by Ryan Casey
THREE
Ashley sprinted off the bus the second it stopped and the doors opened. He didn’t care that his knees ached, or that his body felt really weak. He didn’t care that he bumped into somebody waiting to get on the bus, prompting a series of curses in his direction. All he cared about was the police station. What was inside the police station.
He ran across the clean brick ground leading up to the modern-looking police station. The building was an impressive new structure—one that had been built within the last two years, replacing the old industrial-looking police station of many decades. This new one had a complete glass front. It looked more like a bank you might see in the middle of town than a police station.
Remarkably, as Ashley puffed and panted his way towards the steps leading up to the automatic doors, he realised he’d never actually paid a visit to this new station. Sure—back in his early twenties, he’d had to spend a night in a holding cell for pissing in a postbox. But that was the old place. He’d never been in here. Not that he’d behaved. Just he’d got better at pissing in postboxes without anyone catching him.
Ashley made his way up the steps. He could see people standing outside the glass building, sitting on the wall and looking in his direction. He tasted the dull hint of alcohol. Rubbed his tongue against his teeth, which were furry and rough. Shit. He could at least have cleaned up. Especially after his vomiting incident. He probably reeked, too. If Grace really was back—if that was physically possible and he wasn’t being tricked—then she’d turn him right away if she saw him in this state.
It was as he moved through the double doors, into the chatter of the reception area, that he looked up at a digital calendar and realised how much of a mug he’d been.
April 1st 2014.
The red, digital letters on the screen made his cheeks heat up. April Fool’s Day. Fuck. How had he been so stupid? How had he been so ridiculous as to fall for this?
But his muscles tensed. As the voices around him buzzed by, well-dressed people walking from door to door, his cheeks heated up beyond the usual embarrassment levels and his entire body burned. This was cruel. A cruel April Fool’s. And it wasn’t right for Steve to play a trick like this, especially so close to the anniversary of his sister’s—of Ashley’s girlfriend’s—disappearance.
Ashley looked around the main entrance area. Over to the left, there was a main desk, which looked more like an airport check-in zone than a place where murderers confessed to chopping up bodies and frying them for dinner. There was somebody with each of the four blue-uniformed police officers behind the desk, but there wasn’t a queue. He’d be able to speak to an officer in time. To get to Steve and give him a fucking hounding for this sick, sick joke.
He walked over towards the main desk. The place smelled like his flat had smelled when he’d first moved in—freshly laid carpet. Except it wouldn’t, not after long. Not after all the criminal shits had walked in through those doors and replaced the new smell with sweat and piss. As he walked across the soft cream carpet beneath him, already showing signs of wear and tear with patches of mud and various bits of dropped chewing gum, Ashley spotted a balding grey man with a creased green coat going right the way down to his knees walking away from the desk, freeing up a spot.
The eyes of the desk officer flicked over in Ashley’s direction. A chubby-faced, young blond guy wearing a blue police jumper. He nodded at Ashley to approach, eyeing up his attire, like he wasn’t used to seeing scruffy bastards walk into a police station.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” Ashley said, clearing his throat. The woman next to him—tall, skinny, and dressed in a bright pink tracksuit that showed off her pale, flat belly—reeked of alcohol, and mouthed off at the desk officer opposite her. Ashley tried to think of what to say as this woman went on and on. What did he say? Steve had told him to visit here? One of their officers had played a horrible prank? What actually did he say?
As he started to mumble a few words in reply, he heard a door slamming to his right and a few voices picking up.
He looked over. A tall, dark-skinned police officer was pointing and shouting at three men that were gathered around him. The men, all dressed in black coats, backed off. One of them was holding a furry microphone. Another was holding a camera, and another a notepad.
“But you aren’t denying the news that—”
“We’ll release a statement when the time’s right. Which is not now.”
“Sir? Can I help?”
