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Hyienna took a swig of beer and stared morosely over the dark, brooding ocean. The first breeze of early autumn whipped the surf into small glittering peaks illuminated by a huge harvest moon. It was truly a magical sight and Hyienna knew full well how fortunate he was to be sitting on a quiet clifftop and enjoying such a perfect evening. Not only was the evening perfect, but his relationship with Kate was blossoming by the day; plus, Nathaniel was good company and was fast becoming a friend. Even Solomon seemed to have backed off a bit, going so far as to make an indirect mention of some work coming up, maybe. All in all, things were working out pretty well on Formentera...so why the hell did he feel so damned anxious all the time?
Try as he might to think himself into a positive mood, Hyienna knew that things were anything but rosy. The life-changing mystical experience he’d hoped for was still stubbornly absent and he lacked the knowledge of how to look for it. He stared morosely at the rucksack leaning against the wall of the shed, the warm yellow light from the Green Lizard’s windows falling gently on its unremarkable outline. It would be so easy, just pick the bloody thing up and heave it off that cliff, straight into the sea. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought about abandoning the...thing before changing his mind. In fact, it had become something of a ritual.
Lost deep in introspection, Hyienna started and almost dropped his beer when a shadow suddenly blotted out the light from the windows behind. He jumped a second time as the light suddenly picked out Kal’s unmistakable outline not ten feet away. Dressed in a white suit and panama hat, he seemed to shimmer in the cool autumn darkness as he leaned nonchalantly on his walking cane. “Drinking alone?”
The question was strange, almost paternal, and it took Hyienna a couple of seconds to formulate a lame response. “Can I help you with something?”
Kal strode forward a few paces, his polished shoes silent on the sandy soil as he gazed out to sea, not five feet from the mysterious rucksack. “The ocean is filled with wisdom, if we have but the will to hear it.”
Three beers in, tired and confused, Hyienna was in no mood for philosophical conversation. “Is there something you want?”
The man in white continued to stare into the darkness. “I think it’s high time we had a talk.”
“What do we have to talk about?”
Still Kal did not move. “I grew up beside the ocean. My mother was the daughter of a fisherman; she used to tell me all kinds of stories, folk tales I suppose you would call them. My favourite was about an old woman who finds a magic egg. Remind me to tell you it someday.”
Hyienna’s blood ran cold as he heard Kal describe the recurring dream he could never quite remember. “Who are you?”
At last, Kal turned, placing the end of his stick into the soft ground as he leaned his weight on it. “I am the man who can help you with your troubles. I am the man who can show you the right road.” He gestured theatrically with his stick, first this way, then that.
Hyienna made a point of taking a long swig of beer, chiefly to give him time to think. “Why should you help me?”
“Call it Christian duty if you like. I see a man who is lost, and I feel compelled to show him the way.”
“And I’m lost?”
Kal’s jovial expression fell from his face as his stick planted itself back into the earth. “You have no idea where you are or where you’re going. In fact, you don’t even know who you are.”
Finishing his beer and making a conscious effort not to look at the rucksack, Hyienna did his best to sound casual. “Listen; whatever bad blood there is between you and my friend, leave me out of it.”
The older man cocked his head curiously. “What makes you think Nathaniel is your friend?”
Hyienna didn’t really have a good answer, but he also knew he wasn’t obliged to provide one.
Kal pointed with his stick once again, this time towards the back of the inn. “When I was a boy, our only light came from oil lamps. Despite the cost, we kept one burning at night to ward off the evil spirits prowling the darkness. Today I find myself in this world of light and aeroplanes and electricity. I still marvel that anyone can hop on a big metal ferry and be here within a couple of hours. Alas, all the time and distance in God’s creation cannot separate us from the things we have done or failed to do.”
“If you have a point, Kal, now would be a good time.”
The man in the white suit shrugged innocently. “Sometimes it’s better to just get everything out in the open so the healing can begin. That is why you are here, yes? To heal?”
Hyienna felt his eyes narrowing. “It’s best not to go poking into people’s private affairs.”
