, shortly after they got together; the wrestling match they
had in the sand just before the picture was taken; the day when he realised how
perfect she was for him.
He was still looking at it when Lucy emerged, fully dressed,
her hair back in place. When he saw her he realised immediately what had made
him distracted while they’d made love. He remembered the unease he’d been
feeling and he remembered the secret Lucy had told him about her brother.
“You okay Jack?”
He snapped out of the trance. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Worn out by our Olympic performance?”
“Something like that.”
She hooked up her shoes and put them on. “You look like you’re
enjoying a good daydream.”
Jack tried to make eye contact but she wasn’t turned his way.
She was sitting on the bed, bending over to fiddle with her shoes. “I guess I
was worried about your brother arriving half way through.”
Lucy stood up, walked across the room, realised her shoe
wasn’t on straight and hobbled to the fireplace to lean against it while she
readjusted herself.
Jack circled toward the door. “I might pop down to the car
and get the painting I’m working on.”
“That self portrait?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. The quicker you paint a masterpiece, the sooner you
can keep me in luxury.”
Jack chuckled. “I wish it were so simple.”
“It’ll happen if it’s meant to. Maybe you aren’t destined to
be an artist.”
Jack shrugged. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He stopped short
of opening the door then turned. “Was it true?” he asked. “What you told me
about your brother?”
Lucy tilted forward, hair hanging down around her face.
“Would I lie to you?”
“You tell me.”
She stopped playing with her shoe, leaving it undone, and
straightened up. There was a mirror above the fireplace. She looked at herself
then her eyes flicked across in the reflection to him.
“What is it?” asked Jack.
He thought for a minute she was going to cry but instead, a
grin stretched her lips. “There’s something I haven’t told you about,” she
said. “A couple of things actually.”
A quiver of the same nausea he had felt on the bank of the
river came back. “What things?”
“It’s not that big a deal. Just stuff I haven’t told you.”
“From before we met?”
“No. After.”
Jack folded his arms then unfolded them again. “What is it?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes.” Tension was building in his lower back.
“You promise not to be angry?”
“Yes. I promise. Just tell me.”
Lucy continued to look at him in the mirror, locked eyes
briefly with herself, then turned to face him. She drew in a breath, smiled;
almost laughed, clearly nervous, then she opened her mouth and told him what it
was she had done.
Jack listened to it from the beginning of the story to the
end. It took several minutes for the details to clarify. She told him first about
one thing and then about another. Jack’s face remained passive. It showed
surprise and nothing more. But as she spoke, disbelief slowly became anger;
anger became fury; fury became rage.
She finished her story. Jack looked at her standing there and
tried to reconcile the significance of what she had said. He registered the
curling sneer of her lips, the mischievous twinkle in her eyes, the arrogance
of her pose.
She laughed, seeing his expression, covering her mouth with
the backs of her fingers. “I’m sorry Jack,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t; but
you look so ridiculous, standing there staring at me like that; like a little
girl who’s lost her dolly.” She winked at him. “I told you. We can still carry
on going out.”
Jack stared at her. It seemed somehow, that these last words
were the most horrifying of all.
We can still carry on going out.
The rage swept over his mind. The pressure of his blood rose,
bubbling, then rose again. All he could see was the sneer on her lips. The
hotel room was gone. Nothing existed except this paralysing anger. It overcame
all rational thought.
Jack drew his hand back. The movement was almost slow. The
rage crested, ready to release all its energy.
Lucy let out the first breath of a whimper and the sneer
dropped from her mouth as she realised what was about to happen. Her eyes
started to widen as surprise shifted horizontally into shock and then dropped
into fear.
Then from down by his belt, Jack’s hand came up and forward.
Lucy lifted her foot from the ground, trying to step back. She came down on the
unfastened heel. It went out from under her. Her tight skirt restrained her
legs awkwardly. Her foot didn’t reach the floor. Jack’s hand struck her cheek,
slapping her, making a sharp crack of flesh against flesh. Lucy’s head snapped to
the side. Her whole body twisted from the force of his blow.
Her other foot left the carpet. For a moment she floated, not
a single part of her touching the surfaces around. The fireplace was behind
her. Its bulky grey stone, all edges and corners, expanded.
As quickly as it had overcome him, Jack’s rage vanished. It
turned into panicked realisation. He saw the danger and reached after her but
it was already too late.
Out of control, Lucy’s head shot toward the fireplace, hair
flailing. Her arms reached out desperately, fingers unable to clench anything but
air. Then her forehead smashed against the stone. A hard unyielding corner of mantle-shelf
cut into her flesh and into the bone.