Ashley looked back at the desk officer, who seemed unfazed by the commotion on his left. “I…Sorry. I’m—I was told to come here by…by Steve. Steve Wisdom. Officer Wisdom.”
The fresh-faced guy, probably younger than Ashley, blinked a few times with his long, effeminate eyelashes. “You aren’t with them, are you? Like, undercover. Because if you are, then you heard what Officer Richards just said. You need to wait for a statement.”
The words hit Ashley square in the chest. Why would he have given off any indicators that he had anything to do with the incident with the journalists and the officer over to his right? What did asking for Steve have to do with…
And then it clicked. It had kind of pieced together as the stand-off unfolded, but it hadn’t really slotted into place, not in Ashley’s mind.
“You aren’t denying the news…”
“We’ll release a statement when the time’s right…”
“You aren’t with them, are you?”
“I’m…I was asked here by Steve Wisdom. He—he played a trick on me. He told me…My girlfriend, Grace. She—she died. She was one of the sinkers. And—and Steve told me she was alive. Her own brother bullshitted that she’s alive.” Ashley felt his heart thumping. His throat tightened up. His fists tensed. The sounds of chattering around him intensified. The newish smell and the alcohol smell of the woman merged in some kind of horrible concoction.
Hubba Bubba. Cherry Hubba Bubba.
Grace’s car falling.
Her wide, terrified eyes as she disappeared into nothingness.
“Just bear with me a moment, sir.” The desk officer moved back on the roller wheels of his chair and then stood up. He opened a brown wooden door behind the desks and waved at somebody through there. Ashley waited. Bit the sides of his cheeks and waited. Waited as the smelly alchy woman beside him went on and on. Waited as the police officer to his right pushed the journalists further and further away from their prize.
It was an April Fool’s. A sick April Fool’s. And Steve Wisdom was not going to get away with it.
“Sir, if you’d like to have a chat with Officer Pembrokeshire. He’ll be able to help you.”
The fresh-faced desk officer was joined by a skinny, stern-faced man wearing a full uniform. He looked like he was way too old and frail to be working as a police officer, with his white moustache and beard, and yet at the same time he looked hard as nails, with his unreadable eyes and tensed jaw.
“Mr. Chester, am I right?”
Ashley nodded. The reality of the situation started to surround him, and yet in doing so it felt like a dream. “Where’s Steve? Steve Wisdom? He’s been—he’s been fucking with me. Saying things that—that can’t be real. Saying things that—”
“You’re going to want to follow me before you say another word,” Officer Pembrokeshire said.
Ashley wanted to say so much more as Officer Pembrokeshire walked around the desk and rested his bony hand on Ashley’s back. He pointed in the direction of the brown door the officer had pushed the journalists away from.
“Head with me through this door,” Officer Pembrokeshire said. It wasn’t a question—it was an outright command. So too was the pushing against his back, digging right against his skinny body.
“This—this can’t be right,” Ashley said, his mouth tanging with the memories of the Hubba Bubba, his ears ringing as the so
unds of screeching metal falling through that hole in the ground returned to his head with the same clarity it had time and time and time again. “Grace, she was a sinker. She’s gone. They—they looked for her. I swear, she—”
“You’re going to want to sit down with me through this door and take a few deep breaths before we go any further,” Officer Pembrokeshire said, standing outside the brown door. His face was serious. Unrevealing of any emotion.
“This can’t be…It can’t be…”
“What I’m about to show you will come as quite a shock. But please. Follow me through these doors.”
Ashley stood completely static as Officer Pembrokeshire walked around him and reached for the silver handle of the wooden door with his veiny hand. The chatter and the shouts and the everything of the main reception area were nothing but a blur as he stood and focused on the door.
Officer Pembrokeshire opened the door. Kept his face serious.
“There’s going to be a lot to take in, Mr. Chester. Are you ready?”
Ashley gulped. Gulped away the lingering tang of Hubba Bubba that never left his mouth whenever he remembered the moment he lost Grace. He took a deep, shaky breath.
