by Will Carver
I feel blocked. With my nostrils clamped together, the only way I can suck in the polluted London air is through my open mouth. I push my tongue forward and feel the soft filters of what feel like hundreds of cigarettes. The pressure I can generate through my tongue is not strong enough to displace the tightly packed cancer sticks that have been wedged into the hole created by the mouth brace. My tongue isn’t long enough either.
Now I panic.
Shaking on my already bruising hip I try to dislodge something, anything. The cable ties cutting through my wrists, the one hundred and fifty-six cigarettes stuffed into my mouth, the industrial bulldog clip clamping my nose. But every time I move I cut deeper into my ankles or the cable tightens around my neck and the hundred-or-so B&H remain fixed.
Eames yanks me by the hand, scraping my hip and sending a jolt of pain through my stomach, which stretches beyond muscular flexion. I stop moving. As a reward, he unclips my nose.
But this comes at a cost.
He tells me to stay still.
‘Don’t move.’
He whispers it to me, peering deep into my eyes as I lie below him completely at his mercy.
Pulling a lighter from his pocket he tests the flame once. Then he pushes a switch across underneath the flame and flicks his finger to light it again. This time the fire stretches upwards five times higher. It illuminates his mouth from beneath as he smiles broadly, maniacally. All I can see are his teeth and I know that I am going to die. And that all the pain I feel at this moment is nothing compared to the agony I am going to endure when he lights all the cigarettes in my mouth and replaces the clamp, locking the toxic gases into my lungs with no possible way of expelling the poison.
My brain starves.
I stop breathing.
In a couple of hours, Detective January David will arrive, fall to his knees and weep at yet another personal failure.
But, of course, it’s much worse than that.
January
IT HAS NOTHING to do with chess. Paulson has the answer, but doesn’t realise.
‘You don’t need to be here.’ I’ve managed to compose myself after my initial breakdown on arrival at the crime scene. In my imagination, the adrenalin released into my bloodstream as the pager vibrated on my hip, as I wrenched myself out of the erotic situation thrust upon me, as I met face-to-face with The Smiling Man from my dreams, was sobering. In reality, I remain a slurring ruin unable to fully function in the capacity that I want to.
‘Jan, you shouldn’t be here either. Not now.’
Of course, he’s right. There is nothing I could have done. We did not have enough information to put any preventative measures in place. We have no idea how Amy is linked to Carla or Dorothy. We’ve done everything we can.
‘It just shows that we can’t rest for a single day, Paulson. If we lose focus for even a minute, another body could show up somewhere else.’ I’m hoping he’s taking me seriously, that he can detect the intent through my bloodshot eyes.
‘Well, tomorrow is your wedding day.’ He grabs my shoulder firmly to demonstrate his support. ‘You can’t work tomorrow.’
I try to argue with him, but his tolerance for a debauched night such as this is far more impressive than my own and his eloquence of debate surpasses my weary ramblings.
‘How long have you been here?’ he asks rhetorically. But I answer.
‘Does it matter?’
My petulance wears thin eventually. Paulson manages to subdue me, before taking me away from the scene.
It has nothing to do with chess. He holds the answer in his pocket.
Paulson, like me, has the ability to drink during the day and still have the wits to drive home in the evening without causing havoc. Tonight is a whole other level of drinking. It’s the reason I took a cab and the reason that Paulson, eventually, took the Tube to meet me.
The Central Line.
Shepherd’s Bush.
C3.
‘Let’s get a cab back to mine eh?’ Paulson takes out a pocket Tube map and thrusts it under my nose, directing my attention to the tangled mess of colour that was his exhausting, irritating journey here. The spectrum of Underground lines blur together and the only thing I can focus on are the numbers around the outside.
‘Give me that!’ I snatch the map from his grasp, sobering more at my discovery.
On the Tube map, Shepherd’s Bush, on the Central Line, is in square C3. I squint to focus on this. The killer’s last note said B4 to C3. Paulson looks in square B4 and, sure enough, on the Jubilee Line, Zone 2, is Swiss Cottage. This is where Carla was killed. Dorothy was killed in Mile End. Again on the Central Line, again in Zone 2. Again it corresponds to his first note, C7 to B4.
He is telling us where he is going to kill.
‘So, when we receive his next note, it will give us a grid reference. It doesn’t pinpoint a location, but it narrows it down. As long as he stays in Zone 2 we have something to work from. So if the next says C3 to B7 we know that the next murder is supposed to take place in Canonbury, Dalston Kingsland, Hackney or Homerton.’ I point at each place name with a proud, sharp finger.
‘Wow!’ I stretch my hand across my forehead, placing my thumb on my left temple and my middle finger on my right. ‘So simple, it’s perfect,’ I whisper to myself, sounding as though I admire the killer’s work.
We have a strong lead now. As long as the note arrives we have so much more to work on. We can catch him. I can feel that now.
Paulson escorts me from the premises and takes me back to his flat. In four hours’ time, I am getting married.
