The Fall

13

Jud returned with a tall man of around 20. It was the guy dressed as Dracula, complete with black cape, frilly white shirt, corpse-white make-up and lipstick-drawn blood trickles down the sides of his mouth. It was also the same guy who had freaked out in the amphitheatre, clutching his stomach and yelling wildly about a truck.

Sam Baker stood by the Range Rover’s open passenger door and watched Jud amble up, his gold waistcoat flapping open. ‘I heard you’d started the car,’ Jud said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. ‘Are you going into town now?’

‘May as well?’ Sam said and looked at Zita, who nodded before climbing into the driving seat. ‘We’ll be back in about an hour.’

‘I’ve asked this gentleman if he’ll go along with you. His name’s Lee Burton. He’s a rep with Coast and County Tours.’

Sam tried not to stare at Lee Burton in his Dracula costume, but it was hard not to. The cloak looked so big it seemed to weigh the man down.

Sam said, ‘Well, I don’t know if we need any help, Jud. We’re only going to take a look round, maybe buy a paper, and… you know.’

‘It’s all right, Sam. I’ve talked to Lee, here. He’s aware of the situation. But you might need an extra pair of hands, even if it’s only to push the car if it breaks down again.’

‘How are you feeling now, Lee?’ Sam asked, looking him up and down. ‘You took a bad turn in the amphitheatre a little while ago.’

‘I’m fine now. Believe me, I’ll do anything to help. Anything.’

Sam saw Lee smiling through his fake blood, but he also heard a throbbing desperation in the way he said ‘Anything.’

‘Come on, Sam,’ Zita called as she grabbed her can of water from where she’d left it on the car roof. ‘The engine’s missing again.’

‘Just a minute.’

‘If we wait any longer we might not go at all.’

‘Okay, Lee,’ Sam told him. ‘Hop in the back.’

‘Good luck,’ Jud said, and Sam knew he meant it.

‘Thanks. See you soon. Less than an hour. Promise.’ Sam climbed into the passenger seat and belted himself in.

Lee Burton climbed in the back, cloak rustling.

‘I’ll do whatever I can to help,’ Lee insisted. ‘Trust me.’

‘Okay, Lee,’ Sam said reassuringly. ‘You’re on the team.’ He twisted round in the seat, hand extended. ‘My name’s Sam Baker. This is Zita Prestwyck.’

Lee still looked jangled as he shook Sam’s hand. He glanced nervously left and right through the windows as if he expected to see tigers or lions or something equally lethal stalking him through the grass.

‘Lee. Jud says he told you that something a little strange happened today.’

‘I know everything.’ Lee spoke in a heartfelt, emphatic kind of way that increased Sam’s unease. They could have been on their way to assassinate a president, the nervy way he was behaving.

‘Take it easy.’ Sam spoke in a calming voice. ‘Enjoy the ride.’

‘Yeah. Sure. I’m fine. I’m fine.’

The man wasn’t raving, Sam saw, but there was an edginess, even excitement, as if he anticipated astonishing times ahead.

Zita had reversed the car out of the space and now drove forward across the car park with the can of iced water gripped between her inner thighs. Ahead ran the lane that would take them up to the main road. Jud Campbell watched them go. A shrinking figure, hands on hips, gold waistcoat shining in the sun.

Suddenly, Sam heard a loud thump as something hard clunked against the car body.

‘Jesus, what the hell is he doing?’

Sam snapped his head back to look through the windscreen.

A blond-haired man of around 40, with all the confidence of a cop, was slapping the bonnet of the car to tell Zita to stop.

‘What do you want? I nearly ran – hey!’

The man deftly opened the back passenger door and swung himself into the seat beside Lee. ‘You don’t mind if I hitch a lift, do you?’

‘You don’t know where we’re going.’ Zita sounded outraged.

‘You’ll be going to that little town over the hill, won’t you? Well… that’s where the road leads, doesn’t it?’ He spoke with a brisk confidence.

‘But you can’t just—’

‘Oh, come on, sweetheart,’ he said in a voice that made Sam think of velvet covering steel. ‘I’m not taking anyone’s place, am I?’

‘No, but—’

‘And I’ll pay for the bloody petrol if you’re hard up. Twenty do it?’

He reached into the breast pocket of his white linen jacket.

