Your Deepest Fear

by David Jackson

  What could that possibly be? And how will she know when it’s happening? How can she be sure to call up those names at the precise moment they are needed?

  It doesn’t make any sense.

  She moves on to the next part of the message. The bit about they.

  They’re here!

  Who? Who were there? And why was Matthew so terrified of them? It seems clear that he knew their identities and their aim. He knew his hourglass was running out.

  Shocking images jump into her mind. She sees Matthew desperately stabbing at the buttons of his phone as he hears his attackers breaking into his house. She sees him crying, hears his sobbing when the call isn’t answered immediately.

  And then the sudden outpouring of words when the answering machine eventually grants its permission to talk. The rushed burble as the intruders appear in his sights, see what he is doing, and snatch his lifeline away from him.

  Lifeline – ha! If only. If only she had been on the other end of that line rather than a fucking machine.

  And then more images. Of torture, of interrogation, of immense unendurable agony. She sees his blood, feels his humiliation, hears his prayers for an end to his torment.

  And then the pictures in her head become confused, jumbled with others. Memories and imaginings conjoin in a maelstrom of death and injury, until she doesn’t know what is real and what is not.

  She releases a yell. A long, drawn-out scream of fury and anguish that echoes around a house that now seems just a hollow shell.

  A full two minutes pass while she sits kneeling on the wooden floor of the hallway, staring but not seeing.

  She plays the recorded message again. This time she concentrates on the end of it. The part where Matthew tells her unequivocally that he loves her.

  She has sometimes feared that she would never hear those words again. When he moved out of this house, Matthew seemed so damaged, so not in control of himself. She hoped that he would eventually find peace, but there was always a nagging doubt that it might be beyond his enfeebled reach.

  And here it is. The confirmation of his devotion to her. It took his imminent death to squeeze it out of him, but here it is.

  She plays the message again and again. She no longer hears the fear, the cries. She blots those out and hears only him assuring her of his love.

  And what she produces in response is what she told DS Cody she was denying him. Tears in abundance – evidence of a fragility that she will let no man see again.

  8

  Monday morning on Rodney Street, the Harley Street of the North. The Georgian doors open. Doctors, dentists, therapists, acupuncturists and other highly paid private sector professionals welcome in the clients who line their pockets so readily.

  Cody just wants to get this over with. There’s a case to be solved, and over at the station his colleagues will be taking steps towards solving it. Without him. It doesn’t seem right. It feels like missing an important lesson at school – so important that he cannot hope to catch up on his return.

  And besides, this is a waste of everyone’s time. He’s going to lie through his teeth no matter what this particular professional asks, and hope that his story is swallowed without catching in the throat. But even if it isn’t, what can the psychologist prove? What Cody keeps telling himself is that this is just a matter of putting himself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t have a problem. This is a test of his acting ability, and nothing more.

  The waiting room is plush and modern. Even the magazines here are this month’s. No television, though. Cody guesses that’s so it doesn’t show something that might upset a patient.

  He hears the rapid click of heels as a woman strides briskly into the waiting area. She looks about the same age as Cody, which somehow makes him more agitated. He had hoped for someone much older – someone close to retirement who has nothing to prove with over-zealous probing.

  ‘Mr Cody?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Hi.’

  She proffers a hand, together with a smile that is meant to be welcoming but which he doesn’t find a comfort.

  ‘I’m Gem Falstaff. Would you like to come through?’

  He’d like to say, No, I’d rather leave now, if it’s all the same to you, but he doesn’t think it will help in getting signed off. He also doesn’t like the name Gem. Nobody calls themselves Gem.

  She leads him into an office that has the expected exhibits of expertise: framed certificates on the wall, shelves of boring-looking academic tomes, and objets d’art attesting to wealth derived from success. She waves him into a low chair alongside a coffee table that holds a framed photograph of a smiling family that look nothing like her. She sits opposite him and crosses her legs before resting a folder of papers on them.

  Cody wonders what is already in that folder, and what will be added to it by the end of the session.

  ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Do you mind if I call you Nathan?’

  ‘Uhm—’

  ‘I can call you Mr Cody if you prefer. I just think that’s a little—’

  ‘Cody. Everyone calls me Cody. Except my mum. And sometimes my boss.’

  She smiles at him, and he wishes he hadn’t just told her about how Blunt addresses him. She might be seeing all kinds of Oedipus stuff in his words.

  ‘Cody it is, then. You’ve been told about the purpose of these sessions, I take it?’

  He shrugs. ‘I got the gist. You want to check I’m fit for duty. Which I am, by the way.’

  ‘Well, great. In that case, this should be a breeze.’

  She looks down at her folder, flips a page.

  ‘I see you’ve filled out the pre-assessment form. Nothing out of the ordinary here. In fact, you could say it’s extraordinarily ordinary.’

  She smiles again, but Cody is certain she is making a criticism. He’s beginning to wonder if he should have ticked a few more of the boxes at the extreme ends of the responses. Given her something to get her teeth into, however untrue.

