by Wes Markin
She started to welcome the blackness she was descending into, when he suddenly released her backside and let her stumble backwards. She was just about to fall, when he reached up with his remaining hand to grip her hair fiercely.
He drew back his handless arm.
‘I love you, Paul.’
He swung his elbow. Everything flashed.
She gulped air. ‘I said I love you, Paul.’
Flash.
‘I love—’
Flash.
She opened her eyes. The world had turned inside out. There was little comprehension of what she was seeing now, and little comprehension of what was truly happening.
‘Dance with me,’ she heard her son say.
She felt his warm arm around her neck.
‘Yes … of course …’
She couldn’t see him now, but she could see the white wall.
Flash.
Her head and face burned.
She saw the wall again, smeared in blood.
Flash.
Flash.
Nothing.
Jake shielded Young’s body as best he could from his wife and son. ‘Wait outside for me.’
‘Why?’ Sheila was still covering Frank’s eyes. ‘What happens next?’
‘He doesn’t know.’ Lacey stepped alongside Jake. ‘But I’d do as he says, if I were you. And please, take my son with you.’
Jake turned to scowl at Lacey, and then looked back at his quivering family. He couldn’t tell if it was Sheila that was shaking, or his son, or both. ‘Please leave.’
‘Why? What are you going to do with her?’
Lacey snorted. ‘He’s hardly going to start fucking me next to a man with an axe sticking out of his back, is he?’
Jake turned, and drove Lacey back against the wall. ‘Shut up. Shut up, or I’ll …’
‘You’ll what? Maybe you’re right, Sheila, maybe I ought to be worried.’
‘Well if you’re not worried about him,’ Sheila hissed. ‘You best be worried about me.’
Lacey clapped like she’d done earlier when they’d worked together to bring down Young. ‘Go team Pettman! I really underestimated you guys.’
Jake looked at Sheila again. ‘Leave.’
‘Okay,’ Sheila said, ‘but be quick. I’m phoning the police.’
‘Good,’ Jake said. ‘Stand outside and wait for them.’
Sheila held out a hand for Tobias, who stood over his father’s body.
‘Tobias,’ Lacey said, looking at the child she’d stolen. ‘Go.’
Tobias turned from the corpse and took Sheila’s hand.
As she led Tobias and Frank from the room, Sheila said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Jake. You’re already in enough trouble.’
Jake closed the door behind his wife.
‘She’s got a point hasn’t she Jake? You do find yourself in quite a pickle.’
He approached Lacey, avoiding the puddle of blood spreading out from the corpse. When he was within a metre of her, he paused and kept his eyes down. He didn’t want her to see the fury in them. ‘So, what’s the plan, Lacey?’
‘Plan, Jake? Why would you think that there’s a—’
Jake slammed his fist into her stomach. It sucked the air out of her, and she fell to her knees. He stared straight down at her. ‘What’s the plan, Lacey?’
Once she’d got her breath back, she looked up at him. ‘Wow – I knew you were changing, Jake, but this is really something—’
He kicked her hard in the abdomen, and she fell sideways. ‘WHAT’S THE PLAN, LACEY?’
Gasping for air, she struggled, but managed, to get some words out. ‘What do … you think … it is?’
Jake put the palms of his hands on the wall and leaned over her. ‘Let me guess, Lacey, you want us to run away together into the sunset?’
She turned onto her back so she could look up at him. Grinning and with her breath back, she said, ‘Now, there’s an idea I hadn’t considered. You then have a ready-made son. You’d only really be trading like for like.’
‘Like for like? You and that boy you abused for Sheila and Frank? Are you out of your mind?’
‘Do you really have to answer that?’ She sat up and shuffled over to the wall.
Jake sighed. ‘You’ve ruined my life; do you know that?’
‘Hang on, champ. I didn’t lead you to Caroline. You did that all on your own.’
He looked at the door, paranoid that Sheila was listening in, before looking down at the body on the floor and realising that was the least of his worries.
