by Gareth Wiles
‘It’s all a conspiracy, and I was the random fall guy they chose to stitch-up. People are beginning to believe that now.’ He moved to the window and briefly looked out at the gathering followers. ‘People are beginning to see that now. People are beginning to see that I speak the truth, that I can show them the way.’
‘And what way is that?’ Ruby wondered with frustration in her voice, ‘this hocus pocus malarkey they’re all spouting? The Great Collective and all that shit?’
‘It is not shit, Ruby,’ he replied. Ruby was a little surprised at this – after all, Alex had always addressed her as Mrs Edwards despite her encouragement to drop the formalities.
‘Well, you’ve apologised. You can go now,’ Ruby finished, taking hold of him and trying to march him to the door. He pulled himself from her grip and outstretched his hand, taking control of her body and making her step back. For a second she lost her breath, terrified at her loss of power. Arthur hadn’t seemed to notice.
‘I have one more thing to ask of you,’ Alex continued. ‘You people, my in-laws, once harboured Peter Smith in this very house.’
‘Yes,’ Ruby sighed. Arthur looked up and cleared his throat. ‘He spread his poison through my family, just like you’re trying to do now.’ She felt herself released from Alex’s ensconcing flow but remained fixed to the spot.
‘I am not here to spread poison – I am here to warn you of his return.’
‘Oh God no,’ Arthur lamented, ‘I thought we’d seen the last of him.’
‘You were wrong. He is back, and wants to destroy me.’
‘Destroy you? Why?’
‘I took his place in your family.’ Alex turned away from them, smiling. ‘I became what he never could – your surrogate son. He is raging with anger, sick with perversion. Surely you read that book he wrote, the one Neville died for?’
‘No,’ Ruby uttered, stepping closer to Alex. ‘But, they’re saying you are like Neville, a follower of that book, part of The Great Collective.’
‘That book is inconsequential – the ravings of a sick mind. I follow my own path, and want to spread only the truth.’
‘Which is?’ asked a confused Ruby, stepping yet closer to her son-in-law.
‘That there has been too much hurt in the world,’ he said quietly, turning to face his mother-in-law. ‘I was framed and put inside by the hatred of Peter Smith and his suicidal followers. His book is poison, Ruby, poison.’
‘You used to call me Mrs Edwards all the time.’
Alex moved in, arms outstretched, and hugged her. She embraced him. ‘I never had a family of my own. I’d call you Mother, if I could,’ he went on. Arthur stood up and rushed to the pair, joining in with the hugging. ‘Father,’ Alex whispered in his ear.
‘Katie has been so distant from us for so long,’ Ruby wept, her tears soaking into Alex’s t-shirt. ‘All we ever wanted was a loving child.’
‘I love you, Mum,’ Alex told her.
From then on, she was completely his.
* * *
See the sun shine, guzzle my wine.
Have a quick smoke, chewing on dope.
I can see now, clearly as night.
Opened my mind, to confusion.
Lost in big smoke, clearly confused.
Shattered image, built on misuse.
With this tight rope, wrapped round my throat.
Opened my mind, end of the line.
PETER’S ODYSSEY
Being alive does have its merits. Somebody who’s been dead as many times as I have is able to say that with some conviction. In fact, everything I say is said with conviction. I’ve said a lot of things in my lives – some of it memorable and worthy of merit, some of it not so – and yet eventually not one single word will be remembered. Even in this current flux of apparent immortality, I will fade eventually and be gone for good with nothing to show for it. Already, there’s nothing to show for it. I lost Noose to the cops again at the first hurdle, and Lucy remains dead. Yes, I keep coming back don’t I! That tiresome recycling of this irksome body and life. Still, as I said, life does have its merits. One of those seemingly very few merits is the ability to experience happiness, even if it is fleeting. I can honestly say I have experienced brief passages of happiness. Very brief, but certain. The beauty of a woman, the scent of a flower; there is some pleasure in life. That chance, hope, of continued happiness is the ultimate goal. Now that I am returned to this previously perplexingly perverse period in my existence, I want to make a go of it. I am ready, complete – desiring the base and most important of human experience: pleasure. To clear Noose, find Lucy’s murderer and stop Reaping Icon would solve all that which currently holds me back. Then, I could move on with Lauren and live out a somewhat average life. Average may seem an awkward, arrogant affront to what I could have – endless life after life and ultimate power at the helm of The Space – but once you have tasted that, you don’t want to again. Trust me, the human mind is just too underdeveloped and backwards to be able to cope with such might. I want for normality, and I would hope to get it.
