by Simon Hall
Claire had known how big a confession that was, had believed him when he said no one else knew, apart from Rutherford of course. That was the way with Dan, the serious stuff always had to be dressed up in some fun, as though he needed it to protect himself. It could be endearing, but it could be infuriating too.
She’d thought she understood what he was saying when he’d talked about the Swamp. He was warning her of how he could suffer, saying it was random and arbitrary and not caused by her. He was telling her he wanted the relationship to work, and if he was sometimes down or moody, it wasn’t her fault. It was something that had always haunted him, probably always would.
Claire had thought she understood – perhaps hoped might be a better word? But, as ever, he hadn’t made it clear, hadn’t told her that he wanted her beside him, to help him through, hadn’t asked what effect his moods had on her, hadn’t said those words she’d been waiting almost a year to hear.
She’d felt sentimental last night and almost called him. Almost, but not quite. She knew the wine was having its magical effect and it was well past midnight. Better to go to bed and get some sleep. She could check to see if she’d registered with the sites in the morning. It was hardly an urgent line of inquiry and she still didn’t really know what she was doing.
Claire hauled herself out of bed, switched on the computer. Two emails were waiting, both from the sites saying she’d successfully registered. No time to log in now, she had to get in to work to meet Whiting, something she was oddly looking forward to. He was an abrupt, graceless and often irritating man, but an impressive investigator.
She would go online later. Anyway, she’d need a few hours to perfect her new identity. She could already feel poor Zoë forming in her mind.
It was still dark when he woke from the fitful, shallow sleep. He was breathless at first, blinked hard in the half-light, unsure where he was, remained rigid, still in his bed, tensed, ready to run or fight, ready even to die. It was back with him again, so clear, so vivid he could have been there, back in the forest, scared, so scared, only Sam there to comfort and reassure him.
The rows and balls of razor wire glinted silver against the icy mud. It was cold, so cold. It always felt cold there. That was one of his sharpest memories, the cold. No matter how many layers of clothes, how quickly he trudged, the cold penetrated his body with its bitter insistence. Even the times by the fire, buddies huddled around, they were only brief respites from the clinging cold.
Even when they’d originally been despatched in August, the country’s hottest month, even then his first impression had somehow been the cold. It pervaded his memories.
The vicious cold. That, and the dark and silent forest where death so often lingered in the innocent trees.
The forest had become the enemy. The forest and the spirits that flitted within, always unseen, but you knew they were there. Spirits with guns and lovingly honed knives, always watching you, always ready to take you. You could feel their hatred.
Sam could feel it too, he knew. They were so close they understood each other’s moods. But here in Bosnia there was only one mood. Survival. See out the day, that was their unspoken mission. Each day alive is another closer to return. See out the day. Survive.
Life had been good before the day the order came. July 23rd 1995. Or had it? He wasn’t so sure now. His certainty had diffused. Perhaps it had just been better. Or different.
In his mind, his life was divided into four phases. There was the carefree time he and Sam had together before Bosnia. That felt warm, his favourite memory. It played in his mind with an amber glow.
Then there were the cold, crawling days of duty. Duty and survival. They were tolerable because they had each other, although they always looked blue in his imaginings, perhaps tinted like the light through the forest. The steely colour of the razor wire.
Then there were the days after it happened. They were oddly smudged memories, perhaps because of the shock, or the tears he had to hide. Or the uncertainty of not knowing what would happen, whether the outcome would be life or death.
The times back in Devon were the clearest. They weren’t an exciting life, nor a luxurious one, but they were warm and comfortable. They were both safe and alive and they were together. They’d managed what so many others didn’t. They had survived. They’d both brought home their wounds, but they’d lived. He wondered how much his surroundings and how he had spent his days mattered at that time. All that was important was being together and being alive, away from the icy forest and the lines of silver razor wire.
And then there were the times of now. The times after the shooting. He hadn’t known what to do at first. It was as if two mighty surges of emotion swelled in his brain, broke free, careered together, battered and beat and pounded into each other, becalmed their furies.
