First and Only (6 page)

‘Did the guy hurt you?’ asked
Steve when Psimon didn’t continue.

‘No,’ said Psimon. ‘I told him to
stop it… to leave Father Kavanagh alone. But he didn’t. When he heard me there
he went wild, threatened to kill me. He tried to get at me but I held the door
shut, I kept him out.’ This last was said with tight-jawed conviction and Steve
could see this memory was still alive and vivid in Psimon’s mind. Something
Steve could relate to. He too was plagued by images that lost none of their
intensity with the passing of time.

‘So why did he want to hurt you?’
asked Steve.

‘It was what I heard,’ said
Psimon. ‘It was what he told the priest.’

‘You heard his confession?’

‘He wasn’t there to confess,’
scoffed Psimon. ‘He was there to gloat and to drag Father Kavanagh into the
filth of his crime.’

‘And you heard this?’ asked
Steve. ‘You heard him boasting about his crimes.’

At last this was starting to make
some kind of sense.

‘Yes,’ said Psimon. ‘I heard
him.’

‘And what makes you think he’s
after you now, after all this time?’ asked Steve. ‘Has he been released from
prison? Does he know who you are?’

‘No,’ said Psimon. ‘He was never
caught.’

‘Then what makes you think you’re
in danger?’

To Steve’s mind they were coming
back to Psimon’s paranoid, unreasonable fear.

‘I can feel him getting closer,’
said Psimon staring fixedly at his wringing hands. ‘I can feel the lines of our
lives converging. At some point in the next five days our paths will cross
again. Only this time I won’t be able to keep him out.’

Steve leaned back in his chair.
This was all getting a bit too Mystic Meg for his liking.

‘So what you’re telling me is
that you want me to protect you from a man that you
feel
is going to
hurt you?’

‘Going to kill me,’ corrected
Psimon.

‘But you have no proof,’ said
Steve. ‘No death threats, no crazed stalker at the bottom of your garden.’

‘Depends what you mean by proof,’
said Psimon.

‘We’re back to this psychic
thing, aren’t we?’ said Steve with renewed frustration. He was not about to
take serious money off someone just to protect them from an imaginary bogey man
that had frightened them as a child.

‘Yes, I suppose we are,’ said
Psimon with a note of disappointment.

‘And I’ve already told you, I
don’t believe in psychics.’

Psimon’s hands ceased their
nervous agitation. He closed his eyes and let out a long slow breath. And there
it was again, that sense of him being more mature, more knowing than his years
might suggest.

‘If I can convince you…’ said
Psimon without looking at Steve, ‘that I know things I couldn’t possibly know.
Will you take me at my word and honour the contract that we agreed on the
Edge.’

Steve was right on the verge of
saying no and letting Psimon out of the car. And yet despite himself he was
curious, almost amused to see what Psimon might say. He and the lads had once
visited a palm reader in Kabul; a spindly old man who told Steve he had the
spirit of a tree and would sire five children.

‘
Load of old bollocks!
’ he
had thought then and he thought about the same right now. But still he wondered
what Psimon might have to say… He was Virgo maybe, or that he suffered from
self-doubts and should pursue his dreams, that his love life would soon improve
and did he know anyone by the name of Anthony or Andrew or Andrea...

‘What the hell,’ he said finally.
‘I’ve nothing to lose.’

‘Thank you,’ said Psimon. Then he
hesitated looking sideways at Steve. ‘But please, don’t be frightened… don’t be
angry…’

Steve’s eyes narrowed at the
genuine note of concern in Psimon’s voice.

Psimon did not close his eyes. He
did not go into a trance. He did not look at Steve’s palm or take out a pack of
tarot cards. He simply looked Steve straight in the eye and said…

‘You wouldn’t have hesitated if
you’d known they had RPGs.’

‘What did you say?’ said Steve,
his spine turning suddenly to ice.

‘You wouldn’t have hesitated if
you’d known they had rocket propelled grenades,’ said Psimon. ‘You gave yourself
a count of ten just to compose yourself, to steel your nerves. You would not
have hesitated a heartbeat if you’d known they had RPGs.’

