by Mark Tilbury
With blood smeared around his lips and chin, he turned to Jack and said, ‘There. All done. You’ve fed the fish as promised.
Chapter Sixteen
Tommy paced around his room, periodically stopping to check the bed and the wardrobe were still exactly as he’d placed them. According to the watch Jordan had given him, it was now nine-thirty p.m.
He didn’t really want the stupid thing, and he certainly had no intention of using it to listen to music or look at dumb photos that belonged to someone else’s past. But it was okay to keep a track of the time.
His father had last come to the bedroom door around six. Pleading with him to let him in. Trying to tempt him with offers of food and anything else his limited brain could come up with. As far as Tommy was concerned, Charlie could offer him the keys to a castle and it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference.
As soon as midnight came, and he was certain everyone was asleep, he intended to move the wardrobe out of the way, climb out the window and go to the tower. The only thing niggling him was the thought of Bella waiting outside for him like a vampire.
He still had no idea who she was, but he was now convinced she was real and not imagined. The images of her dancing and taunting him was his mind’s way of showing him glimpses of the lost year.
His best guess was she was a prostitute. A slut who preyed on his inadequacies. He didn’t think she was necessarily responsible for his disappearance, but she was definitely an integral part of it.
She revolted him and scared him in equal measure. But as long as he remembered she couldn’t actually be floating outside the window, he had nothing to fear about going out of it.
Tommy checked the bed again. Still in place. Good. No cause for concern. That fool, Charlie, probably had a key to the door; he was definitely a just in case kinda guy. But Tommy had left the key in the lock to stop him getting in.
The proof of the fool is in the fooling.
Tommy smiled at the rare light-heartedness of his inner voice. A welcome respite from the usual sinister nonsense it came up with.
He walked to the wardrobe and put a black baggy jumper over his tee-shirt. The room was getting chilly.
Maybe you should light a fire.
Tommy stopped, arm halfway in one sleeve. The voice seemed to be coming from inside the wardrobe. But that was impossible, right? Nothing in there but the clothes and bags he’d returned earlier.
Haven’t you always wanted to set the world on fire?
He rammed the rest of his arm in the sleeve, hands trembling, hair standing up on the nape of his neck. ‘Who are you?’
I’m all you ever were and ever will be, Tommy.
His heart picked up speed. Now he recognised the voice. It was the driver in the smoke-filled car. The one with a liking for shit music.
Tell you what, Tommy. I’ll do a deal with you. You set the fire and I’ll help you outta the window.
‘Why would I wanna set fire to my room?’
To burn bridges, Tommy, lad. To burn your bridges.
‘Leave me alone.’
The driver laughed, the sound rising from a bog of phlegm. Too late.
Tommy’s legs stiffened. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. ‘I can’t light a fire. I’ve got nothing to light it with.’
I’ve got a box of matches. Open the door and I’ll give it to you.
Tommy stood rooted to the spot. Twisting tendrils of smoke seeped out of the wardrobe door like a poisonous creeping vine.
Not there. Not there. Not there, Tommy told himself. It was just his mind playing tricks again.
Come on, Tommy, open the door. Put all your clothes on the bed. School books, too. It’ll make a lovely bonfire.
Tommy edged towards the door, grabbed the handle, and yanked it open.
Nothing. No driver. No smoke.
He sank to his knees sobbing with relief. This latest episode only served to strengthen his resolve to throw himself off the building at the industrial site. And the sooner he got on with it, the better.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, followed by Danielle’s familiar voice. ‘Tommy? Are you awake?’
He climbed to his feet, knees cracking. Walked to the bed and sat.
‘Tommy?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m tired.’
‘We’re really worried about you. Why won’t you unlock the door?’
Tommy glanced at his watch and was surprised to learn it was nearly ten p.m. Where the fuck had an hour gone? ‘I don’t wanna speak to no one.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cos I’m fed up trying to explain myself to people. Fed up with Mum and Dad asking me stupid questions.’
‘They only want to help you, Tommy.’
He laughed. ‘How? By making me eat soup and omelettes?’
‘No, by getting you professional help with Dr Marks.’
‘I don’t need his help.’
‘Please, Tommy. You do. You’re gonna waste away in there on your own.’
Tommy didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore. He had a date with death, and as soon as midnight came, he was going to turn himself into a smashed pumpkin.
‘Dad says Dr Marks is really hopeful he can unravel what happened to you. You’re already showing signs of regaining your memory.’
Tommy snorted. ‘How the fuck does he work that one out?’
‘He believes the girl and the driver played a massive part in your trauma.’
‘And?’
‘It’s a start, Tommy. A really good start. It shows your mind’s trying to show you what happened.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘But you don’t want them to get away with it, do you?’
Tommy didn’t, but he had no intention of going through a shitload of pain when he could end it all with one jump.
‘Tommy?’
‘Go away. I’m not interested. If you keep pestering me, I’m gonna set fire to my bed.’
‘What the hell’s that gonna achieve?’
Tommy laughed. ‘It’ll help me burn my bridges.’
After a short silence, Danielle said, ‘Please don’t do anything stupid.’
