by Andy Remic
‘Callaghan. You made it.’
‘What time’s he gonna phone?’
The phone started to ring, and Jimmy raised his eyebrows in comedy fashion. ‘Seems like I was just in time. Would you like to talk to The Big Man?’
‘Hey, this is your gig,’ said Callaghan, knocking free a Marlboro and lighting the cigarette with iced fingers. Smoke plumed about his chilled face as he watched Jimmy move to the phone and lift the handset, killing its shrill call. Cal checked his camera bag which swung around his neck housing his Nikon digital. The Pentax was on the passenger seat of the Porsche.
Cal smoked. He glanced around, and with a waved hand Jimmy caught his attention. He moved forward a few steps. Jimmy covered the mouthpiece.
‘He wants to talk to you.’
‘To... me?’ Surprise.
Jimmy thrust the handset. ‘Just speak to him.’
Cal took the receiver, frowning. ‘Hello?’
The voice was soft, lilting, almost asexual in tenderness of delivery. ‘Mr Callaghan?’
‘Yeah. Who’s this?’
‘Mr Volos, Mr Callaghan. It’s so nice to finally hear your voice.’
Cal frowned harder, turned, and looked at Jimmy who gave him a gloved thumbs–up; then made frantic gestures as if writing on a pad. Get an address, he mouthed.
‘I believe you’ve some information for us?’
‘Of course. Is there any other reason for contacting a reporter and his faithful puppy?’
Cal paused. Something seemed – just wrong. He took a deep toke on his Marlboro and blew smoke into the fouled mouthpiece of the public receiver, saliva collecting–pot of a diseased generation.
‘What is it?’
‘There has been a murder. A most gruesome epilogue.’
‘Have the police been notified?’
‘I believe they have. You’d better move quickly Mr Callaghan, or that malevolent DI Bronagh might deny you the right of journalistic freedom. He might sever your opportunity of snapping those oh–so–important uncensored photographs. After all, this is the scoop you’ve been waiting for.’
‘How much do you want?’
‘Same as before. I will contact you shortly with regards payment.’
‘Where do we find this... murder?’
Mr Volos spoke delicately, and Cal gave a small shiver as the address was revealed like a losing hand in a game of poker. Volos killed the call with abruptness. Cal’s face hardened. The address was extremely close to where Cal himself lived.
‘Shit.’
‘Where we going?’
‘The Wharf. Just down the damn road from where I live.’
‘Did he tell you the score?’
Their tired eyes met. Cal rubbed his forehead, and touched his upper lip with his forefinger – as if considering something, an unbidden voice from the depths of his darkened soul.
‘A murder,’ Callaghan said, finally, ‘there’s been a murder.’ His voice was cold. Emotionless.
‘Come on.’ Jimmy slapped Cal’s back. ‘We’ve got a job to do.’
Jimmy led the way through the deserted London streets. They parked up and killed the engines on both cars. Rendezvousing on the pavement, Jimmy said, ‘This it?’
Callaghan nodded. The building towered above them in a neat, contemporary red brick. The upper levels were offices sporting TO LET signs, the lower level vacant shop premises, boarded window fronts taken up by illegal fly–posting.
Jimmy moved forward, looking left and right. Rogue wrappers swirled in the street; London felt like a ghost–town. Cold and empty. The brutal victim of a holocaust.
‘Eerie,’ said Cal, coming up close behind Jim.
‘You bastard! You made me jump!’
‘Sorry man. But according to your lunatic source, there’s a dead body in there. Doesn’t that give you the heebie jeebies?’
Jimmy snorted laughter. ‘Heebie jeebies? You been watching Scooby Doo again?’
Cal shrugged, shivering in the chill. ‘A man has to do something to avert the banality of daytime TV.’
Jimmy pushed the door, and it creaked open a couple of inches. He glanced back at Cal. ‘Well, it’s open. I don’t know if that’s a good sign, or a bad sign.’
Cal said nothing. The hairs were erect on the back of his neck, and he felt utterly uncomfortable; wary, senses screaming, as if his life depended on his actions in the next few moments. He glanced around, feeling the urgent need for a weapon. Primeval instinct kicked him in the heart with a Size 11.
