Pawn (13 page)

The photo in the file was blurred, obviously taken from a great distance while the man had been moving, but the other photos of his victims were far more revealing. Just looking at them even for a second, Barns could see that the man was passionate about his knives and his garrotting wires. They were his weapon of choice, something that spoke strongly to his character. He liked to see and feel his victims die. He was also deadly. The list of his kills was frightening. The man got into secure places, did his business, and left unseen. If this guy was after Rufus Hennassy then he was in a lot of trouble. Which made it all the more difficult to understand how he’d got away. The witnesses had said he’d been bleeding from the neck, which strongly suggested he’d had a wire noose around his neck. People didn’t get out of those very often. But then they seldom survived gun fights in their hotel rooms either. There was luck and then there were miracles, and it seemed to him that Rufus Hennassy was trading in the latter.

“Lastly, one more. You mentioned Mr. Hennassy, and it rang a little bell. But it wasn’t until I got back that I remembered the name. But not Rufus Hennassy. Aidan. His father.”

“He’s well known to us as well, but not for a few years. Here I believe, you know him as a burglar. A second story man. And a sometimes bank robber. Across the channel we know him as a major bad guy. Bank robberies, art thefts, armoured cars and more, he’s been linked to a dozen major crimes, and suspected in many more. He’s also not afraid to use violence. If anything he seems to like it. And he’s always armed.” That last Barns knew from their own records, but what the agent was bringing him was new. Their file on Aidan Hennassy had stopped a decade before, and it had been thought that he’d retired. Bad guys did, just like everyone else. Now it seemed that he’d just moved his business off shore.

“There are also rumours that his wife, Serina, was a Russian hitter before they met, working for the KGB as a young woman, and that she was extremely good at her work. But when the USSR fell her services were no longer needed and she left in something of a hurry, a trail of bodies in her wake. One step ahead of her former employers who wanted to cover their tracks.”

“Your Mr. Hennassy seems to come from very bad stock.” Barns sighed a little. She didn’t know how right she was. Or how miraculous it was that he’d actually survived childhood. After going through the reports again and again, he’d found himself angry as seldom before. What had been done to that poor child, was more than a crime. It was something so dark and evil that he didn’t have a name for it. Just as he didn’t have any understanding of the man Rufus Hennassy had become.

Rufus Hennassy wasn’t normal. But then given his background, that had never been a possibility. He wished he’d understood that at the time. That the man he’d been interviewing wasn’t really a man. He was a shadow of a man. An illusion. A cardboard cut out of one. But everything that had been human in him had been torn out of him by his family, and what was left was simply a frightened shell of a human being, a frightened child, that worked desperately hard to hide.

So he’d hidden, and he’d pretended to be normal, and he’d got his degrees and a job, and did all of the things that normal people did. He’d even done them well, probably because he had no social life and no desire for one. But no one knew him. Not his colleagues and if he’d had any friends, not them either.

It was also no wonder that he hadn’t gone to the police. The file showed that as a kid he’d been let down again and again by the various agencies. Instead of being helped, he’d been returned to a family home filled with violence. He had no reason to trust the police. No reason to trust anyone but himself.

The strange thing was that even with his heart and soul torn out of him, with his faith in others destroyed, he’d still been a surprisingly decent human being. What that meant, and what any of this meant he didn’t know. But maybe it was a cause for hope. A hope that no matter how dark the night, there was still a dawn for those who could make it through. And this, a girlfriend, protecting her, standing up to his brother when he had a gun in his hand, all of that said that before the end, Rufus Hennassy had found his dawn. He could only hope.

“So what happened here?” The agent had to ask. Partly it was professional, and partly curiosity he guessed. Cops were always curious sorts. It went with the job. But she had a right to know.

“Daryl Hennassy happened here. Turned up with a machine gun and shot his little brother and maybe a woman as well. Now he’s in some sort of psychotic melt down and they’ve vanished.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” She stared at him, shocked, and with good reason. “Another gun battle? Vanished?”

