He remembered Anna-Maria, too, and how he’d entertained the idea of making some kind of real life with her. Of even asking her to get a divorce. Of the two of them and Lexie somehow learning to be a family.
But that chance had been snuffed out, like a candle flame in a gale. Even if Danny cleared his name with the authorities, he’d still be hounded by the press. He’d never get to lead a normal life. What right did he have to ruin hers too?
Ruth’s face darkened with shadow as she stood and shuffled out of her jeans. She undid the buttons of her shirt, slipped it off, then her bra, and let them fall to the floor. She stood with her back to the fire, a silhouette as perfect as any artist’s statue. She beckoned him towards her with outstretched arms.
But he hesitated. His feet wouldn’t move. Where Ruth now stood, he imagined Alice falling after she’d been shot.
Ruth walked towards him. She unbuttoned his shirt, pushing it back over his shoulders and peeling its sleeves from his arms. She stepped into him then, pressing her naked skin against his. He felt her tongue parting his lips.
But he thought of Sally’s sweet perfume, and remembered her instead, leaning out of the back of the taxi to give him her number, the first day he’d met her and had chased her down the street in the pouring rain.
Ruth was unbuckling his belt now, placing kisses on his neck, her breath warm against his skin. As she slid her hands between his legs, he felt himself harden.
But in his mind, he still saw Sally, as if the two of them were stepping towards one another to do this for the first time.
Sally.
Ruth’s kisses were becoming rougher, hungrier. Her hands reached up behind his neck, twisting his head, pressing her lips against his. A soft moan escaped her as her hips began to grind.
But Danny’s vision of Sally’s face would not quit. Instead it grew more vivid and morphed jarringly, so that he saw it on the day the Paper, Stone, Scissors Killer had come for them. Her beautiful features stared back, warped by the duct tape stretched across them.
‘Ker-murgh . . .’
Danny remembered screaming through the duct tape after the killer had finished with Sally and little Jonathan:
‘KIIIILL MEEEEE
. . .’
And now, as he opened his eyes and Ruth’s face materialized out of the shadows, he gazed down at the bare skin of her shoulders cast golden by the glow of the fire, and hopelessness filled him, the longing of a child whose home had been burned to the ground, its ashes scattered to the winds, unable to return.
Everyone he came into contact with, he tainted or spoiled. All he brought people was misery.
He tried pushing the jumble of memories down inside him, into that locked, chained steel box in his mind, where time after time he had tried burying the sound of Jonathan’s last torn breath, the look of terror in Sally’s eyes and the burning hope, right up to the end, that had screamed her belief that he could still somehow save them – and her refusal to believe that he might fail.
Ruth was kissing him harder now and he tried to respond. As her hips continued to gyrate against his, he felt his teeth glance off hers and tasted blood. But again he saw Sally. He saw her dead face.
Ruth’s eyes caught his. He pictured her not here but in the Kid’s apartment: her knife flashing past him; his boot connecting hard with her stomach as he drove her desperately away; the feel of his pistol pressed to her face, as he’d attempted to force her to talk.
Just take her, Danny told himself. Give in to it. Give in to her.
But Ruth’s hips were no longer moving and the passion, the hunger had gone from her eyes. Instead her brow was furrowing. With what? Incomprehension? Pity? Danny felt a twist of fear inside him . . . of shame . . .
As she pulled back, he waited for her to say something, to reject him, to speak of the coldness, the failure, she’d surely just sensed.
But she didn’t. Instead she closed her eyes again. And this time, when her lips pressed against his, they did so softly, gently, as if whatever she’d seen, she was now trying to soothe it, defeat it, to exorcize it and absolve him of his pain.
Doubt racked Ray as his eyes strained through the darkness.
Should
he have called the police? Should he not have come here alone? An apprehensive voice inside his mind answered,
Yes,
to both questions. Because, out here on the point, staring up through the trees at the lighthouse, the wind blowing and the tang of salt in the air, he felt as alone as he’d ever felt in his life.
