by James Damm
The man laughed and a brief pause occurred as they enjoyed a token inhale of their expensive luxury.
“My name is Marco,” the Italian said as he outstretched a hand. “Are you Fitzgerald’s father?”
Fifty seconds, no more, and Mike was back on his son. He nodded. “Did you know him?”
“I did,” said the man, to Mike’s surprise. And then after a brief pause Marco continued. “A bit of a prick, but I’m as sorry and shocked as everyone else.”
Mike laughed at Marco’s honesty. He took a moment to look a little closer at the figure next to him. To match his brutal eyes, there was a strong jawline, a nose that looked like it had taken a few hits. The Italian was young, in good shape, although small in stature.
“How did you know him?”
“Work,” Marco began. “Back in the old days, before it was all public. The UK government had quite a collection of us. Now it’s just Juliet. I’m here as a favour from the Italian government, just got rushed over in case I’m needed. Mostly there’s been handshakes and photographs so far.”
“I met Juliet,” Mike replied. “She was charming.”
Marco smiled. “Juliet has her own way of working. Your boy had his and I have mine.”
“Did he ever talk about the past?”
“Not that kind of relationship,” Marco began. “We talked about books. Your boy, he was a serious person and liked his serious reading. Me? I’m a fiction kind of guy – give me a generic police book with a leading detective estranged from his daughter and a serial killer to catch. Fitzgerald? He was all about the philosophy, the deeper meaning and all that stuff. I’ll admit I’m thin on that front.”
“You’re not the only one,” Mike chipped in.
“Well, we couldn’t really talk about books in the traditional sense, having such opposite tastes. We could talk about what made a good character, though, how best to tell a story. I’m talking a handful of conversations over several years here, but enough for a pattern to emerge. John was the person constantly chasing the why. He wanted to know the motivations, the drive and the impact of characters and decisions. There was a lot of non-fiction, autobiographies of Holocaust survivors, Malcolm X or former politicians. I always thought that was funny. In future decades, he’d be reading memoirs of people he had met and lived through. I guess… well… your boy liked to learn a little something about the world.”
“And you?”
“Ha! While your boy was the person chasing the why, I’m the reader who didn’t need care about it. The thrill of the adventure, the chase, and the journey is what I liked. A detective catching the serial killer? It wasn’t about the killer, the reasons they both did it. No, for me it was the fight along the way I responded to. Call me uncultured but give me a blockbuster film over an artsy one any day. How about you?”
“I can’t read for shit,” Mike replied candidly.
“Not a fan?”
“I can’t read at all.”
Marco replied wide-eyed in surprise. “I would not have guessed such a man to be your boy.”
Mike forced a smile. A recurring theme.
“Did he ever mention me?” Mike asked, sucking up the detectable shame.
“Once,” the Italian answered.
Mike looked at the man next to him. His hard eyes weren’t joking, and sarcasm was not something that seemed compatible with him. A straight talker, Mike knew he’d hear no white lies or false truths.
“We had been doing a mission in Africa someplace, one shithole or another. Some dictator had overstepped his mark, so they sent in the agents with physical abilities to sort it out. Years before, any of it went public or anything… and afterwards we needed a cigarette. Many of the people we were fighting were victims themselves, creations of their place of birth. Fucks with you, you know? Anyway, we were talking about upbringing, fathers, and eventually you came up.”
Mike’s shoulder’s tensed, but he remained calm in the face of another person’s views on his parenting. After one scolding this afternoon, how bad could a second one be?
“John told me a story once, from early in his childhood. A Friday night, he was due to be taken to a birthday party. An enormous deal, John told me, as he never got invited anywhere. Mum working, he was in the house waiting for you to bring his brother home from football practice. The minutes ticked by. He was late, becoming later and later, and finally you came in with your other son. Bag of chips in hand, you’d taken him for a takeaway after. John said nothing and went to his room.”
The words did little to stir emotion in Mike. What struck him was that he had no memory of the moment at all.
“I asked John why he told me that story,” Marco admitted. “Why that one in particular? All he said was, ‘that was the man he was.’ The next time we spoke, he seemed embarrassed about bringing it up. We went no further.”
“I was there,” Mike snapped back rapidly. “For seventeen years I was there.”
“He never said you weren’t.”
“I was there,” Mike repeated, but Marco seemed uninterested.
The Italian puffed again on his cigarette. “I have a baby girl now, she’s three. Already she talks back, even though she barely knows a handful of words. I would not change her developing little personality for the world. Parenting changes you, terrifies you. Here you have this little bundle of nothing, and you’re trying to teach them all that you know and correct all the mistakes you have made. But every child is a legacy of their nature and their nurture. She will cry, I will hurt her and she will hurt me. Parenting is imperfect; I will do the best I can and the rest I cannot control. You cannot change the man you were. He turned out okay and did more good than most could ever dream of. A piece of that is yours.”
Mike remained silent, the words soothing. For maybe half a minute the pair finished their cigarettes in silence before Marco got to his feet and stamped his out.
“I’m sorry about your boy.”
“Me too,” Mike nodded.
