Vigilante

Chapter 1

The first time he saw her out there, he put it down to the alcohol. After all, he saw her all the time. A familiar silhouette in the distance. The same dimpled smile on the face of a child. A whiff of strawberry as a head of dark hair passed him in the street.

The second time, he wasn't so sure.

It had been a long day, and he was tired and more than a little drunk, as he wrapped up the nightly process of securing the flat. The door was locked and bolted, the heavy wooden bar wedged in place and the alarm armed. He took a swig of whiskey, swilling it round his mouth, enjoying the burn on his cheeks and tongue, and placed the half-empty glass on the coffee table as he sat on the arm of the sofa to check the shotgun.

It was loaded, as it always was, but he pumped out the eight Magnum slugs and tested the firing mechanism. He reloaded and left it, safety off, lying on the sofa and facing the door. This was his first line of defence, the hollow-base, three-inch shells capable of blasting a fist-sized hole through the door and anyone standing behind it. Satisfied, he retreated to the bedroom to repeat the process with the Magnum.

He sat on the bed and pulled the revolver from under the pillow. His eye caught the glint of the wedding ring sitting in the ashtray. It had been what, a year, since he'd taken it off? His stomach tightened, the leaden lining in his gut seeming to expand up into his chest. He took a deep breath, forcing the feeling back down, crushing the wave of self-doubt and guilt, and held it in for a count of ten. He closed his eyes and exhaled, aware of the high-pitch ringing in his ear, the incurable, incessant tone that, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year, was slowly driving him mad. The panic rose as the ringing drowned out his thoughts, but he fought it down, the nauseous claustrophobia, the soundless scream of a man trapped with nowhere to turn to escape the torment that filled his brain from the moment he woke until the whiskey finally put him to sleep. He slapped his palms over his ears and drummed his fingers hard on the back of his head until the sounds of hands and voice drowned out the sounds of damaged nerves.

Once more able to think, he stared at the gun on his lap. One bullet and it would all be over. At one thousand feet per second, a bullet would take half a millisecond liquefy his brain. He'd be dead before he heard the bang. It was tempting, but too easy. He hadn't paid for his mistake yet and suicide was the coward's way out. He downed the last mouthful of whiskey, intending it to be his last, but as he lowered the glass to the bedside table, he allowed himself to be tempted by the amber glow of the bottle beside it. He refilled the glass, then emptied, oiled and reloaded the weapon, slid it back under the pillow that had been hers, and moved to the window, whiskey glass in hand.

His backpack was ready, sitting by his grey, bullet-proof vest and the leather workman's gloves he would use to slide down the rope, the neat coils of which were already anchored to a ring cemented into the wall. Crouching, he opened the backpack, knowing without looking what it contained. Trainers. Change of clothes. First-aid kit. Five thousand reals and credit cards. Cellphone, tablet, chargers and documents. The keys to his car, parked out front, and keys to his bike, parked at the rear, a two-hundred metre sprint away. A bottle of water and the little plastic bag of Ritalin pills. And a box of ammo for his service pistol.

He put the glass on the ledge and rolled up his trouser leg to unstrap the tiny LCR, flipping out the cylinder, checking the five rounds before pulling the trigger three times in quick succession. Satisfied, he snapped the cylinder back into place, returned the weapon to its Velcro holster and dropped it into the bag. Finally, he pulled the 9mm Taurus service pistol from the back of his jeans and ejected the magazine. Two rounds gone, and another tete-a-tete with the tenente to explain why he discharged his firearm in a public place. The man wanted his head, ever since the Carioca Club incident, but this time there was nothing the man could do. Ana backed his story. The trail bike came on them too fast. The driver didn't see them waiting and ignored them as Ana signalled for him. The rider ignored her and accelerated towards the favela, and the passenger blasted off half a dozen shots over his shoulder. Ana hit the dirt, but his gun was in his hand before he knew what was going on. He'd aimed and pulled the trigger twice. One shot hit the passenger mid-shoulder. He was getting better. Not long ago he'd have emptied the entire clip and damn the consequences. No bodies appeared, no gunshot wounds were reported, and no innocents got hit in the crossfire. The tenente would have to wait for his pound of flesh.

