Head Case

by Ross Armstrong

  And I could say my hopes are hanging on a thread, but I won’t, because even I realise that’s a very poor excuse for humour at this late stage in the game. There goes my frontal lobe, failing to edit me again. My ability to supress my urge to say everything that comes to me is getting better, but I’m nowhere near fixed yet. Maybe never will be. So… sorry if those last few sentences were difficult for you.

  ‘Somewhere… along… here,’ he mutters to himself as we pass endless vehicles to our right.

  Skeletons of cars with smashed out windows, heavily rusted exterior bodywork and semi-crushed shells. I wonder if any of them could still drive. I picture myself trying to take one out of there, all beaten up, but still somehow running. Kick in your TV or smash your car against a wall hard enough and there isn’t an engineer in the world that can fix it without new parts. But brain plasticity is a great thing. You can take out significant portions of the machine and it finds a way to keep you going. My brain is a banger, all busted up, patched together enough to get me from A to B. There are moments when I curse myself for not being able walk straight. And others when I recognise that the level of comprehension required to get me this far in this case is a minor miracle. Then it strikes me that the miracle really is that we’re all built this way.

  ‘Ah. No,’ he says, starting a chin scratch that soon takes over the whole left side of his face.

  ‘No?’ I say. Picturing the glove. Time seemed to slow before the explosion, as it had done in the domestic abuse house. I replay the scene in my mind. The memory snaps it took. To be rerun later, to reassess the danger.

  There it is: blue. Like the colour of which it smelt. She left it in the car. I see it. It can’t be gone. I can touch it.

  ‘No, mate. I remember now. Usually we keep them until a few of you have given them the once over.’

  He places his scratch-hand on his hip and the other in his pocket.

  ‘Why not this one?’ I say.

  ‘The fella told us not to. One of your lot. The Turk. Big, sporty type. Said to scrap it right away.’

  My breathing changes, long breaths now, like when I was pretending to sleep last night.

  ‘The inspector? Or… the PCSO?’ I say.

  ‘I… err…’ He looks to the sky for inspiration. Night is falling. Mechanics pass. The chill is deepening. ‘I… dunno, mate. Sorry.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. And what I do know and what I don’t converge again. And I want my body to start dragging itself somewhere, but it doesn’t know where to yet.

  ‘I told him where it came from though,’ he says.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my mouth falling open. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘Here. It came from here. I told him. I remembered it. Not good with faces but I never forget a motor. I told him, some bloke bought it off us with cash. The Turk never passed that on?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘He never passed it on.’

  ‘All right then. That good? That helpful?’

  I am lost in thought and he is forced to ask once more. It’s a peculiar form of time travel that occurs when I’m off in the back room of my mind. Fumbling around in the store cupboard, working it out. It’s odd to be reminded that while I’m back there, life continues unabated right in front of me.

  ‘… Mate? That helpful?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I reckon so.’

  ‘Then I can do better than that, mate. Fella that bought it… err… lived down on Tollington Road. I remember seeing it parked on the street when I drove past. Sure of it. I never forget a motor.’

  As I start to walk away, I remember things too. Mirror pieces roll around and form themselves back into place. Thoughts I’d lost return to me as the snow starts to fall again.

  And so my day circles on itself and I end up back where I started. On Tollington Road. Where I’d seen that déjà vu neighbour all those weeks ago. Where I taught a gentleman a thing or two about chivalry this morning.

  When I look around at the back of the houses I notice something else. Something I should’ve seen the first time around. The view. The view is astounding. The view is of a playground. A playground myself and Bartu had stood in just a few days earlier.

  Ring, ring.

  Ring, ring.

  My phone chirps in my pocket. So I pick up and put it to my ear. Noticing the (number withheld) as I do.

  ‘PCSO Mondrian?’ comes the voice. And I’m a directory of voices.

  ‘Err… yes?’ I say. Turning in instinct, just in case they’re near. Ice under my feet.

  ‘We need to meet,’ he says, as if trying to hold his nerve.

  ‘Did you call this morning?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did.’

  ‘Rabbit?’ I say.

  ‘How did you know?’ he says. Not an expression, but a genuine question.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ I say.

  But the silence that follows informs both of us that we shouldn’t expect a satisfactory answer to our respective questions.

  ‘We met… at the snooker hall… do you remember?’ he says.

  ‘I remember,’ I say.

  ‘We need to meet, but alone, not with him… not with… err…’

  ‘Turan?’ I say.

  I start to pace away from the street, my thighs stiffening to counter the effect of the frozen ground. His urgency increasing.

  ‘Yes. I don’t want him there. Or anyone else. Just us.’

  ‘What about tomorrow?’ I say.

  ‘What about now?’ he says.

  I lift my pace, noticing the ripples of cold air pushing out and expanding into the world, the particles breaking off and going their own way until I can no longer see them. I notice sides of occasional faces moving past top floor windows.

  ‘I have something planned for now. But I’d love to meet tomorrow,’ I say.

  ‘We don’t have long, I’m afraid. I’m afraid we don’t have long. You. Me. Them. All of us,’ he says. And I picture him in some dank bunker.