Jack heard nothing: no sharp splintering crack; no mushy
squelch; no sound as her body finished its arc and fell in against the grate.
It folded upon itself then shuddered, her torso lifting off the floor as her
limbs spasmed and fell still.
Jack staggered, regaining his balance; staring. He moved back
away from her, the walls of the hotel room drawing in suddenly at their base. A
second jolt ran through her body. It shook her limbs and threw her head round
until her eyes were visible. They were empty. Jack lifted his foot to step
closer. Another final awful shudder came and he froze, then she was still again:
finally irrevocably still.
Jack felt a connection suddenly. He felt the earth beneath
his feet, even through the carpet and the floorboards. He felt it through the
foundations of the hotel. He felt the ground spreading away from him as though
he were literally attached to the whole planet. He was part of it: this vast
black mass that tumbled through space.
Lucy was dead. And it didn’t matter what she had said to him
now; what she had done. It made no difference to anything or anybody.
She was dead. And he had killed her.
6
“Could you tell me which room Lucy Decker
and her boyfriend are staying in please?” asked Sam.
The woman sitting behind the DIY
worktop hotel counter was fat and ugly: bags under her eyes, greasy red hair
cut short behind the ears. She looked up, then immediately broke eye contact.
Everything about her suggested repulsive eating and living standards. Sam
smiled. “I’m really sorry to bother you. You looked so pretty sitting there in
the afternoon sun.”
Her face cracked with pleasure at The
Lie.
Sam broadened his smile. “Miss Lucy Decker,”
he repeated. “My sister. I’m in town for business. She asked me to stop by. Which
room is she staying in?”
The woman reached across to a
register book next to her till exposing liver-spotted hands. She had one
wedding band on her ring finger and two more on the third and forth fingers of
her right hand. “I’ll just find out for you.”
Sam’s eyes left her, flicking in a one
hundred and eighty degree arc from one item in his field of view to the next, a
ritual so dogged that he barely noticed doing it. He took stock of every
trinket and keepsake on the shelves: the pictures on the walls behind the
landlady’s head, the official items used in the business. It was a process that
didn’t always turn out to be useful but more often than not did. And it kept
his mind focused.
The ugly woman tilted the register
up, squinting at the page. Without glancing down she reached for the pair of
round pink spectacles hanging from a cord at her neck and held them in front of
the book like a magnifying glass. Any second she would make eye contact again.
Sam prepared his smile: broad enough for benign support with room for expansion
when she gave him what he needed.
“You know I shouldn’t give out this
information really,” said the landlady. “My husband…” She glanced into the dark
posterior of the building then leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered her
voice. “He makes out like it’s a crime.” She smiled. “Silly bugger.” The smile
became what was meant to be a laugh but was only an ageing wheeze. “You look
like a nice young man though,” she said. “And it is your sister.”
“That’s right.”
She gestured toward a staircase,
limited on her reach by the strap of the glasses she was holding, and pointed
with them. “Upstairs. Second floor. Room six. They just got back in twenty
minutes ago, her and the boyfriend. Don’t know where they went. Out walking I
think. Shall I call ahead and tell her you’re coming?”
Sam walked toward the foot of the
stairs, dropping the facade of The Lie from his face now he had his back to
her. “No thanks,” he said, “I’d rather surprise them.”
7
Blood ran down Lucy’s smooth forehead
into the pit of her left eye then trickled onto her cheek.
Her blond hair was sodden around a
crumpled dent where the jutting mantelpiece had cut through the bone and made
pulp of the grey matter beneath. Her head looked misshapen: wrong in a more complete way than just the gaping eyes
and blood and the awful stillness. The red stain seeped down her neck and
started to spread across her low-cut pullover, infecting the white. Lucy’s body
was twisted, bare legs bent at the knee. Except it wasn’t her body anymore –
this thing that looked more like some horrific twisted mannequin than a girl –
it was her corpse.
Jack leant against the opposite wall,
hands splayed down at his sides. The rage was gone. The emptiness left behind created
a physical sore, but other emotions clamoured to fill it. He started to shake
his head then stopped. He pushed himself away from the wall and walked forward,
toward Lucy’s body, rapid and then slow. He reached out to touch her. His eyes
were wide and gaping, like hers. He dropped to his knees.
It was only minutes since they had
talked about his destiny as an artist and now that was irrevocably finished. He
was a murderer. His life could not continue as it had done. There were only
three options open to him now.
