The Two

by Will Carver

Two looking at one looking for two.

  When I bring my head back round to the front, they are gone. Disappeared.

  Evaporated.

  Chased away.

  I stop at the point where the roads cross.

  So close.

  Disappointed, I scan the area, the ground looks untouched. No footprints or obvious holes. The earth looks unmoved by their shuffling feet. I start to doubt myself. After the second victim, I thought I had pulled myself from the doldrums of my uncertainty over Audrey’s departure and Mother’s death. I was wrong. I needed this last kick.

  I haven’t slept for days but, still, something had to wake me up.

  Looking back down the path I can see that Paulson and Murphy are making their way towards me. I turn away, focusing my efforts on squinting into the distance, trying to detect any moving figures in the woodland beyond. But they are long gone.

  I will have to wait another seven weeks.

  Twenty-first of March.

  Ostara.

  The next Sabbat.

  Murphy asks what I’ve found.

  ‘There is no sexual gratification in these killings,’ I start, not knowing at first where I am going with this line of deduction. ‘I just wonder whether this psycho watches afterwards. Whether they are turned on by the pandemonium.’

  ‘Like it’s part of the ritual and he has to watch it play out?’ Murphy immediately suspects that the killer is male.

  ‘The scattered geography would suggest random selection of these victims. The killer is drifting and taking whoever seems weakest.’

  ‘It looks that way, Jan.’ Paulson chips in.

  ‘I just don’t know whether I believe that.’ His face screws up as I go against my own trail of thought. ‘The ritualism goes against all of that. I think that location is key. What do all three crime scenes have in common apart from the candles and salt circles and victims on their knees? Why so public? What is in the vicinity which may help us pinpoint the way the victims are selected?’

  My partners are silent, watching a show of January David neither has seen on this case so far.

  I step through the middle of them, my arm held out perpendicular to my body, pointing back down the path from which we came.

  ‘Look at this. See how the paths bisect one another forming separate crossroads? Think of the same design at Parsons Green. Is there something in that? Does this killer require such a thing as a component of the ritual? Could they have stood where we are right now, watching this poor girl burn? Were they in the crowd at Trafalgar Square? Did they stick around and go for a drink while we examined Lily Kane?’

  There is silence.

  I step back towards them and lower the level of my voice, my tone earnest.

  ‘This is not a normal case. The killer is approaching the victims and taking their lives in an abnormal way. We cannot address this in an orthodox manner. We have to think differently about this one.’

  It won’t be too long before Talitha Palladino’s parents see her again to confirm what they already suspect: their daughter is gone. I see her crumpled body being readied to be placed in a large black bag.

  ‘Jan, I get it, think outside the box,’ Murphy warbles, faking sincerity. He continues, ‘But we can’t ignore the tangible evidence, the crime scene, witnesses …’ he trails off.

  ‘I completely agree.’

  Paulson smiles. Murphy is agitated. He wants to make a call and report back on my behaviour.

  ‘If you can find a witness for me, Murph, that would be great.’

  I look between them at the square of dirt where the boy and girl exchanged their message. I did not conjure the image. They were there. The Two were certainly there. I turn their appearance around in my brain, trying desperately to decipher their actions. Striving to gain ground on solving this case.

  I think about The Smiling Man, and my sister, and Audrey. I think of Talitha and Totty and Lily. I think of the two children glowing in the park that only I could see. The pills still in my system, my vision pixelates for a second and, before I realise, more bile is involuntarily expelled into my mouth. I keep it closed and turn away, swallowing it back down, burning my throat.

  Pull yourself together, January. This has to stop.

  Back where we started, in the light, I watch as they bag Talitha Palladino.

  Dead, she is insignificant.

  ‘Everything all right, Jan?’ Paulson queries.

  I could try to explain.

  But I don’t.

  Instead, I retreat, retracing my steps.

  Talitha Palladino has been reduced to a chalk outline.

  Murphy moans something under his breath.

  Paulson follows me, ignoring Murphy.

  The news crews are already arriving. Talitha Palladino’s story will soon be aired to the nation by women with perfect hair and clean-shaven men. All of them using that soft sincere tone, counterfeit grief; conveying sadness solely through the use of their eyebrows.

  ‘Wait up, Jan,’ Paulson calls after me, his stumpy legs rubbing together, refusing to move at pace.

  I fold in half, my stomach cramping. I try to disguise my discomfort; the want to heave. Paulson finally catches up.

  Fifteen metres away, the crime scene is already surrounded by circus and hysteria and egocentricity and the circle of salt is the only part that looks untouched, undisturbed.

  Paulson surreptitiously supports my weight and whispers, ‘Come on, Jan, let’s get you back.’

  The moment of nausea passes and a calm ensues. Yet something of Talitha Palladino remains, lingering, in the air, in the puddles on the ground, hovering above the soil, in the flickering light-bulb filaments of the news crews.

  I can feel it.

  It’s too close to the sensation I experienced after blowing out the candle set in front of Lily Kane.

  Paulson walks me through the scene, trying his best to disguise the fact that he is supporting most of my weight. ‘Nearly there,’ he reassures me.