What did he really know? He had a parking ticket and the word of a drunk, none-too-bright car mechanic that a bald foreigner was staying here. That was about it. Hardly the kind of evidence he could present to the police. Not without revealing who he was.
What if the man staying here wasn’t the man who’d tried to kill him at the farmhouse? What if he really was just some bald American on vacation? What Ray needed was final proof that the PSS Killer was here. And for that he had to see him with his own eyes.
He scanned the lighthouse again with his binoculars. The building was L-shaped, with a stub of horizontal living quarters tacked on to the base of the tower. He’d already scouted right round it. The living-quarters windows were too small for an adult to fit through and there was only one door, which he was facing now.
The curtains were drawn, but light glowed through them, indicating that someone was in. A hire car was parked outside, but Ray couldn’t be sure it was the one he’d seen speeding away from the farmhouse, and he’d glimpsed no signs of life since he’d arrived more than an hour ago.
It was tempting, all right, to sneak up to the door and listen, or get closer to the windows in case there was a gap between any of the curtains through which he might look, but Ray wasn’t making the same mistake as last time. No way was he going inside that property, or even near it.
He’d been lucky to survive his encounter with the PSS Killer at the farmhouse. Be patient, he told himself. Whoever was in there would have to come out some time, either tonight or tomorrow. And that was all Ray needed. A glimpse to confirm what he already believed to be true.
An hour passed, long enough for the cold wind to cut right through his clothing and for him to wish he was back in the pub, shooting the breeze with the locals, and taking up the barmaid on her offer of a warm meal and a bed. His rib ached, too, where he’d bound his chest. He’d kill right now for a warm bath.
Then – bang.
He jolted. Had he been sleeping? He hadn’t even seen the lighthouse door opening, but now he saw the tall figure of a man walking from it, leaning into the wind, towards the car.
Is it him?
Is it?
Ray strained to see with his naked eyes, but it was no good. He slowly raised the binoculars as the man reached the vehicle, adjusting the focal dials, wishing to hell these were night-vision, dammit.
His heart lurched.
The man’s back came into focus as he opened the door and the car’s interior light switched on, bathing his entire silhouette in an ethereal glow. He looked so close that a surge of adrenalin raced through Ray, as he remembered how close he’d come to death in that farmhouse.
But
was
it him? Whoever it was, he was wearing a cap and had his collar turned up. Ray couldn’t even tell if he was bald.
Turn, you motherfucker, let me see your goddamn face . . .
And then, for a tantalizing second, the man started to turn, bringing with him a bag he’d just taken from the passenger seat. He started to turn, only right there – at the exact point where he was about to reveal his profile to Ray – he hesitated.
Almost as if he’d heard something. Almost – impossibly, Ray told himself – as if he’d somehow
sensed
that Ray was there.
Every muscle in Ray’s body tightened then. Every part of his being seemed to crane forward, desperate to see what he could not yet.
And then, just at the moment he thought his chance would vanish, just when the fear of failure inside him spiked up into a shrieking peak, the man did turn.
He turned slowly, so slowly that Ray now saw every detail of his features emerging through the binoculars’ lenses, like the pieces of a fractured mosaic gathering into a whole. He turned slowly until he was in perfect profile, completely clear for Ray to see.
It’s him . . .
It was.
Whatever microscopic spores of doubt had blown through the otherwise certain landscape of Ray’s mind now vanished. This was the same man he’d fought and wounded in that farmhouse, the same man who’d tortured and murdered Danny Shanklin’s son and wife . . .
He waited, his heart in his throat, unable to breathe.
Go back. Go back inside.
Because, after wanting nothing more than to see him, Ray now wanted nothing more than for the PSS Killer to vanish again. Because the second he did, the instant he disappeared inside that lighthouse, Ray would be getting the hell out of there, back to his car, from which he would be calling the FBI.
But the PSS Killer did not do what he expected. He did not shut the car door and carry his bag back to the front door of the lighthouse.
Instead he turned. He turned to face Ray Kincade. He turned to face him – and he smiles.
What?
A shuffling of leaves.
The cracking of a twig.
