Lost in Shadows

by Alex O'Connell

  He looked at his watch. Christ it was ten past ten and he hadn’t called Bellini. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his functional Siemens mobile phone. It was old now, and ‘pay as you go’, but that was all he needed and all that Bellini would stump up for. It had been the cheapest he could find in the Argos shop in Oxford Street as he jostled the tourists, hating every moment of it, but it was good enough for his purposes. Doyle didn’t need the latest technology. He didn’t need to send e-mails or input polyphonic ringtones. God knows, he had few enough people to telephone. Apart from tonight, and this wasn’t just to talk. He needed to turn on the car’s courtesy light, just for a moment, to see what he was doing and it went straight off again as soon as had pressed and held the number two button and Bellini’s own mobile phone had been speed dialled.

  “You’re late, Francis. I expect punctuality. Why must you constantly disappoint me?” His tone had changed completely from this morning and Doyle thought it best to draw a veil over it, if he could, and without apologizing he started to briefly outline Tommy’s movements for the day, few as they were. Bellini seemed relatively satisfied. After receiving his report, he gave Doyle his detailed instructions. They surprised him but they were simple enough, he’d be able to follow them, hopefully without too much difficulty. As soon as he’d finished Bellini hung up without the pleasantry of a goodbye.

  Doyle didn’t put his phone away. Instead, he searched the Siemens’ memory for another number, located it and hit the central button with the phone symbol to dial. It took five rings before Tommy answered. He sounded agitated. He was clearly on edge and his voice betrayed him.

  “It’s Doyle.”

  “Hello Frank. Is everything alright?” It was a reasonable question. Frank Doyle was not best known for his social intercourse and a phone call from him was far from an everyday occurrence.

  “Everything’s fine. I want to meet up with you. Talk to you about Mr. Bellini.”

  “What? Is there a problem?”

  “Not over the phone, Tommy.”

  “You don’t want to do it now, do you? I’ve had half a bottle of Scotch and I feel a bit pissed.” He didn’t sound drunk to Doyle, although he didn’t seem, somehow, all there.

  “No. Tomorrow morning. Early. 9.30 at the Tower of London. I’ll meet you at Traitor’s Gate.”

  “What?” Tommy was nonplussed by this. “Why not my place? Or yours?” It seemed a bit too dramatic for Tommy’s liking. Not the sort of thing that would be Doyle’s idea.

  “I want to get off the manor and I don’t want anyone to see us together, not after all that shit with Kurtis Robinson. What I need to talk to you about doesn’t need an audience.”

  “But why the Tower, Frank? It’s full of bloody tourists.”

  “That’s exactly the point. We’re not likely to bump into anyone we know. Or, more to the point, anyone who knows Bellini. We’ll just merge in with the crowd. Faceless. Besides, I’ve never been there.”

  “Nor me” Tommy half laughed. If that’s what Doyle wants, that’s what Doyle will get. “OK Frank. I’ll be there 9.30 at Traitor’s Gate. I expect it’ll be sign posted. I’ll see you then.” Bloody hell, did mad Frankie Doyle have hidden depths after all? A culture vulture? And a sense of humour, too? Somehow, Tommy doubted it, but what choice did he have? He’d have to go along with it. Things were escalating for Tommy Windsor, catching up with him so fast that they looming large in his rear view mirror, just waiting for the chance to overtake. He knew that he had to act and he had spent most of yesterday, after his meeting with Charlotte Ashworth, thinking, coming up with the first stage of his plan. He had spent most of today convincing himself that he really had to go through with it. To see it through to its bitter conclusion. Although it was drastic, it might take the heat off him for a while. That would buy him a little bit more time. And it was time that he needed most of all. Time to think. To give things a chance to settle down. As for Frank Doyle, he was tomorrow’s problem, not today’s. Tommy felt that, now, he could only deal with one problem at a time. Anymore than that and he felt that he would snap. Maybe Doyle was genuine, regretting now that he had turned his back on Robinson. Perhaps now he wanted a bigger cut for himself. But all that would wait. It would have to. Now he had business to attend to and he had to get ready to go to work.

