by Tom Gabbay
Retreating from his sister's bedroom, which always made him feel slightly uncomfortable, Aleksi bounded down the stairs and retrieved the key to the cellar door from behind the fridge, where he kept it hidden from Ula. His sanctuary, which he'd set up as a teenager using the old furnishings from the lockup, was located in a dark, underground cavern at the back of the basement. It was a small space accommodating a single bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and his most recent addition, a large antique hope chest, painted in a faded floral pattern, which he was using for temporary storage. The adjoining bathroom, with toilet, washbasin, and old cast iron tub, had been installed a few years earlier, as a twenty-first birthday present to himself, releasing him from the need to be constantly cleaning up after himself so as to avoid arousing Ula's suspicions.
Stepping up to the gilded mirror that hung above the sink, he leaned in close and inspected his reflection. It was still her face at the moment. Plain features, grey complexion, and dull, lifeless eyes. It suited Ula, but ultimately, like her mousy personality, it was deadly boring. His persona, on the other hand, required a bit of flair.
"You know we're in this together," he said as he reached for his makeup kit. "If I go to prison, you go with me."
He often spoke directly to Ula while she was sleeping. Although she was unaware of his words, perhaps they would filter down, he thought, and subliminally influence her behaviour, which was becoming more and more erratic with each passing day. At any rate, it was a way to break the silence, which he found unbearably oppressive.
"You and your idiotic fantasies," he continued. "I mean, really! A house by the sea?" Pinning his hair back, he began his metamorphosis with a thin layer of liquid foundation. "I'm sure the idea of hiding out in another coma suits you down to the ground, but for god's sake, I could never let you put us back there! Even if you can't remember, I do. All that awful black emptiness! Christ! We might as well be fucking dead!"
A bit of blush, some liner and mascara to highlight the eyes, and Ula began to disappear. A touch of tinted lip gloss, a dose of hair gel and the transformation was complete. Aleksi stood back to admire his work and smiled. He was himself again.
Ula's twin brother was everything she could never be. Self-assured and uninhibited, with a restless nature, he escaped the oppressive walls of the Highbury house at every opportunity. Hitting a late-night club, crashing an art opening, or just walking Soho's busy streets, he was happy anywhere he could get lost in a crowd. See and be seen, that was his creed. And if you're going to be seen, be seen at your best. Looking though his extensive wardrobe, he decided that black on black suited his mood on this night.
Ula's rebellious behaviour had been a concern for some time, but it came to a head on the day she agreed to allow that German to start rummaging around in the girl's memory. His sister's meanderings could be steered away from dangerous revelations, but if the scientist had found his way to the night of the killing... well, it simply couldn't be allowed.
Then there was the ridiculous idea of leaving the city to live out some solitary fantasy while he was stuck in a permanent drug-induced coma. How oppressive! And now she was making panicked phone calls in the middle of the night to the fucking detective in charge of the case! His dear sister was simply becoming much too unpredictable and far too dangerous. Something had to be done.
Ironically, it was Ula herself who provided the solution. Aleksi was at first horrified by her plan to sell the house and he had every intention of sabotaging her dream. But after a bit of reflection, he realised that it could provide the perfect way out for him. He would let her proceed with the sale and once the money was in the bank, instead of allowing her to take them off to some boring seaside cottage, he would put her to sleep while they made a different, more far-flung journey. There were several appealing options, but Aleksi's choice had been obvious from the start. After all, Rio de Janeiro was the undisputed party capital of the world.
He smiled at the thought of Ula waking up on some Brazilian beach, surrounded by all that bare skin, with no idea where she was or how she got there. The poor girl, she'd be so confused. He might even introduce himself to her at that point. He would tell her everything, from the beginning, then he'd say a fond farewell and put her down for good.
Aleksi wasn't a fool. He had long ago surmised that Ula had created him following his own unfortunate demise at the hand of their mother, and while he was grateful, he couldn't let sentimentality stand in the way of his own interests. Content that the future finally looked promising, he retired to the sitting room where he sat at the piano and, by candlelight, played his favourite piece -- Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig von Beethoven.
