Fire Damage (A Jessie Flynn Investigation, Book 1) (29 page)

He was standing in the middle of the lane, staring straight down it towards her, in the gathering darkness. Slowing to a stop, she cut the engine. He raised his arm to shield his eyes from the glare of the headlights and their gazes locked through the windscreen.

She sat for a moment longer, fighting the tide of nausea that had threatened to overwhelm her, ever since Doctor Flynn had come to her studio and seen her artwork. She had known then that her time and grace had run out. Even as the psychologist’s eyes filled with tears, Nooria had seen the shadows of doubt in them, the reflection of her brain computing as she studied the paintings. There had been too many loose ends in her own explanation; loose ends that would now hang her.

She felt sick with exhaustion. Exhaustion and defeat. And the knowledge that whatever she had done, however hard she had fought to change the predetermination that had mapped out her life from birth, she had still lost. She had been born to be used and to lose, and she had lost. And in losing, she had taken Nick and Sami down with her.

Swinging open the driver’s door, feeling the chill wind cutting across the fields, straight through her thin black cotton dress, Nooria walked slowly towards her husband.

‘She’s taken him, hasn’t she?’

He nodded.

‘When?’

‘Ten minutes ago.’

‘Where? Where did she take him?’ But even as she asked, she already suspected. The final painting Dr Flynn had seen, of the little boy crouched on a beach, his torch lighting the rough black sea, hadn’t been explained.
Waves on the pond.

‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t stop her.’

He looked hollowed out, a husk of the man she had first met six years ago, every gram of vitality, of fight, gone.

‘No. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault. I shouldn’t have told you about Wendy, about the keys.’
A sob rose up in her throat, straining her vocal cords. ‘I shouldn’t have involved you in
any
of this.’

‘I failed you,’ he murmured.

‘I was asking the impossible.’

He gave a dull, defeated nod. ‘So what now, Nooria?’

‘I’m going to get Sami back.’

‘And then?’

‘And then I don’t know.’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘We’ve reached the end of the road, Nick. You, me. Us together. Us apart. All I know is that I want to be with my son.’

‘Your son.’ His bitter laugh met the dense, cold night.

Nooria bowed her head and felt hot tears streaming down her face. ‘And you? What are you going to do, Nick?’

‘If I was more of a man, I’d put the barrel of this Browning in my mouth and pull the trigger. But of course I won’t, because I’ve never been man enough, have I? So I’ll wait here and they’ll come for me.’ He swallowed, fighting back his own tears. ‘Did you ever love me, Nooria, or did you just need me?’

Nooria hunched her shoulders. In truth, she didn’t know. She could lie to him now, but she had already told him enough lies to last a lifetime. Stepping forward, she took the Browning from his slack hand, lifted her other and stroked it down the damaged, ravaged skin of his cheek, feeling the rough knots and grooves against the soft, cold skin of her palm.

‘I’m sorry, Nick. I’m sorry for everything.’

Jessie showed her pass and waited while the gate guards ran a mirror under her car, shone a torch through the windows, pausing for a second when the beam found Sami, curled on the back seat, twitching and whimpering as he slept.

‘My son,’ Jessie lied, with a smile.

‘That’s fine, Dr Flynn.’

Night had fallen – pitch black. A cold wind was flattening the grasses either side of the narrow tarmac road, the storm that Jessie had heard from the Scotts’ house roaring over the ocean now, a few miles south.

‘Which way to the sea?’

The guard looked surprised.

‘I want to have a look while Sami’s asleep, before I go to the Officers’ Mess. I sailed here this summer.’ Another lie. ‘It was beautiful. I can’t remember the way in the dark.’

He gave her directions, raised the barrier. Starting the engine, she followed the ribbon of tarmac that stretched in front of her through the darkness, the lights of the guardhouse fading behind her as she drove.