  Centimetres away from the spot where Talitha Palladino gave her final exhalation lies the salt circle, about half a metre in diameter, large enough for someone to kneel inside. Paulson, preoccupied with my near-stupor, accidentally disrupts a portion of the scene, the smallest part, almost insignificant. His left shoe nudges a section of the salt particles, breaking the circle. Instantly, a gust sweeps through the crowd, blowing the news readers’ hair horizontally. Empty polystyrene cups shoot across the crime scene, the police tape rasps violently and the remainder of the salt is blown away, dispersing into the gravel, ready to dissolve with the next rainfall.

  And I feel her leave.

  This requires more than conventional detective work, but, for now, to keep Murphy and his backers pacified, that is exactly what I will have to do.

  The Two can still find me when I am awake, so, now, it doesn’t matter if I sleep.

  They can get to me whenever they like.

  To get them out of my head I must enter the mind of Celeste Varrick.

  Ostara

  March 2009

  V

  I DON’T KNOW why I have chosen these references. Perhaps I just know, maybe I am being told, being fed.

  Being used.

  But something speaks to me when I read: ‘… the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.’ As I read on, I soon realise how appropriate this is, that it sums up everything I am doing though may not quite understand yet.

  I paint the reference in large black letters on the glowing white walls of the room that nearly belonged to my son.

  I flick to another page and read: ‘… the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.’ And things start to make sense.

  The room now lies empty, made larger and more vacant by the wash of white over every surface. With the door closed, the walls are as black as the painted references.

  This is how the Lord wants it.

  This
is how it must be.

  Though I still have much work to do.

  Before my Lord tells me to act, to take Celeste, two more must die.

  One will die tomorrow.

  The last on the first of May.

  Then our work truly begins.

  Then we bring justice.

  January

  FOLLOWING ON FROM our research into the ritualistic nature of the three murders so far, we have managed to narrow down some kind of Pagan or Wiccan influence. I’ve arranged for an expert’s contribution in the morning. I gave Paulson the task of letting Murphy know it is nothing to do with Satanism, and that, while different from anything we’ve seen before, this is far less sensational than that.

  He shrugged and conceded that he was wrong; just gave in without question.

  And that’s why he shouldn’t be a detective.

  That’s another reason he should not be part of my team.

  The next Sabbat is tomorrow. Ostara. The twenty-first day of March. If I’m right, there will be another victim; The Two will come to me tonight and tell me where.

  Leaving it in my hands.

  Someone’s life is in my hands.

  Someone’s death is in my head.

  The Two will present themselves to me as I sleep on my bed. I’ve asked Paulson not to wake me, no matter what he hears.

  He’s staying with me.

  We know they’ll arrive tonight, we’ve worked that much out; even Murphy knows when the next murder is due to occur. What he doesn’t realise is that Paulson and I are using my visions as a bonus, to back up the physical findings. I can’t ignore them but they no longer form the basis of the investigation.

  ‘God, Jan, I hope you’re right about this,’ Paulson says, knocking back the last dregs of coffee from his oversized mug.

  ‘Look on the bright side, if they don’t come tonight, it means that nobody is going to die. I don’t mind being wrong if that’s the case.’ But, of course, it’s not. Graham White is lying in his bed tonight with his own problems, fighting off his own demons, hoping tomorrow will bring better fortune than today – like all of us. Only tomorrow, he becomes a victim.

  I am afforded the right to have a guilt-free drink tonight; it relaxes me. It calms me enough so that I can sleep. Not that I need to sleep to see The Two, that is apparent now; I just prefer it that way. It’s less real, less explanation needed if it is in the confines of my own home.

  With Paulson staying this evening, as my back-up, my support, I decide to sleep in the bedroom for the first time since Audrey left. It’s the bed that I was in when I first saw The Smiling Man, the place Audrey and I made love; it’s a place that was just ours.

  ‘Are you going up now?’ Paulson asks.

  ‘When is a good time?’ I throw back, rhetorically.

  I edge up the stairs slowly, one at a time, each step moving me into a colder part of this great house. I turn back to Paulson.

  ‘I’ll just put another coffee on, if that’s OK. Wait down here until you’re done.’ He looks like a child as he says this, waiting for some approval, some acknowledgement that what he is doing is correct. I throw him a nod and he slinks off to the kitchen to mix up another batch of Ethiopian coffee to keep him awake. Alert.

  I half expect the door to creak open slowly, building the tension as I prepare to enter the room, but it doesn’t, it glides open effortlessly, crashing into the wall behind, just as it always has. This recognition of past times fills me with a sense of ease and nostalgia. But that is short-lived.

  Flicking the light on, I see that the room has not remained in the pristine condition that Audrey would have liked. It looks a little greyer, somewhat weathered. As though it has decayed along with me. The room has a constant five o’clock shadow, the walls are dulled, the bed has been having nightmares. The thin layer of dirt that appears to cover everything now takes me to the dust-covered floor in my visions and I tense up.

  Then a ringing in my ears forces me to close my eyes.

  I tilt my head to the side, put my little finger inside my right ear and wriggle it furiously. As though it might alleviate some pressure.