39.
"Something wrong, darling?"
Leonard found Boyd standing in the middle of the room, phone in hand, looking a bit perplexed.
"No, no." She shook her head and tried to smile. "Just a rather odd phone call."
"Who in god's name is ringing you at this hour?" He placed a tray containing tea and toast on the coffee table.
"Ula Mishkin," Boyd replied absentmindedly, preoccupied with her thoughts.
"Who?"
"Oh... She was Mia Fraser's landlady."
"Mia Fraser?"
The name was familiar, but in spite of their earlier conversation, Leonard couldn't quite make the connection.
"The girl who was murdered," Boyd reminded him. "On Highbury Field."
"Oh, yes, the American girl. I remember now. Of course. Tragic." He settled into his armchair and took a cautious sip of the hot liquid. "Why would her landlady be phoning you up in the middle of the night? Is it something to do with the case?"
"No. At least I don't think so. She thought someone had broken into her house."
"She needs to be ringing emergency services, not you." He took a bite of heavily buttered toast.
"Yes, well, seems that it was a false alarm anyway."
"Sit down, sweetheart. Have some toast. I put Marmite on yours."
Boyd sat on the sofa and picked up a piece of toast, but had second thoughts and put it back on the plate. "She changed her story halfway through the call. Said that she'd imagined it."
"People imagine a lot of things in the dead of night."
"Claimed that she'd been sleepwalking."
"You don't sound convinced."
Boyd shrugged. "I don't know. Just a feeling. Perhaps I'm wrong."
"But perhaps not."
"It's probably nothing."
Leonard leaned forward and gave his daughter a knowing look. "Remember what I told you about listening to your gut?"
"Yes, of course, but -- "
"Your gut is crying out to you right now, sweetheart."
Boyd frowned and didn't reply for a moment. She reached for her tea and took a sip. "I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to go down and have a look. Just to confirm that everything's all right."
"No harm whatsoever." Leonard brushed the crumbs off his hands and stood up. "I can be dressed and ready to go in five."
"Dad -- "
He put his hand up to cut her off. "Listen, sweetheart. If you expect me to sit here on me own, drinking tea and eating burnt toast in my pyjamas at five o'clock in the morning, you need to think again. Now I promise that I'll sit quietly in the car while you see what's up with your landlady, and after that I just might decide to show you where to get the best egg and bacon sarnie in London. And not only that..." He gave her a wink. "...if you play your cards right, I might even buy you one."
40.
Making the turn onto Highbury Crescent, Boyd pulled the car to the kerb and killed the engine. "I won't be long," she said, glancing over at Leonard as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
"Don't worry, darling. I'm not going anywhere."
"Shall I leave the radio on for you?"
"No, I'll be fine."
As she stepped into the pre-dawn mist, Boyd became aware of the muted sound of someone playing a piano. Growing in clarity as she went through the gate and climbed
the steps to the front entrance, she paused to listen, not wanting to interrupt what seemed, to her, a flawless rendition of Moonlight Sonata.
Looking out across the park where Mia Fraser had lost her life, Boyd felt something in the air -- a vibration that seemed to charge the atmosphere, quickening the pulse and heightening the senses. But perhaps the tension wasn't in the air, she thought. Perhaps it was in her. In the end, it didn't matter. Whatever the source of her disquiet, she felt anxious and on edge.
As the composition came to a haunting conclusion, Boyd took a deep breath and stepped forward to ring the bell. A long silence followed, then a sudden movement in the bay window. She turned, just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of a face, but it abruptly pulled away, withdrawing behind a set of thick velvet drapes.
She waited, stomach churning as the time passed. One minute. Then two, three, and four. Five minutes and still no one appeared at the door. Was she being ignored, or was there something terribly wrong inside the house?