Baker Barracks was on Thorney, a tiny island separated from the British mainland by a narrow channel called the Great Deep. The island was typical coastal plain: skeletal trees, branches uniformly twisted and bent away from the wind that cut in from the ocean; coarse grasses; pale, sandy soil which had lapped over the edge of the tarmac road, blown there by the wind.

She passed the accommodation blocks and houses to her right, looming square shapes even blacker than the sky, the Officers’ Mess, off to her left, lights blazing from its windows. The buildings petered out as she drove on towards the sea, the road swinging from south to southeast, the trees and shrubs thinning, then finishing abruptly, replaced by scrappy grass and sand, the road tailing to nothing.

Cutting the engine, Jessie stared through the windscreen at the inky expanse in front of her, sky and sea almost indistinguishable, just a faint undulating line where the deep blue-black of the sky transitioned to the cold black swell of the sea. A couple of yachts bucked at anchor fifty metres offshore; lightning streaked over the ocean beyond the harbour mouth; the wind whipped eddies of sand up around her car.

Sami was awake now, blinking, disorientated from sleep. Reaching over the back seat, Jessie found the switch of his torch, clicked it on for him. She stroked a hand over his cheek.

‘Sami, we’re here.’

Clutching the torch to his chest, he pressed his nose to the window.

‘Dark,’ he murmured.

‘Yes, it’s dark. It’s nighttime now. But I wanted to bring you here, to see if you remember,’ she said gently.

She had used exposure therapy like this with adult patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but never with a child, knew that she was risking both her job and her reputation by bringing him here. But time had run out. She had to find out what had happened to him, what was going on, once and for all – bring those terrifying, repressed memories to the fore now, before he was taken away from her and she lost the chance to help him forever.

She held the car door open with her hip, feeling the strength of the wind as it pushed the door against her leg, reached back and hauled Sami into her arms. Taking off her coat, she wrapped it around him and carried him towards the sea. As they got closer, the moon lit the waves and she felt Sami stiffen in her arms. He looked up at her and his eyes were hollowed out with fear.

‘Waves on the pond,’ his voice, so quiet, was almost lost in the sound of breaking water.

‘Have you been here before, Sami? At nighttime? Did you come here before when it was dark? With Mummy? Did she give you the torch to make you feel safe in the dark?’

‘Waves on the pond.’ He was breathing in great, shuddery gasps, his torch clutched tight in his hand. ‘Where is the man?’

‘The man isn’t here any more, Sami. He’s gone.’

He whimpered, eyes casting around him in terror.

‘You’re safe now, Sami. The man is never coming back. But is this where you brought him? Is this where you and Mummy brought the Shadowman? Did Mummy put the Shadowman into the sea?’

‘The Shadowman,’ he wailed. ‘The Shadowman is here. Mummy brought Shadowman here.’ He began to struggle, powerful in his terror. Slamming his fist against Jessie’s chest, he screamed and writhed. She held him tight.

‘The Shadowman has gone, Sami. He’s never coming back.’

With a cry of frustration and fear, Sami yanked his arm back and swung the torch at her head. She ducked, just in time, felt the heavy metal Maglite whip past her temple and slam into her shoulder. Pain exploded in the joint. Falling to her knees, biting back the pain, she held on to him while he screamed and kicked, scratched at her face with his fingers, struggled to free the hand holding the torch from her grip.

‘The Shadowman has gone.
Listen to me, Sami
. You’ll never see him again.
Never
, Sami … You’re safe now. Listen to me, Sami.
You’re safe
.’

Jessie heard the car engine from a long way off. At first the sound barely penetrated the noise of the wind and waves. Quietening Sami, she listened.

The sound manifest now, and then headlights cut through the night, making black skeletons of the bare trees and bushes that lined the single-track road to the shore. A Land Rover Defender, two hundred metres away, unmistakable now. Approaching fast.

Her blood ran cold.

Quickly, she scanned the area around them. Only the shingle beach, ankle-high grass flattened by the wind, the bright moon washing them in a halo of light, the nearest cover fifty metres away. Her Mini, parked like a bright yellow Belisha beacon where the road ran out. There was nowhere to run, no hiding place.