Jimmy opened the door fully, peering inside and producing a small Maglite which cut a neat beam through the black. The light was narrow, intense, and lit them a path to a chaos of packed boxes, crates crammed with anonymous items wrapped in yellowing newspaper, a series of old battered suitcases in the corner. The room smelt musty and unused. It was still. And very cold.
‘Nothing here.’
They waded through debris, between the kipple of abandonment. Cal stayed close to Jimmy, mouth dry, his bad feeling growing more and more pronounced in staggered increments with every passing second.
Cal’s hand touched Jimmy’s shoulder, and his partner–in–crime halted. ‘What is it?’ he whispered. Somehow, it just felt right to whisper.
‘Let’s go outside, Jim. Wait for the police.’
‘It’s not like you to get spooked.’
‘This feels wrong, Jimmy.’
‘How so?’
‘I don’t know. It feels like somebody is... watching us. Waiting for us. It feels like a set–up, man. A fucking trap.’
Jimmy’s jaw tightened. ‘If you’re thinking the murderer might still be here, don’t worry pal. They don’t call me the Gorbal Grappler for nothing.’ He gave a lifeless smile, features fearsome but bleached in ambient rays from the torch. ‘We need this story, Cal. We need these pictures. Come on, get your camera ready.’
Cal nodded, clamping his mouth shut and fumbling with his bag. For some reason his fingers didn’t want to work.
Jimmy pushed forward, down a corridor where ribbons of wallpaper hung torn and damp in limp strips from above, near the ceiling. Then he stopped at the foot of the stairs, Maglite picking out a huge red stain on the wall – as if something organic had been flung with incredible force and detonating impact. His eyes narrowed. ‘Looks like a car crash splatter.’
‘Let’s get out of here, Jim,’ Cal repeated through gritted teeth, hackles raised, face pale, skin corpse–cold.
Jimmy turned. ‘I told you, we need this,’ he said again, voice calm and strangely quiet; yet filled with urgency. A professional need to get the job done. To discover. To report.
The Maglite moved up the staircase and both men became aware of something hanging there in the vacant still air above; it was swinging, ever so gently, as if nudged by the breeze of their disturbance and Callaghan wanted to shout out, to scream ‘put the fucking torch away I don’t want to see it, don’t want to see it!’ but his lips were glued shut and eyes forced open and a sour viscous treacle spread in his throat and mouth and nose gagging him and choking him and he could not breathe, he could not scream, he was gasping for air...
Survival instinct took his brain in its fist and shook it.
His senses flooded back in a rush and he gasped and could smell the blood. The narrow torch beam illuminated a body hanging over the stairs dripping crimson pearls into a long, staggered smear, but the body didn’t look quite right for an instant and it took a few moments of adjustment to visually acclimatise, to actually understand and decode because the skin had been peeled free leaving raw flesh and shaved muscles, protruding bulges of tendon and peeping blue worms of severed, puckered veins in a rich thick sauce gravy of congealed blood.
Cal’s eyes moved downwards, an involuntary tracking, from a peeled face, open mouth a small round black silently screaming hole, across a slim torso showing patches of remaindered skin where the breasts had been cut neatly free – and across the strings and bulges of visible abdominal muscle,
stretched taut across a –
‘Holy shit,’ breathed Callaghan on droplets of spit.
‘She was pregnant,’ hissed Jimmy, through clenched teeth. ‘That sick motherfucker. That sick sick twisted son of a bitch.’ He breathed deeply, like a fish tossed from the pond and gulping for air. ‘She’s had one of her legs amputated! You got your camera ready? Callaghan – hey, Callaghan? Snap out of it man – come on, take some pictures, all right? The police will be here any moment... and this story needs to be run. This bastard scumbag shithead needs to be caught.’
‘Jimmy... I can’t...’
‘Cal, look, she’s holding something.’ Jimmy moved closer, apparently oblivious to Callaghan’s distress. One of his boots nudged the edge of the jagged puddle of blood which had crept thickly down the stairs and pooled like crimson honey near the bottom step. ‘It’s an envelope. It’s got a word on it.’ He leant close.
‘What does it say?’ croaked Callaghan, weakly.
