Charley

by Tim O'Rourke

  Give me the phone, you silly bitch, he seethed, and my stomach knotted at the hatred in his voice.

  I could see the girl’s fingers curled around her mobile. She held it as if it was her last connection to the life she feared would soon end. The flash bulbs popped again, this time showing a close-up view of the girl’s fingernails. They had been recently painted, and four of them were broken, but there was something white and flaky beneath them.

  ‘Paint!’ I cried out.

  The fragmented images blinded me again. I saw the mobile phone cartwheeling through the air.

  Mum! the girl screeched, knowing that any connection to the world she had once known had now gone.

  Keep quiet, he hissed and the girl flinched at the sound of his voice.

  But you’re going to hurt me, she whispered.

  You know that, he whispered back.

  CHAPTER 3

  Tom – Monday: 02:19 Hrs.

  ‘Who are you?’ DC Jackson asked, pulling the collar of his jacket up against the rain.

  Strobes of blue light from the nearby police vehicles lit up the night. The air crackled with the sound of radios sending messages back and forth between the control room and the officers who were searching the dirt road, which led down to the railway tracks. The light from their torches lit up the undergrowth.

  ‘PC Tom Henson,’ I replied, trying to find my warrant card in the dark.

  Before I’d had the chance to show my ID, Jackson was talking at me again. ‘So you’re the new proby? The Guv mentioned you might be joining us for an attachment.’

  God, I hated that word – proby. I wasn’t a probationer any more. I fished my warrant card from my back trouser pocket and held it up, but Jackson had already turned away, no longer interested.

  ‘I’m not a probationer any more,’ I told him, despite his apparent lack of interest.

  ‘Whatever,’ Jackson said, flicking away a cigarette he had been shielding from the rain with his hand. ‘You’re the kid who has a hotshot lawyer for a dad, ain’t cha?’

  I’d heard this all before. There was resentment from some of my colleagues because I was only twenty and had been singled out by my senior officers for an attachment to CID. It had nothing to do with my father. He hadn’t even wanted me to be a copper. I’d been sent to CID because I’d worked hard for it. Nothing else.

  But old sweats like Jackson always had this look of dislike and distrust whenever someone young and ambitious joined their team. I had seen it more than I cared to remember over the last two years. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. Officers like Jackson were guarded, reluctant to share their knowledge, preferring to see officers like me make mistakes, when all I wanted was to learn.

  ‘I didn’t ask to be posted to CID,’ I said, hoping I might win the trust of Jackson if I explained how I’d ended up working alongside him.

  ‘So what are you doing here then?’ Jackson asked, acting as if he wasn’t bothered either way.

  ‘Superintendent Cooper suggested …’

  ‘Jeez,’ Jackson scoffed, running a hand through his rain-soaked hair. ‘You’ve been in the job five minutes and you’ve already got that old wanker Cooper eating out of your hand. Are Cooper and your old man in the same lodge?’

  ‘My father isn’t a Freemason, if that’s what you mean,’ I said. Jackson wasn’t much older than thirty, yet he was acting as if he knew every freaking rule in the book. ‘Superintendent Cooper is my mentor.’

  ‘Mentor?’ Jackson laughed out loud. ‘What is this job coming to? Mentor my arse. When I was a proby, it was sink or swim, mate. I didn’t have anyone wiping my arse.’

  ‘He’s not wiping my arse,’ I said, putting away my warrant card.

  ‘I ain’t really interested,’ Jackson said, walking to the shelter of a nearby tree and lighting another cigarette. DC Jackson was tall, about six foot three and had one of those builds that said he spent way too much time in the station gym, probably getting off on watching himself lift weights in the mirrors. His hair had gone prematurely grey and was cut short like a marine. I watched the end of his cigarette wink on and off in the darkness as he smoked.

  ‘Where’s the Guv anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘Gone to collect DS Taylor, she was—’ I started.

  ‘Here they come now,’ Jackson cut over me, stepping out from beneath the tree.

