Sweet Oblivion

by Rhiana Ramsey

  ‘Come on, let’s get you out of here and get you a nice cup of tea, hmm? You’re clearly traumatized, Tony,’ Greg said only half-joking, taking Tony by the arm and steering him towards the front gate.

  ‘I’ve seen much worse than that in my time, but that is just… sick. Penises in boxes, complete with pubes,’ Tony looked at them and shook his head. ‘I’m going to take the tube back. I need a few minutes.’

  ‘Sure you don’t want a lift in the car?’ Elizabeth asked, worried about him.

  ‘Nah, you’re alright. See you guys in a bit.’

  Tony wandered off in the direction of the tube.

  ‘You reckon he’s alright?’ Elizabeth asked Greg.

  ‘Yeah. He just needs a bit of space. So, where shall we start?’

  ‘Well, I reckon that we should go to her old home address, the one listed on my spreadsheet. It’s as good a place to start as any.’

  ‘What makes you think she would go there?’ Greg asked, unconvinced. ‘Surely we should start with places we know she’s visited recently.’

  ‘If you were a schizophrenic, split-personality, psychopathic killer and you wanted to hide out, where would you go?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Maybe you’d go back to where it all began?’ Elizabeth suggested.

  ‘Maybe, but why does she need to hide out? She doesn’t know we’re on to her yet.’

  ‘That we know of. She could have remembered about her faux pas with the car in the car park, or she could have remembered her Freudian slip with me on Friday night. One thing we do know about her is she is smart and calculating. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew we were on her trail. Besides, she’s not here is she? She must know something is up.’

  ‘Fair point I guess. You got the address with you?’

  ‘No I need to nip to the office to get it. We can brief the others whilst we’re there and then head off to the address. What do you reckon?’

  ‘I reckon… that’s a plan.’

  ************************************************

  The house looked pretty much as Mina remembered it; it still had the same depressing, uninviting air about it. The only real difference she could see was that it now presented signs of dereliction - peeling paint, broken guttering and a couple of broken windows. It was clear that the house had remained unloved and unoccupied for the past twenty-three years.

  Mina guessed that her mother’s name would have been on the deeds and as such the house couldn’t be sold without her permission. She probably hadn’t wanted anything to do with the place whilst she was in prison. What would happen to it now she was dead? Would Louise and Michelle inherit the place? What a wonderful thought.

  Mina drove the car up the driveway and parked it in front of the old, dilapidated garage. Sections of the roof had caved in and Mina was pleasantly surprised that the garage door opened when she tugged it skyward.

  The garage was empty except for a few roofing tiles and portions of rotten timber so there was still sufficient room for her to park the car. She drove in and parked up, leaving the keys in the ignition and the car doors unlocked. It was not like there was anyone around who was going to steal it.

  Mina left the garage and pulled the door shut behind her; although the property was partially hidden from the main road and only visible up the driveway if you slowed down and craned to look up it, Mina didn’t want any of the neighbours noticing the vehicle. After years of abandonment, a vehicle on the driveway would be out of place and she didn’t want anybody asking questions, or worse still, coming to investigate.

  It wasn’t hard to gain access to the house. The back door, which led into the kitchen, was barely hanging on its hinges where it had been forced open by squatters or kids looking for a place to hang out.

  It was an unusual quirk of the house that the driveway actually led to what would be considered the back door; the front door was on the opposite side of the house and was only accessible by foot, a small gate separating it from the pavement of the opposite roadside.

  The kitchen was filthy, as was to be expected, years of dust and grime settled on the floors and work surfaces, and the windows were thick with dirt. Graffiti had been scrawled on some of the walls and there were old food wrappers and beer cans strewn across the floor.

  In front of her was the kitchen sink and Mina briefly saw herself standing there, scarlet, washing blood from her body at her mother’s behest. She felt a reaction within her, but couldn’t determine what the emotion was. Sadness? Anger? Fear?

  To her right Mina saw the door to the basement and it made her shudder involuntarily. The door was closed, which Mina was grateful for. She was not yet ready to face the demons she knew she would find in that place.

  Instead, Mina moved slowly through the ground floor, stepping over broken bits of furniture, more rubbish and even human feces. Anything of value that may have been in the house had long since been removed, although who might have removed it was anyone’s guess. After satisfying herself that there was nothing of interest on the ground floor, and more importantly no vagrants or squatters lurking in the shadows, Mina made her way up the stairs towards the bedrooms.

  As she ascended the stairs she could hear her mother’s voice behind her, telling her to be quick. She looked down at her hands and saw they were covered in blood, his blood from all those years ago. She wiped her hands on her jeans and looked at them again – they were clean. She was imaging things. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to come back here, but Mina wanted closure and Louise wanted to try and understand.

  The master bedroom, which had been shared by her mother and that monster, appeared relatively clean compared to the downstairs; it was dusty and the curtains were falling off the rails but the furniture was still present and intact. Mina didn’t enter this room, content to simply look at it from the threshold. Maybe the reticence she felt had been shared by whoever had been squatting in the house; no one had wanted to go in and ransack that room because it oozed evil.

