The Absent Man

by Robert Enright

  McAllister shifted on her feet. Her default stance was threatening. ‘You think this was done by a woman?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Bermuda said, scanning the lifeless, heartless body before him. ‘I think it was something else.’

  Before McAllister could respond, her radio crackled into life, the rasping of the machine under her overalls. A seasoned pro, she grasped the button without looking.

  ‘Ma’am, we’ve found it.’

  She sighed, looking back at the dead body of Katie Steingold and aching to put it right. She looked at Bermuda, disgust at the night before battling her need to have someone by her side through this.

  ‘Let me guess. The Necropolis.’

  The voice on the radio confirmed it and she angrily slammed her fist against the wall of the room before storming out, barking out orders to the team that another team was needed at the Necropolis.

  She turned back to Bermuda, eyeing him up and down, not even hiding her disdain. ‘I guess you’ll be wanting to come along.’

  ‘What’s at the Necropolis?’ he asked as they burst through the front door of the apartment, removing their overalls and allowing the cold, harsh rain to attack their clothes.

  ‘Her heart,’ McAllister replied coldly.

  ‘Huh?’ Bermuda patted his coat for his e-cig. ‘How do you know that?’

  She turned and scowled at him through the cloud of smoke he produced. ‘Because it’s the same place he delivered the last one.’

  She motioned to some of her officers to get going, their cars revving to life as they left in a whirlwind of flashing blue lights and screaming sirens. Argyle, who had stood calmly to the side of the tent, approached Bermuda, his armour glistening in the wetness of the Scottish morning.

  ‘Where are we departing to?’ he asked, adjusting the Retriever that lay on his wrist.

  ‘The Necropolis.’ Bermuda turned to McAllister, who was one part angrily beckoning him to get in the car, one part curious as to who he was talking to. ‘Stay here and keep an eye on things.’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’ Argyle asked, watching Bermuda race across the wet crime scene to the detective’s car.

  Bermuda yelled back before he opened the door. ‘I have no fucking idea.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  He had delivered it. Just like the others.

  Every time he felt his hand in the warmth of their chest, he imagined her face. Although the light of this person had died, it would illuminate his path. His steps were calm and measured, meandering through the random tombstones, needless memorials to those who had long since passed.

  What did they care?

  Humanity had always been an odd concept even though he himself was human. He had the memories, a life spent beside her, his beautiful world that was taken from him. He remembered their love but dare not think her name.

  Was there more?

  Was there another place in his heart, filled with warmth for another creature, one he did not meet nor recall? He shook the notion, allowing the freezing rain to collide with his skin, the sensation of the chill dancing across his skin.

  His human skin.

  His hands dripped blood, the last remnants of Katie Steingold. She would be discovered soon enough, eyes wide in fear, her chest a cavernous hole of broken bones and ripped muscles. He had tried to make it quick, hoping she felt as little as possible. Her sacrifice, while final, needn’t have been excruciating.

  The Necropolis was filled with death; Kevin could sense it in the air as he headed to the exit, his ill-fitted suit flapping in the wind, his tie waving proudly like a flag. He had left the heart in the same place, by the door to the tomb, and made haste to the shadows.

  Surely this would be enough?

  They said they would return her soon.

  As he began to question his deal, he thought back to their first meeting. He remembered his arms held high, metal clasps around his wrists that latched him to the heavy chains bolted to the stone wall. His body, naked and beaten, was being left to rot.

  A human body needs care.

  The man who had approached him seemed familiar, as if they had met some place in time, in an era that didn’t exist, in a world that didn’t match.

  He had told him he could see her again.

  All they needed Kevin to do was bring them the heart of the woman. That was the mission.

  That was all it would take.

  As the final drops of Katie’s blood left his fingertips, he stopped. The Necropolis, a beautiful monument of death, bled behind him like a sinister watercolour painting. Kevin Parker lowered his gaze to his hands, stretching his fingers and staring at his palms.

  They had held her so tightly. She had loved him, as he had her, and he remembered twirling her on the dance floor, their fingers interlocking as they made love. His hand resting on her stomach.

  The hands that they had wrenched from her, the image of the dark figures pulling her down the corridor from him, his chilling screams of anguish echoing like a howling wind.

  The hands that he would murder those responsible with.

  The very hands he was using to kill these women.

  For a brief instance, a twinge of guilt passed through him; the thought of removing a love from a life as he had felt was not an easy task. However, he needed her back. He had spent so long in the dark, rotting away to a pointless end.

  The man had saved him.

  Offered him a purpose.

  He recalled the promise, to deliver every heart for hers. That was all. That was the bargain. With the sense that he would soon hold her again, smell her scent and feel even a shred of meaning, it was worth it.

  Shaking off any notions of guilt, Kevin Parker stood straight, allowing the freshness of the morning to collide with him. The sun would soon rise and the heart would be found, as always, by the old groundsman, with his pitiful existence of watching over the dead.

  The police would arrive, hopefully after they had found and respectfully tended to the body of Katie Steingold.

  An integral sacrifice.

  Her death, unlike her life, would have a meaning.

  That meaning would soon be upon him.

