Lost Lives (Emily Swanson Mystery Thriller Series Book 1)

by Malcolm Richards

  “We’re closing up now,” she said, spying Emily at the door.

  “I’m looking for Jerome. Is he here?”

  “Jerome didn’t show for his shift tonight. Guess he couldn’t wait until Friday.”

  Unease made Emily’s stomach tumble and flip. “What do you mean?”

  “He quit. Friday was supposed to be his last day.”

  By the time Emily returned to The Holmeswood, anxiety curled around her like a tight fist. Jerome had mentioned nothing about quitting his job. In fact, he’d told her that he couldn’t pay his bills without that job. Something felt very wrong. Climbing the fire escape steps, Emily made her way back to Jerome’s apartment. She hammered on his door. Silence greeted her. Pulling out her phone, she dialled his mobile number and waited for the line to connect.

  She caught her breath. A ringtone sang out from Jerome’s apartment. Hanging up, Emily pounded on the door.

  “Jerome? It’s Emily. Are you all right?” She pressed her ear to the wood and heard someone moving about. “I need to talk to you, Jerome. It’s urgent!”

  A shaft of light danced over her shoes. There was a series of knocks and clunks as locks were pulled back. The door opened up a few inches.

  Jerome’s dark complexion was now pallid and sick-looking. His eyes were leaden voids.

  Shocked by his appearance, Emily took a moment to find her voice. “Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”

  He stared at her, shook his head

  “I went looking for you at the café. They told me you quit your job.”

  Jerome hovered for a moment longer, avoiding Emily’s attempts at eye contact. Leaving the door open, he retreated into his apartment. The living room was shrouded in darkness. Jerome moved over to the windows and stared at the buildings across the street.

  “It’s freezing in here,” Emily said. She reached around and flicked on the light switch. Jerome flinched.

  A collection of large boxes sat in the corner of the room. Some were already sealed while others waited to be filled. Jerome’s bookshelf was empty. Pictures had been taken down from the walls.

  “You’re moving out?”

  Jerome stared at a window across the street where a young child had his face pressed against the glass.

  “I’m going home for a while.”

  His words were like a punch in Emily’s gut. “But I don’t understand. I knew you were thinking about it, but ... why didn’t you say anything? Why so sudden?”

  Across the street, the child saw Jerome watching him. He waved a hand and then darted off, leaving an empty space.

  “They called me,” Jerome said.

  “Who?”

  “They told me about all the kinds of trouble I could get in by helping you. I was advised to stay away.”

  “Was it Karl Henry? He called me too. But there’s no need to worry, Jerome, because I found something!” Emily couldn’t disguise her excitement. “Something that proves he’s linked to Alina’s disappearance.”

  Jerome stared at her. “Found what?”

  “Alina’s passport and her wedding ring, and a lock of her hair.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  Emily fell silent. Jerome returned his gaze to the window.

  “Harriet’s looking after it all right now, along with Reina’s notebooks. This is it, Jerome! We have enough to go to the police. Will you come with me? We’ll give them the evidence, we’ll tell them everything we found out. They’ll have to investigate. You won’t need to leave. You can ask for your job back.”

  Jerome’s face disappeared into the shadows.

  “I was leaving anyway, Emily,” he said. “I’ve just been biding my time. Your little mystery chase has given me the push I need.”

  Emily stepped back, reeling from the iciness of his tone. He moved away, picking up a stack of magazines and placing them inside one of the empty boxes.

  “You’re dangerous,” he said. “Because you don’t know when to stop. I don’t know where you got that passport from and I don’t want to know. They threatened me, Emily. I don’t want to be threatened.”

  “Then let’s go to the police right now and give them everything we have. Let them arrest Karl Henry. Let them investigate Doctor Williams and the hospice. You’ve been urging me over and over to go to the police, so let’s go!”

