The Killing Hour

The wound in his stomach, the knife wound from Monday morning, doesn’t hurt. His arm does, his arm where he was shot hurts, but not in a bad way —— it’s more of an awareness than anything else. A flesh wound. The other shots have only bruised him. The vest, the bulletproof vest he put on knowing Charlie had enough time to come up with a plan, is weighing him down. It’s becoming waterlogged and he realises he could drown here.

He kicks harder, and when he breaks the surface he’s moved further from the pier. The swinging rope is impossible to see. He buries himself beneath the water. He’s struggling to breathe because his upper body is sore from the impact of the bullets, and he’s struggling to breathe because he keeps getting pulled into the darkness beneath him. He kicks towards the beach, treading the waves. When he reaches the shore he falls onto his stomach, his face pressing into the sand. More sand whistles around him and bites into his wounds. He forces himself to his knees.

There has to be something, there has to be something he can do, somewhere to go, or somebody to help him. But he’s alone, just as he’s always alone, and he gets to his feet and heads down the beach. It’s dark and he has only a vague idea of where he’s heading, but already his mind is focusing, focusing, focusing on his next move.

He will get to taste revenge after all, he will get to taste it and after this, after all of this, he knows it will taste better than bitter sweet.

With a ferocious appetite he drags himself towards the road.





49


Water and fire. How can I have been so foolish? I look down at the rope and the black water and no Cyris. The rope has burned through and I’m an idiot for not seeing it would happen. As I watch another piece breaks away and hits the water.

I fire a couple of shots into the seascape before turning from the railing and running down the pier. My lungs hurt and my legs ache. The knowledge I carry is heavy. I wouldn’t put any money on Cyris having drowned.

I run towards the steps. The air is slightly clearer. It’s still windy as hell but I can see. The wind has pulled maybe five thousand bucks from the canvas bag, which hadn’t been closed all the way. The money swirls around, spent on the air by invisible fingers. I close the bag and take it downstairs, along with the shotgun. The K-bar is tucked into my back pocket so the handle points upwards. Sand blows in from the dunes, rolling along like low, grainy storm clouds. Cyris is still alive. I don’t doubt it. I shot him. I hanged him. I doused him in petrol and set him alight, turning him into a swinging candle. Then I tried to drown him. At the start of the week I stabbed him. So it isn’t Cyris I’m dealing with here, but Rasputin. Or perhaps even Satan.

I sprint towards the ocean and straight into Kathy. She raises her arms in a stopping gesture, and I manage to pull up. I don’t have time to have a conversation with my guilt, and I try to move around her, but she steps across to block me. Her hair doesn’t move in the wind. She’s wearing the same dress I saw her in last night.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and the wind runs my salty tears back into my hair. ‘I wish things could have been different, I really do, but I don’t have time.’

‘Don’t lose yourself, Charlie. Don’t lose your humanity.’

‘What?’

‘Go back to the beginning.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You will.’

Her ghost fades away, and I reach out and run my hands through the air where she just stood, expecting to feel her, or to feel complete coldness, but I feel nothing. The air is full of sand, more so down here, like that in movies set in Egypt or the desert where the hero gets caught in a sandstorm. I hold my hand to my face and peer between my fingers to shield my eyes. Even so sand slips through my fingers and I have to keep blinking it away. I can’t see Jo. I reach the waterline. I can’t see Cyris.

Can’t see a damn thing.

I head back to the pier. My legs are heavy in the sand. I keep my left hand in front of my face and my gun ahead of me. I reach the back of the pier, which is somewhat sheltered because of the wall of the library and the steps. There’s nobody here. No Jo. No Cyris. No ghosts. I’m making a mess out of this.

‘Jo!’

She doesn’t answer. I move back towards the water. I point the gun in the direction that Cyris ought to be coming from, only he isn’t.

‘Jo! Where are you?’

I turn from the crashing surf and head back to the road.

Jo’s car is gone. And I understand now what Kathy was telling me.

I run over the road and dump the money in the boot of my car. I could go to the police and it could easily be the best decision I’ve made yet, or the worst. The time for the police was on Monday, not now, not in the dying hours of Thursday. They won’t act on the information I have, not until they sit me down for a few hours and question me over and over. I start the car. The K-bar in my back pocket digs into me. I pull it out and sit it on the passenger seat. My tired mind throws up images of me helping the police to arrest Cyris, just as it throws up images of a policeman taking me out into the middle of nowhere just so he couldn’t bring me back.