Ken McClure - The Anvil

Myers looked at Carrie’s injuries as she lay on the operating table and whispered to MacLean, ‘Are you serious?’

‘Trust me,’ said MacLean. ‘Remove exactly what I tell you and then apply this compound.’ He placed the vials of Cytogerm on a metal tray beside the instruments.

Myers looked as if he might pull out of the whole thing for a moment but the look in MacLean’s eyes reassured him. He cut away the damaged tissue from Carrie’s face as instructed and used Cytogerm instead of skin grafts to fill the areas. The only difficult bit was in the reconstruction of Carrie’s mouth but MacLean knew that Myers had more than enough skill for the delicacy required. He watched his scalpel trace out a perfect line and said, ‘First rate. Now the Cytogerm.’

Finally Myers stood back from the table, stripping off his gloves and said, ‘How was that?’

‘I owe you, Ron,’ said MacLean. ‘That was a fine job. I’ll do the dressings.’

MacLean, who had not trusted his own hands to carry out the surgery, felt confident enough to apply the dressings to Carrie’s face. It seemed the perfect end to a nightmare but there was still the wait to come.

With each passing day Tansy and MacLean grew more confident that complications were not going to arise and four weeks to the day after the operation they and Ron Myers met in a small room at the clinic for the removal of the dressings. It was a magical moment when the last pad was removed from Carrie’s cheeks and she was revealed as the pretty little girl she’d been before the fire. Tansy broke down and hugged MacLean. Carrie was unsure about all the tears and sucked her thumb.’

Myers was dumbstruck. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he murmured. ‘I see it but I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s a one-off Ron,’ said MacLean. ‘Just call it a miracle.’

The difference to their lives was the difference between night and day for Tansy and MacLean. To have Carrie restored to them was everything they had wished for. Thanks to Willie MacFarlane, they had enough money to rebuild the white bungalow by the canal and this they did. Three weeks before Carrie’s sixth birthday they moved in. MacLean and Carrie resumed their Saturday expeditions.

On the Saturday before Carrie’s birthday, MacLean took her into town to choose a bicycle. She chose a red one and was disappointed when MacLean said that it would be delivered and no, she could not ride it home through town traffic. She was still insisting on her ability to do this when she bumped into a man by the door. She said sorry, sheepishly and MacLean smiled his own apologies.

When they got outside Carrie said, ‘That man was at our house yesterday.’

MacLean reeled under the impact of the words. He couldn’t speak for a moment. When he could, he asked, ‘What makes you say that Carrie?’

‘I saw him. He came to the door. Mummy said he was selling something.’

MacLean went out after tea, telling Tansy that he had a headache and needed some fresh air. In truth he had to face the nightmare that had surfaced before him like some kraaken from the ocean. He saw the figure up on the bridge from a long way off, dark suit, metal-framed glasses, the man from the bicycle shop.

MacLean knew what he had to do. He returned to the bungalow and spent the next two hours writing and putting various documents concerning the Anvil families into envelopes. At seven o’clock he told Tansy and Carrie that he had to go out again and kissed each of them lightly on the forehead.

This time he took the car and drove up the road to the canal bridge. He saw the man keeping vigil there and got out of the car some thirty metres away so that he would be seen. The man turned to look at MacLean who stood there motionless for fully ten seconds before getting back into the car and driving off. He drove slowly until he saw that the man was following, then he picked up speed and drove out of Edinburgh to the car park at the southern end of the Forth Road Bridge. He got out and walked out on the bridge footpath. The dark-suited man followed at a discrete distance.

MacLean stopped in the middle of the bridge and looked back. For a moment the two men looked at each other without rancour then MacLean climbed up on to the parapet and balanced briefly with his hands in the air. With a last look back, he launched himself out into the setting sun to fall like a wingless Icarus to his death.

Tansy found the letter under her pillow. It read:

My dear Tansy,

To have this happen to you twice in your life must seem almost unbearable but I do what I do not out of weakness but out of the strength your love has given me. The factions surrounding The Anvil have returned to exact their revenge and I know that the only way that you and Carrie can ever be safe demands that I forfeit my life. This I do now, my darling. Consider it my last gift to you both.

For ever,

Sean