‘Oh, never mind,’ Zita said through her teeth. ‘We’ll drop you off in town.’

‘Now, there’s a sweetie.’ The man smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, Sam thought. The eyes possessed all the qualities of dark glass beads. They were hard, cold. His clothes were expensive-looking, as if he sent the linen suit away to have designer crumples carefully added every couple of weeks.

Probably the kind of man who gets rich by trampling across the backs of others, Sam told himself. A man who hailed from the blitzkrieg school of commerce.

Sam asked conversationally (while noticing Zita was grinding her teeth in silent fury), ‘I didn’t see you in the amphitheatre this afternoon.’

‘Amphitheatre? Oh, that hole in the ground back there? So that’s what it was? No, I was lying back and… just enjoying life as she comes.’

‘On holiday?’

‘If you can call it that. I run my own company, so holidays usually end up a pain in the derriere. That’s why I need to get into town and make some business calls. The bloody cellphones have gone haywire; the bloody cruiser engine’s kaput, too. My Man Friday has vanished into thin air. Why I ever thought a holiday cruising the open sewers of sweet England would be relaxing God alone knows.’ He lounged back looking a lot like Charles Dance in his best English-aristocrat pose, arm through the window, his long fingers toying with the edge of the car-door frame, blond hair fluttering in the slipstream. He shot a sidelong glance at Lee in the Dracula costume. A dismissive glance, Sam thought. And no doubt he was filing Lee in the mental folder marked Prat.

‘Wonderful weather,’ the man said, smiling coldly out through the window. ‘Oh, to be in England when the sun is shining.’

Sam was going to introduce himself, then thought better of it. The man seemed content to ride in the back of the car, looking like an English lord. Meanwhile, Lee ducked his head up and down, looking this way and that like an anxious bird on the lookout for the hungry red fox. Zita concentrated on the driving. The engine dipped, occasionally misfired, but it seemed to be holding out.

So Sam sat back and watched fields stream by, while listening to the rumble of the Range Rover’s big tyres on the road surface.

Ahead lay the suburbs of Casterton, a sturdy town of solid-looking sandstone houses that had sweated its money out of wool and coal mining. The clock tower of the town hall stood high above the skyline, the perfect example of municipal power building.

Zita shot him a look that as good as said, ‘Well, here goes.’

Seconds later the town-centre traffic swallowed the car.

Zita asked the blond-haired man, ‘Where can I drop you?’

‘Over there, by the bank.’ He wasn’t so much asking a favour as giving directions.

Zita nodded. ‘Okay.’ Sam Baker noticed the way she muttered darkly under her breath. She didn’t like their arrogant passenger one little bit.

‘You might as well drop me in the same place,’ Sam told her.

‘It’s a double yellow.’

‘I won’t be a minute. Keep the engine running while I do what I have to do.’

‘Let me help,’ Lee said eagerly. ‘I want to help.’

‘Don’t worry, Lee,’ Sam said easily. ‘I can handle this one. Aren’t you hot in that cape?’

‘Roasting.’

Sam sounded deliberately light-hearted. ‘This isn’t a formal occasion, Lee. Take it off before you cook.’

‘Uh? Oh, sure… sure.’

The blond-haired man in his white linen suit raised his eyes to the ceiling. Sam realised here was a man who didn’t suffer fools lightly. Not that he’d have described Lee Burton as a fool; only as someone who’d suffered a hell of a shock and was still disorientated.

Lee fumbled with the button. ‘It’s awkward to undo. The button’s too big for the catch. Stupid costume, really… but we all have to wear them. I don’t know which is worse. Laurel and Hardy or—’

‘Thanks for the lift,’ the blond-haired man said crisply as Zita pulled over to the kerb. ‘Enjoy the rest of your day.’ With that he climbed out and walked quickly away along a pavement crowded with market-day shoppers.

Zita murmured, ‘Is it just me, or does that guy make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end?’

‘You’ll always wind up with one who flunked charm school.’ Sam smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it, he’s gone now.’

‘Bloody fastener,’ Lee muttered, preoccupied with unbuttoning the cape. Something that he was failing to do with his fumbling fingers.

Sam opened the passenger door and paused while a bus rumbled by. ‘I’ll be right back.’

‘Where are you going?’ Zita called.