* * *
‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ were the words Norman Trout managed to force through his bloodied lips. His face, coarse with age and general lack of attendance, hid just in the shadow cast by his desk lamp. Hunched next to him, I wiped the blood and snot from my own nose. We’d had quite a game of fisticuffs. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’
‘Well somebody did it.’
‘Yeah, Noose fucking did it,’ Trout sighed, as though saddened by the apparent revelation of Noose’s criminality. He crossed his head, moving it into the light. He looked desperate somehow – desperate for something I knew not. I too was desperate, and he was my reflection. I looked deep into his very being, looking for the truth. All that lay there was grey smoothness. His bent fingers grabbed at a notebook on his desk. ‘I’m writing a book,’ he said, smiling. ‘You wrote a book, didn’t you?’
‘Apparently,’ I responded, unsure. I certainly knew Peter Smith had written a book, but was that this Peter Smith – the man I was right now?
‘I read it, I’m in it.’
‘What are you after, a cut of the royalties?’
His tired eyes slid up and down as they took in my face and body with mild, quelled, annoyance. ‘You come into my house, my home, pick a fight with me and accuse me of stitching that twat Noose up.’ He took a deep breath, opening the notebook in his hands. ‘My book is also about my life, tweaked in places like your book.’
‘Tweaked in your favour.’ I felt sure the book I’d been credited with wasn’t in my favour. Trout just smiled.
‘Hello,’ he began, reading the first page of his book. ‘My name is Norman Trout. I am dead.’ He looked up from the book, squaring his eyes at mine. ‘Metaphorically speaking.’ I edged forward to try and read his book for myself. He closed it and placed it back on the desk, his hand resting on top of it. ‘Because, the dead cannot actually communicate. Can they? And, your own brother as your prosecutor? Why do you feel he’s prosecuting you?’
I stood up and stepped back. ‘Okay, you didn’t set Noose up. Someone did, I must continue my search.’
‘You and that bastard destroyed me,’ he yelled, grabbing hold of his book and throwing it on the floor.
‘You destroyed yourself, Trout,’ I calmly replied as I walked away. ‘You broke the law.’
‘Oh whoop-de-doo,’ he screeched, getting to his feet and waving his arms in the air as I stopped in the doorway and turned back, wondering if I owed him anything. ‘Call the fucking cops, why don’t we? Naughty boy Norman!’ He slapped his own wrist and eyed me with apparent scorn. But, there was something a little too theatrical about it. I just couldn’t accept any emotional depth from this man. ‘I’m just a minor, throwaway character to you, aren’t I?’ he carried on, ‘Not even a supporting role – just a stock providing a means to an end.’ He laughed. ‘What’s this now, eh? Is this my two page cameo in your new book? Resurrect old Norm
an Trout for a laugh? Well let me tell you, dick head; you’re the biggest waste of a reader’s time there ever was.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Is that so?!’ he mocked, affecting a girlish voice. ‘It’s all in your head – you were never dead.’
I turned away and left him.
* * *
If this was the space to resurrect one-time characters from my life, then the next cameo was to be Simon Berre. The man who had, several years prior, chained me up in his office and had me beaten to within an inch of my life for meddling in his affairs had fallen on similarly hard times to Trout. He was another waste product of the justice meted out by Noose and myself – the list was potentially endless – and another possible culprit for stitching Noose up. He was not a hard man to find, having managed to somehow rebuild his construction company after we’d destroyed it. However, unlike back in the day when his rich wife had poured her dead daddy’s funds into it at Simon’s whim, it was now nothing more than an estate car and half a backyard. Having had a good look around said backyard, I found myself face to face with an emaciated, grey-bearded man. Stinking of booze and fags, he coughed and asked what I wanted.