  ‘You say you haven’t experienced any suicidal tendencies.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Insomnia?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Depression or anxiety?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Panic attacks?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you drink much?’

  ‘Hardly ever.’

  ‘Really? Why’s that?’

  Damn, thinks Cody. Have I just fallen into a trap?

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, a guy your age, working in the police force . . . Your colleagues must try to drag you to the pub now and again, no?’

  Shit.

  ‘Yes. I mean, I have the occasional drink. Just not very often.’

  ‘Ever have enough to get drunk?’

  He thinks about lying, but he’s already told her he hardly ever drinks.

  ‘No. Not now.’

  ‘But you used to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what changed?’

  ‘I . . . I decided I needed to adopt a healthier lifestyle. I saw what drink was doing to people around me.’

  ‘You mean your colleagues?’

  ‘Yes. And my dad.’

  ‘Your dad’s a heavy drinker?’

  ‘He can be.’

  She nods. Clicks her pen and makes a note in her paperwork. ‘We’ll come back to your family later.’

  Thought we might, Cody thinks.

  She says, ‘When was it you decided to go on the wagon?’

  ‘About a year ago.’

  ‘A year ago. Okay.’

  Another scribbled note. Cody would love to know what she’s writing.

  ‘But I’m not exactly on the wagon,’ he adds. ‘I just drink much less now.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she says. He senses they’ll probably return to this topic later, too.

  She leans back in her chair. Studies him for a few seconds. ‘I want you to know,’ she says, ‘that I’m not trying to catch you out in these ses
sions. I’m here to help you.’

  ‘I thought your job was to assess me.’

  ‘That too. But at the heart of all this is your welfare. You have a very demanding job. You must see some gruesome sights.’

  ‘I’m used to it.’

  ‘They don’t bother you?’

  ‘Not at all. It comes with the job.’

  ‘I know, but that doesn’t mean it can’t affect you. I’ve met some very experienced police officers who have been severely traumatised by their work. The problem is they don’t always realise it at the time.’ She pauses. ‘Are you working on a case at the moment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it a murder?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you view the body?’

  Cody shifts in his seat. ‘No.’

  ‘No? Isn’t that unusual?’

  ‘Depends. On this occasion, I was asked to perform other duties.’

  ‘You were asked not to attend the crime scene?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who gave you that order?’

  ‘My commanding officer. DCI Blunt.’

  Falstaff looks down at her notes and makes a ticking motion with her pen, as if confirming the story already present there.

  ‘Why did she do that?’

  ‘She . . . she was worried it might affect me adversely.’

  ‘I see. I assume she wouldn’t normally do that, so why was she so worried this time?’

  ‘Because of what I’d been through on a previous case. I’m sure this is in your notes, but I’ve just returned from leave.’

  Falstaff flips through her pages again. ‘You were hospitalised.’

  ‘Yes. But I was okay. Nothing serious.’

  Falstaff continues reading for a while, then looks straight at Cody. ‘Some would say you went through quite an ordeal.’

  ‘I like to get my hands dirty,’ says Cody.

  ‘Which is fine when things go well, but sometimes they don’t. Are you comfortable with talking about those times when your best-laid plans haven’t worked out?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, because he knows it’s the only answer he can give.

  ‘Good. If at any time you feel you want to take a break, just let me know, okay?’

  He nods, but he has already decided he’s not going to request a timeout. That would be a big mistake.

  ‘All right,’ says Falstaff. ‘Let’s begin at the beginning.’

  ‘I was working on a child abduction case. A six-year-old girl called—’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Falstaff. ‘You’re talking about the last case you worked on. I wanted to take you back a bit further in time, to when you were on that undercover operation that went wrong.’

  Cody blinks. ‘That was quite a while ago.’

  ‘Year before last. Not so long, really.’

  ‘Okay, but I’ve already seen a psychologist for that one.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Falstaff. She consults her notes again. ‘Who was it you saw?’

  ‘Er . . . I forget his name. Oldish guy, glasses, beard . . .’

  ‘Dr Rimmer.’

  ‘Could be. Yes.’

  Falstaff takes a while formulating her next response. As if what she really wants to say is something like, Yeah, I know Rimmer, and he’s a useless old fart who just nods and puts down whatever it is the patient wants his bosses to hear, but don’t even think about me doing the same thing because it wouldn’t be very professional.

  ‘I like to get the full picture,’ she says. ‘Every event in our lives connects to every other. Sorry if that means going over old ground, but I think it would be helpful.’

  ‘Right,’ says Cody, although he doesn’t think this is going to be the least bit helpful to himself. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Well, let’s start with the facts. What happened exactly?’

  Cody collects his thoughts as he decides how to launch into his story. It’s not one he often tells.

  ‘I was working undercover with a partner called Jeff Vance. We’d infiltrated a gang led by a man called Barry Duffy.’

  ‘What were they doing, this gang?’

  ‘Whatever they could. Drugs, guns, robbery. We were building evidence, but we also knew there were bigger fish to fry above Duffy. We were hoping to get to them.’

