Girl 4

by Will Carver

  This leaves Girl 4 as the only person with concrete knowledge of Eames’ identity. She is the one person that can either save me or condemn me.

  ‘Murph, you’ve got nothing. Circumstantial at best and you fucking know it. And I’ll say the same thing to whatever bulldog you’ve got coming in to try and rattle me.’ He’s taken aback by this outburst and, although I want to shout, I want to jump across the desk and grab him round the throat, I want to lean my entire weight on his chest with my knee so it is difficult for him to expand his lungs fully, then smash his head repeatedly into the floor, I keep my emotions down; remaining cold is only going to frustrate Murphy.

  ‘All you are doing is hampering this investigation, Murph. If she wakes up and I’m locked in a cell because you decided to grow a set of balls all of a sudden’ – I have to pause for a second to collect myself – ‘God help you, Murph.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ he asks with the comeback wit of a child.

  ‘Oh grow up, Murph. I’m just saying, if another girl dies because we don’t have enough men out there trying to catch the real fucking killer, then on your head be it.’

  I’m not talking about this case, though. I’m talking about Cathy.

  A moment passes where Murphy and I stare at each other, motionless, neither giving way, then the door crashes open again and two brutes steam in to replace the two officers that used to make up my team. Paulson waddles ahead of Murphy, disgusted and energised to prove my innocence. As they leave, the weight of my name evaporates; my reputation disintegrates and the level of respect I would assume at this station disappears the moment the two strangers enter to work me over.

  The second session goes much the same way. This time it is recorded and my interrogators opt for a bad-cop, worse-cop approach which is laughable.

  How do they expect me to answer when I don’t even know whether I did it myself?

  How can I remember the details of a specific date and time from over a year ago without my notebook?

  I give them nothing, because I have nothing.

  They leave me to sweat, my shirt still stained with coffee, my perspiration reigniting the scent of the Italian roast as I get warmer.

  They come back into the room after a short period, twelve minutes or so, and restart the recording, asking the same questions as before only in a slightly different way. The same way I was trained to do it. The same way they did when Cathy went missing. Trying to make me slip up, trying to glean an extra molecule of information or a differing response that can give something away.

  It’s frustrating. They keep leaving and coming back. I haven’t been to the toilet; the heat in the room is stifling, overbearing. At one point they leave me for so long on my own that I wonder whether they have gone for dinner. The temperature and dehydration is draining and being awake becomes such an onerous task.

  But I am still afraid to sleep.

  Or wake up.

  Whichever state is the opposite to what I am feeling now.

  Eventually, when they realise that further persistence this evening is futile I am placed in a cell on my own to think about what I have or haven’t done. To go over what I have or haven’t seen. To admit to who I have or haven’t killed.

  But, like a guilty man, I sleep.

  And The Smiling Man visits me. Perhaps for the last time.

  I have no choice, Girl 6 has to die.

  Girl 4

  A STRIP OF light and two patches of dark, one at either side.

  Then black.

  Sometime later another strip of light with the same dark towers at either side.

  My eyes are open, but I cannot lift the lids to see out fully. My strength is diminished. But I am awake.

  With my mouth open I suck in the dry air of the hospital. As I exhale I smile languidly, trying to lift my head from the pillow. I lick my dry lips slowly and attempt to lift the weight of my eyelids once more, but to no avail. My head falls to the side and I can make out one of the dark shapes to be a man. Adjusting slightly I see another figure only feet away from him.

  Even with two guards at my door I know this isn’t over. I’m not safe. Where is January?

  I summon enough strength to curl my fingers and ball them into a fist, but I do not have the strength behind them to punch, to fend off an attack or kidnapping attempt. I can’t protect myself. I cannot be protected.

  I lick my lips again, searching for moisture, and try to speak, but nothing comes out. My body still finds a way for me to cough. My torso tightens at this reflex jolting all my organs into spasm, the tension tearing open some of the wounds that had started to heal. The rip is deafening, the sting is excruciating.

  I’m just happy to feel pain again.

  It’s the agony that lets me know I am alive.

  But now I need to rest, because as soon as I have the energy Eames won’t have to figure a way to take me from the hospital. As soon as I am able to stand on my own I am walking out of here myself.

  I’ll be back in control.

  January

  THE WALLS ARE white; the mattress has lost all spring and buoyancy. It used to be white too, but is yellowing with age and the sweat from many a felon’s worried back. It’s cold in here too, which should be a punishment but is a welcome change from the humidity of the interrogation room. All of these details go unnoticed from the other side, the side of justice.

  I lean against the wall for a few minutes just to have the frigid bricks against my back. My head smashes solidly backwards against the masonry, shaking my brain for a second and making me see stars for even less than that.

  But I can’t fight it any longer.

  I want to figure out a way to get out of this situation, but I have been awake since Wednesday, or Thursday – unless today is Wednesday or Thursday – so I slide down the wall, gradually untucking my shirt as I do so, and, before I even hit the dusty concrete floor of my cell, I’m asleep.

