Knife After Death: A chilling crime thriller

by Irvine, Ian C. P.

  Peter closed his eyes again. There was something else. Another vision was forming in his mind. Another sequence of pictures starting to run through his mind. It only lasted a few seconds but it was enough.

  "At the top of the stairs there is a small hallway, on the wall in front of the main bedroom at the back of the house there is a photograph of a flower. Flowers. Purple. Rows of them. Lots of them. It's lavender..."

  Peter opened his eyes. The policeman was staring at him.

  "I'm curious, Peter, as to the identity of this so called clairvoyant of yours...This layout is very accurate. But you could have got this off a house-plan from the estate agent on the internet. Anyone could. However, there is a picture on the wall, just as you say. It's a photograph of France. The owner told me that it is near where she lives."

  "...which I could also have seen on a photograph of the hallway from an estate agent, maybe. But the fact is, I didn't. And, please trust me on this one, I actually think that the clairvoyant could be genuine. Otherwise, there would be no way I would be down here just now chasing shadows. Can you get me in to see the flat?"

  "I'll think about it, and I will have to check with the Senior Investigating Officer who is heading up the investigation to see what he thinks. Here's my card...Call me tomorrow morning, and please, if you can, try and get me a description of the woman who was murdered. Of course, you will need to speak with your clairvoyant first..."

  The Constable passed him his card and got up. "I've got to go." He walked to the door of the kitchen, stooping to fit his large frame through the small doorway. Once through, he turned to speak again.

  "Kayleigh will find you somewhere to stay. Please stay there. I think I would like to know where you are, for now. And also, can you tell me what the number plate of your car is?"

  Peter half smiled, half squirmed in his seat. He already felt that he was under suspicion and surveillance.

  He quoted the number plate to Alex, who turned and left.

  "Another cup of tea?" Kayleigh asked.

  "No, no thanks. I think for now, that I would just like to find a room and have a wash, and a wee lie down."

  Which is how an hour later, he found himself lying in the bath, thinking about the conversation from that afternoon.

  The bath was warm. The room was comfortable. He was tired.

  A few moments later, he was asleep.

  Within seconds, the visions started again.

  Chapter Fifty Three

  .

  .

  Edinburgh

  Susie's flat

  May 1st

  11.30 p.m.

  .

  .

  Susie lay in bed. Alone.

  She hated being alone. She missed the smell of a man lying in bed beside her. She missed the comforting arm around her in the middle of the night. The musk as she cuddled her cheek into his chest.

  She missed the sex.

  A lot.

  Sleeping with Peter had been the first time in over eight months that she had had sex with a man. It had been even longer before that since she had had an orgasm. In fact, the last time was also with Peter. That had been almost a year and a half ago. Practically a lifetime when you are only twenty-eight years old.

  She stirred in her bed, turning on to her side, and remembering making love with Peter almost two weeks ago. The way he had touched her. Kissed her. Fucked her.

  She quivered and smiled, recalling the memory. It had been nice. Very nice indeed.

  Susie had started thinking a lot more about Peter in the past few weeks. Which, on the one hand, made sense, because she was now involved with him in his search for the truth, and his quest to 'catch the killer within'. She liked that phrase. Maybe she could use it later on when they would write their world famous expose on the transplant phenomena that was 'cellular memory'.

  But it wasn't just that. There was something else too.

  Peter had changed. And in Susie's mind, it was for the better.

  He was rougher now. More adventurous. He swore a lot more now, which was bad...but it somehow gave him more of an edge than before. And Susie liked 'edge'. The Peter that she had known, loved, and fallen out of love with was always too perfect. Good looking, charming, laid-back, good mannered. An all-round good boy.

  And, she hated to admit it, but perhaps it was the truth...she had got slightly bored with him.

  But there was something different about him now. The 'edge' made him a little more scary, a little more unpredictable, more interesting.

  Or was it something else? Something more fundamental...

  She had noticed that his smell had changed. He 'smelled' different. And she liked it. The new smell...the new Peter...was better than before.

  She felt drawn to him again.

  And without thinking about it, she realised that she wanted him again.

  'Wanted' as in 'deep inside her'. She wanted him deep inside her again.

  As deep as possible.

  .

  --------------------

  2nd May

  8.30 a.m.

  .

  The sunshine came through the curtains, flooding the room with warmth and calling "get out of bed-it's Saturday morning and the world is young and full of opportunity!''

  She threw the duvet back, and lay there for a while, taking her time to come around.

  This was the part of the weekend that she loved. The part when she woke up, and didn't have to go anywhere. The part where she could make a cup of tea, come back to bed and read last night's paper. And then shower slowly, make her way down to the corner deli, and get some ridiculously expensive croissants and coffee.

  The phone rang.

  She picked it up from her bedside table.

  "Hi? It's Susie."

  "Hi, Susie...It's Peter..."

  "Hi Peter! Wow, I was thinking about you last night. A lot. Wondering how you were...? Are you okay?"

  "I could be better,...can we chat for a while? Are you free?"

