by Adam Carter
Her attention focused on listening for sounds, Hayden did not stand a chance. Suzie launched herself at her, tackling the detective about the waist and sending them both sprawling into the river. Hayden thrashed, attempting to stay above the water, but Suzie had the advantage of position and grasped at the detective’s neck with both hands. Hayden tried to punch her again, but lacked the best angle and the blow, had it landed, would have been weak.
Suzie knew she should have felt something, even if it was just remorse that she had continually done the wrong thing. She tried to work out why she did not feel anything, why she never felt anything. She did not like to consider it too deeply because she knew she would only come to the conclusion that she was a monster. It was not something she wanted to discover, not something she even really wanted to think about. Tremens had told her she was wrong, but Tremens was dead and if she was really as wrong as he had believed, she would not have got away with it twice.
Beneath her hands, she could feel Hayden struggling. She had not even realised she was holding the detective’s head beneath the water but did not stop now. Just a few more moments and Hayden would have swallowed enough water to fill her lungs. A few moments after that, she would have been in long enough to kill her.
Then what? Suzie’s intention had been to die in the river alongside her victims, but she wasn’t so sure she wanted to do that any more. She was taking her inability to sink as a sign: a sign that she was not destined to die today. She would take the van and drive, get away from her life and start afresh somewhere else. It was what the sign was telling her, and she always listened to signs.
The settee shifted slightly and Suzie glanced over to it. It was probably settling in the mud, she reasoned. She had struck it when she had reversed her van, she supposed, which was why it was moving now. Then it moved again and she could see it was turning onto its side. As it did so, more of the settee was revealed. Suzie could now see the gaping hole in which she had stashed Slade’s body. The material had been cut away, the hole revealed for all to see. She watched in awe as something emerged from the hole.
Suzie released her grip upon Hayden, the detective tearing her head through the surface and spluttering uncontrollably. But Suzie forgot all about her as her eyes focused upon the great form rising from the foetid water within the settee; a shambling cadaver returned to life to exact vengeance on her for her sins. Tremens had been right. What she had done truly was wrong and now she was paying for her crime.
The figure turned towards her, sludge dripping from its body, and Suzie felt her heart freeze. Slade had returned a monster, to show her she was nothing less.
Hayden’s fist came out of nowhere and this time Suzie went down hard.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hayden did not know why Tremens was even now being kind to Suzie Locke, but supposed some of the girl’s sweet innocent charm was still playing around in his heart. Either that or he was at last paying her back for all the extra rashers of bacon she had slipped him.
It turned out when he had seen the van reversing towards him, Tremens had taken refuge in the only place available: the settee. Trapped in there with a decomposing body, Tremens had been covered with all the sludgy detritus which had collected over the last month or so. Even as she was herself exploding from the water and gasping for air, Hayden knew Tremens had been exploding from the settee doing the same. That Locke had seen something she wanted to see, rather than what was actually there, was not surprising. She had likely been doing that for a number of years now.
Taking Locke into custody, Hayden and Tremens had gone home. Neither had any intention of going to the hospital and had by far enough medical experience to treat one another. It turned out neither was injured very badly, not as badly as Locke’s mind anyway. Slade, of course, was the real casualty in all of this; both Harry and Laura.
“At least we solved the case,” Tremens said once they were both patched up. They had settled in front of the television, although the sound was down low since neither of them was watching it. White noise and familiarity were always good in times of stress. That they were huddled on a settee was doing nothing for her nerves.
“Now if only we can solve our own cases,” Hayden said. “Why’d you do that for her anyway?”
“Do what for whom?”
“Rich, I’m not in the mood.”
“Sorry.” He sighed, which she found annoying considering that was always what she did to wind him up. “I guess I just wanted what was best for her.”
“She murdered Slade.”
“I know. But no one ever liked Slade and I’m not going to pretend I do now he’s dead. We had a responsibility to find his murderer and we did that.”
What he was saying was true, but Hayden did not say anything. Suzie Locke had justified everything she had done. She had honestly not been able to see anything wrong with what she was doing, but at least she had believed in her actions. Hayden and Tremens had taken it upon themselves to discover Slade’s murderer out of a sense of duty, nothing more. They did not care about Slade, did not stop to think about the right and wrong of the situation. They did not care about what they had done, which was what made them so different from Locke.
Still, Tremens putting in a good word for her was not something he needed to do and it had surprised Hayden.
“So you’re not going soft on her, then?” Hayden asked.
“On the crazy woman who tried to kill me? Please.”
“Good. Wouldn’t want to think you were weird or anything.”
“Nothing weird about me. Here.”
Hayden looked across to see Tremens was handing her something. It was a box. More specifically, it was a badly-wrapped box.
“Happy Christmas, Ruth,” he said.
