Sonata of the Dead

by Conrad Williams

  The sirens might or might not still be wailing into the skies above Bankside. I was beyond hearing. I was beyond smelling anything but the iron of my own blood. I could taste it too, rising in the back of my throat. I concentrated on Sarah’s face, willing it to remain though my sight was fading fast.

  Her face coalesced in my thoughts, dipping towards me, out of the dark, and she wasn’t smiling, but there was concern in her face. At least there was that. I could cling on to the dream of that. Not a bad final illusion. Your daughter. Your life. I’d imagined some maturity into the bone structure. Gone was the puppy fat. This was, after all, a woman. No longer a little girl (my baby, always my baby). Bad knowledge put shadows in her eyes, but there was concern too. Here was love.

  ‘Happy ever after,’ I said, and blacked out.

  eepingblistersonhandspushingandpullingsolongtheturnofacircleandthehaironthebackofyourneckmapscatsandfirehydrantsangelcakeroadsofbonesandcoalscuttlesdrycoughhoneydropyousavedmefrommyselfandgavemehopealltheyearsispentinsidebeopenlakereallyoldteachandfindmywaytherouteisdeadilivedinwalesapostapocalypseshedrevealandsomeonesoldthereisnoneedtocryorfoldaposterofasuperfilmnopracticalusetomeisgoingtotheheadillaneedgetdarknessallwitslessengonethepathofknowingmychildrenoutoftimeyoureadmyworkandlovedityoureadmylifeandlovedmeitisunlikelybudgeoutofwoodlandthecrustroadsomewheretheheatbadgerswalkinsunsetnobodybeststhebadgerroadnotoadsweaselsmonkeysandratsjustbadgersandtheroadhaslastedforcenturiesnobodyknowswhereitisbecauseitismulesallthewayforsomeoneyoucannotfindajunctionyouhelpedmeandihelpedyouintheendbutmyhelpwasnotgoodenoughicouldnotdowhatyouwantedicouldnotgothroughwithiteventhoughyoubeggedmeallicoulddowasholdyoutightwhileyoupulledthetriggerandthencleanupafterwardsandgetyoufixedwhenitwentwrongandtrytogiveyousomekindoflifeandtrytofindyousomeformofclosureeventhoughtheclosureyoureallywantedhadfailedsoicommittedmyselftoyouasyouhadtomeandisworeiwouldfindthemisworeiwoulddotothemwhathadbeendonetoyoueyetoothheartlifeeveninglaybysorepetrolstationsorcarssocksforbiddentowalkalongwhenalarmclockwhiteoutforwardmarchaprononesadbirthdaythatwillnotarrivecoatandcandlethatcannotbeleftthebeatofthescalpelandanarmfullofbastedfingersroolsstalestalkerfromaviarytoparklandatthecentreofatownworryopenheartsurgeryoutonbusesdrivenbyoffdutyarrestteamslloingforbusinessandtheanceintartofbathingfacesatshadowedshardsonslifftopsandfallingtotheskytheyneedtogettoseethecitysexwhiterolledoutcookerybenchovenfrenchrewardandhadslowatomandopenallhoursandstiffcrycuntsmackmoneyimissyourbodyontopofoldropeandgormlessoutofdateanachronisticletteropenerfrightwigshedoesprogrammesonpoorantsmuscularladyremnantstotheedgeofthecityandadogfurstoleoutofcontrolterrainapefoughtiwillnotgobackinsideiwillcherishyounomatterwhatshapeyoufindyourselfadoptingiwillcherishyouindeathandiwillensureyoudonotgotothegraveunavengedstrictstripclubbentdonkeywhelpcavesharptheendoftheendofweallgohomeandiwatchyouandyoumoveifistareforlongenoughwhoamikiddingwhoarewe

  30

  Jim Thompson was a writer. I’ve read some of his books. They’re pretty good. Pretty dark. Plenty dark, actually. He’s long dead, but when he was active, back in the 1950s, he produced harrowing crime novels that weren’t as surface as the stuff Chandler, say, was writing. He got his hands dirty. He delved into the grim interiors of his characters and came up with red fistfuls of truth. His characters were dark and snide and ugly. They were unreliable. They were real people, in other words. Anyway, he said something once about writing and it has always chimed with me, because it’s pertinent to life too.

  There is only one plot – things are not what they seem.

  Of course, what would be helpful for a guy like me, is to work this out at the time. Hindsight? I’m the greatest unlocker of puzzles on the planet. And I had a lot of time for hindsight. I was in hospital for twenty days and spent seventeen hours of those in the operating theatre. I suffered what’s known as the triad of death. Apparently, when a body haemorrhages (I lost twenty pints of blood during what they call a ‘massive transfusion’) it causes a depletion in oxygen delivery to the organs and can lead to hypothermia. Oxygen is needed when blood coagulates, so clotting goes out of the window too. And because of that lack of O2, the body starts burning glucose for energy, which releases acids into the bloodstream and organs aren’t big fans of acids. They start to malfunction. Nutshell: like a porn star in a gang-bang, I was fucked in all kinds of directions. A doctor told me this (the stuff about the triad of death that is, not the gang-bang).

  It was touch and go for a while as to whether I’d have to have my leg amputated. But here I am. Still whole. Adding to my scar collection nicely.

  Suck on that for experience, Accelerants.

  * * *

  Mawker sent me a card. Did you know that Joel Sorrell is an anagram of ‘Dumb Bastard’? He also wrote: Me and the boys hope you get better soon, and find your way out of that hospital bed, if only so we can put you straight back in it, you twat. Credit to him, he also sent me details about the woman who had almost put me in the grave. I felt cheated by the fact that I had killed her. I wanted to talk to her, to find out what had driven her to such extreme behaviour.

