The 2015 debut novel by Robert Weaver – reanimated July 2021.

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“Always remember that what you left in the past may not have left you.”

— Romulus Cornilescu, Benighted.

Chapters 1 & 2:

1 SUMMER GHOSTS

‘Wouldst thou be good, then first believe that thou art evil.’ – Epictetus, Encheiridion of Epictetus.

July 23, 1993

Faintly on the horizon, where the edge of blue touched the parched fields of the Baragan plains, a haze trailed behind a white car: a Dacia 1910, the same model used by the Romanian police.

Lieutenant Romulus Cornilescu stood before his kitchen window drinking Socată from a clay mug whilst he watched the car drive past a crooked wooden fence, scattering barn swallows, freckling the sky with birds. The sound of wheat blowing in the wind sounded like old paper, but there was something more there, something more than grass and grains and an approaching engine.

After the car parked in his driveway, Romulus watched Private Matei Sokolov step out of the vehicle and walk up the wooden steps to the front door, the coverings of the .32 ACP cartridges in the loops of the policeman’s gun belt glistening in the sun.

Romulus took the jug of Socată and two glasses and led Sokolov through the house into the backyard, the men’s boots crunching the dry grass and leaves. They sat on the picnic table in the shade under the Hungarian oak that grew from the edge of the property.

‘Your time in Germany,’ said Sokolov, ‘has a lot to do with what I’m about to tell you, doesn’t it?’

The sweating glass before Sokolov stayed untouched, the floating ice inside dissipating in the heat. He looked at the dog lying on its belly in front of a kennel. A pale leaf dripped off a low-hanging branch.

‘Just tell me if he’s dead or not.’

‘I’m not sure what news you’d like to hear,’ said Sokolov. ‘He’s not dead, but we have come across two bodies in Calarasi city. Looks like his work. You told me once that you decided to join the police while you were in Germany with your brother. Is that true?’

‘What do you know?’

‘One victim was shot twice, first through the chest from about twelve feet away, then a single round to the back of the head, point blank. Clean job. The marksmanship is how you said it would be. The method suggests the perp knew him.’ He paused momentarily. ‘I knew the body the moment I saw it. It matches the photograph you gave me. It’s her grandfather. The grandfather of the woman you told me about.’ His eyes finally turned to Romulus. ‘The other body isn’t her. If I were to guess, it was a witness. Probably was waiting for the elevator. The perpetrator got out fast. We’ll know more once we get the security footage.’

‘He’ll be on the tape. He knows it too. You’ve got more to say, so say it and say it clearly.’

‘I think we’re both thinking the same thing, sir.’

‘You’ve taken her some place safe then?’

The smell of Sokolov’s cologne was stiff with sweat when he tugged at his uniform collar. ‘I looked everywhere I could. Her room in Calarasi hasn’t been slept in for a week. The bar where she works says she didn’t go in last night. It’s like she just vanished. What I mean by that is that I can’t find her. I can’t find her.’

‘What did her brother say?’

‘His apartment’s no less a mystery. His last employer said he left on his own accord, six months ago. At this stage his whereabouts is as unknown as hers. There’s not a lot more I can do right now without gaining suspicion.’

‘You’ve done all you were asked to do. There are few things that can be done now. I do sometimes wonder if we sabotage our own minds so that we can sleep well at night.’

‘We’re out of time?’

‘I suspect the time’s just about right. I told you he’s killed before.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I knew he would do so again.’

‘That, too.’

‘I thought maybe someone would have stopped him before he could.’

Sokolov took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his forehead. ‘There’s more, Lieutenant. A note, it seems. Left behind by… the… him.’

‘I ask you not to say his name.’

‘He left it intentionally. It’s got your name on it. Just as you said it might.’

‘Well let me have it then.’

Sokolov took a plastic zip-lock bag from his pocket and handed it to Romulus, who opened it and handled it without gloves. He held the paper in front of himself and read it in silence and he made no recognition of his own name printed on the front, and his eye didn’t twitch when a bead of sweat dripped down the eyelid.

‘You’re the only who knows of this?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. I took it as soon as I saw it. It was in the body’s coat pocket–‘

‘Her grandfather’s coat pocket.’

‘Along with a spent .42 shell from–‘

‘The revolver that was most likely used in the shooting.’

‘My thoughts exactly. I get the feeling he left them because he’s not planning on coming back. He wanted you to know this, didn’t he? Why would he want you to know?’

Romulus carefully folded the paper and slid it into his pocket.

‘Why do these men do anything.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘What will you do with the note?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I do with it. You’ve covered yourself?’

Sokolov looked toward the house and nodded.

‘I had a plan,’ said Romulus. ‘Behind the first drawer of my office desk is a letter I wrote five years ago. The date’s blank. I should have known then that it was pointless, that I never had time for a formal resignation.’

‘I don’t understand. What about the department? What about Chief Officer Munteanu?’

‘Don’t worry about the department,’ said Romulus. ‘And you don’t tell Munteanu a word, you understand? You were never here.’

