From The Dark Page 5

  The drive was quiet. Before long Reg was snoring in the back seat while Claudia sat reading Archy’s journal again. Making her own notes, she would scribble something on a but remained quiet in her own thoughts.

  Claudia would tut or sigh every so often and scribble out whatever she had written on her own page. After some time, the signs reached double-figures for the distance left to Warsaw and Gabe smiled.

  Gabe’s eyes were feeling heavy, and his vision became sluggish. It relieved him as they rolled through the outskirts of Warsaw. The Sat Nav blurted its directions, and in a sleepy state, Gabe followed the commands before bringing the car to a stop outside a crumbling townhouse.

  Killing the engine Gabe turned off the lights and looked out of the window at the crumbling bed-and-breakfast.

  ‘Really?’ Gabe mocked as he read the sign. ‘I know it may be the last minute, but there must be something better than this.’

  Pulling her phone from her pocket, Claudia swiped the unlock code and brought up a webpage.

  Someone had taken the picture of the hotel in bright summer sunlight and in a time when the peeling white paint on the facade had been fresher. Gabe didn't know how old the picture was, but it was five, if not ten, years old judging by the harsh difference between then and now.

  ‘In my defence, it looks better in the photo!’

  ‘I’ll give you that,’ Gabe chuckled. ‘It’s only for a few nights so I suppose it could be much worse.’

  ‘I’ll go check us in,’ Claudia said as she unclipped her seatbelt. ‘I emailed, and they’re waiting up for us.’

  Checking the time Gabe realised they had made good progress halfway across Poland. The roads had been free-flowing, and the pockets of traffic they had stumbled across had cleared.

  ‘Reg, we’re here.’

  Gabe watched as the old man snorted and opened his weary eyes. Watching Reg in the rearview mirror, Gabe noticed how old he looked. The lines of Reg’s face seemed more profound, and his skin looked weathered and worn.

  ‘You feeling OK?’ Gabe asked as Reg wiped away the sleep from his eyes. ‘You don’t look great.’

  Blinking away the tiredness Reg took a second to compose himself before he answered Gabe.

  ‘I’m not used to travelling these days’ Reg confessed. ‘I won’t deny it has taken a lot of effort.’

  ‘You can stay in the hotel tomorrow if you think it will be better.’

  Reg cast Gabe a scornful look through the mirror, he knew not to press the old man.

  ‘Fine, fine.’ Gabe sighed. ‘Just don’t be complaining when you end up needing to sleep for the next few days.’

  Reg chose not to give Gabe and answer and waited for Claudia to come back to the car.

  In less than half an hour they had made their way into the two rooms that Claudia had booked, and all of them felt overcome with tiredness. The journey, while uneventful, had felt very rushed and taken its toll on them.

  Glad to feel the comfort of his single bed Gabe slid onto the covers and closed his eyes.

  ‘Mind if I keep the light on?’ Reg asked as he struggled to lower himself onto his own bed.

  ‘Do what you like.’

  Gabe was not rude but slid into a sea of comfort, he was too focussed on relaxing to care. Concentrating on his breathing Gabe steadied his heart rate and allowed his mind to drift.

  Before long his body had relaxed, and he fell into a deep sleep filled with vivid dreams.

  8

  Scene Of The Crime

  Gabe awoke with a start drenched in sweat. It always filled his dreams with the recurring memory of Sara’s death. The gunshot, as ever, echoed around the cavernous hull of the beached ship. Viktor’s scarred face stared across at him as the plume of smoke from the muzzle of his weapon wafted.

  As ever Gabe felt rooted to the spot, unable to move and do anything to save his wife. Every night he saw the life leave her eyes. Each time Gabe felt the same sinking feeling as she died. There was nothing he could. Their history was already set. No matter how painful it was to watch the memory repeated, deep down Gabe knew he could do nothing to change it.

  Eyes wide, he wiped the sweat from his brow and looked around the unfamiliar hotel room.

  Reg was asleep, or at least playing possum, in the bed next to him, and he was grateful the old man had not stirred. Sitting up in the bed Gabe allowed his head to clear before he slid from the sheets and walked across to the large bay window.

  Cracking the curtain, Gabe was pleased to find the sun already peeking over the horizon. It bathed the sky in a mix of red and orange the houses around in a curious light. Watching out of the window Gabe peered at his watch and decided there was no point in trying to go back to sleep.

  Dressing Gabe exited the room and wandered along the narrow corridor.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Claudia hissed as he walked past the door to her room.

