Stations of the Soul

by Chris Lewando

  He wondered whether his house had been broken into and vandalised. Somehow it was a distant thought, as though it was someone else’s home, and it didn’t really matter. But if it had, it was unlikely his neighbours would have even noticed, unless it affected their own lives in some way.

  Want to speak to the detective, he wrote.

  ‘Which one, dear?’

  The one in charge of the accident.

  ‘Write him a note, and I’ll make sure it’s sent out.’

  The youth he’d seen when he’d been trapped in his car was etched like a photo in his mind’s eye. He’d know that face anywhere. He needed to tell someone, but didn’t know whether the note got to the detective.

  A few days later, he had another thought.

  Want to see the nurse, he wrote.

  ‘Which nurse, dear?’

  He hated it when nurse Catherine called him dear. Old enough to be his mother, and irritatingly efficient, she made him feel dumb, not damaged. Even young, nurse Catherine couldn’t have been pretty. Her face was a roughly moulded doughball, and her hair, mediocre brown, and lank, was now dotted with unkind splodges of grey, more on one side than the other. He felt bad for being annoyed with her.

  Thompson, I think? The one who gave me blood in the ambulance. Want to thank him.

  ‘Oh, you mean her. Sarah Thompson. I heard she did that. Such a pretty girl, and nice with it.’

  He empathised with the rider. Pretty girls could be bitches. Even nurses, who aspired to better things than wiping the arses of the broken and sick, but were making do until they got their real chance at life.

  He was glad Sarah wasn’t a bitch, otherwise he might be dead. He bit back a chuckle. Damn, did that mean he was pleased to be alive? Apparently, they’d nearly lost him in the ambulance, and she, Sarah, he knew now, had rolled up her sleeve, and donated blood, right there and then. He hadn’t known ‘O negative’ was a universal blood type. He knew he was ‘A positive’, because he’d donated every time he could, being the good citizen, never thinking that one day he’d be needing to ask for some of it back.

  ‘I’ll let her know, dear,’ nurse Catherine said, straightening his sheet and plumping the pillow, causing him to wince. ‘I’ll put a note in her box for you. But she’s usually on the twilight shift, so I can’t say when she’d be able to come in.’

  Thanks.

  Despite being able to communicate, at a basic level, he could neither berate anyone for saving his broken body, nor thank anyone for their efforts, because he didn’t want to thank them. He wanted to scream at them. And in other moments he was imagining his house as a squat. He worried about his job, his cat, the car insurance, the food long-rotted in his fridge. It was all taken care of, he was told, but by whom? He couldn’t stop the nagging worries. He mentally tuned out the incessant TV, when they forgot to ask him if he wanted it on, but couldn’t turn off a brain that was in overdrive for lack of anything to do. And when he wasn’t worrying, or being angry at being alive, he felt sorry for himself, because there was no-one alive who cared whether he lived or died. His father had died while he was still small, a stupid accident at work, and his mother had faded away over the years from cancer, leaving him the house and the lonely confusion of a nineteen-year-old. He always hoped marriage and children would fill the empty space in his life, but his experience with Marilyn had made him wary. He’d grown up suddenly at her betrayal, realising she loved his house and potential income more than she loved him. She’d shrugged and moved on when exposed, not caring that she’d torn part of his soul from him.

  But he hadn’t been forgotten by everyone.

  His five peers had been wanting to come for weeks, a nurse told him, and was it OK if they came in now? He grimaced, and wrote ‘No,’ on the pad, but they arrived en-masse one day, leaving him no opportunity to refuse.

  Providing each other with moral support, their excessive ebullience failed to disguise their uniformly shocked expressions. Robin watched Marko’s cheeks drain of blood, before he rushed, without excuse, from the room. He wished they hadn’t come, and knew, by their expressions, that they wished the same. And he saw in their eyes: there but for the grace of God, go I.

  They spouted platitudes, but behind it all lay the knowledge that his absence had created a vacuum these young hopefuls had probably fought over. Three of them dribbled in again, bringing fruit he couldn’t eat, embarrassment on their faces as they chattered away.

  So, who got my job?’ he wrote, eventually.

  ‘Your job will be waiting for you when you get back, of course,’ Jeanette said.

  Of course. It was the law. But their eyes slanted away, and he was pleased they stopped coming. Their embarrassment was painful, as was their pity. He didn’t need it, for he pitied himself more than they could ever know. He knew that his job, by now, would have been given to an upwardly-mobile young person who was not crippled or deformed.

  Chapter 7

  They had made no headway at all on the Stinger Killer Pileup, and there was still one car, with number plates that didn’t make sense, containing the body of an old man who hadn’t been identified or claimed, and that bothered Redwall. Didn’t someone, somewhere, know the old guy was missing? Weren’t there kids, grandkids, neighbours, who would notice something like that?

  His door opened, and Jim’s head swivelled in.

  ‘I’m going to see that chap in hospital.’

  ‘Which chap?’

  ‘Robin Vanger. The one who had his jaw wired up. And everything else, by the looks of him. He’s conscious now.’

