Beyond the Blood Streams

by Ben Oakley

  I just felt that if I wasn't able to charge my phone and keep her on the line then she may not be able to call me back. I didn't want to think about it but I suspected if we lost contact then it was too late for her.

  “Stansey, I can see my house,” I struggled to speak and run at the same time, “it's just along the road.”

  In a quicker amount of time than I expected, I was running along my street towards my front door. My townhouse had a light blue colouring all over the front; a holdover from the 1980s when they had redeveloped the area and decided that colour was the way to go. Still, it was better than the yellow one next door and the pink one on the other side.

  I got to the door and fumbled around for the keys in my pocket. For a dreaded moment, I thought I had left them in the bar, so when my fingers found them wrapped in the material of the pocket, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Sweat was forming as I opened the front door and tried to still my shaking hands. I checked to see if she was still there but she beat me to it.

  “Oh my god.” she said quietly, “I think I heard something!”

  I shut the door behind me and strolled quickly into the kitchen. The house had four floors but it was needed for the amount of research I had been doing in the past few years. My research rooms were a little uncouth but the downstairs kitchen-dining area was always shiny. It wasn't a compulsion, it was more of a desire to keep things hygienic.

  “Are you sure?” I rummaged through the kitchen drawer next to the sink, to find my charger.

  “Yes, I think I heard something above me.”

  She burst into uncontrollable tears and it was louder than I would have expected, almost as if she was in surround sound. I put it down to the fact I was finally off the loud streets, and inside where everything became clearer and easier to understand.

  “Harrison?”

  Just one time I needed it most, and I couldn't find the bloody charger. I shoved paperwork aside and rummaged through the drawer but it wasn't there. I moved to the next one.

  “Stansey, you stay with me! If anyone comes through that door, you use the chair and smash them in the face with it.”

  “He's here, I can feel him.”

  I slammed the drawer shut and cursed to myself, before adding; “useless!”

  “What?” she said anxiously.

  “No, not you darling, don't worry. Police are here in a moment.”

  The phone vibrated and then beeped at the same time. I knew I had less than a minute before it went dead completely. I frantically moved to the drawer by the fridge but had no idea why I would have put it there. I thought about it for a moment. Where would I have put my charger? I always put it in the kitchen drawer and not usually the one by the fridge. Damn, even my mind was playing tricks on me now.

  I yanked the drawer open a little bit too hard and it jumped off the drawer runners and completely removed itself from the cabinet. I fumbled to catch it as I had one hand on the phone to my ear. It was too late, I squinted as it landed on the kitchen floor with a loud bang before falling sideways and throwing out all the cutlery. I cursed to myself.

  “Oh shit shit shit, he's here! There was a loud bang above me, he's here!”

  “Hey just try and calm yourself down, there's gotta be...” I stopped dead in my tracks and straightened my back.

  The panic came over me like the first rising vibrations of an illness. I looked at the kitchen floor and saw the mess I had made with the drawer.

  “Was the loud noise right above your head?”

  “Yes!” she whimpered.

  Six

  My mind was firing on all cylinders trying to make sense of it. It couldn't be true, there must have been another answer.

  I traipsed to the door beside the kitchen, which opened into an old food larder I'd never used. A second door inside led to some stairs which in turn led to a small wine cellar I'd used once upon a time to store a few bottles of wine my grandfather had left me. I had no need for it and the local authority had requested local residents to not develop their cellars due to structural issues that had become prevalent over the past decade.

  I walked back to the middle of the kitchen floor and kicked some of the cutlery aside. I put the phone back to my ear and then stamped on the floor twice in quick succession.

  “Oh no, help me, Harrison please! He's doing something up there.”

  “What... what was it?”

  “Banging, someone banging on the ceiling.”

  “How many times did he bang?”

  “Twice.”

  A rising panic soared through my body and rooted my feet to the floor, I couldn't move and struggled to breathe. What was this? Then the terrible realisation hit me like a double fist to the chest.

  Stansey was in my cellar.

  I opened the larder door and took a deep breath, my heart was hammering against my ribcage. I opened the latch on the inner door and slowly moved it open to find myself staring down the steps to the waiting door below.

  I flicked on the light switch.

  Terrified, she whispered, “Harrison! There's a light outside, he's coming.”

  I slowly made my way down. “Stansey...” I started to say something but couldn't think of the words to say.

  “I heard his voice!”

  The panic in her voice was more than evident. I reached the bottom of the stairs and lifted the key off the hook, before placing it in the keyhole of the cellar door.

  “He's here!”

  The phone beeped three times and then died.

  I flicked the light switch on the side of the door. Suddenly there was a scream from within the cellar room as the light flooded a once dark domain. Stansey was banging on the other side of the door, screaming at me to get away.

  I turned the key in the lock and opened the door slowly.

  “Stansey? Listen.”

  As I opened the door, a wooden seat came out of nowhere and smashed over my head and shoulders. It almost rendered me unconscious but I brushed off the remnants of the chair as the larger pieces clanged to the floor around me.