‘It’s a name.’ Jimmy swivelled, gloss eyes filled with unshed tears. His face registered sledgehammer shock. ‘Jesus,’ he breathed, running a hand through his sweat–soaked hair. ‘Jesus!’
‘What does it say?’
‘It says “Callaghan”,’ Jim whispered.
Cal turned, sprinted for the door. He just made it outside before he was violently sick.
CHAPTER THREE
RAZOREDGE
CALLAGHAN SAT WITH his back against the wall, head resting on brickwork, eyes closed, Marlboro propped in shaking fingers. Smoke drifted around him. Nearby, two armed police were staring intently in his direction – not even bothering to hide their revulsion, their loathing, their role as guards, and indeed, guards willing to kill. Hands rested threatening on holstered weapons.
Cal heard footsteps, opened sticky eyes, and wished to God his mouth didn’t taste so sour. He watched DI Bronagh approach, smiled weakly and shuddered as he noticed coagulated blood on the extremities of the DI’s shoes.
Bronagh was a big man who had let himself run over to the Dark Side of the Fat. His neck was a single thick muscle, belly pushing hard against the interior of an expensive German suit. His face sat filled with thunder. Pale skin, short black beard, bushy black eyebrows which met in the middle in an exaggerated imitation of a lycanthrope. Eyes were pale blue, cold and brittle and glittering; they seemed to have an ability to strip a person’s soul of all pathetic camouflage.
When Bronagh spoke, his deep voice was a rumble: of authority, of carefully controlled fury... and filled now with an intrinsic desire, a need to find the murderer who had committed this atrocious crime. Find them. And fuck them up.
‘You got anything to tell me, Callaghan?’
Cal shrugged, a weak movement. ‘I don’t know the guy who tipped us off. He was Jimmy’s contact.’
‘Yeah, but Jimmy said the man asked for you. By name. And the killer also left you a present in the peeled woman’s grip, didn’t he?’
Cal nodded, shuddering again, and staring down at the pavement between his legs. He spat, trying to excise the taste which haunted him like garlic vomit. Then he shook his head.
‘Can’t help you, Bronagh.’
‘You take any pictures in there? Hell, Callaghan, a serious crime scene like this and you two monkeys go stomping in with fucking size ten boots. I’m surprised you didn’t cut her down and try the kiss of life. Now that would have made an entertaining photograph. Would have made me laugh all the way to the bank.’
‘Very funny.’
‘I should have you two up for perverting the course of justice.’
‘We thought it was a bullshit tip–off, Bronagh. Honest.’
‘No way, Callaghan.’ Bronagh stepped a little closer, his bulk an intimidation. He pointed, huge hand unwavering, finger a weapon of accusation. ‘You knew exactly what the fuck you were doing. You wanted the scoop; the front page drama. Well, you got one all right – except we’ve confiscated your cameras for forensic testing, so it’s tough shit boy–o, you’re no longer quids in. Looks like some other poor schmuck will have to fund your cocaine habit.’
‘Forensic testing... you think it...’ Callaghan glanced up into Bronagh’s pale eyes, and left the sentence unfinished. Could not bring himself to say it; to say, ‘you think it could have been me?’
‘Go home Callaghan. Get some rest. I want to see you and your little Scottish monkey tomorrow at Charing Cross Station on Agar. Early. You think you can manage that? Is the instruction clear enough?’
‘Clear as crystal. So... so we off the hook, then?’
‘You’ll never be off the hook, Callaghan.’
‘But you don’t think we did it – right?’ The stupidity of the question gave Cal a personal right hook. But he could not help himself. Like a puppy caught next to a pile of poo, his eagerness for disassociation was too painful to witness.
Bronagh scowled, shaking his head. He was too tired and too emotionally wrecked to offer sarcasm. The big DI stalked away, face lit by stroboscopic flickers of blue from the four cars parked at angles, blocking the street. Policemen were busy taping off the road with yellow and black DO NOT CROSS barriers; three police Transits had rear doors ajar, peopled by men in white overalls and androgynous face–masks playing with silver tools.
A cold wind blew. It swept mercilessly down the street. Cal finished his cigarette and stomped it under his vomit–splashed boot as Jimmy approached, proffering a nervous smile. He shrugged at his comrade’s hard stare.
