The Absent Man: A Bermuda Jones Case File (The Bermuda Jones Case Files Book 2)

by Robert Enright

  Not human.

  Pushing the fear of the Otherside and an impending traffic collision from his mind, Bermuda continued pedalling, the wailing of the sirens behind him causing him to increase his efforts. After the last few run-ins with Glasgow’s finest, he was sure they wouldn’t go easy on him.

  Strachan would see to that.

  He whipped in and out of darkness, the streetlights passing at an increased rate as he flew up the street, the police car right on his tail. Kevin Parker turned at the next left. The hill would lead him back into town, towards a beehive of activity that would swallow him up. Bermuda instinctively turned left as well one street earlier, the wheels wobbling as he somehow maintained his balance and swerved, missing the car that emergency stopped.

  The police car didn’t.

  The collision was shockingly loud, the shattering of glass and the slow death of the siren the last thing Bermuda heard as he eased up on the pedals and let the hill do the work. As the city centre rushed to meet him, he peered to the right and saw Kevin Parker heading towards the orange signage of the subway.

  Bermuda turned sharply, hammering through the main square towards the steps that led down to the station. Weaving between a young family, Bermuda collided into Kevin Parker at the top of the stairs, the impact sending the bike crashing down them to the underground as the two of them hit the hard concrete. A few passers-by gasped in shock as Bermuda did his best to ignore the pain of the crash and restrain Kevin.

  Thrashing wildly, Bermuda and Kevin Parker came face to face and, in the bright streetlight that hung above, Bermuda could see he wasn’t human. His eyes were jet-black, the colour of death, and his mouth had distorted into a heinous snarl. The veins in his neck were straining against the skin, ripples of movement beneath his muscles that looked like he was infested with insects.

  The Otherside trying to get out.

  Kevin growled furiously and snapped backwards, sending Bermuda crashing to the pavement. With remarkable speed he spun around and stood, reaching down and grabbing Bermuda by the neck, his fingers pressing into his throat and slowly crushing his larynx. The crowd gasped and stepped back, and a sea of phones were revealed – some for the emergency services, most for the social media opportunity.

  Somewhere behind them, Bermuda could hear the joyful chiming of the tram’s bell.

  Kevin Parker held Bermuda in front of his face, his black eyes boring into him, reminding Bermuda of Barnaby.

  Reminding him of evil.

  ‘I must have her.’ Parker’s words were soft, betraying the vicious, contorted scowl that rested upon his face. ‘Don’t try to stop me.’

  And with that, he hurled Bermuda upwards. The bright lights of the city seemed to whip past Bermuda as gravity reached its reliable hand up and welcomed him to the hard concrete below. The wind raced out of his lungs on impact and the back of his skull hit stone, sending his vision and mind in different directions.

  The crowd began screaming in terror as Bermuda slowly pushed himself to a seated position, something loud ringing in his ears.

  A bright light shone in his eyes.

  It took Bermuda a split second to realise that he wasn’t being welcomed into heaven.

  He was sat on the tram tracks that sliced their way through the town centre.

  A few feet away, the tram hurtled towards him, blasting its shrill horn as the driver did his best to slam on the brakes.

  The on-looking crowd screamed as it failed to stop.

  Raindrops welcomed Argyle back to consciousness, the water splattering his face as his grey eyes blinked themselves open. He gently rolled onto his front, the feeling of his body returning to him. The back of his head throbbed, the sure sign of an assault that he didn’t expect.

  Couldn’t sense.

  Perplexed by his hidden assailant, he pressed his big hands into the sloppy mud beneath him and pushed himself to his knees. The wind whistled past, the force shaking the sword that clung to his spine. With a gentle wobble he pulled himself to his feet, resting a hand on a monument to the dead for support.

  What had attacked him?

  Where was Bermuda?

  He had a vague recollection of his partner being next to him, a bizarre request to ‘find him’.

  Where?

  Argyle slowly scanned his surroundings, trying his best to align his thoughts that had been shattered like a windowpane by his attacker.

