A Candle For Katherine

[Veronica]

This is a short story that is written and posted in 13 parts.
Constructive criticism is wanted and appreciated.

Don't post on this thread, please send me a message if you have any comments.

These places exist and are geographically correct: Little Ben is near Victoria Station in central London as is the magnificent Roman Catholic cathedral. Only Joe's Place would be hard to find.

I rate this R for language and heavy themes. Read at your own risk.

XXX​

With the best will in the world, I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer--but even I can tell there's something wrong when I turn the corner into Villiers Terrace at 11 PM and see yellow light boiling out my front door, a police car sitting in front of the house, and hear Mama's sobs echoing down the street.

That nosy old cow Mrs. Carmody is on her front step, trying to peer over the snow-laden privet hedge to see what's going on. "Joe, where you been?" she wails, delighted to do her bit for the great street drama. "Your mother's been crying for you for an hour."

I ignore her and barrel into the house, fear eating at me like acid. I hear scuffling and crashes from upstairs but I follow the sound of Mama's voice into the front parlor. She is sitting on the best sofa, looking tiny and broken like she did after Papa died. My niece's arm is draped across her heaving shoulders.

"Joseph, what have you done?" Natalie asks, looking furious with me.

But that's just it, see? I've been in trouble with the law before. I've got a bit of a temper, I'm a big man and I used to drink a lot. I went a bit wild when I had to leave the Navy and I got into a fight with some geezer who hurt a girl I knew. Well, long story short - I didn't know my own strength and I hurt him right back. Got banged up for a three-stretch for GBH, but I swear to God he was asking for it.

Only since I got out I been straight as a die, not even a parking ticket. For the first time in years, I've done nothing wrong. Even so, I have a horrible feeling I know who this is about.

I touch Mama's cheek and tell her not to worry, I'll sort this out, just as a hefty man walks into the room. He is fat but smartly dressed, and looks as if he'd be pretty handy in a fight. Before he even opens his mouth I know he's the law. Sure enough, two little uniformed piggies come trotting in after him. He shoots them a look and the youngest one squeals: "All searched but no result, sir."

"I'm Detective Sergeant John Chisholm," the tub of lard says to me. "Are you Joseph Lipinski?"

"No, I'm Daffy fucking Duck. Of course I am, this is my house, ain’t it?" The swearing sets off fresh sobs from Mama and I curse myself for getting mouthy. "What do you want?"

"What can you tell me about Winona Fletcher, Mr. Lipinski?" Chisholm asks.

"Nothing, since I don't know who that is."

"Your niece has already told us that you do." I give Natalie the death stare. She's almost 18 now, she should know not to admit anything to the polizei.

"You do know that aiding an escaped felon is a serious matter for someone with your record?" He's bluffing but Mama stifles a wail and my anger boils over.

"You're upsetting my mother," I shout, not caring if Mrs. Carmody gets an earful to gossip about. "I've told you, I know fuck all, I never helped no one."

"Perhaps this will help."

He holds up a photograph of her and suddenly it all makes sense. I don't know her by that name and she looks younger and happier in the picture, but it's definitely her. I try to keep my face straight but my brain never was quicker than my muscles.

Fat boy's on a roll now. "Ah, I see it does, Mr. Lipinski. Perhaps you'd like to tell me what you know..."

Perhaps I'd like to tell him what I know, he says. Jesus Christ on a bike.

Tell him how I met her? Tell him what it feels like to fall for someone you hardly know? Someone you can't have? Someone you know you're never going to see again... despite the fact you saved their life?

 

[Veronica]

The day I first noticed her was January 25, just another dull day like the thousand others before it.

"For the fiftieth time, Natalie, switch that shit off," I roared as she turned the radio to Kiss 100 again. I hate dance music, especially that drum n' bass she listens to; sounds like two drunks pissing on a dustbin lid. She scowled at me -- we have this battle all the time -- and I switched over to the shipping forecast, like I do every night.

