Left to Darkness

by Craig Saunders

  The smoking man was naked, Finley noted, from the waist up.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Finley,” said the topless man, without turning. “Just a taste of things to come.”

  He did turn, then. “Disturbing, isn’t it?”

  Finley saw the man was smiling—a big ear-to-ear smile. Smoke plumed from the man’s nostrils. An older man. Not, perhaps, as old as Finley, and certainly in a better state of repair.

  “But a taster’s enough for now, eh?”

  The smile was gone, and the scene returned to normal. A staid day in London’s autumn. Cusp of winter, chill in the air. Workers, drinkers, walkers, all wore coats. Nothing was on fire. A bus passed and people did not scream. Nothing fell from the sky.

  “End’s coming, Mr. Finley.”

  Finley tried not to show his shock, or his fear. He forced his face into what he imagined was a stern look.

  “What did you do to Bruce?”

  “Don’t worry about that right now. More important fish to fry,” said the smoking man. “Something like that, anyway, Mr. Finley. Just thought I’d pop by. Check out the competition, as it were.”

  “What?” Finley registered that the man knew who he was. But then plenty of people did.

  “Oh, don’t worry yourself overly. It’s not quite the end of days. Not today, leastways.”

  “What are you on about?” asked Finley. He didn’t shout or attempt to escape the car. He remained as calm as he could, his heart steady enough. “How did you get into my car?”

  “Through the door, Mr. Finley. Like anyone else. Through the door.”

  “And?”

  “And?” parroted the half-naked man.

  “What are you talking about? What is it you want? Money?”

  The topless man laughed.

  “Fuck all use, soon enough. No. I’m here to offer you something.”

  “I’m not buying.”

  “Cigarette?” offered the man.

  Thrown off for an instant, Finley didn’t reply. The man was obviously a lunatic. Nothing more.

  Stressful day. Nothing more.

  Bruce, the flaming skies, the screams, the fires, explosions…

  Slight worsening of his symptoms. The onset of dementia, according to the steady stream of doctors in his employ. Nothing more.

  “No. I don’t smoke.”

  The man in the front shrugged. “Might as well, James. Might as well. None of you are getting out alive, right?”

  “I repeat, sir, who are you, and what is it you want?”

  The man nodded, still grinning at Finley.

  Man’s a lunatic, for sure.

  “Here’s the rub, James. A game’s in the offing. The big one. The biggest yet. I want you…I can cure you. Make you live. Really live.”

  Finley smiled. So, the man had inside information. Someone, of all the people he’d consulted, had sold him out…told someone about his illness…

  Did it matter?

  No.

  “You? A half-naked man who has stolen into my car…? You can cure dementia?” Finley laughed. An unattractive, goading laugh. But the smoking man did not even blink.

  “Oh, more than that, James. I can give you immortality. I can make you young, black, a woman…”

  Finley’s face betrayed him. He couldn’t help but look at the smoking man with that kind of sympathetic but cautious look people reserve for the deranged.

  “Ah, I see you’re ticking over, at last. Thinking I’m a nut, aren’t you? Despite him, under my spell.” The man tapped ash on Bruce’s head this time, to drive home his point.

  Finley smelled hair burning.

  The naked man was grinning. “Not impressed, even after my little picture show?”

  “I don’t believe in tricks, magic, sleight of hand…”

  “Very well. Anyway, here’s a cigarette. Have a puff. You’ll be fine, don’t worry. Lung cancer’s the least of your worries in the coming times.”

  “You came here to give me a cigarette and talk, frankly, a load of bollocks?”

  The man laughed. A good laugh, not wicked or mean, just a hearty laugh.

  “Pretty much, James. Pretty much.”

  “Don’t call me James. We’re not friends.”

  “No,” said the man. “No, we’re not.”

  Bruce, unbidden, pulled the long car over to the side of the road.