  Mina walked across the landing and past the bathroom. The toilet was still in place but the sink had been ripped off of the wall; the bath was full of debris and rubbish. She wondered why her mother had wanted her to wash in the kitchen sink instead of in the bath on that fateful day. Perhaps she had panicked, or perhaps she hadn’t wanted Louise to spread the blood through the house? Mina would never know the answer to that question; she didn’t reflect upon it for long as she was keen to move on to the next room.

  She pushed open her old bedroom door and for a moment saw the room as it used to be with its pink walls, bright sunshine bursting through the windows and her and her sister’s beds made up with pink and yellow bedspreads. Then she saw it as it was now, the walls grey with dust, dingy from the dirt on the windows and the bed that Michelle used to sleep in upended. The way it looked now reflected how it used to make her feel; sad, uncared for and unloved.

  Mina moved over to her old bed and sat on the edge, oblivious to the dust cloud her movement had instigated. She sat with her head bowed, unpleasant memories and dark thoughts running through her mind. As she sat there, her hand gently running over the bedspread, forming swirls of dust, Mina’s facial expression changed, becoming softer. Tears formed in her eyes as she recollected what had happened in this house, the pain, the misery, the fear and ultimately the death. Louise remerged and the agony of what had occurred tore trough her soul.

  ‘Why?’ Louise asked the room. ‘Why did this have to happen to me?’

  ‘Because you were weak Louise,’ Mina replied.

  ‘I wasn’t weak. I was just a little girl.’

  ‘That’s what made you weak to him.’

  ‘No!’ Louise screeched, her voice echoing through the house. ‘No!’

  Her body shook as she tried to regain control of her emotions. The expression on her face changed repeatedly from one of sadness to one of hate, then from one of fear to one of determination; she was battling with herself, her inner emotional turmoil crea
ting a further internal conflict within her mind. Was she Mina or was she Louise? How could she regain control of her personality when she didn’t know which one she was or which one she wanted to be?

  ‘I was not weak! I was just – powerless.’

  ‘Until I came along. I protected you. I killed him for you. You owe me.’

  ‘You did save me. But now you’re going too far. Why are you killing those men? Why can’t you just let go now?’

  ‘Because they need to pay! They can’t get away with it. Men are the scourge of the earth Louise. And besides, I didn’t kill them. You did,’ Mina said belligerently.

  ‘No, no, no, no!’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes! You made me, I was born in your mind to help you cope, to help you survive what those fuckers did to you. I saved you so it’s only right you do what I need every now and then.’

  Louis balled her hands into fists and slammed them against her forehead, rocking backwards and forwards on the bed.

  ‘I can’t take this! It’s too much. It’s all too much. I can’t deal with all of this!’ she screamed.

  ‘Louise, you don’t have to deal with it. That’s why I’m here,’ Mina said comfortingly. ‘Just let me handle it, hey? Stop fighting me.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who I am.’

  ‘You’re Mina.’

  ‘I’m Louise.’

  ‘You’re Mina!’

  ‘I’m Louise!’

  ‘No, you’re Mina!’

  Louise stood up and repeatedly hit herself with her fists, she punched herself in the face, the head, the chest, the legs.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ she cried, distressed. ‘I can’t deal with you in my head and all these memories, all this pain.’

  Louise dropped to the floor on her hands and knees and sobbed into the dirt.

  ‘Louise? Louise? Come on. Pull yourself together. You’re of no use to anyone if you break down.’

  Louise ignored the voice in her head and continued to cry, years of pent up anger, pain, resentment and hate gushing out of her, each emotion fighting to be dealt with.

  ‘I didn’t deserve any of this. He made me this way, didn’t he? How could anyone do that to a child?’

  ‘Only a man could do that to a child. Only a man could break you so completely Louise. You see why we have to kill them? They need to pay.’

  Louise leant back on her knees and sat up, looking around the room. Her face and clothes were covered in dust, just as she had been covered in blood twenty-three years earlier. She stopped crying and stood up. She’d heard something. She listened intently, head slightly cocked to one side.

  Then she heard it, car tyres on gravel as a vehicle approached the house. Once again she was briefly transported back to the day she had killed her father, the sound reminding her of her mother’s car retuning to the house.

  She moved over to the window, carefully wiped a small, circular hole in the dirt covering the glass pane and peered out; a car was slowly inching its way up the drive. She couldn’t see who was driving the vehicle or how many occupants there were, but Louise was convinced it was the police.

  ‘Fuck, what now? Why are they here?’

  ‘Because you’re a stupid fucking idiot!’ Mina screeched at Louise as she pushed herself forward as the dominant personality, allowing Louise to once again retreat into the safety of her own mind.

  Chapter XXXVII

  ‘Jesus, this place wouldn’t look amiss in a horror movie,’ Greg said to Elizabeth, leaning forward so he could get a good look at the house through the top of the windscreen as he slowly drove the car up the driveway.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a bit grim,’ Elizabeth agreed from the passenger seat. ‘You can almost imagine phantasms drifting around the place, their only purpose to ward off human life forms.’

  She wiggled her fingers in front of her face as if they were nefarious, clutching spirit hands. Greg looked at her from the corner of his eye.

