Dead of Light

by Chaz Brenchley

  Her face expressed her distaste, but she told me. “He said he needed to study the remains from last night’s activity.”

  ‘The remains’ meant Steve, of course, if there was anything left of him. “Uh, do you know where...?”

  “The mortuary, I should imagine. Unless they took him to his home.”

  No, they wouldn’t have done that. Not this time. The mortuary got the decision, except that I didn’t know where the mortuary was. All those years of living here, and I didn’t know where the dead went; nor would most of my friends, I realised, ripping through a mental list of people I could ask. Christ, I might have to come down to a policeman...

  “Okay, thanks, Aunt Jess.” No good asking her, at any rate. “Can I just nip up to his study to leave him a message?”

  “I will tell him that you called, Benedict,” her acid voice saying also, Woman I may be, and not in my prime form now, but you can trust me that far, boy.

  “Yeah, but it’s a little more complicated than that...”

  “Oh, very well, then.” She pulled the door more widely open and stepped aside; and I did run up the stairs, even though I knew now that he wasn’t there to greet me.

  o0o

  Never been in his study alone before, never been trusted enough; and quite right too. There was too much here to play with, too much to touch and most of it fragile or dangerous or both.

  My hands strayed aimlessly, reaching for everything, touching nothing until at last I picked up that sheep’s skull from his desk. Hazel had killed it, he had saved it; it was knowledge, I supposed, or evidence at least. And his favourite kind at that. All its secrets were family.

  I ran my finger over the dark lines of the web that marked it, felt how they were scored into the bone, and remembered Steve last night. How his skull too had borne its marks, after his hair and skin had sloughed away: though that was more intricate than this, no simple web. And then my reluctant mind reminded me that there was another body still that must bear a similar brand, unless his family had chosen to finish what I’d started, and had burned what was left of my policeman.

  Sick at heart, I dropped the skull back on Allan’s desk. My questing hands moved on, seeking comfort; they settled on what I’d always loved the best, the cool smooth tubes of his old brass microscope...

  Ah, shit. I had no time for this, for reaching back to childhood in search of a dream of better times. I jerked myself away, and quickly did what I’d come up here for; I left my uncle a message he couldn’t miss, to say that I’d been here in search of him.

  Then I picked up his phone and dialled, still moving fast, before my nerve could fail me.

  One ring, two rings and she answered.

  “Hullo?”

  “Laura, it’s Ben.” And quickly on, in case she still wasn’t talking to me. “Where’s the mortuary?”

  “What?”

  “The town mortuary. Where is it?” If anyone knew, she must. She was a medic, after all.

  “At the hospital, of course. What do you need to know that for?”

  “Sorry, I’m in a rush. I’ll explain later. Thanks...”

  And I hung up on her. First time for everything, I guess.

  o0o

  Down the stairs again, to where my aunt still waited for me in the hall. I put my hands on her stiff shoulders and kissed her cheek, managed a faint smile at her startlement and said goodbye.

  Out of the house and onto the bike, and away I raced, down into town under a sky that was suddenly and unfairly clotting up, threatening rain.

  o0o

  The hospital sprawled over many acres, and I didn’t know my way anywhere, except to Casualty and the private rooms. Took me ten minutes to find the mortuary, and the porter I ran into at the door — literally ran into, spinning round a corner to collide with the poor bastard, almost knocking us both to the floor — said that no, not Allan Macallan nor any other living visitor was there. Nor had been there, since he came on duty.

  Which left me stranded, desperate and clueless, no chance of finding my uncle now.

  Nineteen: Desperately Seeking Safety

  Desperate times drive you to desperate measures. Me, I was frantic enough to drive around town spotting this year’s Volvos. There were dozens of them, and they were all dark blue, or seemed so; and of course I didn’t know Allan’s registration number, or anything useful like that.

  Volvos on the move were easy to discount, just one glance at the driver and forget it, that wasn’t Allan.

