A Step Into The Dark

by Vince Vogel

  “You shouldn’t hurt him!” she cried out, running to her stricken boyfriend.

  Jack stopped and took a step back as she took Renton in her arms.

  “He’s not how you think,” she cried at Jack. “He’s sensitive. That’s why he gets so angry.”

  Jack muttered an apology and left through the front door, making his way hurriedly to his car. When he was sitting behind the wheel, he threw his head into his hands and groaned loudly, filling the car with it. He’d been so very, very stupid.

  33

  They were already there when Jack got home. A police car waiting in his driveway.

  “Sorry about this, sir,” the female constable said to him as he stepped inside his kitchen where she and a male colleague were sitting with Jean around the table.

  “They said you’ve been involved in an assault,” Jean said. She was biting her lip.

  “I lost my rag a bit,” Jack replied. “You gonna arrest me?”

  “Not yet. Would you like to sit down and we can chat about it first?”

  Jack took a seat with them at the table. Renton had probably called them before Jack had even driven away. He’d expected it. Now he sat down and the constables explained everything. Renton had been to hospital and demanded X-rays. Those didn’t turn up any bone damage, but he did suffer contusions to his face and abdomen, along with a cut lip. They took a statement from Jack where he told them the truth. Renton had hold of his shirt and had taunted him. They took photos of the rips to his collar. Jack explained that he’d essentially made the mistake of falling for the bait. He hit Renton several times in anger. The whole time he spoke, Jean watched him from across the table with sad eyes, occasionally shaking her head.

  “Okay,” the WPC said at the end of his statement. “That fits roughly with what Mr. Williams said. However, I’m afraid I’ll have to charge you. You do not…”

  They didn’t cuff him and allowed him to get into the back of the car by himself. He was driven to a local police station, where he was fingerprinted, swabbed and interviewed under caution. In the end, he was bailed to appear before court for ABH (actual bodily harm) in one month’s time.

  “It’ll probably end in a fine, sir,” the constable said when she led Jack out of the police station. “These things usually do.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered back to her.

  She offered him a lift home, but he turned it down. He walked off down the pavement. It was still bright even though it was early evening, the yellow clouds filling the blue sky. He walked along with one constant thought in his head: you fucking idiot.

  That thought filled his hollowed-out brain and he felt utterly sick of himself. Sick that he’d even gone to see Renton Williams. He should have saved himself for it. Got a little more on the man before he went and met him. He’d allowed himself to go there angry. Allowed himself to be wound up.

  It was sure to cost him dreadfully.

  When he reached the bus stop, he kept going. The first pub he came to, he slinked in through its doors. It was full to the rafters with noisy people, filled with the clink and dirge of glass and chatter. Jack squeezed himself through the crowd and ordered two triple scotches at the bar. They were quickly dispatched and he made it through the throng to a beer garden out back. Finding another thick crowd out there, Jack pushed through until he found the largely abandoned end of a wooden table in one corner. He took a place at its loneliest spot, sitting under some hanging plant that was in need of care, and there he smoked and drank, gazing forward into himself. Occasionally, people sat down nearby and asked him things. In an echo of a voice, he did his best to cut them dead, and so they merely shrugged and went back to chatting with their friends, leaving the miserable old sod alone. Only when he went back to the bar to fetch more triple scotches was Jack animated.

  As the night wore on and the moon and stars replaced the sun and clouds, Jack thawed a little and felt in need of company. He began chatting with the youths that hung around his table. But he was very drunk and a little too old and bitter to be good company. Often he found himself saying sad things, opening up a little too much and spoiling the jovial mood that surrounded him. He felt like the ancient mariner; stopping one in three.

  Eventually, he got up one last time when the bell rang for last orders. He didn't bother ordering one for the road. Merely shuffled out of there and into the dark street. It felt cold. The heat and sunshine of earlier had been swept away and replaced with a bitter chill.

  While he walked along, the street waving and wobbling in front of him, he switched his phone back on. Over twenty messages and missed calls from Jean. He ignored them. They’d only upset him more. What he did notice, however, was a missed call from a certain number. He instantly dialed it up.

  “About fucking time,” he spluttered when the man answered. “What you got?”

  “The game is at Rectory Road, Hammersmith. But they won’t let you in.”

  “I’ve got money.”

  “Not enough, Mr. Sheridan.”

  “Just send me the address.”

  34

  They had to swing by Jack’s before they went further. Thankfully, Jean was in the living room watching the television on high volume. With the taxi waiting down the road, Jack snuck through his back gate and crept along the pathway to his shed at the end of the garden.

  Inside, he carefully moved things about until he came to a locked, metal box tucked in a dusty corner. Opening it, he took out ten thousand pounds in cash. There was more than thirty in there. In case of emergencies, he’d always told himself. Was this one?

  Jack shook his head and grabbed up the rest of the thirty grand, stuffing all of it into his pockets. May as well take it all, he thought.

