The Complex

by Michael Walters

  Oh Christ. She’d told everyone about the girl. That was bad. She’d been feeling woozy as she sat at the dinner table. Had Art jabbed her in the thigh with a syringe? She would have felt it, but she couldn’t remember.

  She towelled herself down and got dressed in fresh clothes – jeans, socks, walking shoes, t-shirt, hoodie. It was almost midnight, but she wasn’t going back to sleep. She didn’t want to ever sleep again.

  Checking the door was still secure, she pulled the screen out from under her pillow and turned it on. Media files. Videos, and lots of them. She chose one. She recognised the hotel room by the painting of the mountains that stretched across the wall above the bed. There was a woman lying on her back. A chill came over her. She had bought that dress on Hope Street One, at a vintage place. Her face wasn’t clear, but then she heard Art’s voice and she knew.

  ‘Can you see anything written down?’ Art said.

  ‘There’s nothing written down.’ Her own voice, slurred. Sleepy. ‘I’m lost.’

  She stopped the video and racked her memory. It had been December, she couldn’t recall the name of the place, but there was a beautiful wide staircase in the lobby, and they had been to an after-party. Art had given her the room keys when it had turned rowdy. That was it. Her next memory was having poached eggs for breakfast alone downstairs.

  She played a different recording. Another hotel room, this one more anonymous. A different dress, one Art had bought her for a charity gala. Her face was clearer in this one.

  ‘What about your father?’ Art said. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s left me here. I don’t know where he is.’

  She was in some sort of trance. Drugged or hypnotised.

  One video looked different to the others. When she opened it, it was darker, and the camera was moving about, and there was a sofa, not a bed. Two men in black masks appeared for a moment, then were gone. The camera shook but was then attached to something, perhaps a tripod. A person on the sofa was being propped up with cushions.

  She paused the recording, struggling to take in what she had just seen. She knew the cushions. She knew the apartment. The figure had been slumped forward, but it was him for sure. It was her father.

  She went through to the kitchen. The window was smeared with something disgusting, but she ignored it and continued to the front door. Outside, the air was crisp, and the car park was covered with fallen leaves. It was as if she had slept through half the year. The questions kept accruing, but she stayed focussed. She ran to the car, knelt and scooped the leaves away so she could see underneath. The rifle was there. She pulled it out, checked it was still loaded, and put it on her shoulder.

  Back in the hallway, she went right, down the stairs, to where the maintenance door was. She knew she ought to slow down and think about her next move. The door had been left open. Heat was rolling into the house. She stepped through.

  The sight of the corridor made her stop short. She fiddled nervously with the safety on the rifle. In the dream she had been under a trolley in a corridor exactly like this. She needed both the armed response officer in her and that girl now. The heat was different. It was stifling. She started to walk, rifle up, her underarms and back already wet. The hoodie was a mistake. Her fingers were slick, and she kept having to adjust her grip on the rifle. She refused to allow the pictures that kept popping into her mind to linger, pushing them away, knowing that she needed her fury under control.

  There was a ladder ahead, and before it, a door. She sidled up to the door, staying close to the breeze block wall.

  She had let Art into her family. Stefan had told her about Art’s crazy theory, that her father had worked with his father, but she didn’t buy it. This was her fault. She had bought his bullshit and others had paid the price. She had ignored the signs – the morning-after feelings, how her memory seemed smudged and incomplete after her nights out. She had taken the drugs and happily spent the Fisher account money.

  Art’s money. Art, who had killed her father, or as good as killed him. Art, who had drugged her, interrogated her, fucked with her head, perhaps even fucked her, and she had no memory of any of it. It was a repulsive thought. Art had been in her head, over and over again, without her consent, erasing himself after each transgression. Rape.

  She pushed the door open. It made no noise. In armed response, she would rarely have gone into a room alone like this, she would almost always have been in a team of three or four. The workbench was awkwardly placed but she relied on not being expected and checked quickly behind the door first. The bed was recently slept in. She stayed low. It was an office, but it looked like it had been burgled. She thought again of her father’s apartment. There were two large drug printers on the workbench and the paraphernalia that went with them. Satisfied Art wasn’t there, she looked at the workbench more closely. A whole drawer of orange containers. Bags of chemicals in boxes. Without paperwork, he’d get twenty years. But he’d have the paperwork. Or he’d wiggle out of it. Evidence would disappear. She might disappear.

  It dawned on her that after jabbing her with the last syringe, he hadn’t intended her to wake up.

  Stefan had said rooms. Plural. She scanned for another door. She spotted it, flush to the wall, designed to be hidden behind a piece of furniture. She went to it and, looking back at the messy office one last time, she quietly went through.

  The other room was completely bare, with just some dim lights on the walls. But she saw something on the far side of the space that made her pulse quicken. She shook her head and blinked, not believing it. The blue tarpaulin from the woods was laid out in a square, a single breeze block on each corner. The air was colder in here. The tarpaulin was clean and ready for more bodies. The hairs on her arms and neck were prickling. It felt like a trap.

