Her Enemy's Promise

James

James

In the back seat of the 4x4, beside me, Klempner sits with his own phone balanced on one knee, mine on the other. In the front, Kirch sits by the driver who I assume is ‘Baxter’.

Is this where I disappear?

“Where are you taking me?”

“Nowhere for you to worry about. Just somewhere the police aren’t likely to turn up.” Klempner sounds frustrated. “James, I ask you to believe me. I intend you no harm. I intend them no harm. All I want is to talk to Mitch.”

“Oh, that’s all you want is it?”

“Yes. That’s all.”

“And to achieve that you broke out of prison, murdering two guards in the process. So far as I could hear on my way out, you damn near ram-raided the house front to get in the door. You’ve taken me prisoner and sent men looking for Charlotte and her mother. You spent twenty years hating Charlotte for something in which she was a complete innocent. You abused her and damn near raped her at one point. And I’m supposed to believe…”

“It was different then. I didn’t know.”

“What makes you think Mitch wants to talk to you? She’s hidden herself from you for over twenty years. She’s terrified of you. And I don’t blame her.”

“I don’t want to hurt her. I just want to talk.”

“So you keep saying. But you’ve lain in wait in prison at your convenience, using the girl who turned out to be your daughter as a cat’s-paw to track her down. Oh, and not forgetting, you’ve kidnapped me. You don’t think all this might worry Mitch at all?”

Klempner’s forehead knits, as though it were a new idea.

I’m having trouble believing what I’m seeing. “You hadn’t thought of that had you? You seriously hadn’t thought of it. Klempner, you’re such a mixed-up bag of crazy that no-one knows what the f**k to make of you, least of all me.”

He simply looks confused.

*****