  This is the last time I expect to be in this position. Tied up, blind, waiting for the sound of his shuffling feet. Terrified at the thought of his dark, horrifyingly cheerful, grotesque face.

  I don’t know if this is a dream or if he is appearing to me in person again, like he did the night before the wedding, because the scene is different.

  I am tied to the bed in my cell. Not the basic wooden chair in The Smiling Man’s dark, dusty perpetual alternate reality. I’m still blindfolded like always.

  It is cold this time, just as it is in the real-world cell, but it is completely silent.

  And then he arrives.

  The scuffing feet dragging his huge frame from side to side as he prepares to parade the Girl 6 dance to me. Telling me how she is going to die or telling me how I am going to kill her.

  He whips my blindfold off, leaving me attached to the bed, my hands tied to the bar of the headboard with an oily bike chain, my feet attached at the other end by two more chains.

  As soon as I open my eyes, he vanishes.

  Shocked, I look around at the four walls, left right, behind my head, then he reappears in front of me. Smiling, he wags his finger at me again and shakes his head as though disappointed in me for some reason.

  I want to speak to him. I want to tell him that I know not what I do. But nothing comes out. Still, he places his wagging finger gently against his beaming lips, as if to say Sshhh.

  Then he disappears again.

  Two seconds later he materialises at my bedside. He bends at his waist and places one of his shovel-like hands on my wrists, while taking one last gaze deep into my eyes. When he straightens his body, I realise that the chain binding my hands to the bed has disappeared and I can bring my arms comfortably down to my side.

  He walks backwards carefully, never taking his eyes off me. For the last four steps he points his hand directly at my chest, his fingers outstretched, and, with each step, I sit up a little more, until I am completely upright. Like an invisible force is pulling me towards him.

  He turns around and faces the
wall.

  I wait. Mesmerised to see what will happen next. What is he going to do?

  He does nothing. He just stands there with his back to me.

  But I can’t look away.

  He raises his arms from his side and clamps his knees tightly together to form a perfect symmetrical cross.

  Then he flies.

  He rises up in the air by two feet, then three feet, then four.

  Levitating before me, he stops at a height just above the bed frame, then his arms drop back down to his side, his head droops forward and blood begins to drip from his shoes, forming a puddle on the floor beneath where he floats.

  And finally I understand.

  I know what he is telling me. I’ve seen this before.

  It makes sense now. Of course there is no link between the girls. It’s the way that they are killed. The elaborate way they are all taken.

  I think I know who Eames is. I know the killer.

  And I wake up.

  Standing at the door to my cell I make a fist ready to punch against the door. I need to get the attention of someone, so I can let them know how the next girl is going to die, so that they can save her. I need to tell them who is killing these innocents.

  But I have to stop myself.

  This will just incriminate me further in their eyes. It will make me look even more insane.

  I wrestle with the decision for hours, pacing the room, punching the walls until my knuckles bleed. I have to scream inside, because I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I perch on the edge of the bed, shaking uncontrollably.

  I’ve made my decision.

  I put my own self-interest first and the interest of my wife, who I have already let down so much. I can’t let anything happen to her again and I know he will want her.

  The only way I can stop this villain, the only way that I can save myself and Girl 4, Audrey, is to let Girl 6 be taken.

  The only way I can prove to them – perhaps even to myself – I am not Eames, I am not the serial killer terrorising our great capital, is to still be locked in this room when they find Stacey Blaine levitating in her Hackney garage.

  Who am I to say one life is more important than another?

  What gives me the right to condemn to death someone I have never met?

  This is not a decision a person can ever get over. So, even though I will catch him – I won’t stop until I catch him – Eames has won. He’s beaten me.

  Eames

  STACEY BLAINE IS the final stepping stone that takes me back to Audrey.

  My prize.

  The one that got away.

  Girl 6 is so important to me, to the overall piece. She is the last difficulty. Suspended in the air via a scaffolding pole that is placed lovingly through her stomach, she will appear to be defying gravity when Detective Inspector January David first opens that garage door.

  Another floating corpse.

  The long coat I placed on her will cover the pole protruding through her back. The long wooden broom handle threaded through the arm holes of her rain mac helps to keep her arms out straight, perpendicular from her milky white torso.

  Just for some religious flavour.

  Just for the imagery.

  He will recognise what it is straight away. But that is the idea. This is the point at which he is supposed to solve the case. Finally, he will understand the reason that each girl was chosen. Finally, he will work out why each girl I killed had to be done in such a specific way. Eventually, he will understand why I did not kill Girl 4. Why I still need her.

  But that moment will come too late.

  Detective Inspector January David has not learned the importance of family; he is still occupied with the case. He wants to be the hero.

  In real life, the hero doesn’t always win.

  Good does not always triumph over evil.

  One thing is certain: he will let his wife down again.

  When someone has to kill, when they have a hunger for it, when that thirst for death becomes so insatiable that it doesn’t matter whose life you take, when it becomes more about the killer than the work, that’s not me.