Sokolov closed his eyes and said, ‘Don’t do this.’

A crow in the oak ruffled its feathers and flew off cawing.

‘Your uncle helped my father when no one else would,’ said Romulus. ‘You carry his heart on your sleeve; so do me a favour: Never become what you hate. Never lose your sense of right and wrong. Always remember what you left in the past may not have left you. Justice, honour, our code. You’re dismissed.’

Sokolov’s lips parted, as if he were about to say something, but instead he put down his drink and stood up and stopped just before the door. He turned his head slightly and squinted, said, ‘It really is him, isn’t it? Your eyes tell me you’re going to find him. Your brother.’

‘Say no more, Sokolov. There’s not a lot of choice here. Don’t say his name.’

The skin on Sokolov’s face twitched. ‘Are you going to kill him?’

‘Sometimes I want the old ways back,’ said Romulus. ‘Days when we had zero tolerance for the perverse actions of those who cause immense harm to others. I lived a violent past. Remaining here as a bureaucratic officer runs the risk of making it all in vain.’

Romulus watched from the front door as the white police car turned around and began travelling away from the house, the cloud of dust misting the heat waves on the road.

Romulus’ grandfather had built the house with oak and pine from thickets that grow on the edges of the Baragan plain. The house was quaint but the many rooms were built out of hope that the Cornilescu family would be large and prosperous. The fireplace in the living room was made from river stones, and above it were the mounted heads of deer and boar.

There were few modern utilities out on the plains of Calarasi; electricity was scarce, and what little there was gave the historical house life in a modern world that Romulus progressively felt disconnected and alienated from.

Entering his office he picked up the receiver of a rotary dial telephone and ground in a number he knew from heart. As he waited for the call to pick up, he looked through the window at the dust-blown land that had once been used as a destination for mass deportation in the 1950s, and his gaze wandered to his neighbour’s children playing with sticks and an old rubber tyre. He thought about how much he was going to miss this place, to miss the quietness, the memories of summer holidays with his father and the hunting trips, the Pleșcoi sausages his mother used to cook on the open fire next to the oak tree. He didn’t know why, but he stood up straight when the voice came through the receiver. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Morning, Ioana.’ He could hear the whirring of the long-call connection. ‘Can you send me through to Chief Officer Andrei Munteanu?’

Ioana asked him to hold and after a few moments Munteanu answered.

‘Lieutenant Cornilescu.’ The voice was low and hard. ‘I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you for a while. Weren’t you on holiday?’

‘I was. I mean, I am on holiday, but that’s not why I’m calling.’ Romulus’ hand was tight on the receiver, the skin around his knuckles stretched white, his face gleaming from the fresh shave that morning.

‘What is it, Lieutenant? I’m busy doing the work you should be doing.’

‘Chief, something’s come up. I can’t get out of it.’

‘You can’t get out of it?’

‘I think at this stage sending a squad car would be helping neither of us.’

‘Hold on,’ said Munteanu. ‘What are you talking about? Is this because you want more time off? Fine, take another week, but I can’t give you anything more until the end of autumn at the least. God, at the least.’

‘It’s not a matter of time off, Chief.’ He glanced at the framed newspaper clipping of a hotel in Czinkota, Budapest. The headline read: “Janitor Kidnapped, Tortured, Murdered.”

‘It all started that night,’ said Romulus, his voice drifting. ‘They say not to look back, and I tried every day of my life to not to. There’s no time for a written resignation.’

Romulus could hear the voice of the Chief Officer coming through the handset as he returned it to the cradle.

He dialled in a four-digit code on his steel weapon locker and opened the door. He took a side-by-side double-barrelled shotgun from the rack and a box of double-ought buckshot, and he sat down at his desk and rested the shotgun across his lap, ignoring the phone as it rang.

The shotgun had a walnut stock that he had engraved with two Visigothic eagles. He opened the breech and smelled the machine oil he had used to clean the chambers. He got two buckshot shells from the box and ran his thumb over the brass coverings.

Romulus thought about the crimes he had committed in his life, the crimes committed before his career as a law enforcer, crimes that he hoped the Romanian government had no way of knowing about. He thought about the time in Germany that had started him down a path he struggled to get away from, and he wondered if he had been a stronger man then maybe he could have avoided much of the hardship that befell him. But like what usually happened when he thought of these things, a cloud of repression smoked across the brim of his mind and he turned his thoughts elsewhere.

He slid the two buckshot shells into the breech and snapped the break shut on the shotgun. In his mind’s eye he saw himself as a child playing with his brother in their old childhood home in the Carpathians, saw the heavy snow of winter and burning leaves of autumn, saw his mother’s face brimming with happiness, his father standing at the portal of the door, a bottle of Ursus beer in his hand, his eyes smiling at the horizon. He wondered about the systematic destruction of the childhood he had lived, and knew then that it was gone forever.

A gust of warm wind sent dry leaves from the Hungarian oak in the backyard crunching against the window. Romulus gripped the shotgun tightly and the wood and steel felt cold in his hands.

