by Clive Barker
He told the officers that he had seen nothing of the accident, which was essentially true, and made his escape from the scene before events in the adjacent alley were discovered.
It seemed every corner turned on his route back to his rooms brought a fresh question. Chief amongst them: why he had been lied to about Odell's death? And what psychosis had seized the man that made him capable of the slaughter Ballard had witnessed? He would not get the answers to these questions from his sometime colleagues, that he knew. The only man whom he might have beguiled an answer from was Cripps. He remembered the debate they'd had about Mironenko, and Cripps' talk of reasons for caution when dealing with the Russian. The Glass Eye had known then that there was something in the wind, though surely even he had not envisaged the scale of the present disaster. Two highly valued agents murdered; Mironenko missing, presumed dead; he himself – if Suckling was to be believed – at death's door. And all this begun with Sergei Zakharovich Mironenko, the lost man of Berlin. It seemed his tragedy was infectious.
Tomorrow, Ballard decided, he would find Suckling and squeeze some answers from him. In the meantime, his head and his hands ached, and he wanted sleep. Fatigue compromised sound judgement, and if ever he needed that faculty it was now. But despite his exhaustion sleep eluded him for an hour or more, and when it came it was no comfort. He dreamt whispers; and hard upon them, rising as if to drown them out, the roar of the helicopters. Twice he surfaced from sleep with his head pounding; twice a hunger to understand what the whispers were telling him drove him to the pillow again. When he woke for the third time, the noise between his temples had become crippling; a thought-cancelling assault which made him fear for his sanity. Barely able to see the room through the pain, he crawled from his bed.
"Please…"he murmured, as if there were somebody to help him from his misery.
A cool voice answered him out of the darkness: "What do you want?"
He didn't question the questioner; merely said: "Take the pain away."
"You can do that for yourself," the voice told him.
He leaned against the wall, nursing his splitting head, tears of agony coming and coming. "I don't know how," he said.
"Your dreams give you pain," the voice replied, “so you must forget them. Do you understand? Forget them, and the pain will go."
He understood the instruction, but not how to realise it. He had no powers of government in sleep. He was the object of these whispers; not they his. But the voice insisted.
"The dream means you harm, Bollard. You must bury it. Bury it deep."
"Bury it?"
"Make an image of it, Ballard. Picture it in detail." He did as he was told. He imagined a burial party, and a box; and in the box, this dream. He made them dig deep, as the voice instructed him, so that he would never be able to disinter this hurtful thing again. But even as he imagined the box lowered into the pit he heard its boards creak. The dream would not lie down. It beat against confinement. The boards began to break. "Quickly," the voice said. The din of the rotors had risen to a terrifying pitch. Blood had begun to pour from his nostrils; he tasted salt at the back of his throat.
"Finish it!" the voice yelled above the tumult. "Cover it up!"
Ballard looked into the grave. The box was thrashing from side to side.
"Cover it, damn you!"
He tried to make the burial party obey; tried to will them to pick up their shovels and bury the offending thing alive, but they would not. Instead they gazed into the grave as he did and watched as the contents of the box fought for light.
"No!" the voice demanded, its fury mounting. "You must not look!"
The box danced in the hole. The lid splintered.
Briefly, Ballard glimpsed something shining up between the boards.
"It will kill you!" the voice said, and as if to prove its point the volume of the sound rose beyond the point of endurance, washing out burial party, box and all in a blaze of pain. Suddenly it seemed that what the voice said was true; that he was near to death. But it wasn't the dream that was conspiring to kill him, but the sentinel they had posted between him and it: this skull-splintering cacophony.
Only now did he realise that he'd fallen on the floor, prostrate beneath this assault. Reaching out blindly he found the wall, and hauled himself towards it, the machines still thundering behind his eyes, the blood hot on his face. He stood up as best he could and began to move towards the bathroom. Behind him the voice, its tantrum controlled, began its exhortation afresh. It sounded so intimate that he looked round, fully expecting to see the speaker, and he was not disappointed. For a few flickering moments he seemed to be standing in a small, windowless room, its walls painted a uniform white. The light here was bright and dead, and in the centre of the room stood the face behind the voice, smiling.
