Dark Lies

by Nick Hollin

  ‘Thank you, Katie.’

  She’s been tricked again, and Markham has been used again to deliver carefully scripted lines. She knows without seeing that Christian is standing over her. Her fear is everywhere.

  ‘My brother is on his way.’

  Two spotlights burst into life above her, blinding, horrifying. Over in the distance she can see Markham reaching through an endless black curtain towards the switch. Then, finally, she forces herself to look at Christian. He’s put on the glasses that had always been there, glasses that she now doubts he needs at all. They’re thick, but she can see no distortion through the lenses. His hair is dyed paler than Nathan’s and has been cut so that it looks thin at the scalp. And then there’s the face, the marks of his surgery suddenly clear; the un-straightened nose, the narrowed jawline, the too-thin lips. It’s only when she looks hard that she can see the similarity.

  ‘I know,’ he says, revealing uneven teeth that cannot be real. ‘You’re thinking about that wonderful night. Do you know you accidentally called out my brother’s name at one point?’ He holds his good hand over his chest with a look of mock distress. ‘I couldn’t help but take offence. It’s so pathetic how much you love him.’

  The words take her by surprise.

  ‘And you think that he loves you?’ laughs Christian, slapping his bandaged hand hard against his chest. ‘I know all the feelings inside my brother. And none of them is love.’

  He slips his hand into his pocket and draws out a six-inch blade. Katie suddenly finds herself trying to recite the words of the children’s book left by her mum, but instead all she can remember are those added by Christian: See you at the end. She looks up at him. He’s removed his glasses and seems to be carefully studying her. She can clearly see his piercing eyes, the one bit of his face he hasn’t changed, and within them a horribly familiar intelligence. Then, as if he’s read her thoughts yet again, he starts to grin and slowly shake his head. ‘Not yet, Katie,’ he says. ‘I’m going to let you watch the birth of something beautiful first.’

  Thirty-Five

  The ‘N’ and the ‘R’ have all but rubbed off and the rest is partly eaten by rust. The sign had been newer on the photo in Katie’s tiny room, but it’s the same sign and the same place Markham had referred to at the end of his call – ‘heading for new horizons’ – the place he had wanted him to come to, there can be no doubt. Nathan is holding the photo in his hand, pulled from the bag behind the seat in Katie’s dad’s car.

  Markham must know he’s here. The factory where Steven Fish was killed is on a derelict industrial estate way out in the country, and he’ll have seen the car a mile away. But Nathan doesn’t give a damn as he jumps out of the car, his head jerking left and right, searching for movement and a chance to begin. He places his palm lightly on the bonnet of the dark saloon parked alongside, feeling the warmth spread up his arm and across his chest. Recently arrived, he thinks. Soon to be departed.

  There’s a gap in the fence which leads down to the dull grey factory building surrounded by weeds higher than the smashed-in first-storey windows. Stepping over a pile of abandoned scaffolding poles, he reaches down to pick one up, feeling the weight of it, feeling the potential. It doesn’t matter what Markham has in store, as long as Nathan gets to see him die first, before he does: horribly, painfully – wonderfully.

  As Nathan steps into the building his entire body is trembling. It’s dark inside, and he worries that unless he finds a light switch he will miss everything that is about to happen. He slides his hands along the wall but quickly gives up. Turning round, he lets the door swing shut behind him and walks into the darkness until, suddenly, the scaffolding bar knocks against something. It moves. He lunges forward taking a great swing, as if the darkness itself could be broken. And it is. A tiny split of light appears somewhere near the floor as the obstruction reveals itself to be no more than a thick, heavy curtain.

  He wants to push on, he wants to push through, but his imagination is holding him back, assembling every little detail: the vivid colours, the sharpened silence, the smell of fear, of sweat, of blood. But Christian’s body could be just a few feet away; he could walk through this curtain and find him contorted into another hideous joke, his fingers severed, the flesh peeled from his back. The thought of that makes Nathan hesitate, and then do something he’s never been able to do before, not in his forty years of life: he turns it off. Only reality lies ahead of him as he pushes back the curtain and slips through.

