The Sister (63 page)

Blue-shirt laughed. "O' go on, twist my arm!"

Red ordered two more beers.

"I mean that business with the bat," Blue-shirt continued. "He shoved it right up their arses . . .
right
up, I'm telling you. I mean . . . that's got to be some deterrent that." He shuddered.

"You know, I thought about that after you whispered it to me. This guy hasn't just come out o' nowhere. I reckon he's done something like this before."

"Well if he had, the press would have gotten hold o' it and my friend in the force would've told me."

"I didn't mean exactly that. I meant how easy he did it. You know I'd have taken the law into my own hands if it was one o' mine, but to do that afterwards? For fuck's sake, that's the work of someone who's comfortable around death."

"I guess you're right, it's got to be someone who's killed before, that's for sure. If I had to stick my neck out, I'd say it was a squaddie, back from Iraq or Afghanistan."
The men lifted their glasses and drank. Another man approached and asked, "D'you fancy a nip o' whiskey, boys?"
The two men shrugged at each other and downed their beers in unison. "Aye, why no'?'

Miller checked his watch. Either he was early, or she was late. It occurred to him she might stand him up. The vigilante talk had intrigued him. After taking a long swig from his pint, he studied the motif on the glass:
Northern Lights.
He drained the rest of the heady brew and put the empty glass down.

The conversation he'd just overheard called Kirk to mind. Highly trained, cool under fire, it was exactly the sort of thing he would have been capable of doing. He remembered an incident when he was at school. Three older lads made the mistake of setting about him on their school-leaving day, the last day of term. All three were big and on the school's rugby team. Kirk must have been in his mid forties. He dropped low, quick as a flash. His hands on the floor between his legs formed a central pivot, about which he spun one leg parallel to the ground, and six inches above it, the extended limb came round like a scythe and chopped the legs from underneath two of the lads. Both hit the ground hard, landing on their backs. Kirk jumped up and caught the third in a painful arm lock, and tightened his grip until the boy arched his back, in a vain attempt to ease the pain.

"Thanks for the game, boys," he said, through gritted teeth.

The boy gasped, "I surrender!"

"Surrender? We were only playing here, weren't we?" Kirk's eyes were cold, one inch from madness.

Eyes wide, they exchanged worried looks. "Of course we were sir!"

Kirk had pulled back from the edge. With eyes still flinty, he released his grip on the boy and pushed him into the other two.

"That's good, but don't ever
play
with me again, sometimes I get carried away and …" he said darkly. "Now that we're clear, off you go!"

As they left, the tallest boy turned and said, "How did you
do
that?" There was a hint of admiration in his voice. "I mean what was that thing you just did, with the legs?"

For a moment, it looked as if Kirk wouldn't reply, but when he did, he said only four words. "Combat training, Korean style."

Chapter 129

Miller often wondered what Kirk might be up to now. He hadn't seen him since the early hours of 25th April 1980, when he was nineteen years old. The exact date stuck in his mind because Kirk changed the course of his life that day . . . The brainwashing, the Korean War, something he told him to do.
Look it up.

After wondering so many times what had happened to him, he decided to track him down, finally finding him in a nursing home for the elderly. Miller became a regular visitor, and Kirk was always pleased to see him, keen to catch up on the life of his former pupil.

The last time they'd met, Kirk held onto his hand a long time as they shook. The staff had him propped up in bed, his face hollow and gaunt with pain; the steeliness had left his eyes, but the chipped tooth grin was the same.

"Did you live up to your name, Miller?"

The question baffled him, but he kept his confusion to himself. "I think so, sir."

Kirk relaxed into his pillow. "Good . . . I'm glad. You haven't found yourself a woman though have you . . . you've been avoiding the question ever since you've been coming to see me. You
haven't
, have you?"

Kirk's grip increased perceptibly, the cool and papery texture of his skin more apparent as he did so.

Miller shook his head. "No."

"Don't end up like me son . . . alone in bed, waiting for the night to come." His voice was dry. He licked his lips.

Miller handed him a thin plastic cup of water.

Fixing Miller with his gaze as he sipped, Kirk wiped the wetness from his upper lip. "There's nothing wrong with you, boy, just moving in the wrong direction, running away when you should be chasing . . . get yourself a younger woman," A light shone in his eyes. "I had one once, a French mistress at the school, she was younger than me. She'd have looked after me when I got old," he sighed, "Didn't work out though . . ."

"Why not? What prevented you?"

His eyes dimmed. "It's a long story and one you wouldn't understand or care for much. Just suffice to say, it was the nights," he drew a short breath. "I used to disappear in the night, back into the hell I'd escaped from. It scared her. Don't you let
your
hell hold you back from your destiny." His eyes, storm no longer on their horizons, were calm and grey. They locked onto Miller's. "
You
. . . you get chasing. Do you understand what I'm saying to you, boy?"

He nodded.

"That's the spirit," he said, finally relinquishing his grip on Miller's hand.

"Good night, sir."

"Get chasing, boy," he said, grimacing, almost folding with pain.

