by Will Carver
Only one person has died so far. The killer’s profile is sketchy at best and there is no pattern until Totty’s death. He will ensure that I crack this case.
The image of the girl wagging her bloodied finger at me is lingering in my mind. This is something I am yet to decode. She may have been telling me not to trust the vision; she may have been telling me there is no point in trying to solve this case; she may be the reason I am not going to come forward with the information from this latest intuition.
But that isn’t it at all. I’m just using her to excuse myself.
She is telling me I am wrong.
Totty
I CAN HEAR the voice of January David as he speaks to his partner in front of me telling him I am part of a series; that I have been killed in a similar way to someone called Lily.
At first, everything went black. I saw Celeste kneel down in front of me and dip her hand inside her bag and then there was nothing. Even the pain in my chest had gone. I’m not sure how much time had passed but I suddenly became aware of everything around me. I could hear the rhythmic speech of the woman in front of me, I heard a match strike and then a small dot of white light appeared.
It’s still here.
It must be Pats.
My Pats.
But I can’t seem to get any closer to her.
I don’t feel the usual pain I get in my left knee or my lumbar region. I don’t feel out of breath, either. Actually, I can’t feel anything. I don’t know what position my body is in at this moment, whether I am still kneeling. I can’t smell anything either and all I can see is a speck of white against infinite blackness; I’m not sure I’m even seeing that.
I don’t even really understand if I am hearing the detectives or whether I am just aware.
I am simply being.
This is purgatory.
Then I am aware that January David begins counting.
One, one thousand.
Two, one thousand.
Three, one thousand.
And, on that final second, he expels an air that distinguishes the light I think I can see. He disappears my Pats. And all is black once again. I am no longer aware. I am no longer being. The light I thought was Pats, my Pats, is gone.
We are not together.
So it is done.
January
FOR THE FIRST time in a long while, I leave the office before Paulson and Murphy.
The old man, Totty Fahey, is making me question myself and my sense of reason.
Before I even twist the key in the ignition, I have unclicked the glove compartment and am leaning across the passenger seat reaching for the bottle that waits for such occasions as this. But it isn’t there. I don’t even remember finishing it. In my desperation I displace some papers and the owner’s manual, hoping a bottle will magically appear underneath.
I slam it shut but it flicks back open. I ram it harder this time but it bounces back again. Punching it several times doesn’t seem to work either – it isn’t until I calmly and slowly push the flapping door that it latches on peacefully.
My level of frustration now heightened, I slam my own door shut, twist the key and pull off with a screech, forgetting to fasten my seatbelt.
I sweat all the way home. My mind flits from the image of Totty Fahey, unmoving, to Lily Kane, falling to The Two and back to Totty. For a moment, I allow myself to think that it will be all right when I get home because Audrey will be there. But she won’t. When will that feeling stop? I wonder whether Mother felt like this; whether this is how her breakdown started, longing for Cathy to be home again. And, at some point between these thoughts, I manage to look at the road, observe and ignore speed signs, and eventually get myself back to the gravel of my driveway without crashing or running down a pedestrian.
I speed into the house, forgetting to lock the car, leaving the front door wide open, and head straight into the kitchen in search of any alcohol. I don’t leave wine in the bottle any more; every bottle that is opened gets finished. I pull a bottle of red from the rack. Instead of wasting time opening it properly I break off the top of the cork and use the handle of a wooden spoon to push the rest down inside the bottle.
And I swig almost half of it, molecules of stray cork occasionally making their way into my mouth. But, for those few pitiful moments, I forget how pathetic I am.
I place the crumb-filled bottle on the black granite work surface Audrey just had to have and finally close the front door. Only now do I remember how dwarfing the house has become. I take my wallet from my pocket and find the section that still has a picture of my wife. I contemplate tearing it in half as an act of petulant closure but opt out. I’m not brave enough for that yet. Not ready.
Instead, I walk back into the kitchen, grab the wine bottle by the neck and take it with me to the journal room where I can close myself off from this place.
The first page I open has a doodle of The Fat Man, the one that Mother believes can uncover the whereabouts of my sister Cathy. The one I am waiting to see. The next page mentions me.
‘Jan hates me for saying anything. He looks at me differently. He’ll forgive me when Cathy gets home.’
Again I consider tearing something into tiny pieces, but crumpling the pages violently has a similarly cathartic effect.
This is the kind of irrationality that I am avoiding by not telling Paulson about the last vision. Mother and I are different. She could not keep her desperation and fear in check. I won’t end up like her if I don’t let this strange ability control and define me.
I ponder this for a while, feeling a warped sense of uncertainty for not intervening and trusting my hunch. I could not have prevented an innocent person perishing at the hands of this madwoman.
Could I?
What must Cathy think of me?
Am I admitting to myself that she is dead?
Snap out of this, January.