"Malin... Hebrides... Bailey... Viking... North Utsire... South Utsire..."

Sea areas and gale warnings... they are my litany and my prayer and my poetry. Times like this I miss the Navy so much I can almost taste sea salt and engine oil on the air. Only that's not my life anymore, so I go back to clumsily chopping tomatoes in time for the dinner rush.

Rush. That's a laugh. I promised I'd keep the cafe running when Papa had his first heart attack four years ago -- it was the least I could do after all the trouble I'd caused -- but the only place it's running is downhill.

The rent is killing us and as the area slowly shifts upmarket, fewer and fewer people seem interested in good, cheap food. Once our entire family worked here. Now my brother has a real job, Mama won't set foot in the place since Papa died, and I am waiter, cook and bottlewasher 12 hours a day, six days a week.

So... Joe Lipinski, 37, living at the arsehole end of the twentieth century, no wife, no kids, lives with his mother and runs a cafe near Victoria that's going down the pan.

What a catch.

The bell on the door rang. "Oh God, she's back," Natalie said with that bored to the bones weariness only teenagers can pull off. "Endless coffee and a bowl of Cullen skink, I bet you, and she never tips."

A customer like that wasn't going to make our fortunes, but I peered out through the serving hatch anyway. No one else was in but Kipper, who always eats here when he finishes his shift down the station.

It was dark outside and the wind-driven sleet was beating the windows as she walked in, small and soaked in a battered leather jacket that was about three sizes too big for her.

Her short, dark hair was plastered to her head and she looked so tired and cold that I wanted to sit her by the radiator and pour hot sweet tea down her neck. Instead, she sat shivering under the buzzing pink neon sign that reads “Joe's Place” and polished a hole in the condensation with her fist so she could see out towards the station.

Something about her got to me. Can't explain it. I went out to the back, pulled out a freshly laundered kitchen towel from the cupboard, and took it through. Kipper and Natalie, who were trading their usual insults in the corner, gave me a "get him" look.

"Here," I said gruffly, embarrassed I suppose. "You look wet."

Well done Joe. State the bleeding obvious, why don't you?

But she looked up at me with surprised, wide eyes and murmured her thanks; rubbing her hair with the thin towelling. I felt my ears go their usual shade of scarlet, gave her a quick smile and then retreated to the kitchen.

Natalie wasn't that far behind me. She slapped the order book down on the counter and poured out a mug of coffee, all the while giving me that cat-that-ate-the-frigging-canary grin. "Got much of a crush, Joe?"

If she weren't family I'd sock her, swear to God.

"Just tryin’ to be nice," I replied. She smirked again and pinned up the order. Sure enough it was for a bowl of Cullen skink and a coffee.

 

[Veronica]

I usually leave it to Natalie to take the money; whatever her faults, she's better at maths than me. Only this time, when the woman comes to pay, it's almost 10 PM, and it's me sitting by the till. We were empty again -- no change there -- and she brought her bowl back to the serving hatch and laid the folded towel next to it. "Thanks," she said.

Half the haddock and a good bit of liquid was congealing in the bottom of the bowl. I felt oddly disappointed. "You didn't like it?"

She shook her head. "No, it was good. I just wasn't hungry today." Nice low voice and an odd accent. American, maybe, but clipped like she was trying to hide it. She was one of those women who don't look particularly spectacular when you first see them. You think: yeah, nice figure, pretty fit, wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crisps, then your mind moves on.

"I'll have to try and impress you more tomorrow then," I said with as much of a smile as I dared.

Then suddenly she smiled back and I felt the breath whoosh out of me. She had gorgeous eyes, blue-green like coastal waters on a sunny day, and when she smiled... I don't know, it sort of altered the way I saw her...

...anyway, stop dribbling Joe, you're a bleeding embarrassment.

So I told her the damage -- and she counted out the cash slowly from a pile of coins she had drawn out of the pocket of her jeans. Then it struck me. She had ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. And I looked at her, taking in her scuffed boots, the battered jacket, the shrapnel
in her palm and most of all, how very thin and tired she looked, and I realized that she'd not got much money.

