(1989) Dreamer

by Peter James

  ‘So when he appears in a dream, I know that I have to be careful – that something’s going to come true?’

  ‘It seems that way, doesn’t it?’ He dug some more lasagne with his fork. ‘I think it’s important for you to try to work things out, to find the meanings. There’s a paper I’ve written on just this. I’ll nip over and get you a copy. I think you’ll find it helpful.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He smiled. ‘The other theory we are working on and feel has currency is the time warp theory. Do you understand time, at all?’

  ‘Vaguely, I suppose.’

  ‘I won’t blind you with science, but we believe there do exist different spheres and planes – different dimensions of time – and that in the dream state some people tune into those—’ He raised his hands – ‘by design or by accident we don’t know.’ He toyed with his shirt collar. ‘You are frightened that our hooded man is a ghost of someone from the past, haunting you, but I would tend to take the view from what you have told me that he’s not a ghost from the past at all. I think it is possible that he’s someone in the present, now, who is bothering you, worrying you – someone that you are associating with this Slider.’

  She felt the coldness again, much more now, spreading out around her body just beneath her skin. She saw that the table was shaking, then realised that it was her hands holding onto the edge of it that were making it do that. Her legs were crashing together. Everything seemed to have gone out of focus.

  ‘What—’ Her voice was trembling. ‘What sort of person?’

  He was looking at her anxiously. ‘Someone you know, perhaps, who makes you feel uncomfortable? Someone you don’t like, or don’t trust? Someone who reminds you of this hooded one-eyed man? I don’t know. I don’t want to put thoughts into your mind. It’s just a possibility that you’re seeing something bad connected with this man.’ He shrugged. ‘It may be nothing.’

  Andreas? she thought. Andreas? Tell him about Andreas? No, stupid. There’s no connection.

  ‘Maybe Hampstead?’ he said. ‘Maybe you saw him in Hampstead – or someone who resembled him? Reminded you of him?’ He checked his watch. ‘Just a theory, of course. You’ve got a train to catch. I’ll just nip over quickly and get that paper for you. Two minutes.’

  He drained his beer, stood up and hurried out of the pub. She watched him through the window as he ran to the edge of the pavement and waited for a gap in the stream of lorries, then she looked down at her lasagne, and cut a piece with her fork.

  There was a fierce squeal of brakes, and a thud like a sledgehammer hitting a sack of potatoes. She spun around and looked back out of the window, and saw Hare hurtle up in the air then disappear. She heard slithering tyres and a dull metallic bang, then more slithering and another bang.

  Someone screamed.

  Herself.

  Then someone else. She leapt up from her seat, sending her chair crashing backwards, ran, barged into someone, knocking their drink flying. ‘Sorry, so sorry.’ Out of the way! Oh please get out of the way! She lunged for the door. ‘Excuse me, excuse me. Colin!’ She burst out of the door, then stood and blinked.

  Hare was standing on the pavement, waiting to cross.

  ‘Dr Hare! Colin! Colin! Don’t!’

  There was a gap in the traffic and he sprinted out into the middle of the road.

  ‘No! Dr Hare! No!’

  She saw the truck. Heard the fierce squeal of brakes, and the thud, like a sledgehammer hitting a sack of potatoes, and Hare disappeared. She heard slithering tyres and a dull metallic bang, then more slithering and another bang.

  ‘Dr Hare! Colin! No. No, please God, nooo.’

  The door behind her opened and she heard footsteps.

  Car doors were opening. Someone hooted. She heard the hiss of air brakes. The rattle of a diesel engine.

  She inched forward, clutching her thighs with her hands, then sprinted over, pushed past the crowd that was already forming, looked, saw his body face down, his head somewhere underneath the massive wheel of the artic, a stain of blood and – something else – spreading out beside it.

  She turned away, staggered, bumped into someone, apologised, knelt down and vomited violently.