The Defender pulled up twenty metres away from her and Sami. Trapped in the glare of its headlights, Jessie could see nothing beyond the vehicle’s black bulk. The driver’s door opened and Nooria climbed out. She was holding something in her right hand, black and shiny, and Jessie didn’t need to look twice to know that it was Scott’s service Browning.

‘Mummy,’ Sami shouted.

Pulling himself from Jessie’s grip, he ran towards Nooria.

‘Sami, no,’ Jessie screamed. She charged after him, whipped him off his feet.

‘I want my son,’ Nooria shouted. She held the pistol out to the side briefly, making sure that Jessie had seen it without Sami also catching sight of it. Then she shoved it into her coat pocket. ‘I want my son back
now
.’

‘Nooria, I know,’ Jessie shouted.

‘Know what?’

‘About Kheial.’

‘Of course you know about him. If you recall, I told you only three or four hours ago.’

Jessie shook her head. ‘You know that’s not what I mean.’

‘I have no idea what you’re taking about.’

‘The Shadowman. Waves on the pond. The man in the pond.’

‘You’re sounding crazy, Dr Flynn.’ She laughed, high and brittle. ‘You should get yourself referred to a psychologist. I’d like my son back now.’ Dropping to one knee, she beckoned to Sami. ‘Come here, darling. Mummy’s here now.’

Jessie clung to Sami’s shoulders, felt him straining against her grip. The pull of his mother too hard for a four-year-old boy to resist.

‘Stay with me, Sami, just for a moment,’ Jessie whispered. ‘Hold your torch tight and stay with me while I talk to your mummy.’ Pressing her hands over his ears, she shouted. ‘I know that you killed Kheial, Nooria. It’s in the newspapers – the e-fit. The body washed up in Chichester Harbour that Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes are trying to identify. It’s him, isn’t it?’

‘I’ve never been to Chichester Harbour.’

‘Major Scott was stationed here at Thorney Island for six months three years ago. You lived together on this base.’

Nooria shook her head, but there was no commitment in the denial.

‘Don’t lie to me, Nooria. I’ve heard enough lies to last me a lifetime. The truth now. Only the truth. Please.’

Nooria’s eyes blazed. ‘I told you everything when you came to see me at the Royal College of Art. Kheial raped me and threatened me, and now he’s gone. Gone to hell.’

‘Helped on his way by you, because you killed him.’

Nooria yanked the pistol back out of her pocket. ‘You’re crazy—’

‘Enough!’ Jessie yelled. ‘
Enough now
.’

Silence.

Just the beat of the wind, the crash of breaking waves. Nooria, shocked and pale-faced, staring at Jessie across the expanse of sandy grassland. Sami twisting and shrugging Jessie’s hands from his ears. A howl as the light from his torch found the gun in his mother’s hand.

‘I couldn’t go on,’ Nooria shouted, her voice rising and breaking. ‘I couldn’t go on fearing him, fearing for Sami’s life, fearing everything. Sooner or later he was going to find out that Sami was a boy and then he would kill him or take him. He couldn’t have stood me having a son with another man. And then when he arranged to have Nick attacked in Afghanistan – that was it. That was when I knew that I’d never be free of him, not while he lived.’ She raised the Browning. ‘I can shoot you now, Dr Flynn, and you’ll just be another one on my list.’

Jessie ran her tongue around her palate. She knew that it was fear, adrenalin that had dried out her mouth.

‘No one will blame you for Kheial. It was self-defence. You won’t go to prison.’

Nooria drew in a long, quivering breath. ‘Wendy.’ Her words so quiet that for a second Jessie was unsure that she had heard right. ‘I murdered Wendy.’