She softly bade me goodnight and I sat for a good minute staring stupidly at the pile of coppers and silver in my hand.

 

[Veronica]

She came in every day the next week and a half, always at the same time, always sat at the same table under the sign, staring out at the station plaza as the rush hour traffic poured past in a smear of double-decker red and taxi black. Ate the soup and then wandered out again. We even talked four or five times, about the weather, the traffic, nothing that mattered.

I found myself watching her whenever she was in, wondering what she was thinking and why she kept looking out towards the toytown clocktower by the station plaza. Little Ben was a gift from the French government and it's been a meeting place for decades. Who was she waiting to meet?

And why did she look more and more beaten down every day that went by?

I told Natalie to keep her coffee mug filled up -- and not to bloody argue about it -- if the woman was going to stay in here for three hours she might as well have something to drink. Gave her some bread and butter with the meals too, told her it was a special offer that month.

We get fresh bread every morning and we always throw undrunk filter coffee out at the end of the evening anyway.

 

[Veronica]

Sundays we're shut. It used to be because Papa insisted we rest on God's day, now it's just because I need the rest.

I still head into the city every now and then to go to mass at Westminster Cathedral. I know my mind isn't supposed to be on worldly things, and a house of God is a house of God whether it's made of mortar or marble, but being under that great vaulted ceiling helps me feel as though there is a larger power at work somewhere.

It was a foul night again -- our weather has gone mad this year, it's so snowy and cold. The bookies lost a fortune because we had a white Christmas. The Thames even froze over for the first time in decades.

I tumbled blinking out of the tube station entrance into a fierce northerly that was making the shop signs sway and whipping a mixture of snowflakes and litter through the bus station. No one ever tells you that when you go bald on top, you feel the cold more, so I stopped for a second to pull my jacket hood up, and that's when I saw her.

She was sitting on one of the benches looking as if she was about to pass out. Nearby, even old Harry was shivering on his usual bench as he swigged from his cider bottle -- and his blood is nearly 100% proof. Hardly thinking about what I was doing, I walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

Mistake.

In a millisecond, her left hand was around my fingers, twisting them backwards until it felt like she was wrenching them off. A moment later something very bony and hard -- her elbow at a guess -- slammed back into my stomach and I doubled over, falling to my knees in the snow, which pulled my arm into an even more contorted position. I looked up and she was standing on the bench seat, one foot on the upright like she was about to spring, her right hand poised at shoulder height, ready to smack me into the middle of next week.

"It's me," I hissed. Stupid, since she didn't know me from Adam, not really. I tried to get to my feet but collapsed again. I couldn't catch my breath.

Instantly she dropped my tortured right arm and her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh God, I'm sorry. Are you okay? No, of course you're not. Shit." She reached out a hand to help me up.

I sucked in a painful lungful of air and waved my uninjured arm, in an attempt to signal that it was okay.

And of course, on the next bench Harry was pissing himself with laughter at seeing a six-foot ex-Royal Navy hard case getting lamped by woman who looked like a stiff breeze might blow her away. "Met your match there, Joe," he yelled, showing off his three remaining teeth.

I gave him the single-fingered salute and hauled myself to my feet. "Ain’t you got a homeless shelter to get to, Harry?" I wheezed, bending at the waist to get my breath back. "I'd shut your bloody face, if you want me to feed you tomorrow." He carried on cackling.

"I"m so sorry I overreacted," she repeated, "you startled me."

"Never. And there was me thinking that was your usual greeting," I said, but I wasn't angry, not really. I should know better than to sneak up on a woman like that. I sat heavily on the bench, massaging my mangled hand and she moved next to me.

"Do you want me to look at it? I'm a... I have some medical training," she finished, her voice trailing away.

I looked up at her, surprised, and nodded. She brought the hand close to her face so she could look at it. Then, expertly, her fingers ran along the bones in the back of my hand, and she flexed my fingers gently.

