Duplicity

by Fin C Gray

  There is some chance it isn’t him, that they have it wrong. The police get things wrong all the time, don’t they? He pulls at the curtain closest to him and forces himself to look. All there is to see are the same two curtains closed on the other side of the glass. Tom heaves a huge gulp of air into his lungs; he’s hardly aware that he’s been holding his breath. He quickly goes back to the cords and pulls the curtains closed again. God knows what Julie thinks of him, but if she sees he’s been taking matters into his own hands, she’ll think less of him than she already does. Worse than that – the whole fucking thing – what would the neighbours think, the porters, what would the fucking world think? It isn’t just his behaviour here, it’s everything. Everything he knows, everything he holds good is disintegrating. He sinks heavily into the chair again and folds his arms.

  If only he hadn’t been so drunk last night, if only he had been able to sit down with Daniel and talk to him properly. Maybe he could have talked him out of whatever it was he was thinking. They hadn’t spoken for so long. Oh, Daniel, there would never be another chance, would there? Why had he come to him last night, if not to talk? Had he wanted him to tell him not to do this? Had being drunk made Daniel angry again and stopped him even trying to ask for help? Might he have been able to stop him? Might he have been able to get his son to rationalise the anger he felt against the world? Don’t be fucking stupid, Tom. You couldn’t even get him to stop being angry at you!

  The door clicks open again, and Julie comes in with a much older man who is wearing a white lab coat. He is bald, apart from an unkempt mound of grey hair that perches above his ears, straggling down his neck. Large black-framed glasses seem to sit uncomfortably on his bulbous nose. He carries a brown cardboard file under his arm. The man extends his hand to Tom.

  ‘I’m Peter Scott, Mr McIntyre, one of the forensic pathologists here.’

  Tom shakes his hand and nods, remaining seated. Peter Scott sits down next to him, and Julie takes one of the chairs at the end of the table. They sit in uncomfortable silence until, eventually, the pathologist clears his throat.

  ‘This identification is going to be a little difficult, I’m afraid.’ Tom looks at him, then at Julie who is studiously avoiding his gaze.

  ‘Can we just get this over with, please?’ Tom says.

  ‘The thing is… we don’t have… well, you understand the circumstances…’ Peter Scott seems to be struggling for words.

  ‘We were only able to recover parts of the body,’ says Julie.

  ‘I’ve arranged the most identifiable parts on a table,’ says Peter.

  ‘Oh, God.’ Tom feels a wave of nausea rising in his throat. ‘I don’t think I can do this. I really don’t.’

  ‘Try to be strong, Mr McIntyre. We’ll make it as quick as possible, and I’ll be right here by your side. Alright?’ Julie has moved around the table and now places her hand on his shoulder.

  Peter stands up and starts towards the door. ‘Alright, let’s get this over with. PC Hepburn, will you open the curtains on this side, please?’

  He leaves, closing the door behind him. Julie squeezes Tom’s arm, then goes to the window and pulls on the cord, drawing the curtains fully back. The drapes on the other side of the glass remain closed. Tom feels his hands shaking and clenches them together to his chest. His whole body shivers in response as he stands up and walks over to the window. A wraith-like reflection of his frightened face stares back at him from the glass, but quickly disappears as the curtains slowly begin to open on the other side.

  The room beyond the glass is vast and bathed in a harsh neon light that gives a surreal tint to the scene that faces Tom. It is like looking into some three-dimensional foreign film with no subtitles. Peter Scott stands behind the glass in front of a metal gurney that has a yellowish linen cloth covering it. Beyond that are other gurneys with the shapes of bodies under similar coverings. Peter is wearing a headset with a small microphone protruding from it. He taps on it.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he asks.

  Tom nods and Julie tells Peter that he is loud and clear.

  ‘That’s good,’ says Peter. ‘So I will begin. Mr McIntyre, in a moment I will uncover parts of the body that have identifying features. Please simply say “yes”, or just nod, if you believe that this may be your son, Daniel.’