‘It’s a bit late to be worrying about that.’
‘Please let me in. I just wanna talk to you.’
‘You already are.’
‘I mean in private. I don’t want Mum or Dad to hear.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cos it’s personal. I wanna ask you something.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you if you let me in.’
Tommy’s resolve slipped. He didn’t have anything against Danielle. She was the only one he really trusted in this strange new world. The only one who seemed to genuinely care about him.
‘I promise I’m not gonna try to persuade you to do anything you don’t wanna do.’
‘How do I know Dad’s not out there with you?’
‘Because I swear he isn’t. I may be a lot of things, Tommy, but I’m not a liar.’
‘But—’
‘Just ten minutes.’
Tommy relented. ‘All right. Ten minutes.’ He dragged the bed away from the door. Pain generated from his ribs all the way around his body and into his stomach.
‘What’re you doing?’
Tommy unlocked the door and cracked it open a few inches. He peered out the gap, checking for any sign of his parents lurking in the shadows. Satisfied, he invited her in.
Danielle gawped at the bed. ‘Why’s it like that?’
‘I had it in front of the door.’
‘Why?’
In case Bella or the driver tried to get in. ‘Dunno. It made me feel safer.’
‘Oh.’ She looked at the wardrobe blocking the window. Seemed about to say something, then shook her head.
Tommy locked the door. ‘So, what did you wanna ask me?’
Daniel
le sat on the bed. ‘How about if I came with you to see Dr Marks instead of Dad.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cos I wanna support you, Tommy. I feel so guilty about what I said to you, and I wanna try to make it up to you. I know Dad’s not the best person in the world for you to be around, and I thought it might help to have someone else to talk to.’
‘I don’t wanna go. It’s not gonna do any good. If anything, it’s made me worse.’
‘How do you mean?’
Tommy considered his words carefully. He didn’t want to tell his sister too much about his lapses into Bella Land. ‘’Cos the flashbacks are getting worse.’
‘In what way?’
‘You promise not to say anything to Dad?’
‘Of course.’
‘Say it.’
‘I promise.’
Tommy took a deep breath. ‘The reason I put the wardrobe across the window is because I saw Bella floating outside. She kept saying stuff to me, and I know it wasn’t real, but it seemed like it.’
Danielle swept hair out of her eyes. ‘What did she say?’
‘Asked me if I wanted to dance. Talked a load of rude shit. Taunted me the way she always does.’
‘Oh my god.’
‘Then smoke came outta the wardrobe. The driver talked a load of shit about me putting all my clothes on the bed and setting fire to them.’
‘Is that why you said to me you were gonna burn your bridges.’
‘Probably.’
Danielle patted the bed and invited her brother to sit beside her.
Tommy sat a few inches away from her. ‘I’m fucked. I don’t need no doctor to tell me that. It’s just…’
Danielle rubbed his arm. ‘What?’
‘I’m sick of it. I don’t wanna do this anymore. I can’t see the point. I can’t remember nothing, and the flashbacks don’t make any sense. It’s as if I’ve stepped in my own worst nightmare, and I can’t see a way out.’
‘But that’s the whole point of going to see Dr Marks. He’s helped people with amnesia loads of times. He knows how to get inside the mind and find the truth.’
‘But—’
‘And he really helped Dad when he was depressed.’
‘But at least he knew what he was depressed about.’
‘And so do you, Tommy. It’s just harder to find because of the head injury.’
‘I wanna believe you, but I’m never gonna find out what happened to me. It’s just gonna haunt me and drive me nuts.’
‘If you let it. Look, let me go with you to see Dr Marks. If it doesn’t help, fair enough. We’ll come home and say no more about it.’
Tommy shook his head.
‘Please let me help you, Tommy. I want to put things right. I can’t sleep at night knowing this is all my fault. I’m such a fuckin’ bitch.’
‘Will you stop saying it’s your fault. It’s not. It’s mine. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.’
Danielle wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘Yes, I have. And I’m not going to rest until I get my brother back. So, it’s not even up for debate. I can’t make you do anything, Tommy. But I can beg you to let me help you. That’s all I want.’
Tommy relented. ‘Okay. We’ll go to see Dr Marks. But I’m not gonna promise anything after that.’
Danielle leaned over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. ‘Thank you.’
Tommy shrugged. ‘But don’t expect anything.’
‘I won’t. But I’ve got a good feeling about Dr Marks. I really think he’ll get to the bottom of all this.’
He wanted to believe that, but the only way he would ever get any relief from this madness was to keep his date with the building at Lassiter’s.
‘I love you, Tommy.’
Tommy squeezed her hand. It was the nearest thing to affection he could muster. ‘You, too, sis. You, too.’
Chapter Seventeen
Dave Hemmings’ mind was hopping from one idea to another like a frog seeking the best lily pad to settle on. His days at Thorndike House were numbered. The time he’d spent in that dreadful room with no food, fags, or water had told him as much. Karl Duggan was getting more and more irrational. Duggan had never been one to listen to reason, but lately paranoia had taken his psychopathic personality to a whole new level.