‘I am Peter Smith,’ I told him, stepping into the light. He studied my face, puzzled.
‘Am I supposed to know you?’
For a moment I actually questioned myself, wondering if it was the same man. No, this most certainly was Simon Berre. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ He looked again, then turned away with a cough. ‘Your daughter Michelle, the murders, all those years ago – I helped Inspector Noose solve the case.’
He turned back, slow and unsteady. ‘Noose?’ he again questioned, seemingly full of confusion. ‘Michelle is dead,’ he said coldly. ‘She fell out of a hotel window.’ He rubbed his beard. ‘What do you want? After a news story?’
‘I came here because Noose has been framed for murders he did not commit.’
‘Like Michelle tried to frame me?’
He seemed so distant, so lost and equally carefree. His family were gone, his business was all but gone – his brain was gone. ‘Do you know anything about it?’ I asked him half-heartedly, realising he probably knew little about anything. He was just another scar Noose and I had left behind.
* * *
As I stepped out of Berre’s yard and onto the pavement, a figure ahead dashed behind a wall. I played dumb, walking forwards, pretending I hadn’t seen them. Suddenly, as I passed, I spun around and dashed behind the wall myself. There, awaiting me, was a rather tubby timid-looking man who must have been in his late twenties. He was crouching on the ground with his back to me with his balding head provoking me to slap it as I zoned in on its lack of complexity. But, I resisted, instead hauling him to his feet and spinning him around to face me.
‘Oh God,’ he whined, his eyes scrunched shut. ‘You’re gonna beat me up now, aren’t you?’
‘That depends,’ I replied, a flash a pleasure at his squirming replaced by shame. I let him go and he opened one eye to peek at me. ‘Who are you, and why are you following me?’
‘I am Justin Bates BSc.,’ was his jovial response as he outstretched a hand towards mine, all his fear seemingly vanished. I shook it. ‘I’m on the case of who framed Inspector Noose.’
‘I see. Why?’
‘Because he’s innocent.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because he wouldn’t have done those horrible things.’ He clasped hold of the tight collar of his pink shirt and pulled at it. ‘He’s a good man.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘If nothing else, percentages – there have been a number of crooked cops in Myrtleville, that makes Noose more likely to be good than bad. Probability. Science dictates it.’ He straightened his back. ‘I have a degree… in science.’
‘He could be bad by proxy,’ I pointed out. Sickness can so easily spread, after all.
‘Well, I have scientific evidence to prove that Noose definitely didn’t do it.’
‘Well why haven’t you been to the police with it, and why are you following me?’
‘The police never believe me, but you might.’
‘Go on,’ I said with some skepticism. Indeed, this man himself could have been the killer.
He fumbled in his trouser pocket and brought out a smartphone, holding it close to his face as he squinted at the screen with his fingers thrashing at it. ‘I too suspected Barbara Davies as the perpetrator of the crimes, and was tracking her moves.’
‘So you saw who strapped her up and killed her?’ I queried with growing interest.
‘Not exactly. I saw somebody exiting the house from the front a few minutes before you and Inspector Noose entered from the back.’
‘Who?’
‘Well I was hiding some distance away, behind a neighbour’s hedge. I didn’t get a close look.’
‘Was it a man, a woman? Was it you?’
‘Me? Don’t be ridiculous. It was a man, but he was wearing a hood.’
‘It’s a start, I suppose,’ I sighed.
‘Well if you let me finish I will tell you my actual piece of evidence,’ he shot back, waving the phone in my face and grinning proudly.
‘Which is?’
‘A connectivity signal for the person’s phone – the one they used to wirelessly trigger the device which killed Barbara.’
‘What? How?’