  The man Nathan has come to kill is standing in the middle of a blinding circle of light. A flash of brilliant pain slices Nathan’s brain in two as he propels himself forward, letting out a scream that falls dead against the darkness. The old man doesn’t respond, just stands there carefully folding what looks like clothes. The metal pole is raised high above Nathan, and his eyes are locked on his target’s head. A single strike and it will all be over. A single strike and it will have begun.

  And yet that strike doesn’t come. It’s not that Nathan wants an explanation, it’s not that he wants to hear him speak – they’ve heard more than enough from him already – the problem is… the problem is … Nathan doesn’t know what the problem is. All he knows is that his body is in revolt. He’s lost control. Or has he found it?

  ‘You have to do it,’ says Markham, without turning. It’s the same voice as the one on the phone just an hour before, but it’s even flatter and more lifeless than it was back then. ‘If you don’t, she’ll die.’

  Nathan’s arm is still frozen above him and starting to ache. It would be so easy to bring it down, break the man’s head the way his own head feels like it’s breaking – he’s done it before a thousand times in his imagination – but suddenly he’s lost.

  ‘She?’ he says.

  There’s no response. He wants the old man to turn round so he can see the truth in his eyes. Perhaps that’s what’s holding him back? He reaches forward to grab Markham’s shirt, but the tips of his fingers start to tingle and he finds he can get no closer. All he has is his voice.

  ‘Who will die?’

  Nathan lowers his arms and draws in a deep breath, desperate to summon up the strength. All those years of dreaming about killing without reason and yet now, with a man who deserves to die more than anyone ever could, he feels utterly impotent.

  He looks at Markham, trying to harden his gaze and focus. Here is the man who killed two mothers, who tortured and beheaded a dad, who killed a stranger for simply living in the wrong place, and a doctor to try and frame his brother. Here is the man who has killed his brother! And yet… He hears the pole clang to the floor before he’s even realised he’s let it go. He’s a coward, nothing more. A fraud, who has built his reputation on being able to read the darkness in the minds of others and totally misread the darkness in his own.

  He’s alongside Markham now, staring at the side of the old man’s face, and he’s amazed to see that there are tears running down his cheek. It looks real, as does the expression of utter hopelessness. Markham is not looking back at him, just staring at that curtain of darkness ahead, and Nathan finds himself doing the same. The two of them stand shoulder to shoulder, with no understanding of the situation they are in.

  The room is silent, save for the laboured breathing of Markham and the occasional shuffle of birds up on the roof. Nathan finds himself starting to drift, but not to the usual places his mind would wander. Instead, he’s thinking about the warmth he’d felt being near Katie, and how the strength he found in their connection is being re-established. It feels, in part, like a betrayal of his brother, but he lets it in. He lets Katie in to the hole that his brother’s absence has made in his heart. He knows she is nearby. And that she is in danger.

  He grips the old man’s shoulder. ‘Where is Katie?’

  ‘You haven’t totally lost it, then!’

  The voice is unmistakable – an echo of his own. He spins round, but there’s only endless darkness.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Markha
m says in a trembling voice. ‘I did what you asked. I’ve done everything you asked. Please! Please don’t hurt her!’

  The curtain is drawn back and a man steps through, only, he looks nothing like Christian: big features, all bloated, fat and twisted. And yet… and yet… Nathan can’t help but draw in every disgusting detail until the reality finally dawns. The last time he saw his brother was six years ago, and when he said goodbye on that day he believed with the heaviest of hearts that it was for the last time. Now with every fibre of his body he wishes it had been.

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, big bro,’ says Christian.

  And there can be no doubt now, not with that voice and those eyes and that smile. The years fall away and so does the mask created by the hand of a plastic surgeon, perhaps the same surgeon whose body was found in their basement. The last couple of days have been horrific, one nightmare after another, but this goes far beyond anything he’s had to deal with.

