by Matt Drabble
He’d held onto her like she was a lifeboat and in the end she had saved him as much as he had saved her. He’d ridden the wrath of his so-called colleagues and peers. He’d been made a pariah, an outcast who had lain down in the gutter and would never be clean again.
Despite the ruination of his career, he’d never had second thoughts about his decision. One look at his angel now through the kitchen window as she busied herself with breakfast was enough to confirm that he’d made the right choice. Over time, Suzy’s demeanour had softened somewhat and now she only used her claws to defend her family.
He’d hoped that time would heal the wounds in his career, especially after he’d married Suzy, but they never had. For some reason, his decision to build a life with Suzy had only provided more scorn over time, as the wound festered and rotted.
He offered his wife a small wave and she beamed back at him, as usual washing away all doubt.
He noticed that the lawn was getting a little long and was still fighting against Suzy’s insistence that he employ a gardener. There was a 14 year age gap between him and his wife and he was always a little more concerned than he should be with his age and the appearance of growing old.
He headed for the shed at the bottom of the garden and used the small key in his pocket to unlock the small wooden building, only the padlock was hanging open. His first thought was about the travellers that had passed through the area recently. There had been a few reports of petty thefts and, despite his usual tolerance and lack of prejudice, his mind went instantly to the caravan dwellers.
He opened the door and was relieved to find all of the garden equipment seemingly still in place. The ride on mower was expensive but still there and he breathed a sigh of relief.
The glint of sunlight on silver did catch his eye, but it was all too late. The sharpened garden shears plunged into his throat at an angle, piercing the skin effortlessly until they struck the bone of his spine.
Bryan stumbled backwards towards the door and back out into the daylight before a strong hand reached out and pulled him back into the shadows. Blood spurted from his mouth as he tried to cry out. His hands flapped, pawing uselessly at the embedded shears as he crashed into an assortment of hanging tools on the wall. He fell to the floor, still jerking and bucking, as his life pumped from his open throat until he finally lay still.
The man stepped over the body, pausing only to pull the cop’s jacket from it and to remove the floppy summer hat. The man slipped on the jacket and pulled the hat down low on his head before heading up the garden and towards the house and the woman inside.
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“You looking for me, Doc?” Danny asked as he entered the pathology lab.
“I was, yesterday,” Dr Wendell Reese replied haughtily.
“It’s nice to meet you, Dr Reese,” Bradshaw said brightly.
“You must be the American that’s setting hearts aflutter,” Reese said, eyeing the agent up and down suspiciously.
“I must say that your reputation precedes you. I was lecturing in Amsterdam and your name came up in several conversations, especially concerning your studies into forensic anthropology. Your paper on the Jane Doe skeletal remains found in Iceland in 1989 was quite fascinating, even to a layman.”
Danny watched Bradshaw’s obvious buttering of Reese and stifled a smile as he watched it work. He had always had a problem with the police surgeon -a clash of personalities born out of a class system hundreds of years in the making; perhaps Bradshaw would be of some use after all.
“I have some papers in my office if you’re interested, Agent Bradshaw?” Reese beamed.
“Unfortunately, time is pressing, Doctor. Perhaps later,” Bradshaw said sadly. “Maybe when you’ve finished with Inspector Meyers?”
“Oh yes, well I just wanted to follow up about the information that was picked up yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, Doc, but you’ve lost me,” Danny said, confused.
“I understand that this is of a sensitive nature, DI Meyers, but I can assure you of my utmost discretion,” Reese said, leaning in close and lowering his voice.
“And I can assure you, Doc, that I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about; who picked up what?”
Reese stared at him long and hard, seemingly weighing up a decision. “Come into my office,” he finally said.
Danny motioned for Bradshaw to wait outside. The man was new and he didn’t know how far he could be trusted yet. He closed the door behind them and waited for the doctor to speak.
“Can I have your assurance that this does not leave the room?” Reese implored.
“You have it,” Danny nodded.
“You remember the Alan Holmes’ murder scene?”
“Of course.”
“You remember asking me to cross-check the blood at the scene for identification?”
“Whose was it?” Danny asked, trying to contain his rising excitement.
“Well, you were right. I don’t know how you knew but most of it didn’t belong to Alan Holmes; a large quantity belonged to another man.”
“Have you been able to identify it?”
“Yes.”
“So it was in the system?”
“It was in our records from 8 years ago, Danny, and don’t ask me what the hell it means because I feel like we’re in the Twilight Zone. It belonged to Arthur Durage.”
Danny’s head spun at the revelation. He didn’t know what he had expected, but a serial killer who had been supposedly dead for 8 years wasn’t it. “Who have you told about this?”
“Superintendant Chalmers came down and collected the files himself. He made it pretty clear that this wasn’t for common consumption. Look, Danny. I know that you and I don’t see eye to eye on most things, but I don’t mind admitting that this is not sitting easy with me. I don’t like secrets, especially within the police. They get out, Danny; maybe not today, maybe not next year but they always do. Nothing stays buried forever.”
