The Reckoning on Cane Hill: A Novel (24 page)

‘I saw stars,’ she said. ‘For about
three seconds
. That’s it. But I hadn’t had the chance to get up again before Killingbeck rugby-tackled the guy straight back into the room and saw me sprawled out there.’

She shook her head again. From what she’d said, I wasn’t convinced her boss insisting on a hospital check-up had been entirely unreasonable. At the same time, I didn’t think the decision to send her to hospital was the real source of her annoyance so much as the embarrassment of making a mistake in the first place. A
rookie
mistake at that. Maybe it hadn’t been serious this time, but in the line of work she did, a rookie mistake could get people killed.

We drove home in silence. I kept replaying the scenario in my mind, each time imagining it slightly worse than before. Sasha turning her head at the last moment so it was her temple that struck the bed frame, fracturing her skull; the client coming at her with a knife rather than his shoulder; someone more seriously involved in the operation, perhaps, who was prepared to defend it with a gun. I saw each situation vividly in my head,
and in each case desperately wanted to be there to help, but was reduced to observing it passively.

Anything could have happened to her.

Anything still could.

The panic remained, and as we pulled into our drive, it was sharper than ever. She was fine, but she might not have been. That text message had been the most frightening thing I could remember in a long time, and while things hadn’t turned out badly, they could have done.

‘Well,’ I forced myself to say, hoping the anxiety didn’t come out in my voice. ‘As bad as it was, it could have been worse, couldn’t it?’

‘Yes. And that’s the problem.’

‘I know.’

‘I got distracted.’ She looked at me. ‘I got sloppy. And it could have been a lot worse.’

I couldn’t read the expression on her face.

‘So you have to learn from it,’ I said.

Sasha continued to stare at me, thinking about something. Finally she looked away again, nodding to herself. Even though we were sitting as close together as before, it felt like she’d somehow taken a step away from me. I wanted to say something to pull her back, but I couldn’t think of the words.
You’ll never be second best to me
, I almost said. But given my behaviour recently. I was suddenly scared that she wouldn’t believe me.

‘You’re right,’ she said finally. Her tone was flat, empty. ‘I can’t afford to get distracted again.’

That night, for the first time in months, I had the dream again. But tonight it was different.

In the past, despite being a nightmare, there had been nothing overtly horrific about it. I was always just standing on the shoreline, staring out at a calm sea, the sky above speckled with gulls. The sea was empty. Lise never featured at all, always
conspicuous by her absence. The dream was about how she was no longer there.

Tonight, though, it truly was a nightmare. I was still standing on the beach, but the sea in front of me was dark and churning. The rolling waves formed angled lines of froth like the haphazard slices of a razor, and the sky above was heavy with blackening clouds. I was shivering with cold and screaming at the water.

Swim. Swim
.

Because I could see her out there, even though the waves were too violent for a clear view. They kept tossing her up, then pushing her down: playing at killing her. But she was there, and somehow I could hear her too. She was screaming for help, but the words were torn apart by the wind, so that all I caught was the fractured sound of someone who knew they were dying.

And so I had to save her, the woman I loved.

I had to go back into the sea.

I stepped forward, up to my shins, but even this close to the shore the current threatened to pull me off my feet, and I froze.
Come on
. Except I couldn’t. Only a minute ago, I had been out there, being thrown this way and that by the waves. I had gone under and swallowed water and come up coughing and choking. I had been convinced I was going to die. But I had got to shore, and my body refused to allow me to go back in. I was literally held in place, shaking with fear, reduced to screaming impotently at the sea as it killed my girlfriend.

Breathe
, I thought.
Breathe
.

You’ll be okay
...

And then – just for a moment before she disappeared – I caught sight of her face amongst the black waves, and realised that it wasn’t Lise out there at all, but Sasha.

I woke with a start, my heart beating hard in my chest, and lay very still for a time, trying to calm myself down. After a few minutes, I rolled carefully on to my side.

Tonight, as much as it had been a dream, it had also been a memory. That was what had happened, after all. I wouldn’t
have been able to save Lise anyway, as I wasn’t a strong swimmer and had made it to the beach more by luck than anything else. Nevertheless, I had still stood there, helpless, and watched Lise drown. I had been too afraid – too weak – even to try. I had failed her.

Sasha was sleeping with her back to me. I watched the covers rising and falling, listening to the soft, slow sound of her breathing. I wanted to put my arm around her and press myself against her, but for some reason I didn’t. I was thinking about the panic I’d felt when I’d picked her up from the hospital, and about the way I’d been recently. About the fact that while the wounds from Lise’s death might have healed, for a long time they had hurt very badly indeed.

That’s what’s wrong with me
, I thought eventually.
That’s the truth of it. It’s not that I don’t love you. I love you more than anything
.

I’m just terrified of losing you too
.

Dr Gordon Peters

Ghosts

Ghosts.

That was what it always made him think of.

Gordon Peters stood in the brightly illuminated bathroom, listening to the silence of the house below him. It was nearly midnight, and all the other lights were out; he was standing in the only pocket of brightness in the whole property. His mind’s eye tracked along the dark hallway outside the bathroom, down the stairs to the entrance hall, with its old alarm system on the wall by the front door. It had been there when he bought the property, years ago now, although he had long since given up using it.

He counted the silent seconds. Almost dreading it.

The alarm sounded again. Two quick beeps: one high, the second lower in tone. It was the noise the front door made when someone opened or closed it.

And then silence again.

At some point over the past few years, the alarm had taken on a life of its own. It needed servicing, presumably, but he’d always been too distracted to bother. Easier by far to put up with it than go to the trouble of calling a tradesman in. The bell box on the outside of the house was similarly temperamental, and tended to screech and chatter to itself when the weather
got too hot. But the door alarm was more disturbing. Anything could set it off. Sometimes he’d run the hot tap in the kitchen, and when he turned it off the alarm would sound. At other times it seemed to go off entirely randomly, occasionally even in the dead of night, like now.