‘Sorry about the cameras.’
‘I should say “I told you so”, but I won't. You shouldn’t have gone back in there, Jim. Bronagh is right – we could have messed up the crime scene. We may have stopped this sick bastard from getting caught – with our stupidity, and our greed.’
‘Nah. We can’t have done any damage – none more so than ten fat pigs trailing donut sugar, anyways. Come on, you want to grab a coffee?’
‘Coffee? No, but I’ll settle for a whisky.’
‘You sure you’re OK, Callaghan?’
‘Yeah. I’ll live. Which is more than I can say for that dead bitch and her tortured embryo.’
When Callaghan finally made it back to bed Mia had performed her famous disappearing act. Cal was wearily thankful and lay in the bath for a while after three lines of coke, a last dab on his numbing tongue, and a generous (i.e. full) tumbler of intoxicating whisky. He allowed the heat of the bath water to soothe aching limbs, and the drugs to soothe his tumbling mind. His head thumped, a drumbeat tattoo which grew incrementally despite his happy medicinal abuse of narcotics.
He fell into a cold bed at 4 AM, curled into a ball, head pounding but mixed with a curious euphoria. Gradually, Cal sank into a good impression of a coma: where dreams came and sliced his mind in two.
White. Bright white. Then spirals of ink–black which exploded outwards into a static image. The image showed a young girl, about nine or ten years old. She had very pale skin, jet–black hair, and a long lace–edged dress which reached to her ankles. She carried a curved sword. The sword blade was corrupted with blood. Several drops had formed a small pool beneath the blade’s tip. In the past, in previous dreams, the background to this scene had always been shrouded in darkness; out of focus; irrelevant. Now, it was bright and the girl seemed to be standing in a workshop environment, greys and blacks highlighting long wooden benches, a saw, screwdrivers, spanners, tools hanging neatly in their correct places... but there there was the focus of Cal’s gaze and the head was stained with something black, a fluid, a dark splash of blood. It was a clawhammer, and the simplicity of this weapon filled Cal with a low, base terror.
Then the image lurched into movement, stop–motion, a staccato movie from which Callaghan could not tear his eyes. The girl lifted her head and for the first time Cal saw her eyes – only they weren’t eyes, they were holes and the holes were black and they led... somewhere else.
The girl, with her free arm, lifted and pointed at Callaghan.
It’s
you, that finger said.
It’s you, it’s you, it’s you...
Callaghan was woken at 9 by the phone, but by the time he reached the receiver it had stopped ringing and he stood there, naked and stinking of stale drink, scowling at the machine, shivering a little. Even as the ringing echoed in his head, so the image of the dream dissipated and he mentally grasped for it, for memories, knowing they were horrific and they had scared him to his primal core... yet needing to see them again, to relive the horror.
He crawled back into bed, curling into his sleep–warmed spot and staring at mottled blinds and the muffled light beyond. Why me? he thought. What did the bastard want with me? Why drag my sorry arse into this tangled web of murder? Of abuse? Of horror?
It was almost as if... as if the killer wanted front page coverage. Wanted the news out in the public domain. Obviously to satisfy some sick narcissistic streak, thought Cal. Probably wanks off to his own kill drama, the sick, sick, twisted puddle of shit.
He finally arose, made strong (4 teaspoon–strong) coffee, and stood naked before the mirror analysing himself. Reasonably athletic, he thought; still not showing any signs of ageing – only maturing. Good looking – hell, damned good looking; trim; fit... almost, which was an irony considering the way he abused his body with every drug available to Man. Exercise? Ha, that was for fucking perverts. Why run when you could drive a Porsche?
Cal ran hands through his short hair, shivering as he remembered the previous night. Well, you still retain a shred of humanity, he thought, almost bitterly. And there was I, thinking I was a tough–guy immune to horror, oblivious to mutilation, invulnerable to the sickness of death – just a tired, jaded old hack photographer, a social outcast diseased and brutalised by a savage world filled with scumbags intent on fucking over every other scumbag. A social misfit created by social misfits; just another warped product of a deviated and poisoned system, yeah baby, feel that toxic shit in your blood and in your soul – poisoning, polluting, as intoxicating as bad cocaine. As evil as mercury pumping through your veins.