Moving around to the side of the property, Boyd checked the windows and peered over the back wall into the garden, but found no discernible sign of a break in. As she retraced her steps to the front of the building, she thought she saw another movement in the window -- a rustling of the curtains -- but perhaps it was nothing. It was too dark to be certain.
Moving into the dim light of a street lamp, Boyd considered her options. There was no point in ringing the bell again, but she needed some kind of assurance that nothing was amiss. If she spoke to Mishkin again, she could leave feeling confident that she wasn't in danger. But as she retrieved her phone from a jacket pocket, Boyd heard the loud CLICK of the front door opening.
"Ms. Mishkin...?"
She called out, but there was no response. Mounting the steps to the entrance, she tried again.
"Ms. Mishkin? Are you there?"
Still no reply. Pushing gently on the door, it swung open. She took a tentative step inside, peered into the darkness, and called out for a third time.
"Ms. Mishkin? It's Detective Inspector Boyd... Is everything all right?"
Still no response. Taking another few steps, she peeked into the sitting room. A solitary candle burned atop the piano, its silky flame providing the only illumination in the house. Locating a light switch on the wall, Boyd flicked it up and down a couple of times, but to no effect. The electricity was out.
With growing concern, she switched her phone's flashlight on and carefully made her way toward the back of the house.
"Ms. Mishkin! I know you're here! I saw you in the window!"
But was it Ula she'd seen? Boyd began to doubt her own memory. It was so brief and it was so dark. Perhaps -- like so many of the eyewitnesses she'd interviewed -- her assumptions had coloured her perception.
"Ms. Mishkin!" she repeated as she entered the kitchen. "Please respond if you can hear me! I need to know that you're safe!"
There was a brief silence, then Ula's muffled voice called out. "I'm in the cellar! Come down!"
Boyd's heart beat a little faster as she moved warily forward, using the faint beam of the phone to light her path. Locating an open door on the kitchen's back wall, she peered down a set of steep wooden steps into the building's dark depths.
"Ms. Mishkin?"
"Yes, I'm down here." The voice echoed off the stone walls, making it difficult to pinpoint its origin. "The electricity has gone out and I can't seem to find the circuit breakers."
Boyd hesitated. It didn't feel right. "Move into my light so I can see you!" she said.
There was a pause before Aleksi replied, still using Ula's voice. "I... I can't, I... I've lost my cane in the darkness! Please come down with your light! I need your help!"
Boyd hesitated another moment, then took hold of the rail and cautiously descended into the dank cold of the basement.
"Where are you?" she called out.
"To your left! Follow my voice... Yes, that's it. You're getting closer. Almost there..."
As Boyd edged nearer, hunching over to pass beneath the wooden beams of the low-slung ceiling, her light revealed a stone archway that seemed to lead into a small vaulted chamber.
"Ms. Mishkin?"
"Yes... Keep coming..." The voice reverberated. "I'm in here."
Stepping through the arch, Boyd found an arrangement of furnishings that looked to her like an old-fashioned prison cell. A single wrought iron bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and, somewhat incongruously, a large hand-painted hope chest. As she moved the light across the antique's faded floral designs, which seemed to be of Russian origin, she noticed a dark stain on the stone floor beneath it. The pattern suggested that the leak -- whatever it was -- had emanated from inside the box. Moving closer, she knelt down and held the phone's beam a few inches above the mark. Dark brown and slightly sticky, it was impossible to be certain, but it looked and felt very much like blood.
Boyd quickly stood up and swept the surrounding darkness with her light. "Ms. Mishkin..? Are you there..?"
No response.
Feeling suddenly vulnerable and sensing that she'd walked into a trap, Boyd swiped her finger across the phone's screen and dialled 999 -- only to realise that there was no signal in the underground chamber. Heart beating wildly, she knew she couldn't panic. Keep your head and think, she told herself.
"Ms. Mishkin..."