  I fell to my knees and briefly saw her shadow lift one of the legs of the chair. I covered my face with my hands and tried to stand.

  “Wait, Stansey, please it's me, it's Harrison.”

  She cried hard and screamed in fear but didn't hit me. The chair leg was raised well above her head, ready to come down hard. I almost fell back in shock as I saw her.

  She was naked, bruised and bloodied, blinking her eyes to get used to the light. She had long black, blood-matted hair and her body was a roadmap of tiny cuts, just as she'd told me. There seemed to be words on her chest but I couldn't make them out in the chaos of the moment. I noticed the chains screwed into the far wall and the table in the middle.

  “They don't belong to me, I didn't do this!”

  She screamed, “don't you come near me!”

  “It's Harrison,” I stretched out my arms towards her, “don't you recognise my voice?”

  She frowned and breathed heavily, trying to make sense of what was going on. I could see the panic inside her rising again.

  “Oxford,” she cried, “I'm in Oxford.”

  “This is my home,” I said, not knowing how to resolve this. “My home in Hampstead Heath, in London. What the hell is going here?”

  She became physically agitated and her eyes widened, “it's you! Bastard, you tricked me. There's no help coming, is there? This is your sick game!”

  “It's not me, I don't know what's going on here. You have to believe me.”

  “I bet your name's not even Harrison is it? You sick -”

  Before she finished her sentence, she stepped forward and lashed out with the chair leg. I put my hands in front of my face to protect myself. She missed and I heard the air rush past as the leg shot over my head by mere inches. I wasn't going to fight back, it would only make it worse.

  She connected with my arms the second time and I groaned out in pain, shouting at her to stop what
she was doing. On the third swing, she had so much motion in it that she missed me again and slipped on her own blood, falling onto her back. She hit her head on the concrete ground and didn't move.

  For a moment, I feared the worst.

  I was shaking so much, physically vibrating, and I was struggling to calm myself. I didn't know what to do. Who was going to believe this wasn't me? She was laying there, naked and covered in blood on my cellar floor. For a whole minute, I just stared at her. Not in a perverse manner but just trying to work this whole thing out.

  Whatever this was, I was screwed.

  Stansey stirred, quietly at first, but then her senses came crashing back and she suddenly flipped onto her side to look at me with fear and anger in her eyes. I watched her glance around to see if any chair parts had landed nearby she could use as a weapon.

  I spoke first to make her understand, “I don't know what's going on here but this isn't me.”

  As soon as I said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say but I was lost here, this was unprecedented. She got herself to her knees and stared at me with intent, I saw her eyes drift over to the open door and knew she was going for it but I had to control this before it got worse.

  She pointed at me, “you know exactly what's going on, this is your basement!”

  “Yes but I didn't do this.” I raised my hands as if surrendering, “I couldn't do this. I hardly ever used this room. It was a wine cellar, not a bloody torture chamber.”

  “I don't see any wine here!”

  “Not now but there was.”

  “How convenient?” she spat.

  “Look, the police will be -” she cut me off.

  “You know what's funny? When you kept drugging me, you never said a word. All I heard was your breathing.”

  “Drugged? Look, you've gotta believe me, you phoned me!” I shouted.

  “And look where I am!”

  “I didn't put you here, I'm being set-up.”

  “Did you enjoy me? Was I good enough for you? Who are you?”

  She glanced at the door again before crossing her arms over her chest. I put my hands in front of me again to show her I was unarmed and meant no harm.

  “My name is Harrison Lake.”

  She replied with absolute certainty, “no it's not. Who are you?”

  Seven

  I was at a loss, just hoping the officers would arrive as quick as possible. But if I wasn't upstairs to open the door then maybe they would just walk away and forget about me.

  Stansey was shaking her head at me, wiping away tears and looking at me in absolute disgust.

  “Listen,” I said, “you called me and I answered, I was helping you. You've gotta believe me.”

  “What's your name?” she asked.

  I surprisingly frowned at her. She knew my name, I'd told her a hundred times already.

  “You know who I am?”

  “Are you here to help me?”

  “Since the very beginning.”

  “Then help me, before...” she trailed off.

  “Before what?”

  I saw her realise something and she nodded to herself gently before looking back at me in a more understanding manner. “Before the other guy comes back.”

  “What other guy?”

  “You know, the other guy. The man who hurt me.” I saw her cringe as she pleaded at me with her eyes.

  “You're safe here, he's not coming back. This is a sick game we've both been shoved into.”

  “Then help me. Help me get out of here, before he comes back.” She looked at her own body, at the blood and tiny cuts then started to sob again. “Please just let me go?”

  “I'm not holding you prisoner,” I shouted.

  “Am I even in London?”

  “Yes, this is my cellar, in my home, in Hampstead Heath. Whoever has done this to you has made it look like I did it, but I haven't. I'm as confused about this as you are.”

  I stepped out the way of the door and beckoned her to go upstairs. There was nothing else I thought I could do.

