Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  “You haven’t said anything”, Thom notes, looking for some-thing to fill the heavy silence. I inhale deeply, my head beginning to swell out like there has been a tumour hiding behind my eyes for some time, waiting to pounce.

  “What can I say, Thom?” I swallow heavily. “That I killed him? That I knew who you were when you chased me out of your garden? That I have no idea why I pushed him and I still don’t?” As I speak, Thom bites his lip so hard it nearly disappears underneath his teeth.

  “You’re admitting it, just like that?” Thom asks, shifting on his feet. He hasn’t expected it to be this easy but I am tired, ready to let the stone, I have been holding in place, roll out of me and disappear into the distance.

  “I’ve tried to hide this from you for too long”.

  It seems like we are discussing a tea party or what we watched on TV last night, not a murder. Where is the shouting? Where is the heart-wrenching emotion? Perhaps we are both too exhausted. I can see the bags under Thom’s eyes; they are parachutes that have deflated before they have left the ground.

  “You know what I don’t understand?” Thom exclaims suddenly, raising the sound level, throwing my hands down. “How you could lie to me all this time, how you could sit there and listen to me going on about what he did and how I don’t understand it all… Didn’t you feel bad? Didn’t you at least feel sorry for me?” His hands are in fists; his teeth clenched as he stares at me, like a dog I have kicked for no reason. I instantly feel the ceiling sagging above my head, threatening to collapse.

  “It’s the worst I’ve ever felt in my life”, I answer honestly.

  “Worse than you felt after you pushed my brother onto those tracks?”

  ...

  “Your brother?” She asks dismissively, thinking he has made a simple error and will correct himself. Yet Thom gives her a twisted smile, almost mocking her for being so stupid all this time, as he has been for most of his life.

  “Of course. Didn’t I tell you that Daniel and I were actually brothers?”

  “What are you talking about?” Sarah grabs him by the arms and squeezes gently, trying to bring him back to sense. Thom doesn’t push her away now. He thinks that her gesture is born out of affection for him and part of him enjoys it, despite everything.

  “Aunty Val had a secret all these years. Apparently Daniel found out and he wanted me to know too”.

  “Are you saying Val isn’t your aunt? She’s your… mum?” Sarah pronounces each word carefully, except the word ‘mum’. That word falters on her tongue, partly held back as if she doesn’t want to let it go.

  “Yes. Apparently she’s my real mum. She and my dad put their genes together and ended up with twins. So they flipped a coin and decided which one she should keep and which she should give to my parents”.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t as easy a decision as that”, Sarah says quietly. Thom laughs and reverses the hold, so he is now holding onto her, and pulls her close to his face.

  “You really think so, do you?” he spits.

  “Thom, I’m sorry”. She stares into his face, determined not to be frightened by him. Thom shoves her away roughly but she manages to catch herself and doesn’t fall.

  “You’re sorry, she’s sorry, we’re all sorry”. Thom counts on his fingers. “All it means is that my whole life has been a big fucking lie. And Daniel’s too”. He closes his fist around his own fingers, cutting himself down.

  “You must feel completely betrayed”, Sarah hazards. Thom raises his head, one side of his lip hooking into a smile. His cheeks are reddening and even from here, Sarah can see his eyes flashing with water.

  “You know…” he begins, twisting his hands as he talks, “I wanted to believe you so much”. His words have a twang of tears. “I guess that’s why it was so easy for you to fool me”.

  ...

  “I didn’t try to fool you Thom”, I insist. I am desperate to close the space between us, have him against me again, skin on skin. Yet I can’t move, knowing I will be rejected.

  “Oh so what do you call it, Sarah?” Thom can’t stop a few tears escaping from his eyes and running down his face. “I mean, that’s not even your real name. I’m a fucking joke”. Thom digs his nails into his arms. His body is shaped like an arch weighed down by tonnes of stone. As he coughs out his words, his tears fly towards me in the air and land on the floorboards.

  “Please Thom. I never meant to make a fool of you”. I falter, knowing that my intentions and my actions are completely separate. He is right.