Then, he followed the officer through the door and towards whatever lay ahead.
FOUR
Ashley followed Officer Pembrokeshire through the brown wooden door and into a quiet, dimly lit corridor. The door shut with a slam behind Ashley as Officer Pembrokeshire took the lead now, neck upright, as serious-faced as ever as the pair of them walked down this seemingly endless corridor.
“Where are you taking me?” Ashley asked. He looked to his right. There were windows all along the right-hand side with wooden blinds blocking Ashley’s view in. Lights peeked underneath the blinds. Through some of them, Ashley could hear a distant hum of voices. Interview rooms, he figured. But there were no doors. Ashley and Officer Pembrokeshire must’ve been at the side opposite the entrances. A quiet, dark corridor leading to somewhere else.
Ashley felt something thump into his chest. He looked and saw that Officer Pembrokeshire had stopped walking, and Ashley had walked right into him. Officer Pembrokeshire held out a hand and pointed at a blue plastic bench that looked like a growth on the white-painted brick wall. “Take a seat,” he said.
Ashley wanted to protest. He wanted to kick up a fuss. But the seriousness on this man’s face…He could do nothing but oblige.
He sat down on the bench. Rubbed his hands against the soft material of the grey jogging bottoms he was wearing. “What’s—What’s going on here? Please, just—”
Officer Pembrokeshire crouched down opposite Ashley. He scratched behind his ear, for the first time not looking Ashley directly in his eyes. “This will be a lot to take in. It’s a lot to take in for us as it is. But…my colleague, Officer Wisdom—”
“He’s a liar,” Ashley blurted. “He said—he said—”
“We have found your girlfriend,” Officer Pembrokeshire said.
A sinking feeling engulfed every one of Ashley’s muscles. As Officer Pembrokeshire stared at him with watering eyes, showing their first signs of emotion Ashley had seen, Ashley got a different spin from the words this time. Interpreted them differently. We have found your girlfriend.
What made Ashley get so freaked out and think they’d found Grace alive? After all, they could’ve found her body. That’s all this could be, which would admittedly be closure in itself. At least now Grace could be given a proper burial.
But Steve’s words. “She’s back. She’s come back.” Why would he say that? Why would he say it in that way?
“I—I—I didn’t know you were still looking,” Ashley said, his voice breaking, the taste of salty tears kissing his lips. “Was she—was she in the rubble? Is she decent? Like, in an okay state considering…”
Officer Pembrokeshire let out a sigh. Cleared his throat. Scratched his white stubbly beard. “Y’see, we weren’t looking. As you know, we stopped months back when not a trace of person or debris from any of the five sinkholes showed up. We filled the sinkholes, so there was…there was nothing to look for.”
“Then how did you find her?” Ashley asked. His voice echoed against the blinded window just behind Officer Pembrokeshire. “How—how did you find her if she—”
“We didn’t find her, Mr. Chester,” Officer Pembrokeshire said, looking Ashley square in the eyes again. “She found us.”
Ashley felt like he’d been punched in the gut once again. The taste of cherry Hubba Bubba returned to his mouth.
Her terrified eyes.
Her silent screams.
Her…nothing.
“What…How…How can she have found you? What do you—”
“Mr. Chester, I’m going to be very upfront with you here because I don’t think you deserve to be in the dark any longer.” He placed a bony, veiny hand on Ashley’s leg, which made Ashley flinch slightly. “Miss Grace Wisdom. She…She’s alive.”
The words lingered in Ashley’s mind. He saw Officer Pembrokeshire’s chapped lips still moving. He smelled his oniony, garlicky breath. He smelled and he saw but he didn’t hear. All he heard were those words: She’s alive.
She’s alive.
She’s alive.
