Living Death

by Graham Masterton

  ‘You don’t have to make up a story about it, not for us,’ said Detective Scanlan. ‘I’ve seen my own face in the mirror often enough with bruises exactly like yours, and unless you have a pure quare kitchen step with five fingers and a signet ring, it was some feller who hit you, and more than once.’

  Cleona took a deep breath, and then another. Katie could see that she was trying desperately hard to compose herself, so that she could stick to her story that she had fallen over, and back up Eoin’s story that she had never set eyes on the dognappers.

  But Detective Scanlan said, ‘Cleona, sweetheart, we’re not accusing you of doing anything wrong, neither you nor Eoin. But we can see that you’ve been badly hurt and how frightened you are. All we need is for you to tell us what really happened, so that we can clear this all up and find the men who did this to you and stole your dogs.’

  Katie reached out and laid her hand on Cleona’s arm, and squeezed it. ‘You won’t get into any trouble, Cleona. I promise you. But we have to clear this up.’

  Cleona burst into tears. She let out a high-pitched whinny, followed by a deep, lung-wrenching sob. Katie stood up and put her arm around her shoulders, and held her tight. It was over a minute before Cleona was able to stop shaking and wipe her eyes.

  ‘Why did they beat you, Cleona?’ asked Detective Scanlan.

  ‘There were two of them. They came into the house. One of them hit Eoin with his hurley stick and knocked him to the floor. The other one—’

  She started sobbing again, so Katie and Detective Scanlan had to wait until she was able to continue. They exchanged looks, though, and they both had a strong suspicion what Cleona was going to say next.

  ‘The other one – what, sweetheart?’

  ‘The other one did it to me – had his way. I tried everything I could to stop him but he hit me and hit me and hit me, and there was nothing I could do.’

  ‘He raped you?’ said Katie.

  Cleona nodded. ‘I tried to stop him, I swear to God I did. But he was too strong.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’ asked Detective Scanlan.

  Cleona shook her head. ‘The both of them had scarves over their faces. They were rough types, though. They both smelled of cigarettes and drink. But the one who did it to me, the other one called him Keeno.’

  ‘Keeno? You’re sure?’

  ‘He called him that more than once. He told him to get off me because they were leaving. “Will you beat on, Keeno,” that’s what he said exactly, and that was when he got off me.’

  Katie sat down again and took hold of both of Cleona’s hands. ‘Cleona, we’ll have to ask you some more questions, but before we do that it’s very important that we take you to the hospital for a check-up. You’ve washed yourself since this happened?’

  Cleona nodded. ‘I have, yes. I couldn’t stand the smell of him on me. He didn’t – finish off, though, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Even if he didn’t, and even if you’ve washed, there’s a possibility that there might be some trace left of his DNA. More than that, though, it’s vital that you’re checked for any sexually transmitted disease. You never know what this Keeno could have been carrying.’

  ‘Eoin told me to do that, too – go to the hospital.’

  ‘Really? So why didn’t you?’

  ‘I told him that if I went to the hospital the nurses would have to report what that Keeno had done to me. I mean, like, the way I’ve been beaten, I couldn’t just pretend that I’d had some one-night stand with some fellow and I was worried that he might have given me a dose of something. And if the nurses reported it, Eoin could be in desperate trouble for chasing after those men after they’d already left and shooting one of them out of revenge. After all, they were leaving. He could have just let them go.’

  She looked into Katie’s eyes with a searching expression that Katie had seen many times before when she was interviewing suspects. It was an expression that said, You do believe me, don’t you?

  Detective Scanlan must have read the same meaning into it, because she said, ‘That’s true, Cleona. If Eoin didn’t shoot your man in self-defence, he could face a charge of manslaughter. But why didn’t you simply back up his story, and say that those fellows were attacking him, and that he only pulled the trigger as a last resort?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Cleona. ‘But that wouldn’t have been the truth, would it?’

  ‘To begin with, Cleona, you denied that those fellows were ever in the house, and that wasn’t the truth, was it?’