  Suddenly, the night sky was awash with flashing blue lights and sirens. He turned his head to the roads at the base of the hill, watching as one of the police cars burst into life and moved towards the street. Narrowing his eyes, he watched as small figure boarded a two-wheeled vehicle and then uncomfortably began to steer it.

  Bermuda.

  Without hesitation Argyle set off, whipping in and out of the tombstones and respectfully refusing to step on the graves of those long gone.

  There was honour in death.

  Honour he would always respect.

  As he got nearer the bottom of the hill, Argyle used the elements to his advantage, leaning his body weight into the decline and sliding down the gradient. Nearing the bottom, he pushed off with his powerful legs, soaring through the air and clearing the fence to the Necropolis in one mighty bound.

  He landed down on one knee, his hands pressed on the concrete before he burst forward like an Olympic sprinter, racing through the centre of the road.

  He overtook a car, its inhabitants unaware of the armoured warrior passing.

  A mighty crash could be heard up ahead and he could see the police car had collided with another earth-destroying machine, the occupant showing little respect for the uniform that the officer wore. Argyle questioned if it was all humans who disrespected nobility and a uniform, not just Bermuda.

  With his mind refocused, Argyle approached the arguing policeman and his aggrieved civilian, smoke filtering between them from the crumpled bonnet of the modest vehicle. Argyle whipped past them, leaping and sliding across the roof of the police car and maintaining his speed out the other end.

  As he approached the bottom of the hill, Argyle heard the crash of a bike, the screams of people that began to huddle around the entrance to Queen Street Station. As he neared, he saw Bermuda fly through the air, colliding with the concrete with a vicious thud.

  A tram rushed past Argyle, catching him by surprise, the shrill ringing of its bells breaking Argyle’s concentration. He shook the noise away and followed the tram’s trajectory.

  The metal tracks.

  The prone body of Bermuda that lay across them thirty feet away.

  In an instant, Argyle raised his right arm, the spike of the Retriever shooting off, followed by the unbreakable chain that clung to it. It weaved beyond the civilians and ripped into the metal panel of the driver’s carriage. Instantly, Argyle reversed the retrieval, launching himself forward towards the spike and the front of the vehicle.

  Bermuda woozily pushed himself up.

  The tram hurtled towards him.

  Cutting through the rain, Argyle caught up to the front of the unstoppable vehicle and reversed the retrieval again. As more chain shot out he pushed himself away from the tram with one foot, he swung around the front of the tram and reached for Bermuda.

  Everyone gasped.

  Argyle hauled him out of the tram’s way a split second from death.

  As the two partners rolled across the concrete, the world witnessed only Bermuda sprawled in the rain.

  Unable to remove the Retriever in time, Argyle felt the chain tightened followed by the wrenching of his right arm, dislodging itself from its socket.

  The tram wobbled, the sudden jolt freeing it from its set tracks and causing the driver’s carriage to jack-knife slightly, shooting into the wet, Christmassy air in a burst of sparks like a pyrotechnic show. The rest of the tram followed, with the civilians screaming and running in a wild panic as the entire tram flipped onto its side, its occupants rattling inside as the metal slid to a stop on the wet concr
ete.

  The power lines above were wrenched downwards, cables snapping and electric wires flickering with imminent danger.

  After a few moments the entire square was quiet, the public gathering around as the emergency services rushed onto the scene, a few police officers pushing the public back as a few people rushed to the upturned carts of the tram to help those inside.

  The city of Glasgow was in chaos.

  Bermuda sat up, his head, jaw, and spine all competing for his attention. With a grimace, he turned and looked at the carnage. The backlash from Strachan would be like hellfire.

  From Montgomery Black, brimstone.

  With a deep sigh, he reached up to the outstretched left hand of his friend and saviour, the right arm hanging loosely from the armour. Argyle helped him to his feet, and the two nodded to each other through the rain.