  She could feel anger rising from the pit of her stomach. Why was Jerome leaving when they could put an end to things right then and there? She watched him pick up another stack of magazines, then put them down again. He looked at her and she saw horror in his eyes.

  “They told me about you,” he said. “They told me what you did.”

  Every word Emily was about to say was swept beneath a wave of panic. She tried to move her limbs but it was as if the air had moulded around her like an iron maiden. A distant ringing sounded in her ears.

  “What do you mean?” Her voice separated from her body. The ringing grew louder. She knew what was coming. She wanted to clamp her hands over his mouth, to push the words back down his throat.

  Across the room, Jerome’s eyes had grown wide and round. His hands found each other. His fingers entwined.

  “You—” He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t get the words out. But then they found a way out on their own. “You killed a boy.”

  The ringing in her ears became deafening.

  “No,” she said. “It’s not true.”

  The room fell away like a thousand torn pieces of paper, until there was only a void. And it was infinite. Colourless. She plummeted, faster and faster into its depths, with Jerome’s words echoing around her.

  “I didn’t want to believe it. But then it started to make sense—why you dodged every question I asked about your past. Why you wouldn’t tell me anything about yourself. I looked online, Emily. I just searched for your name, and there it was—the whole terrible story. And now it makes sense why you’ve been so obsessed with finding Alina. It’s atonement. For what you did. For what happened to Phillip Gerard.”

  Deeper she fell, tumbling and spinning. Jerome’s words turned into bloody, high-pitched screams that stabbed at her ears and splintered her bones. She closed her eyes, welcoming the darkness.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The bar was shoddy and peeling in places, furnished with oak tables and beer-stained floorboards. It was the type of bar found hidden in badly lit alleys, a neon sign above the door flickering like a beacon, letting the dregs of society know there was still a place for them where no one would interfere with their existential crisis, where they could drink until they were drunk and weep into their empty glass.

  Emily blinked away dark spots and looked at the glass of red wine sat in front of her. The room swayed. She recalled being in Jerome’s apartment. She recalled the desperate desire to be as far away from him as possible. There were vague images of stumbling down staircases, of wavering in and out of shadows along the city streets. Was this a dream? Had her mind finally disintegrated? She clasped her hands around the base of the wine glass. It was hard and cool. She brought the wine to her lips and tasted oak and dark berries.

  A clock on the wall chimed. It was half past midnight. She had lost over three hours. Searching her pockets, Emily found her wallet, the keys to her apartment, and her mobile phone. She’d missed three calls from Jerome. He’d left no messages.

  Pushing herself into the corner of the booth, Emily sipped more wine and watched the bartender, whose haggard features were the toll for years of listening to drunken tales of woe. Right now, a middle-aged man with a bald spot poured out his misery, one minute gesturing wildly, the next cradling his whiskey glass like a baby. Another man sat at the far end of the bar, his hand covering the side of his face. Two more men sat together in a corner, hunched over the table as they mumbled into their drinks. There were other people, hidden in the booths, their voices wretched with misery. Emily felt the melancholy hanging over the bar where cigarette smoke once resided.

  She leaned
back, listening to the country music that played. A woman sang of getting high and visiting old haunts, of escaping death in her car. Emily thought about cars, about driving to the seaside. She missed the ocean. As a teenager, she would sometimes wait until her mother was asleep, then slip out of the house to walk the short distance from the village to the beach. There, she would sit on the rocks, watching the ocean rush in and out, and the lights of the coastline glitter like fallen stars.

  How did she get here? It was like the time after her mother had died when Lewis found her naked in the kitchen with no recollection of the previous hours. She thought of Lewis. She wondered if she missed him. The cocktail of pills she’d been prescribed made it difficult to tell. Lewis didn’t miss her though. She knew that. He’d been glad to see her go. They all had. She was a dark cloud. A plague. But why? Her mind was confused. Thoughts and images didn’t make sense. But then came a boy, and his name was Phillip. Emily remembered why she’d run from Jerome.

