Six Dead Men

by Rae Stoltenkamp

  Raj hasn’t helped to ease mum’s worries. He’s still really spaced out since he scored a megawatt cube of hash off a Moroccan dude we met at the club. Selfish bastard didn’t even tell me about his score. Just kept it to himself. When mum talks to him on the phone he can’t even remember me leaving the club. He rabbits on about seeing my killer moves on the dance floor. Mum reaches for her inhaler cause anxiety makes her asthma flare up. I can hear the wheeze rattle deep down in her chest. How come I never heard that before?

  I told the boys I was heading for the toilet. But I felt like I needed to be outside, get some fresh air. They’d come and find me or I could get in again a bit later. I’m tight with Jordan, the bouncer on the door.

  When the fresh air hits me I come over all weird. Sort of see my life flashing before my eyes. Doesn’t really take that long. I feel this disappointment, you know, that I’m not going to be able to do much with my life. I can’t help feeling I’ve wasted the bit of it I’ve had. Don’t really know where this feeling is coming from. I mean, I’ve done way more with my life than any other fucker I know. I wonder if it’s the Es I’ve taken before I went into the club. Strange Es. I’ve never had that feeling off Es before. Shame I think. Shame it all has to end so soon. Why does it have to end?

  I tuck myself into that little dead end alleyway alongside the club. The one where we all go for a quick pee before heading off to get a kebab. Usually there are about two or three junkies down here sharing a needle. But tonight it’s just me. I’m glad, because if I’m going to be sick I don’t really want an audience. The brickwork snags against my top as I slide down the wall and slump on the ground. In the dim security light I see crumpled crisp packets and chocolate bar wrappers, used condoms, someone’s shit and needles everywhere. I even think I see a rat, but I’m not sure. I feel the damp from the gutter’s dribble beginning to soak through my jeans. How on earth did I let myself get in such a state?

  Back home I’m shadowing mum when the doorbell rings. I’m dogging her footsteps, trying to make her see me, hear me. But she’s got one ear clamped to the phone as she rattles off questions to my mates and the other peeled, listening for the sound of my key in the latch. Her free hand is clutching at her inhaler. When the bell goes she opens the door, thinking it’s me and I’ve managed to lose my keys again and she sees the heavily padded policeman’s shoulders blocking out the light in her doorway. I scream at the pig but he’s paying me no attention at all. And mum, she’s crumbling right before my eyes and I try to hold her up but I’m nothingness as she slumps to the floor.

  Chapter 4

  Madie was trying not to hyperventilate in the toilets of the McDonalds closest to the police station. She pressed her back hard against the cubicle door and deliberately closed her mouth so she’d be forced to breathe through her nose. When her breathing had calmed, her heart returned to a more or less regular rhythm and the trembling in her hands eased enough she turned slowly and pushed the door lock to secure the door. She lowered the toilet seat lid and sat down. Flutters of panic still nudged at her body. Madie gripped the toilet roll holder and the edge of the toilet when the trembling in her hands resurfaced. Leaning her head against the partition she allowed herself to relive the episode in Deed's office. Needing to, wanting to.

  She was pacing in front of his desk; trying to steady herself so she could tell him the crazy idea she had swimming about in her head. Suddenly he was there in front of her. His hands were on her shoulders, then his arms were cocooning her. She felt again that moment of respite she had not felt since she had found out about Calvin’s death two days ago. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the moment. She felt the cool cotton of his shirt against her cheek and heard the quickened beating of his heart. She remembered, with pleasure, how the pulse of his heartbeat began to be echoed by her own. She wanted to stay burrowed in against the refuge of his chest and encircling arms. Madie felt his lips resting lightly on her hairline and the warmth of exhaled breath as it fluttered against the baby hairs near her ear. But as she relived the moment when she slowly opened her eyes and caught sight of the photographs of Calvin and the others; her panic rose all over again. The picture of Calvin had been the one she'd had to identify him by, the stark one taken in the coroner’s lab. Calvin’s face was tinged a cold blue. His lifelessness had leapt from the still photograph into the room. Next to Calvin's photograph was a picture of a crumpled Piaggio which she recognised. Next to that another picture of a body with another familiar face on a slab. Next to that the picture of 2 Tone's body slumped in a bed. And a ferocious fear for Deed's safety had reared up inside her.

