A Gift for Dying

by M. J. Arlidge

  ‘And then I could hear laughter. This horrible, high-pitched laughter …’

  And now for the first time she looked up, as if finally emerging from the horror.

  ‘Poor guy, he died like that,’ she gasped, cradling her face with her hands and staring straight ahead. ‘He died with that terrible laughter ringing in his ears.’

  25

  The remains of Jacob Jones were spread out before her. Aaron Holmes, the burly Chief Pathologist who’d haunted the city morgue for as long as anyone could remember, had arranged the victim’s torso and limbs in their anatomically correct positions, but even so the sight of him struck Gabrielle as deeply perverse and horribly wrong. He was more jigsaw than man now.

  Swallowing down her disgust, she turned her attention to Holmes once more. The gruff, bearded South Sider fielded three, four, five bodies a day and was not prone to emotion or histrionics, outlining his findings in a steady, dispassionate monotone.

  ‘Small stuff first,’ he muttered, pointing to the blotchy torso in front of them. ‘Significant bruising to the torso and also the side of the neck, suggestive of strangulation.’

  ‘Ligature or hand?’ Gabrielle replied evenly.

  ‘Hard to say, but I’d guess your killer had the victim in some kind of hold. The arm would have looped round the neck and then look here …’

  He pointed to a series of evenly spaced purple dots on the victim’s cheek.

  ‘What do they look like to you?’

  Gabrielle moved in closer.

  ‘Judging by their size and spacing, I’d say they were the fingertips of a hand.’

  ‘Exactly. With an arm round the neck, perhaps your killer grasped the victim’s face to get a proper grip. The harder he or she squeezed, the quicker the oxygen supply would be cut off.’

  ‘Why are the fingermarks purple? Is that due to the pressure?’

  Holmes shook his head.

  ‘If you look at them closely, you’ll see the skin is raised slightly, suggesting an allergic reaction. Your killer was probably wearing gloves – there’s no DNA or secretions on the victim – and my guess is that the victim was allergic to whatever they were made of.’

  ‘Leather?’

  ‘Leather, latex, suede … I’ll have to run more tests to know for sure.’

  Gabrielle digested this, then continued:

  ‘Is that what killed him? The strangula—’

  But Holmes was already shaking his head. He gestured to the victim’s blood-caked mouth.

  ‘You can see for yourself that he had his tongue cut out.’

  Gabrielle shuddered as she took in the bloody stump.

  ‘Also, his fingers and toes were severed. From the amount of blood loss, we can tell that these amputations were carried out while the victim was still alive. The general dismemberment – the severing of the arms and legs from the torso – was done after death.’

  Immediately, Gabrielle’s mind was turning. Was the dismemberment designed to aid transportation or for some darker reason? Did this brutal killing have a ritualistic element?

  ‘What actually killed him,’ Aaron persevered, ‘was this.’

  He indicated the long, deep cut that had nearly severed the head from the body. Once more, Gabrielle moved in to get a closer look.

  ‘The larynx has been crushed, the windpipe severed, several major arteries compromised. The blood loss would have been catastrophic, the withdrawal of oxygen complete, so death would have occurred in under a minute.’

  This was one small mercy perhaps, Gabrielle thought to herself. But how much had he suffered before this coup de grâce was delivered?

  ‘How was it done? Was he struck several times or –’

  ‘No, it was one clean chop wound. Like an execution, but from the front.’

  ‘Is it possible …’ Gabrielle hesitated a moment before completing her question. ‘… that a teenager could have inflicted an injury like that? A teenage girl in particular?’

  ‘It’s not impossible,’ Holmes replied calmly. ‘But I’d say it’s unlikely. This was a blow of considerable force. Take into account the span of the fingermarks on the victim’s face and I’d say that it’s odds on your attacker is an adult male.’