Thick and fast, two memories bounced in Mike’s head. The young boy attempting to run away from home and the one Marco had created, a boy waiting for a birthday party. The same life, the same two people involved, yet dramatically different outcomes. The third, the body, joined soon enough.
Juliet had suggested he was wallowing in self-pity. Mike considered for a few moments whether he agreed. Self-pity implied vanity, self-centredness. A person like that, thought Mike, drank out of weakness and lack of willpower. Mike would be the first to join in the criticism, the blame for every mistake, the destruction and consequence of everything falling back on him and the drink.
It was not weakness that made Mike drink. No – it was the addiction that made Mike weak, and until he found a way of no longer needing the medicine, he would remain that way. Long ago he had half-expected a defining moment, a rock bottom to build back up from. Maggie had passed away of cancer and left him to raise two young boys. David had passed away and so the medicine only came in larger quantities. By the time John left, any hope of a decisive moment had long since faded.
Since then, Mike had been waiting. Waiting to die? He could no longer say.
Chapter Nine
The morning passed into early afternoon with Juliet in the same waiting room. A television screen reporting round-the-clock coverage of the John Fitzgerald murder struggled to fill the airtime with no developments.
World leaders had provided speeches, members of parliament had been interviewed for reactions. Gradually, every person of any standing in society offered their take. Juliet had taken it upon herself to switch the television off when a reaction interview with a television celebrity chef began. The ticking clock next to the screen proved more scintillating.
Streams of people came and went. Friendly faces flicked in Juliet’s direction, others grave and bitter. They always wore their thoughts on their sleeve, only a little digging in their brains necessary. They had looked over any informants and come up empty, hoping that a fellow officer ha
d better luck.
Charlotte and Mike had left the police station not long after the interview, the Queen and Prime Minister waiting to offer their private condolences. Ethan’s communication now came only via Tom, his initial enthusiasm replaced by distance. As the senior officer, if he didn’t want Juliet’s help there was nobody who could really make him use it. The red ball case resembled a stick of dynamite, and he now deemed Juliet a risk, seeing it blowing up in his face.
When Tom came back, his anger had subsided, replaced with a coldness. “The impromptu candle eulogy is gaining momentum. A mass gathering of sorts outside of Buckingham Palace. Already it’s gaining traction on social media with MPs, celebrities and anyone with any societal weight expected to be present. Ethan wants you inside their heads. Anything radical or out of the ordinary recorded for interviews. Somebody there might know who did it,” Tom commanded.
“Why Buckingham Palace?” Juliet quizzed.
“Where else do the British go in times of need?” Tom answered, still with stern eyes. “Truth is, they’re tweaking Operation London Bridge which had been designed for the death of the Queen. They have trained the police and military to have such an occasion held there.”
“Is there a plan before then?”
“Home,” Tom stated with a furious expression on his face. Holding back the emotion no longer, he said, “He was in pieces after you left.”
Admittedly Juliet felt guilt towards the father she had berated earlier. The man wasn’t a criminal, but equally he had more potential than any of them to discover the key to the murder. Break a few eggs to make an omelette.
“We’ll pick you up at seven,” Tom called from the car. “If anybody of interest appears, I’ll be back before then. Keep your phone on.”
Back at her flat after being dropped off, Juliet mulled over what to do until she was next needed. If a witness or person of interest were to appear, they would immediately call her back into action, but until that happened there was little she could offer above the sea of other officers out in the field seeking information.
Mid-afternoon and there was no need to rest; her body regimented to early starts and early finishes. It would be a while before the necessity of sleep reared its head.
To make up for her interrupted run, a half-hour workout appealed. Exercise outside sounded pleasant, the air warm and any bitterness in the air months away. Yet as Juliet pictured doing it, with all the people and all that was going on, being outside would only remind her further of John.
Changing into some gym gear, rolling out an exercise mat and flicking on a playlist, Juliet stretched. The perfect antidote to a day that made little sense.
A high-intensity workout followed, with testing planks and a disgusting amount of burpees thrown in – core exercises designed to burn and stretch Juliet to her physical limit. In only half an hour, her tension and stress relieved, her physical and mental energy was boosted, and her sense of well-being restored. Anything that got her moving helped, but Juliet got a bigger benefit by paying attention instead of zoning out.
When Juliet exercised, it went deeper than that. She noticed the sensation of her feet hitting the ground, the rhythm of her breathing, the feeling of the wind on her skin. By adding this mindfulness element, really focusing on her body and how it felt when she exercised, she not only improved her physical condition, but could interrupt the flow of constant worries running through her head.
Once done Juliet opted for a shower, her music loud and pumping as she let the water run. She had a two-bedroom flat all to herself in the centre of London. At twenty-eight, single and with no qualifications past school, there were few occupations of a self-made nature that would let her live in a place like she did. House prices being the way they were, and the gap between wages and property only increasing, Juliet took a moment to cast a fresh eye over her flat. Since it came as part of the deal of her employment she paid no rent, and was given allowances for food, clothes and travel all on top of her hefty wage. Juliet need only ask and a bigger television, all-inclusive holiday, or the latest piece of tech would materialise. The British government would pay a heavy fee to keep her services rather than see the world’s only known mind-reader move sides.