  As the wet leaves danced across the graves of the departed, Kevin Parker walked through the cold metal gate of the Necropolis, taking one moment to pause and turn back.

  His handsome, chiselled face was splattered with raindrops.

  His hands now blood-free.

  The heart lay on the cold concrete, blood pooling slowly around it.

  She would be with him soon.

  He strode up the street and to the shadows, allowing the darkness to take him.

  The rain had upgraded from a cold drizzle to a freezing shower, relentlessly assaulting the tombstones that shot from the ground like blunt stone spikes. A scattering of police cars at the entrances to the graveyard were blocking the civilians from entering. A team of white-clad SOCOs scurried around the tomb where the heart had been found; the organ itself had been removed with expert precision.

  Bermuda stood, hands on his hips, surveying the scene, two Tic Tacs sloshing around his mouth like a washing machine. He was soaked through, a chill terrorising his body as he tried to focus.

  Why here?

  His eyes scanned the officers as they went about their duties, fighting a losing battle to recover any evidence on a crime scene that the rain had long since destroyed. The officers standing guard were wrapped in see-through plastic to protect their uniforms. The only thing more miserable than the weather were looks on the officers’ faces.

  McAllister’s suit, a darker shade of grey, clung to her athletic frame; her brown hair had given up its fight with the elements a long time ago. Her green eyes, as fierce as they were striking, burnt holes through whoever was delivering her the inevitable news that they had recovered nothing of any help. She shook her head, sighing deeply as the officer shrugged and took his exit.

  Bermuda squinted as the droplets attacked his eyeballs, trying to cast hi
s gaze upon the tomb itself. The building was a miserable, dull, stone creation, long since abandoned. There was zero religious or historic significance to it, yet it was the second heart in two days to be delivered to its front door. Anymore and Deliveroo would be trying to get in on the action.

  Chuckling at his own joke, Bermuda puffed his e-cigarette and squatted down by the wall where the heart was found resting, the bloodstains replaced by torrential rain. Slowly, Bermuda reached out his hand to the wall, gliding it carefully over the coarse stone, searching for anything that told him the BTCO was right.

  That this murder was because of the Otherside.

  McAllister turned, looking for the ‘specialist’ who had been nothing more than a smart-arse on the scene and a disappointment in the bedroom. She marched through the rain, nodding her gratitude to the SOCOs who greeted her with a respectful, ‘Ma’am’. She stopped, her eyebrows raising in confusion as she saw him, hunched down by the discovery point, running his hand over the wall.

  Suddenly he stopped, shuddering as if someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of his shirt.

  She approached, infuriated and intrigued in equal measure.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she demanded as he turned up, his face taut with what she perceived as fear.

  ‘I’m just doing my job.’

  ‘Please explain to me how you contaminating my crime scene is in any way helping?’

  ‘Contaminating? With all this rain?’ He held his arms out to hammer home his point. ‘There is no crime scene.’

  ‘Two women are dead!’ McAllister snapped, taking a step forward.

  ‘And I’m your best chance at catching the creature responsible for it.’

  ‘Creature?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘You mean the person?’

  Bermuda hesitated, taking a step back from the inevitable collision, and despite Argyle’s best efforts, he was pretty sure that McAllister would floor him in seconds. He took a puff on his e-cig and let the rain wash across his face.

  ‘Well?’ McAllister angrily asked.

  ‘Look, there is the possibility that there is something going on here beyond the usual human-on-human violence.’ He took another puff, knowing how absurd he sounded. ‘That’s where I come in.’

  ‘Sorry, but this doesn’t make much sense. I was told by Detective Inspector Strachan that a specialist named Agent Jones was being assigned to work the case with me. Then you turn up, looking like a man clinging desperately to his teen years, and all you have done so far is get in the goddamn way!’

  ‘Because you are all doing such a sterling job without me, eh?’ Bermuda snapped back, regretting it instantly.

  ‘I will find this killer and I will make him or her pay. What squad are you even with?’

  ‘I’m an agent with a government agency. That’s all I’m at liberty to say,’ Bermuda lied, doing his best to channel his inner Fox Mulder.

  ‘Well this is MY case. So do me a favour: keep your mouth shut and your hands in your fucking pockets.’

  Before Bermuda and McAllister could pour more fuel on the fire, a young, pretty police officer approached, strands of ginger hair creeping from underneath the front of her police hat like spider’s legs.

  ‘Ma’am, we may have a witness.’ She was slightly out of breath, her enthusiasm catching up with her. ‘The groundsman.’

  ‘Did he see anything?’ McAllister asked, turning her back on Bermuda and their argument.

  ‘Not really, but he has asked to speak to the agent in charge.’

  ‘Agent?’ McAllister raised her eyebrows. ‘Tell him that Detective McAllister will be with him momentarily.’

  ‘Sorry, Ma’am, but he asked for him by name.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Bermuda. Bermuda Jones.’

  McAllister connected the dots, turning to Bermuda, who slowly stepped forward, ignoring every part of himself that wanted to rub it in her face. He greeted the young PC with his best smile, receiving one in turn that alluded to more if he pursued it. However, with the rain lashing against him and the death toll likely to rise, Bermuda put his libido at the bottom of the priority list.

