by Wes Markin
You wouldn’t think it, looking at Rosset’s body language. ‘Go on.’
‘Asking me to look for police reports around Weeton has struck gold. An elderly farmer, Andrew Campey, made a complaint regarding trespassers on his land. In a wooded area just south of his farm.’
‘Who were the trespassers?’
‘Don’t know, sir, because it was never investigated! Campey regularly complained to the police about children trespassing. It was never followed up on.’
‘Okay … but I’m assuming Campey took a look himself? If anything serious had gone on in that patch of woods, we’d surely know about it by now.’
‘Not necessarily, sir. Campey died of a heart attack that evening. No wonder it was never investigated. Why bother?’
Yorke felt his heart rate increase. ‘Who lives there now?’
‘No one. The property has been left to his son, Dom Campey, but is standing there vacant.’
‘Okay, Paul, I don’t want you to abandon the plan. I want you to continue to Coventry. That interview with Helen Brislane must go ahead. Ask an officer to contact Campey’s son and have him meet me, and your officer, at his father’s farmhouse. Do you know how far away his son is?’
‘Less than an hour out.’
‘Fantastic. Tell him it’s important, and that we want to take a look on his land regarding an old complaint. Don’t give him any more than that.’
‘I won’t do.’
‘Please text me the address. I’ll head straight there.’
After the phone call, Rosset raised his eyebrow again. ‘Still unconnected?’
‘I think so, but I have a lead that I must check out.’
‘Good. I’ll tag along so you can fill me in on absolutely everything. I trust you Mike. I understand why you don’t want to clutter my investigation, but you know, as well as I do, that no matter how valid an opinion is, one is never enough.’
Eddie could feel Alan in his head. Not just the gentle music of his voice, which coaxed him further and further in the darkness, but his whole being, holding his hand, encouraging him down into the dark heart of the memory.
They were in Eddie’s parents’ bedroom. The curtains were drawn, and the room was dimly lit by bedside lamps.
Absent from school due to sickness, twelve-year-old Eddie stood at a full-length mirror, dressed in his mother’s underwear.
Eddie turned to look at Alan beside him. ‘News to you, isn’t it? Obviously you knew my life was a lie, but you didn’t know to what extent, did you?’
He turned back to look at his younger self, modelling his mother’s black lingerie.
‘Saskia,’ the boy said, turning side on, narrowing his eyes, trying to look seductive. ‘My name is Saskia.’
Eddie approached so he could stand behind his younger self. He wanted to feel again this happiness. This total freedom. Long before he’d built a solid wall around himself which could absorb the fiercest of blows. He wanted to touch himself but knew this wasn’t possible.
‘It’s only a visualisation,’ Alan had told him.
Eddie watched his younger self head to the dressing table, spray himself with perfume and then rustle around in the make-up drawer. After he found the red lipstick, he leaned into the mirror and started to apply it. ‘Beautiful,’ he said to his reflection.
‘What the fucking hell are you doing?’
Both Eddies, young and old, turned.
It was his father. A man that Eddie had both feared and loved as a child. A self-proclaimed traditional man. A man who worked hard for his family but expected respect in return. A man with values so outmoded that he socialised only with people with the same values so he was never called out on his bigotry.
The mean man’s eyes were wide as he stalked into the room. ‘What’re you wearing?’
Eddie was between the boy and his father. He should have been blocking his younger self’s view of the twisted old prick, but as he wasn’t actually there, that didn’t happen.
‘Mum’s clothes,’ the boy said.
‘I can see that. Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
His father approached. Eddie tried to stop him. It was useless. His father passed through him as if he were an apparition and, when he turned, the old bastard already had his younger self by the shoulder.
‘What’s that on your face?’
‘Lipstick.’
‘Why?’
The boy was starting to cry now. ‘I don’t know.’ His voice was cracking.
Eddie started forward. ‘Take your fucking hands off him!’
His father yanked the boy’s head back by the hair and swept his feet out from under him with his foot. While down on his knees, his father kept tight hold of his hair, forcing him to continue staring up at him.
Eddie turned to Alan, who was watching from the back of the room. ‘Okay … I’ve had enough … bring me out … I’ve had enough!’
Alan nodded forwards, gesturing for Eddie to turn and watch the end.
‘Wind the lipstick out, son. All of it.’ His father said.
While crying, and begging to be released, the boy wound the red lipstick out. It was clearly a new stick and was still of reasonable length.
‘Now put it on,’ his father said.
‘It’s already—’
‘Put it on!’
The boy painted his lips again.
‘Carry on!’ His father said, still pulling on his hair.
‘I don’t understand—’
‘Carry on, paint your whole fucking face!’
‘Dad—’
‘Your … whole … fucking … face.’
Eddie watched his younger self draw lines of red up and down his cheeks.
‘Your head too.’
The boy scribbled on his forehead.
‘Is that the best you can do? A little faggot like you can do better than that.’
The father snatched the lipstick from his son. With his grip still tight on the boy’s hair, the bastard pressed the lipstick hard against his head. He continued where the boy had left off, and drew thick red lines across his forehead, up and down his cheeks, and over his chin.
