by Wes Markin
Mayers had managed to cast aside the Christmas tree, but only to receive Topham, who had pounced on top of him and sank his teeth into the doctor’s hand.
‘Get off me.’
Growling, Topham shook his head from side-to-side. Mayers shrieked again.
Topham pulled away with a chunk of flesh in his mouth. Grimacing, Gardner readied the gun to threaten Mayers, but then her friend reared up and drove into the doctor again, this time closing his jaws on his face.
For fear of hitting Topham, Gardner lowered the gun.
Mayers writhed, but this only seemed to help Topham get his teeth deeper into his face. Again, he was shaking his head like a real dog playing tug-of-war with its owner. Gardner watched Mayers’ skin stretch as Topham edged backwards. Then, came the sound of ripping.
‘Mark!’ Gardner said.
Topham turned and looked at his best friend. Mayers’ cheek slipped from his mouth. ‘Emma,’ he growled. He bared his bloody canines, turned back and went for the jugular.
Topham trembled in Gardner’s arms.
It wasn’t the cold because he was used to being naked. He shook because of the onslaught of experience. After Emma had perforated the cloud of darkness, his memories had started to trickle out; now that the puncture had widened, everything streamed out. ‘No, Emma, no …’
He was curled in a ball, and she held his head tightly against her chest. ‘It’s okay.’ She stroked his head. ‘It’s okay … I have you now.’
Topham gulped when Neil, the only man he’d ever loved, walked back into his consciousness. He whimpered as a spotlight fell on the moment when Yorke said that Neil was dead. He cried as the despair, the drinking, the prostitution and the self-pity tore into him like a sandstorm. He wailed when he heard Dan Tillotson’s skull break open as he landed the final blow.
Afterwards, he slipped his head from Gardner’s grip and turned to look at Mayers. Blood was still weakly pumping from his torn neck. ‘You destroyed everything. You made me destroy everything.’
He looked down at his own naked body. Mutilated, and glistening with the doctor’s blood. ‘You destroyed me.’
He looked at Gardner. He’d covered her clothing in blood too. She had tears running down her face now. He stroked her face. ‘Happiness or pity, Emma?’
‘Happiness.’
Liar. How could you not pity the freak you’re holding?
He curled up against her and let her hold him tightly for a while longer.
Later, he said, ‘Thank you, Emma, for coming to find me.’
‘You’d have done the same for me.’
He looked up into her eyes. ‘I can’t go back Emma. You know that.’
There was a pause. He expected her to argue. She didn’t speak.
‘They’ll put me in a cage.’
Still no reply.
‘I need you to do one more thing for me.’
This time there was no silence. ‘Anything, Mark. I’ll do anything you ask me too.’
The drugs in Gardner’s system were playing havoc with her. Her vision blurred and twisted. Thoughts, both surreal and razor sharp, circled each other in her mind. Her emotions shot up and down extreme gradients.
Yet, through all of this, she tried, for her best friend, to stay focused on what he wanted.
She’d taken off his metal collar with the key hanging beside the back door; dressed him in some of Mayers’ clothes which she found in a wardrobe upstairs; driven him in the doctor’s car, which she’d done slowly and cautiously as she struggled to interpret the straight lines which made up a road; removed some cones which blocked off the entrance to an old brickworks site near Wakefield; and headed down a snow-covered dirt track to the quarry’s edge.
Topham leaned over and nuzzled his head against Gardner’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, Emma.’ His voice sounded less damaged now, and more like the voice she knew, and loved.
‘Mark―’
‘I love you, but I need you to go now, Emma.’
‘But, there can―’
He lifted his head from her shoulder. ‘Please … leave, drive away and don’t look back.’
‘There’s always another—’
‘I should already be dead, Emma.’
‘I just can’t!’ She said, shaking.
‘Emma, you promised.’
She looked out of the window at the snow-tipped quarry. It looked peaceful and must have looked so welcoming for Topham. Someone who had experienced so much trauma over the last couple of years and would only be destined for more.
