A Quiet Vendetta

TWENTY-EIGHT

When Perez was done talking Hartmann leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

‘What was the saying you used? The one about revenge?’ he asked.

Perez smiled. ‘Quando fai i piani per la vendetta, scava due tombe – una per la tua vittima e una per te stesso.’

Hartmann nodded. ‘But in your case the other grave was not for yourself, right?’

Perez nodded.

‘One for Feraud and one for Charles Ducane… because these people were ultimately responsible for the deaths of your wife and your daughter.’

Perez said nothing; he merely reached for a cigarette and lit it. There was an air of satisfaction about his manner, perhaps a sense of completeness, as if now he had said all he intended to say and his business was closed.

‘It is some life you have had,’ Hartmann said.

‘It is not over yet,’ Perez replied.

‘You understand that you will spend the rest of your years in some high-security penitentiary facility.’

‘I imagine so.’

Hartmann was quiet for a moment, and then he looked across at Perez. ‘I have a question.’

Perez nodded.

‘Your son.’

‘What about him?’

‘Where he is, what he’s doing… does he have any real idea of what has happened here?’

Perez shrugged.

‘Does Victor know where you are, that you kidnapped the daughter of the governor of Louisiana?’

Perez shook his head.

‘But he knows enough of the life you have led-’

‘Victor knows that I was not prepared to kill Emilie Devereau’s father,’ Perez interjected, ‘and though he believed his love for her was strong enough to have carried the guilt of such a thing, he is still in some ways naïve. He knew enough of who I was to understand that I would have been capable of such a thing, but when he finally realized that I would not commit this murder for him he decided that he would have no more to do with me.’ Perez paused and shook his head. ‘In his mind he managed to convince himself that somehow I had betrayed him.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

Perez shook his head. ‘He is out there somewhere, Mr Hartmann, and though I love him, love him more than any other person in the world, I am able to let him go. He will find his own way, I am sure of that, and though I will never see him again I know also that he will never become the man that I became.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Yes, I am sure of it.’

‘You said something to me about Shakespeare, the two families that could never be together.’

‘I did.’

‘And this was what you meant… Victor, and Emilie Devereau?’

Perez nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘And when you could not give your son what he wanted you decided to seek revenge for the murders of your wife and your daughter.’

‘I did.’

‘Understanding that in closing that particular chapter of your life you would also see your own life come to an end?’

A hint of a smile from Perez, and then he closed his eyes for just a moment. He leaned forward, ground out his cigarette, and reached for another.

‘They will seek the death penalty, you know.’

‘I know they will,’ Perez said, ‘but I am sure there will be many years of appeals and wrangling between the lawyers, and before they ever get to preparing my lethal injection I will die of old age.’ He drew on his cigarette; tendrils of smoke crept from his nostrils.

‘And now?’ Hartmann asked.

‘Now I tell you where she is, right?’

Hartmann nodded.

‘And as for me?’

‘There are two men here from Quantico. They are going to take you to the FBI Behavioral Science facility where there are at least three dozen criminal profilers who want to pick your brains.’

‘The food will be good down there?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’

Perez smiled. ‘Perhaps I will order take-out.’

‘Perhaps you will. And now, please, tell us where we find Catherine Ducane.’

‘You remember where you found the car?’

‘Gravier.’

‘Just a little way from there you will find a place called the Shell Beach Motel.’

Hartmann’s eyes widened. ‘The Shell Beach Motel… that’s no more than two or three miles from here.’

‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, that’s what I was told,’ Perez said. ‘Cabin number eleven, the Shell Beach Motel. Go find Catherine Ducane and tell her this thing of ours is done.’

Hartmann rose from his chair. He crossed to the door, opened it, and beyond it found Stanley Schaeffer waiting in the hallway.

Schaeffer nodded at Perez.

Ernesto Perez rose slowly. He took one more drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. There was an air of finality to this action, as if he understood that everything had now come to its own natural conclusion. He walked towards Hartmann, and then paused in the doorway. He reached out his hand. Hartmann took it and they shook. Perez then leaned forward and – with his hands on Hartmann’s shoulders – he kissed each of his cheeks in turn.

‘Live your life well, Ray Hartmann… go back to New York and make believe this thing never happened. Fix whatever differences you may have with your wife and make it work, if only for the sake of your child.’