  ‘Did Duffy believe your cover story?’

  Cody shrugs. ‘We thought so at the time. Maybe he didn’t, though. Maybe he always knew the truth. Or else somebody told him.’

  ‘So how did he react?’

  ‘He didn’t – at least not directly. Looking back, it’s one of the weird things about it. What you have to understand is that Duffy was a vicious bastard. He’d have happily torn me limb from limb once he knew I was a copper. But he chose not to do that. Instead, he brought in outside help.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Cody takes a deep breath. This is where it gets uncomfortable. This is the bit he prefers not to relive, even though it constantly intrudes into his dreams and his thoughts.

  ‘Duffy and one of his deputies came to us with a proposition. Duffy told us he wanted to introduce us to his boss, to discuss a new business venture. He wanted an answer there and then. No time to think about it, no time for us to contact our superiors. Our options were to play safe and miss the big opportunity we’d been waiting for, or take a gamble.’

  ‘And you chose to take the gamble?’

  ‘I have a tendency to do that. So did Jeff.’

  ‘So you went to the meeting. And no other police officers knew you were there?’

  Cody shakes his head. ‘They took extra precautions to ensure we weren’t followed. They drove us to a warehouse on the docks.’

  ‘You didn’t suspect anything?’

  Cody thinks about this, as he has done thousands of times before.

  ‘Suspect would be the wrong word. I worried we’d been rumbled, but that worry is always there in undercover work. Every time you do a drug deal you worry that you’ll say or do the wrong thing, or that someone will recognise you. You just have to push the thought aside and carry on.’

  ‘But on this occasion you’d have been correct.’

  ‘Actually, I’m still not sure. I still wonder if even Duffy knew exactly what was about to happen. I don’t think he could have been that good an actor.’

  Falstaff nods, and he can tell that she has already become fascinated by the details of the case, even though she needs to move on to its psychological ramifications.

  ‘All right. You go to the warehouse. Duffy and his man are with you. What happens next?’

  ‘We chat, we joke, we wait. Jeff and Duffy light up cigarettes. It all seems fine. And then the door bursts open.’

  Cody can still hear the resounding bang of that door. He remembers his heart leaping in his chest. He can see Jeff’s cigarette being dropped to the concrete floor.

  ‘Who is it? Who comes in?’

  ‘The clowns.’

  ‘The clowns?’

  ‘Four men. They’re dressed in overalls and wearing clown masks. One of them is carrying a sawn-off shotgun.’

  ‘Duffy’s boss?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It was obvious from Duffy’s reaction that he’d been expecting someone to arrive, but even he seemed surprised at what turned up. I think he and his mate were actually glad to get out of there.’

  ‘They left you alone with the clowns?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did the clowns want? Did they say?’

  ‘They didn’t say anything the whole time they were there.’

  ‘Not a word?’

  ‘Not one word. That wasn’t their aim. Their aim was to hurt us.’

  Falstaff nods slowly, thoughtfully. ‘Can you talk about it? About what they did to you?’

  ‘They tied us to chairs. Then they watched us for a while.’

  ‘They watched you? You mean they just stared at you?’

  ‘Yes. At first they just stood looking at us, but then Waldo gave
them a signal and they—’

  ‘Waldo?’

  ‘Sorry, yes. He was the one in charge. I don’t know why, but I gave him a name. Waldo seemed to fit.’

  ‘All right, so Waldo gave them a signal . . .’

  ‘Yes. And then they started circling us. They walked around and around us for ages.’

  ‘Did you try talking to them?’

  ‘Yes. I asked them what this was about. I told them they’d made a mistake. They didn’t listen.’

  ‘And how did you feel at that stage?’

  ‘Terrified. Convinced we were about to die.’

  ‘The most frightened you’d ever been in your life?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘They suddenly stopped walking. It was weird. Like they all knew exactly when to stop. Then Waldo waved one of his men over. He pointed down at my feet.’

  ‘Your feet?’

  ‘Yes. He wanted the other guy to remove my shoes and socks.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Why did he do that?’

  A twitch tugs at Cody’s lip. He senses that it wants to grow into a tremble. His eyes are beginning to sting.

  ‘So that . . . so that . . .’

  ‘What? What did he do?’

  ‘He called over another of his men. The man passed him something.’

  ‘What was that something?’

  ‘A pair of garden loppers.’

  ‘Loppers?’

  ‘Yes. You know those long-handled tools for snipping through branches?’

  Falstaff goes quiet. Cody wonders how much of this is already in the report, because it seems to come as a shock to her.

  She says, ‘And . . . what did he do with them?’

  ‘He, uhm, he . . . he started cutting off my toes.’

  Snip!

  Cody hears it. He hears the crunch of his toe being removed and his scream reverberating around the warehouse. He feels the intense stab of pain that shoots up through his body.

  There is disbelief on Falstaff’s face as she stares wide-eyed at Cody’s feet.

  ‘He cut off your toes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How . . . how many?’

  ‘Four in total. Two from each foot.’