by Wes Markin
Alan stroked its head. It stirred, opened its eyes and nuzzled his hand.
‘Mark likes you, Alan.’
Mark licked the back of his hand. Alan pulled it away in disgust.
‘Don’t think of Mark as human anymore, Alan. He’s not. Now, come back to the office with me. I wanted to show Mark to you as a warning. This is the only option if you do not displace the darkness within yourself and you become consumed by it …’
Now, these many months later, having grown attached to Mark, Alan was eager to give him his present. He opened his backpack and presented the gift to Harris.
‘You best open it for him, doctor,’ Alan said. ‘He’ll chew through the plastic inside and make himself ill.’
Harris unwrapped the present. He smiled. ‘He’ll love it, Alan. He really will! Where on earth did you get it?’
11
AFTER SPEAKING TO Rosset again, Yorke lay back on his hotel bed. He sighed. Although the news regarding Bernard Driggs’ phone had been predictable, it didn’t make it any less disappointing.
Mayers had used a burner to send the messages that activated Bernard. That phone would be lying at the bottom of a river somewhere no doubt.
The messages had verified Yorke’s theory that Mayers would have used Bernard’s experience in the Falklands war to indoctrinate him. Both messages referred to 1982, the year of the conflict, and the second message made reference to the fact that he’d now been ‘healed.’
Yorke was also fairly confident in the second theory he’d presented to Rosset. That once you were ‘healed’, you became expendable. He suspected there was something in the second text message that made suicide seem preferable than heading straight to the police station to identify Mayers as a psychological puppeteer.
He would have shared the disappearances of both Topham and Brislane with Rosset at this point, if not for the phone call he’d received earlier from Breaker.
In contrast to Rosset’s update, Breaker’s update was unpredictable and anything but disappointing.
Dr Moss’ retired secretary had pulled out an old diary, which she’d ‘always used as a back-up’ to the computerised diaries she didn’t trust. eli had a full schedule that day, but there had been no mention of an appointment with Helen Brislane. Both Helen and Moss were being picked up for further interrogation. Yorke told Breaker he’d be waiting by the phone on ‘tenterhooks.’ Breaker, probably under pain of death from his superiors following the Madden grilling, promised not to let him down.
The investigation was moving rapidly under Breaker, and Yorke didn’t want to crush it under the weight of Rosset’s army unless it hit a dead end.
He phoned Patricia. It was great to hear her voice. He still felt painfully guilty, and when she asked him how he was feeling after his long drive, he welcomed her thoughtfulness like a soothing balm.
‘Never mind me,’ Yorke said. ‘Has the sofa survived the first twenty-four hours with Rosie the dog?’
‘She treats it better than you do, Mike. She’s not spilt any tea on it yet.’
Yorke laughed. ‘How are the engaged couple?’
‘Getting in some practice and behaving like a married couple already. Bickering one minute, cuddling on the couch the next.’
‘Well, tell them to take after us, and weight it more towards the cuddling.’
‘So, you’ve come around to the idea?’
‘It was hardly an idea was it! We were just told it was happening!’
‘True. But they need our support and, with our support, we can ensure it goes properly. Well, as properly as it can do when you’re still a teenager!’
‘By properly do you mean an extremely long engagement, with church lessons, and a vow of celibacy before the wedding night?’
Patricia laughed. ‘Beatrice would make a nice bridesmaid though …’
They talked for a while. It was only near the end of the conversation that Patricia asked for an update on the search for Topham. He didn’t say much, simply because there wasn’t much to say at this time.
After the conversation, Yorke closed his eyes for a moment. He realised how exhausted he was from the journey up here, so he sat up straight before he fell asleep.
He texted Gardner. ‘Burger and a pint?’
She texted back. ‘Already eating a processed burger, and swilling some Northern swamp juice.’
Yorke texted back. ‘Sold. See you downstairs in five.’
Eddie McLarney was a pretender.
