The Other People(30)

The man held out his other hand. “Get down.”

Gabe hesitated for a moment. Then he grabbed the proffered hand and swung himself back over the railing. His legs gave almost immediately, all strength evaporating. He slid down, until he was sitting on the ground with his back against the railing. He couldn’t stop shivering. He wrapped his arms around his body and started to cry.

The man sat down beside him. He waited until the tears had dried. Then he said: “Talk.”

Gabe talked—about Izzy, the night he saw her taken. About his grief, his torment, losing Jenny. About spending his days and nights driving up and down the motorway, searching. About his desperation. About how he couldn’t see any end to the torment. And then he told him more. Stuff he had never told anyone else before, not even Jenny. He told the stranger with the gun everything.

When he had finished, the man said: “Give me your phone.”

Gabe pulled out his phone and handed it over. The man tapped in a number.

“Any time you need help, you call me. I will look out for you. I’ll look out for your little girl, too.”

“You believe me?”

“I’ve seen a lot of strange things. The strangest things are often true.”

He stood and held out his hand again. Gabe took it and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet.

“You’re not done yet,” the man told him. “When you are, you’ll know.”

He turned and walked away, to a car parked further down the bridge. An angel, Gabe thought. Yeah, right. And then something occurred to him.

“Wait!”

The man paused, looked back.

“You never told me your name?”

The man smiled, flashing very white teeth, one inlaid with a small stone. “I got a lot of names—but some people call me the Samaritan.”

“Right. Cool.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“So that’s what you do? Hang around motorway bridges saving people’s lives?”

The smile snapped off. Gabe felt a sudden chill enter his bones.

“I don’t save them all.”



* * *



—

THE CAFé WAS a small, shed-like building set back from the road on what looked like an abandoned building site. Gabe had passed it a few times. The road led to an out-of-town trading estate he occasionally visited for supplies.

He had always thought the place was closed, perhaps about to be demolished. It didn’t even have a name, simply the word “Café” daubed clumsily on the wood in red paint, which had run a bit, like blood. Two cars sat outside, one of which was missing its wheels.

Even the sign hanging inside the door read “Closed.” However, when Gabe pushed it, skirting the debris and broken bricks which formed a pathway, it gave with a painful groan.

Inside, the light was so dim it took his eyes a moment to adjust. Tables were arranged in rows on either side of a small, square room. A serving hatch and kitchen lurked at the back. Lights glowed dimly. Only one other patron sat at a far table in the corner, almost blending in with the shadows.

Gabe had spent a while driving before he made the call, turning thoughts over and over in his head, kneading them like dough. Could he go to the police with the photo, or would they simply dismiss him, make the right noises then file his statement in the shredder? He could already hear their calm, patronizing tones.

You’re suggesting that your father-in-law faked a morgue photograph?

Isn’t it more likely you’re mistaken? The cat must have scratched your daughter another morning.

And then the Samaritan’s voice: It ain’t proof.

No, he thought. Proof lay with the decomposing sludge of the man in the car. He held all the answers, but the only thing he was giving away was noxious gas. That just left the Bible and the notebook. The Other People. What the hell did it mean, if anything? Were the underlined passages and the words he found in the notebook connected or was he trying to link needles in a self-made haystack?

Who could he ask? Not the police. And then a thought prodded him in the gut.

There was one person who probably knew more than the police about criminal activity, the darker side of life. If anyone knew what those three words meant, he would.

Gabe walked over to him. “You invite me to all the best places.”

The Samaritan glanced up. In the dim lighting, his eyes looked like empty holes. “Don’t knock it. This is my place.”

“You own it?”

“Call it my retirement fund.”

The Samaritan must have caught Gabe’s dubious look.

“It’s a work in progress.”

Gabe couldn’t help wondering if it was more about a work in money-laundering, but he knew better than to say anything. He never asked questions about the Samaritan’s business or his life. He had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answers. And it didn’t take much of a leap to assume that a man who worked at night, carried a gun, lurked around deserted woods and refused to divulge his real name wasn’t exactly Santa Claus.

Besides, the Samaritan was a friend, of sorts. Perhaps the only friend Gabe had. And who was he to judge? We’re all capable of good and bad. Very few of us show our real faces to the world. For fear that the world might stare back and scream.

“So, can I get a coffee?”