  ‘Get yourself back to sleep. I was just going to get fresh air.’

  Claudia pulled her door open, and it surprised Gabe to find her also dressed. Grabbing her coat, she slid it over her shoulders and stepped to her father’s side.

  ‘Funny,’ she smiled. ‘So was I!’

  Giving her father no chance to argue she hooked her arm into his and walked with him along the hallway and down the wide staircase to the main door.

  ‘So dad,’ Claudia stopped him at the bottom of the steps below the front door. ‘Where were you going?’

  Claudia stared at him, and it was too complicated for him to lie. After everything they had been through, Gabe’s bond with his daughter was something he cherished and held dear.

  ‘I didn’t want either of you coming with me,’ Gabe sighed and lowered his gaze. ‘There’s something about the fact we would go to a place darker than I would ever have imagined. Created by my son. It was something I wanted to protect you from.’

  ‘We are in this together dad.’

  ‘I know, but some things you shouldn’t have to see. I should be able to protect you a little.’

  ‘Whatever Logan has done, we should see it together. You can only protect me from so much and,’ Claudia paused for a second. ‘Who is there to look after you from the harder things?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘There’s me dad. There will always be me.’

  ‘Not always.’

  The mood had dropped even lower, and Gabe felt a weight in his chest.

  ‘Well, for now, what say we leave Reg to sleep and go to the scene together?’

  Gabe did not answer for a handful of long heartbeats. Peering at Claudia her level-headedness always knocked him off his guard. Offering only a wry smile, he nodded and pulled the keys to the rental from his pocket.

  ‘It’s only a twenty-minute drive from here.’ Claudia said as she opened the passenger door. ‘With any luck, we will be back before Reg wakes up.’

  ‘Let’s hope.’ Gabe sighed as he slid into the driver’s seat and turned over the engine.

  The car was silent, a somber atmosphere hung over them as they drove. Claudia turned on the radio, but it found nothing but Polish transmissions that neither of them understood. After a while, she switched off the radio and looked out of the window admiring the view as they left the suburbs and the view became more rural.

  ‘Take the next junction on the left.’ Claudia declared as the Sat Nav zoomed into the approaching junction.

  Reaching the junction, Gabe rolled the small hatchback to a stop and pulled into the mouth of the intersection.

  With the engine still running Gabe opened the door and walked up to the taped barrier that blocked the road. A row of weathered wooden barricades stretched the width of the road tied together with “Crime Scene” tape that fluttered in the morning breeze.

  ‘What does it say?’ Claudia called across as Gabe stood staring at a sign nailed to the central barrier.

  ‘No idea,’ Gabe chuckled. ‘It’s in Polish, but it’s got the date of the crash, so I guess it’s a witness ap
peal. We use them back home at crashes.’

  It was not lost on Claudia that her father had mentioned work for the first time in a long time.

  ‘Guess it’s the right road then, what do you want to do now?’

  Claudia cut herself short as Gabe tore the scene tape and pushed aside one barrier. Making a path wide enough he turned to Claudia and smiled.

  ‘Your turn, drive it through, and I’ll put the barrier back behind you.’

  Claudia looked terrified at her father’s suggestion and walked around to the driver’s door.

  ‘I could sort it, and you can drive through.’ She pleaded, but Gabe silenced her with a wry smile. ‘You’ve had your lessons now drive through. Oh and try not to crash!’

  ‘Dad!’

  Chuckling, Gabe watched as Claudia inched the small car through the gap. Once she was past the barrier, she panicked and stalled.

  ‘You’re not used to left-hand drive, so it’s fine.’ Gabe sniggered as he opened the door and let Claudia swap seats.

  ‘Thanks for that!’ Claudia mock scorned, and the joviality lifted the tense atmosphere a little.

  Driving along the country lane Gabe kept the speed low as Claudia stared at the photographs in the newspaper article.

  ‘It could be anywhere along here,’ she said as she pulled the crumpled image closer to her face.

  Following another bend in the road, Gabe pulled the hatchback to the side of the road.

  Switching off the engine it was obvious they had arrived. A whole section of the hedgerow at the side of the narrow road looked charred and burned. The road had sections where the fire had scorched it. Large portions of the tarmac had blistered and lifted.

  Although the police had done their investigation, there were still pieces of plastic and trim scattered across the road.

  ‘This is it.’ Gabe declared and clambered out of the car.

  Gabe shuddered, unsure if it was the chill in the air or the gravity of what he was looking at he could not say. Ambling he crossed away from the car and looked down at the road below him.

