by Will Carver
‘Oh, morning, Sam,’ she says, sounding shocked to see me even though this exchange has become part of both our daily routines.
‘Morning,’ I pant, alerting me to the possibility that I did, in fact, complete my run by leaping up the stairs.
‘End of the week,’ she offers.
‘Yeah. Been a long one. Friday couldn’t have come any sooner,’ I give back, not lying but not telling her why the week has dragged so much for me.
‘Maybe we should toast the weekend this evening …’
I love how forthcoming she is and I fleetingly allow myself to forget the mission and indulge in flirtation. ‘Cocktails at seven?’ I suggest, not really thinking about which cocktails I can make or whether I even have the equipment to perform such a task; it just seemed like a suave thing to say in response to her playful suggestion.
‘Oooh,’ she says, pursing her red lips and raising her left eyebrow as if I hinted at something sensual. I feel the top of my penis begin to press against the soft fabric at the front of my tracksuit bottoms as I start to get hard imagining her lips wrapped around me, her eyes looking up at me to gauge my pleasure. ‘It’s a date.’ She smiles at me and I see her eyes dart down, noticing my excitement.
The awkwardness that follows with Gail not knowing whether to kiss me goodbye jolts me into reality. Who does she think I am? Who is she to me? Why did I allow such a complication?
She carries on walking, like she always does, but turns back saying, ‘Have a good morning,’ as she quickly glances down at my increasing bulge, purposely making it obvious she has done so. Her final, lingering, tease.
I am already unlocking the front door as Gail disappears around the corner and down the stairwell. In my haste I decide to kick the rolled-up newspaper through the doorway and across the floor, stopping as it whacks against the back of the sofa. I close the door quickly and lean my back against it as I reach my hand down into my tracksuit bottoms and grip hard, tugging five or six times until I have coaxed full arousal, my hand beating against the inside fabric aggressively.
I take my hand out and admire the triangle of tracksuit jutting out in front of me before ripping them down and grabbing hold again, using my other hand to take off my sweatshirt until I am standing completely naked.
I picture Gail bouncing on top of me but an image of my wife creeps in. I try to imagine the sounds that would come from Gail’s mouth if I bent her over and inched myself inside her anus or gripped the back of her neck, forcing her to take in more than she could handle, choking her, bludgeoning her throat to the point of gagging. Then I see my wife’s crying face.
And I don’t know who is thinking these things.
Is it V?
Is it Sammael Abbadon?
Still gripping hard, I move my hand back and forth, back and forth, but I know I cannot close my eyes and imagine what I would do to Gail so I move over to the cell door and open the flap to reveal Celeste lying spread out on the bed. The noise wakes her but she doesn’t move her body, just her eyelids, and she stares directly at me through the open rectangle, my eyes wide and glazed as I continue to tug faster and faster.
It takes a few moments for her to register what I am doing but she starts to scream obscenities at me as I continue to masturbate with my eyes fixed firmly on her form. It is not that I find her sexually attractive; it is that I don’t think of anything or anyone else while I look at her and the only way to quell this sexual thirst I am feeling is to finish what I have started. I don’t want to, but I have to.
This is who I have become.
It’s too late to turn back now even if I want to.
It fills more time.
‘You filthy fucking bastard,’ she screams at me with venom. It all just helps me focus.
Her insults are incessant and relentless but I don’t think of Gail. I don’t think of my wife. I don’t think of anything. Even though my eyes are pointing directly at Celeste, I’m not even sure that I see her. At this moment I see nothing and feel nothing. It’s the best place for me. All of us, invisible.
Then I climax. Shooting into the door of her cell, I groan as I do so and Celeste expels a drawn-out ‘No.’ She must feel abused. Part of me thinks I should care, but the part that should feel this way is dead. I drop down to my knees, my face now at the same level as the mess on the closed door.
Celeste cries on the other side.
I manage to whimper, ‘Shut the fuck up,’ but it isn’t loud enough for anyone to hear but me. I just don’t have the energy. I don’t know who I am.
My penis starts to go flaccid as I talk to the Lord, mumbling my usual mantra, asking him questions about why I am acting this way, why I have changed so drastically. I ask him what he will have me do next. I can’t hold out any longer.
This is all I have left.
Let me have this. So much has already been taken from me.
He tells me that this will all be over this evening; that it ends tonight; my work is almost done. One more person has to die but that I do not have to go anywhere for that to happen.
Then he tells me that I have to make a choice.
I must decide who I want to be with the most.
Celeste
WHEN THE FLAP opens, I know he’s back; it can only be him. I’ve given up all hope of anyone else finding me. Somehow, I know it ends today.
This time he is not coming in, though; he just watches me through the hole in the door. I don’t understand what he is doing; he just gazes vacantly in my direction. Is he coming in? Will he bring me water?
I have been keeping track of the days since he showed me the newspaper article that proclaimed my alleged monstrosity, my lack of soul and compassion; my contempt for mankind and those who follow a deity or entrust themselves to science. The utter fabrication of a personality I do not possess.
