by James Nally
‘I spent five years at Hornsey Mortuary and it honestly felt like a corpse conveyor belt. It wasn’t until this year I finally realised I’d been mistaken all along. Death isn’t an abstraction and no one in our line of work gets left unscathed.’
She looks at me anxiously, clearly unused to unburdening.
‘What happened, Edwina?’
‘The Home Office gave me this new role, which I was terribly excited about, a sort of roving pathologist-for-hire in major cases. I was enjoying it too. Until February.’
She gets down and dirty with the Martini, slinging a third in a single, wincing swig. Anaesthetise and energise …
The bitter taste sends a whip-crack command to her composure. ‘They sent me to 25 Cromwell Street.’
‘Oh Jesus,’ I mumble, those grim news bulletin images flickering in my mind. They’d dug up eight young women and an unborn baby in Fred West’s home and garden. They found more of his unspeakable handiwork elsewhere.
‘They sexually abused them, tortured them, hung them from beams in their basement. I found drill holes in some of their shoulder blades. They were violated in every way imaginable as they hung there, helplessly.’
She shakes her head, her eyes looking beyond me, into that abyss.
‘There were even signs that they’d been cannibalised.’ She laughs bitterly. ‘Why not? It was the only thing left to do to them.
‘Just one of those girls had been reported missing. The rest hadn’t been missed at all. By anyone. They’d been turfed out of care homes aged sixteen and left to fend for themselves. Nobody in the world gave a shit about them, leaving Fred and Rose West free to devour them like wolves.
‘I just can’t stop thinking about their final hours, left for dead in that basement, knowing no one could hear their cries for help, no one was out there looking for them, or missing them or even thinking about them. They already didn’t exist.’
She looks at me startled, the shock of her upcoming revelation still box-fresh in her mind.
‘I’m going to tell you something about the West case I haven’t told another soul. And I’m only telling you because of what you told me last time. I think we may both be reluctant witnesses to the inexplicable.’
With a build-up like that, it feels only right that I order another brace of Martinis.
‘Most of West’s victims had been buried with gags in their mouths, and with these ghastly torture masks over their faces. One of them, Carol Ann, had been buried next to an underground drainpipe that had several slow leaks. The waterlogged soil had preserved her body surprisingly well. When I removed the mask, her face was almost completely intact. The thing is, Donal …’
Her eyes widen, pleadingly.
‘She had this big beaming smile on her face. It was almost beatific, as if, at the very point of death, she’d seen the most wonderful spectacle ever. It seemed so utterly incongruous, and was so utterly unexpected … it floored me.’
She shuffles in her seat, taking a new tack. ‘Of course, it could’ve been caused by a cadaverous spasm at the point of death. It’s a sort of reflex action, usually connected to the cause of death. I’ve seen suicides clutching the gun they’d used to shoot themselves. That’s how they found Kurt Cobain. It’s eerie but logical. That’s what a pathologist would say happened here.’
‘What do you say?’
She shakes her head. ‘This was more than an upturned mouth. Her whole face looked overjoyed, ecstatic. Scientifically, it makes no sense whatsoever. So, for the first time in my career, I allowed myself to think that maybe, just maybe, there’s something more to death than simply expiring.’
She takes another slurp, then helps herself to a long, controlled, almost yogic intake of air, summoning some uncomfortable truths.
‘You see, Donal, I’ve come across all sorts of things during my career that can’t be explained by science. Near-death experiences, people being pronounced dead, then reviving, a woman who spoke to transport police after she’d been sliced in two by a train. Everyone in my line of work has stories like this that defy science, but we’re actively discouraged from exploring them, reporting them or even acknowledging them. Our job is to explain it all away neatly, sign the form and move on.
‘Carol Ann’s smile made me realise that I’d amputated my own spirituality to cope with my work. Like that blues singer, Robert Johnson, I’d sold my soul to be the best at my job. I’d conditioned myself to reject anything that didn’t adhere to science and logic and cold fact. It made me very good at my job. But at what cost?