‘I’ll buy a newspaper and check the date. If it shows it’s Tuesday then as far as I can see this anomaly is sorting itself out. According to the town hall clock we’re only about five minutes behind the rest of the world.’

‘Okay,’ Zita nodded. ‘I’ll sit here with my fingers crossed.’

Sam joined the crowds of shoppers on the pavement. He tried not to run, but he was so eager to get his hands on the day’s newspaper that he walked quickly, weaving round old ladies pulling shopping bags on wheels, couples with babies in buggies, children who’d suddenly stop in front of him to unpick the paper from another toffee.

He felt frustration growing inside him like a ball of hot rock. He wanted that newspaper in his hands. He wanted to see the day and date written on the top of that paper. Ahead of him was a wooden stall covered with newspapers and glossy magazines.

Sam walked even faster towards it.

A customer was buying a newspaper from the vendor. Instead of taking it away, he stood there in front of him, reading it.

Again frustration burnt the pit of Sam’s belly. Come on, move it! He wanted to buy a newspaper. Now!

The customer turned to him.

‘Hello there again,’ the man said in a low voice. It was the blond man in the linen suit.

Sam stared at him.

‘Great minds think alike, don’t they?’ The man held out the newspaper. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for us to buy two. Why don’t you have a look at mine instead?’

In the back of the car, Lee Burton still tried (and failed spectacularly) to unfasten the Dracula cape. But his mind wasn’t really on the job.

This is all part of the test, he told himself. God’s testing me. He’s waiting to see if I do the right thing.

He still glanced repeatedly through the window, searching for a sign of the real test to come.

But what was expected of him?

Should he telephone his brother in Canada and admit to stealing cash out of his money jar ten – or was it 12 – years ago? Was that what was expected of him? A confession?

Then there was the girl he’d been engaged to a couple of years earlier. He still blamed himself for the break-up of the relationship. But it was really Anne who’d walked out on him.

Maybe if he’d tried harder? Bought her flowers? Spent more time with her? She’d always wanted to go to the West Indies. Maybe he should have cashed his premium bonds and—

Oh shit, this stupid button. Perhaps he was doomed to wear this ridiculous black cape until the end of time.

In the front of the car the girl in the tiger-skin leggings hit the radio pre-sets, listening to one radio station for a second or two before impatiently switching to the next. If she was looking for something she hadn’t found it yet.

Perhaps everyone was the same, he told himself. Maybe when you die you enter some kind of halfway place between heaven and hell where your past life is assessed. Then maybe you’re given a test. Depending on how well you perform you’re either raised to heaven. Or dumped, screaming, into the pit of hell.

Yes. That’s it, Lee told himself, kneading one hand against the other. This is the test. This is the test.

He scanned the street. Buses, cars, trucks clogged it.

People crowded the pavements. A red-haired tramp picked slices of bread from a litter bin. Meanwhile, the sun flooded the scene with a brilliant light.

His test must come soon. It must…

He froze.

His eyes widened. Here it was.

Here was his test.

He could see it with his own eyes.

In a second he’d shoved open the car door.

‘Hey!’ Zita shouted. ‘Lee! Where are you going? Lee!’

Lee didn’t hear her. This was it. This was his big chance to prove himself. He ran across the road, not hearing the sound of horns sounded by angry drivers, or the screech of tyres.

God Almighty Himself was putting him, Lee Burton, to the test. He’d let nothing get in his way.

Sam Baker stood on the crowded pavement and stared. The blond man held out the paper.

‘Go on, take it,’ the man said calmly. ‘It won’t bite you, will it?’

Sam took the paper. He took it almost reluctantly. This was something he’d wanted to do in private, like opening the envelope that contained the results of an exam or a job application. The idea of someone scrutinising his expression as he looked at the paper made him feel strangely vulnerable.

He opened the newspaper and looked at the day beneath the title.

The drumming of the traffic seemed suddenly distant.

Tuesday.

Air escaped from his lips in a relieved hiss.

Tuesday. It was Tuesday after all. The sun had been too strong in the amphitheatre, that was all. Somehow they’d imagined it. A collective hallucination. There’d been no backwards flip through time.

Then his idea of reality went all pear-shaped again. Damn.

Because now he’d seen the date alongside the word Tuesday.

He stared at it, feeling his hands tighten around the newspaper until the pages began to crackle. His twinjointed thumbs began their outrageous tingling again as if tiny insects burrowed through the skin.