He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and went into the master bedroom. A white glow burned from the edges of the drawn curtains. He knelt beside the bed and dragged out a pre-packed rucksack. He opened the buckle and took out a tin-plated steel canteen and filled it up in the kitchen sink. The refrigerator buzzed with life as the motor kicked in. He turned on the tap again and splashed water over his face and let it run down his neck and into his shirt and over his chest. He listened to the drops of water clatter into the metal sink, his eyes closed, images of events that have not yet happened etching in his mind. He knew this day would come, but he had always hoped it wouldn’t. He hadn’t been nervous, not until now, not until the reality of the situation pried itself out of his dreams and into the form of a cloud of dust; but he also knew his brother was not unlike himself.

Romulus returned the filled canteen to the backpack, buckled it closed and swung it over his shoulder. It was light enough for the travel he was going to make.

He rested his palm on the door handle, turned his head back to his family’s house, looked into each room and then nodded silently to himself. He knew he wasn’t coming back, and probably could never come back even if he wanted to.

He didn’t bother locking the front door.

2 HEEL ON THE SHOVEL

It felt like an electric drill coring into his head. At first, Markus Grouse saw nothing but darkness and flashing colours like gunfire in a sewer line. Through the lights he saw himself falling into the glow of a radiant sunset, only to be grabbed by a figure without detail. He heard words that told him he was going to be fine. Then cloudy memories, like film from an old projector, twisted and crisped as if burning from a lit match, and he felt unable to do anything about it but watch his own mind fall in on itself. He heard the high-pitched whirring of power tools and the clanking of steel upon steel. The last thing that came into his mind was an image of himself standing up. No, that’s not entirely correct. He saw himself falling down in reverse, followed by a gun shot.

It was quiet for a long time, and then he heard his own voice coming through the loud silence. It told him that the darkness can never last forever.

It was a night that smelled of stars. The moon shone brightly from above, sharp enough to draw blood from stone. Branches of balding trees groaned in a cool breeze. Markus felt himself running long before his vision focused, and then his name came into his mind like a numberplate surfacing from a submerged car. But how and why he was hiking through the countryside at this awful time was still a pounding mystery to him. As he quickened his pace, he ran his hands over his body and tried recalling his thoughts. I’m wearing a suit, so perhaps I’m a businessman who stepped out from a conference and stumbled into profound headache. But his thoughts were incoherent and blurry, as were his eyes, and the fog in his mind was like that of glass on a winter’s morning.

He checked his pockets and returned with a silver locket decorated with a floral pattern, the metal recently polished. He opened the lid with his thumb.

Inside was a black and white photo of a woman holding a small child of no more than three or four years of age. The woman had dark hair that was medium to dark brown with a slight wave reaching from the roots to the tips. The photo appeared new; not a scratch nor a tear could be found. An inscription had been engraved on the inside, which wrote, ‘To my Markus: Do not say you will not die with me, for we are one we are the same.’

He touched the photographs, and he came to a conclusion: This must be the wife that I cannot remember but that my heart still pines for.

He was once again aware of his surroundings, where now a flickering light could be seen in the shallow distance. He pocketed the locket back whence he found it, patting it softly for good measure, adjusted his jacket that fitted him better than his own hands, and without thinking, began a steady walk towards the dancing glow.

As Markus drew nearer, the light in the distance took shape; an oil lantern rested beside a tombstone, and in front of it a thin man, wearing dark trousers and shirt, a dusty black coat and a wide-brimmed hat, loomed over a trench, a shovel clenched in his hands, his shadow long and crooked.

The dark faced man stopped his work and looked over his shoulder at Markus. The skin on his face gleamed in the lantern light.

‘There ain’t nothing like a midnight stroll, is there? In the summer the flowers here open only after sunset,’ said the man, the shovel in his hands dripping dirt. ‘Rude of me. Forgive me, brother. My name is Count Grinlington. If you don’t mind, grab that shovel over there and give me a hand.’

Markus didn’t know why, but he picked up the second shovel from a mound of dirt and began digging. Count Grinlington sat upon the tombstone and wiped his brow with a handkerchief stained with dirt and sweat, which he kept in a pocket in his coat. His skin was dark and cracked, and it moved in such a way that reminded Markus of animal hide that has dried too close to a coal-fire. Grinlington unwrapped the plastic from a cigar and placed the cigar in his mouth. Orange light shadowed his gaunt face and sunken cheeks when he raked a match against the side of the box and lifted the flame to the tip of his cigar, and then he took a deep, hard draw on it and threw the match into the trench. He pulled a piece of dry skin from his lip.

‘I’ve been at that hole a couple of hours,’ said Grinlington. ‘The rain’s supposed to soften the dirt. Tonight’s a night unlike the others.’

Markus thought he heard incorrectly and threw his heel on the shovel once again, but he looked up at the clear sky just to be sure. A severed worm wriggled in the dirt.