‘I did what the vast majority of us do in life. I traded in my spirit, curiosity, honesty, my soul really, in return for security, prosperity, respect, status. We all do. We all end up climbing onto this career rock face and clinging on no matter what, don’t we?’
She takes stock with another mournful mouthful.
‘I stopped looking at the stars, Donal. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I think so.’
‘It’s like we’ve decided we know enough so we don’t need spirituality any more. It just distracts us from the climb. Yet we don’t know anything, do we? Not really. The universe, where humans came from, or where we go after we die, the essence of who we are, why we’re here. Why do we ignore these things?
‘I stopped thinking about the bigger questions. The important stuff. Because I thought it would make me weak, less professional, less able to cope. But after Carol Ann, I can’t ignore it anymore.’
She sips and momentarily closes her eyes, as if silently acknowledging the completion of some dreaded ordeal. I realise how much it took for her to tell me this, and wonder why she has.
‘Anyway, I’d planned to keep all this to myself. Then you told me about your episodes. The scientist in me felt a desperate urge to shoo you away or mock you. Then I thought; why am I so scared of what you told me? Why are we so afraid to admit there’s loads we can’t explain? Why can’t we just open our narrow little minds and accept what you’ve experienced on face value?
‘Just because it’s illogical, unusual and inexplicable, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth treating seriously and exploring properly. As I often say, I don’t believe in sceptics. So, I’ve been giving it some proper thought.’
I’m staggered, flattered, almost overcome. At last, someone far more intelligent and worldly than me is taking my encounters with the dead seriously. It’s all I can do not to get up and hug her.
‘What do you think is going on, Edwina?’ I squeak, my throat quelling a volcano of emotions.
‘I’d say your episodes are definitely linked to sleep paralysis. But you should be seeing a ghost or an alien, whatever your bogeyman is, not murder victims. Unless … are you afraid of death, Donal?’
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘Indeed, but we don’t keep the prospect of death at the forefront of our minds. Did you witness a violent death in your youth perhaps?’
I shake my head.
‘How old do you think you’ll be when you die?’
‘Seventy-five or so,’ I lie.
She frowns, sensing I’m holding back. ‘It sounds to me like you’re suffering some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder. There’s a fear buried deep in your psyche that the sight of a murder victim triggers and your sleep paralysis brings to life. Maybe it’s so deeply buried that your conscious mind isn’t aware of it. But I’d wager that sudden, agonising, violent death is your bogeyman. You just don’t know why.’
You’re good, Edwina, bloody good. Maybe even a genius. You’ve bared your soul today, now it’s time for me to come clean …
A fresh brace of Martinis land, as if on cue. I help myself to a sterling swig and let loose.
‘My mother died on New Year’s Eve from a very rare condition called Fatal Familial Insomnia. She couldn’t sleep at all for the last three months, developed dementia and wasted away to a skeleton.’
‘I’m so sorry, Donal, I know how close you were.’
‘I keep suddenly remembe
ring she’s gone, you know, several times a day, almost like my brain refuses to let it sink in. I know it sounds stupid, but I’d just love to know she’s okay.’
I swallow hard again, my chest set to burst.
‘Anyway, it’s a very rare disease, just a few hundred known cases in the world. We had academics fly in from Iran and the US to observe her treatment. Before she lost her marbles, the doctors and nurses back home made her feel so exotic and special. She loved the attention, bless her. God knows, she didn’t get much of it during her life.
‘She was lucky, in a way. It can strike any time from eighteen to sixty. She was fifty-two, so at least she saw us grow up.’
Edwina tilts her head and smiles sadly. ‘She must’ve been delighted you’d found someone, and turned her into an instant grandmother.’
‘You can’t imagine what it meant to her, being able to see a photo of her first grandchild. I never told her he isn’t biologically mine. I didn’t want to spoil it for her, you know?’
She nods, eyes twinkling. She’s about to go too.
Now the part I’ve never uttered aloud before, so I gallop through it. ‘Anyway, this thing is genetic and if one parent has the gene, there’s a 50/50 chance the offspring will inherit it and develop the disease.’
