Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  Despite Thom’s disclosures, Sarah doesn’t reveal her own clues; such as the combination she discovered last night. She makes the noises of someone who is surprised to learn about Daniel and the prior knowledge of his own death. Yet there are some surprises. After all, Sarah has no idea there were such a multitude of clues and taunting items that had been left behind.

  Thom can’t help drawing parallels between Sarah and Emma, in particular the way he has responded to both asking the same questions. What does that mean for him and Emma? What does it mean for him and Sarah? Thom feels he might already know the answer but he shrugs his thoughts away.

  Sarah seems fascinated by his discoveries. He imagines he is a detective again, revealing all the answers to a less superior counter-part, and he delights in showing her some of his findings and delights equally in holding parts back.

  He lets Sarah touch the objects from the lock up but it physically pains him. With each fingerprint she leaves on them, he feels his muscles tensing. Eventually he has to collect them up and put them away again without explanation. She begins moving towards the notebook but Thom snatches it up.

  “I’d rather you didn’t”, he says and shoves it into a drawer. Sarah tosses her hair, unconcerned and runs her hand over the note, which is still on the bed in front of her.

  “So this was your first clue?” Sarah questions, not looking up.

  “Yes. I found it in Daniel’s room just before his funeral”.

  “I thought nobody was supposed to go in there?” Sarah half-mocks him but he doesn’t appreciate it.

  “Well I have more of a right than you do”, Thom snaps and throws himself down on the end of the bed. Sarah instantly apologises. Silence fills the room like a flood and Thom closes his eyes, letting it conquer him.

  “Have you told Val or Richard about this?” Sarah asks after a few minutes. Thom reluctantly reopens his eyes and turns towards her.

  “Would you?”

  “It would be pretty devastating for them”.

  “Do you think I should tell them?”

  “No”, Sarah answers harshly, and then coughs gently, “I mean… it probably wouldn’t help anyone if you did”. Thom nods grate-fully but doesn’t realise Sarah is only protecting herself. Yet, Thom also knows he is running on a stopwatch, sooner or later Aunty Val or Richard will start asking questions about his behaviour and actions. If the positions were reversed, he would’ve asked ages ago.

  “It feels good to share some of this”, Thom tells Sarah, who smiles whilst wrapping her hair around one of her fingers. It does feel good but, equally, Thom feels as though it’s been easier than it should’ve been. How can the words slip off the tongue like soft butter, yet have such a heavy impact like a bludgeoning? Thom feels betrayed by his secrets.

  “I’m so happy you decided to tell me what you’ve been thinking”.

  This troubles Thom. Has he really told her what he’s ‘thinking’? No, he has shown her some physical things that he’s been consumed with. Has he told her how he feels isolated? Has he told her how he feels guilty and sad about Daniel? Has he told her he can’t stop thinking about her red underwear and her black curls? No to all the above. She thinks she has submerged her head in his mind but she has only dipped a finger in.

  “What are you going to do now?” Sarah persists.

  What a question. Thom thinks and thinks more. He imagines he is in an interview and tries to think of an answer rapidly but it’s not possible. After several minutes of bending his fingers backwards and forwards he says, “I’m going to keep trying. I don’t know how but I’ll keep trying”.

  As Thom speaks, he studies Sarah. At his words, he notices an odd flick of her head, a jut or a tick. Her chest is rising rapidly. Her forehead looks clammy. If he saw her in a lift now, he would guess she is having a panic attack. Yet she isn’t in a lift, she’s sitting on his bed having a quiet discussion. What is happening?

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine”, Sarah answers hastily. She gives Thom a wide- eyed look, pleading for him not to assault her and suddenly he thinks of her being attacked by the man in the street. He doesn’t want to make her feel afraid. Why is he always so suspicious? Perhaps she is just hot or feeling a little ill, what business is it of his?

  “Sarah, tell me about your family”. Thom changes the subject, hoping this will relax her. Instead her face goes through several expressions in succession and Thom wants to kick himself. Her family were probably killed in some freak accident, he sighs inside.