One was revenge, a tide of raging heat so powerful it could propel him anywhere. The other was grief, so heavy and dampening it rendered him lifeless. Together they’d left him sitting in his flat and staring out of the window, not thinking, just looking, his mind blank, a void.
How long had that time lasted? He wasn’t sure. He could find out if he searched his memory, but there was no need. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t important now. It had been a time of automation.
He’d carried on with his job. He’d carried on with his life, what was left of it. But it was like living under anaesthetic. There had been no feeling. He’d sleepwalked through the months, not noticing the changing seasons. How had he survived? His experience in Bosnia? His ability to see out each day? Just to survive.
Then had come the resolution. He wasn’t sure how it happened, had no idea why, but that wasn’t important. Like an angel, it had come. In all its detail and splendour. Revenge had won the battle for his future. He felt alive again, newly awake, energetic with his purpose. He had a reason to live, a belief in existence that had been lacking for so long. And a reason to die.
The angel had brought with her a plan, beautiful in its inspiration and detail. All that remained was to put it into action. He’d relished doing so. He’d left his job and found another that the mission demanded. He’d made the preparations. He’d made the friends. He’d bought the gun, the dead pig, the hacksaw, the tent, the old car and the quad bike. He was ready. All he needed now was the catalyst.
Last week it had come.
This morning, the mission would enter a crucial stage. Not the endgame he thought, but the end of the middle game. It was the most dangerous time, the most risky, but he was sure it would work. All the preparations were laid.
It was time. Monday morning. All would be complete within a few days. He and Sam would be reunited. He would have his revenge. He tried a smile, but couldn’t quite remember how.
Dutifully, he followed the morning’s routine; the shave, the wash, the breakfast radio. But still he couldn’t shake loose the memory.
The forest had been a silver silhouette that night, the razor wire glowing in the wedge of moon. They’d trudged back and forth as they always did. The cold had made the ground hard, silent under his boots. They were frightened but they scarcely noticed, were so used to it. And they had the reassurance of being together.
He hadn’t heard the fast footsteps coming out of the forest until they were upon him. He’d seen the night’s new flash of silver as he turned, the gleaming steel, the vicious tapering point raised ready to end his life. He’d known he had no time to react, could see it plunging slowly towards his throat, could feel the imminence of death surrounding him.
But Sam had sensed it. He was leaping, twisting, white teeth bared, jaws reaching, searching for the flesh, taking the full force of the flying knife in his flank, yelping, breathless, crashing back to the hard earth, that new, unnatural limb jutting from his beautiful fur. It was time enough to draw the gun and puncture the black mass of man with three, four, five spurting red holes, until both he and the dog lay gasping on the icy ground.
Chapter Eleven
THE
YELLOW LIGHT OF the rising autumn sun had made no inroads on warming the day. The people he passed as he drove wore coats and hats and scarves, and many kept their hands plunged deep into their pockets, or arms hugged around their chests. Dan set the car’s heating to maximum on the drive to Charles Cross, but still he felt cold. Winter was edging inevitably closer.
He’d been resisting it for several years now, saw it as an obvious and regrettable mark of growing older, but perhaps it was time to do as his mother had always told him and buy some vests. He wondered what Claire would think. No matter how you tried, it was simply impossible to undress erotically when wearing a vest.
The sharp attention of the cold was a problem he’d always suffered. A doctor once told Dan that he should think himself lucky. Low blood pressure was good for your health. It helped to prevent a range of illnesses the man said, with one of those unconvincing medical smiles. But not an apparent permafrost in your hands and feet in the winter months, Dan had countered.
Adam hadn’t helped. He’d climbed into Dan’s Peugeot, grimaced, and immediately turned the heating down and opened a window.
‘We didn’t get anything in the night,’ the detective said, pointedly fanning at his face with a hand. ‘The teams are back out now checking the rest of the list of possible cars and people for your stalker, but there are hundreds. It’ll take a while.’