The count uncorked a bottle of sherry, and clicking it against the rim of a sherry glass, poured himself a drink. He spoke with an accent Markus couldn’t point out. His voice, however, was deep and hard, as though it had been drowned in a barrel of rum before being set alight. While Grinlington watched Markus shovel dirt, he slowly drank the sherry, his lips never growing wet, the wind ruffling his coat, his clothes hanging off body as though he were made of sticks.

After shovelling more than a dozen times, Markus swore the soil was becoming harder and thicker with each scoop. He leaned against the wooden handle.

‘I’m not much of a digger,’ said Markus, wiping his brow, ‘but I reckon that hole’s no deeper than when I started.’

The bones in his hand clicked when Count Grinlington said, ‘Precisely what I was thinking. I haven’t been able to get any more than three feet, and I can assure you that’s not nearly far enough.’

‘What are you digging?’ said Markus.

‘Your grave.’

Markus grinned at first. The dead don’t come back. Those are the rules, he thought. But the small white dot the size of a pinhead behind his eyelids gave him pause. Something wasn’t right. The pain in his stomach felt as though someone had stabbed him with a rusty nail. And when Markus followed Count Grinlington’s gaze to the tombstone, the dark man smiled and picked up a black umbrella that Markus couldn’t remember seeing, and he unfolded it and held it high.

Markus stepped back and looked about the gloomy hill. He moved around the side of the tombstone that bore his name clearer than his own mother. ‘No, that’s impossible. This isn’t real.’

‘I can see you’re unhappy with the news,’ said Count Grinlington. ‘As a gravedigger, that bothers me.’ He tried to give the umbrella to Markus, but he ignored it, so Grinlington dropped it on the ground. Markus was evidently more occupied with dragging his shovel behind him and kicking dirt around than to accept an umbrella on a clear night.

‘My head feels like someone’s put it in a furnace,’ said Markus. He threw his shovel at Grinlington’s feet. ‘I don’t remember how I got here. I don’t even know where here is. And there you are telling me I’m dead.’

Count Grinlington wiped his dry lips with the back of his hand. ‘I don’t steal memories, kid. Someone once told me I bury dreams though.’

Markus shook his head, kicked the dirt, pointed his finger at Grinlington, shouted, ‘I’m not dead!’ But he didn’t know whom he was trying to convince. He felt small. Physically small. He thought he could hear voices in the wind telling him what he didn’t want to hear. Even his own subconscious was turning against him with pitchforks and fire.

Grinlington put the cigar in his mouth and it bobbed on his lips when he said, ‘Look around you and think for a moment and tell me again you’re not dead.’ It was just then when a torrent of rain began falling from a clear sky. The wind picked up and blew orange and red leaves across the damp field. The smell of wet earth and rotten leaves bubbled up from under Markus. The booming moon in the sky vanished from view, only to be replaced by storm clouds.

‘I don’t like to drag you around, or anyone else for that matter,’ said Grinlington. ‘I dig graves. That’s my thing. Your grave is a mystery even to me.’

‘Where am I then? What is this place?’

‘The city of Saint Alban,’ replied Grinlington. Behind him, the stars turned into city-lights, then they faded in the rain-mist. ‘Over yonder you’ll find a city that has lost just as much as you have. It ain’t the nicest place to wake up to.’

‘Is this where all the dead go when we die?’

‘Far from it. It’s a land of lost souls, but few here are dead. I feel bad for those who come here. I feel worse for those who have no choice. And what about you, Markus? Why are you here? Why did you deceive me?’

‘Deceive you? How did I deceive you?’

‘I think those who are afraid of their deaths are cowards.’

‘I didn’t do this. I didn’t do anything.’

Count Grinlington held the glass of sherry to his nose and swirled it and drank heavily this time, the amber liquid dripping off his chin. He brushed a lump of mud off his shoulder, and then he glared at the trench and crinkled his brow. ‘I’ve been digging graves a long time. You only come back if you alter something. Change something. What did you do, Markus? Don’t you know you shouldn’t meddle with dark forces? Do you think death is the worst thing that can happen to you? You have no idea what you’ve done. There are dark creatures out there. Creatures far darker than anyone could ever imagine. How do you feel about them eating away your soul from the inside out?’

‘This is madness,’ said Markus. ‘Do I say I’m sorry? Sorry for somehow defying your precious rules? What do I give you for this unwanted life? A coin?’ In his frustration, Markus reached into his pocket and felt the silver locket, but something stayed him. He held it with his fingers for a moment, then let it go. ‘I have nothing to give,’ he said. ‘At least, nothing more than this suit. What more could you possibly take from me?’ His mind roiled like the sky.

‘You know what I’m going to do?’ said Grinlington, throwing the sherry glass over his shoulder. ‘I’m going to leave you with your thoughts, let you collect your nerves you’ve dropped all over the ground. But I will be back, that I can assure you.’

Grinlington picked up one of the shovels and rested it over his shoulder. ‘I’ll give you a year,’ said he. ‘But be careful who you talk to; not everyone here is as open to death as I am. Around here you’re going to need a lot more than some sleeping pills and a pack of cigarettes.’