“Thanks for telling me, Doc,” Danny conceded.
“I didn’t tell you anything, okay? Not a damn thing.”
Danny left the office with his mind still racing. After all, it had been his own father who had died a hero bringing down the man christened the Crucifier by the press. As far as everyone in and out of the police force was concerned, Arthur Durage was dead. There had been four people in the basement that night: his father, Durage, Lana Genovese and Jane, and Jane was the only one who he knew to be still alive.
“Bad news?” Bradshaw asked as he exited the office.
“Honestly, I don’t know what sort of news,” Danny sighed.
“Boss, BOSS!” DC Selleck bellowed down the corridor in a shrill panicked voice that got Danny’s attention in a flash.
“What is it?”
“It’s Wilson,” Selleck replied in a choked voice and Danny didn’t need to hear the rest.
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Jane had tried her best to convince Marty to let her call an ambulance to check his head wound but he had been insistent that he was fine. She had cleaned the wound and had been relieved to find that while the lump was large, the cut was small. She’d let him sleep the last few hours of night away in the spare room, checking on him from time to time. She was still recovering from her own head injury and the doctors had been concerned about concussion.
“Morning.” His sheepish voice startled her from behind as she sat at the kitchen counter nursing a coffee.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like someone hit me in the head with a sledgehammer,” he replied, rubbing the bandage. “Hey. I’m only joking. I’m fine really,” he said quickly, in response to her worried expression. “Tough as oak,” he said, tapping his head. “My mother always said that it was full of nothing but rocks.”
“You want some breakfast?”
“Sure,” he replied, sitting down eagerly as though worried she would change her mind and cut short his stay.
“Why were you here last night
, Marty?” she asked as she broke a few eggs into a pan.
“I heard about your accident. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“How did you know that I was home?”
“I called the hospital, said I was your brother,” he answered proudly. “They told me that you had signed yourself out and had gone home. I just wanted to check on you…, I brought you some flowers; did you get them?” he asked, looking around worriedly.
Jane pointed to a vase on the table opposite. “They’re very nice. Thank you, Marty.”
He beamed and blushed in equal shades of red.
She had been hoping to avoid this conversation, especially when her own head still ached and she had inflicted a similar wound on the young man. He was a good kid, if a little over-zealous. “Marty, we’re friends right?”
“Sure,” he answered quickly.
“But you understand that we’re just friends, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, pouting a little as though knowing what was coming around the bend.
“Maybe if things were different … if I was a little younger or you were a little older, who knows … but right now, Marty, I’ll be honest. I could use all the friends that I can get. I have no room in my life for romantic attachments of any kind. I hope you understand.”
She went back to scrambling the eggs and waited to see how he was going to take the rejection.
“Maybe I should get going,” he said quietly, not looking at her.
Jane made as if to offer words of consolation or friendship when the phone rang insistently beside her. “Wait a minute, Marty,” she said, picking up the phone. “Please.”
Marty stood half in, half out the door in a sulky pose.
“Hello?” Jane answered. “Oh hi, Danny.”
“So that’s him? That’s your boyfriend? I suppose I’m not good enough for you,” Marty snapped, his voice rising higher in an adolescent screech.
“Marty, please,” Jane tried in vain as the teenager stormed out. Her attention, however, was soon taken by Danny on the other end of the line.
On the ride over to meet Danny, Jane started to wonder if she was going to need to trade in the 4x4 for a minivan, such was the company riding in the back now. The faces and figures often blurred in and out of her reality but she could sense them all there, watching, waiting.
Danny had been upset on the phone. It wasn’t what he said or even how he said it, but she had been around him long enough now to tap into his spirit. He hadn’t told her who was dead, but she instinctively knew that it was someone on the inside. The killer had struck at the heart of the detective tasked with finding him. Jane knew that she was going to have to be Danny’s strength for now and she only hoped that her shoulders were strong enough. She had failed his father once and she couldn’t fail another Meyers man.
She parked up around the corner from the address that Danny had given and switched the engine off. He’d told her that he would come and find her when the scene went quiet, so she waited. After a short while, she looked up in the rear-view mirror and saw two new passengers squeezed into the back seat. The woman she had never seen before, but the man seemed familiar. It took her a while to remember and when she did, she found the reason for Danny’s hurt. The man had been in the police station when she had been arrested by Danny what seemed like an age ago now. He was an older guy with the bearing of a copper, but a kind face to go with it. He was obviously a colleague of Danny’s and a friend; she couldn’t help but wonder just how much death and pain there could be left in the world. Surely it had to run out at some point.
At some point she dozed off as the summer sun baked the car. Her dreams were a jumble of slashing blades and blood as the innocent fell, only to rise again and take a seat on the long bus that she was driving. The hiss of the air brakes punctuated another stop and another customer climbed aboard.
She saw her mother board the bus, her flesh shredded with the Crucifier’s symbol carved into her chest. Her mother held such sorrow and disappointment in her eyes that Jane cringed under the glare.
