Chapter 42
‘Have we met before?’
I looked up from the coffee machine. I was in the lounge down the corridor from the operation room. It was a small room with space for a sink unit and cabinets, the drinks dispenser I was standing by, and a couple of threadbare armchairs nobody ever had time to sit down in.
Franklin was standing in the doorway.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
He took a step into the room. ‘I’m sure we have. I’ve been thinking about it since I arrived, but haven’t had the chance to ask. And I’m sure. Where do I know you from?’
‘I guess I’ve got one of those faces.’
I did my best to shrug, half-smile, and then, with my heart thudding hard in my chest, I turned back to the dispenser. Watched the hot water spitting and rasping into the thin plastic cup.
‘You’ve never worked in Buxton?’
‘Nope. Only ever here.’
Never worked in Buxton.
I grew up there though. My brother and me.
And yes, we have met before.
The coffee finally finished, I picked the cup out carefully, blowing the steam from the rim.
Franklin was still standing there, still looking at me curiously, inquisitively.
There was something about his body language that I didn’t like.
It wasn’t cop-to-cop; it was more interrogatory than that, as though he’d decided that if he hadn’t encountered me as a colleague then at some point he must have encountered me in a very different capacity.
Which of course he had.
The key to what, Andy?
The key to what?
I had changed though. That was something to cling to.
My surname was different now; my face and body had grown and altered.
Only the thinnest ghost remained of the little boy he’d interrogated all those years ago – at least on the outside.
And I remembered him so clearly because of the circumstances, and the impact he’d had on me, whereas his life since must have been littered with other similar incidents, his encounter with me lost and only half recalled amongst them.
I looked at him.
He hadn’t changed all that much from the policeman he’d been when he interviewed me all those years ago – back when I was eight years old.
The brown hair might have silvered, but the face remained relatively unlined.
The same bright blue eyes. I could see a thin chain around his neck, which I was willing to bet ended in the exact same crucifix I’d seen him touching as a young officer.
Faced with me.
This man, and the attitude he’d had towards me as a child, was responsible for so much of who I was.
Evil. He’d thought I was evil. He hadn’t even made an attempt to hide it.
I’d spent so much time denying that to myself – I wasn’t a bad person; there wasn’t anything intrinsically wrong with me; there was no evil – that the denial ran through me as deep as blood, and just as important.
But now, finally faced with him again, all that psychological armour was crumbling.
I felt cold and small: powerless before the intimidating authority figure staring at me, accusing me with his eyes of being something monstrous.
Do I know you? Yes, I know you. I know what you are.
The time that had passed didn’t seem to matter anymore.
As I stood, staring back at him, barely able to blink, I felt all the years I’d travelled, all the conviction I’d gathered, collapsing behind me like a bridge falling, the break rumbling towards me.
I opened my mouth to say … something. But nothing came out.
Then Franklin smiled at me. Shook his head.
‘Oh, I’m getting old.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean I’m not thinking straight.’ He half laughed, his manner changing instantly. ‘I’ve just realised – it will be from the television, won’t it? The press conferences. I remember seeing one of them. It must be from there.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s probably that.’
He leaned against the wall, visibly relaxing. My gaze followed him. The rest of my body didn’t move, aside from my heart, knocking hard against my lungs.
‘To be honest,’ he was saying, ‘I don’t know where I am at the moment. It’s this case, I think. It’s the worst one I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot.’ He looked at me. ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-five.’
‘Really? You look younger. Well, trust me, Andy – by the time you get to my age, you’ll have seen far too much.’ His hand went to his chest, to the crucifix I imagined nestling beneath his shirt. My gaze followed it. ‘Far too much. And this … this is just evil, isn’t it. Pure evil.’
It wasn’t a question.
I said, ‘I don’t know if I believe in evil.’
‘Really? Wait a while.’ He lowered his hand and gave that half-laugh again. ‘Wait a while.’
I should have been prepared to argue; in my head, I’d been doing so ever since.
But I found myself nodding slightly, entirely unequipped for this moment that had arrived.
Franklin’s arrival had whipped off the flimsy film of self-deception, and now I just wanted away from this, not to engage in it, not to try to stand up to him.
‘It’s just this case anyway.’ Franklin moved away from the wall again. ‘That’s what’s throwing me. Can’t think straight in the face of it.’
‘I get you. Believe me.’
He shook his head. ‘Just don’t tell anyone, will you?’
‘Don’t worry.’ I did my best to smile back. ‘I won’t.’
I needed some fresh air.
Taking my coffee with me, ignoring the way it scorched my fingertips, I headed for the lift and pressed the button for the ground floor. As it descended, I told myself:
He doesn’t recognise me.
As much as my defences had crumbled in the moment, I was already spinning the encounter.
But still – it was true. The confrontation that had made such an impression on me, that had affected my whole life …
he didn’t fucking remember it. He hadn’t looked at me and seen the evil little boy he had at the time, and he hadn’t recognised something wrong with me now.
So regardless of anything else, I was not that child anymore.
I was no longer what Franklin had thought I was all those years ago. If I ever had been at all.
That was what I’d been afraid of all these years.
That was what I’d expected to face when Franklin joined the investigation.
And it hadn’t happened. What I felt now was almost relief, except that word wasn’t strong enough.
It was euphoria. I was still trembling slightly, but now there was so much energy coursing through me that I felt like bouncing on the spot.
It felt like I could do anything at all.
Catch this fucker.
Yes, that was what remained. Catch him. End this. And we would. As the lift hit the ground floor, I smiled to myself, and took a sip of the coffee without thinking. The heat sang in my upper lip, but I barely even noticed.
Ting.
I stepped out and headed through the foyer, past the reception, towards the sliding glass doors that led outside.
It was sunny out there today. No storm clouds gathering; even the ones in my head were clearing.
Free, free, free. There was a woman at the reception desk, but I was so distracted that I barely caught what she was saying as I walked behind her.
‘My husband.’ She was clearly frustrated, obviously repeating what she had already told the duty officer. The doors slid open in front of me just as she said, ‘Gregor Levchenko.’
A moment later, as I was still frozen in place, the glass doors slid closed again in front of me.
And then I turned slowly back.