  Bermuda watched as his partner scanned the destruction with horror.

  ‘Bet you a fiver that Monty is gonna be pissed.’

  Before Argyle could respond, a police officer roughly wrenched Bermuda towards a police car and to what would inevitably be one hell of an arse-kicking.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The hum of the halogen bulb gnawed into the back of Bermuda’s skull like a woodpecker, adding to the throbbing pain from his collision with concrete. He sat at the empty metal table with a cold bag of peas pressed against his head and the glaring eyes of Detective McAllister burning through him.

  For all its noise, the bulb was doing a poor job of illuminating the room, the corners draped in curtain-like shadows. Beyond the door to the room, the walls were blank besides the ‘mirror’ that sat adjacent to where they sat. Bermuda was pretty sure that Nicola Strachan was pressed against the other side, salivating at the idea of ending Bermuda’s career.

  After Argyle had saved his life, two police officers had roughly pulled him away from the crash scene, slapping the metal cuffs roughly around his wrists and then manhandling him into the back of a car. The tram carriages had zig-zagged across the street, sprawled randomly like a child’s playset. The passengers had been helped out, some of them requiring medical attention.

  From what Bermuda had heard, there were no deaths, which he took as a tick in the win column. The resulting damage to public property and general panic were not. As he sat dabbing at his skull, he felt the pain dance along his jawbone from the crushing blow that Kevin Parker had delivered, the quickly appearing bruise at the base of his spine the proof of the wall that had caught him.

  He could already feel his body healing itself.

  The Otherside taking over.

  Shuddering to himself, he slowly turned on his seat and faced McAllister, her glare tightening around him like a boa constrictor.

  ‘Do you have any idea how irritating you are?’ Her words were firm, laced with menace.

  ‘I have a fairly good idea, yeah.’

  His response only enticed a larger snarl.

  ‘Look, we have some bastard out there killing innocent women. We had another call come in last night and—’

  ‘Whoa, wait. Last night?’ Bermuda interrupted, slamming the ice pack on the table and realising his hands were no longer cuffed.

  ‘Yes. Last night. Her name was Rosie Seeley.’ McAllister’s voice softened with sadness at the name.

  ‘How long was I out for?’

  ‘You sustained quite a blow to the back of the skull. You lost consciousness in the back of the car and have been asleep for over sixteen hours. It’s now two p.m. Tuesday.’

  ‘Fuck.’ Bermuda sighed, slumping back in his chair.

  ‘What were you doing at the Necropolis?’ McAllister’s voice was firm and authoritative, as if this was any other interview.

  ‘Jesus Christ, you’re not going to read me the riot act again, are you?’ Bermuda shuffled slightly, but she just stared at him. ‘I was doing my goddamn job.’

  ‘Your job?’ Her tone was mocking. She shifted the paper in front of her, Bermuda realising he hadn’t noticed it beforehand. ‘Your job is to, and I’m only reading what has been provided by eye witnesses, assault cyclists and steal their bikes, ignore a direct order to pull over, cause a traffic collision by dangerous driving, cause widespread panic with erratic driving, and then, of all things, and we still don’t know how, derail a tram?’

  McAllister raised her eyes to Bermuda, a smug look on her face.

  ‘Have I missed anything else?’

  ‘You forgot to mention shit in bed,’ Bermuda joked, smirking. The glare he got in return told him it wasn’t appreciated.

  ‘Look, Jones. I’m not going to refer to you as an agent because I don’t think you are one. But we have real police work to do. I don’t have the time or the resource to chase after you. Now somehow, your little phone call you made when you got here has got you off all charges and we have to release you. I don’t like it. Strachan, she is fucking furious about it. But can you do me a favour? Just stay the fuck out of this?’

  Bermuda shook his head, the small prick of pain slowly evaporating like a single line of smoke from a candle.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ he uttered quietly.