Hartmann nodded.

‘So long, Ray Hartmann,’ Perez said quietly, and then he turned to Schaeffer and smiled. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said, and when Schaeffer started down the hallway, Ernesto Cabrera Perez followed him slowly and never once looked back.

The FBI unit assigned to recover Catherine Ducane had already left by the time Schaeffer and Perez reached the street. Parked against the curb was the Humvee, beside it the two agents from Quantico, McCormack and Van Buren. Van Buren made his way around the back of the vehicle and handcuffed Perez. He escorted him to the side of the Humvee and McCormack opened the door. Van Buren climbed in beside Perez and used a second set of cuffs to manacle him to the arm of the seat. McCormack took the driver’s side and Schaeffer sat up front beside him. By the time the engine had started both Hartmann and Woodroffe had reached the street outside the hotel. They watched as the Humvee pulled away, and as it passed the junction Hartmann saw Perez turn and look at him. His expression was implacable and emotionless.

Hartmann lowered his head and looked at his shoes. He felt as if the center of his life had been pulled out and everything inside him was spiraling silently into the vacuum it had left behind.

‘The son,’ Woodroffe said. ‘I still can’t get my mind off the son.’

‘You were listening across the hall?’ Hartmann asked.

‘I was,’ Woodroffe said. ‘I know what Perez said, this thing about the son being pissed off because he wouldn’t kill the girl’s father, but I still feel there’s something else. I’m gonna go inside and call Quantico… get them to run this Emilie Devereau through the database. If we can find her, we might be a step closer to finding where Victor Perez has been while his father has been with us.’

‘You still think he was involved, don’t you?’ Hartmann turned and looked at Woodroffe. Truth was he didn’t care what Woodroffe thought; he didn’t care what anyone thought in that moment. His mind was on Carol and Jess, how he would go right back into the Royal Sonesta and call them, tell them he was coming home, that he would meet them any time they wanted, any place they chose, and there were so many things he wanted to say.

‘I think someone was involved,’ Woodroffe said. ‘The report said what it said… that it was improbable that one man would have been physically capable of lifting Gerard McCahill’s body from the back of the car and into the trunk that night on Gravier.’

‘Go for it,’ Hartmann said.

Woodroffe turned and started back towards the hotel. He stopped and turned before he reached the door. ‘You didn’t wanna go down and get the girl from the motel?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘I want to call my wife. That’s all I want to do right now.’

Woodroffe nodded. ‘I’ll come tell you when they pick the girl up, okay?’

‘Sure… sure thing,’ Hartmann said, and then he watched as Bill Woodroffe turned and entered the hotel.

It was a good five minutes before Hartmann sat before a phone in the foyer of the Royal Sonesta. One of the Feds had hooked up an outside line bypassing the main switchboard. Hartmann dialed his own home number, the number that would take his call right across the East River into a two-bedroomed apartment in a three-story walk-up in Stuyvesant Town. He could picture where the phone sat, right there on a small table in the front hallway. What time was it? Hartmann glanced at his watch: a little after two p.m. Carol would be home now; it would be another hour or so before she left to collect Jess from school. The sound of the line hummed in his ear, and then connection was made and he listened as the phone rang. He could almost hear Carol’s footsteps as she made her way from the bedroom or the bathroom. Twice, three times, four times… where the hell was she? Why wasn’t she picking up? Was she in the bath? Perhaps she was in the kitchen with the TV on and she couldn’t hear it.

Hartmann willed his wife to pick up the goddamned phone. How many times had it rung now? Eight? Ten? He felt a tension in his lower gut. He was afraid, afraid that she’d had second thoughts, the very worst thoughts of all; afraid that she’d decided that his failure to arrive for their Tompkins Square Park appointment four days before was the little flag that told her nothing had changed. Ray had broken another agreement. Whatever the reason, whatever the rationale back of it, the truth of the matter was that Ray Hartmann had added another broken promise to the vast catalog of broken promises he had already accumulated.

Perhaps Hartmann would have hung on; perhaps he would have let the phone ring for another hour, would have sat right there with the patience of Job until Carol finally heard the phone, or Jess returned from school and picked it up… perhaps he would have done, but his plans were interrupted suddenly, abruptly, as three or four federal agents came rushing into the foyer of the hotel and began shouting.

