by S Williams
Daisy pulled neck of her T-shirt, exposing her shoulder.
Jay gasped.
The number ‘5’ was scarified into her flesh, the scar a livid piece of knotted burn tissue. It was old and white, the skin red around it. Jay had no idea how much it must have hurt. How much Daisy must have screamed while the music played in her head, separating her.
Watching Daisy was like watching time shattering. Like watching the ghost of a little girl in a woman’s body. Everything seemed to be coalescing into a singularity of pain and loss.
Although you can’t lose something you never had, thought Jay, feeling the tears that slugged down her face, heavy and full. ‘Changed?’ she whispered. ‘How were you changed?’
She didn’t want to know, but she had to ask. She owed Daisy that.
‘Into the Mermaid. There was a procedure. A becoming.’
Daisy put the finishing touches to her drawing, the line and the hook.
‘It was…’ Daisy paused in her work, looking up and to her left, as if searching for the right word or phrase. ‘Unintelligible to me as a child. I know what it was now, of course. But back then… I don’t know. I suppose I shattered; put myself in pieces. Tried to make everything work by making nothing real. When they did what they did to me. The physical things. I tried to pretend they were monsters. And that made it better. Because if I thought they were real people, the people I was with all the time, then I would have had no hope. No escape. So it was better if they were monsters. If they let me wear the headphones it was like I was on a ship.’
Jay felt a stab of pain and looked down at her hands. She was amazed to see that she had been clenching so hard that she had drawn blood. Perfect crescents of pierced skin on the mound of her thumb.
‘Oh, Daisy,’ whispered Jay again, so quietly that it caught in her throat. Never made it into the room. She tried again.
‘Where was your mother? Why didn’t she stop it?’
‘My mother?’ Daisy’s face was a poppy field. Everything was dead and remembered at the same time.
‘My mother was the one with the power. She was the one who controlled it all. I think I’ll never stop dying, inside, from what she did to me. What she’s still doing to me.’
Jay opened her arms, and Daisy fell into them, finally allowing the tears to come. Jay stroked her hair, feeling the woman’s body break against her, like a tide that had been held back for far too long.
After what seemed an age, the crying slowed, and Jay laid her down on her bed. She felt so tired. Why did she feel so tired all of a sudden? Her friend needed her and she could barely keep her eyes open. She supposed it was the emotional release.
She lay down next to Daisy and stroked her hair.
‘It’s all right. I’m going to look after you now. It’s going to be all right.’
The last thing Jay heard as she fell unconscious was Daisy’s voice, soaked in sleep.
‘Jay? When you came back in. Did you remember to lock the door?’
27
23rd October: Later
Daisy woke up wrong. She was sprawled on her mattress, shivering and light-headed. At least she supposed it was her mattress; her memories were flags, fluttering in the wind. She kept her eyes closed, trying to listen to the ticking of her apartment; work out what was off-kilter. Tried to remember what had happened before she went to sleep.
She bit her lip, tasting salt and lemons. The residue of evaporated tears and confessions. The air was thick; a storm yet to happen. There was a high smell of old pennies, a smell that tugged at her, triggering alarm bells in her brain. In her body. Fight or flight. She could feel the material of her boxers and T-shirt sticking to her skin with cold sweat.
Daisy opened her eyes.
The room was dark, with a wash of red and blue light metronomically illuminating the wall. The images she’d drawn the previous day on the whiteboard seemed to appear, then disappear, as the light stuttered; a sped-up lighthouse of warning.
Daisy felt wrong, dislocated like she’d been mind-mugged, or someone had climbed inside her head and used it for a funhouse. She tried to concentrate.
Jay.
Somewhere deep in the apartment complex, Daisy heard the faint sound of a buzzer, signalling a door opening. The mattress beneath her felt damp. Damp and cold and a million miles away from where she wanted to be. There was a weight on her back. Limp and still and warm.
Jay, she remembered. She’d lain down next to her. Protected her. Tried to make her feel safe.
Daisy could feel Jay’s arm on her side. Her hand circling her waist. The trickle of liquid sliding from the fingers and across her belly, following the line of her boxers. Daisy held her own hand in front of her face. Even in the strange repeating light, she could tell. Even in the fug of her mind.
It was covered in blood.
Daisy felt like her head was full of insects. Stuffed full. Overfull. So full they were creating pressure, but there was nowhere to go. All they could do was click and buzz. Gently, Daisy reached round and down and lifted Jay’s arm off her. There was no resistance. Daisy got up. As she separated from the bed there was a slight ripping sound; the skin unsticking from the sheet. Daisy stayed staring straight ahead, not letting the fear-spiders out of her head. She concentrated on counting.
Breaths. The revolution of the red and blue light. The sound of steps being climbed from the lobby.
Jay’s phone was by the side of the mattress, its screen glowing.
