The Two

by Will Carver

  The location of the murder, more specifically, the distance in comparison to the first, changes the profile to more of a visionary thrill-seeker but the careful construction of the scene points away from that. They are somehow planned yet random. Something already tells me the CCTV footage will be a waste of manpower. Again. I get it checked anyway.

  I associate the candle circles with the four plinths; I relate my own elevated position in the dream with the height of Nelson’s Column overlooking the square. It may be correct, I may be forcing connections onto the scene that aren’t really there. I still have little comprehension of The Two but it appears their message is not the same as The Smiling Man’s. They are not trying to inform me how the victim will perish, it seems they are telling me where.

  The centre of the square is taped off but it’s difficult to keep the people away.

  Now they want to look.

  Now they notice.

  The candle still burns.

  The old man is kneeling on the centre stone of the square, dead, but balanced perfectly. His flat cap is still sitting on his head, his scarf wrapped snugly around his neck, his arms dangling by his side in his warm raincoat, his hands bloodied, knuckles just touching the concrete.

  He faces the steps that lead to the National Gallery. A middle-aged man at the top feels it is still appropriate to continue airing his thoughts about the state of mankind.

  ‘What colour is the truth? What gender is a principle?’ he trills.

  ‘Murph, you have to go and shut that guy up. Get him out of here.’ I order Murphy over there so I can clear my head. A big part of me still doesn’t want him around.

  Paulson arrives with his notepad and pen at the ready, his eyes scrunched slightly in contemplation.

  ‘Nothing, Jan.’ He shrugs, deflated. ‘How could nobody see anything?’ he asks rhetorically, then continues, ‘A waiter in the whisky bar said he left half his meal, had a few drinks but was alone the entire time. Their cameras film outside the bar, some of the road, but the statues block the view of the centre of the square from that height. Fucking useless.’ He shakes his head in dismay and mutters something under his breath about it being a waste of time.

  Perhaps the killer is purposely performing to large crowds because he knows it will skew eyewitness testimony. People often fill in the gaps of their memories, they fabricate part of their recollection of events. With a crowd this size, stories would differ so much that we wouldn’t know which was truth and which was hyperbole.

  Yet, apparently, nobody saw a thing.

  This killer is a contradiction.

  Paulson strolls over to me despondently and places his faithful notepad back in his inside jacket pocket. I nod my head at him, motioning to follow me around to the front of the body.

  He lifts the tape above his head, plods over to where I am waiting and we both squat to the same level as the victim. We can talk discreetly here.

  ‘This is a series,’ I confirm in a hush.

  ‘Looks that way, Jan. Looks that way.’ He peers around, distracted, as camera lights flash behind our barricade, still bemused that this went unnoticed for so long.

  ‘Another hugely public place,’ I continue.

  ‘Close to another major holiday,’ Paulson adds.

  ‘Another series.’ I rub my hand against the stubble that has emerged on my chin over the course of the day. ‘Already.’ Echoing Paulson, I shake my head in disbelief, knowing the work that goes into serial crimes. But secretly I’m pleased to have this, to be away from the one-offs and the lack of challenge that comes with having proof or witnesses or clear motive.

  It’s not exactly the same. Yes, the candle is lit in front of the old man but the pewter candlestick has been placed on an ice-white cloth. The four black stones have been replaced by four other stones carved into sun shapes. They are positioned around the inside of the salt circle in exactly the same way, forming a square. A silver bell sits next to the candle stick – there are no fingerprints.

  The candle still burns.

  I have an idea.

  ‘I need to try something,’ I tell Paulson.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘Just wait here, I need someone to see this.’

  Paulson notes the excitement in my eyes and is anxious. He grabs my shoulder as I start to edge forwards.

  ‘Jan, what are you doing?’ I know he’s worried but that isn’t my concern.

  ‘Trust me.’ I shrug his hand off. ‘Just watch.’

  I picture the girl in my vision and I realise that she doesn’t want me to do this either.

  But I have to know.

  I move forward further, dropping into a crawl, creeping cautiously towards the corpse. My arms are shaking as I slowly close in on the subject. As I arrive, I look back over my shoulder at Paulson and exaggerate an exhalation so that he perceives my anxiety.

  I turn back to the front. Nelson’s Column towers over us in the background, drowning us in shadow. I count in my head. My eyes closed. My head bobbing with each passing second.

  One, one thousand.

  Two, one thousand.

  Three, one thousand.

  And I blow out the flame.

  Celeste

  IS IT EASIER to take the life of someone you know is already dying?

  Or somebody who has led a long and full life?

  Does it make the task any simpler if you believe they no longer wish to exist or that they would give their own life for somebody else?

  Everybody dies.

  I look back at Lily Kane and more recently to Totty Fahey and I still can’t say whether one was more deserving than the other. Everything is circular. Death does not mean the end in the same way that life does not always mean the beginning. They walked on this Earth and will walk again on the days when our two realms overlap.

  I did not take from them; this is what people will not understand. I gave them more. A chance. The opportunity not to be condemned to darkness. I did not approach Lily Kane in the church proposing an easy way out; I offered her the chance of salvation. I was with her when she passed. Not everybody can comprehend, but Lily knows. She realises that I was her saviour.

