Forced to Kill

by Emmy Ellis

  But there was no corpse.

  “What the fuck?” Oliver said, his frown hurting. “I saw him. Saw the man all cut up. He was on the bed. Faceup. Eyes open. Arms hacked off.”

  “Well, he isn’t here now.” Langham stepped back—right onto Oliver’s toe.

  “Shit! You might want to watch where you’re stepping.”

  “It would help if you weren’t right up my arse.”

  Then it struck Oliver. The press of spirits wasn’t plural. It was one. Reynolds. It had to be. “Um, I’m going to let him in.”

  Langham spun to face him. “You got Reynolds on at you?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Oliver sighed and unlatched the locked door inside his mind. The spirit came tumbling in, as if he’d been leaning against it with all his might, and Oliver felt the spirit’s disorientation as it fought to regain its equilibrium. Heavy breathing filled Oliver’s head, and the sense of a panicked man covered him in a heavy sweat.

  “Calm down,” he said. “Take a moment before you speak.”

  Oliver waited, staring at Langham. The detective’s face showed how impatient he was for information, but this was Oliver’s domain, and he called the shots here. The breathing lightened, was less ragged, and a low humming came, like an abused kid trying to drown out the sound of his parents fighting.

  “It’s all right. Just take your time. We’re not going anywhere. And we’re here to help catch who did this to you. I know it’s difficult. Know how painful this is. How much hard work it is. But just focus on what you need to tell me, and if you can give me images, too, then that would be great.”

  The humming stopped, leaving only the sound of breathing—from all three of them.

  “Eyes like madness. Couldn’t get over them, the way they flickered like that. Didn’t used to be that way. Can’t get to grips with it. Didn’t like it. He’s been tested on, like those kids. He wasn’t like he was before… He said…he…”

  “It’s okay. Slow down. Start at the beginning. Don’t tell me about your death, either, tell me about him. Concentrate only on him.”

  This bloke was going to burn out his connection if he wasn’t careful, then Oliver and Langham would be left with fuck all new to go on. He quickly shielded his thoughts from Reynolds while he awaited his next outburst. It wouldn’t do for him to feel under pressure.

  A huge sigh filled Oliver’s mind, then—

  “Yes, he’s been given that stuff I found out about. Been experimented on. He’s like a super-human. Great strength.”

  Another sigh.

  “He had a woman’s wig on. Some kind of mask or makeup. So he knows, knows he’s doing wrong—otherwise, he wouldn’t wear a disguise. He knows right from wrong. He was brought up properly.”

  “You’re doing well, Mark. Keep going.”

  Langham squeezed past Oliver and went to stand on the landing.

  “I ripped his wig off when he… I pulled out some of his real hair. Saw that on TV once. They said if you were attacked to try and rip out some hair, scratch skin so it went under your nails, give the police something to go on. I did that. I was right, wasn’t I? Right to do that? Even though it was him… Maybe I shouldn’t have tried ratting him out like that.”

  “Yes, Mark. Excellent. Where are you?”

  “I’m here with you.”

  “No, where is your body?”

  “He took me out of here. Put me in a van.”

  “Think about the van. What colour is it?”

  “It was red. Dark red. Small, like a car without back seats. He’s had it for a while. I remember when he showed it to me before…”

  “Go on.”

  “He took me to this field. Muttered something about some bitch being dumped up the way a bit. I didn’t know who he meant, but I’m guessing I wasn’t his first. Didn’t think he’d come for me. Not him. Never thought he’d be like that.”

  “Who? It’s like you know him.”

  Silence.

  “Was there a river nearby, Mark?”

  “Yes. I’m… My body’s on a bend of the river. It’s… I’m half in the water, half out. Like, my hands are in the water.”

  “Fuck.”

  “What? What did I say wrong?”

  “Nothing. It’s fine. Keep going.” Oliver thought of the water doing its damage, possibly taking away those hairs, that skin beneath Mark’s nails. The killer knew exactly what Mark had been up to.

  “He said, ‘There. A little bit of sweetness for you.’ Then he sprinkled some of those things on me. You know the kind I mean?”

  “What things?”

  “That stuff you get on cakes. Sprinkles over icing.”

  “Sugar strands?”

  “Yes, that’s it. He said Gran used to pour them into his mouth when he’d been bad. Said they filled his mouth so he had trouble breathing. And she wouldn’t let him spit them out. He had to sit there until they melted. He said he wouldn’t make me eat them, just sprinkled them on me so everyone would know I’d been bad. But he’s lying. Gran never did that. And he told me it was ironic the medication was in the same form. Like those strands were haunting him.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Mark, except to try and make this right.”

  “I did do wrong. I poked into something I shouldn’t have. Found out what they were doing. I’d been in his room before that woman at work showed me the notes. He’ll come for you next because he knows you know. You and him over there. Be careful. He comes quietly—he’s right there before you even know it. And he slices and cuts, stabs and chases you around until you can’t get away anymore. Until…”

  Mark’s breathing intensified, his panic returning.

  “Now, think about that van. Did you catch any of the number plate? Anything about it that might help us?”

