by Wes Markin
Yorke managed to contact Frederick. After apologising, and providing some context behind his phone call, he asked him why he’d left his brother’s house sitting empty for so long.
Frederick had emigrated at an early age, so his Australian accent was strong. ‘Well, it isn’t sitting empty.’
Yorke rose to his feet with his heart beating wildly.
‘Robert asked me, less than a year before he died, to allow a good friend of his to live there for free should he ever fall on hard times.’
Yorke stared at Topham with wide eyes.
‘I told him to change his Will, obviously, and leave this lad the flaming house. He said he would, eventually, but he was always so busy. He said he’d get to it in retirement. He didn’t have to worry. I’m not short of a few dollars. He could trust me.’
‘What’s the name of the boy, Mr Webster?’
‘Christian Severance.’
When Anthony Morris heard someone walking past the storage unit, he felt frustration like he’d never felt before. It would only take a simple rattle of the steel fold-up door or a sharp cry for assistance and he’d be tasting freedom. He looked down at the photograph of his ten-year daughter again. It implied she was in danger. Running for freedom now came with a risk. A risk he had no desire to take.
The phone had no reception on it. Not that it mattered. Calling the emergency services would have been too risky. He turned the phone over and noticed a small white label stuck to the back. Written on it in red biro were the words: check the notepad.
He turned the phone back over and went into the notepad app. There was only one file and it was called: For Anthony.
He opened it.
Anthony, please do not be alarmed. I would like you to enjoy these last few peaceful moments before you are required to act.
My name is Christian Severance. I expect you have paused at this point to try and recall who I am? Well, if you are struggling, I have a remarkable memory, so let me give you a clue. Do you remember these words?
“I ask the Right Honourable Salton to consider Christian Severance’s role in all of this. I understand the controversial nature of our counter-argument but consider the evidence we have shown you. The testimony from Logan Burns, his classmate, regarding Christian’s sexual advances, and Logan’s need to threaten police action to end the pursuit. Also, the diary entries that were entered into evidence which showed Christian’s obsessive tendencies towards males he found attractive. None of these are excuses for Marcus Long’s guilt, but we ask you to take into account these mitigating circumstances when passing sentence.”
My memory is excellent but forgive me if I got a few of the words wrong. I’m sure you remember me now.
Today, I would like to ask you this: if your own daughter, a minor, that pretty young lady I currently sit with, experienced what I experienced, would you consider all of the above circumstances mitigating? Yes, I was a young man, struggling to understand my sexuality, but isn’t it a step too far to consider my attractions to these individuals obsessive? I was fourteen years old! You are a lawyer, Anthony, not a doctor. At what point did you feel qualified to make this diagnosis of obsession? Maybe you never even believed it yourself. After all, you are skilled at creating narratives to suit your own ends. And you were convincing, I will give you that. Convincing enough for Judge Andrew Salton, who now sits beside you.
Anthony paused to look up at the elderly man with a shock of white hair. He was chained to a metal chair. Was it really Judge Andrew Salton? Anthony had come before him on many occasions in his career. It was difficult to tell right now because his head was slumped forward. Anthony’s eyes fell back to the notepad on the phone.
Do you remember Judge Andrew Salton’s words before he passed sentence? I do. Maybe when all of this is over, you could look them up? Refresh your memory. There is no need for me to do that. These words haunt me. Daily.
You succeeded with your mitigation, Anthony, didn’t you? Two years and he was out. Two years for what he did.
‘Yes,’ Anthony said out-loud, ‘but what happened to you, would have happened anyway. It was many, many years later. So, this does not make me responsible!’
Anthony felt tears in his eyes. This was one case he was not going to be able to present to a judge and jury.
What I am going to ask you to do now will be quick. Can you see the camera in the corner of your room?
A small, black dome CCTV camera was attached to the ceiling.
I am watching your every move.
At this moment, I am running a hand through your daughter’s fine blonde hair. Don’t worry, this is nothing sinister, I am not that way inclined. I have simply been combing the knots from her hair.
Who knows? If my life hadn’t have ended up this way – I could be experiencing this with a child of my own.
She is asleep in my arms, Anthony. At peace. I am happy to keep it this way. It is your decision if it stays this way.
‘FUCK YOU! I lost my wife last year, and now you come along, and threaten to take the only thing I have left in my life. FUCK YOU!’ He pointed at the camera as he shouted.
After brushing away his tears, he continued to read. Over in that chair sits the man who reduced Marcus Long’s sentence. I imagine he still sleeps. He is far older than you are and I gave him a heavier dose. What I am going to ask you to do now will confuse you, but that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you do everything I ask. Look at the camera again. Imagine it is my eye. You do everything I ask, then you will see your daughter again. You will be different, changed like me, but you will see her again. If you don’t, I will break her neck. I will not do it while she is awake because I see the innocence in her. An innocence that we all had once upon a time. An innocence none of us deserve to have snatched away. So, I will do it while she sleeps.
He drew away from the message, unable to read on. His heart was banging too hard.
