Dark Winter (49 page)

Sirens were approaching. Tyres screeched to a halt outside.

He fell to the side, half on top of me. Whimpering to myself, I kicked him off, then climbed on to the bed.

Orders were being shouted. The front door was getting rammed.

She lay perfectly still, as I’d seen her lie so many times when she was asleep – stretched out on her back, arms and legs out like a starfish. Except that this time there was no sucking of her bottom lip, no flickering of her eyes under their lids as she dreamed. Her head was twisted to the right, at far too unnatural an angle.

I could hear the rear-entry team in the house now as blue lights bounced against the windows and the front door finally gave in.

As I leaned over her, my tears fell on to her hair-covered face. I knew it was futile, but checked for a pulse anyway.

She was dead.

I dragged her to the edge of the bed and gathered her in my arms, trying to hold her as best I could as I stumbled back towards the doorway.

I placed Kelly gently beside Suzy, as the rooms below were cleared. They would be coming up the stairs soon, NBC kit and respirators on, weapons up.

I pulled the knife out of Suzy’s neck and threw it at the wall, then lay down between them, gathering their ragdoll heads in my arms and pulling them on to my chest.

With their foreheads touching, I buried my face in their hair.

62

Hunting Bear Path

Thursday 17 July, 11:12 hrs

A plume of black smoke belched from the JCB’s exhaust as it lined itself up on the corner of the house, churning the recently cut lawn beneath its giant wheels. Sunlight glinted on its steel bucket as the arm rose to first-floor level, then began to extend.

I folded Kelly’s well-creased letter into the photo page of her passport, and took another look at her face. Fuck knows how many times I’d done that since collecting the Vectra before Geoff could get back from the Gulf and find the wrong car in his garage.

Josh’s expression was unreadable behind his mirrored shades. He turned to the woman the other side of him and muttered, ‘Looks like a scorpion’s tail.’ Mrs Billman said something back, but I didn’t catch it above the digger’s roar. We were the only three this close to the house. The other neighbours were clustered on the road, too respectful to come further up the drive.

The bucket seemed to hesitate a second or two, then jerked forward. Mrs Billman raised her camera as steel crashed against weatherboarding. She’d asked if we minded her taking a photo or two, and how could we say no? It was a big occasion for the community. It wasn’t every day they got to buy a house for peanuts and then demolish it. The landscapers would be coming in soon to replace it with a fun park, complete with rubber floor and drinking fountain.

The whole house seemed to shudder, then Kev and Marsha’s bedroom wall surrendered to the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass. It had taken a while for me to decide to come and see this, but I’d known I had to. I needed to see this fucking nightmare through to the end.

I had brought Kelly back to the US the day her grandparents were cremated in Bromley, following the tragic gas leak at their bungalow. I didn’t know if Carmen’s sister had managed to make it over from Australia.

Josh had buried Kelly alongside the rest of her family. It was his first official engagement. There was standing room only in the church. I didn’t know whether she’d have been proud or embarrassed.

I recognized the principal’s secretary and her maths teacher, and I met her friend Vronnie afterwards. She’d looked strangely serene: I assumed she was fucked out of her head on Vicodin.

The funeral itself didn’t matter that much to me. I’d said my goodbyes as we lay there on the bedroom floor. In time I’d probably get a few words added to the stone, but I didn’t really know what yet.

The undertakers had managed to make her look so peaceful: her hands were folded across her chest, and it was hard to believe she wasn’t just sleeping. As I sat beside her coffin and read out her letter, I’d half expected her to open her eyes, grab it out of my hands and say, ‘Hey, chill. Just kidding.’

The bucket scooped out a big chunk of roof and dumped it to one side, then the arm extended again and began gnawing away at a wall. Mrs Billman started to cry, and I looked down and kicked a stone to the edge of the drive.

The tube was running again, and London was back to normal, whatever normal was, these days. The Manhattan number had led George straight to the US ASU. They were lifted with twelve intact bottles, and were probably floating down the Hudson within hours.

My injuries were going to take a while to heal, but at least I was alive. I supposed that was a good thing.

