Owen Sheers - I Saw a Man

As Michael neared the bath, he closed in on that memory again, until, without any disturbance of translation, he was no longer alone and Caroline was there too, naked in the bath, looking up at him. And he was looking down at her, into her brown-and-gold eyes and her fine-featured face breaking, as he watched, into a smile full of promises.

He tried to breathe, but the air had been pressed out of him. The room was dimming, fading to a set of tea lights guttering in the steam. He reached out, for her, but also to find the bottle. The one among those many that had summoned her like this. He had to know which one it was.

He leant forward, his hand outstretched. But as he did Caroline began to haze. She was fading, leaving him already. It was like a second death, watching her go. He heard himself say “no,” like a condemned man against the certainty of his sentence. But it was no use. There was no change in her expression, her smile holding as she left him, as if he, not she, had been the ghost.

Michael dropped to his knees, reaching to touch her disappearing shoulder. But it was more than the vision could carry, and as his hand fell through empty air, so the room returned to him: the sunlight through the window, the enamel tub, the miniature bottles, and beyond the door at his back, a noise.

At first Michael thought the sound was part of the apparition. But when all trace of Caroline had gone, he heard it again. A movement, something brushing against carpet. He froze, still on his knees beside the bath, straining to listen. A knock against wood. A floorboard giving under weight.

The air came rushing back to his lungs, and with it a sudden clarity. He was on his knees in his neighbours’ bathroom, sweat prickling his neck, between his shoulder blades, on his brow. It had all been so quick. Time, with that scent and with her, had evaporated. It had ceased to mean anything. But now, he knew, it meant everything. He was not alone. He must leave.

Leaning his arms against the edge of the bath, he pushed himself up and rose to his feet. He listened again. There was nothing. Perhaps he’d been wrong. Perhaps it was the wind, blowing through an open window. But there was no wind. The day was becalmed. Had someone broken in before him after all? Or what if it wasn’t an intruder, and Josh was still in the house? Whichever, he should take his chance while he could. He could be out of the bathroom, down the stairs, and through the kitchen in seconds. Within half a minute he could be in his garden. Within a few more in his flat. But he would have to go now, quickly and quietly. Otherwise it would be too late.

In two strides Michael was out of the bathroom door and onto the landing. Which is when he saw Lucy, standing at the head of the stairs, looking back at him.

She was wearing her pyjamas: pink bottoms with a pink-and-white striped top, a boat in full sail across her stomach. Her hair was flattened on one side, like hay under wind, her one cheek still scored by the creases of her pillow. For a split second her eyes were heavy with sleep. But now, starting at the sight of him, they were instantly alert, alive with panic at the cross-wiring of seeing Michael, his face wet with tears and his hands muddied, bursting from the bathroom where only her parents should be.

Her whole body flinched with the shock. At the same moment she stepped back, one bare foot reaching for purchase behind her where none was to be found. Michael lunged towards her, but it was too late. She was already falling, so suddenly her hands remained by her sides as she tipped backwards, her eyes still on Michael as once again he grabbed at nothing but air.

The force of his lunge sent him sprawling across the landing as Lucy’s torso, legs, and feet slipped out of sight below the top of the stairs. He saw nothing else, but he heard everything. The terrible thudding and knocking of her body and head, sudden and loud in the stilled house. And then, just as suddenly, nothing again.

Clutching at the carpet and calling her name, Michael dragged himself forward. But it was pointless. He looked over the top of the stairway and saw Lucy lying below him, head down in the crook of its turn. Her right arm was behind her back and her left leg was twisted awkwardly under her. Her eyes were closed. The striped pyjama top had ridden up in the fall, furling the boat’s sail and exposing her pale belly. From his prone position at the top of the stairs Michael stared down at that strip of plump flesh, the dimpled belly button, willing it to rise and fall with a breath. But it remained motionless, and so did Lucy.

FOR THE FIRST three days after he left Las Vegas, Daniel drove the Sonoma coastline, sleeping in his car and eating at roadside diners or crab shacks on the cliffs. Cathy hadn’t asked him to leave. But she hadn’t tried to stop him, either. Even if she had, Daniel would still have gone. He knew he had to.

As he’d driven 95 north and then west, past Creech and on towards Reno and Sacramento, Daniel had told himself this was no more than what he’d done when he used to go on tour: to Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan. Back then he’d left his family to keep them safe, and it was the same now. He hadn’t been sleeping, or when he did he dreamt in infrared, or night-vision black and green. He was becoming more erratic. He’d been drinking during the day. Twice in the last month the girls had found him crying on the decking out back. The dreams were getting worse. More frequent, but more varied, too. The motorcyclist had been joined by the two boys on the bicycle, by an old man walking along the other side of a wall, by a young marine straying from his patrol onto a mine. And now by her, too. No more than a blur of white in the back of the van, a brushstroke of silk. But enough.

They’d told him and Maria the following day. When they’d arrived at Creech for their evening shift, instead of going straight to the briefing room as usual, they’d been requested to go to another part of the base. The hut they were directed towards was on the far side of Creech from the ground control stations. Daniel had never been there before, and as a guard escorted them across the airfield, its yellow guidelines curving towards the runways, he knew something wasn’t right. Maria, too, looked uncomfortable. Neither of them spoke.

As they neared a long hut with no windows, Daniel looked through one of the hangars to their right. It was open at either end, silhouetting the domed heads and rotor blades of three Predators parked up at their stands. It was in one of those hangars Daniel had seen his first UAV, a Reaper Mark II. It had been on his first day at Creech, when he was still training. Their civilian instructor, an ex — fighter pilot called Riley, had stood before them, patting the Reaper’s flank. Daniel had been surprised at how large it was, twenty-seven feet from nose to tail. And how blind. No windows, no cockpit. Just a grey ball slung beneath its head, housing a Multi-Spectral Targeting System of cameras, sensors, lenses, and lasers. “Think of it as a giant bee, gentlemen,” Riley told them, pointing to the missile mounts under each wing. “A giant bee with one hell of a sting.”

The wing commander, Colonel Ellis, was waiting for them inside the hut. A civilian in a suit sat beside him. “This is Agent Munroe, CIA,” the colonel said. Agent Munroe nodded to them as Ellis, dismissing the guard, gestured for Daniel and Maria to sit down. Both men had open manila files before them. The colonel looked down at his sheaf of pages, lifting their corners to read.

The reports, Agent Munroe told them, were still coming in. But from what they knew so far, when the Intel patrol went in last night they’d found evidence of foreign nationals killed in the strike. “We also know,” he said with a small sigh, “that a British film crew, with a Swedish cameraman, have been missing from their accommodation in Islamabad for over twenty-four hours.” He spoke slowly, clearly, like a tired teacher.