Human Frailty, a Detective Mike Bridger novel

by Mark Bredenbeck

  Chapter One

  He was walking in the cold light of morning. The air was chilled; his breath was coming in clouds of fog. It certainly had not started today, but it would end soon enough.

  He could not remember much about the first years of his life. Apparently New Zealand in the 1970's was not an especially memorable decade, people having just come through the swinging sixties and were worn out.

  The beginning of the decade had seen the Vietnam War in full swing, the country protesting against its small contribution clashing with the police. The Beatles had broken up, finishing their world domination of popular music.

  The end of the decade had seen the Beehive in Wellington completed and occupied by Government, Air New Zealand flight 901 crashed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica killing 237 people and 18 hectares of land slipped 48 meters down the side of a hill in Abbotsford, Dunedin, destroying 69 homes.

  The life people had was a simple affair with fathers working and mothers at home with the kids. You knew everyone on the street by first names, often visiting for social occasions. Fathers competing with each other over the dinner table about who was earning more or what model Ford Cortina was in the driveway. Mothers would exchange recipes or swap baby stories, simple things for simple people.

  It was the sort of shit; he thought sourly, that you only see on TV, where the real world did not exist, at least not his. His had been a world of reality, of hard lessons learned at a very young age, a world of violence, pain, and hurt. Violence in those days kept itself in-house, liberal amounts of makeup or simply staying indoors hiding the marks of obedience. Husband and wife never wanting outside involvement for their own very different reasons, and the police were always too busy with other things. Alcohol fuelled the violence in a new generation of men with no war to fight, the ugly side of human nature finding its outlet.

  He knew now that violence was the great leveler, it spread across the social divide, infecting homes of rich and poor alike, but back then he thought it had been just his to endure.

  New Zealand in the 1970's was still trying to throw off the shackles that bound it to Mother England. Like an emerging petulant child, the country and its citizens not in total control of their lives, laws or emotions.

  It was into one of these homes that he was born. He did not choose to be born; he did not choose the life he had with them. He did not choose to cause any trouble...

  Of course, mother should not have seen him as trouble; mother should have loved him with all her heart. Mother should have been there for him, in times of pain and hardship, nurturing and caring for him… as mothers should.

  Closing his eyes against a cold gust of wind the thoughts turned over in his head, his only memory of her was the bitter thought of a useless bitch.

  She was useless for choosing father in the first place, selfish, only ever thinking of her. She never gave him a second thought. Was that a mother?

  When Father was there, she would hardly notice him, spending her time as far away from father as possible.

  When his father was not there he used to see mother dancing in the lounge room. It was a pathetic one-sided dance. She would be holding herself, eyes closed, quietly humming the only tune he remembered, lost within her own head. A family fractured by fear.

  In those moments, he would feel the need to go to her, tell her it was all right, that he was there, but he was only a child. The first and only time he tried, he remembered she had opened her vacant eyes and stared straight through him like he was not there. He had tried to speak but the words did not come. Mother had not said anything either, just turned and walked away, leaving him standing in the cold emotionless room. A child lost.

  Eventually, he could see why his father had to do what he did, why he punished her. She was not a good mother, she did not care what happened to him when she went and hid in the bedroom like a sniveling cow, noises like an animal in pain emanating from behind the door. She needed telling, repeatedly. It was the only way.

  Things changed when mother hid, it was then he had to endure. It was not as if he minded the pain his father turned on him, it was almost constant, constant enough to be bearable, if not predictable. It had only cemented his hatred for the pair of them. He took his beatings like a little man, wearing the bruises as a badge of honor. He remembered the fear.

  At first, he did not understand the violence his father used, but then, as he got older, it molded his thinking, wiring his brain. He had become accustomed to it, perception turning to disbelief, then to denial, and finally to hatred. Hatred directed at his mother for not protecting herself… or him. He had been only young at the time, his mind not yet developed enough to understand, but he remembered a strange sort of pleasure, little electric shocks with every blow. Watching his mother flinch, trying not to cry out. He had often found himself waiting with anticipation of a night for when father got home, anticipation for his favorite show.

  Better than sex, he remembered his father saying this on one occasion to no one in particular, there had been no one else in the room but him.

