Cross

This was the reason we were there, so I laid out the whole series of events. And she was a good listener, only interrupted once to ask if Sean had turned up yet. I noticed she'd only had one sip out of her wine. Yeah, I counted, it's what alkies do. Me, I'd have been on the third bottle by now.

Go figure.

I can't.

When I was finished, she asked, 'What do you want from me, Jack?'

I framed my reply carefully, said, 'Give me your opinion of the family, and – here's the hard part – where would Sean go?'

She then asked a series of questions, mostly on Gail, and I told her everything – my encounter with her in the graveyard, then her visit to my apartment, the meeting she had with Stewart. I described the father, Mitch, how I'd found him and how I thought he'd been involved.

She was silent for a second round of coffee, then said, 'Jack, it's almost impossible to make any diagnosis when you've never met the people, and anything I say is purely conjecture. I want you to bear that in mind. It's purely guesswork.' Then she smiled. 'To let you in on a little secret, a lot of what we do is a shot in the dark at the best of times, but we don't advertise that.'

I assured her that I wouldn't be quoting her and that any help, any suggestion would be taken in that spirit.

Pushing her cup to one side, she leaned forward and asked, 'Are you familiar with folie à deux?'

I wasn't.

She explained.

'It's a shared psychotic disorder. You get two highly damaged individuals who come to share the same psychotic belief, they become almost one person, with the same destructive aim. There is usually one leader, as it were, and the second person begins to take on board all the delusions, hatred and mania of the first. Fusing together, they form a highly lethal relationship, for example the Hillside Stranglers in America.'

I thought about it, said, 'Gail and her father.'

She nodded, then again stressed this was pure speculation.

I asked about Sean.

She said, 'My bet is he would return to the scene where Gail was drowned, almost like keeping vigil. What are you going to do with him?'

I hadn't been really clear, but now it began to come together.

'If I find him, I'm going to let him go, tell him to get back to London, try and build a life.'

She was surprised, I could see it in her eyes, and she asked, 'Why, don't you think he should pay for his part in these horrendous crimes?'

I was close to telling her of the terrible mistakes I'd made in the past, when I let my madness for revenge override everything and innocent people had died. Instead I said, 'I think there has been enough death.'

The waiter brought the bill and I paid.

Outside I hailed a cab and said, 'Gina, I'm so grateful.'

She was amused. 'I'd hazard another guess and say I'm going home alone.'

I muttered a whole range of nonsense about us getting together real soon and the wondrous help she'd been.

Shite talk.

The cab came and I held the door. She gave me a long look, then said, 'Goodbye, Jack.'

I should have said something, that it wasn't like that, that I'd call her real soon. She gave a sad smile and the cab pulled away.

I walked up Quay Street, telling myself I would call her, course I would. Maybe if I said it often enough, I might actually believe it.

I began the ritual of walking the prom every evening. Gail had been taken out of the water at ten in the evening, so I aimed at that. Part of me saw it as a fool's errand. What if he never showed? Told myself, at least it's exercise, gets me out, gets me moving. And it sure helped with the limp. Her body had been washed up at Blackrock. Time was, that was a men-only bathing area. That had been overturned and women could now use the facilities.

On the beach, most evenings, I'd see groups of teenagers drinking Buckfast, with a token bottle of vodka to put the flourish on the whole deal of getting wasted.

My teenage years, it was a flask of cider, split about five ways, and a packet of Woodbine. Dope was unknown then. The new generation, they had lots of dope, from E to coke to crack. Crystal Meth had been showing its ugly dangerous face in more substantial quantities. I'd talked to one of the teenage girls and she told me the deaclass="underline" none of that slow burn, gradually getting a bit merry, having a rites-of-passage adventure; their whole aim was to get wasted, fast. No in-between time, no period of silly giggles, it was just get totally out of your head in jig time.

I'd asked, 'Why?'

Dumb, right? And old, fuck, oh yeah.

She'd given me that look of contempt with a slight sprinkle of pity and said, 'Cos life, like, sucks.'

She could have fitted right into Miami Beach or any American frat party. The government was trying to come to terms with the epidemic of teenage pregnancies, sexual diseases, and I thought, one evening alongside the sea front, they could have seen the whole saga unfold.

I thought about Cody a lot: his wild annoying zest for life, his determination to be a private investigator and how my actions had got him killed. The weight of that was sometimes more than I could bear. Such times, despite my limp, I'd walk like a man trying to outrun his thoughts.

A week went by, no Sean, and I was assailed by doubt. Was the whole plan an exercise in futility? I stayed with it. I enjoyed the walk, if nothing else. To be beside the ocean had always soothed me. And Christ, I needed all the help available. Mostly, on those walks, I thought of all the people I'd known and why I was still above the ground.

Ten days into this deal, I met Jeff.

I was so convinced he was gone and I'd never see him again. He'd been my great friend and then I let his daughter fall to her death and he disappeared into the booze, last seen as a homeless person. His wife, Cathy, had been the one who shot Cody. She had known Cody was like my surrogate son. Perhaps that explained why I never went after her for the shooting.

An eye for an eye.

I took her daughter, she took my son.

Fair trade?

The tenth day of my search, I was turning for the walk home when I saw a man sitting on a bench, staring at me, and, as I neared, I recognized him.

Jeff.

At first, I thought it was my mind playing tricks. I'd frequently seen someone who looked like him on the streets of the town. This was no mirage, it was him, the long grey hair tied in a ponytail, a long leather coat and his eyes burning into mine. He stood and I didn't know if he'd attack me. Our last encounter, he'd spat in my face.

I stopped about five yards away, a tremor building in my body.

He said, 'I heard you'd been walking this way, same time every evening.'

I didn't ask who told him.

How do you greet a man whose life you've destroyed? Good to see you doesn't quite cut it. He looked well, certainly in comparison to how I'd last seen him, a drunk on a park bench, his eyes dead. His eyes now were clear, hard but clear. A fresh scar along the top of his forehead. You live on the street, it's part of the deal. His clothes were clean, and though he'd visibly aged, he seemed in good nick. His hands were deep in his pockets and I concentrated on them.

'Still investigating, Jack?'

I finally found my voice. 'It's all I can do.'

He looked out at the ocean, then said, 'Still wreaking havoc in people's lives then?'

No argument there.

He sighed, said, 'The Guards are looking for Cathy, in connection with that shooting.'

I said I'd heard that and then he asked, 'And you, Jack, are you looking for her?'

His tone was neutral, as if it didn't matter.

'No, I've caused her enough grief.'

He moved a step closer and I had to struggle to stand my ground.

He asked, 'You think that evens the score? That what you think, Jack?'