A Step Into The Dark

by Vince Vogel

  “In 1996, I was awaitin’ trial,” the old man began as if opening a long story. “My brief was preparin’ to have me plead diminished responsibility. That was how it should’ve been.” Kline paused and the two men gazed across the table at one another. Jack’s eyes were pierced. Kline’s were dead. “But then it all changed,” the prisoner went on. “My brief comes to me two days before the plea was due to be heard an’ says we can’t plead that way because there’s not enough evidence to support it. Says we wouldn’t have enough to submit to the court an’ the jury wouldn’t buy it. Says the star witness comin’ from America can’t make it. And all of this after he told me not a day before that I was to hold on an’ we’d definitely get it. I can tell you that I found it a little odd.”

  He was smirking again. Jack couldn’t help tugging on the cigarette until it burned his lips.

  “Your lawyer saw sense,” the detective remarked, blowing smoke out and flicking his ash on the floor.

  “Not how he told me on the phone.”

  “How’d you get his telephone number in the first place?” Jack snapped. “I mean, there’s no mention of a number in any of the letters.”

  “Five years ago, my brief calls out of the blue. Tells me he wants to see me. Comes and hands me a phone number. He says some bloke turned up at his office and said he had new information regardin’ my case. The brief says he don’t want nothin’ to do with it. Says he promised to deliver the phone number an’ that was it. He gives it to me and leaves.”

  “And what happened when you called the number?”

  “I spoke with an angry man. A man who told me a very interestin’ story about my brief bein’ seen by a certain Scotland Yard detective shortly before my plea was due to be heard.”

  That smirk was once more dominating Kline’s dumb face, the agate eyes studying the detective opposite.

  “How does he know?” Jack asked.

  “So you ain’t denyin’ it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Kline nodded and sat back. A distraught look descended over his features and Jack got the impression the old man was about to cry. Anger nevertheless swept over it like fire and burned the sadness away, his good eye glimmering as if reflecting flames.

  “You know I’ve been attacked thirty-seven times?” he spat.

  “Don’t exaggerate,” Jack retorted sharply, “it’s twenty-seven.”

  “So you’ve been keepin’ count?”

  “Yes,” Jack replied curtly. “I know about the gang rape, too.”

  Kline was seething, his large bulk unable to keep still on the chair.

  “I’m an old man,” he stormed. “Do you know what it’s like for someone like me living in here?”

  “I can gather it’s not a holiday camp. Why else would I have done everything in my power to condemn you to it?”

  Kline was shaking his head. He looked like he was unwilling to believe how callous the other man could be towards him. Which Jack always found strange in killers, for they were creatures who had displayed nothing but callousness in their willingness to destroy. But when faced with similar levels of callous behavior, they bleat and blab about their rights. Jack called it the hypocritical paradox of violent criminals; that they expect a level of treatment they would never be willing, themselves, to give to others. Essentially, narcissism in its full glory.

  “Look, Robert, can we hurry this along,” Jack felt the need to say. “So this guy knows things about me. How?”

  “He’s been watchin’ you a long, long time,” Kline said with a sneering look as he relaxed back into the chair. “Whenever he can, he’s been researchin’ and lookin’ into you.”

  “And this is what you talk about during your late night chats; me?”

  “Yeah. He likes to talk about you. He looked into you an’ says he knows things about you even you’re unaware of.”

  “Like what?”

  “He never says. Only tells me what he thinks I should know and nothin’ more. See, he doesn’t like it when I ask too many questions. Gets angry. He just likes to talk. He says he doesn’t talk in his other life. Says that he’s practically mute. That people never listened to him when he was younger, so one day he just stopped talkin’ altogether. He says that people don’t even see him. But they’ll see him soon. They’ll know exactly who he is an’ where he came from.”

  “And do you know these things?”

  “No. Like I said, he does the talkin’ an’ he decides what we talk about. He never talks directly about hisself. It’s just like the letters. It’s like he don’t know how to properly communicate. One minute he’s talkin’ about drivin’ in his car. About seein’ blokes with their girlfriends. People together. Families. He hates them. He wants to see them blown to ash by an atomic bomb. Then he’ll suddenly be halfway through a story about how he once broke a cat’s leg when he was a boy. Watched it hobble around the alley out back of his house until a local dog got it and shook the thing to death.”

  Jack was frowning at him.

  “And you just listen?”

  “He’s the only contact I got. All I got. I knew he were plannin’ somethin’. He’s been talkin’ for a long time about somethin’ big. He says he’s trained his whole life for it.”

  “Something big? Like what?”

  “I told ya; I ain’t got a clue.”

  “Did you ever ask him who he was?”

  “All the time at first. But then he started shoutin’ at me. He put the phone down one time an’ didn’t answer for the next six months. It nearly broke me. Since then, I don’t ask. I just let him talk.”

  “Tell me something about him. Another story he told about a place he goes.”

  “Never mentions the locations. Never any markers. No names. He don’t see places, he sees people. Like a snake in the undergrowth. Sees only the heat of his prey. His surroundin’s become darkness to him.”

