Sal stood beyond a wash of coloured light, close enough for Kane to recognise him but somehow out of reach. Blue fell across one shoulder; a narrow strip of red lay along the floor. The boy appeared to be waiting for him.
Kane tried to ask where he was.
The telephone rang, and Sal disappeared.
He woke in the chair beside his bedroom window. His jacket hung from its back, and the open suitcase lay on the bed among the clothes he had intended to finish packing. He reached for the telephone too quickly and felt the wound pull.
“Hello?”
“Were you asleep?”
“Resting.”
“Of course.”
His sister let him adjust himself before continuing. She had learned, during his first week out of hospital, that the silences sometimes meant he was moving rather than refusing to answer.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Time you remembered you’re coming to see us.”
“I’ve bought a ticket.”
“You’ve bought tickets before.”
“I’m using this one.”
There was a brief silence, followed by a quieter, “Good.”
He looked at the suitcase. Two shirts were packed; the rest lay folded beside it. He had sat down for five minutes and apparently lost rather more of the afternoon.
“Are the children coming to the airport?”
“They want to. The youngest has asked whether you’ll have your gun.”
“I won’t.”
“I told him that. He’s deciding whether you’re still worth meeting.”
Kane smiled. He could remember the boy as a small, indignant child who had once objected to being put to bed while his uncle was visiting. He would be older now. Both children would. His sister sent photographs, but photographs had allowed Kane to believe he was keeping up without having to be there.
She began discussing dinner. Nothing elaborate, she said, unless there was something he particularly wanted. Whatever she was making would be fine.
“You used to be more difficult.”
“I’ve been shot. It’s improved me.”
“Don’t.”
He lowered his eyes. He had meant to make it easier for her to talk about, but she had spent too many hours waiting beside a telephone to find it funny.
“Sorry.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you.”
“So am I.”
After they hung up, he remained in the chair for a moment. For years he had promised to visit when work became quieter. Work had never become quieter. It had taken a bullet and several weeks of enforced leave to give him a date he could keep.
Three weeks after the shooting, Kane could put on a shirt without stopping halfway. Sleep had proved less straightforward. He sometimes woke because he had turned onto his injured side; on other nights, Mills was raising the pistol again. The dreams Kane found hardest to shake contained no gun at all, only Sal’s hands gripping his and the warmth he had felt moving through torn tissue.
He had tried to describe it to a doctor. The doctor had listened, then asked about his medication. Kane had decided to leave it there.
He finished packing and slipped Sal’s drawing between two shirts.
He had visited Elena twice since leaving hospital. On the first occasion, she had remained beside the door until her son appeared and asked whether the wound still hurt. Kane’s answer had disappointed him.
“Less than it would have,” he had added.
Elena had pulled out a chair before he could attempt to prove he didn’t need one.
On the second visit, coffee had been waiting. She asked whether he was sleeping; he asked whether she was. Neither answered honestly, and they found it easier to talk about the children. The older one was with Elena’s sister that afternoon, while Sal sat beside Kane, drawing as his mother explained a problem at school.
Kane had listened without checking his watch. It was only afterwards, on his way home, that he realised how long he had stayed.
He closed the suitcase and left it beside the bedroom door. Before leaving, he would telephone Elena to see how the children were.
First, he made tea.
He turned on the television for company and left a man praising an exercise machine while he filled the kettle. He had just reached for a cup when a chair scraped behind him.
Kane turned towards the sitting room. The sound had come from close by, well away from the television, but there was no one there. Then he noticed blue light across the kitchen floor.
He looked at the window. Afternoon sunlight fell through the plain glass; nothing could have broken it into that colour. As he watched, a thin red line appeared beside the blue.
Beyond the doorway, the sitting room extended farther than it should have. Dark benches occupied the space where his table stood. Tall windows rose above them, and beneath one sat Sal, his hands resting flat on a wooden surface.
Kane stepped towards him.
The doorbell rang.
He stopped with one hand against the doorway. His sitting room had returned to its ordinary dimensions, and sunlight fell through the curtains onto a carpet that contained no trace of red or blue.
The bell rang again. He waited until he could hear the kettle boiling before going to answer it.
Mercer stood outside with an envelope beneath his arm.
“You look almost respectable.”
“I’m going away.”
“That explains the shirt.”
Kane let him in. Mercer noticed the suitcase and asked whether Pittsburgh was still the plan.
