by Tom Weaver
I let the insult slide.
'Huh?'
'What are we arguing about, Healy?'
'I just like to know who I'm dealing with.'
I rubbed my fingers across my forehead. I'd only known him for a short space of time, but Healy was nothing if not predictable.
'I wanna know who I've got along for the ride,' he said. 'I don't want surprises. I don't want a knife in my back.'
I stared at him. 'What's that supposed to mean?'
'You know what it means.'
'I don't even know what you're getting your knickers in a twist about. So I know what rigor mortis looks like. So what?'
'So, I don't trust you.'
You don't have to trust me. You just have to work with me. When this is all over, I'm sure there'll be plenty of time for us to find a cosy corner somewhere and discuss what we do and do not know about the human body after it dies.'
His eyes narrowed again. 'What the fuck do you know about death?'
He realized what he'd said within about a second of it coming out of his mouth, but Healy wasn't the type to apologize. The best he could do was a vague flattening of his mouth. It was a typical Healy moment; a pointless argument borne out of him realizing he wasn't in complete control.
He fixed the torchlight on Markham's face.
'Yeah, he's stiffened up,' he said quietly.
Rigor always starts in the facial muscles, before crawling its way through the jaw and the throat and then out into the rest of the body. It can give you an approximate time of death, but even a pathologist would have struggled to pinpoint it exactly based on the kind of conditions we were dealing with. The fact that rigor mortis had set in certainly put him at under thirty-six hours, and the hypostasis in the lower parts of his body was a dark purple. I'd shadowed the Forensic Science Laboratory in Pretoria for two months as part of a feature I was writing about post- apartheid South Africa in the late nineties, and had been to a few crime scenes. Maximum lividity occurred about six to twelve hours after hypostasis set in. Which meant Markham was alive when he woke up this morning.
'If we call this in, it's over,' Healy said, the torch back on Markham's body, running the length of one of the knife wounds. This whole thing goes down the toilet.'
I nodded. He was right. At the moment, we were ahead of the curve and the police were playing catch-up.
I started pulling the room apart, pushing furniture aside, dragging the sofa out from the wall, trying to zero in on anything that would give us a lead. Healy started as well, stepping around Markham in the kitchen, and opening and shutting drawers.
Moving to the TV cabinet and the stack of videotapes, I knelt down and started pulling them out of their sleeves, tossing them away one after the other.
Then, midway through, I stopped.
The second from last tape was in a bright red case, different from the others, and had no printing on it at all. I pulled the cassette out. Written across the label in the middle was a message in black marker pen.
It said, Help me.
We didn't speak as I switched on the VCR, slid the tape in and turned the TV on. Blackness. And then, seconds later, the set was filled with a shot of Markham.
He had tears in his eyes.
His brown hair was shorter than in the photo I'd taken from the youth club, and he'd lost the horn-rimmed glasses. Dark eyes like chips of wood gazed out at us; stubble bristled as his hand traced the line of his jaw. He looked in good shape and was dressed well too: a name- brand polo shirt and a pair of jeans. No shoes.
He sniffed and then took in a long breath. His eyes drifted off camera, before coming back again. It was recorded during the day, in the middle of the living room. In the background we could see the kitchen, and a little of the stairs. He ran a hand through his hair, as if he didn't know where to start.
Then he cleared his throat.
'My name is Daniel Markham,' he said, his voice wavering, his eyes watering, his face etched with unease. 'And this is my confession.'
The Doctor
Eleven months ago
Daniel Markham opened the door to his office and stepped inside. It was too warm. The hospital was always either stiflingly hot or freezing cold. Never in between. It was the beginning of November, and the weather had been unseasonably mild for a week, but still the central heating in his part of the building hadn't been adjusted properly. He'd put in two complaints, neither of which had been met with any kind of response. It was the NHS in full working order.
