Chernobyl’s Revenge

VIII

Kreves woke up again, but this time it wasn’t because of the strange dream he’d had. This time, it was because someone was relentlessly ringing his doorbell. He got up and glanced at the clock on the wooden nightstand to the left of his bed. Five in the morning. Who on earth would be ringing his doorbell at five in the morning? If it were an emergency at the station, they would have called him. For a moment, Kreves thought it might be the killer, but he dismissed the idea. If it were the killer they were hunting, he wouldn’t bother ringing the doorbell.

He walked to the front door, looked through the peephole, and saw his parents on the other side. Both of them looked worried and were very pale. His mother was the one impatiently ringing the bell. Kreves unlocked the latch and opened the door to let them in.

“Mother, Father, can you tell me why on earth you’re ringing my doorbell at five in the morning?” Kreves asked, clearly annoyed. After all, this was the only day off he’d had since the murders began.

His mother, Alexa Lockwood, was the first to speak. She was a woman whose years had taken their toll. Despite being only 58, all her hair was white, her face was lined with wrinkles, and she was petite, standing perhaps only 1.55 meters tall. Her teeth were completely yellowed from her tobacco addiction.

“Kreves, we’re so lucky we found you. We went to the police station first, but they told us you were here. Your father and I… we have to tell you something.”

Kreves noticed how nervous his mother seemed—an unusual sight. Whenever he thought of Alexa, he remembered a sharp and confident woman. Now, before him stood a woman whose hands and voice trembled. She avoided meeting his eyes, glancing around the room instead. If their gazes happened to meet, Alexa immediately looked away.

“We need you to listen carefully. Don’t jump to conclusions, and I hope you can understand our reasons,” his father said. Although he was also quite nervous, he wasn’t as evasive as his mother.

Kreves looked at his father, Benjamin Lockwood. In his time, he had been a well-known and admired politician. Now… he was an old man of 74, with a sad expression, dull eyes, deep wrinkles across his face and body, and a cane in his right hand to support himself. Perhaps this was the price he paid for living with Alexa nearly his entire life.

His parents—who hadn’t visited him in almost five years—were now standing in his apartment. Kreves said nothing. He gestured with his left hand for them to go to the living room. Meanwhile, he turned on the lights in the house and boiled water to make tea. He brought the cups to the table and sat across from his parents, ready to listen to whatever they had to say.

Those two figures, people he hadn’t seen in so long—people who hadn’t supported his entrance into the academy, who had withdrawn all help and left him adrift during his studies—were now here.

“Kreves, we need to tell you something very serious, and we’re only doing this because we have a very important reason,” his mother said with a sigh. “We know about the killer in London, and we think we understand his motives for the murders he’s been committing.”

“Of course you know about the killer. He—” Kreves said sarcastically, but his father interrupted him.

“Please, don’t interrupt us. You’ll understand everything once we’ve finished speaking. I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive us. What we did was many years ago, and we only did it because we needed to protect you. It was a different time; the entire world was in crisis, and we thought it was the best decision.”

“For you to fully understand, we have to explain who your real parents were.”

And as if Kreves’s prayers had finally been answered, that night would reveal one of the many truths he had longed for.