  The old man is conscious of this same fact.

  I was present in their greatest moment of need, their most desperate of times.

  *

  It’s too late to rescue myself.

  But I saved them.

  And I can save more.

  January

  HE DIDN’T DROP.

  When I extinguished the flame in front of the kneeling, dead body of the old man, Totty Fahey, he stayed as he was.

  The kneeling, dead body of an old man.

  But I changed.

  I thought he would collapse in the same way Lily Kane had. I believed that my actions had some kind of intrinsic impact on the scene, that I was part of the ritual. I allowed my confusion over these visions to affect the way I compute a crime scene. I permitted the death of my parents and my wife’s betrayal to cloud my judgement. I bought into the spirituality too much.

  My focus has returned.

  Blowing out the candle snapped me back to reality. The focus of the investigation should be the tangible evidence: the crime scene, the victims, building an accurate profile of this killer. The visions of The Two, the faith behind these slayings, the non-material, mystic aspects should only be used as a guide, as support for what is real.

  Myself, Paulson and Murphy are busy collecting any information we can, and I have assembled another team to run through the CCTV footage from the numerous cameras around the square where Totty was stabbed through the chest.

  A young, enthusiastic constable enters the office and informs me that Higgs has picked something up from the tapes. I’m not certain who Higgs is but I follow him down the corridor, Paulson and Murphy in tow.

  A bank of four monitors line one wall with various recording equipment dotted between. Three officers are seated and waiting anxiously in front of one screen which has
a paused image of a crowded Trafalgar Square.

  ‘We can see the victim here,’ Higgs points at Totty near the bottom of the picture, ‘looking in the opposite direction to everyone else – up at the column, towards the surrounding statues. Everyone else is either watching the crackpot at the top of the steps or the performer on the plinth with his mirror and broadsheet.’

  He swivels around to ensure I can pick out everything he is explaining.

  ‘This is several seconds before he is attacked.’

  Then he presses play.

  And we watch, holding our breath.

  ‘Wait!’ I push closer to the screen, resting my hands on the back of Higgs’ chair and leaning over his shoulder. ‘What the fuck was that? Where did he go? Go back. Go back.’

  Higgs rewinds to the point where Totty was alive and we watch the clip again.

  The old man is visible. There is a flash of light, a flare, like sunlight hitting a camera lens, only this was at night, then he is gone. On his knees, hidden by the crowd. We can’t even see the crowd moving around him before the image is distorted to see which direction the killer comes from.

  ‘What is it? A bad tape?’ I ask, confused. Concerned.

  ‘We think it may be some kind of inopportune reflection from the performer’s mirror,’ another of the constables explains.

  ‘Inopportune is right. Fuck.’ I step back from the chair and push my hair backwards in frustration. ‘Can we enhance the image in the mirror? Will that give us anything?’

  Higgs says that they can try that but it is the next part of the video that is interesting.

  With the old man stooped out of sight I focus on the crowd surrounding him who continue to be transfixed by the show. Towards the top of the screen there is movement in the crowd as someone quickly darts away from the spot where Totty draws his final breath, crashing into several spectators on his way.

  Higgs pauses the video again and points at the figure.

  ‘I recognised him as Jackson Forster. He’s been done for theft, GBH, drugs. He disappears down to Charing Cross tube with someone. We checked the time stamp on the CCTV and the idiot used his wife’s Oyster card around a minute later.’

  ‘Good work …’ I pause.

  ‘Higgs, sir. Constable Higgs.’

  ‘Good work, Higgs. I take it you have an address for me?’ He hands me a piece of paper with the details. ‘Keep it up, lads. Keep going through these tapes. See if we can pick something up from another angle.’

  And I walk out, heading straight for my car.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Forster. Is Jackson home at the moment?’

  I’m on my own at the front of the house. Paulson and Murphy are watching the rear and side in case he makes a run for it.

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  She is young, mid-twenties, and artificially pretty. That synthetic beauty where her tan is not real, her natural chestnut hair is dead from peroxide and her adequate eyelashes are hidden beneath such fakery that her make-up level appears moderate. She is petite, her breasts are hoisted up too high and I’ve seen this kind of attitude before.

  He’s definitely here.

  ‘Is Jackson at home today, Mrs Forster?’ I remain polite.

  She steps forward and pulls the door in close behind her saying, ‘No. He’s not in. I’m not even sure he’ll be back today. Do you want to leave a message?’

  I roll my eyes and reach into my pocket to produce my ID. Before I take it out, Murphy shouts from the side of the house. I push past the diversionary bimbo and step into the hallway. The kitchen is to the right. I turn left into the lounge, which smells like sandalwood joss sticks masking marijuana. I pace through the adjoining dining area, which is clearly never used for dining as there are two mattresses pushed into the corner with a screwed-up ball of a quilt tossed on top. Turning right I am now behind the kitchen in another hallway that leads to a downstairs toilet where Jackson Forster’s legs are hanging from the window, his torso outside being gripped by DS Murphy.