  I shot a glance back over my shoulder and shielded my eyes against the glare of the approaching headlights. They lit up the narrow dirt track, casting eerie shadows amongst the trees. Leaving the lights on, DS Taylor and DI Harker climbed from the car.

  ‘Oh for crying out loud,’ Harker groaned as he plunged his foot straight into a puddle.

  Jackson stifled a grin. He hid it quickly by chewing on the cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Don’t just stand there gawping, son,’ Harker barked at me. ‘Fetch my wellies from the boot.’

  ‘Okay, sure. Sorry, sir,’ I said, making my way to the rear of the vehicle.

  ‘And while you’re there, fetch a couple of Hi-Vis. If we’re going trackside we’ll need ’em,’ Harker yelled.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said again, rummaging through boxes of exhibit labels, statement forms, interview tapes and evidence bags that had been crammed into the boot of the car. I eventually spied the Wellington boots and a couple of fluorescent jackets, pulled them out and, with the items balanced in my arms, struggled to close the boot with my elbow. The rain came down harder, bouncing up off the roof of the car and drumming into the puddles.

  I could see DI Harker sitting half-out of the passenger seat, and he looked back just in time to see me slip on the mud and go flying through the air and onto my back.

  ‘Oh for the love of God,’ Harker groaned. ‘We’ve been sent a right one here.’

  To make matters worse, as I hit the ground the air exploded from my lungs, causing me to make a hideous belching sound.

  ‘What a muppet,’ Jackson laughed, and I could feel my cheeks burning red with embarrassment.

  ‘That’s enough, Jackson,’ someone else said.

  I looked up to see DS Taylor holding out her hand towards me. Rain ran through her black hair and down her pale face.

  ‘Get up,’ she said.

  Gratefully, I gripped her hand and she yanked me to my feet.

  ‘Thanks,’ I muttered, trying to rub the mud from my jacket and trousers but only succeeding in smearing it further into my clothes. ‘I feel a right tit.’ Then, noticing DS Taylor’s look of disapproval, I quickly added, ‘Sorry, Sarge, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘We can all get a little overexcited on our first day,’ she half-smiled as she stooped to pick up one of the fluorescent jackets from the mud. ‘You’re amongst friends.’

  ‘Am I?’ I breathed, looking over the roof of the car at Jackson who stood in the rain smirking at me.

  ‘Take no notice of him,’ she said, slipping on the bright yellow coat. ‘Jackson can be full of shit at times, but his heart’s in the right place. You’ll get used to him. He just feels a bit threatened by you.’

  ‘Threatened?’ I asked.

  ‘Beats the shit out of me,’ she half-smiled again. Then, turning away, she said over her shoulder, ‘It must be a guy thing.’

  ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ Harker roared, one rain-soaked foot sticking up in the air.

  I looked at him. ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘Boots!’

  I had only met Detective Inspector Harker once before. It was two days ago when I’d first arrived at Marsh Bay police station, and before the start of my first night shift. I’d wanted to go and introduce myself, but he had been busy and just as pissed off as he seemed now. Perhaps that was just the way he was.

  He was a tall man with a shock of white hair and so thin, his body looked emaciated beneath his gunmetal coloured suit. Harker’s face was long and nets of wrinkles circled his grey eyes. He pulled on the second Wellington boot and stood before me in the dr
iving rain.

  ‘So what have we got?’ he said.

  ‘Erm,’ I started, realising that he was hoping for some kind of update from me. But since arriving on-scene, I’d only succeeded in making a donkey of myself and didn’t know any more about what was happening, other than the fact that someone had been struck by a train on the nearby railway tracks.

  ‘So?’ Harker asked me, raising one of his jet black eyebrows.

  ‘Erm,’ I mumbled again, glancing at Jackson for help.

  Jackson shot a glance back at me, with a smug look on his face. He stepped forward and said, ‘Guv, it’s a one-under. Looks like a young girl.’

  ‘Looks like?’ Harker asked, doing that thing with his eyebrow again.

  ‘We’ll there ain’t too much of her left. Poor little cow,’ Jackson told him.

  ‘What I want to know is, why has uniform called us out on a night like this?’ Harker asked.