‘Your husband murdered Wendy. He told me.’ But even as she said the words, doubt rose in her mind. Why would Scott stab Wendy, risk getting covered in blood from killing someone at such close quarters, and then shoot Callan? He had an unlicensed pistol, one of the hundreds that were spirited from Army armouries each year, untraceable to him. Shooting both would have made sense. ‘He was lying, wasn’t he?’ she said, as the realization dawned. ‘He was lying, taking the blame, to protect you.’ As he had shot Callan to protect her. Protection that had come too late for all of them. ‘So Wendy knew about Kheial.’

‘She forgot her keys one evening. Drove all the way home and then had to turn around and come back. He was with me when she arrived, taunting me, slapping me around, threatening to hurt Sami. The next day, Wendy saw me covered in bruises, saw how frightened Sami was—’

‘And the kitchen?’ Jessie asked, glancing down at Sami, squirming in her grasp, pulling towards his mother. ‘Was that the night your kitchen was burnt?’

I got my thumb jammed in one of Nooria’s kitchen cabinets. Some of them were damaged. She wanted to replace them, make it nice for when Major Scott got back from Afghanistan.

‘I said that I’d had a chip-pan fire. But she wasn’t stupid. And when the e-fit was published in the papers, I knew that it was only a matter of time before she saw it and worked out the truth. And she was such a bloody talker.’

Suddenly Sami wrenched himself free and charged across the sandy ground. Nooria ducked down and he flung himself into her arms. Sobbing, she pressed her face into his hair. Jessie started forward, but Nooria swung the Browning so that it was pointed straight at her heart.

‘Don’t come any closer, Dr Flynn. I
will
shoot you.’

Jessie stopped, breathed slowly, in, out. In again, out again, trying to calm the swollen knocking of her own heart.

‘I’ll stay right here, but listen, please. We can work this out. Let’s go back to Aldershot, Nooria, and we can work this out.’

‘There is nothing to work out.’ Hugging Sami, she kissed his face. ‘They’ll put me in prison for years and then what will happen to Sami?’

‘There are so many mitigating circumstances, Nooria.’

‘Nothing has worked out for me before, why should it now?’

Jessie bit her lip.
Why should it now?
Why the hell should it?

‘Because Kheial is dead. You have Nicholas and Sami. You have a family that loves you.’

‘Nick and I have no future – together or apart.’

‘So look after his son. You owe him that at least.’

‘You still don’t see it, do you?’ Nooria laughed, harsh and sad. ‘The evidence has been right in front of your nose all along and you still don’t see it.’ Gently, she turned Sami to face Jessie. ‘Look at Sami.
Look at him.
Does he look like a blond man’s child?’

Astonished comprehension overtook Jessie.

‘Kheial is his father. Sami is the product of my rape – Sami and his sister, Soraya,’ Nooria cried. ‘It went on for years. The torment, the rapes, and both my children are a product of that.’

Looking at Nooria and Sami clutching each other, Jessie felt a freezing numbness spread through her body. It made all her senses acute. She could smell the sharp seaweed and salt carried on the cold wind, sense the lightning flashing over the ocean in the distance behind her, feel the cold air pricking across her skin. She was aware that she was ice cold, her body numb, but her mind was clear. For the first time, it was completely clear.
Sami and his sister Soraya, the disabled child.
Why was she born disabled? Was it just bad luck?

‘Who was he, Nooria? Who was Kheial? He wasn’t only a boyfriend, was he?’

Nooria made a guttural noise. ‘It’s not important.’

‘Tell me.’

The sound suddenly of sirens in the distance, the flash of red-and-blue lights arching up to the black sky.

Fuck.

The realization that this situation was spiralling way out of control. That DI Simmons must finally have listened to his voicemails.

‘He was my half-brother. Kheial was my half-brother. My father was an Afghan engineer, my mother was his secretary. He worked between Afghanistan and England and when he married my mother he already had another wife in Afghanistan. Kheial is his oldest son by his Afghan wife. My father died ten years ago, but as a woman I am owned by my father and, when he dies, I am owned by my oldest brother, until I marry.’

But she had married an infidel.

A howl of pain. ‘As a woman, I am nothing. I am only property. I am owned.’