He’d spent most of his life faking it, but right now at University, he was having to dig deeper than ever before. Keeping up appearances with the rugby boys required a whole new level of focus.
At first, he hadn’t minded the theatre. The drinking, the misogyny, the fighting. He could manage this part of the act, and actually took some pleasure at being so adept at performing.
But recent months had taken their toll. This wasn’t who he really was. Behaving in such an aggressive and obnoxious manner for so long had made this persona his default. He struggled to behave in any other way.
He feared his life after University. Did the role he currently occupy exist outside of this University bubble? And if it didn’t, would he be able to break free of the default?
He doubted it. Simply because he’d failed to be himself with Alan, and he’d really started to like the strange boy.
The problem was that when you’d pretended for as long as Eddie had, switching off that vile tap was near impossible; it had rusted open, and aggression and hatred gushed out.
He indicated to turn off into the row of garages adjacent to his shared house. It was only when he was parallel to his own, and had climbed out to open it, did he see that the garage door was ajar.
There was no chance he’d left it open when he’d taken the car out last night. He just didn’t do that. He checked and double-checked every door he ever closed and locked. He was the only one who owned a vehicle, so he didn’t suppose anyone else from the house had been in there; unless they were seeking out one of the tins of dried-up paint. Someone must have broken in.
Well, if it was a joyrider they’d been bang out of luck, because Eddie had the car. However, it could be a squatter …
Eddie went back to the boot of his car and rustled around in his junk for a tyre iron.
Then, he went back to the garage, knelt, grabbed the edge of the open door, took a deep breath and pulled it up.
He felt scared but wasn’t about to show any fear.
He was the great pretender, after all.
Alan nodded down at the gift in Harris’ hands. ‘I got it last night.’
‘Where from?’
Alan smiled. ‘Earlier in the evening, I watched Eddie type his security number into his phone. I put one of my sleeping pills in his beer so after he was asleep, I knew he wouldn’t wake. Then, I texted his best friend, Mickey.’
Harris grinned. ‘Didn’t I say the fire was with you? Always with you, never with them … what next? Come on, be quick, Mark has noticed his gift and is looking eager. What happened with that bully, Mickey?’
Alan took a deep breath through his nostrils and knelt beside Mark. He stroked his pitted head and allowed the dog to lick his hand. Months before, it had repulsed him; now, he welcomed it. ‘I pretended to be Eddie and told him to meet me in his garage in twenty minutes. I told him I’d scored some weed. That we should smoke it in the garage, before the rest of them got stuck into it.’
‘That easy, eh?’ Harris had placed the gift for Mark down on the table and was rubbing his upper lip. Alan had noticed him doing this before; it often happened when the doctor’s adrenaline was up. It was as if he was playing with a moustache.
‘Yes. He even opened the garage for me when I got there.’ Alan rubbed the back of Mark’s neck. The dog closed his eyes.
‘Did he recognise you?’
‘I turned the headlights onto full beam. He couldn’t see anything.’
Harris clapped. ‘Bravo! And then?’
> Eddie put his hand to his nose. It didn’t help. There was shit and blood, and the rich combination seeped into his pores. Someone was dead. You didn’t need to be a fucking Crime Scene Investigator to work that one out.
He didn’t bother reaching for a switch. There was no lightbulb. He’d left his car running outside. Although the headlights weren’t pointing directly into the garage, they offered something.
His eyes fell to the pile of flattened cardboard boxes at the end of the garage beneath the empty shelves that had once held pots of paint. These pots had been lifted down and used to weight down the corners of the boxes.
Readying the tyre iron, he edged towards the boxes. The smell of shit intensified, but he didn’t cover his mouth again. He wanted both hands on the tyre iron.
For all his bravado, Eddie felt like crying. He wanted to run from the garage and call the police. But this moment, this horrendous moment, was kind of like a test. Could he maintain the veneer that he’d spent so many years building around himself?
