‘So take a guess.’
‘Alex.’
‘Please. You think this is all to do with him?’
I shrugged.
‘Don’t shrug at me.’
‘I don’t know.’
A pause. ‘I’m guessing that little mess at the church was yours.’
I didn’t answer; didn’t want to admit I’d been through Michael’s stuff.
‘Breaking and entering is a crime,’ he said.
‘What the fuck do you call this?’
The man laughed. ‘Difference is, you don’t know who I am. I know who you are. I know all about you.’
He pressed the gun in against my cheek, and I could feel the outline of the muzzle.
‘Was the address for the church in that box?’
I paused. The box. He knew about the box.
‘David.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘On the back of a birthday card.’
‘What else was in there?’
I thought of the picture I’d given to Cary. ‘Nothing. Just photos.’
‘Just photos?’
I nodded.
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘I’m not.’
His hand dropped away, the gun with it.
‘Okay, let me tell you something. The reason you’re here and not sitting with your feet up by the fire at home is because you’re standing on the outside of a circle, and you’ve caught a glimpse of what’s on the inside.’ The smell of boiled sweets again. ‘Unfortunately for you, once you’ve caught a glimpse of the inside, you can’t just walk away again — which is why you’re freezing to death in the middle of this fucking hole.’
I was starting to drift in and out of consciousness.
‘I know about you, David,’ he continued. ‘I know about your background, where you come from, what you do. It’s my job to know all that, because it’s my job to ensure people like you don’t fuck up what I’ve built. And you know what? Reading about you made me wonder: this quest of yours, is it about the kid — or is it about your wife?’
I looked up, turned, and he held up a hand. Grabbed the side of my face. Forced it back down, further this time, until my head was almost between my knees.
I felt blood rise in my throat.
‘You’re a big man, David,’ he said, ‘but her death makes you easy to control. When people die, it hurts. It sucks you dry. You feel so hollow inside, you wonder if you’re ever going to be normal again. But when people die, you’ve got to let them go, because they’re not coming back. They’re gone. Your wife, the kid you’re trying to find, they’re gone.’
‘If he was gone, I wouldn’t be here,’ I said.
He yanked my head towards him and moved in next to my ear, his lips brushing against the side of my face. ‘You want to die, David — is that it?’
I felt his fingers wriggle at either side of my head, like he was trying to get a better grip before he reached round and put the gun in my mouth. Then — lightning fast — he punched me in the side of the face — so hard it was like being hit by a freight train. I tipped sideways, the chair going with me, hitting the ground head first.
Darkness.
I opened my eyes. My head was being pressed down between my legs. All I could see were my feet, flat against the floor, my toes in a puddle of melted snow. His hand was around the back of my neck, his fingers locked in place behind my ear. A trickle of blood broke free from my hairline. It ran down across my forehead and into my eye.
‘What else do you know?’ he said.
I twitched, tried to shake the blood away from my eye, but his hand pressed harder against my head. Forced me down even further between my knees.
‘What else?’ he said again.
‘You recruit people.’
‘Is that what Jade told you?’
I nodded.
‘What do you mean, “recruit”?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you lying to me again, David?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. What else?’
‘Some of you are supposed to be dead.’ I paused, tasting the blood in my mouth. He pushed down on my neck again — he wanted me to continue. ‘You’ve got a flat registered to a company that doesn’t exist, and a pub you’re using as a way to make money. A front. Full of your people, who rotate when questions start getting asked. When a hole starts to appear, you shift them somewhere else and the hole closes up.’
‘What else?’
‘That’s all I know.’
‘Bullshit. What else?’
I stopped, tried to think. That was pretty much it. When he’d told me I was on the outside of the circle looking in, he was right. I’d caught a glimpse of something on the inside; I knew something wasn’t right, that something was up — that Alex could actually be alive. But I didn’t know how and I didn’t know why.
‘What else?’ He forced my head down again, and something clicked. A bone in my neck. I felt a shooting pain arrow along my spine, up into my skull.
He thought I knew more, and — as I tried to form a plan — I realized I could play on that. Maybe it would be the only way out. Pretend I knew more than I did and he’d have to find out what. See how far I’d dug my way in.
‘You think whatever you’re doing is a mission from God.’
He released his grip ever so slightly, and leaned in closer to my ear.
‘What did you say?’
‘You think it’s a mission from God.’
‘I think?’
I felt him shift his weight. He was pinning me down with one hand and reaching for something else.
‘You know, David, I’m not a fan of politics. All it’s ended up teaching me is that power corrupts. You give weak men absolute power and you only breed more weakness.’
Prickles of fear rippled across my skin. My heart felt like it was swelling up. He’d given up asking me questions. We’d got to the end of the line.
‘Wait,’ I said.
‘But something sticks in my mind. Something Josef Stalin once said. I don’t admire the man — I just happen to agree with his sentiments.’
‘Wait a minute, I haven’t told you everything I—’
‘Do you know what he said, David? He said: “Death solves all problems — no man, no problem.”’
I heard a beep and then a ringing sound. He was using a phone.
‘Zack, it’s me. You can take him now.’ A pause. Silence. ‘And make sure you bury him where no one will find him.’
27
I came to as they pulled me out of a car. It was still dark and freezing cold — probably three or four in the morning. I was dressed only in my jeans and T-shirt. No top. No coat. No shoes.
Someone pushed me against the car and turned me around. It was the black guy from the house in Bristol. He had a knife in his hands. He stabbed it down through the duct tape they’d used to bind my wrists, and pulled my hands apart. I looked around me. We were on a country lane, muddy and black, trees looming overhead on both sides. It was quiet. We must have been miles from the nearest main road.
Behind me, the passenger door opened and closed, and from my left came a second man: Jason, the man I’d chased at the apartment in Eagle Heights. He moved around to the front of the car, a gun in one hand, a torch in the other, and zipped his coat up to his chin. He looked at me. A half-smile broke out on his face, as if he’d figured out what I was thinking: They’re going to kill me, and no one’s ever going to find my body.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ I said to them.
Jason pulled me away from the car and along the path. I shuffled forward, pain in my legs, staring ahead into the darkness. When I looked at the ground in front of the trees, full of dead leaves and disturbed earth, an image came back to me of Derryn standing next to her grave, looking down into the darkness herself.