He turned his back to the wall, and slipped down it, so he was sitting alongside Lacey.
‘Your first?’ Lacey said, prodding the top of Young’s head with her shoe.
‘My last,’ Jake said. ‘Did you plan all of this?’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘Actually, don’t answer that. I suppose the one consolation is that you’re going to jail too. And it’ll be a different one to me, so I’ll probably never have to see you again. Every cloud has a silver lining, I guess.’
‘Unless—’
‘No. No more, please. I’ve had enough.’
She put her head on his shoulder. ‘Okay, let’s just wait for the end.’
Jake looked down at her head. ‘Bollocks. Any moment now you’re going to try to talk me into something? Can’t see you breaking the habit of a lifetime.’
‘Can you remember some of the things I talked you into back—’
‘Not now, Lacey.’
‘Later then. When I write to you.’
Jake sighed. ‘At least that boy, Tobias, will go back to his mother.’
‘Yes, and the crime syndicate that surrounds her. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.’
‘Still. At least his real mother might help him feel emotion.’
Lacey laughed. ‘You really have me all wrong, you know that?’
‘Do I?’
‘It’s not too late to make this work for all of us.’
Jake snorted. ‘There it is! Go on then Lacey, enlighten me. What fantastical move do you propose?’
‘Simple really. You wipe that axe handle clean and I’ll put my hands all over it. Job done.’
‘Is that it! What a load of bullshit. After all this, you’ll just roll over and go to jail, and let me walk?’
‘Who said anything about jail?’ Lacey lifted her head off his shoulder. ‘I’ll walk out of here with Tobias and you can go back to being DS Jake Pettman and his broken family as if all of this never happened.’
Jake sighed. ‘There are no limits to your ambition, are there? And how do you propose I make that work? Why were you, Young and Tobias here in the first place? How did you just walk away?’
Lacey kissed him on the side of the head. ‘Jake, you are one of the most intelligent men I have ever met. I’m sure you can work something out. After all, it’s a bloodbath back at Caroline’s and my DNA will be there too—’
‘Caroline?’
‘I didn’t touch a hair on her head.’
Jake shook his head. ‘I can’t just let you walk out of here. Not after everything you’ve done.’
Lacey kissed him again. ‘Can’t you, lover?’
18
YORKE NEEDED TO hold onto something just to feel some semblance of control. Something … anything. No matter how fleeting. No matter how false.
He chose the top of the television, which was still switched on, although muted. Two politicians were facing off with their plans to put the world to rights.
They aren’t in this room, Yorke thought. They aren’t seeing what I’m seeing. If they were, they’d know that they were facing an impossible task – the world could never be put to rights again.
Sarah Ray was dead. To know that, he didn’t need to check her pulse, but had done anyway. Someone had rammed her head into the wall.
It could have been Paul who’d done this.
Yorke gripped the television so hard that his knuck
les glowed. He took deep breaths. Control. He needed it. The world was in flux. Steady … steady … steady—
A car roared into life outside. He flew to the window and saw a white Kia under the streetlight on the other side of the road. Paul was at the wheel. He must have headed out of the back door and around the side of the house when Yorke had come in.
He sprinted out of the front door and then to his car parked at the top of the driveway. Paul was already at the end of their terrace turning onto North Street before Yorke had fired up his engine. His siren shattered the silence of Wilton and his flashing lights burned through the darkness.
Yorke raced up the gears and turned hard left onto North Street. He could see Paul’s rear lights in the distance. Many vehicles had pulled over to the side already due to Paul’s erratic driving, and this allowed Yorke to slip past them.
Yorke jammed his foot down. Townhouses and small stores flashed by.
When he reached the turn off, Yorke saw that Paul had already caused three cars to rear-end each other on the A36. Other vehicles behind the pile-up, and on the opposite side of the road, had all ground to a halt to avoid getting involved in the carnage. This allowed Yorke to turn immediately. His wheels screeched and the smell of burnt rubber filled his car.
