Oleander Soul

by James Arklie

  Amanda watched the signs for a few seconds, then leaned forward, concerned, ‘Ollie?’

  One more time, she thought. ‘Ollie?’

  Ollie’s eyes flew open and exploded with tears that cascaded down her face.

  Seconds later, Amanda had her back. She offered her a wad of tissues. Ollie mopped the sweat and tears from her face.

  ‘I have to go. I’m sorry, But I have to leave. Now.’ She stood, snatched her bag from the floor and looked around for the door, disorientated.

  Amanda gently held her arm. Her voice was firm. ‘Ollie you can’t leave now. We haven’t finished. We can’t leave this here. We have to discuss what…’

  Ollie’s eyes located the door and she left at a run.

  ​ * * *

  Ollie sat in a pub, she had no idea which one, but she was getting drunk and knew she shouldn’t be. That off switch was still not available to her. Nor the one about prostitution. She’d slept with two men on the same day for her own ends. Accepting gifts from both of them. If a dealer offered her drugs right now, she would take them.

  She took a large gulp from the glass of red and stared at the door as a group of City workers tumbled in, loud, rowdy and drunk. A couple of years ago they would have been targets for sex and drugs as she manipulated their lack of an off switch.

  She closed her eyes against them and relived the horror that was now a part of her. To go from never knowing, to now having the knowledge forever, may destroy her.

  In the kitchen, lying on the floor, blood all around him, had been her father. Sitting astride his back, wearing her best yellow dress, now spattered with blood, yellow ribbons tied in her dark curly hair, was herself.

  In her right hand, she held a kitchen knife, long blade with a sharp point. The steel was red with her father’s blood.

  She blinked open her eyes as raucous laughter erupted at the bar.

  There was one moral code that Amanda hadn’t mentioned. Murder. The killing of another human being. The taking of life. Now Ollie could see it, the suppressed nightmare that had messed up her brain and her life. The reason for her mother’s thin-lipped silence.

  Ollie had killed her father.

  Chapter Twenty-Six.

  That evening Ollie sat with her mother. The alcoholic off switch in her brain did still exist and it was in the form of Lily who’d called her to see where she was. Ollie had been about to go to the bar for something stronger that would have tipped her over the edge and into senseless oblivion. God only knows what would have followed, but she wouldn’t have remembered anyway.

  Instead, she’d stepped back, walked outside, got in a taxi and gone straight to the apartment. Now she held tightly to a mug of sweet tea and wondered how, or even whether, to raise her recollections with her mother. Maybe it would be best and less painful for her mother if she didn’t know that Ollie now understood what had happened.

  In front of her the news was on. One of the headlines was the killing of the WPC at the protest march. The police were appealing for witnesses. They had CCTV and police video of the protest and were using face recognition to identify known troublemakers.

  The Assistant Commissioner was answering questions.

  ‘Yes, a violent group had infiltrated the protest. We believe with the intent of carrying out this atrocious act.’

  ‘Yes. Pre-meditated.’

  ‘No. We do not have any suspects as yet and no arrests.’

  ‘Yes. We believe it is a UK extremist organization that has carried out this brutal killing.’

  ‘No. We have not found a murder weapon.’

  ‘Yes. I can confirm it was a knife similar to that found in most kitchens. We think the killer was moved in undercover of the crowds, committed the act, and then spirited away. This was a deliberate act.’

  ‘Yes. We have images we would like to share with the public. We will be releasing the images shortly.’

  ‘Yes. We are supporting the family….’

  Ollie realised she was shivering. This had been her. She had carried out the same act. She wondered how she was going to manage to live with the knowledge she’d killed her own father.

  She put on a jumper as she watched the images play out. The violence that erupted scared her. She was there at the protest. Right there. In the middle of it. With Lily. What had possessed her to take her daughter there in the first place. She was questioning herself again and her warped decisions.

  Then she found herself leaning in and squinting at the screen. She grabbed the remote from her mother’s lap. She rewound. Watched again. Then repeated the action. She paused the image.

  There was a male, head down, moving sideways across the stream of protesters. Away from the police line. She knelt by the screen. He had a baseball cap on, but she was sure.

  It was Mark.

  Day Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ollie woke early and sat alone with a pot of tea and a slice of buttered toast. Alcohol had left her head feeling thick and dull and there was too much going on in her brain for more sleep. For a woman who’d survived on her senses and her feelings, they were either in overload or swamped.

  She needed to get a grasp on what was going on around her. A week ago, she was living some kind of life in Amal’s house. Paying her rent with sex, but hey.

  Then he’d thrown her out. No notice. Not a hint. Then the school demanded to see her and the residential home wanted her mother out. Out of the blue Mike Stockton appeared with an offer she couldn’t refuse, bringing George into the frame. Murderer or nice guy? But supposedly involved in something criminal. She’d developed the relationship the way she was being paid to do, but it was going wrong, becoming warm and cosy and not the cold and distant one it was meant to be.

  Next DI Donna Small ramps up the pressure on her. Reopening cases. Suddenly, Ollie finds out who her true father is. And that she murdered him.

