‘You don’t run away. Your goddamn father ran away from me, left me carrying you in my belly. I guess he just wasn’t the man I’m gonna make of you, boy. In future you will fight, you’ll fear no one. No one but me that is!’
Markus was older. Eighteen. He stood looking down on the shrivelled woman lying on the floor in the kitchen, barely recognising her as the woman who’d ruled his childhood with equal measures of disregard and an iron fist. She was pathetic, curled up like that in a pool of her own vomit, reeking of hard liquor and cannabis smoke. He stared at the sunken face, the dull eyes, and he gave her as much sympathy as he’d ever earned from her. He walked away, not sure if she was dead or alive, and didn’t care. He went looking for his father instead.
He had learned his father’s name — Charles Peterson — and he had the one photograph his mother possessed of the man, one where he was standing with a group of soldiers outside the entrance of a concentration camp. But they were his only leads, and he did not have the savvy or avenues to discover the man’s whereabouts. In his dream, he stared at the photograph, but the man standing in uniform and staring back at him was his own image.
A man begged for his life. Markus was an adult now, bigger and stronger than the punk who squirmed on the floor. The lank-haired man, who leaked blood from both nostrils, wore striped prison clothes. In life he had not done so, but this was a dream-tinged memory, and here the discrepancy meant nothing. When Markus had forced the names of the lynch party from Mitchell Forbeck it had been on the outside, but now he lay in a darkened cell as Markus hit him again and again. With each punch or kick he learned a new name, and the list was long.
Markus was standing on a grassy knoll, looking down on a ramshackle house surrounded by trees. In a blink he was at the door and he watched his hand rise up to knock on wood in need of a lick of paint. Unlike it had done in the real world, this door swung open to his touch and he stepped inside uninvited. A man was standing at the opposite side of the room, both hands held out towards Markus, begging for his life. Again — as in the photograph — this man wore Markus’s face, but in the deep part of his mind that told him the oddity was not real, Markus knew this man to be Nicolas Peterson. His half-brother.
‘Get out of my way,’ Markus snapped.
‘You bastard! My mom had nothing to do with his death.’
Even in a dream state Nicolas’s words stung him anew, the ‘bastard’ word more than anything.
‘I said, “Get out of my way.” ’
‘Leave her be.’
‘She deserves what she’s going to get. She’s as bad as the men that strung our father up. Her silence allowed them to get away with murder.’
‘Don’t you get it? He was a monster. He deserved everything that came to him.’
‘No. That’s a lie. You’re a liar just like your whore of a mother.’
Markus was in the bedroom now, and Michaela Douchard was already dying from the bullets Markus had fired into her. His half-brother, Nicolas, was slumped at the end of the bed.
Markus looked at the gun in his hand.
He didn’t regret killing them. They were liars and players in the conspiracy to blacken his father’s name. He only regretted killing them so quickly. He should have made them suffer the way his dad had. Drilling them full of bullets quick like that was too good for them.
Markus turned around.
The stranger was standing in the open doorway.
No. This was not what happened, Markus’s brain screamed.
He lifted his gun, but the stranger was faster.
A bullet punched Markus in the side.
He fell, spinning once again over the balcony of Hayes Tower.
The ground rushed up to meet him and this time he did not snag a hold of the balustrade.
Flames erupted around him, fed by the rushing wind to a blazing conflagration.
Markus fell screaming.
He jerked awake. He sat up quickly, blinking in confusion all around his living room, unable in that brief moment between nightmare and wakefulness to recognise his home. The memory of the gunshot still rang in his brain, a resounding echo. The imaginary flames left their prickling memory on his exposed skin. He grabbed at his side, fully expecting to find the wound fresh and pumping blood, but the hydrogen peroxide had done the trick and sealed the torn veins. His breathing was ragged, an effort that made his ribs ache. He looked around, searching for the stranger. He wasn’t there. He’d only been a figment of his feverish mind. But they would meet again. Next time Markus dreamed, he hoped it would be about the stranger’s violent death.
Chapter 31
Bridget Lanaghan’s living room put me in mind of a museum of the Flower Power movement, and I would have found it strange but for learning earlier that her daughter, Judith, made a living selling tie-dyed shirts and scarves, bangles and bead necklaces to the tourists at the historic Ferry Building market place on the Embarcadero. It was apparently market day tomorrow, because Judith had commandeered the sitting room to lay out and catalogue and order her wares. Her elderly mother was one of the ladies I’d met at Andrew’s funeral, and the friend that Yukiko had mostly turned to for support. They both sat side by side on a comfortable settee made slightly constrictive by the bundles of brightly coloured clothing draped over its arms. Looking at Yukiko I was also reminded of the literal translation of her name: Snow Child. She was very pale; almost as colourless as the white funeral garb she still clung to. With the backdrop of neon blue, shocking pink and fluorescent green, she was almost translucent in contrast. I could see that Rink was worried for her.
A year or so ago Yukiko had suffered a heart attack, but her strength of will and character had seen her through the dark times. Now, with her beloved husband gone, I wondered if she would survive a further episode, or if she would merely give in to the inevitable. I’d heard similar stories before, where a grieving spouse gave up their hold on the earth, wishing only to join their lost one in the afterlife. I’m not sure, but Yukiko never struck me as the quitting type, and while she had responsibility I didn’t think she’d allow herself to succumb to her broken heart. I watched as Rink crouched before her and took her slender fingers in his huge hands, but I had to turn away to allow them the moment of tenderness. I had an urge to jump on an airplane, to go home to the UK and tell my own mother, Anita, how much I loved her.
Things had been a little fractious between my mom and me — all my fault, I admit — after my dad died and she remarried. Once my brother John was born, to my young mind I was shunned, and it took me a long time to understand the truth. My mom’s aversion wasn’t because she couldn’t accept me as part of her new family, but quite the opposite. When she looked at me she saw my father, and she couldn’t bear the loss she suffered. Sometimes I thought that Bob Telfer, my stepfather, shared similar misgivings whenever I was around, but his were based upon the knowledge that he’d forever be second best in his wife’s affections.
The maudlin thoughts were only fleeting. I wasn’t about to run away, not while the people here needed me most. I went and stood at Rink’s shoulder, so that I too could convey strength to the old lady. Rink had just come in from the kitchen where he’d informed Yukiko of our suspicions, out of earshot of Bridget and her family. In a show of pure friendship Bridget had allowed them privacy, but was there to hold Yukiko’s hand when she came back. It felt a little unfair that Bridget was not allowed into our ring of trust, but probably best that she knew nothing of what was going on, other than that Yukiko was in possible danger. To spare her and her family, we’d already decided to move Yukiko, and Rink was currently talking her into our line of thinking. The gravity of the situation was sinking in with Yukiko, and was what was most likely making her feel sick.