  ‘Where is he?’ Bermuda asked, trying to sound authoritative.

  ‘He said to meet him in the tomb itself, says he doesn’t like standing out in the rain for too long.’

  ‘Thank you, Officer …’ Bermuda lingered.

  ‘Officer Stokes, sir.’ She beamed.

  ‘Don’t call him sir,’ McAllister interjected, stepping between the two and scowling at Bermuda. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No, he asked for me.’

  ‘Like I said, I’m coming with you.’

  ‘I know you don’t like me and you don’t know why I’m here. But like you said, there are two women dead in two days. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that there will probably be three in three by tomorrow. Right now, I have the faintest of leads that this might be in my area of expertise, and I can either spend the next thirty minutes failing to convince you that what I do is real. Or … you let me speak to Tobias Hendry in there and maybe, just maybe, we find out what the hell is going on.’

  The two stared at each other, any lingering lust from the failed night of passion having evaporated.

  McAllister looked him up and down one more time, disgust across her face. ‘Who the hell is Tobias Hendry?’

  Bermuda turned to the young officer who took a second before she realised she was being silently asked.

  ‘The groundskeeper is called Tobias Hendry, Ma’am.’ She turned to Bermuda. ‘How did you know that? I didn’t mention a name.’

  He answered her, but looked at a baffled McAllister. ‘Because I’m not here by accident.’

  McAllister snarled in silence as Bermuda turned and trudged through the mud towards the grotty, cracked stone of the tomb, the elements lashing against the Glasgow Police Service. She dismissed PC Stokes, who scurried back towards her post, a fine officer who McAllister had high hopes for.

  She took a few steps and then sighed deeply, the previous night’s hangover and lack of sleep hanging as heavy as her drenched clothes. The absurdly named ‘Bermuda’ Jones was already becoming an irritating problem that she was sure would do nothing but hinder the case. Government agencies were renowned for having their own agenda, and she didn’t trust him one bit.

  She leant against a nearby tombstone, her eyes locked on the tomb that Bermuda had just entered, fighting back the urge to throw up. She would persevere, make it through this crime scene, and then report back to DI Strachan, determined to know what the hell Bermuda Jones was there for.

  What did he mean by ‘what he did was real’?

  Why was he sceptical that it was a human?

  Infuriated by her lack of answers, McAllister stood on the spot, waiting for Bermuda to return, unaware of the hooded figures that were lurking in the shadows of the Necropolis, all of them staring at the same building she was.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Moments after his partner had departed for the Necropolis with the brash McAllister, Argyle stood and watched the humans work. He marvelled at the fluidity of their actions, appreciating the skill and dedication they had to their craft. All of them were there to help, to try to uncover what had happened to the poor female who had suffered such a brutal slaying.

  The rain was cold, yet fell to nothing against him as he slowly stepped amongst the scurrying hotbed of activity, careful not to cause a surprising, invisible blockade. It hadn’t been too long ago, during their pursuit of the terrorist Barnaby, that Argyle had collided with a small child by the surrounding grounds of the Cutty Sark. While lifting her into the air and causing widespread panic was misguided, he was thrilled to have seen those Morris dancers.

  In a way, the white overall-clad officers at work reminded him of those majestic men – years of knowledge and practice resulting in a clockwork operation. A selection were dusting for prints while others were placing potential clues in see-through bags. Senior ran
king officers were marking them down on clipboards while the medics had come and removed the body in a dignified manner.

  The poor woman had had her heart pulled from her chest, which had distressed Bermuda immensely. Perhaps, Argyle mused, it was because of Bermuda’s love for his daughter, and how she was a similar species to the recently deceased. That relationship, which he viewed from afar, was another reason his loyalty to Bermuda was unquestionable.

  Despite all the wisecracks and the negativity, Bermuda cared. He had precious things tying him to the world, and Argyle had seen first-hand that when something came along that threatened it, Bermuda would give everything to protect it.

  Mr Black at the BTCO called him an irritant.

  Sir Ottoway called him ‘the balance’.

  Argyle saw him as a hero.

  Stepping through the house, Argyle looked at the belongings of the young girl, trinkets that lined her living room that she had at some point felt a connection to. The symmetry was impressive, each item clearly purchased with a designated spot in mind. A shelf sat above the sofa, with moments of her life captured that had been worth framing.

  As Argyle continued to slide through the crime scene, he made his way to the bloodstained room, the walls and bedsheets still thick with her blood. A few officers were dusting a corner table, their brushes sweeping around the splatter. Her wardrobe was open, revealing rails of pretty clothes that would soon be moved on. Rain clattered against the window and Argyle directed his grey eyes to the road below.

  That was when he saw the cloaked figure.

  Stood in the alleyway opposite, it was too tall to be human. Its powerful figure was cloaked in a long, black robe, the hood flipped over a shadow-covered face.

  The face was a perfect, featureless white.

  Argyle quickly wormed back through the flat, accidentally colliding with a young officer, sending her sprawling into the wall. As her colleagues gasped in shock, he burst through the door, the rain beating against him as he stared across the street.

  The hooded figure was gone.