by Mick Fraser
Frank Strange was powerfully built, even now, on the far side of 65. He couldn’t have been more of a contrast to Angela, her slim, tan-skinned and dark-haired, him broad, pale-faced and with curly hair and a thick beard as red as a Viking. As she came alongside him he gave the slightest turn towards her. “You’re late,” he said in his deep Northern Irish drawl. “Starting to think you weren’t coming at all.”
Angela linked her arm with his and pressed up against him for warmth. “Don’t be daft. It’s just been a weird day. Work was busier than I expected.”
He gave her a sideways glance, just so she knew that he knew she was full of shit. “And how’s that going?”
“The same,” she replied. “Thrill-a-minute, every day.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Well, you have a good thing going, you know? With your dancing and the charity, and that young Mark.”
Angela laughed sourly. “Don’t start again. He’s just a friend. And my boss, actually.”
“He’s a nice fella.”
“He’s too nice. I don’t need anyone that nice. No one does, I suspect.”
They fell silent, both staring down at the twin headstones, placed side by side in the lee of a wide Sycamore.
After a while Frank spoke. “You know, I think you should sell the house.”
Angela looked up. “Where did that come from? You just said I had a good thing going.”
Frank chuckled again. “I did, yes. But that’s not to say that good thing is all you’re meant for. You’re twenty-three; you’re sitting on a couple of hundred grand, easy. Why not get out there, while you’re young? Go and see some things before you’re too old to appreciate them. Worry about Angela for a while.”
“I did enough of that growing up. I had to.”
“You had it rough, I know. But that’s not my point. You’ve taken your licks, enough to break people older and wiser. You’ve spent half your life fighting, the other half in therapy; there’s an entire world of trouble out there to get into. You’re tough enough to weather it. Go have some experiences, for Goodness’ sake.”
“If this is how you tell me you’re dying of something...”
Frank laughed. “No. I’m not going anywhere. I just get reflective this time of year. If your parents were still here, they wouldn’t want you wasting away in Templeton. You’d have been to Uni, maybe gone travelling; you’d be doing something. Anything. You need a focus. No more shenanigans.”
The penny dropped. “Ah… You spoke to Gus, then?”
“Well, what did you expect, Angela?”
She swore, falling silent.
“He told me you were fighting again.”
“I wasn’t fighting again. I wasn’t fighting at all. I knocked someone out. There’s a difference.”
“Why?”
“Because he was a bully,” she snapped. “And he was asking for it. Do we have to do this now?”
“Yes, we bloody do,” Frank replied. “Look, Angie, you have a tendency to leap before you look. It’s reckless, and terrifying from a guardian’s point of view, but it shows character. You stand up for people, never put yourself first – and you always, always, fight back. Admirable qualities, all. But the world isn’t safe enough for that any more, if it ever was. More often than not, if you put yourself in harm’s way, you will get harmed. It occurred to me that perhaps what you need is to step away from it all, take stock. I worry about you, you know?”
Now Angela smiled up at him. “Ah, some genuine concern. About bloody time.”
Frank squeezed her wrist, his smile still in place but less jovial. He turned towards her and placed one big shovel hand on her cheek, his rough skin somehow more relaxing than a pillow. “You are what you are, and I would never change that. Not for the world. We were never able to shape you, not I, not your mum and dad... Whatever is in you, that makes you that person, that was there before us, and it has a purpose. Maybe it’s from your birth parents, maybe it was born on the streets. Either way, you can’t let it control you. I don’t know the full details of what happened at Gus’s, love, but I’ve been a copper far too long to swallow anyone’s bullshit. Is this life really making you happy?”
She sighed, brushing his hand away gently. “I don’t know. Most of the time I don’t think about it. I have everything I need.”
“No you don’t. You’ve got nothing, when you could have anything. Go back to school, find a decent fella, travel the world. You could do anything, yet you choose to stay here, waiting tables. Breaks my heart, love.”
“That ‘good thing’ I’ve got going is looking less and less appealing.”
He grinned, pushing a lock of dark hair over her brow. “After what you’ve been through, it’s a miracle you’ve turned out the way you are. I suppose, I just want more for you. I want you to feel you’ve a purpose.”
Now she laughed. “I do. Serving coffee to strangers and taking care of old ex-coppers.”
He nodded, then leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Right you are, love. Now I’m getting hungry. Say your words, and let’s go and get some lunch.”
With a kiss on her cheek he unlinked his arm and wandered a little bit away. Angela watched him for a moment, and then crouched down; a few drops of rain splashed against the headstone of Andrew Strange, 1974 – 2013. Angela wiped them away, but more took their place.
How could her granddad even suggest selling the house they had left her? Or suggest she take off gallivanting around the world?
“He means well,” she whispered to the headstones, as though they had asked the questions. “But I don’t think he wants me to know how much he relies on me. Or that he’s seeing Mrs. Cutter. He thinks I was born yesterday. I’ll come back and they’ll have eloped like love-struck teenagers. It’s not the time for me to go anywhere. Not yet. Maybe in a few years.” She glanced over to where Frank stood now beside his car, maybe a hundred yards away from her. “Where would I even go?” she whispered. “You’re the only family I’ve ever had, and he’s all I’ve got left. The world doesn’t need more of me in it. I’m better off here, where I’ve always been.”