It was just a glitch, of course, but it always made Peters think of ghosts: as though the sensor wasn’t malfunctioning, but registering the passage into the house of people and things invisible to the naked eye. And always
coming in
, he thought to himself. Never leaving again. He had lived by himself for many years now, and yet he hadn’t felt alone for a long time. Over time, the house had slowly filled up with ghosts ...

Another beep. Quick and shrill in the dark house.

There were so many of them to arrive, weren’t there? God help him, he had been responsible for more deaths and ruined lives over the years than he could count. Even if for most of them his involvement had been tangential, he knew there was little mitigation he could expect on that level. He remained culpable. From the vantage point of these advanced years, it was difficult to remember how it had all started, or why he had allowed himself to continue. The money, of course. There had been fear. And there had also been
awe
. Those latter feelings had never quite left him. But it was hard to recall now how quickly he’d felt trapped – entwined by the snakes of what was done – and also that, once upon a time, he’d been able to suppress the guilt. Now, it weighed so heavily on him it was hard to bear.

Peters stared at his face in the mirror of the bathroom cabinet, waiting for the alarm to sound again, for another ghost to arrive. You couldn’t run forever from the repercussions of what you’d done; they always found you eventually. The light in here was harsh and unforgiving, and Peters could see the shape of his skull. His skin was pale and sweaty. How had he become this old? His whole life seemed to have slipped away behind him in minutes: a walk so familiar you forgot to notice the scenery. His face was wrinkled enough for him to look like
one of
them
. The lines might have been drawn by time rather than cut in by hand, but what difference did that make? He could see a sin in each one regardless.

Another beep from downstairs.

There had been good done too, of course, and he tried to concentrate on that. The lives saved in his day job: there had been a handful of those. But lives saved didn’t provide a counterbalance to the ones he’d helped to take. The world didn’t run on that kind of calculus.

God help me
, he thought, still staring into the hollow eyes of his own reflection. And even that was no good. If God existed, He had turned his back on Gordon Peters a long time ago.
Thou shalt not follow false idols
. But he had chosen to follow a different God, a self-made one, and he suspected that one wouldn’t help him now either.

He listened, waiting for the next beep to come.

Silence now. Perhaps the house was full for tonight.

Peters’ reflection swung away from him as he opened the medicine cabinet, retrieving the items he needed: the needles and packets; the misty plastic tubing. As he prepared the syringe, he knew he was taking too heavy a dose – that his hand had been altogether too heavy recently – but he just tapped the plastic, no longer caring.

To
hell with it
, he thought, then smiled to himself at the choice of words.

To
hell with
... them.

He pressed the plunger home.

When he woke in the middle of the night, Peters thought he must still be dreaming. His mother was standing at the foot of the bed, looking down at him. She was a pale grey figure in the darkness, dressed as he remembered her in childhood, just before she’d died and he’d been taken away, and everything had gone wrong. Before all the hospitals. She was far younger than he was now, and shimmered slightly in the air. The expression on her face was kind and sad.

I’m sorry
, she mouthed.

He sat up, frightened now. ‘What?’

I’m sorry for
...

But he couldn’t make out the rest from the way her mouth moved, and she seemed to realise it, and stopped. Instead, she reached out to him, with a hand that was only just there. Out of instinct, and a sudden childish desire –
Mum!
– he reached back, but he blinked just as they were about to touch, and she was gone, and he was alone in the room again.

He woke up properly then, his heart hammering in his chest. Too hard. His body, drawn taut and fragile by age and drugs, couldn’t handle how fast and hard his heart was beating. The dream still felt real.

If I’m going to die
, he thought,
why didn’t you wait for me?

It brought a memory of bitterness and resentment with it: a childhood feeling he hadn’t experienced in longer than he could think.

A noise from downstairs.

He listened carefully.

A scratching noise. It was only faint, but the chill came immediately, and he found himself swinging his legs out from under the covers and rising uneasily to his feet. The effects of the drugs remained with him; he made his way around the bed on unsteady legs, pressing his hands against the walls for guidance. When he reached the bedroom door, he stepped out on to the dark landing.

No sound at all now. The drugs were just messing with him. Even so, Peters made his way downstairs, each one creaking slightly under his slender weight. In the entrance hall, he stared at the closed door to the front room. He reached out and rested his hand against the wood, ready to push it open.

Beep
.

His heart leapt as the alarm sounded directly behind him. He whipped round. The front door remained closed, but it felt
fuller
down here than it had a moment ago. The pitch-black air seemed to be coiling, trying to form a shape from the darkness.
He turned back to the front-room door, blinking.
Enough
. He pushed it open, stepping inside, flicking the switch on the wall to the right.

And froze.

The man was standing in the centre of the room, dressed in a neat black suit and pointing a silenced gun directly at Peters’ face. Peters swallowed, but it didn’t quite work.

‘Mr Merritt,’ he said.

‘Gordon.’ Merritt nodded. ‘Have a seat, please.’

The slightest gesture of the gun, and Peters saw the dining chair that Merritt had brought through into the room. He considered running, but knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Even stone-cold sober he wouldn’t have stood a chance, never mind as blurry as he was right now. And he was so tired of it all. Hadn’t he known this day would come eventually? Like everyone, he’d just deferred thinking about it.

‘I messed up,’ he said. ‘I know. Too big a dose.’

‘Have a seat.’

Merritt’s eyes were such a pale shade of blue that they seemed to bore into him. Peters did as he was told. Merritt began securing his arms and legs to the wood, then stepped back, considering him.

‘You’ve been too loose for a while now, Gordon.’