She pushed the door forward and it creaked loudly on a rusty hinge.
I looked inside and saw a plain, neat, and clean room. Someone had written The Lord Is My Shepherd in black paint on the wall.
No one was there.
No Beatitude.
No Christine.
I let my eyes fall shut. Desperation enveloped me.
My eyes slowly opened. I didn't understand why I had been led to this empty room, this old shack in the woods. My heart was ripped in two again. Was it some kind of trap?
The Weasel? Shafer? Was he here?
Someone stepped out from behind a small folding screen in one corner of the room. I felt as if I were in free fall, and a small gasp came out of my mouth.
I didn't know what I had been expecting, but not this. Sampson put out his hand to steady me. I was barely aware of his touch.
Christine gently stepped into the shafts of sunlight coming from the single window in the shack. I had never expected to see her again.
She was much thinner and her hair was braided and longer than I'd ever seen it. But she had the same wise, beautiful brown eyes. Neither of us was able to speak at first. It was the strangest moment of my life.
I had gone cold all over and everything was moving in slow motion. It seemed supematurally quiet in the small room.
Christine was holding a light-yellow blanket, and I could see a baby's head just peeking above the crown of the covers. I walked forward even though my legs were trembling and threatening to buckle. I could hear the baby softly cooing in the nest of blankets.
'Oh, Christine, Christine,' I finally managed.
Tears welled in her eyes, and then in mine. We both stepped forward, and then I was awkwardly holding her. The little baby peacefully gazed up into both our faces.
'This is our baby, and he probably saved my life. He takes after you,' Christine said. Then we kissed gently, and it was so sweet and tender. We held on for dear, dear life. We melted into each other. Neither of us could believe this was actually happening.
'I call him Alex. You were always right here,' Christine told me. 'You were always with me.'
Epilogue
London Bridges, Falling
?CHAPTER One Hundred and Twenty-Four
His name was Frederick Neuman, and he liked to think of himself as a citizen of the European Community rather than any single country, but if anyone asked he claimed to be German. His head was shaved close and it made him look severe, but also more impressive, he thought, which was an amazing accomplishment.
He would be remembered as 'quite tall, thin and bald', or as 'an interesting artist type', and several people did see him that week in the Chelsea area of London. He wanted to be remembered. That was important.
He shopped, or at least window-shopped, on the King's Road and Sloane Street.
He went to the cinema on Kensington High Street.
And Waterstone's bookshop.
Nights, he would have a pint or two at the King's Head. He mostly kept to himself at the pub.
He had a master plan. Another game was beginning.
He saw Lucy and the twins at Safeway one afternoon. He watched them from a safe distance across rows of baked beans and aisles of shoppers. No harm, no foul, no problem for anybody.
He couldn't resist the challenge though. The dice started to play in his head. They rattled the number he wanted to hear.
He kept walking closer and closer to the family, careful to keep his face slightly averted, just in case, but still watching Lucy out of the corner of his eye, watching the twins, who were perhaps more dangerous.
Lucy was examining some wild Scottish salmon. She finally noticed him, he was sure, but she didn't recognize who he was - obviously. Neither did the twins. Dumb, silly little girls - mirrors of their mother.
The game was on again - so delicious. He'd been away from it for a while. He had book money, his advance, which he kept in Switzerland. He had bummed around the Caribbean after his escape by boat from Jamaica. He'd gone to San Juan and been tempted to act up there. He'd finally traveled to Europe, to Rome, Milan, Paris, Frankfurt, Dublin - and at last home to London. He'd only strayed a couple of times on the whole trip. He was such a careful boy now.
It felt just like old times as he got oh so close to Lucy in the shopping aisle. Jesus, his physical tics were back. He was tapping his foot nervously and shaking out his hands.
He'd have thought she might have noticed that, but she was such a vacuous blonde cow, such a cipher, a waste of time; even now, as he got closer and closer, only a foot or two away.
'Oh Loo-cy... it's Ricky,' he said, and grinned and grinned. 'It's me, darling.'
Swish. Swish. He swiped at her twice, back and forth, as they passed like strangers in the aisle at Safeway.