  The way Girl 3 died was more important than me.

  The way Girl 6 is being used to send the police to the wrong place is more important than me.

  Audrey David is more important than me.

  If the Detective Inspector felt the same way about his wife, he might stand a chance of winning.

  Girl 6

  I SAY GOODBYE to my boys for the weekend; this is always the hardest part. Ben is seven and Max is five. I cry inside every time I see them walk away from me, Ben holding Max’s hand, comforting him, because he doesn’t yet understand why his mummy and daddy don’t live together any more; Ben doesn’t even fully comprehend it yet himself.

  I have full custody.

  Because I am the mother.

  Because I’m not the adulterous one.

  Because I would never use my own children as leverage to get something I wanted.

  Because it was the right thing to do.

  But losing my job has put me under some strain. I have applied for jobs online, registered with recruiters, posted my CV to countless companies that aren’t even advertising vacancies. I’ve walked the high street and spoken to every manager that will see me.

  Because I don’t want to claim benefits.

  Because I want to provide for my children myself.

  Unfortunately, this means that I have to work several jobs so that I can give them what they want, what they need. But this means relying on my ex-husband to look after them more, to do me favours. It means lumbering them on my parents more than I want to. It means that I can provide for them independently, but the time I spend with them has diminished considerably.

  And time is something I no longer have.

  In two hours’ time I will be Girl 6. Dangling in a garage from a large tube of metal that rips through my stomach.

  I’m a human detour sign.

  In two hours’ time I’ll be dead; I won’t be able to help my boys. The last thing I heard from them was Max asking Ben why he couldn’t just stay at home tonight.

  Even if they had, I’d still be dead.

  Either way, I’m about to take their already tarnished young lives and plough through them with a wrecking ball.

  I don’t know why he chose me, why I am significant. Why I was the best fit for the diversion. What I do know is that he isn’t just killing one person tonight. Just to fulfil some twisted desire and turn an empty garage in Hackney into the scenic route on the way to justice, he is taking the life of two innocent boys.

  Is that part of the art?

  Is that another inconsequential section of the master plan?

  An hour after the kids leave me for the last time, after I try to smoke myself to death, I leave the house unenthused about my night-job filling vending machines in a large office block for a Chinese company that appears to work around the clock.

  As I crouch down at the end of my drive to unlock the chain from my bike, I feel a prick in the back of my neck and the knife through my stomach.

  In the morning, a room full of men from China will press number sixty hoping for hot chocolate with extra foam and sugar and will be disappointed with a cup of warm water.

  January

  THE ENVELOPE-SIZED RECTANGULAR hatch on the scuffed white door of my cell drops open, letting in a stream of light from the hallway outside. With no windows and no watch, the most I can determine is that I have been awake a long time, probably through the night.

  I’m still perched on the edge of the creaking bed frame, my elbows resting on my thighs, cutting off some of the circulation, my head resting in my hands, which cover my face. The ring finger on each hand is wedged into the corner of each eye, acting as a tear damn, preventing emotion from showing on my face.

  ‘Jan,’ the voice whispers through the porthole.

  I remain in position, my state of suspended animation, my posture of
torture, retaining the pain of guilt for as long as possible; this is where I will draw my strength.

  The voice tries again. ‘Psst. Jan. Wake up.’ This time a little gruffer, not realising that I am awake, that I’m always awake.

  Paulson’s podgy face blocks the opening; he tries to manoeuvre himself sideways to get a better look at me. ‘It’s Audrey,’ he says next, expectantly.

  This gets my attention.

  Dropping my arms down urgently I jump up from the sweat-stained mattress. Not realising the numbness that has set into my legs, I buckle and crash to the floor. The blood oozing back to my thighs tingles with a mixed sense of pain and tickling and I have to lie on my back for a minute.

  Paulson raises himself to his toes, trying to look down at me.

  ‘You all right, Jan?’ he asks, concerned.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. What’s going on with Audrey? Is she OK?’ I try to straighten my legs, thinking that it will make the blood flow easier, but any movement sends a string of needles through my muscles.

  ‘She’s fine. Don’t worry. It’s nothing major. The doctor called to say that she is moving now and stirring.’

  ‘Is she awake?’ I panic, rubbing my thighs to speed up the process.

  ‘No. Not yet, but the doctor is confident that it won’t be long now. He says all the signs are positive and tests show no permanent damage apart from some minor scarring. I thought you’d want to know.’

  I stop struggling to get to my feet and release the tension in my neck, forcing the back of my head to hit the floor with a crack, momentarily distracting my brain from the sensation in my legs. I lie there for a second in contemplation, knowing I want to be with Audrey instead of helpless in this tomb. Trying to understand and justify my reason for condemning a stranger to death.

  ‘Thanks, man,’ I say, relieved.

  ‘No worries. You won’t be in here much longer, you know?’ He seems so genuine.

  I consider telling him about the dream. The latest vision where Girl 6 will be found, supposedly, levitating. Eames’ latest sadistic adaptation.