James Benn: Billy Boyle

“Why are you here?”

“It’s a long story, Anders-”

“Who is with you?”

“I’m alone.”

He looked skeptical. He also looked all around, resting his darting eyes on me every couple of seconds. I didn’t move a muscle.

“All right, you’re alone. Are you armed?”

Funny question, I thought.

“Not enough to suit me. Just my. 45.” I opened my jacket to show him. The gun stayed aimed at my chest.

“Let’s go inside.” He casually pointed at the hut with the revolver. It wasn’t aimed at me anymore, but it wasn’t back in his holster either. He let me precede him, opened the door and motioned for me to enter first. I didn’t think he was being polite. The hut was one open room, with a table and chairs, a bench in front of the hearth on the left where a woodstove served for cooking and heating, and a couple of beds along the other wall. There were windows on either side of the door and one at the back. It was a nice place in the mountains, except for the gun in my back.

“Have a seat, Billy.” I sat at one end of the table and he poured a glass of water from a wooden jug and placed it in front of me. One-handed, since the revolver dangled from his right hand. He walked to the other end of the table and sat down, placing the gun on the table. Within easy reach. I took a drink and put my glass down, within easy reach. It wasn’t as comforting as a gun. The cabin smelled of pine and ashes.

“Don’t get much company up here, Anders?”

He smiled. “I’m very careful about who gets invited here. And you are not on the guest list, Billy. Tell me why you are here, and how you know about this place.” Anders leaned forward, locking his gaze on to me. His arms were folded, his right hand just inches from the revolver.

I didn’t like the way this was going. I knew it would be tricky, coming up on Anders unexpectedly, but I thought that after he saw it was me, there’d be slaps on the back and old home week. Not the third degree, with a gun on the table.

“You could’ve killed me out there, you know.”

“Or you me. In my business, a man sneaking up on a secret location usually means trouble. For me, unless I make it trouble for him.”

“I can explain that. Rolf Kayser is due here tomorrow, right?”

“Yes,” Anders answered. “Why, and how do you know that?”

I relaxed a bit. He was curious-that was better than suspicious. “Jens told me. He told me about this place and how to get to it, and that Rolf Kayser was due to meet you here tomorrow.”

“Yes. The underground brought the message several days ago. I was surprised to learn Rolf himself was meeting me. I didn’t know he was in on this mission. What are you doing here, Billy?” His hand went up to rub his chin. Away from the revolver, a good sign.

“I’ve come because of the murder of Knut Birkeland. And the murder of Daphne Seaton.”

“What! Daphne? Who killed them? Was it Rolf?” Shock and surprise showed on his face, his mouth hanging half open as he tried to take in what I’d told him. Now he was hooked.

“Yes. He also tried to kill Kaz.”

“My God! But Kaz is alive?”

“Barely. Do you know much about the Kayser family?”

“No. What do they have to do with this? Slow down, please, and explain.”

I told him. About the pictures, the explosion, the family fish-oil business. I left out the part about Victoria Brey and how she had seen Anders early on the morning Birkeland had been killed. It didn’t seem necessary, especially with a loaded gun on the table.

“So you must have suspected me also?” Anders asked.

“I did, but I couldn’t see a motive for you. But Kaz found out about Kayser’s property from those propaganda photos.”

“Billy, propaganda is what the other side does. We do public relations. But what about the timing of the murder? Didn’t you say that it took place while Rolf was out shooting with the king?”

I told him my theory. He sat back and thought a while.

“Yes, it all fits, except for the note. How could Rolf have gotten Knut to write such a note? He was hardly the type of man to give in to intimidation.”

“I don’t know for sure, but I got an idea when Jens doctored my orders.”

I told him about how we had concocted a new set of orders authorizing this trip.

“So you are not here officially? Only Jens knows you are here, and he could be court-martialed if his collusion became known?”

I hadn’t looked at it that way before. I didn’t like the direction the conversation had taken.

“I’m sure he’s told Harding by now. Both he and Major Cosgrove must be aware of it.”

Anders spread his fingers on the rough wood table. It was marked with cigarette burns around the edges; a thin layer of varnish had long ago faded into the grain. He looked at the tabletop, as if it held an answer to a question. Then he looked up at me.

“Billy, you are playing a dangerous game. You are on a secret mission within a secret mission. You could be betrayed and no one would ever know.”

“Except my betrayer.”

“Yes. For some, that would be a burden. For others, a relief. Tell me, why have you come?”

“For Rolf Kayser.”

“I didn’t ask for whom. Why?”

“He’s a killer. A murderer. He killed for his own gain first, and then to cover it up, he killed Daphne. He’ll probably escape into a new identity and never be brought to justice if I don’t stop him.”

“Billy, people are being killed every day. Innocent or not. By accident or design. Bombs fall from the sky on cities all across Europe. Ships sink. Soldiers are shot, blown apart, maimed. Think how meaningless those two deaths are in the midst of all this killing.”

“They’re not meaningless to me. I knew Daphne. I know what she wanted out of life. What she’ll never have. What Kaz has lost. I don’t know all those other people. There’s nothing I can do about that. That’s war.”

“But justice for one person, that you can do something about?”

“Yes, I can. I have to.”

“Why? Why you?”

Fair question. One night, long enough after his shooting that we didn’t think about it all the time, I was having a beer with Dad down at Kirby’s. We were finishing up, about to head home for supper, when I blurted it out. I asked him what Basher had given him that day when they argued and he had thrown the package away. He knew I was asking a bigger question, but those were the only words I could get my mouth to utter.

“Too much,” Dad had said, as he started to slide out of the booth. Then he stopped and moved back.

“There’s a balance in life, Billy. There’s the law, and then there’s what people do every day, the rules that they live by. The two aren’t always the same, but they can’t run head-on into each other, or else everything falls apart. We enforce the law, and do a good job at it. We also do what we have to do to take care of our families and each other. In this world, son, no one else will. Basher didn’t understand that. He wanted everything, more than he needed. But he couldn’t do it alone. He needed others, and he was working his way through the force, looking for the right kind of partners. It was too much, Billy, it was pulling everything out of balance.”

“What was it in that package?” I’d asked. Dad had looked down at the table, drawing the flat of his hand across it, clearing something off that I couldn’t see.

“The truth is, Billy boy, I don’t know. He told me it was worth a fortune. I’m no angel, I know that. But I also know I wasn’t about to sell my soul for a fortune or for a plugged nickel. The package went out in the trash. Now let’s go home.”

We did. We had pot roast and never spoke about it again.