The Rain-Soaked Bride (29 page)

No pain. No sickness.

One more step.

No stopping. No giving in.

One more step.

Another blow, this one to his shoulder and he ignored the way the joint twisted in its socket. It wasn’t real. It didn’t hurt.

One more step.

Another blow and his nose erupted in twin streams of blood that curled around his cheeks and trailed in perpendicular lines behind him.

One more step.

The stairs were now just in front of him. If he pushed just a little further he could turn down them, away from the force of the wind. He could walk back down onto the street of his past. He could tug Philips out of the surveillance car and take the man for a drink. He could end this pointless memory of the day he failed. He could submit to pleasure.

One more step.

But then he would be leaving Ayoade’s prisoners and, real or not, that was something he could never do.

Another blow, this one only glancing off his left hand.

Real or not he would be the man he prided himself on being. He would be the one who walked the right path. He knew some people thought he was just a career officer, keeping his nose clean and looking for the promotion. Working his way from one desk to the next. They didn’t understand him at all.

One more step.

He was opposite the stairway now but he ignored it.

On. And on. There was no pain. There was no wind. Just imaginary roadblocks set up by his own insecurities and fears.

One more step.

A blow to the face again and he felt himself gag as his throat was showered with tooth fragments. He spat blood and bone but it splattered back into his face.

A blow to the chest and the breathing that had already been difficult was, for a moment, halted altogether.

No giving in. It was all in his mind.

One.

More.

Ste …

A final blow, once more to the head, and the disorientation was total. His feet lifted from the ground and he spun, his slack mouth ballooning out, his arms and legs splayed as he turned in the air, a leaf caught in a storm. He sailed back along the corridor, bouncing off one wall and then the other, leaving a smudged, red kiss on each as he went on towards the window. The air was filled with glass and splinters as he exploded through the remains of the frame.

No more. No pain.

He felt the sun hitting his wet face, his ears deaf to anything but the roar of wind as he became a thing of the air. Dust. A ghost. Gone.

Then the ground, the final sensation of the tiled floor of the entrance hall. A cold stone kiss to his raw wounds.

Then nothing.

i) Who knows?

Shining lay on his back, his cheeks cooled by flakes of snow that fell from the night sky above.

He tried to move his legs, but the thought left his brain only to dissipate somewhere along the way. His limbs were dead to him. Soon the rest would follow.

‘This,’ said a voice beside him, ‘is not your best day. I suppose that much is obvious. You would hardly be here again otherwise.’

Shining didn’t have to incline his head to know who was speaking. He remembered the night well enough. The night he should have died. Certainly, he would have done were it not for the presence, the higher power that squatted next to him in the building snow. If he looked at the person speaking, he knew he would only be seeing a shell, a borrowed host. To anyone who hadn’t experienced the curious habits of the speaker, it would seem as if Shining were having a deathbed conversation with a homeless man, an ageing king of public parks and open spaces, who ruled from a bench not four feet away, swathed in his royal vestments of yesterday’s news.

‘Am I supposed to crumple?’ Shining asked. ‘Faced with the memory of my darkest hour? If so I wouldn’t hold whatever you possess by way of breath. I have known far too many dark hours over the years. I am numb to them.’

‘I’m sure. As it happens, I decided I would take this opportunity to have a little chat. This is not your memory talking. No phantoms here. This is a live broadcast, if you will.’

‘Charming.’

‘I thought so. It’s been a while. I thought it time we caught up.’

Shining heard the body of the homeless man settle down next to him, cross-legged on the ground.

‘Of course,’ the voice continued, ‘I haven’t been entirely ignoring you. Congratulations on Toby, he’s quite the bright spark.’

‘Stay away from him.’

The homeless man chuckled. ‘Let’s not waste time with posturing, August. I’ll do as I wish. Anyway, you know me, I’m not one to force these things. Toby and I have only chatted, I’ve laid no claim to him. He’s his own man. Unlike you.’

‘Free for now.’