  “What do you want to know?” Sarah attempts a smile and Thom gets a sense she is stalling. More paranoia? Probably.

  “Anything. I don’t mind”.

  “Okay”. Sarah pretends to be selecting information or memories but really she is constructing lies. Thom waits patiently, allowing her more time than he should.

  “I have a brother called Peter who’s three years older. He lives in Scotland now”, she pauses and hastily adds, “my Mum and Dad live in the country so I don’t see them much either”.

  “When is the last time you saw them?”

  “Probably one of their birthdays, I can’t remember exactly”.

  “Do you all get on?” Thom is getting nothing from the quest-ions. What he wants to ask is; did the stranger tell the truth about you? Why haven’t you mentioned your family before?

  “Yes, mostly. All families have their problems sometimes”, Sarah dismisses him confidently; anyone would’ve believed her.

  “When you were having problems with your rent, couldn’t you have asked them for help?”

  “I was embarrassed really”. She shrugs. It’s moments like these she’s had recently, when Sarah has begun to feel like a ‘normal’ person, who can have a conversation, who can answer unpredictable questions. Other times, she regresses and implicates herself without even trying.

  “I understand. Sometimes it’s hard to ask for help, especially from those closest to you”.

  “I’m glad I didn’t ask them because I wouldn’t have met you otherwise”, Sarah says quietly, bowing her head as though she has just told him the most humiliating thing that has ever happened to her. She is a frightened innocent in this moment and her hushed confession makes Thom’s obsession with Daniel thaw, for a few moments at least.

  Thom gets up and moves next to her. She doesn’t look up as he scratches her cheek with his thumbnail. He wishes he didn’t have these bandages on anymore. He wants to press his palm against her warm cheek. Thom moves his thumb over her lips and she opens her mouth slightly, still keeping her eyes down. Thom wonders if she is only complying with his touch out of fear. Should he stop?

  He can hear her swallowing, frozen except for her tongue brushing a layer of moistness over her lips. Thom touches the wetness with his thumb and imagines it is his tongue instead. Sarah hasn’t met his gaze yet and Thom worries briefly, she is staring at his erection. Yet with most thoughts in this area, the worry quickly disperses.

  Thom is about to boil over with tension, her icy ignorance acting in reverse. Hoping she won’t scream, he kisses her. She finally meets his eyes, wide but not afraid, and grabs onto him. They kiss like they are grappling; it is hard, oddly diamagnetic. He finds, although she tries so hard to seem cold, her skin is as warm as other women’s.

  Thom isn’t sure who pushes back first; he is still kissing her in his mind. His unfounded obsession with her has been partly indulged; he has felt those lips again and crushed her bouncy curls between his fingers. Strangely he also feels the desire to do it again turning his stomach like a violent urge to vomit.

  They stare at each other for a few seconds, perhaps unsure that what they have done is ‘right’, perhaps still shocked that it has occurred, perhaps wanting more. Sarah stands up, smoothing her top as she does. As she passes Thom, she grazes the side of his neck with her fingers. Thom closes his eyes and a second later hears the door being closed with the same tenderness.

  30 The Red Lock

  I d
on’t leave the house until the next day; bathing in the moment Thom removed the gap between us, holding our desire and curiosity in a violent whirlpool. He has calmed the waters with his soothing kiss and transferred the whirlpool into my stomach and my bouncing heartbeat.

  I spent the evening sitting across from him whilst the family watched TV together, remembering the tough bristle of his stubble making my chin grow a rash and go slightly pink. Later, I stared at the rash and only felt happy. In the living room as I sat across from him, he looked over only once, neither smiling nor frowning, perhaps winking at me without moving at all.

  I have forgiven him for telling Emma I know nothing, as he has now confided in me. He has let me get closer to him. She is irrelevant now. He can’t want her if he kissed me, can he? He must think about me too. He must want me to help him like I always thought I needed to.