“There’s more. Preliminary ballistics tell us the gun Daryl used was also used at the hotel, and at the crash scene. So it’s likely that he and I assume his father were the ones to steal the painting.” Which still went no way to explaining why they were still involved in hunting down Rufus Hennassy or battling it out with the buyers’ thugs. But the agent could probably work that out for herself.

“I need to talk to him.” Of course she did. They all did. But there was no word as to when or if that might become possible.

“They took him away in a straight jacket a couple of hours ago, and by all accounts he was completely unresponsive at the time.”

“Oh really. A psychotic break?” The agent stared at him, endless questions and doubts in her big dark eyes. The same questions and doubts he had, and all of them needing to be answered, somehow. Just what was happening was top of the list.

In his experience, career criminals didn’t just suddenly have psychotic breaks. For the most part they were quite comfortable with what they did, and as far as they could be sure Daryl had killed before and certainly been around death in all its forms. Violence and mayhem were a family tradition. So killing his brother shouldn’t have come as much of a shock to Daryl. Especially when he’d tried at least twice before, once nearly killing him with an axe in front of his family, and by the sounds of things, enjoyed it.

And as for dead people on beaches, they just didn’t walk away. And even if they started doing that, they would leave footprints in the sand. Yet he had no body, plenty of blood, and no footprints.

Nothing except questions. Again.

**********************

Chapter Fourteen.

In the morning Di went to see Moirae, confused by what had happened, and even a little frightened as she worried what it meant for her place among the celestials.

The gods and goddesses despite what people might imagine, did not have infinite power. They had to use what they had wisely, and always, always, always, they had to stay true to their bailiwick. Leaving it, going against what they were raised up to epitomise, was the one sure way for a celestial to die, or at least fade. And she was the goddess of love, not lust.

Despite all the ancient tales of her and her husband and endless lovers and children, she’d never done what she’d done the previous night. She’d never expected to. Never been married, never taken a lover. But then when she’d ascended she’d barely been more than a child. Such things as lovers’ trysts and husbands and children were of the mortal world and she wasn’t. Not for three thousand years at least.

When she arrived at her friend’s home, and Ananke showed her through to the courtyard, it was to discover that she had been expected. That was normal of course when Moirae was the spinner of fate. There was little that caught her by surprise. But she’d also invited company, and Hera, the goddess of mothers, was sitting in her courtyard with her, sipping away at a cup of tea. Of course they both smiled when they saw her, Hera beaming away like a proud mother, Moirae trying not to giggle like a naughty school girl, and she realised then and there that they both knew what had happened and why she’d come.

It was then that some colour found her cheeks. Even then she guessed that it would only be the beginning of her embarrassment.

“Honey.” Hera was naturally quick to greet her, sensitive to her needs, and she even managed to get up, greet her with a hug and guide her back to the table where Moirae was already pouring her a cup of tea. Despite it all, it felt good being hugged by Hera. There was no way it could be otherwise. That was a part of her power, a mother’s loving embrace, and even a goddess like her wasn’t immune to it. Mortals she understood, could be left drunkenly happy for days, and dreaming of her love for a lifetime. Mothers were very powerful people and the goddess of mothers more so, even if too many failed to show her the respect she was due.

Yet she didn’t look like a goddess. She looked like a mother, which of course was exactly what she was. She and Zeus had had many children over the years, their joy in each of their arrivals so powerful that it shook the heavens and rattled the Earth. Each new child was often welcomed with spontaneous parties across the globe, as the entire world seemed to go a little crazy for a few days. But of course since their children weren’t gods, the pain they knew when they passed was also a sadness that tore at the heartstrings of one and all. But that was a part of life and Di knew that neither of them would have wished to stop having children. Or could have. The god of fathers and the goddess of mothers, it was simply their nature.

It was some time before Di managed to shake off enough of Hera’s power to start thinking again, and by then her tea was half drunk. But at least her questions were still fresh in her mind, and they began with that very first piece of madness.