Cover it up: like some wretched
half-human killer in a late night murder-mystery. Sneak her corpse out of the
hotel after nightfall, find some soft earth in the depth of a pine forest and
bury her, filling her blank eyes and open mouth with soil, covering her pretty
clothes and beautiful hair in dirt. Then go on and live the life of cover-ups
and alibis and lies, lying to her friends and her family… perhaps killing more
of them if they came close to finding him out.
Or confess: call the police: tell
them what he had done; do his best to convince them what had made him do it; hope
they understood though he knew they would not... Because surely there was
nothing a woman could say that would justify her death, however calculated to
cause pain. And that meant prison. It meant his life would be over.
And what else was there? Going on the
run? Leaving all security and comfort behind? Perpetually on edge; in danger of
exposure? Travelling from one small town to the next, performing menial work
for menial pay, always afraid of exposure and capture?
His life as he had known it was over,
and it mattered not one bit how insidious she had been. No one would care. No
one would understand.
He didn’t understand himself.
8
Sam Decker’s face was completely
blank as he walked up the stairs toward number six, disliking the creaks the
tired staircase made beneath his feet.
Eight rooms in all, scattered
throughout the three-storey building: holiday rooms with limited views of
Clifton Suspension Bridge. The stairwell walls were drab, plain, unadorned; nothing
more than somewhere to sleep; no charm. He glanced back and to his right: external
window. The bridge was just visible; overly showy; nothing but a tourist trap.
Sam considered Lucy, conscious for a
second of his appearance. He ran a brief check: hair in place, slicked down and
back; suit free of ablutions; dark grey overcoat hanging free and unimpeding,
surprisingly light. He slipped his hand inside his suit jacket: gun loaded and
easily accessible.
Quick in and out then away fast to
catch his plane.
He turned off the stairs and headed
down the long corridor to his sister’s room, not really wanting to meet her new
boyfriend; not caring enough about him to go to the trouble of making The Lie.
But he wanted to see her for this last time before he left; to... tidy up the
loose ends of his personal connections. He couldn’t leave the country without
saying goodbye and after his boss started putting things together he might not
be able to come back for some time.
If ever.
9
Jack was on his knees, head turned down
until it almost touched the rug, sweat rolling down his back and arms, catching
in his shirt. His jeans cut into his waist. He tried to focus; failed; tried to
focus.
Jack summoned his feelings, trying to
picture the love he had felt for Lucy but only the hate was there now.
There was a knock. At the door.
He lifted his torso up, bringing his
foot round so that he was crouching. His eyes flicked to Lucy’s body... to her
corpse. The knock came again. Jack was on his feet. He stepped back, away from
the fireplace, away from the door. A voice called through, muffled: a man.
“Lucy?”
Jack looked at the window.
Here, far quicker than he had
expected, was the choice of which version of the future he would follow: killer,
convict or fugitive.
His eyes to the door, Lucy’s corpse,
the window, back again to the door.
His life was over. That was
indisputable. It was only a matter of choosing which way it would end.
Another knock and suddenly a fourth option
came to mind and Jack realised with absolute conviction that it was the only
choice he could make. The suspension bridge was not one hundred yards away. He
could see the struts through the warped glass. He started to move toward the
window.
He had taken a life and now he would
give one back. There would be no humanitarian imprisonment; no rehabilitation;
no fugitive life or cover-up. He was going to pay – now – with the only
currency he owned that was worth a damn. He would pay for his crime WHATEVER
THE COST.
The knock came again. Jack steeled
himself. He had made his choice. Nothing could stop that now. He was ready.
But he couldn’t go out through the
door. The window was the only way, even though he was two storeys up. He
marched toward it then stopped. There was no catch built into the frame; it was
sealed. He remembered now how hot he and Lucy had been the night before with no
way to bring fresh air in. There was no way to open it at all.
The handle rattled in the door. Jack
looked back at it, desperate; then he turned again and looked at the window.
10
The sound was breaking glass: in the
room; too much of it to be something small; the window? Sam raised his hand to
the door but stopped short of knocking.
“Lucy!”
No answer. He rested his palm flat
against the wood. Dark in the corridor; no more sound from the other side of
the door.
“Lucy!”
Nothing.
Sam glanced down at the handle; the
dog-eared do not disturb sign with a tear half-way across the middle. He
stepped back a metre and raised his knee then kicked next to the lock. It
didn’t budge. He kicked again; some give this time; kicked a third time and the
frame splintered. The door cracked open six inches. He pushed it back slowly,
tilting his body into its shadow to provide cover.
