Stations of the Soul

by Chris Lewando

  The door opened, and Joel ushered a young woman in before him. Freman was left in no doubt that she was a working girl from the lower end of the spectrum. She wore a short skirt, a low-cut blouse that strained over largely-exposed breasts, heeled, strappy sandals, and a heavy layer of makeup.

  ‘What the hell is this place?’ she asked petulantly, through some gum. ‘Aren’t we going into the big house? Who’s this?’

  ‘That’s Freman. He’s a reporter.’

  ‘Am I going to do him?’

  ‘No, he’s going to watch.’

  ‘I don’t do kinky,’ she said, apprehension arriving far too late.

  Joel pushed the door almost closed with his foot, holding the girl between them. ‘Put down the Taser, Freman, unless you want to give her a shot. It won’t bother me.’

  Joel reached around the girl, and removed it from Freman’s unresisting hands. ‘You wanted a story about angels,’ he said, ‘so I’m going to give you one.’ He pulled out some handcuffs. ‘Give me your wrist.’

  He slipped one cuff around Freman’s wrist, almost solicitously avoiding the finger that had swollen to twice its normal size, and snapped the other end to an iron ring on the wall.

  ‘Fuck this,’ the girl said, bolting for the door.

  Joel reached over, and stopped the door with his hand.

  She backed towards Freman, her eyes radiating panic, but Joel grabbed her shoulder and pulled her towards him.

  ‘Please don’t hurt her,’ Freman pleaded.

  Joel was amused. ‘You should be worrying about yourself, not some cheap whore.’ He spoke to the girl, but his eyes were on Freman. ‘Your life hasn’t been a huge success has it? Scrabbling for a trick or two to buy the next hit? It’s almost a cliché. But now you’re going to do something amazing.’

  She whimpered slightly, then Joel put his hands around her neck and began to squeeze.

  ‘Jesus, no!’ Freman screamed. He threw himself towards them, ignoring the screaming pain of his hands, but the cuff stopped him short, nearly dislocating his shoulder. Joel simply stepped back, pulling the girl with him, leaving Freman’s reaching hand inches short. The girl punched and kicked desperately, but her struggles didn’t even knock him off balance.

  Eventually, she hung from his hands as though she weighed nothing, her tights and shoes dripping with urine.

  Freman’s tears leaked silently. ‘Why?’ he whispered.

  ‘Because I want to. Because I can. Because it makes me stronger.’

  ‘Have you no humanity at all?’

  ‘Sh, wait for it.’

  All was still for a long moment, then Joel gasped, tensed, threw his head back, and seemed to soften around the edges, haloed by some unseen force that enhanced his uncanny beauty. Freman backed into the wall. He’d always been firmly rooted to reality, and was shocked to his core at witnessing something so otherworldly, it smashed all his previous convictions. Even now he was seeing this – whatever this was – his common sense, his pragmatism was fighting against what he was actually witnessing. Was he hallucinating? Had Joel messed with his mind?

  But the larger acknowledgement was that he would never live to tell anyone – and who would believe it if he did? Joel was showing off because he could. He hadn’t needed to bring the girl back here; he’d wanted an audience. If he’d killed the other girls, it had been a solitary event, but now he wanted someone to see what he was capable of. To admire him? To adore him? To be afraid of him? But the very act of seeing meant Freman’s life was then forfeit. Robin had been convinced there was something other out there, and something in his voice had persuaded Freman that Robin believed it, even if he was a touch delusional. But now, in this moment, Freman was forced to believe it: Joel didn’t kill to suck blood, like some fictional creature from TV, he killed to absorb the life force from a person. Freman’s abiding aversion to religion, even now, didn’t allow him to consider the concept of soul.

  The miasma gradually faded, and Joel, human once more, dropped the dead girl to the floor with something akin to disgust, pushing her aside with his foot. ‘Whores even taste like whores,’ he said.

  Joel’s eyes lifted, dancing with golden lights. He wound his shoulders back and stretched, as one would after a refreshing sleep.