Stepping into the shower, she let the water run over her shoulders. ‘Married to the job’ was a phrase thrown around often, but that wasn’t really the truth. Divorced from everything else was a closer description, and Juliet wasn’t talking about the last hour. In school, friendships and hobbies had seemed so easy. There was an abundance of after-school activities, free time and hundreds of people thrown together. The day it ended, there was a void. She had been lucky enough to walk into employment right away – not only that, a high-flying lifestyle and a career for life. Yet after nearly a decade, Juliet had become agitated.
Being able to read minds was an exotic ability. Every thought, feeling or opinion visible to just one person was an inquisitive person’s fantasy. Reality versus expectation was another thing. Imagine every insecurity being confirmed, whether it’s a person’s intention or not. That time a joke fell flat, you thought you looked bloated in a dress or were embarrassed in a situation, with the running commentary of every witness entering your own mind one word at a time. Yet on the flip side, every suspicion became validated. Is that cute guy at the bar checking me out? Words like attractive and fit emerge from his mind. Over the years Juliet had grown used to the wildness and untamed nature of the human mind. From emotions of the deepest love to passionate hatred in the matter of one conversation, the individual sat with a physical poker face the entire time. Once it had baffled her, but now it was just part of her life.
The glow of human thoughts, like everything, faded. As Juliet lathered foam over her body, she tried to calculate how many times she had undertaken the same menial tasks of brushing her teeth, trimming her nails and washing her hair. Juliet could say the same for her ability. Once the human brain had been wonderously complex, the secrets and thoughts exciting and devilish. But over time patterns emerged, and the dull reality of day-to-day life was stark. Television shows, news stories, workplace drama and home life arguments were ninety percent of what ran through a person’s mind. Without context, it was even more irrelevant to Juliet than it was to the original owner.
Eventually work became all that was exciting. Cases at least – murders, missing person cases and the rest – offered a rare, thrilling insight into darker emotions, motives and thoughts not associated with the tedious day-to-day lives of others. In a world that was tiring Juliet, the cases broke the monotony. Over time, she lost herself in the work, the investigations and the interviews. Once an escape from reality, the shadows had eventually become her new home and left her distant from the world left behind.
Stepping away from the water, Juliet rubbed conditioner in and watched the water fall as she waited. Thoughts of another average person entered her brain, Mike Fitzgerald. Juliet’s shoulders sank as the memory flooded back. A man with nobody left, an existence empty since the finality of youth, career and family life all ended. On the day the world stood still to mourn his son, a point of pride, Juliet had proved a shattering intrusion.
An image entirely constructed in her own mind manifested itself. Mike, weeks down the line, alone in a dreary, cold and empty house, exhaling with a bottle of rum emptied before him. The media fanfare and adulation dead. The monotony of day-to-day living was all that remained. A belt round his neck, Mike wondering how long it would take for someone to notice.
Sickened, Juliet interrupted her thoughts as she slid back under the warm water. Despite the steamy air and warmed skin, she suddenly felt a shiver run through her. The human brain was complex and fragile; it needed less pressure than one imagined in cracking the contents. Through her own actions, what had she stirred within John’s father?
Rinsing the last of the soap from her body and hair, Juliet’s thoughts momentarily drifted to her own father. Juliet switched the water off the second that happened, and grabb
ed a towel. There was enough father-and-child relationship issues in her head for one day.
A car came round to pick Juliet up at around seven. The police had toiled, but nothing concrete answered any of the questions surrounding the investigation. The running theory was that John flew down, and the incident took place. With the slim number of individuals in the area, photos of the grainy CCTV images were being circulated while cell towers and GPS signals of mobile phones in the area were traced to find owners.
Tests on those with abilities were yielding little in discovering how John Fitzgerald’s ability had shut down. Tests on the impact of opioids and heroin revealed nothing between ability and functionality, while nobody questioned had any history of their powers being able to shut themselves off.
Tom’s attitude had cooled in the hours since he and Juliet had last seen each other. From briefing to briefing they had dragged him along, learning little new or helpful information. Twelve hours after the murder and with no breakthrough in sight anywhere, nervousness was seeping through the investigation. They weren’t at the stage for desperate measures just yet, but once the public’s shock settled down, there was fear of what could come next.
Describing the life of one of the mega cities of the world like New York and London was difficult. The major global cities operated to a clock and calendar they created themselves. Go time, all the time. No matter what time the clock showed, what weather stood overhead in the sky or the colour of the trees, the city never halted. Sure, there were differences. The corporate bustle of the day made way for the loveable grimness of the night scene, but wedged in the gap was a city always awake.
The evening of John’s candle eulogy, the streets were basking in light. Summer, warm under the cloudless sky and heat, contrasted to the mood of the people. In ordinary times, barbeques and sunbathing would be the main event. In cities the world over, the public had put pleasantries on hold to show their respect. There were to be speakers, Chinese lanterns and candles in places for when it was dark enough. They planned a minute’s silence.