23 Past Tense by Lee Child

Author:Lee Child [Child, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Reacher thought the old people’s home was a cheap but sincere attempt to provide a decent place to live. He liked it. Not for himself. He didn’t expect to live long enough. But other people might enjoy it. The décor was bright. The atmosphere was happy. Maybe a little forced. They were welcomed at the reception desk by a cheerful woman who spoke to them as she would to the bereaved, except not exactly. A little livelier. A unique tone. Maybe part of her training. Maybe learned in role play class. As if visitors to an old people’s home made up a unique demographic. Not the recently bereaved. The soon to be. The pre-bereaved.

The woman pointed and said, “Mr. Mortimer is waiting for you in the day room.”

Reacher followed the guy with the ponytail down a long and pleasant corridor, to a set of double doors. Inside was a tight circle of wipe-clean armchairs. In one of them was a very old man. Mr. Mortimer, Reacher assumed. His hair was white and wispy, and his skin was pale and translucent. Like it wasn’t really there at all. Every vein and blotch stood out. He was thin. His ears were old-man big and full of hearing aids. He was strong enough to sit up straight, but only just. His wrists looked like pencils.

There was no one else in the room. No nurse, no attendant, no carer, no companion. No doctor. No other old people, either.

The guy with the ponytail walked over and bent down and crouched low, eye to eye with the old man, and he stuck out his hand and said, “Mr. Mortimer, it’s good to see you again. I wonder if you remember me?”

The old man took his hand.

“Of course I remember you,” he said. “I would greet you properly, but you warned me never to say your name. Walls have ears, you said. There are enemies everywhere.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“How did it end up?”

“Inconclusive.”

“Do you need my help again?”

“My friend Mr. Reacher wants to ask you about Ryantown.”

Mortimer nodded, pensively. His slow watery gaze panned across and tilted up and stopped on Reacher.

He focused.

He said, “There was a Reacher family in Ryantown.”

“The boy was my father,” Reacher said. “His name was Stan.”

“Sit down,” Mortimer said. “I’ll get a crick in my neck.”

Reacher sat down in the chair across the circle. Up close Mortimer looked no younger. But he showed some kind of spark. Any weakness was physical, not mental. He raised his hand, bent and bony, like a warning.

“I had cousins there,” he said. His voice was low and reedy, and wet with saliva. He said, “We lived close by. We visited back and forth, and sometimes we got dumped there, if times were hard at home, and sometimes they got dumped on us, but overall I need to tell you my memories of Ryantown might be patchy. Compared with what you might be looking for, I mean, about your father as a boy, and your grandparents maybe.

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