Steve’s heart was suddenly
hammering in his chest. He was no longer in the driving seat of his comfortable
BMW; he was back in the searing heat of the Iraqi desert, his bloody back
pressed against the rough blocks of the shattered house and his C8 carbine
assault rifle held diagonally across his body. Bullets slammed into the wall
behind him chiselling chunks of concrete from the edge of the doorway and
filling the air with clouds of gritty dust that stung his eyes and crunched
unpleasantly between his clenched teeth.

‘
Jesus, that was close.
’

The village was supposed to have
been cleared and only the tedious procedures of the unit had saved them from
walking into an ambush. They had identified thirty marks, neutralised seventeen
but that still left at least thirteen kalashnikovs trying to drill through the
walls to get at them. He was just relieved that they were armed with nothing
more than rifles.

In his current position Steve was
relatively safe but the rest of the unit were pinned down and would soon be
outflanked. He knew he had to break cover to allow them to relocate. It was all
about mobility, keeping the initiative, not allowing the enemy to dictate the
sequence of events. The moment you stopped moving was the moment your options
began to dwindle.

Steve bit down on the pain from
his back. The bullet had torn through his flesh and taken a chunk out of his
shoulder blade before burying itself in the sand. Not critical but it hurt like
a bastard, made his head swim. Blinking the sweat from his eyes he slung his
rifle and pulled three fragmentation grenades from the webbing at his waist. He
swallowed hard doing his best not to throw up. He just needed a second to clear
his head, to stop the ground from tilting.

He would give himself a count of
ten. Then he would break the lads out and give these bastards a lesson in
close-quarters combat.

‘1… 2…’ He got as far as seven when
the explosion sent a cloud of dust and jagged chippings blasting towards him.

‘
Fuck, they’ve got RPGs!
’
thought Steve with a new kind of sick feeling in his stomach. Without a second
thought he pulled the pins from the three grenades and lobbed them round the
doorway towards the enemy.

Pop… pop… pop…

Pause…

BOOM… BOOM… BOOM…

Steve moved on the ‘B’ of the
final BOOM! He switched his carbine to full automatic and charged headlong in
to a storm of violence.

The first bullet grazed his
thigh, the second nicked his upper arm but he was moving now, pushing forward,
regaining the initiative. And then behind him came the staccato crack of
small-arms fire. M16s and C8s like his own, rising in lethal chorus as the rest
of his unit broke from cover and took the battle to the enemy…

Boom, Boom, Boom… went Steve’s
heart as he looked at Psimon as if from a great height and distance.

‘You gave yourself ten seconds to
gather your composure,’ said Psimon softly. ‘Ten seconds to keep from passing
out. And still you think of yourself as a coward because you hesitated.’

Steve swallowed the burning lump
in his throat and turned away from Psimon.

‘If I hadn’t hesitated…’ he began
huskily.

‘Paddy wouldn’t have lost his
left foot,’ Psimon finished. ‘He wouldn’t have lost two foot of bowel. He
wouldn’t have to wear…’

‘Enough!’ snapped Steve holding
up his hands to ward off any more unwelcome images.

They were silent for a while.
Then…

‘How do you know?’ Steve began.
‘No one knows about that… no one. How do you…?

‘I have no idea,’ replied Psimon
quietly, head bowed, eyes focussed once more on the hands in his lap. ‘I just
do.’

‘Jesus,’ breathed Steve, still
not quite sure what to make of what he had just heard. Having those memories
dragged from his past and held up before his eyes had provoked a fierce
reaction. He felt angry, frightened, threatened. But now as he looked at Psimon
he found those feelings seeping away just as they had on the Edge. There was
something vulnerable about Psimon, something desperately lonely. It took the
heat out of Steve’s anger and aroused within him a kind of fraternal instinct,
which as an only child, Steve found surprising.

‘Okay,’ said Steve when his heart
had stopped trying to beat its way out of his chest. ‘I’m impressed.’

Glancing up at Steve Psimon felt
a wave of relief. There was no sign of the defensive paranoia that he might
have expected.

‘
Yes,
’ he thought to
himself. ‘
I was right to phone him.
’

He had never known a man of such
contrast… a man capable of such destructive violence and yet possessed of a
gentle nature and understated empathy. He had chosen his knight well.

‘So, what else can you do?’ asked
Steve in a tone that lightened the mood.

