Girl 4

by Will Carver

  It’s as if he has forgotten about me. That I was upset when he walked in.

  But I have to be the strong one here in this situation.

  I can’t burden January with my problems and self-pity.

  He doesn’t even know that I have stopped taking my contraceptive pill.

  He has no idea that we are trying for a child.

  January

  I DECIDE TO visit my mother on my own. Audrey offered to come with me, but I think this is something I have to do by myself. It has been too long and I don’t know what state of mind she will be in. Will she even recognise me?

  I don’t even know why I feel the need to obey my father after all this time. I’m like a child that just blindly accepts what my parents say as fact, even though I have considered myself an orphan for the majority of my time on this planet.

  I’m scared to meet with her. Especially now. Particularly after my visions of The Smiling Man. Mum might have been the person I was supposed to look after all along. She could be the only one that understands.

  What if she does know where Cathy is?

  I half expect the building to be grey brick interior with moss growing up the walls and water dripping from overhanging pipes on the ceiling; like a sewer without the aroma, but at a moderate temperature. It doesn’t look like that at all.

  It resembles a hospital, if hospitals were lemon in colour with a cheap pine dado rail around the centre of every thin wall. It smells like cancer covered with an aloe vera cleansing cream. This isn’t the place that people come to die; it’s the place they come to decay horrifically before they perish, unrecognisable to their family and themselves.

  I walk past a doorway where an elderly woman has become so thin that she does not have the strength to even pull herself out of bed. She looks like a skeletal two hundred year old. Next door, another woman sits in a wheelchair next to an old turntable, listening to the same song over and over again. Her shaking hands adding another scratch to the vinyl each time she resets it back to her favourite song.

  It fills me with fear.

  I suddenly remember that my Scotch is in the glovebox still.

  ‘If you could just sign in here, sir.’ A foreign woman, probably approaching her mid-forties, squeaks at me from behind the counter. She puts a ballpoint pen on top of a folder that contains a quick checklist for me to fill out. Full name, date, car registration, who I am visiting, contact number, time in. Standard.

  I jot down the information and sign my name, my hand shaking the entire time. A million thoughts going through my head at once. Cathy, my father, Mum, the three girls that have perished, Audrey’s tormenting phone calls and breakdown, The Smiling Man, then Cathy again.

  I never stop thinking about her.

  ‘You must be Irene’s son,’ she says, turning the clipboard round to read my information.

  ‘Er, yes. Irene’s son,’ I stutter, repeating her words back to her.

  ‘She never stops talking about you, you know?’ she goes on.

  I don’t know what to say to this. I have systematically erased my own mother from my mind for nearly two decades, and she has made sure that, even in her demented state, she reminds herself of me.

  I just smile.

  ‘Both of you,’ she continues in her ignorance.

  I assume that she is talking about Cathy.

  My heart aches.

  Mum is the same, I’m sure. I’ll go in there and she will be talking about my sister like she is still around, like she knows where she is. But as the nurse leads me down a corridor peppered with the infirm, men and women spluttering, singing, shouting at their own imagination, I am led to a room where my mother lies motionless, attached to a machine, tubes and wires resting over her withered body, and I cry.

  I lean both of my hands on the door to my mother’s tomb and weep out twenty years of tears. With my head resting against the window I see the saline drops fall from my eyes and bounce on the floor below in front of my feet. I inhale loudly and let out more tears. The woman from reception rubs my back in an attempt to comfort me. I can tell it’s not the first time she’s done this. My annoyance at her tactility breaks me out of my fit.

  ‘You don’t have to go in until you are ready.’ Her voice is soft and soothing and despite my irritation I appreciate the sentiment.

  ‘I’d like to be left alone, if that’s OK,’ I request.

  ‘That’s fine, dear. You can go in. The doctor will be along in a minute.’ She tilts her head to the left and softens her gaze, as if giving me consolation, as if to say ‘good luck’.

  Then she turns and heads back to the confines of her cubicle at the entrance and my eyes return to the small window which frames the tired shell that used to be my mother.

  With one last breath I push through the door.

  The room is as pallid as my mother’s face. The colour of the walls is difficult to determine. They look peach, but not because of the paint; it’s as if there is another colour beneath and the residue on top is formed through years of nicotine abuse. But Mum doesn’t smoke.

  There is a solitary landscape picture on the left wall and below are nine boxes stacked in blocks of three.

  That’s it.

  The only other thing in here is a bed, a machine monitoring vitals and a decrepit woman with a tube attached to her nostrils. There’s not even a chair for a visitor to sit on.

  Because she has no visitors.

  We have left her here unloved, unwanted.

  I cry again. This time silently, not taking my eyes off her.

  At this moment she looks beautiful to me. Like she did when I was young.

  There are things I want to say to her, but can’t quite force out of my mouth.

  Then the door opens and the doctor bounds in.

  ‘Ah, Mr David. I’m glad you could make it.’ I don’t correct the title. It doesn’t feel relevant. I’m not here as a copper. He extends his hand to me. I grasp it, shaking it firmly.

  ‘Can you tell me what is going on?’

