Chapter Seven

The cab driver was not a particularly good one. Even with a sat nav, he was unable to find the store. I got frustrated, and got out a few blocks from home.

When you're down and out, when you're on the streets

I decided to cut through an alleyway that would bring me out into the street with the store front. It was just about wide enough for a car, but there were windowless doorways that opened on to it, and garbage bins that stood outside them. There was litter, as there always was down the little alleyways and side streets, and the occasional feral cat. After a few yards, I was beginning to regret my decision. I had cut through here before, but never in the dark. After more limoncello than usual, I struggled to think of a reason why it would be a bad idea. It was a lot later than I realised; we had been far longer in the restaurant than I had expected. I hugged close to me the bag with James's papers in and picked up my speed. There was no-one about; it would be fine, and I would be home soon.

As I turned into the last section of the cut-through, someone jumped me. I gasped – the scream didn't come out. He grabbed my hair, trying to pull me down. He started to hit me, attempting to wrench the bag from my grasp.

Then suddenly someone else was in the space with us. A dark whirlwind of arms and fists. This someone grabbed me and threw me to one side. As I attempted to get to my feet, I saw it was the Batman. A punch turned my assailant's head, and he crumpled. The Batman knelt and continued to punch him until his face and head were covered in blood, splatter flying in all directions. Short, vicious punches. My attacker was jerking involuntarily. The Batman stood up, looking down at his handiwork.

When evening falls so hard

I stood in shock, shaking. I stared at him.

'What the fuck, what the fuck?' I cried. 'You've killed him.'

He raised his eyes to me.

'I saved you. He was going to kill you.'

'But you didn't need to – ' I held out my hands towards the quivering, bloody mass on the ground.

He shrugged.

'You could've – that would have been enough,' I shouted.

'You're not listening. He was going to kill you.'

He kicked a knife – a knife I hadn't noticed till then – away from the man's outstretched hand, then turned the hand over with the toe of his boot. There was some sort of tattoo on his wrist.

'Mafia,' he said.

'Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm covered in blood.' Not quite a shriek, but almost. I looked down at my coat, covered in blood splatter. He had blood splatter on his face. God alone knew how much there was on the gauntlets. I glanced round desperately, to see if there were people filming us on their phones, but there were no windows open higher up the buildings. We appeared to be alone.

'You're hysterical.' Taking the bag from my nerveless fingers, he grabbed my elbow and started to steer me away.

'I've got someone's brains on my skirt. Of course I'm hysterical.'

I tried to shake him off, but his grip was too firm.

'You're exaggerating.'

He half-led, half-dragged me out of the alley and round the corner to the store and the entrance to my apartment, next to it. Shaking violently, I fished my front door key out of my purse. I needed both hands to get the key in the lock. We entered.

'Do you know what they call me on the streets?' he asked.

'Do I want to?'

I ran up the stairs. I couldn't get away from him.

'Vengeance. When they ask me who I am, that's what I tell them. Vengeance.'

He threw the bag containing James's work on to the couch. He pointed to the CCTV. I grabbed my laptop to check the camera was off.

'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay,' I said.

'If you wait for him, you'll be waiting forever,' he riposted. 'You don't understand.'

'Of course I don't. How could I? I come from a country where the police on the streets don't carry guns. Where hand guns are illegal. Can you even begin to get that? We don't – we don't take our own revenge. Or vengeance. Whatever you want to call it. It's like the Wild fucking West here.'

'So you think this is some sort of – ' he shrugged, struggling for a comparison ' – some sort of Tarantino movie?'

'More like Clint Eastwood – don't you think? Tell me. Tell me why you do it. Why you think it's okay to take revenge. To inflict vengeance. Like that.'

I couldn't sit, I was pacing up and down. He took off the gauntlets, throwing them down on the coffee table. For the first time, the cape – cloak – thing – that he wore followed the gauntlets, but falling into a black puddle on the floor.Then the cowl. There was the familiar look, the sweaty, spiky hair, the pale face, the smudged dark eyes. But not anguished now; glowing with righteous indignation.

'Don't you think, sometimes, you have to do wrong in order to do right in the end?'

'Oh – you think the end justifies the means. That's it, is it?'

'Isn't it?'

'Back in England, we have something called reasonable force. You are only allowed to use reasonable force. That was – that was – was it reasonable? Really? Or was that just the tiniest bit personal? Because that's what it looked like.'

He didn't meet my gaze.

'Did you know him?' I persisted.

'You talk like he's dead.'

'If he isn't now, he will be soon. We didn't even call an ambulance. Did you know him?'

He found the tumblers and poured the Japanese whisky.

I will comfort you

'I know you can't tell me your story,' I said. 'It will probably give away your identity. But that was personal in some way, wasn't it?'

He nodded. He knocked back his shot, and poured another.

'Have you thought – have you thought about forgiveness?'

I picked up my tumbler, dangling it from my fingertips. I couldn't sit.

'It needs ice,' he said. He disappeared into the kitchen. When he came back, he dropped ice cubes into my drink. He leant against the dining table, watching me pace, and started unwinding the bandages round his hands.

'Vengeance comes from a place of hate – doesn't it?' I asked. 'How can you keep all that hate going? Doesn't it eat you up?'

'Don't quote me any bible stories. I'm sure there are plenty.'

'But if you just let it go . . . '

'And you – have you thought about forgiveness?' he asked. 'Can you forgive the people who got your husband killed?'