  Redwall recalled Robin Vanger. He was a statistic in the amazingly-still-alive group. They had seen him levered from the car, and assumed DOA at the hospital. But he’d obviously been a fighter. Jim was holding the yellow sticky, which had arrived scrawled with a message Jim had somehow been able to decipher. The nurse’s accompanying note had explained that Robin was awake, but not able to speak yet, and gave the ward details. If Vanger was lucid, and wanted to talk to them, they owed him a visit, God knew what he would say, and this long after the pile up, it probably wasn’t much use. There had been no significant break-throughs, and he doubted this was going to be one. His eyes slid towards the collage of images on the incident room wall. It was like something out of a movie, the kind of thing that couldn’t possibly be real. Soon they would remove them, file them, and move on to another case.

  ‘It’s pointless. Send a constable.’

  ‘I want to go myself,’ Jim said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He saw someone suspicious at the scene. He wants to speak to The Man in Charge.’

  ‘That would be me, then.’

  ‘I didn’t want to bother you with it. I’m just tying up a loose end.’

  ‘And he recalls what happened?’

  ‘I assume so, from the note. A youth who glowed.’

  Redwall’s brows rose.

  ‘Remember his car? The one under the cab? It’s bloody amazing he’s alive, never mind with all his faculties.’

  ‘That’s an assumption I’m not sure is correct.’ Redwall was silent for a moment. ‘I’ll come, too,’ he decided, closing the folder and pushing it aside. Here, he was burning tyres, going nowhere. It was a clear, chilly day outside. Getting out of the office would help cool his brain.

  They found Robin in a small, private room. Not because the hospital had one to spare; it was being paid for courtesy of his medical insurance. The kind Redwall had, and hoped never to cash in on. It was hard to keep the shock of distaste from his expression. Vanger’s face was an unrecognisable lump of bumpy flesh, but at least it was no longer encased in the steel halo that looked like an instrument of torture. But the exposed leg made him wince involuntarily. There was a metal brace running from thigh to ankle, with bolts at intervals disappearing into flesh. He’d heard about these things - external fixators? - but had never seen one. He put his hand out. ‘Detective Inspector Redwall. I’m running the investigation.’

  Rob
in shook it, then grabbed the biro, and wrote, Did you find who did it?

  ‘No, but we’re working on it,’ he said dryly, pulling out a chair, and seating himself where Robin could see him. He was used to reading stuff upside down. ‘I understand you saw something that might be of interest to us?’

  It was difficult to tell what the guy was thinking. He prided himself on his ability to read body language, but how do you read the body language of someone who had been through the mill and spat out the other side? It would be hard to know what Vanger had looked like before, but whatever, he’d never look that way again.

  Robin wrote, did you read my note?

  ‘Yes. You saw a guy. After you crashed. He bent down and asked you if you were OK.’

  Robin gave a snort that might have been laughter.

  No! Asked me what it felt like to die.

  ‘Are you certain that’s what he said?’

  Yes. Sure.

  ‘And you can describe him?’

  Young guy. Early twenties, maybe. Very light hair. Not white. Gold with the sun behind. Hazel eyes. Very good-looking. Anyone else see him?’

  He underlined very twice.

  ‘Maybe he was one of the rescue team.’

  Too soon. It was him. He caused it.

  Redwall lifted one brow. ‘You know this, how?’

  Robin paused, pen hanging, as if trying to find the right words, then the pen flew. He was chuffed with himself. Happy. Ecstatic. As if a plan had come together. It was on his face. In his expression. It was him.

  ‘If I sent an artist around with some face recognition software, could you work with her to create an image?’

  Could try.

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  He said, you won’t die yet. As though I was taking too long.

  ‘How would he know that?’

  Exactly. Weird. He said he had to go and experience it – he underscored experience heavily, too – like it was something he was getting a kick out of.

  As they were negotiating the maze of corridors back to Reception, Jim said, ‘Well, what did you make of that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s wishful thinking to suppose he really did see the guy, and that description made him sound like a nutter. In the first note, he said the youth glowed. People don’t glow.’

  ‘Your sex life has never been that good, then?’

  Redwall grinned. His overweight, placid sidekick was no Lothario, either, even though he was younger by twenty years ‘Believe that if you must. But Vanger did himself no favours with that first note. We can’t really believe anything he says. And even though he seemed so sure of himself, he’s probably still under the influence of drugs. Christ, did you see his leg?’

  ‘The nurse said it was crushed; broken in so many places it was touch and go whether they would cut it off. I guess one day he’ll be pleased they didn’t.’

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, it sounds too wacky to be worth following up, but we’d better cover our arses. Get May Norris down here, see what she can get out of him, for what good it will do.’

  ‘I can’t see how he saw anyone at all. I pulled a photo of his car, before they discovered he was still alive. It was pretty much flattened. You can’t even see him in there.’