  ‘Is it suspicious?’ DS Taylor asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Jackson said.

  ‘Not really?’ Harker snapped. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? It’s either a suicide or it’s not.’

  ‘What does uniform think?’ Taylor asked, looking at Jackson, then at me.

  ‘Suspicious, I guess,’ I said, just wanting to add something to the conversation. ‘Or they wouldn’t have called CID.’

  ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Jackson said. ‘I’m so glad that we’ve got you around to tell us this stuff.’

  ‘Knock it off, Jackson,’ Taylor said, yanking the cigarette from his mouth and throwing it away. ‘And stop smoking. This could be a crime scene, for crying out loud.’

  ‘A crime scene?’ Jackson scoffed. ‘You’re having a laugh ain’t cha? For the last half hour, I’ve stood and watched uniform trample all over the frigging place in their size-twelve boots.’

  ‘Well perhaps you should have put a cordon in place. You know, protect the scene,’ Taylor said. ‘After all, you’re meant to be a detective.’ Then, turning her back on him, she winked at me. I felt much better.

  Harker looked at the both of us and I cringed at the disappointment in his eyes. I regretted wasting my time justifying my existence to Jackson, when really I should have spent my time trying to find out what had taken place down on the railway tracks.

  ‘C’mon,’ Harker sighed. ‘I guess we’d better go and take a look.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Charley – Monday: 01:57 Hrs.

  I could feel myself being swept up off the floor. The bathroom ceiling swam from side to side as if the house were caught in an earthquake. A set of strong arms held me and I could smell soap. Dad. The soap smell was familiar; he had been with someone – a woman.

  My head beat from the inside out but the flashes had stopped. Now came the feeling of wanting to be sick, the taste of hot bile in my throat like I had swallowed a pint of battery acid. He picked me up and carried me out of the bathroom. I could see my bedroom walls, and the pink lampshade hanging from the ceiling.

  I really need to get rid of that, I thought as it sailed past above me. Pink – I wasn’t a little girl any more. Then, the feeling of something soft as I was lowered onto my bed. Those strong arms slipped from beneath me and Dad’s face came into view.

  ‘Charley?’ he whispered. ‘Are you okay?’

  With my eyelids fluttering, I tried to focus on the face hovering over me.

  ‘The flashes,’ I murmured.

  ‘It’s okay, I’m here now,’ he said.

  My father brushed the hair from my brow. For such a big man, his touch was really gentle.

  I felt him move away from the bed. I stretched out my hand. ‘Don’t go,’ I said. My anger and frustration had lessoned a little over the last few days since Natalie’s funeral.

  ‘I’m just going to fetch a cold flannel, your face is burning up,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in just a second.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ I said again, that sense of loneliness I so often felt creeping over me.

  Taking my hand in his, I felt the bed dip as he sat beside me. ‘I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here, Charley.’

  I held his hand against the side of my face and it felt warm. ‘I had more flashes,’ I whispered as he stroked my hair.

  ‘You had another fit,’ he said softly.

  ‘Flashes,’ I whispered and closed my eyes. ‘I don’t have fits. The doctors have all said they can’t find anything wrong with me.’

  ‘I’m going to get a second opinion,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve had six already,’ I said, willing the thudding sensation in my head to go away.

  ‘It’s not normal,’ he said. I flinched and he quickly added, ‘You know what I mean.’

  He meant the fits weren’t normal. He didn’t believe in the flashes.

  Then, to my surprise, he said, ‘What did you see this time, Charley? That’s if you want to talk about it.’

  My father rarely asked what I saw in the flashes. But since Natalie’s death and our argument at her funeral, he too had seemed to mellow just a little. I guessed he felt guilty about everything he had said about Natalie when she had been alive. Was asking me about my flashes his way of trying to make amends?

  I took a deep breath. ‘A girl,’ I whispered, and although those flashes had long since faded, I could still see her petrified face. I opened my eyes so I didn’t have to see it any more. ‘But it was different this time.’