  Tom tries to concentrate on not falling apart. His whole body shakes out of control, and he feels more nauseous than he can ever remember. He holds his breath as the pathologist lifts the cloth. Underneath are five small piles, individually covered in smaller pieces of material, each with illegible labels and marks upon them. Almost like a museum curator unwrapping a precious work of art, Peter lifts the covering from the first pile, his back obscuring whatever he is revealing. As Peter stands to one side and faces Tom again, Tom gasps and puts his hand to his mouth.

  ‘Do you recognise this ring?’ asks Peter.

  Tom looks at the fragments of the hand on the table. Is it Daniel’s right hand? Yes. He knows it. Only the little finger, the finger next to it, and a small part of the wrist are visible. On the pinkie is a gold wedding ring that has a thin band of platinum around the top and bottom. It looks as if it is fused into the skin, a permanent part of the dead flesh. Tom looks at his own left hand, at his wedding finger, at the ring upon it: a twenty- four-carat gold wedding band with platinum edges. It had been on his bedside table, even though he never took it off. His wedding finger felt raw and rough. Had Daniel pulled it off him last night? He and Alison had chosen them together. Daniel had begged to have his mother’s after she died and had worn it on his little finger ever since. Tom’s eyes fill with tears as he twists his wedding ring around on his finger.

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Peter, covering the hand up again and moving to the next mound, which he uncovers just as carefully as he had the first. Standing back and facing Tom again, he says, ‘And this?’

  It takes Tom a few seconds to recognise what he is looking at. It is a face. Part of a face. Only a cheek, a corner of the mouth, a small section of the nose, an ear and a little bit of the head, visible as far as the temple. All the rest obscured by the labelled cloth. Any doubts that Tom is harbouring fly from his brain as his eyes take stock of the snake tattoo on the cheek. He falls to his knees, sobbing and shaking.

  ‘Daniel, Daniel,’ he cries.

  Julie closes the curtains again and helps Tom back to his feet. She leads him to the chair and makes him sit down again. After some time, she says, ‘You’re sure that those are the remains of your son, Daniel Thomas McIntyre?’

  ‘Yes. That was Daniel,’ says Tom through sobbing gasps. ‘At least, that was how he looked when I saw him last night. That’s not how he used to look. He was such a sweet boy.’

  ‘We can’t take responsibility for what kids do as adults,’ says Julie. ‘Please, don’t blame yourself for what has happened.’

  After a few minutes, Tom stands up, wiping his eyes. ‘Can we go now, please?’ he says.

  ‘I just need you to sign this sheet, formally identifying your son. Then we can go. Is there someone you can stay with tonight? Or can I call someone for you who can come and stay with you, look after you?’

  ‘No,’ says Tom as firmly as he can. ‘I want to be on my own. I have a lot to think about. There are twenty-four-hour staff in my building. I can call on them if I need them.’

  Buckingham Court seems unusually quiet when the police car drops him at the front door. It feels as if the world is paying its respects, somehow. Tom pushes his way through the revolving doors and sees Vince rushing towards him from the desk.

  ‘Hello, Mr McIntyre. I’m so sorry, sir. Can I—’

  ‘I’m all right, Vince. No fuss, please. I’ll go up now,’ says Tom.

  ‘Your flat is all cleaned up, sir, you can—’

  Tom brushes past Vince and takes the stairs two at a time, glad to leave the world behind him. When he gets to his front door, he stands for a few minutes, his
key in his hand. Normally, Rufus would be behind the door miaowing plaintively for him, begging him to pet and stroke him. The silence brings all the horror of waking up flooding back into his brain. He takes a deep breath and turns the key in the lock.

  The flat smells of disinfectant and reminds him of the putrid smell in the mortuary. The deep-red of the walls, glistening in the lamplight from the gardens, is redolent of the congealed blood he’d found all over himself when he’d woken up. He goes straight to the kitchen and opens a bottle of wine, then another, then another. One thing is for sure – he is going to wipe this day out of his brain. Grabbing a glass, he takes all the bottles to the living room and turns on ‘Hallelujah’. He presses the continuous repeat button and pours himself a large drink.