  ‘I saw the man; I can guess about the car. But take a second look. See if it was even possible for him to be looking out. I think he was hallucinating.’ He waved at the receptionist and walked out, thankfully, into the sunshine. Hospitals were not his most favourite of places; he’d seen the inside of them far too often. And neither of his children had been as lucky as Vanger, though whether Vanger believed that at this time was a different issue. He sensed not just anger behind the man’s eyes, but the whole bundle: fury and a craving for revenge. Hopefully, by the time he could walk again, those sentiments might have been tuned towards a more positive outlook.

  ‘Are there any more nut jobs to see?’ he asked, as they drove off, ‘or shall I get back to sifting through that pile of statements again for something that probably isn’t bloody there?’

  ‘You wanted to come.’

  ‘I know. It cleared the head for a bit. Want a coffee?’ he pointed to a corner cafe. ‘They do those amazing little Danish pastries there.’

  ‘The ones your wife has forbidden you to eat? Yeah, sure. Why not?’

  Chapter 8

  Everyone told Robin how well he was doing, how pleased they were with his progress. He didn’t feel pleased at all. There were many times he wished he’d just died, ended it all there and then, as if he’d had a choice. It was simply too random, too bizarre. Picked up out of his ordered life one fine day, and dumped in a parallel universe, one he was sure he didn’t want to be in. What were the odds? He was good at statistics, and this one annoyed the hell out of him. It was like winning the wrong lottery.

  The details wouldn’t fade. They were burned in his brain. He couldn’t change what had happened, not like sneaking in a crafty figure to change the end result of a profit and loss spreadsheet. The ability to twist figures was what he was paid for.

  Had been, he amended.

  He mentally castigated himself for not stopping in time, for going to work too early, for accepting the new car – anything at all that might have contributed to his being there at that moment in time, as though it had been an unforgivable act, that he’d been remiss in some way.

  And yet, there was some small traitorous spark in the back of his mind that was revelling in his continued existence. It was almost an unacceptable concept that there should be a hollow space on earth where Robin Vanger should be.

  The surgeon arrived again, with his dark suit, a nurse in tow, ticking off points on a clipboard. This time Robin was fully lucid.

  ‘How are you, Mr Vanger? As comfortable as can be expected in the circumstances? Not too much pain?’

  Hunky dory, Robin wrote.

  The surgeon’s brow lifted. ‘Humour. Excellent.’

  He carefully positioned himself where Robin could see him without showing the whites of his eyes, and there was a faint softening of the deep lines that slashed either side of his mouth. ‘You might not be over enamoured of your present circumstances, but we’re very pleased with your progress. You’re coming along nicely. There seems to be no further doubt that your left leg will remain with you. Your jaw is healing nicely, and despite what you think now, speech will return. I’m going to set you up with a speech therapist to get you going.’

  The swellings in Robin’s jaw were diminishing, but speaking was like coming out of the dentist with half the jaw and tongue numb. He sounded drunk or on drugs, his tongue unable to discover space within his reconstructed jaw for the movements it had once known so well.

  The surgeon paused, as if waiting for a response, but Robin glared at him, unable to be grateful. ‘We still have a long way to go, and it’s likely that you’ll be hospitalised for a few months yet, so I’m not going to try to make it sound better than it is, but you should be aware that the prognosis is good. You will walk again.’

  The police facial recognition expert, May, was young, skinny and unassuming. Robin wouldn’t have looked twice at her, before, and was startled at his own self-awareness. Had he been that much of a conceited prat? He had a horrid feeling he had. Her handshake was limp, her voice unmusical, but she was a good person. He startled himself with that thought. How did he know that?

  She explained that the software they were trialling wasn’t the kind that chose ears and noses from a selection, out of context, and joined them together in some kind of Frankensteinian monster, but comprised a series of real faces from which he would gradually pick sizes and shapes. It all sounded unreal, but the youth he recalled gradually materialised on the computer screen.

  ‘So, is that better?’ she asked.

  Better. Memories not all good, he joked on his pad.

  ‘But does it look like him, now?’

  Thinner?

  She shunted the image slightly, not into small chat. She di
dn’t try to make him feel better about himself, she just wanted to get the job done.

  He shook his head. It was there, that hint of character, the smile he would never forget. It was a great image. Beautiful, even. Too perfect, too pretty, almost a woman’s face.

  It’s near enough, but I can’t tell you what to change.

  Once, eye witness accounts had been key to crime cases, but times had changed, and they were assumed to be the least reliable source of information. Memory, he’d read, was a fickle instrument, being constantly overwritten by a trickle of new information. His own highly retentive memory was, it seemed, confined to written data.

  Robin awoke one morning to find a woman sitting by his bed, reading a novel. He remembered her from the first time he’d been dragged back into the world. She was a nurse, but his memory recalled someone too beautiful to be real, like the guy at the crash. Dressed in jeans and a baggy tee-shirt, she looked ordinary enough. He reached out a finger, startling her, lifting the book to read the title. It wasn’t anything he recognised.

  ‘A new author,’ she said. ‘I’d never heard of her, either. She had good reviews, but I’m struggling to remain interested. Up to,’ she turned the book over, ‘page 156, and nothing has happened.’