Breeze on his fingers. The window was
smashed open. No glass on the carpet.
He cleared the door. Bed; single
armchair; second hand books in a slanting shelf unit; ornate fireplace.
Then he saw her.
11
Both feet left the decorative black balcony
as Jack released his grip. Suddenly there was only air around him.
He hit the curve of the sun shade above
the ground floor window, slid, tumbled through the air again then landed on his
back in the middle of the lawn. His eyes turned black for a second. He couldn’t
breathe. His back and shoulders and head were blank pain. He pushed, tilting
his body, then got to his feet and staggered down the steps into the road. A
truck roared past, its horn louder than its engine, but it didn’t hit him. It
didn’t kill him.
The setting sun was in Jack’s face,
pouring between the pillars of the bridge. He narrowed his eyes and started
running into the light. He sprinted across the road and up the grassy slope,
keeping to the path that ran to the toll booth and the entrance of the bridge.
The light was so bright and low that he was blinded, but he went on running.
12
Lucy was lying against the hearth, neck
crooked, legs splayed, bent at the knees.
Sam stared at her face. A smile
shimmered on his lips for a split second. He couldn’t work out why she was
lying down. Then he frowned. There was blood on her forehead; her cheeks; in
her hair. It was almost dark in the little room despite or because of the
sunset light coming through the window, but he could see it all clearly.
She was dead. There was still blood
flowing out of her. The boyfriend was not in the room. And the killer… the
killer had just gone through the window.
He backed up, energy rushing into his
muscles, body tensing. He turned fluidly, reaching inside his jacket in the
same movement.
There was pressure against his brow.
It was building.
He gripped the gun in its shoulder
holster; pulled it out; span round to face the window.
Fake metal balcony out there. He
leapt, knees up in front of him, smashed into the jagged remains of the glass;
then he was through.
The tiny balcony was uneven with window
fragments. His foot slipped, ankle twisting. It wasn’t designed to be anything
more than decoration.
Sam roared profanity as his legs
crumpled; grabbed the railing, pulled himself up.
Fifty yards away, in the glare of the
sunlight, he could make out a figure, running toward the bridge: Lucy’s
boyfriend; the killer: blond hair; white shirt; jeans.
He snapped his right arm up straight;
closed his left eye. The pressure against his brow was immense. He could barely
see in the glare. He squeezed the trigger, stepping into it to steady his arm. The
pistol exploded with noise, again and again. The shock wracked back up into his
shoulder but he pushed forward more, the pressure almost too much.
He roared “BASTARD!”
Eight shots and the pistol was
clicking. He stared at the grey silhouette of the man, still running, the
suspension bridge beyond.
Then he flipped his legs over the
railing, the gun falling from his fingers onto the balcony, forgotten.
13
Jack veered onto the road, fatigue added
to pain from the fall grasping at his legs and arms and chest. A car horn
screamed, forcing him back.
He ran past the toll booth. The first
of the bridge’s supporting towers shot up ahead, traffic moving slowly past to
his right. A few tourists walked along the pavement, separated from the road by
railings.
Jack went on, ignoring the sound that
could only have been gunshots. Nothing mattered except where he was going.
The suspension cables rose to meet
the tower then dropped down again. A sign calling out to people on the verge of
suicide flashed past as he ran with a telephone number leading to help. Beneath
the bridge the Avon Gorge fell away, plummeting down to the mud flats and
narrow river below. There was only one way off the bridge now that he was on
it.
He slowed to a walk, coming to the
centre, breathing heavily from the exertion then stopped completely.
The suspension cables were at their
lowest point. The walkway was narrow, barely wide enough for two men to stand
shoulder to shoulder. The fence that ran along the edge of the pavement was as
tall as Jack was, curving in at the top to make it harder to climb. The wind
was in his hair and his clothes; it was trying to lift him off the ground.
He turned and looked right into the
sun: blinding, but low enough in the sky, and lovely enough, to captivate him.
Jack smiled at it; then he set his jaw. He turned away from the sunset and took
hold of the top of the fence in his right hand. He put his foot against the
bottom for support and started to climb, thinking now only of the gorge below,
of Lucy, and of the only option he had left.
14
Sam cut up the remains of the bank
and vaulted onto the bridge walkway. His heart was tiny and black in the centre
of his chest.
Shouldn’t have thrown the gun away; shouldn’t
have wasted the bullets until he was sure of a hit; but he smiled, grim and
sure of himself. There was nowhere this bastard could go; no force on earth
that could keep him running longer than Sam.