She turned, leaned over and kissed his head. ‘I promised.’
She rubbed tears from her eyes, hoping he hadn’t seen them. She wanted to be strong – for him.
Topham smiled. ‘It’s been a ride, Emma.’
She turned away, unable to stop her tears.
‘Drive away, Emma. Don’t watch. I don’t want you to watch.’
She nodded but was unable to speak. She heard the car door open, and the sound of him climbing out.
‘No wait,’ she said, turning back.
He leaned in through the open door.
‘Bye, Mark.’ She smiled.
Topham smiled, and for a moment, with the help of the drugs plying her body, Gardner saw the strong, commanding detective, whom she’d spent the best part of her career alongside. His perfect hair, his perfect teeth, and his perfect suit.
Topham closed the door. She switched her car lights off, turned the vehicle and drove away, content to remember DI Mark Topham as the proud, strong, albeit sometimes vain man, that had never had a bad word for anyone.
Gardner found somewhere to stop. Her mind was whirring uncontrollable and she feared losing consciousness.
She phoned Yorke. ‘I’m safe, Mike.’
‘Oh God, Emma … thank God … thank God …’
‘If only you were always so pleased to hear from me.’
‘Where’re you?’ He sounded close to tears.
‘In a field somewhere.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Feeling groggy.’
‘Why? What’s happened? Where’s Mayers?’
‘Dead Mike. Mark killed him.’ She laid her head against the steering wheel.
‘What? You found him? You found Mark?’
I did. And now he’s gone again … forever. ‘Yes.’
Everything was really swimming now. Exhaustion seemed to have got a sudden grip on her.
‘Are you okay, Emma? You don’t sound okay. Where are you?’
‘With Mark,’ she lied. Gardner gave Yorke the address. ‘Go there. You’ll find Mayers.’
‘You sound sick.’
‘I’m fine. I’ll phone an ambulance after you ring off. He just gave me stuff … lots of junk … but it’s over now, and I’ll be fine …’
‘You sound anything but, Emma. You’re slurring. Please tell me where you are. I’ll get the ambulance―’
‘No time, Mike, you need to know that there’s someone else.’
‘What?’
‘Someone helping him.’
She stopped and realised she was no longer holding the phone.
She could hear Yorke’s voice somewhere in the distance. ‘Emma … Emma … are you there?’
With her eyes closed, she reached down to the floor to get the phone back.
‘Emma … Emma?’
She fell into the darkness.
The doctors were hopeful that Gardner was out of the woods, so her husband, Barry, had opted to rest and installed himself in a nearby hotel. Yorke, on the other hand, was a glutton for punishment and sat alone in the hospital waiting room, waiting for her to wake, ready to ask her where Topham was so he could prepare the arrest.
Yorke looked up at the clock on the waiting room wall. It was past eleven o’clock and so almost New Year. He’d be contacting Patricia bang on twelve. Full of apologies, as usual - it wasn’t the New Year party he’d promised her when the Christmas holidays had begun.
Yorke drank his fifth coffee. It’d been almost e
ight hours since Gardner had been spotted in a field by a couple of ramblers. He was beat, and the caffeine in instant coffee was not providing enough of a wallop to sustain him. He paced the waiting room, wincing at the tinsel and other tacky decorations. This was one Christmas he’d want to forget in a hurry. He stopped by a wall of cards, hand drawn and sent in by local school children to the NHS workers. It was a nice touch.
One of the cards was fronted with a picture of Santa Clause. The creative young person had gone to town on him with red crayon. He thought back to Rosset’s description of Mayers’ body.
Topham had done that. He didn’t need to wait for DNA results for confirmation. There was no way Gardner had done it.
Rosset hadn’t ordered Yorke to attend the crime scene but had tried to encourage him. If Yorke had still been worried about Gardner’s warning that someone was helping Mayers at that point, he’d have gone to assist in any way possible.