Pandemonium broke out. It spread like wildfire through the lower floor of the building, and it seemed like minutes before Bill Woodroffe – the senior man amongst them – appeared in the entranceway, his face white and drawn, his expression one of complete shock and confusion.

‘They got him,’ he was shouting at the top of his voice. ‘Oh my God, they’ve got him!’

Hartmann stood up suddenly. His chair tumbled over behind him and he almost fell across it as he started across the foyer towards Woodroffe.

‘What?’ he shouted. ‘What’s happened?’

‘They shot him… for God’s sake, they shot him!’ Woodroffe screamed.

‘Who?’ Hartmann yelled back. ‘They shot who?’

‘Ducane!’ Woodroffe said. ‘Someone just shot Charles Ducane!’

And in the confusion no-one saw the radio light blinking at the main desk. No-one – amidst the sudden rush of confusion and panic that swept through the Royal Sonesta – saw the light blinking or stopped to pick up the radio headset.

Had they done, they would have heard the Recovery Unit Chief’s voice telling them to call Schaeffer in the transporter and get Ernesto Perez back to the hotel.

During the subsequent fifteen minutes or so, the few details they could gather regarding the shooting of Governor Charles Ducane came through to Bill Woodroffe. Simultaneously, the Recovery Unit was making its way back to the Sonesta, and out in Virginia, the FBI Identification Database was searching for the names of Emilie Devereau and David Carlyle.

A man had been arrested as he fled through a crowd gathered in Shreveport, Ducane’s home city. Ducane had been speaking publicly, opening a new arts center in a local suburb, when a man had stepped from the crowd and shot him three times in the chest. Even as details were coming through, Ducane was being rushed by the emergency services to the nearest hospital. He was still alive but in a grave condition. It was believed one of the bullets had grazed his heart. The arrested man had already been identified as the eldest son of Antoine Feraud, and even as Hartmann picked up the few details of what was happening, FBI Director Dohring was organizing a task force to raid Feraud’s property and take him in.

Perhaps because of all of these things together or the fact that no single man was directly assigned to cover unexpected eventualities, the Royal Sonesta became the eye of the hurricane and Ray Hartmann had no further opportunity to reach Carol.

The return of the Recovery Unit outside the building sparked a further wave of confusion.

Hartmann was out there to see them skid to a dead stop against the curb, and when the Recovery Chief stepped from the vehicle with nothing more than a bundle of clothes in his hands, Hartmann knew that something that could have been no worse had suddenly deteriorated into a nightmare.

Woodroffe appeared, and when he realized that Catherine Ducane had not been located, he ran back into the hotel to radio the transporter. Hartmann was there beside him as he tried in vain to raise a signal.

‘Disconnected,’ Woodroffe kept saying. ‘They’ve disconnected the goddamned radio for fuck’s sake!’ and it was some time before Hartmann managed to get him to understand that the transporter radio had been disconnected intentionally.

‘Oh Jesus Christ… Schaeffer!’ he said, and then his name was being called and an agent was standing at the side of the stairwell waving his arms above his head to attract his attention.

Woodroffe forced himself through the crowd and reached the man.

‘Quantico,’ the man was saying. ‘I’ve got Quantico on the line. They’ve got an answer on your ID request.’

Woodroffe pushed past him and hurried up the stairs to the second-floor room where Kubis had established a bank of computers with a direct and secure line to Quantico.

Hartmann followed at a run, all the while shouting above the noise from below.

‘Schaeffer! What the fuck are you gonna do about Schaeffer and Perez?’

Woodroffe reached the second-floor landing and started down the hallway towards the room.

‘Woodroffe… what the fuck are you gonna do?’ Hartmann was shouting. ‘Catherine Ducane wasn’t there… you understand what I’m saying? Catherine Ducane wasn’t in the fucking motel cabin!’

Woodroffe stopped suddenly and turned on his heel. ‘Go down to the street,’ he said. ‘Go down there and tell the Recovery Unit Chief to go after the transporter. Take the clothes and give them to Forensics, and show this to the chief.’ Woodroffe handed Hartmann a single sheet of paper. It was headed with the FBI symbol, and beneath it was typed a concise route plan that the transporter would be taking back to Virginia.

Hartmann turned and ran back down the stairs.

