Solomon Creed: The only thriller you need to read this year. Simon Toyne

Chapter 65

       Chapter 66

       Chapter 67

       Chapter 68

       Chapter 69

       Chapter 70

       Part IX

       From the private …

       Chapter 71

       Chapter 72

       Chapter 73

       Chapter 74

       Chapter 75

       Chapter 76

       Chapter 77

       Chapter 78

       Chapter 79

       Chapter 80

       Chapter 81

       Chapter 82

       Chapter 83

       Chapter 84

       Chapter 85

       Chapter 86

       Chapter 87

       Chapter 88

       Chapter 89

       Chapter 90

       Chapter 91

       Chapter 92

       Part X

       From the private …

       Chapter 93

       Chapter 94

       Chapter 95

       Chapter 96

       Chapter 97

       Epilogue

       Acknowledgements

       Read on for an extract of The Boy Who Saw

       If you enjoyed Solomon Creed, try Simon Toyne’s Sanctus trilogy …

       About the Author

       Also by Simon Toyne

       About the Publisher

       I

       ‘… all I know is that I know nothing.’

       Socrates

       1

      In the beginning is the road – and me walking along it.

      I have no memory of who I am, or where I have come from, or how I came to be here. There is only the road

      and the desert stretching away to a burnt sky in every

      direction

      and there is me.

      Anxiety bubbles within me and my legs scissor, pushing me forward through hot air as if they know something I don’t. I feel like telling them to slow down, but even in my confused state I know you don’t talk to your legs, not unless you’re crazy, and I don’t think I’m crazy – I don’t think so.

      I stare down the shimmering ribbon of tarmac, rising and falling over the undulating land, its straight edges made wavy by intense desert heat. It makes the road seem insubstantial and the way ahead uncertain and my anxiety burns bright because of it. I feel there’s something important to do here, and that I am here to do it, but I cannot remember what.

      I try to breathe slowly, dredging a recollection from some deep place that this is meant to be calming, and catch different scents in the dry desert air – the coal-tar sap of a broken creosote bush branch, the sweet sugar rot of fallen saguaro fruit, the arid perfume of agave pollen – each thing so clear to me, so absolutely itself and correct and known. And from the solid seed of each named thing more information grows – Latin names, medicinal properties, common names, whether each is edible or poisonous. The same happens when I glance to my left or right, each glimpsed thing sparking new names and fresh torrents of facts until my head hums with it all. I know the world entirely it seems and yet I know nothing of myself. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t even know my own name.

      The wind gusts at my back, pushing me forward and bringing a new smell that makes my anxiety flare into fear. It is smoke, oily and acrid, and a half-formed memory slides in with it that there is something awful lying on the road behind me, something I need to get away from.

      I break into a run, staring forward, not daring to glance behind. The blacktop feels hard and hot against the soles of my feet. I look down to discover that I’m not wearing shoes. My feet flash as they pound the road, my skin pure white in the bright sunshine. I hold my hand up and it’s the same, so white I have to narrow my eyes against the glare of it. I can feel my skin starting to redden in the fierce sun and know that I need to get out of this desert, away from this sun and the thing on the road behind me. I fix on a rise in the road, feeling if I can reach it then I will be safe, that the way ahead will be clearer.

      The wind blows hard, bringing the smell of smoke again and smothering all other scents like a poisonous blanket. Sweat starts to soak my shirt and the dark grey material of my jacket. I should take it off, cool myself down a little, but the thicker material is giving me protection from the burning sun so I turn the collar up instead and keep on running. One step then another – forward and away, forward and away – asking myself questions between each step – Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? – repeating each one until something starts to take shape in the blankness of my empty mind. An answer. A name.

      ‘James Coronado.’ I say it aloud in a gasp of breath before it is lost again and pain sears into my left shoulder.

      My voice comes as a surprise to me, soft and strange and unfamiliar, but the name does not. I recognize it and say it again – James Coronado, James Coronado – over and over, hoping the name might be mine and might drag more about who I am from my silent memory. But the more I say it, the more distant it becomes until I’m certain the name is not mine. It feels apart from me though still connected in some way, as if I have made a promise to this man, one that I am bound to keep.

      I reach the crest of the road and a new section of desert comes into view. In the distance I see a road sign, and beyond that, a town, spreading like a dark stain across the lower slopes of a range of red mountains.

      I raise my hand to shield my eyes so I might read the name on the sign, but it is too far away and heat blurs the words. There is movement on the road, way off at the edge of town.

      Vehicles.

      Heading this way. Red and blue lights flashing on their roofs.

      The wail of sirens mingles with the roar of the smoke-filled wind and I feel trapped between the two. I look to my right and consider leaving the road and heading out into the desert. A new smell reaches me, drifting from somewhere out in the wilderness, something that seems more familiar to me than all the other things. It is the smell of something dead and rotting, lying somewhere out of sight, sunbaked and fetid and caramel-sweet, like a premonition of what will befall me if I stray from the road.

      Sirens in front of me, death either side, and behind me, what?

      I have to know.

      I