Alex Palmer - Blood Redemption

‘And for this,’ he continued, ‘you want to give yourself up to the police. You don’t even know who the police are. I want you to look at this. It’s all right, I don’t have a gun in here.’

He reached into an inside pocket and took out a photograph which he skidded across the floor to her. Lucy put her gun on the bed. She reached down and picked it up.

‘Her name is on the back,’ he said. ‘She’s with the police but that’s not all she is.’

Turning it over, Lucy looked at a card that had been stapled onto the back, peering at it in the half light.

‘Grace,’ she said. She looked at Graeme watching her. The sight of his face made her pick up her gun again.

‘That woman is a torturer, Lucy. She’s the woman they sent to persecute Greg.’ His voice became a quiet rustling whisper that ate into the intimacy of her thoughts. She pulled back from his gaze but could not escape his words. ‘I’m sure he feared her. I’m sure when she had him in a cell she tormented him beyond endurance. I don’t find it at all surprising that he should be driven to take his own life. She would put that seed into his head herself. Think of her saying to him: You are nothing. Why not die now? She’s a torturer and a witch. We took that picture of her when she was on her way into an abortuary. Bronwyn stopped her. She said, think of that innocent child you’re about to kill. She laughed in Bronwyn’s face. She assaulted her. Get out of my way, she said. Watch me while I kill. That woman walks blood through the streets. Can you imagine what will happen to you when you put yourself in her hands?

She will know how to hurt you. Do you want to be tortured the way you were in your own family? Because this time you will be in gaol for ever and there will be no way out. No streets to escape to.’

His voice had become a sound in her own mind. She felt surprised when it became silent. The gun hung loosely in her hands. She did not speak.

‘Now there is someone who deserves to die, don’t you think?’

Lucy swallowed. ‘I couldn’t get near her.’

‘Finding her wouldn’t be hard. We have her address. But you wouldn’t have to go to her. In her arrogance, she would come to you.

And you would be waiting for her. Then the police would know what they really are. That this war does not work just one way. They can be defeated, they can suffer humiliation as much as anyone else.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to kill anyone. Maybe I’ve done enough of that.’

‘You have a building that’s about to burn. People could die as a result of that if that’s what worries you.’

‘No, they won’t. I’m not hurting anyone. There’s no one in there.’

‘Fires spread. The rain has stopped, there’s nothing to prevent it now. That building is a Hellhole, it will burn fiercely. Others around it may also burn. I don’t say it will happen. I won’t be concerned if it does. That building has to be expunged from the face of the earth and if that’s the price to be paid, so be it. But I do say to you, you have the courage others lack. I can help you. I can get you out of here.’

‘How can you get me out of here?’

‘I can get a car sent here to pick you up. You stay and lock yourself in. I’ll have them come for you tomorrow evening. No one will notice anything. Then there will be a nice house for you to rest in until we can send you away to safety.’

‘Yeah. And along the way I end up dead.’

‘No, Lucy. You will have nothing to be afraid of because I will know that I can rely on you. You will prove it to me. That woman is a murderer. But you will expunge her evil. And you know that it’ll take only a few seconds because you’ve done it before. We’ll help you.

Believe me, we will. You are someone very special.’

Lucy sat with the gun lying loosely in her lap. She thought: my throat is full of broken bones.

‘What will you do?’ he asked.

‘I have to think.’

‘There’s no time.’

She sat for a few moments in silence. ‘You trust me, do you, Graeme? If you think I’m someone special?’

‘Would I ask you to do this if I didn’t trust you absolutely?’

‘Then I want some things from you. I need a phone. My phone’s dead. Have you got one?’

‘I can let you have the one I’ve got with me. Why do you need it?’

‘I just need it, okay? Don’t ask questions. Don’t worry, it hasn’t got anything to do with you.’

After a moment’s silence, he took his mobile phone out of his pocket and passed it over to her. She looked at it, then dropped it on the bed.

‘You have to be careful who you call. You don’t know who is listening these days,’ he said.

‘There’s something else I want.’

‘What is it?’

‘I want a key to the Temple.’

‘You can’t come anywhere near the Temple, Lucy. The police are watching it twenty-four hours a day. They’re across the road in that offensive woman’s house and they think I can’t see them.’

‘I want my key to the Temple back, Graeme. I want that more than anything.’

‘There’s no need. You can’t use it.’

‘You’ve just said I’m special. Prove it. I used to have a key and we both know why I don’t have one any more. I know you, I’ve watched you. You ask people in and then you lock them out again whenever you feel like it. And you never tell them why. You’re not doing that to me. People have been lying to me all my life. I have to know that you can’t lock me out after this. Not with what you’re asking me to do.’

After a moment’s silence, he took his set of keys out of his pocket.

‘The keys to the kingdom,’ he said. ‘You can have this one.’

‘How do I know you’re not lying to me?’

‘You can see it’s new. I’ll show you.’ He matched the two new keys to each other, the shiny brass finish gleamed faintly in the weak light.

He slipped one of them off the key ring and handed it to her.

‘It’s nice to have you back, Lucy. Don’t lose this. It’s the only spare key I have and I won’t be having another one cut.’

‘I never lose anything I want to keep,’ she said, slipping it into her jeans pocket.

‘This brings you back to the heart of things. You won’t leave it again now. You’ll always be there.’

She did not answer this. She looked at her watch. He stood up. He was smiling and relaxed.

‘Aren’t you going to wait with me for that building to go up?’

‘No, I think I should go now. Some sleep for us both would be in order. And a new day tomorrow, a new life.’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ she said.

She stood up also, leaving her gun and the phone on the bed. He opened the door, then stopped. She was quite close to him. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

‘You are very brave,’ he said.

She watched him leave, he did not look back.

In the room, she sat on the bed. I’m hungry, Graeme, you could have brought me something to eat. Her throat ached, she would not have been able to swallow anything. She had been hungry before; it was not unusual for her to go without food. She had gone hungry for longer than this when she was out on the streets. There was no sound in the room. Her own breathing, the movement of her blood, was reduced to a regular, silent beat in her ears. Her gun lay beside her on the bed. She looked at her watch. There wasn’t much time.

Harrigan was taking a catnap when a sleepy-eyed Trevor shook him by the shoulder.

‘The Firewall’s online,’ he said.

‘Is she talking to Grace?’ He said her name as just another of his officers.

‘No. She’s updating her website. Come and see.’

He followed Trevor into the computer room. The graveyard shift had already gathered there. Grace sat a little to the side, watching from where she was seated in front her own monitor. She did not seem to notice him.