  He explains to me that it was my mother’s wish for me to visit her once, before she died. Her mind has been deteriorating over time, but a recent aneurysm has left her incapacitated.

  ‘How recent?’ I ask him.

  ‘Two years,’ he responds, clinically.

  ‘What the –?’ I squeal in a high pitch, turning my face away. ‘Two years? She’s been like this for two years?’

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid so. But your contact details were not on her forms and we have been liaising with your father during this time.’

  He goes on to inform me that the machine she is attached to is keeping her alive and that she doesn’t have the mental or physical capacity to do this for herself. He tells me that she maintained her stance on my sister until her ultimate brain malfunction and that the boxes in the corner are full of notepads that she has filled with information over the years and has left to me.

  My inheritance.

  ‘What do you mean left to me?’ I ask, screwing up my face. ‘She’s not dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr David, but now that you have visited we have been instructed to turn off the machine that is supporting your mother.’

  ‘What?’ I raise my voice. ‘Who gave you that permission? I am her next of kin. Surely that decision lies with me.’ I feel the blood rush to the surface of my face and the doctor’s eyes widen as he recoils.

  ‘I’m sorry, but your father is down as the next of kin and it was his decision to –’

  I cut in forcefully, ‘No, my parents were divorced. He has no say in this matter.’

  ‘I don’t feel comfortable that I should be the one to tell you this, Mr David, but your mother and father were only separated. They were never officially divorced and this leaves your father with the right to choose. I assumed he had spoken to you about it.’ He hugs his clipboard for comfort.

  I can’t speak. I don’t want to tell him that the first time I spoke to my father since I was twelve was only a couple of
days ago, and that was hardly a two-way conversation. I don’t have any time to digest the words that I am hearing.

  ‘When is this happening?’ I question.

  ‘Today.’

  I gasp, my eyes filling up again. I haven’t cried so much in years.

  ‘It is to happen the day that you visit,’ he says after a pause, giving me a moment to gather myself. He avoids my eyes, but I see him physically cringe as he tells me his instructions. ‘I’ll give you some time alone.’ He walks out of the room, leaving me standing next to Mum.

  I don’t know what to do. I feel like I should say something to her. Apologise for abandoning her, for not believing in her, for neglecting her all this time. For letting Dad kill her off. But I don’t know if she can even hear me. Surely her brain can’t process language. It can’t even open her eyelids.

  I settle for holding her hand. Her cold, wrinkled hand.

  It feels like I stand there for hours, staring at her, crying, gripping her hand, telling her that I’m sorry and that I love her. But the words are only in my head.

  Then I feel it.

  That same cold I felt in the library. Like I am being watched.

  Slowly, I turn my head to look behind me, a human instinct when you think you are being followed. I am not prepared for what I see and my first glimpse literally floors me. I drop down on to the linoleum with a thud, but I don’t let go of Mum’s hand.

  Framed in the small window that gives outsiders a view into the room, I see a smile. A broad, unflinching smile aimed perfectly in my direction. Like the smile that haunts me in my sleep, the teeth are large and yellowing. The same piercing eyes that drain me of courage. But this is not The Smiling Man.

  It’s Dad.

  Gazing in on his work. His sick triumph. He has been keeping Mum on the brink of death for two years, waiting for the perfect time to execute this evil plan. He still feels the hatred for Mum that he did back when Cathy was taken. He still blames me and this is his way of punishing us both. The sadistic joy in his face is evident. He needed to see us both suffer as much as he feels he has suffered.

  ‘You!’ I snarl from my place on the floor, spitting out thick saliva as I do so. But I can’t move. I’m incapacitated at the vision before me, still smiling, still enjoying my pain.

  Finally, as I get angrier, I summon up the strength to struggle to my feet. He still looks at me through the window, smiling at his work. I want to catch him and hold him down on the floor by his neck; I want to ask him why he is doing this to us.

  But as I move towards the door, my comatose mother clamps my hand like a vice. I look back at her to see if she is waking up, but there is no movement apart from this insistent grip.

  Am I awake?

  I turn back to the window, but he is gone.

  Mum releases my hand and I run to the door, but when I get outside all I see in the hallway is a man on a Zimmer frame. My father is gone; and soon my mother will leave this life, and all I have is a box of notebooks.

  Notebooks full of the ink musings of a mad woman. Mostly about Cathy, some about me. Many about the people she sees in her dreams.

  I only flick through them briefly; I’m not ready to dedicate the time to them yet.

  Somewhere, hidden deep within the scribbled text, beyond the nonsense and mischief, there are answers. Answers to the abilities that both myself and my mother share.

  Answers to the reason for The Smiling Man.

  The answer to where I can find my sister.

  Girl 4

  I’M THE ONLY one that knows who he is. But I can’t tell.

  The cuts across my body from the positioning of the wires that held me above the stage in Putney Arts Theatre should be stinging me. I should be in pain, but I’m not. I have drugs to numb that.

  The mental strain of such an emotional ordeal should be playing on my mind, but it isn’t. I’m still unconscious and I’m not dreaming.

  But I survived.

  I’m the only one to survive.

  But survival means drowsiness from the drugs, tenderness of my wounds, incapacity to converse, to shed light on the situation. I know who Eames is. I’ve seen him. I’ve slept with him. It was the greatest sex of my life.