But this person Gardner had been referring to had already been found at the crime scene. He’d been another “patient” of Mayers and had been disfigured by the cruel psychiatrist. Saskia McLarney was biologically male but identified as female. Rosset’s team were still struggling to get much sense from her. She’d been pumped full of morphine.
‘DCI Yorke?’
Yorke turned from the Christmas cards. A doctor had got within a metre of Yorke without him even noticing; he really was running on empty.
‘Emma is awake, and she wants to speak with you.’
‘Shall I contact her husband, maybe she wants to see him first?’
‘Normally, that would be appropriate. However, she says its urgent she talks to you. She thinks a crime is going to be committed.’
Alan Sants, wets his pants.
Alan Sants, wets his pants.
Alan Sants, Alan Sants.
Alan Sants wets his pants.
It was a song that forever stayed with him. He stroked one of his mud figurines. Like the fingerprints of the sculptor. Forever burned into the fired clay.
He heard the Conduit in his head: ‘Is this experience a stain on you, or is it something you could use?’
He checked his Chinese Mud Men were four centimetres apart and replaced the ruler in his bag, alongside the gun.
He looked at his watch. It was almost half-past eleven. His eyes swept the Old Bar. The clientele differed from his repeated visions he shared with the Conduit, and the music wasn’t quite as loud, but the themes remained the same.
Uneven. Chaotic.
Disordered.
‘If it isn’t Mr fucking Bowtie!’
Alan looked up. Not the two pretty women from the other narrative. Instead, two of Eddie’s sheep. They’d been there the night that he’d been pushed to the floor. The night that the Conduit had first held a hand out for him.
‘You seen Eddie?’ Knuckle-dragger one asked. ‘We haven’t seen him in days. Maybe you’re meeting him here?’
‘We’ve seen the way you look at him.’ Knuckle-dragger two said.
Alan smiled.
‘Why are you smiling?’ Knuckle-dragger one said.
Saskia. You mean Saskia. And you should see the way he looked at me when he cut off his face.
Knuckle-dragger two pushed over his figurines. ‘Stop fucking smiling.’
It was still too early, so Alan let his smile fall away, but inside he was laughing. ‘I don’t know where he is.’ He stared deep into Knuckle-dragger two’s eyes. At twelve o’clock, I’m going to kill you first.
Gardner was out of bed when Yorke came into the room. She was arguing with a nurse while pulling wires from her body. There was a twitchy officer stationed at the side of the room, edging forwards. Gardner had still not been spoken to since the death of Mayers, so she had to stay in police custody.
Yorke said, ‘Hey, Emma, what’s—’
She turned her wild eyes onto him. ‘It’s twenty-to-twelve.’
Yorke nodded.
‘We have to go, Mike, you don’t understand—’
‘Make me understand.’ He went to her, put his hands gently on her shoulders, and eased her backwards onto the bed. She was pale and had a thin sheen of sweat over her face.
‘There’s another person … someone helping him. They were planning something awful.’
With his hands still on her shoulders, Yorke said. ‘It’s okay, Emma. You told me. We got the accomplice.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. They were at the house. Rosset called me.’
‘Thank god.’
Yorke removed his hands, and Gardner started to shuffle back up the bed, until she was in a sitting position. The officer stepped back. The nurse sighed with relief and started to reconnect the wires.
‘I heard them talking,’ Gardner said. ‘They had a gun and were planning to go to the Old Bar at the University of Leeds to see in the New Year! Jesus. Imagine? So close to another disaster.’
Yorke felt sick. Something didn’t sit right. Rosset said Saskia’s face was a mess – how would he have got into the bar unnoticed? Why would Mayers risk his plans by mutilating the gunman?
‘What’s wrong, Mike?’
Yorke was back on his feet. ‘Describe this other person to me, Emma?’
‘Hair in curtains. Pale skin. Angsty teenager look. Bowtie.’
