by Tim Weaver
The breeze picked up again, and – faintly – I heard a noise, like paper flapping. I looked down at her body. Beneath one of her hands, half-hidden by her balled fingers, was a piece of card. I leaned over, took it from her grasp and pocketed it.
Then I got out my phone and called the police.
20
The police arrived at Strawberry’s ten minutes after I called. There were two of them: Jones and Hilton. Jones was about sixty-five, while Hilton was much younger, nervous, reeking of inexperience. It might even have been his first night on the job. He held up pretty well when Jones beckoned him to the toilet block, both of them kneeling down to look at Jade’s pale body.
They drove me to a station in Dagenham. Taking my statement didn’t last long. It was obvious Jones didn’t believe I’d killed her. Witnesses at the restaurant backed up my account of what had happened. When he asked me why we were there I told him the truth, or a version of it. I knew her, wanted to talk to her and she’d agreed as long as I drove her to her favourite restaurant.
‘You get what you wanted?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
Jones shook his head. ‘Hope she paid for the petrol.’
I got the feeling he was so close to retirement he could smell it. Any case that wanted to stick around wasn’t going to be one of his. That suited me fine. If he’d been a couple of years younger, I might have got a rougher ride. He told me they’d have to keep my BMW for a while, as well as my clothes, and that they’d want to speak to me again once the coroner had looked at the body.
‘That might be a couple of days,’ Jones said, ‘but I wouldn’t bank on it. More likely you won’t be hearing anything from us until the new year.’
After that, he showed me the door.
Liz arrived about forty minutes later. She was the only person I knew who would be up at one in the morning. Perhaps the only person I could turn to in an emergency now. After Derryn died, people stuck close to me for a while. Cooked things, offered advice, sat with me in the still of the house. I had no family left, so I relied on colleagues from my newspaper days, on friends of my parents, on people Derryn had known. Most of them were very good to me – but most of them eventually grew tired of babysitting the sad man. At the end of it all, Liz was the only one left. And the irony was she never even got to meet Derryn.
On the phone I told her where she could find the spare key, and asked her to get some clothes for me. Jones lent me a pair of police-issue trousers and a training top while I waited. When she arrived, she handed me a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a coat and I changed in an empty locker room at the back of the station. She waited next to the front desk, dressed in tracksuit trousers and a zip-up training top.
‘You okay?’ she asked when I finally emerged again.
I nodded. ‘I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.’
We walked to her Mercedes, parked around the corner from the station. Inside she turned the heaters on full blast and handed me a takeaway coffee from a cardboard carton. Steam rose out of a small hole in the plastic covering.
‘I popped into the petrol station on the way over. Thought you might want an energy injection. Black, no sugar.’ She paused. ‘Just how you like it.’
I smiled. ‘Thanks.’
She pulled out, and we drove for a while.
‘I appreciate this, Liz.’
She nodded. ‘You going to tell me what happened?’
I glanced at her. She looked back. She had a dusting of make-up on. Maybe she hadn’t taken it off after work. Or maybe she’d just put it on before she came out. Either way, she looked really good. And, as her perfume filled the car, I felt a momentary connection to her. A buzz. I looked away, out into the night, and tried to imagine where the feeling had come from. It had been a long day. A traumatic one. Perhaps it was just the relief of going home. Or perhaps, for a second, I realized how alone I was again.
‘David?’
I turned back to her. ‘Things got a bit messy today.’
‘With a case?’
I nodded.
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
We stopped at some traffic lights. Red light filled the front of the car, and was reflected in her eyes as she looked at me. In front of us was the glow of London City airport.
‘David?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly.’
Her eyes moved across my face. ‘Because if you’re in trouble, I can help you.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m a lawyer. It’s my job. I can help you, David.’
There was a brief pause. Something passed between us; something unspoken. And then the feeling came again. An ache in the pit of my stomach.
‘Whatever you need,’ she said quietly.
I nodded again.
‘You don’t have to do everything on your own.’
You don’t have to be lonely.
I looked at her. She leaned into me a little, her perfume coming with it. The fingers of her hand brushed against my leg. Whatever you need. Her eyes were dark and serious.
‘I can help you,’ she said, almost a whisper.
She leaned in even closer. My heart shifted in my chest, like an animal waking from hibernation. I moved towards her.
‘I need…’
I thought of Derryn, of her grave. It’s too soon. Liz was so close to me I could feel her breath on my face.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Tell me what you need.’
The lights changed. I looked at them, then back to her. The roads were empty. Behind us there was nothing but dark, cavernous warehouses. Her eyes were still fixed on me.
‘I just…’
She studied me – and something changed. She nodded slowly. Then she moved away, slipped the car into first and took off.
‘Liz, I just–’
‘I know.’
‘It’s not that I–’
‘I know,’ she repeated, and glanced at me. One of her eyes glistened. ‘You don’t need to explain, David. I understand.’