He hung up his coat and went to the windows, opening them as far as they would go. A faint breeze wafted in. Sitting at his desk, he booted up his computer and started going through his unopened mail. At the top of his in- tray was an appointment diary, which his secretary filled in for him at the beginning of each week. Without her, he would be lost. He remembered the faces of his patients, but not always their names and certainly not the times they were expected. The only appointment he did remember was the one at Barton Hill Youth Club on Monday afternoons, where — as part of a drive by the hospital to get consultants out into the field as volunteers - he spent five hours with the parents of kids suffering from cerebral palsy, helping where he could.
Initially, he'd seen the volunteer work as wasted hours. In fact, when the email had first gone round, he'd thought it was a joke. In a hospital system that could barely cope with the ratio of patients to staff as it was, an afternoon field trip seemed like an idea that would only ensure fewer people were seen and more complaints rolled in. But the hospital trust were determined to carry through the commitment they'd made to the community in an expensive PR campaign the previous year, and - after some initial scepticism - Markham had grown to love the time he got to spend at the club. The parents of the kids were so different from the patients he had at the hospital; so positive, despite the heartache they'd had to endure. His patients tended to be the opposite: most of them were antagonistic and cynical and only looked for ways to head further down the spiral.
Throwing away half the mail he'd opened up, he pulled his appointment diary down from the in-tray and turned to 3 November. His days were divided up into hour-long sessions, and the day was full, from 8 a.m. through to i p.m., and z p.m. through to 6 p.m. First up was a name he definitely didn't recognize: Sykes. Probably a new patient. He turned to his computer, logged into his e-diary and clicked on the entry for 8 a.m. marked 'Sykes'. His medical history came up. Broken arm at nine. Fractured wrist at seventeen. Nondescript doctor's appointments throughout the course of the rest of his life until a fortnight ago when he'd returned five times over the course of a ten-day period complaining of insomnia, anxiety attacks, severe chest pains and problems concentrating at work. Markham scrolled down and clicked on the GP's referral letter. The patient had been given a medical on his last visit to the surgery, and nothing had been found. Physically, he was fine. Markham's two-second diagnosis was depression.
On the desk, his phone started ringing.
He picked up. 'Hello?'
'Mr Sykes is here for you,' his secretary said.
Markham looked at the clock on the wall. It was just before eight.
'Okay. Send him in.'
He moved across to where two sofas were sitting in an L-shape in the corner of the room. They faced a tilting, high-backed leather chair. In between was a coffee table with a series of heavy, and largely tedious, books he'd picked up from a market for a tenner. He wanted the room to seem less like an office in a sprawling, faceless hospital and more like a place to feel at home.
Two knocks at the door.
'Come in.'
Mr Sykes entered. He was in his late thirties and six foot, but looked much shorter. He was stooped, almost curved from the middle of his spine. Brown hair, dark eyes, a couple of days of stubble and a tired expression. Markham studied him: some of it was the lack of sleep, but not all. He carried a kind of sadness with him. 'Mr Sykes?'
He nodded. 'Dr Markham.'
'Please,' Markham said, pointin
g to the sofas. 'Take a seat.'
Sykes nodded his thanks, and looked around the office, sitting down on the nearest sofa. He perched himself on the edge, legs together at the knees, looking nervous.
'Can I get you something to drink?'
'No, I'm fine, thank you,' Sykes replied, glancing briefly at Markham and away again. He had the look many had on entering the office for the first time: a mix of expectation and terror.
Markham sat in the leather chair. 'So what brings you here today?'
Sykes nodded. Hesitated. 'I, uh…' He stopped, looked around the office again. Drummed his fingers on his knees. 'I haven't been feeling right.'
Markham nodded. 'In what way?'
'I don't think I've slept for about six weeks now. Not properly.'
'Has something been bothering you?'
Sykes looked up. 'Yes.'
'What?'
'Lots of things. Lots of different things. I'm worrying so much I'm having anxiety attacks — these great big waves of panic rushing through me.'
'What's been worrying you?'
'I get these chest pains,' Sykes said, his eyes fixed on a space behind Markham. Almost no eye contact so far. 'Physically, they can't find anything wrong, but I can feel something eating away at me from the inside.'