‘You hurt her, and I will kill you.’ Anthony jabbed his finger at the camera again. ‘I will fucking kill you.’
He looked between the chained man and the fold-up steel door. He imagined his daughter in the disfigured man’s lap. He heard the snap in his mind.
He could not live without his baby. That he knew. He read on, knowing that he would do whatever he was asked to do.
Desk Sergeant Livingstone wiped the mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth when the police station door opened, and he quickly stuffed the chicken sandwich beneath the counter.
It was hot in Bourne Hill station, and the fan was several metres away from him, pointing directly at his head, so he quickly averted the fan’s trajectory to stop the few remaining strands of his hair simulating a Mexican Wave.
A tall, thin man approached, wearing a freshly pressed white shirt, and black trousers. Livingstone averted his gaze, realising that he was staring at the scars and welts that twisted around the man’s lower face, and said, ‘Good afternoon. How can I help you?’
The disfigured man placed a piece of paper down on the table. The handwriting was neat and cursive.
I am Christian Severance and I believe you are looking for me.
Yorke came off the phone after directing Armed Response to Webster’s house on the Salisbury Plains. He’d expressed caution. ‘If Susie Long is still alive, I believe she is in there.’
He’d also stepped out of the room so that Topham wouldn’t hear him mentioning the possibility of Dr Neil Solomon being there.
As he stepped back into the incident room, he received another phone call. His eyes widened as he listened to what the officer on the other side of the line had to say.
When he hung up, he was speechless.
‘What?’ Topham said.
‘Well, I can assure you of one thing – Christian Severance will not be at Webster’s house.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he just turned himself in at Salisbury station.’
Topham’s eyes widened too.
17
AFTER
THEY CONFISCATED his belongings and strip searched him, Severance was handcuffed and locked in the back of a police van. They didn’t tell him where he was going, but they didn’t need to. It was obvious. They’d be taking him to the HQ in Devizes to let the high and mighty detectives take a run at him.
They’d be desperate to know where Susie Long was.
Let them distract themselves with the inconsequential, he thought, and allow time for the Anthony and Andrew situation to play out.
Severance wondered if Anthony was staring at that dome camera right now, imagining that it was his eye. Big Brother? Not really. The camera wasn’t even connected to anything!
One thing he’d learnt from this whole process was how easy it was to play on people’s desperation and paranoia. Making them believe the unthinkable was enough to bend will. The Conduit had certainly taught him well.
Now, as this whole affair was coming to an end, he wondered if he had any regrets.
What he’d seen the Conduit achieve earlier had disgusted an older part of himself. The newer part of himself was, of course, desensitised and numb, so he’d just shrugged it off, but still … was this really a road he could have carried on travelling?
No, he was done, burned out. But he had no regrets.
How could he have regrets when he thought of Robert Webster?
His best friend.
Yes, the Conduit had supported him. And there were moments when his family, in his younger years, had shown him love and kindness. But no one could come close to Robert.
He wished now he could look at his mentor’s photograph, but he couldn’t, because the police had taken it from him. So, he closed his eyes and imagined him instead. A wiry man, with wrinkles that stood out on his face like lines on a roadmap. The wisest man he’d ever met. This man had offered Severance an olive branch. He’d been spinning around in an empty world. An abused, suicidal young man searching for meaning, or death, depending on which came first. Robert had found him, nurtured the great intellect in him, without the sexual motivation of the likes of Marcus Long, or the self-serving interests of people like Amanda Werrell, and made him as complete as anyone could be after what had happened.
They had travelled around the world together, discovered things together, and learned from each other. Severance had offered so much, had helped so many people with his discoveries over the years, and Robert had helped him to understand that.
He remembered the day he’d found out that his mentor had died. Severance had been lying in a hospital bed, undergoing months of surgery to reconstruct his mangled face, and someone had come to tell him about Robert’s fatal stroke.
Had he been killed by the shock of what had happened to his protégé?
Undoubtably.
No, there were no regrets from Severance.
Just relief, really, in the fact that soon he could rest.
Yorke was informed by Jake that Armed Response was now at Webster’s house taking, he was assured, a cautious approach because Susie, and maybe even Neil, could be inside. Then, he joined Topham in the interview room with the broken air-conditioning unit. They could have opted for the other room, where the air-conditioner had been fixed an hour ago, but as Topham had so eloquently put, ‘Let the bastard sweat, it’s the least he deserves.’
Severance was led in. As he took his seat opposite them, he gestured down at his handcuffs.
Yorke shook his head. They were staying on. Severance shrugged.
One of the two officers that had brought him in left; while the other, a rotund fresh-faced officer, hung back.
‘My name is Detective Chief Inspector Michael Yorke, and this is Detective Inspector Mark Topham.’
Severance leaned back in his chair. He could have been smirking, but Yorke wasn’t sure if it was the damage to his face that was giving this impression.
‘You have refused a solicitor,’ Yorke said. ‘In much the same way as your predecessors, Chloe Ward and David Sturridge. I have no qualms about sharing their names with you now, Christian, we have already connected you all. We already know, beyond all doubt, that they acted on your behalf.’