  Acids from Freman’s stomach churned up into his throat, and he whispered, against his own better judgement, ‘Then why?’

  ‘They make me strong. Each one makes me a little stronger.’

  ‘And Sarah?’

  ‘Oh, Sarah’s too good.’ He sneered at the word. ‘She just stands by while people die natural deaths. Why do you think she works in a hospital?’

  ‘Then she doesn’t need to kill. You don’t need to kill.’

  ‘Preaching to the wrong person, Freman. Need and want are two different concepts. You should know. When did you care who you hurt with your reporting? People don’t need to know all the little personal stories you discover. They just want to. Beneath all that phoney posturing, that people have the right to know, lies the plain and simple reality of voyeurism.’

  His cold glare reached Freman’s eyes, and held them.

  ‘We’re different, Sarah and I. How do you think the world would react if they knew? Do you think anyone would just let us get on with our lives? I’m not going to wait around to be used as a lab rat. I’m going to get strong, and she needs to become strong like me, so we can survive together. We need to protect each other; people hate someone who is more than themselves. If we’re discovered, they’d destroy us, because people destroy what they can’t have.’

  Freman edged back towards the bench with despair, knowing this was to be his fate. Killed, and sucked into the mind of this psychopath like a hit of smack. He had the biggest story of his life – he had inadvertently discovered the Strangler – but that knowledge would die with him.

  Almost companionably, Joel put his arm around Freman’s shoulders, and sat beside him on the trestle bed, like buddies. He lifted one of Freman’s hands almost gently by the wrist.

  ‘Please, don’t,’ Freman begged.

  ‘I’m not going to kill you today,’ he said, snapping a finger.

  Freman’s scream was a half-sob that he tried to hold back. Joel rose, and turned back at the door. ‘One each day, until I have my Sarah back where she belongs, or all the fingers are broken. I wonder which will come first? Something for you to think about as you wait. I suspect you’re wishing you hadn’t freed her?’

  ‘I’m glad I freed her,’ he spat, finding courage from somewhere. ‘She’s not like you.’

  Joel smiled. ‘You have no idea how much like me she is. I want her back. We are two of a kind, meant to be together, forever.’

  Chapter 42

  Redwall was frustrated by his inability to trace Freman. He wanted to interrogate the hell out of him, but he’d disappeared off the face of the earth. A week had gone by since Robin’s house had blown up, and they knew now that, thankfully, there were no bodies in the rubble. And in that time, Freman hadn’t been home, and there was no sign of his car. He had deliberately slipped his leash, the bastard. He was single-minded when it came to a story, even if it meant keeping the police in the dark.

  But beneath his ire, concern arose. Freman had never gone missing for more than a day or so. But he couldn’t post the reporter as missing, there was nothing to suggest he wasn’t just running after a story. And where Freman was concerned, it would be easier to list the people who didn’t want to kill him.

  Jim looked up from his computer, glasses perched on the end of his nose, as Redwall stomped through. ‘What, now?’

  He hesitated, then admitted. ‘I’m going to go out and do a bit of ferreting about Freman. I’m bothered by his absence.’

  ‘OK. You don’t want me to come?’

  ‘No. Actually, I haven’t a clue where to start. He was being cagey about something. And I’m damned sure it was to do with Sarah and Robin.’

  ‘Where are you going to start?’

&n
bsp; ‘With his flat.’

  Freman lived in a flat in a converted warehouse, the outside of which still had that red-brick functionality that hadn’t quite been eradicated by its more recent residential status. Redwall had obtained a pass key from the managing company. They’d balked, and whimpered about warrants, but he’d asked, perfectly reasonably, if they wanted the Revenue to do a full audit of their business? He walked up the two flights of stairs, having a slight phobia about lifts, and pressed Freman’s buzzer. He waited a moment, then went in. He was thankful there was no smell of rotting body as the door swung open, straight into a living area. It was lighter and airier inside than one would have suspected from the exterior. He pulled on a pair of disposable gloves. This wasn’t a crime scene, as far as he was aware, but one never knew. And also, he didn’t want to leave evidence that he’d already rummaged around, in case it became a necessity to do so with the backing of the law.