A snort of derision escaped from Kal’s mouth. “Or you will do what? Beat me up? Shoot me? Call me a bad name?”
Once again Hyienna had no answer.
Kal leaned forward on his stick once more, his eyes unblinking as he stared at the younger man. “Besides that, why do you imagine that your affairs are private? It takes a great deal of care and vigilance to go unnoticed in this ever-shrinking world.”
“You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“To hear your confession.”
Hyienna blinked at Kal’s matter-of-fact, yet spectacularly strange statement. After a few seconds he recovered. “You don’t look like a priest, and anyway I’m not the churchy type.”
Kal took a deep breath and gazed up at the night sky, the light from the Lizard’s windows illuminating his polished ebony features in an oddly disconcerting way. “Church or not, priest or not, Providence has laid out certain rules for us to follow, and we transgress them at our peril.”
“Well, if you wanna go knocking on doors and spreading the good word, go right ahead. I’ve done nothing wrong and even if I had, what makes you think I answer to you?” Hyienna rose and turned to head back to the Lizard.
“You failed to protect an innocent, and after that you failed to help the king’s men serve justice. I will not burden you with the full chain of events, just know that your reckless behaviour has forced me to take the most drastic action.”
“Bullshit! We’ve never even met before.”
The man in white remained a picture of paternal patience. “Nonetheless, your foolishness has caused me, regrettably, to violate the Fifth Commandment. Now even I am unsure as to whether the situation can be contained. The damage is great and the costs will be high regardless of the outcome. Through no fault of my own, I am now outside of Divine law. Whilst this is not a hopeless position as many may believe, it will take more than a few half-hearted Hail Marys to restore equilibrium.”
Kal’s words rooted Hyienna to the spot. He felt his fists clenching and found himself striding towards the man in white before he realised what he was doing. He tried to grab Kal by the lapels, but the older man was faster, deftly deflecting his attack and sidestepping out of reach. “Just who the hell are you?”
Kal stepped back further. “A wise man always knows his friends from his enemies.”
“What does that mean?”
Although already intense, Kal’s stare deepened still further. “It means that not one of your so-called friends is what they appear to be, but then neither are you.”
“Now look...”
Kal held up his hand. “Please do not insult my intelligence with claims that you have done nothing wrong. I know why you left Barcelona and in truth I don’t blame you for that. It must be a terrible burden, waking every morning and wondering if this is the day somebody will discover your secret.”
Hyienna opened his mouth to fling an insult, then closed it again as he considered his position. After a few seconds he spoke. “Look, I don’t really know what your game is, but all the same I’d appreciate it if you kept this quiet. Yeah, I’ve made some big mistakes in my life, but I never hurt anyone. Believe me, the police were camped out in my ass with a microscope.”
“I do believe you, I most sincerely do, which is why I am concerned for your well-being now. I am not the only man on this island who knows how to check on things; it’s only a matter of time before your cousin’s fiancé and his musclebound friend find out about your unfortunate past. I know you are blameless, at least in the legal sense, but do you really think others will see you the same way, or stay silent?”
Hyienna slumped back onto the sand and reached for another beer. He knew the strange man in the sharp suit was right, just as he knew he’d been chasing a foolish fantasy to think he could put the past behind him so easily. “You still haven’t told me what you want, Kal. Why did you come over here? It’s not like you’re my friend.”
Kal idly drew a shape in the sand before speaking again. “I am a better friend than you know.” He reached into his tailored jacket and produced a thick white envelope.
“What’s that?” Hyienna asked suspiciously.
“Call it a gesture of faith, or perhaps a token of goodwill. Despite what your friend Nathaniel may have told you, I am concerned for your welfare. You’ve stumbled into something beyond your reckoning and here is your way out. This ferry ticket is good for six months, and there’s some cash to help you find your feet at your new destination.”
Hyienna eyed the envelope. “Are you telling me to get the hell out of Dodge? What happens if I don’t?”
Kal shrugged. “You will come to no harm by my hand, but there are others I cannot speak for.”
“Who are you, Kal? Why should I trust you?”