Woodroffe entered the room where the computer system had been established and found Lester Kubis sitting there staring at the screen.

‘What is it? What do they say?’

Kubis turned slowly and looked at Woodroffe over the rim of his glasses. ‘This,’ he said quietly, ‘you are not going to like.’

Hartmann reached the street and found the Recovery Unit Chief.

‘Take this,’ he said, thrusting the sheet of paper at him. ‘This is the route plan the transporter is taking. Go after them and get Schaeffer and Perez back here.’

The chief turned and started back to the vehicle at a run.

‘Wait!’ Hartmann called after him. ‘Where are the clothes you found?’

The chief indicated an agent standing on the sidewalk holding a plastic evidence bag containing a pair of jeans, some shoes and other items they had found in the motel cabin.

Hartmann raised his hand and the chief hurried back to his vehicle.

Hartmann took the clothes and went back into the Sonesta. He found someone from Criminal Forensics. ‘Take these,’ he said. ‘Get them to the County Coroner’s office. Get hold of the coroner, a guy called Michael Cipliano, and find the assistant ME, Jim Emerson. Take whoever the hell else you need and get these clothes processed. We need the results of anything you find back here as fast as it can be done. Tell them it’s for Ray Hartmann, okay?’

The agent nodded, and hurried away with the bag containing everything that remained of Catherine Ducane’s stay at the Shell Beach Motel.

Hartmann stood on the sidewalk trying to catch his breath. Woodroffe was up on the second floor, the Recovery Unit was hightailing it down the street after Schaeffer and Perez, and Hartmann shook his head and wondered what the fuck was going on.

He went back into the foyer of the hotel just as the first radio calls came in for the remaining Feds to leave for the Feraud property. Units had been assigned from New Orleans itself, also from Baton Rouge, Metairie and Hammond. Among the wave of agents that would make their way out to Feraud’s property were Robert Luckman and Frank Gabillard, men who had believed they’d seen the last of this thing a little more than two weeks before. Two units posted in Lafayette had been alerted, but they could not arrive for a further hour or more. It seemed that it was no more than a minute before the foyer of the Sonesta was cleared of people, and Ray Hartmann was left standing there, his heart thundering in his chest, his thoughts a whirlwind of confusion as he realized that everything they had organized was falling apart at the seams.

He watched people run from the building to waiting cars. He heard the cars leaving, listened as they vanished into silence, and then he turned and looked towards the stairwell. Woodroffe was up there with Lester Kubis. Hartmann snatched a radio unit from the main desk to receive any calls from the recovery guys, and started up the stairs to find them.

Woodroffe was standing in the hallway with a single sheet of paper in his hands. The expression on his face was of a man lost. Completely and utterly lost.

‘What?’ Hartmann asked. ‘What did Quantico say?’

Woodroffe looked up. ‘They were cover names,’ he said quietly.

‘What were? Cover names for what? What in fuck’s name are you talking about?’

‘Emilie Devereau and David Carlyle.’

Hartmann shook his head and frowned.

Woodroffe held out the piece of paper. ‘They were cover names assigned by the security office of the Governor of Louisiana… cover names for Catherine Ducane and Gerard McCahill.’

Hartmann took a step back. There was something he didn’t understand, something that didn’t make sense. He opened his mouth to speak and silence issued forth.

‘Victor Perez was in love with Catherine Ducane all along,’ Woodroffe said. ‘What did he say? The two families that could never be together? It was Ducane’s family… his daughter was in love with Ernesto Perez’s son, and Victor asked his father to kill Ducane-’

Hartmann snatched the piece of paper from Woodroffe. His mind was reeling. He couldn’t grasp how this had been done. It was Perez all along. Perez had played them all. He had turned himself in to the FBI. He had shared his life with them, and in doing so had given evidence about Feraud and Ducane right to the director of the FBI. And Hartmann, in his eagerness to find the girl, had walked right out to Feraud’s house with John Verlaine and inadvertently informed Feraud of Perez’s location and intention.

Hartmann took a step back. He felt as if the whole world had tilted on its axis.

Antoine Feraud – believing perhaps that Ducane would be questioned and would implicate him – had sent his son to kill Ducane, and now Feraud himself would be taken in by the FBI. Both of the people responsible for the murder of Angelina and Lucia Perez would be delivered their own justice, and Perez…

‘Call the Recovery Unit,’ Hartmann said, his voice short, desperate-sounding. ‘Call the Recovery Unit and find out what the fuck has happened to Perez.’