  Gabrielle continued to chew on Holmes’ words as she left the morgue clutching his preliminary findings. Wojcek was their only suspect, yet it seemed unlikely that she was responsible for the inhuman brutality meted out to the unfortunate Jacob Jones. She lacked the strength, plus there was no evidence that she could drive, nor that she possessed the experience or guile to carry out such a flawless abduction and murder. She had a possible motive, however, and was clearly involved in some way, which raised an interesting question in Gabrielle’s mind.

  Was it possible that the troubled teen had an accomplice?

  26

  ‘You say you have these experiences daily?’

  Adam had deliberately chosen an uncontroversial question to resume their discussion. After her description of Jones’s ‘death’ Kassie had become agitated and they’d been forced to take a break. Another soda on the balcony had helped, but, none the less, when they returned to their session, Kassie’s legs were pulled up underneath her and she fiddled constantly with her cuffs, her body language screaming anxiety and retreat. Adam knew he would have to proceed carefully if he wasn’t to lose her and had decided to keep his questions general.

  ‘Three or four times a day … on school days. At the weekends, I can keep myself to myself.’

  Adam already had ‘tendency to self-isolate’ scribbled on his pad and he underlined it now.

  ‘And is the … content similar? Do they feel the same?’

  Kassie was already shaking her head.

  ‘The more imminent the death is, the more I feel it. The more painful the death, the more I feel it.’

  ‘So the intensity of the experience varies?’

  ‘Sure. Some people pass away painlessly in their sleep. I barely feel their deaths, especially if they have a long time left. Others get hit by a car, so it’s painful but quick. Others really suffer …’

  Kassie shuddered, before continuing:

  ‘… but they all start the same. I get this … shortness of breath, a dizziness, then it hits me. Afterwards, I feel an emptiness, a hollowness …’

  Despite himself, Adam felt a rush of sympathy for her. Whatever psychosis she was in the grip of, this girl clearly felt surrounded by death. It was a horrible place to find yourself.

  ‘And these memories stay with you?’

  ‘Of course. Though I’d be lying if I said the blow didn’t help …’

  ‘We’ve talked about that,’ Adam replied, keeping his tone friendly.

  ‘I know and I’ve said I’ll do the treatment,’ Kassie moaned. ‘But it’s hard. You don’t know what it’s like …’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t,’ Adam conceded. ‘But I’m worried the drug use might be amplifying your fears, even distorting your perception of ordinary events and situations.’

  Kassie shrugged, but turned away, clearly unhappy with that suggestion.

  ‘Why do you think you experience these episodes?’ Adam continued, keen to give Kassie a chance to lead the conversation.

  ‘It’s difficult to explain.’

  ‘Try.’

  Kassie toyed with the packet of cigarettes in her hand, while she considered how to respond.

  ‘I don’t know if I really understand it, but … it’s like … it’s like we all have a set time on earth and when it’s up, it’s up. I can just sense when that time will be.’

  ‘And you can predict this accurately?’

  ‘To the day.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ve learned to gauge the strength of my reaction,’ Kassie replied, shrugging. ‘How to read what I feel. I never know the exact timings – to the hour, the minute – but I always know what your last day on earth will be.’

  ‘Does that mean that the timing of our death is set in stone then? From
birth, I mean?’

  ‘Yes, probably …’

  Adam noticed Kassie now looked unsettled, uncomfortable even, but he knew he had to keep probing.

  ‘That would suggest that we have no free will, then? That we’re all moving towards a prescribed end?’

  Kassie nodded cautiously.

  ‘It’s like we’re all connected …’ she continued, slowly. ‘That everything that happens, happens for a reason, pushing each of us towards a fixed point.’

  Adam digested this. It couldn’t be true, of course, but it was nevertheless an intriguing and unsettling notion.

  ‘And have any of these … these premonitions not come true? Have they ever been wrong?’

  There was a short pause, before Kassie shook her head.

  ‘Have you ever been tempted to intervene before? Like you did with Jacob? You must have experienced hundreds of these episodes during your lifetime?’