You are not your mother.
You are much worse.
Samhain
October 2008
Lily
IT STARTS HERE.
This is the beginning. Genesis.
I am the first to be chosen.
When the stranger on the pew in front of me tells me that they can help, I believe.
The stranger who will come to be known as Celeste Varrick.
The recent revelation concerning my inoperable cancer has filled me with a mixture of despair and hope. The sudden realisation that I am definitely going to die – I have months, no longer than a year – has brought me to the conclusion that, actually, I want to live. So, if sitting on this uncomfortable pew and talking to my clenched hands, trying to believe that a higher being can hear me and take over where conventional medicine has left me stranded, helps me, I’ll do it. If a complete stranger takes up an equally uncomfortable seat in front of me and tells me that she has a solution, I will listen. If a choirboy offers me some magic beans, I’m just desperate enough to act on it.
Celeste gives me a time to meet her in the centre of the green outside and leaves, saying she needs to pick some things up first. I remain in the church with the handful of old folk that litter the adjoining pews, asking their God for answers, for absolution, for guidance.
It must work if they keep coming back.
Unless guilt is despair’s twin.
The younger man at the front still has his head raised to the sky, standing opposite the iron rack of candles. I see his chin bob up and down, his cheeks tighten, but his voice is a whisper, a background hum. Quiet but intense.
I copy him. Projecting my voice to the heavens rather than the makeshift mouthpiece of my prayer hands. I tell whichever god will listen that I will make more of my life; I will give back, I will make amends, I will change my attitude towards others and myself. I say I will spread the word of God and the miracle of my rebirth. I whisper to the ceiling that I will do anything if I do not have to go through this. A woman three rows ahead of me obviously hears me and turns her head slightly over he
r shoulder as if spitting at me; disgusted that I am only now turning to faith because something is wrong with me.
I ignore her and press on with my negotiation.
Bargaining with the divine.
Pricing up my soul.
I wait. Remaining in a position of prayer, trying to believe that He exists, yearning for a response; some kind of sign. The spit-miming woman ahead of me crosses her chest, edges out of the long pew and exits, seemingly fulfilled. The man by the collection of flickering candles lowers his head as if God has spoken back to him. I look around to see the contentedness on the face of the tiny congregation.
Why do I not feel this?
Because I don’t really believe?
I follow the spitting lady out of the church and the whispering candle man follows me.
At no point do I think about calling my parents, letting them know of my condition. Rebuilding a semblance of relationship even if only for a week. They probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. I cried suicidal wolf too many times.
I don’t know whether it is my own conscience or some celestial intervention but I suddenly, and ultimately, conclude that I have only two choices left: I meet with Celeste, to see if she is, indeed, my saviour; or, my second choice, I die.
When the one known as Celeste finally arrives at the crossroads, the decision has already been made for me.
Celeste
THIS IS ONLY the beginning. I can save her. Lily Kane will listen to me.
Into my bag I pack a box of salt – this is for my own protection rather than Lily’s – some chalk, three ribbons, one blue, one red and one black. I place the four stones into a protective, padded pocket on the inside then drop a handful of tea-light candles on top of my belongings. The lighter and matches are zipped in the waterproof section.
These are the tools of my ritual. They will begin the healing process for Lily Kane.
I sense my aura changing colour and a smile emanating from somewhere inside makes its way to my face.
This is my calling.
Lily will be my first.
Justice will play no part in these acts, all that is left to do is save these people from their hell.
My joy fades to frustration as I near Parsons Green. I’m slightly late. What if she thinks I am not coming? My crusade ending in futility at the very first obstacle. I jump off the tube and run up the path to the grassy area I said I would meet her at. The pub on the corner is bustling with positive drunken energy; children, parents, dogs, people of all ages have congregated in costumes to embrace the commercial Halloween celebrations.
And just by the oak tree near the centre of the crossroads, as we had discussed, is Lily Kane.
Waiting.
Still.
And nobody sees her but me.
Lily
THE PERSON JANUARY DAVID seeks, the one he does not yet know as Celeste, is the last person that I see while I am alive. She is kneeling in front of me, that soothing voice fading into a muffled chant. Colour begins to drain from my peripheries until the only light I see comes from the solitary flame on the floor ahead of me.
Jump back five minutes to the time she was supposed to meet me.
I’m on time. I half expect Celeste to be waiting for me but she’s not. I’m drowning in the fabric of my warm black coat; the children that use this place as a thoroughfare to the trick-or-treating terraces would be forgiven for thinking I am dressed as the grim reaper. My illness leaves me emaciated, pale and weak.
I stop in the centre where the paths cross each other and look around at the triangles of grass occupied by different cliques. I feel as alone as I always do. My hands are still cold in my pockets on this October night so I pull them out, clasp them together almost in prayer and blow warm breath into the opening as I walk towards the tree I was told to wait at.