She sighed, ignoring the discomfort as she settled down on the damp grass. “Do you think I should have gone to Uni? What am I saying? Of course you do. A barrister and a school teacher adopt a gobby little shit off the streets and leave her a load of money and a house, you’d expect me to do something to pay you back, right? But what?” She felt herself getting choked up, felt her eyes beginning to moisten, and fiercely swallowed it down. “I miss you guys so much, but since you left I don’t know where to start. It’s like I’m waiting for... something. I don’t even know what. I’m sorry if I’m not making you proud. I owe you at least that much. I’ll get there, I promise. And don’t worry, I won’t let him persuade me to sell the house.”
She touched her fingertips to her lips, and then to the cold marble. Overhead the sky growled, and the rain began to fall faster, gathering pace and ferocity with surprising speed. Angela stood, shuddering as trails of icy rain filtered through her hair and made their way down her back. It had rained the day they died, rained the day they were laid to rest, and it rained on this day every year. She had come to appreciate it, in some way. It was like Jo and Andrew were there with her, just for a moment, every time. After a few minutes, hair now slick to her scalp, coat heavy with collected rain, she turned and walked hurriedly back through the downpour.
A FEW hours later Angela bade her granddad good evening and made her way to the Ferrier. She walked in, perched herself at the bar, ordered a Tia Maria, and stared at Gus until he caved.
“Look,” he said defensively, spreading his hands, “he popped in at lunchtime for a brandy and he knew something was up straight away. What was I supposed to tell him? You know how hard it is to lie to him.”
“Yeah, for me. But you two are old war buddies or whatever you call it. Spin him a yarn next time, eh?”
“I wish I’d done that this time! You�
�d think you took a bullet for me the way he went off on one.”
“Well don’t get any ideas. I’m not getting involved again. My fighting days are over.”
Gus gave an emphatic laugh. “Ha! Pull the other one, Jelly. There’s bells on it.” He wandered off to serve a young couple at the other end of the bar, leaving Angela alone with her bottle. It was nowhere near strong enough, but she had to get up in the morning and really didn’t want to upset Mark two days in a row. Besides, she wanted to be home and dry before her bouncer services were needed again.
The conversation at her parents’ graveside was gnawing at her. Maybe her granddad was right: maybe she should sell the house, see some of the world, find a nice fella. Although she doubted she’d know what to do with one if she did. None of her limited, unremarkable romantic entanglements had thus far given her much to miss. She could count the times the Earth had moved for her on half of one hand. She could count her close friends on half of that. She had met people, of course, but for one reason or another, she didn’t carry relationships forward. It was probably a question of what she needed in her life and what she didn’t.
She took another slug from her glass and found her eyes drawn to the wall-mounted flatscreen above the bar. The news was on, depicting a weather-beaten young reporter standing in a litter-strewn alley, trying to keep her hair out of her face. Angela almost looked away, until she recognised the graffiti on the wall behind the anchor. It was Gunner’s Alley, a cut-through that ran behind the Westchester Arms and the taxi rank. Flashing lights sporadically illuminated the woman’s face as she spoke to the camera, and the text that slid along the foot of the screen read:
SECOND HEADLESS BODY DISCOVERED IN TEMPLETON. SCOTLAND YARD SUSPECTS SERIAL KILLER.
Angela jumped up and hit the volume button on the side of the unit, but the segment ended and the feed returned to the studio. Angela went to drop the volume back, but the TV turned itself off. She swore and glanced round, relieved to see that Gus was too busy to notice.
A second headless body.
What had that junkie said earlier? Someone was taking people’s brains. And the implication was that they were looking for her. It was impossible, she knew. More than likely, the junkie had taken a bad hit, seen the news through a shop window and his fragile, meth-addled brain had put two and two together and come up with seven and a half. Still, it made her shudder, and she shouted Gus, banged on the bar top, and ordered another bottle.
CHAPTER 4
~PAIN. LIGHT. MOTION~
IT WAS 11PM by the time Angela left the Ferrier, crossing the road onto West Street. The air was icy cold despite today’s unseasonable rain, and she pulled her overcoat tighter around herself as she walked, acutely aware of the echo of her boot heels on the concrete. Her breath oozed through her scarf like campfire smoke and the wind stung her eyes. She hadn’t gone far when she realised that she was not alone on the street.
You didn’t grow up living rough in a city like London without learning a thing or two, and one of the most important things Angela had learned was not to look back. You just kept on going, as quickly as you could, but you didn’t run, either. A few hundred yards and two corners ahead there was a busy intersection and a cab rank; whenever she walked home from ReachOut at such an hour, she focused on getting there. It was so brightly lit and buzzing with cabbies, or drunks from the Westchester, that it was like an oasis of noise and light in the darkness.
