by Will Carver
I break down the short journey to the front door by plotting three points along the way. Firstly, the table in the middle that the phone sits on. It’s about half of the total distance but I will be able to rest my fragile weight on it to recuperate before stage two.
A deep breath and determination force my legs to wobble the distance; I almost collapse on arrival but am distracted by my weathered, sickly appearance in the mirror above the phone.
My eyes look black against my pallid skin but the bags under my eyes don’t seem as noticeable as usual, like they have become my cheeks. Perhaps a consequence of my daytime collapse into sleep.
I thought I had turned a corner after Totty but it may take longer. I can’t just forget the things I have seen, the events that have happened.
Next I aim my focus at the doorway to the second reception room. Probably only four or five steps, and I’m motivated by wanting to escape my reflection. The rotund outline of my sergeant remains motionless as he waits for me to let him in.
As I hit my second target my right shoulder crashes into the frame of the door, cracking as it takes the full force of my momentum; chronic fatigue is affecting my depth-perception somewhat. I heave as I thud into position, but there is nothing to puke up; still I make a sound as if vomiting.
To get to point three, the front door, I rest my hands against the wall and guide myself along as if lost in the dark until I am face to face with the paunchy shadow at my door. I unhook the chain with my left hand and release the latch with my right.
The door scrapes open only about five centimetres, but that’s enough to get a sense of the cold outside. Paulson’s cheeks are red. He looks at me.
‘Christ, Jan. You look like shit.’ And he opens the door fully to let himself in while I turn and stagger towards the kitchen where the cold tap awaits.
He closes the door softly but it sounds like it slams to me. I’m not drunk or high or paranoid or delusional, I simply feel thrust into something foreign, very suddenly. I want to be myself. I want to rely on police work but the visions are changing, evolving, and they keep tripping me up. Initially Paulson follows me cautiously as I amble into the kitchen, but his phone rings and he stops to talk in the hallway while I carry on.
As I drink directly from the tap, I hear snippets of Paulson’s conversation.
‘Yeah. I’m here with him now,’ he says, as if everything is normal. As if I’m copacetic.
‘All day, I think …’ he lies. ‘We’re going over it now,’ he misleads.
I hear his phone snap shut as he folds it back in half. I continue to slurp at the running liquid as he steps into the kitchen.
‘What’s going on?’ he asks, sounding genuinely concerned yet annoyed at the same time.
I continue to suck at the tap.
‘Look, Jan, I’ve covered for you all day. Murphy is beyond suspicious, I’m still not sure why you had to let him in on the whole ritualistic murder idea; I hadn’t even had time to go through it properly myself.’ He’s right, I know he is.
He told Detective Chief Inspector Markam that I was out following a potential lead. He blagged to anyone who asked of my whereabouts, each one of them riled by Murphy who was planting a seed just as the man in the suit asked him to. The man who is many ranks above Markam. The one who wants me out and, for some reason, wants Murphy in.
I feel my stomach filling quickly but still I’m not hydrated, I can’t stop. I start to breathe heavily, gasping for liquid. I sense Paulson sigh.
‘You’re going to need to pull yourself together, they’ve just found another body.’
I stop.
The tap continues to run in front of my face.
Of course there’s another body, it has easily been twenty-four hours since my half-vision.
I push my face back towards the waterfall, this time not stopping as my mouth reaches it. I let the icy water run over my cheek, then my ear, the hair behind my ear. I turn my head to face the plughole and the cold water pounds the back of my head and neck, refreshing me, revitalising. I leave it there until it numbs. Then I pull my head out, stand upright facing my partner and brush the wet hair away from my face with my hands.
‘We should probably get moving, then,’ I say, trying to sound together, like I am cured.
‘I should drive,’ he suggests, not quite a statement, but not a question either.
And I know he’s the one I can count on.
‘I’ll tell you all about it in the car.’
V
THE FRONT PAGE of the newspaper this morning has no picture. It would be too graphic: the girl’s face was burned so badly that her parents could just about confirm her identity.
They say she was set on fire.
They say it’s the third in the series.
They say the police are working on some strong leads.
You shouldn’t believe everything you read.
I haven’t seen it yet. I’m still running.
This morning I decide to up the intensity of my training.
The last mile of my route is lined with lampposts. Between the first two, I jog at my regular pace. As I reach the second post, I break into a sprint, pushing myself as far as I can for the distance to the third marker. As I cross this line I slow down quickly into a walk. To recapture my breath before I start the process over again at the next pillar.
The final stretch before my flat works out to be a sprint leg so, as I hit the front door, I drop into a walk just as the stairs approach. At the time I’m thankful, but it makes the trip seem longer and I’m unable to start the recovery process. I try to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth but it’s difficult, so I stop on one of the landings partway up to stretch my calf muscles and put off reading the paper a few moments longer.