  “It’s been…interesting…” said the man in the front. Then, he unlocked the door, slid from the car and off, into the dark. As he left, Finley realized the man wasn’t just topless. He was wearing nothing but a pair of underpants.

  Finley picked up the cigarette and broke it in two. He wasn’t about to smoke whatever poison that crazy bastard was offering.

  Bruce shouted, making Finley jump, and shook himself, like waking from a dream or a nightmare.

  “Boss?”

  “It’s all right, Bruce. Don’t worry. Home, please,” he said.

  “Sure. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry. Bruce? Do you have a cigarette?”

  “Thought you’d quit, Mr. Finley,” said Bruce.

  “I do believe I’ll start again.”

  Bruce reached into his jacket pocket while he drove. He flicked a cigarette from his pack and held it over his shoulder for Mr. Finley to take.

  “Thank you, Bruce,” said Finley, and lit the cigarette with a heavy golden lighter from a pouch in the door.

  Finley puffed a couple of times to get the cigarette going.

  It really was rather…tasty.

  For a few seconds, he entertained the thought of asking Bruce about the encounter. But Bruce was obviously entirely unaware that anything had transpired.

  A problem for another day, he told himself.

  He was tired. So tired. But he wasn’t about to give in to a little thing like tiredness. Never had, never would.

  Besides, he thought, there’s always work. Always.

  “Any word on the wayward Mr. Leibowicz?” he asked.

  “None, sir. In the wind.”

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll turn up. They always do.”

  Finley took a long, long drag, with real pleasure. Only then did he notice the cigarette was not Bruce’s preferred brand, but his own. He smiled, and smoked, and enjoyed his first cigarette in three decades more than he ever thought he would.

  7

  Ed Bright had been given a choice a long time ago, and he’d decided he wouldn’t bend, not even for a man like James Finley. For his convictions he roamed the streets, one of the few sane men living in the wilds of the city.

  It was only autumn, but cold on an old man’s bones. Coats, jumpers, gloves…they didn’t really help all that much.

  Only autumn, but with yet another winter on its heels. There’d probably be snow. Definitely rain. Wind, gales, even. Wind that’d blow right through a man like he was a flute, playing some kind of fantasy dirge on his iced bones and crystal blood.

  Time to get warm, thought Ed. A man had to take warmth while he could. There was a little sun in the sky, and he knew just how to make the most of it.

  In borrowed shoes, like everything else Ed Bright had of value, he set out for the docks. He had a fair limp, a few scars. Grizzled gray stubble on a rough face and wisps of white hair blowing in the easy breeze.

  A man on a mission, striding, lopsided, toward the only goal he had in mind—warmth.

  8

  London is a fluid city…some might think it cancerous, eating up the surrounding countryside, suburbs. Something voracious and malignant.

  Not Ed. Ed felt it grow, shift, change. Like a city with its own seasons. A forest of concrete and glass and steel. If you felt the flow of the city, you could survive on it. Foraging for food not on brambles and bushes, but in bins and on the streets—kebabs and burgers and pizza, half-finished beers and energy drinks. Supermarket dumpsters full of sushi and sandwiches and old but good fruit. Butcher’s bins with off-cuts and dripping.

  There was sustenance to be had in the for
est of London and shelter, in lee of the wind, if you knew where to look.

  Ed approached his favorite spot, an old long-abandoned factory, from the front. A few homeless people he knew bedded inside from time to time in the warmer months. Not him. He liked it outside. He felt safer with the stars above and fresh air on his face. He slept better, sounder.

  Like his little spot at the side of the old fish market. A slight overhang, corrugated tin on three sides. During the cold sunny days, it was a heat trap. Like today. He’d be warm for the first time in a week or so, since he’d been roaming, staying off the well-travelled roads and streets, keeping to the quiet parts of the forest, away from the police and the people.

  Either one could bite a man like him.

  Ed slowed his lopsided walk to a gentle, casual amble as he got closer to his goal.