  ‘I know. Tomorrow will do. Early afternoon,’ I say.

  ‘There’s… something I need to show you,’ he whispers.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, chancing my arm.

  And some seconds tick on.

  ‘Tomorrow, early afternoon. Watch your phone. I’ll call.’

  And with that, in the same manner that he tended to arrive, he was gone.

  *

  Dr Ryans’ estate car smells the same colour as his office. Playing Field Green. I’m not entirely sure how his wife puts up with it. By the time we get to his house I’m sure I’m slightly stoned but it seems rude to complain given his levels of hospitality.

  The last thing he helped me put in the back was my computer. Then I slammed the boot closed and looked at my little life in there. It was surprising how many things I felt I didn’t need from the house. All I saw was books that were now only for decorative purposes. Clothes. Some family pictures just for recognition practice. A drawer full of too many chargers, miscellaneous grooming items, a picture book about spiders, a subscription’s worth of a magazine I mean to read one day, my good lamp, a 1991 book of magic eye pictures, my filter coffee maker with a cracked handle, and an automatic umbrella my nan gave me. This is how much my life weighs. With comics, an artificial Christmas tree, my childhood and a whole world left behind and put on ice for later.

  It was all done in one relatively painless trip. But I can honestly say, getting Mark into his cat carrier was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in the last four months.

  Ryans’ wife Marie is French, and speaks four languages by the way, and I have no idea what she sees in him. She makes food for us for when we arrive. It’s a soup from scratch and the obvious care it was made with makes me emotional. The taste sticks with me as I tell her that she’s very kind but ‘not to worry about food in future as I won’t often be eating with you as I keep my own rather eccentric hours.’

  The taste sticks as I tell her that despite these hours I will ‘always keep the noise do
wn and I insist on cleaning the whole house every morning because it will clear my mind and make me feel far less indebted to you.’

  The taste even sticks as he later tells me it’s ‘his recipe’, which I doubt, despite her affirmations. But maybe I’m just defensive about how much I owe him, for his encouragements and his warnings, and for offering me a sanctuary where people don’t know where I am, at the zenith of my paraneea.

  He apologised for contacting Anita. And I conceded that although it was ‘an idiotic idea’ that his ‘heart may have been roughly in the right place.’ For my part I was never good at climb-downs. Or apologies. This is why I ended my phone call to Ryans by saying:

  ‘This is not to do with your kindness or my weakness, by the way. It’s about your proximity to the park.’

  But in some unknown language, in between the words, I think he heard a thank you. Because he responded with ‘Great!’

  Before he arrived I’d set everything up for the next day. It involved some research into the seamier sides of the internet, places I don’t usually go, links to links to links. To the corners where you can get things you really shouldn’t.

  It’s partly research. But I also need something for tomorrow. And fast.

  Just as I thought I was about to get it, I realised I’was talking to someone from something called The Live Action Role Play Society, and they’d got the wrong end of the stick. Surprisingly, there is a LARP Society in most big towns. Plenty in London. They enact everything from famous battles to alien invasions in the parks of the suburbs at 6 a.m. Get up early and you might see them. But they only deal in pretend; I needed a real thing.

  So that’s when I called Bartu and told him everything. About where I am, what I’ve found and where we go next. I told him I’d long thought that there was too much inconsistency for this to be about one person; it’s about more than that, a group. Up until that exact moment I had been too cautious to tell even Bartu that, but then my need became clear and I had to call and lay it all out for him.

  After some resistance he said, ‘Yes, okay.’

  And then I said something he didn’t expect or want to hear.

  ‘One more thing. Where can I get hold of a gun?’

  When he said he wanted no part of that, I only had ninety minutes until Ryans came.

  I left the house. In search of what I needed. Ninety minutes came and went. And I was back just in time for Ryans’ arrival.

  *

  When everything is in my new space, I take a long look at it all. Then I set up my computer and find a picture of a girl they found. Rita Singh. A long search through pages and pages brings me that.

  She was the only other one to turn up out of the nine that went missing over the years. And when she did turn up, she wasn’t alive either. And she had deep cuts on the top of her thighs, which didn’t surprise me one bit.

  The mental image takes me a while to shake off, but then I finally manage it. Then I sleep and dream of the lyrics that were trying to tell me something all along. The thing stuck in the folds of my cerebellum, fighting to get out.

  The subconscious was biting at the edges of my mystery to get my attention. And show me what I should have already known. Known for some time.

  36

  ‘I don’t know what you’re waiting for.

  If you can’t see it anymore

  I’m thinking ‘bout the girl next door.

  Can’t…’

  There’s one detour I have to make as I head from Ryans’ place towards work. I cut through the park then take the bus on the other side.

  There’s no one around when I get to the playground behind Tollington Road. So I approach the bin. Remove the top layer of waste products. And push the gun discreetly inside.

  I gaffer tape it to the side about halfway down then replace the rubbish I’d removed, to mask its presence, just below the surface.

  Once I’m confident no one followed me here, or any other stray eyes caught the act, I continue on foot towards the station.