  Parked cars took more work. Each one I came across I pulled alongside and peered in, trying to spot clues. A child seat in the back meant the wrong car, for sure. So did a jacket in an ugly dog’s-tooth check, hanging from a hook behind the door. Aunt Jess bought Allan’s clothes for him, and she would never have been guilty of that.

  A copy of Cosmo on the passenger seat and a mess of peppermints and used tissues on the dashboard: wrong car.

  Another car, another magazine; this time I had to bump the bike up onto the pavement and squint. The International Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicines — not likely, but possible. Uncle Allan pursued knowledge as a dog rabbits, and the more arcane the better. On the dash, though, was a fat thriller, and there was a Krooklok on the wheel. Case thrown out of court, on two counts.

  Allan used to pay Jamie and me to clean his car for him, every Sunday until he caught us with our heads under the bonnet, fiddling with the leads, trying to hotwire the beast. These days he’d have some other young hopefuls on the payroll; dirty cars could be discounted.

  There were still a few, however, that were neutral inside and out, telling me nothing, saying neither yea nor nay. But Volvo owners are careful souls; a foot stretched out from bike to bumper, a little pressure applied, and it was safe money that an ululating alarm would bite through my bootsole and thrill up my tibia, fouling the air for a couple of hundred metres in all directions but down.

  As soon as it did, I was away and looking for the next. Volvo owners might be careful souls in general, but my Uncle Allan one in particular; but not in this. I doubted if he’d ever set an alarm in his life, he wouldn’t see the point...

  o0o

  But alarmed or otherwise, if he was anywhere in town I couldn’t find him, neither the man nor his wheels. Allan travelled far more than most Macallans, in pursuit of his researches. Some stray idea might have taken him fifty or a hundred miles away, distances undreamed of in the narrow philosophies of my less far-seeking family. Coincidence can’t be forced, and it was only ever coincidence would have produced his car for me, just when I wanted him the most.

  So I abandoned the search, reluctant despite its futility. At least it had given me something to do, it had kept me moving. Movement promised progress, its natural illusion; and the constant supply of cars of the right age, right make, right colour had dangled hope before me, vividly carotene, keeping me frantic but just the right side of despair. I could think of nothing more productive. Without Allan, I thought, I was lost, we were all lost.

  Without Allan, I had nothing to do but hide in the oncoming night. The sky was darkening already, tinting toward Volvo-blue to the east of here. I felt my time slipping from me, the day all run to waste. As the world turned, we turned with it; wannabe hunter turned to hunted, definitely and unquestionably hunted, and I was desperate suddenly for cover.

  Couldn’t hang out at home, couldn’t do what I so hoped Laura and Carol were doing, barring their doors and pulling their curtains and burrowing deep beneath their duvets. Walls and doors were no defence for me, this Englishman’s home was no kind of castle. If I’d not been a target before, I surely was now; and anyone looking for me would of course look there first, in case I hadn’t twigged it yet.

  I wouldn’t even have thought of going home, except that I didn’t live alone, and anyone found at the flat would be in as much peril as me. Questions would be asked, and answers sought by any cruel or unusual means available. So I spun the bike around and raced the failing
light away from the centre of town, up the long hill with all the speed I could squeeze from the throttle and thank God for my sister’s machismo, this powerful machine a needful substitute for her inherent weakness.

  When I reached the flat I found lights burning, music playing and Jacko fooling around in the kitchen with Jonathan. To be specific, I found Jon at the back end of a fit of giggles, sagging against the wall and trying weakly to buckle his belt and tuck his T-shirt in while Jacko bent unconvincingly over a steaming pot on the stove.

  Took both of them a second to remember that things had changed, that they were frightened of me now. Then Jon sobered abruptly, one last gasp for air and even his smile died. He straightened up, sorted his clothes out with quick movements, looked to Jacko for guidance.

  “Ben, hi. Er, have you got time to eat?” Jacko offered with a gesture towards the busy cooker, while his voice pleaded for me to say no.