“My sister’s collecting me.”
“Does she know what she’s agreed to?”
“She remembers.”
“From when?”
Kane went to switch off the kettle. It was reassuring to hear Mercer making the same sort of remarks he had made before the shooting, although Kane suspected some of them were for his benefit.
Behind him, the television changed. The exercise machine disappeared, replaced by a woman in a coat standing outside an old house with a microphone.
“Were you watching that?” Mercer asked.
“No.”
A caption beneath the reporter identified her location as Hertfordshire, England. She was discussing restoration work, gesturing towards the building behind her. Kane caught the words “just north of London” but had missed enough of the report to be unsure what had been restored.
Mercer pointed out the remote on the chair. It lay beside the cushion, untouched since Kane had turned on the set.
He picked it up and switched the television off.
They took their tea into the sitting room, where Mercer placed the envelope on the table.
“Latest paperwork.”
“I’m on leave.”
“You’ve asked about the case every time I’ve spoken to you.”
“That doesn’t mean I want paperwork.”
The hotel had supplied another copy of the lobby tape, Mercer explained. This one gave them a clearer view of Mills turning towards the lift. Elena appeared afterwards, as she had in the original recording, but both faces were easier to identify.
Kane studied the photograph inside the envelope. Mills stood beneath the lobby clock with one hand tucked into his coat. He looked like a man waiting to go upstairs. Even knowing what he had done, Kane could find nothing in the image that distinguished him from the other guests.
He turned to the accompanying sheet.
“Who requested this?”
“Records says we did.”
“Did we?”
“I didn’t.”
A request number had been printed near the bottom. Kane ran his thumb beneath it.
“Maybe someone finally read the original report,” Mercer said.
“Maybe.”
There had been other small improvements: a witness statement that had reached the wrong desk and then appeared in the case file without anyone admitting to finding it; a message from the hotel manager, suddenly more cooperative about Elena’s employment. Each could be explained. Kane had begun to dislike how often he was supplying the explanation himself.
There was still no progress on the man in the grey jacket. Mercer had no usable description beyond the accounts Kane and Elena had given, no weapon and no witness who had seen him leave.
“He was there,” Kane said.
“There are two bullets in Mills that make that fairly difficult to dispute.”
Mercer waited while Kane put the photograph away, then told him Elena had given another statement, this time through a lawyer. She remained frightened that answering questions would cause trouble for her family.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I wanted her account of the shooting.”
Kane nodded. It was an answer he could stand behind.
After Mercer left, Kane found the card Elena had given him. A woman at the church had helped her find the lawyer. Lucía was her name; Elena had known her long before the shooting.
The telephone rang six times before someone answered. When Kane asked for Elena and gave his name, the woman recognised him.
“Detective Kane? I’m Lucía Herrera.”
He looked towards the kitchen doorway.
“Is Salvador with you?”
“Yes. He’s been asking for you.”
Lucía explained that Elena had brought him to the church because he was upset and wouldn’t settle at home. When Kane asked to speak to him, she moved away from the receiver. He could hear her speaking quietly, followed by a pause.
“He won’t come to the telephone,” she said when she returned.
Kane glanced at the suitcase.
“I’m coming.”
He put the case in the car. The church was not on his route to the airport, but he could spare a few minutes to see the boy and make sure Elena had what she needed.
At the first set of traffic lights, the radio broke into static. He reached towards the dial as a woman’s voice emerged.
“…just north of London…”
An advertisement for replacement windows resumed halfway through a sentence.
Kane left his hand against the radio. The reporter on the television had used those words. He tried to recall whether the voice had been the same, but a horn sounded behind him and he saw that the lights had changed.
He drove on.
The church stood several streets beyond Elena’s house. He parked near a small side entrance and sat briefly with the engine off. There was still time to reach the airport afterwards. A frightened child had asked to see him; he could deal with that without trying to account for everything else that had happened.
Elena opened the door before he reached it. Her relief was so plain that, for a moment, neither spoke.
“Lucía said you were coming.”
“Is he hurt?”
“No. He wouldn’t let me take him home.”
She led him along a short passage. At its end, afternoon light fell through coloured glass onto a stone floor.
Blue, then red.
Kane stopped.
“Michael?”
Beyond Elena, Sal sat beside a table. A woman stood near him with one hand resting on its edge. Kane recognised the arrangement before the boy slipped from his chair.
