INCARNATION by Daniel Easterman

Author:Daniel Easterman [Easterman, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thriller, Suspense,
ISBN: ISBN| 978-0-002-25610-0
Publisher: HarperCollins, 1998

The first thought that struck him was that there’d been a mistake. The kid in the photograph downstairs had only been thirteen or fourteen. The dame on the bed had to be twenty-something. The door had been locked. He didn’t like that, couldn’t see the need for it. It had started to occur to him that this was a family to be avoided at all costs.

Maddie watched him from the bed, on which she’d been lying in an attempt to doze off. She opened her eyes warily and took note of the stranger standing in the doorway. The door closed behind him of its own accord, and there was the sound of a key turning in it.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ she asked.

‘You askin’ me, doll? Ah’m Calum, an’ Ah’m completely spent. Would ye mind if Ah sat doon on that chair?’

‘What are you doing here? Who sent you?’

‘Your daddy. Can Ah sit doon? Ma back’s killin’ me somethin’ terrible.’

‘My father? Did you say my father sent you?’

He ignored her and sat down on the armchair.

‘Nice chair,’ he grunted. ‘Good springs. Ye’d never believe the half-sprung monsters Ah’ve sat on in ma time.’

‘You said my father sent you.’ She felt herself growing angry again. The anger could get unbearable, could drive her into hysteria or plummeting despair.

‘He did.’

‘Rubbish. My father’s out of the country. A long way out. I don’t know what you told my mother, but it won’t wash with me.’

‘Look, doll, Ah didnae come here tae be insulted.’ He had, in fact, had exactly what he came for, two hundred smackeroos for bugger all. Well, on reflection, the money had been for sexual services. He’d made her come four and a half times. That was worth a bob or two.

She rolled to the side of the bed and swung her legs over.

‘Just get the fuck out,’ she screamed. It was hurting her. Something was coming up inside her, something from depths Rose didn’t know about, from the dark hours between coming awake at dawn and final consciousness around noon. Final waking was knowledge, final waking was the bitterness of reality. ‘My father’s dead,’ she said. ‘They killed my brother, and then they killed him. Now they want to kill me too. Is that what you’re here for? Is that what you’ve come to do? Who sent you? Six?’

‘Aaah, fuck this, Jimmy.’ He drew the bent and travel-stained letter from his pocket. He’d insisted that it remain unopened until it was in her hands. There’d been a long argument with the missus about that. But he hadn’t budged. ‘Yer father’s no’ dead. At least, he didnae look dead when Ah saw him. Ah wis in Kashgar. Have ye heard of it?’

She took the letter with shaking fingers. Kashgar? Maybe it wasn’t a trick. She tore open the envelope and pulled out the thin sheet of paper inside.

‘Take yir time, dinnae mind us.’

She began to read. For a while, the words and sentences fell apart in a desperate vortex of deconstruction that left nothing to make sense.

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