‘Well, in layman’s terms,’ he smirked, ‘clearly he had the same top of the range brand phone as me, which can all link together with their own local area network. I saw him get the phone out as he walked off into the distance, and when I went on my phone’s local device connection option, it was asking if I wanted to pair up with his device.’ He turned the phone’s screen to show me. On it read “crocbrenspear”. ‘We all have our own unique username.’ For a moment I was puzzled, pondering over any clues this could actually give us. The Space was silent – I was treading on Noose’s own toes with this one – there was no guide for me. Was I instead destined, and not Noose himself, to be the person to bring to justice the one who framed him? ‘You’re not thinking of taking the glory away from me, are you?’ asked Justin. He snatched me from my near daydream as I re-focused my vision on him and caught a displeased look on his face. ‘I can see the cogs working,’ he carried on, ‘like me you’ve worked out exactly who it is, and now you’re going to toss me aside to go it alone from here.’
‘You’ve worked out who it is?’
‘Yes, it’s quite easy. You mean to say you haven’t?’ he gloated arrogantly. He had the sort of smooth chubby face you could repeatedly punch if you didn’t know any better. Sadly, I knew better. ‘Inspector Noose brought his family up in Myrtleville, right?’
‘Yes, what of it?’
‘In Wales – crocbren is Welsh for gallows… noose.’
‘Yes. And spear?’ The answer came to me as I asked – an answer so horrible I just wanted to block it from reality. In some ways it was almost better that Noose had committed the murders all along. Gary meant spear.
* * *
I was not in want of the glory of capture. Nor was Justin. He presented the evidence to Nicola Williams, happy not to mention my name – as I’d requested – and she sent the armed squad around to arrest Noose’s son. They say the surprise arrest gave his mother the fatal heart attack that sent her on her way, but in all honesty her heart must have split in two when the truth suddenly dawned on her. Besides, she had so suffered with her increasingly crippling condition. Gary Noose tried desperately to get to his mother as she slumped out of her wheelchair and came crashing to the floor in a limp mess, but the cops wouldn’t allow it. He was a dangerous killer after all.
* * *
He was brought through the police station reception, where Justin tells me he came face to face with his father – the man he’d framed. Noose still just wanted to embrace his son, unable to accept the truth. Gary uttered not a single word, and nor has his father. I know that Noose now feels r
esponsible for the murders, just as if he’d committed them himself. That his past actions towards his family could have driven his own son to do such heinous things would be something he could never recover from. As I attempt to start my own new life, I feel that Noose’s is over. He may live for many more years, but the heavy shadow of these events will weigh heavy for the rest of them.
* * *
ONE MONTH LATER
‘Hello Mother,’ I uttered confidently as she opened the door. I couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking as she squinted away the sunshine behind me – her face was too old and loose to give much away. She hobbled aside and I stepped into my home.
‘And where have you been?’ she asked me in a thin voice – as thin as her wiry white hair.
‘Away… I’ve been away, Mother.’ I wanted to embrace her, but that wasn’t the way of our family. We kept our stilted distance, moving from the hallway into the living room and sitting down. The news was on the TV. Alex, the revolutionary new political figure, spoke of “change”. Mother changed the sound to mute. My reappearance in her life must have been important. She did not offer me a drink. I suppose this was my home, she didn’t need to offer me one. But, I felt I couldn’t just help myself here anymore. This wasn’t my home – I no longer felt a part of this place. I’d never felt a part of this place, if truth be told. I’d always felt like I’d crash-landed here from somewhere else – somewhere I’d never quite known, and never be able to return to. I now knew I belonged nowhere. Nobody belonged anywhere. We were all just a swathe of elements haphazardly tossed together for utter amusement – and yet, amusement for whom? Nobody was laughing. Mother most certainly wasn’t laughing as she looked across at me. Slowly, but steadily, I caught a possible emotion somewhere across her face. Disappointment.
‘You could have picked up the phone and called me. Leaving me alone for all these years,’ she said sternly.
‘Alone? What about Stuart?’