  "Absolutely! What's up?"

  Peter explained. He told her that he was upset and feeling a little low. That things were 'quite difficult' and that he was a little scared. That he just wanted to talk to a friendly voice, to help him bolster his spirits so that he could get on with what he knew he had to do.

  Susie's heart went out to him.

  They talked for a while. She encouraged him, tried to lighten his spirits, cracked a few jokes.

  Peter laughed. Susie laughed.

  Eventually Peter said he felt a lot better. He thanked her. Sent her a hug. And then he hung up.

  For a while she lay on the bed afterwards and thought about him some more.

  She missed him.

  Eventually she got up, made some tea, picked up the paper from the sofa in the front room and went back to bed.

  She read the headline: "Father and two children die in chip-shop fire".

  Folding the paper in half, she puffed up the pillows behind her and read the details. It was a terrible story.

  A fire had swept through a chip shop in Newington and killed three members of the same family. Luckily, the mother had managed to escape out of a window. 'Luckily'?... Susie thought about the words. Was a mother lucky to survive her children? Would the mother not rather have died with her babies? How could she ever be happy after that?

  She thought about the children. So much potential for life. So much to look forward to, and then puff, it's gone.

  Her thoughts drifted back to the meeting she had had with the minister of the Greyfriars Kirk and their conversation about 'soul'. What was a soul?

  She thought about it again now, as she wondered what would have happened to the souls of the children that had died. They were so young...

  Where did their little 'souls' go? Was that 'it' for them? Or was there something more?

  And what was a soul?

  Her conversation with the minister had been helpful. But he had not been able to give her any concrete answers. She was stil
l wondering.

  .

  After he had suggested a coffee, they had walked in silence a few hundred feet along the road towards the Central Library on George IV Bridge, eventually turning left into a coffee shop, which boasted to be the place in which the famous author J.K. Rowling used to drink coffee in every day as she nursed a child and wrote the first of the Harry Potter series.

  Finding a table upstairs, the Minister had taken off his coat, sat down and stretched.

  "Oh, that's better... It's been a long day. So, 'soul'. You want to learn about 'souls'? May I ask, why?"

  She had smiled.

  "Yes, I suppose it would help you to understand where I'm coming from..."

  She thought briefly about telling him everything but then decided, it would be best not to. But on the other hand, she didn't want to lie to a member of the church, a servant of God. That would be a bad plan.

  "Someone I know...someone I love... almost died. It got me thinking. About life. About its meaning. About what on Earth it's all about. And about what it is that actually makes up a life. Are we just flesh and bones, or is there something more inside?"

  "That's a lot of 'abouts', my dear," he joked. "About four or five, I think you said. Shall I pour?" he asked, lifting up the pot of tea.

  Susie nodded.

  "Can I ask, first, do you believe?"

  "In God?" Susie asked.

  "Yes. Believing in God may help. Although that's not necessary for me to answer your question. It just helps me to understand what sort of language you are comfortable with."

  "Yes. I think I do. But I don't go to church or anything. I haven't prayed for years."

  "Shame. I think that prayer helps everyone in their everyday lives. It's a way of connecting back to our source. Which is in itself a nice way of leading us back to the question of 'soul'. I think that what you really want to know is if there is a part of us, a core of us, that survives death and carries on somewhere else, somehow, without our physical bodies?"

  "Yes..."

  "Rather like the idea of a spirit. Although that could lead to a different discussion, so let's park that for now. Personally, I do believe in a soul. I think that there are two parts to all of us. There is the part that exists because our body exists, which helps us to exist physically. And there is another part that sits at the core of it all, that will continue to exist when our body is dust."

  "Did it exist before we were born?"

  "Yes, I believe so."

  "But where? And how come I don't have any memory of it?"

  "Your memory is a physical thing. It's made up of the neurons in your brain."

  "Or the neuropeptides throughout your body?"

  The minister looked puzzled for a second.

  "I'm sorry, my dear, I don't know...I'm not the world's best biologist..." The minister hesitated for a second, then continued. "...But what I wanted to say, is that I think that the soul is independent of your mind. For example, what happens to people who get brain damage? The way their mind works changes, but does that mean that a person's soul changes too? I don't think so."

  "I've never thought about that..."

  "You just asked me, why can't you remember what happened before you were born? Okay, then let me ask you this. What happened at 3.27 a.m. this morning?"

  "I don't know...I was asleep..."

  "But you were alive, you were here...and yet you cannot remember what happened then? Your subconscious was alert, yet the 'conscious' you can provide no answer to that question. If that is true, then perhaps the ability for your soul to communicate with your conscious self is also restricted in some way." He paused.

  "Yet, behind it all, I think there is the soul. In Greek philosophy, far cleverer people than I will ever be thought that the soul was sometimes characterised as the 'life force', an essence of life - in fact, the English word 'animate' is derived from the word 'ensouled'. Plato, himself, defined it as a separate, incorporeal 'director' of one's body and actions. It was of a 'substance' but unlike the body, it is eternal - it exists before and after the birth and death of the physical person."