  34

  The room was warm and the tea was hot and sweet, treacly sweet, and she sipped some down, felt it slipping down her throat and into her stomach, felt the warmth of its spreading out inside her, then she had to put the mug down because it was too hot to hold. She put it on the vinyl table top beside the words which looked freshly carved into it.

  FUCK ALL PIGS.

  She was surprised it hadn’t been noticed and covered up or removed. Perhaps it happened all the time? Then as she watched them, they changed.

  AROLEID.

  The police officer smiled at her from across the table, a big teddy bear of man in his blue serge jacket and his silver buttons and a coating of dandruff on both shoulders, and a face that looked as though it would like to change the world but didn’t know how.

  ‘Drink some more, love, drink it all up. It’ll make you feel better.’

  Sam nodded and picked the cup up again, but she was shaking too much and hot tea slopped over the rim and scalded her hands. She put it back down and a puddle spread out around it. ‘Sorry. So sorry.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, love. Let it cool a bit.’

  She fumbled in her bag, pulled out her handkerchief and wiped her hands, then dabbed her mouth. She’d rinsed it out, but she could still taste the bile. She looked around the room: small, dull, an interview room with hard lecture hall chairs, green paint on the walls, flaking, chipped, a big chunk missing on the far side – was that where they had banged some punk’s head while they were interviewing him?

  The police officer read through her statement again slowly out aloud to her. ‘Anything else you’d like to add, love?’

  Yes.

  I caused it.

  I killed Tanya Jacobson, and now Dr Hare. They both died because – because they might have been able to help me?

  So why hadn’t Bamford O’Connell died? Because he hadn’t tried? Had Ken tried?

  ‘All right, love?’

  She sat up with a start, blinking. ‘Sorry. I—’

  ‘Would you like to lie down somewhere, for a while?’

  She felt her stomach heave. ‘I’ll be all right, thank you. I should get back to – back down – to London.’

  ‘There’s someone come from the university to run you to the station.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s – very – kind.’

  He pushed the statement across the table to her. ‘If you wouldn’t mind just signing that. I don’t know if the coroner will want you for the inquest. He’ll write if he does.’

  She followed him out into the front of the police station and to her surprise saw Laszlo sitting, waiting. He stood up, his face ashen, the black rings around his eyes even more pronounced, and as she saw him she began to cry. She felt the kindly pat of the police officer’s arm on her shoulder and heard him speak.

  ‘She’s suffering from shock, I’m afraid. I have suggested we run her up to the hospital, but she wants to get back to London.’

  Then she was outside in the bright cold light, climbing into Laszlo’s beat-up 2CV Citroën. He clipped her seat belt and closed her door for her, then got in himself and started the engine. She listened to its high-pitched lawn-mower whine.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘I think there are trains quite often.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He drove in silence for a few minutes. ‘Terrible,’ he said suddenly. ‘This is so terrible.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was the whole department. He knew so much. It was all just beginning.’

  ‘Nice. He was so nice.’ She felt tears running down her cheeks and didn’t brother to wipe them

  ‘He was a very dedicated man. Maybe he was too dedicated.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He turned and glance
d at her. ‘You know what I mean.’ He braked at a traffic light.

  She looked at him, but there was nothing in his face, just an emptiness as if he’d put up a sign which said ‘SORRY, CLOSED FOR THE SEASON, GONE AWAY.’

  ‘I feel responsible,’ she said. ‘I feel that I caused it.’

  ‘No,’ he said, and the sharpness of his reply surprised her. The light changed and they drove on. ‘You know what they say, Mrs Curtis. You know the expression.

  “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen”.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If seeing the future frightens you, don’t go looking for it.’

  She stared numbly ahead. Her head was pounding and her stomach was heaving again. ‘I’m not looking for it.’

  ‘Why have you come here then?’

  ‘Because I want to stop. I want to stop seeing the future. I don’t want to see it any more.’

  ‘You’ve gone too far down the road. You can’t stop.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Existence is full of crossover points, Mrs Curtis. Countries have boundaries. Life has a boundary of death. The earth’s gravity has a boundary beyond which it cannot pull. When you start to look into the paranormal you remain a spectator up to a certain boundary. When you cross over that, you become a participant. Do you understand?’