To run now would bring that all crumbling down. It would expose the queer within.
It was much darker at the back of the garage, but he could see well enough to know that a body lay beneath the cardboard boxes. They were sodden with blood.
An argument between two squatters that went wrong?
He would have liked to believe that, but when he moved his eyes along to the end of the boxes, he recognised the trainers that poked out from the bottom.
Mickey’s.
Harris reached for the empty salad bowl on the dining room table. ‘So Mickey never saw you at all?’
‘Oh he did, but not until the very end.’
Harris used a cheese knife to slit through the layers of cling film that Alan had wrapped Mark’s gift in. The smell was pungent. It brought Mark up on all fours, straining against his chain.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘He waved and shouted at me to turn the full beam off, but he still backed into the garage to allow me in. I checked both ways to ensure that no one was coming. There wasn’t, so I edged the car slowly forwards. Only when I had the entrance completely blocked, did I switch to normal headlights. At first, he was still squinting, but when his eyes had recovered enough to see who’d paid him a visit, his face dropped.’
‘I bet it did.’ Harris held the gift over the salad bowl and pressing on the back of the plastic. The slimy, jellied matter started to slip loose.
‘Once I’d given him long enough to realise that I was the fire, and he was the smoke, I drove forward. I didn’t drive fast, because I wanted to return it to Eddie without too much damage, so I pressed him against the back wall, and kept my foot on the pedal until I crushed the life out of him.’
‘Are you sure no one came past?’ Harris hacked at the contents of the salad bowl with the cheese knife. Mark started to whine.
‘No begging, dog!’
Mark stopped.
‘Are you sure you weren’t seen?’ Harris said.
‘Yes. I reversed slightly, and let him slide to the floor. I left the headlights on, but turned the engine off. I did my research, and was as careful as I could be. I put on a protective suit, overshoes, a shower cap, a facemask, you name it. I felt like I was in a sealed container. Only then, did I get out of the car and close the garage door.’
‘What made you decide to do what you did next?’
‘For so many years, Dr Harris, I’ve watched these people parade around with a sense of grandeur, desperately trying to reduce anybody who is different, who isn’t playing their game, to nothing. Like you always say, they’re the cowards. They’re the hollow people. We, freaks, although I know you hate the word, are filled with so much substance. They fear us because of our variety, our ability to offer something different to their mundane existences.’
‘And so?’ Harris said, laying down the offal for Mark.
‘And so, Dr Harris, I hollowed him out.’
The great pretender, Eddie McLarney, felt his veneer splinter.
He backed away with one hand to his mouth, and with the other, he threw the cardboard back towards the body, hoping to re-cover it. Unfortunately, it missed its mark, and Eddie was forced to look on Mickey’s mutilated abdomen a moment longer.
His belly had been slit open. One side of his gut had been tugged and torn enough so it hung over his side. The other flap lay loose, but uneven.
Eddie could not tell what Mickey’s killer had done to his insides. It wasn’t good that was for sure. Insides looked messy at the best of times, but Mickey’s looked far too soupy.
He stumbled against the wall, desperate to keep himself upright. He closed his eyes, but it was useless, because Mickey’s broken insides were frozen in his mind.
It was only when he tried to take a desperate, deep breath and gagged that he realised he was currently puking down his front.
After he’d finished throwing up. He reached into his pocket for his mobile phone. He needed to call the police.
‘Good dog,’ Harris said, stroking the back of Mark’s head as he feasted on the offal.
‘I worried Mark would struggle with it,’ Alan said. ‘Some of his guts felt stringy and gristly. I tried my best to scrape away anything too inedible.’
‘I may have taken his balls, but I didn’t take his canine teeth, he’ll be fine. You did a good job, Alan. I might save the stomach for later. He seems content with intestines for the moment. I do worry about repercussions now though. There must have been a lot of blood …’
‘I was careful, doctor. I covered the seats in Eddie’s car with plastic and, when I was done, I undressed carefully inside the car and wrapped everything up in the same plastic. I drove everything to a quiet piece of woodland, burned what I could, and buried the gutting knife.’