  The chords start to play as he swallows back the first glass, quickly followed by another. Anything to stop himself thinking, even though he knows nothing will keep the ugly thoughts from invading his brain. ‘Hallelujah’ has always made him think of Alison; it had been their song, one they’d listened to together more than any other. It also makes him sad and despondent, but that doesn’t enter his mind. Now it makes him think of the doorbell ringing and seeing his much-changed son standing there in front of him. Once or twice, he thinks he hears it ring again, through his tears and the music. Each time, he tries to raise himself from where he sits to answer the door, but immediately forgets what has made him stand up. Filling his glass again, he slumps back into the sofa, begging the music to empty his head of thoughts.

  There is no point to this anymore. He’s been punished for wanting success and having it has brought him nothing. Maybe he’d made a subliminal deal with the devil, and now he is getting what he deserves. Maybe if he hadn’t wished so hard for it, Alison would still be here, Daniel would still be here. Life would be worth something then, wouldn’t it? All this wealth, all these fine things – was having all this worth losing the most important people in his life? If only it were possible to go back to the start. Undo the deal. Accept what is important and worthwhile. Live.

  It would be easier not to have all this wealth. Better to have nothing, but not know it was nothing, than to have everything, but know that it means nothing. Better to have no future than a future full of regret, misery and guilt. Who will even notice if he ceases to exist? What is death anyway? An infinite, dreamless sleep. No regrets, no sadness, no pain, no guilt. For millennia, before he was ever born, he had been dead, hadn’t he? Not being born is no different to being dead, surely? Millennia of sweet nothingness. What joy is there in this fucking life? All it seems to provide is misery and hopelessness. Who the fuck came up with the idea of hope? Nothing left to hope for, nothing that could make any difference, in any case. Everything worth living for has been stripped away, forever.

  Tom tries to pour another glass of wine, but the bottle is empty. He pushes it away and tries the next bottle, but that only has a dribble of wine left in it. The third one is full, at least for now, and he fills up his glass. ‘Hallelujah’ still fills the room, Jeff Buckley’s voice capturing Tom’s mood perfectly. Broken. Cold. Dead. He turns the volume up until it will go no louder. How old was Jeff Buckley when he died? Was he even as old as Daniel? Are you gone, Daniel? Forever? No more? What for? Why? Should I not be the one to go first? Is that not the correct order of things? At least Jeff Buckley left something meaningful behind. Something that would make the world remember him. Who will remember you, Daniel? The real Daniel, not the one who came last night. Only me, and for how long?

  The room begins to sway and bend, and when Tom stands up, he falls onto the coffee table, sending the remainder of the wine spreading all over it like a pool of inky blood. He has made up his mind now. Various options creep into his brain: jump in front of a train? No, too selfish. Too much like Daniel had done, anyway. Hang himself? Well, he wasn’t sure of the mechanics of that, and he’d heard awful stories of failed attempts where the poor fools had been left paralysed or with terrible mental afflictions. Shoot himself? Yes, that would be ideal, if only he had a gun. He could always go and brandish a knife or something at one of the robotic gun carriers outside the Ministry of Defence. That would be too messy and public. The McIntyres don’t need any more bad publicity, do they? And God knows, they would see that as another terrorist attack, wouldn’t they? It has been pretty much clear all along what method he would use. He had planned it years before. Pills. It would have to be pills, and he has plenty of those. He’s been imagining them putting him to sleep since he arrived back home.

  Deep in a drawer in his dressing room, he has hidden all the unused drugs from Alison’s final weeks. He searches for the brown boxes, the ones that contain the potent morphine-based painkillers that had ceased to work for her in those last, awful days. He’d been told to flush them down the toilet, at least he thinks that was what he was told. Maybe he was meant to take them back to the pharmacy. In any case, he always knew that one day he might find a use for them. And here they are, ALISON MCINTYRE — FOR ACUTE PAIN ONLY typed on the label. These will do it. His pain is acute. Does pain get any worse than this? Maybe for you, darling. God only knows the pain you endured. You don’t mind me doing this, do you? If only you could talk now, my darling.

  By way of the kitchen, he picks up a new bottle of wine and a fresh wine glass. He is sure he’s broken the other one. But let’s face it, this is going to be my last, anyway. The living-room is in darkness, apart from the sulphurous glow of the lamps in the gardens outside. He throws the boxes of pills on the sofa and sinks into the cushion next to them, still clinging onto the wine bottle and glass. With the glass clenched between his thighs, he unscrews the top from the wine and pours unsteadily, splashing red onto his trousers and the sofa cushions.

