The Man Who Built the World (16 page)

‘Ian.
We have brought you back.’

Like a harp melody, soft strings strummed by delicate fingers.
A different voice this time, but somehow, still
the same.

‘You are healed of your external wounds but your inner turmoil is beyond our reach.’

He tries to lift his head, feels a relaxing of tension at the back of his neck before his strength fails, sinking him back into soft cushions. Everywhere hurts – or does it? Everywhere
aches
. Two different things.

‘You must rest or death may still find you.’

The timbre of the women’s words, the way they are spoken without pause makes him feel like a cat stroked head to tail in one motion. He yearns to find the strength to open his eyes.

The
women
?

No –

‘We have healed you. We have used much of our strength to save you. You are indebted to us now and one day will repay us.’

Ian groans, feels muscles spasm as he tries to push himself up.
At last he manages to force his eyes open, only to see a dim, grainy version of his own bedroom, the wall to the left shrouded in shadow, the door to the right – ajar, filled with the silhouettes of two figures – takes some effort to move his head far enough to see. He strains his eyes as they adjust, makes out two women, shoulder to toe in white robes, like priestesses – identical, the same, sisters –

‘
No
. . .’

‘We could have left you to die but instead we chose to save you.
We will return to you one day to claim what belongs to us.’

His eyes lift to their faces just as they begin to turn away.
Ageless faces flanked by long black hair, eyes like stoked fires, features carved from stone. Humourless, their expressions blank apart from their eyes; if he had not seen them move he could believe them statues.

Elaina and Liana Meredith.
Of all the people in the world to come to his aid . . . Ian Cassidy thinks he might rather have died out there in the snow than spend the rest of his life indebted to them.

‘Goodbye Ian,’ they chime in chorus, and leave.

As the door closes Ian lies back in the dark, feeling the curves and twists of his body moving as he shifts on the bed, feeling the aches in the bones he
knows
were broken, the tenderness of torn skin now made whole. And his face, one hand lifts to find only a coating of dried blood. Swellings beneath his eyes have sunk, his split lip is just bruised and the nose he felt smash across his cheeks is repaired.

He always knew they had a link far closer to Gabrielle’s world than his own, and now he knows.
He wonders briefly if, once, they had been like her.

Angels
.

Now he owes them for his life.
And what form his repayment might take, only perhaps Heaven knows. Maybe not even Heaven.

He hears the sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs outside, and Red, his closest friend, bursts in.
The light almost blinds Ian, who cries out, and the door is subsequently closed with a grunt of apology.

‘They wouldn’t let me come up
! Are you – are you okay?’

Ian nods, or thinks he does.
Red comes closer to the bed.

‘Oh my god, Ian.
I can’t believe –’ he punches the closest cupboard door, and it shudders beneath the impact. ‘I’m sorry, but I went after him. I wanted to – I wanted to . . .’ Red’s eyes are unreadable in the darkness, but Ian can sense such bleakness he fears being sucked forward into those black, empty voids. ‘I took my gun –’

A stillness forms inside Ian, fragile
, set to break at any moment, like a frozen lake in his stomach. ‘Did . . . did you –’

‘No
! Of course he was long gone.’ Red rubs his eyes hard, as though his fingers can cleanse them of the images he sees there. ‘I’m sorry, Ian. I would’ve . . . if I’d found him
I
would’ve
. . .’ A choking sound begins deep in Red’s chest: sobbing.

‘Matt . . . he . . . had his reasons.’

‘No! He had none! He . . .
had
none
.’ On the edge of Ian’s bed, Red begins to cry, perhaps somehow sensing a dark premonition for the future.

‘It
’s over now. He’s gone.’

‘It will never be over
!
Never
!’

Red’
s words echo in Ian’s mind long after the man he regards more highly than any brother has gone. After the door has closed on him, and he is allowed to rest, to contemplate the day for the first time, he can only try to understand what has happened.

To find out what he has gained, what he has lost, and what he owes.

Red’s words linger like war dust, hung, like a funeral veil, in the air.

Part Two

Ghosts

1

Rachel thumped the wheel in dismay and shouted in exasperation at the cars in front, while behind her, no doubt others shouted at her own.
She wound down the window to let the steam clear from the windscreen. Leaning out, she saw the queue stretching ahead seemingly forever, Junction 14 off the M5 into Birmingham still two miles ahead.

The radio told her a lorry had rolled, blocking all three lanes.
Every so often emergency vehicles whizzed by on the hard shoulder, police, ambulances and fire engines, hurrying to deconstruct the sorry metallic mess which, somewhere beyond the next rise, was blocking the centre of the motorway.

According to the radio, she needed to leave at Junction 17 to avoid delays.
Unfortunately, since she had already passed Junction 17, the information was useless. At least the road past Birmingham was clear. Or so the radio said, but then radios said a lot of things. She’d just have to hope.

Tamerton, Matt’s home town – she’d found it on a map in his study, about twenty miles north of Plymouth, nestled on the southern edge of Dartmoor – lay about four hours ahead.
She would be there by nightfall with a little luck.

She hoped she wasn’t too late.

2

Red took a step forward. A hand fell on Ian’s arm. He looked back towards the clearing’s edge, back towards Matt.

‘Hey, what’s wrong with you now?’

‘
Matt
?’

‘He’s bloody drunk again, that’s what,’ Red scoffed, starting to turn away.