  ‘Once,’ Kassie conceded, reluctantly. ‘I mean there’s not much I can do. I see guys who are going to be shot, stabbed, pretty much every day, but –’

  ‘Tell me about that time,’ Adam prompted.

  Once more a frown gripped Kassie’s face.

  ‘There was this kid … a toddler who used to play in front of our house. I saw him all the time, playing with his sisters, his mom. I knew … I knew he was going to get hit by a car that day, so I tried to grab him, to stop him running out …’

  She lapsed into silence, but Adam made no attempt to fill it.

  ‘Afterwards, some people said I pushed him. That I made it happen. So after that I stopped trying.’

  For the first time, Kassie now looked directly at him. Her expression was one of pure vulnerability, as if she were seeking support, even absolution, from him. Adam smiled sympathetically, made a note, then replied:

  ‘Let’s take a step back now. Can you remember when you first experienced something like this?’

  Immediately, he saw her body tighten.

  ‘Look, Kassie, we can take this as slow or as fast as you want. If you don’t want to answer any of my questions, you don’t have to. It’s not my job to make you feel uncomfortable.’

  He wasn’t as disinterested as this, if he was honest. But they had to proceed on her terms.

  ‘My dad.’

  Two words, soft and quiet, which obviously cost her. Adam flicked back through his notes.

  ‘Your father passed away when you were five?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And were you with him when you experienced these feelings for the first time?

  Kassie suddenly looked very shaky, but managed to respond.

  ‘I was too young to register what I was feeling at first … I was only a baby … but I knew something was wrong. I wouldn’t let him hold me, would never let him look at me …’

  Adam nodded and scribbled ‘Attachment issues? Abuse?’ on his pad.

  ‘And this caused problems? In the family?’

  ‘Of course. He was a good man, a loving man. And it drove my mom nuts, I was always clinging to her skirts.’

  Adam made another quick note, but his eyes never left Kassie.

  ‘What did you feel? What did you see? When he looked at you …’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t breathe. That wasn’t so strange – I often felt that. But with him … it was this horrible, overwhelming pressure. Like there was something pushing down on my chest, crushing the life out of me …’

  Adam’s eyes strayed to his typed notes. In the family context section, it stated: ‘Father deceased, workplace accident.’

  ‘As I got older, I saw it more clearly. A large metal structure falling down on me, just before that awful feeling. Then I knew something bad was going to happen – I tried to stop my dad from going to work, begged him to stay at home with us, but of course we needed the money and Mom just said I was looking for attention.’

  Kassie paused now, anger mingling with her evident distress.

  ‘It was only later, when I saw pictures of the stockyard, that I worked it out. There was this large metal ramp the hogs used to go up to get to the slaughterhouse. They called it the “Bridge of Sighs” – that was what fell on him …’

  Kassie petered out, as if drained by sharing the experience. But Adam felt very alive and awake now, the admission of Kassie processing her experiences through the benefit of hindsight interesting him greatly.

  ‘When your father died, did you understand what had happened? That he was gone?’

  ‘No, I was only five.’

  ‘Did you go to the funeral?’

  ‘I wasn’t allowed …’

  ‘Did your mother try to explain his death to you?’

  ‘Only much later.’

  ‘You must have felt very confused, very sad. One minute your dad was there, and the next …’

  Kassie nodded, the pain obviously still fresh ten years on.

  ‘How do you think it affected you?’

  ‘I don’t know what I was like before it happened … but I guess it made me quiet, reserved maybe. It was just me and Mom in the house.’

  ‘How did you fill your time, distract yourself?’

  ‘I looked at books, I drew a lot, but they didn’t like that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because … my pictures were different from the other kids’.’

  ‘Different how?’

  Kassie paused, exhaled, then continued in a quieter voice:

  ‘More adult …’

  ‘Featuring death?’

  ‘Sure … I drew what came into my head, it helped at first.’

  ‘Do you think you were trying to make sense of the images in your head by reproducing them?’