“…So of course the investigation reopens, and we’ll have to question a few witnesses and question Miss Wisdom again once she’s got accustomed to…”
Officer Pembrokeshire’s words drifted in and out of Ashley’s consciousness. Right in the back of his mind, he still believed this must be some sick April Fool. Carlo. Maybe Carlo was behind it. He had a weird, fucked-up sense of humour, so maybe it was him. Or Danny. He was always looking for an excuse to get one over on Ashley. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was all of them. Maybe it was…
“I understand you must be very confused right now, Mr. Chester. But please be aware that this is a positive thing. In the long run, it’s a positive thing.”
Ashley was back in the room. He felt his cheeks burning. Heard the screeching metal again in his head—replayed the memories over and over. “How could you?” he said, staring Officer Pembrokeshire right in the eyes.
“Mr. Chester, I’m telling the—”
“How the fuck could you do this?” Ashley threw himself at Officer Pembrokeshire. Clutched his neck and held him to the floor. His arms burned. His face burned. Every inch of his body burned as he pressed Officer Pembrokeshire down onto the hard, tiled floor.
“I watched her die,” Ashley shouted, gripping tighter hold of Officer Pembrokeshire’s neck, who did his best to push Ashley’s hands away. “I watched her fucking die. I watched her die and this—this is wrong. It’s fucking wrong, and I can’t—”
Ashley felt the crack on the right side of his head before he realised what it was.
Then he was on the floor, and all of a sudden it was Officer Pembrokeshire’s weight on top of him, twisting his arms around, breathing his hot, onion breath onto the side of Ashley’s face, and then dragging him back to his feet.
“You need to calm down, Mr. Chester. I’m not your enemy here. I’m telling you the truth—”
“Liar,” Ashley said, spitting and struggling and doing everything he could to get free as his body got hotter and hotter and the taste of cherry Hubba Bubba got stronger and stronger on his tongue. “You liar. You sick liar. You…”
The wooden blinds covering the windows opposite him flicked open. Inside, there was an interview room, much like Ashley had expected. It was dim, through the tinted windows here, anyway.
“Look. Look in there, Mr. Chester, and tell me again that I’m lying.”
Steve Wisdom was sitting at the table. Tears dripped down his cheeks, but he had a huge smile on his face.
Mr. and Mrs. Wisdom were there too. They had their arms around one another’s shoulders, their faces similarly tear-soaked, but their smiles similarly beaming.
Ashley stopped struggling. He disregarded the tight grip around his arms. He disregarded his face stinging after Officer Pembrokeshire lashed out at him. He disregarded it all.
At the middle of the grey plastic table, a blonde woman sat. Even through the tinted window, Ashley could see her piercing blue eyes. Her cute little pointy nose.
He tried not to see it. Tried to think of something—a legitimate reason—that might explain why this…this woman was right here in this room opposite him.
He tried. Tried to think that it was still an April Fool. Tried to think that he was dreaming.
Her perfect blonde hair.
Her pointy nose.
Her beaming blue eyes.
It was Grace.
FIVE
Ashley Chester stood outside the tinted window just staring through at his missing girlfriend—no, his found girlfriend—for god-knows-how-long. All of his other senses dulled. He knew that Officer Pembrokeshire was still saying things to him, whispering in his ear, but none of his words mattered. None of them were relevant.
All that was relevant was that his girlfriend who had fallen into one of five sinkholes on that terrible, disastrous day for the city just under a year ago was sitting at the grey plastic table, her hands crossed, alive. Completely alive.
“She just came walking in here as she is now,” Officer Pembrokeshire said. “Reported herself as Grace Wisdom, one of the sinkers. Didn’t believe her at first, but you only have to look at her to know. Would you like to go in and see her?”
Ashley knew he did. He wanted to see Grace more than anything. He’d waited up all night in the first days she’d gone missing. Waiting with resigned acceptance that she was dead, just waiting for the emergency services and the search teams to find her body. But then the news came from the other sinkholes—the ones in Broughton, the one in Fulwood—that there was absolutely no trace of anybody or anything down these sinkholes. Just rubble at the bottom. Rubble and nothing else.