The Assassin King

A kink in Elias’s character compelled him, when feeling low, to push himself lower still. He thus ignored Wharton’s order to return directly to Nettleham HQ and left the A17 at Heckington instead, cutting cross country to a florist he knew in Walcott before continuing on through Dunston to St Mary’s Church.

Elias had become a father much younger than he’d intended. Neither he nor Julie had planned it, they’d just been careless. He’d been silently furious with her, all the same, as though only she had been to blame. He’d felt trapped for those next few months, increasingly filled with dread. Then Marcus had arrived in the early hours of a winter morning, and it had decked him faster and for longer than any uppercut had ever done. It had felt as though a new colour had been added to the world, or more accurately a new dimension – as if he’d seen the world only in 2D until that moment, but now could see its depth.

It had been for Marcus’s sake that he’d set aside his fading dreams of boxing glory to concentrate on his career in the police instead. It had been for him and the twins, when they’d arrived some eighteen months later, that he and Julie had bought a near-derelict cottage a few miles up the road from here, even though he’d known what brutal hard work restoration would be, on top of his regular job. He’d wanted it brutal. He’d wanted to build empires with his bare hands.

It was dark by the time Elias arrived, but the old church was spotlit from beneath, making it plenty bright enough to see by. He turned off his phone out of respect for the dead, then knelt by his son’s graveside to lay his flowers against his headstone. He could feel the wetness of the grass through his trousers. It pleased him that he’d have to wash them later. All penance welcome here. Some weeds had been tugged up by their roots and set in a small heap to one side, and there were fresh lilies in a weathered crystal vase whose sides were splashed with watery mud. Julie had clearly been by, though she hated it here in the rain, for it gave her nightmares to think of his coffin filling with water, of Marcus battering his little fists against the wood as he drowned all over again.

Nearly four years had now passed, yet Elias hadn’t healed. It wasn’t just grief. A bone had lodged in his throat, forever choking him. After it had happened, he and Julie had gone to counselling. She’d taken his hands in hers and looked into his eyes to tell him that she forgave him. A lie, of course. Bitterness had been her way of keeping Marcus alive. Elias, too, had said what had been expected of him: That sometimes terrible things happened despite our best efforts; that consequences could be out of proportion to failings; that if this had happened to a friend, he’d have felt desperately sorry for them, but he wouldn’t have blamed them. All of which was abstractly true, but none of which helped the slightest bit. He’d let his beloved son die. Everything else was bollocks.

Eighteen months he’d worked on the cottage. But finally it had been ready. The garden had still been a mess, of course, but that could wait. There was only the sitting room to finish off, where they’d been storing their new furniture beneath dust sheets. He’d been putting up the last of the masking tape when Julie had arrived, wanting him to look after Marcus while she took the twins shopping. No worries. He was a joy to look after. Give him a book or some toys to play with, he could entertain himself for hours. He even enjoyed helping decorate, though five minutes of that usually took fifty to put right.

Decorating mostly bored Elias, but he did enjoy a roller. That smell of paint, the satisfying sticky noise, the speed of transformation. He finished the first coat and stood back. It looked amazing. He’d had reservations about Julie’s choice of lilac, but he should never have doubted her. He turned to Marcus to share the moment. All parents must know that humpback sensation when their kid isn’t where they should be. That plunge of heart, that swell of terror. Usually it’s over in a blink, the little rascal popping up from behind the sofa, delighted at the trauma they’ve caused. Not this time.

The door was closed but the sash window was raised a little for ventilation, and Elias had left his paint pots beneath it, almost like a set of steps. And there was a lilac smudge on the sill that he knew he hadn’t left himself. It made him feel quite ill. He lifted the window all the way and yelled for his son. Nothing. He climbed out, feeling so dizzy he feared he might fall over. The cottage was at the end of a private track that led to a lane with so little traffic that people drove recklessly fast along it. Elias ran to it now. Thank Christ, no sign of Marcus. Wherever he was, he surely couldn’t have done himself any—

That was when Elias remembered the old swimming pool.

He sprinted back up to the cottage and across the overgrown lawn. There were metal stakes around the pool, and bundles of wire mesh with which to fence it off before Julie and the children moved in; but his eagerness to get the house finished had taken precedence. He told himself that Marcus must be somewhere else. Fate couldn’t be that cruel. He slowed as it came into view, approaching it from the deep end. He felt hollow inside. He pledged his soul for a reprieve.

The walls were grey cement, cracked and bulging. The bottom was covered by leaves and dirty brown water. Elias was almost at its edge before he saw the leg of Marcus’s blue dungarees and then a sleeve of his red jersey. He must have fallen from almost exactly where Elias was now. He was lying on his front, his face in the water. The floor was so slick with vegetation that Elias’s feet slid from under him when he jumped down. He cracked his head sickeningly hard against the side, but managed to hold onto consciousness by an effort of pure will.

He picked Marcus up in both arms and staggered up the pool’s sloped floor to the shallow end, where he laid him on his back. His skin was pale and blue. A gash in his forehead was leaking blood, and more was coming out of his ear too, along with a fine white froth from his nostrils. Yet he looked so at peace that it was impossible to believe anything serious was taking place.

Elias had learned emergency first aid in the police. He checked for breathing and a pulse, couldn’t find either. He put his arms around Marcus’s waist, as he’d been taught, then made a fist of his right hand and pressed his thumb below his ribcage and gave it an upward thrust, sending water gushing from his mouth and nostrils, leaving his face covered by slick trails of pinkish foam and mucous. He laid him on his back again, pinched his nostrils, breathed into his mouth, gave him chest compressions. He still couldn’t find a pulse, but he was so panicked he couldn’t have found his own. He needed help. Professional help. A doctor, a paramedic, an ambulance.

He picked Marcus up again and raced to the house where he gave him another round of CPR. It was the most gruelling thing he’d ever done, pressing that hard on his beloved son’s chest as his skin somehow turned both white and blue. His eyelids were closed. Elias lifted one with his thumb. His eye was upturned, pale and watery. The telephone hadn’t been connected yet, his mobile had no signal. The nearest hospital was in Lincoln, a good ten minutes away, but what choice did he have? He gave Marcus another round of CPR on his back seat then sped off, tooting traffic out of his way, overtaking on blind corners.

The hospital entrance was on the other side of the road. A silver Bentley was approaching sedately down the other lane. Elias flashed his lights in warning but the arsehole only accelerated. He cut across him anyway, his car jumping as its rear was clipped, blaring his horn non-stop for attention as he raced up the approach, nurses and visitors jumping out of his way as he screeched to a stop outside the front doors.

He must have looked a sight in his wildness and distress, his clothes sodden and covered with blood and paint. But they knew what they were doing. They put Marcus on a trolley while one doctor asked precise questions and another searched for vital signs and shouted orders. Assured, brisk, calm. They’d done this a hundred times, it gave him confidence and hope. His legs gave way beneath him. A nurse helped him to a chair. He tried to explain how Marcus must have been alive when he’d found him because he’d still been bleeding. Her expression told him that that wasn’t much of a straw to clutch at. The shock kicked in. He began to shiver. He took out his phone to call Julie without the first idea what to say. A door opened behind him and the nurse looked up and he read the news on her face, and he really didn’t remember much else after that.

In the graveyard, Elias heard the squeaking of the gate, then excited laughter. A boy and a girl appeared, arms around each others’ waists. They stopped when they saw him kneeling by that tiny headstone. They winced in sympathy. He pushed himself back to his feet then dried his eyes and gave them the most encouraging smile that he could find as he turned and headed past them for the gate.