Girl 4
IN TWELVE HOURS, I’ll be married. I will be Mrs Audrey David. The thought of that makes me smile. The idea of changing my driving licence, passport, business cards and e-mail signature fills me with dread. There should be a company that you can send everything that needs to be changed to and they sort it, while you get on with your life. I’m not used to taking care of mundane details; I employ a team to do that.
The girls from the office insist on paying for the meal, which is incredibly sweet of them. We talk about marriage and how lucky I am with January and how it is a new phase in my life, and they ask if I am thinking about having children and whether we will move.
I feel blessed to be with January. He is everything I want. I need him.
I agree. This is a new phase in my life. Something I’ve never done before. It’s exciting.
We won’t need to move. None of the girls have ever seen my house, but it is big enough to hold the two of us and anyone new that may come along.
I tell them that I haven’t really thought about children yet, because I’ve been so focused on the wedding, but that’s a lie. I want them and I want them soon.
There is no doubt in my mind that I will have them too. When I set my mind to something, I always accomplish it.
The light is still on in the hallway when I return and I am reminded of the phone call. A cold fear washes over me as I turn my key, remembering the sinister chuckle of my tormentor at the other end of the line. I run into the house, heading straight for the phone in the hall. I pick up the receiver and lay it down on the table, then bend down underneath in my designer dress and yank the wire out of the wall, so that I don’t have to deal with this.
Tonight is the last night I will have to cope with this on my own. From tomorrow, January, my husband, is my partner and protector.
He makes me feel safe. Secure. Like nothing bad could ever happen to me.
But love is fleeting. It is pain that endures and gives life its meaning.
London, 7 days ago …
January
AS EXPECTED, A note arrived the day after Amy was found.
C3 to E3.
For weeks after the wedding we increased our presence around Fulham Broadway, Parsons Green and Putney Bridge, but Eames didn’t strike. For weeks after that I still patrolled these areas before and after work, despite being assigned to different cases, one of which was ano
ther high-profile, year-long investigation. A case I had to solve without the aid of an apparition, without the torment of The Smiling Man, but still, he remained on my mind; this killer remained on my mind.
It has been fourteen months since a murder carrying his hallmark has been discovered.
Fourteen months since the last time The Smiling Man appeared to me.
But the case is still not solved. It isn’t over.
I wonder whether the killer is currently serving time for another crime and that is the reason for this quiet period. But that isn’t the case at all.
He’s planning something.
Something big.
Something personal.
Something memorable.
*
Married life is the same as my life before I took the vows. Audrey is still working hard and increasing the size of her business; I am still spending too many hours working multiple cases. I still forget to let her know where I am sometimes. We still argue about that and I still have to find new ways to make it up to her. I still use a bottle of Scotch as a paperweight to my sister’s case file, and I still look at it every day. It’s the same; I just wear a ring now.
For Audrey it’s more than that. It’s a confirmation of our love and a declaration of our commitment to one another. She has been different since we got married. Her job doesn’t appear to get her down as much and arguing is minimal. She has made a change for the better, while I remain largely the same. Perhaps with a renewed sense of calm or completeness. I’m at greater ease with myself. Something has certainly changed in me.
But when I arrive home today, she is sat on the sofa crying.
I stride over to her and sit down next to her, rubbing her back.
‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’ I’m not used to seeing Audrey so vulnerable. I question her as tenderly as possible, fighting the rage inside that I automatically feel when in protective mode.
‘He won’t leave me alone,’ she whimpers.
‘Who? Who won’t leave you alone?’ This crumb of information is enough to release a dose of adrenalin that tenses my arms and chest. I subconsciously make a fist with my free hand.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know who won’t leave you alone?’ I tighten my fist.
‘No. He just phones and doesn’t say anything. Once, he laughed when I said your name, but that’s it.’
Audrey goes on to explain everything to me. That this has been going on, sporadically, for months. It started just after I took on the case for Dorothy Penn. That she didn’t want to involve me, because I was under enough stress at work.
‘Babe, I’m your husband and I work for the police, who better to tell?’ I stroke her back. She is visibly shaken by the whole thing. I hold back my sense of disappointment that she could not share this with me, but it concerns me to think she could keep something like this secret for so long and I wouldn’t notice.
‘I know. I know. I’m sorry.’
I tell her that she has nothing to be sorry for. She hasn’t done anything wrong. She is the victim in all of this.
As I go out to the kitchen to get Audrey a glass of water I see the wire flailing across the floor in the hallway. She has unplugged the phone to avoid any further upset. I feel saddened. Useless, even. That I haven’t been here to protect her. Maybe that I didn’t even realise she needed protecting.
I hand her the glass as I return to the living room.
‘I’m going to plug the phone back in now,’ I tell her.
‘No, Jan. Don’t. Not yet.’ She seems so frightened. I’m torn between anger at the situation and surprise at seeing Audrey so shaken up.
‘I’m here now. You don’t have to worry,’ I try to reassure her. I want her to know that she has nothing to worry about. I won’t let anything happen to her. The one woman I absolutely can protect is my wife.