  “But you did Sarah. I believed in you, despite everyone telling me I shouldn’t. Richard didn’t trust you, Emma didn’t believe you, and even I wasn’t convinced”. He chokes on a suppressed sob. “But I am so broken that it was easy for you”.

  “I’m broken too”, I tell him. He jolts as though his body is offended by this comment but after a moment, he nods gently.

  “Did you know what you’d done at the station that day?” Thom asks cautiously, seemingly jabbing a lion in the eye with a stick.

  “My body and my mind weren’t connected properly. I remembered I’d done it but my mind wasn’t connected to reality. I can’t even tell you what I was thinking”, I pause heavily, “even now, my mind isn’t right…”

  It feels like I am talking to a therapist again, but this time, I am making some progress at least. However, looking at Thom, each word I say seems to punch him down. His body is swaying slightly, his eyes squinting at the world he can’t escape.

  “So when you met me, you already knew. And you didn’t feel shame or remorse?” He is pacing the room now, trying to look like an excellent sleuth but his wobbly steps defy him.

  “I didn’t really feel remorse then. You helped me with that”.

  “Me?” He stops.

  “Yes. Spending time with you taught me how to feel again. You really saved me, Thom”, I tell him earnestly, grabbing at his hand. He glances down at my touch, as though he has forgotten he has hands.

  “But you’re still a murderer”. He shakes me off roughly.

  ...

  Thom watches her body droop. For a few seconds, he thinks she might faint, but she slumps onto the bed instead. A strange stab of guilt pricks Thom in the side. How can he still care about her? Shouldn’t he be getting his revenge for Daniel? Or did he feel she is just as much a victim as Daniel? Even after all these weeks, he is just as torn as he was when it first began. It seems like since the note, he has been torn in two – the grieving relative and the detective. Although his detective work leaves a lot to be desired; the culprit has been right in front of him for weeks and he has been blind to suspect her.

  “I sometimes thought you were alike”, she says, playing with her hands in her lap and peering up to see his response. Thom allows her to speak this time.

  “Every time I saw you, your hair or your voice, would remind me”, she pauses, “and every time I saw your grief, I felt like I was killing you too. But I realised that although what I have done is completely wrong and unforgivable, I wasn’t aware of what pushing him really meant”.

  “You’re defending yourself?” Thom scoffs, kicking the floor-boards. A haze of dust floats up between them.

  “Not defending, Thom, explaining”.

  “Should I really care about your explanation, your reason or whatever you want to call it?” Thom says, his limbs flailing as though independent of himself.

  “You’re right”, Sarah admits, shrugging, “but there is something I want to tell you”. She lets the silence fill the room for a moment until Thom can stand it no more.

  “What then?”

  “He said something to me, Thom”.

  “Well you knew him before, didn’t you? At the hospital? It’s hardly surprising he spoke to you!” Thom turns away, laughing to the side of him, as though he has an invisible friend standing there.

  “No, I don’t remember all that”, she corrects him. “I meant when he fell”.

  Thom’s head jerks back towards
her. She instantly feels as though a stark light is shining into her eyes and she lifts her hand to shield it.

  “Don’t people always say something when they get pushed in front of a train?”

  “Not like this”, she insists, “I thought at first I imagined it, as you might expect a crazy person could. I thought I’d seen it wrong… but I’m so sure that I’m right…”

  “Are you ever going to tell me?” Thom cries, bouncing on his feet like a man standing on hot coals.

  “Yes”, she reassures him. “As he fell, he said right on time”. She stares into the distance. She expects Thom to react to this, yet he seems almost unflustered.

  “Right…” He agrees, as though they have been comparing notes.

  “You don’t seem that surprised’.

  “I’m not really”. He nods, a small smile growing on his lips.

  Sarah isn’t sure what to make of this so she continues talking: “I thought about it for days and days afterwards. And I decided I had to know what he meant”.

  “So you came to our house?”

  “I followed you first. I tried to find out more about him by watching you”.