Ian went forward, took hold of his son’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. He held Matt’s arm while the young man steadied himself.

‘Matt, what’s wrong?’

Matt’s eyes had glazed. He looked past his father, out across the clearing, at his mother’s grave, at the ground, untouched, around it.

‘She’s not dead, is she
? This is all a lie.’

‘
What
?’ Ian stared at his son, incredulous.

Matt turned to look at him, face still blank, expressionless.
‘Bethany’s not dead, Dad.’

‘Of course she is!’

‘Matthew, what in God’s name are you talking about?’ Red shouted.

‘Shut up,’ Matt spat back.
Red tensed, but didn’t move. Matt continued, his voice terrifyingly monotone. ‘I know she’s not dead.
I’ve seen her
. I thought I saw her last night. Upstairs in the house. I thought I saw her body, that you showed it to me. But I know that first time was a dream, because . . . because . . .’ He stopped, unable to bring himself to mention the hammering sound he remembered so vividly.

‘Ian, this is ridiculous!’ Red snarled.
‘Have some damn respect, Matthew!’

Matt pressed his hands against the side of his head and frowned, as though to drown out the static that confused him.
‘The second time, I know it was her. I didn’t see her face, but . . . I
know
it was her.’

Ian stared at his son, his eyes glistening.
‘She is here, Matthew. You’re right, we’re not burying her. I’m sorry if I misled you. But she
is
dead. I found her body. I called in the ambulance, waited with her for them to arrive. I can remember how she lay, on her bed, dressed in her bedclothes as though she were sleeping, that any moment she might wake. I couldn’t believe she was dead, even when I saw the empty pill jar by her bedside. But when I touched her, I felt the coldness of her skin.’ He paused and wiped a hand across his eyes. ‘Don’t disrespect her, Matt. Don’t disrespect me. Your sister is dead. I felt for her pulse, I tried to revive her, I held her cold body in my arms for half an hour as I waited for the ambulance. I know how dead she was.’

He touched Matthew’s
face, gently turning it towards his own. A single tear trickled down Ian’s cheek. ‘Don’t ever talk to me like that again. You have no idea what I went through.’

‘Dad
, I –’

Back across the clearing, Red had squatted down, his own face turned towards the ground, one hand on his brow and his eyes hidden from them.

Ian Cassidy stared long and hard at his son. ‘Matthew . . . you want to see your sister, then she’s here.’ He pulled something out of the satchel he wore slung over his shoulder.

Ian held out what looked a little like
a vase with a lid. Grey in colour, made from China Clay, with decorative markings around its sides, images of the sun, the moon, the earth, revolving around each other in a triangular orbit.

An urn.

‘We had Bethany cremated last Thursday. We’ve come up here to scatter the ashes. Burials are a thing of the past, I think. It’s more dignified this way, than thinking of them, down there, in the earth.’ He frowned. ‘I thought you realised.’

Matt didn’t know what to say.
He couldn’t think straight. Too drunk again, too fucking drunk.
It’s supposed to be easier in here than out in the real world. Things are supposed to make sense in here
.

‘Matthew?’

‘Huh?’

Ian sighed.
‘Last night, we talked, we drank whiskey, you fell asleep in the chair, I walked you home at about two. I told you about this, about everything.’ He shook his head in resignation. ‘I guess you were too drunk to remember.’

‘No.’

‘Matthew, don’t play this stupid game!’ Ian stood up and walked away from him, back across the clearing towards Red, who had now risen to his feet, his own eyes moist.

‘I saw her again, just now,’ Matt said.

Red scoffed again, hands gnarled as tree stumps planted on wide hips.

Ian’s eyes hardened.

‘Upstairs,’ Matt said. He pointed at the urn. ‘I don’t know who you’ve got in there, but it’s not my sister.’

‘I’m getting tired of this,’ Red growled.
‘You were drunk, you were seeing things. You’re still drunk now. You’re a fucking mess.’

Matt ignored him.
‘And a baby, she had a baby with her. Where did she get a baby?’

Matt glanced across at Red as the big man began to move.
Something in his eyes was different, something had snapped. The big man strode forward, this time roughly shoving Ian’s arm aside, and struck Matt across the face with a backhand cuff. Matt grunted and fell to the floor, clutching his cheek. Ian stepped across as Red grabbed the front of Matt’s shirt and raised a fist to strike him again.

‘You insolent little –’

‘Red, that’s
enough
!’

Ian hooked his arm across the top of Red’s chest, and jerked the bigger man backwards.
Red’s grip on Matt slipped and he fell backwards on to the damp ground. He glared at Ian with a mix of indignation and astonishment.

‘I don’t want people fighting here.’
Ian’s voice had a sonorous boom, the last defiant words of a dying king to his enemy. ‘Not here. Not anymore.’

Matt stumbled to his feet, legs unsteady but he leaned against the wall of the chapel to ba
lance himself. He eyed his father warily, but his gaze finished on Red. ‘You know, don’t you? You know what I’m talking about!’

‘All I know is that Bethany is
here
.’ Ian held up the urn.

Matt
stared down at the urn, then up into his father’s eyes. Images bloomed in his mind of
that
day
, that day years ago when he had bludgeoned his father and left him for dead. The same anger began to rise, the same inherent violence, and he tensed, feeling the pressure building up within him, wanting to burst forth.