Imagine There's No Heaven - 5. Chapter 5

From her bedroom window, Sue Greaney watched as eight cars pulled up in front of the bakery. She watched as every man took a stand behind their cars with weapons drawn, ready to shoot on command. Two men headed for the door of the bakery, and a few moments later a loud knock on the apartment’s front door distracted her.

‘Colton Greaney! This is the police. Open this door immediately.’

Sue placed the weapon under her pillow and opened the door a few moments later. Inspector Grant Ferguson lowered his weapon that was trained on her.

‘Sue?’ he said.

‘Grant. It’s been a long time.’

Grant Ferguson’s eyes squinted at the woman standing in the doorway.

‘Is your son home?’

‘Nope. Last I heard he was at the hospital with Jack. What’s the problem, Inspector?’

‘We have a few questions only he can answer. Are you sure he isn’t here?’

‘Grant, I would know if my son was home. Why would you even ask me such a thing?’

‘It’s not about doubting your word, Sue. It’s about everything else that’s going on in Laferty.’

‘He’s not here. If he was, he’d be anwerin’ the door. Last I heard he was at the hospital with Jack.’

‘He’s not at the hospital, Sue. Someone kidnapped Jack and we need to find out who.’

She glared at him suspiciously. ‘What did you say?’

The inspector’s grey eyes bore into her, it was like he was trying to find a glimmer of fake surprise. But she was convincing.

‘Jack has been abducted, from his hospital bed.’

‘Oh my God. When did it happen?’

He hesitated before answering. ‘About four hours ago.’

‘Well, do you think that they may have abducted Colton too. The last time I spoke to him was last night. He was at the hospital.’

‘That’s the problem, Sue. Colton attacked a security guard at the hospital and for some reason he ran. We think he might know something about the abduction.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘Well, reports have come through that someone matching Colton’s description was seen at the office of the Chief of Police. We think he may have some information that could help us with this case.’

She invited the small man in. He was half her size, dressed in a grey suit and long black tie. A young, uniformed sergeant followed them. She led them to the window overlooking the street then turned to the inspector and said, ‘So, you send eight police cars and roughly fifteen policemen just to establish what he knows about the incident?’

Inspector Grant Ferguson’s colour drained from his face. He evaded the question. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you, Sue. We’ll be away now, but I must ask you to notify us immediately the moment you see Colton.’

She watched from the door as they descended the stairs. That was the first time she noticed that the palms of her hands were wet from nervous sweat. She went back inside the apartment, closed the door and buried her head in her hands. Trembling, she sank into one of the dining room chairs and stared for a long time at Colton’s picture on the side cabinet in front of her. He looked like Grant Ferguson. Even the eyes were the same, slightly slanted with thick eyebrows and a dimpled chin. Two things struck her immediately: One, she had no idea where Colton had gone and, two, she wished things could have been different between the detective and herself.

***

Colton drove like the wind, away from hell, away from danger, away from love and away from life. Laferty had turned into a living hell. Danger seemed to whisper all around him. His one true love had lied to him. Life didn’t have much to offer. He dodged the highways and took the back roads through each town he passed, stopping once for a bite to eat.

That night he found a gravel road and stopped beneath a group of trees to rest. He didn’t sleep much. His was the troubled mind of a man who had lost everything in the blink of an eye. He would find Jack. He would get to the bottom of this somehow. He reminded himself to contact his mother the following day.

***

Richard Patterson had enjoyed every moment of his vacation with his son. They had travelled the length and breadth of Ireland, or so it seemed. In reality, they had only covered the interesting tourist attractions. But, as all good things must end, their vacation was drawing to a close and come Monday morning, Richard would report back to work in a call centre in Dublin. But for now, he was determined to enjoy the remainder of his free time.

The sun rose just before six and Richard yawned the moment he opened his eyes. He checked Bernard gave a start when he found Bernard’s bedroll empty. He quickly adjusted his morning hard-on and leaped from his roll-up blanket.

‘Bernard!’ he unzipped the tent flap and squinted as the rays from an early sun hit his face. ‘Bernard! Where the hell are…what are you doing?’

Bernard was bent over a small fire. Two cups of coffee boiling hot.

‘Morning Pa. Making coffee for us. You were snoring when I woke up.’

By the time he reached Bernard, his hard-on had faded. ‘Well, millions of people snore. I certainly won’t die because of that. Mmm coffee sounds great.’

‘Well, your snore is like…well…like Grrrrrrrrrrr-rump, grrrrrrrrrr-oemf. I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Hey,’ Richard prodded his son’s shoulder with an accusing finger. ‘You don’t do so badly in the snoring department just by the way. You go like this, bzzzbzzz’

‘I so don’t snore, Dad.’

‘You do so snore, mister,’ he said, pouting his lips in a finely chiselled face, like a Roman gladiator cut on old gold coins.

‘Well, snore or not. Here’s your coffee.’

‘Our last cuppa before heading home. Going home is always the worst part.’

Bernard took a seat beside him. ‘You always say that home is where the heart is, Dad.’

Richard ruffled his son’s hair and smiled. ‘And so it is. Except I don’t have a heart to go home to.’

‘You miss mom, don’t you?’

Richard’s eyes had a strange, faraway look in them, as if they hid some kind of magic, a mysterious, impenetrable knowledge. He gazed into the long distance of the morning. Carol. The woman who knew everything about him. The only person whom he had allowed into his world to break down the barriers. He had confided in her. He had given her his heart, knowing full well that he was different. The day he told her he could love a man or a woman equally was forever burned into his memory. She didn’t storm out of his life. She didn’t tell him he was a sick man that needed therapy. Instead, she held his hand, stared into his deep green eyes, and said that it was okay. She would never compromise that. But she did. Twelve years later she walked away from him. She ran away. Left him to raise their child. A slight breeze caught the sandy strands of his silky hair and whisked them into a momentary ballet. He cocked his head to one side after analysing the question and smiled through timid lips before answering.