  Next, he took a long tool bag and carried it out of there. For several seconds he stood and gazed up at Tyler’s window. Jean had already put him to bed, so the light was off with the Arsenal curtains drawn across the pane. Jack sighed before moving off.

  Without alerting Jean, he snuck back to the taxi with the money and the tool bag and the car ventured off into the city. The whole way, Jack sat in the back with his knee jogging up and down, an impatient energy flowing through him. All his fear was numbed by the booze. All his worries gone. He was focused on only one thing. To feel God again. Have Him prove Himself to Jack through His protection. To know he was still favored by something higher than the filth and iniquity that surrounded him.

  See, something had happened to him all those months ago when he’d played that game. For the first time in his life, Jack had felt himself truly blessed. Sensed God or something divine at that moment when he thought he would die. When the gun barrel was resting upon his forehead. During that split second when his fate was completely out of his hands. It was as though an angel were looking out for him. Stopping the spinning cylinder on an empty chamber with an invisible finger. He’d felt it ever so slightly at other times in his life—that divinity—when he’d been spared from the jaws of death or when a piece of evidence fell into his lap during a case. But never had it felt so strong as when that revolver clicked. Never had he felt as though an invisible hand was guiding things. Saving him for something.

  But the feeling had subsequently died. Over the months, the blessing faded. The feelings of worth wilted and perished. Though Dr. Holby explained it in his way, Jack couldn’t help seeing it in his own. To him, there was only one way to cure him. Through playing the game again. If he survived it one more time, then he was sure he’d be able to let it go. If only he could feel God again at his side. Not feel alone and hollow.

  The cab made it into a collection of abandoned buildings.

  “You sure this is where you wanna go, boss?” the cabbie called into the back.

  “Just keep driving. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  They drove on until Jack saw a red brick building with boarded up windows loom into view. It was stuffed behind a tall security fence and looked like it hadn’t bee
n inhabited for some time. It was a water pump station that had found itself abandoned after years of service, but still had access to the sewer below.

  They parked and Jack handed the driver a hundred pounds in twenties.

  “Keep the change,” he said as he got out.

  “Cheers, boss.”

  Jack stood on the pavement and watched the cab disappear around a corner. He then turned to the fence and began walking along it until he found what he wanted. A gate. Dropping the tool bag on the ground, he kneeled down and opened it. A pair of bolt cutters. He took them and with some effort cut through the thick chain that secured the gate.

  He must have alerted them immediately, because the moment he pushed the gate open, a large man in a bomber jacket came bounding towards him from the building.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” he called out.

  Jack got the wad of cash from his pocket and waved it in the man’s face.

  “I wanna play.”

  The man narrowed his eyes at Jack and then at the cash.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  “Jim. I just wanna play once. I’ll pay my way in.”

  “You gonna pay for the gate too?”

  “I got cash and I’m willing to play. How many people come to you wanting to play, huh? Come armed with their own buy in?”

  “How much you holding?”

  “Ten grand in cash.”

  “Huh! Not enough. You’ll need at least thirty.”

  Jack dipped his hand back in and pulled out everything he had. Some of it fell on the ground and he was quick to gather it up. The man eyed his movements. It was clear that Jack was drunk. His radio crackled and he spoke into it, his voice nothing but a hiss that Jack couldn’t make out.

  A door in the building opened and another man walked out.

  “No. Fuck off,” he said immediately, pointing at Jack. “It’s him,” he added to his colleague and the other man stepped towards Jack. “We told you. You’re banned,” the other man went on. “No good. Harry Dunn will kill us if you get in.”

  “Just one game,” Jack pleaded as he stood holding the money.

  The first man grabbed the gate and went to close it on Jack, but the latter stepped forward and dashed through the gap. The two men took on aggrieved faces.

  “Don’t fuck about,” the one closest said. “Thirty million won’t get you into this game. Harry Dunn has given us strict instructions to keep you out even if we have to kick your ass.”

  “He doesn’t have to know.”

  “He’s got eyes everywhere. Even on you.”

  “Let me play.”

  In his drunken stupor, with little other option, Jack made a run for the door. They caught him before he’d even reached halfway. He dropped the cash as one of them took hold of him from behind. He swung around to land a punch, but found thin air. The night turned rapidly upside down, the moon nosediving to the earth. Jack landed on his head. He spotted a leg and grabbed onto it, pulled himself along the dirt to it and bit into a calf.

  “Agh! Mother fucker!” the man who’s leg it was cried out.

  After that, it all got a little frantic, punches and kicks laying into Jack, and it wasn’t long before he’d let go completely and was sinking into the ground and out of consciousness.

  35

  Jean was awoken for the second night in a row with someone rummaging around downstairs. She got out of bed, threw her nightgown on, and went trepidatiously down to see.

  She found the lights were all off and the sound was coming from the lounge.