  As for experimental hypnotherapy. Could she be a killer who forgets she’s done it? A sleepwalker who wakes in bed unknowing, a drunk without a memory. Or was there something more serious wrong with her brain. The horror of the thought dug a gouge in her stomach.

  You couldn’t dream this could happen to one person in eight condensed days of horror and confusion. She no longer believed in herself and didn’t trust herself to think straight and make the correct decisions.

  Small was convinced she was a killer. Death follows you, Soul. If the police dramas on TV were to be believed, Ollie’s mugshot would be on board and stretching from somewhere below her chin would be several threads. One leading to her missing partner, Stephan. A second to her natural father Billy Jones, a third to the man she now knew was her stepfather, Emmanuel Soul, a fourth to Mark and a fifth to the two junkies Stephan had killed with badly manufactured shit of some kind.

  She let her mind revisit the horror of sitting on her father’s back with the knife in her hand. How could she not remember doing that? She knew the reason. Her brain was a mess. Mushed with drugs and therapy that had gone wrong. Maybe with an inherited defect thrown in as well.

  But none of this mattered because she had a big decision to make. Her mother knew that Ollie had killed her father, but no one else did. If Ollie carried on with this it may all come out, so logic and self-preservation screamed at her to keep quiet. Drop it. Don’t go back to Amanda and don’t mention it to her mother again.

  She felt comfortable with that for one, whole mouthful of toast, then she saw the flaws. Where had her mother hidden the body? There was no way she could have moved it herself.

  So, at least one other person knew.

  She crunched her toast. Who was that person or persons?

  Ollie put sugar into her tea, buttered more toast and took it through to the lounge. She flopped into the soft settee and looked around her. She had all this. It was the blueprint of her future. She loved it, she wanted more of it. Lily and her mother were asleep in warm, comfortable beds. They all had the security of a home.

  A word c
ame into her mind for the first time. Manipulation. Had someone created the shit she was in? But that brought with it the word ‘deliberate’, and that was not possible.

  She let the word drift away because somewhere there was sense in all of this. Was it random or was there a pattern? Did she just have to keep twisting the Rubic cube enough times to see the pattern emerge?

  She put on the news, waiting to see if there were any updates on the killer of the WPC. The police had blown up a grainy picture of the man in the baseball cap. It was Mark. The police wanted to identify this man and the two men next to him.

  Then her nightmare darkened as she saw herself in the surrounding crowd. There was only a depth of three people between her and Mark. Had she really got that close? She didn’t remember, but in her desperation to find Lily, maybe she had.

  She kept watching until they moved on to ‘other news’ and she stood, preparing to wake Lily and her mother. She rinsed her mug and plate and put the kettle on before wandering back through the lounge.

  She stopped dead.

  It only takes a second, she thought. One shitty, little second to have your life go nuclear. Insert the needle and press the plunger, drink that second bottle of vodka, take the unknown drug. Destruction follows.

  The screen now had a picture of a man pulled from the River Thames in the early hours of the morning. She felt the tea and toast heaving in her chest and forced it back down. The man hadn’t been identified, but she knew who he was.

  The smiling face of Mike Stockton swam before her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Small was bristling with energy as she raced up the stairs to the DCI’s office. Andy came behind her, heaving on the handrail and taking two steps at a time with a loping stride.

  John Buxton leaned back in his chair. ‘I’m all yours Small but keep it sharp.’

  ‘The male at the protest is Mark Anderson. Found murdered in the back of a car yesterday. Time of death put at the night of the demonstration. He’s linked to my investigations into Oleander Soul. The car was found in her underground parking space. She was selling him sex. He had plans to run away with her, which might have been plans to run together.’

  Buxton reached for his phone to call the investigating team. Small stopped him. ‘There’s more. The man pulled from the Thames was seen by me yesterday handing over a payment to Amal Khan. Khan told me the man was a copper but refused to give me a name or details.’

  Buxton interrupted. ‘Identified as Mike Marston, a research biochemist at Guy’s Hospital. His wife called. Definitely not a copper.’

  Small blinked. That made no sense, but she went on, desperate to cement the link. ‘Amal Khan’s brother, Stephan, disappeared six months ago. Main suspect and his partner at that time is the same Oleander Soul who until a few days ago was living in Amal’s house.’

  Buxton made calls to the teams investigating the two murders, then returned his attention to Small. ‘Theories?’

  Small looked to Andy and back. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Chief. It’s twists and turns. All I do know is one name runs through all this the way Weymouth runs through a stick of rock. Oleander Soul.’

  ​ * * *

  Negatives can be good and Ollie had two that morning. No one came and asked her about Mike Stockton and no one came to give her notice on the apartment or introduce themselves as her new police handler.

  She found that strange. At the Café she chopped vegetables, prepared meals and waited. Stockton had worked for the NCA. No mention had been made in the news bulletin that he was a police officer. Was he undercover? But still, a murdered policeman? The killing of the WPC was still all over the news and it was clear that the police were throwing everything at tracking her killer.

  Stockton was Ollie’s handler so, surely, they would want to know when she’d last seen him. Ask her what information she’d passed on. Had he said anything to her about being in danger. But no one came.

