was parked in a small clearing. The camera zoomed out, and a second car, blue with white-and-red chevrons, could be seen. Bloodstains were visible on the muddy ground around the cars. The captions along the bottom of the screen said “massacre,” and “outrage.”
The bartender shook his head. “Did you see that?”
Milton grunted.
“You know they found a boy in the car?”
Milton said nothing.
“I don’t know how someone could do that—murder a family on a holiday. How cold-blooded is that? You ask me, that little boy was lucky. If whoever it was had found him, I reckon he would’ve been shot, too.”
The news report switched to another story, but it was no good. Milton finished the juice and stood. He needed to leave.
Chapter Three
THE PLATFORM for the Underground was busy. A group of young foreign travellers who didn’t know any better had congregated near the slope that led up to the surface, blocking the way with their suitcases and chattering excitedly in Portuguese. Their luggage was plastered with stickers that proclaimed their previous destinations. Brazilians, he guessed. Students. Milton picked his way through them so he could wait at the quieter, less populated end of the platform. There was a lone traveller there, standing right up at the edge. She was black, in her early thirties, and wearing the uniform of one of the fast-food chains that served the area around the station. She looked tired, and Milton saw that she was crying, her bottom lip quivering and tears rolling down her cheeks. Milton was not good with empathy, and he would not have known where to start were he to try to comfort her, but he had no interest in that. Not today. He had too much on his mind. He moved along.
He felt awful again. His mood had worsened. He felt light-headed and slumped down onto an empty bench. He started to sweat, his hands first, then his back, salty beads rolling down from his scalp into his eyes and mouth.
He recalled the overhead shot of the forest from the television helicopter. There had been three pegs on the ground, marking the spots where the bodies had been found. He knew he should stop, think of something else, but he couldn’t, and soon he recalled the nightmare again, the flashes from years before: the flattened village, the blood splashed over the arid ground, the body of the boy, the peppery smell of high explosives and cloying death. He floated away from that, running onto all the other things he had done and seen in the service of Queen and country: dingy rooms and darkened streets, one hundred and thirty-six victims laid out in evidence of the terrible things he had done. A shot to the head from a sniper rifle, a knife to the heart, a garrotte around the throat pulled tight until the hacking breaths became wheezes that became silent, a body desperately jerking, then falling still. One hundred and thirty-six men and women faced him, accused him, their blood on his hands.
A loud scream yanked him around.
The students were staring down the platform at him. He took it all in, the details. Was it him they were pointing at? No. They were pointing away from him. The woman wasn’t there. Another scream and one of the students pointed down onto the track. Milton stumbled to his feet and saw her deliberately laid across the rails. It was an incongruous sight. At first he thought she must have been trying to collect something that she had dropped, but then he realised that she had laid herself out in that fashion for a purpose. He spun around; the glowing digital sign said the next train was approaching, and then Milton heard it, the low rumble as the carriages rolled around the final bend in the tunnel. There wasn’t any time to consider what to do. There was an emergency button on the wall fifty feet away, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to reach it in time, and even if he did, he doubted the train would be able to stop.
He jumped down from the platform onto the sleepers.
He stepped over
The bartender shook his head. “Did you see that?”
Milton grunted.
“You know they found a boy in the car?”
Milton said nothing.
“I don’t know how someone could do that—murder a family on a holiday. How cold-blooded is that? You ask me, that little boy was lucky. If whoever it was had found him, I reckon he would’ve been shot, too.”
The news report switched to another story, but it was no good. Milton finished the juice and stood. He needed to leave.
Chapter Three
THE PLATFORM for the Underground was busy. A group of young foreign travellers who didn’t know any better had congregated near the slope that led up to the surface, blocking the way with their suitcases and chattering excitedly in Portuguese. Their luggage was plastered with stickers that proclaimed their previous destinations. Brazilians, he guessed. Students. Milton picked his way through them so he could wait at the quieter, less populated end of the platform. There was a lone traveller there, standing right up at the edge. She was black, in her early thirties, and wearing the uniform of one of the fast-food chains that served the area around the station. She looked tired, and Milton saw that she was crying, her bottom lip quivering and tears rolling down her cheeks. Milton was not good with empathy, and he would not have known where to start were he to try to comfort her, but he had no interest in that. Not today. He had too much on his mind. He moved along.
He felt awful again. His mood had worsened. He felt light-headed and slumped down onto an empty bench. He started to sweat, his hands first, then his back, salty beads rolling down from his scalp into his eyes and mouth.
He recalled the overhead shot of the forest from the television helicopter. There had been three pegs on the ground, marking the spots where the bodies had been found. He knew he should stop, think of something else, but he couldn’t, and soon he recalled the nightmare again, the flashes from years before: the flattened village, the blood splashed over the arid ground, the body of the boy, the peppery smell of high explosives and cloying death. He floated away from that, running onto all the other things he had done and seen in the service of Queen and country: dingy rooms and darkened streets, one hundred and thirty-six victims laid out in evidence of the terrible things he had done. A shot to the head from a sniper rifle, a knife to the heart, a garrotte around the throat pulled tight until the hacking breaths became wheezes that became silent, a body desperately jerking, then falling still. One hundred and thirty-six men and women faced him, accused him, their blood on his hands.
A loud scream yanked him around.
The students were staring down the platform at him. He took it all in, the details. Was it him they were pointing at? No. They were pointing away from him. The woman wasn’t there. Another scream and one of the students pointed down onto the track. Milton stumbled to his feet and saw her deliberately laid across the rails. It was an incongruous sight. At first he thought she must have been trying to collect something that she had dropped, but then he realised that she had laid herself out in that fashion for a purpose. He spun around; the glowing digital sign said the next train was approaching, and then Milton heard it, the low rumble as the carriages rolled around the final bend in the tunnel. There wasn’t any time to consider what to do. There was an emergency button on the wall fifty feet away, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to reach it in time, and even if he did, he doubted the train would be able to stop.
He jumped down from the platform onto the sleepers.
He stepped over
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