by Will Carver
I wake up sweating. The ball of flame from my dream is the best way to heat me in this house, it seems.
It’s the first vision I have had since Audrey left four months ago. I know that’s what it is. It was the same black box where The Smiling Man always met me. But it wasn’t him this time.
I know the feeling but there is still so much left to understand. I’m hoping Mother’s journals can shed more light.
Where is The Smiling Man? Who are the two children?
I don’t understand it yet but what I do know is that something is starting. Something evil walks the streets of London again, and I have this information before anybody else.
But it is the first vision; it has no context. The only thing I can be sure of is that in twenty-four hours, unless I can somehow decipher this cryptic message, someone, somewhere in this huge city, will be murdered.
Lily
THERE WAS THAT time I cut myself, drew a little blood too, but, if I’m honest, I wouldn’t call it a real wrist-slitting attempt.
This was back when people cared.
The thing with the pills was stupid, I know that now. Horrible way to do it, too, in hindsight.
Lost some friends that way.
I suppose there’s still that head-in-the-oven thing, or hanging. Haven’t tried those. A gun is out of the question, though. Not much room for error with that one. Not many people left.
Last time it was the guy who lives in the flat above me and that girlfriend of his, who seems to be staying over more and more, rent free, who saved me.
Sometimes I lie awake at night listening to them fucking or giggling, and I cry.
It’s quiet tonight, though.
The light is on upstairs. I can see it, but nobody is home. I know this because I turned off my TV hours ago and have been waiting for his key to turn in the lock so that I can pretend to accidentally bump into him. Talk to him. Talk to someone.
I live above a pharmacy on the Fulham Road. Some old lady owns the building above and rents it out as two flats. It isn’t two flats, though. So, whenever the guy who lives above me wants to get home, he has to open my front door and walk through part of my flat before getting to his own makeshift entrance.
It could be awkward if I had visitors here one night or threw a party he wasn’t invited to.
That has never happened, though.
Nobody comes any more.
And it looks like even he won’t be returning home this evening. Staying with that girl again, I guess. Screwing each other at her place tonight while I sit silently in my flat not putting my head in the oven, not hanging myself on the back of the bathroom door, not living.
But not being alive is not the same as being dead. I don’t want that. I’ve never really wanted that. That should be obvious.
Tomorrow is Halloween. It’s a day when people can be someone they are not. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Dressing up like someone else? Putting on a mask to disguise who you really are?
Hiding in plain sight.
I’ll be someone completely unfamiliar tomorrow.
Instead of being that stupid girl who tried to kill herself those few times and refuses to get any help, or that stalker downstairs who listens to people having sex, or the introverted aloof loner that nobody realises is alive, I’ll be an enlightened woman who is trying to save herself in any way that she can; I’ll be the one surrounded by hundreds of people who haven’t even noticed she is dead.
Celeste
I DON’T DECIDE who should be the one to die.
That is not my role. The choice has already been made for me.
I do not believe that it is possible for everyone to know God personally in their lives; I do not trust in the power of the Holy Spirit and I do not have faith that being centred on the Holy Trinity provides the most comprehensive existence.
This is not how I work.
But I did know to be at this church at this time on this date.
And I did know that Lily would die.
I would save her.
I’m her saviour.
Something is guiding me but it isn’t God.
I sense her presence in the building immediately. There are only a few people in here at this time; it’s a weekday, just before lunch. A middle-aged man stands at the front, lighting a candle, muttering something, his head tilted up towards the heavens. The other five people are women. Elderly women with nothing better to do than pray their lives away.
It is no coincidence that Lily sits behind me.
We are all exactly where we are supposed to be.
Before she even speaks I know she is the one I am here for.
There is an air of melancholy, a feeling of sadness, the sensation that the pews behind me, in front of me, beside me, are now awash with desperation.
That’s all I need but I let her make a fool of herself first.
‘Dear God,’ she says, as if she is writing a letter or email, ‘I know I don’t usually come to church. OK, I never come, you obviously know that, but I’m running out of options. There’s no one left to turn to.’
This is pretty much how people always start.
‘I’m asking for help.’
She continues with her heartfelt plea to the Lord she has never considered until ten minutes ago. The inevitable breakdown follows.
That’s my cue to step in, to offer an alternative.
I look up from my fake prayer, eyeing the pathetic congregation of weekday dunces who judge me for my beliefs even though they while away the time in a man-made building they consider more significant than the natural world around them.
The man at the front still whispers to the roof; the pensioners that pepper the seating are not lifting their heads any time soon.
Nobody has even noticed me.
I turn to see her. Unexpectedly, her expression projects a sorrow that pierces my own heart.
She looks directly at me, not saying a word. Her face is pale, with no make-up, her long ginger hair falling down to her lap, lengthening her face even more, accentuating her frown; her eyes are coated in water but no tears have yet fallen. But she is infused with heartache.
‘I can help you,’ I say in a hushed voice.