There were more splintering noises and I looked up at what was left of the house. The whole roof and upstairs section had been flattened, and the bucket was at work on the ground floor. They’d said it would only take an hour or two to demolish; the carting away would take the time. They didn’t know the half of it.

Josh had played the game and not asked how any of them had really died. He knew better than to ask. I’d given him all the proceeds of the house sale, and told him it was a down payment on my place in heaven.

The mess I’d left behind in the UK had been cleaned up by the Yes Man and Yvette with their usual efficiency. Suzy was cremated in Kent, after a fatal crash on the M20. No other vehicles were involved. Apparently a steel bar went straight through her neck, killing her instantly. It was a well-attended affair and I lost myself easily enough at the back of the chapel. I saw the Golf Club doing the same, and we had a few words. She told me they’d known she was pregnant, but had been waiting for her to tell them, just in case she chose to abort. Either way, she would still have got permanent cadre.

Geoff was flown back from the Gulf. He’d have known the accident was nonsense, but also that there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it. He, too, knew it was always better not to ask questions. I left the service as he stood up to say a few words about his wife and unborn daughter. It looked as though the Golf Club had had enough as well, because we stepped out on to the pavement together.

Sundance and Trainers seemed to have kept themselves busy since that last night in London. Simon had been car-jacked and killed in Namibia as he drove from the airport to meet his family. All the thieves took was his camera. According to some papers, an unnamed doctor had come forward and announced that he’d been treating him for some months, for depression. I felt sorry for his kids, but you can’t fuck about with information like that. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t warned him.

The de-luxe colonial was fast becoming a pile of debris. I turned to Josh and saw a tear roll down from under his sunglasses. I checked traser; it was nearly eleven fifty. ‘I’ve had enough, mate. Fancy going?’

We said our goodbyes to Mrs Billman and started down the drive. She said she’d contact us with details of the opening ceremony for the park, and we nodded, but I knew neither of us would be going.

Josh was aching to talk. ‘Hey, listen, man, why don’t you stay for the night – maybe a little longer, long as you want? You don’t look too good. You could sleep in her room . . .’

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. I’d rather just go back to the apartment. I’m only just recovering from six years of
Pocahontas
– I don’t want a headful of Eminem for the next six . . .’

The community might be getting a swing park but they wouldn’t be using Kelly’s as one of them. We got to the Dodge and checked that the dismantled lumps of wood, the chains and the tyre were lashed tight on the back.

‘What you going to do with it, man?’

‘Don’t know yet, just keep it in your garage, I suppose, until I think of something. I just wanted to keep it, that’s all.’

‘No problem, man. I hear you.’

We climbed into the gas-guzzler, and as it roared into life I took my last look. I was never coming back. I’d done everything I needed, these past few months – apart from sorting myself out, of course.

Josh hit the main and headed home to Laurel. ‘So, what you going to do in that apartment of yours? Just bang your head against the wall? C’mon, why not stay, just for the night?’

‘I’m thinking about going away for a few months. Don’t know why. I just want to pack, get a few things organized . . .’

He gave that all-knowing nod. He knew very well why I was going, and where.

The digger might have knocked the house down, but it couldn’t erase the video. And now I had a couple of new sequences to add to the collection. A good few more cold and sweaty nights lay ahead if I didn’t get my life of shit together. I’d thought a lot about going back to Dr Hughes. The zoo gates had really burst open this time, and the animals were going wild. Maybe she could help me.

The dash clock said 11:58 as I got out my cell and checked the signal.

Josh was impressed. ‘You getting the hang of those things at last?’

‘Just expecting a call, that’s all.’

Dead on midday, my cell rang. When George gave a time, he carved it in stone. ‘That house business go OK, son?’

‘Yeah, left a few minutes ago.’

‘Good. I can’t let you go to England. Strange things can happen in therapy. The security risk is too great.’

My body slumped. Even admitting you needed help was a fight.

‘But here’s the deal, son. There’s someone I know here. He’s a good man and understands work situations like ours. Hey, he’s even helped me in the past. And you’ll be getting the benefit of that pension fund earlier than you thought. The guy’s exorbitant.’

‘Thanks, George.’

‘No need, son. The fact is, I still haven’t found anyone better. And you aren’t quite dead yet.’

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DARK WINTER