After giving his initial account, Aleister waited patiently in his car for Sean to finish his own appraisal of the situation and for the police to get necessary photographs taken. Occasionally he saw the older man glance back towards him, his bushy eyebrows furrowing as his police officers gave him new details. He looked a lot older than when Aleister had last seen him, not only due to the colour of his greying hair. How old was he now, sixty three, sixty four? He'd lost track of the time since they'd stopped speaking. Now the man's face was drawn and pinched, with deep set lines of age and fatigue under his hair, which was swept back to hide his encroaching baldness. His moustache was thick but neatly trimmed, showing that he still took some small pride in his appearance. There was another plain clothes detective with him, someone who must have joined the town’s police force a while after he had left it as he didn’t recognise her face. She was quite young – maybe late twenties – but was directing the officers around her with an assured confidence. She was quite tall and rangy, certainly taller than Sean, although that could have been due to Sean’s seeming to shrink as he got older, although he never stooped. She looked to be mixed race, with her hair cut short into a tight afro, and was wearing a stylish pant suit complemented by a pair of functional yet fashionable glasses. She went into the house one or two times with Sean and every time they re-emerged to direct the ambulance and forensic crews (who were summoned after the first sweep of the house) their expressions were a little more severe.
Sean wouldn’t be happy that he had touched the computer and smeared the blood stains but he was confident that a slap on the wrist would be the extent of the punishment. After all, he was a civilian now and a self-employed one at that, not subject to any reprimands except those he gave himself. The theft of evidence from a crime scene was another matter, but Aleister was confident that he’d never be found out on that account. He’d secreted the USB stick under his seat just in case he was searched though. He just hoped he’d got the only copy of the file that mentioned his name. If she’d backed it up somewhere else or under a different name then he’d be on the back foot a little until he found out what the file actually contained.
Eventually Sean started to purposefully walk over to the car, rubbing his hands in the cold. The sky was for the most part cloudless now, so the air had retained its chill. Even Aleister was feeling it, with his breath visible in front of his face as he tapped his hands on the steering wheel impatiently.
Sean stopped next to the door and tapped a knuckle on the glass. Aleister wound down the window, readying himself for the figurative wagging finger of a disappointed parent, just wanting to get it out of the way so he could continue his own investigation. Instead he saw that Sean’s complexion was very pallid and his hand which was balanced on the top of the car door was almost shaking.
“We have to take you in for questioning,” he said, chewing his lip afterwards as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Why?” asked Aleister, slightly taken aback. “I have an alibi for last night and this morning, I had breakfast with my daughter. I couldn’t have been here when they were killed, I told you, and I’ve got emails on my computer from when I discussed the investigation of her husband last night.”
“They’ve been dead for two days, and we have no idea how they died.”
Aleister didn’t know what to say, grasping for words as he stared out of the car at the house, as if an answer would appear if he just looked hard enough.
“But that’s... no, she emailed me yesterday, she asked me to come over... and I saw...” he started, before opening the door quickly as the urge to verify his own memories took over. Sean stood aside as the door flew towards him and reached for Aleister’s arm as he scrambled out of the car and started sprinting as fast as he could towards the house.
“Don’t you dare go in there again!” shouted Sean, whilst signalling for two of the police officers comparing notes outside to grab Aleister as he barrelled towards them.
“The blood, it was fresh, I saw it,” grunted Aleister as the two officers threw their arms around him and dug their heels in, though the huge man still managed to drag them forwards, pushing the farmhouse’s front door inwards with sheer brute force. The body of Lucas lay still and almost peacefully on the stretcher inside, dried blood caked over his lips. There was no large blood stain on the floor, only more of the pockmarks, randomly dotted around the doorway.
“Don’t be an idiot,” said Sean, catching up with Aleister as another hacking cough made him hunch his shoulders as it shook his body. “It’s just questioning. Don’t make this worse, I don’t want to charge you with interfering in a police investigation.”
Aleister nodded, breathing deeply to try and calm himself down, although his heart still thumped madly in his ears.
“All right,” he said, gently pulling himself free of the two policemen. They let him go as he turned away from the doorway. Sean nodded towards Aleister's hatchback, obviously trying to diffuse the situation a little, even though his eyes still showed the same cold sickness. Was it the nature of the murders that was disturbing him, or the fact that Aleister was mixed up in it somehow? Both facts were leaving a bitter taste in Aleister's mouth, though a lack of support from Sean was an extra complication that he didn't need, even if it was understandable, given the way they had left things...
He spotted the female detective break off from a conversation with another officer by the Webbs' cars and approach him.
“Mr. Ward, I'm Detective Inspector Eve Francis. If you'll come with me, we'll drive you to the station and get this over with as soon as possible.”
Aleister looked towards his car, the USB stick his only concern at this juncture.
“Can't I take my own car?” he asked, trying to seem nonchalant.
“It's usual in these situations-”
“Go ahead Al,” said Sean, pulling his coat more tightly around his shoulders. “You can give me a lift back. Eve will get started on the questions after she's finished here,” he added by way of explanation as Eve gave him a look of mild annoyance.
The journey to the station was undertaken in silence for the most part, with Aleister grinding his teeth in thought as the winter blanched countryside gave way to the sprawl of suburbia. Part of him knew he should have been going over his movements of the last couple of days in his head, working out who he could rely on for alibis, yet all he could think about was that house, the dead... the emails. Someone was toying with him...
