The door creaked open and a lady stepped inside the wash-house.
Yukiko did not know the lady’s name. She only knew her as the older sister of her friend, Harumi.
The guard spun, immediately lifting his gun and aiming the fixed bayonet at the lady.
‘Get out,’ he snapped.
The lady feigned misunderstanding. She bowed, bowed, bowed, entering the room, talking gently in Japanese. She went past both Yukiko and the guard, heading for the shower cubicles. She gave the guard a shy tilt of her head as she went by, bowed her lips in a smile. Harumi was twelve years old, while her sister was that much older at fifteen. To a child as young as Yukiko, a fifteen year old was a grown woman, a lady, in comparison. But to the monster she would still be a child.
The guard lowered his rifle, and he turned to look down at Yukiko.
‘Filthy yellow rat,’ he said to her. ‘Get outta here… and keep out of that damn fire pit in future. Next time I’ll make you scrub yourself raw.’
Yukiko grabbed for her coat and darted for the door.
She hauled it open, her only wish to be as far away as possible.
Yet she stopped and sought the eyes of the lady.
‘Domo arigato,’ Yukiko whispered. Thank you very much.
The lady looked back at her, her features a well of desperation now. Yet she straightened herself as the guard approached her, shoving her further inside the cubicle. There was no door. The guard turned around, pulling off his spectacles and shoving them into his jerkin pocket. He caught Yukiko watching.
‘Out,’ he mouthed silently.
Then he smiled at her, a silent promise that one day he would have his time with her.
Yukiko fled.
She did not see the lady again. Not alive, any way. Two days later the lady was found hanging in a closet, shamed into taking her own life after what she had tolerated on Yukiko’s behalf. She should not have been shamed: her actions had saved the little girl.
Years later, Harumi would marry Bruce Tennant. In the decades since, Yukiko had forgotten much about Harumi, but never had she forgotten her sister, the lady who gave her own innocence to the beast in order that the Snow Child remain chaste.
She also remembered the look that Charles Peterson had cast after her as she’d fled the wash-house.
It was the same one his bastard son wore now.
He also promised that he’d have his time with her, after he’d checked out the shouting and gunfire above.
Chapter 40
For some time I’d held the impression that Markus Colby was someone who had followed misguided reasoning when setting out on his murder rampage, and that deep down, he saw himself as the good guy avenging a supreme wrong. Was Markus any different from Rink in that respect? Both men were out to avenge their murdered fathers. Well, the answer was right there before me now. Rink’s actions were driven by an impulse to save life as much as they were to take Markus’s, whereas there was nothing to vindicate the killer. Markus had beaten, hanged, shot, stabbed, injected and burned his victims, and had taken satisfaction in their deaths. But now he’d overstepped the mark by a long shot. By taking a vulnerable old woman, he’d committed the inexcusable. He’d stooped to the level his father had when he’d also targeted the vulnerable and innocent. I knew that Rink desired nothing more than to see Markus dead at his feet, but he’d never stoop that low. And he sure as hell wouldn’t take any delight in the man’s death. He would only be relieved.
Though, if he failed to save his mother, nothing would console him.
I thought briefly of Yukiko and her staunch belief in giri, and concluded that it was Rink’s burden of obligation to end this seventy-year loop of violence. The way I saw things, by extension that obligation was also mine. I was prepared to do anything to safely free Yukiko and end the threat to her. By throwing their lot in with Markus Colby, Sean Chaney and his men had just signed their death warrants.
I let Rink out of the sedan a good quarter-mile from where we’d been instructed to deliver Parnell and Faulks. He’d taken his gun and knife with him as he slipped away into the trees. He was gone from sight in seconds, and I knew that next time eyes were laid on him they would be a split second from death. I had my SIG, but I’d also grabbed the gun from the dead thug in the trunk when I’d searched him for a cellphone. The extra firepower would come in handy. While Rink went for his mom, I was to play disruption on the enemy lines. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn’t have shot the messenger so quickly. Better that I’d disabled him first, demanded to know their numbers and strengths, and gained us an idea of what we were up against. But that’s me: ‘Impulsive’ is my middle name. Fuck the numbers, I decided, if I didn’t have enough bullets there were plenty other ways of killing men.
It had taken time to get to Upper San Leandro Reservoir, but by my reckoning we weren’t expected for a little more than an hour yet. Though the messenger and his sand-coloured car would be. I steered the car down a winding track towards a turning circle on a promontory overlooking the lake, driving with the lack of caution one returning to his friends would show. The headlights were on full beam for a reason. As I arrived I saw a cluster of vehicles, one of which I immediately recognised as the one that Markus Colby had so recently fled Clarendon Heights in. A van, and two other cars, could hold a number of men, but I didn’t think that was the case. Lit by my main beam was one sentry, standing smoking while he waited for his buddy to get back. As he saw me coming, he stepped out, flicking his cigarette butt on the hard grit in a shower of sparks. He took another ungainly step and I saw it was the man whose leg I’d dislocated back at Hayes Tower. I must have done a reasonable job at realigning the joint, because apart from some pain in his grimace of welcome he didn’t look too unwell. Shame. He was holding a hand cupped to his forehead, attempting to disperse some of the glare from my lights. Because of the stark beams he couldn’t make out my figure beyond them, but he recognised the car. He waved with his other hand. The mug wasn’t even armed — or if he was, his weapon was tucked away.
Parking the car, I made sure the lights stayed on full. Throwing open the door, I climbed out, but I remained bent over so he didn’t notice the disparity in height between me and his pal, and moved round for the trunk. I waved for him to follow. I popped the lid and it gave me some cover as he moved past the lights and alongside the car. My lights would have ruined his night vision, and the few seconds it took for it to adjust would have to do. I didn’t want to shoot this man. Not that he didn’t deserve a bullet, just that it was too soon to announce my arrival to the others further out in the woods.
He came around the car, wondering what I wanted to show him. I was leaning inside, covering the form of his dead friend. By the hiss of his breath I hadn’t fully concealed the corpse. He began to step away, to fumble with his coat as he went for a gun in a shoulder rig. Snapping a sidekick into his damaged leg, I followed it by ramming the point of my elbow into his throat. His busted knee buckled, and he began to fall, but his shout of alarm was wedged behind the collapsing cartilage of his voice box. He forgot about the gun as he tried to reshape his throat with his fingers. I almost felt sorry for the punk. Almost. But there was no place for pity now. Grabbing his chin in one hand, the crown of his skull in the other, I twisted his head like a large stopcock.