  There was a rustling sound from the outer office. She hadn’t closed the concealed door. The walls pressed on her like it was a concrete coffin. Nobody would find her down here if she was killed.

  She retreated to the wall behind the door and kept her rifle ready.

  Somebody sighed. The door moved. Worst case, she’d put them down immediately. She checked the safety catch was off. A man shuffled in. He was wearing grey trousers, splashed with dirt. It couldn’t be Art, this man looked twice his age, almost stumbling as she watched. He coughed twice, two horrible, phlegmy hacks, and groaned to himself.

  It had to be Art. She was wary. She didn’t know all the ways he had drugged her – food, drink, but it could also be a spray – there were so many ways. It was not going to happen again.

  She moved behind him and closed the door with a click. He froze in the centre of the room.

  ‘Leo?’ Art’s voice, but different. Thicker. It had a rasp to it.

  ‘What have you done to yourself?’ she said.

  Art turned slowly. He wasn’t able to hide his disbelief. ‘Gabrielle?’

  She kept the rifle pointing at his chest. ‘What happened to you?’

  He looked exhausted and beaten, as if he had been in a brawl in an alleyway. He shrugged. ‘Would you please point that thing away from me?’

  ‘You killed my father.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ He put his hands up. ‘Please. The gun.’

  ‘You drugged me.’

  He winced. ‘Gabrielle, come on. What is this nonsense?’

  ‘I saw the videos.’

  ‘What videos?’ He was playing it straight.

  ‘Damn you to hell.’

  He was moving almost imperceptibly towards her, and she had to move right, away from him, away from the door.

  ‘One more step and I’ll cripple you,’ she said, pointing the rifle at his legs.

  ‘Please make sure the safety is on that thing.’

  ‘Why would I want the safety on?’

  He was still trying to manoeuvre her towards the tarpaulin. The kil
ling zone.

  ‘I’m not an idiot,’ she said. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I don’t exactly know.’

  ‘Make an educated guess.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘I think I have an infection.’

  She laughed dismissively. ‘Infected with what?’ There was a splinter of hate in her now. That was good. She could use that.

  ‘You said you would help me. You said I could hypnotise you. You consented.’ He spoke urgently. ‘It’s a side effect of the drug that you can’t remember what we talked about, and you said you didn’t want to remember. You said that.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘No. But you signed a contract. Do you remember that? In the foyer of the Royal Hotel. We made an agreement. I can show you.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  Art lost his temper. ‘I’m not lying!’

  The air buzzed around her.

  ‘I did nothing against your will,’ Art shouted. ‘Nothing!’

  The air seemed to be swirling around them both. Something moved to her left, but when she looked, it was gone. Again, behind her this time.

  Art was watching her closely. He must have drugged her. But how? He looked ready to make a move.

  ‘On your knees,’ she said, blinking to make his image stay still.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Down!’ She shouted the command.

  The whole room shimmered.

  Art moved fast, and she jumped back, but he wasn’t going for the gun, he was heading for the door. The whole room tilted and before she could get her rifle up, he was gone.

  Everything clicked back into place. She ran into the outer office. Art had pulled a stack of boxes and they fell as he slammed the main door behind him. She scooped the boxes, books and papers out of the way and yanked the door open.

  She looked up and down the corridor. It was freezing cold now. She didn’t understand where the heat had gone. There was no sign of him. The light was different. She heard a scrape. He was on the ladder. She ran to it and looked up in time to see Art’s legs disappearing. The sky was a small white circle.

  She put the safety back on the rifle and climbed. She felt vulnerable in the confined space and she hoped he was running up there and not getting something to drop on her. They must be somewhere near the tennis court.

  At the top of the ladder she slowed. The air was much colder than she had expected, and her face tingled. She peeked out. A thick rim of snow circled the top of the hatch, broken by the passage of Art’s body. All was silent. What madness was this? They were further from the house than she thought, in woodland. Art’s tracks led into the trees. She pulled herself quickly out. Now she was glad of the hoodie and jeans. The sky was a smooth white. Her breath clouded around her. She listened for any movement. The trees spread their branches high and wide like blood vessels. It was so bright her eyes hurt.

  She followed his footprints. The snow must have come down quickly. No, it wasn’t possible. There was a dip ahead and at the top of it, looking down, she saw him stumbling on. He hadn’t got far.

  ‘Art!’

  She considered firing a warning shot, but he would be easy to catch. She bounded down the slope, the snow at the bottom reaching her knees. He was trudging through a gap between two large oak trees.

  ‘Art!’

  He was halfway across the clearing when she reached him.

  ‘You can’t outrun me,’ she said.

  He stopped and bent over, facing away from her. She could hear him wheezing. It crossed her mind he was faking. She stayed well back.

  He turned to face her. ‘What are you going to do?’ He lifted his arms. ‘Shoot me?’

  She pointed the rifle at his chest.

  ‘Trust me, Gabrielle, much more dangerous people than you want to kill me. Fisher Industries has protection. Government protection. They would make you disappear. Your family.’