I looked at her, my eyes wandering down her body. You don’t have to be lonely. Her breasts. Her waist. Her legs. When I looked up again, she was staring at me.
It’s too soon.
‘I don’t know what I think,’ I said quietly.
She nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Some days…’ I paused. She turned to me again, her face partially lit in the glow from the streets. ‘Some days it’s what I want.’
She nodded again.
‘But some days…’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said gently, and her fingers touched my leg again. ‘I can help you, David.’
‘I know.’
‘When you’re ready, I can help you.’
When I got home, I took out the card Jade had left for me. Blood was spattered across it, her fingerprints marking the corners. It was headed with the Strawberry’s logo. I thought she’d taken a napkin, but she’d picked up one of the restaurant’s business cards instead.
Inside the b of the restaurant’s name was a burger; the lines of the t were fries. And in the middle, in shaky handwriting, was ‘Jade O’Connell, 1 March, Mile End’.
21
I fell asleep at three-thirty and woke again at four. The TV was on mute. An empty coffee mug sat on the floor next to the sofa, the remote control resting on top of it. I turned off the TV, picked up the mug and took it through to the kitchen.
That was when I noticed the security light was on.
I stepped up to the kitchen window and looked out into the night. Footsteps led all the way up to the house, one after another in the snow. Then up to the porch, and around to the side of the house.
None of them were mine.
I put the mug down on the counter and walked back through the house to the bedroom. The curtains weren’t quite drawn. Outside, I could see a trail of footprints right in front of the windows, running parallel to the house,
and U-turning at the end and coming back on themselves.
Then: a noise.
Somewhere inside the house.
Swivelling, I looked across the darkness of the bedroom. All I could hear now was snow dripping from the gutters. I edged towards the bedroom door and along the hallway.
Click.
The same noise for a second time.
Is that the door?
I tried to remember what the front door sounded like when I opened and closed it, tried to remember anything about any of the noises the house made. But as I looked along the hallway and waited for the sound to come again, all I could hear was silence.
Maybe it’s an animal.
Liz had a cat. It set the light off all the time.
Click.
The noise again.
And this time something moved: the handle of the front door.
For a split second, it felt like the soles of my feet were glued to every fibre of the carpet. Then, as I fixed my gaze on the handle, it moved again: slowly, quietly, tilting downwards until it couldn’t go any further. The door started to come away from the frame. If I’d been asleep, I wouldn’t have heard a thing.
The door opened all the way. The security light leaked a square of yellow light across the hallway, but nothing else: no movement, no shadows, no sounds.
Then a man stepped into the house.
He was dressed head to toe in black, looking into the darkness of the living room, his back turned towards me. On the top of his head was a mask. He pulled it down over his face, felt around in his belt for something – and then turned and looked down the hallway towards me. I stepped back into the bedroom, my back against the wall.
Oh, shit.
In the light I could see he’d had a gun, silencer attached. And on his face was a plastic Hallowe’en mask. Eyeless. Mouthless. Unmoving. Staring down the hallway and looking for me in the darkness had been the devil.
I turned back to the bedroom.
Two stand-alone wardrobes, full of clothes and shoes. A bookcase. A dresser. The door into the ensuite. No hiding places. No weapons to hand. Nothing to fight back with.
Click.
A noise from the hallway.
He’s coming.
The door into the bedroom swung back into a tiny cove, about two feet deep, cut into the wall. It was my only option. I slid behind it, pulling the door as far back towards me as it would go. I could only see in two directions now: right, through the narrow gap between the door and the frame; and left, to the far edge of the bed and the dresser. I looked left.
As I turned, the sound seemed immense; every noise amplifying in my ears, every beat of my heart, every blink of my eyes. I expected to be able to hear the man as he approached, hear something, but the house was silent now. No footsteps. No creaks.
In the mirror on the dresser, I could make out all of the bedroom. The bedside cabinets. Derryn’s books. Her plant. The bath, basin, shower. The door, and beyond it into the blackness of the hallway.
Nothing moved.
Nothing made a sound.
But then, suddenly, he was there.
A flash of red plastic skin. The toes of his boots, dark but polished, shining in the glow from the security light. More of the mask emerged from the hallway, as if it were consuming the darkness. The man stopped, scanned the room, his body turning. But he made no sound at all, even as he stepped further in.
I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. I couldn’t risk any noise. I had nothing to compete with a gun, and only one way to protect myself: make him believe I wasn’t home.
Another step.
He brought the gun up slightly, his finger wriggling at the trigger gently. It sounded like he was breathing in. Sniffing. Like a dog trying to pick up a trail. He glanced towards the dresser, into the mirror, seeming to look right at me. And then he moved. Past the bathroom. Along the edge of the bed.
I could smell something then. A horrible, degraded odour, like decaying compost, trailing the man as he moved. I swallowed, felt like I had to, just to try to get the smell out of my throat and nose. But the stench didn’t go away. It was coming off him like flakes of skin. I swallowed again, and again, and again, but couldn’t get rid of it.