‘Well, that rather depends on how the day pans out, doesn’t it? It’s not looking particularly hopeful is it? Young Toby on the run, the old man and his charges under siege, fighting for their lives. Mr Fratfield is quite a scamp. A potent fellow.’

‘With friends in low places?’

‘Well, yes, I may have lent him a little assistance here and there. You know me, I do like to sponsor potential. He was doing very well for himself but he does have a habit of overstretching. You know the rules, magic isn’t something you should fling about willy-nilly, it’s like splashing around in an ocean full of sharks. Sooner or later, one is bound to get one’s legs bitten off. I’ve boosted his abilities a little, kept him hidden.’

Shining scoffed at that. ‘You’re the worst shark of all! I, of all people, know that. Once you’ve sunk your teeth into him, there’s not much hope for him, is there?’

‘But I haven’t! Unlike you, Mr Fratfield wasn’t quite so desperate. I’m afraid he is still his own man.’

‘That must be frustrating.’

‘A little, but even I have rules. He has to come willingly. You remember, I’m sure.’ The homeless man gestured around them where the snow was beginning to settle on the bushes and trees. ‘For now I hover and wait. I have him in my sights and one day, I’m sure, he’ll have no choice but to offer himself to me.’

‘Always the games.’

‘Of course! We all have our structures. Our natures. Some of us simply embrace the fact and take pleasure in them. I have allowed Fratfield to flourish. In my experience, that inevitably leads to a fall. Look at you! If you have some terribly clever plan that will get you out of your current situation then you’re keeping it remarkably quiet. I rather think you’ll be mine soon enough. A debt collected. We made a pact, did we not? Here in this very park, as your life trickled out, blood turning to ice, you made a promise to me if I helped you.’

‘I didn’t have a choice.’

‘Of course you did! You could simply have slipped away!’

‘If I had died then countless others would have died with me. I needed to keep going.’

‘And now you’re facing the same situation all over again.’ The homeless man gestured in the air and, one by one, Shining could see figures projected against the night sky. First there was Tae-young, running with a crowd of young people as soldiers circled them, clubs raised.

‘Ah,’ said the homeless man, ‘Geumnamno. The people are revolting and the forces of Chun Doo-hwan are closing in. Over one hundred people will be dead by the time the demonstrations are crushed. Perhaps, among them, a young student who might otherwise have grown up to be a woman of politics?’

Then Jae-sung appeared, crawling along in the darkness of a Manchester alleyway.

‘How he loves to go on about his happy youth in England! In truth he never quite fitted in. And one night he found himself mugged for his wallet, bleeding and battered by the bins of a takeaway. He would have died had he not been found by one of the staff. Perhaps, this time, that member of staff will be just too late?’

These images stayed and were then added to by Clive King, staring into a tumbler of scotch in his hand.

‘His daughter has just been killed in a hit and run,’ explained the homeless man. ‘At this point, he doesn’t know his wife is pregnant again. All he knows is that there is a bottle of antidepressants in the bathroom cabinet and the temptation to mix them into his drink is almost impossible to ignore. You ephemeral humans have such a limited tolerance for pain. A bad year culminating in a loss he thinks he will never be able to bear. The urge to simply die is so strong he will hold the pills in his hand for an hour before finally throwing them away. Maybe this time the decision will be different?’

Finally, Shining saw his sister, face grim as it stared out of the windscreen of her car, chin resting against the steering wheel.

‘And what about dearest April?’ Shining heard the man ask. ‘She gives off the impression of impregnability doesn’t she? But we know better.’

j) Who knows?

April Shining stared out of the windscreen and wondered what had brought her to this point. Her life had always been an impenetrable network of cause and effect. Hadn’t Toby joked about his inability to piece it all together? She might have told him he wasn’t alone. Many was the time she looked back over her life and lost her grip on it all. Now, somehow back behind the wheel of her old Mini, the clock of years turned back to – oh Lord, who knew? Sometimes it felt as if this night had been a lifetime ago, sometimes she felt it hung over her as if it were only hours gone.