Then he did it again. Harder this time. The lipstick started to buckle, causing thick splodges of red wax to break off on his face.
Eddie’s younger self was squealing, and was trying to pull away, but his father’s grip on his hair was too strong.
Once his father had worn the lipstick down to the holder, he threw it to one side, and placed the palm of his hand on his son’s face. He started to rub aggressively. ‘You want to wear make-up, gay lord, you wear it. All over your fucking face.’
When his father released his son, his entire face glowed red. He wept uncontrollably.
‘Good, cry. Wash it the fuck off. And never let me see anything like that again.’
His father stormed out. Eddie stared at his younger self for a moment before turning and glaring at Alan.
‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’
‘This is your memory, Eddie.’
‘So … it means little. After this, I vowed never to talk to the old wanker again. Yes, it’s hard when you live in the same house, but he died a year later in the streets fighting with a rival football fan. Not surprising really. He lived his life aggressively and died the same way. I made my peace with him at his gravestone a year or so back. Told him I forgave him his ignorance. I told him I understood what it was like to live in a world that value appearance over substance. I know now why he didn’t want this for me. He wanted me to appear the right way, wanted to spare me labels and criticism.’
‘So you’ve accepted this experience already?’
‘Yes. So whatever this is, this visualisation, it’s a waste of your fucking time.’
‘On the contrary, it is anything but. We’re now ready to move forward.’
For many years, the Conduit had believed that the special bond he’d experienced with his former student, Christian Severance,
was an enigma that could never be found again.
Alan Sants had just proven him wrong.
In fact, this relationship was far stronger. It had taken the Conduit much longer with Severance to lead him down the right pathway and when the fireworks finally did go off, and go off they did, he’d still had some doubts about him. Severance had been driven, and tenacious, but he was also torn. He wanted revenge on those that had wronged him, but he did not believe in collateral damage. He still held on to some broken belief in innocence.
Alan was different. He was just as driven, and as tenacious, but there was no sign of him being torn. Alan knew exactly what he wanted. For the first time in his life he had a purpose, and nothing would stand in his way.
His cool and methodical execution of Mickey was nothing short of genius.
He’d not asked for the Conduit’s help, nor had he needed any help. His plan, so far, had moved with perfection. To know that Eddie McLarney would scurry here like a rat from a sinking ship … the confidence! The audacity!
It’d taken time and effort to prep the fireworks with Severance. With Alan, he’d merely lit the fuse!
His new student ended the visualisation, and Eddie slumped backwards, twitching and dribbling.
Alan turned to look at him. ‘He said he’d accepted it.’
‘I know. I heard.’
‘So, now what do I do?’
‘Now you must make a choice.’
‘Go on.’
‘About how you wish to heal him.’
‘I want to alleviate his suffering, make him healthy again.’
‘Too obvious. To be healthy is merely the absence of disease, and to feel good. What do you think will make young Eddie feel good? What is his disease?’
‘The mask he wears. The face he shows to the world. It’s not really him.’
‘So, now you know what you have to do. His acceptance is no good if it makes him persevere with his disguise … his false veneer. Turn his acceptance to rejection. Make the darkness in that memory destructive again. You can do that, Alan. Easily. Because this is the point that he is poised delicately between clarity and disarray. The sweet spot.’
‘Yes,’ Alan said, widening his eyes. ‘And when he reaches his lowest point, I’ll make him take off the mask.’
‘Bravo!’
13
OVER THE YEARS, Yorke’s investigations had taken him to his fair share of farmyards, but he’d never been to one that dealt exclusively in pumpkins before. He was rather disappointed that there wasn’t a single pumpkin to be seen. Not because of the sheet of snow that covered everything, but because the seeds had needed to be sown in April and Andrew Campey had been dead since February.
‘Dad did well for himself.’ Dom Campey zipped up his waterproof. After a groggy start, the snowfall was having a mid-morning burst of energy.
‘Pumpkins sell well around Halloween, I imagine,’ Rosset said.
‘Understatement,’ Campey said, ‘but, I was in no fit state to sow. What happened to Dad hit me hard. Now, I’m just planning to sell the place and move on. My own business is doing well enough.’
‘Glad to hear it. What do you do?’ Yorke said.
‘Carpet fitting.’
Yorke, Rosset, Campey and the two officers Breaker had sent, trudged through the snow. Despite the heavy snowfall, the sun was bright, and the bare land around them glowed white. Yorke was reminded of the vastness of Antarctica on the nature documentaries he so often watched. The idyllic illusion was quickly eroded when they sighted the skeletal trees that blotted the landscape.
There was a short blast of wind. The travellers hugged themselves. When it had passed, Yorke said, ‘So, Mr Campey, your father regularly complained about trespassers?’
‘You can’t see it,’ Campey said, pointing west, ‘But there’s a small, winding dirt track alongside our property that’s large enough for a small vehicle to get down. The entrance to the track is overgrown so not many passersby give it a second thought. If you follow that track, it leads into the woodland ahead, makes it about half-way in, and then is blocked off by a fallen tree. Local teenagers drive in there, and smoke dope. From the house, you can often see the headlights on the track and in the woodland. My father used to phone the police. Twice the little pillocks were collared, and twice they got off with a warning! Then, the kids got savvy, and stopped putting on their headlights.’
