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Authors: Christopher Burns
A Division of the Light
Christopher Burns is the author of five previous novels and a collection of short stories. He lives with his wife near the western edge of the English Lake District.
Christopher Burns
New York ⢠London
© 2012 by Christopher Burns
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ISBN 978-1-62365-224-1
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual personsâliving or deadâevents, or locales is entirely coincidental.
for Iain Burns
1974â2010
1
It begins with a sudden blow, a young woman hurled onto a pavement, a waiting motorbike being revved in a quiet city street. A simple but efficient robbery is carried out on a stranger, and this takes place twenty paces in front of a man with a camera. The man is there only by chance, but he immediately takes his opportunity.
He does not focus on the riders in their beetle-black helmets as they speed past in a clamor of acceleration. Instead his concentration is on how the hard-edged shadow of a tall building bisects the woman's body. She is sprawled face down but has broken her fall with hands that are folded up beneath her. One leg is stuck out at an ungainly angle and a shoe hangs from the foot as if she has pitched forward while trying it on. Just beyond her grasp a pair of dark glasses gleam on the brightly sunlit paving.
It is not the crime that excites the photographer's attention, but a chance configuration of shape and textureâthe smooth opacity of the lenses, the knotty tension in the victim's hands, the summer clothing rubbed along the ground. These, and the disheveled hair that screens a face he cannot quite see and that could so easily have smashed into the pavement.
Only after he has taken several rapid photographs does the man turn to look down the gently sloping street and focus on the thieves. In that instant the stolen bag is lobbed from the pillion as if it were an empty carton, and then with a brief flash of red the bike tilts and swings out dangerously into traffic. Squealing brakes and angrily punched horns momentarily clash with the clatter of its exhaust and then everything disperses into a rumbling hum.
The narrow side street has become eerily quiet now that the thieves have gone. Both victim and photographer are motionless for a few seconds. Sultry heat slides down between the tall office blocks in an invisible layer and presses on the scene.
Later, Gregory will consider what might have happened if someone else had been present. If they had been, then they could have made sure that the woman was unharmed. They might even have contacted the police. If there had been another witnessâanyoneâthen his own life would not have been changed so unalterably. Gregory's natural instinct was for avoidance and observation, not involvement. He had taken his few sly photographs and that was enough. The chances were that the sprawled woman did not even know he had done this. But there was no one else nearby; at the mouth of the street the indifferent traffic moved along the broad embankment, and no witnesses could be seen peering from the mirrored windows in the high buildings.
Conscience took hold of Gregory. The victim was struggling to her knees and reaching forward for her glasses with arms that seemed too loosely articulated. The building shadow fell across her like a burden. Only now could he hear the shocked, convulsive sound of her breathing.
He studied the woman with a professional eye. The lightweight olive trousers, ripped across one knee, had been dragged down a couple of extra inches to expose the pale skin at the base of her spine and the scalloped upper edge of white underwear. The woman was slender, a little taller than average, probably in her early thirties. Gregory considered it his job to notice such things. Just as he had noticed that beneath the open lightweight jacket her white T-shirt had been scuffed across the bust by contact with the unswept pavement.
He bent closer, holding his camera bag close to his hip. The Canon swung in front of him like a sensor. The woman pushed her hair back with her left hand. It had been lightened to a reddish blond but was darker red at the roots. She wore no wedding ring.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Are you able to stand?”
She pushed the glasses high up on a slightly prominent nose so that her eyes were shielded. Behind the large obscuring lenses her face was a pale oval. As if she were a child on the verge of tears, her lower jaw quivered noticeably.
He stretched out a hand. “It's all right, you can trust me.”
But Gregory knew that although some women would claim that he had many admirable qualities, he had never inspired trust.
She did not take his hand but remained kneeling, as if the ground were a penance and she a supplicant. Gregory knew the pavement must be hot. He could feel sweat gather on his forehead. Perhaps it made him look menacing.
“Iâ” the woman began, and then stopped, her lungs still robbed of air. After a few seconds she put the shoe back on her foot in an odd, almost absentminded gesture.
Gregory reached out a little further, this time with both hands. The camera was a barrier between their two bodies.
“They threw away your bag further down the street.”
She did not react.
“We can go and find it, but they'll have taken whatever was valuable.”
The woman accepted his grasp and got to her feet with her weight pressing on his hands. The skin of her palms was roughened and he realized she must have scraped them along the ground. As soon as she was steady the woman pushed at the bridge of the dark glasses with one finger so that they rested even closer to her eyes. Then she tugged at the waistband of her trousers to adjust them on her hips. Gregory could see the outline of a white bra beneath her cotton T-shirt.
“You took a hard fall. Are you hurt?”
“Did you see them? How many were there?”
Her voice was classless, educated, a little stunned.
“Just two. The pillion passenger was the one who hit you and lifted the bag. It was all in one movement. His friend was the escape rider. They must have singled you out. You're probably not the only victim they'll get today. I know that won't make you feel any better.”
“What about your camera? Did you photograph them?”
He did not trouble himself by debating how he should answer.
“I only had time for one shot. It won't help identify them. Listen, if you can walk all right, then we can go down there and try to find your bag. But if you're still shaky then just stay here, I'll go, and if I can find it I'll bring it back.”
The woman said nothing.
“I won't steal it again. Promise. One theft is more than enough.”
“I can walk. Thank you.”
“Do you want to lean on me?”
“No. No, I'll manage.”
They set off together along the pavement and through the motionless air. A set of spiked black railings in front of blank walls gave way to a second office block with smoky glass. The woman walked unevenly as if a stone had lodged in one shoe. Gregory feared that without warning she could topple to one side and he would have to catch her as she fell. If she did then he would have to be careful not to touch her breasts.
“Are you sure you're OK?”
“I'll survive. Could you recognize them again?”
“Not with those helmets. They're no fools. They make a living out of this.”
The woman shook her head and he registered the way that her hair moved.
Two men in business suits walked toward them, deep in loud conversation, jackets slung over their shoulders, and did not look up. Gregory realized that the men had probably walked past the stolen bag and simply ignored it.
“I feel so
stupid
,” the woman said. “I always carry that bag across my shoulder on the inside, away from the traffic, and yet today I didn't. I don't know why. And
this
is what happens. I didn't even plan to be walking down this street. Usually I take the busy one, just a block along.”
“You were unlucky, that's all.”
“Maybe not.”
“You shouldn't think that. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“But maybe it was meant to happen.”
This, Gregory thought, was an irrational comment made under stress. He ignored it because he had no reason to believe in fate.
A little further on they came to an entrance to the building. There was a broad, shallow flight of half a dozen steps beside a disabled ramp with a metal handrail. Two women were standing on the ramp in the shade. The taller one had taken the higher position so that she appeared even taller than her colleague, and they were both smoking cigarettes that were almost finished. The taller one also held the missing bag at the end of two fingers of her free hand, delicately, as though aware that she should not presume to hold it any closer.
“Is this yours?” she asked as they approached.
“It's mine,” the woman said.
“We came out here on a smoking break and those bikers threw it away. We usually stand leaning on that rail but it would burn your arms off in this heat so we stood back here. We thought something bad must have gone on. Same thing once happened to a cousin of mine. But with her they ran away on foot.”
“Some of those young bastards would steal from their own mother,” her smaller colleague announced.
“I picked this up from where they threw itâjust down here. Almost at our feet. I haven't looked inside. Sorry, love, but whatever's missing, they took.”
The shorter woman quickly confirmed that neither of them had looked inside. And as the victim took the bag and examined it, the smokers began to ask for detail on exactly what had happened.