She quickened her pace, sensing that the person behind quickened theirs. She felt a familiar anger inside her – something her granddad referred to as her “hackles”. “You’re like a pissed-off tomcat all the time,” he told her once. “You respond to any negative emotion with anger. It’s like you’ve always got your hackles up.” Well, right now she was feeling unsettled, almost scared, and it was riling her up. She tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the way forward, but it nagged at her. It poked at her, like a child poking at a bear with a tree branch. She squeezed shut her eyes, trying to stay calm, but it was impossible. She slowed her pace, heard her follower increase their own, and swore. Enraged, she swung around, ready to give whoever it was a shock they wouldn’t soon forget – and the meth-head from the café smashed into her, knocking her to the ground.
Winded, she tried to right herself, but he landed on top of her. He wasn’t deliberately pinning her, but his surprising weight prevented her from moving her arms. Her cheek bashed against the cold pavement and the sudden sting of it fuelled her enough to force herself up. She pushed him off, made a grab for him, and realised in an instant that he wasn’t fighting her – he was trembling uncontrollably. She released him and he scrambled back a few feet. He looked desperate, face shocked white, eyes wide and filled with tears. Angela had never seen a man look so terrified.
“Wha—” she started to say, but he shook his head, pressing a finger to his lips. He shuffled backwards, pulling her with him, as she heard a car on the road behind. She half rose, scuttling alongside him into a nearby alley. Wind blew in, scattering litter and detritus, causing the meth-head to jump. The car, a black SUV, went by slowly – too slowly for comfort – headlights cutting like search-beams through the cold night air.
As the car passed out of sight, Angela grabbed the man’s grubby jacket. “What’s going on? Hey! Calm down. What’s going on?”
“Th-they’re looking for y-you… They’re asking round the drop-outs. They’ve been looking for you for d-days. They’ve been killing us. They’ve been sh-showing us your picture, and they’ve been taking, t-taking our b-brains. I seen ‘em!”
“I don’t understand. Who are they?”
“Monsters,” he snarled. “Monsters wearing our skin.”
Angela sat back, staring at him. He looked strung out, a day or two past his last dose. He might have been going cold turkey, maybe ran out of money for a hit. He looked crazy in almost every sense, spittle on his lip, bedraggled clothes, sullen, sunken, pathetic – but his eyes… his eyes didn’t look crazy. They looked sharp. Sharp and scared.
She held out a calming hand and adjusted the tone of her voice. “What’s your name? Can you tell me that?”
His expression changed to a scowl and he batted her hand away. “Don’t try and social-service me. I’m not mad! I know what I saw. They showed George your picture, and they took his fuckin’ brain out. Didn’t tie him down, didn’t even hold him. They just got him on his knees, and popped his skull open like a wheelie bin. I saw their car, keep seein’ it – I just wanted to warn you, that’s all, before they get the rest of us!”
Angela’s mind was racing. He wasn’t making any sense. He had to be hallucinating. He had to be. Suddenly he kicked away from her, scrambling to his feet. “I shouldn’t’ve told you! They’ll know. They’ll know. I won’t have to tell ’em. They’ll take my brain so I don’t have to tell ’em!”
He swung away, running off down the alley. Angela used the grimy wall to lever herself up and follow him, but as he raced from the alley and into the road the black SUV appeared and obliterated him. The wheels screamed as the car skidded to a halt just out of sight, and Angela froze, slapping a hand across her mouth to stifle a shriek. She hesitated, backing up, just as the car reversed into view. She couldn’t see the driver but she knew they saw her. She swore as it kicked into reverse again: they were coming back around to her.
Turning, she sprinted from the alley-mouth, heading towards the cab rank. She tossed her bag, unwrapped her scarf, tore at the buttons of her restrictive winter coat. She crossed the road, trying to stay near the shadows, but she’d barely reached the opposite curb when a sudden pain lanced through her arms like needles in her bloodstream and exploded in her chest. She stumbled, blinking against a bright orange light that seemed to engulf her. She tried to stand, toppled forward, put out a hand – and touched the cold stone of the wall. She blinked. She had stumbled on the curb, nowhere near the wall. Had she blacked out? Forcing herself up she walked on, but the pain returned, stronger, and this time as h
er knees scuffed on the concrete and she opened her eyes she was kneeling on the near side of the cab rank on Cain Road, a few hundred yards from home.
She looked around for the SUV but couldn’t see it. There was a line of black cabs, as always, and a little further down a group of smokers puffed grey haloes into the air outside the Westchester. One of the cab doors opened and an Asian man ran towards her, concerned. “Are you alright, love?” he asked, reaching out. She went to push him away and had to scream when the pain came back.
Light flared.
She was on the far side now, and looking back her bleary eyes beheld the concerned cabbie, shocked, swearing, staring at the spot where she had been. Others joined him but none looked her way. Pushing herself up, she used the near wall as a crutch and went on, glancing behind her. She’d never blacked out before, and she’d seen some pretty messed up stuff in her time. Hell, she’d been the cause of some of it. She didn’t scare easily.
She paused a moment, rubbed her eyes. Her head ached, her arms were on fire. In fact, her body was. She remembered being seventeen and having the flu. What most people called the flu was just a bad cold – if you actually had Influenza, you bloody knew it. It made your whole body ache, like you’d taken a beating and then been cooked for a bit and left to go cold. That’s how she felt. Baked, somehow. Baked and battered.