by Darren Shan
Those faint hopes disappear as soon as she enters. This woman is Andeanna Menderes. As broken and haggard as she is, I’ve studied the photos of her long enough to know the real deal when faced with it. But there isn’t a chance in hell that she’s the woman who seduced me. Her face is lined with pain and madness, marks that no amount of make-up could disguise. Her hands are thin, twisted spindles at the ends of her bony arms. She walks hunched over. Her hair is grey, poorly cut, the ends jagged and torn. This is the true, present-day Andeanna. My ghost was an illusion, a clever reconstruction of a face from the past. I see that now. More importantly, I accept it. Whoever – whatever – my lover was, she wasn’t a rejuvenated, vengeful Mrs Menderes.
Tears stream down my face. So many years of dry ducts, and now here I am, reduced to waterworks for the second time in twenty-four hours. Her beauty sets me off. Because despite her appearance, the empty eyes and the shuffling movements, she is beautiful. A woman old before her time, cruelly robbed of her mind and personality, a soul in suffering. But still a beauty to behold.
Something waves at the corner of my vision – Dr Tressman offering a white handkerchief. Smiling sadly, I shake my head. I don’t want to wipe away the tears. I enjoy the warmth of them on my cheeks. They’re an assurance that in spite of all I’ve done and been, I’m still partly human.
‘How could they do this to her?’ I weep. ‘Killing her would have been kinder. Leaving her like this . . . destroying her mind . . . ’
‘I agree,’ Tressman sighs. ‘Death would have been a blessing.’
‘Isn’t there something you could do? An injection?’
‘Yes,’ he murmurs. ‘And I have considered it, not only for Miss Emerson, but others like her. But I have sworn an oath to protect life, not take it. Besides, who am I to decide such matters? Miracles do happen. I have seen people like Miss Emerson, in some cases worse, emerge from the depths of lost madness and resume their lives where they left off.’
‘But you said her brain has been destroyed.’
‘It has,’ he nods. ‘But while we know much about the brain, we know nothing of the soul. I do not expect Miss Emerson to recover. I would class it as an impossibility. But the chance, as slim as it is, exists. Where there is life, there is hope. That stays my hand, even in my darkest hours, when I bear witness to pain of the most horrendous degree.’
‘Give me the choice,’ I whisper. ‘I’d put her out of her misery.’
‘That is why you will never be given such an option,’ he says with a wry smile. ‘We must trust our weak and damaged to those with the strength to endure their suffering, or else they would be at the mercy of those without.’
‘I can show mercy,’ I growl, disliking the implication.
‘Can you, Mr Sieveking? Can you really?’
I think of the people I’ve killed. I run my gaze over the ghosts pressed close around me — they seem as fascinated by the woman in the room as I am. I don’t answer.
The nurse remains with Andeanna, but retires to a corner to read a creased novel. Andeanna wanders while I watch in hidden silence. She runs her fingers over colourful paintings on the walls (they look like they were painted by children, but are probably the work of the inmates) and smiles a ghostly, stop-start smile. She halts before a picture of a bright blue boy with a huge head and stares at it, her smile spreading, then presses her forehead against the figure’s stomach and keens sharply.
‘What’s happening?’ I ask, startled.
‘That was drawn by a man who has been here almost as long as Miss Emerson,’ Tressman says. ‘He is more balanced and experiences spells of clarity. He has a crush on her. When he learnt that she once had a child, he painted that picture for her. She recognizes it sometimes and mourns for what is lost.’
‘I thought you said she was beyond recognition.’
‘She remembers certain things, occasionally, in ways we do not understand.’
‘Then she’s not entirely brain-dead?’
He shrugs. ‘When her real son comes to see her, she does not know who he is. A man paints a surreal picture of a child he has never seen, and it stirs something inside her. Traces of her humanity remain, but they are subtle and impossible to define.’ He rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘She cannot be rescued, if that is what you are asking.’
Andeanna turns from the painting and shuffles into the middle of the room. Her eyes are wide-open pools of nothingness. She sits on the floor, clears a space and lays down her dolls. She cocks her head and studies them, then picks up the larger doll and plucks at its hair.
