James Benn - Billy Boyle

Someone dropped a tray outside the room, the loud metal-against-linoleum sound echoing in the hallway. I took another look at Kaz, then walked out of the room. The door closed behind me.

It was as if I had walked out into another world, where all the rules were different; everything had changed as sure as the door shutting behind me. Daphne Seaton, a kind, sweet person, was dead. Kaz was shattered and would never be the same again without her. My first two friends in England. Destroyed. I didn’t really care about the war any more than I had before. But I did know one thing. The man who had killed them was going to die soon, at my hands. My world had been attacked this time and I was going to hit back. This was my war.

As I went to look for Harding, it occurred to me that I didn’t give a damn about what happened after that. Maybe I’d get killed, maybe thrown in prison, it didn’t make a bit of difference. It was kind of restful not to have to think about the future.

Thunder rumbled in from the north as low dark clouds let loose. Hard rain pelted the courtyard of the hall with thick drops, splattering dirt and ash into a gooey ooze beneath my feet. Daphne was gone, the white sheet that had covered her lying in the sooty mud next to the twisted frame of the Imp. I tried not to think of the image of her in the car as I went through the wreckage, trying to find any piece of evidence. Nothing had survived the fire. Cold rain soaked through my Parsons coat; I was glad I was wearing thick-soled combat boots as I struggled through the muck.

I turned my attention to the debris piled up in a corner of the lot. Bits of metal and glass, pieces of the staff cars that had been damaged, and what looked like the charred remains of luggage were heaped together. There were a couple of bicycles that had also been caught in the explosion, and other unidentifiable pieces of who knows what. Shovels and rakes were stacked up against the side of the building, left by the crew that had started the cleanup before the rains came. I grabbed a rake and started to pull the pile apart. The rain couldn’t keep the stink of wet ash and burned rubber down. I tried not to breathe too deeply as I looked through the soggy mess I raked out from the pile.

I pawed through the stuff, trying to ignore how raw and cold my hands were, and found some bits of clothing and a pile of burned papers that turned out to be a manual for a Ford sedan. I tossed the bike frames aside and dug deeper. I was soaked to the skin now, and the rain was getting worse, starting to come down sideways. There was a helluva storm brewing up. I was just about to give up the search when I saw a leather grip sticking out from under a partially charred seat cushion. I thought of Kaz’s hand holding the handle of a briefcase, and pulled it out from under the cushion. It was a cheap government issue briefcase, more of an attache case, with hard sides and two spring locks. It hadn’t stood up well to the blast. It hung open on a busted hinge. One side was ripped and blistered, as if it had caught fire and smoldered for a bit. There was nothing inside. I looked at the warped case and wondered out loud. “Geez, Kaz, how did you manage to live through that?”

I went back to methodically pulling the pile apart again, looking for the papers or whatever else might have been inside the briefcase. It kept raining. Now lightning was striking the heath all around me. I wasn’t having fun. The only good thing was that the rain was washing the mud and ash off me as fast as I became covered in it. After half an hour all I had to show for my efforts was a disintegrating pile of charred papers that could have been the London Times for all I knew. It just didn’t figure. Could whatever was in the case have been totally destroyed? It must’ve fallen out of the broken briefcase when the tire bomb went off. Could it have been burned to ashes?

OK, I thought to myself, time to make like a cop and recreate the crime scene. I walked over to the door enterance to the parking lot. Four stone steps led up to large wooden double doors beneath a small arch. I stood there for a minute, looking at the position of the cars and trying to put myself in Kaz’s place.

If I’m Kaz just coming through the doors, the Imp would still be in its original parked position. I went down the steps. Kaz was excited, and would’ve been hurrying. I took quick steps. Daphne’s seen me by now, and she’s in a hurry, too. She puts the Imp in reverse, lets up on the clutch, and backs up, probably looking at Kaz. Was there a smile on her face? Boom! I stopped in my tracks. I looked all around. So many people had tramped through here and then cleaned up that nothing remained to show where Kaz had hit the ground. OK, the explosion would’ve knocked him back, and he would have dropped the briefcase. The briefcase. I should be carrying the briefcase. I marked the spot where I was standing and got the briefcase out of the pile. I tried to force it shut, but it wouldn’t close properly. I held it closed and then returned to my spot. The briefcase was slightly blistered on one side. How would Kaz have been carrying it? If he’d held it by the handle, how did one side get burned? I tried to picture Kaz in a hurry.

Two-handed. He would have been running and carrying it in front of him in both hands. He wasn’t the most athletic guy, and that would have been easier than having it bang against his leg. I held the briefcase up in front of me, the damaged side toward the car.

Boom, again. I slammed the briefcase into my chest and sprawled backward, let go of it, and hit the gravel with a thud. The briefcase bounced to my left and fell open. I got up, wondering if the briefcase had saved his life. Not really, I guess. And the contents, whatever they had been, had led to Daphne’s death.

I looked at the briefcase now on the ground. OK, it’s open. Kaz is probably nearly unconscious. But he sees the car and knows Daphne is dead. What happens next?

Another boom. This time it’s the fuel tank. What would that have been like? I shut my eyes and imagined being this close. Close enough for Kaz’s clothing to catch fire. Whoosh. A fireball. A fireball pushes out the air around it. Wind. Anything loose in its path would be scattered. The fire reaches out to Kaz, lying there, and just licks him. Heat rises. I imagined a whirlwind lifting papers out of the briefcase, setting them on fire at the edge of the fireball. Where would they go?

I did a 180 standing over the briefcase. If they had gone toward the fire, they would have been consumed. Anywhere else near it, they would have been cleaned up and I would’ve found them in that pile. Well, maybe I did, and that charred mess of paper was it. Or…

I looked toward the hall. The parking lot was on the side of the near wing, the corner of the lot adjacent to the end of the wing. A line of neatly trimmed hedges, about five feet high, ran along the edge of the lawn. They turned the corner and continued along the front of the building. I walked to the edge of the hedge that screened off the parking lot. Nothing. There was a space of about two feet between the hedges and the building itself, probably kept clear so the gardener could get in there and trim. It was starting to get dark, and it was hard to see inside the dank space. I forced my way in, the rain pelting me and the snipped ends of branches tearing at me. I saw some gray-and white shapes ahead and plunged in farther. I bent down and felt glossy paper.

Photographs. They were photographs, some of them charred at the corners, all of them wet and muddy. The blast and the wind must have scattered them, and these had been caught up within the hedge. Maybe there were more out on the lawn. It was too dark to make out what the photos showed. I gathered them up, stuck them under my coat, and backed out of the small space. I went right into the kitchen, leaving a trail of black mud and dripping rainwater behind me. The kitchen staff was preparing dinner. I pushed aside a pile of turnips and laid the photographs out on the wooden table.