Day 143

Start in the middle of the story, then play catch-up

…

Sitting across from my father, a possibility that I had always thought would be impossible, I looked at him like it was someone I’d never seen or knew before.

“Why didn’t you tell me, us?”

“Couldn’t.”

“That’s not good enough.  You had responsibilities, and had you been forthcoming, even if we had some sort of heads up, what happened wouldn’t have happened.”

“Don’t you think I know that.  I know that’s on me, and I’m going to remember it for the rest of my days.”

“Who are you, really?  And don’t even try to lie about it.  We’re way past that now?”

“I’m a trouble shooter. That’s probably the best description of my current job.  There’s a problem somewhere in the world, I go and fix it, or try to.”

He just couldn’t say he was a spy because, as far as I was concerned, he was.  As unbelievable as it sounded.  There was no other explanation for what I witnessed.

And he was only sitting in that chair in front of me because I had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or maybe I wasn’t, and we had been the target, my mother, my sister, and I.  My semester was in hospital, traumatised in more ways than I could count, and my mother was dead.

She hadn’t deserved to die, not like that.  She wasn’t even supposed to be there.  That was the thing that hurt the most.

“Were we the target, any or all of us?”

“No.  You were simply collateral damage.”

I didn’t believe him.  I’d gone over the events a dozen times, creating a timeline and a storyboard of the event.

He pays us a visit, out of nowhere, the man who had unceremoniously dumped us all ten years before without so much as a by your leave, and two days later, here we were.

A hotel lobby just before he was leaving, again, for who knows where.

Leaving a train of irreparable destruction behind him.

“That’s a lie, and you know it.  If the reason you left in the first place was to protect your family, why would you come back and lead whoever it was straight to us?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.

I was sure he came back for a reason, something he had left at the house, something he must have been very desperate to get that he would sacrifice our safety.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what’s it like?  What is it you needed?  It certainly wasn’t to see Mother again.  She was adamant she had never ever wanted to see you again.”

“No one could have known who you were and where you lived.  I didn’t go there, and there was no trail leading from me to any of you.”

“Then how did they find us?”

“That’s something I intended to find out.”

A car horn sounded, and he leapt out of the chair.  “I’m sorry.  Can you apologise to Cecelia for me?  I thought I’d have time, but I have to leave.  I promise I’ll come back and tell you more.”

His promises meant nothing to me.

A last look, he grabbed a backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and left, not looking back.

A few seconds after he went through the door, I heard screams and quickly ran towards the entrance.  It wasn’t hard to see what caused the screams.  My father was sprawled backwards on the ground, blood seeping from a large hole in his chest.

I looked up at the building opposite but didn’t see anyone or anything, but that’s where the sniper was, or by now, had been.

I half expected to be the recipient of the next shot, but I wasn’t the target.  I don’t think any of us had been.  They’d been after him, and now the job was done.

Except it wasn’t over.

Back to the start…

The envelope, small, smudged with dirt and grease, wrinkled around the edges, turned up in my letter box one Saturday.

I had no idea what prompted me to look in it because no one ever sent me letters.  I was passing by, and it looked different.

It was.  There was the envelope with my name scrawled on it.  Nothing else, no address, no stamp

I looked up and down the street, as you do, thinking the person who dropped it would still be lurking to see if I collected it. 

The street was empty.

The envelope could have been sitting in the box for a month, about the length of time i last looked, but somehow, I didn’t think so.

I resisted the urge to tear it open tight there and then but instead shoved it in my back pocket, once again looked for any sign of movement, and then went inside.

My flat was on the second floor, a long trudge down a narrow corridor listening to loud music, serial TV shows, and couples arguing, intermingled with the aromas of Spanish, Italian and Korean food wafting through the cracks in the doorways.

I went up the back stairs, not quite as polished at those at the front, and then two doors along to my place.  No loud music, no eating aromas.

Inside, sparsely furnished, not many groceries and beer in the Bridge.  I’d eaten out.  I always ate out.  I had no wife, no children.  I had a mother and a sister.  Don’t ask me where my father was. He left before I was old enough to remember him

Fifteen years.  Or so I was told.

I tossed the keys and the envelope on the bench and rescued one of those bottles of beer.  I was going to turn on the TV, but I didn’t.  It was news time, and there was never any good news.

A half and three bottles of beer constituted my version of prevarication. I got the envelope and sat down again

Who would be sending me anonymous letters?  I kept to myself, I avoided everyone, I trusted no one.  That was my father’s fault.  When he left, bad people came looking for him, and we had to disappear.  Now, I was lucky to remember what my real name was.

It wasn’t the name on the envelope.  My real name was Jack, the name on the envelope was Jake.

I ripped it open.

A single sheet of equally grimy paper.

“Dock 7 warehouse, Puddle Lane, 11:30 pm. 27/6”

Nothing else, no conditions like ‘come alone’ or ‘no police’, nothing.  Tonight.  I took it to me, and someone was setting me up.

Workmates’ pranks.  I thought they’d got the message the last time.  Apparently not.

Puddle Lane was infamous.  Thirty-odd years ago, there were the Puddle Lane murders, twenty-odd bodies of teens, boys, and girls, had been discovered buried under the detritus of time and abandonment.

They would not have been discovered only for an enterprising youth thinking it was an ideal spot for a meth lab.  It would have been if it had not exploded.

Now, none went near the place, feared to be haunted by the angry hosts of the twenty victims still clamouring for justice.  Whoever did it so far had gotten away with it.

I’d been once or twice out of morbid curiosity with said workmates, but the place had rattled them too.  If this was them, it was a new low.

I chambered through the cut in the chain wire fencing, meant to keep people out, but I suspect there were homeless people about.  There was the aroma of burning timber in the air, and the path on either side of the opening was worn.

I walked about twenty yards to a door with the number 7 over the top, took a deep breath, and tried the door.  It was open.

I stepped in and closed the door behind me.  It was dark, but not that dark, with several fires burning in drums a distance away from where I was standing.  There were also the muffled sounds of voices.

The smell was of rotting wood and permanent damp.  But there was something else, something powerful enough to transcend it, a smell I’d smelled before, and a long, long time ago.

The only memory I had.

And the voice, right beside me.  “I thought you’d recognise it.  Hello, Jack.”

My father had returned.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025