  "So, when the body dies, where does the soul go?"

  "Back to the source. To God."

  "What is God?"

  "The Devine Being. The Creator."

  "And so...when I was born, no, at the point of conception, is that when my soul transferred into my body? Or was it already in the sperm that was swimming about looking for an egg? Did the sperm carry the soul?"

  "Great questions. Great questions my dear. All of them. But unfortunately, I can't answer them. It's part of the mystery of life."

  "What is life?"

  The minister laughed.

  "I don't think that I could ever answer that question for you, whilst I am trapped inside this fragile human body. Life is the Force. And the Force comes from God. God is 'The Force'. And part of that Force is in you, my dear."

  Susie was shaking her head.

  "I don't understand..."

  "Life is also the greatest paradox. In many ways, I think that life simply does not make sense. When I was younger I used to think that the Great Creator in the Sky, ...God...was having a big laugh. At our expense. He set the riddle, and then everyone on Earth spends their entire life trying to solve that riddle...yet, the truth is that there is no answer. There is simply 'life'. We live it while we can."

  Susie was still shaking her head.

  "The way I like to think about it, my dear, is this. Jesus said "The Kingdom of Heaven is within." What does that mean? To me, I think this simple sentence contains one of life's greatest secrets and provides us with our greatest guidance. There is no need to spend our lives looking for the magic answer, searching for Heaven. Heaven is inside all of us. It is our Soul. Each soul is a tiny part of Heaven. A part of God."

  "I wish I understood all of this," Susie said, quietly.

  "And so do I...I think that the older you get, you simply realise how little you actually do understand. Then one day, you die. Without any of the answers."

  "Should you be saying this? You are a Minister!"

  "I am also a human. A person. The only difference, if there is any, is that I believe in God and I serve Him, officially! ...And I believe that one day I will see Him again."

  "Can I ask you another question?...Can two souls share the same human body?"

  The Minister went silent. Obviously thinking. Taking the question seriously.

  "According to my definition of what I personally think a 'soul' is, the answer is definitely yes. It would be highly unusual...and it would mean that two souls would be fighting to direct the actions of the same body, both fighting for the conscious output of the person. But possibly, yes. Some people say this happens sometimes in people who are possessed by spirits, but I think that should only be used as an indication that such things may be possible. The explanation of that is far, far different, and I don't think it would be profitable to go down that route just now..."

  "Can a soul be 'bad'?"

  "By definition, I personally think 'no'. But a mind can be bad. And therefore the conscious outward expression of a soul can be bad."

  "...but the bottom line is that you believe in a soul? Something that survives death, and moves on somewhere else when the body dies..."

  "Let me just say 'yes' to the first part. And that ultimately, the soul returns to be part of God."

  "Do I have a soul?" Susie asked, her eyes searching the minister for his answer.

  "Absolutely. And I think that my impression is that beneath it all, you have a very beautiful soul."

  She stretched her hand across the table, and squeezed the hand of the Minister.

  "Thank you. You've given me a lot to think about, but I think that you have helped a lot."

  Chapter Fifty Four

  .

  .

  Ironbridge Gorge

  May 2nd

  0.30 a.m.

  .

  .

  Peter couldn't sleep. He
was too wired from the activity of the day, and wondering what was going to happen later tomorrow.

  He already had his plan of attack mapped out: in the morning he was going to call Alex and ask if it would be possible to see inside the flat; and depending upon what he was able to arrange, he was then going to go and take a serious walk around the forest across the road from the flat at the top of the hill.

  He couldn't quite explain it, but he knew, just knew that there was something significant about the forest. When he had been standing on the edge of it earlier today, he had had a weird, almost spooky feeling which had unsettled him and made him hurry out of the trees. And he had shivered, a physical sign which Peter had come to realise seemed to occur whenever he had a flashback or vision that related to something to do with the life of the person who had given Peter his kidneys.

  For a while, Peter had felt as if he was being watched by someone in the forest. Or something. It freaked him out, but he knew that he would have to go back there to investigate, to revisit that feeling and see if he could find out what it meant. Was the forest trying to tell him something? Had something happened there?

  Then he remembered the dream about burying a body in the forest, about the waterfall splashing on his face as he dug the hole and put a body in it.

  Was there a body buried in the forest?

  Was the body of the person who had been killed in No. 8 lying somewhere underneath the pine cones and fir needles of the forest?

  Fuck....Peter shivered again at the thought.

  He knew that tomorrow he was going to have to be brave. Very brave indeed.

  .

  As well as investigating the forest, Peter wanted to do some research on the internet. He needed to spend some time googling for information on any murders in the Ironbridge area, and looking for missing persons, potential victims, anything strange that could be in any way connected.

  Afterwards, he would like to also spend some time doing a round of the pubs and tea rooms, asking questions and doing some local sleuthing: what could the locals tell Peter about No. 8? Did anyone know the man who used to live there? Could anyone give him a description of the man?