Читать книгу Solomon Creed - Simon Toyne - Страница 19

Mayor Cassidy closed the door of his study, shrugged off his jacket and let it fall to the floor. He stood in the downdraught of the ceiling-fan, pulling his string tie loose and undoing the top button of his shirt. His collar was soaked with sweat.

The funeral had turned into a disaster, his big unifying gesture undone at a stroke by the whiff of wildfire. Everyone had drifted away before the ceremony had ended; a few at first, then a stampede as soon as the sounds of sirens had reached them and they’d seen how fast the smoke was rising and which way it was headed. They all had homes and businesses to worry about, so he couldn’t blame them, but it wasn’t exactly the gesture of community support he had hoped for. There was also the little matter of what might have started the fire, and he didn’t even want to think about that.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and his heart clenched in his chest like a hand had taken hold of it and begun to squeeze. He looked down at the crumpled jacket, the black material shivering where the phone vibrated inside it like some large insect had crawled in there and was now trying to get out. There was a small hole in the fabric and the sight of it made him burn with anger. Damn moths, the house was plagued with them. There had been a Cassidy living in this house ever since Jack Cassidy had built it and now it was all being eaten away, pulled apart fibre by fibre, everything unravelling. He felt embarrassed knowing that he had stood in front of the assembled town with a hole in his jacket – their shabby, moth-eaten mayor.

The phone stopped buzzing and silence surged back into his study. It could have been anybody calling. There was a wildfire burning on the edge of town, all kinds of people would be trying to get hold of him, wanting him to lead, wanting him to reassure them, wanting – something. Everyone wanted something, but there was no one there for him. Not any more.

He glanced over at the photograph on his desk of Stella in the garden standing under one of the jacaranda trees, Stella with the sun glowing in her long hair, taken about a year before the cancer wore her away to nothing and took her hair along with everything else. He still missed her, six years after he had stood over her grave, and never more than in these last few months when he had badly needed someone to talk to and share the burden of all he’d had to bear, someone to tell him that it was OK to do a bad thing for a good enough reason, and that God would understand.

The phone buzzed again at his feet, like the last effort of a dying insect, then fell silent again.

He tipped his head back and let the cool air wash over him. He felt done in. Defeated. He wanted to lie down on the floor next to his crumpled jacket and go to sleep, close his eyes on his crumbling, moth-eaten world and slide away into blissful oblivion. He half-wished he were a drinking man so he could grab a bottle and disappear into it. But he was a Cassidy and his name was written across half the buildings in town. And Cassidys did not drink, nor did they lie down on floors and close their eyes to their responsibilities. And this was his responsibility, all of it – the town, the people, the widow he’d left standing alone by her husband’s grave, the fire out in the desert – everything. He was trapped here, bound by blood, and by the name he carried, and by the generations of bones lying buried in the ground.

He looked up at the portrait hanging above the great stone fireplace, Jack Cassidy’s eyes staring sternly back at him across a hundred years of history as if to say, I didn’t build this town from nothing only for you to run away and let it die.

‘I’ve got this,’ Cassidy whispered to his ancestor. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

The desk phone rang, sharp and sudden, its old brass bell cutting right through the silence. It echoed off the oak panelling and leather-bound books lining the walls. Cassidy plucked his jacket from the floor, slipped his arms into the sleeves and stepped out from beneath the cool flow of air. It made him feel more official, wearing the jacket, and he felt he would need authority for whatever conversation he was about to have. He took a deep breath as if he was about to dive into one of the cold-water lakes up in the mountains and snatched the phone from its cradle.

‘Cassidy.’ His voice sounded as though it was coming from a long way off.

‘It’s Morgan.’

Cassidy collapsed into his chair with relief at the police chief’s voice. ‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad. It’s the plane.’

Cassidy closed his eyes. Nodded. The moment he’d seen the smoke rising he’d feared this. ‘Listen,’ he said, naturally easing into command. ‘I’ll call our associate, tell him what happened here. We’ll work something out, some sort of compensation. Accidents happen. Planes crash. I’m sure he’ll understand. I’m sure he’ll …’

‘No,’ Morgan said. ‘He won’t. Money won’t work here.’

Cassidy blinked. Not used to being contradicted. ‘He’s a businessman. Things go wrong in business all the time and when that happens there has to be some form of restitution. That’s all I’m talking about here. Restitution.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Morgan said. ‘Nothing can make up for what happened here. There is no amount of money that can fix this, trust me. We need to come up with another plan. I’m not going to talk about this on the phone. I need to head back out to the fire, but I’ll swing by your office first. Don’t move and don’t call anyone, OK – not until we’ve talked.’