“You came.”
He barely heard him. He had stood in his own kitchen and seen this room.
Lucía watched his face while Elena looked between them.
“What is it?”
He shook his head, unable to give her an answer. Sal reached him and took his hand. The pressure Kane remembered from Elena’s hallway returned behind his eyes, but without pain. His shoulders eased before he realised how tightly he had been holding them.
“Are you going?” Sal asked.
“I have a flight.”
The boy’s fingers tightened.
“I don’t want you to.”
“Sal,” Elena said gently, “Detective Kane has family waiting for him.”
Kane looked once more at the light on the floor, then lowered himself onto the nearest bench. Sal sat beside him without releasing his hand.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s all right.”
Lucía brought coffee, and Elena took the chair opposite them. Sal had woken her during the night and wanted to go outside. He couldn’t tell her where, only that someone was waiting.
The boy studied his hand in Kane’s.
“It feels like when you forget something. But I don’t know what I forgot.”
Lucía set down the tray and asked whether he had felt it before.
“Not like this.” He moved closer to Kane. “I thought if you came…”
He looked up before he could finish.
Kane felt the pressure sharpen, and the church fell away.
An object lay before them, small enough to hold. Smooth metal fitted closely around its irregular outline. A dark stone occupied the centre, with five smaller stones surrounding it.
Four were glowing.
Kane knew Sal was beside him without turning. He could feel four others too, although he had no faces or names for them. He should have been wary of their presence. Instead, the tension he had carried since the shooting eased.
The boy’s fingers loosened within his.
There was something here they both wanted to approach. Kane could see it clearly, but there was no distance he could judge, no surface across which he could move. When Sal tried, Kane felt the effort as though it were his own.
The four stones continued to shine.
Then someone spoke his name.
He returned to find Elena kneeling in front of the bench, one hand on Sal’s shoulder and the other gripping his wrist.
“Michael.”
He drew a breath. Coffee stood untouched on the table, and Lucía remained beside it.
“I saw it,” Sal told his mother.
She pulled him towards her.
“What happened to your eyes?”
Kane looked at Lucía. Her composure had gone. She watched him with the frightened concentration he remembered on the face of the man in the grey jacket after Sal had touched his wound.
“What did you see?” she asked.
Elena turned sharply.
“You saw them. Tell me what happened.”
Lucía opened her mouth, then hesitated. Until that moment, she had seemed to know how to manage the room. Now she appeared as uncertain as the rest of them.
Sal wanted to return to what they had seen. He kept looking at Kane, trying to explain that it was still there, while Elena held him close and asked him to stay with her. Kane began describing the object, hoping that something he could put into words might help.
The boy corrected two small details. Both were right.
When Kane asked for paper, Lucía brought a pencil and several blank sheets. His first attempt at the outline failed, so he crossed it out and began again. Sal leaned across the table to guide him.
“That bit goes there.”
“Yes.”
Together they placed the central stone and the five smaller ones. Kane shaded four, then rested the pencil against the page. He could remember the others’ presence more easily than he could explain the object.
Elena studied the drawing.
“Both of you saw this?”
He nodded. She looked up at him, searching his face for something she could trust. He wished he could offer more than the fact that he had been there too.
They stayed at the table while the light moved across the floor. Sal asked to see the drawing again, and Kane let him hold it. He checked his watch once, then put it away. Leaving now would mean abandoning Elena with something he had shared and could not explain.
By the time he went to telephone his sister, he had accepted that he would miss the flight.
Lucía showed him into the church office, where a small radio played behind the desk. Kane telephoned his sister and listened to her recorded greeting. She would already have left for the airport. He pictured the children in the back of her car, looking forward to meeting an uncle they barely remembered.
He waited for the tone.
“It’s me. I’ve been held up. I’m going to have to change the flight. I’m sorry. I’ll call when I’ve sorted it out.”
After replacing the receiver, he stayed beside the desk for a moment. He had promised her this visit, and until that afternoon he had wanted nothing more complicated than a few days in her house. Now he could not imagine driving away from the church and leaving Elena to deal with what had happened.
Lucía offered to find the airline’s number. He thanked her and returned to the others.
Sal was still holding the drawing. Elena had moved her chair beside him, and both were studying the four shaded stones. She looked up as Kane pulled out his chair.