I have not seen the sky for three months. I have not breathed in fresh air or basked in the changing of seasons, but I have been counting my meals and my bowls of water since the false revelation a tabloid journalist puked onto a page about me and I know that today is 21 September. For me, this means Mabon, the autumnal equinox, the time when the Earth Mother enters her third trimester; when witches walk between the two worlds. For the one I have come to know as V, this is a date for homicidal lunacy; another opportunity to ravage a belief that is not his own and sully the name of good-natured fellow Wiccan brothers and sisters. Without realising, he manages to besmirch his newly adopted faith through a lack of true understanding. He merely cherry-picks its relevancies and exploits them for his own gain. Not a true believer. A part-time plastic capitalist.
I know something terrible is going to happen today and the possessed look in his eyes only confirms that. Deep down, I have always known that it would be me who would suffer the most when this moment finally arrived. I could never win. Good does not always prevail.
Then I notice he is wobbling, almost vibrating; his eyes are fixed but the small amount of fat on his cheeks is shaking. His expression seems to change from anger to tedium to pleasure and back to rage.
And it clicks with me what is happening.
Despite being on the other side of a locked door and only being able to see a cut-out section of his face, knowing what he is doing to himself, where his hands are, I feel as if he is touching me. Like he is close to me; breathing on me.
I shout at him.
Because I want him to get off me.
‘You filthy fuck, get away from me,’ I shout, my voice squeezing through the rectangle and beating him in the face, but his eyes continue to move through vexation, vapidity, indulgence.
Red.
Amber.
Green.
I proceed with a barrage of obscenities; it didn’t work for me when he first captured me and it won’t work now but it is all I can think to do. And then I hear him finish and I see that final look of relief in his eyes. I’ve seen that look before on men as I stare up at their sweating torso once it finishes jackhammering away betwe
en my legs. Every man pulls that same face.
He drops down out of sight, probably onto his knees again, praying to his fake Lord that he uses to excuse the things he does and I can think of nothing better to do than cry.
Even though he never touched me, I feel raped.
I lie on the bed wanting desperately to curl into a ball and shut myself off from it, but my wrists and ankles are still tethered leaving me outstretched. After several minutes of self-pity I am thrust back into the truth of my situation as the gap of light goes dark and my assailant re-emerges.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says in a low monotone, ‘not much longer. It’ll all be over tonight.’
And he locks the shutter, plunging me into my pitch-black confinement for the final time.
January
‘JUST BECAUSE IT hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that it won’t happen at all.’ I reassure Paulson that my intuition remains intact, despite The Two vacating the black room in my mind. ‘You’re going to have to stick tight to me.’
I should be thinking about the last time, and the time before that. I should be recalling all of the messages that The Two have attempted to convey to me throughout this case. I should clear the pictures from the other two walls in my living room and write down all the information from every vision.
The boy’s traffic-light eyes.
The circles of candles.
The light and the dark.
Blindness and sight.
Imbalance between The Two.
I should write all of these things across the walls and then combine it with the actual police work. The way each person died, the situation of a holy building, the proximity of a hospital at every scene, the ritualistic elements, the fact that every murder was committed in front of a huge crowd.
Blindness in plain sight.
With the exception of Brooke Derry, who still lives. And breathes.
I should disregard everything that she has told us. She is not the anomaly that helps prove the rule. She is not Audrey. What she says is not as important as where she was found.
I should combine all of this information while I have the time, before I am supposed to return to the office and appear knowledgeable and experienced and competent in front of my expanding team. And then I should amalgamate it with everything I have learned from my mother.
Maniswomanismaniswomanismaniswomanismanis womanismaniswoman.
I cannot rely on one skill without the other.
I must be a detective, a seer and a son.
Proactive.
A dreamer.
A brother.
But I’m still not ready. I can’t just decide one day that I have escaped the trench I allowed myself to fall into when Audrey left me; I am still drinking, I think about her every day: what she looks like now, whether her hair is any different, what she is like as a mother.
Whether there is a way to get her back.
Do I really want her back?
So I don’t go over the images of the boy and girl who have plagued my mind since October, because I am too concerned with the fact that they have not shown themselves to me this evening. I run them by Alison over the phone to see whether I can spark anything in her mind she may have forgotten to mention. I block out my mother’s journals because I won’t focus on the important information contained within them, only the portrait of my innocent sister, her face depicted in the way I have always remembered it. All I have is the evidence that every other detective would have at their disposal and right now that just looks like a blurred retrospective catalogue of my ineptitude.
‘You want to stay here and work through it, just in case?’ Paulson offers.
‘No. No. Let’s just head into the station and wait for the team. Try to put something together before they get there for the brainstorm.’ I try to hide my deflation but Paulson sees right through it.
Right now, more than anything, we are going to need a little bit of luck.
V
AS I CUT the material that binds Celeste to the bed, I am still unsure about whom I should choose. My Lord tells me that I have always known but even at this late stage I am in a bewildering state of ambivalence.