  “Well look at that.”

  A shadow hovered over her. Startled, she watched as a woman slid into the opposite seat and lit up a cigarette. She was a few years older than Emily, with long black hair pulled to one side and emerald eyes that sparkled in the shadows.

  “Another woman,” she said, blowing out a long stream of cigarette smoke from the corner of her mouth. “That’s not a common sight in this hole.”

  The ice cubes floating in her drink were barely given time to melt before she emptied the glass.

  “So which type of asshole is it? The kind that gives you shit, or the kind that doesn’t give a shit at all?”

  Emily stared at the woman. The shadows swam around her.

  The bartender yelled across the room, instructing the woman to put out her cigarette.

  “Fine, Andy, fine!” she snarled back, and with a huff, stubbed out the cigarette against the wall.

  The bartender returned to polishing glasses as the bald man continued his sorry tale.

  “Worst idea they ever had banning cigarettes from bars. I mean, what the hell are you supposed to do with your other hand?” The woman waved her now empty hand to demonstrate her point. “Wanna come outside?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “Suit yourself. You know us women need to stick together. These men here, they’re lowlife. Sad cases with no one to go home to. They can be company for a night, but just make sure you’re gone by morning or they’ll be wondering why their breakfast isn’t on the table.”

  The colours of the room were changing, from shades of red to tones of orange. For the briefest of moments, the table stretched away until twenty feet lay between Emily and the woman. Then, like an elastic band, the table snapped right back until the tips of their noses almost touched.

  “So if it isn’t troubles of the heart, what is it?” The woman tapped her pack of cigarettes with a twitchy finger. “Is it money? Don’t ask me for any. These days, I’m relying on the generosity of strangers.”

  “It’s not money,” Emily slurred. She looked down at the table and was surprised to see several empty glasses.

  “You got kids?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lucky. You can go wherever the hell you like without guilt following you around. The world is your oyster.”

  The woman’s knowing expression fell away. She retreated into the shadows, until she became a silhouette.

  “I have two of them,” she said. “A boy and a girl. They live with their grandma now. Best place for them. You’d think carrying them around for nine months would be all it takes to love them. People carry a lot of things around. Doesn’t mean you can love them all.”

  Emily stared into the darkness of the booth, attempting to make out the woman’s face.

  “Don’t stay stuck because there’s no place left to go. There’s always a place to go.”

  The woman slid out of the booth. She looked over her shoulder, gave Emily a weary nod, pushed open the bar door and slipped away into the night.

  ***

  Finding her way home had taken a while. There were still many people out in the streets and their presence combined with the weightlessness of an intoxicated mind left Emily oblivious to the dangers of dark alleys and side streets.

  Returning to The Holmeswood, she lurched towards the bathroom. The room span around her. She gripped onto the edge of the sink with both hands. Opening the cabinet, she stared at the neat row of pill bottles sat on the shelf. How could something so small command such control? She had been taking pills for most of her adult life. Pills to make her happy. Pills to keep her calm. Pills to stop her from slashing her wrists open and bleeding out on the floor.

  Why had she been cursed with such melancholy? It had always been there, like a toxin in her blood; long before her mother had gotten sick, long before Phillip Gerard had destroyed everything else. It was as if these two events were evidence that life wasn’t about living. It was about being dragged quietly towards inevitable death. What good were pills then, if the end result was the same?

  “No good,” Emily said. “No good whatsoever.”

  She picked up the first bottle, pulled off the lid and let it fall onto the tiles below.

  A single green and white capsule tumbled out onto her palm. She turned her hand over and watched as the capsule bounced off porcelain and plummeted into the drain. Without thinking, she flipped the bottle upside down and watched the remaining pills plunge into the sink. She took the next bottle, emptied it and in a frenzy, reached for the next.

  “Goodbye, goodbye,” Emily whispered, as the pills fell down like rain.