She seems shocked that someone would be talking to her. Then her eyes tighten, the giant tears drying out instantly, and she vents. Suddenly spewing forth her woes in such a concerted burst that it seems rehearsed. I wait patiently as she moves through her list of troubles – like I’ve never heard it before – her voice urgent yet calm, not disturbing the peace.
‘… and I know what I want now. I know it,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to die alone.’ Finally, a tear falls.
I place my hand softly on hers and peer straight through her.
‘I can help you.’
She won’t die alone.
I’ll be there.
January
IT SEEMS INSANE that nobody saw it happen. There were people on every section of grass, partying in some way or another. The White Horse Free House was, as always, heaving with custom, so much so that for most of the evening the crowd outside was spilling dangerously into the road. There is a hospital on one side of the square, a church on the other, restaurants along the main road, and yet nobody in Parsons Green noticed a 25-year-old woman with bright ginger hair being stabbed and gutted on the intersection of pathways in the very centre of the frivolous celebrations.
The scene of the crime is being illuminated by the four lampposts that kicked in as soon as darkness descended. She was not merely in plain sight, she was on stage, spot-lit. Still somehow imperceptible.
People are so self-involved that they are unaware of the dangers that lurk around this city.
It couldn’t possibly happen to them.
I realise what it is immediately. Though it’s far too early to link it to last night’s vision, I know this isn’t just another murder in the capital.
This is the start of something.
I’ve been here before.
In the coming weeks and months, we will refer to Lily Kane not by her name but merely as the first murder. She’ll be as anonymous as she felt.
She died kneeling down in the dirt, her throat collapsed, blood oozing from her stomach, the acid poisoning her insides. I don’t need a forensic specialist to tell me that. I don’t need my intuition.
Yet, in front of my perfectly pallid genuflecting corpse is the evidence that will convince Paulson and Murphy of what I already know. That this is something more than the usual. That this is a ritual.
And ritual suggests repetition.
Another body.
Another vision.
The circle around her is made from salt and is only around thirty inches in diameter. In the centre is a candle. For some reason this has been left burning, almost destroying itself. Around the silver candle holder are four small black stones, onyx perhaps. They are placed apart at equal distances, forming a square inside the circle. Maybe to indicate the four points on a compass, or the major integers on a clock face. At this moment I can’t be sure, I just want to gather everything I can.
Are these stones even important? They were not referenced in my dream.
It’s difficult to filter what is useful from what is not. For several months now I have reverted to and relied upon standard police legwork to help me understand the handful of minor cases I’ve attended to.
I haven’t necessarily had to stretch myself too much since I captured Eames, the man responsible for the spate of zone-two killings over recent years.
I haven’t wanted to since Audrey took off with his child.
I’m out of practice.
The job has not been my priority of late.
So I’m bound to make mistakes.
And that’s exactly what happens.
‘Looks like witchcraft, Jan,’ my other sergeant, Murphy, spouts nonchalantly, biting into an apple, surveying the area, not even paying attention to the dead girl on her knees in front of him.
‘Yeah. Maybe, Murph.’ I dismiss him, presuming he is wrong, as he so often is; my contempt is uncensored. Despite the fact that I am his superior and despite his disloyalty during one of London’s highest profile cases in decades – the capture of Eames – I can’t shake him. He’s still part of my team. Someone higher than me is ensuring he stays exactly where he is. Someone will ensure that he makes a name for himself.
Murphy continues to spray his glance around at the wider area; Paulson is in the pub forecourt, rounding up possible eyewitnesses. I stay with the victim, hoping there is more to this scene than the girl and the salt circle.
But there’s nothing.
No obvious CCTV cameras point at this spot in the park. I send Murphy with some of the junior officers to check the cameras on surrounding buildings; the shops nearby, the school, church and pub, hoping one of them may have picked something up to give us a clearer visual idea of what occurred.
Returning to the point at which I started, I kneel down myself so that my face is level with the victim’s. The corners of her mouth are turned down, like she is disappointed to be in this position. Like she is upset to be dead.
I bend over to blow out the candle. My signal that I’ve finished, that my investigation of the scene is over.
As my breath hits the flame, not a nanosecond before, not a picosecond after, at the instant the air from my lungs touches the blue fire of the candle, she drops. Collapsing to the side in a crumpled dead heap.
What have I done?
Lily
HE NEVER CAME home.
I waited.
I start to imagine him at her place, inside her, sweating, his tongue pressed hard against his two front teeth as he pushes himself deeper. Then I imagine she is me. That I am looking up at him. I can feel his breath; I can inhale his scent.
I put my hand between my legs.
And stop.
I don’t have the motivation.
If I’m honest, if I think about it, I’m not even really that attracted to him. He’s just the last person on earth who still acknowledges me; who affirms I exist. I don’t even mind his girlfriend. She’s perfectly pleasant. Nice, even. To me, at least.
It makes it easier to hate her.