  Her name was Veronica Lake. But she hated it, hated the fact that someone famous had lived with the name before her, so she always went by the name Ronnie.

  It seemed she had been taken under Nyx’s wing after her arrest, aged seventeen, back in 2002, for a series of violent robberies she committed with her boyfriend, a career criminal called Naylor, a decade her senior, who committed suicide in prison one year into a twenty-five-year stretch.

  Lake was sent to Holloway for ten years but was let out after four for good behaviour. It was widely believed that she had been diverted off the path of righteousness by her boyfriend, but there were plenty who thought it was the other way around. Nyx had kept up correspondence with her and was there to provide comfort and support when she got out. Lake had no family. Nyx was suddenly everything to her.

  Nyx should never have been anywhere near the police force. He concealed a drug habit and had a lifelong sexual preference for minors. He was a hothead. He played rugby for a team in Regent’s Park and regularly put opposing players in the hospital or the dentist’s chair. He got into countless fights on the pitch. He took that aggressive attitude with him out on the beat too. There were a number of reprimands for his ‘heavy-handedness’, which sometimes spilled over into violence, but nothing could ever be proven.

  Lake thought she was going to be a great writer some day. She thought her notoriety would light a fire under things. She was stewing in the juices of sour grapes for years. Crime and violence and porridge and a guy she thought loved her committing suicide as soon as the bars closed on him. It all provided bitter bloody grist for her mill. God knows what the relevance of the anthology was. Maybe she had thought of submitting. Maybe she was angry at the way the planet was going to the toilet. Methane and apathy. Deforestation and political short-termism. Maybe she submitted one of her non-stories after all and it was rejected out of hand. Dear Whoever you are. No thanks. Don’t bother again. Fuck the fuck off.

  But there was Nyx. He worshipped Lake. She looked up to him, adored him. There were rumours that they embarked upon a depraved sexual relationship, but that might have just been the red tops retro-salivating. Whatever the situation, she was into him enough to become the weapon his hands could never hold.

  Because then he was taken away from her too. After he left the police, cowed by a night of violence he was no match for (and that in itself must have been a sobering experience for a guy used to meting out plenty of rough stuff), he tried to kill himself with a pistol he’d squirrelled away from some arms amnesty or other. He got it wrong and served only to paralyse himself from the neck down. It was enough to send her over the edge, or further over than she already was. They had been tinder for each other: the final spark to blow each other’s fuel stacks sky high.

  I don’t know how she tracked down the Accelerants. Maybe she did it like me, using photographs and feelings… I’m sure Nyx, with his contacts, was able to open channels that might otherwise have been unavailable. In any case, she infiltrated them, for a short whil
e. She’d made it to the audition, at least. I remembered the name ‘Veronica Lake’ on Odessa’s list of potential members, with a red cross against it. A red cross… Christ. It should have been given a black cross too. It should have been cut out. Smeared with tar and feathers. It should have been burned to ash. Even with them she didn’t fit in but wow, did she ever live some experience.

  Here was her novel, her great work, something she felt she could finish, unlike all those incomplete manuscripts. Nyx was her magnum opus and these kids who pissed about, playing at being writers, playing at living their lives, became the pages she carved into truth with blood-red italicised capitals.

  * * *

  I had a number of visitors, all of them while I was unconscious. Mum, Adam, Lorraine Tokuzo (who brought me a small box of expensive truffles and took bites out of them all).

  There had been another visitor too, apparently, but she didn’t stay for long and she didn’t leave her name. She placed a single flower from a dianthus bush by my bed. I agonised over that for days. What did it mean? It used to mean she was sorry. Did it now mean I forgive you? Did it mean hello? Goodbye? She had saved my life. She had saved my life.

  Romy came to visit me, a couple of days before I was released. The weather was getting cooler. It seemed every time I lifted my head to look outside there were rain spots on the windows.

  She was beautiful and I told her so. She held my hand and passed on her father’s regards. She tucked a piece of paper under my pillow and kissed me. I ran my fingers through the dense, heavy wonder of her hair. She told me to rest. She told me she would see me soon.

  When she’d gone I retrieved the paper. It was a photocopy of a letter she had been working on. It had originated in a tomb in Gyeongju, South Korea, and it was dated June 1587. It was from a daughter to her father, who had died in battle.

  I want to go to wherever you are. Please bring me to you. My love for you I cannot and will not change in this world and my grief knows no limit. Where do I place my heart now? And how can I live like this, my father, knowing that I will miss you for the rest of my life?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Rhonda for keeping me sane. Thanks to Ethan, Ripley and Zac for keeping me insane. Thanks to Ali Karim, Stav Sherez, Sarah Pinborough, Guy Adams, James Sallis, Steve Mosby, Mike Parker, Paul Finch and Fergus McNeill for kind words. Thanks to my agent, James Wills, for encouragement and football talk. Thanks to Miranda Jewess for her patience. Thanks to Mum and Dad. Thanks to my cat, Reddie, for sitting by me through thick and thin in that sweary study of mine…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Conrad Williams is the author of eight novels, four novellas and a collection of short stories. One was the winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Novel (British Fantasy Awards 2010), while The Unblemished won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel in 2007 (he beat the shortlisted Stephen King on both occasions). He won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer in 1993, and another British Fantasy Award for Best Novella (The Scalding Rooms) in 2008. His first crime novel, and the first Joel Sorrell thriller, Dust and Desire, was published in 2015. He lives in Manchester.

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