  “The pond is the key to everything,” she said.

  Did I hear that right? “What did you say?”

  Suddenly the doorbell rang at the front door.

  I instinctively turned away from her to look up the stairs but she screamed out loud and had already shoved me into the wall. I wasn't going to fight back, I was just going to let her go and hoped the truth came out.

  Then I suddenly realised it might not have been the police at the door, maybe it was this other guy. I lunged and grabbed hold of her ankle, she fell to the stairs face first and screamed and struggled to kick me away.

  I shouted at her, “we don't know who it is?”

  She kicked me in the face and I grabbed hold of her other leg. What was I doing? She screamed for help at whoever was listening and then used her entire body weight to wrestle free of my grip.

  She managed to stand, leaving me on the ground, struggling to find my feet. She instinctively kicked out at me but completely missed, then turned and ran up the stairs.

  I got myself to my feet and charged after her, with a huge worry the real kidnapper might have been waiting upstairs. I stumbled and caught sight of her standing in my hallway, bloodied, naked and staring at a shadow of a man behind the top glass of my front entrance. I banged into the larder door as I exited, making her jump and scream out loud.

  “Help me!” she screamed, at anyone who would listen, before running into the lounge.

  I charged into the lounge from the kitchen entrance and saw her hiding in the corner of the room, trying to make herself as small as possible. She was staring at me with immense fear in her eyes. I raised my hands in bemusement.

  Then I heard voices on the other side of the front door.

  “Wait,” I said to her, “just wait.”

  She screamed at the top of her voice, “he's here, help me, he's killing me!”

  A man shouted from the front door, “stand back!”

  I was rooted to the spot, I didn't know how to respond to this or get out of this. I'd done nothing wrong here but I knew exactly how this was going to look.

  Suddenly there was a loud bang at the front door as if someone was trying to break through. Then there was a louder bang and the door crashed open, breaking off its top hinges and swinging hard into the side wall.

  Two police officers stormed into my front room with their X-26 Taser guns held at arms length.

  “Help me!” she screamed.

  They looked over at Stansey, who was trying to make herself smaller in the corner.

  One of the officers spoke his contempt, “my God, what have you done?” Then they both pointed their guns at me. “Get on the ground!”

  Stansey called out, “just shoot him!”

  “I was just trying to help, I was doing the right thing.” I mumbled.

  “Oh I bet you were,” the leading officer said. “On the ground or we'll shoot. These things don't 'arf hurt.”

  “He's got two personalities,” she said suddenly, “he thinks it wasn't him but it was. It was the other guy.”

  I looked over at her and struggled to breathe, “what?”

  I raised my hands in a sudden movement of despair but it was enough to have one of the officers use the X-26 on me. The two darts shot out and hit me in the chest. The pain shot through my body, the shock incapacitated me and I dropped to my knees.

  As I fell backwards, the last thing I saw was the long copper wires from the gun, bouncing in unison.

  Stansey's tears of relief were the last thing I heard.

  Eight

  They say things can only get better but I suddenly felt the situation was too tricky to get out of. If I was investigating what had happened then it looked as though it was a clear-cut case.

  Except it wasn't.

  I had been kept in a police cell for five hours before they took me in handcuffs to an interview room in Holborn Police Station, just over four miles from my home. To say I was pissed
off was an understatement. I knew what had gone down and it wasn't like they thought it had. I was innocent of everything I was being accused of.

  As I sat there, waiting for the two detectives to arrive, I suddenly realised I didn't even know what I was being accused of. What was this; kidnapping? Rape? Intent to kill? Everything I was not and everything I stood against.

  The door opened and Detectives Berg and Hallberg walked in. The Two Berg's as I had called them in two or three articles going back over the years. I knew them well, not well enough to go out for a drink with but I knew who they were. They had their frustrating moments but they seemed to follow any leads in the right direction.

  Berg was the talkative one, slim, short blonde hair and always dressed in an overly expensive-looking dark blue suit. Hallberg was twice the size of Berg, had short curly black hair, a slightly less expensive-looking dark blue suit and looked like he was asleep half the time. They went through the usual legal rigmarole before progressing. I jumped in first before they said anything.

  “You can't keep me here for more than 24-hours and you know it.”

  “Is that right?” Berg said, in his South London accent.

  “I was set-up, Berg. You know I didn't do this.”

  Berg scooped up a folder on the table and focused his eyes on certain elements before nodding to himself. Hallberg was just watching me, chewing a pen lid in the corner of his mouth.

  “So,” Berg continued, “Miss King has markings on her back that could only have been caused by another person. Doctor Foster said she could not have done it by herself. She also won't let nurses attend to the cuts on her front. What the bloody hell did you use to cut her with?”

  “Are you being serious?” I said.

  “Razor? Knife?”

  “I didn't use anything because I didn't harm her. I got a phone call when I was in the pub.”

  “So you'd been drinking?”

  “No. Yes, but only two glasses,” I shook my head. “Check my phone records.”