  I've killed him. She wasn’t sure what to do. She felt such a strong desire to run back to him. I have to leave him alone. Walking into his office today had stilled so much of the panic she had been feeling. The quiet strength he exuded helped her feel more centred. She had thought he would know what to do, would believe her if she told him her theory. She was sure he would.

  But then there had been the unexpectedness of him touching her. She hadn’t realised how much she had wanted to feel his touch until ... His hands on her shoulders had been like that Nat King Cole song, Unforgettable, her mother always played. The residue of Deed's gentleness still clung to her, with the faintest scent of his maleness. Even now she still wanted to clamp herself to the safety of his bulk. But a crow of fear was pecking away at her now. I have to stay away from him.

  She forced herself to think about the photographs on Deed's desk. She closed her eyes at the memory and the pictures sprang up against the inside of her lids. Madie hastily opened her eyes and focused on the stainless steel features of the toilet locking mechanism. But she could not escape thoughts of Curtis' mangled Piaggio. She remembered how the flowers and teddy bears tied to the lamp post had gone grimy so soon and how guilty but thankful the family had been that Junior had escaped the accident unscathed. That lamp post with its floral obituary had been on her daily route to work but Madie found it so painful seeing the reminder of a young life wiped out too soon that she did a detour from that day onwards. And she remembered how her sadness had deepened because there was hardly anyone at Curtis' funeral. Junior was the only one there who had cried. And now she thought about how she had spent time with the young man and that she had not truly known him. And she thought about the possibility that her merely knowing him was enough to contribute to his death. And iciness engulfed her veins.

  *****

  Madie sat hunched in a corner seat of the intercity train heading to Manchester. She had a book open in front of her, but she wasn’t reading it. She had not turned a page since her departure from London. She was merely using the book as a foil against neighbourly passengers. She flinched every time she thought someone was about to sit next to her. She double flinched if a man so much as moved a muscle in her direction. Her greatest fear was that Detective Inspector Deed would embark at any one of the many stops along the route. He'll come after me . Madie sensed that tracking her down was an intrinsic part of the investigator in his nature. After only two meetings with Deed, she felt as though she was beginning to understand Robert Deed the man. It was also as though some part of him had passed to her through osmosis when they had touched in his office. In her mind’s eye she saw a clear vision of him mounting the steps of the intercity from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly.

  Every time the train approached a new stop she tensed with dread. She held her breath as she watched the doors. They wooshed shut and she began to breathe again. She would not be able to relax completely until she was off the train and ensconced in Brendan’s front room. Her youngest brother had been surprised but pleased at her insistence that she needed to visit him immediately.

  Andrew Carson aka The Liar

  I lie for a living. I lie about what I do and I lie about who I do business with. I don't know any other way to be. I told my first out and out lie at the age of 8. When I got away with this bare faced whopper scot free I found it gave me a buzz that would never top any
thing drug induced. My lies became more elaborate as time went on. I had a particularly good time utilising them at Edgworth Grammar School, actually a Comprehensive but they still fancied themselves if you get my drift. So we got to wear blazers and pretend we’d passed the 11 plus. Mr Gaylord was a right nancy and would witter on and on about courtly love and the knights of the round table. The stories were alright, but all that god forsaken poetry drove me barmy.

  I lied to Brendan’s sister when I told her she was model material. She was far too short for the catwalk stuff and mixed race faces had not made it into the pages of catalogues as yet. I could have got her a small time job, just to keep the pretence up of course. I knew she’d buy it. She was young. She was supremely naive. Just the way I liked them.