  “You were following us?” Thom says; looking more disgusted than when she admitted she is a murderer.

  ...

  Looking at myself through Thom’s eyes is now an altered and disturbing experience. From his unrelenting faith in me, he is now losing his adoration word by word.

  “I told you I was very sick”.

  “You love telling me that, don’t you?” he says roughly.

  “People find it hard to see. Even I did before this happened to me…”

  “Talking isn’t helping. It doesn’t change all this, does it?” Thom looks so tired that all I want is to lie him down and let him sleep for days, forgetting everything.

  “We should’ve talked more before”, I tell him, unsure of what else to say.

  “You’re right”, he says quietly, pained by the fact he agrees with a murderer and a crazy person. “The thing I’m most sad about – how all this started – is the lack of talking”. He leans against the wall. For a moment, he looks like a tramp hitching a ride to another town. His hair is unwashed, his brow dirty with sweat and dust, his eyes darkened by lack of sleep.

  “If she’d just told us in the first place, if she’d been honest enough, Daniel wouldn’t have been so angry. I could’ve saved him, and you wouldn’t have pushed him. He must’ve made you do it, I don’t know how… But all this could’ve been avoided”. Thom gestures to the room around them as though it holds their lives. He walks towards me, his gaze so focussed that I believe it is compensating for his broken mind. He takes my hand.

  “But the person I’m most upset about is you”, he tells me, his lips trembling uncontrollably. Yet he doesn’t cry. He is too shattered and drained to actually cry again. “I loved you. I really loved you”. He squeezes my hand until it feels numb but I say nothing. “If after everything, I could’ve trusted you, maybe I wouldn’t feel like there isn’t anything left”.

  “Please Thom…” I say sadly but can’t think of how to end the sentence. Please Thom, change your mind? Please Thom, let me love you? Please Thom, let’s forget everything and start again? None of them seem right so I say nothing.

  “I wish you knew what to say to help me now”. Thom’s words transform into a moan. “But you’ve all let me down”. He snatches his hand back, although he is the one who initiated it. “And I let Daniel down because I am so stupid that I never saw the truth… I let everyone lie to me because I can’t handle things”.

  “Thom, don’t say these things about yourself”.

  “Well it’s true”, he spits. “I’ve never been able to deal with any-thing. I’ve sat in a cosy office talking to people on the phone, never really dealing with anything. And do you know why Sarah?”

  “Why?” I ask reluctantly.

  “Because I don’t really know who I am”. Thom shrugs, not even sure his words are true. “I thought I was a son but then my parents died. I thought I was a cousin but it turns out I’m a brother. I thought I was a nephew but I’m a son. I thought I was an insurance officer but I can’t even remember where I work. I thought I was a detective but I’ve been fooled all along. I thought I was a boyfriend but I’m a cheat. And I thought I was a man in love but… I don’t know anymore”. Thom stares at his palms as though they are morphing before him.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this but I can understand how you feel”.

  “Oh, you can?” Thom sneers, clearly unimpressed by my empathy. “I can’t believe you’re trying to liken yourself to me. After everything…”

  “We’re not so different, Thom. Daniel fooled me too”, I say quietly. Thom’s face instantly softens as he digests this.

  “You’re right”, he croaks. “He changed your life forever. You can never go back”. Thom pauses briefly, finishing, “just like me”.

  When he moves, I think he may be coming to embrace me but he brushes past me. I don’t move, too drained to really think of doing so. What’s the point? I know I can’t leave him here. But I should be out of this house, since I tried to escape it for months and have been so close…

  Thom’s presence arrives behind me. I turn towards him. His eyes are bloodshot, his body straight like a nail sticking out of the floor trying to catch my toe and drag me down, his arms bulging with veins, the knife sparkling in the light from the half-opened blind.

  I open my mouth but he grabs me roughly with his free hand before I can protest, plead or even utter a syllable. His mouth is wet with spit, a few specks on his beard. I am frozen for a moment, staring at the knife in his hand.