‘Impressive, Alan,’ Harris said. ‘But the car was the murder weapon, and even if the damage was minor, there will be traces. What happens when Eddie calls the police?’
Mark growled as he struggled to chew his latest mouthful.
Alan smiled. ‘Eddie won’t call the police.’
While looking down at his phone, and punching in the first nine, Eddie noticed an envelope on the floor beside Mickey’s body. He reached down and picked it up. He felt his spine freeze. Not because the envelope was smudged with blood, but rather because of the name written across the front.
Eddie.
With trembling hands, he slipped a small card out. The message was typed.
I have a video of you and Mr Bowtie fucking. Call the police, and it goes viral.
The breath caught in his throat.
Without really thinking, he screwed up the small card and the envelope and crammed it into his back pocket.
He then stared down at the solitary nine on the phone screen. Right now, he wanted to scream, ‘Fuck you,’ to the world … so what if it knew who he really was?
He pressed the second nine.
Today was the first day of the rest of his life. He pressed the third nine.
He felt tears running down his face. Nothing had ever felt as surreal as his best friend, mutilated on the floor beside him, while he considered releasing himself from the pressure of the never-ending theatre. His finger hovered over the call button.
Press it … press it … it’s time to free yourself …
He put the phone in his pocket.
Yes, the great pretender’s veneer had splintered today, but it wasn’t ready to break.
Alan’s phone started ringing and Harris looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
Alan looked at the caller ID. ‘I know you didn’t want a Christmas present, Dr Harris, so I went and got myself one instead.’
Harris nodded. He felt overwhelmed right now. The boy’s evolution this last few months really was something to behold.
Alan answered the phone. ‘Hello.’ He looked up at Harris. ‘Eddie … what’s wrong? Slow down …’ he smiled. ‘Really? Jesus … call the police …’
Harris looked down a
t Mark who, having wolfed down half of the offal in the salad bowl, had decided to take a nap. He then looked back up at Alan. He was lost for words. Despite what had happened all those years ago with Christian Severance, he’d been given another chance.
First, Mark Topham. Then, Bernard Driggs. And now, Alan Sants.
Although he didn’t believe in a higher power, it was as if someone somewhere wanted him to succeed.
‘I don’t mind, Eddie, you still have to call the police … so it ends up on the internet, so what? Someone is dead …’
Harris carefully wrapped the stomach back in the plastic. He wanted that to be Mark’s treat later.
‘Okay … we can discuss it first … I’m at my doctor’s house. I’ll text you the address. Make sure you close the garage door. You don’t want any children stumbling on that …’
After Alan had rung off, he started to text the address.
‘What are you doing, Alan?’ Harris said. ‘Is that safe?’
‘There is nothing to worry about, Doctor. This is one broken bunny.’ He pressed send and looked back up at Harris, smiling. ‘And I want you to teach me how to fix him.’
‘I quite liked that Northern swamp juice,’ Yorke said, putting down the empty pint. He nodded at Gardner’s half-full pint of bitter. ‘And it clearly grew on you too. What’s that? Your third?’
‘Fourth.’
‘You’re not on holiday you know!’
‘Might as well be for how involved I am in this investigation.’
Yorke rolled his eyes. ‘Number one: you quit. Number two: what part of the investigation are you actually missing out on? I’m sitting here with you, and I’ve filled you in on everything I know.’
‘I’m talking about tomorrow morning when you piss off back to Rosset’s military camp.’
‘Well, what do you want me to do? Go home? You’re the one who wanted me up here.’
Gardner sighed. ‘Sorry, just frustrated. Too many years working alongside you. Just missing it, I guess. Feel like an observer. Nothing better than getting your hands dirty.’