‘Yes. Very much.’

Bernard took his hand. ‘Do you think she’ll ever come back, dad?’

‘I certainly hope so. But, I’m not going to pin all of my hopes on that ever happening kiddo. Besides, I rather like where I am at the moment. Just us two.’

Bernard smiled at him with a look of sincere gratitude. ‘I like just us two too, Dad.’

He placed an arm around Bernard’s shoulder and drew him closer. ‘I love you, kiddo. I will never do to you what she did. I couldn’t imagine life without you.’

Both remained there for some time, listening to the birds and the wind. They had set up camp in a lonely green field not far from the main road. Several clumps of trees hid from view the main road and the hills beyond.

‘Dad?’

‘Yup?’

‘What’s that?’

‘What’s what? Where?’

‘There.’ Bernard pointed at what looked like a mirror glistening through the leaves of the bushes surrounding a clump of trees.

‘Could be the sunlight catching glass on the ground.’ Richard said, standing up.

‘Dad, it looks like metal.’

Richard squinted his eyes and focused on the area. ‘You know, you could be right. Let’s take a closer look.’

They walked across the field carefully, and as they approached the trees both heard the sound of an engine trying to start up. Over and over again.

‘It’s a motorbike.’ Bernard said, sea-blue eyes wide and glistening in a freckled face.

Richard placed a finger on his lips. Bernard lowered his voice. ‘Is the guy stuck?’

‘Sounds like it. He may need help.’ Richard whispered.

‘You go first, Dad. I’ll stay here in case its trouble and I can run for it to get help.’ Bernard suggested.

‘I don’t think it’s trouble. Shhhh.’

He moved through the bushes and approached the motorbike from behind. A man was attempting to kick-start it. A handsome bike. Old. But well looked after. No matter how hard the man tried, the engine wouldn’t turn.

Richard approached him from behind and called out between kicks. ‘You need some help there, friend?’

With a start, Colton turned his head towards Richard’s voice, and nervously climbed off the bike. ‘She won’t start. I’ve been tryin’ for about fifteen minutes now without any luck. D’you know anythin’ about bikes?’

Richard noticed the pitch black hair, with a path in the middle, long, pencil thin sideburns graced by a slight goatie on his chin. His eyes darted left and right, nervous brown eyes. Richard undressed him with his eyes and imagined a muscular chest with thick upper arms and tree-trunk thighs.

‘A little. Enough to get by if I ever bought one.’

‘Well, maybe you could work some magic on this one. My name’s Colton.’ He was careful not to mention his last name, and Laferty.

‘Oh, well, pleased to meet you. I’m Richard Patterson and this is my son Bernard. We’ve been touring Northern Ireland. We’re from Dublin.’

‘I’m headed for Dublin. If I can get her to take me there without stallin’.’

Richard leaned into the bike and touched the valves to see if any were loose. Satisfied that they were intact, he fiddled with the choke and found it to be in working order. Nothing broken. And then he found it, the pipe from the choke to the main fuel line had been compromised with a small tear about half an inch long.

‘There’s your problem, mate. It’s the choke pipe leading to your fuel line. It’s not feeding fuel because it’s torn.’

Colton inspected the pipe closely and smacked his forehead. ‘Damn! I should have seen that. But then, what do I know about bikes?’

‘There’s very little we can do here to fix it, in fact nothing at all. We’re headed towards Dublin, want a lift?’

‘I can’t leave the bike here.’

‘We have a land rover. We could lift her into the rover and take her with us. We parked at the top of the hill on the other side of the field.’

‘That’s very kind of you. Thank you.’

‘No problem. We could get you to the nearest town and drop you off at a mechanic. Shouldn’t take long to fix it.’ He turned to Bernard. ‘Fetch the Rover, Ber. Here are the keys.’

Colton was stunned. He stared at the boy as he ran off to fetch the vehicle.

‘How old is he?’

‘He’s nearly thirteen. Oh, don’t worry, he knows how to drive. He’s crazy about cars and bikes. ‘

Colton gave a sigh of relief and continued to kick-start the bike.

‘It won’t work,’ Richard assured him.

‘I know. I know. Maybe I’m just anxious that’s all.’

‘You look as though you need to get to Dublin in a hurry.’

‘Yes. Yes I do. ‘

‘It’s about an hour's drive.’

‘I know. Murphy’s law. Always works me over.’

Richard laughed. ‘It’s going to be blistering hot in another two hours. You could be stuck here for days. Not much traffic passes this way.’

‘Well, then, I consider myself fortunate that you came along.’

***

Not being able to see gave Jack a constant headache. Not only that, but the pain filtering through his hand to his brain was overwhelming, but he didn’t scream. He knew it would be futile to scream. No one would be able to hear him. No one would come to his rescue. It felt like the whole universe had abandoned him.

‘You will tell us what we want to know, Jack. That’s two fingers we’ve broken. A third finger should fix you enough to loosen that tongue of yours.’

‘Go to hell. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never worked as a double agent. You can’t get me to tell you what you want to hear. Just kill me and get it over with.’

‘Like I said, killing you will be too easy. On second thoughts, I won’t break another finger. As we speak, two of my people are headed for Greaney Bakery. They’ll contact me the moment they have Ma and killed your husband. Now you wouldn’t want your mother-in-law to get hurt, and you wouldn’t want us to kill Colton, would you now?’

‘Leave them out of it. They have nothing to do with this.’ Jack said, gritting his teeth. His jaw wracked with pain.

‘The diary, Jack. Where is it?’

‘Fuck you.’