  Yet I am still following up the address I found. Daniel must have left it there for me. I have an obligation to go to the address and see what is there waiting. Perhaps it is just something to tease me, perhaps there will be nothing there at all, or perhaps there will be something important there like I fear.

  I can easily give this up, I tell myself. I can easily go back to the house and take Thom to bed with me, make him forget about Daniel too. I’m sure if I try I can dominate his attention and make Daniel release his talons on Thom’s mind.

  More than half of me wants to take this option. More than half of me wants to jump on a new train and leave Daniel’s one behind where it belongs. Yet like the blood will always remain in traces on that tunnel wall, on the platform, underneath its chugging feet – similarly, he will chew on the corner of my mind until I do as he wants. He has left this message for me, as he’d left the note for Thom and we are pathetic to his remains. We are both like animals picking at his carcass.

  This is why I am standing outside a post office with an address written in my mind. This is why I am reeling it off and checking it against the street sign on the corner. This is why.

  But, Mum, I’m so afraid of what I might find. Will you stay with me?

  The post office is a discreet looking building. There is nothing spectacular about it. As the clock had spoken to me on the day I pushed Daniel, the post office is tipping his hat to me. He is opening the door repeatedly, asking me inside. He is poking his tongue out.

  I finally grab hold of his tongue and enter the post office. It’s much more spacious inside than I expect, it is as wide as a concert hall. There are people queuing with their parcels, letters, and bill payments. I am searching for where the address intends to lead me, panic swelling up my throat. Finally, the sign floats into vision that reads ‘Lockers’. An arrow points towards the back of the building.

  This way, Mum…

  I skip towards it; past the lines of people sending things to those they love or know, to the place where I think someone might have cared enough to leave something for me. Although what could Daniel possibly have left here? And do I really want to see it? The point is, he knew I’d find the clue. Thom missed it because he couldn’t see things properly; it may as well have been invisible. This clue is definitely mine.

  I greet the lockers with an ecstatic cry, as though I am meeting old friends. I reach out and touch their metal bodies, checking they aren’t apparitions. They are definitely real. They are cold and smooth and beautiful. Dancing around the locker room, I count up the numbers until I finally reach my beloved – locker 11.

  I chuckle to myself at the sight of the red lock securing it. He really has thought of everything and then with that thought, I frown. He has planned so much. He knew more about me than I seem to. How did he know I love the colour red? He has used it several times to speak to me. How did this stranger know all about me? And be certain that I would push him to his death?

  I shake the thoughts away and instantly begin to turn the dials to the four numbers from the drawer, not shocked by it; I line them up like perfect soldiers to combination 1530. Again, I want to correct it. Perhaps I should reset it to the correct time and after-wards go home and change the time on Thom’s note with a red pen. That would be irony for Daniel, wouldn’t it? Correcting his note like a schoolteacher, with the only colour appropriate for such tasks.

  The lock gapes open in my grip, allowing me to twist it side-ways and rip it away from the body it has hung from like a piercing. The locker is now unlocked, ready to be opened, ready… Go! I tell myself and fling it open, expecting ghouls to fly out or a hammer to swing towards me and crunch every bone in my face.

  Yet everything is still. Nothing comes towards me out of the locker. Nothing is hiding in there to bite my fingers off, one by one. Inside there are only a few small objects. A red scarf, origami shapes made from red paper, a brown file and a few letters with the name Daniel written on the front. The handwriting looks familiar yet I can’t place it. The red shapes mean nothing to me, the scarf seemingly useless when I am wearing one exactly like it. The file is fat and bulging, squashed together with two fat elastic bands, holding its secrets inside.

  Mum, what do you think it all is? I wonder if you’d tell me to just shut the locker door and leave it all here. But how can I do that?

  Checking nobody is watching, I empty all of the contents into my bag. The fat file is a monster, its corners pressing against the closed zip, bursting to spill its contents. A few strands of the scarf get caught in the zip but I stuff them back inside and hastily pull the bag onto my shoulder. I close the locker and hang the lock back in its place, locking it without thinking.