The rear-view lights of Paul’s Kia grew larger. Yorke pushed the car almost to eighty and was inches away from Paul’s bumper. Yorke felt adrenaline burn every nerve in his body when he saw the roundabout looming close. He suspected Paul would simply tear over it or they would both be goners.
He was wrong. Paul’s brake lights glowed.
Yorke stabbed his own brake as he watched Paul enter a skid but manage to take the Kia left off the roundabout.
Yorke didn’t feel so lucky. His wheels were locked, and he was now entering his own skid. He felt dread, like acid, melting his insides. After almost ninety-degrees, the car righted itself and he was now on The Ave.
He didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief, instead he punched the accelerator again. He pressed a button on his dash. Fortunately, Gardner was the last person he phoned, so there was no need to scroll.
‘Emma! I’m chasing down Paul Ray.’
‘What?’
‘No time to explain, just get to the Ray house in Wilton. Sarah is dead—'
‘God, no!’
‘Emma, just bloody listen!’ He was in the centre of the road. Traffic continued to make way for Yorke. Rows of whitewashed houses blurred on his left. Paul was metres away. ‘I’ve just come off the A36 at King’s Road onto The Ave, and I’m approaching the bridge over the railway. You need to get the road blocked ahead.’ He gave the registration number of Paul’s vehicle, which was unnecessary as they would be able to access Sarah’s vehicle details, but it might buy them a few extra seconds.
As they passed an industrial estate, Paul started to slow down.
‘What the?’
Paul stopped at the entrance to railway bridge. He climbed out of the Kia and headed up the bridge.
‘He’s stopped, Emma. Get someone here now.’
He hung up, pulled over behind Paul’s vehicle and jumped out of the car.
Paul wasn’t quite sure what was happening as he staggered up the bridge.
He remembered Reginald on the floor, looking up at him. He also recalled being stabbed in the leg, hence the limp. But he wasn’t sure what had happened since that point. He had a throbbing pain in his head, and he could taste the blood running down his face and into his mouth.
Why had he driven out to the railway? And what had happened to his mother and Reginald?
He put his hands against the barrier of the bridge and vomited over onto the train track several metres below.
My mother!
He felt his spine turn to ice.
With that old man …
‘Paul! It’s me, Mike!’
Paul turned towards the bridge entrance. Sure enough Yorke was standing there.
Paul swayed and steadied himself against the chest-high brick barrier to stop himself tumbling. With his eyes closed to fight the sudden disorientation, he remembered a moment long ago, when Yorke had rescued him from that vile pig farm, and given him his life back …
Emergency vehicles spread like a rash and everything changed. Darkness and desolation were replaced with the beat of light and life. By the ambulance, his mother had her arm hooked around that poor girl, Martha.
‘I thought we were going to die in there,’ Paul said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ Yorke said. ‘You were the brave one in all of this. The care you took of your mother was incredible. She must be so proud …’
‘Where is my mother, Mike?’
Yorke approached. ‘Paul, you need to come with me. It’s not safe up here.’
The question had not been answered. My mother … Reginald … please, God, no …
‘Mum?’ Tears filled the corners of his eyes.
Yorke’s response was delayed. It wouldn’t be the truth. ‘She’s worried about you. As am I.’
Paul’s tears started to fall. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’
A car drove past them. It beeped its horn but didn’t stop.
Yorke put a hand on Paul’s shoulder. ‘All I know right now, Paul, is that you aren’t well. I’ve come to get you … and help you.’
Paul could see the sadness in the detective’s eyes.
‘Tell me the truth, Mike. I was in the kitchen and that man came back.’
‘Who?’
‘Reginald.’
‘At the house?’
‘Yes, I saw him in the kitchen. He’d been hiding. He stabbed me in the leg, and now I can’t remember anything.’