  The place was neat and tidy, the bed made, the work-tops in the kitchen clear. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Freman’s whole persona was one of seedy indifference, but the flat was telling a different story. He’d half-guessed that Freman’s slouching and unprepossessing appearance had been deliberately cultivated. He opened the fridge. There was a container of milk, out of date, smelling sour, but other than that, it was empty.

  There was a diary on the desk, by the phone, which was flashing. He pressed the button, listened to a couple of messages as he was wandering around: Dry cleaning that was ready for collection, a polite request to re-book as he’d missed a meeting… and then he stopped short. It was Robin’s voice. ‘Freman, phone me, urgently. Don’t go after Joel. He’s dangerous.’

  An uneasy sensation spilled through him: the conviction that Freman hadn’t heard that message. He hadn’t phoned Robin. He’d gone after Joel. And now he was nowhere to be found.

  He tried Robin’s mobile as he continued to survey the place, but it went straight into answerphone, either switched off or dead.

  The diary was simply an engagement calendar, a record of meetings, including a few over the last days. Redwall used his mobile to check a couple. No, Mr Freman had not kept his appointment, and had given no explanation.

  It would be impossible to tell, from his cursory glance around the soulless bedroom, whether Freman had packed to go away. But the entries in the diary were enough to cause concern. He left the flat, and knocked on the next door. A smart, business-like woman answered; brows raised in query. Her flat was a mirror layout of Freman’s, except that behind her he saw the warm clutter of a lived-in apartment. Comfortable furniture, a table messy with papers and a laptop. He showed his badge.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, ma’am. Detective Inspector Redwall.’ He flashed his badge, then shoved it back into his pocket. I’m looking for Jack Freman, your neighbour.’

  ‘Is he in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘He’s a personal friend. I need to talk to him about a case he’s following, and I haven’t been able to contact him. I got a bit worried. Have you seen him recently?’

  She blanched slightly. ‘Not for a few days. I was getting worried, too.’ Stepping back, she indicated for him to follow her in. As she shut the door, she said, ‘I’m Jack’s wife, in all but a ceremony. He’s spoken of you, many times. It’s a shame we’re meeting like this.’

  Redwall’s eyes widened fractionally with belated understanding. This place was a clutter of all the things missing from the apartment next door. The things that made a place a home. ‘How long have you been together? Why didn’t he tell me? Why on earth would he keep that secret?’

  Her smile was cynical. ‘We lived next door to each other for years before he’d finally commit himself. He was afraid of people getting to him through me. He has a habit of upsetting people.’

  ‘You’re not wrong, there.’ He rubbed his face, tiredly. ‘Hell. That’s a shock. I thought I was his friend.’

  ‘He’s spoken of you. He said, maybe, one day, when he’s retired…’ she faltered, then picked up again. ‘I wondered if I should call him, but I don’t want to seem like the nagging kind of wife.’

  Redwall smiled. ‘You’re certainly not that. I’ve tried his mobile. It’s either switched off or run out of juice. Look, we might be worrying you unnecessarily. Let us know if he calls in, won’t you?’

  ‘He has another phone. One that’s just for him and me. He uses it to phone me, but I’m not supposed to call unless there’s a dire emergency, in case he’s in the middle of something, and I distract him. Is this a dire emergency?’

  Redwall’s heartbeat increased. ‘You haven’t called him on it?’

  ‘I’ve never used it.’

  ‘Let me have the number. If the battery hasn’t run out, we might be able to get coordinates.’

  ‘Can you do that? I see it in films, but I wasn’t sure if it was real.’

  ‘It’s real, alright. Look, did he tell you anything, what he was working on, where he was going?’

  ‘No, he just said he was onto something big. Something mind-blowing. He was like a child, you know, bubbly with excitement.’

  The man she was describing was not the man the DCI had known for the past thirty years. He shook his head. ‘Would he have left any notes, messages, anything at all?’

  ‘No. He carried a small recorder with him for notes. He’d type up the transcripts, and write the articles, then I’d proof read. The first I’d know about what he was working on was the day before it was published.’