  “No. But I know where he lives. I know him.”

  “You do?” Jesus, why hadn’t he fucking said so from the start?

  “Because I forgot.”

  “You weren’t meant to hear that, Mark. I’m sorry.”

  “Right. You want to know where he lives, who he is?”

  “We do.” Oliver held his breath.

  “He lives in the basement of this old house.”

  “Tell me where.”

  “It’s in Saltwater Street. That old thing on the corner. The one with the dirty windows with filthy net curtains. Gran lives there.”

  “Your gran?”

  “Yes. She’s still there. Old as the hills but there just the same.”

  “And his name?”

  Mark sighed. “Bloody easy to answer that one. He’s my brother. Alex Reynolds.”

  Chapter Six

  Oliver staggered against the banister as Mark disappeared. Quickly, to save Langham battering him with queries, he related the information.

  “So,” Oliver said when he’d finished, “do we have the same situation with Alex as we have with PrivoLabs? Only a dead man’s word on Alex’s guilt so we can’t barge in and arrest him?”

  “Something like that, but we can go and ask him if he knows where his brother is. Make it look like we’re after Mark, not Alex. He might slip up.”

  Oliver shivered. “Yeah, or he might well do to us what he did to Louise and Mark. This bloke sounds like he’s been programmed to prevent people finding anything out about what Privo are up to. Except we’ve got a good idea—and really, we ought to think about telling Shields about this shit, just in case something happens to us and the information we have dies with us.”

  Langham walked down the stairs. “Yeah, but if we tell him… You know what he’s like. He’ll poke his nose in, break the case, and take all the credit.”

  “Rather that than us being dead,” Oliver muttered, following him. Outside on the path, he asked, “You calling this in?”

  Langham nosed about in the garden, looking for God knew what. “Yep, so Shields will hear about it anyway.”

  “Exactly. So
go directly to him, saves you repeating yourself, because you know he’ll want the ins and outs of the cat’s arsehole if he hears the news from someone other than you. He can deal with this place while we go over to Alex’s—and you are going to tell Shields where we’re going, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah, stop fucking nagging.”

  “Sod you.”

  Oliver turned away, leaving Langham to call Shields. Oliver faced the cottage and closed his eyes. Maybe, if he concentrated, Mark would come back, or Louise. They’d given him excellent information, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t going to be a cut-and-dried case. Okay, Louise had given Mark the notes, and Mark had investigated, finding out a load of info he hadn’t expected. Louise had been killed over what she knew, Mark for the same reason, but how the hell did someone kill their own brother like that? Had Alex been changed so much by the drugs that he’d lost the knowledge that Mark was his brother? Was he forced to kill anyone who got in PrivoLabs’ way? Alex must have been one fucked-up bastard before Privo had got hold of him. If the tale about the gran and those sugar strands was true, that man had serious issues he needed to deal with. They were spilling over into his kills, which meant the experiments hadn’t succeeded in taking away every part of him, the basic essence of who he’d been before.

  So what was the point in PrivoLabs’ experiment? To allow people to seem relatively normal until someone needed killing? To have them act as they would prior to the experiments, and some switch or whatever was flicked, turning the human lab rats into nutters who went about doing abhorrent things? The owner of Privo was one sick git.

  Oliver turned to face Langham.

  “Come on, we’ve got to wait for someone to turn up here, then we’re going to Saltwater Street.” Langham strode towards his car and got in.

  Oliver stared for a moment in shock. Langham usually made some caustic remark about Shields when he’d spoken to him. Something had pissed him off for him to just walk away like that.

  In the car, Oliver asked, “What’s up?”

  Langham started the engine, letting it idle while he stared ahead and flexed his jaw.

  “You okay?” Oliver kept his gaze on Langham.

  “I will be in a minute. Just got to digest what that prick said.”

  Oliver remained silent, unwilling to press. When Langham acted like this, it was best to leave him be—he’d come around in his own time. After several minutes sitting in silence, though, Oliver grew antsy for an answer. The distant wail of a police siren prevented him prompting Langham again, and he sat with his mouth firmly closed until the coppers arrived to secure the scene.

  Langham spoke to them through his window then sped off towards the city. Still silent. Oliver rubbed a spot on his jeans as though they were dirty.

  He couldn’t take this any longer. “Okay, so what did Shields say?”

  “I mentioned Alex Reynolds, and he said he’d wanted to talk to me about him. Said the guy had called in earlier as a concerned citizen and told them I’m a bent copper. Said Alex thought that wasn’t right. Has Alex been watching me since this started? Since he followed you as you left Louise’s death site?” He slapped the steering wheel. “That’s what the wanker’s done. He’s been keeping tabs on us. Shields said Alex had given him your number plate, lied and said he’d seen me talking to some shifty ‘gangsters’ outside PrivoLabs.”

  “That’s bullshit. We got straight in the car after we’d been there and drove off.”

  “I know that, but Shields doesn’t. And let’s face it, he’d believe anything bad someone said about me. You especially.”

  “That arsehole can find a cliff and jump the fuck off it.”