She doesn’t wake up but it doesn’t matter if she does; her strength has diminished, her muscles deteriorated and the circle painted above her will keep her trapped in here while I make a decision.
I am already late for my proposed date with Gail by fifteen minutes; it will be another fifteen minutes before she comes to knock on my door. I have quarter of an hour to decide everyone’s fate and, apparently, I already know the answer.
I creep out of the room so as not to disturb Celeste’s rest; she will need her strength soon, and I leave her door ajar and unlocked for the first and final time. Anybody could hear her scream, but it doesn’t matter any more.
Nerves start to take hold of me and I find myself shaking, but not because I am frightened or anxious; perhaps it is excitement and anticipation of the denouement; the culmination of my work.
My hands wobble as I collect together the trinkets I took from all the people that helped me along my journey. Lily Kane’s necklace, Totty’s watch, a bracelet from Talitha Palladino and a photo from Graham White’s wallet. My body trembles and goes cold as I sweep them all into a pile ready to leave in Celeste’s cell.
Maybe that is why I drop the phone.
‘The woman from the front of the paper. The woman who killed all those people … She’s in my flat. She’s here now. She’s here now and she wants to kill me.’ I leave the phone on the floor, the woman’s voice at the other end still calling out to me.
It won’t be long until they get here and I can already hear Celeste moving around, discovering her new-found sense of false freedom.
Still, I tiptoe, despite having complete control over the situation and anything that is going to happen. I hear the bedcovers rustle as she moves with more freedom, aware that the painting she has been forced to stare at for two months is a trap. It works on her because she believes. This will be her downfall.
Tentatively I push the door open with my hand while protecting myself behind the wall, not revealing myself.
Just in case she doesn’t believe.
Because she may have escaped the circle.
She may want to kill me.
Because she wants to be the one that survives this.
The door glides open quietly and I almost hear an intake of breath coming from inside. With a handful of victim curio I step into the doorway; the light from the street and traffic behind surround me in an ever-changing aura. I am faced with the woman who everybody in the country has already sentenced to a life of imprisonment. She is kneeling on the bed, her long thin arms draped by her sides, seemingly as strong as the day I took her.
We glare at each other in silence for a short while until she starts to snarl. The memory of our encounter this morning is still burned onto her retina, the scars reopened at my full appearance. I watch her shoulders rotate forwards and she leans into a position of poise, her arms resting in front of her, fists clenched on the mattress, like a bulldog exuding its prowess.
Ready to pounce.
I startle her by throwing my pile of souvenirs across the room; they slide along the floor and hit the wall on the other side, spilling in all directions. She only glances at them, momentarily allowing herself an opportunity to wonder. Then she snaps her head back towards me, straightening her legs a little and lifting her backside up, then down. Up, then down, savagely pumping energy around her muscles.
Her growl gains volume and the shriek travels out the open door and across the corridor to Gail who is waiting impatiently for my arrival.
This alerts her.
She runs down the corridor and bangs on my door. She asks whether I am OK in here but all she hears is screaming. The pounding on the front door ceases and Gail runs back to her own flat to notify the police. I take the lock off the front door so that she may enter easily on her return.
S
o that she may be my witness.
I take a final glimpse of Celeste through the open doorway.
And the decision is made.
My Lord was correct; I always knew.
I choose my son.
January
IN AN ACT of desperation, I decide that we should narrow our search down to the triangle of pins that mark the outer reaches of our murder map. I order a handful of junior officers to call larger hospitals within this vicinity to inform their security to be extra vigilant. They need to call the Royal Marsden, Royal Brompton, St Pancras hospital. They need to call the hospitals that have already been involved in this case: the Royal Free Hospital, St Thomas’, Lister Hospital. I tell them that they need to personally visit the ones on the list that we have narrowed down due to their close proximity to churches or mosques and open parkland. Anything within close range of a crossroads.
It’s the best that I can come up with.
I still haven’t had a vision.
I tell Paulson that we will once again be retracing the steps of the killer. Going from one scene to the next. Getting inside her head even further. Really, I have a theory that The Two have not shown me where the next murder will take place because it is going to happen at a location we have already been. Guided by guilt, I tell myself that it has to be Trafalgar Square, and at the very least you are always guaranteed to have a crowd. But I am doing what I tell the juniors not to do. I am forcing a pattern that does not exist. There seems no other viable option at this time.
I am trying to atone for Totty Fahey.
Murphy finally relents on his idiotic news bulletin idea after the majority agree it provokes widespread hysteria and the last thing we want is a group of vigilantes running wild through the parks and hospitals of the capital; staking out holy buildings and causing diversionary havoc.
The team works swiftly and efficiently, checking in with me once tasks have been completed and updating me with progress. Paulson and I travel back to where it started at Parsons Green. It’s a waste of time; Celeste is not coming back here. I don’t have a feeling or sensation or connection to Celeste when I stand on the spot that Lily Kane died. I just want to get to Trafalgar Square and put things right.