  ‘How?’ he asked, resting himself against the headboard, so we lay next to each other on my bed. I liked the way he did that. It meant he was going to stay a while and listen to me, instead of running for the hills like he usually did.

  ‘The pictures – the flashes – were more vivid,’ I told him. ‘More real somehow.’

  ‘But you know they’re not real, right?’ he asked. And although this was his standard answer, this time he didn’t sound angry or frustrated. He sounded like he was kinda interested in what I had to say for once.

  ‘They are,’ I whispered, closing my eyes again. I saw the girl’s name. Kerry, the name on her necklace had read, and I could see it swinging before me. Burn by Ellie Goulding played in the background like some hideous soundtrack. I opened my eyes. ‘Her name was Kerry.’

  ‘Whose was?’ he asked.

  ‘The girl I saw tonight. She was being dragged by someone, a man, up a narrow dirt track. She was about my age and she was calling out for her mum. I could hear the girl’s phone ringing and trains thundering past in the distance—’

  ‘But don’t you see?’ my father interrupted.

  ‘See what?’ I asked him.

  ‘Your friend Natalie was recently killed by a train,’ he said. ‘You’ve been through a very traumatic experience, Charley, and your mind is playing tricks on you.’

  ‘The girl I saw wasn’t Natalie,’ I said, wondering if it was him or me I was trying to convince. ‘Natalie’s death was an accident, but the girl I saw in my flashes was murdered.’

  ‘So what did her killer look like?’ he asked, cocking his eyebrow at me.

  ‘You know I only ever see the victims,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t see his face.’

  ‘So how did you know it was a he?’

  ‘I heard his voice,’ I said, closing my eyes and trying to hear it again. But it was gone.

  ‘So what did his voice sound like?’

  ‘I dunno,’ I said, opening my eyes and looking at him. ‘It was muffled, like it was coming from behind a wall or something.’

  My father looked at me. Was it despair I could see in his eyes?

  ‘They’re just dreams,’ he said.

  Was he trying to comfort me or persuade me?

  ‘Nightmares,’ I muttered.

  ‘Them too,’ he added, as if trying to convince me that’s all they were.

  ‘But I’m awake when I have them.’

  ‘You were unconscious when I found you.’

  I tilted my head slightly so I could look up into his face. His green eyes had lost their sparkle and were now
grey. I saw the concern etched in the wrinkles that covered his brow. His once jet-black hair was now flecked with white and he looked tired.

  ‘You have headaches, right?’ he continued, looking down into my face. ‘You’ve had them for as long as I can remember. I think that has something to do with these dreams you have.’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ I said. We had been here before – me lying on my bed, my head thumping, while he tried to convince me the flashes were nothing more than my mind conjuring up images to block out the fear that I might have a brain tumour of some kind.

  ‘I could be right,’ he said.

  ‘Dad, the flashes come first – not the headaches,’ I said. ‘And besides, I rarely black out. Tonight the flashes were bad – strong. They came at me all at once, and it was like my brain couldn’t cope with them.’

  ‘I still don’t believe they’re visions,’ he said softly. His voice had a tone that said he was never going to be convinced. I got that. After all, if the flashes were really visions of some kind, then what would that make me? A medium? Clairvoyant? Psychic? Or just someone who could see people’s deaths? Because that’s what I always saw in those flashes – I saw people dying. Tonight I had seen a girl about to be murdered.

  ‘I think you’re wrong, Dad,’ I whispered beside him. I caught that faint waft of soap leaking from him again. ‘I think the flashes are visions.’

  ‘Of what, Charley?’ And I sensed the first hint of frustration in his voice. ‘Are all these deaths you see real? Have they happened? Are they about to happen? What?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You need to get some perspective on this,’ he said, and again I sensed his rising frustration. Or was it fear that his only daughter – his only child – was going mad?

  ‘Perspective on what?’ I shot back, trying to hide my own frustration.

  ‘I’ve seen you,’ he said, ‘sitting in front of the laptop for hours on end searching for the names of the people that you see in your vis … flashes. And have you found a single one?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  ‘See, none of it is real. It’s just your vivid imagination.’