Echoes

by Iain McLaughlin

  • Acid? I don’t …

  • It’s a drug, okay? They were way into tripping on acid, and they got Joe into it.

  • Tripping?

  • Yeah. He got stoned a lot. I was still working, and I got pissed at him spending my money on acid. We fought a lot. Kinda ironic, huh? A couple of peace-loving hippie tree-huggers fighting all the time. I wanted us to find a place, but not him. He was happy with his new friends in the squat. He spent his time with them. I was … I was just the baggage, you know? I was just the one who brought the money. After a couple of months we weren’t sharing a life.

  • What did you do?

  • Did I leave him, you mean? No. I loved the stupid bastard. How could I leave him? Isn’t that the way with us women? We stay with them even when they hurt us? Even when we know we should leave, we still stay to try and make things better.

  • Did you? Make things better, I mean.

  • No. No, I didn’t. Anything but.

  • Go on.

  • I really don’t want to do this.

  • I’m sorry, but I need to know.

  • Suit yourself. Maybe that’s the only way to be, in here – think about number one. I didn’t leave him. I did the stupidest thing I could. I felt like he’d left me for his acid, so I decided to buy acid and join him. A romantic trip for two, I called it. Bad joke, huh?

  • Things didn’t work out the way you expected.

  • That’s an understatement. I bought the acid from a guy we knew. He said it was from a new supplier. Stronger stuff. Stronger than usual, he said. Sounded good to me.

  • Was it stronger?

  • It was different. Dirty. It hadn’t been prepared properly.

  • And that makes a difference?

  • Oh, yeah. That makes a difference, all right. Joe was so pleased when I told him. It was pathetic, really, that I thought a trip would keep us together. But I loved the son of a bitch, and I wanted it to work, so I bought the idea. He couldn’t wait to try the stuff. Just us, him and me. A Saturday afternoon. It was so sunny and warm. We could have done anything, gone anywhere. Instead, we were in a dingy old squat taking acid. He wanted to be first. I guess he was hooked and desperate for a fix. Maybe he just wanted to show me how it was done. Anyway, he dropped the acid. Straight off, I knew something was wrong. He always went really relaxed and mellow with acid. Not this time. He started having these convulsions, like he was having a fit. My cousin was epileptic. Joe looked like she did when she was having one of her fits. He was choking and gasping for breath. I shouted for help. I screamed for somebody to come.

  • But no-one did.

  • No. They were either out or just out of their brains. We didn’t have a phone – we were a squat, we didn’t have anything really – so I had to run to the phone box to get an ambulance. By the time it arrived, Joe was already unconscious and hardly breathing. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

  • I’m sorry.

  • Yeah. Me too. He was stupid and selfish and he could be a real piece of shit when he wanted to be, but I loved him. I really did.

  • I think that’s obvious.

  • Is it? Then why did I kill him?

  • You didn’t ki …

  • I bought the drugs that killed him. I killed him. I’m responsible. The police thought so, too. Reckoned I’d get ten years.

  • They arrested you?

  • Not on the spot. They took my name, address, details of where my parents lived … everything. They said they’d be round to see me the next morning.

  • Did they arrest you then?

  • Dunno. I wasn’t thinking too straight, you know? I’d just killed my boyfriend. I suppose I was in shock. I was desperate, and I felt so guilty. I didn’t think I could live, knowing that I had killed Joe. So I decided to do myself in as well.

  • You committed suicide?

  • I was going to. All the way back to the squat, I was working it out in my head. How I would do it. A scalding hot bath, dose myself up with pills and booze – if the filth had left any pills in the place – and then use Joe’s razor on my wrists. It’s supposed to be a peaceful way to go.

  • But you didn’t.

  • Didn’t have the chance. One minute I’m in the bath popping pills and slugging a home-brewed wine that tasted like turps, and the next – I’m here.

  • Perhaps you did kill yourself and just don’t remember.

  • Don’t you start. I was compus mentus enough to still know what I was doing. I didn’t even take the razor apart. Wherever this is, it’s not the afterlife, babe.

  • I didn’t think it was.

  • Pity. If there is an afterlife, I’d like to see Joe again. Just to tell him what a selfish arsehole he is.

  • I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you.

  • Any more than I meant to hurt him. Well, there. You’ve had your pound of flesh. I’ve told you what happened to me. Has it helped? I bloody hope so, because it’s made me feel like shit.

  • It’s interesting.

  • Thanks. I kill the only guy I ever loved, and to you it’s just interesting.

  • No. I mean, you came here straight after Joe died. Joan came immediately after her family were killed.

  • We all have sob stories, hon. Nobody here lived the perfect life. At least, nobody who’s talked. Some of them keep quiet about their lives.

  • Who?

  • Snooty Miss Patience for one. She was the lady of the manor, but that’s about all she’ll say. To me, anyway. We don’t know much about her, except that Mary was a maid in her house.

  • This Mary is here as well?

  • Yeah, but she doesn’t talk either. She’s too scared of Patience to say anything.

  • That doesn’t make sense. Surely everyone is on an equal footing here.