‘She will play with that until we take her back to her room,’ Tressman says. ‘She will treat it as her son, feed it imaginary sweets, maybe bare a breast and suckle it.’ He coughs discreetly. ‘I will have to ask you to leave if that happens.’
As I watch, Andeanna lays the doll in her lap, picks up the other – a girl – and removes its dress, which she slides down over her surrogate son, smiling and gurgling. Next she rocks the doll in her arms and makes choked sounds.
I want to leave but I can’t tear myself away. It’s not just that I feel sorry for her. Part of me wants to stay. It thinks that I belong here too. I can feel insanity stirring within myself. It would be so easy to surrender, abandon the real world, the quest for truth, the need for knowledge, and just join Andeanna in her aimless, carefree life. Sit in a room, gurgle over childish paintings, dress up dolls, let others do the worrying and planning. In a warped sort of way, it would be heaven.
But this isn’t a time for heaven. This is a time for hell. There can be no sanctuary until I’ve stripped the lie of all its trimmings, revealed the truth of who I fell in love with and lost my soul to. If I gave up now, I’d be haunted for ever. There could be no rest. I wouldn’t be sitting with Andeanna, playing with dolls. I’d be locked away where my screams couldn’t frighten the rest of the patients.
Andeanna slaps the floor with one hand, clutching the doll to her chest with the other. Her face contorts and she slaps the floor again. The nurse hurries over to a locked cupboard set high on one of the walls, opens it and produces a small bag.
‘Drugs?’ I ask, preparing to leave, unwilling to be a witness to the deliberate doping of Andeanna Menderes.
‘Nothing so monstrous,’ Tressman smiles.
The nurse hands Andeanna the bag, the contents of which she shakes out on to the floor. I’m relieved to see nothing more frightening than everyday cosmetics – lipstick, mascara, rouge. Andeanna’s fingers scuttle over the tubes and cases, then settle on the lipstick, which she starts to apply with surprising care and precision to the doll’s stiff plastic lips.
‘Now there will be no shifting her,’ Tressman notes. ‘When she starts this, she loses herself for hours at a time.’ He glances at me. ‘If you like, I could take you in. She will not notice anything other than the doll now that she is focused on it.’
I shake my head. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ I whisper.
Tressman’s lips purse. ‘May I ask what your interest in Miss Emerson is? I know I am not meant to, and you do not have to answer, but . . . ’
‘I was her lover,’ I answer softly.
He stares from me to Andeanna and back again. ‘Before she was admitted?’
‘More recently than that.’
His features crease. ‘I do not understand.’
‘Me neither,’ I reply with a choked, bitter laugh.
One last lingering look at Andeanna and her lifeless baby, then I turn away. ‘I’d like to leave now.’
‘You are sure?’
‘I’ve seen what I came for. There’s nothing more for me here. I don’t know if there’s anything beyond either, but I can’t stay here and hide, can I?’ Tressman stares at me, confused. I laugh bitterly. ‘It’s OK. I don’t expect an answer.’
‘Do you have somewhere to sleep tonight?’ Tressman asks, opening the door.
‘I don’t know. I might head back to London. Is there a train this late?’
�
�I doubt it. I can recommend a good hotel instead.’
‘Thanks. If you knew the day I’ve had . . . ’ I manage a short smile. ‘I’m dead on my feet. I think I could sleep through a . . . ’
I come to a standstill, not sure why I’ve stopped. An image of a doll flashed through my mind, but it wasn’t the doll Andeanna was holding. It was a doll of the boy in the painting, the one with the enormous blue head. Except the features were different. It was my face. And it was laughing at me.
Tressman is closing the door to the viewing room. ‘Wait,’ I stop him and barge back in, the image seeming to will me on. I can almost hear the laughter. I can’t leave without knowing what the doll is snickering at.
‘Are you all right?’ Tressman asks, following me back inside.
I silence him with a sharp gesture. Thoughts collide like trains deep within my brain. Strands of the puzzle wrap together, unbidden, forming a picture. I can’t see the whole of it yet, but I know it has something to do with the woman on the other side of the glass, and more crucially with the doll whose cheeks she is now reddening with rouge. What is it about the bloody doll that so disturbs me?
