An Innocent Man

by Mark Z. Kammell

vastness of life) and yet truly believe in essential goodness. We are all the machine, we are collectively one, that can say yes or no and devour art and poetry to stay alive as much as we devour flesh and blood, and yet for the machine to survive that is not enough, it must see the scales of justice balanced. And I will balance them for you, Mark Forth, no matter how long it takes I will search you out, I will find you and I will destroy you, for what you have done to Angel and Anna, for what you have done to Sylvia and most of all for what you have done to me.

  Beryl told me that she couldn’t help me with this, couldn’t protect me from this. She said I would have to accept the consequences of my actions. I suspected, for the record, that this was her choice and that if she had chosen, she would have been able to do something – she was very resourceful – but she looked at the scene, she looked at my bloody hands and Sylvia’s dying body and the bloody mess everywhere and she made up her mind. Of course, I can’t blame her – the evidence was pretty damning and Mark had, again, been very clever in covering his tracks and leaving no trace of his presence. He was still using the VDE, I gathered – and why wouldn’t he – to be a serial killer having such a device at your disposal and choosing not to use it would be completely idiotic, and much as I didn’t like the man, he was no fool – so when Beryl checked the closed loop camera system (the first thing she did after calming me down) there was of course no sign of him. I did explain this to her, but she looked tired and angry; even then, I think maybe if I had had the time we could have had a reasonable discussion on it, but then Lou suddenly turned up and started to scream the place down, accusing me of being the embodiment of evil and calling for the wrath of God to be brought down on me. Lou, who I had lain with. Lou, who I had conspired with against Mark, who had entrusted me to find out his secrets, who had turned me into a villain because she couldn’t handle the thought of her own husband’s moral bankruptcy and his sordid secrets. Beryl had to restrain her as she came at me, her hands outstretched like claws, as if she wanted to rip my face to shreds, to rip my heart out and stamp on it, such anger and hatred that I have never seen before, never knew existed, as if she had forgotten that I was me, and instead saw me as a savage beast that had come to claim her loved ones and her life. Even Beryl, strong and powerful as she was, struggled to hold back Lou’s ferocity and she managed to swipe her had across my face, her nails tearing strips into my cheeks, as I could only sit, taut and inert in fright and awe.

  Let me see, Lou hissed when it was clear she was losing the battle, at least let me see, and reluctantly Beryl loosened her grip, Lou tearing herself away to climb the stairs and stand solemnly over Sylvia’s destroyed body. Beryl and I both looked on as Lou knelt down and seemed to be turning Sylvia to face upwards, and Lou bent her head down close over her and I thought she may even have kissed her. I didn’t want this; I didn’t want the last intimate contact with Sylvia to be from anyone but me, but Beryl was holding me tight and I could do nothing else except let the energy and anger slide out of me and allow myself to give up and allow events to unfold, and hope that I would see Sylvia again to be able to say goodbye properly. Even when the police turned up, cuffing me so tight that my wrists started to bleed, I couldn’t bring myself to fight them. Even when I was dragged away, thrown into the back of a van, dark and cold and thrown about as we made our way God knew where, I couldn’t do anything to protect myself. Even when the police photographer raised his eyebrows at Detective Justin Dredd, as he took pictures of my bruised and bloody face, I didn’t protest. And the cell I found myself in stank of human excrement and death, and I sat in the corner, arms over my knees and closed my eyes and waited.

