D. Mitchell: The King of Terrors

‘Your mother was very special, to give her life for another. I don’t know if I could do that.’ He thought back to Fitzroy. All he had to do was say no but he couldn’t even manage that. He felt small, pathetic, useless, surrounded by all these brave people that held up a mirror to his own cowardice.

‘I guess it was hatred that drove her too,’ she said. ‘This time it was hatred of herself, at what she’d become. She was a Polish Jew, born in early 1945 shortly after her mother, my grandmother, arrived in Auswich. She was born into the camp. Stephanie and her mother survived, but her entire family were wiped out. Not an aunt, uncle or cousin remaining. They came to England after the war, settled in the north, Stephanie being put through university on the back of my grandmother’s hard graft in the cotton mills. She never really saw her daughter’s success, because ill health brought on by her time in the camps eventually killed her, leaving Stephanie all alone. All alone except for her medical career, which she threw all her energies into, doing the best she could for her mother’s sake. She got spotted and recruited by Lambert-Chide as an exceptional researcher for Project Gilgamesh.

‘But she finds herself involved in experiments that she convinces herself are for the greater good. She looks like she has everything — money, a bright career ahead of her and the patronage of one of the world’s wealthiest men. But the Lunar Club did some digging into her past, looking for some kind of emotional lever, maybe even something they could use as blackmail. Being historians they soon found out what had happened to her family during the Second World War. Pipistrelle used that information to make her see things as they were, and the evil nature of what they were doing to another human being. Confronted with this she realised that she was no better than those sick bastards at Auswich and she was horrified, felt compelled to do something to help. I don’t know, maybe it was partly some kind of atonement for her part in things; maybe by getting your mother out of Project Gilgamesh she was helping her own mother out of Auswich. Who knows exactly what goes on in people’s fucked-up heads?’ She tore off a chunk of bread and stuffed it into her mouth. ‘As for me, well I’m the product of one of a number of short-term relationships she had. Seems she struggled to hold them down.’ She gave a flicker of a smile. ‘Same trouble here. Like mother like daughter, eh?’ Then the smile wafted away as if on a breeze.

‘You don’t fool me,’ he said. ‘You come over as cold and heartless, but that isn’t you.’

‘No? What do you know?’

‘I know that it’s a mask you wear. It’s because you care that you are like you are, that you’ve done what you’ve done. So what is it, your time out in Afghanistan?’

She got hurriedly to her feet. ‘That’s not open for discussion.’

‘Who are you really fighting here, Doradus or your own little demons?’

‘Cut it, Davies.’ She went to the door.

‘Something screwed you up, that’s for sure,’ he said. ‘I’m betting this is the tale of a lonely young woman, missing a mother she never knew. I reckon she’s the worst kind of angry teenager and needs somewhere to let it all out, something to kick at when she’s finished kicking at all the doors she can. So somehow she ends up in the army. She finds comradeship, yet she can lose herself in a faceless mass. She’s good at her job, because she’s good at anything she does, launches herself into whatever it is with a passion, because passion burns up energy, helps burn up the hatred in her. Maybe they put her on special ops or something. Whatever it was they trained her for she witnesses things that screws up her head even more, because war isn’t therapy; it’s hell. She’s discharged but the war doesn’t go away, and neither does the lonely teenager kicking at doors. It’s all still in there, poisoning the soul. Then somehow she stumbles across what Pipistrelle’s been involved with. She persuades him to tell her about Evelyn and me. More importantly, she finds out how her mother really died. I don’t know, maybe Pipistrelle has to tell her because he needs her help. Whatever happened, she gets involved too. In some ways it suits her. It’s what she needs. Doradus is another door to kick against. She’s found her own private War on Terror.’ She had her back to him. He saw she was breathing heavily. ‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ he said.

‘It’s going to be light in a couple of hours,’ she said dully. ‘We can stay here for a while but we need to be out by nightfall.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not leaving her,’ he said.

Caroline came across and bent down to her. She felt at Erica’s neck for a pulse. ‘You don’t need to worry about that. She’s dead,’ she said evenly. Then her eyes softened. ‘I’m sorry.’

Gareth was choked into silence. Whilst he’d been talking Erica had slipped quietly away. He stroked the woman’s shoulders tenderly, and without warning, against his will, he burst into a fit of uncontrollable tears. Caroline left him alone, going outside to stand in the cold, her arms folded tightly around her. She stared up at the massive cathedral-like dome of the sky as dawn began to furl back the chill of night.

‘What time is it?’

She glanced at her watch. ‘Five minutes to six.’

‘You let me sleep for too long,’ said Gareth, rising to his elbows. He looked over to Erica’s blanket covered body, and the events of the previous night came thundering in on him again. At least sleep had blotted it all out for a time, exhaustion dulling the pain and the implications of it all. He was surprised, though, that he’d slept the entire day and into the early evening.

‘You needed it,’ she said. She was messing around with a small digital radio, flipping through channels. She looked agitated.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘You need to hear something.’

‘Lionel Ritchie is hardly appropriate, given the circumstances.’

‘Tough.’ A guitar blasted out.

‘Turn it off. It’s not right. She’s dead, if it escaped your notice.’

‘She’s hardly likely to complain about the noise, is she?’ When she turned to face him he could tell something was troubling her.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s nothing wrong,’ she said, lowering the volume for his benefit. She took out two boxes from the army satchel. ‘What do you think; black or chestnut brown?’

‘Look, Caroline, forget the bloody hair dye! We’ve got to talk…’

‘Black, I reckon.’ She stuffed the other box into the satchel.

‘What are we going to do?’ he said.

‘About what in particular?’

‘Jesus, Caroline! About Erica here, about Tremain, Lambert-Chide and Doradus! We’re in a whole heap of shit and all you’re concerned about is listening to Radio Two and hair dye!’

She shrugged. ‘Can’t argue with you there,’ she said.

He swept back the blankets, his body feeling stiff and sore from long hours on the hard floor. In spite of the many hours sleep he still felt immensely tired, his head still heavy, mind unfocussed. He was drawn against his will to keep looking at Erica’s shrouded body, and each time he felt a ballooning anger that he couldn’t tamp down. Before sleep claimed him he’d sat there with his grief gradually morphing into rage, turning the gun over in his hand, no longer afraid of it, needing to use it, needing to enact swift revenge. He scraped it up off the floorboards now; already the gun felt all too familiar, too comfortable.

‘If I’d just gotten into the damn car earlier she might be alive today,’ he said. ‘It’s my fault.’