  ‘OK. Look, don’t do anything. Specifically, don’t call that number. We’ll see if we can get a trace on it. It will have to wait for the morning, now. I haven’t got enough clout to get people out at this time. And if we can use the chopper, it would be best in daylight.’ He touched her arm, briefly. ‘Hopefully we’re all panicking about nothing.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector, but I have a bad feeling.’

  Redwall had, too, but he said, ‘Let’s not worry unduly, eh? He’s been in scrapes before.’

  Chapter 43

  A techie with headphones, sitting at a console, held his finger up. ‘Ready to go, sir.’

  ‘Go for it.’

  The sound of a ringing tone echoed in the tiny office. The phone was live, and it kept ringing. Almost every breath was held with anticipation. The chance of getting the coordinates was slim. If the phone had been set to cut into an answerphone after a few rings, they were onto a loser.

  ‘Got it.’ The operator’s tone was one of surprise.

  Freman probably simply monitored the phone for missed calls, which was a break Redwall had not expected.

  Google maps showed them a small private estate, surrounded by a stone wall, and set in a natural valley. The helicopter circled around the old mansion as they sought a suitable landing site. They settled on an untended field in the front of the property, and as they descended, Redwall wondered why no one was running out of the building, checking up on them. Surely there were staff of some kind on a property of this size? Though, the place did have an unkempt air to it.

  ‘How the other half live,’ Jim joked into his mic.

  ‘Do we know who owns it?’

  ‘Just checking up on that now. A professor Waterman is the registered owner, but that’s a bit weird, he was born before the last war, so would be knocking on a hundred, now. The record must be out of date.’

  ‘How can that happen?’

  Jim shrugged. ‘If he died intestate, it might be the centre of some kind of legal wrangle.’

  ‘OK, let’s see what we’ve actually got before coming up with mights and maybes.’

  They jumped out and crouched until they were away from the pull of the rotors. He had no idea what this place had to do with anything. Maybe it was another dead-end, but a small, buried niggle of excitement didn’t let him truly believe that.

  Finally, they were moving.

  But on what, he wasn’t quite sure.

  As they approached the house, the air of neglect increa
sed with every step. Tiles had slipped from the roof in a couple of places, the windows held the grime of ages, and weeds almost made the drive invisible. The estate had fallen into serious disrepair over quite a few years, and the only reason he could think of was what Jim had said: legal wrangles. A place like this, even in this state would fetch millions on the open market.

  ‘It’s like something out of a horror movie,’ Jim said.

  They walked up the few steps to the front door and banged an impressive cast iron knocker, but no-one came to answer it. Jim knocked again, rattling the windows. Redwall reached forward and turned the handle. The vast door was immoveable.

  ‘OK,’ Redwall said. ‘Freman’s phone is here, somewhere. Let’s find it. You two,’ he indicated. ‘Check those outbuildings. We’ll see if we can gain access to the house.’

  At the back they discovered a small door, and stone steps leading down. Inside, there was a wooden stairway leading up into the house. To the left were four sturdy doors with bolts on the outside. Cells.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ Jim whispered, echoing Redwall’s thoughts. But the slight smell of something dead pervaded the space, halting further speculation.

  They peered into the first cell, which was empty. They found Freman in the second, one wrist handcuffed to the wall, his body slumped into the corner. ‘Oh, shit,’ Redwall whispered, and yanked back a cast iron bolt that would have stopped a bull in its tracks. He pushed the door, but something was wedging it from behind.

  ‘Sir, we’ve found Freman’s car,’ a cop said breathlessly. The phone is on the passenger seat, plugged into the… Is that Freman?’

  ‘Yes,’ Redwall responded tersely. He didn’t have to check; his friend was obviously dead. He had been strangled.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Jim breathed, as he squeezed into the small room, and stared at the young woman sprawled inelegantly on the floor behind the door.

  ‘Call it in,’ Redwall said, his fury and grief contained behind the words. ‘Get forensics down here, now.’