Blood Mist (Eve Clay)

by Mark Roberts

  She edged past the bodies.

  ‘Police!’ She shouted up from the second stair.

  Clay kept moving, past bloodstained wallpaper daubed with random lines that were still not dry.

  An irregular quadrilateral with a straight line extending from its top left corner. She picked up speed as she passed another finger-painted bloodstain. This one put Clay in mind of a crooked W, two diagonal lines touching a straight central mark.

  As she reached the top of the stairs, something in the configuration of the bodies and the markings on the staircase wall triggered a connection deep inside her brain. They were like shapes lifted from a map.

  What am I looking at but cannot see?

  ‘Eve?’ Stone’s voice was loud and sudden, but she didn’t even flinch. It was reassuring to be reminded that, even in this little corner of hell, she was in full control of herself. ‘Are you OK?’ She heard his concern.

  ‘Alive and kicking. The killers have been painting the walls.’

  Clay turned at the top of the stairs. A pool of light spilled onto the wide landing from the open door of a bedroom.

  ‘Paramedics are outside!’

  She looked at the three dead females on the landing and called back, ‘Too late. No survivors.’

  The torch flickered and went off and on again. She switched it off, took in the wider scene. All the doors she could see were wide open. Outside, the wind whistled and sighed, flattened itself against the walls and slid down the slate roof, enfolding the house like a dead lover.

  She switched the torch back on.

  She looked at the three bodies and knew for sure that she was the only living person in the house now.

  A girl, around two years of age.

  Clay looked away from her.

  She focused on the teenage girl, whose terror she had listened to on the recorded call to emergency services. She saw the mother alongside her and saw the finger-painted blood mark on the staircase wall.

  They formed a crooked W.

  At the centre, the teenager was laid in a straight line, her feet hard up against the skirting board. To her right, her little sister lay at an angle, her feet touching the teenager’s knees. To the left, the mother lay diagonally, feet connecting with those of her elder daughter.

  Clay concentrated on the mother. Starting at her feet, she drew the light up her legs and onto her blood-drenched face. Her eyes were missing.

  What didn’t they want you to see? Clay wondered.

  As quickly and carefully as she could, Clay checked each of the seven rooms upstairs, saw that the carnage had happened in two bedrooms and began the journey downstairs. She stopped at the bloody quadrilateral drawn on the wall and looked down at the configuration of bodies near the bottom of the stairs. The shape on the wall matched it, just as the crooked W showed the layout of the mother and daughters upstairs.

  In the hallway, she edged along the space between the wall and the body drag marks.

  At the end of the long, wide hallway was a kitchen extending to the back of the house. The space was darker than the rest of the house.

  The back door leading into the garden was half open and blew wider in the wind.

  She turned on a light switch.

  For a moment, the tiled floor and the walls and fittings of the chrome-and-onyx open-plan kitchen looked normal. Clay looked up at the blood spray on the upper walls and ceiling.

  There were three distinct sets of spray. One near the back door, one in the centre of the kitchen and one near the door leading in from the hall.

  Grandmother. Father. Daughter.

  She looked around the kitchen and not a thing was out of place.

  Walking back to the front door, Clay called, ‘Karl, where are Riley and Hendricks?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Three teams, comb the neighbourhood. They could still be out there.’

  She stopped by the answer machine, a red number 1 flashing on the display. She pressed record on her iPhone, pressed play on the answer machine and counted the length of the silence. Five. Then the loaded sigh. And a tiny sound.

  A thought occurred to Clay that she didn’t want to believe and, for now, decided not to share with Stone or anyone else. They had timed the call for her arrival at the scene.

  She hit the cold air. They were still out there and nearby.

  Her calm resolve collapsed.

  Angry little gods, drunk on blood and power, hidden by the fog.

  Her thoughts turned to home, to Thomas and Philip, two minutes away.

  Day Two

  3

  00.12 am

  Snow hammered the perimeter wall as the storm’s tail lodged above the warren of buildings in the hospital grounds. The wind, trapped inside the wall, rolled the raging snow around the separate medical units and moaned at the front door of the High Dependency Ward. And though all the doors within Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital were locked – from the outer gate through to the units, the wards and the patients’ rooms – the storm still wailed: no one in and no one out.

  Behind the locked door of his room on the Ward, Adrian White pictured the hospital – his home for the past seven years and the place where his mortal body would one day die – not as a collection of secure NHS psychiatric units but as a village in a Hans Christian Andersen tale, a walled village that kept the world away from the sicknesses it feared most. And White away from the world that labelled him evil.

  He faced the window and watched the snow, listening to the wind as it suffocated the hospital. The view was obstructed by four evenly spaced bars set inside reinforced glass.

  White could sense the blizzard weakening as it headed west to the Irish Sea. Above his head, it seemed to slow down so it could peer through the little window of his locked room, one force of nature observing another.

  He pictured himself moving through the outer wall of the segregation unit and drifting up into the night air, his body exploding and becoming one with the retreating storm. With his mind’s eye, as he floated in the snow, he picked out his room and shut out everything except one dark slatted rectangle: his window.

