Killing a Stranger (10 page)

‘I'll be glad when it's all over,' Becky said feelingly. ‘I never thought I'd hate Christmas. You know, when you're a little kid and you wait all year for your birthday and then for Christmas and it's all bright lights and pressies and your mam spoiling you …' She trailed off, blinking rapidly. Tears were still rarely far away.

‘But what did you talk about?' Patrick asked again. He'd heard Alec and Naomi discuss something called restorative justice – was that the right phrase? When victims of burglaries meet with the housebreaker. It was supposed to help everyone see the other point of view and stop re-offending. Patrick was dubious, but, even if that worked, it seemed a world away from what Ernst Hensel had done.

‘We talked about them,' Clara said. ‘We talked about
them
.'

‘My son is a murderer.

‘It's hard for anyone to comprehend what that means. Half the time, I don't understand it myself, but it's a truth that wakes me in the middle of the night and one that creeps up on me when I'm doing the most trivial of things like cleaning windows or walking to the shops.

‘My child killed a man.'

‘He killed my boy,' he said. ‘I know exactly what this means.'

She drew a deep, sharp breath and held it, nodded before exhaling with a painful gasp. ‘Why did you come here?'

‘I told you. I'm sorry for what I said. It was … unkind.'

‘Unkind!' She was at a loss. Unkind seemed such an insipid, passive word. ‘You accused me of being a monster. A monster that brought something far worse into the world. That's more than unkind.'

His gaze found and held hers and he reached out, halfway across the table as though he might take her hand. ‘Can you blame me?'

She hesitated, then shook her head. A rapid little gesture as though she had to force the movement. ‘No.'

The stranger – his face drawn and grey as though he suffered from a long traumatic illness – leaned back in his chair. That same chair … For a moment she could see Rob's face and lanky body superimposed over that of this older man. This pained and grieving man.

‘I've lived with it,' he said. ‘I've rehearsed, almost every day since it happened. First, I thought of what I would say to his killer when I saw him. What I might do. In the beginning, all I could think was that I should find some way of getting him alone. I would hide a knife in the sleeve of my coat and, once I had him there, I'd stab him once in the heart, just like he stabbed my son …'

‘Don't. Please.' She rose abruptly from the table, but seemed unable to move further. Instead, she clutched the edge of it until her knuckles whitened.

He seemed not to hear.

‘Then I found out that the killer too was dead and I knew I'd have to find another way. I rehearsed what I'd say to you over and over again. I was certain; I would look into your face and see the eyes of my enemy. That I would look at you and recognize what it was that made your son kill mine and I would understand.'

‘And do you?' Her voice was shrill and thin. An anguished bird shriek that caused him to lift his gaze from the table top and stare once more into her face.

He shook his head.

‘I saw bewilderment,' he said. ‘I see a woman who has lost her child and I'm sorry for what I said. I tried to keep quiet, but, you understand, I spent all these days rehearsing … something. I had to say the words.'

She sat down again, heavily, as though the last strength deserted her. ‘I should never have let you in. I should have shut the door and called the police.'

‘Why didn't you?' His voice, gentle now, curious.

‘I don't know. Maybe … maybe there was a part of me hoped you had that knife hidden in your sleeve.'

He smiled sadly, and shrugged out of his coat. ‘See,' he said, turning back the cuff. ‘I even opened the lining and I stitched a little channel ready for the hiding of it.'

The hiding of it
.

She'd been aware of his accent. His English was perfect apart from the slight and occasional change in syntax that was so very foreign. ‘Did you? Hide the knife?'

He shook his head. ‘My stitching is poor,' he told her with a sad smile that still, somehow, touched his eyes. ‘The channel I stitched, it tore and frayed the lining.' He turned the cuff back further so she could see the strained fabric and the inch long tear. ‘But I searched, trying to find a blade that would be the exact fit. I searched the hardware shops and the markets and those odd little places that sell black clothes and ornamental daggers. Goths, I think they call themselves. The young people who wear black and paint their faces white. I searched, because it gave me purpose. We all must have purpose. Some way of relief.