  Now the bottles were empty, she closed the cabinet door. Her reflection greeted her. She felt dirty. Unclean.

  While the bath filled with water, she stumbled around her apartment, switching on the lights. Something tugged at her memory. Something she was supposed to do. But then it was gone, swallowed up by a thick fog of alcohol.

  Climbing into the bath, Emily sank into its depths, allowing each muscle to relax.

  She closed her eyes. Soon, she was asleep.

  A dream came to her. Alina Engel pushed her mother in a wheelchair through the gardens of the Ever After Care Foundation. Her once sky-blue nurse’s uniform was stained deep red.

  “Don’t worry,” Alina said, her Germanic accent thick and alluring. “You’re going to love it here. In fact, you’ll never want to leave.”

  ***

  She woke in darkness, sucking up cold water through her nose and coughing it back out into the bath tub. Shivering, Emily pulled herself up and stepped onto the tiled floor. Hands outstretched, she found a towel and fumbled for the light switch. Harsh bathroom light blinded her. Confused, she waited for her vision to adjust. She had left the bathroom light on. She had left all of the apartment lights on.

  She exited the bathroom and was greeted by a long corridor of darkness.

  Stepping into the shadows, she moved her hand along the wall and found the light switch. The hallway lamps flickered on. The lights were off in her bedroom as well. Switching them back on, she pulled on her pyjamas and tied her wet hair in a knot.

  Now she was more awake, she could distinctly remember moving from room to room, switching on each light. So why were they all off?

  Emily left her bedroom and moved along the hallway. She stared into the blackness of the living room, feeling the darkness pulsate like a living thing. With trembling fingers she flicked on the light switch.

  At first glance, everything seemed to be in order. Then, as her eyes scanned across the room, she saw Alina’s portrait. It was upside down and it was mutilated, the canvas torn open like a bloody wound.

  Memories of the evening’s events hurtled through Emily’s mind, and a name shot to the forefront. Karl Henry.

  Through the kitchen doorway, she saw moonlight spill over the floor. A hulking black shadow cut through the light. And then it was a shadow no more. A towering figure of a man filled the doorway. A long, white surgical gown draped his body. La
tex gloves covered his hands. Masking his face was a clean, white sack.

  For the briefest of moments, it was as if every cell of Emily’s body had ceased to be. Then, as the figure strode into the living room, a lightning bolt struck her straight between the eyes. Emily sprinted from the room, out into the hallway.

  She slid to a halt.

  A second gowned figure stepped out of her bedroom and thundered towards her.

  Screaming, Emily raced towards the front door. The first bolt slid back with ease. The second bolt came free. The men came up behind her. Whipping around, she lunged for the key rack on the wall.

  Hands were upon her, seizing her arms, lifting her from the ground.

  Above her head, light gleamed off something metallic. She kicked out, hitting the wall, then striking flesh hard, bringing down one of the men.

  Her feet smacked against the door. Pushing against it, she threw herself backwards, unbalancing her assailant. He hit the floor. Emily landed on top, knocking the breath out of his lungs, forcing him to release her arms.

  Emily leapt to her feet and grabbed the keys. A hand wrapped around her ankle. She brought her foot down hard. Behind her, the second figure regained his balance.

  Emily slammed the key into the keyhole and turned it sharply to the left. The door opened. She ploughed forwards.

  Arms slipped around her waist, pulling her back into the apartment. The door closed again, trapping her inside. A hand grabbed the hair at the back of her head, tearing at the roots. She felt a split-second of blinding pain as her head slammed into the wall. Then she fell to the floor. The floor disappeared. Emily tumbled into darkness, flipping and spinning like a child’s doll.

  TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Her mother’s voice rose high up to the rafters, calling her name. She could hear other sounds—the drone of an airplane, birds singing, the clatter of breakfast dishes. And there were smells—the tang of orange juice, the smoke of toasting bread. And something else. Something acrid and sharp, like bleach.