'Some medical training' my arse; she knew what she was doing. And that little maneuver on the bench; I learned something similar in basic training years ago. Questions hopped round in my head, breeding like bunnies.

"No bones broken," she said finally, adding carefully: "Do you want me to look at your stomach?"

"We ain’t even been introduced," I said in mock horror and she gave me a faint smile. "Nah, I had worse beatings when I was..." I halted. Introducing prison into the conversation is not the best way to impress a girl.

"It's fine. Where did you learn to fight?"

She didn't reply.

"Look, this is brass monkey weather," I said. "Why don't I open up the caff, get us both a brew? I'm Joe, by the way. Joe Lipinski. Don't be offended if I don't shake your hand, I know how strong your grip is."

"My name is... Katherine," she said after a pause. "Katherine."

 

[Veronica]

The heating warmed the place up in less than 10 minutes, which was just as well since she was shivering uncontrollably.

"How long you been out there?" I asked.

"Three, four hours."

"What are you doing it for? I see you every evening; in here, out by the station. Are you begging?"

She looked offended, and actually pushed her chair back as if to walk out but I held a hand up in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, but you don't look like a pro or a pusher and no one hangs around out there for fun."

She shook her head, her teeth still chattering as I awkwardly poured out the coffee with my left hand. "No," she said. "No they don't."

"So you're waiting for someone. Let me guess, it's a bloke." She looked up at me, her face blank, her eyes warning me not to push my luck. "Well, if he's stood you up, he's a bloody fool."

She let out a little snort of laughter, which I took as an acknowledgment that I'd guessed right. "Thank you," she said.

"Not at all. I'm going to make myself a bacon butty; want one?"

"A what?"

I waggled my eyebrows, which is weird because I never flirt, and said in a bad French accent: "Finest breakfast meat placed between two slices of bread avec..." I waved a ketchup bottle under her nose, "le sauce rouge."

"I can't pay."

"Did I mention money?"

"Then thank you," she replied and the corners of her mouth twitched. "Garcon."

I switched on the cooker and started frying, then turned on the radio in time for the shipping forecast. The BBC announcer's sober tones made it sound even more like a poem than usual:

"Finisterre: north or north-east, four or five; thundery showers, moderate or good... Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey: south-westerly, six to gale eight, decreasing four or five, moderate with fog patches..."

I closed my eyes and imagined slate grey waves on a choppy sea.

Her voice broke into my daydream. "What's that?" she asked gesturing at the radio.

"It's the weather forecast for shipping around the coast. Storm warnings and all that. I was in the Navy for ten of the best years of my life and it reminds me."

For the first time she smiled. "My father and my brothers were in the Navy."

"US Navy I imagine."

Her eyes glinted. "Very good, Sherlock."

"Your secrets are safe with me. It's a code of honor. Cafe owners, barmen and priests. We all have to keep schtum."

"I've never heard of that one before."

"What, you've never heard about priests? That's a shocking lack of education, that is."

At last I got a laugh as I piled the bacon between the bread, and clamped one big hand on top to squeeze out the juices. "’Scuse fingers," I said, handing it over. She wolfed it down like she hadn't eaten anything all day. She probably hadn't.

 

[Veronica]

Later I stood at the kitchen door, watching her as an impulse hardened into a plan in my brain.

We had talked for a while and then I had gone out back to clean up. When I finished, she was sitting in the chair by the neon sign, her arms folded across the checked table cloth, her right cheek laid against her forearm. She faced the hole she'd polished in the condensation on the window; out towards the empty station plaza.

Only she was fast asleep.

I walked up the back stairs to the floor above the cafe. The main bedroom was converted into a storeroom years ago but back when I was drinking a lot, I used to use the box room to crash out after a night in the pub. That way Mama wouldn't get all upset over the state I was in and I wouldn't be late for work.

