The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  For a brief instant there was a flash of light. It was not the presence but something else. A brief instant. At least time existed, he told himself. The light had seemed like a flower. Do flowers flash?

  "Who are you?" he asked.

  Another thought welled up. Perhaps he was awakening, although he was not aware of sleeping or even drowsing. But this was no dream. What was it? What is most like to a dream?

  The light flashed again— this time more intensely— and began to move. Nothing around him indicated this was the case, rather he was convinced it was so. Concern gripped him as the vacuum began to fade. He felt it was not the first time and that he had suffered in that silence on other occasions. How many times? The belief began to grip him, like waves running ahead of a storm, harbingers of panic and shipwreck.

  He realized that he still had memories, leftovers from some previous existence, that threatened to bear down on him in some crushing avalanche. He felt he was getting tangled in an awful web from which there could be no escape.

  The light winked again. It was not exactly a wink, more a pulsing, a palpitation, like a heartbeat, evoking something.

  He remembered. Understanding dawned as he relived the experience. A tongue of flame had frozen his heart. The lover had killed him out of love— for her. Love, the reason for everything: life, madness, death. Love, the everlasting excuse and justification.

  So that was death… light, silence, light, vacuum, light, nothingness. The presence became more oppressive and drew closer. The other being also moved toward the flower of light, toward him.

  He could not remember the lover's face. He had hardly glimpsed him before the man brandished the knife, before he could even imagine his existence. She had always shown herself to be so sweet, so in love, even after the abortion when she finally broke down and wept. How could he have guessed that she planned his murder and wanted him dead. Maybe he was not yet dead and the silence that enveloped him just the last thread by which his life hung while she and the lover dragged his body to some hiding place.

  He should have guessed. The curtains in the living room were almost always drawn open until well into the evening. The light streamed in through the open windows. She disliked the shade and a game of shadows on the wall terrified her— some remnant of childhood nightmares. That evening she had kissed him and led him into the darkened living room— circumstances that he had read wrongly. Even the kiss, which was unusually passionate, should have led him to suspect something. She had been distant of late, wrapped up in herself. He had thought this to be just one of her frequent changes of mood. Being used to her mercurial nature, he had thought nothing of it. It was just the way she was. However his killer was there, lurking behind the curtains. It was like something out of a B-movie thriller but no less effective for all that. When she hugged him and opened his mouth with her tongue, the hand that held the knife parted the curtains and stabbed him in the back. He was speechless, his last breath of air escaping between his teeth, a bite on emptiness. The air spilled out and he sagged into her arms. The shadows in the living room turned into the blackness of nothingness. Where had he awoken?

  What had they planned to do with his corpse— put it in the car and fake an accident? His carbonized body would be rendered unrecognizable as would the wide, deep stab wound. Tongues of flame would blister his flesh, consume him, turn him to ashes. The deed done, there would be nothing to spoil the happiness of the two killer-lovers. They would never be found out— she was too clever, slippery, and single-minded. She was a superb liar, it simply came naturally. It was now all so clear.

  He had met her two years ago and fallen hopelessly in love. She had broken up a long relationship that had shackled her to the point where she exhibited signs of schizophrenia. Her partner was a drunk and she had sexual problems that went way back, making her timid to advances and off-putting to the opposite sex. Despite that, she remained beautiful, her white skin and slightly darkened eyelids emphasising the black voracity of her eyes and her pale rose-colored lips. He had fallen for her immediately and quickly went from protector and confidant to doting husband with dizzying speed, scarcely without realizing it. It had to be admitted that it was a happy marriage, while it lasted. He had never suspected her of the least unfaithfulness. She had proved herself a skilled lover in bed, had grown more passionate and overcome her old inhibitions. Daily life had gone by with no upsets worthy of mention, except when it came to the abortion.

  He had forced her to abort, persuading her that it was for the best, that children destroy their parents and only serve to deprive others of their freedom through their relentless cruelty and selfishness. He had never been a child. It was the right choice. She had resisted the abortion out of religious conviction and also because she desperately wanted to be a mother. Motherhood was what she most yearned for, a kind of saving grace in her life. However she finally gave in to his threats. He made her give up the baby. She cried for some time after that and then the tears finally dried up.

  Why had she sought a lover? Why had they both planned his murder? He had saved her, redeemed her soul, dragged her from a hellish life. He had provided for her and satisfied her least whim. She had no grounds for complaint.

  A wave of hatred overcame him, thrusting him deeper into his dark agony. The pain almost made him shout in that deathly silence. His soul, what of his soul? He looked inward in a desperate attempt to resist the evil that was trying to tear him apart and emanated from the other presence. The hatred was accompanied by deception, frustration, falling out of love, a savage lethal instinct as the tongue of flame pursued him beyond death, without letting up.

  Finally he saw the tongue of flame, the lover. Another intangible form. He was filled with wonder, joy, euphoria. The lover had just been a plaything in her hands, they were both little more than dismembered rag dolls in the hands of a lascivious, ruthless child who killed those whom she snared. He had fallen into her sticky web of deceit and a cloying fear had overtaken him since he began his voyage into darkness.