“Did you reach her?”
“Left a message.”
“I’m sorry you missed your flight.”
“I decided to stay.”
She accepted that with a small nod, though he could see she still felt responsible. Before he could say anything more, Sal pushed the paper towards him.
“Do you remember the people?”
Kane rested his hands on either side of the drawing. He had concentrated on the object because he could describe its shape, correct an outline, put something recognisable on paper. The four others were harder to account for. Thinking about them brought back the ease he had felt, but nothing he could use to explain who they were.
“I remember how it felt.”
“They weren’t frightened,” Sal said. “Neither was I.”
Elena watched her son. He had been unsettled for hours, yet the experience that frightened her most had apparently comforted him. She asked what the people had been doing, and Sal struggled to answer. He had felt them without seeing them. When he tried to explain that, his voice became impatient with the words available to him.
“I felt them too,” Kane told her. “Four.”
She looked at him for confirmation. He nodded, and Sal counted the shaded stones with one finger, stopping at the fourth.
Lucía returned with bread and cheese. Elena persuaded the boy to eat, then offered the plate to Kane. He took some and realised how hungry he was. The ordinary business of passing food around the table helped them settle. Sal stayed close to his mother, occasionally reaching across to turn the drawing or point out a detail.
They went over the experience more slowly. Kane described the metal around the object and the way the stones had been arranged. Sal remembered wanting to get closer, certain that whatever he had been looking for was there. When Elena asked whether anyone had spoken, he shook his head.
Lucía listened from the other side of the table. Her attention kept returning to the page, even while Sal was talking. Kane noticed it, but she had already seen enough to make anyone stare. He was reluctant to begin questioning her when he could offer so little himself.
Outside, traffic grew heavier. The coloured light withdrew from the floor as the afternoon passed, and Elena rose to switch on a lamp. By then Sal had finished eating and was leaning against her chair, calmer than he had been when Kane arrived. He let the drawing remain on the table.
Kane checked his watch. His sister might be home soon, and he still needed to arrange another flight.
“I’ll try her again.”
Elena gathered the cups while he went back to the office. Lucía had left the airline’s number beside the telephone. He moved it closer, then dialled his sister’s house.
There was still no answer. He left another message, giving the church’s number and assuring her that he was all right. It sounded inadequate even as he said it, but he would explain when they spoke.
He replaced the receiver and reached for the airline’s number.
The music on the radio stopped. An announcer began reading an early report of an aircraft coming down near Pittsburgh. Kane listened while looking at the paper in his hand. Emergency services were heading towards the scene; little had been confirmed.
Then the announcer said the flight had left Chicago.
Kane turned towards the shelf and waited for more. He heard the airline’s name, followed by the number.
427.
He lowered the paper to the desk. His ticket was in his jacket pocket, where he had put it that morning after checking the departure time. He took it out and unfolded it carefully.
The same number was printed beside the journey he had intended to make.
Elena appeared in the doorway.
“Michael?”
She came closer when he didn’t answer. From the other room, Sal called his name.
“I’m here,” Kane said.
His voice sounded unfamiliar.
He telephoned his sister again. There was still no answer, and this time he found it difficult to wait through the recording.
“It’s Michael. I wasn’t on it.”
He stopped, swallowed and tried again.
“I missed the flight. I’m in Chicago. I’m all right.”
Elena drew the church’s number towards him. He read it into the receiver twice before putting it down.
Lucía stood in the passage with Sal. The boy wanted to know what had happened, and Kane told him there had been an accident.
“Your plane?”
“Yes.”
Sal looked at his mother. She had one hand against her mouth, and the sight of it frightened him more than Kane’s words.
“I didn’t—”
“I know.”
Kane crossed the office and knelt in front of him, feeling the wound pull.
“I didn’t,” Sal repeated.
“Listen to me. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I just wanted you here.”
“I’m here.”
Elena switched off the radio. Kane held the boy’s hands until his grip eased, then remained with him a little longer.
Gabriel arrived while Lucía was finding something for them to eat. Kane saw him through the open doorway and stood before he had decided what to do.
The grey jacket was folded over the man’s arm.
Elena recognised him too. Behind her, Lucía came from the kitchen carrying a plate, then put it down.
“You.”
Kane’s voice brought Sal to his feet.
“I saw your car outside,” the man said.
“You’ve been following me.”
“Yes.”