Karl Meyers stepped onto the bus at the next stop; somehow he was mingled with the father that she had never known, and his shaking head brought tears to her eyes.
The bus was soon full and there was standing room only as the dead climbed aboard and Jane felt that she was paying the fare of every customer. Soon the bus was dangerously overcrowded and every square inch was packed with the dead squabbling for room. Elbows bucked and legs kicked as they squirmed like vermin fighting for air in a barrel. Jane tried to keep the bus driving straight but hands clawed at her from behind. These spirits stank of the grave and rotting fingers tore strips of flesh from her face. She gripped the huge wheel hard and desperately tried to keep the bus on the road but the dead were now spilling over the seats behind her, obscuring her view. She fought for breath as they piled on top of her and her foot slipped off the accelerator. The bus slowed to a crawl and outside, angry hands started to pound on the windows with furious clenched bony knuckles. The bus started to rock violently from side to side as the corpses refused to be denied entry. The glass shattered and still they poured in, burying her under foul, decayed flesh as she fought frantically for air, but the world went dark.
She was awoken by strong hands shaking her roughly. Slowly, Danny’s face came into view and she suddenly hugged him fiercely.
“Have you forgotten that you’re not exactly my type?” he said lightly.
“Sorry,” she mumbled in reply, letting go and wiping away the tears from her cheeks.
“Jane, we are going to need to have a talk about that night 8 years ago; something’s come up that I don’t understand and I’m hoping that you can make some sense of it.”
“That must have been some whopper of a dream, Miss,” a stranger suddenly said from over Danny’s shoulder.
“Just give me a minute here, Bradshaw,” Danny barked protectively, wondering just where the hell the guy had sprung from. He had sent the agent back to the station with Selleck after the scene had been processed but now he was back on his own terms.
“Sure, no problem,” the American said, stepping away.
“Hot date?” she asked with raised eyebrows once the man was out of earshot.
“FBI, sent to clean up our mess,” he answered, a little bitterly. “I’m sorry. I sent him away and somehow he’s bloody snuck back again.”
“Maybe it’s your aftershave?” Jane joked. She could feel that they were dancing with clumsy attempts at humour, putting off whatever unpleasant conversation they were going to have. “I didn’t know his name, your friend inside,” she probed gently.
“Bryan Wilson,” he replied quietly. “He was a good man, Jane, and he deserved a hell of a lot better than this.”
“Did you know his wife?”
“Not as well as I should have; it’s a long story.”
“What about your man there?” she said, nodding towards the agent who was busying himself with the scenery. “How exactly does he feel about you talking to me?”
“Well I haven’t exactly crossed that bridge yet,” Danny conceded.
“Maybe I should to talk to him? You think that he’s got more of an open mind than your colleagues?”
“You know, I worked a case in Nevada once,” Bradshaw suddenly said, sidling up and joining the conversation. “Way out in the desert, some old guy was digging a well and came across a grave with the remains of 11 bodies. The tech boys found nothing of any use on any of the corpses either to discover identities or cause of death. We were there for two weeks and I don’t mind telling you that we found jack shit…, sorry Ma’am, I mean we found nothing,” he apologised and Jane could picture him tipping a Stetson. “The local Sherriff’s Department had no leads or clues and we were about to be reassigned. Thing is that some old woman came to the motel where I was staying late one night. She told me that she knew who’d done it and she wanted him stopped. Bad juju, she called it. Obviously I asked her what eviden
ce she had, you know, getting all excited, but my jaw damn near dropped when she told me that she’d dreamt it. I was about to write her off as a bag of crazy ass cats when one of the local deputies walks in. Well, she takes one look at that boy and at the same time he goes about as pale as a ghost and bolts for the door. Long story short, we pick the guy up a few hours later and he confesses to the whole thing.”
“You know who I am?” Jane asked.
“Wouldn’t be much of an agent if I didn’t do my homework, now would I?”
“So you’re a believer then?” Jane enquired with genuine interest.
“Well, now, I wouldn’t exactly say that, but I have seen the storage room in Washington where the bureau keeps files on the…, unexplained cases shall we say.”
“Can I ask you something else, Agent… Bradshaw … was it?”
“Ask away, Miss.”
“How much of that ‘good old boy, aw shucks Ma’am can I tether my horse to your fence post’, is really you?”
Bradshaw studied her carefully. “More than a pinch but less than a handful,” he smiled in return.
“And are you going to object if Danny here lets me take a look at the crime scene?”
“Way I see it is that I’m every bit a civilian spectator as you are, Miss.”
“Call me Jane,” she said climbing out of the car and steeling herself for what lay ahead.
CHAPTER TWELVE
REWRITING HISTORY
Randall gave up the struggle of trying to unscrew the whisky bottle with his damaged hand. It was probably a blessing as he would have likely demolished the bottle and the rest of the day would have been spent in a foggy, useless haze.