Kal paused for effect. “Has anyone on this island, apart from me, given you anything freely, with no strings attached? Even your loving cousin merely used you to re-kindle an old affair.”
Hyienna opened his mouth to speak but Kal held up his hand once more.
Kal continued. “Her fiancé will no doubt seek you out when he discovers that your friend is sleeping with his wife to be. Then there is his especially large associate.”
Once again Hyienna made a motion to speak but Kal beat him to it.
“Oh yes, I know who he is, and I assure you he is every bit as dangerous as he looks, in fact more so.” Kal stopped and gazed up at the sky for a few seconds. “It isn’t your fault, you are a babe in the woods, the new boy in the city. Everyone is playing you for a fool and you don’t even know what the game is called.”
“Kate never asked me for anything, and neither has Nathaniel.” Hyienna mentally kicked himself as he justified his actions to a man he knew nothing about, other than his name.
Kal tapped the envelope with a manicured finger. “This is something real, the rest is just meaningless words lost on the wind, forgotten the moment they are spoken.”
Much as he hated to admit it, Hyienna knew that Kal was at least half right. Although Nathaniel was good company, he was more interested in his affair with Sarah, which left him feeling more than a little pushed away. On the other hand, Kate was a growing part of his life, although he was acutely aware of how close to Solomon she was. Could she be playing him? He didn’t think so, although Kal’s words had an uncomfortable ring of authenticity about them. Could it really be true, could he really be that naïve?
Kal stepped closer, holding out the envelope. “You’ve disturbed a delicate balance here, my young friend, and I wish to help you right the many wrongs you have left behind as you’ve blundered through this world.”
Hyienna slowly reached forward. “But I can leave when I want, right?”
Kal moved the envelope away from Hyienna’s grasp. “On one condition.”
“What condition is that?”
“Why I’ve already told you, confession.”
Hyienna shook his head with exasperation. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Kal’s voice softened a little. “Although the Lord is pleased by his church, He does not need it. A true confession from a sinner is worth a thousand sermons to the pious.”
Hyienna stepped back, regretting his earlier decision to indulge the crazy and somewhat unsettling old man. “Okay, you’re freaking me out now. Maybe you should just be on your way. I won’t tell anyone you were here.”
Kal tapped the envelope again. “A fresh start, a new life if you want it. All I ask in return is you tell me everything that happened in Barcelona.”
Hyienna’s eyes narrowed. “You sound like you already know something.”
“Yes, I know a great deal, but knowing the picture is different from completing the puzzle.”
Hyienna was about to begin his story when a thought suddenly struck him. “Hey wait a second, why should my story interest you? We never met till that bust up at the restaurant, right?”
“That is true, but like I told you, you’re in the middle of something you don’t understand. Now I’m offering to wipe the slate clean. Nobody else will offer you safe passage, I can promise you that much.”
Hyienna finally came to a decision. What did it matter if he filled in a few blanks that Kal may or may not know anyway? After all, the guy had a point. He’d not been treated with much respect since his arrival at Formentera. Plus, when had anybody ever offered him something, strings or not? “Okay, so what is it you want to know?”
Kal slid the envelope back into his pocket. “Just tell me the tale of how you came to be here, or rather, how you came to follow your beautiful cousin to this mystical island.”
It took a moment for Hyienna to think of where to begin, then the obvious answer struck him. In fact, it was a question. “So, I guess you know about the kid?”
“I do.”
“Just so you know, I really did have nothing to do with it.”
“I know.”
“The police cleared me.”
“I know.”
“It’s just that, well, people get the wrong idea, they read half a story and think they know the rest.”
“I know that too. What I do not know, is how you came to be in that apartment in the first place, and that is what you can tell me.”
Hyienna relaxed a little. “Sarah’s always been a strange girl. There’s just something...bewitching about her. We used to be really close once, but then I guess life just kinda happened; boys and girls and jobs, the usual things.”
Kal nodded. “Of course. Go on.”
Hyienna continued. “It takes a long time to gain a little self-awareness, and I guess it took me longer than most people. By the time I realised I had no plan for my life I was just kind of drifting, with no career and no real family to speak of.”