‘Jay?’ The word sounded like it came from someone else. It was faltering and hopeless and didn’t sound like a question. The smartphone’s glow seemed, somehow, to be all she could concentrate on. She looked at the words on the small screen. It was a text conversation to the emergency services.
my name is daisy and they’re going to kill me.
Daisy’s face crinkled in confusion as she read her name.
not just me. the policewoman. Jay
Policewoman? Daisy’s head hurt. She couldn’t turn around. See what was on the bed behind her.
999: we have a fix on you. If you are in danger please find a secure place to hide
* * *
so much blood. where can I hide?
* * *
999: somewhere safe. Can you state your name?
* * *
daisy. please come. I think she is dead
* * *
999: who? What is the emergency?
* * *
I don’t think she’s breathing
* * *
999: is there someone with you? Are you in danger?
* * *
you need to come. now. fast
* * *
999: what is your emergency?
Daisy let the phone fall from her hand. She didn’t hear the sound it made when it hit the wooden floor. The buzzing was too loud. Too loud but also far away. She turned around, twisting her upper body so she could see the bed behind her. See Jay. Daisy’s breath caught, and she blinked slowly.
Jay was a horror film. Her hair was stuck to her face in strands. Stuck by blood, Daisy guessed. Some liquid that should be inside the body, not outside. Her face was swollen. Her clothes were soaked in rust. Except it wasn’t rust. One of her legs seemed to be at a strange angle.
‘Jay,’ Daisy whispered. She didn’t cry. She was pretty sure she had no tears left. She just stared at Jay’s ruined body.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. In the back of her mind, she heard the pattern of the building. The people outside. She felt disembodied. Someone who could only watch events. Not control. Not change. She looked on as her hand reached forward. Stroked the face of her friend. Gentle, gentle strokes, brushing the sticky hair from her face. Jay’s mouth was slightly open, with a span of saliva across the entrance, like the skin of a drum. As Daisy watched, the skin rose, became concave, then popped.
Daisy stopped stroking. Blinked. Felt the flesh beneath her hand.
Warm.
Saw the cuts around Jay’s neck.
> Bleeding. Still bleeding.
Watched as the bubble of saliva formed, then again popped.
Breathing.
Alive.
Daisy stared at her.
Red. Blue. Black. Red. Blue. Black. The light washed over the wall like a tide. She leant forward and kissed Jay’s hand.
‘I’ll be back,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be back for you.’
And then she grabbed her clothes from the floor and ran.
When the emergency services kicked the door in, five minutes later, they found Jay beaten but alive. Outside, through the open window, the storm finally broke, and the skies started screaming water onto the concrete pavement.
28
3rd November
Joseph pulled the phone out of his pocket and pressed the green button, putting the device to his ear.
‘Good morning, Professor Skinner, can I help you? Oh, Mark! How are you?’ Joseph held the phone away from his ear and covered the mouthpiece. ‘It’s my son, Mark. I won’t be a moment.’
Slane smiled and nodded, but didn’t get up to give him privacy. Collins stood and went to talk with Grant. Joseph continued with his phone call.
‘Where are you? Are you studying hard?’ He listened to the answer. ‘That’s great. Well, I’ve been tied up here too, but I haven’t forgotten.’ He glanced at his watch and frowned. ‘No, of course I’ll make it! Calm down, Mark, I’m only…’ Joseph looked at Slane and whispered, ‘City centre?’
She held up one hand, fingers splayed. Joseph nodded his thanks. ‘Five minutes away. Once the cut is done I’ll get the barber to take a picture and send it to you as proof, okay?’
Joseph smiled and nodded. ‘Right. I’ve got to go, Mark, but we’ll meet up for tea later. Say six, tonight? Great. See you later. I love you.’
Joseph ended the call, frowning at the screen as he did so.
‘Hardly any charge left.’ He turned to the detectives. ‘Look, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go. Mark…’ Joseph paused, his expression clearly trying to work out how to put into words the importance of making the appointment.
‘It’s okay, Joseph. Grant will drive you there, and then meet you after, and bring you back. That is if you wish to. There’s no obligation.’
‘You still haven’t told me what you want. Presumably you have this poor girl, Daisy, under surveillance?’
‘We did, but then she half-killed our operative and absconded,’ said Slane. ‘Now we have no idea where she is.’
Joseph looked at the officers.
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Sadly not. Thus far she has put two people in hospital – a police officer and a therapist – and two people in the morgue. Daisy is a bomb, professor. The Fishermen shaped and primed her years ago, and now she’s gone off.’
‘Like a sleeper,’ he mused.
‘Exactly. And what we need you to do is retro engineer her.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘We need to find her, Joseph, urgently. And to do that we need to understand her. We need someone to take all the information we have and convert it into a map. A way of decoding where she might be. What she might do.’
‘If you want the job, that is,’ chimed in Collins.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Joseph said. ‘You’re basically giving me the opportunity of my academic career! To study a product of The Fishermen…’
‘Plus the chance to help save a young person from doing more damage,’ reminded Slane.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Joseph. ‘And you can get all the data together for when I come back? Where Daisy has been visiting? The towns she was in beforehand? What she looked up in the internet cafés? Everything you can about her “becoming”?’