  I took her to that club off Regents Street. The modelling agency, Prestige, was having an after party following London Fashion Week. The whole bloody family traipsed along; the sister, the other sister, the brother and the sister’s boyfriend.

  When I first met her I didn't realise she was Brendan’s sister. They certainly didn’t look alike — chalk and cheese, even in the way they spoke. And not to mention Brendan’s a bloody giant and no-one could have thought he was only sixteen. He scarcely needed to use his fake ID to get into clubs. Now Brendan’s useful to know. I met him at a club in Brixton and he got me hooked up with a dealer he knows. He’s heading off to university when school’s all said and done. What a shame. Waste of a good talent. He could have been my apprentice, but he seems set on this whole education lark. Who’d have thought it - boy from Brixton interested in further education. Go figure.

  I came on to Madie straight away. She was a prime piece of arse. There was no denying that. Even after Brendan cautioned me I continued to pursue her. The warnings of fraternal wrath did not deter my lust for this lithesome young thing. I was drawn to her. Forbidden fruit and all that.

  She was new to it all, fresh out of sixth form college, thinking about going on to further education but not set in her ideas like Brendan. She bubbled over with enthusiasm as she told me her plans for the future. I kept the Breezers coming and slipped a little narcotic cocktail in the last melon flavoured one then sat back and waited for it to take effect.

  It was all going so well till the sister’s boyfriend with the ridiculous bandanna and the Portuguese prick swagger came bursting in double barrel fingers blazing. His image didn’t quite match the knight on a white charger that he was aiming for. But I took my hands off her and held them up as though confronted by a gun wielding sheriff. I backed away still licking the flavour of melon Bacardi Breezer from my lips.

  Chapter 5

  Detective Inspector Deed had known Madie Bricot would run. He had not been sure where, but he had been certain she would. Inside of himself; the man, Robert Deed, felt a small nervous fluttering which he knew to be Madie's panic. He knew this as certainly as he knew that his lungs processed the oxygen he took in every day.

  He told himself he was following her to tie up loose ends. He thought with shame of his bullying tactics at her sister's house to procure information. When he found Junior Bricot lolling on the steps he knew the soft faced youth could be easily manipulated. Deed did not fear reprisals. He knew how to be subtly intimidating when he wanted to be.

  He sat now in a first class carriage of the intercity train to Manchester. He was unusually struggling his way through a Times crossword to distract himself from the fear he would not find her and a disquiet that he was on the verge of killing his career. At the edges of the newspaper he began creating anagrams with Madie Bricot's name. He started off with four and five letter words he could find in her name.

  RAID, TRAID, MAID, BRAID

  Madie, not Madison . The name had come to him so easily in the interview, as though he had always called her that. The truncated version of her name pleased him, seemed to fit with her personality and physique. He put all the letters of her name together and tried making long nonsense words from the symbols.

  MADIEBRICOT

  TRIBMAIDOC

  DIMABCOTRI

  DAMBICORTI

  BACIDIMORTE

  Deed looked at his watch - six minutes to go before arrival. Beneath the list of words he rewrote his final nonsense word in larger letters, allowing his pen to trace over each letter again till there was a distinct indentation in the paper. He boxed the word and turned the box into a three dimensional image.

  BACIDIMORTE

  Deed then drew a stack of boxes above this until it looked like a set of steps leading into the unknown.

  Why kid yourself Robert? This is not about the case at all. It's all about her. What is it about this girl that has you behaving like this? Why don't you just get on the next train back to London as soon as you get off from this one? She’s definitely involved in these deaths. Either she’s an accomplice or she’s a murderer. Every instinct you have is telling you all this. Even her own testimony damns her. The fact she was with these men shortly before their deaths is circumstantial evidence. Pass the facts on. Let someone else deal with the case.