‘The daughter was in on it, wasn’t she?’ Woodroffe was saying. ‘Catherine Ducane was in on it all along, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘I don’t know what the fuck has happened here,’ he said. ‘Right now I want to know what the fuck they’ve done with Schaeffer. Who sent these people from Langley? What were their names?’

‘McCormack and Van-something or other-’

‘Van Buren,’ Hartmann said. He turned to Kubis. ‘Call Quantico and find out if they sent people down to take Perez to Virginia.’

Kubis frowned. ‘Did no-one check already? Did no-one check the requisition paperwork?’

Woodroffe turned and looked at Kubis. ‘You see how many agents we had down there?’ he snapped angrily. ‘Did you see how many people were in and out the front of this building? This is one almighty fuck-up, I’ll tell you that much for nothing. Someone’s gonna lose their fucking head over this-’

‘Well, let’s hope to God it isn’t Schaeffer,’ Hartmann said, and once again told Kubis to call Langley and find out the names of the agents sent down to collect Perez.

Within a minute he turned and shook his head. ‘They didn’t send anyone yet,’ he said quietly, and then once again turned away from Woodroffe and Hartmann as if he did not wish to be involved in this any further.

Hartmann looked at Woodroffe.

Woodroffe stared back blankly, and then: ‘Schaeffer’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘I’m going,’ Hartmann said. ‘I’m going after them.’

‘You ain’t leaving me here,’ Woodroffe replied, and turning to Kubis he said, ‘We’re going after the Recovery Unit… if there’s any word on anything call me on the radio, okay?’

Kubis nodded, didn’t say a word, and watched silently as Hartmann and Woodroffe left the room and started down the stairwell.

‘This is beyond comprehension,’ Woodroffe was saying, but even as he said it he knew it was not. They had all been captivated by Perez’s performance, and there was the girl, always the girl… the promise that if they listened they would find the girl and she would be alive, and within hours she would be returned to the care of her father.

But it had never been about that. It had been about revenge. Perez had dug two graves, and it seemed as if both of them would be filled one way or another.

They found the transporter and the Recovery Unit no more than five miles from the Royal Sonesta, outside of a small town called Violet on Highway 39. Hartmann skidded to a stop and he and Woodroffe went at a run towards the vehicles.

The Recovery Unit Chief was standing over someone, and for a moment Hartmann believed he would find Schaeffer lying there at the side of the road with a bullet hole in the back of his head, but as he came around the side of the vehicle he found Stanley Schaeffer standing there, very much alive, speechless but very much alive, and he was looking down at something he held in his hand.

Hartmann walked over slowly. On the ground at Schaeffer’s feet were torn strips of duct tape, tape that had been used to bind him, and to the side of that a canvas bag that – more than likely – had been put over his head.

Schaeffer saw Hartmann coming and held out his hand.

Hartmann approached slowly, almost afraid of what he might see.

Schaeffer’s hand opened, and there within – small and silver, reflecting what little light was left in the sky – was a single dime.

Hartmann shook his head. ‘Ten Cent,’ he said.

‘The older one,’ Schaeffer said almost disbelievingly, ‘and the younger one-’

‘Was Victor Perez,’ Hartmann interjected.

He turned and looked at Woodroffe. Woodroffe shook his head slowly and looked down at the ground.

‘There was someone here waiting for them,’ Schaeffer said. ‘There was a car here waiting for them. They taped my hands and feet, they put a bag over my head. I didn’t see them, but it was definitely a girl… definitely, definitely a girl.’

‘Catherine Ducane,’ Woodroffe said. ‘They took us, didn’t they? Perez and his son, the girl as well… they took us all completely.’

Hartmann stood there, his heart like a cold stone in the middle of his chest. He breathed deeply. He steadied himself against the threatened loss of balance that assaulted him, and then he walked to the side of the road and sat down. He put his hands over his face, he closed his eyes, and it was a long time before he could even consider what he was going to do next.

Reports came later, inconsistent, inconclusive – but for one key fact.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, members of the ATF and DEA had raided the property of Antoine Feraud.

Daddy Always.