Yorke nodded, thought for a moment, and then said, ‘So, on the day in question, when your father made the complaint, how did he spot the trespassers if there were no headlights?’
‘There were in that instance. My father phoned me before …’ he paused and sighed, ‘his heart attack. He said he’d seen headlights.’
‘Yes, but it was daytime, why would any trespasser have headlights on?’ Rosset said from the other side of Campey.
‘On a gloomy day, it can get quite dim in those woods. Whoever the trespassers were, they put the headlights on when they got among the trees. So, I suspected these must have been a different set of kids, not the savvy ones.’
‘Did you never think to go and have a look, see what had bothered your father?’ Rosset said.
‘Why would I have done that? My thoughts weren’t with teenagers getting high in the wood. They were with my father, who I’d just lost. When it did cross my mind a few days later, I had no reason to assume they were still there, did I?’
‘We understand,’ Yorke said, ‘And we are sorry for your loss.’
They entered the woodland. It was indeed gloomy. Lack of foliage ensured that most of the snow fall still penetrated. Yorke felt the cold sting on his face. He tightened the hood on his ski jacket.
Campey walked ahead of the four officers. He was heading in a diagonal direction, cutting deeper into the heart of the woodland. They clambered over several fallen branches. Rosset slipped at one point, but one of Breaker’s officers was there to catch him before he fell.
‘Around here,’ Campey said, swooping around some icy brambles. ‘You’re now on the dirt road. When the trees were planted, they obviously wanted to leave this free for wagons and whatnot. Not uncommon.’
‘Where’s the fallen tree that blocks off the road?’ Yorke said.
‘Not far at all. A minute or two this way. Spent most of my childhood in this wood. Keep an eye out. You might see my name carved into some trees.’
There was a build-up of snow on the path, but nothing like what they’d trudged through earlier on the field. Yorke looked up at the twisted branches along the sides of that path. They weaved into each other forming a monstrous cobweb. But with cobwebs, you’d expect spiders, flies … life.
This place was dead.
As a university student, Yorke had discovered Brandon, his best friend, murdered. In that moment, a cold sensation had started up in his neck, and spread, furiously, all over his body. He’d once described it to Patricia. ‘It’s as if something’s freezing your soul.’
Whenever Yorke encountered death, the cold flared. He’d learned to both fear it and trust it as a signal as to what was to come.
It flared now. He already knew his neck was covered by his zipped-up ski jacket, but he checked anyway.
The dirt track curved sharply, and ahead was the fallen tree, and next to that, a white Audi TT. The registration plate was too dirty to read, but Yorke already knew it would be Robert Brislane’s. This was the car that ANPR had picked up. It would also be the car in which Robert had met his end.
He didn’t need the cold in his neck to tell him that.
‘Looks like I should have come earlier,’ Campey said.
They approached cautiously.
‘Mike, do you think your man is inside?’ Rosset said.
‘I don’t know,’ Yorke said. ‘If he was out in the open, the teenagers using this spot since February would have phoned it in anonymously.’
‘Wouldn’t they have phoned in an abandoned vehicle anyway?’ One of Breaker’s officers asked.
Yorke and R
osset were both surprised by the naivety of the question. It was Campey that answered it. ‘If you think that, you don’t know teenagers these days …’
Rosset smiled. ‘The teenagers who came in obviously weren’t law-abiding, but let’s not tarnish them all with the same brush. I have one at home actually.’
Uninterested in the dialogue, Yorke moved ahead. He circled the abandoned Audi. All of the windows were smashed and the tyres were flat. ‘It looks like the teenagers had some fun with it,’ he called back.
Yorke went around to the boot, pulled some gloves from his pocket and put them on. He tried to open it. Locked.
Rosset came up alongside him.
Yorke pointed out some red staining on the white surface by the rear registration. He turned back to the officers. ‘Get a team out here. He’s in the boot of the car.’
The start of the visualisation remained the same.
Eddie watched the confused boy admire himself in his mother’s lingerie. ‘Saskia … my name is Saskia.’
After his father came into the room and smothered the face of his younger self with lipstick, Eddie turned back to Alan. ‘It was for the best. My father was helping me. My tears now will have protected me for years to come.’
Alan nodded for him to turn back.
Eddie sighed, turned and watched the vile show again. Even though he knew exactly how it evolved, he still flinched throughout.
‘You want to wear make-up, gay lord, you wear it. All over your fucking face,’ his father said, covering boy’s face in makeup and then releasing him.
This is different, Eddie thought. Where’re my tears?
His younger self turned to the dresser table behind him, reached into a packet of make-up wipes and grabbed a handful. ‘I will wear make-up, Dad, but I’ll wear it how I want to,’ the boy turned back, ‘and not all over my fucking face.’ He started to wipe it off.
Eddie smiled. You tell him, fella!
His father’s eyes widened.
The boy continued to wipe. ‘I don’t want you to call me your son anymore. I’m your daughter—’
His father slapped him hard across the face. He stumbled backwards. The dressing table stopped him from going over.