The Ashes of an Oak

by Bradbury, Chris

  Luck! Goddam luck! thought Frank. That’s it? That’s how this thing’s going to go? We’re just going to have to depend on luck? Luck came in two colours – good and bad. All those forensics and all those cops and it came down to raw good fortune.

  ‘You did well, James. Damn, you did well.’

  ‘Cost me fifty bucks.’

  Frank smiled and put an arm on his shoulder. ‘No it didn’t, it cost you a hundred and that’s what you and me are going to tell the Captain right now.’

  Chapter 28

  Frank sat in his favourite chair, legs crossed, whisky balanced on his knee and a cigarette in the other hand. In the background played some Jimmy Smith – upbeat jazz for his downbeat soul.

  His mood had been slightly lifted by James. The smog of redundancy, of worthlessness, of utter despondency, that had threatened to suffocate him, had raised itself a little above his head. When he was alone, for the first time in his life, he felt really alone. No matter how isolated he had felt at work, he’d always had someone to turn to at home. Now that was gone, that security blanket, that bubble of love.

  He was making an effort. He was trying not to think ‘What if..?’; ‘What would I be doing with Mary right now? What would Mary say about that? What would Mary be cooking me for my dinner tonight? What if she was still alive? What would Mary say about the son of a bitch who cut off her head?’

  No. He was trying to avoid all that. He was looking at her picture with fondness and not anger. He was recalling what a bitch she could be when the moment took her. He was remembering how she couldn’t roast potatoes, but knew how to make a mean apple pie and cream. He thought of her youthful face, the smooth, freckled girl he had courted, and of the stripe of grey that ran down the right side of her head and the smile lines around her eyes when she had sat on his lap just a few days ago.

  He wasn’t going to let the fact that she had been stolen away stop him from thinking of her. It wasn’t going to make him hide her away in some drawer like a thing too precious to see the light. No, he would take her out and hold her up and remember the best and the worst and one day, sometime, there would be no more tears because he had found a place for her and never needed to let her go in order for himself to survive. He would survive for her, despite her, because of her.

  There was a knock at the door. He got wearily up and answered it.

  Emmet stood there with a hangdog expression. Next to him stood a stocky man of about twenty-eight, five feet tall, bald, with eyeliner, wearing what could have passed for a woman’s blouse, white and ruffled, and a pair of purple velvet trousers. On his feet he wore a pair of leather Hawaiian slipper sandals. To top it all off, he had a goatee beard that had been dyed blond. In his right hand he had a brown, dog-eared, leather briefcase.

  ‘This is Benoît Deniel,’ said Emmet. ‘He’s the guy I told you about this morning; Dolores’ friend.’

  Benoît held out his hand. Frank was surprised to feel a firm, dry handshake.

  ‘I do not know your name,’ said Benoît as he walked past Frank into the apartment. ‘Do not tell me.’ He spoke with a French-American accent.

  Emmet, uncomfortable with one of his wife’s oddities, winced apologetically and came in.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’’ asked Frank of both of them.

  ‘You need to ask?’ said Emmet quickly.

  ‘No,’ said Benoît. ‘It affects me.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ laughed Emmet feebly.

  Benoît ignored him. ‘Turn off the music please,’ he said, without expectation of a refusal. ‘It too affects me.’

  Frank also wanted to tell him that was the point, but went instead to refresh his drink and pour a generous measure for Emmet. Then he turned off the music.

  Benoît sat down in Frank’s chair. ‘When you are ready,’ he said sharply.

  Frank sat on the sofa next to Emmet. He began to feel somewhat foolish. Two men, policemen at that, sat together on a sofa, waiting for a very short French medium to contact the dead, as part of a murder investigation. It all seemed, at the very least, to be eccentric. If the DA got wind of this, he would probably never look them in the eye again.

  ‘I’m sorry for your recent loss,’ said the medium.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Frank.

  He looked at Emmet, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Emmet quickly. ‘Dolores told him. He didn’t…’ Emmet waved his hands vaguely at the ether. ‘Don’t worry, she didn’t tell him anything else.’