Men had been killed on both sides. There were numerous fatalities and woundings. Even as those reports came in, even as Hartmann listened to the words that were relayed back to the Royal Sonesta through Lester Kubis, men were being ferried to the Emergency Room in New Orleans suffering gunshot wounds. But one thing was known for sure.

Daddy Always was dead. Standing at the top of the stairwell in his own house he had fired on FBI agents as they came in through the front door. He went down in a hail of gunfire. He went down fighting back, and even as his body fell down two flights of stairs, even as his old and broken form lay spread-eagled at the foot of the risers, blood making its cautious way from his head and out across the deep polished mahogany flooring, Governor Charles Ducane’s heart monitor flatlined while surgeons attempted to remove a third bullet from an arterial channel close to his heart.

They died within moments of one another, and had they known, had they been aware of that narrow coincidence, they might perhaps have been amused at the irony. As, undoubtedly, would Ernesto Perez, crossing the Louisiana stateline into Mississippi beside a tributary of the Amite River.

Night was closing in. The lights of the Royal Sonesta burned bright. Federal agents returning from the Feraud property were gathered and briefed. Even Verlaine was there, aware that all hell had broken loose and eager to understand what had happened in his territory.

And it was he who stood beside Ray Hartmann when Michael Cipliano showed up, beside him Jim Emerson and in his hand the report prepared from the clothes they had processed from the Shell Beach Motel.

‘Her clothes alright, no question about it,’ Cipliano told Hartmann. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, ’cept for this one little thing.’

Hartmann, his mind too overwhelmed with all that had happened to cope with anything else, merely looked back at Cipliano.

‘Back of her jeans we found some blood… tiny little spots of blood around the edge of the rivets-’

Hartmann knew what Cipliano was going to say before he uttered the words.

‘Except it wasn’t blood, Mr Hartmann… it was burgundy paint, the kind you’d find on a ’57 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.’

Cipliano was smiling, as if everything the world had to offer had now fallen into place.

‘We estimated the carrier’s height at maybe five-foot ten or eleven. Catherine Ducane was five-foot seven, but along with her jeans you brought a pair of three-inch high-heeled shoes…’

Hartmann closed his eyes. He stepped past Cipliano and Emerson and walked out into the street. He stood there on the sidewalk, the noise behind him blurring into nothing.

He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled once more… and then he found it: the ripe malodorous blend of smells and sounds and human syncopations; the heat of rare ribs scorching in oiled flames; the bay leaf and oregano and court bouillon and carbonara from Tortorici’s; the collected perfumes of a thousand million intersecting lives, and then each life intersecting yet another like six degrees of separation; a thousand million beating hearts, all here, here beneath the roof of the same sky where the stars were like dark eyes that saw everything… saw and remembered…

He thought of Danny, of looking out over the trees, out over the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, a band of clear dark blue, a stripe through the earth, a vein… how they used to dream of sailing away, a paper boat big enough for two, its seams sealed with wax and butter, their pockets filled with nickels and dimes and Susan B. Anthony dollars saved from scrubbing wheel arches and hub caps, from soaping windscreens and windows and porch stoops for the Rousseaus, the Buies, the Jeromes. Running away, running away with themselves from Dumaine, from the intersection where bigger kids challenged them, tugged their hair, pointed sharpened fingers into their chests and called them weirdo kids, where they ran until the breath burst from their chests in great whooping asthmatic heaving gusts, turning down alleyways, hiding in shadows, the reality of the world crowding the edges of the safe and insular shell they had created for themselves. Danny and Ray, Ray and Danny, an echo of itself; an echo of childhood…

Ray Hartmann felt that vague and indefinable sensation… believed that each time he thought of these things he was younger for the duration.

And then he saw his mother’s face, his father’s too, and within a moment he had to wipe the soft salt-sting of tears from his eyes.

‘It was always here,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Everything I ever was. It was always here.’

And then he turned. Quietly, step by step, he turned and left. Walking slowly now, carefully, each chosen step a moment of thought in itself, and made his way down to the junction.

It was there that he found a callbox, and with his quarters in his hand he dialed the number, a number he could never have forgotten if his life had depended on it.

And he almost broke down in tears when he heard her voice.

‘Ray? Ray, is that you?’

‘Yes, Carol, it’s me.’