Edwina mumbles ‘Oh my gosh’ and blinks dementedly.
‘Mam was losing her marbles when she grabbed hold of my hand one night and said: “This is why you keep seeing those spirits, Donal. Part of you has always known you might have this damned thing. Every time you see a body that’s died in agony, you see yourself. I’m so sorry.” That’s the last comprehensible thing she ever said to me.’
Edwina looks upset, alarmed, then stern as the scientist in her sucks up the blows. ‘I genuinely don’t know what to say, Donal. There must be a way they can test you for this.’
‘Fintan’s had the all-clear.’
She nods impatiently.
‘I haven’t been able to face it. Please don’t lecture me, Edwina. Not unless you’ve played Russian roulette with three bullets in the chamber …’
‘I bet you’ve had enough lectures from your other half. But surely she deserves to know, Donal, and sooner rather than later.’
Jesus, I might be dying, but all the women in my life care about is whether or not I can confirm it, so that Zoe can crack on with alternative plans!
‘Why? So she’ll have an excuse to leave me?’
‘Good God, Donal, how can you think like that? I mean she needs to know so she doesn’t worry herself to death. And what if she wants children with you? If you love her, you’ll do the right thing …’
Children with me? She doesn’t even want sex with me.
I focus on a spot on the table top. ‘Okay, okay, I’m booking it any day now.’
‘Good,’ says Edwina. ‘I always knew there was something different about you, Donal. Something special. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Sadly, I think there really could be something in what your dear mother said. She was clearly a very astute woman.’
‘I just hated the fact she felt so guilty about passing it onto me. I told her not to, over and over.’
Edwina puts her hand on mine. ‘As you now know, Donal, guilt is the main qualification for the job of parent.’
She pats kindly, then withdraws. Emotional circuit broken, she resumes as a scientist tackling a particularly stubborn equation.
‘So your subconscious terror of inheriting this genetic condition explains the post-traumatic stress and why your sleep paralysis conjures up dead people you’ve recently encountered. What it fails to explain is why and how you glean clues from these encounters, pertinent to that victim’s murder.
‘It’s tempting to attribute it to your subconscious beavering away and coming up with answers out of the blue, as if engaged in a cryptic crossword. But to do so, I’d just be repeating what I did as a pathologist. It’s a square peg and a round hole, don’t you think?’
‘That’s exactly what I’ve always thought. The desperation of people to rationalise it has never done justice to the experiences.’
‘Right, that’s settled,’ she barks. ‘I’m going to explore this exotic condition of yours with a renewed, open mind. Are you okay with that?’
‘I’d be honoured,’ I say, thinking, if nothing else, it’ll earn me a gallon or two of top-grade Martini.
Chapter 29
Arsenal, North London
Sunday, June 26, 1994; 10.00
That afternoon of overpriced Martinis provided a gloriously steep slipway into a night of drunken self-indulgence.
As ever, the CD cases scattered across the living room floor this morning reflect my now nightly DABDA routine. It always starts with the stuff Zoe and me used to listen to; Pavement, The Lemonheads, The Breeders, ending some seven hours later with that Holy Trinity of delicious despair: Scott Walker, Radiohead and Tom Waits.
The final song I always wallow in looped misery to is ‘I Know It’s Over’ by The Smiths because, like Morrissey, still I cling, I don’t know where else I can go. Despite everything, I refuse to accept me and Zoe and Matt are finished, and I won’t be engaging with DABDA’s final ‘A for Acceptance’ until I’m shown our relationship’s cold dead body.
I wander down the hall to find Fintan attending to his usual Sunday service; filleting the days’ newspapers. Every front page is emblazoned with the same image; the bright eyes and coy smile of nineteen-year-old Molly Parker-Rae.
‘Sorted!’ blazes The Sunday News. ‘Evil E claims another victim’, by Alex Pavlovic.
‘Please tell me the Prince didn’t manage to inveigle his way into her intensive care unit?’
‘He did, and he got the shot, but the editor decided it was a bit tasteless.’