  She frowned at him, trembling.

  ‘When you are looking into the future, you are looking beyond the earth’s plane, Mrs Curtis. If you look long enough, you cross that boundary and you become part of the future.’

  ‘I – I don’t really understand.’

  ‘I think you do. You understand the forces that are around you, that you brought into the laboratory last night. I could see on your face that you understood.’

  ‘I didn’t understand last night.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ he said, almost bitterly.

  ‘Do you think I deliberately killed Dr Hare? Do you think that I—?’

  They pulled into the station and she wished that they hadn’t arrived. Laszlo wanted her out, out of his car, his town, his life, wanted her out as fast as he could make her go. ‘I think you have a bad energy force around you, Mrs Curtis. It’s . . . maybe making bad things happen because it’s confusing things, confusing people.’

  ‘What energy force? Where’s it coming from?’

  He switched off the engine and unclipped his seat belt. ‘I think there is a train in about five minutes. If you hurry.’

  She climbed out of the car and he lifted her overnight bag off the back seat and carried it into the station for her. ‘You have your ticket?’

  She nodded.

  ‘That platform there.’

  ‘Can I ask you just one thing, please?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘If this is how you feel about seeing the future, why have you been working with Dr Hare?’

  ‘Because I thought that I wanted to know,’ he said, and turned away. He stopped and half turned back round. ‘I was wrong.’

  She watched him walk out of the station without looking at her again, heard the slam of a car door and the lawnmower whine of a 2CV engine, and the crash of the gears. As if he could not drive away fast enough.

  35

  It was eight o’clock in the evening when she got back to Wapping. Richard hadn’t come home yet; Helen was in her room watching television and Nicky was lying in bed, awake, looking miserable. She sat down beside him and hugged him hard, but his face did not change.

  ‘I don’t want you and Daddy to go away again, Mummy. It’s not fair. You’re always away.’

  ‘It’s only a week, Tiger. Mummy and Daddy have got to spend some time together.’ She hugged him again, and kissed his forehead. It was a cold dry night and a strong wind was blowing, nearly a gale, and the water was slapping around in the river outside. She looked down at him, and wished she could tell him the truth: that she didn’t want to go away either, that she was worried about leaving him alone, even though he would be staying with friends and would have a good time with them. She didn’t want to tell him that she was scared to go.

  Scared as hell.

  She told him a story, then started another one and he finally fell asleep. She went out, closing the door behind her and walked through into the living area. The phone started to ring and she went over to Richard’s desk and answered it.

  ‘Yes? Hallo?’

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Ken!’ She felt excitement surging through her. ‘Ken! You’re back!’

  ‘How’s everything?’

  ‘Oh – everything is – well – it’s—’ But suddenly she couldn’t speak any more; her voice seemed to catch in her throat and her eyes flooded with tears. She began shaking, shaking so much she dropped the phone. It hit the floor and a bit chipped off the mouthpiece. She bent down and picked it up.

  ‘Sam? Sam? What’s up? Are you OK? On your own? Want me to come over? Want to come over here?’ he asked when she did not reply. ‘Or meet somewhere?’

  ‘I’ll—’ She forced the words out – ‘I’ll come over. Be there as soon as I—’ She hung up and sniffed, staring bleakly out through the window. Then she dried her eyes and knocked on Helen’s door to tell her she was going out.

  She sat at the traffic light at the edge of Clapham Common and the Jaguar’s engine died on her. She pressed the starter button and it rumbled into life again, and she blipped the accelerator hard: there was a crackling roar and a cloud of oily blue smoke swirled through the darkness around her. Haven’t taken the car for a decent run for weeks, she thought, blipping it again. It backfired with a loud bang, crackled and chucked out even more smoke as she accelerated when the lights changed, then she slowed down, turned into the driveway of the huge Victorian monstrosity of a house and pulled up behind the Bentley.

  The front door opened as she climbed out of the car.