  To believe that his brother might be ‘The Cartoonist’ is hard, but not impossible, given their family history, but to try and accept that Christian is capable of this… He’d thought there was no limit to his imaginings, no depth to which he couldn’t descend, but Christian has proven him wrong.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s your problem, Nathan; you’re always asking stupid questions. Does there need to be a why? Can’t you just do what feels right?’

  ‘How can what you’ve done ever feel right?’

  ‘Okay,’ says Christian, holding up his hands defensively. One of them is wrapped heavily in a bandage, and Nathan is reminded of what his brother has been willing to put himself through just to bring them to this point and get his attention. ‘We were born this way.’ The crooked smile on that crooked face starts to grow. ‘Plus, it’s fun. A game. A challenge.’

  His brother’s eyes dance with madness. For so many years he’s wanted to be like him, to be living that life on the beach with the wife and child. Now he can see the lie laid bare, and his anger builds as rapidly as it left him when he’d stood behind Markham with a metal pole in his hand. He bends to pick up the pole again. Had he somehow known the truth even then? Was that what had held him back?

  ‘That’s right,’ says Christian, calmly. ‘You see? You do have it in you. You just need a little… motivation. We could be unstoppable, you and me. Which is why…’ He reaches behind the curtain and drags Katie out by her hair and pulls her across the concrete floor. Her mouth is taped up, her arms tied behind her back.

  ‘You’re probably a little angry with me now, big bro,’ he says, letting go of Katie and pulling a long blade out of the back of his trousers. He crouches down and lowers the point to just an inch or two from Katie’s neck. Nathan can see Katie’s eyes bulge as she struggles to get away, but Christian has one boot on her hair, holding her firmly in place. ‘You’ll forgive me when all this is done. In fact, you’ll be grateful I helped you to be who you were always destined to be. Now, the scenario is very simple. You need to do what you should have done just a few minutes ago. You need to turn Markham’s head to pulp. If you manage that, and I know deep down you’re desperate to, then in taking one life you will have saved two. First, our little girlfriend here.’ He pauses to let that information sink in. ‘Second, the life of Markham’s daughter, who I believe you ran into and…’ Christian tries to twist his face in mock concern, but the skin is tight and resists, ‘caused some distress.’

  ‘Please,’ says Markham, palms pressed together as if in prayer. ‘You promised not to hurt Tracy. I’m begging you.’

  ‘He really is begging,’ says Christian, keeping his eyes on Nathan. ‘Strange, if you ask me, coming from a man who was happy to stand back and watch his daughter being assaulted all those years ago. But there you go – some people are a little strange.’ He lifts the knife from Katie’s neck and tugs his sleeve back with his teeth, revealing a small black watch. ‘Now, I’m sure you didn’t tell anyone else you were coming here. You were, after all, desperate to commit a murder. I know the look you had in your eyes when you ran in here, so why don’t you just hurry up and get it done, then we can be on our way.’

  Nathan’s mind is starting to swim, backwards and forwards, memories from his childhood washing into the present day. He’s still gripping the pole, but more for support than in threat.

  ‘I saw it,’ he says, thinking of the bag he’s left in Katie’s car. ‘I stood on the edge a year ago and stared right into the heart of my darkness. I resisted then, and I’m going to resist now.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Christian places the knife against Katie’s throat again.

  Nathan’s whirling mind suddenly finds focus in Katie’s eyes. She’s staring up at him, unblinking, and although she can’t talk he knows what she’s trying to say. She wants him to let her die.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ he says to her softly. He bends down slowly and places the pole on the ground again. When he rises back up he takes a single step towards his brother.

  ‘I don’t know what happened to you,’ he says.

  ‘Nothing happened to me!’ Christian snaps back. ‘Other than what was supposed to happen. You think you’re better, but you’re not. You’re just less honest.’

  A long breath leaves Nathan. ‘What about Mum? You were there, weren’t you? You were the first home.’