  They journeyed in silence after that, Oliver thinking on why Langham had got so upset over what Shields had said. If he wasn’t bent, what was the issue, or did coppers get arsey about shit like that?

  In no time at all, they were driving down Saltwater Street, and the heavy feeling of foreboding made itself known inside Oliver. He tensed—it seemed every muscle in his body hardened. Taking a deep breath, he glanced across at Langham, who frowned at the dilapidated building Mark had described.

  “Looks like no one’s lived there for years, although there’s a light on.” Langham parked.

  Oliver stared at the house. It was similar to the pub in the hamlet, all wonky walls and concave roof, and he was surprised it still stood, what with the state it was in. It must have been here for over a century—the façade showed serious signs of wear and tear, and the brickwork was rough, not as uniform as the more recently built houses around it. He sighed, trying to shake off the air of oppression in the car, and moved to get out.

  Langham grimaced. “If Shields does something about what he’s been told, stirs trouble when I haven’t done anything wrong… No bastard’s pissing about with my life. I’ll have it out with that Shields wanker later, but for now, we have work to do. We’ve got to focus, because if Alex is in there and he turns nasty?” He paused, then, “We should have backup, really.”

  “But we’re only asking him where his brother is. We can feel him out and return with uniforms later.”

  “Yeah, but didn’t Mark say his brother had turned nasty in a second? That he’d crept up on him or whatever?”

  Oliver nodded. “There’s two of us. We can question the old lady if you think it would look better, make Alex think we’re not there for him in any way. Let’s just see how it goes, and if he goes for us, we’ll deal with it then.”

  Langham fumbled with his seat belt, cutting the engine once he’d freed himself. “Fucking mental becoming a copper. Dad always said that. Too much of a risk. Unpredictable people. Yet here I am, walking into something that could be the end of me, taking a civilian in with me. Maybe you ought to stay—”

  “I am not staying in the car. We go in together. Besides, you might need me. I might pick up on something in there.”

  Langham sighed. “It’s useless arguing with you.”

  With both of them out on the pavement, Oliver said, “Come on. Let’s get this over and done with.”

  They walked, heads down, along the path made of broken patio slabs, the cement between crumbling, gone in places. Oliver got a dose of trepidation—it filled him, growing from his toes right to the top of his head, a cold, spiteful fear that left him shaking.

  “Something’s off here as well.”

  Langham reached the front door first. “Like what? Tell me.”

  “Like at Mark’s place. I don’t think Alex is even here.” That piece of knowledge eased Oliver’s mind somewhat, but the fact that something was going on inside those walls still bothered him. “It isn’t clear what’s happening, but we’re going to find more than we bargained for.”

  “All right. Calm down and concentrate. I’ll knock.”

  Oliver nodded. Langham lifted a tight fist and banged on the door. No one answered, and they waited for a moment, then Langham knocked again.

  “Fucking déjà vu,” Langham said, rapping a third time. He walked to the window, another living room Oliver would bet, and held his hands over his eyes to peer inside. “No angry visitors in this one, but the old woman’s asleep. She’s got something on her nose, but I can’t make it out.”

  Oliver hammered the door—hard and insistent.

  “No movement from her,” Langham said.

  “Probable cause to kick the door down?”

  “Yep. I could have thought she was dead.”

  Oliver nodded, and Langham walked back to the door. It took several kicks to the wood for it to give in and admit them. Langham went first, as always, and rounded the doorframe to their right, entering the living room the elderly lady was in. Caught up in the adrenaline rush of going inside a house without permission or a warrant, Oliver didn’t catch the sense of a new death. Not until he stood in the centre of the room behind Langham, whose wide frame blocked Oliver’s view of the old woman. He peered around him and recoiled at the sight. She sat on the sofa, hea
d against the back, her mouth filled with those sugar strands, nose held closed with a clothes peg.

  Alex was one sick bastard.

  “Jesus,” Langham breathed, pulling out his phone and calling in her death.

  Oliver reversed to the doorway, wanting to put distance between himself and her. He didn’t think he could take her spirit latching on to him and spilling the last moments of her life. In the hallway, he waited for Langham to join him, and, with gloves on, they followed their usual pattern of scouring the lower and upper rooms before coming back down to stop at a door positioned under the stairs.

  “Mark said his brother lived down in the basement, yes?” Langham asked.

  “Yep. But he isn’t there. I’d say he fucked off once he killed the old woman. But we’d better check anyway.”

  Langham opened the only door they hadn’t tried. Oliver sighed. Something evil was down there. Langham switched on the light, revealing surprisingly clean plastered walls that turned left at an angle halfway down. Oliver steeled himself to face whatever it was waiting for them and followed the detective down steps that creaked every time they trod on them. The sense of dread grew stronger as they rounded the corner, the light from the stairway giving scant illumination, highlighting only the floor directly before them. The basement could be small or large for all Oliver knew—the blackness beyond that slice of light hid absolutely everything—and he felt along the wall for another light switch. He brushed his fingers over the protruding plastic square and flicked it on.

  Sound exploded, like frightened jungle birds, all caws and startled shrieks. Oliver jumped, squinting in the burst of light to try to get used to the brightness.