Alex Palmer - Blood Redemption

‘That’s no surprise,’ Trevor said, ‘they wouldn’t want us traipsing around. So what do we do now? Just tie up the murder investigation and leave it at that?’

‘That’s about it, yeah,’ Harrigan replied.

‘It’s nice of them to think we’ve got enough brainpower to do that.

That shouldn’t take too long, I guess,’ Ian said. ‘Not much to wrap up there.’

‘I’ve got you positions at the Agency. I’m looking to act you both up at positions a level above the ones you’re in now,’ he said.

‘What more could we want?’ Trevor said. ‘Do you want us to thank you?’

‘No, mate. I want you to do your job and I’m sure you will. Where’s Louise?’

‘The last time I saw Lou, her eyes were disappearing into the top of her head,’ Ian said. ‘Why don’t you ring her at home? Of course, she probably won’t have dried out yet.’

‘I will,’ he said. ‘Okay, thanks. I’ll see you both tomorrow at the Agency.’

‘We’ll be there,’ they said, and left his office.

He wondered if they would ever trust him enough again to have a drink with him.

Shortly after, Grace appeared.

‘How are you?’ he said.

‘I’m fine. You need to read this.’

She handed him a letter which he read over with interest.

‘You didn’t need any help from me,’ he said. ‘This is a very good job you’ve landed. Very prestigious.’

‘Do you think so? Not as prestigious as yours though, is it?’ she replied, smiling at him, making him smile back. ‘What happened to my shirt?’

‘I’m afraid it’s cactus, Grace. It lasted about ten minutes. I can get you a new one.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just a shirt.’

‘Yeah, I guess. Do you still want to see me tonight? Will you come and spend the night at my place?’

‘I don’t know where you live,’ she said.

She thought, I don’t even know who you are outside of this place.

He wrote his address on a piece of paper and gave it to her.

‘Do you want to go out? I can get some takeaway if you like,’ he said.

‘No, let me do that. All right, I’ll see you there. Seven-thirty?’

‘Yeah. It’ll be good to see you.’

She smiled and left. Yes, it would be. He would need her company, after today.

Grace arrived at Harrigan’s house in the mid evening, walking down wide stone steps and then through the lush plants overgrown onto the flagstones, to see him through the open door to his lighted kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, watching him loosening his tie at the end of the day.

‘Hi,’ he said, seeing her there. ‘You’re here.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, hesitating a little.

‘Do you want to come in?’

‘Sure.’

She walked in and placed a hessian carry bag on his kitchen table.

‘It’s a nice place you’ve got here,’ she said.

‘Are you going to ask me how I can afford it?’

‘No,’ she said, surprised.

‘People ask me that question. It was in the family, I inherited it.’

She shrugged.

‘It’s not my business. Why should I care?’

He walked up to her and stroked her cheek.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long day and I must be feeling got at. It’s nice to see you.’

‘Yeah.’

They kissed for some moments in the middle of the kitchen. Then he held her. She felt him relax against her, draw breath.

He put bowls on the table, she emptied the contents of the carry bag onto the kitchen bench, a collection of white plastic containers, together with whole limes and bottles of soda water.

‘For fresh lime and soda,’ she said. ‘That’s what I said I’d have if I got out of that place alive yesterday. So I am. That’s for me. But you really need white wine for this dish.’

‘What about beer?’ he said.

‘Yes. Beer is good.’

‘What can I contribute to this?’ he asked as he set out glasses for them both.

‘Nothing,’ she said shaking her head, ‘this is from me.’

They ate in his dining room, a white-painted, high-ceilinged room with bare polished floorboards. She set the meal out and said how it should be eaten. He sipped cold light beer while he ate, and relaxed.

They spoke little at first, there seemed to be no need for it.

‘I like your mirror,’ she said, after one of their silences.

He looked up at the wide mirror above the fireplace. It reflected the room they sat in, the hallway through the door and then the wide white room that he’d had built for Toby. The frame was a plainly carved reddish-gold timber.

‘It was my aunt’s,’ he said. ‘No one knows what sort of wood that is. But you look at it and it’s beautiful. I’ve never seen it anywhere else.’

‘Has it always been there?’

‘Yeah, it has. She used to say it was hanging there when she was a girl. It arrived with the house, I think.’

‘Looking back in time,’ Grace said. ‘Everyone in your family has been reflected in that mirror at some time or another.’

‘That’s true,’ he said, glancing back up at it.

Things he would prefer not to think about or ever to see again.

‘This is good food,’ he said, ‘I don’t usually eat this well.’

‘Yeah, they are good cooks. They know what they’re doing.’

They had both finished eating but she did not ask to smoke. She sent a shiver down her spine, releasing tension, a gesture he was beginning to recognise. He thought of the shape and the line of her back. It was his turn to suggest that they should go to bed. He wanted to make love to her but he also needed the comfort of her body at the end of a rough day. He cleared the dishes into the ancient dishwasher while she stopped to scratch the cat’s head.

‘What an ugly-looking thing you are,’ she said, as Menzies batted his lumpy head ecstatically against her hand.

‘He’s another heirloom,’ Harrigan said.

He turned out the lights and they went upstairs to bed.

In the darkness of the early morning, while his father slept with Grace, Toby Harrigan dreamed electronic words in his sleep. I’m here for you,you remember that, Lucy. Talk to me from where you are. I’m here inthis body, you’re there in that cell. I can reach you and you can reachme. Someone has to be there for you and it’s me. Remember that.

In her cell, Lucy turned in her bunk, thinking not of the end of the world but of the beginning of time. Time starts for me now, Turtle, I have to find the ways to deal with what happens now, whatever that is. With knowing where I’ve been, what I’ve done, all that weight. I have to do that. You wait, Turtle. I’ll do it because I’ve got no choice.

Grace herself woke suddenly, as though she had heard these very words when they were spoken in Lucy’s mind, and drew in a quick, shallow breath at the memory of a young girl facing her with a gun in her hand. She felt the warmth of Paul’s body next to hers and listened to her heart beating strongly with fright. She sat up. There was no one in the room other than themselves and nothing to fear. She looked at Paul, where he slept beside her. You don’t have to be afraid of this closeness either, she told herself. Not all men are sleeping demons. She lay down beside him and slept again.