Boyd called out once again as she lifted the chest's heavy wooden lid. "...I want you to know that I've just called for backup! Officers will be arriving very shortly!"
Silence.
Turning the light into the box's dark interior, Boyd braced for what she would find. But nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Erik's blood-stained corpse, shoved into the chest in a twisted mess of broken arms and tangled legs. His dead blue eyes seemed to be staring directly at her.
Stumbling backward, Boyd sensed a movement and turned, but too late. Aleksi stepped out of the darkness, swung the cane, and the world disappeared.
41.
Leonard was drifting again. Lost in a reverie, the pictures that spilled out of his mind, like water from a faulty container, were more vivid, more real than his everyday reality. It was a private world that he alone could access, and it often made him smile.
The sky was as blue as blue could be, the air so clear that you could see halfway across the channel to the white cliffs of Dover. Grace had to hold her hat in place so the wind wouldn't take it and he was having trouble lighting his pipe. With the deck all to themselves, it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
"Paris is fine," he said, leaning onto the railing. "But it's good to see home again."
"Perhaps we'll go back one day," Grace replied.
"Why not?" Leonard smiled and lit yet another match.
"I'd love to see the Parthenon, too," she mused.
"There's nothing to stop us, is there?"
Grace shook her head. "You always say that."
"Well, it's true."
"I know you mean it, darling but, well... "
"But what?"
"You work so hard. Such long hours. I'm not blaming you, but I feel like we hardly see each other any more, let alone find time for a holiday."
Leonard turned to his wife and frowned. "But Grace, don't you know? Those days are over. I thought I told you. I'm a free man now. No responsibilities. I can come and go as I please."
Grace nodded, but she seemed a little bit saddened by the news. "Well then," she replied. "I suppose that means we'll be able do all the things that we always wanted to do."
"Absolutely!" Leonard agreed wholeheartedly. "The Parthenon, the pyramids, the bloody Hanging Gardens of Babylon! We'll see them all! Not even the sky's the limit for us now!"
"That's marvellous." Grace smiled, but he could see that something was still bothering her.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked.
"Oh, it's nothing. It all sounds wonderful. It's just that..."
"What, love?"
"I'm
worried about Sarah."
"Sarah? Why are you worried about her?"
"Well, she's been gone quite a long time."
"Has she?"
"Yes, she has. Perhaps it would be a good idea if you went to check on her."
Leonard nodded and, as the dream dissipated, replaced by the cold January dawn, he needed a moment to get his bearings. Looking over at the house on Highbury Crescent, he saw that the front door was wide open.
42.
Boyd opened her eyes to find her wrists and ankles tightly bound, her mouth sealed with gaffer's tape, and water rising all around her. Kneeling beside the cast iron tub where she lay, Aleksi cocked his head and produced a smile.
"They say that drowning is quite a pleasant way to die," he said, voice quivering with nervous energy. "But I don’t see how they could possibly know that. I mean, it’s not as if anyone can report back, is it?"
Boyd tried to sit up, but Aleksi gently pushed her back down into the water and held her there with one hand.
"I don't believe it can be true, though," he continued. "I mean, really. How could it be a pleasant experience to choke and sputter and desperately gasp for air as water slowly fills your lungs? It would probably be more accurate to say that it’s one of the less painful ways to die." He shrugged his shoulders. "At any rate, it will be interesting to watch."
The panic in Boyd's eyes gave Aleksi a rush of excitement. He had nothing in particular against her, but on the other hand, he had no sympathy for her, either. This would be his third killing and he was beginning to think it would become a regular feature of his life.
"This must be confusing for you," he said. "Well, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aleksi and, yes, I'm the one you've been looking for. I killed that young girl in the park. With this..."
Gripped in his right hand was a large butcher's knife. "I used it on that scientist, too. The one you saw in the chest." He leaned in close and lowered his voice, as if sharing an intimate secret. "You may have noticed that it wasn't all that easy to get him in there. I had to rearrange him a bit, if you know what I mean."