  I hug my bag as I pass through the crowds, anxious someone will try to steal it or that some undercover policeman, who has been following me without my knowledge, will suddenly reveal himself and demand I hand it to him. I wouldn’t be able to hand it over though, not even Thom could prise the bag handles from my bloodless fist.

  31 The Intervention

  As Sarah is searching for a safe place to examine her items, Thom is on the living room sofa, staring at a family picture. It is a photo from about four years ago when Aunty Val and the three of them took a day trip to a theme park. They are all smiling in the photo, all the outward ‘signs’ point to a happy family but Thom wants to rip it apart now. Underneath Daniel’s shy smile there is only hate and the desire to destroy others, to destroy all of them.

  Thom is so engrossed in his dark interpretation of the photo that he only notices the others when their shadows drift over it. He lifts his head up reluctantly, yet is still undeservedly warmed by Aunty Val’s smile as she lowers herself beside him. Richard enters the room behind her and before taking a seat in his usual armchair opposite, empties his pockets of a screwdriver and some nails. For some reason, he thinks carrying these things will keep him prepared or something. Yet, can he fix us all with some nails and a screwdriver?

  Aunty Val notices the photo he is holding and runs her hand over it, her mouth stuck like a cross, a smile overlapped with a frown. Her fingers linger over Daniel for a split second and then fall into her lap. She wraps her other arm around Thom and squeezes him to her. Part of him melts into her familiar form, the part that also wants to find Sarah and melt into her warm moist mouth. Another part doesn’t want to be squeezed in case all his dark thoughts and questions and anger gush out.

  “Can we talk to you, Thom?” Aunty Val asks gently, like some-one approaching an addict who needs rescuing. Thom smiles weakly and nods. He glances over at Richard, who has his hands clasped together in front of him, seeming like a doctor or a CEO delivering bad news. Thom has an urge to simply jump up and run.

  “Richard saw what happened to Daniel’s room”, Aunty Val begins warily and continues gently as though Thom is a landmine, “and your hands have been injured recently. So we put two and two together...”

  “If you want to ask me about something, why don’t you just do it?” Thom says flatly, staring her directly in the face until she blinks rapidly and looks down.

  “Thom, did you smash up Daniel’s ro
om?” she asks quietly.

  Thom casts a glance in Richard’s direction and announces, “Yes, I did”.

  With his omission, the air in the room tightens. “Why would you do that, darling?” Aunty Val’s expression is that of Thom having peed all over her favourite possessions. A storm is churning inside Thom, and he can’t look at Richard or Aunty Val for the next few moments or he fears he will detonate. One sight of them will split him in two and he doesn’t know if he will be able to fuse the nuclei back together and exist as before.

  “Did you look around in there, Aunty?” Thom doesn’t want to do this but she is forcing him. It’s her own fault if she wants to find out this way.

  “No. I just stood in the doorway and looked in. I still can’t do that”.

  “And you Rich, did you check anywhere?” Thom persists.

  He hears Richard shuffling in his chair. “No, I just saw the wardrobe”, he pauses, and even from the corner of his eye, Thom sees him tugging at his ear lobe. “What are you getting at?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you”, Thom moans.

  “Tell us what?” Aunty Val whispers but her voice is so tight Thom can see she wants to cork her ears. She still feels like a pane of glass without a frame. She has lost one child and another of her ‘children’ has become consumed by something ever since. What can she do to save the one who still lives?

  “It’s all empty”. Thom shrugs, almost bored with the revelation. He and Sarah have both seen this revelation through each phase and they have reached the surface again, not wanting to go back for those still struggling below.

  Richard sits forward in his chair. “What’s empty? Stop talking in riddles, Thom”, Richard chides.

  “When have I ever spoken in riddles?”

  “We spoke to Emma. She’s worried about you”, Aunty Val adds, trying to quell the rising argument, not realising she is only sparking more anger in Thom.