  ‘I didn’t want to say what had happened to me. I was mortally ashamed of it, if you really want to know.’

  ‘You didn’t have to tell us that you’d been raped,’ Katie told her. ‘It was important that you did, and I’m very thankful that you’ve had the strength to come out with it, but if you hadn’t have told us, we would never have known.’

  ‘No, but you would have asked me why those fellers beat me, wouldn’t you? And knowing myself I would have come out and told you anyhow. Well, I have now, haven’t I? I thought I could pretend to myself that it never happened, but I can’t think about anything else. The feel of that monster. The stink of him. The worst thing was, he kept telling the other fellow how much I was loving it.’

  ‘But what was the real reason you didn’t want to go to the hospital?’ asked Detective Scanlan, very gently. Mother of God, Pádraigin, thought Katie, you’re the sharp one.

  Cleona took her hands away from Katie’s and clasped them tightly together, leaning forward slightly as if she were in church, and in prayer. After a while she looked up at Katie, and then at Detective Scanlan, and said, ‘If I tell you, will you swear on the Holy Bible that you won’t tell Eoin?’

  Katie had a strong idea now of what she was going to tell them, and so she said, simply, ‘Yes, Cleona. I promise you.’

  Cleona looked across at Detective Scanlan, and Detective Scanlan gave her a reassuring smile and said, ‘Me too.’

  ‘The reason I didn’t want to go to the hospital to be examined was that I’m expecting,’ said Cleona. She hesitated for a moment longer, and then she said, ‘I’m three months gone, and the baby – it isn’t Eoin’s.’

  7

  Siobhán woke up in a panic, feeling that she was choking. She tried to sit up but she was strapped tightly to the bed with her arms by her sides and all she could do was lift her head up a little. She felt as if she had been trying to swallow a whole handful of thistles and they had got caught in her windpipe.

  Her eyes were wide open and yet the room was pitch dark. She couldn’t even see a light under the door. She struggled to free her arms but she was fastened to the bed too securely, and after a while she realised that she could do nothing but lie back and call for somebody to help her.

  She took in a deep breath and tried to cry out, but all she could manage was a whistling noise, like the tin whistle her younger brother used to play to annoy her. She took another breath and tried again, but that thin reedy sound was all she could manage, with a desperate squeak on the end of it.

  She paused for a while, her chest rising and falling as if she had been swimming. Where was she, and why was it so dark? She could hear rain sprinkling against the window, and the shushing of a tree, so it must be windy outside. She could hear traffic, too, and voices, and after three or four minutes a door slammed, and she heard footsteps.

  She felt woozy, as if she had been drinking too much, and she remembered all the Jägerbombs that she had been tipping back at the Eclipse. But that must have been hours ago, so surely she would have sobered up by now? And what had happened since then, and where was she now? She remembered the gingery-haired woman and the tall man wearing a surgical mask, but they must have been characters in a dream, surely? Perhaps she was still dreaming now. That was it: she would wake up at any moment and find that she was lying in her own bed, with Pookie her pink teddy-bear lying on the pillow next to her with his usual stupid smile on his face.

  She closed her eyes. S
he waited, to see if she would wake up, and then she opened them again, but it was equally dark with her eyes open as it was with her eyes closed. What time was it? From the noises outside, and the voices, and the doors slamming, it sounded like daytime. Yet the darkness was seamless and absolute. It didn’t make her feel claustrophobic, as if she were shut in a press. She had no idea where she was, so it seemed unnervingly vast and empty, like being in space, but with no stars at all.

  Her throat still felt as if it were crammed with thistles, and so she cried out again for somebody to come and help her. Again, she could only manage that barely audible pheep sound, and when she tried to cry out louder, she hissed and bubbled like her father bleeding her bedroom radiator.

  She tried to calm herself. There must be a reason why her throat was so sore and why she couldn’t call out. There must be a reason why this room was so dark. Yet she felt so strange and alone, and her throat hurt so much, that she couldn’t stop the tears from filling up her eyes and sliding down into her ears.