Severance wrote on a card in front of him and slid it over the table.
Yorke looked up at the camera. ‘Christian Severance has written: that is correct.’
‘Let’s cut to the chase. It is over, Christian. You have made the right decision in turning yourself in. This, and the other information that you give us now, could help you moving forward. The judge can take all of these factors into account when passing sentence.’
Severance wrote a response. Yes, judges are very good at taking things into account when passing sentences.
Topham said, ‘What do you mean?’
Exactly what I just wrote.
Yorke jumped back in. ‘Let’s not get distracted from the situation at hand, Christian. Where is Susie Long? And where is the Conduit?’
He didn’t look surprised by the mention of the Conduit. He had probably predicted that Chloe would share her knowledge of him with the police.
This is where I choose to exercise my right to remain silent.
Severance gestured at his mouth with his hand, and rolled his eyes. He also seemed to smirk again.
‘We know about Robert Webster,’ Yorke said.
Severance flinched.
Yorke took advantage. ‘Surprised? Yes … we know all about your friend and mentor.’
So? It changes nothing. He is dead.
‘And we know about his house. I have a team there now, waiting to go inside.’
Severance took a hissing intake of breath.
It doesn’t matter. It is too late to stop it. It is almost finished.
Yorke glanced at Topham. He was worried about asking the next question. Worried that the answer would reveal the whereabouts of Neil and expose Yorke’s secrecy.
‘Is Susie Long in that house?’
She is.
‘Is she alive?’
Yes.
Yorke felt relief wash over him. ‘Is the Conduit there?’
No, he left when I left. He has chosen a different path to me. He will not be coming.
‘So is it safe to send my team in? She is in no immediate danger?’
She is not. You have my word.
Yorke leaned over to Topham and whispered in his ear. ‘Pause the interview, please, and stay here, with the guard. I’ll alert the team that it may be safe to enter. Then, I’ll be straight back in.’
Outside, Yorke made the phone call to Jake before being grabbed by Tyler. He looked as white as a sheet.
‘What’s wrong Sean?’
‘You have to see this, sir. I can’t quite believe it…’
‘What Sean? Spit it out, I’m in the middle of an interview—’
Tyler had already turned and was heading down the corridor. ‘This way.’
They stopped outside of conference room 7. Inside, exhibits officer, Andrew Waites, was beavering away, grumbling as usual while he looked through evidence, ensuring it was appropriately logged and tagged.
Without communicating, he thrust a small plastic evidence bag in Yorke’s direction. Yorke took the bag; inside, a phone screen flicked on under the heat of his touch. Topham and Neil, cheek-to-cheek, stared up at him from a selfie.
Waites spoke for the first time. ‘It was in Christian Severance’s pocket.’
Yorke’s blood ran cold as his phone started to ring again. It was Jake. He answered.
‘We’ve gone in, sir … Jesus Christ, Mike … I can hardly breathe!’
‘Jake, for God’s sake, talk! What have you found?’
Topham wanted to carry on interviewing the bastard. He wanted to ask him why he’d orchestrated all of this horror and destruction.
Yes, he already kind of knew why, and he also knew the answer he’d probably get, but it felt too unsatisfactory. HASD? Healing, Acceptance, Sharing and Displacement? Was that really the answer? Come on!
Topham had been one of the first people in t
he church that day. One of the first to feel the tingle of evil in that infected air. The first, other than Sturridge, to hold Simmond’s severed tongue.
He drummed his fingers on the table. He glanced up at the sweating officer. He looked as if he was about to fall asleep on his feet.
‘This isn’t just about HASD is it?’ Topham said.
Severance looked at him.
‘I mean, who heals from murder and violence? I’ve never heard so much bullshit in my entire life.’
Severance started to nod, demonstrating that he was listening to Topham’s train of thought no matter how provocative.
‘We’ve come across people like you before, Severance. People wired all wrong. You’ve done all of this because you enjoyed it.’
Again, a ghost of a smile seemed to appear on Severance’s face, but it was so hard to tell, his flesh was so badly damaged.
‘Remember what Martin Luther King said? Hate begets hate; violence begets violence. There is nothing about sharing and displacement in that sorry tale. You are a fucking fake. You’ve enjoyed your revenge. You’ve enjoyed destroying lives around you. And now you will spend the rest of your life in jail.’
Severance reached down to scratch his thigh. He tilted his head to one side and stared at Topham again. Then, he started to write. He slid the card over to Topham.
I recognised your face when I came in, and then your name too. Do you want to ask me why?
Topham narrowed his eyes. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
Severance continued to write. Topham looked up at the guard, who did seem to be taking a mild interest now.
It took Severance a while this time. Eventually, he pushed over a card. The world is a place of coincidence, Mark Topham. Or so some would have you believe. These days, I see logic and sense in everything that happens. I learned about pain, and suffering, from an early age, and it has taken a lot of time to find relief. You talk to me as if I’ve enjoyed this journey. I’ve enjoyed the outcome, not so much the journey. I think Mark, it is time for you to go on a similar journey.