  ‘You watch way too many creepy movies.’

  ‘You’d have thought they would have knocked this place down. It clearly hasn’t been lived in for a long time,’ Elizabeth commented, ignoring Greg and noting the house’s ramshackle appearance.

  ‘There must be a reason why they can’t. I wonder how long it’s been unoccupied. I guess no one wanted to live here after what happened,’ Greg observed.

  Before heading to the address, Greg and Elizabeth had performed the requisite intelligence checks on the property to ensure that there were no known officer safety issues at the house, such as mad, axe-wielding police-haters, which would require them to attend the premises with backup. They also ran the checks to see if they could establish the owner of the property and to see if there were any intelligence reports of note on the system that they should be aware of.

  They had been unsuccessful in trying to establish who the property belonged to as the records were old and had not been fully updated, and there were no registered voters at the premises. They had, however, found some interesting intelligence reports, one in particular that related to a murder that had occurred at the house over two decades ago.

  The report stated that a woman, Mrs Nicola Adams, had killed her husband in the basement of the house by stabbing him repeatedly in the face and body with a sharp metal object. The face of the body was so badly battered that it was unrecognisable. Two young girls, aged eight and eleven, had been removed from the house by the police and handed over to social services.

  It went on to say that the motive for the murder was unknown but there were suspicions the mother may have been protecting her youngest child, who it was believed my have been subjected to sustained sexual abuse.

  Mrs Adams never spoke to police about what had happened and the children were too young and too traumatized to question at the time the intelligence report was created. The report ended with the inputting officer’s name, rank and number.

  One of the other intelligence reports of interest to Elizabeth pertained to a domestic violence incident where Mrs Adams had taken herself to hospital for a suspected broken arm and hand, and claimed she had been assaulted by her husband. She had been treated at the hospital, police had been called but Mrs Adams had not wanted to press any charges.

  Elizabeth had been incredulous that no action had been taken against the husband until Greg reminded her that in those days, police weren’t able to prosecute domestic violence cases unless the victim pressed charges, unlike today where perpetrators of domestic violence could be prosecuted without the victim’s consent.

  ‘What a way to begin your life eh? Your mother is beaten by your father, he sexually assaults you, she kills your father and then you get put into care,’ Elizabeth had said morosely, feeling for the little girl that Louise once was. ‘It’s little wonder she developed a violent and murderous alter-ego.’

  Now as they drove up the driveway towards the house, Elizabeth was even more saddened by the early life Louise must have experienced in this dismal place. Greg parked the car half way up the drive and the two detectives got out, stretching their legs and arms as they did so. The drive should have only taken an hour but it had taken closer to two due to the ubiquitous London traffic, and now their limbs were stiff.

  As they walked towards the house, Greg spotted the garage and noticed that the grass in front of it had been recently flattened.

  ‘Elizabeth, look.’

  He pointed at the squashed grass and then looked up at the house; he had a feeling that they were being watched. Elizabeth followed his gaze up to the first floor window.

  ‘Do you think she’s here?’ Elizabeth asked, sensing the presence too.

  Together the detectives made their way to the garage door, their nerves tingling in anticipation, their bodies preparing for fight or flight. They looked at each other and Elizabeth nodded to indicate she was ready. Greg gently raised the garage door just enough so that Elizabeth, who had dropped to her knees, could see inside.

  ‘There’s a car, it’s
clean unlike the garage. It hasn’t been here long.’

  She quickly scribbled down the vehicle registration mark in her notebook and then signaled to Greg to lower the garage door back down. Elizabeth moved away from the garage and stood next to their police car so she could watch the front of the house whilst she called the control room to ask them to run a check on the number plate.

  Greg stayed next to the garage so he could watch the side of the house and also keep Elizabeth in his sight. He saw Elizabeth nod as the operator provided her with the information she needed. After hanging up the phone, Elizabeth joined Greg by the garage.

  ‘Registered keeper is Louise Jackson. Fucking hell, Greg. She’s here.’

  ************************************************

  At first the officers had been completely oblivious to her presence, casually strolling up the driveway and over to the garage. They hadn’t seen her, but she was watching them. They’d quickly worked out that there was a car in the garage and had promptly opened the garage door and found her vehicle. They’d both then suddenly looked up at the window, causing Mina to jump back, startled, afraid they would see her. Somehow they knew she’d been watching them, their sixth sense on high alert.

  After a few minutes, Mina had dared to look out the window again, keeping her body next to the wall and her face in the shadows. The female pig was on the phone and the male pig was stood by the garage. Mina was au fait enough with police practices to know that they would be running her number plate right at that moment. So, now they knew she was here – with or without their sixth sense.

  Mina didn’t recognize the male pig; he was big, muscular, with broad shoulders and a shaved head. Mina briefly imagined how he would look after she had worked on him for a while, strapped to a bed, unable to defend himself, his face and legs covered in blood. She closed her eyes relishing the image. Not that she would get that chance. She didn’t have her ropes, or tools with her and he didn’t exactly look like the type of man she could easily overpower. It was one thing to tie up a man who thought it was part of a sexual game, quite another to try and tie one up when he didn’t want it.