Then, out of the dark waters of my consciousness, a question surfaces, and I intuitively know that it will lead to answers. I don’t know what the question means, or how it acts as the key to the puzzle, but I voice it anyway, giving it the release it demands.
‘If she thinks the doll is her son,’ I mutter to a bemused Dr Tressman, ‘why the hell is she treating it like a girl?’
TWENTY-ONE
I spend the night in the hotel recommended by the good doctor, but although it’s peaceful and I’m exhausted, I sleep fitfully, tormented by questions and murkily evolving answers.
At first I can’t believe what my instincts are telling me. I fear that the madness of the asylum has rubbed off on me, that these are the workings of a deluded mind. I waste hours denying theories I know in my heart to be true. I shy away from the revelations and desperately explore alternate solutions, but I’m damned to return each time to the warped, crazy truth.
I keep fixing on the image of the doll, how Andeanna dressed it in girl’s clothes and smeared its face with make-up. If I could escape that image, perhaps I could seek false answers elsewhere. But I can’t lie to myself, no matter how hard I try. The truth won’t let itself be denied.
By morning, I can fight no longer. I don’t know the complete story, but it won’t be difficult to fill in the gaps. Dangerous and awful, yes, but not difficult. I know who to turn to, how to find him, how to force a confession from him if he resists. No more screwing around with lies and ghosts. We’re done with that shit. Only the hellish pit of the truth remains.
On an express train back to London. Lack of sleep must be getting to me, because I don’t remember buying a ticket or boarding. The last thing I recall, I was having an early breakfast at the hotel.
I should be worried about Bond Gardiner’s warning, but I’m not. I’m sure I can slip in and out of the city before anyone clocks me. Exhaustion troubles me more than Gardiner’s threat. I don’t want to spiral out of control. I need to stay focused.
Leaning back in my seat, I close my eyes, tune out the world around me and try to sleep. But I have no more success here than I did in the hotel. The doll haunts me, fills my thoughts, lets nothing distract me. Maybe the mad don’t need to sleep. Maybe their insanity is all they require to sustain them.
In a taxi. I’ve lost track of my movements again — I have no memory of getting off the train. I look out of the window and grunt softly. I’m back in London. I feel a bulge in one of my pockets. Letting my fingers steal in to explore, I trace the outline of a gun. Axel Nelke’s. I must have gone to Heathrow, broken into the car and reclaimed it.
Leaning forward, I ask the driver if we’ll be much longer. ‘Ten minutes, guv,’ he answers cheerfully. I don’t need to ask for the destination. Sitting back, I smile softly. For the first time since the asylum, I can turn away from the image of the doll and all the questions and answers that go with it. No need to guess any longer. Ten minutes, give or take, and all will be made clear.
I phase out again. Next thing I know, I’m stealing through the grounds of the Menderes mansion. The ghosts trail along beside me, hunched over, expressions intent, as if homing in on a scent. They look like hounds. Hungry, hellish hounds about to be fed.
I sneak around back, quietly break in through a window and glide through the familiar rooms, advancing silently, encountering no one.
I find my target in the pool room, playing solo, a game where losing and winning are the same, where triumph goes hand in hand with despair. I wait for him to pot the black before stepping forward to clap slowly.
Gregory Menderes looks up, startled, raising his cue defensively. When he sees me, the tip of the cue drops, then lifts again, as if he can’t make up his mind whether I’m a threat or not. Eventually he lays the cue aside and smiles warily. ‘Mr Sanders. May I ask how you got in?’
‘The name’s Ed Sieveking,’ I reply quietly. ‘But you already knew that, didn’t you?’ Greygo’s eyes narrow, but he says nothing. ‘Who’s in the house with us?’
‘Nobody,’ he says with a smile. I take out the gun and aim. His smile vanishes. ‘Nobody,’ he repeats, sullenly this time.
‘No staff?’
‘The cleaners work early. They’re finished for the day. So are the gardeners. I cook for myself most nights. There’s nobody else.’
