With a jump he pulled himself up onto the platform and covered the fifty metres that separated him from the clock tower with no other company than the echo of his footsteps. He walked round the tower and stood beneath the large face with its deformed hands. He didn’t need a clock to guess that the time his friends had agreed on for their meeting had long passed.
Leaning against the blackened wall of the tower Ben had to admit that his idea of splitting up the group to spread their search more widely didn’t seem to have produced the expected results. The only difference between the moment he’d first entered Jheeter’s Gate and now was that he was alone. He’d lost his friends just as he’d lost Sheere.
Ben decided to start looking. Little did he care if it was going to take him a week, or a month, to find them. He walked along the central platform towards the rear wing of Jheeter’s Gate, where the former offices and waiting rooms were situated together with a small citadel of bazaars, cafes and restaurants – all reduced to cinders. It was then that he noticed the glittering shawl lying on the floor in one of the waiting areas. He seemed to remember that the last time he’d been in that place, before he entered the tunnels, the piece of smooth shiny fabric hadn’t been there. He hurried forward.
BEN KNELT DOWN AND reached out a hesitant hand. The shawl was soaked in a dark tepid liquid that seemed vaguely familiar but instinctively repelled him. Beneath the material he thought he could see the random pieces of some kind of object. He pulled out his matchbox and was about to strike a match so that he could examine the discovery but realised he had only one left. Resigned to saving it for a better occasion, Ben strained his eyes in pursuit of a clue that might shed light on the whereabouts of his friends. A shadow spread across the dark puddle and he knew he wasn’t alone.
‘What an experience, to stare at your own spilt blood, don’t you agree, Ben?’ said Jawahal behind his back. ‘Like me, your mother’s blood can find no rest.’
Ben’s hands started to shake, but slowly he turned round. Jawahal was sitting calmly on the end of a metal bench.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me where your friends are, Ben?’ he offered. ‘Perhaps you’re afraid of getting a discouraging answer.’
‘Would you reply if I asked you?’ said Ben, standing motionless by the bloodstained shawl.
‘Perhaps.’ Jawahal smiled.
Ben tried to avoid his hypnotic eyes, and above all he tried to rid himself of the idea that the grim apparition he was speaking to was his father, or what was left of him.
‘Having some doubts, are you, Ben?’ Jawahal appeared to be enjoying the conversation.
‘You’re not my father. He would never hurt Sheere,’ Ben blurted out nervously.
‘Who said I was going to hurt her?’
Ben raised his eyebrows and watched as Jawahal stretched out a gloved hand and dipped it in the blood lying at his feet. Then he touched his face with his fingers, smearing the blood over his angular features.
‘One night many years ago, Ben,’ said Jawahal, ‘the woman whose blood was shed on this spot was my wife and the mother of my children. It’s funny to think how memories can sometimes turn into nightmares. I still miss her. Are you surprised? Who do you think your father is, the man who lives in my memory or this lifeless shadow you see in front of you?’
‘My father was a good man. You’re nothing but a murderer.’
Jawahal looked down and nodded slowly. Ben turned away from him.
‘Our time is coming to an end,’ said Jawahal. ‘We must now confront our destiny. Each to his own. We’re all adults now, aren’t we? Do you know what maturity means, Ben? Let your father explain. Maturity is simply the process of discovering that everything you believed in when you were young is false and that all the things you refused to believe in turn out to be true. When are you going to mature, son?’
Ben turned and looked at Jawahal.
‘What is it you want?’ he demanded.
‘I want to keep a promise, the promise that keeps my flame alive.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Ben. ‘To commit a crime? Is that your farewell deed?’
Jawahal rolled his eyes patiently.
‘The difference between a crime and a deed usually depends on the point of view, Ben. My promise is quite simply to find a new home for my soul. And that home will be provided for me by you two. By my children.’
Ben clenched his teeth and felt the blood throbbing in his temples.
‘You are not my father,’ he said calmly. ‘And if you ever were, I am ashamed of that.’
Jawahal gave a paternal smile.
‘There are two things in life you cannot choose, Ben. The first is your enemies; the second your family. Sometimes the difference between them is hard to see, but in the end time will show you that the cards you have been dealt could always have been worse. Life, dear son, is like that first game of chess. By the time you begin to understand how the pieces move, you’ve already lost.’
Ben hurled himself at Jawahal with all the force of his anger. Jawahal remained seated on the end of the bench as the boy passed straight through him, the image vanishing into the air in a swirl of smoke. Ben crashed to the floor and felt his forehead being ripped open by one of the rusty screws that jutted out from the bench.
‘One of the things you’ll learn soon enough,’ said Jawahal’s voice behind him, ‘is that before fighting your enemy, you must know how his mind works.’