Dan changed gear, indicated to pull off the main road. ‘So where are we going?’
Adam had hardly let him get a word in since he picked the detective up from Charles Cross police station. It was as if he was thinking aloud, the ideas tumbling out of him.
‘First, we’re off to meet Gibson at his flat in Stoke. I want to see if I can get any more details from him about the car or the man. We’ve got a police artist coming over later too to make up an impression of the guy.’
Dan found
Tamar Road
and the small block of two-storey flats where Gibson lived. It looked relatively new, probably built in the seventies. The pain in Dan’s ankle stabbed as he got out of the car and he winced. He could feel how much it had swollen through the thick socks and boots he’d put on to protect it. ‘You OK?’ asked Adam as they walked though a gate and up to the flats. ‘It’s number four, just along here.’
‘Yeah, just about. I twisted my ankle taking Rutherford for a run this morning. It aches a bit but it’s not too bad.’ Dan gritted his teeth and tried not to limp.
They climbed a flight of echoing, concrete stairs and found a yellow wooden door marked with a number four. The paint was chipped and the corridor smelt of cats. Adam knocked but there was no answer. He knocked again.
‘Bloody hell, where is he?’ the detective growled. ‘I told him it was important we saw him first thing and he said he’d be in. He’d better not have gone off shopping or something ridiculous like that.’
He knocked again, much harder this time and the door creaked and slipped open. Adam pushed and it swung back to reveal an off-white hallway, some strips of paint peeling by the greying ceiling. A strange smell crept over them, like rank rotting meat.
‘Hello,’ he called, stepping in to the hall. ‘Hello! Mr Gibson! It’s the police … Chief Inspector Breen … you met me last night. I’m calling as we arranged. Hello!’
They passed an open door to the kitchen, a small two-hob cooker and grill, a large grimy fridge. One of the taps above the sink was dripping, fast and rhythmic. There was a wooden chopping board by the sink, its pitted surface scarred with dark red fingers of stains.
‘Hello, Mr Gibson,’ called Adam again, his words echoing around the flat. Dan was sure there was no one here. It felt empty. They passed another open door, to a bedroom this time. The faded floral curtains were thin and half-drawn, a pile of sheets stacked neatly on the bed. A set of dumbbells was propped up in the corner. The room smelt damp.
There was another open door in the hallway. Adam leaned in, Dan following. A bathroom, white toilet, bath and shower, frosted window streaked with dull, green mould.
‘Mr Gibson, hello!’ shouted Adam, much louder now, making Dan start. ‘It’s the police. Hello!’
They came to a final door, light blue, closed this time, cracked paint peeling in patches. The rotting smell was stronger now, cloying the fetid air. Adam turned to Dan, swallowed.
‘You might not want to come in here,’ he whispered.
‘What? Why? What do you mean?’
Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘What I mean is … he was in a bit of a state last night, wasn’t he? He seemed a nervous type. He’s ex-army too, and that can mean people have seen sights which make them fragile and … well, prone to doing extreme things. I’m wondering about what we’re going to find on the other side of this door and whether you’ll want to see it.’
Dan still hadn’t got it. ‘Like what?’
The detective sighed. ‘Well … you’re not exactly good with blood and guts, are you?’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
Adam held up a finger, ran it across his throat.
‘Ah,’ said Dan, suddenly feeling queasy. He took a hasty step back, then another and the pain in his ankle throbbed anew. Adam nodded, paused, and pushed the door open.
‘Jesus!’ the detective gasped. ‘Fucking hell!’
Dan turned away, his imagination running with the horrors inside the room. A shotgun lying on the floor under a rigid hand, a body slumped in a chair, flies swarming around, a destroyed head, blood-splattered scarlet, drying across the walls …
A swirling sickness enveloped him. He’d always hated gore.