She had been at Lufford Hall. Yes. She was certain of that, despite how real the steering wheel felt beneath her fingers, how clear the rain was as it burst and diffused over the dirty windscreen. Looking through the glass was like peering back into her past, a distorted place of bright colours and barely comprehensible shapes.

Ahead of her, of course, was Jeffery’s house. She could see the lights burning in his bedroom window.

That light was blessed. As long as it burned she knew that he had yet to begin. Jeffery was not a man who made love with the lights on. He felt some things belonged to the darkness. As long as it stayed on, April could imagine that nothing more painful was happening than conversation. Perhaps he was showing Valerie the new bathroom, the en suite so recently installed.

April had been telling him for months he should spend the money. The adjoining dressing room was never used, little more than a box room, how much better would it be to have the place fitted out with a bath and toilet? No more stubbed toes in the dark, working their way along the landing to the rear of the house. Now they could lie together and soak, towel off and be between the sheets within moments. When he had told her he’d contracted the builders to do it she had felt absurdly pleased, as if it were somehow a sign of togetherness. An act of putting her into his life. Obviously, a bathroom suite was not a wedding ring but it had been good enough. He wanted her to be happy in his home. Didn’t that mean something?

The bedroom light turned off.

She had been in Lufford Hall, she reminded herself. None of this was actually happening. It was over and done with. She was staring up at a house of ghosts. It couldn’t hurt her any more. She should just close her eyes and dream herself back to the present. Back onto that chessboard floor. She definitely shouldn’t repeat her idiocy of the past, acting like a stupid, lovesick idiot over a man who had got under her skin. She had been old enough to know better for God’s sake, a middle-aged woman who had played the game for all of her life. Of course Jeffery hadn’t really wanted her. Of course he had never intended to be faithful. As always, she had been a weekend distraction, office work he brought home. That she could have ever thought it was something more, something she could actually pin her heart to, was so embarrassingly naive she cringed to remember it. How could she have been so ridiculous as to fall in love?

She should close her eyes and leave. She didn’t need to go through all this again.

She reached over to the glove box, pulled out her revolver and climbed out of the car and into the rain.

This was ridiculous. It had been excruciating enough the first time. The Ice Queen brought so low, reduced to a jealous girl with violence on her mind. Hadn’t she spent the rest of her years making sure she never made herself so vulnerable again? Hadn’t she closed that weak heart away in a box for good? Why was she going through these pathetic motions again? Jeffery hadn’t been worth it. He had just been another lying player.

She walked up his front path, assuring herself that she had no intention of knocking on the door.

She knocked on the door.

As his front garden flooded with the light cast down once more from the bedroom, she assured herself she had no intention of waiting for him to angrily descend.

She knocked again, watching as the landing light came on and a shadow appeared at the top of the stairs.

Fine. She’d look at her memory of him once more. Maybe you never really laid such ghosts to rest. But she certainly wouldn’t repeat the childish actions of her past. She wouldn’t use the gun.

The door opened and she pointed the revolver at him. Watched that handsome face, initially distorted by anger become distorted even further by fear.

‘April!’ he said. ‘What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were in Prague until Friday?’

‘Clearly,’ she heard herself say, stepping forward and forcing him back into the hall. ‘Or you wouldn’t be fucking your secretary tonight.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ he insisted, his eyes glancing towards the stairs, no doubt worried that Valerie would suddenly appear. ‘Now let’s not be stupid about this. What do you think you’re doing?’ He reached for the gun in her hand and she pressed the trigger, putting a bullet in the wall of the hall.

‘Jesus!’ he shouted. ‘You could have hit me!’

‘Yes,’ she said, turning the gun on him. ‘I could.’

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
You’re embarrassing yourself
, she thought.
You’re making him more powerful, not less. Just walk away. Get out! Get out!

She stormed out of the house, hoping he didn’t see her start to cry as she turned out of his front door and stepped out into the rain.

She shoved the gun into her coat pocket and ran back to the car, climbing in, turning over the engine and pulling out onto the wet road.