“Rich, you shouldn’t have. I mean, you really shouldn’t have.” She did not know whether she was annoyed, although felt like she should have been. “We don’t exchange gifts.”
“Exchange gifts. That’s such a septic term, Ruth.”
“A septic term for a commercial time of year.”
“Are you going to open it?”
She sighed, not even realising she was doing it any more. Wordlessly, she undid the wrapping. Removing the lid from the box, she found two slips of paper. Curious, she picked them out and examined them in shock.
“You best not be joking here,” she said.
“You did say you didn’t want to spend Christmas with my parents, right?”
“You got tickets for Honolulu? Can we even afford this?”
“After spending even a few minutes in a settee with a rotting dead guy, I’m not sure I much care.”
Hayden laughed. It was a good, strange feeling. She had always felt she stayed with Tremens because they had become lumbered with each other, because their unsociable hours had forced them to find someone with equally unsociable hours; but then he would pull something like this and she would understand there were other reasons they were together.
“You now what?” she said as she got comfortable resting her head on his arm where she was sprawled. “You’re a good man, Richard Tremens.”
“Sure. Just remember; I need someone new to make my breakfast, and extra bacon never goes astray.”
For his sake, Hayden could only hope he was joking.
ONE-WAY TICKET TO MURDER
The Detective
There were four witnesses; and one of them knew far more than they realised.
Outside, the steady sounds of bustling people provided an almost soothing backdrop to where we were. It was as though the rest of the world was continuing as normal, not even aware I had sectioned off one waiting room in order to conduct my investigation. The only window in the room was on the door, and anyone peering in would see little more than the ‘out of order’ sign I had managed to find in a pile on one of the platforms.
The four within the waiting room caught glimpses of spectral forms beyond that window, hurrying about their daily business. Such wraiths would make th
em understand that for the next hour or so they had become separated from the rest of humanity, that they’d been plucked from reality and would be returned only once this was settled.
Nearby, a horn blasted across the platform, followed by the frantic chug-chug of the train passing through. The train which could not have had any bearing on my investigation because it had thought twice about stopping there, at that station.
The train that interested me had already made that stop and among all the bodies disgorged there were only four I cared about.
Only these four had seen my prey.
“Do we not even get a coffee, Detective?”
I kept my expression neutral as I looked at the tall, thin man resplendent in his grey suit. With his black tie, shiny shoes and tidy briefcase there was nothing genuine about this man. He lived for his work, strove to succeed, and had few other concerns. Perhaps he was married, perhaps he had children. If so, his life with them was sterile, septic. He kissed his children goodbye each morning, picked up the sandwiches his wife had made him, worked until late evening and returned home (sometimes) in time to see his children before they went to bed. His life had drained him of purpose, but the money rolled in and he considered himself a success.
“No, Mr Holding,” I said. “I think it best not to allow any of you to leave until we have the truth.”
“This is a breach of my human rights,” Holding declared huffily as he paced. His annoyance stemmed mainly from the break in his schedule. Every minute he lost was time not spent in the office. Money was everything to that man, and helping in a police investigation was not earning him money.
“Then why don’t you begin?” I asked. “The sooner you each tell your story, the sooner I can let you all go.”
“Story?” he asked, his mind still on how late he was going to arrive at the office. “We don’t have a story, Detective. We were all on the train going to work, there’s no story to that.”
I cast my eyes about the group. Of the four of them, only two of them had been on their way to work. One was already at work, while the other likely did not even have a destination. It did not matter what they had been doing on that train, however, only how much attention they had been paying while they were there.
“If you have no story,” I said amicably, “then this won’t take you long, Mr Holding.”
I knew an interrogation’s greatest ally was always patience. The truth would come eventually, and I could have sat there waiting for it for far more hours than Holding was willing to spend.
“All right, all right,” Holding said, sitting and trying to think of the quickest way to get his case across. “I got on the train on my way to work. Then you pulled me in here.”
Under less serious circumstances I may have smiled at the man’s inability to even recognise there were other people in the room. “Mr Holding,” I said, “might I remind you why I’ve gathered you here? A criminal boarded that train and the four of you spoke with him. I need to know everything you remember. What did he look like, how was he acting, what did you speak about? Everything, Mr Holding. And then you can go.”
For a moment it looked as though Holding was going to find fault even with that, but even he could see my words made sense. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go first.”
“If you would.”
The Businessman’s Story
I was late for work. People complain about the trains all the time, but to be honest during rush hour they’re so close together I always end up getting one on time, just not the one I was going for. Today though, the trains were really screwed-up. They hadn’t told me what it was, of course. It’s funny how they never tell you at the time. Leaves on the line, the wrong type of snow, cow on the track. Those are the things you find out later, but on the day all you hear is a garbled message. Unless of course it’s signal failure or delays caused by earlier delays. For some reason you can always hear them when they’re admitting to failure of their trains, but never when they’re acts of God.