  Doyle had sensed that something was rotten with the state of Tommy and he had decided to wait around a bit longer, maybe all night if he felt it was necessary. He had all the equipment he needed with him for tomorrow morning’s meeting and if he smelled a bit rife, well, people would just have to put up with it. Tommy had seemed a bit too edgy when he had called. Doyle didn’t like it much but he thought that he had probably just scored a hit of his smack. In fact he had. Perhaps he was suspicious of his request. That didn’t matter. Just so long as he showed up. Or perhaps he was up to something else.

  Doyle didn’t have too much longer to wait. It was a little before midnight when Tommy left his flat, his bomber jacket zipped up tightly against the bracing chill of the cold night air. Doyle followed his Mondeo through the almost deserted streets. There were few cars about at that time and Doyle had to hang well back to make sure that Tommy wasn’t aware that he was being followed. He needn’t have worried. Tommy had his mind on other things as they made their way the short distance to Fulham. Pulling into one of the myriad of the expensive streets off the Fulham Palace Road, just a stone’s throw from the old cemetery, Tommy slowed and found a parking spot. Some way behind, Doyle did the same. He watched as Tommy, now on foot, turned left into a nameless road with lofty houses and flat conversions that were very nice now and had once been even better. He was just quick enough to see him take the next left turning, cross the road and walk up the small path that led to an impressive, stained hardwood front door with two ornately decorated stained glass inserts. The house was in total darkness. Tommy unzipped his bomber jacket and seemed, as far as Doyle could tell, to be checking something in an inside pocket. He roughly rubbed his across his back, almost as if for re-assurance and then delved deep into his trouser pockets, producing a pair of tight fitting black leather gloves. So, no social visit then, Doyle thought to himself. Tommy took out a credit card and a thin wire that served him as a skeleton key, and got to work on the lock. He made short work of it. All those years in the Met. had taught him something. Even Doyle was impressed at the speed with which he accomplished his entry. He’s done that before, muttered Doyle casually, under his breath. He had no intention of following Tommy inside the house, but he walked past, on the opposite side of the road, and checked the number of the house. He saw it clearly, the door had been left ajar but it was virtually imperceptible. Doyle retraced his steps and at the end of the road made a mental note of the street name. He planned to go back to the car and call Bellini again. He probably wouldn’t be asleep. In any case, he doubted if he would mind being woken up for this. One of his contacts in the filth could check out the address for him in the morning, but, by the time he did, who ever’s house it was, Doyle thought, Tommy would be dead by then.

  Now inside the house, Tommy made a distinct effort to regulate his breathing, not to let it betray his presence. He had seen the deliberately distinctive red box of an alarm casing high on the wall of the house, but he knew it wouldn’t be on while the occupants were at home. He had been to the house before and he thought that he could remember the rough layout, but he took his time, and allowed his eyes gradually to adjust to the darkness. It was only when they had, that he pulled out his torch. It was little bigger than a pen and the beam that it emitted was seemed so tiny in the Victorian vastness of the old house. But it was powerful enough for his purposes. He made his way slowly up the stairs, careful to place his feet at the very edge of the treads. These old houses would creak like the devil and he needed to be as quiet as possible. He didn’t want anyone to wake. At the top of the stairs, he saw that the nearest door had been left open and by the glow of the night light he saw the sweet, sle
eping face of a child. Alice was six now and was as blonde as her mother. She would be a stunner too, break a few hearts in her time, he thought. When they had been introduced she shook his hand politely and addressed him as Mr. Windsor. All the time, she couldn’t take her eyes off his hair, she had never seen anything quite so wonderful, she thought, and Tommy, in turn, had been captivated by the rarity of her innocence. That had been along time ago. A whole bloody lifetime ago. He pulled her door shut and moving towards the front of the house, he came to the next door. This one was closed but through it he could clearly hear a light, rhythmical snoring.