  Benoît closed his eyes and rested his hands in his lap. Frank assumed that this was the beginning of something.

  How ridiculous! How absurd! But then, so was the man in the sharp, dark grey suit. So was the short, bald man with the closed eyes. So was the idea that someone could take it upon themselves to take a life because the wind blew the wrong way or their brain pumped out a little more of one chemical than another or because in the dim and distant and forgotten past, two people had met and joined and set in train a madness that would end with today.

  How absurd that Fate should take him on the road it did – to cross paths that were themselves at once severed by the next fatal dissection and, in that severance, by that same Fate’s hand, to find another way, hidden and dangerous or tame and unfelt, to then bounce upon the thin meniscus of other’s lives, to find himself obliquely ricocheted into the calamities of life of which only Fate had any concept at all.

  ‘This isn’t any good,’ he said aloud.

  Benoît spoke softly. ‘In what way is this no good?’

  ‘Well, no offence intended, fella,’ said Frank gloomily, ‘but here we are, three grown men, relying upon the existence of a damned ghost to solve a series of murders. What the hell are we doing?’

  ‘You have to give it a chance, Frank,’ said Emmet. ‘You said yourself that you thought you were haunted.’

  Frank rolled his eyes. ‘It was the crazy talk of a crazy man, Em. Give me a break! I’ve just had half a pound of brain cut out. I’m tired. My wife died. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. In fact, maybe we should be talking about my retirement instead of playing with Ouija boards or whatever.’

  ‘Detective,’ interrupted Benoît. ‘I understand your need to cling to what is real. It’s only by what is tangible, that can be applied to the five senses, that most of us are able to define our lives. Yet what of Pythagoras? What of Newton? What of those who have been able to reach out and touch what the world believed intangible and, by doing so, change the way the world thought for ever more? Is God a myth? Have millions died over the centuries for a myth? Or is there somewhere, in all that bloodshed, the nugget of truth that that makes a man willing to die for his faith, the very faith that renders that bloodshed absurd? I have seen the dead. I have talked with the dead. You have not. Would you call me a liar? Would you deny me my beliefs when I would not dare to deny you yours? What do you have to lose? You do not believe, so you cannot have your belief undermined. Indeed, in your mind you will have been proved right and you may feel the satisfaction that comes with that. And yet, should we succeed, you will have found more than you ever dreamed existed and maybe the answer to your questions. I think that makes this worth half an hour of your time, don’t you?’

  Emmet, drawn in by the weight of Benoît’s speech, cleared his throat. ‘I think he may have a point there, Frank,’ he said solemnly.

  Frank felt less convinced. ‘Oh? You think so, Em?’

  ‘I do, Frank. I do. Dolores puts a lot of stock in this guy.’

  ‘Forgive me, Emmet, but that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. But, he’s right. We have nothing to lose.’ Frank lit a cigarette and sank back into the sofa. ‘Go ahead, Benoît. Do your magic.’

  Benoît’s mouth curved at the corners. He appreciated Frank and liked his sense of humour.

  ‘Okay,’ said the medium. ‘Just be quiet and concentrate. Detective, see the image in your in your head. Call to it. Share it with me. Captain?’

  ‘Ye
s, Benoît?’

  ‘Remain vacant.’

  ‘Yes, Benoît.’

  Frank laughed.

  Emmet clicked. ‘Oh, very funny,’ said the Captain.

  The room descended into silence.

  Frank allowed himself to drift. At first he could hear every single noise; the ticking clock, the creaking boards, closing doors in other apartments, traffic, horns, people shouting, a plane, even the ‘tink’ of a light bulb above his head as some reaction occurred within its vacuum.

  Gradually though, the man in the sharp, dark grey suit drifted wispily into sight. At first he came as a smoky, anomalous shadow, then, as the shadow swirled within, he took on form. The hat became defined, the legs crossed at the ankles, the broad shoulders, the arms crossed against his chest. Yet still, still, his face remained in shadow beneath his hat, almost as if someone had taken an eraser to his features and rubbed out the finer details, those lumps and bumps that defined a man.