‘My daughter,' he shrugged, ‘she cleaned her house. She scrubbed the walls until they bled.'

‘Daughter? He … he had a sister?' Even now, she couldn't say his name.

‘He had a sister. Beth. She is called Elizabeth. She is thirty-eight. Adam was forty-three.'

Adam. He had a name. She knew it. She ought to use it, but she still could not. Instead, she said softly, ‘My son was just seventeen.'

‘We talked about our children,' Clara continued. ‘About the loss we felt and the way he had wanted revenge, then realized that even that was useless.'

‘He might have hurt you.' Becky couldn't keep the shock or the fear from her voice. ‘Clara, you should never have let him in. Promise us, you won't do anything like that again.'

Clara smiled, amused and touched by this sudden role reversal.

‘I mean it,' Becky continued earnestly. ‘Clara, you have to be careful.'

‘She's right,' Charlie emphasized. ‘Sounds to me like he's a picnic short of a sandwich.'

Shouldn't that be sandwich short of a picnic? Patrick wondered, but to correct seemed picky in the present context. Another time, another place and Charlie's mistake would have been shredded, kept them amused for ages. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?' he asked. ‘You could come to us. Dad and Mari won't mind.'

‘Mari?'

‘My nan,' Patrick explained.

Clara smiled at him and shook her head. ‘It's kind of you,' she said. ‘But I really couldn't impose. Christmas is a family time and, like I said, I don't think my company would be very good.'

‘OK, then,' Charlie said slowly. ‘But we're all going to ring you. OK?'

‘OK, then, thank you,' Clara said. Then it struck her. ‘You think I might do something … like Rob did, don't you?'

Again, the exchanged glances, the awkward shuffling and Clara bit down the urge to laugh. It seemed both touching and absurd that these three, young enough to be her kids …

Like Rob had been. The urge to laugh receded, died. ‘Charlie,' she said softly. ‘I'll be honest. I've thought about it. In the days after Rob … died … I could think of nothing else. Life didn't seem to have much point. But I've got this far. I'm still here and, now, it seems like I'd be letting Rob down by letting go. You understand that?'

They nodded, though she could see they were unconvinced. But Clara meant every word. She now had a reason to go on and, ironically, that reason had been provided by Ernst Hensel.

‘The police will do nothing more,' he told her. ‘The nice detective, he came to the funeral and I asked him, “Do you know why my son died?” He could tell me no more than that first day. A single stab wound to the heart, made by the knife I had given him so many years ago I do not recall. They will close the file, put it away in a cabinet and from time to time, someone will take it out, read the words and shake their heads in sadness before putting it away. That, I know, is all the police will do.'

‘And you want more.' Clara wanted more.

‘I need more,' Ernst emphasized. ‘Alone, what can I do? Together, it seems to me, we may see more, know more.' He waited, drawing back from her but keeping his eyes fixed upon her face. He shrugged back into his overcoat, but still he waited until, finally, Clara nodded. She heard him sigh.

‘I did not come here intending to ask such a thing,' he said softly. ‘But I cannot live on and do nothing. I will die of this nothing.'

‘We're going to find out what went on that night,' Clara told them. ‘However bad it is, we just can't go on without knowing what went wrong.'

Patrick and the others had spent another hour with Clara, covering old ground, it seemed to him, analyzing what she told them about Ernst. Coming back to the letter Rob was supposed to have found and which Clara still could not understand.

‘Did he actually say it was a letter?' she asked finally.

‘I think so, that's what you said, isn't it, Becks?'

Becky frowned, thinking hard. She shook her head. ‘He was pissed,' she said, casting an apologetic look at Clara. ‘Really, really pissed. I made him drink about a gallon of coffee before I let him walk home. He said he'd found something and read it. Something he'd found when you were out one day. He'd … he'd been looking for anything that might tell him who his dad was and he was just boiling over, mad, because he … Clara, he said you'd been lying to him. Given him the wrong name or something.

‘I asked him how he knew and he said he'd found something, read it. I guess I just thought it must be a letter, you know.'

