I grope my way to the bathroom and tell the shower to keep the water cold until it blows the cobwebs from my skull.
‘Why so tired?’ she asks. She’s lying on the white bath mat and watching me shower, like she always does, not staring, looking away when I look at her as if I was the last thing on her mind.
‘I dunno. I didn’t have too much too drink. I think maybe it’s the psi-discs they’re putting me through, there’s lots of stress. Nervous tension, I suppose.’
‘Why don’t you tell them to wait a while before doing the next one?’
I tell her that’s not possible, there’s too much at stake, and besides, I want to know what happened. I want to know why. I pace up and down the flat as I towel myself dry and she walks with me in silence, following my wet footprints and keeping her head low, her nose just an inch above the carpet. Helen Gwynne’s card catches my eye and I ask the phone to get her and I tell it that I want visual. It connects and then she’s on the screen, her blond hair shining and her eyes wide.
‘Nice to see you, Leif,’ she says and I step forward because I’m not sure how much of me is showing on her screen and I’m well past the age where my body drives women wild. These days it just drives them away, though it’s amazing how they always come running back when you show them the Corporation chipcard.
‘How are you today?’ I ask and she says she’s fine and then pauses, obviously wondering why I’ve called her.
‘About our conversation last night,’ I say and she nods expectantly, her hair rippling and flowing like yellow water.
‘I want to help,’ I say. I tell her I’ve got some information for her and that I’d like to see her later tonight.
‘When?’ she asks and I say I’ll call her later because I don’t know how long I’ll be in the studio. She smiles and says she’ll look forward to it and cuts the connection and I feel a dull ache in my groin.
*
Max is waiting for me in the studio along with Herbie and a cluster of technicians gathered around one of the VDUs. The technician with the Deputy badge walks over and inspects my scalp and says that it’ll do, no need to shave me again.
Max puts his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly gesture and asks me if I’m okay and I smile and say yes but I don’t trust him any more because if Louis Aintrell is behind these discs then I’m damn sure Max knows what’s going on as well.
‘I’m raring to go, Max,’ I say but maybe I’m laying it on a bit thick because he looks at me suspiciously and asks if I’m sure. ‘I’m fine, Max. Honest. Tell me about the disc.’
He thrusts his hands deep into the pockets of his white lab coat which makes me suspect that he’s got something to hide. ‘The Dreamer’s name is Jimmy Kratzner, just sixteen years old.’
I knew that already because Herbie had told me in Manila, but I hadn’t realised he was so young. ‘Sixteen?’ I query.
‘That’s right,’ says Max. ‘This was his fifth.’
‘Hell, he started young.’ At one psi-disc every six months he must have done his first one when he was thirteen.
‘He was on our youth programme,’ says Max, which means it was Kratzner’s parents who pushed him into it. What sort of thirteen-year-old has any sort of grip on his imagination, for God’s sake?
‘He was good,’ continues Max, as if excusing himself. ‘We had really high hopes for him.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure. Subject?’
‘It’s hard to define,’ he says, avoiding my eyes like the company shrink. ‘It doesn’t fit into any of the normal categories. I suppose fantasy is the nearest description I can think of.’
‘Fantasy?’ Anger flares because I know there’s something he’s not telling me. ‘What the hell do you mean by fantasy, Max? What the hell is fantasy? Sexual fantasy, you mean? Violent fantasy? Rape? Murder? What exactly was going through his head before he died, Max?’
I realise I’m shouting. All the technicians have turned away from their VDU to look at me and Max is standing with his arms crossed defensively across his chest and there is a strange look in his eyes, not fear, not anger, a sort of hurt look as if I’m accusing him unjustly. He starts to speak but then just mumbles something and raises his hands and then drops them again. I grab him by the arm and pull him into the booth with me and close the door behind him.
He sits down on the leather couch, his shoulders sagging and his head down.
‘Max,’ I say. ‘We go back a long way. I need your help now more than ever before. You have to tell me what’s going on.’