  • It may not make sense to you, but to them, position is everything. Patience in particular. She wouldn’t take kindly to you putting her on a level with a servant. Or with me, for that matter. And as for Tess, well, if I’ve pieced together the snippets Tess has let slip and put them together right, well … Patience would go ape at spending time with her.

  • I don’t think I’ll ask.

  • She had to make a living somehow. Not much of a life for someone, though, is it? Selling her body. Every night, a few quick fumbles in dark alleys just so she can afford a place to sleep. That’s no life. Not even for a space-cadet like her.

  • So everyone here had been living through a low point in their life when they arrived here.

  • Which cliché do you want to use? Going from bad to worse? From the frying pan into the fire? They all fit.

  • Very interesting. I definitely want to talk to this Patience. And Mary. I want to talk to both of them. Quickly.

  • You’ll be lucky. Patience avoids Mary like the plague.

  • Why? I would have thought knowing someone else here would make things easier.

  • Best ask them.

  • I will. There must be more to it than a class distinction, though. Surely.

  • Like I say, ask them. Hey, do something for me, will you?

  • What?

  • Don’t tell anybody my little story, okay? I could do without talking about it again.

  • All right.

  • And don’t let Joan know my suspicions about little Tess. She’s got a soft spot for the kid. Treats her like one of her own.

  • I won’t say anything.

  • You won’t have to, Emily dear. I heard every word.

  • Joan?

  • Shit.

  [1] See Time Hunter: The Severed Man

  [2] See Time Hunter: The Severed Man

  Chapter Seven

  It hardly came as a surprise to Honoré that when he and Tess s
tepped through the door that appeared to lead to Joan Barton’s hall, they in fact found themselves in a very different place altogether. At a guess, they were still in the same building as the hall they had just left, only now they were in a large bed-chamber, dominated by an enormous four-poster bed. The only light in the room came from a few candles in holders scattered around the walls and from the fire that roared heartily in the fireplace. A gust of wind rattled the window, and Tess almost leaped when she heard a tapping at the window.

  ‘Branches hitting the glass,’ Lechasseur explained.

  ‘I knew that,’ Tess answered defensively. All the same, she kept close to Lechasseur, keeping him as a shield between her and the window.

  ‘Looks to be the same house,’ Lechasseur mused. ‘Same period, too, I’d guess.’

  ‘For sure–’ Tess agreed, before cutting off short.

  Honoré followed Tess’s gaze and saw Patience – the pale-skinned young woman from the banqueting hall – seated at a small table in front of a mirror, combing out her hair. She had changed clothes and now wore a long dressing-gown of a deep red silk over a gleaming white ankle-length nightdress, which was buttoned up to her neck. She looked every bit as desolate as she had in the hall. ‘Patience?’

  Tess bobbed her head in agreement. ‘That’s her. Poor cow looks bloody miserable, don’t she?’

  ‘If I was married to that chap in the hall, I’d be miserable too,’ Lechasseur answered.

  Tess snorted. ‘If you was married to him, I reckon he’d be a bit put out an’ all.’

  ‘No denying that,’ Lechasseur agreed. ‘Come on.’ He led Tess closer to the desk where Patience had just put down her hairbrush and was staring at her pallid reflection in the mirror.

  ‘She can’t see us here either, can she?’ Tess asked nervously.

  Lechasseur pointed a finger at the mirror. They were standing apparently only a few feet away from Patience, but they had no reflection in the mirror. ‘I guess not.’

  ‘We got no shadows neither.’ Tess was looking at the floor behind them, where her shadow should have been. She moved to the nearest candle and held her hand between the flame and the wall. The light still shone as brightly, and no shadow appeared on the wall.

  ‘So we’re not really here,’ Lechasseur sighed. ‘Or maybe they’re not really here. I don’t suppose it matters which.’

  A knock at the door. Quick and agitated.

  Patience looked away from the mirror, stirred from her misery. ‘Come in.’

  The door opened and Mary, the maid, hurried in. She moved with a shuffling, downtrodden gait and kept her eyes to the floor, unwilling to meet Patience’s gaze straight on. ‘Excuse me, but …’

  ‘Get out!’ Patience cut across Mary sharply, her voice brittle and shrill.

  ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ Mary whined pathetically. ‘I can’t. The master told me to come here.’ The girl looked as miserable as Patience, and clearly wanted to be anywhere but in this room.

  ‘I don’t care what the master said,’ Patience snapped. ‘Does he expect me to watch while you share our bed in my place?’

  ‘No, miss,’ Mary protested. ‘Please. It’s much worse.’

  Patience snapped to her feet and strode towards Mary. ‘You’re not the first little bed-warmer he’s had,’ she said brutally. ‘He changes his kitchen whores as regularly as a civilised man changes his clothes.’ She was close to Mary now, and stared hard at the girl. ‘You wouldn’t be the first I’d had to sit and watch him take his pleasure with,’ she added viciously. ‘This time next week, he won’t even remember your name.’

  ‘I think he’s going to kill me,’ Mary whimpered.