  But he wouldn’t be warm, it seemed, for a while yet…

  The police were there, at the old fish market. Not just the police, either. There were ambulances, the press, coroners, crime-scene investigators, detectives…

  The whole shebang.

  Ed slid back into the shadows to watch, a deep frown on his face as two bodies were pushed out into the light. Bagged, on gurneys, there was no mistaking the fact that two people had died inside.

  Died?

  No, thought Ed. The circus didn’t turn out for a couple of homeless people dying in their sleep.

  Murder?

  Ed thought that sounded just about right.

  9

  The sun was dimming, dipping near to the unnatural horizon over London. Like a sunset behind a mountain range, but the peaks were made by man rather than nature. Already shadows were reaching out toward Ed’s warm place. He was shivering, his endless chill worsening even now, even in the late autumn.

  But he wasn’t going out in the open. Not while the circus was in town.

  He wasn’t a wanted man, or a criminal. He was a homeless man, saner than most, but he valued his privacy and his solitude and, above all, his freedom. Ed was a man who needed to move, keep on moving. He could spend the night in a cell and not go crazy. He could sleep under a roof without crying. He just didn’t want to.

  Ed was a man who didn’t need company. He strove to stay away from his own kind. It wasn’t that he held himself above them—he knew his station in life well enough—it was just that he couldn’t stand the banter, the fights, the bullshitting. In some ways he preferred the lunatics among the homeless class. The misfits, the psychos, the hustlers and the addicts.

  People like him, he guessed, reminded him of what and who he used to be. Reminded him of the days when he used to commute along the well-travelled pathways of the working class, a suitcase and a coffee in hand. The days when he used to work for James Finley, at first, troubleshooting for him in one of his many pharmaceutical operations around the country.

  Later, when he’d been a little older, working directly for Finley.

  Later still, when he refused to bend, living on the streets.

  Better this, he thought, than that. Better by far.

  Ed shrugged his coat up higher around his neck, even though to a younger man the day would have felt warm enough, evening approaching or not.

  The gurneys with their dead cargo were tucked away in ambulances before long. The ambulances drove off, relatively slowly, no need for flashing lights or sirens.

  The police stayed a long, long time.

  Darkness began to seep in around the edges of the city. Ed knew he’d be getting no warmth this night. It was getting too late to walk across town to a better spot. He was hungry, but only moderately so. He was used to being hungry. It didn’t bother him too much.

  He had some cigarettes. They’d see him through the night.

  Ed watched the circus from the shadows, his coat pulled tight, wondering if he’d get any sleep at all.

  The police and their hangers-on looked like they’d be on the job for a long time. A very long time, if he guessed right. Someone left, came back with coffees. A couple of coppers stood around in the streetlights smoking cigarettes. It didn’t look like they were talking about much of anything. Just kind of killing time, chatting.

  Ed watched them for maybe thirty minutes. Maybe it was an hour. He didn’t wear a watch.

  Eventually he figured he could stand in the darkness, staring at others enjoying steaming hot coffee and a fresh packet of cigarettes. Or, he could just walk around, stick to the shadows, keep out of the circles along the road thrown to the floor by the street lamps, and go where he’d planned on heading in the first place.

  He was used to staying out of sight.

  Don’t be furtive, but don’t move too fast. Keep steady, like you know where you’re going. Look ahead, not up, down, around. Avoid eye contact…

  Plenty of ways to move unseen, or at least unnoticed, in a big city. All it took was a little practice.

  Ed set off, walking steady and slow. His borrowed shoes probably would have made a clacking sound when they’d been newer. Once, they’d been leather-soled. But no longer. The heels were worn and he’d patched holes himself with thick cardboard. Cardboard was easy to find. Good shoes were not.

  Once, one of the coppers in the streetlight looked up, like he’d heard Ed. But Ed just carried right along, not guilty of anything anyway, apart from his smell, maybe. Plus, the copper was in one of those circles of light. Ed was not. The copper would be able to see little outside of the comforting glow of the street lamp.