‘Well,’ said Psimon, and here he
held up the envelope of cash that Steve had returned to him on the Edge. ‘How
would you like to trade the fifteen thousand pounds for tonight’s winning
lottery numbers?’

‘I said I was impressed, not
stupid,’ said Steve, snatching the envelope from Psimon’s hand and deftly
slipping it into the covered compartment between their seats.

Psimon’s smile broadened.

Steve let out a deep breath and
ran his hands down over his face. He inserted the car keys, checked his mirror
and flicked on the lights as it was already getting dark.

‘Okay, freak,’ he said. ‘Where to
first?’

‘Did you bring the things I told
you to?’ asked Psimon, finding the light-hearted insult strangely pleasing.

‘In the boot,’ said Steve
referring to the travel bag and passport that Psimon had instructed him to
bring during their phone call. He reached round to grab his seat belt and when
he turned back Psimon was holding up two airline tickets. Steve reached across
and turned up the flap of the envelope to look at the destination.

‘Manchester to Fort Lauderdale
via Orlando (MC0),’ the tickets read.

‘So what’s in Florida?’ asked
Steve.

‘The James Randi Educational
Foundation,’ replied Psimon.

‘And what do they do at the James
Randi Educational Foundation?’

‘They challenge claims of
paranormal phenomena,’ said Psimon.

Steve looked at Psimon with a
‘you’ve got to be kidding’ expression on his face.

‘There’s a million-dollar prize
for anyone who can demonstrate genuine psychic ability.’

Steve’s expression changed to one
of the ‘Oh really?’ variety.

‘We have an appointment with the
testing panel tomorrow afternoon at two-thirty.’

‘Oh, we do, do we?’ challenged
Steve.

‘Yes,’ replied Psimon.

‘And I suppose you want me to
protect you from all the nutters in America?’

‘No,’ said Psimon and his voice
was suddenly serious once more. ‘I need you to get me out.’

Chapter 8

Dr Patrick Denning left the lecture in buoyant mood.
‘Silencing the Voices’ was far and away the most successful book he had ever
written. That was the third lecture this week and every one sold out. The
psychiatrist smiled to himself as he dwelt on the crowd of enthusiastic faces
at the signing, each one eager to share their own ideas and insights into the
world of schizophrenia. But it was he who held court, he who could grant or
deny them the few minutes of attention that they craved. Now it was off to the restaurant
for another free dinner at his publisher’s expense.

He turned off the main road and
headed for the short-cut via the canal. It was too dark and wet to take the
towpath tonight but he was running late and nipping over the bridge would still
save him a few minutes.

The orange glow from the street
lamps faded as he made his way up the narrow cobbled road. The white lamp that
normally illuminated the bridge was out but it was only a short span of
darkness and Dr Denning was not concerned.

He was not concerned because he
did not know that darkness of an altogether different kind waited for him upon
that narrow arc of shadow… darkness in the form of a tall and powerfully built
man. A man who had listened with sublime fury as the psychiatrist had preached
his lies.

Now
He
was here to
teach the heretic the error of his ways.

Dr Denning climbed the short
humpback bridge over the canal but as he reached the summit a dark hulking
figure stepped out in front of him. Fear clutched the psychiatrist’s bowels as
the stranger raised his arm, something black and shiny in his outstretched
fist. Dr Denning started to cry out but the lightning exploded in his chest,
seizing his heart in an unyielding grip and tightening every muscle in his body
to the point of snapping. His legs gave out and he might have injured himself
on the cobbles had
He
not caught him… Had
He
not
carried him away…

He
who called
himself Lucifer…

He
whose name was
Legion,

For
He
was many.

Chapter 9

Steve was surprised at how easily he had slipped back
into surveillance mode. Even now, as he scanned the bookshelves in WH Smiths
for something to read on the plane, he had one eye on Psimon and one on the
bustling flow of people heading for the check-in desks. His mind was in a
heightened state of awareness, primed for anything out of the ordinary. Someone
hesitating where there was no reason to stop. Someone moving too quickly or too
slowly, and of course anyone who came close to Psimon. He knew that the chances
of anything happening in an airport terminal were pretty slim, especially in
these days of increased security but he had accepted responsibility for keeping
Psimon safe and that was exactly what he intended to do.