‘Was there anything wrong with their face?’
‘Gaunt.’
Yorke could feel the scar tingle on his face, he could feel the cold at the top of his chest. His senses were going haywire. ‘I think there’s someone else, Emma. The person we found is too badly damaged to do anything like this.’
Gardner pushed the nurse away.
‘No,’ Yorke pointed at her with a trembling finger. ‘You’re in no state. We’re a stone’s throw from the university. I can go.’
He looked at his watch. He still had twelve minutes but, by the time he negotiated his way out of the hospital, it would be a lot less.
‘It’d be faster to go on foot,’ the nurse said.
‘I know,’ Yorke said, sprinting for the door. He shouted over his shoulder. ‘Phone for back-up Emma and then try to get in touch with the bar.’
The last part of the sprint was uphill. He wasn’t wearing the right footwear for this. He slipped and skidded on snow. His shins burned. He felt old injuries reemerge.
At least he had a clear route. Most New Year revellers were already in their chosen drinking establishment. As he ran, his eyes rarely left the clocktower which towered above Leeds.
It was three minutes to twelve when he reached the Parkinson Building, the base of the clocktower. He recalled the photograph that had brought them to Leeds only a week ago. Mark Topham. Dishevelled. Sitting on the third step leading up to the building.
Yorke realised that in all the chaos which accompanied Gardner’s reawakening, he’d not asked her one of the most crucial questions. Where was Mark?
As Yorke flew into the University campus, the burn in his legs seemed to spread up and over his chest. He’d not run as fast for years. He hoped it was a stitch and not his heart preparing to explode.
Two students were in his way. One was staggering every which way but forward, while the other was vomiting down their front. From the bottom of the steps leading up to the campus drinking hole, the Old Bar, a large doorman was shooing the drunken pair away.
Yorke swooped past the students and finished up next to the doorman. ‘DCI Michael Yorke.’
The doorman’s hand shot out and barred his way. ‘ID?’
‘This is an emergency.’ Yorke rustled in his pocket for his badge. ‘Have you not been contacted?’
‘No one has said anything.’ the doorman held up his radio.
‘There must have been a phone call?’
‘Maybe, but who’d answer it? Busiest night of the year in there, mate!’
Yorke showed his badge. ‘I have reason to believe that someone has a firearm in your bar. We need to evacuate—’
A loud voice boomed from ins
ide the bar from the speakers. ‘The moment we’ve been waiting for … ten …’
He was too late.
‘Ten.’
Alan pulled the gun from his backpack and covered it with his jacket.
‘Nine.’
He nodded farewell to his Chinese mud men.
‘Eight … seven … six.’
He was on his feet and moving down the stairs at the end of the raised platform.
‘Five … four … three.’
Alan was barging past people to get to the bar.
‘Two.’
He was facing knuckle-dragger two.
‘One.’
He let his jacket slip to the floor and pinned the gun to his target’s head.
‘Happy New Year!’
There was a loud cheer.
‘Courage is fire.’ Alan pulled the trigger.
The staff behind the bar were sprayed with blood and brain.
‘And bullying is smoke.’
‘Nine.’
Yorke slipped past the doorman and bounded up the steps, two at a time.
‘Eight … seven.’
Yorke hit a corridor leading to the bar entrance. He heard the doorman shouting after him.
‘Six … five.’
Some students were gathered in the corridor, so rather than slow down, Yorke threw himself against the left-side wall and slid by them. He wondered if the doorman was chasing him. He didn’t have time to look back and see.
‘Four … three.’
He was through the open doorway into the bar. There was a thick river of students between him and the stairs which led to a raised platform overlooking the bar area.
‘Two.’
How was he going to get through?
‘One … Happy New Year!’
A gunshot.
Screams.
Yorke waded through the river of students. ‘POLICE! LET ME THOUGH!’ Several students clashed with his firm shoulder. Some spun off him, gasping for air. ‘LET … ME ... THROUGH!’