He'd already stripped and cleaned the weapon at the delegacia, so he thumbed two new rounds from the box into the clip, reloaded and dropped the pistol in the backpack. Finished. If they came, he was ready.

Gazing out of the window, the thoughts passing through his head, a wave of fatigue forced him to close his eyes. He was tired. Tired of this life. Tired of the scumbags he met at every turn. On both sides of the law. Tired of slimy lawyers that sprang murderers as fast as they locked them up. Tired of do-gooder human-rights imbeciles that cared more about dental care and three square meals for rapists and child molesters than the devastated lives of the victims. What would the lawyer do, he wondered, if it was their wife of child their client had shot in the face and left her to die in the gutter? And the Amnesty fools, what would they do if it was their loved one imprisoned, bound, tortured in some stinking hovel, and the only way to find their location was to beat it out of the suspect? He stretched his back and shoulders, breathing in the warm, night air, opening his eyes as he reached for the glass.

And there she was.

Fifty metres away, over the garden, over the road, standing by the kerb, in the shadow between the circles of light cast by a pair of street lamps.

She wasn't real, he knew that. Even so, his heart beat faster and her name rose in his throat. He opened his mouth to call out her name, but stopped himself and stood watching, disbelieving.

He downed the whiskey in one and closed his eyes. It was a trick of the light. His mind, his memories playing tricks. Wishful thinking. She'd be gone when he opened his eyes again. But she wasn't. She was still there. Motionless. Lost. Wearing the same clothes she'd worn the last time he saw her. A lump rose in his throat and guilt burned under his skin like acid, surging what-ifs putting his mind in a spin. He wanted to look away, but she held him in thrall, her fingers tight around his heart.

The eerie squeak of wheels in the empty street pulled him from the brink. He followed the sound to his left and saw Beatrix, the little black baglady approaching, shuffling down his side of the hill, head bowed, shoulders hunched, favouring her right leg as she dragged her battered flight-bag behind her.

Beatrix. Was that her real name? No one knew. She carried no documents and answered no questions. No one knew where she came from. No one knew where she was going. She, like the piles of rubbish bags and sacks of rubble with which she shared the streets, had always been. He noted that she still wore the dressing on her elbow. Filthy now, after two weeks. He'd found her dazed and bleeding, sitting in a bus shelter, unable to walk and half-starved. How long she'd been there she couldn't say. She'd allowed him to lift her, to help her to the car and drive her to the hospital and, for once, she'd said not a word, remaining silent, as though oblivious to his presence or accepting him as no more than a ghost in her world, until he left her with the nurses.

He watched her until she disappeared behind the garden wall that blocked his view of the road below. His building, built on a slope with the front constructed on higher ground than the rear, put his flat one floor below the entrance and three above the garden. The garden itself sat three metres above the road. Garden. A euphemism for two hundred square metres of red dirt and dry grass littered with crisp packets, empty cans, cigarette butts, used poppers and desiccated condoms. And one spindly tree with half a dozen leaves that hadn't grown an inch in the seven years he'd lived there. A garden with no direct access from the building. Only by rope.

He checked again. She was still there. A silent phantasm sent to remind him of his failings as a husband and father. His throat tightened and the ringing in his ear intensified. He brought the glass to his lips, but it was empty, so he lowered his head, concentrating on the periodic squeak of Beatrix's wheels, the hum of distant traffic, voices and music from neighbouring televisions, visualising in his mind the source of every sound until the ringing faded into the background. As he listened, he realised that something was missing. The squeaking of Beatrix's wheels. He looked up, and what he saw rocked his world. Beatrix had crossed the road and now stood where the light of the two lamps met. Face to face with his daughter.