  From the pocket, inside his jacket he pulled the vial that he had obtained from Charlie earlier that day. It contained chloroform and he poured the entire contents on the two large cotton wool pads that had been supplied with it. The now empty vial was safely returned to his pocket and he opened the door. It groaned, almost inviting them to wake and Tommy winced. But the snoring continued as regular as before. He followed his pen light around the bed, careful not to bring it too near to the faces of the couple sleeping there. He could make them out well enough, the outline of their bodies, so close together that they were indistinguishable from each other, almost as if they were one single person. He wasted no time and held the chloroformed pads, one in each hand, tightly over their faces, making sure that their mouths and noses were fully covered. He had used enough to knock out a rampaging bull elephant. The opiate acted so quickly that Steve did not ever awake but Charlotte Ashworth did. She tried to struggle, to fight both him and the drug, but the intoxication was too compelling to resist. He eyes widened in fear and before she finally succumbed, she stared into his eyes, with a gaze so intense, so powerful that he felt it had pierced his soul like a laser. At that moment Charlotte knew Tommy Windsor intimately, completely, right down to the very core of his being. She hated him.

  The child had to be next. He had no intention of killing her but he didn’t want to disturb her and set her off screaming. The house was detached so the neighbours shouldn’t be a problem. He really did not want to have to kill the girl. He returned to her room gently and kneeling beside her placed one of the pads carefully to her face. This time he didn’t press hard, but left it in place long enough to be quite sure that she wouldn’t wake up.

  He moved back to the master bedroom and surveyed the scene. Stretching his right hand behind him, towards his left shoulder he reached underneath his jacket and drew the machete from the sheath strapped tightly to his back. It was a fearsome weapon, over twenty inches in length, blade and handle. Thick and curved, its steel glistened like silver even in the dull light of his torch. It was sharp, too. Tommy had spent most of the evening with a whetstone seeing to that.

  Charlotte was lying, contorted in the terror of his initial attack but Steve seemed to be quite clearly at peace. Tommy pulled them apart. He needed a little room to work. Looking at the blade of his knife, he examined it minute detail. He was pleased with his handiwork. That would so the job.

  Standing beside Charlotte, he raised his machete, holding tightly in two hands and brought it down with all his might, clefting open her forehead, high, just below her hairline. With that first blow, Charlotte Ashworth, mother to Alice, wife to Steve, detective inspector to the Metropolitan Police Force, a woman with so much still to offer the world, her prone body already lifeless, died. Tommy was surprised just how easily the machete cut through the bone and into the brain tissue. The noise had been gruesome, that was true enough and blood spurted out, covering the knife, splattering him, running down the chiselled perfection of Charlotte’s face and drenching the bed. But he had a strong stomach and this was proving easier than he thought. The second blow came easily too, so did the third. The fourth removed the top of her skull, and with it, sliced off the top of her brain completely. He picked it up and looked deep into it. He had expected the brain to be a grey gelatinous mess, but this was stained red, dyed crimson with her blood. He felt that he had destroyed her completely. He had shattered everything that she had ever been, both body and mind.

  What came next hadn’t been planned, it wasn’t what he rehearsed, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself, not that he really tried, so enraptured was he with the moment. He pulled off the duvet that had now slipped to the foot of the bed and he raised Charlotte’s white satin night gown, high above her waist. His gloved hands was now as red as her bed. He looked at them distastefully and he pulled off his right glove and, careful to keep it free from her blood, ran his bare fingers against the lips of her vulva; gently at first, but with ever increasing pressure he invaded her, communing with her in her death as he violated her. Tommy didn’t know why he was doing it; he didn’t want to do it but it excited him, aroused him, drew him deeper and deeper in and it seemed like minutes before he could finally force himself to stop. He wished instantly that he hadn’t done it and he knew, at that moment, the moment when he took himself from her, that he couldn’t let Steve see what he had done to his wife. Not killing her, that didn’t seem to matter so much to him, but he had violated her spiritually as well as sexually. Steve was a good man, he mustn’t ever know what had happened to his wife. He pulled his glove back on and went round to the other side of the bed. He rolled Steve sideways, onto his belly. Picking up his huge knife, he swung wildly, uncontrollably, at his neck and felt it slice through his vertebrae and sever the spinal column. With his second blow he decapitated him and his head rolled pathetically to the side of the bed and fell plaintively to the floor.

  Tommy sat there, on the floor, for some twenty minutes. He was swathed in blood. He knew that he would have to wash it off as best he could. He couldn’t go out onto the street looking like this. He hadn’t accounted for the ferocity of his attack. He was supposed to have been clinical, but to his own surprise, he had become like a wild beast, a shark in the uncontrollable fury of a feeding frenzy. He comforted himself that he was thinking rationally now. The shoes would have to go, too many bloody footprints around the bedroom, but then so would all the clothes. That could wait for tomorrow. All he’d need now was to wash off everything that was visible and get a big coat to cover the rest. He’d noticed Steve’s overcoat next to Charlotte’s on a hook by the front door as he came in. That would have to do.