  She had killed him for his money, what other reason could there be? The lover moved toward him, he wanted to kill again.

  At the end of nothingness the light had grown as he drew closer to it. He realized as he got nearer that the light did not flash but simply grew and shrank.

  What was happening in the silence? There was no longer a vacuum, he was surrounded by a something tangible that acted as a balm. Was it the last rites? Oil smeared on the forehead of a newborn child? Life and death at the heart of nothingness, the successful sperm fertilized the egg, the death rattle transformed into birth pangs.

  The darkness began to oppress him. He no longer floated in a vacuum but swam in a warm, thick, all-enveloping liquid. Silence had given way to an irregular, deep heartbeat that changed in intensity, sometimes solemn, sometimes flighty, but always disturbing. A heartbeat that recalled other heartbeats, just as the earlier silence recalled other silences.

  He looked behind him at his killer. Direction and distance, endings and beginnings, epilogues and prologues existed once more. Everything was left behind: his regrets; chronic loneliness (until she appeared on the scene); a life enslaved by work; the family's emigration in the lean postwar years in search of a crust to feed too many mouths; his hatred for the unbearable and shameful mediocrity of his parents and brothers; the desperate search for brighter social circles; the little steps made toward some greater end that were merely a product of his overweening ambition; and finally his contempt for women who, despite their shammed deference and manners, had always treated him as some kind of low-life.

  How he had come to hate them! Until he met her, that was. Everything had gone swimmingly until she became pregnant. She had wanted a child. What nonsense! He had not given in to her foolishness. The son had grown inside her womb but the child was never born.

  Tearful, she had accused him of murder as they left the clinic.

  He had swiftly forgotten the episode. Women, after such an occurre
nce, become hypersensitive, hysterical, the eternal female. Forget about children, they come packaged with shit, just like when he was born.

  She cried for a while after and then her tears dried up.

  The warm thick liquid in which he floated had gone, drained away toward the pulsing flower. The parched atmosphere was unbearable.

  Ba-boom, ba-boom. The beating sound was deafening, as if that pulsing infinity in which he found himself trapped with his murderer could no longer contain so much hate and was collapsing inward, painfully crushing him and crunching the cartilage in his tiny skull.

  Something moved in front of him, so close he could almost touch it. He could feel it. He once more had a body and the movements that had surprised him were his own limbs, those of a foetus. An umbilical cord floated from his belly. The amniotic liquid and sack surrounded him, making him seem like an outsized goldfish in a plastic bag— but one made for two.

  His murderer was upon him now and was trying to strangle him with his umbilical cord. Hate overtook him. He desperately tried to place his hand between his neck and the other's umbilical cord. He managed— God knows how! —to kick out with his legs and the pressure abated for a moment and both foetuses faced each other in their ever-shrinking human cell. However the cord still threatened to tighten round his neck while an irresistible force pulled him toward the winking light. The cord tightened again like a hangman's noose and he felt himself being strangled once again. The killer was stronger than he and had greater freedom of movement. He kicked forlornly. Almost half his head was now wedged between living walls, which relentlessly sucked him in. What unbearable pain! Perhaps death was not the end but merely the endless prolongation of the throes of agony? How many times must a man die and how man times shall he rise again? He was overcome with panic and thrashed desperately, doubling up his tiny body in his frantic struggles. The pressure round his neck ceased and he was immediately sucked into that pulsing maelstrom. Panic, it seemed, had saved him. The killer foetus's umbilical cord had slipped off and released him during his last sudden contortion. Then the ghastly truth dawned— panic had not saved him but rather condemned him to live again. He lost consciousness and forgot everything of his former existence. At that precise moment God's voice boomed out, "Twins!" His murderer was born just after him.

  Denise Mina

  Helena and the Babies

  DENISE MINA hails from Glasgow, Scotland. She has won the John Creasey Golden Dagger Award, and has just started to dazzle American critics, who get all breathless and misty-eyed when her name comes up. Not that she doesn't deserve it, however, because yes, she's that good. Her story here won the The British Crime Writers' Association Award for Best Short Story. As always— the Brits being the excellent short story writers they are— the competition was intense. In "Helena and the Babies," first published in Fresh Blood III, three generations of women collide at a crossroads of mystery.

  Helena and the Babies

  Denise Mina

  Auxiliary Nurse Bentham unpacked Helena Lawrence's suitcase. They were fine clothes, silk slips in peaches and pinks, cotton blouses and linen suits. Bentham stacked them on the bed, stroking the soft material, letting her fingertips linger.

  "I'm sure Mum'll like it here," said Alison Lawrence to Matron. She hadn't looked at Bentham once. "She chose this very bed for Grandma."

  "You have my sympathy." Said Matron gently, "This must have been a very hard time for you."

  "It has," said Alison tearfully. "First Grandma dying and now Mum getting so bad so suddenly. At least she's somewhere familiar."