  ‘Ken!’ She flung her arms around him and hugged him hard, showering him in tears from her madly blinking eyes.

  ‘Sam! What’s—?’ He held onto her tightly and hugged her back. She broke away and he looked at her. ‘Christ, what’s happened? You—’ He hesitated. ‘Come on, let’s get you a drink.’

  ‘Are you alone?’

  He smiled. ‘Yes. Only got back from Spain an hour ago. I rang you because I won’t be in tomorrow – have to go down to Bristol.’ He closed the front door and she followed him through the hallway, with its two suits of armour, glancing warily at the eye slits, past another waxwork of Ken sitting in a wicker chair – had he bought up a job lot? – and a ten-foot-high surreal picture of a wild pig leaping between two mountain peaks, past a juke box and into the drawing room with its minstrels’ gallery and a Wurlitzer on the floor underneath, and more big paintings, a Hockney and a Lichtenstein and a spoof Picasso portrait of Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington by Georges Sheridan, and the roaring fire in the Adam fireplace which Ken had salvaged from somewhere or other. The television was on; Miami Vice, it looked like.

  She sat down on a high-backed antique sofa that swallowed her up, and Ken went out of the room for a minute, then came back in with a tumbler in his hand. ‘This is a really fine malt. Islay. You’ll like it. Get it down you.’

  She drank some, and then some more and it burned some of the churning out of her stomach.

  ‘How was Spain?’ she asked, looking down into the glass.

  ‘Fine. Went well.’ He lit a cigarette and sat down on the equally huge sofa opposite her.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she said, ‘it’s dangerous, you see – for you—’ Then the tears exploded as if a pipe had burst somewhere in her head.

  Ken came and sat down beside her. She looked at him through her streaming eyes. ‘I’m frightened for you, Ken. I think you could be – I think you’ve got to be really careful.’

  ‘Careful of what?’

  ‘I have a bad energy force around me,’ she blurted.

  He put his arm around her. ‘Have you had another dream?’ he
asked gently.

  ‘Sharp antennae,’ she said, and she told him about the fall from the scaffold and her trip to Hull, told him everything that happened, and all she could remember of what Hare and Laszlo had said.

  He sipped his drink and stubbed out his cigarette, blowing the last lungful of smoke up at the fresco of plump naked cherubs on the ceiling. ‘You think this Dr Hare was killed because he was trying to help you? That his flat got smashed up by some spirit, as a warning, and because he ignored the warning he was killed?’

  Sam watched the flickering flames of the fire, and nodded. ‘I’m not sure how much more of any of this I can take.’

  ‘You’re having a rough time of it, aren’t you? The scaffold – all this in Hull.’ He squeezed her shoulders. ‘I think we’ve got to try to take a balanced view on everything. I know it all seems horrific, but the human mind is a strange thing, Sam; we’re very susceptible. It’s still possible that a lot of what’s going on is getting over dramatised.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like Bamford O’Connell.’

  He smiled. ‘Not quite as bad. I do believe you’ve had some premonitions – the aeroplane and the tube station – but the balcony is pretty iffy, Sam. This man getting run over – Dr Hare – is horrendous, but you said how dangerous that road was, that he was flaked out after a night awake and had drunk a pint of beer. We have to try to keep a balanced view, that’s all.’

  She pressed her lips tightly together and said nothing. Ken leaned his head back against the cushions. ‘Or I deal!’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Or I deal!’

  ‘Or you deal?’

  ‘Aroleid? That word? “Or I deal” – it’s an anagram.’

  ‘Or I deal? Doesn’t mean anything to me.’

  He clicked his fingers. ‘Got it! “I reload!”’

  ‘I reload,’ she echoed.

  ‘This Slider – he was wearing a green motorcycling suit, and gave you an airline ticket? Chartair?’

  ‘Yes. The same one he gave me in the taxi after we had lunch. You know, after the Chartair disaster. I remember the seat number. 35A. And he said that I was wrong to think the scaffold was the big fall.’