  Patience stopped short, her tirade halted in mid-stride. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. For the first time, she was actually aware that Mary was shaking and in tears. The girl was obviously terrified. ‘Why would you think that my husband would want to kill you?’

  The girl didn’t answer. She just shook and tried to choke off her tears.

  ‘Any of this ring a bell with you?’ Lechasseur asked Tess.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s all new to me. But her ladyship don’t exactly invite me over for tea, if you know what I mean.’

  Lechasseur stroked his beard in contemplation. ‘If we’re here,’ he mused, ‘it must be important, and there must be a reason. I wonder what it is?’

  • I will not talk of this with you.

  • Patience, please talk to her. I know this is difficult for you, but …

  • No, Joan. I will not let my life become the stuff of gossip and common discourse.

  • Gossip? Have you taken a look around you? You’re in limbo. Are you worried about the people here gossiping about you? Don’t be absurd.

  • I do not know you, Emily. But you, Joan, from you I would have expected better respect for my privacy.

  • Patience, dear, I know how much you value your privacy, but I also believe that Emily might be able to help us find a way out of here.

  • Nonsense. We are here and this is where we will stay.

  • Or is this where you want to stay? From everything I’ve learned since meeting Joan and Sandi and a few others here, I’m becoming convinced that everyone here had suffered a tragedy or was in some kind of distress before they arrived here. I wonder if you’re just too afraid to face your past. Or are you afraid that you’ll have to go back to it if you ever were released from here?

  • How dare you speak to me in that manner!

  • Bluster all you like, Patience, but I want to know what happened.

  • Please, Patience. I know this will be difficult, but think of the girls here who have never had a chance of life. Don’t Tess and Mary deserve their chance to have their lives back?

  • I will not speak.

  • Is there a chance of us getting back? Really?

  • Alice?

  • Yes, Joan. It’s me. Is there a serious chance of us getting free?

  • Emily?

  • I can’t promise you that it will happen, Alice, but I will try.

  • That’s the first thing I’ve heard that I’ve liked since I arrived here.

  • Forgive me for asking, but did you have a tragedy of some kind before you were brought here?

  • You could say. I assume you want the details?

  • Please.

  • I worked as PA for John Raymond. That name won’t mean much to you, probably. But in 1995 he was one of the UK’s foremost industrialists – ‘captain of industry’ was the phrase he loved to hear. He threatened to start wearing a sailor’s cap around the office and saying things like ‘Yo-ho ho’. He was a good businessman, too. And a good man. He was fun to work for, paid his workers well, treated them as equals, whether they were on the board or swept the stairs. He was also my fiancé. We’d kept it quiet, though most of the staff knew we were a couple. He was in trouble financially. There are some very jealous people in the world, Emily, and John had crossed some of them over the years. They played their part in taking him to the edge of bankruptcy, I’m sure of it. And then he died.

  • He killed himself rather than be bankrupt?

  • That’s what the papers said, but they can go to hell.

  • You don’t sound so sure.

  • What do you want me to do? Admit my lover killed himself? Threw himself off the top of the tower?

  • Is that what happened?

  • No. Yes. Oh, hell! What’s the point in lying? It won’t do me any good here. He left a letter, Emily. A meticulously detailed, four page letter explaining why he was killing himself and how he would be exonerated by history. It was typical John. Precise, detailed, elegantly worded. He shot back at everybody who had helped make the tower fail. It would have shaken the country. I burned it.

  • Why?

  • Because if it could have be
en proved that he had committed suicide, I wouldn’t have received a penny from the insurance company. Instead, I let his name be dragged through the mud and let his businesses – his life’s work – be broken up and sold, just so that I could fill my pockets.

  • The insurance company paid?

  • Eventually. It had to, after the inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death. I have more money than I’ll ever know what to do with, and it doesn’t take away the feeling of guilt at having denied John the chance to have his last say.

  • The guilt must have been terrible for you to deal with.

  • Bad enough to have me thinking of doing the same as John did.

  • I’m so sorry, Alice dear.

  • Thanks, Joan.

  • Thank you for being so honest and candid, Alice. Can I ask you one more thing?

  • There’s nothing more to tell.

  • It’s about the symbol on the building – the circle with the horns and the tail.

  • Oh, that thing.

  • Where did it come from?

  • You make it sound important.

  • It might be. Do you know anything about it?

  • Of course. John designed it.

  • John Raymond?

  • What other John would I mean?

  • He designed it himself?

  • Yes. In the 1960s.

  • That doesn’t make sense. How could he have come up with it in the 1960s when we saw it in a much earlier time than that?

  • Actually, it’s not quite true to say that he designed it. He told me he saw a tramp drawing a rough version of something similar in the early 1950s. The image stuck with him and he adapted it – and adopted it – for his company logo. Why are you so interested?

  • Did he ever talk to the tramp?

  • No, he just watched him draw it for a while, and then ran to school because he was late. He always said he owed that tramp his fortune.

  • You’re sure the symbol didn’t mean more to him than that?

  • I knew him better than anyone. It was just a logo. Nothing more. What is it about the logo that’s got you so interested?