He rounded the huge grey brick tower
at the near side of the bridge. The killer was standing half way across,
stationery, too obscured by tourists to see his face but close enough to be
sure it was him.
Sam found himself slowing.
The killer wasn’t moving. He was looking
through the fence into the gorge below. Then he began to climb. He was going to
jump. The bastard was going to go over the edge. Sam stopped, staring. He
stood, arms at his hips, only watching. The killer was half way up. He was really
doing it. He was going to go over.
Sam shook his head. That wasn’t going
to happen. He wasn’t going to let that bastard get away with it so easily.
He started to sprint.
15
On the top of the fence, one foot
lower to keep him steady, half bent at the waist to stay level.
There was just the slightest mist. Jack
could see his shadow in it, projected from behind in amber light. The river was
so far below; so beautiful. The water was sparkling. And here he was: the edge;
over two hundred feet down to the water. The wind was calm. Jack closed his
eyes, still and quiet.
He thought about Lucy and of
everything she had revealed.
Someone was calling, telling him to
stop. He turned to his left. A man in a black suit and overcoat was sprinting
toward him.
At the foot of the gorge the sliver
of water looked horribly slender. He probably wouldn’t even hit it but either
way he was going to die.
The man in the black suit was
shouting. He was close now. Jack didn’t turn back to look. He stood up straight
on the top curve of the fence then leapt; arms spread wide.
It felt for one moment that the
thickness of the air would stop him falling; that he could merely step back
onto the bridge. Then he realised he was really going over, that nothing could
take that final step back now.
He tilted forward, his body remaining
rigid, arms and legs outstretched, turning until he could see the bridge above,
looking so much as though it were the one falling. The man who had called out
was reaching up the fencing as though he could catch him. But he couldn’t. He became
small so quickly, rising and rising away as Jack continued to turn in the air.
There must have been people calling
out who saw him do it but he could hear nothing except the wind.
Falling.
Falling.
Turning.
His entire view was pure sky now. The
sun no longer touched him. He plunged into the gloom. Absolutely no way of
saving himself.
Falling.
Falling.
Turning.
He could see the river again. Coming
up at him fast, no longer a sliver of crystal silver but something wide and
unwieldy and uncompromisingly brutal.
He was about to die. That was
absolute.
Jack closed his eyes.
If that was what was meant to be then
he was satisfied.
16
Sam Decker stood at the centre of the
bridge, staring down at the narrow strip of water, the metal cold against his
palms, pulse slow then quickening, erratic. He narrowed his eyes, straining his
vision.
Not even a sign of the killer. The
wind hadn’t pushed him to either side of the river but the fall was so great, water
or not, it would have been like falling onto concrete. There was no chance that
he had survived.
A picture of Lucy’s corpse came to
Sam’s mind, mingled with a single memory flicker of her smile. He turned from
the railing.
A man was standing five feet away
looking him in the face. Sam paused. The man remained where he was:
mid-sixties, thin white hair, gaunt ordinary clothes. His head was bent a
little to the side, his neck straining.
Staring.
Staring.
Sam whipped up his sunglasses and
slid them into place, holding the man’s gaze, then he started to walk back to
the hotel, deliberately pushing him out of the way. The old man stumbled to the
side, staggered, then regained his balance. Now when he glared at Sam the odd
blankness was gone. Sam ignored him and kept walking. Then he stopped.
He went back to the side and looked down.
Far below was the river: two hundred and forty five feet straight down. How
many storeys was that? Twenty five? He
had heard a tale of a woman surviving the fall once, whose voluminous skirt had
formed a fluke parachute, but there had been nothing to slow the fall this
time. Sam had seen the entire drop as the dwindling figure gathered more and
more speed. It was absolutely impossible that he had survived.
Then why…?
No. He shook his head.
Somehow, irrationally, Sam had the
feeling that Lucy’s killer had survived. Somewhere, down there in the gathering
darkness.
There was no way Sam could have known
that.
But somehow he did.
And he was sure of it; as sure as he
was that it wasn’t possible. The bastard had survived and was going to make his
way home to London, thinking he had gotten away with it.
Sam looked back toward the hotel. The
police would be arriving soon. His gun was upstairs. He would have been seen
standing at the window firing. If he was caught up answering questions, there
was at least a seventy five percent chance that he would never get away;
especially if they connected him to the… other matter.
But if the boyfriend was still alive
then he had to find out his name and address.
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