So I was running late, but had managed to get onto a train at last. It was packed, but since I got on at the first stop from the depot I managed to get a seat. I checked the time and drummed my fingers on the briefcase on my lap. Eventually the train pulled out, but I could see I was going to miss my connection. It meant I was going to be at least twenty minutes late into the office, and that’s twenty minutes of sales I was going to lose. I sat there knowing there was nothing I could do about it, but it still grated on my nerves that I wouldn’t even be able to claim some money back from my ticket because the train hadn’t been late enough. It annoyed me to have wished the train was just a few minutes later than it had been.
“Morning.”
I looked up at the man seated opposite me. He was frightfully cheery and at first I just ignored him. I was angry and had no desire to start an argument on a train, especially when I was going to be on that train for another half an hour.
“Good morning,” he persisted.
Perhaps it was that extra word that made me answer him. “What’s good about it?”
“Oh, lots of things.” He was probably still in his twenties, wearing unsightly stubble and dressed in a T-shirt and raggedy jeans. I’d seen his type before and knew he wasn’t on his way to work. In his lap there was a bag of some sort, a rucksack I think. Maybe the queue for the job centre was so long nowadays that he felt the need to pack a picnic.
“Pardon me,” I said, “but my day’s bad enough already without someone talking to me on a train.”
The fellow laughed, as though he thought I was joking. “My day’s going great.”
“Bully for you.” I was in too much of a mood to read the paper I always pick up, but I opened it just to indicate that I was done talking.
Again, he did not seem to care. “You see,” he said, “I was all nervous this morning, thought it was all going to go wrong. But it went right, yeah? Righter than I could have dreamed.”
“Better.”
“What is?”
I gave up any pretence of reading the paper and folded it. As I stared at him I felt as though I should have been charging him for tuition. “Better than you could have dreamed.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you said … What do I care what you said?”
He sniffed, his good mood momentarily broken. “You sound just like that teacher.” Then he brightened again. “Only I’m not giving you anything pretty, no offence.”
“You’re still in school?”
“No. Don’t need to be in school to have yourself a teacher.”
I did not understand, but nor did I want to. “Was there something you wanted?” I asked tiredly.
“Got everything I wanted right here,” he said, jostling the rucksack he was clutching in his lap. “Now I just got to decide where I’m going.”
“You mean you haven’t bought a ticket?” I asked, incredulous. There’s nothing worse than a job-seeking scrounger who travels without a ticket; and sits in a seat no less.
“No, I meant where I’m going in life,” he said. “Going to London. Once I’m there, who knows?”
“Well, what are you going to London for?”
“Same as everyone goes to London. To make my fortune.”
I started to tell him I for one wasn’t going to London to make my fortune, but I supposed that was precisely what I was doing.
“If you could go anywhere,” he asked, “do anything, what would you do?”
“I’d get to work on time.”
“I didn’t mean work. I meant … if you didn’t have to work.”
“You mean if I signed on to benefits?”
“No, not benefits.” His face was still illuminated by a euphoric sheen. If I wasn’t so annoyed about the train delay I might even have been happy for him myself. “Say you won the lottery,” he continued. “Say you didn’t have to work no more.”
“Any more.”
He grinned. “What would you do?”
I
t was around this point I realised he wasn’t going to shut up the entire journey, so I figured I might as well answer the fool. The old ‘what would you do if you won the lottery’ question was about as old as ‘who’d win in a fight?’ and was equally as pointless. “I’d invest it,” I said. “I’d buy some shares, some stocks, and put the rest in a fixed-term bond.”
“What if you’d already won more money than you knew what to do with?”
“Then by the end of the two-year term I’d have a lot more money than I’d know what to do with.”
“There’s no amount you’d be happy to reach?”
“There’s never a point you should be happy to reach.” I honestly could not understand what he was talking about.
“But there’s only so many houses you can buy, so many cars. What would you do with the rest?”
“Stick it in a savings account.”
“Have it sit in the bank doing nothing?” He frowned. “Doesn’t that just give the money to the bank?”
“Well, yes. But it’s also my money.”
“Not if you don’t spend it. If you leave it in the bank untouched it’s the bank’s money. And they’re laughing at you for it.”
I went to tell him he was being a fool, but what he was saying actually made a certain kind of sense. “What would you spend it on?” I asked.
He laughed. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Well at least I had an answer.”
“Well, I just didn’t like to get my hopes up beforehand.”
I gathered from the way he was speaking he was either a dreamer or he had received a sudden windfall. Whichever the case, it was not getting me to work any quicker. “What are your interests?” I asked.