And without another word the dark man flicked the cigar into the mud, snatched up the glowing lantern, adjusted his wide-brimmed hat, and wandered into the shadows of the miserable night.

1 SUMMER GHOSTS

‘Wouldst thou be good, then first believe that thou art evil.’ – Epictetus, Encheiridion of Epictetus.

July 23, 1993

Faintly on the horizon, where the edge of blue touched the parched fields of the Baragan plains, a haze trailed behind a white car: a Dacia 1910, the same model used by the Romanian police.

Lieutenant Romulus Cornilescu stood before his kitchen window drinking Socată from a clay mug whilst he watched the car drive past a crooked wooden fence, scattering barn swallows, freckling the sky with birds. The sound of wheat blowing in the wind sounded like old paper, but there was something more there, something more than grass and grains and an approaching engine.

After the car parked in his driveway, Romulus watched Private Matei Sokolov step out of the vehicle and walk up the wooden steps to the front door, the coverings of the .32 ACP cartridges in the loops of the policeman’s gun belt glistening in the sun.

Romulus took the jug of Socată and two glasses and led Sokolov through the house into the backyard, the men’s boots crunching the dry grass and leaves. They sat on the picnic table in the shade under the Hungarian oak that grew from the edge of the property.

‘Your time in Germany,’ said Sokolov, ‘has a lot to do with what I’m about to tell you, doesn’t it?’

The sweating glass before Sokolov stayed untouched, the floating ice inside dissipating in the heat. He looked at the dog lying on its belly in front of a kennel. A pale leaf dripped off a low-hanging branch.

‘Just tell me if he’s dead or not.’

‘I’m not sure what news you’d like to hear,’ said Sokolov. ‘He’s not dead, but we have come across two bodies in Calarasi city. Looks like his work. You told me once that you decided to join the police while you were in Germany with your brother. Is that true?’

‘What do you know?’

‘One victim was shot twice, first through the chest from about twelve feet away, then a single round to the back of the head, point blank. Clean job. The marksmanship is how you said it would be. The method suggests the perp knew him.’ He paused momentarily. ‘I knew the body the moment I saw it. It matches the photograph you gave me. It’s her grandfather. The grandfather of the woman you told me about.’ His eyes finally turned to Romulus. ‘The other body isn’t her. If I were to guess, it was a witness. Probably was waiting for the elevator. The perpetrator got out fast. We’ll know more once we get the security footage.’

‘He’ll be on the tape. He knows it too. You’ve got more to say, so say it and say it clearly.’

‘I think we’re both thinking the same thing, sir.’

‘You’ve taken her some place safe then?’

The smell of Sokolov’s cologne was stiff with sweat when he tugged at his uniform collar. ‘I looked everywhere I could. Her room in Calarasi hasn’t been slept in for a week. The bar where she works says she didn’t go in last night. It’s like she just vanished. What I mean by that is that I can’t find her. I can’t find her.’

‘What did her brother say?’

‘His apartment’s no less a mystery. His last employer said he left on his own accord, six months ago. At this stage his whereabouts is as unknown as hers. There’s not a lot more I can do right now without gaining suspicion.’

‘You’ve done all you were asked to do. There are few things that can be done now. I do sometimes wonder if we sabotage our own minds so that we can sleep well at night.’

‘We’re out of time?’

‘I suspect the time’s just about right. I told you he’s killed before.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I knew he would do so again.’

‘That, too.’

‘I thought maybe someone would have stopped him before he could.’

Sokolov took a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his forehead. ‘There’s more, Lieutenant. A note, it seems. Left behind by… the… him.’

‘I ask you not to say his name.’

‘He left it intentionally. It’s got your name on it. Just as you said it might.’

‘Well let me have it then.’

Sokolov took a plastic zip-lock bag from his pocket and handed it to Romulus, who opened it and handled it without gloves. He held the paper in front of himself and read it in silence and he made no recognition of his own name printed on the front, and his eye didn’t twitch when a bead of sweat dripped down the eyelid.

‘You’re the only who knows of this?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. I took it as soon as I saw it. It was in the body’s coat pocket–‘

‘Her grandfather’s coat pocket.’

‘Along with a spent .42 shell from–‘

‘The revolver that was most likely used in the shooting.’

‘My thoughts exactly. I get the feeling he left them because he’s not planning on coming back. He wanted you to know this, didn’t he? Why would he want you to know?’

Romulus carefully folded the paper and slid it into his pocket.

‘Why do these men do anything.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘What will you do with the note?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I do with it. You’ve covered yourself?’

Sokolov looked toward the house and nodded.

‘I had a plan,’ said Romulus. ‘Behind the first drawer of my office desk is a letter I wrote five years ago. The date’s blank. I should have known then that it was pointless, that I never had time for a formal resignation.’

‘I don’t understand. What about the department? What about Chief Officer Munteanu?’

‘Don’t worry about the department,’ said Romulus. ‘And you don’t tell Munteanu a word, you understand? You were never here.’

Sokolov closed his eyes and said, ‘Don’t do this.’

A crow in the oak ruffled its feathers and flew off cawing.