‘I can’t,’ he says quietly.
I put my hands on his shoulders and shake him gently.
‘You must,’ I say and when he lifts his head to look at me I know that he’s going to tell me, I can see it in his eyes. Acceptance. And pity.
‘I’ll be out if I tell you anything,’ he says. ‘And you know what that means.’
Yeah, I know. No pension, no salary, no housing, no medical benefits, and probably a blacklisting thrown in. The Corporation carries a lot of weight and Max could end up never working again, at least not in a job that would support his lifestyle.
‘If you don’t tell me, I could end up like the other three CBS Dreamers,’ I say. I feel his shoulders move as he shrugs. I put my face up close to his. ‘They can’t hear, Max. We’re alone. You don’t have to tell me anything, I’ll do all the talking. All I want is a yes or a no. Understand?’
He nods. His lower lip is trembling, maybe fear at the risk he was taking or shame at being treated like a child. Whatever, I’d won, I could feel it.
‘Aintrell is pushing the Dreamers to churn out more sex and violence, yes?’ Max nods.
‘And the three Dreamers who died were doing what Aintrell wanted, yes?’ Another nod. ‘The Corporation knew that Dreamers had died at other psi-disc studios?’
‘Yes,’ he says quietly.
I shake him, hard, and his head whips back, his chin up.
‘Well why the hell didn’t somebody tell me? Why didn’t you tell me, Max?’
‘Because you wouldn’t do it, that’s why. Your psychological profile showed you wouldn’t be up to it. There was no point.’
‘That explains why I wasn’t asked to lay down porno psi-discs for CBS, but it doesn’t explain why I wasn’t told about what was going on.’ I’m angry but I keep my voice level and low.
‘Aintrell was worried that you might go running to the authorities. The legislation hasn’t changed yet, but it will be, he plans to make sure of that. And he didn’t want you running around telling everybody.’
‘But he must have realised that I would find out as soon as I plugged into the psi-discs?’
‘We didn’t know how much was on the discs, how far the Dreamers had got before they died. Leif, it was a secret, you must understand. Aintrell is putting a lot of money about and calling in a lot of favours to get the law changed. He can’t afford to let the cat out of the bag too early. He’s invested millions in this.’
Cat out of the bag makes me think of Ruth. She has stayed outside the glass booth and is scratching her ear as she watches me.
‘You should have told me before, Max,’ I say, and let go of his shoulders. I lean backwards against the glass and look at him. He looks broken, like a puppet who’s strings have been cut. Strings that lead to the grasping hands of Louis Aintrell.
‘Max,’ I say, and he looks up. ‘Max, is Aintrell’s dirty dealing anything to do with the deaths?’
‘We don’t know,’ he says quietly. ‘I swear to God we don’t know. What we do know is that all the Dreamers who died were working on the new psi-discs.’
‘What about the other psi-disc companies? What about the deaths there?’
‘We don’t know, but I’d guess so, yes.’
‘But that would mean that Aintrell’s secret wasn’t very secure, wouldn’t it?’ I snapped.
‘It could be that they’re applying their own pressure to get the law changed. The market for soft porn, and the harder stuff,
is worth hundreds of millions, maybe billions. And even without Aintrell’s influence it would change eventually. Just look at how the laws have softened over the years. First soft drugs became accepted, now hard drugs are being legalised and Government controlled. No one gets sent to prison for petty theft anymore, or simple assault. Rapists get electronically tagged and confined to their homes, it’s only murderers or armed robbers who get put behind bars these days. Leif, society is becoming more flexible, more understanding. More tolerant. Aintrell is simply anticipating a trend, that’s all. And so are the other companies.’
‘So where does this leave me, Max?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Now that I know what Aintrell is up to, what happens to me?’
‘That’s up to you, Leif, but whatever you do you must keep me out of it.’ There is a pleading look in his eyes that makes me feel sick to the stomach. I thought I knew the man, I thought I trusted him.