  It was only later as he had gotten older that he understood the word sex, watching his mother and father in the bedroom, connecting schoolyard gossip with what he had been audience to.

  He had watched mother lying on her back with his father on top in a drunken rage, holding mother by her arms, pressing her face sideways into the pillow, pushing himself up and down in an unnatural rhythm.

  He had watched his father, hitting mother on the face, the body, and the other bits that he did not yet understand. Mother would just lie there and take it, not fighting back, her eyes on the verge of oblivion, another night closer to her fate.

  He had watched often, each time a different show with the same ending, his young mind taking it all in.

  He remembered vividly when it happened though, that was what had put him here in the cold today, it was when his father finally bled the boil he had spent years trying to lance. The night his father’s version of love climaxed in such a frenzy that mother was unable to stop herself sliding into the oblivion that she had for so long been looking into. The defeated grey light in her eyes slowly fading. His father, not even aware of the change in her, had rolled over and gone to sleep. Mother was never to wake.

  He remembered watching that night, as they had acted out the strange tragedy; he was standing in the darkness of the hallway, watching as the players had put everything they had into their performance. At the final curtain, he had gone to her, sat with her. He had felt her skin go from warm to cold, and watched her as her body paled. He knew she had gone. Her final selfish legacy was leaving this world without a second thought for him; she did not care a toss.

  Mother really was a selfish bitch. The thought rattled around inside his head, stoking his hatred. Selfish bitch; she was a selfish bitch, la-la la- la-la. It was almost a tune to him now; he had been living with it for so long.

  The rest of that night played out in his head, the feelings returned, feelings that he knew intimately now, but could not understand at the time. Feelings that had gone from sorrow, to rage, to elation, then finally to disappointment. Disappointment that this life as he knew it was over, he would never again watch as his father’s performance showed mother how much he cared. Disappointment that he would not feel the intense feelings of disgust, revulsion, fear and excitement caused by each act of the play, and then just fear, as mother was no longer there to take the beatings for him.

  It was then he had seen that father had not roused from his drunken slumber….

  When he had walked out of that house that night into what passed for early morning he remembered feeling more alive than he had ever been, his senses had been tingling like never before.

  Mother, father, and that house were behind him now. They were in his past. The house had contained an angry wretched existence between its rotting four walls, but it had looked very normal from the outside, as he had continued to walk.

  He marveled
at how his young mind had been able to make him do what he had done. Father had not woken that night, and never again. He had finally felt safe.

  Now he walked slowly, shuffling his feet along the pavement, enjoying the feel of the rough surface on his bare soles. Inconspicuous in the fact that he was just any other man, down on his luck, with a lightly shabby appearance and a smell of the unwashed.

  The way I look right now, I will fit right in, he thought to himself. There is no need to court any suspicious looks. I need to do this with no distractions.

  He had been watching her over the last few weeks in preparation, that had been his primary purpose, but he had also watched the local people with interest as well. He could not help it, he liked to watch people, imagine a life for them. It helped him, to imagine others suffering as he had.

  A mix of the unemployable and students, he had found, now populated the area. It was a social experiment if ever he had seen one, but then maybe his purpose fitted that description as well. It was an experiment but it would not be social…

  He still hated this place though, the sooner he did what he had to, the sooner he would move away, physically and emotionally. He was only back to purge himself of the dark and primal thing that had been living inside him most of his life. It was something he could not name, but it ruled his life. It was darkness, a black cancer eating away at his soul.

  Not for much longer, he thought. He took a deep breath, sucking in the cold air, chilling his lungs. Penance to his body.

  The day was just beginning, heavy grey clouds threatening to either break and reveal the morning sun, or burst and cleanse the ground with cold rain. He loved this kind of weather, he would watch the rain that would collect in the broken concrete gutters then run into the drains. The drains took the water and everything it collected along the way out into the stream beside him, flushing the cities detritus out to sea. If only it was that easy…

  The stream was one of the reasons he chose this area as his hunting ground, it was one of many that crossed the Leith Valley, Woodhaugh area, providing a pleasant environment in an otherwise unappealing suburb of the city.

  The stream circled around a large wooded area, plenty of green spaces, walking tracks, hidden glens, places nobody went.