Clara nodded but could still shed no light. ‘The police didn't discover anything.'

‘Would they know what to look for?' Patrick asked. ‘I mean, anyway, they'd be looking for anything that might explain why he killed that man, not about looking for his dad, even if there was a connection, they might not be able to see it because they don't know the background.'

‘You're probably right,' Clara said. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, suddenly very weary. ‘It's late,' she said. ‘And, frankly, I'm knackered and you lot should be getting home.'

They shuffled their chairs back, got to their feet. ‘OK,' Charlie said. ‘But we'll ring tomorrow and we want to know anything you do with that man, right?'

Clara smiled weakly and promised to keep them informed. She watched from the door as they wandered off towards town and home. She felt utterly drained.

‘I don't like it,' Charlie said. ‘He could be any kind of maniac.'

‘You should tell Alec,' Becky was adamant. ‘The police should know.'

Patrick nodded. ‘I'll be seeing him tomorrow,' he said. He glanced at his watch. ‘Shit. Later today. It's gone one. I was supposed to be home this evening. Dad makes this big thing about Christmas Eve.' Previous years, so had Patrick, giving in to the childish impulses he had so enjoyed in his younger days. One present had always been allowed on Christmas Eve and, even though he knew pretty much what he'd be getting these days, there was still something childishly special about choosing the package from beneath the tree and going off to bed with that frisson of further expectation.

More than that though, it was part of feeling loved and safe and, suddenly, plaintively, Patrick craved that feeling, was eager for home. He left Charlie and Becky by the tow path. They lived only a street apart; Patrick a quarter mile the other way. Once on the tow path, he began to run, feeling somehow as though all the ghosts he had collected in his seventeen years of life were at his heels.

T
here was a light on in the living room. Other than that the house was in darkness.

Patrick checked the time. It was getting on for one fifteen. He let himself in and thought about going straight upstairs to his room, even though he knew that would just make things worse in the morning. His moment of indecision took that option away. Harry appeared in the doorway, standing in the patch of light that spilled out into the darkened hall. Patrick, used now to the darkness, blinked at the brilliance of it.

‘I've taken your grandmother home,' Harry said.

Grandmother. Harry never called Mari that on any but the most formal of occasions. Mari hated it. Patrick called her Nan or even Mari but never Grandmother. Patrick knew now, had he been in any doubt before, that he was in deep trouble.

‘I'm sorry, Dad.' Apologize straight away. He'd soon cool down.

Wrong.

‘I tried to phone you. We waited. We worried, Patrick. We even phoned the hospitals …'

‘You did what? Why?'

‘Because I didn't think you'd willingly stay out, not when you'd promised to be back. If you'd called, it wouldn't have been so bad.'

‘I'm sorry, Dad. I had stuff to do.'

‘What stuff? Dammit, Patrick, it was Christmas Eve. You used to love Christmas Eve.'

‘I still do, I …' Anger surged taking Patrick by surprise. It wasn't aimed at his dad, not really, but it boiled and bubbled from him and Harry got scalded anyway. ‘Dad, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm seventeen. I had other stuff to do tonight. Anyone would think I'd committed a bloody crime the way you go on. I just went out, that's all. I was with my friends, all right? Maybe I didn't want to be stuck in with you and Nan, ever thought of that?'

He made to go up the stairs, but Harry blocked his way.

‘No, not all right. What the hell makes you think you can talk to me like that, treat us like that? Since you think so little of us I'm surprised you bothered to come back at all. Why don't you just get back out there with your so-called friends?'

‘Fine then, I will.' Patrick wheeled around and headed back for the door. Any second now, he thought, he'll call me back. He won't say sorry and neither will I, but we'll make some tea and talk about nothing and in the morning it'll be forgotten. He paused with his hand on the front door, but no sound came from Harry. No sign of a reprieve. ‘Fine,' Patrick shouted and pulled the door open, then slammed it behind him.

In the hall, Harry's shoulders slumped. He had missed his cue. Deliberately?