  Doyle was still at the wheel of the B.M.W. when he saw Tommy hurrying, not running, back to his car. He’d been one hell of a time and if he had been robbing the place, he didn’t seem to have a lot to show for it, just a solitary bin bag and a different coat. Scant reward for such for the an enterprise upon which he had expended so much time. It didn’t seem right to Doyle, although he was too far away to see any blood or to notice that Tommy was barefoot. Still, Bellini would be able to piece it altogether in the morning.

  The night was clear and brilliant, and Tommy stood, before unlocking his car, and stared intently upwards. What cloud cover there had been earlier that evening had now dissipated and he looked for the brightest star in the night sky, its ethereal luminescence and eternal brilliance almost eclipsing everything around it. It drew his gaze and held him fixed, enraptured for minutes. Below it, barely visible to Tommy in the harsh reflected light of the city, over the artificial horizon of roofs and chimney pots was Orion the Hunter. He focused hard, trying to make out the three stars of his belt and he thought he could just about see them. Despite their vast distance, Tommy felt that he would be able to simply reach out his hand and take hold of them, take possession of them. It was as if they were calling out to him and in their presence, he felt like a child again. They were immortal, unchanging over millennia. Certain. Reassuring. Comforting.

  Doyle watched this tableau unfold before him with a degree of bewilderment. He thought that he was just about the only sane man left in a mad, mad world. When Tommy finally got into his car and pulled away, it seemed to Doyle that his driving, like his earlier actions, was more than a little erratic, too. If he wasn’t lucky, the Old Bill would pull him over. But he was lucky and Doyle followed him all the way back
to his flat. He drove a little closer this time, as he had the feeling Tommy wasn’t using his mirrors. There was no point waiting now, he thought, he might as well get some sleep while he still could. He drove off into the night. Alone.

  Alice Ashworth would never recover from the scene of carnage that she awoke to the next day. Who could have done? She was feeling unreal, fuzzy headed and slightly sick. Nothing could have prepared her for what she was to see. Its memory would haunt her dreams and terrorize her consciousness for the rest of her life. The nightmares would never end. They only ever intensified as she was passed from one institution to the next, as the medication got stronger and less effective. But at least she was not dead. She would always hate the bastard for that most of all.

  Chapter Ten

  She never thought about the past. Or in any event she tried not to. Not anymore. That all belonged to a previous life into which was better left buried. This was a past life into which she had no desire to regress. Things were much better now for Mel. She was no longer the Melanie that had lived in London with that bastard, Francis. The symbol of her shackles, the name ‘Doyle’ had been quickly swept aside too. When she moved out she had reverted to her maiden name, O’Callaghan and she had made sure that little Frankie had done the same. Now she was Mrs. Wheeler and had been for over twelve years. And she was happy at last. Contented. Things with Scott were better than she had ever dreamed she had any right to expect when she was with Francis.

  It’s not surprising that she had made every effort to blank out her conscious memory. Things had been pretty bad. At first she had really loved Francis Doyle, she was sure of that. She had been so innocent and naïve back then, a good Catholic girl, brought up on tales of sin and purgatory and a morbid fear of breaking the commandments and incurring the fiery wrath of the priest or nuns. That’s why he had been so enticing, so attractive to her. He wasn’t like her, he didn’t care. Doyle had already rejected everything that her priest had tried to indoctrinate her with. He lived on the other side of the law and on the other side of religion, on the very margins of acceptable society. It was like he was an incubus, her own little devil. Wicked, yes. Dangerous, perhaps, the scar across his lips stood as compelling testimony to this. But he wasn’t evil and he certainly couldn’t be irredeemable. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that. He’d settle down in time. With the love of a good woman. That’s all it would take and she could change him in time, get him away from the influence of old man Bellini. She’d find him a steady job. It was a story that has been told a million times before and, no doubt, will be told a million times again. But like all the others, Melanie O’Callaghan was wrong.