Out of Promises
Authors: Simon Leigh
OUT OF PROMISES
By Simon Leigh
Out of Promises
Copyright © Simon Leigh 2012
First published on Amazon Kindle: June 2012
First Published through CreateSpace September 2014
All rights reserved.
ISBN – 13: 978 1499251654 (CreateSpace-Assigned)
ISBN – 10: 1499251653
This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters and places in this novel are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is completely coincidental.
For my loving wife, Jun.
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. YOUNG FREDDIE MASON
TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO. VALERIE’S STORY
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. WHEN THE FIRE STARTED
OUT OF PROMISES
1950s Southbrook. A city of a million stories. A city with what felt like a million problems. Crime organizations ruled the streets fighting over territory and control with gang wars overrunning the peace hungry communities. Anything from beatings in back alleys to full on gang warfare shattered the lives of anyone caught up in it. Officials were bent and money was power and the honest, hardworking cops were powerless to do anything. Crime was high, which was the life back then. The life of freeloading. The life of looking over your shoulder whenever you left your house. The life of always being afraid of what awaits you around the corner. Smart people moved away while other naive unsuspecting people replaced them in a never ending circle. The city was the food in which crime was free to feed and it spread to neighbouring cities like an uncontrollable rash in need of a cure.
During the 60s and 70s, when the authorities finally realized things were out of hand, a major crackdown on crime was initiated. The plan was well-executed and would go down in Southbrook’s history as a turning point for peace. Many people died as protesters became violent, clashing with police in the streets. Some went as far as burning the American flag to show their disgust at being oppressed. These were not the organized crime members they thought they were; they wanted a completely free city with no rules, clueless of what would happen if their wish came true while anarchy smothered the city.
Eventually, after much bloodshed, crime rates lowered and crime organizations were driven underground. The Southbrook Police Department was changed and restructured. Bent cops were put away with the cons and new officers were drafted in and recruited from nearby cities. Southbrook was to become the clean haven it was meant to be.
Decades of low crime rates were a welcome break and people grew more confident to roam the streets, even at night.
Crime still existed, but it was a happier time.
Through the 80s and 90s, or
the quiet period
as it became known, there was time for crime organizations to grow again as people had become complacent, unaware of the gradual increase in crime creeping up from the depths they had been driven to. Many crimes went unreported allowing certain organizations to gain the upper hand. Extortion was the key. If the police didn’t know, how could they act? People went about their day blissfully unaware of their peace soon coming to an end with the authorities heading for an uphill struggle of which they could not anticipate.
The city of Southbrook was fast becoming the nightmare it once was.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7
th
, 22:00
Dishevelled and hunched over while kneeling on the cold and wet stony floor of Saint Patrick’s church on the edge of the city, a lone man wearing a rain spattered black suit stared at the ground, his arms limp by his side as if all blood had vanished from them.
‘Please forgive me,’ he whispered.
The church was deprived, cold and hollow. Dull and pale stained glass windows high up on the walls kept the wind and rain at bay separating the wild outside world from this lonely one hiding away. Few remaining candles on the walls desperately clutched onto their lives with every draft caught.
A tired man of twenty seven years, he remained slumped in his motionless state, asking himself, ‘Shall I go after him?’
Above him were two crosses. One, eight feet tall and made of oak hanging ten feet up the wall behind the altar. The second was smaller replica with a figure of Jesus still attached, lying on its back staring up into the heavens. To his left stood a pulpit, while in the far right corner were steps feeding down to the crypt below.
He came alive, lifting his tear filled eyes and tired arms to the smaller cross on the altar. Trembling all over, he lifted it and gazed into the face of Jesus.
‘What shall I do? Where shall I go?’ he begged. ‘Give me an idea. Please.’ The words coming as nothing but a tense and needy whisper.
Not being a religious man, he was way out of his comfort zone. He felt that there was nothing to gain from religion, that all it brought was war and death. He used to say:
What had religion done for him?
Well now he needed it.
The howling on the windows made him nervous. It made him think of cheap movies made for TV. His imagination had always been a vivid one. He recalled how, as a child lying in bed after being tucked in at night, the howls of the wind would keep him awake with the images of sickening creatures creeping towards his bed, inching ever closer until he dared to turn on the light.
Still clenching the figure, he looked around at the empty church hall seeing nothing out of the ordinary; dancing candles, some old pews, and a door to another room, left of the main ones. Rain dripped from the ceiling and splashed into the overflowing font at the entrance.
He felt a shiver.
Burying his head in his hands, he started to think of how things came to be, thinking of how he had endangered his loved ones with the realization that he may never see his daughter’s smiling face again.
In a car across the street, was Valerie Lambert. With a long black coat, blue jeans, and a dark blue scarf around her aching neck, she sat in the driver’s side of a well-used sedan from the late 90s watching an SUV parked askew outside the church through a waterfall of battering rain cascading down the windshield.
Of all the cars we have, why did I get this piece of shit?
Unlike the man in the church, Valerie didn’t disagree with religion; she kept an open mind. But that’s not to say she agreed with it either. She respected it. She’d never hurt anyone in a church and wasn’t about to start now. The possibility that someone or something was out there was enough for her.
For warmth on this cold December evening, she turned on the car’s heater and gazed into the rear view mirror. Looking back at her was a pale skinned thirty four year old. Far from unattractive, she still held a youthful face and body that many men had drooled over in the past, but right now, she felt old. Maybe it was the cold, or maybe the fact she had nothing to show a meaningful life.
What have I done with my life? Where have all the years gone?
A long time ago, she was a strong woman. Nothing could affect her. But after everything she’d been through, she’d found it increasingly difficult to rely on anyone, leaving her isolated and lonely with only a few select people she trusted. With no family and no friends outside of the business – something she desperately wanted before her time ran out – she knew for certain she wouldn’t find what she was looking for while in this line of work.
So she wanted out, and she wasn’t alone.
The main problem was: once you’re in, you’re in.
It had been a long evening and she hadn’t slept for a very long time, so fighting her heavy eyes to stay awake was one of the hardest things for her to do right now. For comfort, she removed her scarf, using it as a makeshift pillow while the warm air from the vents filled the car. She didn’t know how long she could wait like this, and with the rain blurring her view to the church doors, she felt the weight of her eyes pulling closer until her world went black.
She never saw the dark figure enter the church. She should have seen it. It was her job to keep track of her target currently kneeling at the altar.