I moved the cartons of serviettes and drinking straws onto the small chest of drawers and rolled back the sheets on the narrow single bed. They were clean on, but a good three or four months ago now. There was still a faint smell of washing powder though. I wandered back downstairs.

Sleep had smoothed out the lines of worry on her face. Charcoal circles still surrounded her eyes but she was younger than I had thought. I sat opposite and looked at her, noticing this and that. She had good skin, a dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose. I noticed that she was very beautiful in sleep. She had a small black tattoo just on the nape of her neck, which upon closer inspection, revealed it to be of three Roman numerals: XVI.

Before I realized what I was doing I was reaching down to touch it. Her eyes sprang open, wickedly blue and angry until she recognized me. I stepped back.

"I'm sorry, you were well out of it." She shook her head wearily and yawned. "I should be going."

"Then I'll walk you home."

"Thank you, but you don't have to, I can look after myself."

"Bollocks. Least I can do after you nearly broke my arm," I said with a grin.

"It's really not necessary."

And that was my cue. "Because you're sleeping in that station, ain't you?"

She looked very pissed off. "Thank you and goodbye," she said curtly, walking towards the door.

"Let me guess," I called after her. "You got your stuff in a left luggage locker and you crash out on one of the benches near the chemists. How much longer do you think you can pretend you're waiting for the last Eurostar to Paris before the station staff start recognizing you and chucking you out with the rest of the dossers?"

Her hand clenched and unclenched around the door handle but she stayed silent and so I went on: "Look I know you ain't got much money and this is a terrible city to be broke in. You're knackered and if you go out in this you'll freeze to death. We got a small room upstairs..."

"No. Absolutely not." Her eyes were flint hard and I could see her muscles tense.

"Let me finish. We got a box room upstairs, no one sleeps there any more. Why don't you take it tonight just until this storm is over. You've proved you need the sleep."

"What about you?" The unspoken question was clear and I was almost offended. As if I'd take advantage like that...

"What about me? I'm going home to my nice warm bed in Dulwich. And I'll never sleep if I think you're stuck out in this weather. You wouldn't want to do that to me, would you?"

I saw her eyelids droop as her brain contemplated the possibility of a bed. The pause seemed endless. "Okay," she whispered, but like it was a surrender.

"Just one night. Thank you."

She stayed three weeks.

 

[Veronica]

Often I made up excuses to stay late at the cafe, told Mama I was doing the books. I'd send Natalie home early, spread the accounts ledgers across the checked tablecloths, leave the pot of coffee steaming on the hot plate, and hope I might hear her footfalls on the stairs.

I just loved talking to her. Couldn't say why. I'm not the world's greatest conversationalist -- don't really get the practice. Mostly we talked about ships and the sea. She'd talk about her father, who had been one of those strict officer types -- a captain, no less -- and I'd tell her the less obscene anecdotes about my time in the Navy.

I also told her all the silly stories Papa told me about his time as cook on a cargo ship sailing from Gdansk via London to New York; and about how he used to bring me back baseball caps and the Hershey Bars that made me a playground millionaire.

Once I even told her about the war, I don't know why. I was only a teenager when I went to the Falklands, but I remember when the missile hit the HMS Sheffield as if it was a minute ago. I told her about jumping for the life rafts as we were being strafed by the Argie planes. About the heat melting our clothes and the foul smell that we knew was burning flesh. Terrible things that I've never told anyone. But I was more alive then, when I was serving with those lads, than I ever have been since.

She listened in silence and she seemed to understand it all. And I mean really understood, which made me wonder...

Katherine, just who the bloody hell are you?

I never found out too much more about her than I had learned that Sunday night in the cafe. She was too cagey for that. She'd admitted she was waiting for a guy to turn up.

All the time we talked, no matter what we were speaking about, his name would slip in -- Fagan -- usually accompanied by a little smile and the beginning of an account of some wild tale, then she'd stop herself.

"You don't have to stop saying his name to me," I said. She gave me a look that suggested I had gone too far.