‘Your uncle helped my father when no one else would,’ said Romulus. ‘You carry his heart on your sleeve; so do me a favour: Never become what you hate. Never lose your sense of right and wrong. Always remember what you left in the past may not have left you. Justice, honour, our code. You’re dismissed.’

Sokolov’s lips parted, as if he were about to say something, but instead he put down his drink and stood up and stopped just before the door. He turned his head slightly and squinted, said, ‘It really is him, isn’t it? Your eyes tell me you’re going to find him. Your brother.’

‘Say no more, Sokolov. There’s not a lot of choice here. Don’t say his name.’

The skin on Sokolov’s face twitched. ‘Are you going to kill him?’

‘Sometimes I want the old ways back,’ said Romulus. ‘Days when we had zero tolerance for the perverse actions of those who cause immense harm to others. I lived a violent past. Remaining here as a bureaucratic officer runs the risk of making it all in vain.’

Romulus watched from the front door as the white police car turned around and began travelling away from the house, the cloud of dust misting the heat waves on the road.

Romulus’ grandfather had built the house with oak and pine from thickets that grow on the edges of the Baragan plain. The house was quaint but the many rooms were built out of hope that the Cornilescu family would be large and prosperous. The fireplace in the living room was made from river stones, and above it were the mounted heads of deer and boar.

There were few modern utilities out on the plains of Calarasi; electricity was scarce, and what little there was gave the historical house life in a modern world that Romulus progressively felt disconnected and alienated from.

Entering his office he picked up the receiver of a rotary dial telephone and ground in a number he knew from heart. As he waited for the call to pick up, he looked through the window at the dust-blown land that had once been used as a destination for mass deportation in the 1950s, and his gaze wandered to his neighbour’s children playing with sticks and an old rubber tyre. He thought about how much he was going to miss this place, to miss the quietness, the memories of summer holidays with his father and the hunting trips, the Pleșcoi sausages his mother used to cook on the open fire next to the oak tree. He didn’t know why, but he stood up straight when the voice came through the receiver. He cleared his throat and said, ‘Morning, Ioana.’ He could hear the whirring of the long-call connection. ‘Can you send me through to Chief Officer Andrei Munteanu?’

Ioana asked him to hold and after a few moments Munteanu answered.

‘Lieutenant Cornilescu.’ The voice was low and hard. ‘I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you for a while. Weren’t you on holiday?’

‘I was. I mean, I am on holiday, but that’s not why I’m calling.’ Romulus’ hand was tight on the receiver, the skin around his knuckles stretched white, his face gleaming from the fresh shave that morning.

‘What is it, Lieutenant? I’m busy doing the work you should be doing.’

‘Chief, something’s come up. I can’t get out of it.’

‘You can’t get out of it?’

‘I think at this stage sending a squad car would be helping neither of us.’

‘Hold on,’ said Munteanu. ‘What are you talking about? Is this because you want more time off? Fine, take another week, but I can’t give you anything more until the end of autumn at the least. God, at the least.’

‘It’s not a matter of time off, Chief.’ He glanced at the framed newspaper clipping of a hotel in Czinkota, Budapest. The headline read: “Janitor Kidnapped, Tortured, Murdered.”

‘It all started that night,’ said Romulus, his voice drifting. ‘They say not to look back, and I tried every day of my life to not to. There’s no time for a written resignation.’

Romulus could hear the voice of the Chief Officer coming through the handset as he returned it to the cradle.

He dialled in a four-digit code on his steel weapon locker and opened the door. He took a side-by-side double-barrelled shotgun from the rack and a box of double-ought buckshot, and he sat down at his desk and rested the shotgun across his lap, ignoring the phone as it rang.

The shotgun had a walnut stock that he had engraved with two Visigothic eagles. He opened the breech and smelled the machine oil he had used to clean the chambers. He got two buckshot shells from the box and ran his thumb over the brass coverings.

Romulus thought about the crimes he had committed in his life, the crimes committed before his career as a law enforcer, crimes that he hoped the Romanian government had no way of knowing about. He thought about the time in Germany that had started him down a path he struggled to get away from, and he wondered if he had been a stronger man then maybe he could have avoided much of the hardship that befell him. But like what usually happened when he thought of these things, a cloud of repression smoked across the brim of his mind and he turned his thoughts elsewhere.

He slid the two buckshot shells into the breech and snapped the break shut on the shotgun. In his mind’s eye he saw himself as a child playing with his brother in their old childhood home in the Carpathians, saw the heavy snow of winter and burning leaves of autumn, saw his mother’s face brimming with happiness, his father standing at the portal of the door, a bottle of Ursus beer in his hand, his eyes smiling at the horizon. He wondered about the systematic destruction of the childhood he had lived, and knew then that it was gone forever.

A gust of warm wind sent dry leaves from the Hungarian oak in the backyard crunching against the window. Romulus gripped the shotgun tightly and the wood and steel felt cold in his hands.