‘No guards?’
‘Not since my father died. I kept some here for a while, to warn off the media, but now that interest in him has diminished, they’re not needed.’
That’s a bonus. I keep the gun trained on him, readying myself for business. ‘I’ve just come back from Darlington.’ The young man’s face pales – he no longer has a tan, and I’m sure he never did, that he sprayed it on ahead of our meeting to disguise the natural colour of his flesh – and his jaw drops. It’s the reaction I anticipated. Confirmation that I’m not crazy.
‘We’re going upstairs,’ I tell him. ‘You’re going to take me to wherever you store the outfits. Then you’re going to change. If you act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll put a bullet through you where it will really hurt.’
‘Ed . . . ’ he begins.
‘Walk, Gregory. Don’t talk.’
He looks at the gun and my twitching finger, nods glumly and starts for the corridor. I let him pass, seeing so much now, telltale signs I must have subconsciously noted before but paid no heed to. Bile rises up my throat but I force it down as I fall into step behind him, careful not to get too close, taking no risks, not when I’m so close to the truth that I can feel it sliding through the hairs of my nape like a snake.
If Greygo is afraid – and he must be – he masks it well. That doesn’t surprise me. He’s used to hiding his emotions. His training in RADA, his years on the stage, his preference for character roles. I recall Andrew Moore telling me that his grandson could be a star, that fame was his for the taking. But Gregory Menderes was never interested in fame, only in honing his craft, perfecting the art of getting into the skin of the people he was pretending to be. I wish I’d researched his background more thoroughly, looked into the roles he’d taken over the years. I bet I would have found precursors. Joe and I focused on Andeanna and Mikis. We never dug into their son’s past in great depth. Didn’t think he was worth the study.
Joe . . . What would he think of this? I can never tell him, whatever the outcome. I can never tell anyone. This is the sort of truth you carry deep in your heart and never reveal. If I walk out of this alive, I’ll invent something for Joe. I’m good at that. I carved a living out of stories once upon a time.
Greygo leads me to his mother’s bedroom and heads for a built-in wardrobe.
‘Hold it,’ I snap, edging ahead of him, sliding open the doors. There are four shelves loaded with clothes and boxes. ‘Are these the costumes?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But
there’s also a bag stowed away beneath the lowest shelf. I’ll need that to create the full effect.’
I back out of the closet and tap the gun’s trigger with my finger. ‘Don’t come up with anything that looks remotely like a weapon,’ I warn him.
Greygo gets down on his knees and reaches into the dark. He emerges with a stuffed plastic bag. I tell him to dump the contents on the floor in the middle of the room. A shower of padding, corsets, bras, tights, knickers. I stare at the undergarments, then clear my throat, forcing back the bile, which is rising again. ‘Put them on,’ I croak.
He undresses without argument, revealing a smooth, shaven chest, arms and legs. He pauses at his boxer shorts. ‘Would you mind looking away?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ed, please, there’s no need to –’
‘Just do it.’
Greygo sighs dolefully, then slides down his shorts. His genitals have been waxed bare. His nudity unsettles me. I’m not homophobic, but seeing him like this, thinking of all that has passed between us, I feel nauseous. Though not as much as many men in my position might. I’m surprised by that. I thought I’d be more bothered by the gender side of things. Maybe I will be, later, when I’ve had time to think and reflect. Right now, everything has the unreal quality of a dream.
‘Get dressed,’ I snarl, averting my gaze.
It’s a complicated process. Each step must be followed in exact order. It looks uncomfortable, especially around the groin, but Greygo seems at ease and takes no notice of the biting straps.
With all the padding in place, in all the right places, he rolls on the tights and fastens the bra over the synthetic but real-looking breasts. Then he returns to the wardrobe. He picks a red dress, steps into it and slides it up over the tights, straps and padding. I expect him to turn and ask me to zip him up at the back, but he manages it himself, then slips into a pair of high-heeled shoes.
Then there’s just the wig. He takes it out of a box, fixes it in place, throws his head back and beams at me, turning on his full range of charms.