  “Surely he’s talked about hobbies, names of people he knows, what he does for a living?”

  “None of that. He told me he’s always been invisible to people an’ that he’s always been alone.”

  “What about his parents?”

  “They ignored him. They weren’t his.”

  “So he was adopted?”

  “He wouldn’t say. He just said they weren’t his parents an’ they never felt like they were, even when he was a child.”

  “So he never mentioned any names?”

  “Never. It was like he didn’t know anyone in the first place. You’d think in all those years he’d accidentally drop a name, but I got nothin’.”

  “What did he sound like?”

  “Other than angry, he sounds like you and me. Like a London boy. He’s from this city.”

  “He tried to burn it down once.”

  “Oh, so you know about the fires?”

  “Yes. Me and the little shit have a long history. What did he tell you about them?”

  “Only that he almost killed you years ago at some flat block, but your partner rescued you. He was glad you didn’t die, because afterwards you became his hobby an’ he found out so much about you. He was so glad. If he’d have killed you, he would have never found out all these things. You’ve been his project, he said. His obsession.”

  “What else has he told you about me?”

  Kline smirked.

  “Where’s your old partner?” he asked.

  Jack narrowed his eyes into an evil stare.

  “So he can read a newspaper, then?” Jack replied.

  “You’re right: anyone can find out that Colin Baker killed his wife in a fit of madness. But can they find out from the press why he ended up so mad?”

  Kline looked pleased with himself. A whole new level of impudence in his smirk.

  “He has been busy, then,” Jack replied causally, trying his best not to let the other man know that every one of his cells was drowning in anger. “So go on; what did he tell you?”

  “That the reason Detective Baker ran his wife through
with a blade was because his best mate was regularly running her through with his dirty dick.”

  He looked pleased with himself, his good eye watching the detective as the latter blew smoke into it.

  “That pleases you, does it?” Jack put to him. “To know things like that?”

  “It proves that there’s a flaw in all of us.”

  “But some flaws are bigger than others. Now, tell me, apart from my private affairs, what else did he tell you?”

  “Nothin’ much. He doesn’t trust me. Won’t give anythin’ away that he don’t want me to know. He only told about you and the lawyer and your partner. That was it. He said he knew you better than yourself.”

  “I’m gonna ask this again; why you?”

  “I told you. He was lookin’ into you an’ he found out about you speaking with my lawyer. He wanted me to know. He said he wants to communicate with you through me for some reason.”

  “And what do you want out of it?”

  “Just what I should’ve had before.”

  Kline slid his fat hand into a pocket and brought out a crumpled pamphlet. He placed it on the table and smoothed it out as though it were the most precious thing to him. The folds in it were frayed and it was covered in dirty fingerprints; evidence that he’d spent many nights looking over it. He opened it out on a picture of flower gardens.

  “This is St. Bernards high security psychiatric hospital,” the prisoner said.

  Jack knew it, of course: it was where Col resided.

  “They got gardens,” Kline pressed on. He looked like a child showing his parents a map of Disney World. “I wanna leave this place. Spend what little time I have left amongst nature. A little bit of gardening for the end. I can help catch him. He wants to be caught. Wants to be caught by you.”

  “Then call him up and tell him to drop by his local police station.”

  “I can’t call him no more. He ain’t answerin’.”

  “When was the last time you spoke?”

  “Three weeks ago. He told me to give the letters up. He said, ‘I will always love you, Robert’, an’ that was it. The phone went dead an’ the number’s now switched off. He told me we’d meet again in the afterlife.”

  “You got this number?”

  “Memorized.”

  Jack handed him a pen and his notebook and Kline wrote the mobile number down.

  “I know more about him than anyone in the world,” Kline commented as the detective folded up the slip and placed it in his pocket.

  “You know practically nothing,” Jack retorted.

  “I know that he needs to be caught as quickly as possible and I know that he’s gonna come after you.”

  “But you don’t know his name?”

  “But I can help you find it.”

  “How?

  “He told me that he buried himself. A long time ago when he decided to be what he is, he cut off from his family. He went underground. He took all his photos and everything that he was. All the pictures with his family. At school. All the things that made him a real person. He took them somewhere an’ buried it as though he were buryin’ a corpse. Because the man in those photos was dead from that day forth. He described the place to me and do you know something?”

  “What?”

  “I know where he means.” Kline was smiling, his fingers tapping on the pictures of pink flowers. “I can take you there. Take you to that spot. But I want a deal. Let me out of here. I’ll take you to the place.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Oh no. First we do a deal. Once I’m at St. Bernards, I’ll take you there an’ we can dig him up together.”

  “No go. You deserve this place. Don’t tell me because of some deal, Robert. Tell me because it’s the right thing to do. Tell me because you want to save innocent lives, not your guilty one.”

  “I’ll always be guilty, Jack. I just want a little comfort in my guilt.”

  “Then beg for forgiveness, Robert. Because there’s no way I’m gonna allow you to do some deal that gives you a cushy life in exchange for some whim of yours.”