  Christian shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’

  ‘Why not?’ Nathan takes another step forward, holding his brother’s gaze. ‘Surely this is the perfect day to talk about her, to talk about what happened exactly twenty years ago.’

  It’s Christian’s turn to move, retreating a step and brushing the thick curtain. His boot is no longer on Katie’s hair, and his knife is no longer at her neck, but he could still reach her if he wanted to, long before Nathan could stop him. ‘I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re saying.’

  Nathan is calling on his memory, drawing up every detail of the room on that day. Had her body been arranged like those he’s seen recently? He shakes his head, dismissing the thought. ‘You spoke to her about your problem?’

  ‘I spoke to her about who we were,’ says Christian. ‘She told me all I needed was to follow her lead and find an outlet.’ He shakes his head. ‘She showed me those pathetic books, said it was enough to put things down on the page.’ He steps forward and lowers the knife towards Katie, drawing a line just an inch in front of her nose. ‘I think I convinced her in the end that it would never be enough. Sadly she chose to take the coward’s way out.’

  Nathan can see his mum’s lifeless form, and he can feel in his fingertips the coldness of her skin. He can also see those words. After all those millions she had written for strangers, just six left for them.

  ‘You found my journal?’

  ‘Found it. Read it. Loved it. I think that’s when I first started to feel the connection between us. It was so good to have proof that we were the same.’

  ‘Just words,’ says Nathan quietly, repeating those spoken by Katie. ‘What about the photo?’ he asks. ‘Why was it just me?’

  ‘Because she was deluded,’ Christian spits, dragging the knife across Katie’s face, cutting a deep slice into her cheek.

  ‘You can’t!’ Nathan cries out, disbelievingly. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Mum thought one could be different to the other,’ Christian continues, as if he hasn’t heard his brother. ‘She thought your darkness wasn’t the same. But I know better. And so, deep down, do you.’

  Nathan takes another step, his hands now behind his back. He’s just a few feet from Christian, and it’s like he can feel the connection between them rising and disappearing like a wave.

  ‘You want to know why I’m not going to take anybody’s life today,’ he says. ‘It’s because whatever it was that existed between us has gone. You killed it. You killed it the moment you did this.’ He looks down at Katie, at all that blood that for once he cannot bear to see. ‘You did what I would never have done. You hu
rt the person I love.’ One more step, and he’s almost in touching distance, but Nathan’s arms remain behind his back. ‘In that one stroke of a knife you’ve proven the absolute difference between us. You’ve shown me that I am better than you.’ He feels himself straightening, towering over his brother. ‘All the years I stayed away because I thought I was the sick one, the one that might contaminate you…’ He twists his neck, feeling the ripple of tension across his shoulders. ‘I would have given up my life for you – I was going to, on this very day – so that you might never know. A cowardly thing to do, perhaps, but it felt right.’ He looks at the knife, at the sharpened edge covered in Katie’s blood. ‘It still does. I’m sorry, little brother, so sorry to have to leave you alone, but you and I are, and always will be, different.’

  Christian makes as if to speak, but nothing comes out.

  Nathan no longer sees the person he spent twenty years of his life with as he carefully dismantles him with his eyes: the loss of fingers that had once tickled him, pinched him, punched him, and the one finger he had shut in a car door, the first change, the first superficial difference between them.

  Without taking his eyes off Nathan’s, Christian draws the knife across Katie’s other cheek.

  ‘You love her,’ he says. It sounds like an accusation.

  ‘Yes,’ says Nathan, trembling as he watches the blood streaming out of Katie.

  ‘More than me?’

  ‘More than you.’

  Christian stares in disbelief, then looks down at Katie, taking the knife and sinking it into her stomach.

  ‘No!’ Nathan screams.

  ‘You know this is your fault. You know that you’re killing her with these lies.’

  ‘Fine!’ says Nathan, desperately. ‘You’re right. I don’t feel a thing. I was lying. I was just trying to hurt you.’