‘You know,’ the man said in a low voice, ‘staring at it like that won’t change the date. So the question is: just what the hell is going on here?’

Sam let his arm drop. The date on the newspaper was 16^th June. When Sam Baker had climbed out of his hotel bed that morning it had been Tuesday 23^rd June.

He pushed by the man and scanned the other newspapers on the stall, his eyes darting wildly from one front page to the other.

‘I’ve already done that,’ the man said. ‘They all show the same date. The sixteenth.’ The man’s sharp, glass-bead eyes fixed on Sam. ‘So I repeat my question: what on Earth is going on here?’

Lee Burton ran across the busy road. His eyes had locked onto a man who stood outside the small branch office of a building society.

The building society was the same company he’d once worked for. The coincidence wasn’t lost on him.

In fact, he knew it wasn’t a coincidence at all.

This was preordained. The conviction that this was his God-given test burnt inside of him.

Because, as he’d sat in the back of the car, with Zita browsing through the radio channels, he’d happened to look across the road at the building society.

There he’d seen a man, apparently reading the name plates on the wall next door.

Lee Burton’s eyes had seemed to undergo a marvellous transformation at that moment. It was as if they’d developed the ability to act like a telephoto lens. His attention had zoomed in on the man in the brown leather jacket as the man had lowered his head and slipped on a black balaclava hood. Then the man had drawn another small object from his pocket and had held it in one hand.

Lee’s mind had quickly sifted its vocabulary and pulled out the identifying word: gun.

This is it, he thought with a blaze of excitement and wonder.

His test had come.

In five seconds flat he was dashing across the road.

He wasn’t aware of the traffic or the crowds of shoppers watching this tall, stick-thin man running through the centre of town with a black Dracula cape rippling straight out behind him. Or his white make-up. Or the blood trickles drawn in red lipstick down his chin.

Nothing else mattered.

He was focused on his challenge.

The building society was being robbed.

He had to stop it happening.

It was as simple as that.

The armed man had already entered the building society by the time Lee burst through the door.

Behind the counter the three cashiers were standing back with their hands raised while the gunman shouted instructions. A couple of customers lay on the floor.

‘Get down!’ the man yelled as Lee came through the door. ‘Lie down!’ The man’s eyes widened in surprise behind the balaclava when he saw Lee standing there, panting in the Dracula costume. ‘You! Down on the floor!’

Lee held out his hand, while slowly advancing. ‘Give me the gun… Come on, give me the gun.’

‘Get down, you bloody moron,’ the man bellowed and pointed the revolver at the centre of Lee’s frilled shirt. ‘Down! I won’t tell you again! Do it!’

The cashiers stared, mouths open in horrified ‘O’s.

Lee ran forward, determined to grab the gun.

The robber grabbed him by the cape and swung him against a wall. Then he immediately stood back, pointing the gun at Lee again. ‘Are you crazy or what? Don’t make me use this on you.’

Lee turned round, held up his hands and walked towards the robber.

‘I’m warning you. I’ll blow a hole right through you, d’ya hear, you fucking lunatic?’ The robber looked agitated now. He shot glances at the door, ready to run without the money. ‘Keep back or I’ll fucking drop you.’ He cocked the revolver.

‘I’m already dead,’ Lee Burton told the man. He felt strangely calm. He held out both arms, hands open, palms upturned. ‘I only want the gun.’

‘I’m warning you!’

‘You can’t kill me. I’m already dead.’

The robber’s eyes were huge shining discs behind the holes of the black balaclava.

He aimed the gun at Lee’s chest.

Then pulled the trigger.

Lee felt something snag against his chest. As if someone had just reached out and plucked at his shirt.

There was no pain.

He’d not even heard the report of the gun. But when he glanced down he saw a wet patch of crimson spreading across the white shirt.

‘You can’t kill me,’ he repeated, still walking forward. ‘Give me the gun.’ The customers and cashiers were screaming, but it was all thin-sounding and seemed to come from far away.

‘Bastard… you stupid bastard.’ The robber was close to screaming himself.

He fired again. This time Lee gasped. A tremendous bolt of agony seemed to light up his bones from the inside. He gritted his teeth and clutched at his stomach. He looked down. Blood poured over his fingers as freely as water squeezed from a sponge.

At that moment he collapsed into the middle of the carpet.