“If a man commits himself to nothing, then nothing will commit itself to him.”
Hyienna nodded. “Ain’t that the truth. Still, it was Sarah who stood by me and, little by little, drifted back into my life. I don’t think there was ever anything more than friendship between us, and besides, her life was just a mess of guys that I could never keep up with. Don’t get the wrong idea, I mean, she’s always been a decent girl...dammit, what am I trying to say here? I mean that she enjoyed the attention from guys, and she got plenty of it.”
Kal smiled. “I think that is why the good Lord has arranged for guys to chase girls, and not the other way around. Just imagine this world if men possessed that same power.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. In any case I was glad to have my cousin Sarah fighting my corner. Lack of focus leads to drift, you see, and I’d fallen in with the drink and drugs crowd. It’s not like I had a serious problem, but I’ve gotta be honest and say I was hardly Mr Reliable either. So, Sarah became my rock, and I guess I became hers too. She helped me to gain a little self-esteem and I helped her to control her need for endless attention. At least I thought so.”
“How did you help her?”
Hyienna considered for a moment. “Not sure really. I guess I just made her laugh and I was the only uncomplicated guy in her life.”
“Sounds like you were good for her.”
Now it was Hyienna’s turn to smile. “Yeah, I was, at least for a while.”
Kal’s intense stare returned. “But...”
“But then something happened, she met this guy, a mystery man. She’d always been pretty open about her life, but that changed all of a sudden. When I asked her about it, she got really defensive, said he was a guy with a difficult past he was trying to leave behind.”
Kal raised his eyebrows. “So naturally you were concerned.”
“Well yeah, I mean, who wouldn’t be? I thought maybe she was mixed up with some slick talking conman or something.” Hyienna trailed off.
“Confessions are meaningless if they are easy, Hyienna. Clearly you are not proud of what you did.”
Hyienna was quiet for a moment as he considered what to say next. “Cowardice is a lot like bravery, at least in the way it takes many different forms. Now I’m no hardened tough guy but I can look after myself in the bar if I need to. I might not be a physical coward, but I’ve always been an emotional one. Maybe it’s all connected to my lack of drive, but I just couldn’t find the courage to stand up to Sarah, even though I could see this relationship was taking its toll. Maybe it was none of my business anyhow, she’s a grown woman after all. All the same, I wanted to be sure she wasn’t getting herself into some sort of trouble, so I started tailing her.”
“And how do you feel about that now?”
This time Hyienna didn’t need to think about his response. “Are you kidding me? I feel terrible. I violated my cousin’s trust, my friends’ trust and poked into parts of her life where I simply didn’t belong. I guess that was the first domino in the line that ends up with the two of us talking right here.”
Now it was Kal’s turn to look thoughtful. “There is a kind of fate to our lives, not so much a plan as a pattern, or a template if you will. The artist may become a sculptor or a painter or perhaps even a writer, but he will never become an engineer. This is why I offer my hand to you. I do not presume to understand the intricacies of the grand design, but I recognise the workmanship when I see it. You were destined to come here, one way or another. Providence commanded it.”
Hyienna thrust his hand in his pocket, his fingers quickly closing around his little rock. He’d become suspicious of such quasi-mystical talk as it had led him down some very dark roads in the past. All the same, that didn’t mean none of it was true. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. At first I thought she was dating this guy called Solomon.”
Kal seemed surprised for the first time that night.
Hyienna nodded in confirmation. “Yeah, the same one, only they weren’t an item at the time, I think. Still, that discovery led me to another of Solomon’s many conquests.” He saw Kal’s eyes flick towards the back door of the Green Lizard. The man obviously knew a lot more than he was letting on and Hyienna just hoped he’d kept quiet. Yasmina had no idea that he knew anything about her and he thought he’d done well with his pretence. All bets were off if she ever heard the tale he was recounting in the back yard. Okay, so he had nothing directly to do with her son’s disappearance, but that counted for nothing with a grieving and obsessed mother in the mix.