The man in the mask bent slightly and scanned under the bed, then came up again and leaned forward to look at Derryn’s bedside cabinet. I heard the gentle slide of drawers opening and closing, then another noise: a picture frame being picked up. When he turned around, his hands were down at his side again – one holding the gun, one empty – and the picture frame was gone. A photograph of Derryn and me on our last holiday together.
It took everything I had not to make a sound. Whoever was behind the mask had just crawled beneath my skin. Violated me. My wife. Our memories. A bubble of anger worked its way up through my chest, then fear cut across it as the man approached, the gun slightly raised in front of him. Faster, more determined, as if he suddenly realized where I was.
He stopped again in the doorway. Turned back. Scanned the bedroom a second time. Then he breathed in through the mask; a long, deep intake of air. As he breathed out, I could smell him again. His decay. His stink. I held my breath, desperate not to swallow. Desperate not to make a noise.
Eventually, he turned for the final time and headed out, across the hallway, into the spare bedroom. In the mirror, I watched the night swallow up his entire body – except for the mask. In the darkness, the red of the plastic never disappeared.
He scanned the room, the mask moving with him, left to right; one long, snake-like movement. When he was done, he did the same thing again, replicating the action exactly. Then, finally, he turned and stepped back into the half-light of the hallway, pausing, and looking across towards me. I stood motionless, soundless, staring through the gap between the door and the frame, right into the darkness of the mask’s eyeholes.
Then, finally, he left.
The Programme
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking across at the door out of the room. It was open. Beyond was a living area, stripped of almost all decor. The only furniture he could see was a table in the middle, and a single chair pushed under it.
It was a trick. Had to be.
He tried to work out how long they’d kept him, how long he’d been waking in the middle of the night and staring into the corner of the bedroom. Two or three weeks. Maybe a month. Maybe more. And during that time the door had never been open.
But now it was.
He leaned forwards a little. He could make out more of the living area now: a second door to the right of the table, closed. A bookcase, empty, next to that. On top of the bookcase was a book. It had gold lettering on it, a Post-It note attached to the front.
He got to his feet, dropped the blanket on to the bed and slowly shuffled to the bedroom door. Stopped. Now he could see what the book was.
A Bible.
Hesitating, he took another couple of steps forward, into the living area. The floorboards were cold against his bare feet.
‘Hello there.’
He turned and, through the corner of his eye, saw a man standing next to the door to the bedroom. Leaning against the wall, dressed entirely in black. Tall, broad, well built.
‘How are you feeling?’
I recognize you, he thought, looking across at the tall man, trying to find the tail of the memory. But it wouldn’t come to him. Memories were starting to swim away, disappearing every day – and they weren’t coming back again.
‘Have you lost your voice?’ the tall man said, and stepped away from the door. ‘My name is Andrew, by the way.’
‘Where am I?’ he said, his words indistinct as they passed through his toothless gums.
Andrew nodded. ‘Ah, so you do speak.’
‘Where am I?’
‘You’re safe.’
‘Safe?’ He looked around him. ‘From who?’
‘We will get to that.’
‘I want to get to it now.’
Andrew
paused. Something flared in his eyes, and then it passed again.
‘You remember what you did?’
He tried to think. Tried to grasp at another memory.
‘I, uh…’
‘You made a mess of your life, that’s what you did,’ Andrew said, his voice harder now. ‘You had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to. So you turned to us.’
‘I turned to Mat.’
Andrew smirked. ‘No, you didn’t.’
‘I did.’
‘No, you didn’t. Mat doesn’t exist.’
‘What?’ He frowned. ‘I want to see Mat.’
‘Are you deaf?’
He looked around the room, towards the door. ‘Wha– where is he?’
‘I told you,’ Andrew said. ‘He doesn–’
‘I want to know where he is!’
In the blink of an eye, Andrew was on him, clamping a huge hand on to his throat. He leaned in so they were almost touching noses, and squeezed with his fingers. ‘You have to earn the right to speak. So, don’t ever speak to me like that.’
Andrew shoved him away, and – as he stepped back – a memory came to him: pinned down on the dentist’s chair, looking up at a tall man in a surgical mask.
Andrew.
‘You…’ he said quietly, touching his gums with his fingers.
‘Don’t say anything you’re going to regret.’
‘You took out my teeth.’
Andrew looked at him.
‘You took out my teeth,’ he said again.
‘We saved your life.’
‘You took out my teeth.’
‘We saved your life,’ Andrew spat. He took a big step forward again, his hands opening and closing. ‘I’m willing to help you here, but I can just as easily feed you to the darkness.’
The darkness.
He swallowed. Looked at Andrew.
He meant the devil.
‘Is that what you want?’
‘No,’ he replied, holding up a hand.
Andrew paused, steel showing in his face. ‘I don’t care about your teeth. There are things going on here more important than your vanity. Soon you will come to understand the situation you are in – and the situation you were pulled out of.’
