The cab stopped on the corner and Stratton jumped out, paid the driver and hurried to the entrance. But as he was about to open the gate a police officer stopped him.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ the officer said, barring his way. ‘Do you have business here?’
‘Not exactly,’ Stratton said, playing it cautious while at the same time growing increasingly concerned.
‘Then you’ll have wait back over there,’ the officer said, pointing down the sidewalk.
‘What’s happened?’ Stratton asked.
‘I can’t say, sir. Now you’ll have to step back, please.’
Stratton looked towards the building entrance to see Vicky walking out of the building while talking to a police officer. He moved along the fence, hoping to catch her eye, willing her to look his way. She stopped at the top of the steps and as the officer wrote something in his notebook she looked up and froze as her gaze met Stratton’s. The officer asked her another question and she had to look away from Stratton while she answered. Then she stared back at him, this time with a strange look in her eyes. The officer said something else to her to which she nodded. Then he walked away.
Vicky paused uncertainly before heading along the narrow path towards the gate, past the officer on guard and down the sidewalk towards Stratton. As she approached he started to speak. But she cut him off, her voice quiet yet harsh. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said, moving ahead of him and around the corner before stopping and turning to face him. She looked fraught and strung out, her gaze roving everywhere before settling on him.
‘Just tell me one thing first,’ Stratton said, grabbing her shoulder. ‘Is Josh okay?’
Vicky brusquely shook his hands away, an expression of horror and suspicion on her face. ‘This morning as Dorothy was arriving two men walked in behind her and asked to see him,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘They said they were police officers and wanted to ask him some questions. They showed her their badges. I wasn’t here yet, nor was Myers. Dorothy should have waited for one of us but she went and got Josh anyway and they grabbed him.’
Shortly after she had begun speaking Stratton’s hands had gone to the sides of his head. He closed his eyes, knowing what was coming.
‘They punched Dorothy to the floor when she tried to stop them and then they left. The security guard was just arriving and they beat him up on the porch and took his gun. No one saw the car they got into or where they went.’
Stratton could not quite control himself yet. He walked past Vicky, his fists clenched tightly. When his eyes opened they looked wild but he could say nothing, his mind in turmoil.
‘The police asked me to tell them everything about Josh,’ Vicky went on. ‘I told them about you. I … I thought you might have had something to do with it. After last night – I didn’t know what to think. I saw the news this morning – the car that exploded outside your apartment building. It happened just after I left. You had something to do with that, didn’t you? Don’t lie to me, John. I know you did.’
Stratton didn’t react to her, as if she was no longer there, his mind already focusing on other things: formulating, calculating, planning, seething, hating.
‘Stratton!’ Vicky shouted. ‘I’m asking you a question. You know what this is all about, don’t you?’
Stratton looked away, shaking his head, not in denial of her question but in disbelief at this turn of events. All he could think of was how miserably he had failed the people he loved, not only Josh but his mother and father too. Josh had been taken out of revenge for what Stratton had done. He, John Stratton of the SIS and SBS, should have seen it coming: in a way he had but he’d been too slow to act. He should have gone to the centre last night and taken Josh away himself. But he had been complacent, worried about repercussions that would have been nothing compared to those that would now result from Josh being kidnapped by Skender’s people – it had to be them for there was no one else to suspect. Stratton had gambled with Josh’s life. The little boy had trusted him, innocently placed all his hopes in the one person he had left in the world who could help him – and Stratton had betrayed him with sheer incompetence.
‘John! Talk to me, for God’s sake!’
Stratton finally looked up into Vicky’s tormented eyes. ‘It’s me they want,’ he said.
‘Who are “they”?’ she asked, getting frustrated.
‘The people who tried to kill me, – us, in fact – last night. You would have died too.’
Vicky didn’t understand. There was too much information and too little clarification. ‘Why did they take Josh?’
Stratton was afraid to answer the question. Any answer would sound pathetic. ‘Revenge,’ was all he could say.
‘For what?’ she insisted.
‘They killed Josh’s mother so I killed them. It’s quite simple, really,’ he said, getting angry himself. ‘It’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life,’ he added.
Vicky still did not know what to make of it but Stratton’s pain and feelings of guilt were obvious. ‘Why didn’t you come to me, tell me? I might have been able to help.’
Maybe she was right. Maybe she could have helped him get Josh away if she had really understood the situation. But that was hindsight and Stratton doubted that she would have felt able to aid him last night. It didn’t matter now.
‘We have to tell the police,’ Vicky said.
‘That won’t help him.’
‘That’s ridiculous. If the police know who took him they can get him back.’
‘The people who took him don’t care about the police. They own the police.’
‘I can’t believe that,’ she said.
‘Listen to me,’ Stratton snapped at her. ‘They are Muslim Albanians and will never admit to kidnapping him. They want me and when they have me they’ll kill Josh too. They have no hearts, no pity, no code other than never giving way to anything other than death. It’s how they’ve lived for hundreds of years and nothing will change that. Do you understand?’
Tears rolled down Vicky’s face as the truth of what he’d said hit home. Some of the tears were for Josh but some were for herself. She had dreamed about this man she thought might be the shining knight in her sad, lonely life and who was going to take her away from all this, and now it was over. He was an enigma and she realised that she had known no more about him the night before – when she had been prepared to give herself to him – than she did now. She began to wonder if he was actually something dark and terrible. There was evidence of that in his eyes, sure enough. Now they were filled with malevolence of an intensity that she had never seen before.
Vicky did not realise that she had stepped back from Stratton in reaction to a sudden pang of fear, for Josh as well as for herself. ‘Who are you?’ she asked softly.
It was as if he could read her thoughts. ‘I’m sorry for you,’ Stratton said. He stepped away from her, his thoughts on the police around the corner, wondering whether she would tell them that he was there. ‘I’m Josh’s only chance,’ he told her, hoping that she would believe it, then, disturbingly, doubting it himself.
Vicky remained where she was, transfixed as he walked away.
When Stratton was out of sight she lowered her eyes as she felt something inside her crumble away, perhaps her last vestige of hope. Her life’s experiences so far had shown her more than anything else what a rotten world this was. The original idea of devoting herself to healing the lost souls of children had been intended to give some purpose to her life. But after so many years all she was left with were mostly stories of sadness and broken hearts, and instead of building her own sense of self-worth she had become as much a victim as those in her charge. Perhaps that was why she sympathised with their plight as much as she did: she often felt less like a healing angel and more like the inept leader of a hopelessly lost flock.