  ‘Maybe …’

  Adam looked at her, debating whether to continue or not, then said:

  ‘And do you think it’s possible that the images of your father’s death that you saw … were doing the same job?’

  Kassie looked up sharply, confused, but also wary.

  ‘What I mean is … you were clearly very confused by your father’s death. You’d had a difficult relationship with him, but just before he was taken from you, you were getting closer. You hadn’t wanted him to go to work, you’d wanted him to stay with you, but then suddenly he was gone. Of course, that didn’t make sense to you. Why would he leave you like that?’

  Kassie stared at him, saying nothing. But her eyes seemed to be hardening. It was too late to pull out now, however, so Adam continued.

  ‘Perhaps as you came to understand the nature of his death – his accident – you felt some guilt about it. You’d tried to stop him leaving for work but you couldn’t and this was the result. Perhaps you might even have felt you caused his death?’

  ‘No, I never felt that,’ Kassie shot back.

  ‘Not literally, of course. But if you had foreseen his death, but didn’t manage to stop it, then his death would have made sense, wouldn’t it? Something seemingly random, scary and distressing would suddenly have had a kind of logic.’

  ‘You think I’ve made all this shit up? To make myself feel better?’

  Her tone was withering, oozing disappointment and betrayal.

  ‘Not consciously, but the brain often plays tricks on us –’

  ‘So you do think I’m nuts.’

  ‘Of course not, Kassie, but our brains are powerful organs. Their ability to process and reshape information into more palatable forms is well documented –’

  ‘This is pointless.’

  Kassie sprang to her feet, but Adam rose with her.

  ‘Please, Kassie. I’m not belittling what you feel or questioning your honesty,’ Adam continued, reaching out to her.

  ‘Bullshit!’ she hissed, batting his hand away. ‘Do you think I haven’t asked myself these questions? I’ve been talking to shrinks most of my life and every single one of them has their pet theory.’

  ‘This isn’t a game, Kassie. I’m trying to help you –’

  ‘But not one of them ha
s ever tried to just … believe me.’

  Kassie was staring at him, breathing heavily, her disappointment evident.

  ‘Not one.’

  27

  Kassie marched across the grass, fighting back tears. She had been a fool. For one fleeting moment, she’d thought she’d found someone who wouldn’t judge her, who wouldn’t label her, but Adam Brandt was just like all the rest. In his eyes, she was a whack job that needed to be deciphered and medicated.

  ‘Kassie!’

  Kassie turned to see Adam hurrying after her. She had been so caught up in her desire to flee – marching down North Lincoln Avenue and into Lincoln Park – that she hadn’t registered that he was pursuing her. But there he was, cutting a ridiculous figure swathed in a baggy duffel coat, half walking, half running across the grass towards her.

  ‘Kassie, please, wait.’

  She turned and carried on. A softball game was taking place directly in front of her, but beyond that she could see Lake Shore Drive and after that the beach. She was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to be lakeside, to be alone by the water.

  She sped up, ignoring the outraged cries of the elementary school students, as she marched straight through the middle of their game.

  ‘Hey, we’re tryin’ to play a game here.’

  She carried on, quickening her pace further. She was trotting now, but feeling her pursuer bearing down on her, she broke into a jog.

  ‘Kassie!’

  He was closer now. She started to run. If she could just get across Lake Shore Drive, the natural eastern boundary of the park, then maybe he would get the message and give up. She was fifty feet from it, now forty …

  But he didn’t seem to be getting the message. She could hear his footfall behind her, getting closer and closer.

  With a sudden burst of speed, Brandt darted in front of her, blocking her route, just as she was approaching the roadside.

  ‘Kassie, please. Don’t leave like this.’

  He was breathless, but determined.

  ‘The last thing I wanted to do was upset you. Come back to my office. I promise I won’t say a word, I’ll just listen.’

  ‘What’s the point? When you’re not even going to try to understand?’