Every pore of my skin is excreting sweat; my forehead, my chest, my back are all covered in tiny warm beads of water, soaking or dripping onto my clothes. Even my palms are clammy. It’s uncomfortable to hold on to the protective plastic that surrounds my morning tabloid.
I enter my flat, the scent of paint still fresh; a ladder I used to reach the ceiling still lies on its side. I’m too exhausted to digest today’s current affairs and the emotional response it is bound to evoke, so I throw the paper across the room, landing it on the sofa where it bounces onto the floor and rolls to the far wall.
Stripping off all of my clothes in three swift movements has become routine; I leave them in a pile on the floor of the bathroom and step into the shower. It’s scalding hot; the window and mirror steaming up instantly. Each hot droplet stabs into me, causing me an equal amount of pleasure and pain.
Then the pleasure outweighs the pain.
My penis shoots up, proud and strong. The hormones produced through exercise travelling straight to the tip.
I think of a time when the man I used to be was happy. With his wife. Before his son was created, before he died. With my eyes closed I clench a fist tightly around the solid protuberance.
With every tug I imagine her on top of me, beneath me, crouching in front of me. With every massage I long to be back with her. To be the man I was. With every stroke I tell myself that this day will come.
That I’d do whatever it takes.
To be a family again.
As I reach the climax, throbbing in my left hand, my mind goes temporarily blank, eventually returning to the reality of my new life as V.
My life alone.
The Lord is my company.
I switch off the shower and wrap a towel around my waist. Not fully flaccid yet, the front pokes out slightly, showing my form as the excitement continues to diminish. I drip over the floor leaving wet, size eleven footprints in a trail to the living room, where I pick up the newspaper which rests against the skirting board.
In a break from routine I sit down on the sofa, opting to drip dry while I catch up on the national news. Of course, I am angered by the headline and the insensitivity of the article and the sensationalism of the events. B
ut less so than before.
Desensitised, perhaps.
Maybe it’s easier now I know there is a plan.
The Lord will stop this.
I lay the paper calmly on the vacant seat next to me and lean forward to the edge of my cushion. With one hand grasping the other, the air flowing freely between my legs and over my exposed torso, I ask the question.
Is it time yet?
What will you have me do?
I wait.
I listen.
I obey.
Remaining in my half-dressed state I reach for my Bible and begin to read. Flicking through the pages digesting the words, examining the meanings. I am told I will know which words I need, which ones I should use. I will know how best to use them.
That it is nearly time.
I still need the ladder lying in my hallway.
I need black paint.
January
I TELL PAULSON everything.
I say that I no longer see The Smiling Man, that I think he was specific to Eames, or at least to that case. I say that now I have two children who appear to me, that they seem friendlier but still so sinister.
That I believe my mother.
That I wonder whether this is hereditary.
I relay the intricacies of all two-and-a-half visions.
And he listens, without questioning, interrupting or judging.
I don’t tell him that I’m getting better at it. That somehow, somewhere within me, I knew the last location would be Trafalgar Square but was not certain enough in my convictions. That I could have done something about it if only I had considered it as a location rather than the method of killing. I still don’t understand the significance of The Two, what they represent, what their part of the message means. I am not as confident as Mother in the things I see.
I don’t tell him how much I need this case or that I am drinking too much.
Because he already knows this.
I explain to him that I just wanted to stay awake, so that I could avoid that dark dusty room that may hold all the answers but I cannot decipher as effectively as real life. I wanted to be alert, sharp, ready. Because I didn’t want to be sat in a car driving to see another dead body; I wanted to be heading to a location to prevent another murder.
‘Jan.’ He speaks softly. ‘I believe you. I mean, you proved this works as an avenue of enquiry on that last case.’ He doesn’t want to mention Eames or Audrey for fear it may kick me back a few steps. ‘I just think that you need to combine it with …’ He pauses to find the right words.
‘Some actual detective work?’ I ask, half joking.
‘I wouldn’t use those words, but you know what I mean.’
Of course, he’s right. I’m too reliant on this ability, if that’s what you want to call it. On the last case, when I was tracking Eames, I dismissed the visions to my detriment. I caught him, but I could have caught him much sooner – before he got to Audrey again. This time I have embraced them too fully. I need the balance but I’m struggling.
‘Isn’t that why I have you, Paulson?’ I half joke, again.
He laughs. ‘I guess so.’
We pass The Dorchester and other grand establishments on our way to the corner of Hyde Park, where the next victim awaits us.
This time she is not in the kneeling position; the candles are not alight. Her hair is singed and burned into her scalp, her face scarred and blistered, red and wrinkled. It doesn’t follow the pattern. This seems like such an obvious way to get noticed, setting fire to someone. The first two murders were far more discreet; you could understand how no witnesses came forward. But this, currently unidentified, girl was aflame in a crowded area.
Closer inspection will eventually confirm her cause of death not to be linked to fire or heat in any way.