  This is it. No more sorrow. He picks up Alison’s pill boxes and presses out eight capsules from the first foil sheet. Without another thought, he stuffs them into his mouth and takes a long glug of wine. Peace will soon be his. Another mouthful of wine washes down another eight capsules, and he reaches for the second box.

  ‘Hallelujah’ still plays on repeat, but now something breaks into it, something quieter, but still something that muddies the melody. What is it? Then he sees the glow of his phone at the corner of the sofa. And there is Jenny’s face. Jenny!

  He reaches for his phone but can’t quite get hold of it. It still rings; he reaches again. His vision is beginning to blur. He is starting to feel sick. Still, he reaches. He needs to say goodbye. He has to say sorry. He needs to throw up these pills and stop. Finally, he feels the phone in his grasp, but it isn’t ringing any more. Where is the call button? Focus! And it starts to ring again, and there is her face again. Jenny. Tom somehow manages to press the answer key and swings the phone to his ear. His mouth won’t work correctly, the words, clear in his head, won’t come. He struggles to speak, breathing heavily into the mouthpiece. He feels he is gaping like a fish.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘…hull! Hel J J J…’

  ‘Hi, Dad? Dad, is that you?’

  ‘Schjennnny, schmee.’

  ‘Dad? Are you OK? Turn the music down, please. I can hardly hear you.’

  Tom reaches for the remote control, what he thinks is the remote. What he finds in his grasp is a box of Alison’s pills.

  ‘…joo schtill there?’

  ‘Dad, what’s wrong? You’re worrying me.’

  Tom feels his brain closing down. No more words will come. His grip loosens on the phone. It falls to the floor as his body lurches forward and his head hits the coffee table with a crash.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Today, Friday

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Vince puts the phone down and opens the key cabinet above the desk, scrabbling for the key he wants. ‘Benny, more trouble in 67. I’m going upstairs to check. Look after reception, OK?’

  He doesn’t wait for a reply as he pushes past his colleague and out of the reception area and starts bounding up the staircase. Gasping for breath, he thrusts the key a
t the lock on Tom’s front door and pushes it open. Music is blaring all through the flat.

  ‘What a fucking racket,’ mumbles Vince, then, at the top of his voice, ‘Mr McIntyre? Mr McIntyre, are you there, sir?’

  He most probably can’t hear him above the din. That’ll be why he isn’t answering. Vince makes his way tentatively into the dining room, switching lights on as he goes, and peers from there into the living room. He can see Tom’s feet, one shoe on one, the other with his sock half pulled off, at the end of the coffee table. Vince ventures into the living room and immediately stiffens when he sees blood oozing from a wound on Tom’s head. His face is in a pool of vomit.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ he says, pulling his mobile from his pocket and dialling emergency services. ‘Ambulance, please!’ At the same time, he kneels down and takes Tom’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.

  As soon as he finishes giving the relevant information to the operator, he radios down to Benny. ‘Get yourself up here, pronto,’ he says.

  ‘But there’s nobody to—’

  ‘Now, Benny!’

  Vince throws his phone to the floor and holds his breath as he feels for Tom’s pulse again.

  ‘Thank fuck,’ he murmurs.

  Vince wipes the vomit from Tom’s face and pushes his fingers into his gaping mouth, clearing as much as possible from there, fighting an impulse to throw up himself. He yanks off Tom’s remaining shoe and tries to pull him clear of the coffee table by the ankles. It is no use – Tom may as well be welded to the floor. As Vince pushes the heavy table clear of Tom’s head, Benny appears in the room.

  ‘Thank fucking hell,’ says Vince, ignoring the shocked expression on Benny’s face. ‘Take his shoulders and help me lift him over there.’ Vince indicates a clear space beyond the sofa. ‘I need to get him into the recovery position, or we may lose him before the ambulance gets here. He still has a faint pulse. Last thing I want to do is give him the kiss of life. God forbid he throws up again when we move him.’