  Ed plodded along, limping but not badly. It would get worse when the cold really bit, but for now he was fine enough. There weren’t painkillers for old homeless men. Get on with it, or give in. Lie down in the snow, or the road, or on the tracks.

  But Ed wouldn’t. He figured he’d see it out. In a way, he was still fascinated by the streets, the man-made caves, the challenge of merely existing in such a world.

  He made it to his cubbyhole without being seen. No problem.

  It was full dark now. No starlight—there wasn’t, in the city. Too much light from down below. In the shadows, here, it was near enough pitch-black.

  Ed carried a lighter. A flashlight or a candle would have been nice. He had neither, and he didn’t want to risk even a small fire so close to the police and their dog-and-pony show. He didn’t need to attract attention and maybe spend the night in a cell just because he’d been impatient or careless. He’d not been in a cell once, yet. He could live without the experience. Ed figured a cell wouldn’t be much warmer than the outside, anyway.

  With a thick, well-worn thumb, Ed flicked the wheel over the flint on his plastic disposable lighter for a quick check around his hide.

  Something was out of place.

  Something…missing?

  Nothing major, nothing that’d make a man run out into the night, but jarring, nonetheless.

  No, he thought. Not missing.

  The cardboard that would make up his shelter for the night was all piled in one corner, against the metal wall of the old fish market.

  Ordinarily, it would be diagonal—so as not to fall in the slightest breeze, and for most of the rain to run off the top sheet and keep those underneath relatively dry.

  Ed took his thumb from the lighter as it got hot. He crawled closer in the darkness. Then, testing the metal on the lighter, flicked it alight again and shifted the cardboard to one side.

  Not missing. Something’s been put…

  Here…

  A black briefcase was hidden beneath the pile. An expensive thing. Metal of some kind, thought Ed, tapping it with his knuckles.

  Worth something to someone, without a doubt. Locked, with a small combination lock.

  A sturdy, serious briefcase. One that he wouldn’t be getting open in a hurry.

  But worth something. Surely.

  Not to him, though.

  Ed shrugged his clothes as tight as they would go, then set about making his rough camp for the night. For a while, he puffed away on a rare cigarette in the dark, nothing
to see by but sporadic and weak orange light from the tip of his smoke.

  Then, smoking done, he put the towel he carried for a pillow atop the black briefcase, laid his head down to rest for a while.

  The case was just the right height.

  “Perfect,” said Ed to himself, quietly, in the darkness.

  Then, beneath the canopy of the stars and the city’s dim orange light, with a briefcase for a pillow and cardboard for his blankets, Ed closed his eyes. A little while later, softly, he snored.

  II. Dawn Graves

  10

  Now…

  There’s one place for most people where they will always be welcome, no matter the time, what you’re guilty of or innocent of. A place you don’t need to take offerings of cake or flowers or beer. That one special place, that haven from the world’s problems and yours, it might be your parents’ house, or a friend’s. It might be a bar, or the gym. Somewhere you can go when you need tea, beer, sex, drugs or hugs, a little advice, or nothing more than a dry shoulder that doesn’t mind getting wet.

  Dawn Graves’ haven wasn’t her own parents’ house. The truth was, she didn’t much care for her parents. Her mother lived in Spain and never really had given a shit about her only daughter. Mrs. Steward (she’d kept the “Steward” even though she’d been divorced eighteen years) only ever cared for herself, and what she could get out of life. Her daughter didn’t figure into the equation. Dawn had been nothing more than a chore from the start.

  Dawn realized what a bitch her mother was shortly before she left home for London. A couple of years later, still young enough to be angry, she’d married Robert pretty much out of that spite she harbored for her mother and nothing else…and ended up marrying a man just like her father—the sort of man who’d be tagged as “most likely to be found dead, trousers around their ankles, cock in a corner of a work’s bathroom,” in the school yearbook.