‘Aintrell is going to force me to do my last disc, isn’t he?’ I ask, even though I know the answer. ‘Of course,’ says Max.
‘Even though it means I could die?’
Max nods. The question is, of course, is that what Aintrell wants? Does he want me dead so that the Corporation doesn’t have to pay out on my contract, or because he wants his secret to be safe? Or does he really want me to find out what or who is killing the Dreamers so that he can keep stockpiling his new range of discs for the day when the law is changed?
‘You have to plug into the third disc,’ says Max. ‘You have to find out what happened to the other three so that we can make sure it doesn’t happen to you when you lay down yours. You have no choice.’
I nod and say that I agree. Something inside me has just stopped caring. I feel numb. He slides off the couch and stands in front of me, looking as if he wants to say something, and then he shakes his head and goes out of the booth. I follow him and change into the smock behind the screen in silence. There is nothing I want to say. To anyone. Even Ruth keeps her distance, but she watches me all the time. At least she cares.
‘You’d better believe it,’ she says quietly as she prowls around the studio, her stub of a tail swishing in the air.
One of the white-coated assistants, not the Deputy, a young, tall guy with an untidy mop of red hair and two days growth of reddish beard, helps me lie down and attaches the headset. He goes out and the glass darkens to grey. I hear Max’s voice behind me, slowly counting down. Five… four… three…. two… one…. It is……..
……..dark, very dark. It takes me a second or so to realise that it’s not pitch black, I begin to see faint stars in the sky above me. There is no moon and the pinpricks of light are few and far between as if it is the sky of another planet, a planet with few neighbours, at the edge of the galaxy. I am wearing a robe of some coarse, hairy material that scratches my skin, horsehair or something. It makes me want to itch all over and makes me aware of the fact that I am naked below the robe.
It has a hood that is pulled well over my head so that I can only see straight ahead and I have to turn from side to side to widen my angle of vision.
I look down and I can see simple leather sandals on my bare feet, smooth and well-worn. I am standing on a path made up of tiny, grey stones that winds through a forest of black stunted trees, twisted and misshapen as if deformed by tortuous weather or some man-made cataclysm. They are devoid of leaves and the branches are like twisted arms trying to claw at the sky. There is no sound at all, no wind, no night noises. It’s as if the Dreamer has been so busy concentrating on the visuals that he’s forgotten the sound track but Kratzner is good, very good, so the silence is obviously deliberate.
I seem to be alone, but as I slowly turn and look behind me I see a group of robed figures approaching down the path, all wearing the same shapeless garments as mine, heads bowed so that I cannot see their faces, just their peaked hoods. They are walking in single file and it is not until they get up close that I hear their sandals crunching softly into the stony path. The figure in front is holding a wooden torch, the top smeared with burning pitch, and he holds it aloft, high above his head, as if signalling to those behind that they are to follow, but they do not look up. There are a dozen of them following the figure with the torch, and as they pass me the burning pitch throws their shadows onto the ground and they ripple like ghosts.
I hear a squeaking noise and turn my hooded head to look back down the path and see two more figures pulling a wooden cart. The cart is old and warped, and its two large wheels are misshapen, swinging against the axle. The figures are almost bent double as they pull it along and their breath forms clouds of vapour in the air around their hoods.
I hear them grunting softly with each step as they draw near. There is a large sack lying in the back of the cart, the top tied with a length of thick hemp. The sack seems to move, though it could just be the motion of the cart. I turn again to look back down the path and see a final figure carrying another burning torch. I fall in step behind the cart and follow it along the path.
I am totally confused, I have no idea who we are, where we are going or what it is we are supposed to be doing. There has been no explanation, and it is obviously deliberate because Kratzner knows what he’s doing. The effect is very disorientating. Nobody speaks to me, I can’t even see their faces. All I can see is the back of the rattling cart and the sack.