  It seemed as if an hour at least went by. She thought she could hear a clock chiming in the distance, but it was too indistinct for her to be able to count what time it was. Then there were more voices, and more doors slamming, and more footsteps.

  After a few minutes, the door of her own room opened, although it remained totally dark. Siobhán heard somebody approaching her bed, and standing beside her. She could hear them breathing, whoever they were, and she was sure that she could smell coffee on their breath. She didn’t attempt to ask them who they were, though, because she knew that it would be hopeless, and that she would simply whistle, or hiss.

  ‘You’ve been crying,’ said a man’s voice. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve made you cry.’

  Siobhán thought he sounded like the man who had been wearing the surgical mask, but he wasn’t at all muffled now. Although she couldn’t see him, perhaps he had taken his mask off. But why couldn’t she see him? Had he covered her eyes with a blindfold? She couldn’t feel a blindfold.

  She still didn’t try to say anything, mostly because she didn’t think she could. The man came right up to her bedside and laid his fingertips on her forehead, as if he were giving her a benediction. His fingertips were cool and very soft, but he exerted enough pressure on her temples to give her an indication that he was very strong, too. She felt that he was silently telling her: I am an artist. I am infinitely skilful. But beware, because I am powerful enough to kill you if I decide to.

  ‘Your operations all went very smoothly,’ he told her. ‘I regret that you’ll be permanently paralysed from the waist downward for the rest of your life. There’s no chance that you’ll ever be able to walk again, but on the bright side you’ve no infection.’

  Siobhán was sure now that this was a nightmare. It had to be. But why couldn’t she wake up? She was panting with stress, and whistling soft and off-key with every breath.

  ‘As well as being permanently paralysed, of course, you’re permanently blinded, although I expect you’ve noticed that already. But it’s not all bad news. Look at that Stevie Wonder, he does all right, doesn’t he? And I’ve arranged for you to have a bit of assistance getting about.’

  Blind? she thought. Blind in both eyes? So it isn’t dark at all – it’s daytime. And I’m not asleep. This is real. I’m really here, strapped to this bed, unable to see, unable to speak, unable to walk. I can’t even ask this invisible man where I am, or who he is, or why he did this to me.

  ‘There’s one thing more,’ said the man, but just as he was about to tell her his iPhone rang, a traditional jangling old-telephone ring.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Oh, fantastic, he’s here! And does he have the – ? He does! That’s grand! No, no, you can fetch him up here by all means. No, that’s fine. She’s awake now but of course she’s more than a little devastated. Yes, absolutely. I’m sure that will help.’

  When he spoke again, Siobhán wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or still talking on the phone.

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘But I’m expecting a visitor for you – one which I’m sure you’ll appreciate no end. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The eyesight. Or rather, the lack of eyesight. The total and permanent lack of eyesight. That happens when both of your optic nerves are severed. I’ll admit there have been cases where the optic nerve has been severed in an accident, for instance, and the casing has grown back again, so that the patient has had some limited vision restored. In your case, however, that won’t be possible, even if a surgeon who had the skill to do it had a shot at it, and I don’t know of any surgeon in Ireland who has.’

  Siobhán was sobbing now, her throat choked up so that she could hardly breathe and her spine clenched with pain. All she wanted was for this man to go away and leave her alone, and stop giving her this heartless litany of how she had been mutilated. All she wanted to do was wake up, and if she couldn’t wake up, then all she wanted was not to be here. She would rather be nowhere at all than here. She would rather not exist.

  But the man didn’t go away. In fact she heard him drag a chair over to the side of the bed so that he could sit down close to her, and so that his coffee breath smelled even stronger and she could feel the prickles of his intimate spit against her cheek.

  ‘You’re probably wondering too why you’re finding it so difficult to speak,’ he continued. ‘That’s because I’ve given you a laryngectomy and now you have no vocal cords. You can’t talk any more. Of course there are ways in which people can overcome this, too. There are plenty of artificial speech devices. There’s even a new one which can more or less replicate your own voice. But you won’t be getting one of those. You won’t be getting any of those. You’re blind, my love, and you’re silent, and that’s the way you’re going to stay.’