"Your dreams give you pain," he said. This was the first commandment again. "Bury them Ballard, and the pain will pass."
Ballard wept like a child; this scrutiny shamed him. He looked away from his tutor to bury his tears. "Trust us," another voice said, close by. "We're your friends."
He didn't trust their fine words. The very pain they claimed to want to save him from was of their making; it was a stick to beat him with if the dreams came calling. "We want to help you," one or other of them said. "No…"he murmured. "No damn you… I don't… I don't believe…"
The room flickered out, and he was in the bedroom again, clinging to the wall like a climber to a cliff-face. Before they could come for him with more words, more pain, he edged his way to the bathroom door, and stumbled blindly towards the shower. There was a moment of panic while he located the taps; and then the water came on at a rush. It was bitterly cold, but he put his head beneath it, while the onslaught of rotor-blades tried to shake the plates of his skull apart. Icy water trekked down his back, but he let the rain come down on him in a torrent, and by degrees, the helicopters took their leave. He didn't move, though his body juddered with cold, until the last of them had gone; then he sat on the edge of the bath, mopping water from his neck and face and body, and eventually, when his legs felt courageous enough, made his way back into the bedroom.
He lay down on the same crumpled sheets in much the same position as he'd lain in before; yet nothing was the same. He didn't know what had changed in him, or how. But he lay there without sleep disturbing his serenity through the remaining hours of the night, trying to puzzle it out, and a little before dawn he remembered the words he had muttered in the face of the delusion. Simple words; but oh, their power.
"I don't believe…"he said; and the commandments trembled.
It was half an hour before noon when he arrived at the small book exporting firm which served Suckling for cover. He felt quick-witted, despite the disturbance of the night, and rapidly charmed his way past the receptionist and entered Suckling's office unannounced. When Suckling's eyes settled on his visitor he started from his desk as if fired upon.
"Good morning," said Ballard. "I thought it was time we talked."
Suckling's eyes fled to the office-door, which Ballard had left ajar.
"Sorry; is there a draught?" Ballard closed the door gently. "I want to see Cripps," he said.
Suckling waded through the sea of books and manuscripts that threatened to engulf his desk. "Are you out of your mind, coming back here?"
Tell them I'm a friend of the family," Ballard offered.
"I can't believe you'd be so stupid."
"Just point me to Cripps, and I'll be away."
Suckling ignored him in favour of his tirade. "It's taken two years to establish my credentials here." Ballard laughed.
"I'm going to report this, damn you!"
"I think you should," said Ballard, turning up the volume. "In the meanwhile: where's Cripps?" Suckling, apparently convinced that he was faced with a lunatic, controlled his apoplexy. "All right," he said. I'll have somebody call on you; take you to him."
"Not good enough," Ballard replied. He crossed to Suckling i
n two short strides and took hold of him by his lapel. He'd spent at most three hours with Suckling in ten years, but he'd scarcely passed a moment in his presence without itching to do what he was doing now. Knocking the man's hands away, he pushed Suckling against the book-lined wall. A stack of volumes, caught by Suckling's heel, toppled.
"Once more," Ballard said. The old man."
"Take your fucking hands off me," Suckling said, his fury redoubled at being touched.
"Again," said Ballard. "Cripps."
"I'll have you carpeted for this. I'll have you out!"
Ballard leaned towards the reddening face, and smiled.
"I'm out anyway. People have died, remember? London needs a sacrificial lamb, and I think I'm it." Suckling's face dropped. "So I've got nothing to lose, have I?" There was no reply. Ballard pressed closer to Suckling, tightening his grip on the man."'Have I?"