I didn't give a toss. "If you want to talk about him, do. I ain't going to say anything to anyone and I ain't going to ask you questions if it makes you uncomfortable."

She wrapped her fingers tightly around the coffee mug and nodded.

"Well, except one. Surely Fagan's not his first name. Why do you call him that?"

"Always have," she said and her smile was as dazzling as it was brief.

 

[Veronica]

"Sometimes, he's like a petulant little boy," she told me once. "He gets ridiculously stubborn and you can't hold him back. You might as well tell the tide to stop coming in."

"I take it you're Canute in this scenario," I said, sliding the huge lasagna dish into the oven.

She laughed and her tea sloshed up the side of the cup. "Exactly. Only a lot of the time he turns out to be right."

"That must be bleeding annoying."

"You have no idea. He's nuts but he can really spin a tale." she replied darkly. She bit her lip and looked up into the kitchen's roof light, a smile curving her mouth as she remembered.

"How long have you been a couple?"

She looked across at me, surprised at the directness of the question, I suppose, but then she stiffened.

"We're not together, but we're not just friends, either." Her words were terse, but I detected something else in her voice. Regret?

"How long were you 'not just friends' then?"

"Six years. Give or take a few months."

I nodded. "Long time. And when was he supposed to meet you?"

"January 23 or 24. 7-8 PM. At the clock." Her tone was flat again.

"You don't think he might have...?" I stopped. Might have what? Stood her up? Decided against whatever thing they had going and stayed at home? Spun the biggest tale of all?

"No, he promised," she said with force. "Something's gone wrong but he'll be here. It just might take him a while." Then she tipped the dregs of her tea down the sink, gave me a tight little smile and left. The door slammed behind her like a slap.

 

[Veronica]

Once or twice, I thought I heard her crying.

I tiptoed to the top of the stairs and rapped on the door, thinking maybe I could comfort her. Perhaps I hoped she'd open the door and it might lead to something else. I don't know. I ain't exactly proud of it.

"You all right, love?" I asked softly. "Anything I can do?"

She always said she was okay. I never felt I had the right to contradict her. I couldn't imagine what it was like, sitting there day after day, waiting for him to arrive at that silly clock at 7 PM and dying a little with every hour that he didn't appear.

She never said a thing, never broke down; nothing.

I hoped that when this Fagan did finally did turn up, he had a good excuse ready or I was going to kick his bloody arse for him.

 

[Veronica]

The day before it all ended, we were chatting about some crap or other as I stirred the pot of pasta, when she suddenly asked: "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you helping me?"

I thought about it for a second but I couldn't say why myself. Natalie thought I was mad but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

"Why not?"

She raised an eyebrow and I smiled.

"I'm a Catholic, it's good for my immortal soul -- karma and all that."

"I think that may be more Buddhism than catechism," she replied dryly.

"Whatever works; I ain't particular."

A beat of silence.

"I usually find it difficult to trust people," she said quietly. "There are so few whose kindness comes without debt. I always look for ulterior motives. So just in case I haven't said it already, thank you."

"A pleasure. Least I could do," I said, meaning it. The blush crept across my cheeks again at the thought of ulterior motives.

 

[Veronica]

I should have known it wouldn't go on forever.

That night she was sitting at the counter, looking at the accounts. I'd admitted the night before that I had trouble with them and she'd said she was all right with numbers and she'd have a look. Said it was the "least she could do," in a tone that let me know she was mocking my favorite phrase. It was good to see her smile.

I left her with a plate of pasta primavera and the ledgers as I listened to the 6.30 comedy show on Radio 4. We weren't busy -- what a surprise -- only Kipper was in the cafe. It was Natalie's night off; she had her mock A-levels in a week and her father was threatening to ground her unless she managed to pass this time. I prepared the vegetables for the next day's dinner time, feeling content.

Then I heard a bang and a stifled gasp as glass exploded from a window. I ran out to the front to see a tall chair knocked over on the floor; a pool of coffee swirling over the ledgers.

Except coffee wasn't red. It was blood, and lots of it.