He looked up at Adam who was shaking his head, still staring into the room, holding tight on the door-frame, his knuckles white. ‘Shit,’ the detective whispered. ‘I don’t believe it. Just … shit.’
Adam breathed out heavily, his chest heaving. Dan knew his friend had seen plenty of mutilated corpses before, it went with the job, but this must be particularly horrific. He wasn’t going into that room, didn’t want his sleep of the next few months destroyed by the sight returning to him.
‘You’d better come and have a look at this,’ Adam said, turning to him. ‘Don’t touch anything, just come and look.’
‘Are you sure? I don’t fancy … I mean, I don’t like blood and guts and …’
‘It’s nothing like that. Not a damned thing like it. Come and have a look.’
Dan hesitated, then hobbled reluctantly over and joined Adam in the doorway, steeled himself for what he was about to witness.
For a moment he was speechless, couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘What? What?! It’s … it’s … oh, shit!’ he stammered eventually, feeling his stomach spin. ‘I mean … hell! Shit!’
They both stared in disbelief. On the wall facing them was a large frieze. Exactly in the middle was a huge photograph of Dan’s head, about three feet high. It was grainy, looked like it had been photocopied from a newspaper and enlarged. Around it was a series of cuttings, headlines, scribbled notes.
One was a full-page article from the Daily Bulletin about how Dan had solved the riddle of the Death Pictures. Another was a feature in the Western Daily News, about the Bray case. His self-consciously smiling face from the Wessex Tonight publicity shot peppered the display and made up its edges. Newspaper photos of Dan and Rutherford were interspersed with other articles, including one about a talk Dan had given to the Women’s Institute in the tiny Cornish village of Blisland.
How the hell had his stalker found that? It was taken from a tiny Bodmin freesheet. Only one answer occurred to him, and Dan didn’t like it at all. The man must have been scouring all the region’s local press for any news of him, no matter how tiny or trivial.
Dan breathed out heavily, tried to resist the familiar temptation to wheel around, check who was behind him. He forced his concentration back on to the frieze. There were a couple of pictures of Adam too, posed and as smart as ever, it looked like they’d also been clipped from a paper. All around the displa
y were pinned cheerful and colourful Wessex Tonight car stickers.
One photograph made Dan shudder. He stared at himself bending down, talking to a party of schoolchildren at May’s Devon County Show. There had been no press photographers allowed in the Wessex Tonight tent that day. The only way the snap could have been taken was by the man who created this … he hesitated to let the word form in his brain, but couldn’t find a more palatable substitute. This … shrine.
He must have been standing just feet away. Watching him. Studying him. Perhaps even so close as to be touching him. And Dan had been absolutely oblivious, as the man stood there, gazed at him, took his photo and no doubt enjoyed his fantasies about what was to come.
And on the table, rotting meat, the source of the rank, overpowering smell pervading the tiny flat. Pig meat. Four trotters. Some bones, and pink, bloody flesh.
‘I just … hell!’ Dan managed. ‘It’s … well, it’s him, isn’t it? Last night was all a damned act, wasn’t it? It’s him.’
Adam was still staring at the frieze, didn’t reply.
‘You know what the bastard did, don’t you?’ Dan gasped, suddenly winded by the realisation. ‘He described me. That description he gave us of the guy who broke into the woman’s car. It was me. And the numbers of the registration plate and the car. They’re my bloody car. I don’t believe it. The bastard. The devious bastard.’
Adam still said nothing, just pointed across the room to a small, battered wooden table by the window. There was a letter on it, propped up against a vase.
Dan screwed up his eyes, forced them to focus. On the front was written, “Dan.”
Karen Reece watched her daughter and her friends skip their way along the road towards school. So happy, so joyful, she rarely stopped thinking what a wonderful time of life it was. Had she been like that once? She supposed she must have been, not that she could remember it now. Those blue-sky days of no troubles or responsibilities. Not like trying to run a house for them both on the government allowances and the income from her part-time job. Talking of which, she’d better stop standing here staring, and get ready.