Both noises shrieked in Ray’s mind louder than the wind.
He turned, too late. He glimpsed the figure standing there. White. Bald. Powerfully built. Over six feet tall.
‘And you’re sure no one else can listen in on this?’ Danny said.
‘Certain.’
Ruth was sitting beside him on the passenger seat of the four-by-four. She had her laptop open in front of her, plugged into a power socket in the dashboard. A programme not dissimilar to Skype, but without branding, filled the screen.
‘OK,’ Danny said, into the phone clamped to his ear. ‘Go ahead and dial in.’
A retro ringing sound, reminding him of the analogue phones of his childhood, trilled from the laptop’s speakers. Ruth hit a couple of keys, passing the laptop across to him as she did, angling its screen away from her face so she couldn’t be seen by whoever she was dialling.
That person was Spartak. His face filled the screen now. He looked oddly younger than Danny remembered. Or maybe he looked younger than Danny felt. Christ, he wondered, what kind of toll would these last weeks have taken on him? The last time he’d looked in a mirror, he’d winced at the crazy, tired eyes that had stared back at him. At least Spartak had got himself some rest. He’d need it too, because Danny needed him again.
He cut off the disposable phone from which he’d contacted Spartak minutes before to instruct him on how to dial.
‘You look like shit,’ Spartak said jovially. ‘What the hell have you been doing since I last saw you?’
‘Just trying to stay alive.’
‘And who’s been helping you do that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, come on, Danny! The first thing you asked me just now was how quick I could make it to Germany and then you told me to download this shit-hot cloaked comms system that I’ve never even heard of before. Now, as much as I love you, my American friend, I’m thinking either you’re shit-hot fucking lucky to have got out of England without my assistance, or someone is helping you . . . and I’m also thinking that, whoever that person is, they have some pretty high clearance access to get hold of a communications application like this. So, you going to tell me their name?’
Danny glanced across at Ruth, who shook her head.
‘Just someone,’ Danny told him. ‘Someone competent. And someone who wants to find these scumbags and make them pay every bit as much as I do.’
Spartak slowly nodded, accepting that this was as much as he was likely to hear. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Well, the good news is that we are at least one step closer to finding out exactly who the Kid is working for.’
‘Go on,’ Danny said.
‘I got my hands on a list of the guards who were stationed at the Soviet Biopreparet in 1990 when it was raided and the smallpox was stolen. And, based on how old you say Glinka is now, I’ve narrowed the list down even further. Better still, I have photographic records for each of the shortlisted individuals.’ Spartak’s head dipped as he studied his keyboard. ‘And they are coming to you now.’
Seconds later, a file appeared in the comms app’s inbox on Danny’s laptop. He glanced across at Ruth and raised his eyebrows expectantly. She nodded. He returned his attention to the screen, clicked the mail package icon and watched its contents balloon into a window alongside the one still showing Spartak’s face.
Thirty thumbnail images, each of uniformed young men in the prime of their lives, came into view.
‘Take your time,’ Spartak said. ‘The intervening years will have changed this man’s appearance.’
But Danny didn’t need to take his time.
Glinka.
He saw him right away, staring out at him from the screen. Yes, his hair was longer, a little darker and slightly less receding. And, yes, his neck and shoulders seemed broader, less powerful, less honed. But there, staring at Danny, were the same unmistakable features. The same intensity in the eyes.
This was the man who had destroyed his life. Of that there was no doubt.
‘Kirill Sergeyevich Dementyev,’ he said, reading out the name beneath the thumbnail image, at the same time clicking on it so that it filled the left half of the screen, as though the man and Spartak were now standing side by side.
‘You’re positive?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Now wait. I will look this piece of shit up and see what else we can find.’
Danny watched Spartak typing into his keyboard, but his eyes were soon dragged back to Glinka – Kirill Sergeyevich Dementyev. Now that they had a real name, he could begin to speculate. Who was he? What were his real motives in all this? Were there people who knew him as someone else entirely? Did he have family? A home?
Whatever he had – whatever he cared for most – Danny would take it, he vowed.