And Justice There Is None

The pills brought her some ease, dulling her fears to a faint, nagging discomfort. When she'd used up her mother's supply, Karl had got her more.

It seemed that everyone they knew was taking LSD, but after the first few times, Angel had made excuses to pass it by. The sharp, jangly feeling and disjointed images the drug produced frightened her- in fact, the last time she'd tried it, she'd spent the evening curled up in a fetal ball on the floor, terrified that the moving walls were going to crush her. Karl had laughed at her, but not even his disdain could convince her to go through that experience again. She would stay with the warmth and drifting ease of the morphine, and confine her nightmares to sleep.

Then, just before Christmas, her tablets ran out. When she told Karl, he shrugged and said his source had vanished.

She had no rest in the days that followed. Karl watched her growing misery with an interest that seemed calculated, rather than sympathetic. By Christmas Eve she was tossing in their bed, restless and sweating.

Karl came and sat beside her, smoothing the damp hair from her forehead. 'I can help you if you want,' he said gently, holding up a small bag of white powder.

She knew what it was. He kept a small supply for friends and clients, although he never touched the stuff himself. 'No,' she whispered, 'I shouldn't.' She heard the longing in her voice, and knew he had heard it, too.

'It will be all right,' he murmured. 'It will help you sleep, that's all.'

'But I- It's-'

'Let me take care of you, Angel. Haven't I always taken care of you?'

She felt him sponge her arm with something cold, then a prick. The relief came instantly, coursing through her body in a tingling wave. The room shifted, blurred, Karl's face softening like candle wax. The bed moved as he lay down and wrapped her in his arms.

'It will be all right,' he whispered, his lips warm against her ear. 'Everything will be all right. I promise.'

***

During the daylight hours, Alex sat in the dimness, the heavy drapes pulled across the garden doors, the only light from the display cabinet that held his Clarice Cliff pottery. He'd unplugged the phone, and when he heard Fern knocking, he held his breath as if his very stillness would will her to go away. Eventually, she did.

He went back to the mental discipline he had set himself, absently running his fingers over the handle of the paper knife he'd stolen from Fern's stall.

It had taken him several days to realize he had no photo of Dawn. She had never wanted him to take one, had even refused to give him a copy of the bland studio shot she'd had made as a gift to her parents. She insisted he didn't need a reminder of her, that it would lessen the impact when he saw her- but he thought now that her reluctance had been merely another manifestation of her growing fear of Karl.

So he sat in the dark and tried obsessively, memory by memory, image by image, to put her together again in his mind. If he could paint the perfect picture of her, then he might, by some enormous act of will and concentration, imprint it forever in his brain.

He tried desperately to remember every time they had been together, what they had said or felt or done. But he found himself thinking instead of other girls, charting the arcs of those relationships as if they might provide him a map of the one that mattered most.

What he found was that he had never felt a true emotional bond with anyone but Dawn. And the fact that the connection had been half lies on her part, half fantasy on his, left him a husk- having finally learned to value something that didn't exist.

Karl Arrowood had not only taken Dawn from him, he had taken his perception of himself and his way of relating to the world. No longer would he see himself as independent, self-sufficient, in control of his life.

When it grew dark, he slipped the paper knife in his pocket and silently let himself out of the flat, ducking low until he had passed Mr. Canfield's window. It took him a moment to realize snow was falling lightly, touching his face with icy fingers.

Reaching Portobello, he turned to the north, then right onto Chepstow Villas. The scent of food cooking drifted from a nearby flat, reminding him that he hadn't eaten for some time- a day, or was it two? But he pushed the thought aside and went on, set on his course.

From Kensington Park Gardens, he fixed on the spire of St. John's Church like a lodestone. A jogger brushed past, startling him- a tall, slender, hooded figure. Alex felt a shock of familiarity, but when he turned, the man had vanished.

By the time he reached the churchyard, the snow was coming down heavily, obscuring his view of the pale house across the street. But the car was in the drive, and he knew if he waited long enough, Karl was bound to come out.

Then he would know what to do.

***

Karl tightened the knot in his tie and shot his cuffs without taking his gaze from his face in the mirror. He had accepted the invitation to Christmas Eve dinner at the last moment, reluctantly, only because he'd realized he could not bear to stay in the house alone.

Why did it not show? he wondered as he examined his reflection. How could one go on looking so ordinary, muscle, bone and flesh forming an impervious shell over the devastation within? Nothing had prepared him for this- not even Angel.

It had been years since he'd thought of her, the loss put away along with the family and childhood he no longer acknowledged. Would she have laughed to see him now? Nothing he had thought of value mattered any longer, and too late he had realized the worth of those things held too lightly.

Death had taken Dawn's physical presence from him- Her betrayal had stolen his memories of her. And it was not only her he had lost, but his dream of continuance, of sharing himself with kindred blood and spirit, of leaving a legacy for the future. She had taken his hopes for Alex from him as well.

He switched out the lights and went slowly down the stairs, out into the cold air that pierced his lungs like grief.

***

'Look. It's snowing.' Kincaid had come in from letting Geordie out into the garden one last time. They had sent the boys to bed, with much protest on Kit's part, and Tess had scrambled up with them.

Gemma came to stand beside him and he slipped an arm round her waist. A white veil of swirling flakes now obscured the garden. 'I can't believe it,' she murmured, her head against his shoulder. 'I don't ever remember it snowing on Christmas Eve. It's like the poem you read earlier.'

'Lovely, isn't it?' Kincaid had read 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' aloud to them all after dinner, and he still felt the pleasure of the words on his tongue.

'Do you know it all by heart?'

'Only bits and pieces, now. I had it memorized when I was younger.' His family had read not only Dylan Thomas every Christmas Eve, but the American poet Clement Moore's 'The Night Before Christmas,' from his father's treasured volume, illustrated by Arthur Rackam. For A Christmas Carol, they had each taken several parts, so that it became more like a play. Then they had read the nativity story from Luke; the familiar wording still gave him chills. And they had sung carols, accompanied by his dad on piano.

All in all, an ideal picture, if selective memory removed his and Juliet's incessant squabbling over who was to read what; the pinching during the carols; the year he foolishly attempted a solo of 'Silent Night' just as his voice had begun to change.

As they grew older, of course, he and his sister had begun to beg off, planning engagements with their friends