Suckling's courage failed him. "Cripps is dead," he said.
Ballard didn't release his hold. "You said the same about Odell -” he remarked. At the name, Suckling's eyes widened."- And I saw him only last night," Ballard said, “out on the town."
"You saw Odell?"
"Oh yes."
Mention of the dead man brought the scene in the alleyway back to mind. The smell of the body; the boy's sobs. There were other faiths, thought Ballard, beyond the one he'd once shared with the creature beneath him. Faiths whose devotions were made in heat and blood, whose dogmas were dreams. Where better to baptise himself into that new faith than here, in the blood of the enemy?
Somewhere, at the very back of his head, he could hear the helicopters, but he wouldn't let them take to the air. He was strong today; his head, his hands, all strong. When he drew his nails towards Suckling's eyes the blood came easily. He had a sudden vision of the face beneath the flesh; of Suckling's features stripped to the essence. "Sir?"
Ballard glanced over his shoulder. The receptionist was standing at the open door.
"O h. I'm sorry," she said, preparing to withdraw. To judge by her blushes she assumed this was a lover's tryst she'd walked in upon.
"Stay," said Suckling. "Mr. Ballard… was just leaving."
Ballard released his prey. There would be other opportunities to have Suckling's life.
"I'll see you again," he said.
Suckling drew a handkerchief from his top pocket and pressed it to his face.
"Depend upon it," he replied.
Now they would come for him, he could have no doubt of that. He was a rogue element, and they would strive to silence him as quickly as possible. The thought did not distress him. Whatever they had tried to make him forget with their brain-washing was more ambitious than they had anticipated; however deeply they had taught him to bury it, it was digging its way back to the surface. He couldn't see it yet, but he knew it was near. More than once on his way back to his rooms he imagined eyes at his back. Maybe he was still being tailed; but his instincts informed him otherwise. The presence he felt close-by – so near that it was sometimes at his shoulder – was perhaps simply another part of him. He felt protected by it, as by a local god.
He had half expected there to be a reception committee awaiting him at his rooms, but there was nobody. Either Suckling had been obliged to delay his alarm-call, or else the upper echelons were still debating their tactics. He pocketed those few keepsakes that he wanted to preserve from their calculating eyes, and left the building again without anyone making a move to stop him.
It felt good to be alive, despite the chill that rendered the grim streets grimmer still. He decided, for no particular reason, to go to the zoo, which, though he had been visiting the city for two decades, he had never done. As he walked it occurred to him that he'd never been as free as he was now; that he had shed mastery like an old coat. No wonder they feared him. They had good reason.
Kantstrasse was busy, but he cut his way through the pedestrians easily, almost as if they sensed a rare certainty in him and gave him a wide berth. As he approached the entrance to the zoo, however, somebody jostled him. He looked round to upbraid the fellow, but caught only the back of the man's head as he was submerged in the crowd heading onto Hardenbergstrasse. Suspecting an attempted theft, he checked his pockets, to find that a scrap of paper had been slipped into one. He knew better than to examine it on the spot, but casually glanced round again to see if he recognised the courier. The man had already slipped away.
He delayed his visit to the zoo and went instead to the Tiergarten, and there – in the wilds of the great park – found a place to read the message. It was from Mironenko, and it requested a meeting to talk of a matter of considerable urgency, naming a house in Marienfelde as a venue. Ballard memorised the details, then shredded the note. It was perfectly possible that the invitation was a trap of course, set either by his own faction or by the opposition. Perhaps a way to test his allegiance; or to manipulate him into a situation in which he could be easily dispatched. Despite such doubts he had no choice but to go however, in the hope that this blind date was indeed with Mironenko. Whatever dangers this rendezvous brought, they were not so new. Indeed, given his long-held doubts of the efficacy of sight, hadn't every date he'd ever made been in some sense blind?