  Then a sharp pain splits my forehead into two pieces and I move my hand from my ear to the front of my skull trying to block the stab, attempting to suppress the throb.

  I open my mouth wide but nothing comes out at first.

  Then I manage to release some pressure with a groan as I fall forwards onto the dank bed ahead of me.

  Paulson hears my whimper but does nothing, just as he said he would, just as I told him to.

  At the point my face comes crashing down onto the quilting, my plunge into darkness ends, the pain subsides instantly and the silence I seek is delivered.

  Complete quiet.

  With the exception of the shuffling feet.

  There is no sense of the location for the next murder other than being inside.

  The last thing I remember is the girl placing a cloak over the boy’s head and plunging us all into blindness. I wake to see the swirling art nouveau pattern that Audrey picked out for the bedspread.

  I have no idea how much time has passed, how long I’ve been out of it. The light in the room is the same. The smell is the same. I can hear the TV downstairs, a mumbled voice, some canned laughter. Perhaps I was screaming and Paulson turned it up to drown me out, obeying my request.

  Pushing myself up from the bed, I feel refreshed, like I have rested for the night. When I get to the bottom of the stairs I can see that Paulson is asleep, sitting in one of the armchairs, the half-full cup of coffee in his hand now cold, the television blaring out some American sitcom.

  ‘Paulson.’ I speak softly so as not to shock him. But he doesn’t even flinch.

  ‘Paulson.’ I say this at a normal level but evoke an identical response.

  ‘Paulson!’ This time I raise the volume and shorten his name to almost one syllable; the s hisses and he jumps awake. The coffee wobbles but he clenches and steadies it, preventing a spillage.

  ‘Oh God, Jan.’ He lets out a long exhalation to illustrate his shock. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ I declare.

  ‘You’ve seen them?’

  ‘I’ve seen them,’ I repeat, nodding in affirmation.

  Paulson uses his left hand on the arm of the chair to lever his frame more upright and asks, ‘And?’ He pauses for a second, his eyes bulging as he leans forward for a response. ‘What did they say? Do you know where it’s going to be? Where the next murder will occur?’

  I touch my forehead with my hand before swiping it slowly to the back of my head, pushing my hair flat. Rubbing the back of my neck as though I have slept all night in an awkward position, I look at the ceiling as if trying to recall something, trying to decrypt the message. I say, ‘You know …’ I trail off briefly and he edges his body forward even more. ‘They’re not just telling me where it will be, I can see that much now.’ My partner holds his breath waiting for the next sentence to come out of my mouth. ‘They are revealing something about each other. They are also trying to hide something of one another.’

  ‘O-kaaaaaay.’ He screws his forehead up to signal that he is hoping for elaboration.

  ‘We already know when it will be. For the first time, I think they are attempting to convey who it will be.’

  ‘Who what will be?’ Paulson asks, just for clarification.

  ‘The killer.’

  ‘The killer,’ he affirms.

  ‘And the victim.’

  ‘And the victim?’ He accentuates the and.

  ‘The killer and the victim. That must be what they represent.’

  Tomorrow morning we meet with Alison, our Pagan specialist.

  She can see what is happening. She understands the things that we do not.

  She is too late.

  Gray

  I LAY IN bed last night, awake, worried about what today would bring. Petrified at what the doctors are going to say about my nephew. I have to
be brave for my sister, on the outside at least. I can’t show how anxious I am – she needs a strong man around. What shows on the outside is seldom what is felt on the inside.

  I would take his place if I could.

  Before the day ends, my concern will cease.

  My want will be heard.

  Death is on my back.

  Not far behind.

  Watching.

  I hate being underground: it makes me sweat, I get distressed, I panic myself into hyperventilation; but I hate buses even more, so there’s no choice, really. The two men next to me speak in what sounds like French. They hold on to the overhead bar, their armpits aimed at my face, their laissez-faire attitude towards personal hygiene evident; a stench washes over me.

  Inside, I gag.

  Outside, I’m stoic.

  I keep my breathing shallow so as not to inhale but have to give in eventually to prevent an anxiety attack.

  I’m completely unaware that this is my last ride on the tube, that there was no need to waste my money on a return ticket.

  That the next time I go underground it will only be one-way.

  The Bakerloo line takes me to Waterloo. I make a wrong turn somewhere but still manage to get overground in the place I want to be. As I follow someone through the turnstile, grabbing my ticket as it pops up at the other side, I see a sign above me that points right towards St Thomas’ Hospital.

  That’s where I need to go.

  It’s where I should stay.

  And wait.

  I make a dash for the exit. Stepping out onto the pavement, the sun on my face, I suddenly find myself in the middle of a gaggle of schoolchildren. All dressed in black apart from the girls, who wear yellow plaid skirts. The group parts down the centre and reconvenes on the other side of me before scuttling up the bridge. They are not moving fast enough to create a breeze but I turn noticeably cold.

  I continue my journey towards the hospital. To my right, the giant Ferris wheel looms high in the sky between the dirtied architecture of the town hall and an office block. I wait at the traffic lights as the RV1 bus to Covent Garden swings around the corner.