  Mum, I know I said I’d stop talking to you but I’m really afraid…

  “Sarah”, he whispers, looking down at the knife himself. He moves it between them and pulls me even closer. I can feel it through my top, like a vein throbbing beneath the skin; subtle but something that cannot be ignored. I meet his gaze, wondering what has happened behind his eyes. What has happened to the man I can trust? What has happened to his hope?

  “Thom, you don’t have to do this”, I tell him firmly.

  He shakes his head. “I have to do something”, he insists, pulling me even closer. My stomach leaps at the thought of it being punctured, but the pressure of the blade only increases, although doesn’t draw blood yet. Our foreheads are touching, and from afar, I imagine we look like lovers.

  Thom begins to shake, his unrealised tears making his whole body shudder. I want to grab hold of him, keep him still but the knife lingers between us and I’m afraid I will push it into one of us, or both of us. Instead, I reach up and touch his face. I move my fingers across his bristly beard, the softness of his lips amongst it, his clammy skin.

  His body slowly stills again. He nuzzles his head against mine, moaning gently. Yet all I feel is his grip on the knife, which doesn’t falter. My wrist is still clamped in his other hand, drawing me closer to his body and perhaps closer to death.

  As I move over the back of his neck, he jolts suddenly. His body shoots up straight, his expression darkening. I feel the knife press harder into my stomach, the pressure beginning to mark the skin underneath. His eyes are wet but his mouth is hardened by his clenched teeth.

  “While I’ve been standing here…” He speaks in a throaty voice, as though he has been screaming for hours. “All I can think about is two things”, he pauses, “kissing you and… killing you”. The space between us is now non-existent; there is only the knife to separate us. His face is close. I can feel his breath on my lips and as he moves his head a millimetre forward, his beard scratches at my skin.

  “You can’t let him do this to us”, I insist. I don’t want to plead with him. I don’t want to be the murderer who can’t face up to death. If anything, he should’ve killed me as soon as he found out.

  Thom finally lets his tears throb out of him like lava pulsing out of a volcano. His face flashes with sadness and anger eac
h millisecond. It seems like I am watching him through a kaleidoscope. Then he moves a millimetre forward and presses his lips against mine. They are shivering and cracked.

  I see the red before I feel it. But it’s the sudden push backwards and a thrust that really occur first. It punctures the skin violently, delving inside where no one can see what’s been ruptured. It is seconds later that the blood actually begins to swell out of the hole. Yet, after the initial swell, the blood spreads like a fire tearing through the material. The shock follows. Neither of us moves. Our eyes are locked, our mouths gasping for air.

  Still locked together, we fall to the floor.

  The door bursts open as we land. The blood covers my arms. I’m holding onto the knife so hard that my hands are sliced open. “Alice, no…” a voice says. I realise Michael is pulling me up, leaning me against him. He is searching for the wound, flailing his jacket around, ready to plug the hole. I have forgotten he had been waiting for me at all.

  “No”, I push away, as he realises what has happened. I scramble towards Thom, lying on his side, staring towards the blank TV screen. I lift his head onto my lap. Michael belatedly presses his jacket against Thom’s stomach, causing Thom to groan and recoil. Yet after a few moments, he doesn’t seem to notice anymore.

  “Why did you do it?” I shake him. He looks dazed so I slap him gently on the cheek until he focuses on my face. He smiles gently, as though he has forgotten everything. Perhaps this is exactly what he wanted – numbness, oblivion. Yet I don’t want to let him go. I start to sob as Michael calls an ambulance.

  For once, I don’t find blood beautiful. It makes my head dizzy. It makes my chest tighten and spasm. It makes my stomach twist as if the knife is actually stuck inside me, ripping my organs apart.

  “I had to”, Thom says quietly. “You’re getting better...” He whispers, leaning his head into my chest. Does he mean that only one of us can survive? That he thinks he will never ‘get better’?

  He closes his eyes but I refuse to let him leave me. I shake him awake. He drowsily reopens his eyes, and I think he will start telling me how he is cold or numb. Yet he doesn’t need to. His body is shivering in my hold and he seems unaware.