Markham paused. 'Okay. Let's take a couple of steps back. What is it you do?'
Sykes looked up briefly. 'I kind of freelance.'
'Doing what?'
'Dealing with people.'
'You're a manager?'
'No. I observe and then I act.'
Markham frowned. 'Why don't you elaborate?'
'I can't concentrate on my work, on anything in my life. I sit there all day, looking at my computer screen, and all I can see is her face looking back at me.'
'Who are we talking about here?'
Sykes didn't reply. He was staring down into his lap, his fingers on his knees, one of his legs vibrating gently, his shoe tap-tapping against the carpet.
'Mr Sykes?'
No response. Markham leaned forward.
'Who is it you can see looking back?'
Nothing.
'Mr Sykes? Whose face can you see?'
A second later, like a light cutting out, Sykes went completely still. He continued looking down into his lap, the fingers of each hand resting on either knee.
'Mr Sykes?' Markham leaned forward even further, trying to get an angle where he could see Sykes's face more clearly. Who can you see?'
Slowly, Sykes started to move: his fingers slid back along his thighs, his legs loosened up and his body seemed to expand, as if filling with air. Suddenly, every inch of his six-foot frame was visible, shoulders broadening, chest filling out, the curve of the stoop fading away. Markham sat back in his seat, aware — without even really understanding why — that Sykes was transforming into someone else. The nervousness was gone. The lack of confidence. The sense of expectation and uncertainty. Finally, Sykes's face tilted upwards, eyes fixed on Markham, a smile worming its way across his face. And, in that moment, Markham realized something: it had all been an act.
'You want to know who I can see, Dr Markham?' he asked, even his voice different now. You want to know who I can see every day looking up at me, terrified, from a hole in my floor?' He paused. His eyes flashed; as dark as the entrance to a tomb. 'I can see your wife.'
Chapter Fifty-seven
There was no noise inside the house. On-screen, Markham had stopped talking and was wiping an eye. He'd just gone over the moment he'd first come into contact with Glass.
Healy turned to me. 'Glass kidnapped Markham's wife?'
'Now we know why no one can find her.'
We both looked back at Markham. His image was fuzzy, the age of the TV draining colour from his skin. He shifted in his seat as if he couldn't get comfortable.
'So Markham was just a pawn,' Healy said.
'Looks that way.'
'Why? Why would Glass start using Markham?'
I shook my head. 'Maybe we're about to find out.'
We both looked back at the screen again. Markham was still composing himself. 'Glass,' said Healy quietly, as if he'd thought of something. He reached forward and pushed Pause. 'He had a medical history. You heard Markham. Broken arm, anxiety attacks, chest pains. We can trace him.'
'It won't be his.'
'What are you talking about?'
'If Markham had medical records in front of him, they won't have belonged to Glass. He's too careful for that. He doesn’t make mistakes.'
We both went quiet and I pressed Play again.
'Everything after that was a lie,' Markham said on-screen. 'But I did it to protect Sue. I couldn't bear the thought of him hurting her. He kept calling me, saying he'd do all these unspeakable things to her — slice her, and stab her, and cut her. In the days after he first came to my office, I tried to fight back. I tried to find him. But he knew what I was doing; he was watching me the whole time. And I couldn't find a trace of him. Nothing. His medical records were a sham. His mobile phone number was untraceable.' He looked around him. 'He doesn’t even seem to own this shitty house he makes me live in. And about three or four days after he came to see me that first time, just to prove he was really in charge, he called me and made me listen to her begging for her life.'
A long pause. We waited for Markham to continue.
'I was scared of him, and he knew it. He'd play on it. I'd come back to this house and he would have made tiny adjustments to it, swapped my things around, just to show me he'd been inside. He'd leave new toys on the windowsill, or adjust the position of the mannequins, or leave rubber masks attached to their faces. One time, he left Sue's blouse in the middle of the living room, with blood all over it. That was when I really got scared.'