Katherine had fallen under the counter, clutching her shoulder, where blood seeped through her jacket.

Broccoli forgotten, I rushed to her side, my first-aid training rusty, but I knew a bullet wound when I saw one. I had to give her credit--she had barely made a sound when she was hit, but she gritted her teeth and she looked shocked, then terrified. It frightened me.

Then, in just half a second, the fear vanished from her eyes, and her face replaced its usual, careful stoicism. I wanted to shake her, to tell her it was okay to scream or cry out or even ask for some damn help, when I realized her life was draining from her arm and there was no time.

I had gotten up to get towels and a napkin dispenser, which she took with her right hand. She wrapped a towel around her arm and applied pressure, not even wincing as the scratchy fibers rubbed up against the open wound. She was probably in shock, and I decided we weren't sticking around in here to find out.

As I was about to pick up the phone and dial 999, she rasped, "no," and I turned to face her.

She was already on her feet, but leaning heavily against the bar, blood covering her arm to the wrist, her neck.

She looked so vulnerable, but the fire and determination in her eyes reminded me of a caged tiger.

"No hospital. I can treat myself," she said, stronger this time, but she rocked a little on her feet. I took a deep breath and kept my voice as steady as I could, considering my temper and what had just transpired not two minutes ago.

"Like bloody hell you can. I'm calling the ambulance. You're not--"

"I don't need a hospital. The bullet didn't sever any arteries, shatter any bone. It's just a flesh wound."

Doctor, nurse--whatever she was, there was no way she planned on staying here, when she was three inches of having brains on the linoleum. "You ain't safe here. That bullet was meant for you, I'm sure. I don't know what kind of trouble you're in, but I'll cover the expense--"

"Then I'll leave." Her words were clipped. For a second I was relieved, but then I understood the message.

Leaving the caff didn't mean going to the hospital.

"And go where?" I challenged. "Back to the station? The church? Find some other cafe owner who'll take pity on you?" There were a million questions buzzing in my head, but I had a at feeling she wasn't going to answer them.

She was quiet then, but I didn't think for a second it was out of submission. She just didn't dignify me with an answer. Fine.

I sighed. "All right. But at least stay until morning. Lick your wounds, pack a bag, and go whenever you're ready. I'll clean up before Natalie comes. You know where to find me if you need me."

She gave me a faint smile, and nodded. She was stubborn, but she wasn't a fool.

I was thankful that my last memory of her was her smile.

 

[Veronica]

She was gone the next morning. And I mean gone. Before I had even gotten up to start on the inventory, which was at 5 AM.

Nothing in the little room upstairs looked like it had been occupied. The sheets were neatly made, the drawers empty. Hell, she didn't even leave a note.

For a second, I wondered if she was even real.

Kipper didn't comment on the glass in the trashcan or my Spartan window repair. I ain't much of a handyman, but I found some old boards and they'll do until the repairmen come in. The blood was easy to wash up. If we still had that old wood flooring, the stains would have never come out of the grain.

That evening, it only took me two minutes to walk through the grubby, scuffed snow to the cathedral. I arrived just as the monks were filing in for mass; vespers I think. The chants and the shuffling feet and coughs of visitors echoed round and round the chapels until they blended into one seamless hum. It was dark outside and they had turned down the electric lights so that the candles shone that bit more brightly.

I felt calm again. Happy almost. Maybe I'd done something right, for once.

But before I left the cathedral to get a pint in the Duke of Cumberland, I lit some candles: one for Papa and Mama, as always, and one for Katherine.

As an afterthought I lit one for the Fagan fellow too, but my only prayer was that they had found each other.

I suppose it was my way of saying goodbye.

So... do I tell Detective Sergeant Chisholm how I met Katherine -- or whatever the hell she's called?

Tell him what she told me? Tell him what it feels like to fall for someone you hardly know? Someone you can't have? Someone you know you're never going to see again...?

I don't think so.

No.

XXX
​

Finis