On my hands and knees I crawl under the decorative hall table with the wire in my hand. I lift the white plastic cover to expose the socket and push the connector into the hole.
Within a microsecond a spark ignites and travels up the wire into the phone, making it ring instantly. I bang my head on the underside of the table in shock.
Scrambling to my feet, I stand in front of the mirror and catch sight of my startled expression and dishevelled appearance. Automatically, unthinkingly, I straighten my clothes, trying to work out how to handle this.
I pick up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
Silence.
‘Who is this?’ I ask calmly.
A slight pause then a man’s voice says, ‘January?’
‘Who is this?’ I repeat in exactly the same tone.
Again, he asks, ‘January?’ His voice is tired and strained.
‘What do you want?’ I lower my voice, speaking through gritted teeth, trying not to let Audrey hear me from the other room.
He pauses again, as if reflecting on the sound of my voice.
‘It’s time, January.’
This time I wait in silence.
‘It’s been far too long.’
I start to wonder whether this is the killer. Whether this is his reintroduction into my life. Maybe he feels that fourteen months is too long.
‘Talk to your mother.’ And then he hangs up.
I’m frozen with shock, too stunned to move. I glance at the mirror again and stare into my own eyes, questioning what I just heard and why it is happening now. Why has he been tormenting Audrey? Why not just ask for me? Why is my mother suddenly important?
I place the receiver back on to its hook and zombie over to the doorframe that leads to Audrey.
‘Jan. Are you all right?’ she asks, concerned by my pale, vacant expression and the fact that I haven’t blinked. ‘Jan,’ she says louder to startle me.
‘Uh?’
‘Did you find out who it was?’
‘Er, yeah. Yeah I found out who it was. I know now.’ I don’t look directly at her as I say this, more like directly through her, up above her, to the right of her, anywhere to avoid eye contact.
‘And?’ she prompts forcefully, easing herself forward on the sofa, anxiously waiting for me to divulge, wiping the moisture from her cheek with the back of her hand.
My eyes well up and I inhale deeply to prevent the emotion from developing further. Finally, I manage to draw strength from somewhere and look directly into her dark innocent eyes.
‘It was my father.’
Eames
WHEN SOMEBODY CREATES three of London’s most talked-about murders in decades and then disappears, hiding behind his own legend, that isn’t me. I’m not gone. Just think how unlucky they’ll feel when they find the fourth girl. Think how sick it will make them to know that I am still one step ahead, that the next to suffer will be the wife of the detective supposedly investigating my case.
Detective Inspector January David. I like to say it out loud.
Think how blessed he will feel to have another chance at catching me.
The first three girls were normal. Regular people doing regular jobs for regular money. Audrey David is not a part of that world. She comes from a different part of the city, an affluent part where a dress that she will only wear once will cost more than all of Dorothy Penn’s prized modular furniture.
She belongs to an elite part of society; people who are generally untouchable. That is what I have been missing.
To really have the whole of London in fear, the entire population of the capital, I need an Audrey David and what she represents.
She opens it up. She can make everyone, not just a minority, feel unsafe.
And collective fear can be so destructive.
Girl 4. She changes everything.
She makes it so easy.
Now they will start taking me seriously.
Girl 4
WHEN JANUARY COMES home, I am on the sofa crying, and I’ve needed to do this for some time. The calls have been more frequent of late. They died out after we were firs
t married, but today just sent me screaming over the edge. I don’t like not to be in control.
But the silent calls, the laughing man at the other end of the line, that isn’t really what I am upset about; it has just tipped me too far.
Every twenty-eight days for the last seventeen years my body has run like a clock. You could set the time to my periods, they are so regular. I know when it’s coming, I know the different feelings I get just before it arrives and I know how I react once it’s here. But as the fruitless months continue to pass, it brings with it a growing sense of disappointment and worthlessness.
I want a baby so much.
I didn’t expect it to happen straight away, not even in the second month, but after three months of trying I started to add self-loathing and frustration to my usual list of cramps and tender breasts and bad skin.
This month was the worst yet. Because I was late. Because my breasts didn’t hurt. Because I allowed myself to believe for just a fraction of a second that I was pregnant. Before it all came crashing down around me today at work.
January stands in the doorway of the living room after putting down the phone. I’m still curled up on the sofa feeling sorry for myself, but he looks dumbfounded. I try to make sense out of it, but he looks right through me.
Then he tells me that the person that has been tormenting me for over a year is his father. The father that abandoned him after his sister disappeared. I’m shocked too. I’m angry. But I can’t be like that now. I’m his wife. I have to support him. So when he wants to reminisce about the times when his father was a great dad to him and his sister and his mother would always cook from fresh, or the stories of his father as a funny man, a touring comedian, magician, impersonator, all the stories I have heard before when January has had too much wine and drifts helplessly into sentimentality, I listen and I comfort. I don’t pass judgement on his father’s apparent psychosis or his commitment to my torture.