  He saw a reflection of himself in the glass, the shimmering shape of a man twisting in the howling wind, shifting in the chaos of snow.

  Beyond the reflection he saw his mortal self sitting naked on a chair, watching the snow. He worked from the bottom up, noted his bare feet placed neatly together.

  He followed the lines of his legs, his slender, muscular calves leading to the bend of his knees, his thighs flat on the path to his genitals.

  He focused on his hips, on his slender, feminine hands, his long, tapering fingers that had calmly counted down the end of life for so many.

  Without a pinch of body fat, his hairless arms and torso were defined by muscle; shoulders that could and had carried the weight of heaven, earth and hell across time and space. The tattoos on either side of his heart crouched in the darkness, deeper shadows on the surface of his skin.

  His mind’s eye gazed down from the sky as he looked directly into the room, at his own earthly face. And he saw nothing there except a stretch of skin that covered his features. He did not know and he could not see what he looked like. Nor could he remember his own face, except for his eyes.

  In that other life, he had walked the streets wearing shades at all times, to protect himself from the unwanted attention of strangers.

  The skin that covered his mouth moved as he tried to call out to himself, but the only sound was the wind screaming hymns to chaos.

  The self in the snow-filled sky dissolved into the pandemonium and drifted away, heading out west to the teeming black waters of the Irish Sea.

  Footsteps.

  The magic dissolved and his spirit was back inside his body.

  From his chair, the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn’t bolted to the floor, he heard footsteps. He knew each nurse by the sound of their feet, recognised their fear in the weight of their footfall, their aspirations and dreams by
the length of their stride, their despair from the silence between each step. Even down to the way they breathed or held their breath as they looked in on him through the rectangular observation slot in his door.

  And their thoughts reached his mind through the criss-crossing electrical impulses that fired hospital doublespeak through their brains.

  A risk of harm to others... A risk of harm to self... A risk of being assaulted... A risk of escaping or absconding... A risk of endangering safety or security...

  White sensed the nurse’s eyes peering through the observation slot. The dimmer switch was turned up to get a better view of the patient sitting in the dark.

  ‘Turn it off now.’

  The light died suddenly.

  ‘What do you want, Richard Taylor?’ asked White, the lilt in his voice almost falling into song.

  ‘I’m just checking on you.’ Within the walls, silence.

  Outside, the sound of the wind gave White a sensation of physical pleasure that consumed his whole body and he yielded to it with profound gratitude.

  The nurse’s footsteps moved away. The moment passed.

  ‘Richard Taylor,’ said White. Taylor returned. ‘Listen.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I want to see a social worker.’

  ‘Why do you want to see a social worker?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Seven years and you’ve asked for nothing, aside from complete segregation from all other patients on religious grounds.’

  White could see the snow weakening now as the north wind whipped the last of the storm out to sea.

  ‘Why do you want to see a social worker all of a sudden?’

  ‘Care to come inside, Richard Taylor?’

  Taylor didn’t attempt to speak or move away. The nurse’s presence gave White a direct line back into his childhood, reminded him of what it was to release a moth from a paper bag straight into the target of a naked flame.

  ‘I’d have to bring other nurses with me and a very good reason for entering your cell, and that’s not going to happen. Why a social worker?’

  ‘Because it’s started.’

  ‘What’s started?’

  ‘Can’t you hear?’

  ‘I can hear the wind.’

  ‘Then you’re not listening.’

  ‘What am I listening for?’

  ‘The opening and closing of doors.’

  ‘You mean here? Ashworth?’

  ‘You cannot open the door in front of you until the door behind you is locked. That’s the rule, isn’t it?’

  ‘Which door?’ asked Taylor.

  Adrian White soaked up the desperation in Taylor’s voice.

  ‘Do you know what you need to do, Mr Taylor?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘When you’re handing over at seven o’clock in the morning, you tell the other nurses that I must see an approved social worker at the earliest opportunity. If I don’t see a social worker, I’m going to be very upset. Do you understand, Mr Taylor?’

  ‘I’ll arrange it.’

  ‘Go now, Richard Taylor, before the others wonder what took you so long.’

  Through the window, Adrian saw a streak of red forming in the night sky.

  ‘What do you mean, it’s started?’

  The wind howled. Ecstasy.

  ‘Bring me a social worker. Flit away.’

  Taylor walked away on the tips of his toes at a speed that pleased White.

  When morning arrived, it would bring the social worker with it and his request would be granted. The red streak in the sky widened.

  He remembered a certain woman and wondered if she had looked into the sky, had seen the colour red emerge from the darkness. He pictured her face an arm’s length away, as it had been all those years ago, and spoke to her the parting words of their last encounter.

  ‘The Red Cloud will rise from the belly of the city and when the Red Cloud rises, the river will run with blood.’

  The Red Cloud was rising fast.

  4

  00.12 am

  After three rings that seemed to last a lifetime, Eve’s call home connected.

  ‘Eve?’ She was relieved to hear Thomas’s voice. He was wide awake and knotted with anxiety. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In my car, outside a murder scene. The Serpentine.’