  ‘I’m asking you nicely. We have a killer who is targeting women at random and butchering them. We have no leads. A few witnesses have stated they saw the victim and this gentleman every evening of the murders. Although we have CCTV footage, we are unable to match it to anyone on our databases. We have no information, no name, no prints, no nothing. And the last thing I need is you destroying the public transport system, understand?’

  ‘Am I free to go?’ Bermuda asked, ignoring her question.

  With a heavy sigh laced with hatred, McAllister nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Bermuda pushed himself up slowly, feeling every single one of his vertebrae click together like snapping pieces of Lego. ‘Oh, and by the way, I found a print.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ McAllister snapped, pushing her metal chair back, causing the legs to shriek against the hard floor.

  ‘It’s true. I’ll get it sent over from the lab when we’ve done our analysis.’ Bermuda walked towards the door, stopping before he gripped the handle. ‘Oh and another thing: it may be worth widening your database. Despite what your little report says, I spoke face to face with the man responsible for this, and I’ll tell you right now, he isn’t from here.’

  ‘Glasgow?’ McAllister queried, her hand scrawling notes on the paper that fanned out over the desk.

  ‘No. Our time. Wherever he is from, he’s a long way from home.’ Bermuda frowned, reliving the troubling words Kevin Parker spoke. ‘He’s looking for someone and he’s done it before. Back in the eighties.’

  ‘The eighties?’

  ‘Yeah. Have someone go through your archives and pull up any murders from those times. There was a small burst of them where the victims were found heartless.’

  McAllister noted it down again but then stopped. She turned a sceptical eye towards Bermuda as he flung open the door.

  ‘How the hell do you know this, anyway?’ she asked, her accent thick with annoyance.

  ‘Like I said, I’m just doing my job.’

  Bermuda flashed a handsome grin before turning towards the one-way glass that adorned the wall. With great relish, he raised a middle finger, the thought of Strachan going redder than a tomato with fury filling him with joy. He stepped out into the corridor of the police station, the outside chill inviting itself in. He walked past a few police officers who grunted in his direction, undoubtedly wanting to rub the smile that he wore off his face.

  He wore it all the way to the front door before pushing them both open and stepping out into the freezing cold winter’s day.

  Back in the interview room, McAllister gathered her notes and stormed back towards her desk, her anger outweighing her confusion. A few officers nodded their respect towards her as she marched through the open office, a few of her colleagues were glued to their desks, phones to their ears as they worked their cases.

 
; McAllister reached her desk and dumped the folder on top of the rest. Each folder encased details of the departed, the unfortunate women who had lost their hearts.

  Literally.

  She sat down in the uncomfortable chair and rummaged through the messy drawers that sat next to her desk. It had been four years since she had passed her detective’s exam; the certificates were pinned to the wall before her, surrounded by cheap plastic frames. It was all she had ever wanted to be from a young age – to be able to help people and solve cases.

  Make the world a safer place.

  The stack of files next to her made a mockery of that. Three women dead in three evenings. All three with their hearts removed, all three hearts delivered to the Necropolis. Not only that, some annoying agent from some secret organisation had been assigned to the case and was really getting under her skin.

  She regretted sleeping with him.

  It only added to the annoyance which made her head pound.

  Under some paperwork pertaining to a driving offence she would never get round to investigating, she found some paracetamol. The previous evening’s hangover had wrapped its fingers around her skull and was slowly squeezing her brain like it was trying to make fresh orange juice.

  She popped the pills into mouth and sent them sloshing down her throat with a gulp of water.

  She really should stop drinking.

  Get things back on track.

  Her heart spasmed in her chest and her green eyes fell upon the picture on her desk. The handsome smile belonged to David, his powerful arms wrapped around her in a photo that captured a pleasant, love-filled memory.

  A memory long since passed.

  Her heart had taken control of her body and her hand reached for the phone on her desk, her ears longing to hear his voice. She just needed to hear it once more.

  Her head took control, and she slammed the phone back down.

  Angrily, she turned the photo of her husband down onto the desk with such force that it sent a crack through the glass between them.

  Just like everything else had.