  “I know where it is, Jack. I swear.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “I cannot go on livin’ here,” Kline burst out. His eyes had gone hazy, the good one looked sad, like a window on an empty house with all the lights on, but nobody home.

  “Then beg for forgiveness for all the lives you’re about to help ruin by wasting our time.”

  Kline closed his eyes and placed his hands together. Jack watched him with an odd feeling. Kline lowered his thick forehead onto the clenched hands and began to pray out loud. Jack instantly recognized the prayer and it chilled him to the bones to hear this man opposite repeating it.

  “O Lord, Jesus Christ,” he was saying, “Redeemer and Savior, forgive my sins, just as You forgave Peter’s denial and those who crucified You. Count not my transgressions, but, rather, my tears of repentance. Remember not my iniquities, but, more especially, my sorrow for the offenses I have committed against You. I long to be true to Your Word, and pray that You will love me and come to make Your dwelling place within me. I promise to give You praise and glory in love and in service all the days of my life.”

  The whole time he listened, Jack was chilled to the bone, a look of utter disgust on his face, eyes glaring at the creature opposite. Was this more games? he kept asking himself. Another thing that he learned from his phone calls?

  Jack shot up from his chair as though he’d been struck by lightning. Glaring down at the old man, who appeared so serene as he prayed, he said, “I hope they fucking tear you apart, you old cunt.”

  Kline shot his eyes open.

  “All I want is a garden,” he said.

  “Then let me make this clear to you,” Jack replied, leaning in so that their faces almost touched. “I will make sure the nearest you come to a garden are the weeds growing through the cracked tarmac in the prison yard.”

  With that, Jack finally left the room. In the corridor outside, he found Alice.

  “What did he say?” she asked impatiently, seeing the wrathful expression bending his features.

  Jack didn’t answer her at first, he merely marched onwards down the corridor and signaled for the guard at the barred gate to open it. Alice caught up with him and asked again.

  “He wants a deal that he’ll never get,” Jack replied. “Reckons he can lead us to a place where this guy has buried photographs of himself. Says he doesn’t know anything real about him except for this. Says they’ve been talking regularly on the phone for the past five years.”

  “What deal does he want?”

  “He wants to be moved to a psychiatric facility.”

  “Then make the deal.”

  Jack turned furious eyes on her.

  “No way,” he said sharply as the gate was finally opened and they stepped through.

  They arrived at the warden’s office and Jack went inside. Alice had an uneasy look on her face. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened. She’d never seen Jack looking so angry.

  The warden was on the phone when they came inside. Jack stormed straight to the desk, took the man’s mobile from his hand and ended the call.

  “Hey,” the warden exclaimed. “That was the chief of inspectors.”

  “I’m sure he’ll call back,” Jack retorted. “First things first; Robert Kline has been getting access to an illegal phone. Who’s likely to be in charge of that?”

  “Probably Kyle Watts. Big man on C-Wing. We’ve suspected something like this, but nothing’s turned up in cell raids.”

  “Then I’m here to inform you that Robert Kline just this minute gave me his name as the man who suppled it. Grassed him right up.”

  “Then Robert Kline is a very stupid man.”

  “Yes, he is,” Jack replied assuredly. “Now what I need you to do is search every cell you think this Kyle Watts could be keeping it in. Confiscate the phone, discipline Watts and make sure him and his pals know it was Kline that grasse
d him up. As for Kline, I want you to give him some type of special treatment before returning him to his normal cell.”

  “They’ll tear him apart if I put him back on C-Wing.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “What’s he done?”

  “He knows who the man who killed those teenagers is. He wants to do a deal, but I won’t let him.”

  “What type of deal?”

  “He wants to move to a low security mental facility.”

  “The garden,” the warden tutted. “He’s been on about it for years. I take it you said no?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t want that man ever to feel comfortable. If he knows something—which is not guaranteed—then I want it to come out of him in other ways.”

  “And you want my help in that?”

  “Yes.”

  The warden sat back in his leather chair with a smirk growing on his face.

  “Then I’ll have to see what I can do,” he said.

  67

  Commander Philip Ross stood behind a podium stuffed with microphones, a serious face on as he spoke to the baying crowd of journalists.

  “David Burke has been helping us with our enquiries,” he was saying, “and that is all. He was not a suspect, merely a possible witness.”

  “Then why,” said a female journalist who was pressed up against the fence at the front, “was he taken from the hospital in handcuffs?”

  “It was merely a precautionary measure,” Ross replied.

  “One usually reserved for arrested suspects,” the journalist suggested.

  “David Burke was never arrested.”

  “But he was suspected,” the journalist put back.

  A male reporter pushed forward next and said, “What have you made of the stories coming out from one of the mothers that David Burke was seen as a little too friendly with the girls in his stepson’s social group?”

  Ross looked confused. The sun was glinting off the glass building opposite and stunned his eyes, adding to his bewildered expression.

  “I’m not aware of this,” he muttered.

  “One of the mothers talked to reporters last night and said that she always suspected something was up with him.”