The minuscule prick mark in her chest leads us to think that it might have been induced heart failure. That the fire was a by-product, perhaps even an accident.
That she was already dead.
‘It doesn’t add up.’ Murphy joins us, suddenly appearing, his hands in his pockets, looking like a lost child. ‘Seems like someone piggybacking on the back of the first two murders but not getting it quite right,’ he adds.
‘It’s the same killer,’ I say, putting Paulson on edge. He’s already let his feelings be known when it comes to Murphy.
‘You can prove that?’ he asks, smugly.
‘Not yet.’ And I walk away from him to take a closer look at the girl.
I drop to one knee next to the body, which lies on the floor beside a wooden box. Seven tea-lights are strewn around the area; three are entangled in the matted hair. A small pile of sand lies next to the box; beside that, an upturned miniature cauldron of sorts. But the dirt around her is not displaced in any way; it doesn’t look as though she struggled at all. You would expect to see traces of her flailing limbs, or a flat area of earth where she rolled over in an attempt to put out the fire, but there is nothing.
I reach my hand out to touch her face softly and have to remind myself why I am here.
‘What happened to you?’ I whisper, suppressing sentiment.
To my left I see the salt circle that has been present at each crime scene. As I lift my head away from the grotesque sight below, something glows in the distance. Maybe one hundred metres directly ahead of me, two small figures radiate.
One boy, one girl.
Celeste
I DO NOT know the name of the girl who died, that is not important. What matters is that she is dead. That this is normal, cyclical, and that I helped send her to a better place.
The one I will come to know as V discovers the victim’s name in the same way that I do, through the media. He is angered then distraught to find that this young girl has been burned. He cries when he reads that her face was disfigured and charred. He weeps at the loss of her soul.
I react differently.
Because I took her soul.
This morning, as V stands in his kitchen, stretching out his calf muscles, warming down from his exercise, his eyes glazing with a thin film of acrid tears, I too am taking deep breaths. Not to weep at the loss of an innocent life, I believe that Talitha Palladino will emerge again on the days and nights when our two worlds extend over one another, but to relax into my pose as I meditate on another successful journey.
He stands with clenched fists and tensed muscles while I sit, my hands resting on my knees and my palms facing the ceiling. My core is relaxed. I hum a chant of gratitude and hope for protection while he speaks gibberish and calls for more natural strength.
For he is the dark.
And I am the light.
V locks himself away from the world he thinks he is here to protect while I am more proactive. I want to find the next person to die. I am trying to picture the next location. I wish to save another.
I am one half.
He is the other.
I am the antithesis of everything he believes in, everything he does.
That is why he wants to take me. To capture me. To keep me with him.
He believes that I am the only one who must be saved and he is the angel to deliver me to justice.
January
I DON’T NEED to be asleep.
Standing at Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park, the third victim lying burned and unrecognisable in the dirt beside my feet, I see The Two in the distance. They are talking to each other at the corner of two bisecting paths in the centre of some playing fields on the parkland.
The boy, on the left, bends down and pulls something out of the ground. A box. A small tinder box.
I feel paralysed.
Can anyone else see this?
Paulson and Murphy are still standing ten paces away, arms folded, making the occasional perfunctory exchange, not seeing what I see, not noticing what is right in front of them.
They are the crowd that laughs at penis jokes.
They are the rabble that goes trick-or-treating.
They are
the mob that rides the bronze lions.
The girl, on the right, delicately stretches out her hand as if to touch the box, then refrains and turns her head to me, releasing me from my paralysis.
Slowly, carefully, I straighten my legs, hoping not to alarm her, retaining my poise. She moves her gaze back to her partner.
My neck creaks delicately, swivelling around towards my team. They do not react to the children. Only I have noticed. Just because I see it does not make it real. The caffeine, the booze, the lack of sleep, are designed to make me feel more aware but they mask reality. They dilute truth. They paper walls to keep my gut-reactions subdued.
Paulson and Murphy are still mumbling about I don’t know what.
‘Stay here,’ I whisper in their direction, never averting my eyes from the ghostly image that, apparently, only I have noticed.
‘What? Where are you …’ Murphy trills.
‘Just stay here. I need to look at this in a different way.’
They obey my command and continue their discussion, this time with a distracted eye flitting occasionally to me.
I start the walk away from the dead body, the dirt beneath my shoes crunching louder than I would like. I’m cautious. I don’t want to spook the children. I just want to get closer.
Edging out of the lit crime scene, I set foot onto a darker path. My fellow detectives carry on their chattering.
My right heels drags. Only for an instant.
And the children turn their heads robotically in my direction, the boy’s eyes flashing green.
I close in on them, feeling as though I’m gathering speed, but I’m not.
The boy leans into his friend and whispers something in her ear and she hugs him affectionately. He starts to walk away, leaving the girl on her own. I want to shout ‘Wait!’ but nothing comes out.
I turn back to see my partners, but they seem only partially interested in what I’m doing.