Yorke put a hand on Paul’s shoulder. ‘Come with me. We will find out what is happening soon enough.’
Yorke started to lead the frail boy down the railway bridge. Another car came past. This one stopped, and the driver leaned out the window. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes. Police,’ Yorke said.
The driver took him at his word and moved on.
‘What’s wrong with me, Mike?’
Yorke was desperate not to engage Paul in this conversation. Not here. Not right now. He wanted him behind closed doors, with several of his colleagues, and the necessary professionals to deal with this psychological issue. The fact that this poor, young man had no recollection of what he’d done made Yorke feel physically sick.
‘You’ve been through a lot, Paul. And not just this week but back then, all those years ago. Let’s get you somewhere warm.’
Paul ducked under Yorke’s arm and retreated several steps. ‘And then what, detective? Administer some old-fashioned police justice? Oh, I’ve been on the receiving end of that before. More than once. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it was invigorating, I can tell you that.’
Yorke didn’t move. Paul was only several metres in front of him. He wanted to keep it that way. He didn’t want to have to chase.
‘Punch the man with the fucked-up face … it was a national pastime back then! Well the man with the fucked-up face has started to punch back, and let me tell you, sir, I feel so much better for it.’
‘Paul, there is nothing wrong with your face.’
‘Now, now, detective. Don’t play dumb. You know damn well who you are talking to.’
‘I’m talking to Paul.’
He laughed. ‘Do I really sound like that little, pathetic weasel? I’m Reginald.’
‘Reginald Ray is dead. He died a long, long time ago, Paul. There is a man called Christopher Steele who is descended from Reginald. It was him who took you from the Ray farm. It was him that made you watch as he murdered Samuel Mitchell.’
‘I know who Christopher Steele is! The feisty bitch just caved his head in in her kitchen and this little shitbag can’t even remember seeing it!’
Yorke hadn’t made it into the kitchen back at the house, so he guessed this was possible. That would verify what Paul had said moments ago ab
out being stabbed in the leg.
‘Listen Paul. It was Christopher Steele who taught you what kind of man Reginald was. He got into your head in what must have been a horrendous situation. It’s that evil influence that has caused this in some way.’
‘Fuckity-fuck, for the last time, you are not talking to Paul Ray. Like a little maggot, he’s hiding away, like he always does. He can’t remember anything, but I can you see. I remember everything. Everything I do and everything he does. Now’s the time to help him along with that …’ He smirked.
‘Paul, if you can hear me, please listen. I am going to have to take you now to the station. I would prefer it if you didn’t resist.’
His smirk fell away. ‘Mike?’
‘Yes! Paul, is that you?’
‘Mike?’ His face blanched. He took two steps back. His eyes widened. ‘I remember … oh, God … I REMEMBER!’
Yorke flinched.
‘I can see everything.’
Yorke could hear the rumble of a train in the distance. ‘Listen, Paul—’
‘My hand, Mike!’ He was holding the palm of his one remaining hand in Yorke’s direction. ‘There’s blood on my hand. Mum’s blood. I can see everything!’
Yorke took a step towards Paul. ‘You’re ill, Paul. Your trauma has caused Dissociative Identity Disorder. You’ve fractured into two personalities—'
‘OH GOD, MUM.’ He put his remaining hand to his forehead. ‘WHAT HAVE I DONE?’
Yorke took another step and stretched out a hand to him. ‘When you were with Christopher Steele, in that room, he created this other personality. I don’t think he did it intentionally, but I think you acquired his traits. I can only imagine the trauma of what you must have gone through to cause this.’
‘I remember. I ate Samuel. He fed me pieces of that poor boy and I ate him.’ His hand flew to his mouth. ‘I’m a monster. My god, I’m a monster …’
Yorke shook his head. ‘You’re not a monster. You’re sick. The other personality is becoming dominant, controlling you.’ He managed to get to Paul and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘You need help, you need to come with me.’