  I grab his belt for leverage and yank him back into the room, hitting his head on the window frame. He slumps to the cold tiles beneath me.

  ‘Are we done?’

  He looks up at me and nods.

  Murphy and Paulson join me on the three-seat sofa in the lounge. It has a hideous brown swirling effect and the material seems to be of a similar pile to the burgundy carpet it doesn’t quite match. The springs are shot and we each sink low into the cushion. Jackson sits on the corresponding single-seater opposite, which looks to have been dragged out of a brick-dust-filled skip. His wife perches on the arm, straddling it in her loose-fitting, grey, dancer’s tracksuit bottoms. Paulson can’t help but stare at her chest.

  I tell him straight that we know where he was at the time Totty Fahey was stabbed through the chest, that we have video footage of him exiting Trafalgar Square, that we can track him on the tube, that we know he met someone at Charing Cross.

  And he looks relieved.

  ‘Babe, get the bag.’ He rests his hand on his wife’s thigh and sits back into his armchair smiling.

  She returns with a black bin-liner and hands it to me. There are eight different wallets and purses in there all belonging to different people.

  ‘Look, I was there that day. I can’t deny that. You got me on that but I wasn’t there to kill nobody.’ His initial arrogance fading.

  He was pick-pocketing. The area was ripe for the taking that day. That’s why we can clearly see him bumping into people.

  He’s small-time.

  A nobody, waste-of-space crook.

  ‘But I might’ve seen something that night. Yeah. Yeeeaaah. If we can forget this wallet business I might’ve seen something that night which could help you guys out.’ He all but licks his lips.

  ‘Go on.’ I say this knowing that I don’t want to strike a deal, I don’t even care that much about taking him in for the thefts, I have bigger things on my mind.

  He does go on. And on.

  And on.

  Describing nobody and everybody. Generic. Average. Cliché.

  It’s obvious he’s lying, even to Murphy.

  We are not looking for a man with a normal build. A man with blondish-brown hair. A man of around six feet in height, it was difficult to tell because he was kneeling down.

  We are not even looking for a man at all.

  We don’t know this yet.

  We don’t realise that we should not be looking at the top of the screen at the commotion on the CCTV footage, we should be scouring for a woman on the steps at the National. We should spot her weaving through the crowd towards Totty Fahey.

  What we do know is that Jackson Forster is lying.

  That this is a dead end.

  That we still have a long way to go.

  But I am in the right mindset now. And I’m taking Jackson in regardless.

  Imbolc

  February 2009

  Talitha

  I SHOULDN’T HAVE lived this long, anyway. The doctors said it would be a miracle to get to thirty. I’ve had an extra three years already.

  So my family have been prepared since I arrived.

  It should be easier for them to let me go.

  But you can’t be prepared for this ending.

  My parents weren’t even ready in the beginning.

  I was born very early. Two months early, in fact. So I didn’t have a nursery painted, or a Moses basket or clothing or a bottle or a blanket. They were waiting until the last minute so they had enough money saved.

  I ruined that.

  It’s the reason I’m different.

  The reason I’m so grateful.

  I’ve heard that Crohn’s disease is pretty popular with us. By ‘us’ I mean premature babies; calling us preemies doesn’t make it cute, but I’ve never had any trouble in that area. My issue is with my heart. It’s ill-formed, or something. A hole in a ventricle or an atrium or both. Something like that. Something that doesn’t matter any more because I can’t chan
ge it. Something I no longer talk about.

  I’d already had two major medical procedures and was only allowed out of my plastic housing three weeks before when I was originally due to arrive into the world.

  Dad changed my name at the last minute to Talitha because it means little girl. I would have been Alice if I’d have been on time. If I’d have weighed a little more.

  If anyone is brave enough to ask me about it I simply tell them, ‘My heart beats too fast so I’ll only live half as long as you.’ This usually makes them feel suitably uncomfortable so I tend to follow it up with, ‘But it means I’ll always stay skinny.’

  I’m the only one who ever laughs at that.

  Mum always tells me I’m too full of whimsy. She says I should take my condition more seriously.

  That it should define me.

  But, for me, life is great. I have a much clearer idea than most when it will all end, so I appreciate each day, hour, minute that I have. And that’s why I want to share this feeling. It’s the reason I preach. It’s the reason I tell anyone I can that there’s so much more to it.

  I throw out a cliché like, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’ Maybe something obvious like, ‘You don’t have to do that job if you choose not to.’ Or I’ll hit them with, ‘You could be dead tomorrow, and I probably will be.’

  If I said that today, it would be true.

  I don’t mind being dead. I knew it was coming.

  I would have chosen a different way.

  I’m just glad I had passed on before the fire.

  January

  WITH THE CASE gathering more weight as a possible series of murders, my own kudos within the station grows. I’m being left alone. Something of an expert. Somehow, a genius.

  So, if I don’t shave or change my clothes, if they smell drink on my breath before lunch, if my eyes are bloodshot for days because I am afraid to close them for too long, it all gets overlooked. Because I’ve done this before.