Grant had already donned his jacket and was holding Joseph’s coat open. Joseph nodded in thanks.
‘It will all be waiting for you, along with a complete psychological profile of the officer. We think they may have developed a bond. We think Daisy may in fact still be in touch.’
‘Really? What does he say about it? The officer?’
Slane smiled thinly. ‘She. And she’s not saying very much at the moment. We’ll explain it all when you come back. We’ve booked you into the Nesser Hotel for two nights. If it takes longer then we will extend, of course.’
‘And you’ll pay my consultancy fee? I’m sorry I have to ask, but I’ll have to get Hilda to cancel my engagements.’
Slane waved her hand dismissively. ‘If you give Grant your details it will be in your bank account by the time you return.’
Joseph nodded. ‘Great. Then I’m in.’
Slane watched as the two men left. Once the door had closed she turned to Collins. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think he’s an arsehole.’ Collins sipped his drink, swallowed and grimaced. ‘But then, academics always are.’
‘Yes, but what do you think, with regard to us?’
Collins looked at her and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. ‘I think he’ll do nicely.’
Slane nodded. ‘Yes. But I still got Grant to slip a tracker in Skinner’s coat. I want to make sure he does what he says he’s doing. Autistic son or not; the information we fed him should set him on fire.’
Collins shrugged. ‘Grant needed to go in anyhow. It’s odd we haven’t heard back from Lawrence. Fielding looked in the tattooist’s, but no go. She’s gone to the flat, to see if he left a message there.’
‘Let’s hope he’s found her. Found them both. Then we can put an end to this fuck-up.’
Collins smiled. ‘Amen to that.’
Joseph sat in the front passenger seat, next to Grant. If anything, the rain was harder now, the windscreen wipers metronoming their journey into Leeds city centre. Joseph casually looked at the streets as they drove past.
‘How long have you worked with the unit?’ Joseph asked the driver, making conversation.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Grant kept his dead eyes on the road; he didn’t sound sorry at all. ‘I’m not permitted to discuss the case, or any aspects of the investigation. That includes operational structures and personnel.’
‘Right,’ said Joseph, blinking. ‘That’s me told then.’ He pulled his phone out of his jacket. ‘I’ll just let Mark know that – damn!’ The phone was dead, completely out of charge. He shook it, as if that might make it work. ‘Bugger.’ He turned slightly toward the driver. ‘I don’t suppose I could borrow yours, could I?’
‘Sorry. For work use, I’m afraid. All our calls are logged and checked.’
Joseph sighed. ‘Fair enough.’
They spent the last few minutes of the drive in silence. When eventually they pulled up outside of the Corn Exchange, Joseph said, ‘Shall I meet you back here in an hour? Or if you give me the address of the incident building I could get a taxi.’
Grant shook his head. ‘I’ll meet you here. One hour long enough?’
Joseph smiled sadly and patted his hair. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is. There isn’t much to cut, these days.’ Joseph unbuckled the seat belt and opened the door. Unlike the rear, the front door had a handle on the inside. He hauled himself out. Just before shutting the door, he paused, then bent down to address the detective. ‘I might nip into the market.’ He pointed at the indoor market across the road. ‘I was in there early this morning; there was one of those phone kiosks. Do you think they might stock chargers that would fit my phone?’
The driver shrugged. ‘No idea, sir.’
‘Worth a try. See you back here in an hour.’ He shut the door and watched as the car pulled away and drove along Duncan Street, in the direction of the Corn Exchange. Joseph stayed watching a moment, then crossed the road and entered the narrow alley of Central Arcade, heading for King Koby’s hair salon. As he did, he took his phone out of his pocket. He flipped the power button, turning the device on. Despite what he had said to the officer, it still had some life. He dialled a number.
‘It’s me,’ he said when it was answered.
‘Of
course it’s fucking you. Who else would it be?’ said the agitated voice on the other end.
Joseph smiled. ‘You know you swear too much?’
‘No I don’t. I swear just the right amount. What do you think of Slane?’
Joseph’s smile slipped off his face as the image of the little girl being burnt flicked across his vision.
‘I think you’re right. She’s as evil as they come.’
* * *
End of Part One
Part II
Jay
29
25th October
‘Jay? Jay, are you awake?’
The voice was weak but insistent… like it came from far away but was running fast. It created an itch in her head like someone was scratching her brain. Jay decided to ignore it and burrowed deeper into sleep.
‘Jay. Can she hear me?’ Louder this time. ‘You said she should be coming round. Are you sure she can hear me?’
‘There’s no physical reason why not. The injuries are severe, but none should affect her hearing.’
This voice was different. Jay liked it. There was a warmth to it, and a certainty that was reassuring. A man’s voice. Nurse? Doctor?