Sashafell back.He was in the way of paramedic traffic.Burly uniformedbodies shot past him, back and forth, numinous forces in the lightsummer rain just beginning to fall.John Kucharski was still in themiddle of the road.He was bright with purpose, a conductor withhis orchestra finally back under his hands.He pointed down theroad towards the heath and one unmarked car peeled off in thatdirection.His voice drifted through the growl of engines.“Unittwo, cut back and circle round through East Hill.Be prepared forfugitives or a stand-off if you get close—armed and dangerous, allof them.Foster, take your men and secure the buildings a mile orso to the west of here in the woods—Jenkins knows the way.Call inbackup and cordon the whole area if you have to; I want that placetaken just as it is.”
Christine Foster.Sasha hadn’t met her, but Laurie had saidshe’d been kind to him, and so he huddled against a roadside treeand watched her.He couldn’t see past the barricade of paramedicsworking on both sides of the Merc.She nodded, gathering up herteam with small gestures.She stopped on her way to the driver’sseat of the third unmarked car.“I thought I was bringing theambulance for you, John.Is that...”
“Laurie Fitzroy.”
“Shit.I told him not to come here.Will he be allright?”
“I don’t know.I fucked up, Chrissy—there was a fight and thepoor kid got shot in the back.”
She didn’t bother telling him the fuckup hadn’t been his.Maybe in their eyes it had been—maybe everything that happened ontheir watch devolved on them.Sasha could understand that.Heunderstood the bond between them too, the comradeship that madesuch responsibility bearable.Elizabeth had said the same thing, ora truth at least that resonated strongly with it:sometimes people need to take thatchance...Foster slapped Kucharski on thearm, cop to cop.“Well, I’m glad the paramedics weren’t for you.”She glanced around, but her colleagues were already in the car andwaiting for her, Sasha an unseen patch of shadows by the road.Shestood up on her toes: gave Kucharski a brief, ferocious hug.“I’mso glad they weren’t for you, John!”
Sasha crouched at the foot of the tree.He hadn’t meant to,but through the receding roar of the last car’s engine had come thesnap of a defibrillator, and his legs had folded.Foster’staillights disappeared into the rain.Then there was a silence,deep as summer night, the core of it the red Mercedes with itsscratched-up paintwork and doors wide open like a grounded ladybirdstruggling for flight.One voice breaking it, tired and resigned,the sound of a man who’d worked over the dying young a hundredtimes before, and sometimes succeeded and often failed.Just onesyllable—clear.Another electrical crack, and then another silence.
Elizabeth knelt beside Sasha.She brushed a hand over hishead until at last he noticed her.“They’re trying,” she said.“Youhave to hang on for him.”
“I know who you are,” Sasha whispered, then frowned inbewilderment.“It can’t be, though.Who the hellareyou?”
Sheglanced back over her shoulder.Kucharski was waiting on thepavement a few yards away.“I’m someone John wishes he couldforget.The bad parts of me, anyway.”She gave Kucharski a smallnod of understanding.“He’d use me as a witness and wipe out all mysins, if he could.But he’s a good Interpol man.He’d have to takemy past into account.”
Kucharski shifted.He put his hands into his pockets andlooked away.“That depends,” he said hoarsely.“I suppose he’d haveto catch you first.”
Elizabeth took Sasha’s hand.She lifted his chin so that shecould examine his face, and she knelt in the glittering rain andstared at him as if she could imprint a lifetime of him onto hersoul.“You,” she whispered.“You’re everything I could have hopedto teach you to be.And you did it all on your own.”
Sashatried to concentrate.He tried to focus on something other than theongoing silence from the car, but the world was fading out for him,bleaching to ghosts in the rain.“I did it with Laurie.”
“Yes.The two of you...”She let go of his hand.She leaned into kiss him once on the brow, and her scent made the shadow-birdsflutter again on some long-lost wall of the past.“Everythinganyone could want.”
“Please.Tell me who you are.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She gotto her feet.Kucharski was still watching nothing in particular inthe darkness at the far end of the road.He didn’t turn as shebacked away.Sasha noted how well she moved, as if she hadpractised the skills of the hunted fox all her life.She barelydisturbed the lamplight.She took a few swift steps along thepavement, looked once at the Mercedes, as if she would have stayedto know the ending of that story if she could.Then she ducked intothe trees and ran.
Sashalurched onto his feet.A primal urge to follow her stirred in hisveins, but then another snap from the defibrillator wiped her fromhis mind.He stumbled towards the car.The broad, strong backs intheir green uniforms remained an impenetrable wall, but if Sashastood by the bonnet he could see in through the windshield.One ofthe medics had hung up a high-powered lantern and the Merc’sinterior was ablaze with light.
Sasha saw Laurie.He was stripped from the waist up, hisclothes cut away.Electrodes were plastered to his bare chest.Hewas a mess of wires and blood, his head turned to the side toaccommodate an oxygen mask, long eyelashes casting their shadows inthe glare.Sasha knew how strong he was, how fit, but Laurie’s wasa strength that didn’t show itself in bulk.Laid out like this, helooked like a boy, a scrap of flesh discarded and chucked out ofheaven.Sasha could see his ribs.He laid both hands on thewindscreen glass.As he did so, that tired voice saidclearagain, and thedefibrillator pads came down.A silence, and after it anothervoice, just as flat and hopeless.“Nothing.”
Clear.Another silence.
Nothing.Nothing.
Chapter Twenty Nine
At firstthere was only grey cloud.Shapes came and went through it,solidifications of mist.Someone hung an electric sun high in thisstrange sky, and after that the mist-shapes had more substance.They could pass between Laurie and the light.Soon after this theshapes developed hands.They lifted, grappled, performed intimacieshe was too disconnected from his flesh to mind.Then the painbegan.The shapes made sounds.They called to one another urgently,whales in a tight-knit pod.The pain receded, blanketed off, andbefore it could begin again, Laurie became a cloud too.Hedissolved.The thin white sun began to fade.
Something was holding him down.He was tethered to a verydistant warmth.For a while he was a kite, fluttering overBirchwood Heath.His fabric was so tattered that the wind blewright through him, but someone with a grip like steel was clutchinghis string.Laurie became a bird.He was pleased that he couldstill transform.The hawk was in better shape than the kite hadbeen too, though desperately tired.He circled down.At first hethought he was attached to a falconer’s cord.Fear engulfed himwhen he understood that he was free, but then he saw the clearingfar below among the trees.Not Birchwood, not the scene of so muchpain.Laurie had never been to this place before, but he knew it.There were pines, distant mountains, a wild infinity of space andlight.Romania, herealised, and a rush of joyous homecoming strengthened hiswings.
Sashastepped out of the trees.It was Sasha who had held him in the sun,Sasha’s strong fist round the string of the kite.He was smiling,holding out a bare arm, and Laurie experienced a moment’s terror ofhurting him.But Sasha knew how to catch him without harm.Laurieknew now how to come to him, talons and dangerous windspeed andall, and be safely caught.He shapeshifted again, becoming human,falling into Sasha’s open arms.
One of the cloud-shapes spoke.“Look at this.His vitals aremuch better now.”Laurie knew the voice.He’d been listening to itfor a few days, unable to respond when it shouted his name, askedhim if he knew where he was, then reeled off orders for blood,medications, preparation for surgerystat.
“Well, they couldn’t have been a lot worse.What brought thaton?”
“I don’t know.But don’t shift Mr Petrica.Tell the team towork around him.”
Laurierecognised the second voice too.That was as far as his mind wouldtake him.He had made safe landing, though, and someone was holdinghis hand.He fell asleep.
***