  He sighed. It's the scent of her, the look of her, the feel of her. You bloody fool Robert Deed.

  Deed glanced out of the window. People around him began to gather their belongings together. He tossed his newspaper onto the table and it slid into the arm of the businessman sitting across from him.

  "So sorry." Deed exclaimed, but the man's eyes were resting on Robert's scribbled letters at the edge of the paper. He snapped his laptop shut and addressed Deed. "If you put spaces, the words, they are Italian."

  “What?”

  “The letters you write. They are Italian words.”

  Deed looked at the man with consternation.

  “You do not speak Italian?”

  “No.” He felt some shame at this admission. Italy was one of his favourite holiday destinations and he was always thinking about learning Italian but never seemed to find the time to fulfil the ambition.

  The man picked up Deed's pen and rewrote the figures on the paper, this time with spaces between letters to form Italian words: BACI - DI - MORTE.

  One word in particular jumped out at Robert. I don't need to speak Italian to know what that word means. He felt a cold shiver pass from the base of his neck and all the way down his spine to his coccyx.

  “The words you write here.” The man indicated with a manicured forefinger. “They are baci di morte. In English, you say...‘kiss of death’.”

  Deed had been poised with his hand on the luggage rack above his seat, but now he sat back down in his seat heavily. A rush of bile rose and stuck in Deed's throat. The train had come to a standstill. The Italian looked at him quizzically for some response but when none came he shrugged and left the Englishman to his bemused thoughts.

  It was only when the cleaning crew began circulating in his carriage that Deed finally gathered himself together and disembarked. He looked down towards the back of the train and his eye caught Madie's now familiar profile exiting a nearby carriage. We were on the same train...

  Madie was scanning the platform. She saw him and stopped dead in her tracks. Oh God. What do I do?

  On Madie’s face Deed saw a look of intense fear. Her travel sac was slung over one shoulder. She wrapped her arms around herself as though she was cold.

  Departing passengers weaved their way to the station’s exit between the trapped souls.

  “Madie!” She jerked her head towards the sound. Deed turned his head to see who called to her. It was a young man. It had to be her brother Brendan. For Deed it seemed her brother’s voice broke the freezing spell for Madie. She ran towards her brother.

  Detective Inspector Deed was moving after her, showing his warrant card, apprehending her, cuffing her. Robert Deed, the man, remained rooted to the spot on which he stood. Like the child who fears to step on the cracks in the pavement, he found he could not move from the platform tile on which he stood; thinking if he did so, what he’d heard the Italian say would someh
ow, ridiculously, be true. And if it was true? Well what then? What then?

  As Madie rushed alongside an immobilised Deed a sob escaped her lips. Her now familiar scent wafted past him. As she looked back at him Deed thought he saw her tears pooling then spilling over.

  Even as the detective in him battled with the paperwork logistics of taking her in, the man found himself repulsed. He had touched her. He had held her. He had, to all intents and purposes, kissed her. And in his mind he had imagined more than the chaste kiss in his office. He did not want to touch her again. A thousand tiny insects of revulsion crawled over his skin.

  Detective Inspector Deed clenched his fists and cursed Robert Deed futilely as he watched Madie Bricot disappear from sight. His senses and thought processes felt paralysed. Only after another intercity and a local had made their way into the station did he find he could move and think again. What did this mean for him? Was he days away from being a corpse on a cold coroner’s slab? How long had it been since that kiss in his office? Perhaps he was only moments away from death. These thoughts and more assailed his confused mind. Another more rational side of him was angered by the hysteria he felt himself succumbing to. I’m a man who deals in facts, cold, hard, evidence led facts. This, this is absurdity!

  Finally Deed walked up the platform and onto the station concourse with a heavy tread. He glanced at the main exit of the station almost expecting to see Madie reappear. He turned resignedly towards the ticket counter. There were no other passengers waiting to be served.

  “A single to London please.” He said.

  Manchester (i)