No work this morning. I have an appointment. And right now, that seems like a blessing. Being a newly qualified lawyer is not all courtroom drama; in fact, it’s never like that. It’s an office with files and paperwork and phone calls and a company name made up of three men’s surnames and wondering why you chose this profession in the first place. It’s monotony and things you don’t care about at all and it’s inescapable because I owe so much money and I’m tied into this firm for years.
So, a doctor’s appointment is like a respite.
I jump in the shower, leaving the door open, not pulling the shower curtain all the way around the rail. The bath mat will get wet but he might catch a glimpse of me if he comes home in the next twenty minutes.
I put in this much effort for someone I’m not even attracted to.
And I’m disappointed when he doesn’t show.
I can walk to the doctor’s from my house. It’s on the corner of Parsons Green.
Thirty-five steps from the spot where I will shortly slump to my death.
The road opposite my flat, the one I usually walk along to get to the tube, is covered in leaves. The time of year, I guess. Pumpkins litter the doorsteps and living-room windowsills of the Victorian terrace. Some designs are particularly elaborate, not just eyes and a misshapen, jagged mouth. I heard on the news how the American tradition has spilled into our annual celebrations, making Halloween a major night on the UK calendar.
On the other side of the street I see a disabled man. I couldn’t fathom a guess at his age; he looks like he may have had one stroke too many. Like he has difficulty just controlling his tongue.
He’s tall but developing a hunch. His right leg drags behind him, his hands are disfigured but clenching his walking frame solidly.
He’s one of the constants in my life. Every day I see him. It’s always at different points along the street or main road, but he is always out, hauling himself around the block just to get out of the house, to keep his mind occupied, active, to utilise the last semblance of strength in his legs before they completely give way on him. It takes two or three hours for him to get around the block once; a walk that would take me five to seven minutes.
It’s a kind of determination I have never had. Never needed to have.
Recently it has been more difficult just to raise myself out of bed. Initially I was diagnosed with depression. Seems an obvious assumption, I guess. A fairly easy diagnosis to obtain if you really want it.
It could account for the tiredness and the weight loss. If I had any friends to be worried about me, it wouldn’t be out of the question to suggest an eating disorder. But it’s not that. I just seem to get full very quickly.
It wasn’t until the sickness and indigestion that I managed to heave myself to a doctor.
That was a couple of weeks ago.
Today’s trip is not to my usual doctor. I’m off to the health centre on Parsons Green to discuss my blood-work results or something.
Whatever. Half a day at work, I’ll talk about blood and bile and the years of acidity. I’ll even talk about the bloody tar I left in the toilet this morning.
At least I’m not in that office staring at another file about human resources violations.
The sky is that British autumnal grey that somehow still blinds you if you look at it for too long. I feel the cold even more with my recent weight loss, and my thick coat feels heavier and harder to hold up.
For some reason I lift a hand to wave to the cripple across the road.
He manages to judder his head in response and continues with his daily workout.
The journey during the day is so different from how it will be tonight. The champagne bar will be full of fitted suits and briefcases. The tube will have crowds coming out of it with t
heir heads up trying to locate the trendiest hang-out, rather than drones flooding into it, their heads down, hoping not to avoid eye-contact with anyone so early in the day. The pub on the corner will be bursting with people who won’t sound out of place saying ‘hoo-rah’ and ‘by Jove’. The actual Green will be alive with costume and celebration and tricking or treating. And I’ll be kneeling in the middle.
Invisible.
The woman on reception is overweight. And old. Her hair is curly and purple. She doesn’t say hello or ask how she can help me. She leaves me standing in front of her at the counter until she has finished tapping away at her keyboard, like she has something more important to deal with. That I’m inconveniencing her in some way, because I’m early. I’m always early.
She lifts her eyes up to me after clicking Send, as if to say, ‘What do you want?’
‘Lily Kane,’ I say, as if she should know I’m coming. ‘Nine thirty?’ I prompt.
She exhales, disgruntled, and taps something into her computer.
‘I’m here to pick up some results.’ I don’t need to give her this information; I’m just trying to reach her on some personal level.
‘Take a seat. The doctor will be out shortly.’ And she drops her head back down to let me know she has finished.
It isn’t long before I’m taken into one of the sterile rooms. Three white walls, one of glass. A doctor sits down behind a desk. It doesn’t matter what he looks like, it doesn’t matter how he sounds; all that matters is his words.
‘How long?’ I ask him, looking straight through his head.
‘Not long. Months, maybe. No more than a year.’
I think about the invalid snailing around the block and just how lucky he is.
How I wish I could be like him.
I’m sure the doctor’s wording is sensitive, his tone sympathetic, but it’s not important.
I hear him say stomach, I register cancer. Then all I get is, ‘You’re going to die. You’re screwed. That’s it. All done.’
Next.
Whether or not we spoke about possible care options from that point is of no interest. If I called the blob at reception a bitch on my way out, it is of no consequence.