He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and went into the master bedroom. A white glow burned from the edges of the drawn curtains. He knelt beside the bed and dragged out a pre-packed rucksack. He opened the buckle and took out a tin-plated steel canteen and filled it up in the kitchen sink. The refrigerator buzzed with life as the motor kicked in. He turned on the tap again and splashed water over his face and let it run down his neck and into his shirt and over his chest. He listened to the drops of water clatter into the metal sink, his eyes closed, images of events that have not yet happened etching in his mind. He knew this day would come, but he had always hoped it wouldn’t. He hadn’t been nervous, not until now, not until the reality of the situation pried itself out of his dreams and into the form of a cloud of dust; but he also knew his brother was not unlike himself.

Romulus returned the filled canteen to the backpack, buckled it closed and swung it over his shoulder. It was light enough for the travel he was going to make.

He rested his palm on the door handle, turned his head back to his family’s house, looked into each room and then nodded silently to himself. He knew he wasn’t coming back, and probably could never come back even if he wanted to.

He didn’t bother locking the front door.

2 HEEL ON THE SHOVEL

It felt like an electric drill coring into his head. At first, Markus Grouse saw nothing but darkness and flashing colours like gunfire in a sewer line. Through the lights he saw himself falling into the glow of a radiant sunset, only to be grabbed by a figure without detail. He heard words that told him he was going to be fine. Then cloudy memories, like film from an old projector, twisted and crisped as if burning from a lit match, and he felt unable to do anything about it but watch his own mind fall in on itself. He heard the high-pitched whirring of power tools and the clanking of steel upon steel. The last thing that came into his mind was an image of himself standing up. No, that’s not entirely correct. He saw himself falling down in reverse, followed by a gun shot.

It was quiet for a long time, and then he heard his own voice coming through the loud silence. It told him that the darkness can never last forever.

It was a night that smelled of stars. The moon shone brightly from above, sharp enough to draw blood from stone. Branches of balding trees groaned in a cool breeze. Markus felt himself running long before his vision focused, and then his name came into his mind like a numberplate surfacing from a submerged car. But how and why he was hiking through the countryside at this awful time was still a pounding mystery to him. As he quickened his pace, he ran his hands over his body and tried recalling his thoughts. I’m wearing a suit, so perhaps I’m a businessman who stepped out from a conference and stumbled into profound headache. But his thoughts were incoherent and blurry, as were his eyes, and the fog in his mind was like that of glass on a winter’s morning.

He checked his pockets and returned with a silver locket decorated with a floral pattern, the metal recently polished. He opened the lid with his thumb.

Inside was a black and white photo of a woman holding a small child of no more than three or four years of age. The woman had dark hair that was medium to dark brown with a slight wave reaching from the roots to the tips. The photo appeared new; not a scratch nor a tear could be found. An inscription had been engraved on the inside, which wrote, ‘To my Markus: Do not say you will not die with me, for we are one we are the same.’

He touched the photographs, and he came to a conclusion: This must be the wife that I cannot remember but that my heart still pines for.

He was once again aware of his surroundings, where now a flickering light could be seen in the shallow distance. He pocketed the locket back whence he found it, patting it softly for good measure, adjusted his jacket that fitted him better than his own hands, and without thinking, began a steady walk towards the dancing glow.

As Markus drew nearer, the light in the distance took shape; an oil lantern rested beside a tombstone, and in front of it a thin man, wearing dark trousers and shirt, a dusty black coat and a wide-brimmed hat, loomed over a trench, a shovel clenched in his hands, his shadow long and crooked.

The dark faced man stopped his work and looked over his shoulder at Markus. The skin on his face gleamed in the lantern light.

‘There ain’t nothing like a midnight stroll, is there? In the summer the flowers here open only after sunset,’ said the man, the shovel in his hands dripping dirt. ‘Rude of me. Forgive me, brother. My name is Count Grinlington. If you don’t mind, grab that shovel over there and give me a hand.’

Markus didn’t know why, but he picked up the second shovel from a mound of dirt and began digging. Count Grinlington sat upon the tombstone and wiped his brow with a handkerchief stained with dirt and sweat, which he kept in a pocket in his coat. His skin was dark and cracked, and it moved in such a way that reminded Markus of animal hide that has dried too close to a coal-fire. Grinlington unwrapped the plastic from a cigar and placed the cigar in his mouth. Orange light shadowed his gaunt face and sunken cheeks when he raked a match against the side of the box and lifted the flame to the tip of his cigar, and then he took a deep, hard draw on it and threw the match into the trench. He pulled a piece of dry skin from his lip.

‘I’ve been at that hole a couple of hours,’ said Grinlington. ‘The rain’s supposed to soften the dirt. Tonight’s a night unlike the others.’

Markus thought he heard incorrectly and threw his heel on the shovel once again, but he looked up at the clear sky just to be sure. A severed worm wriggled in the dirt.

The count uncorked a bottle of sherry, and clicking it against the rim of a sherry glass, poured himself a drink. He spoke with an accent Markus couldn’t point out. His voice, however, was deep and hard, as though it had been drowned in a barrel of rum before being set alight. While Grinlington watched Markus shovel dirt, he slowly drank the sherry, his lips never growing wet, the wind ruffling his coat, his clothes hanging off body as though he were made of sticks.