  The nurses called it the Babies' Room because it had been a nursery and the occupants were all confused and doubly incontinent. Set at the very top of the big house with a low arched ceiling, it had a cozy, enclosed feel. During the winter the room filled with warm yellow light, and the tops of the trees filled the windows, keeping the room cool in summer. There were six beds in the room. At the end of each sat an old woman in a comfy, urine-proof armchair. Creeping blindness and wild confusion meant that, despite months of intimate proximity, the Babies were hardly aware of one another's existence.

  Helena's own mother had spent three months sitting at the end of this bed by the window. Helena adored her mother and had chosen the home and the bed carefully. The summer light had warmed dear Elizabeth's feet at teatime, just as it did Helena's now. The tapping of the tree branches against the window caught Elizabeth's attention, as it did Helena's now. Elizabeth had died within three months of moving in. It was often difficult, said Matron, for older residents to make the transition from home. And now, only one month after her death, Elizabeth's only daughter was here to take her place.

  Alison bent down to the wheelchair and took her mother's hand. The bones and veins and sinews were visible through the paper skin. Helena looked vacantly upward, her mouth hanging open, knowing that her hand was being touched, unaware of why or by whom.

  "Mum," said Alison, "It's me, Mum."

  Matron noticed the likeness between them, from their slight physiques to their long, angular faces and coifed white hair. She was secretly surprised that Elizabeth had declined so quickly, she seemed a robust little woman with a strong heart but over a single cold winter weekend she declined and her heart failed.

  A young nurse bustled into the room. She was short and had a punky black hairdo. She blushed when she saw Matron with a visitor,

  "Sorry, Matron. I'm… I'm here to do the afternoon teas."

  "Very good, Nurse. Nurse Thomas, this is Helena Lawrence and this is her daughter, Mrs. Tombery." Matron turned to Alison, "This is one of our newest nurses. Nurse Thomas looks young but she has a lot of experience, don't you, Nurse?"

  Nurse Thomas smiled shyly as she moved quickly around the room, clearing the tables for the tea trays.

  "Where did you work before this?" asked Alison.

  "Oadby Hospital," said Nurse Thomas quietly.

  "Well, I hope you're happy here," said Alison. "And I especially hope you'll take good care of my mum."

  Alison took her mother's hand again, patting it and smiling sadly. Sour, hot urine flooded Helena's wheelchair, cascading onto the linoleum floor, splashing on Alison Tombery's linen dress. She dropped her mother's hand and leaped back from the splattering spill, frantically brushing at the piss on her dress. She looked at her wet hand and laughed weakly. "I'm so sorry," she said to Matron. "It smells… terrible."

  Matron cupped her elbow. "It smells like that because Helena's slightly dehydrated, Mrs. Tombery."

  "I don't understand, she used to be so fastidious."

  "Incontinence is never deliberate," Matron said. "You mustn't feel ashamed. Let's go downstairs and finish the paperwork. Nurse Bentham will help your mother get cleaned up."

  Matron led her from the room, nodding at Bentham to attend to Helena.

  "Thomas," said Bentham when they were out of the room, "take your break before the afternoon tea."

  Thomas cleared the final table and went upstairs, leaving Bentham alone in the room. She leaned over Helena, stroking her cheek slowly with the back of her hand. "I knew your mother," she said.

  * * *

  Thomas was hiding in the staff toilet, smoking a cigarette. She couldn't smoke in the staff room. The other nurses stopped talking when she went in there, and sat looking at her, waiting for her to leave. They all knew about the Annex because it had been in the papers, they knew about the alleged beatings, they knew nothing was ever proved against anyone and they knew that Thomas had left suddenly. They resented her even more when they found out she was working for nothing.

  Thomas had left because she couldn't take it anymore. She found herself unemployable, everywhere she applied to knew about the Annex. But she was desperate to remain in nursing, so desperate that she offered to work at Roseybank on a voluntary basis for three months. If it went well she would be offered a job. Otherwise she could leave with new references. She was spending her meager savings on bus fares.

  She
had spent the first month working as a floater between the floors, fetching and carrying from the kitchen, making the beds and toileting when the other shifts were running slow. After a month Bentham actually requested her as a shift partner for the Babies' Room. Thomas was amazed, no one else wanted to be associated with her.

  Bentham didn't trust Thomas at first. She wouldn't let her do any patient care, not even the bed baths. She gave Thomas all the heavy work to do, the toileting, the bed changes and the laundry. It only took a week for Bentham to come around and trust her: every afternoon, without fail, she left Thomas alone with the patients for an hour to manage the afternoon teas. Thomas was deeply grateful for the gesture. It sent a message to the others.

  So Thomas hung on. In less than a month and a half she'd be out of there, she'd have references and she wouldn't need to mention the Annex on her CV or get references from Staff Nurse Evans. She heard the other nurses talking about Bentham. They said she was a misery because she'd worked the Babies' Room for so long and so many of them died.