I stopped and took a deep, shaky breath. He carried on unwinding the bandages, spiralling them into a heap on the dining table.

'I thought not,' he continued. 'Not so easy, is it?' He flexed and stretched his fingers.

I hadn't actually considered it till that moment.

'It may take me years. While the lawsuit is going on . . . I would like a name, or names. I would like to know who I need to forgive. I don't know what happened.'

'Well I do. In my case, I mean. I do know what happened. I was there. I saw it. And it is my life's work now to make sure that no-one else suffers . . .'

I'll take your part, when darkness comes . . .

He had said almost too much. I looked across at him – the spiky, punk hair, the strange make-up. He looked like nothing so much as a lost boy.

'I find it hard,' I said, 'to reconcile this – avenging – I can't say angel – with the sensitive young man who was here a few nights ago. You saw me. You saw my pain. You understood.'

Then he looked directly at me. Those eyes were no longer blazing. There was suffering in them.

'I understand loss. The intense pain that comes with it. The pain that never goes away.'

'And does vengeance make that pain go away? Does it lessen it even one little bit? When will you ever feel that you have done enough?'

'One day, I will get to the end. And I will understand.'

And pain is all around

I realised I couldn't ask him what he needed to understand. I couldn't suggest he try therapy, a favourite American pastime. His anger came from a deep, dark place and I was not qualified to comment. I was just thankful that his anger was unlikely to turn on me. We had both suffered loss. Mine had been traumatic enough, and with every communication about the lawsuit, with every twist and turn, I was reminded of it, but I lived with the agony, the misery. I could not even begin to imagine what sort of trauma had turned him into the Batman, this alter ego who took such violent revenge.

He started inspecting his knuckles for marks and bruises, like there was nothing else to be said or done.

'Pay attention, will you?' The book skimmed off his upper arm, forcing him to look up. 'This is serious.'

'I know.'

'Do you? I'm going to be dead soon, and I don't know how to stop that.'

I was close to tears and starting to shake, hyperventilating. The idea of the mafia wanting me dead was terrifying. When he left, I would be defenceless. Without him, I would be dead before morning. Sleeping with the fishes in the harbour, no doubt. And I didn't know how to ask him to stay.

He put down his tumbler and came over to me, taking mine and setting it down. My heart was still racing, I was unable to keep still.

'Stop. Stop.' He put his hands round my face. 'We'll work it out.'

'Oh – like you just did?'

'If necessary – yes.'

He kissed me. That shocked me into stillness and silence. Then he took my hand and led me into the bedroom.

Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down . . .

When I woke up, he was back in his fitness gear and was gathering up the suit.

'Hey,' he said.

'What time is it?'

He consulted his watch, one that looked like something James Bond would wear.

'Um, six-ish.'

Six-ish on a Tuesday morning. The curtains blew, the window was open.

'Will you get into trouble with someone back home?' I asked.

'Oh yes, but not the way you're thinking. I've got a car waiting in the alley,' he said. 'Shut the window behind me.'

He sat on the bed beside me, and kissed my cheek.

'Thank you,' he said.

'You haven't told me your name.' This was the game he wanted to play, so I would play, too. 'So I shall give you one. I shall call you Nemesis. The bringer of divine retribution. Because that is what you do, isn't it? It isn't justice.'

'Hmm. Nemesis.' Like he was trying it on for size. 'Okay. I will take that. For now.'

I took his face in my hands; he took my hands in his, removing them and pressing them together.

'I won't see you again, will I?'

'Maybe not like this. I'm sorry.'

He said he wouldn't forget about my situation, that he might come back to me with questions: about me, about James. He needed to find a thread, a pattern in our lives that connected us to – quite what, he didn't know yet.

'Am I still in danger?' I asked shakily.

'Hopefully not. But I'll be watching.'

Like a guardian angel. But he could not be with me twenty-four – seven.

He asked me to read James's files, so it sounded like we were not going to drink whisky and go through them together. My heart contracted a little. He told me to contact him if I found any other information he might be interested in.

'What am I looking for?'

'Something that connects him – you – to Asmund Larsson, to failed Gotham Development projects. Projects that have failed because of your husband's work.'

He warned me to be wary of strangers coming into the store and to send him a message if I was worried by anyone. He said that if I was going to call him Nemesis, he was going to call me Conscience. He told me to use that name if I contacted him. He patted my hand, gathered the suit into his arms and climbed out on to the fire escape. Grabbing my dressing gown, I was in time to see him climbing into a black SUV, which then backed quietly out of the alley. Presumably the same SUV used by the people I knew at the time as Mr Williams and Mr Walker.

I made myself some tea and took it back to bed with me and thought about him. Nemesis.

Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Dear Miss Marple. He would not want to consult Conscience very often, I could see that. He would not want long debates about right and wrong, ends justifying means, and forgiveness. Somehow he knew that Conscience would take his power, whatever it was, his motivation, bit by bit, till he could no longer function as the Bat. And he was not ready to let go of that.

Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down

And he had allowed me to see who he was. I now knew the name of the Bat. What that would mean for me, I had no idea.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Quotations (in order) from:

Recurring throughout the chapter: Bridge over Troubled Water by Paul Simon

Vengeance is mine . . . from the book of Deuteronomy, ch 32 v 35

Let justice roll down . . . from the book of the prophet Amos, ch5 v 24

Also used by Agatha Christie in her Miss Marple novel Nemesis

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