“You missed the turning,” said Sean as they drove past the town library, which was housed in a centuries old chapel that had long ago lost its congregation. It stood near enough at the centre of Wyldston, joined up to a community centre that had been built onto the back of the imposing structure, although its plain red brickwork didn't complement the older building's regal aesthetic.
“Sorry, I must be on automatic pilot. I always head this way to get home. One minute...”
Aleister cut across town behind The Plaza, an upper class shopping haven that always seemed for the most part empty, even this close to Christmas, yet still obviously made enough money to survive due to the cost of its exclusive items. They came out at the large main road that circled most of the town centre, which was surprisingly quiet for the time of day as it was approaching lunch time. Aleister carefully manoeuvred across three lanes and headed off onto the road that led to the main police station, situated just on the edge of town.
As they neared the police station they passed the gates of the Kaspar Rehabilitation Clinic that sat looking out over Wyldston from its position on “The Knuckle”, a small but strangely symmetrical hill that stood on the west side of the town. Nothing like a bit of elevation to give rich fuckers a view that they were bettering themselves by paying thousands to get off the drugs that they had knowingly addled their bodies with for years. It was a new lease of life as they looked out over the rest of humanity, who were still scrabbling around in their own problems. Ironically whenever he had spotted any patients
in the clinic grounds it had always been from afar and their black silhouettes had reminded him of ants crawling around on an ant hill...
Aleister felt the urge to break the silence, if only to pull his own thoughts away from that house.
“How's Iris?” he asked carefully.
“Same as always,” came the gruff reply. Sean had never been the most talkative, but they had built up a rapport at one time that Aleister still looked back on fondly.
“Does she still do those watercolours out by the lake?”
“Embroidery now, she... her legs bother her at times,” replied Sean, still staring resolutely out of the window.
“Well, tell her I asked after her,” said Aleister.
“I'll do nothing of the sort,” said Sean bitterly, turning to Aleister with the iron gaze that he had so come to fear and respect during their time working together. Aleister knew why the old man was angry but he had hoped that enough time had passed. Wasn't that why Sean had agreed to come in the car, to talk things through?
“I know she still blames me for what happened...” started Aleister.
“Just let this lie, for God's sake,” said Sean, gripping his own leg with a bony hand, obviously trying to contain his own anger.
“I thought you might want to discuss what happened,” said Aleister, trying to remain civil in the face of the other man's irritation.
“Well I didn't, and I don't. I don't want to hear any of your excuses, I've heard them all before.”
“I never hit her, not once,” said Aleister, feeling his own anger starting to seethe.
“No, no...” said Sean carefully, his voice shaking with rising emotion. “You let your words do all the damage, then you just sat in that chair in a drunken daze as she slowly went out of her mind...”
“Fuck you, old man. You have no idea what I was going through. She was my wife,” shouted Aleister, aggressively turning the wheel and pulling the car over next to the wall that encircled the clinic, causing an oncoming van to swerve to avoid him. They sat there for a few tension filled moments as Aleister stared ahead without even registering what he was looking at, starting to nervously rub his neck whilst trying to keep himself from hitting Sean in his wretched judgemental features. He could hear the old man's breathing, deep and aggressive. Eventually Sean spoke, his voice low and carrying a disturbing air of menace.
“You weren't the only one to see Temple’s victims,” said Sean, leaning in towards Aleister. The man’s breath was hot on his cheek, pulling him back...
The door slammed shut and the latch came down, plunging him into darkness. He'd only had the briefest chance to see them before the light was gone but it was enough to make him yell involuntarily. Contorting, pallid limbs were interwoven with each other through stitch and rusting metal braces, heads screamed and gnashed, bleeding as they bit each other, long ago driven mad by the vile conditions in the manor house's wine cellar, converted into a nightmare dungeon of torment and twisted worship. They were no danger to him now that their torturer was unconscious at his hand and were even curious in their own way, fascinated to have something new to play with...
Aleister's reply was no longer fuelled by anger but a paralysing terror that gripped him so tightly that part of him wished that he could simply have a heart attack and be done with it all.
“You only saw them for a few minutes in the cold light of day... but I had six hours. Six hours in the dark, in their blood and their shit as they moved and moaned and cried for help, grasping and clawing at me. You may have seen them but I felt them, I felt their pain as their little hands clutched at my skin...”
“I know,” said Sean, his voice sounding more distant. “I still remember your face when I found you. You shouldn't have gone in there alone. This isn't about you though, it's about Lucy... you could have, or we could have... I thought the world of her you know. She was so beautiful...” He was staring up at the sky, his eyes red. “My only daughter.”
Aleister didn't reply. Of course it was easier to simply think of Sean as his ex-partner, rather than father-in-law, or Holly's grandfather. He sometimes wondered if Holly ever spoke about him behind his back, further tarnishing the man's view of him, if such a feat was possible.
“Just drive,” finished Sean, sitting back in his seat. “It's all done.”
Dead. Grasp, slip, flee, escape.
The water rushed around it, diminishing it, reducing it to that which it once was.
Water, rush, home, search, home.
The stream widened, the water flowed. The man stood nearby, catching fish with rod and reel, oblivious to what has moved against him, clung to his leg, and started to climb...
Flesh. Screams. Warm. Red. Home.
December 6th
Shred - Cuts of Flesh #1 Page 4