  Except her, he thought, a small smile forming on his lips.

  He had only moved back here recently to be closer to her. He knew this area as well as any other in the city; his childhood home was just around the corner. He would never forget that place. A typical house in a typical neighborhood, prosperous, hard working…, hiding all sorts of secrets.

  Looking around him now, he saw buildings that were a mix of the old and the older. The rotting weatherboards giving way to the crumbling red brick favored in this part of the country. Buildings with all the charm of yesteryear but which had fallen into unloved disrepair.

  My life in one sentence, he thought, unloved disrepair.

  Up on the corner in front of him, sitting idle on the corner, there was an old Hotel, long since closed. He felt a slight tremor run up his spine as he walked past the front doors as he had every other time in the past few weeks. He had imagined the stories that passed through them and into other people’s lives. He knew these were stories that always ended differently after one more pint in the smoky confines of the public bar inside. It was this place and many like it that was at the heart of his angst.

  Trying to shake the feelings, he looked upwards not having to shade his eyes in the grey morning light. He could see the houses on top of the high bush clad cliffs on either side of the valley supporting the more affluent, looking down on the peasants.

  These people should have taken more notice of what was going on below them, he thought bitterly, instead they got on with their sheltered lives, safe in the knowledge that as long as they didn’t look down they wouldn’t see.

  The bitter thought, did not help the way he felt and was twisting inside his head as he continued to walk. We would not be here if they had just taken more notice.

  He felt the familiar loneliness, there was no one on the streets this morning; people around here did not get out much at this time of year, the sun only made a late appearance, if it bothered at all. They preferred to stay in the relative warmth of their houses, eyes focused on the television and not the windows showing snapshots of the cold changeable world outside. The empty streets suited him; other people would just get in the way.

  Walking slowly he let his mind wander a little, letting his thoughts and imagination take over. He thought of the corner his life was about to turn, of what lay just out of sight.

  Checking his bag for its contents, he could feel the reassuring weight that told him he had packed all the items he would need. This was beginning to feel like his day.

  It was then he saw her.

  She looks just like mother, he thought. She is perfect…

  He stood still and watched her, blending into the urban environment, just another man, out for an early morning walk. She would take no notice of him, she never did.

  She was walking the same leisurely pace she always did, a slight smile on her face, not a care in the world, oblivious to fear and pain. She had no idea that she was about to take the lead role in the biggest part of her life.

  The image of her was hauntingly familiar; as soon as he had seen her, it had poured powerful emotions into his body. It had instantly bought back the memories of that time in his life. It had also sparked an idea in his head that had led him here this morning.

  The idea had formed into a plan, now his plan had given him a purpose, made him feel in control again.

  The psychologists of his childhood would have a field day with this one…, he thought, slightly amused at the notion of them trying to understand him.

  He did not really care what they thought though. He was not crazy, the psychologists where in the past, he just hated the memory of them. He was not like that anymore. His parents had been diseased, someone had written a ‘tragedy’ as the script that chronicled their lives, and he had just been a bit player, only written in to give the play an ending. The script determined his character, but now he was going to rewrite it.

  The girl continued to walk. The houses were becoming scarcer, giving way to the trees that were winning the battle to occupy the space. It was now or never.

  He shook himself out of his self-loathing revelry.

  He had only fragmented memories of his early life; he had patched together what he knew over the subsequent years. Each memory building on the next until it had told the story to him in vivid detail. The darkness was always whispering in his ear. He did not actually remember killing his father; he could scarcely believe he was capable. It was the darkness who showed him how it happened, reminded him of those feelings. The darkness controlled his dreams, and lately it seemed his waking thoughts as well, but that was about to change.

  Reaching into his bag he pulled out the bottle, carefully unscrewed the cap, poured a measured amount of the liquid it contained onto a cloth he retrieved from his pocket. He stowed the bottle safely back in the bag and walked towards her. There was a slight chemical smell on the cloth that was tingling at his nose. He found himself whistling, the tune forgotten as she turned towards him, eyes wide.

  “Now mother, don’t struggle, it’s finally going to be alright”

  He saw the shock register in her eyes a split second before she slipped into unconsciousness. A feeling of warmth started to grow in his stomach.

  “Sleep tight.”