By early evening the damp air was thickening towards a fog, and by the time he stepped off the bus on Hildburghauserstrasse it had a good hold on the city, lending the chill new powers to discomfort.
Ballard went quickly through the quiet streets. He scarcely knew the district at all, but its proximity to the Wall bled it of what little charm it might once have possessed. Many of the houses were unoccupied; of those that were not most were sealed off against the night and the cold and the lights that glared from the watch-towers. It was only with the aid of a map that he located the tiny street Mironenko's note had named. No lights burned in the house. Ballard knocked hard, but there was no answering footstep in the hall. He had anticipated several possible scenarios, but an absence of response at the house had not been amongst them. He knocked again; and again. It was only then that he heard sounds from within, and finally the door was opened to him. The hallway was painted grey and brown, and lit only by a bare bulb. The man silhouetted against this drab interior was not Mironenko.
"Yes?" he said. "What do you want?" His German was spoken with a distinct Muscovite inflection. "I'm looking for a friend of mine," Ballard said.
The man, who was almost as broad as the doorway he stood in, shook his head.
"There's nobody here," he said. "Only me."
"I was told -”
"You must have the wrong house."
No sooner had the doorkeeper made the remark than noise erupted from down the dreary hallway. Furniture was being overturned; somebody had begun to shout. The Russian looked over his shoulder and went to slam the door in Ballard's face, but Ballard's foot was there to stop him. Taking advantage of the man's divided attention, Ballard put his shoulder to the door, and pushed. He was in the hallway – indeed he was half-way down it – before the Russian took a step in pursuit. The sound of demolition had escalated, and was now drowned out by the sound of a man squealing. Ballard followed the sound past the sovereignty of the lone bulb and into gloom at the back of the house. He might well have lost his way at that point but that a door was flung open ahead of him.
The room beyond had scarlet floorboards; they glistened as if freshly painted. And now the decorator appeared in person. His torso had been ripped open from neck to navel. He pressed his hands to the breached dam, but they were useless to stem the flood; his blood came in spurts, and with it, his innards. He met Ballard's gaze, his eyes full to overflowing with death, but his body had not yet received the instruction to lie down and die; it juddered on in a pitiful attempt to escape the scene of execution behind him.
The spectacle had brought Ballard to a halt, and the Russian from the door now took hold of him, and pulled him back into the hallway, shouting into his face. The outburst, in panicked Russian, was beyond Ballard, but he
needed no translation of the hands that encircled his throat. The Russian was half his weight again, and had the grip of an expert strangler, but Ballard felt effortlessly the man's superior. He wrenched the attacker's hands from his neck, and struck him across the face. It was a fortuitous blow. The Russian fell back against the staircase, his shouts silenced.
Ballard looked back towards the scarlet room. The dead man had gone, though scraps of flesh had been left on the threshold.
From within, laughter.
Ballard turned to the Russian.
"What in God's name's going on?" he demanded, but the other man simply stared through the open door. Even as he spoke, the laughter stopped. A shadow moved across the blood-splattered wall of the interior, and a voice said: "Ballard?"
There was a roughness there, as if the speaker had been shouting all day and night, but it was the voice of Mironenko.
"Don't stand out in the cold," he said, “come on in. And bring Solomonov."
The other man made a bid for the front door, but Ballard had hold of him before he could take two steps. "There's nothing to be afraid of, Comrade," said Mironenko. "The dog's gone." Despite the reassurance, Solomonov began to sob as Ballard pressed him towards the open door.
Mironenko was right; it was warmer inside. And there no sign of a dog. There was blood in abundance, however. The man Ballard had last seen teetering in the doorway had been dragged back into this abattoir while he and Solomonov had struggled. The body had been treated with astonishing barbarity. The head had been smashed open; the innards were a grim litter underfoot. Squatting in the shadowy corner of this terrible room, Mironenko. He had been mercilessly beaten to judge by the swelling about his head and upper torso, but his unshaven face bore a smile for his saviour.