Kane moved into the doorway. He remembered this man leaving him wounded on Elena’s floor, with police approaching and no account he could give that would make sense.
“I knew you were going to Pittsburgh,” the man added. “When I heard the news, I needed to find out whether you’d taken the flight.”
His composure shifted as he said it. He had arrived expecting an answer and found Kane standing in front of him.
Kane stepped aside.
“Come in.”
They returned to the room with the coloured windows. The light had almost gone, leaving the floor beneath them plain.
The man took the chair nearest the doorway.
“My name is Gabriel Serrano.”
Elena remained beside Sal. She had noticed the way Lucía watched him, the ease with which he had entered a place where he apparently knew his way around.
“You know each other.”
Lucía pulled out a chair opposite her.
“We work together.”
Elena’s face closed.
“You’ve been in my sister’s house. You helped me find the lawyer.”
“I was there because of Sal,” Lucía said. “But helping you wasn’t a pretence.”
Elena said nothing. Kane could see her reconsidering conversations, visits, ordinary kindnesses she had accepted without having to question them.
He sat beside the boy and asked Gabriel what they had been looking for.
“People who experience things they can’t explain.”
“Like him.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And you were watching him too?”
“I was watching you.”
Kane looked towards Elena. She was as surprised as he was.
For a moment, Kane remembered how often he had reached an answer before he could explain how he had got there. Mercer had called it impossible. Kane had never known whether he meant the conclusions or the man who kept drawing them.
Gabriel said they had not been certain what they would find. Before Kane could challenge that, Lucía reached for the drawing.
“I saw their eyes change.”
Gabriel took the paper. His attention settled on it so completely that Kane felt the conversation leave him. He followed the outline without touching it, then looked at Lucía.
“Where did they see this?”
“Here. Together.”
“Neither of us knows how,” Kane added.
Sal leaned against his arm while Gabriel studied the four shaded stones.
“We need to send this,” he said.
The telephone rang before he could explain further.
Kane reached the office and lifted the receiver.
For a moment, he heard only breathing. Then his sister said his name.
He closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
“At a church. In Chicago.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story.”
“You said that when you were shot.”
He rested his free hand on the desk.
“I know.”
She began crying. He listened while she tried to tell him about the airport, about waiting, about people suddenly stopping what they were doing. She had found his messages when they returned home.
“I should have called sooner.”
“You did call. I wasn’t there.”
The ticket still lay on the desk. He turned it over so he could no longer see the flight number.
“I’ll come,” he said. “I don’t know exactly when, but I’ll come.”
“You’d better.”
He laughed once, without meaning to. She kept him on the telephone until she believed he was all right.
When Kane returned, Gabriel had placed the drawing on the table.
“We belong to an organisation,” he said. “We call ourselves Watchers.”
Elena remained close to her son.
“Watching children?”
“Sometimes,” Lucía said. “When we think they may need help. But what happened today—I’ve never seen that before.”
Gabriel wanted to send the drawing to people who might understand more than they did. Their headquarters was in Istanbul.
Kane had been expecting England. He could not have explained why.
“We need instructions,” Gabriel continued. “Before we can tell you what should happen next.”
Elena drew Sal’s jacket around his shoulders.
“You’re not taking him anywhere.”
“We’re asking for help,” Lucía said.
Kane looked at the paper. He remembered the four presences and the ease he had felt beside them. Whatever Gabriel’s organisation knew, it was more than he could learn by sitting here staring at a pencil drawing.
“The original stays with me.”
“I only need to fax a copy.”
Kane considered him, then nodded.
The machine stood beneath a shelf of parish notices in the office. Lucía cleared the space around it while Gabriel wrote a short covering message. He included their names, an account of the shared experience and a request for instructions. There was no mention of the flight and no speculation about what the boy could do.
He handed it to Kane before dialling.
Kane read it twice, then gave it back.
A thin electronic whine filled the room as the connection opened. The drawing moved beneath the rollers and emerged on the other side. Gabriel returned it to him while they waited for the confirmation sheet.
Behind them, Elena sat with her sleeping son against her shoulder. Lucía remained beside her, leaving enough space that Elena could decide whether to speak.
The machine clicked. Gabriel checked the sheet.
“It’s gone through.”
Kane looked once more at the four stones he had shaded.
Somewhere in Istanbul, someone else was about to see them.