Night is Watching

by Lucy Cameron

  Quinn sits opposite Harry and smiles. Harry looks up at him.

  ‘Who hurt your neck Harry?’ says Quinn. Straight to the point.

  ‘The Nosferatu,’ says Harry. Anna sees Quinn’s shoulders sag. She wants to get up and make him a cup of coffee. She should have offered him a cup of coffee before they began. He’s on her side. He’s come here to speak to Harry rather than drag them to the station. For now.

  ‘The Nosferatu?’ Quinn repeats. Harry nods. ‘And who do you think the Nosferatu is Harry?’

  ‘The man across the road. He’s not a man, he’s a Nosferatu.’ Harry twists, points to the front door.

  ‘And he was here yesterday? It was him that hurt you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Harry’s head bobs up and down. Quinn sits back slowly.

  ‘Do you remember your mum arriving home, Harry?’ Harry nods, gives Anna a weak smile. ‘The thing is Harry, when your mum arrived home, there was only you, your sister and your dad here.’ Harry’s brow furrows.

  ‘That’s because he heard a noise and flew away,’ says Harry.

  ‘Flew away?’ says Quinn. No malice in his voice. Harry nods. ‘Or,’ Quinn speaks slowly, softly, ‘is it because, really, there was no one else here?’

  ‘He was here,’ says Harry. He starts to look distressed. ‘He was here, but it’s okay, my dad is brave, my dad is going to kill him and then we will all be safe.’ Anna looks away.

  ‘The thing is I’ve spoken to the man across the street Harry. Mr Kier Finnegan, and he said he wasn’t here, he was at work.’

  ‘He can’t have been.’

  ‘Harry, did someone else do this to you?’ Quinn gestures to the angry finger prints on Harry’s throat. Harry keeps shaking his head. His breath gets shorter, ‘Harry, did your dad do this to you?’

  ‘No!’ Harry shouts. ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘Did your dad do this to you and say not to tell anyone, to say it was the man across the street?’

  ‘No!’ Harry shouts again, runs from the room. Anna and Quinn both rise. How has she let it get this far?

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says Anna.

  ‘Not at all,’ says Quinn. ‘He’s a kid. He’s in shock. Give him a bit of time to calm down and we’ll try again.’ He places a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s okay. Honestly.’ They both know it isn’t okay. It’s very far from okay.

  It’s a few days later that Detective Inspector Pat Quinn calls her from a withheld number. They’ve already been to the station, given their official statements. Harry said over and over again it was the Nosferatu. Anna looks at the child psychologist’s business card tacked onto the fridge.

  Quinn calls to tell her the line of questioning involving Rhys and the murder of a young girl is being closed. Not because Rhys is mental, he laughs then, ignorant to the offence caused, but because Rhys is innocent. They’ve found a body in an old cottage, a young man who killed himself. There was a blood-covered strand of the murdered girl’s hair at the scene. Quinn explains how they analysed it. Anna doesn’t understand or care. They found the young man’s DNA on the girl’s body. Open and shut really, according to Detective Inspector Quinn. There’s no joy in his voice. There’s no explanation of how Rhys’s identification was found with the girl. No apology.

  Quinn also tells her they’ve cracked the serial killer case Rhys was working on. It turns out it was the same young man. The cottage his body was found in contained jars of all of his female victim’s blood. Looks like he was removing it from the scene and keeping it. Anna is numb. Quinn says more about DNA but Anna doesn’t hear the words, not really. The post-mortem of the young man’s body found traces of the most recent victims’ blood in his stomach. Quinn laughs without humour. Says when she next sees Rhys she will have to tell him.

  ‘A Nosferatu of sorts, eh?’ Quinn says. ‘As near as sane people think we’ll get.’

  Anna hangs up the phone.

  She has no idea when she will see Rhys. It won’t be for a very long time.

  She cries then, cries until she has no tears left.

  75.

  The bright strip lights flash overhead in time with his heartbeat. Rhys doesn’t understand why they feel the need to strap him to the bed. Possibly because he fights them when they try to give him drugs. He doesn’t need drugs. He will go as far as to say drugs are the very last thing he needs. They freeze his mind. Slow everything down. How is he supposed to think, come up with a plan, if they keep on freezing his mind?

  The small white room floats in and out of focus. One of the overhead strip lights flickers, the way they do when a bulb needs changing. Nurses come in and out. They prod and poke him. He finds it harder and harder to stay awake. They ask him if he would like any dinner. He says he isn’t hungry. That’s okay for now, but he will have to eat tomorrow if he wants to keep strong and get well. They speak to him like he is a child or has mental health issues.

  The sound of the door as it opens again pulls his attention. The figures are just fuzzy outlines. The nurse laughs, says,

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’ The door closes and they are alone.

  ‘Rhys. Rhys. Rhys.’ The face is fuzzy but the clear, sharp voice stops Rhys’s heart. He tries to pull his senses together. Too difficult. He is drowning. ‘That was a very mean trick you tried to pull back there at the house. Very mean indeed.’

  How is this even possible? He can’t breathe.

  Rhys blinks rapidly. Tries to clear his vision. Kier’s face looms above him.

  ‘I like to believe it’s what will keep our friendship exciting, a little bit of tussle here and there.’

  Rhys tries to call out. There are no words. The drugs have trapped them deep inside. Has he even moved his lips?

  ‘However,’ Kier’s fuzzy outline raises its hands in an upward gesture, ‘if my memory serves me right you did definitely ask.’ Rhys tries to move. Come on arms. Goddamn it!

  Move! Move! Move!

  His muscles should be tense. They’ve not moved at all.

  ‘And once you have said it, I’m afraid you can’t take it back, and this,’ Kier spins, pirouettes in glee, ‘just makes it all so very easy.’

  Shit.

  No.

  Focus Rhys.

  Do something.

  Think of something.

  Kier leans in close. Rhys knows he should feel the cold rush from Kier’s skin but feels nothing. ‘So very, very easy.’ Kier’s voice is barely a whisper.

  In his mind’s eye, Rhys throws back his head and screams.

  He feels the skin of his throat puncture with two rods of ice-cold steel.

  Electricity shoots through his body.

  The edges of his vision start to blur.

  The ground falls away beneath him. The wind roars all around.

  The flickering light flashes. Black to white to black.

  A brilliant white beam sears into the back of his eyeball.

  Then everything goes black.

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  Acknowledgements

  Where to even begin to thank all of the people who have made this book possible? The first thanks goes to my family and friends who listened to me talk about this idea for years before finally sitting down to write. A huge thank you to Graham Smith and the Crime and Publishment gang for their ongoing belief and support. Thank you to Kelly and Stewart Rae, Bob and Carol Bridgestock, Karen Campbell-Ace, Tom Branney and Mike Craven for procedural hints and tips, and Matt Hilton and Ron Butlin for the kick start support I needed to get this show on the road. Thank you to everyone at Dumfries Writers for helping me improve my writing tenfold, to the Theatre Royal gang for sending me home when I needed to write and all my friends and family who have read various drafts of this book and given m
e their thoughts. Thank you to Darren and Caffeine Nights for taking a risk and believing in me.

  And last, but by no means least, thank you to my dad, Jim, for reading every draft of the book with support and encouragement and letting me live in his shed for years to make this dream a reality.

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