  ‘The Serpentine?’

  ‘Six dead. A whole family.’

  From the relative privacy of her car, Clay watched as a child-sized body bag was carried from the gate of the house to the open back door of a black mortuary van.

  ‘Philip? Are you with him?’ She spoke rapidly and could hear the tension crackling in her own voice.

  ‘Eve, he’s fine. He’s asleep in his bed.’

  ‘Are you with him right now?’

  ‘I’m walking from our bedroom into his. Eve, you just don’t sound yourself. What have you seen tonight?’

  ‘Don’t open the front door, Thomas.’ They could still be out there. ‘Listen really carefully for anything outside. Philip?’

  ‘He’s in bed, asleep, the night-light’s on beside him. I’m going to lower the phone now. Listen to him breathing.’

  She listened as Thomas lowered the phone towards their son. She heard the soft exchange of breath, recognised it as the unique sound of her baby sleeping peacefully in his bed.

  Clay pictured herself in Philip’s room, light seeping from the landing, picking out the smooth features of her son’s face. She wished she could take herself there in the click of her fingers and weld her feet to his bedroom floor by a magical force that nothing could break.

  She wanted to stoop and kiss the boy’s cheek, like the first time, a little over two years earlier, when Philip, naked and taking his first dozen breaths, had been placed on her breast by the midwife. His face creased and serious, tufts of dark hair across the plates of his scalp; his eyes mostly blind but appearing to stare directly into hers, with a point of light on each pupil, like stars in the night sky.

  But she wasn’t at home or on the maternity ward. She was outside a house where six members of the same family had just been slaughtered and the zipped-up body of another child was emerging from the fog to join its siblings, parents and grandmother in the back of the mortuary van.

  ‘Eve?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘Thank you for that, Thomas.’ For that lifeline back into a world worth living in, with people who I love and who love me back.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘Stay with Philip, stay with him until I get home. Don’t let him out of your sight. Promise me, Thomas.’

  ‘I promise you. When will you be home?’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ll be home.’

  ‘What if I film him and send it to your phone?’

  DC Gina Riley hurried towards her along the pavement, her coat open and flapping behind her in the wind. It was good to see her.

  ‘Yes, please. I’ve got to go,’ said Clay.

  ‘I love you, Eve.’

  ‘Likewise. Philip...’

  ‘If anyone wants to get at Philip, they’ll have to get past me first. I’ll send you the film.’

  As Clay closed down the call, Gina Riley opened the passenger door, bringing the cold night in with her as she sat down next to Clay.

  ‘The streets are swamped with officers. Everyone on duty and available is out there, from Dingle down to Speke, Aigburth up to Old Swan and beyond,’ said Riley.

  ‘Listen to this, Gina.’

  Clay played back the recording from the family’s answer machine.

  The tone kicked in and Clay spoke into the silence that followed it.

  ‘This call happened when I entered the house, Gina.’

  The sigh and the buried word. And silence.

  ‘As I recorded it, I had the strangest idea, Gina. What was that thought?’

  ‘They watched you going into the scene. The call was for you,’ said Riley.

  ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought.’ />
  5

  00.16 am

  Riley, a small, rotund woman with blonde hair and a dreamy expression that hid her quicksilver mind, was the physical opposite of Clay, who was tall and slim with long, jet-black hair snatched back in a ponytail. Clay declined Riley’s offer of a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum and noted how red Riley’s lipstick was as she popped the chewing gum into her mouth. She noticed a sharp black trouser suit beneath Riley’s coat that did a lot to flatten out the roundness of her body.

  ‘Nice threads, Gina.’

  ‘I look like a Munchkin in a cocktail dress. I was on my way home from a do when I got the call to attend the scene. It was my turn to drive,’ said Riley, ‘and Tommy’s turn to swill red wine. Just as well.’

  ‘You’d be better off with a few drinks inside you,’ said Clay, indicating the house.

  Clay caught her own reflection in the rear-view mirror and observed the extending network of lines around her deep-brown eyes. She found herself staring, not into her own eyes, but at the creases around them.

  ‘Penny for them?’ asked Riley.

  ‘Check out the blood lines on the walls when you go inside. Two shapes.’

  Through the fog, yellow blurs at the windows showed that all the lights in the house were on. DS Terry Mason, a Scientific Support officer with over twenty years in a white suit, headed out of the gate looking like a punch-drunk novice.

  Clay wound the window down and called. ‘Terry!’

  He focused on Clay. ‘You can come in now.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Clay noticed a small plastic evidence bag between the index finger and thumb of his right hand. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  He held it up to her and she saw what looked like a scrap of mud. On closer inspection, it was wet ash.

  ‘I found it on the snow by the back door, the door leading out of the kitchen.’

  DS Mason turned, looked dolefully at the house and walked back down the stepping plates from the gate to the front door.

  Clay and Riley got out of the car. They grabbed a pair of protective suits from the open back of a Scientific Support vehicle and, as they stepped into them, Riley asked, ‘What do you want me to do?’