Dave had no intention of hanging around to see where that might lead. He’d already took the blame and been punished for something that wasn’t his fault. If Duggan wanted his opinion, which he clearly didn’t, they’d leave things alone. It was asking for trouble going after the boy. Trouble with a capital T, and Dave didn’t want to spend the best years of his life sitting in a prison cell eating shit food and listening to shit talk.
No. he had a better plan. Piss off to Spain and start again with a clean slate. The country was a hotbed for ex-pat criminals, and he’d fit in nicely with a new culture. He could open a bar or a club. He’d saved a fair few bob over the time he’d been working for Duggan, and he also knew the combination number to Duggan’s safe in the basement.
Those bloody piranha fish freaked him out, especially knowing they’d consumed several boys who’d gone past their sell-by date and a gay man Duggan had picked up in a bar a few months ago. Although the fish were secured in a heavy-duty tank, it didn’t stop his imagination giving him the heebie-jeebies.
A buzzer rang on the wall of his attic room flat. No doubt Duggan with another stupid errand to run. The bastard had once roused him from a beautiful dream in the early hours of the morning demanding he take one of the boys to a punter. Who the fuck did he think he was? Why didn’t he do it himself, or get the client to come to Thorndike?
To make matters worse, it was that vile pile of turds, Sir Bernard Clancy. How the hell had a dirty bastard like him managed to secure a knighthood? He didn’t have one redeemable feature. He was rude, ugly, vain, and returned some of the boys looking as if they’d been tortured to within an inch of their life. And he always treated Dave like he was a lump of dog shit that had sprouted a head, arms, and legs.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he never tipped or had the good grace to even acknowledge Dave. Unlike other clients who would invite him in and offer him hospitality. But that was the difference between politicians and the rest of the world. They were a bunch of self-centred, egotistical wankers who thought they were the centre of the universe, and everyone else was only there to be exploited and used.
‘Once I’m settled in Spain,’ Dave told the empty room, ‘I’m gonna blackmail the bastard.’
This was no idle threat. He’d several pictures taken of Clancy in uncompromising positions with minors. Many others, for that matter, but he had no intention of outing folk who treated him fairly. It was up to them what they did for pleasure. Live and let live. Anyway, Dave was hardly of a character to criticise. He’d a long history of activities that would keep the Crown Prosecution Service in work for months.
The buzzer rang again. Longer, more insistent.
Dave prised his bulky frame off the sofa, ambled to the wall, and pressed the intercom. ‘Yes, Boss?’
‘What are you doing up there, David?’
‘Nothing, Boss. Making a cuppa.’
‘Why did you take so long to answer?’
For fuck’s sake. A bloody minute, tops. ‘Sorry. I didn’t hear you with the kettle boiling.’
‘Did your time in isolation turn you deaf?’
‘No, Boss. Sorry.’
‘I’ve got a job for you.’
‘Okay.’
‘I want you to go to the basement and clean up the mess.’
‘What mess?’
‘You’ll see when you get there. And I want a proper job. There’re people starving in the world, so make sure nothing goes to waste.’
Dave’s stomach flipped over. He didn’t need psychic ability to know Duggan had been entertaining again. Well, his form of entertaining.
‘Do you hear me, David?’
Loud and clear, you sick bastard. Loud
and clear. ‘Yes.’
The intercom died. Dave brightened slightly with the realisation he could check out the safe while he was down there. It was stuffed full of diamonds and expensive jewellery. And other macabre keepsakes taken from some of Duggan’s victims. Locks of hair, mostly, but a few other odds and sods his demented boss deemed fit to hang on to.
Dave considered working through a week’s worth of dirty dishes, but he didn’t want to wear himself out before taking on the task in the basement. The whole flat was in dire need of a clean, not to mention the hard drive on his laptop.
He’d get a cleaner when he moved to Spain. One with benefits. A dirty little slut who had open legs and an open mind.
He walked down the stairs to the hallway and ambled into the kitchen. The bloody room was three times bigger than his flat, which was ironic considering Duggan mostly ordered food in. A shining example of how the rich wasted money. The black glass splashbacks and solid marble work surfaces looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. All it needed now was Captain Kirk standing at the massive, brushed steel cooking range wearing a chef’s hat and toiling over a giant cooking pot. There was also enough gadgets and gizmos lined up on the marble tops to frighten technocrats.
‘All fuckin’ show,’ Dave mumbled. He opened a door at the far end of the kitchen, switched on a light, and descended into the basement.
Dave had seen a lot of things in his time at Thorndike House. A lot of things that would make a Nazi’s hair stand on end. But what greeted him was beyond his wildest nightmares. It was clear the bloody mess lying on the bed had once been human. It had hands and feet and a chin. But the rest of the corpse was unrecognisable. Large chunks of flesh were missing from its face, including its nose and lips. Both eyeballs had been popped from their sockets, and its long hair was stained red.
Dave’s heart thudded dangerously. He inched closer as if the mutilated corpse might spring to life at any moment and take Dave to Hell. The corpse’s legs looked like they’d been fed through a mincer. Fragments of bone protruded from the bloody mess. The body appeared to have been savaged by a pack of wild dogs with a liking for eyeballs.