  “No,” I said, ever the cooperative flatmate. “And neither have you.”

  “Unh?”

  “I’m sorry, you’ve got to get out of here. Can you go to Jon’s place?”

  A mute shake of the head from Jonathan said not.

  “Well, friends, then. Take a couple of sleeping-bags, you can borrow mine, and go crash on someone’s floor tonight.”

  “Ben, what the hell for?”

  “It’s getting dark out there. Dark is dangerous, right? Remember? Somebody’s after me; and they’ll take you too if they find you here, just in case you can lead them to me.”

  Jacko looked at me, looked at Jon; said, “Get your jacket, hon. We’re gone.”

  I turned the gas off under their abandoned dinner and followed them out into the narrow hallway, where Jacko was ignoring my suggestion of sleeping-bags and organising the evacuation of his instruments instead.

  “If you can manage the bodhrán and the flute, Jon, I’ve got the rest.”

  “Jacko, man!” I said, almost laughing, almost. “For Christ’s sake...”

  He just looked at me and said, “Can you guarantee, absolutely guarantee that if I leave these behind, nothing at all is going to happen to them?”

  I started to say yes, of course I could, it was me that was the target here, not a one-man ceilidh band; and stopped before the first word was halfway up my throat. Thought about major talent confronted by a locked door that no one was going to answer, and did the other thing instead, said no.

  Said, “No, I suppose I can’t.”

  “Right.” And then, just a little belatedly, all his priorities exposed, he said, “What about you, what are you doing? Are you going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “You could, uh,” Jon started, hesitated, waited for Jacko’s support and then carried on regardless, “you could come with us. We’re going over to a mate’s, I don’t suppose anyone’d look for you there...”

  Too scared to want me along, he was too warm-hearted not to make the offer. I found a real smile for him, along with the shake of the head that he was looking for. “No. Thanks, I mean really thanks, but no. I don’t know what he’s got, the guy who’s after me. Wherever I hole up, he might still be able to sniff me out.” I couldn’t bring that down on my friends.

  “What, then?” Jacko demanded, working the door open with his elbow, his arms full of latent music. “Got any plans?”

  “Not really. Maybe I’ll just get on the bike and drive, get right out of town...”

  “Good. Sounds good. Luck, Ben...”

  “Thanks.” I was going to need it, whatever I did. “Now go. Go on, scoot.”

  And they did that, they scooted. They all but ran up the road to the bus-stop, encumbered as they were; I locked the door, realised I’d left all the lights on and decided against all policy to leave them, a misleading beacon in the twilight.

  o0o

  Back on the bike again; much more of this and I’d be getting saddle-sores.

  Which would either be the last or the least of my worries, depending.

  What I’d said about driving all night had only been spur-of-the-moment, Jacko’s payback for showing concern; at the time I hadn’t meant it. Wasn’t such a bad idea, though. Driving in circles all night would only attract attention, but there was a whole nother country out there beyond the city limits, and it was user-friendly to me in a way that my own home town was not tonight, pretty much a magic-free zone...

  As a self-rescue plan, that sounded pretty good to me. Though it did of course depend on the one assumption, that I could make it to the city limits unassailed.

  I thought I could. I was sure I could. The odds were stacked high in my favour. Big place, and me very small within it; and so far as I knew only one man out there to oppose me. And him equally small on the physical plane, though his talent might be enormous...

  The quickest way out was straight on up the hill and along the river to the west; but if he was thinking ahead of me here, if he was covering any route at all — listening out for what was becoming my sound-signature, perhaps, my leitmotif, the throaty roar of the BMW working hard, just as my sister used to work it — then that’s where he’d be, on that road with his fingers sparking fire and death in his eyes.

  Smart money said to find another way to leave. Cross one of the bridges and head south, perhaps, and just pray that he didn’t happen to be there on that particular bridge as I crossed. Or go north on the Great South Road, or the quieter coastal route: wherever he chose to watch if he was watching, he surely wouldn’t be watching that. Least likely road of all, that was.