  “Hello?” she called into the darkness as she stood at the foot of the stairs.

  There was no answer except the continued sounds of someone going through cabinet drawers. Her trepidation grew when she spotted the silver light of the moon shining into the hallway through the half open front door. Trotting across the pattern of the carpet, she checked and saw a set of keys hanging out.

  Taking them, she closed the front door and went off to the lounge. The door there was ajar but she couldn’t see inside because of the dark. Opening it gently, she switched the light on.

  Kneeling down in front of a cabinet with the doors wide open and all the contents scattered about the room was Jack. A hand went over Jean’s mouth as she spotted the dried blood caked down the side of his face and the dirty and ragged state of his clothing. He looked to be frantically going through everything, even though he must have been practically blind in the dark. She looked around the rest of the room. All the drawers and cabinets were open. Everything lay on the floor.

  “Jack, love,” she said gently.

  She expected him to be asleep, this to be another sleepwalking episode. But when he turned to her, his eyes were already open.

  “Where is it?” he said in a pleading voice.

  She shuddered when she saw the cut above his black eye. It was almost closed over.

  “What’re you talking about, love?”

  “The gun.”

  He looked at her as though she should know.

  “Where’ve you been? We’ve been really worried. Your phone’s been off.”

  He continued to gaze across the room at her with a look of fraught pleading.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I think I was at the pub and then I was in a taxi. Then I came back. I walked. I had to find the gun.”

  “What’s that in your pockets?”

  She was referring to the crumbled fifty-pound notes poking out of his jacket pocket. He turned sharply to them and made a face as though it were the first time he’d seen the money.

  He looked back up at her with tears in his eyes.

  “I don’t feel well, Jean,” he half sobbed.

  After that, she picked him up and took him upstairs to the bathroom. She tended to his wounds and washed him down. The whole time, he sat in the bath, staring into space. He stank of booze and it wasn’t the first time he’d come home in a state these past six months. The death of his friend Jimmy had torn something out of Jack and Jean wanted to know why. Why had this man—a man Jack had only ever mentioned a few times to her over the years she’d known him—had such an effect on him?

  “I saw Jimmy die,” Jack suddenly muttered as she placed some butterfly stitches over his eye.

  “You what?”

  “I saw him put a gun to his head and blow his brains out.”

  “You said someone shot him over drugs.”

  “Huh!” Jack grunted. “It was easier than the truth.”

  She cut the end of the stitches and began setting down the next.

  “Then what is the truth?” she asked as she did.

  “The truth is that I was led to an underground Russian roulette game.”

  “You mean where blokes put bullets in guns and then place the gun to their head?”

  “Yeah. I found it and was made to play.”

  She frowned at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. They caught me there and forced me to play against Jimmy. Forced me to hold a gun against his head while he held one to me. In the end, Jimmy snatched the gun and got the bullet. He saved my life by ending his own.”

  “But what’s that got to do with tonight?”

  He looked into her eyes. There was such innocence in her. Such warmth. She would have made a brilliant mother, he couldn’t help thinking for the countless time while staring into her.

  “I went back,” he eventually told her.

  Her mouth shot open and she gazed at him, tears welling from her eyes.

  “You silly bugger!” she said, throwing her arms around him and holding him tight. “Silly bugger!”

  DAY THREE

  36

  Alice had fallen asleep on the couch again. In fact, she could count on the fingers of one hand how many times she’d slept in her bed in the last month.

  Stretching her arms and yawning, she wandered over to the kitchenette and made herself a coffee. Taking it back to the couch, she sat and flipped
open her laptop. On the screen was a digital copy of one of the letters found in Robert Kline’s possession.

  The actual letters were with Lambeth, but she’d had them scan them all and convert them to digital copies before sending them to her. She’d then spent the night going over them until around four—she couldn’t recall the last time she’d looked at the clock before passing out. Most of them were nothing. They spoke of literally nothing but the demented mind of a killer.

  I often drive through the city for no other reason than to cruise. I watch all the people walking about and they remind me of rabbits. Rabbits walking about a dark forest with no idea the danger they’re in. The other day two young girls stopped me at a junction. They were only around fourteen. They stuck their heads in my window and asked me to take them somewhere. Just like that. I almost flipped. But it was too open. In the middle of the city during the day time. People around. Cameras. I would have risked too much. I told them they shouldn’t talk to strangers and drove off.

  That was how most of it was. Stories that revealed no more than he had a car and liked to drive. Lived in the city, though he never mentioned it by name. There was over five hundred pages of it. Having scanned the letters, Lambeth tech unit had looked for words like ‘death’ and ‘kill’ using a computer search engine. But the guy was too subtle. He never mentioned anything directly. Just like the letter about the boy and the ball, there was no explicit mention of kills.

  Alice had skimmed over most of the letters, power reading her way through. It had been not long before she passed out when she finally found something of worth. A description of a kill. And not just any kill. One that hinted at being his very first.