  She thought about the USB and the information it contained, downloaded from George’s Blackberry. Was Mike’s death something to do with that? Had George found out, killed Mike to stop him passing on the information and at the same time retrieved the USB?

  If that was the case, then George knew what she’d done. Did that put her in danger?

  She was like a three-year old child. All she had was questions and no understanding. She was surrounded by something dangerous. It was lurking out there, growing in the darkness and getting closer. An octopus, unravelling its tentacles, waving them towards her face from the dark, twisting currents of the sea. Waiting for its chance to wrap her up and pull her in. A sense of impending doom churned like a liquid in her gut.

  As another sunny June morning drifted away on the haze, a third thing didn’t happen. George didn’t appear. She hadn’t seen him since the night he arrived with the record player and an armful of Motown. That was the evening before Mark’s body was discovered. He’d been right there in the same building. She was desperate not to read anything into it, but Mark’s words were still loud in her ears.

  After lunch the Café calmed down and in between tidying tables Ollie paused at the notice board just inside the main door. Anyone was allowed to post anything there for free. It was monitored by Jo who didn’t want call girl business cards and the like.

  Still, Ollie was surprised by some of the posters that Jo had allowed. They were anti-everything, supporting the minorities and the planet. Abortion, equal pay, conservation of animals, habitats, people in far corners of the globe, rights for single mothers, racism, global warming, legalising cannabis, the fight for democracy, the list went on.

  From Ollie’s reading, they all had one thing in common, they were a call to arms. All were aggressive, demanding action and giving details of groups that could be joined, venues for action meetings, marches that were taking place. None of the marches had the word, ‘peaceful’. All of the posters repeated the phrases, ‘We must’, ‘Whatever it takes’, ‘Urgent action’, ‘Join us now,’ ‘We march on Westminster…’.

  Ollie blinked. They were all radical, all expressing what Ollie considered extreme views in an extreme way.

  Jo was at her shoulder. ‘Thinking of joining a few groups?’

  ‘A few?’ She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

  ‘Of course, Ollie. Shit’s happening out there. These people are trying to do something about it. The more you sign up to, the more supportive you’re being. Mind you, there are those who say it should be one grand statement, one big ‘hoorah’. Something that will make the whole planet sit up and take notice. Force society to start over.’

  ‘But they all seem a bit…’ Ollie didn’t want to say the word.

  ‘Extreme?’ Jo put an arm round Ollie’s shoulder. ‘It’s going to be the only way, Ollie. Right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, everything will have to be extreme before anyone will listen. There is too much noise out there because there are too many people on this planet. The planet itself can’t cope with that, but neither can societies. Our infra-structures are falling apart.’ She gave Ollie a friendly shoulder shake and smiled.

  ‘You know that, Ollie. You have first-hand experience. You’ve taken advantage of it. Did the police really care about your drug dealing and your prostitution? No, because they are swamped with more serious issues.

  ‘On the other hand, when you were desperate for help for you, Alesha and Lily, where was it? Your cry was lost in a system that can’t cope and is weighed down by its own bureaucracy.’

  Suddenly, the arm round Ollie’s shoulder was heavy and uncomfortable. Jo stepped away from her, her face serious.

  ‘Think about where you stand on some of these issues, Ollie. You can help change things that have damaged you. Get some revenge. You’d be a welcome addition.’

  There was a pause and an earnest look into her eyes, then Jo relaxed and laughed. ‘Anyway, I actually came to ask you to pop to the store. We need more dried beans, coffee and a couple of tubs o
f honey.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ollie almost ran away. She wanted nothing to do with any of them. She had enough problems without creating more. She had no idea Jo held such radical views. Then she remembered the intensity in Jo’s eyes the day of the protest.

  Was this the reason Jo had been so helpful to her? Seeing in Ollie a person who was angry with the world and willing to fight back? Someone to recruit for the cause? Perhaps she would have to give up this job and keep away.

  The store was in the oldest part of the complex, about one hundred metres away from the café. Ollie used the walk to call her mother.

  ‘Any visitors, Mum?’

  ‘No, love. You expecting someone?’

  ‘No, Mum. But call if anyone comes calling. See you later.’

  Ollie was wondering if she should call the NCA and say, ‘here I am’. There again, the apartment was great, so why get yourself thrown out. That would be a perverse thing to do given she had nowhere to go. Except here, of course and she was no longer comfortable with that option.

  The door to the store was steel and had two large padlocks and an internal lock. Ollie had to lean into it with her shoulder to get it open. She found the light switch and heaved the door shut behind her.

  In front of her was a huge, ancient space that had a dusty, wooden floor, faded and crumbling red brick walls, and wooden beams. The beams had large iron hooks embedded deep in the wood and various ropes and sacks hung down. Around the space there were piles of junk and rubbish. There were no windows. The light bulbs hung from the beams unshaded.

  The food store was boxed off with plaster board. It was the only part that had been cleaned up. She walked across boards that creaked and moved beneath her. From the store she could see the warehouse space went even further back, it just wasn’t lit. In the dim light she could see a couple of rusting hulks that looked like old machinery.