‘Wow, makes you wonder what would qualify as just plain tasteless? When did your editor sprout a conscience?’
‘Oh it’s not that. The Parker-Raes are middle-class, church-going pillars of the community.’
‘Right, so their grief deserves more respect than, say, that of an unemployed single mum?’
‘Don’t start, Donal. It just makes it more relatable to the average person, which sells more papers, so we need to keep the Parker-Raes on side. Like we do with Princess Di. Every time she’s on the front page, sales spike. Whose fault is that? You get the government you deserve and you get the press you deserve.’
A double-page spread inside warns of a ‘lethal batch of corrupt tablets’. ‘How many more will die?’ screams the headline.
‘Wow, toxicology reports back already?’
‘Nah it’s just speculation.’
‘Right, so you’re scaring the living daylights out of anyone who took an E in Southern England last night?’
‘Well if anyone has a funny turn, they won’t hesitate to seek help now, will they? The police were all for running with that angle. It might save lives.’
Another piece reports that ‘a crack team of thirty-five officers are hunting down the drug dealer who put Molly in a coma’. Meanwhile, the notoriously ill-considered Home Secretary Michael Howard – sworn enemy of fun and under-forties – announces: ‘Every drug dealer is a murderer and should be sentenced to life.’
He rails on: ‘I am declaring war on dance clubs and the druggie rave culture that has spawned these tragedies’. A sidebar helpfully summarises the ‘six high-profile ecstasy deaths’ since 1988.
‘My God, more people have died from eating bay leaves,’ I point out.
‘I know. But it shifts units. Every parent with a teenage kid will be freaking out this morning.’
‘You mean it’s outrageous scare-mongering, Fintan.’
‘It’s what Molly’s parents want, to scare young people so no one else dies. They’re planning to launch a massive publicity campaign and we’re getting behind it.’
‘What, you and your fellow coke-snorting journos are supporting the Parker-Rae “Just Say No” campaign?’
‘Oh come on, you’re not averse to
the odd doobie yourself, Donal. And you couldn’t face another day without your legal drugs crutch, booze, so spare me. Besides, do you agree with everything your police force advocates? Like stopping and searching black people with no grounds other than their colour?’
Edwina’s words from last night chime.
I traded in my spirit, curiosity, honesty, my soul really, in return for security, prosperity, respect, status. We all do.
We’re all forced to sell out. In the end. I’m just as bad as he is. Only this week, I illegally tape-recorded murder suspects in a dodgy Croydon boozer to gather evidence. My God how would that sound in court?
‘By the way, Dusko’s delivered again!’
I set off up the stairs, Fintan in hot pursuit. He watches in horrified fascination as I press the play button.
First, we listen to what was said while I was there, including Gary Warner’s chillingly deadpan account of how he’d arrange a ‘hit’. In between his rasping menace, my squeaky questions sound inane and ingratiating.
‘You’ll hear his threat in a second,’ I say, talking over one of my particularly cringe-worthy saccharine moments.
‘Christ,’ yelps Fintan in response. ‘I can’t believe you had the bottle to go back in there after that.’
‘I borrowed your hi-vis technique.’
‘Jesus, you’ve turned into a luminous Bad Lieutenant.’
As I exit stage right, we instinctively shuffle in closer to the blue plastic Dictaphone.
JOHN DELANEY: Someone’s talking, because no one’s been connecting Draper to any of this.
PHIL WARE: This lad hasn’t come up with the idea all by himself. Who the hell put him onto it?
DELANEY: He’s cold case squad. It must’ve come from someone connected to Nathan Barry. I know Walter’s boozing again.
WARE: Walter knows fuck all. Why don’t I get the Prince to sort this copper out?
DELANEY: Get him to check him out first. Then we’ll decide how to deal with him.
Fintan turns to me. ‘Right, this proves they know Julie Draper is connected to Nathan Barry. This means her kidnap had nothing to do with Kipper. But whoever kidnapped Julie had the inside track on Kipper, because they’ve completely hoodwinked the police.’