Mr. Flood's Last Resort(15)

I hear a scratching sound and listen, a faint scrabbling coming from inside; maybe the fox has got in and made its lair there. I look down at the half-peeled potato in my hand and throw it into the weeds, under the van. The noise stops but no fox comes out.

*

AS I walk back to the house I see it straightaway, stuck to the kitchen window. I go inside, cross the room, climb up on a chair, and balancing on the edge of the sink, I make a grab for it. It flutters unstuck; I catch it before it lands amongst the dishes.

A photograph: a field in sunlight, a woman holding a little boy by the hand.

The woman’s face is gone. A hole, a burn, circled by a raised welt.

Otherwise she is untouched, from her white patent shoes and long pale legs to her yellow dress. The cloud of red hair that surrounds the space where her face should be is unnaturally bright, backlit.

Beside her a boy looks up at the camera with a familiar scowl.

Gabriel is a little older here. His face and the knees below his shorts are translucently pale. His hair is the same unlikely red as the woman’s. Behind them is the caravan. The same windows, the same shape, the same colors, but glowing with the warm cast of a long-forgotten Kodak summer. The sun belts down on field and trees, on the roof of the caravan, and the bright ellipse of water in a paddling pool. I turn the photo over. There is no tape or glue. I glance up at the kitchen window.

Static. Magic.

On the back, written in small neat letters, are the words:

Mary and Gabriel, Langton Cheney, 1980.



AT THE end of the garden path, by the garden gate, the leylandii is smoking.

This is not the work of a saint. A saint will not cross into Bridlemere, if Dymphna is anything to go by. Moreover, saints, to my knowledge, do not smoke (although Padre Pio was partial to snuff and likely still partakes in the afterlife, peppering his soutane with invisible flecks).

Then I notice boots, not sandals. This confirms my previous observations: I have never seen closed-toe footwear on a saint.

The boots shuffle and smoke drifts into the air.

“You there,” I say. “I can see you.”

The trees shake and a stranger steps out onto the path.

I rapidly consider my arsenal of personal weaponry: a dangerously sharp crossword pencil, a swift right knee, and a Wing Chun taster session.

The stranger holds up his hands in a gesture of supplication and possibly pacification.

“Maud, are you Maud?” he asks.

I nod.

He smiles at me.

*

CONSIDER THE smile of this perfect stranger: at the epicenter is an eyetooth. A singular snaggle-arsed tooth set in an otherwise straight white row of teeth.

This one rebellious, rank-breaking tooth, which, combined with a jaunty scar above the right eyebrow, imparts a powerful variety of roguish charm. I smile back, immediately and without reserve.

Then I wonder how this mugger knows my name and if he’ll still mug me knowing it and if I’ll let him. I think about asking him as I gaze into the lustrous depths of his gray eyes.

Or should I know him after all?

Then it strikes me. I know exactly who he is.

“You’re Sam Hebden,” I say.

His smile widens.

My kneecaps melt.

*

HE LETS me do the talking all the way to the bus stop. He won’t admit to a topknot, although his dark blond hair is past his ears; his tattoo isn’t of a cobra (and it’s not on his neck) and he doesn’t ride a motorbike. Otherwise we had him pegged, he admits.

All of this with a twist of a half smile and laughing glances.

Sam Hebden is in his early forties and, fair play to him, he has a shirt tight enough to display a wholesome set of shoulders. In every movement of his body there is that animal alertness that comes from running fast and lifting things. Of time spent, sweat-bathed and naked to the waist, delivering uppercuts to punchbags in dirty cellars or bench-pressing small cars.

Or playing rugby. Almost certainly playing rugby.

Running down the pitch in a snug pair of shorts, the roped muscles in his thighs glistening, the ball nuzzled in the crook of his iron bicep, his eyes blazing icily as he scores a try.

He’s nearly a foot taller than me. If we slow-danced right now he could rest his chin on top of my head comfortably. He would have to stoop in order to put his hands on my backside, if he felt so inclined. I would need to be wearing heels with this man, not the secondhand gardening trainers of an agoraphobic transvestite.

“I’m sorry if I startled you, hiding in the hedge there.” He throws a sly look at me with the corners of his lips curled.

“Were you waiting to see me or casing the joint?” I ask.

“Both.” He laughs.

“You’re off the case with Mr. Flood?” I lower my voice. “After what happened with the hurley and all that.”

“Yep, and all that.”

“So what brings you back?”

Sam shrugs and looks away. I fill in the gaps.

He has returned to exact revenge on the old man. For blotting his immaculate work record and for sending him mad.

Although, Sam Hebden doesn’t appear mad, but then if he has escaped from an asylum he’d need to be disguising the old lunacy. I eye him carefully, thoroughly. He still has his shoes and a belt on his trousers, which, in my experience, is a good sign.

He points down the road. “Is that your bus?”