  So maybe he’d be watching that road, on the Agatha Christie principle. I couldn’t know, all I could do was guess and guess again, ultimately toss a mental coin and hope.

  Probably I should have dumped the bike in a back alley somewhere and gone for a bus or a train, or hijacked some nonentity’s undistinguished car. But my paranoia-quotient was running high tonight, I could see a shadowy figure stepping into the road or onto the tracks, I could hear the squeal of brakes and taste doom like terror in my mouth; and I’d be trapped that way, taken in a metal box and risking other people’s lives as I gave my own away. Better to die on the bike if I had to do that thing at all, better to be brought down with speed and noise and my eyes on the dark horizon, bidding for freedom; better by far to die alone than in company.

  Better still not to die at all, of course. One feeling persisted, though, that if I didn’t die I was going to have to kill instead. Me personally, and deliberately so. Not enough to be on the killing side, lined up for once with my family; it was on my shoulders to finish it myself, if I could survive through to daylight.

  Jamie had had his chance, and hadn’t used it; and if my hot-tempered cousin couldn’t kill coldly, then what chance did I have? With all my mixed motives and confusions, and above and in front of everything the memory of that traffic cop dancing his death before me, I didn’t, I couldn’t possibly trust myself where I had trusted Jamie and seen him fail.

  Which was another excellent reason to get out of town: not to know that I was letting my family down again, condemning God alone knew how many more of them to a terrible death, slow and agonising and — oh, Christ forgive me but the word was there in my head and what can you do? — bloodcurdling.

  Maybe I should just keep on going, once I’d passed the city limits. Not come back even in daylight, to prowl the territories of my latest betrayal and learn just how much it had cost, in blood and other things...

  o0o

  Running away has always been one of my strengths. I’m good at spotting opportunities for escape, good at seizing them and particularly good at riding the scorn and the self-contempt that come after. No macho illusions to be shattered, I guess.

  This time, though, I wasn’t confident even of getting the chance, let alone surviving the fallout. Whichever way I picked, I was sure he’d outguess me and be waiting. I juggled and shuffled ifs and maybes in my mind until I was dizzy with possibilities.

  In the end, thou
gh, I performed a decisive mental twist that I instantly labelled a reverse Occam, dumped all the complicated scenarios I’d been building in my head and seized instead on the nearest, the simplest, the quickest way out of town. Blaze of glory time: if he was there, primed and ready to pick me off, he’d have a moving target to aim at. A fast-moving target.

  “Die young,” I told myself with a fake cheeriness, saying it aloud to fool myself the better, “leave a beautiful corpse...”

  In the interests of which I got off the bike, fished my keys out and went back inside the flat after all. Not to turn the lights off, only to fetch my sister’s crash helmet and seat it securely on my head. Not that that would protect my delicate features from the inward assaults of the blood-curdling stunt; but the speed I meant to drive at, any more normal manifestation of talent could simply throw me off the bike one way or another, and I’d sooner not leave my face in shreds on the tarmac. Not nice for my mother when they came to lay me out.

  Besides, I fancied the anonymity, the implicit threat of a full-face helmet with a darkened visor. I had nothing to back the threat up with, this time of night, but everyone knew that anyway. It was all image, and self-image; and what better time to bolster your self-image than the night you tread the primrose path to dalliance with death?

  So. Helmet on, visor down and no matter that the dark tint robbed the streetlights of half their usefulness. There was no traffic around in any case, the cattle were all cooped up and I could see well enough to drive on empty roads.

  o0o

  Up the hill and over the top at speed: there before me was the yellow ribbon of light that marked the highway, falling down to the bridge over the bypass where all the rest of the country seemed to pass us by and then on and on and out of my sight, and I had fuel enough to race all the length of the ribbon to the opposite coast if I chose to...