“But how did I heal him? I have no healing gift. And yet I touched him, I held him, and the light came from nowhere and he was whole again.” That still made no sense to her, no matter how many times he replayed the memory in her head. She had healed him, she had somehow extended her godly powers and he had been healed, save that it wasn’t one of her powers and she hadn’t felt it. Hera could heal. She was among other things the goddess of home and hearth, and of course mothers. Healing went hand in hand with that. Many others among the celestials could do the same. But not her. Beauty and love. Those were her essence and those were her gifts. Heal a broken heart, yes. Repair a scarred face, absolutely. Heal a broken body, never.

“So he was completely whole then, was he?” Moirae had to say it of course, smirking naughtily with every syllable. She was ever a cheeky vixen when she was with friends, and Di felt more colour rising. Would the embarrassment ever fade away? It was humiliating. The complete loss of her self-control as she’d let him bed her. And these two knew it. Moirae probably knew every single second of it and doubtless she’d told Hera all of the important bits.

“It just happened. I didn’t mean for it to, but he was alive when he should have been dead, and I’d healed him when I can’t heal at all. It was all madness. I couldn’t help myself.” It sounded like a poor excuse even to her, so she wasn’t surprised when the women simply laughed politely. Sort of politely. She was embarrassed though.

“No really. It was just the shock of it all. It completely overwhelmed me for a bit.” Even she didn’t believe that though.

“So it only happened the once then.” Hera smiled so sweetly at her as she asked her most innocent question, that Di knew she knew the entire sorry tale. A little more colour flowed to her cheeks as she tried to think of something to say and failed. Hera was right. If it had been just the shock of it all, then it would have been only once, or maybe twice. But the third time? The fourth? The rest? As they’d simply lain in bed together, saying little but letting their bodies speak volumes for them.

It had not stopped until they were both so physically exhausted that they jut couldn’t carry on, and it would not have stopped at all save for that. And even then, as she’d slept in his arms, she’d dreamed of the next time. It was only when she’d awoken to the late morning sun streaming in through the windows, that she’d realised what she’d done and left, both embarrassed and alarmed. And even then she hadn’t wanted to. It was improper but a large part of her had wanted nothing more than to stay with him in that bed and enjoy him again. It had been so very good.

“Oh.” Hera smiled merrily as her point was made without Di having spoken a word. Naturally Di didn’t need to say anything. Not with these two. There was almost nothing that they didn’t know already. The spinner of fates and the goddess of mothers, there was nothing she could have hidden from them. But it was still embarrassing and she felt the need to explain.

“It, he was nice, and we’d -.” As explanations went it wasn’t much good, and to make matters worse her cheeks were glowing like ovens.

But it had been good. No, good didn’t come close to what it had been. It had been fantastic. Better. It was just that it was wrong. Or not wrong, not really. Just a mistake. Something that a goddess of love shouldn’t have done. A goddess of lust maybe, but not her.

“That’s alright baby. Nothing to be concerned about.” Hera was as always quick to comfort her, getting up and giving her another hug before she could stew too long. That was her essence, the nature of motherhood, and no mother would ever let a child suffer. And this time Di felt the comfort being given, the unconditional love behind it, and she knew that no matter what she did it would always be alright.

Though she wasn’t her mother, Di’s mother had lived and died over three thousand years before, so long ago that she could barely remember her, Hera always reminded her of her. Busy over the fire baking the bread, shooing her brothers and sisters around, tending to their injuries when they hurt themselves in the fields. She had been a good woman, a good mother and though she was long since lost to time, something of her survived in Hera. Or maybe something of Hera had lived in her. It was hard to be sure of these things.

“You’re a woman. You did what women since the dawn of time have done. You fell in love. No harm there.”

“But I’m a goddess. The goddess of love and beauty. And my love must be pure.”

“Are you saying it isn’t pure?” Hera smiled some more. A lot more. And Moirae was suddenly trying to hide her laughter behind her hand, and failing miserably. Again.

“But it was -.” Di couldn’t even bring herself to say the word. It was so base and crude. Naturally Hera wasn’t going to let her get away with that.