  Spray painted marks stained the surface marking out various points of impact or debris the crash had caused. Lines showed the direction of travel and the position of the vehicles before someone had removed them from the scene.

  Gabe was familiar with the practice. Although such scenes hadn’t been something he had experienced for a whole, he could decipher what most of the markings meant. One particular area caught his attention, and he stopped walking to look.

  Dropping onto his haunches, Gabe traced his fingers across two red spray-painted on the floor.

  ‘What is it?’ Claudia asked as she stood beside her father.

  ‘This is where,’ Gabe struggled to pull the words from his brain to his mouth. ‘Where the bodies were.’

  Although the article had said there had been fatalities, deep down, Gabe had hoped it had been an exaggeration. He knew it hadn’t, but seeing the lines marking the floor told him what Logan had done.

  ‘There’s another one like that.’ Claudia said, her voice quivering and just above a whisper. ‘Over there.’

  Filled with dread Gabe turned himself around standing.

  Claudia was right. In the road's centre a short distance away from them another series of markings stained the floor. They had marked a large area of red paint and Cyrillic lettering around a particular area.

  They walked towards the spot and peered down.

  ‘That’s where he was!’

  Both froze, rooted to the spot as the unexpected voice spoke from somewhere behind them.

  Gabe knew the voice, hearing it sent a shudder down Claudia’s spine yet neither of them dared to turn. Neither of them had expected to hear Logan, but there he was, his voice more profound than they remembered but it was very much Logan.

  ‘I never expected you to come here.’ Logan intoned as he clambered over the wooden fencing disguised within the hedgerow. ‘When I saw a car driving down the road, and it wasn’t a police car, somehow I knew.’

  Gabe could not turn, would not turn.

  Hearing his son filled his eyes with tears, it overcame Gabe with emotion. It had been almost two years since he had seen Logan and poised over the crime scene, he did not want to see his boy.

  ‘Why did you come back?’ Gabe asked.

  ‘Because today is mum’s birthday.’

  Gabe sobbed, the cry catching in his throat and his shoulders shook.

  ‘This isn’t right Logan, none of this is right.’

  Wiping the tears from his eyes, Gabe turned to face his son.

  ‘Your face has healed well.’ Logan said as he looked at his father across the road.

  ‘Some scars heal better than others son.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Logan snapped.

  ‘Come home with us.’ Claudia interrupted, and Logan’s attention snapped to her.

  ‘Home to what?’ Logan barked. ‘There’s nothing left for us there after he took everything from us.

  ‘Not everything, we are still here.’

  ‘But mum is gone, she’ll never be with us, and neither of you was willing to do what needed to be done.’

  ‘And how do you feel now you’ve taken a man’s life son?’

  Logan did well to keep his calm and hide the turmoil he felt inside.

  ‘Relief that bastard has paid for what he did to us, to our family!’

  ‘Son!’

  ‘Grow up dad.’ Logan bit. ‘I was a boy when you made me choose when you turned your back on me and left me to do what you should have done.’

  ‘You made this choice, not me.’

  ‘I made it because you wouldn’t know neither of you.’

  ‘Revenge is not about a life for a life.’ Claudia pleaded. ‘There are other ways to right the wrongs in all of this. It didn’t need to end in murder.’

  ‘And what have you done then in those two years since they killed mum? What have you done to find Viktor and bring him to whatever justice you thought was right?’

  ‘We…’ Gabe began but had no answer.

  ‘You’ve spent your time wallowing in self-pity, doing nothing but mourning when you should have been with me. Here!’

  ‘It was never a path you should have had to take Logan.’

  ‘And it was a path you were never willing to take.’

  A sound of sirens carried in the air, and the three of them turned to see a handful of police cars winding their way towards them along the country road.

  ‘Come back with us son.’ Gabe pleaded, offering a hand to his son.

  Logan looked very much a young man now. His unkempt red hair seemed brighter, yet his eyes seemed darker. Gabe could not deny his son looked healthy, but there was something in his appearance that differed greatly from the fifteen-year-old boy he remembered.

  ‘I am not done yet.’

  ‘What else can there to be done?’ Gabe yelled. ‘You’ve avenged your mother, now come back with us and we can be a family again.’

  The sound of sirens grew nearer, and Claudia ran back to the car.

  Logan and Gabe stood looking at one another, neither saying a word.

  ‘Go back home, maybe when I’m done, I will come back.’ Logan said as he scrambled back over the wooden fencing.

  ‘What have you got to do that stops you from coming back with us now?’