I can see the blue sign of the health centre I visited this morning to receive my death sentence.
Seconds, maybe. No longer than minutes.
I turn back around to look at the church that offered me no answers or counsel. It looks unreal, lit against the colourless background sky.
As I bring my head down, I see a man walking towards me. The candle man from the church earlier today. I recognise him immediately and unconsciously smile in his direction. He reciprocates this friendly gesture.
I take my hands away from my face, preparing to shake his hand with a welcoming hello as he paces closer to me, the smile still on his face. I step forward off the slope onto the flat ground and say ‘Hi.’
I’m still beaming.
He holds his grin.
But, as he reaches the light of the lamppost on the corner, I notice the tracks of his tears.
Before I have time to react, to feel compassion for the clearly saddened man of faith I noted earlier in the church, before I can turn my expression into something more appropriate, I feel the sharp, choking blow that closes my throat making it impossible to scream and difficult to breathe.
Soon after, almost in the same movement, the knife enters my cancer-riddled stomach. The agony blocked by the dent that closes my neck, a scream never materialises.
He lowers me to my knees, embracing me with a care you would not expect, and whispers into my ear. ‘Ssh. Ssh. It’s over. Don’t fight. Go with it.’ I feel the moisture from his tears wipe against my cheek as I descend.
And I let go of hope.
Jump forward five minutes to the moment that Celeste realises she is too late.
She has made a mistake.
As she blathers on, thinking she is helping, trying to save my soul from a treacherous journey to hell it does not wish to take, I see the candle man from the church over her shoulder. He has already taken my necklace and buried something small in the ground only metres from where we are knelt. I watch him talk to no one. Deep in conversation.
Then he fades with the rest of my vision until only the flame remains and the voice of the person trying to save me, Celeste Varrick. The woman kneeling in a circle of salt, spouting wisdom about the natural world, unaware that just behind her is the man she will come to know as V, because her eyes are fixed in front of her at me, Lily Kane.
His first victim.
V
AT ST DIONIS CHURCH on Parsons Green, I light a candle and look to the ceiling.
‘Is this true?’ I whisper to the heavens. ‘Can we be together again?’
But the Lord does not reply. The same God I was raised to believe in, the one I would speak with to get through problems and anxieties, my constant, my comfort.
The one who took my wife and son from me.
And now He refuses to answer.
I am giving him one last chance, even though I was not afforded the same luxury.
I wait in silence for a while, hoping that this God will speak to me somehow, give me a sign that what I am thinking of doing is wrong or will not work, that my own desperation has led me to a dark precipice from which there can be no return. But a sign does not materialise; the voice of God does not penetrate. The only sound I hear is the whimpering of a young, emaciated, ginger-haired girl in the left-hand pews.
She will be the first that I take.
She will set me on the path back to my family.
For I have a new Lord, and he says it is so.
I continue to vent my aggression through softly spoken venomous words aimed high, just in case He is listening but not answering. Perhaps I ask too much and God is effectively screening my call.
Leave a message, Sam.
Call back later, Sam.
From this point, Sam no longer exists.
There are several elderly ladies in the seats behind me who appear to be in communion with God. Their eyes remain closed as their mouths make shapes of guilt and desperation. I feel guilty. I am desperate. The noise from the other side of the church has ceased momentarily.
I am not here.
In plain sight I am invisible.
Only Lily sees me.
The soon-
to-be-dead red-head is talking to a fellow parishioner in front of her. I didn’t hear or see her come in. I stop my rant but keep my mouth moving as if still deep in contemplation. It is difficult to really hear anything in here because it all seems to descend into mumble but I pick out certain words. Most importantly, the ones which set out a time for their rendezvous and a location that I can end Lily Kane.
Allowing sound to pass through my lips again, I tell this phoney God that I renounce him, that he had no right to take away my child and destroy my marriage. I blame him. I tell him he can go and fuck himself. I tell him that everything I am about to do is his fault because when times were hardest he left me; that the single set of footprints in the sand is there because I am alone, not because he carries me.
I must, actually, say more than this because I look around and both the women are leaving the building. Luckily, I know when they will return, so I can wait.
I blow out the candle that I lit on entry. He is dead to me now.
Celeste
V HAS TAKEN her.
He got here first.
He always gets here first.
My short delay means that Lily Kane is already dead when I arrive. The frivolity seems to continue all around her with complete abandon. Young children are being walked right past her kneeling corpse, holding hands with their mothers, their other hand gripping on to a plastic bag full of confectionary.
On the earth in front of her a symbol has been etched with what I assume is condemning her to the underworld. She is the altar. Satan’s prize. The first thing I do is rub this out with my foot, erasing the evidence that would help the police understand that I am not the murderer. Only I will ever know that this was here.