He sniffed. Shifted in his seat. I glanced at Healy and saw him slowly rubbing his fingers and thumb together again. This time it wasn't his craving for nicotine; it was the air of inevitability settling around us. The dread and anticipation that the worst was yet to come. Healy was about to have his heart ripped out.
'So I took three of them,' Markham said, looking up into the camera. Beside me, I felt Healy bristle. 'He told me who he wanted me to take, and I took them. Because the alternative was him killing Sue. I was… I just didn't
Another pause. I turned to look at Healy again. He saw the movement. I could see his eyes flick in my direction and then back to the screen.
'You don't have to watch this,' I said.
'I do.'
'I can watch it and tell you what you need to know.'
'I'm watching it,' he said, teeth gritted.
On-screen, Markham repositioned himself. He wasn't a man used to this kind of thing. Even as his eyes filled with tears there was a strange kind of reticence to him, as if he was frightened by everything he was feeling.
Then he started again: 'I had a lot of guilt left over after Sue and I divorced. The way she went downhill so fast.' A pause. 'I mean, I had her committed. Who commits their own wife?' He stopped for a second time. 'And then, when she got out, I didn't even contact her. I didn't know what I was supposed to say. I couldn't face her. Couldn't deal with her. And I guess he used that. He played on that. He used all the guilt, and made me think I'd never get the chance to say sorry.'
Healy shook his head. I could smell the sweat on him now.
'So I took Leanne.'
As Markham spoke her name a subtle change passed across Healy's face and I realized something: he hurt too deeply to ever get over what he was about to be told. He could get his vengeance, but it would never repair the hole left behind. All the frustration, all the aggression, all the violence to come — ultimately it meant nothing.
'He must have first picked me out through the youth club,' Markham said. 'He must have been watching that place - watching Leanne and Megan — and seen me there on a Monday. I had a good relationship with both of them. I suppose they trusted me. I mean…' He stopped. "Why wouldn't they?'
; I glanced at Healy. He was absolutely still.
'He called Leanne my practice run. I had to make her think I wanted to be with her. Then I had to take her to the woods and give her to him. He told me that if I got found out, if I left anything for anyone to find, he would cut me adrift, and I would never see my wife again.' Markham looked away for a moment. 'So that's what I did. I made Leanne think I liked her. I forced myself into her life. And then, when I had her fooled, I just… fed her to him.'
'Healy,' I said.
'It stays on.'
'You can —'
'It stays on,' he spat, turning to face me. In the dull light, something shimmered in one of his eyes. And then he fixed his gaze back on the television as Markham got up from his seat. He sniffed, walked past the camera — and everything turned to black.
A second later, it started again.
He moved from behind the camera and headed back to his seat. This time he appeared more composed. 'I got the sense Megan was more important to him than Leanne. I don't know why - that was just what it felt like. He planned everything out for Leanne, but he seemed to be even more meticulous with Megan. Maybe it was just that
Leanne was easier to get at. She wasn't very bright and she'd had a disrupted home life. Her mother was having an affair, and her father was never around.'
I glanced at Healy. Nothing.
'Megan was different. She had wealthy parents, and with wealth comes resources. If she disappeared, they'd use that wealth. They'd use all of it if it meant finding her. Leanne, I just got for him. But Megan came with a set of ground rules.'
I looked at Healy again. Sweat had soaked through his shirt, under his arms, at his collar. He turned to me, face blank. 'What Does he mean by "ground rules"?'
'I think he means the London Conservation Trust,' I said, pushing Pause on the VCR. 'Glass set that up to make himself untraceable. He used bogus newsletters to hide messages in, and the site to give her details of meetings. She thought it was all being sent from Markham - but it wasn't. It was Glass.'
'And Megan didn't think it was a bit weird?'
I shrugged. 'Maybe. But remember, Markham was nearly twenty years older than her. In fact, technically, she wasn't even an adult yet. Glass probably told him to play on that, made Markham tell her that he had a public- facing job and couldn't risk any controversy. Markham must have ended up convincing her that it was safer to use the LCT as cover until she turned eighteen — and then they could tell people about their relationship.'