  He heard Benoît shuffle in his chair. As he allowed the sound to invade his head, so the shadow began to fade. He forced the world away in an attempt to hold onto the man.

  Benoît gasped. ‘I see him,’ he said. ‘Not his face. I can’t see his face. Concentrate, Detective,’ he said calmly.

  ‘I’ve never seen his face,’ said Frank. ‘I don’t know what he looks like.’

  ‘That’s because he hides. Oh!’ Benoît chuckled. ‘He’s not a very nice man.’

  Benoît stopped talking for a moment. His head tilted as he listened. Frank opened his eyes, expecting Benoît to tell him to close them again, but no order came.

  ‘You had an illness, Detective,’ continued the medium. ‘You had something wrong with your head.’ He held up his hand as Frank was about to speak. ‘You don’t need to confirm this. I know it’s true. I have seen your wound when I first saw you, but I have also seen inside your head.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘That is how he got in. Of course! You had une tumeur, a growth, a cancer, in your brain. My God, my God! Of course.’

  Frank felt his spine tingle. Maybe it was the atmosphere or the dredging up of those hideous words or the fact that this growth had somehow opened a doorway through which this monstrosity could wander at free will.

  ‘The growth,’ said Benoît, as if he heard Frank’s thoughts, ‘allowed your brain to…’ He searched for the words. ‘…to expand, to become more open…’ He rolled his hands over each other, faster and faster as he tried desperately to find a way to express himself. ‘It opened another space, another…dimension, in your senses. Do you see?’

  Frank nodded. ‘I see,’ he said.

  ‘And this man, this man, he wants revenge, but not against you, but against the one who…’ Benoît shook his head and closed his eyes tight as he strained to hear what was being said. Suddenly, he drew his finger across his neck. ‘The one who slit his throat.’

  Benoît’s hands went up to his cheeks. He held them there in an attitude of shock and fear. ‘He showed you that, didn’t he? He showed you that just recently, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘He did,’ said Frank. ‘Last night.’ He felt sick. It was the same feeling he used to get as a boy after he had done something wrong and hoped that not a soul would find out.

  He once stole a Hershey bar. He knew it was wrong, but in that moment, it just seemed the thing to do, the gut tingling, pulse racing, thing to do. He took it home and laid it on his bed and stared at it. But, he never ate it. He could never bring himself to do that, because he had done wrong. In the end he put it, unopened, detested, into the trash.

  ‘The one who did this,’ said Benoît, ‘was his son. His own son slit his throat. This man was a drunk, he beat the boy’s mother, he stole, he hurt people. One day, the boy had had enough and, as the man was doing something, something that caused him to be on the floor, sur ses genoux, on his knees, the boy came up behind him, grabbed his hair, yanked back his head and…’

  He motioned a finger across his neck again.

  ‘The boy is now a man and this is the man that kills. He was a cruel boy and he remains a cruel man. His father, this spirit, cares not for the victims of his son; he cares only for himself, for his revenge. He wants only for the boy to come over to him and feel his father’s vengeance. To feel the flames lick also at the soles of his feet.’

  Then the silence returned.

  The three men sat stony faced and looked at the floor.

  ‘Is he gone?’ asked Emmet.

  Benoît rubbed a hand across his eyes. He had a headache now, a sharp stab above the left eye, as he always did after such things.

  ‘Oui,’ he confirmed. ‘He is gone.’

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Frank. ‘Nothing more? No name? That’s it?’

  ‘Only one thing,’ said Benoît. ‘Only one more thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He showed me his face.’

  A remarkable artist, Benoît pencilled out a portrait of the spirit onto some A3 paper that he had brought with him in his briefcase.

  Emmet took Benoît home. ‘Come in tomorrow, Frank,’ he said before he left. ‘Go through the books. See if you can put a name to the face. Any hours you want.’

  Frank poured himself another drink and reclaimed his chair.

  He picked up the portrait of the supposed spirit. Without prompting, Benoît had captured the man almost photographically, maybe better.