  I enter gingerly. I called in my possible domestic violence issue before I left last night, and half expect Levine to call me over for ‘a bit of a talk.’ But all I see is nervy chief Matthews beckoning me to the precipice of his office and saying things like ‘it’s all set up’ for me ‘to use’. And ‘He’s already in there.’ They’re sentences that mean precisely nothing to me.

  He holds me by both shoulders and looks into my eyes with what I’m sure he thinks is a reassuring smile. Then he summons all his brittle energy to tap me on the bicep with a force that makes me flinch. He seems to be prepping me for something, like a doctor preps a patient before amputation. Then he steps out of the way and gestures for me to enter and greet whatever it is that lies in wait.

  But instead I grab the handle and push the door closed. Then stand with my back to it as I beckon Matthews closer. I’ve spent so long keeping everyone else in the dark. But that had to end sometime. When he finally steps towards me, I take a look over his shoulder to make sure no one is watching us, then speak quietly.

  ‘I have to tell you… I figured out something that’s important to the case of the girls, and to the wider community.’

  He also takes a discreet look around, as I draw breath and find my thought. I take a piece of paper out of my pocket to show him. If I don’t tell him this now I fear I might not get another chance.

  ‘Sir, there are these markings near certain streets and homes. Usually chosen because they’re low income housing and easy to make an exit from onto a main road. I discovered through certain online forums that a blue circle seems to mean that there is a child in the house. Put two dots next to it, like this…’ I say, pointing out the relevant symbols on my piece of paper, ‘…and that seems to mean the child is sometimes left alone. A square in the middle of it suggests they are left with a vulnerable parent. A cross next to it is a “no go”, for whatever reason. Lastly, two diagonal lines through it means the child has already been taken. I think there is a paedophile ring at work in London. And members signals to aid each other. No smaller cell, of say three to ten people, within that larger ring, wants another to get caught and give information that may lead back to them. So they’re bound together. By necessity.’

  I finish, my breath heavy in my throat.

  ‘Good work. We’ll look into that,’ he says.

  I’m not sure he’s entirely taken on the seriousness of the revelation. The fact that this may well be the work of a small group, who are almost certainly linked to a larger network.

  He grabs my right shoulder once more and speaks in a hushed and ill-fitting alpha tone, using a mode of being I haven’t seen in him before, which is presumably the one that convinced someone that he might be good for a managerial position.

  ‘By the way, Tom, we sent officers around to speak to the couple on Tollington Road early this morning. He was physical, highly aggressive. We think we’re going to get a conviction on that one, one way or another. So good work again,’ he says.

  I’m half expecting ‘but’, but it never comes. Seems as though the husband kept his mouth shut or his complaints fell on deaf ears. They tend to look after their own. They’re a little cabal aren’t they, I suppose. And now I’m in it. I’ve never been comfortable with anything like that. I never wanted to be a freemason, or a member of a ‘Role Play Society’, nothing like that.

  I wouldn’t want to be part of a club that would have anyone else as a member. Only problem is, maybe I’m already benefiting from a club I didn’t think I’d fully signed up to yet.

  Matthews opens the door again and gestures for me to go inside. A scruffy man with glasses sits leaning over a notepad.

  I walk in, placing my piece of paper back into my pocket, not sure that I’ve been adequately heard. I look back as Matthews simply smiles, closes the door and walks away.

  I cautiously sit and wait for the scruffy man to finish writing.

  ‘Hello, Tom, I’m Mike,’ he says with a weak smile and a weaker h
andshake.

  ‘Hi Mike,’ I say, still with no idea what this is.

  ‘So, how are you enjoying being back on the force?’

  I hear the tick of the chief’s carriage clock, which sits staring at me on his desk. This wasn’t part of my plan for today.

  ‘Fine. Fine,’ I say.

  He goes to write something down, then stops.

  ‘Riiight. Hmm. Okay,’ he says, shifting in his seat. ‘Any highlights?’

  I find myself holding on to my right knee tightly. Whatever’s going on, it doesn’t seem to be going well for either of us.

  ‘I… keep in touch with the local community… ’

  I picture my fist landing in the husband’s stomach.

  ‘… There are ups and downs. Good days and bad… ’

  I picture being attacked in The Corner Shop and smashing a man’s head into a glass door.

  ‘… I’ve made friends… for life, perhaps…’

  I picture driving in silence with Emre Bartu.

  ‘… In the end it’s about the community. People I grew up with…’

  I picture Sarah. I picture giving Eli Minton his Acceptable Behaviour Contract.

  ‘… Good guys and bad guys…’

  I draw a blank. An empty space in my mind. Except for the tiny flicker of a silhouette. And one or two faces.

  ‘… And you’ve just got to do your best and see what happens.’

  Mike writes it down in a tired fashion and then looks up at me, nodding guilelessly.

  ‘Yep. Cool. That sort of thing… is… great.’

  I turn and see them all gearing up for something. Levine and a detective coming from the debrief room, flanked by a constable and a couple of others, leaving in a hurry.

  ‘I’m sorry, who are you?’ I say.

  ‘Mike? From the Advertiser…’ he says as I stand.

  ‘… Are you doing it now? You having a… vision or whatever? You’re a… savant, right? Is that the word?’