  Does January really want me to wake up?

  Does he really want me to tell my story?

  Does he want everyone to know exactly what happened?

  I can’t be protected from Eames. Not even here.

  Eames

  I CAN FINISH the job. Audrey David getting away is not a problem. I don’t have to spend the next months researching for the girls that will follow on from this beautiful display. I have already done that. I’ve had fourteen months to plan that. They will disappear before Detective Inspector January David even knows it is coming. When he finally catches up, it will be too late: I will have his wife in my hands again.

  She will complete the masterpiece.

  While he wastes time dwelling over his bride’s condition and his macho ego is dented by the knowledge that I fucked his wife and she wanted me to do it, I am ready to execute my next slaughter.

  By now, the police should have received my next note.

  E3 to D8.

  I see the police arrive in their usual conspicuous manner that makes my life so much easier. I sip wine at Smollensky’s Bar and Grill, while they roam around the exit to Canary Wharf Tube station not knowing what they are even looking for.

  I smile into my glass as I raise it for another sip, but laugh inside at how superior I am to these fools.

  I already took Girl 5 from this very spot yesterday evening and I plan to deliver her back here in one day.

  But right now, Girl 5 is still alive.

  Richard Pendragon is still alive.

  January

  I HAVE ALWAYS referred to the girls by their number. Dorothy is Girl 1, Carla is Girl 2, and so on. It’s important for me to remain professional and distance myself from the cases in this way. I can’t refer to Girl 4 as a victim and then call her by my wife’s name; I won’t be able to cope.

  ‘Nobody talks to her without me present. You hear?’ I snort out these orders to Paulson and Murphy and the two guards that I have placed outside Girl 4’s door. ‘I don’t care if the fucking Queen comes in here wanting to deliver a bunch of grapes personally, if I’m not in this hospital at that time, she doesn’t go in.’ I almost press my nose against the face of one of the guards like an army drill sergeant.

  This isn’t me.

  I don’t behave like this.

  It’s starting again. I won’t be able to sleep. But, for the first time, I want to. I want to meet The Smiling Man. I want to be tied to that chair. I want to be blindfolded and abused. I want to find the man that did this to my wife. But I don’t know what I’ll do when I find him.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the guard says firmly back at me. It’s the response I want to hear. I want to know that Audrey is protected. I don’t want anyone going in or out of there without me knowing. When she wakes up I want to be the first and only person that she sees.

  ‘What can we do, Jan?’ Murphy asks nervously.

  ‘Go home, guys. Get some rest. Tomorrow, the work really starts. There’s nothing more we can do tonight.’ I look over at Audrey through the glass of the door, so still and pure. ‘Go home,’ I repeat, and I tap Murphy on the shoulder to let him know that it’s all right.

  ‘What are you going to do, Jan?’ Paulson asks, genuinely concerned.

  ‘I’m staying with my wife,’ I answer, sternly.

  Paulson looks at me and deliberates with himself about adding something else. Something like, ‘You should rest too, Jan’ or ‘Don’t tire yourself out for tomorrow’ or ‘Just call if you need anything’. But he doesn’t. He can see in the lines of my face that the term ‘visiting hours’ will certainly not apply to me.

  ‘I’ll see you both in the morning. Early,’ I say pointedly. And they walk off down the sterile corridor of the hospital ward muttering to each other.

>   I enter Audrey’s room on my own, closing the door behind me, leaving the two guards at either side, rigid and unflinching. It feels like déjà vu. I was only just by my mother’s bedside, holding her hand as she lay insensate under a blanket with a clipboard at her feet and a screen to the side of her head displaying information that I didn’t understand. As long as the line peaked and troughed then there was little to worry about.

  I feel guilty. Like it is my fault for allowing Audrey to get into this situation. I tell her that I am sorry, hoping that she can hear me. I tell her that I will catch the person that did this and make them pay, but her inertia is off-putting.

  Leaving her room, I shut the door behind me and bid goodnight to the two guards. ‘Thanks, boys. Keep it up. See you in the morning.’ And I take the same route as Paulson and Murphy, down the shady corridor where patients are in such a critical condition that a high percentage won’t ever recover.

  The lift at the end of the hallway takes me down to the ground floor where my car is parked. I lean against the back wall, staring down the long passageway that leads back to my wife, the floating corpse – almost. As the doors move closer together I feel even further removed and alone.

  I feel relief as I open the car door and sit down away from the situation, closed off from the real world. I reach into the glovebox for the hip flask.

  It’s full.

  Taking a mouthful as though it’s merely a soft drink, the liquid scrapes down the back of my throat from the first gulp, as if it’s laced with powdered glass; the second gulp isn’t any easier. By the fifth, I have to forcibly condition myself to keep it down. By the sixth I don’t even realise that tears are falling from my eyes. I’m not crying, but it is still happening. I keep the emotion inside, but the physicality of it is still present.

  I think about the grid references, the girls’ houses, location, their look, how we found them, the notes from the killer. I try to piece something together. I try to think of as many different things as possible to overload my drunken brain and force me to sleep.