“Sex dear. You can say it. It was sex.” Just because she was a kind and loving mother figure, didn’t mean Hera was beyond being firm with her children as she thought of them all. In fact that was part of her role. Mothers always knew best.

“But -! I don’t understand!”

“It’s all perfectly natural dear. You see when a man and a woman love one another and they want to be close -.” Di almost screamed as Hera started, tongue in cheek, explaining to her the facts of life, and at least seeing her face screwed up in frustration seemed to shut her up. Meanwhile Moirae had given up on hiding her merriment, and was almost falling off her chair in hysterics, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks. It was a mistake as Di turned on her.

“And you. You knew this was going to happen. Didn’t you? You could have stopped it, but instead you let it happen. You set me up. Grief, you probably orchestrated the whole thing. Oh butterflies you did!” To anyone else it would have sounded weird, but the three of them knew the rules they each lived by, and one of them for Di was that she couldn’t say anything ugly. She couldn’t swear. She still felt the need from time to time though. Especially when her friend had obviously tricked her.

“You said Rufus would become my new devotee. That he would spread my name far and wide and once more bring beauty and love back into the world. But he can’t draw or paint like Rembrandt, my last so called devotee, and let’s be honest, that didn’t exactly work out well. He died and his masterpiece was locked away in a vault for four hundred years. But Rufus is no storyteller or bard either. He will not spread my name.”

She levelled her accusation straight at the spinner, and watched as Moirae didn’t even flinch. She’d probably expected that too. But at least she stopped laughing.

“Honey. You know I do what I do because I have to. And yes of course I knew this was going to happen, just as I knew what would happen with Rembrandt. But it had to be. It still has to be. Everything that was, everything that is, and everything that will be. It’s all part of the plan.” Everything was part of the plan. Moirae had tried to explain it all to her many times, but Di had never quite understood it. If there was a plan, an order to things then where was free will? Where was chance? What was the point to things? But Moirae’s answer was always cryptic. There was fate and there was free will and they both worked hand in hand. Because fate was the inevitable journey of billions and billions of actions of free will, while chance was the wheel by which she could steer it, a little.

“Yes I knew you two would become lovers. And I knew it would be good for you both. Better than you can yet imagine. It’s one reason I’ve been working so hard lately, keeping your man alive. But for me he’d have died long before you met.” She wiped the tears of laughter out of her eyes with a napkin.

“And that would have been sad.” Di had to agree. Even having been through what she had, having done what she’d done and maybe sacrificed her divinity because of it, she would never have wanted Rufus hurt. He had already been hurt far too much. Just the thought of what had been done to him as a child was enough to bring tears to her eyes. It wasn’t right that he should have been hurt like that. That anyone should be hurt like that.

“Besides, what happened with the painting should now be beginning to make sense to you. A lost masterwork, recovered. A painting that should never have been painted. Hidden for four centuries and when it was finally recovered, stolen. Already that painting is one of the most talked about paintings in the world, its image is on every tv screen, and the name of Aphrodite is being spoken around the world. Far from fading, you should be starting to shine again. Your powers should be growing. And now, at a time when most of the rest of us are on the wane.” Her words caught Di by surprise, but they made sense. Maybe later she’d go home and see if her powers had started growing again, though these things were never straight forwards.

“You know I would never do anything to hurt you. Or your man.” That much Di could believe. Moirae wasn’t above having a little bit of fun at her expense, probably the result of spending so much of her time locked away in her mausoleum of a study, and she obeyed a different set of rules to the rest of them, but she was always a friend and a good soul. Her anger vanished as quickly as it had come.

“So what do I do now?” And that was the real question. The goddess of love and beauty had fallen, and there was a danger that she would lose her place. Despite what people imagined, the gods and goddesses were only really the embodiment of the human condition. It was a symbiosis. The mortals had a dream or an image of who and what they were, and they had to be just that. All the power given unto them, was never theirs to use as they would. They were what they were, and if they deviated from their scripts, they fell.