  Siobhán sobbed and sobbed until saliva came spluttering out of her mouth and she was sure that she was going to suffocate. She heard the man tugging a tissue out of a box, and then she felt him dabbing at her mouth, but she turned her head away. She would rather choke than have him touch her.

  ‘Are you all right now?’ the man asked her.

  She kept her head turned away. Even if she was blind and couldn’t see him, she wanted him to know that she didn’t want to face him.

  The man paused for a while, and then he said, ‘There’s a good reason I carried out all of these operations on you, Siobhán. The thing of it is, I need you to work for me. You’re some attractive young woman, you know that, don’t you, and wherever you go you’ll be given a heap of sympathy because of what you’ve suffered, a pretty young beour like you. That’s important in my business. It puts people off their guard – distracts them, do you know what I mean?

  ‘If you work for me, though, it’s critical that you don’t know who I am or what I look like, and that you’re unable to tell anybody what I’m up to. It’s also important that you can’t run off, and that’s why we broke your legs. Yes, I’m sorry to have to tell you what really happened to you, but I wouldn’t want to lie. You weren’t involved in a traffic accident at all. Well, you were, in a way. The fellows who picked you up knocked you unconscious and then ran over your knees. That will give you some idea of how much I wanted you.’

  Siobhán could hear him continuing to talk to her, and yet now she refused to listen to him any more, or to try to make any sense out of what he was saying. If this were all real – if it weren’t all some terrible nightmare, then he must be playing some kind of monstrous practical joke on her. He couldn’t really have blinded her, and cut her vocal cords, and crippled her. Why would anybody do that? Surely after a while he would peel the black sticky-tape off her eyelids, so that she could see again, and snip away the thick gauze padding from her throat, so that she could speak, and then unwrap the bandages around her knees, and help her back on to her feet. Until he did that, though, she wasn’t going to pay any attention to him.

  ‘Ah, here’s himself,’ said the man. ‘And would you look at what he’s brought with him – well, sorry, no
, you can’t, of course. But if you could, Siobhán, I promise you that you’d be delighted.’

  Although she was doing everything she could to ignore him, Siobhán heard somebody else come into the room, as well as a quick, shallow panting, and the patter of what sounded like paws on the carpet. The panting came closer, and then she felt a dog’s wet nose snuffling against her bare right forearm, and its rough tongue licking her. She twisted her arm away, and let out a thin wheeze of disgust.

  ‘There, now, there’s nothing at all to get freaked about!’ said another man’s voice. He had a similar accent to the first man, as if he had been brought up in Cavan but taught himself Dartspeak, the upper-class accent of Dublin 4.

  ‘Here, come on, girl, behave yourself,’ the second man said. Then, leaning over Siobhán, ‘I’ve named her Smiley, after the song, like, “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”, because she’s going to be your eyes from now on, now that you can’t see any more.’

  Siobhán was still trying her best not to listen, but she couldn’t cover her ears, and the man’s words made her feel as if she were dropping down a deep dark bottomless well. Warm tears slid down the side of her face, but without her vocal cords she couldn’t manage to sob.

  ‘From now on, of course, you’ll be needing a wheelchair or a mobility scooter to get about,’ said the first man, in a practical tone of voice, and at the same time Siobhán could hear him snapping off a pair of latex gloves. ‘But, don’t let it bother you, do you know what I mean? Smiley here will be able to guide you around so that you don’t end up tipping yourself over the edge of Tivoli Docks, or crossing the road in front of the 208 bus.’

  He leaned over her again, much closer, and now he spoke very softly, which Siobhán found so threatening that she shivered. ‘Let me give you one word of warning, though, darling. You’ll never be able to see again, and you’ll never be able to talk, or walk, and did I forget to mention that I’ve cut the tendons in your wrists so that you can’t write any sneaky messages asking anyone for help?’