  Maker and Dredd dragged me back again, maybe a few hours later, for questioning, but I was feeling too ill and faint to be able to remember much of what happened. Dredd, by now, I had understood, was a vindictive bastard who cared more about hounding people he didn’t like than about justice. Maker tried to present himself as more reasonable, but even through the dark light I could tell this was a poorly executed façade, and he was as much a sadist as his colleague. He did bring me some water, which I could barely taste through my cracked lips, and he did offer me a cigarette which I smoked voraciously, inhaling the fumes as if they would burn and cleanse the darkness inside. They fired ceaseless questions at me about what my movements had been and what my motivations were, why I thought it necessary to make such a nasty wound and smear my ex-wife’s blood all over her flat, and why again I had just sat there and waited rather than run and hide like the rat I was. I told you we should have locked him up and thrown away the key, Dredd had said. We let fucking killers out on bail because of our so called liberal values and then we’re surprised when they carry on killing. I wasn’t surprised, he had said. I could see it in that bastard’s eyes the moment I saw him. Perverse and morally bankrupt and yet still we afford him the same privileges and permissions that we do for decent, upstanding citizens. And how does he repay us? By rushing straight from the arms of the law to his ex-wife and taking his frustrations out on her. What a sick bastard. Dredd talked about me as if I wasn’t there, displaying his hatred and contempt like a badge. And then there was me. I tried to explain, tried to protest my innocence, I tried to tell them about the VDE and about Mark and how he had warned me, then acted on his warnings without giving me a chance, how he was not what he seemed but instead acted out corrupt fantasies as a reaction to the desolation of his existence. I didn’t know this, I only suspected, but I did suspect. Dredd snorted and slapped me hard, round the face, opening up my earlier wounds that had only just started to heal. Maker put his hand on Dredd’s arm to prevent him from further violence, and calmly explained that they had clear, incontrovertible proof that Mark was dead; he had been dead for about five days, in fact, and therefore I may want to start thinking about a different line of defence, if I was stupid enough to think that I had any chance in such an open and shut case. I sniffed and asked for a lawyer, holding my hands over my still bleeding cheek. Dredd, predictably, exploded with indignation but Maker calmed him down and told me, harshly, that I would get my lawyer, even if I didn’t deserve it, I would get my lawyer, because they respected the systems of justice and everyone’s right to representation. They both got up and left, and I half expected Mark to walk back in and sit down with that self-satisfied smirk of a job well done. This time, though, he was absent, and I sat alone looking at the white polystyrene cup with its dregs of cold coffee and a solitary cigarette butt floating in it.

  It must have been hours and no one came, leaving me to with nothing but my thoughts and fears. I think, you know, I think this was the first time that I actually realised I may be in trouble – I had always been sure that the truth would find a way to the surface, that Mark would make a mistake and be caught, or at the very least that the evidence would clearly point in his direction. I had always thought that Lou would come around, that Sylvia would see the truth in me, and I knew that Beryl had my back. I was also pretty sure that X would vouch for me, and that if anything happened, he would see things right, but God knew what he would make of this situation, even if he knew. Now, however, not only was I having to deal with the emotional turmoil of what had happened to Sylvia, and what that bastard had done, but also the fact that I was here, me! Me! The strangeness of the situation baffled me. I am a simple man and I take people as I find them, I don’t look for secret agendas, ulterior motives or even for the sounds and lights of emotion that drive people to do what they do. I don’t believe in self actualisation or the search for an eternal truth that exists outside of science; I believe in a need for safety, acceptance and power and that anything else is extraneous. Yes, maybe we are the lost generation, maybe we won’t add anything to the great book of humanity that chronicles our spiritual development, maybe we are the first, even, to take a step backwards and openly worship wealth, power and decadence as our religion but won’t we have had so much fun on the journey! And who can blame us, with our discovery of the fragility of o
ur planet, and the globality of our struggles, what else can we do except for party like it’s the end of time, because, quite probably, it is. And we may blame ourselves for what we have done, but I say we had no choice; we were just the ones left standing when the music stopped. The fact that no other generation did what we did is irrelevant – the only reason is that they didn’t have the means. We have brought ourselves, through our understanding of science, yes, even through our understanding of human nature, to the bleeding, blinding edge where we had no choice but to fall. And I have a right to my part in that, I will have to endure the drop so I want the right to join the party rather than being slung into the depths of a hellish prison. Why should I suffer, why should I pay for the mistakes of others, and suffer in silence? For Mark, a selfish, arrogant bastard, who played out his own fantasies in a way that was just unacceptable; for Anna, a girl too stuck up to notice her own frailty, and yet too fragile to deal with the