Michael

Klempner is, as usual, waiting as we arrive. From his seat, behind the barrier, he watches me enter with Charlotte. He looks rough; shadows under his eyes and he's lost weight.

The guard, Hartland, is there. He leans down, whispers close by my ear. “If it looks like trouble, just say the word.”

“I will.”

Then he straightens up and levels his baton towards Klempner. “Behave yourself, Larry.”

Klempner looks up, just barely tilts his head in acknowledgement. But I remember the look he gave Hartwell the last time we were here…

The monster stirring…

Klempner watches as James follows us in, letting out a barely audible sigh as he sits.

“That leg giving you trouble?”

James reply is curt. “Cold, damp weather.” But I hear his surprise at the question lurking behind the words.

Klempner fingers a long white scar on his hand. “It can't have been pleasant when Bech shot you. Tell me, do you remember it happening?”

James’ eyes shoot arrows. “What's it to you?”

“If you had just discovered you have a daughter, don't you think you would want to know something about the man she answers to?”

James shifts. Not much and perhaps not visibly to those who didn't know him, but I see it.

Unsettled?

“I didn't remember it at first, no,” he says. “The memory resurfaced after a few months.”

Klempner raises a flat, mirror gaze to him. “The memory was repressed?”

“Apparently.”

Klempner has a plastic cup of water by him. He takes a long mouthful, then sets it down again. “Interesting,” he says, “how the mind protects itself.”

What the hell’s he talking about?

Between me and James, Charlotte sits, shuffling awkwardly. Klempner chews at his upper lip. The pair regard each other in silence for a long minute then Charlotte finally speaks. “Thank you for sending the necklace.”

In restrained tones, “You’re welcome.” His eyes dip to her collar bone. “It suits you. As it did your mother.”

Charlotte swallows and lapses into silence again.

This could take a while…

After another long pause, Klempner says, “Are you going to ask me about your mother? That’s what you usually do.”

Charlotte fidgets then blurts, “I don’t even know what to call you.”

Klempner blows air. Looks down. Looks up. Then, “I suppose Dad is too much to hope for?”

James huffs and Klempner levels a stare at him. Then, “What do you want to call me?”

Charlotte’s voice would cut glass. “Don't tempt me.”

He coughs a laugh with no humour in it. “They know me as Larry around here. You can call me Larry.”

“What's your real name?”

“What?” He seems genuinely taken aback by the question.

I don’t think it’s Klempner. I think you've

original name. I left that

“And Larry?”

lower. “That was

“Your mother?”

have

wanted to ask you

taps a fingernail on the

“What was she like?”

would freeze a basilisk. “Why do you want to

and starts again. “If you’re my… father… then she's my grandmother. I’m trying to find out who my family were… are…. You told me that your father

“No, she didn’t.”

He looks haunted…

“Tell me about her.”

“I barely remember her.”

what you do

one day.

What going on?

on the counter. “You said you killed your father. In

a violent man. It was him or

“He beat you?”

small, he used my mother as a punch-bag.

into place, Charlotte sits, frozen as he speaks. Klempner jerks his chin up. “It’s not a pleasant story. You sure

“Yes.”

forward, backward, slowly, as though considering, then, “I was fourteen, maybe fifteen. He had me backed against the kitchen table. He was drunk. Throwing punches. Not caring what part of me he hit so long as he got something. I

from the dinner plate. Nothing special. Not a bread knife or a meat knife. Just the kind you’d use to eat your eggs or scrape butter onto bread. But it’s what was in my hand. I stabbed him. I sank it into his chest. It went between his ribs and he

rises and falls; rises and falls. “Did you

a moment, then, “No. I was shocked; in pain from the beating he’d already given me. I

“Where to?”

shrugs. “At first just out… Then, out of town. Then I didn’t know what to do. I considered joining the army. You know the kind of thing. ‘Learn skills. Become a man.’ But I was too young, and they’d soon have identified me anyway. So, I kept

you. Not for defending yourself. And you were

into

Charlotte’s face goes slack…

Jenkins…

of what happened to her at the

thought she’d killed

She ran…

And she kept running…

questions so long as you

unfolds his arms, leans forward. “Which part of

but I moved around a lot. Congo, Chad,

places to be. And dangerous

languid, almost bored, but his gaze

you doing?

her, then

a war to be found in that part of

a moment,

“I was. Yes.”

Why would you

“It’s a living.”

“But it’s so dangerous.”

tilts.

holds…

is almost gentle. “A piece of advice, for what it is worth to you. If you find yourself in a dangerous situation, make yourself part of

speak. “Tell me. You wouldn’t have said all that unless you wanted me to know. Why did you

was on the run,” he says, a touch

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