After shovelling more than a dozen times, Markus swore the soil was becoming harder and thicker with each scoop. He leaned against the wooden handle.

‘I’m not much of a digger,’ said Markus, wiping his brow, ‘but I reckon that hole’s no deeper than when I started.’

The bones in his hand clicked when Count Grinlington said, ‘Precisely what I was thinking. I haven’t been able to get any more than three feet, and I can assure you that’s not nearly far enough.’

‘What are you digging?’ said Markus.

‘Your grave.’

Markus grinned at first. The dead don’t come back. Those are the rules, he thought. But the small white dot the size of a pinhead behind his eyelids gave him pause. Something wasn’t right. The pain in his stomach felt as though someone had stabbed him with a rusty nail. And when Markus followed Count Grinlington’s gaze to the tombstone, the dark man smiled and picked up a black umbrella that Markus couldn’t remember seeing, and he unfolded it and held it high.

Markus stepped back and looked about the gloomy hill. He moved around the side of the tombstone that bore his name clearer than his own mother. ‘No, that’s impossible. This isn’t real.’

‘I can see you’re unhappy with the news,’ said Count Grinlington. ‘As a gravedigger, that bothers me.’ He tried to give the umbrella to Markus, but he ignored it, so Grinlington dropped it on the ground. Markus was evidently more occupied with dragging his shovel behind him and kicking dirt around than to accept an umbrella on a clear night.

‘My head feels like someone’s put it in a furnace,’ said Markus. He threw his shovel at Grinlington’s feet. ‘I don’t remember how I got here. I don’t even know where here is. And there you are telling me I’m dead.’

Count Grinlington wiped his dry lips with the back of his hand. ‘I don’t steal memories, kid. Someone once told me I bury dreams though.’

Markus shook his head, kicked the dirt, pointed his finger at Grinlington, shouted, ‘I’m not dead!’ But he didn’t know whom he was trying to convince. He felt small. Physically small. He thought he could hear voices in the wind telling him what he didn’t want to hear. Even his own subconscious was turning against him with pitchforks and fire.

Grinlington put the cigar in his mouth and it bobbed on his lips when he said, ‘Look around you and think for a moment and tell me again you’re not dead.’ It was just then when a torrent of rain began falling from a clear sky. The wind picked up and blew orange and red leaves across the damp field. The smell of wet earth and rotten leaves bubbled up from under Markus. The booming moon in the sky vanished from view, only to be replaced by storm clouds.

‘I don’t like to drag you around, or anyone else for that matter,’ said Grinlington. ‘I dig graves. That’s my thing. Your grave is a mystery even to me.’

‘Where am I then? What is this place?’

‘The city of Saint Alban,’ replied Grinlington. Behind him, the stars turned into city-lights, then they faded in the rain-mist. ‘Over yonder you’ll find a city that has lost just as much as you have. It ain’t the nicest place to wake up to.’

‘Is this where all the dead go when we die?’

‘Far from it. It’s a land of lost souls, but few here are dead. I feel bad for those who come here. I feel worse for those who have no choice. And what about you, Markus? Why are you here? Why did you deceive me?’

‘Deceive you? How did I deceive you?’

‘I think those who are afraid of their deaths are cowards.’

‘I didn’t do this. I didn’t do anything.’

Count Grinlington held the glass of sherry to his nose and swirled it and drank heavily this time, the amber liquid dripping off his chin. He brushed a lump of mud off his shoulder, and then he glared at the trench and crinkled his brow. ‘I’ve been digging graves a long time. You only come back if you alter something. Change something. What did you do, Markus? Don’t you know you shouldn’t meddle with dark forces? Do you think death is the worst thing that can happen to you? You have no idea what you’ve done. There are dark creatures out there. Creatures far darker than anyone could ever imagine. How do you feel about them eating away your soul from the inside out?’

‘This is madness,’ said Markus. ‘Do I say I’m sorry? Sorry for somehow defying your precious rules? What do I give you for this unwanted life? A coin?’ In his frustration, Markus reached into his pocket and felt the silver locket, but something stayed him. He held it with his fingers for a moment, then let it go. ‘I have nothing to give,’ he said. ‘At least, nothing more than this suit. What more could you possibly take from me?’ His mind roiled like the sky.

‘You know what I’m going to do?’ said Grinlington, throwing the sherry glass over his shoulder. ‘I’m going to leave you with your thoughts, let you collect your nerves you’ve dropped all over the ground. But I will be back, that I can assure you.’

Grinlington picked up one of the shovels and rested it over his shoulder. ‘I’ll give you a year,’ said he. ‘But be careful who you talk to; not everyone here is as open to death as I am. Around here you’re going to need a lot more than some sleeping pills and a pack of cigarettes.’

And without another word the dark man flicked the cigar into the mud, snatched up the glowing lantern, adjusted his wide-brimmed hat, and wandered into the shadows of the miserable night.