  ‘You could do that if I let you live.’

  Art looked around. ‘Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Somewhere near the house.’

  ‘You think so? Do you think this snow is real? And the light? It’s midnight, Gabrielle. It’s dark outside.’

  There were figures watching from the trees. They had appeared silently. At least a hundred, all around the clearing, adults and children, just far enough away that she couldn’t see their faces. The shimmer she had felt in the room was now strongly with them in the clearing. The figures emitted a deep sadness that seemed to roll into the clearing like a mist.

  ‘Why my father?’ she said.

  ‘He stole from me.’

  ‘You’re wrong. You’ve always had the wrong man.’

  Her finger was shaking on the trigger. One small movement, that was all it would take. The shapes in the woods seemed to be collectively holding their breath.

  ‘You’re going to be a murderer,’ he said. ‘Can you live with that? And Stefan is going to be the son of a murderer.’

  She took a step towards him and he backed away. She wanted to see him look afraid. Just once, to not be in control.

  ‘You didn’t kill that girl on purpose,’ he said, his voice shaking now. ‘Just like I didn’t kill your father on purpose.’

  There was a faint crackle and Gabrielle’s vision darkened. Flecks of white danced in front of her eyes. Art was becoming an abstract shape. The urge to make him shut up with a bullet in the head was overwhelming.

  ‘You raped me,’ she said quietly. ‘You put yourself in my head. Over and over again. That was on purpose.’

  Her finger tightened on the trigger. There was something in the snow behind Art. The square of blue tarpaulin had appeared from nowhere. Art was backing towards it, palms towards her. The dark figures in the woods slipped closer. So, she was to be the butcher. Art followed her gaze and saw the watching shapes for the first time. His eyes widened.

  ‘No, no, no, it wasn’t me!’ he shouted at the woods. He turned from side to side, pressing his hands together in a desperate prayer, shaking them, looking everywhere, seeming to plead simultaneously with the earth, woods, and sky.

  From the corner of her eye she saw movement. There was a doe at the edge of the clearing. The figures in the trees were motionless. She wanted this all to stop. She put her hand in her pocket and found something, a lump. She ran her thumb over it. A chess piece, a knight.

  The rifle was beginning to feel heavy. Art’s whole body was shaking. She wondered if he would fall apart right in front her.

  He looked at the rifle, then at her. ‘You are not their assassin, Gabrielle.’

  Tears came to her eyes. Gabrielle realised then what the bare room was. She had to protect her family.

  She lifted the rifle one last time. Art’s eyes widened. She took two steps quickly towards him and screwed her face in rage. Art stumbled backwards onto the blue material and could only let out a surprised grunt before the tarpaulin flapped around him like a cape. Both Art and the tarpaulin disappeared together into the ground.

  The air crackled with static and when Gabrielle blinked, she was back in the bare room looking at the hole in the floor. She took a step towards it. She was right.

  It was the hole she had watched her father dump the cylinder into. It was the black hole. She put the safety on the rifle and moved closer. She was wary of the slope but peered as far as she dared down into the darkness. The sides were ragged, natural rock. Her heart was slowing. She threw the rifle in. There was a clatter as it disappeared, and she heard it bump once, twice. Then nothing.

  Her father had said the hole went to the centre of the earth. She had no reason to disbelieve him.

  THURSDAY

  Stefan: Track 2

  Stefan woke to Fleur’s alarm. She was out of bed before he had his bearings. His eyes didn’t want to open. They were both still in their
clothes. They had stayed awake most of the night, talking a little, but mostly trying and failing to sleep. He knew she was going to check on her father.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Stefan said.

  ‘No. I want to go alone.’

  Hearing the door click shut as she left, Stefan pulled himself up and splashed cold water on his face. He went to the window and touched the glass. Her bedroom looked over the fields towards the gatehouse and the valley that ran eventually back to the Areas.

  After Fleur had found out Polly had left in the Mercedes, leaving them stranded without grid, she was furious. Her father’s sudden flare of symptoms frightened her, and she had wanted him to head back to get help. When Stefan remembered Art’s wheezy breathing out by the dead stag, he agreed. Without grid, they were cut off from the world. It hadn’t occurred to Stefan what that meant until that moment. Art had brushed off her worries, but he had at least promised to leave with her this morning if he was no better. It was six-thirty. Fleur was holding him to his word.

  Stefan wanted to talk to his parents about the catastrophic dinner. The week was prematurely coming to an end and his hopes of some sort of magical cathartic family holiday were now thoroughly dashed. His mother was okay. She had frightened him last night, but he had had higher hopes for the week than survival. He hadn’t seen his father since the stag atrocity. He was glad Polly was gone – she had made him uneasy from the start – but he hated seeing Fleur upset. He couldn’t help but watch the clock.

  He kept creating scenarios in his head where he met up with Fleur in their normal lives. None of them ever ended well. After fifteen minutes he headed for the kitchen. There was no sun this morning, a dull dawn. His father was sitting at the kitchen table staring at an empty coffee mug.