Night came. Kirk was in
Korea again. Once more at the fork in the road he'd come to know so well, and this time instead of turning right, he turned left, running more or less in the direction of the river. His decision to go south, he remembered well. It was the road less travelled by, but now of course, the other direction had become the one less travelled by. Still heading generally south, he kept above the line of the road higher in the hills, where the tree line more or less remained intact. He hadn't seen anything other than sporadic Chinese activity for half a day; he decided to make his way down. He reached a village, a single street of roughly thatched single storey stone dwellings. It looked deserted, apart from a few chickens scratching in the dirt and a mangy dog that looked suspiciously at him, emitting a low growl. Desperate for food, he couldn't chance walking down the main road; instead, he skirted round the back. Turning a corner, he stopped and peered down the flank of a storage building. Kirk had yet to see or hear anyone else. He poked his head round the gap between two buildings. It was clear. He moved rapidly. He kept low, aware he was exposed. Somebody stepped out quite suddenly in front of him. A soldier appeared, and he looked as startled as Kirk, but he seemed friendly, all grinning teeth and a wide flat face.

Kirk grinned back at him.

Still grinning, the soldier swung his rifle up and shot him in the chest.

He fell, clutching at the wound, looking at the heart blood on his hands in disbelief . . . unbelievable pain seared into his chest and right through him, the sky above bluer than he'd ever known. For some crazy reason, a line from his favourite Robert Frost poem entered his head and at last, he knew . . .

So that's what would have happened if I'd chosen the other way . . .

Miller returned the following morning having woken with a start in the middle of the night. In the brightness of his room, he thought he'd seen Kirk. Tall and proud, he looked younger than he ever recalled seeing him. He was dressed in a soldier's uniform. He grinned at Miller . . . and then faded away. Miller lay in bed unable to sleep for a long time after.

He reported as usual to the office. The matron sat him down; he knew something had happened to Kirk before she told him. Her mouth was moving in slow motion it seemed, her tongue and her teeth working behind her lips enunciating her vowels, he stared right through her transfixed.

"Are you all right, Mr Miller?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry . . . I."

"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

"Sorry, but yes I did hear you. I do that sometimes, just drift, but I did hear . . . Please carry on."

"The doctor thinks his heart gave out. He was asleep . . . he wouldn't have felt a thing."

Miller wished he'd got to know Kirk better.
Why is it we always think like this when it's too late?

The matron spoke again, "I think he knew he didn't have long. Last night he handed me this and asked me make sure you got it when you came by." She held a hardcover book in her hand; she stood, leaned over the desk and passed it to him.

He took it in his hand, surprised at the lightness of it. The dust jacket was missing, but inscribed into the faded blue cover in pale gold leaf, the title and the author's name read:

Mountain Interval.

Robert Frost.

Chapter 130

He'd made his mind up to talk to Carla about the sequence of events that led him to
Scotland.

"Daydreaming again were we?" Carla was dressed in a black leather bomber jacket with a synthetic black fur collar that matched her hair in its colour and spikiness perfectly. She looked taller than she had on the train. He stood, and pulled out a chair for her.

She declined his offer to take her jacket. "It's so cold in here!"

"Are you sure you're a reporter?" The Northern Light's beer he'd consumed too quickly loosened his tongue and lit his eyes with mischief.

A vague smile widened her mouth, the white tips of her even teeth exposed behind lush red cherry lips. "Why do you ask that?"

"You could be a fashion model . . ."

She pursed her lips coyly; the lipstick accentuated the fullness of her lips.

He found himself staring at her.

A waiter appeared, and they ordered food and drinks. The meal passed with the sort of conversation that fitted easily in between mouthfuls. The Dutch courage from the beer had dissipated
. If you tell her, will she think you're a nut?

Carla's nose for a story told her Miller wanted to tell her something. Over-riding her natural impatience, she waited.
He'll open up soon.

The staff had cleared the table of everything, but the coffee they were drinking. They were the last people in there.

"I'm curious, Miller, why the change of mind? I mean . . . I don't usually drop hints to get a guy to take me out, and this is going to sound terribly conceited, but I'm not short on offers."

Miller looked around at the empty tables and chairs. At last, they could speak without fear of anyone overhearing. "You only live once that I know of . . . I've been going through some changes. I don't know what they're all about, or what they might mean, or even if they are all part of the same thing, but if there's just this
one
shot at things . . . I mean, if I can't change it, then at least I want to understand it . . ." he became flustered. "Can I start at the beginning? I'll try not to bore you."

"The people that bore me," she reassured him, "are the ones that presume to think they're interesting. To them, it's unthinkable they might be boring. You don't bore me at all, far from it," she said. Lifting a handbag onto her lap and fidgeting around inside it, she pulled out a compact mirror and checked both sides of her face before putting it back in the bag. Leaning forwards, her elbows on the table, she supported her chin on her hands and said, "Go for it."

He grimaced and scratched the back of his neck, unsure exactly where the beginning was and then inhaled deeply. "This isn't going to be easy." He exhaled a short puff of air and then began. "When I was a kid, I was involved in an incident where three of my friends died."

"That's awful, what happened . . . How old were you?"

"I was fifteen. We were on a field trip with the school . . ."

He'd reached the point where the boys had drowned, and he realised that he'd tightly twisted the corner of his napkin and wrung it between his hands; he let it go, laying it on the table. Slowly, it unravelled itself.

He stalled and shook his head. "I don't know if I can just stop there, without telling you about Dr. Ryan . . ."

"So tell me about Dr. Ryan!"