D. Mitchell: The King of Terrors

She lifted up a loose board and stuck her hand deep down inside the hole. She pulled out a black plastic bag, then another, and then reached in again. She removed a primus stove from the hole and out of the black bags she removed a few tins of food, basic items of crockery and a small pan. ‘All the home comforts you could ask for,’ she said. From the other bag she produced what looked like a green army satchel of some kind. He noticed a red cross emblazoned on it. She snapped open the fasteners.

‘You think this woman really is my mother?’

Caroline regarded him from under her brows. ‘Let’s have a look at her,’ she said, ignoring him for the moment. Between them they gingerly removed Erica’s sweatshirt and Caroline screwed up her nose. ‘Damn, that looks real bad.’ She took a pulse. ‘Real bad. I can do my best dress the wound, give her something for the pain, but the bullet is lodged deep inside. She’s bleeding internally, and fading fast.’ She looked up at him. ‘Yes, she’s your mother, Gareth. She put herself between you and a bullet to save her son’s life. If you want final proof then look at her. She’s dying, Gareth. She’s dying because she put herself in danger to save you. And I don’t just mean stopping one of Tremain’s bullets. She could easily have stayed in hiding, gone abroad somewhere, but no, she put her life at risk as soon as she came to warn you. Some might call it motherly love; I call it stupidity. She’d have been better off keeping her head low. But I don’t have kids, so what do I know?’

‘She can’t die,’ he said, alarmed. ‘We have to get her to a doctor, get her to hospital.’

‘It’s too late for that, Gareth,’ she said, the cotton wool she used to clean the wound sopping wet with blood. ‘I saw plenty of this out in Afghanistan. She’s not going to live long.’ She put on a mock German accent: ‘For her the war is over…’

‘How can you be so fucking cruel?’ he cried angrily.

‘Cruel!’ she returned. ‘I’m not the one who’s been in denial, especially after all that’s happened to you. This woman, yes, she’s worth it — you, well I’m not so sure. Why have we all put ourselves in danger for you? Go ahead, if it pleases you, take her to the nearest hospital and let’s see how long she’ll live then. I’d give her a day or so before Doradus and his mob got to her, that’s even if she managed to live that long, which she won’t. All we can do now is make her comfortable, give her something to ease the pain, but beyond that if I were you I’d take this last chance to be with your mother. Christ knows, you’ve waited long enough, both of you have. At least you’re lucky; my mother died when I was only a year old, trying to help this woman. I never had that chance. So stop your fucking moaning and make out like a good son whilst you can, eh?’

She tended to the wound as best as she could, treated it and bandaged it and covered Erica with a blanket. In silence she fired up the primus stove and opened a couple of cans of soup, then left them alone together on the pretext of getting more provisions from the boot of the car.

Gareth brushed back Erica’s hair from her forehead. Her face was dreadfully pale, her breathing shallow, and he was instantly reminded of the night they first met in the snow-covered lane not far from Deller’s End, an age ago now. ‘Can you hear me?’ he said softly. ‘Erica, can you hear anything I say? Don’t die on me. Please don’t die.’

He fell quiet when Caroline came back into the room. She dumped a couple of carrier bags unceremoniously onto the floor. ‘Best get something to eat,’ she advised.

‘I can’t! How can I eat?’ He stroked Erica’s shoulder. ‘So what, we sit around eating soup till she dies, is that it?’

‘It’s all I can suggest. Welcome to our world. You’d better get used to it; it’s your world now.’

He rose shakily to his feet. ‘I’ve got to go get help. I’m not just going to stand here and watch…‘ He paused, the words lodging in his throat. ‘I’m not going to watch this woman die before my eyes without lifting a finger to help her. I’m going out to get help, phone for an ambulance’

‘You can’t do that, and you know it.’

‘This Pipistrelle you work for, this Lunar Club — get them to help. For God’s sake, do something can’t you?’

‘I am,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m fixing you soup.’

‘You’re fucking crazy!’ he said, storming to the door.

‘She’ll be dead before you get back,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you rather spend what little time you have with her? For her sake? After all she’s tried to do for you, after all the hell this poor woman has been through for countless years. It’s the least you can do. She’s had to endure severe and crushing loneliness for years, decades, centuries even. Don’t let her die lonely. At least let her die in the company of someone who she loves, and who loves her in return.’

He was taken aback by the tenderness in her voice, her hard exterior powdering away for a few telling seconds. She poured soup into the pan, watched it begin to bubble furiously under the intense heat. He came slowly back into the room, sat down beside the mattress and took Erica’s lifeless hand.

‘But if she’s immortal surely she can’t die,’ he said helplessly.

‘She’s not invulnerable. She ain’t no Superwoman. If she got hit by a bus, or a bullet for that matter, the effect is the same as on your ordinary person. We’re all mortal. So my advice is not to go around thinking you’re Superman, either. If I kick you in the balls then you’re going to feel it.’

‘What makes you so sure I’m like her? We don’t know who my father is.’

‘We’re not sure. But there’s a good fifty-fifty chance you are. Lambert-Chide was willing to bet you inherited her longevity gene, and Doradus wasn’t going to take any chances at all; he was going to bump you off just to make doubly sure. Something he’ll continue to do until he finishes the job.’

‘And you? Why are you taking a chance for someone who might turn out to be just another ordinary Joe?’

Caroline took bread out of its cellophane wrapper and poured soup into two plastic dishes. She handed one over to Gareth. ‘Don’t expect me to play house all the time,’ she said.

‘You’re avoiding my question again,’ he said. ‘Why are you involved in all this? Was it simply to get at Tremain?’

She blew over the hot soup, steam flaking off like spirits. ‘Pipistrelle is my father,’ she said, then checked herself. ‘Well, not really my father. I’ve no idea who that is. But he cared for me, brought me up when my mother died. He’s the only family I’ve got. I haven’t got anyone else. Regular orphan Annie.’

‘What is he, some kind of vigilante?’

She smirked. ‘Hardly the type,’ she said. She put the dish on the floor. ‘Look, final history lesson, so listen up. Pipistrelle — real name Charles Rayne. This all began when his grandfather, Inspector Thomas Rayne, a cop in the Met, investigated the murder of a man called Jimmy Tate back in 1929. It’s a murder that’s never solved. In fact a lid seemed to be put on the case, and Thomas Rayne finds himself put conveniently out of action when he starts to get close to the truth. Anyhow, he continues with his investigations privately. Charles Rayne, his grandson, takes over the project when his grandfather dies. He gradually builds upon his grandfather’s studies and is amazed to confirm what his grandfather had posited. See, once he realised Evelyn Carter had used one false ID after another, always following the same pattern of taking on a dead person’s identity he was able, over twenty years additional painstaking research, to build up a bigger picture as to how long she’d been doing it. And it turns out that stretched back a mighty long time.