The path twists right and left but the scenery is always the same, bleak and bare and cold. It starts to climb up and two of the figures walk back to help pull the cart but even with four it is still a struggle. I move forward and push the back. As I do I hear a low moan from the sack, the sound of an animal in pain. I put my shoulder against the cart and push hard, my feet slipping against the path because there seems to be no grip on the bottom of the sandals.
I look up and at last I can see our destination, an imposing Gothic castle of black stone, standing stark against the skyline, with jagged turrets and sheer walls. It seems to rear above us, thrusting straight out of the ground and up into the sky. There are no windows, not even gaps in the stone for archers to fire through, but there is an entrance, an entrance that looks as if it had been made for a race of giants, ten times the height of a man and wide enough to take six of the carts at once. The entrance is blocked by a massive door of black wood encrusted with metal spikes.
There appears to be no way for those inside the castle to look out, but somebody sees the procession approaching because with an eerie screech the huge door begins to swing inwards on rusty hinges.
We move slowly through the doorway into a dark, dank courtyard, the wheels of the cart occasionally catching in the gaps between the roughly-hewn flagstones, and then the door grinds closed behind us. The walls surrounding the courtyard seem to go up forever, blank and featureless, and it is only when I tilt my head right back that I can see the small square of night sky far above us. Every few yards around the courtyard blazing torches are mounted into the wall, spitting flames and hissing, but what little light they give out is quickly swallowed by the gloom.
The door clunks shut, the sound reverberating around the courtyard and making my stomach quiver. The courtyard has only two doors, the one which has just closed behind us and another, slightly smaller, facing us. The leader of the procession stands in front of it and hammers on it with the bottom of his torch, three times. We hear footsteps, a slow plodding tread of someone climbing stone steps, and then the sound of bolts being drawn back. Something small and black flits silently through the air over our heads. The door is opened by another hooded figure, but his robe is of a scarlet material, the colour of fresh blood. He mumbles at the figure with the torch and together they walk through the doorway, deep in conversation. The rest of the figures follow in single file, except for the four who had been pulling the cart. They pull the sack roughly off the back of the cart and it thuds to the ground. Whatever is inside grunts and then moans. All four grab the sack and together they manhandle it through the door. I f
ollow them.
It leads to a narrow hallway off which lead two stairways, one up and one down, both winding so tightly that only half a dozen steps can be seen at any time. We are going down, in darkness because the torch is too far ahead of us to cast any light where we are. I grope for each step with my feet and keep one hand on the damp stone wall as we descend. In front of me I hear the sack bumping down step by step accompanied by small whimpering sounds. Behind me I hear the door shut and the bolts being drawn back, and then there is light on the wall as the last figure, the one with the torch bringing up the rear, follows us.
We seem to descend for ever so wherever we are going is well below ground level, deep in the bowels of the earth. I shudder involuntarily, partly because of the cold but mainly because of sense of doom that fills my soul. It’s the complete lack of plot or explanation that is so disturbing.
Ahead of me I hear another door being opened, then after two twists of the stairway I see it, and I follow the figures with the sack into a stone-walled room that smells musty and airless. The final figure comes in behind me and closes the door. The only illumination comes from the two blazing torches which are reflected in the water dripping down the walls. One of the figures sticks his torch into a metal holder set into the wall, while the other lights two more torches already fixed either side of the door. The ceiling is high, about ten feet above our heads. The room is oblong, about thirty paces long and ten wide, the walls are constructed from big stone blocks and the floor is made of slabs of grey stone, partly covered with damp straw.
There are various pieces of equipment around the room and against the walls, equipment made of metal and wood and leather. I recognise a vicious looking rack, and there is what seems to be a large butcher’s block with manacles at either end. The wood is cut and scarred and there are places where it has been stained with blood. There is a metal bed with no mattress, instead the base is covered with hundreds of small points, each with a wicked barb on the end. There are other curious contraptions that I have never seen before, but it is clear what they are used for and what this place is. It is a torture chamber.
Dreamer's Cat: a sci-fi murder mystery with a killer twist Page 14