Kal waved his manicured hand to attract the younger man’s attention. “I have been told I am very perceptive, but not so much as I can hear what you are thinking.”
“What? Where was I? Oh yeah, so I figured out this kid was Solomon’s baby, and let me tell you that made me mad as hell because I thought he was homing in on Sarah at the time. Well, I guess he was, but at least it doesn’t matter for that reason.”
“But it should matter for other reasons?” Kal enquired.
Hyienna felt a sudden flash of irritation. “You want to hear this or not? In fact, why the hell am I telling you anything? I must be mad.”
Kal’s voice dropped lower than usual. “You know nothing of these people you surround yourself with, and yet you share yourself freely with them. Why am I different?”
Hyienna was rapidly having second thoughts. “Yeah, well, maybe this whole thing was a mistake. Listen, Kal, or whatever your name really is; you just go in peace, and we’ll pretend this whole thing never happened.”
The man in white sighed sadly. “I can pretend, and you can pretend, but I doubt very much that the poor broken landlady would be able to pretend as well. I’ll wager she possesses reserves of strength we can only imagine, and I shudder to think what her knight in shining armour and his iron-pumping friend might think should they learn the truth.”
“You threatening me, Kal?”
“I have no need to threaten you. You are already in more danger than you could even begin to conceive, so witless you are as to notice none of it.”
Now it was Hyienna’s turn to shrug. “Doesn’t matter anyway, you seem to have figured it out. There I was, about to spill the beans on Solomon’s kid to my cousin when I first met Crisanta, Samuel’s babysitter. We hit it off straight away and it was good, at least for a couple of weeks until the poor kid up and vanished from right under our noses when she was supposed to be looking out for him. Hell, I wasn’t even supposed to be there.”
“But you did not know this had happened?”
“No, not straight away. I still thought it was Solomon’s apartment, so I was gone in the early hours. In any event I’d just made up my mind to come clean to the cops, but Crisanta must’ve beaten me to it. They questioned me for hours on end, days in fact. I think they really wanted me to have some connection to the abduction, and some of their other unsolved cases.”
Kal obligingly filled in the blanks. “But they could find no evidence against you because you were not guilty. I suppose it made sense for them to not splash your name all over the papers, or they would surely be dealing with another murder.”
Hyienna laughed bitterly. “Yeah, and to think I believed that would be the end of it, that nobody would ever find out. Shows what I know.”
Kal was silent, his face inscrutable as he thought about what Hyienna had told him. At last he spoke. “I do not believe you have had any meaningful influence on events, for better or worse. All the same, you would be well advised to use that ticket sooner rather than later. Your shortcomings are stupidity, naïveté and carelessness, but I would hate to see something more serious added to your suffering. If you possess any wisdom at all, you will catch the next ferry to the mainland and leave this place behind. You do not belong here.” With that he pulled the creases from his sleeves, handed the envelope to Hyienna, and walked away without another word.
Hyienna watched as the man in white dissolved into a ghostly grey smudge before vanishing into the darkness. Opening the envelope, he discovered that Kal was a man of his word as he saw a significant amount of cash as well as an open ferry ticket. Immediately his eyes strayed to the innocuous-looking rucksack still resting against the peeling shed. Kal had made no mention of anything otherworldly, yet Hyienna had no doubt he was well versed in all things esoteric.
With his ticket in one hand and anchor in the other, Hyienna looked up at the bejewelled night sky as he searched for answers. It was only then he realised he was standing beneath a velvet blanket of perfect blackness. He could see no stars, and the glowing harvest moon had completely vanished. The sky was a flawless nothingness that mirrored the impenetrable darkness hiding in that cheap nylon backpack. In fact, if it weren’t for the illumination from the nearby bar, Hyienna wondered if he would be able to see anything at all.
He shivered as he picked up the innocuous looking bag and quietly made his way back to the Lizard. He didn’t really understand from whence his conviction came, but he knew that both the man in white and the unnatural darkness above were harbingers of some great yet hidden danger.
Answers were coming, and Hyienna knew nothing would be the same after they arrived.