  ‘So, this is you?’ he asked the empty room. ‘This is you? You’re the reason this bastard son of yours is out chopping bits off innocents? You should’ve been castrated at birth, you son of a bitch.’ He sipped at the whisky and lit a cigarette. ‘Now you want me to do your dirty work. You want me to clean up the mess you left behind. Well, he’s your kid, mister. He’s your mistake, not mine and one way or another you’ll both pay for this, I swear to God.’ He ran a finger across the picture and tried to imagine it fleshed out, rough, stubbled, with that patina of the years that the skin acquires. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still be a married man. If I thought I could kill myself and come after you right now, I would. And when I caught you I’d drag you down to the Devil himself and challenge that son of a bitch to come up with a new form of torture just for you.’

  The lights flickered – on/off – just once.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frank, as the hairs on the back of his neck frosted his spine. ‘Run, you bastard, run. I’ll find you.’

  Saturday

  Chapter 29

  ‘It’s a steel.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A steel. A knife sharpener. More precisely, a Lee Carved Handle steel from the nineteen-forties. Bakelite handle. Weighs about eight pounds. Heavy enough to open up a skull with one good swipe.’

  Milt waited for a response from Emmet.

  ‘Is it what killed her?’

  ‘It’s got her blood and tissue all over it, Em. So, yeah.’

  ‘Prints?’

  ‘There were little paw prints all over it, all too small to belong to an adult. Also two from the kid that Frank says found it, probably thumb and forefinger.’

  ‘So this steel could have come from anybody’s kitchen drawer?’

  ‘Pretty much. Sorry, Em. You find the owner, we’ll try and connect the two, but without prints all he has to say is that it disappeared from their house ten years ago and hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘Damn. One step forward, two steps back.’

  ‘No,’ rumbled Milt. ‘It’s a step forward. You have one more thing today that you didn’t have yesterday. You have a murder weapon. That’s always a positive thing.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. Thanks for letting me know.’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  Emmet ticked and tutted as he put the phone down.

  ‘Sorry, Frank. The steel killed Charlene Astle, but there are no significant prints apart from the thumb and forefinger of the Cowdell kid and the kids who were playing with it. We have a weapon, but no owner.’

  Frank didn’t seem too put out. ‘Never
mind, Emmet. It beats having nothing.’

  ‘Yeah. Do you have the picture?’

  Frank pulled the folded picture out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘Okay,’ said Emmet. ‘Get some copies made and distributed, then lock yourself away in a room and go through the files. We might have a picture of him somewhere. He didn’t seem like the kind of fella that would have a clean record.’ Emmet lit a cigarette. ‘What did you think of the Benoît guy? You think he’s real?’

  Frank considered the question. ‘I think I do, Em. I can’t say for sure that it’s not some sort of shinola he’s feeding us, but it all seemed pretty kosher to me.’ He held up the picture. ‘I guess there’s only one way to find out.’

  ‘Go ahead. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. Keep this between ourselves, eh. If the press get hold of the fact that our best lead is a ghost we’re all back on traffic duty.’

  Frank took up residence in the basement. There were no rooms in which he could lock himself, but at least this way he would be undisturbed. If he’d sat at his desk he wouldn’t have got a moment’s peace. For some reason, people found his scar a thing of fascination. They would peer at it for an age with their lower lips out in fascinated awe. Some even wanted to touch it.

  How far to go back? Ten years? Fifteen? He could work on the psych’s reasoning that the perp would be somewhere between twenty and thirty-five. Benoît said that the Token Killer had been a kid when he had slit his father’s throat. How old’s a kid? Five? Six? Nineteen? The older you got, the more kids there were, that was for sure. Steve Wayt was a kid to Frank.

  It would’ve taken some guts to take the opportunity that he did. To get a knife, perhaps a Stanley, perhaps an old, razor-edged kitchen knife, then creep up on your old man, your nasty old man, grab his hair and pull back his head back; that took strength in all sorts of ways.

  Then, that moment, that infinite, split second of time, when a fleeting doubt goes through the mind faster than light, which then halfway through turns from uncertainty to deliberation to intent, and then the feel of the blade against the skin; the action, the slow, angry bite of the knife into flesh; the depth required, the strength, the willpower, the hatred.