The Dark Place

by Sam Millar

  William Blake, A Divine Image

  Late afternoon, and Karl tapped aimlessly at the Royal Quiet DeLuxe’s keys, trying desperately to finish the chapter of his latest manuscript. The phone call from Hicks this morning had unsettled him. Each time he tried typing a word, Martina’s face appeared on the page, derailing his train of thought.

  “It’s no use,” he sighed, loudly, hoping to catch Naomi’s attention. He needed a bit of comforting and used the oldest excuse in the book. “Writer’s block.”

  She ignored him, her face glued to the TV set.

  “It’s no bloody use,” he repeated, louder. “I can’t focus.”

  “Huh? Did you say something, Karl?”

  “I said … forget it.”

  The doorbell began buzzing just as Karl placed his fingers back on the keys.

  “It’s okay. You sit there, Naomi. I’ve nothing else to do,” he said, lightly sarcastic, journeying downstairs.

  Opening the door, Karl was greeted by Sean, his regular postman.

  “On time as usual, Sean. I could set my watch by you – if it had six hands.”

  “Definitely not my fault today, Karl,” replied Sean, sheepishly. “The queue in McDonald’s was terrible. You’d think they were giving the Big Macs away, the crowd in there.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to deliver the mail first?”

  “On an empty stomach?”

  “Okay. You win. What goodies have you for me?”

  “It’s what I haven’t got for you.”

  “I love cryptic postmen. What have you not got for me?”

  “A bulky big package representing one of your rejected manuscripts.”

  “Hilarious. Everyone in this town is a comedian. Just give me the mail and go back to your Happy Meal. Make us all happy.”

  Upstairs, Karl checked the mail, junking the junk, wishing he could follow suit with the three bills weighing heavily in his hand.

  “Anything, Karl?” asked Naomi, taking her eyes off the screen for a few seconds.

  “Yes. Three letters for you from a guy called Bill, and one big mysterious brown envelope for me,” said Karl, ripping the head off the large brown. It took Karl less than ten seconds to read the letter contained within:

  Dear Carl (Name spelt wrong. Deliberately? Was paranoia taking hold?)

  I found your writing to be very funny and original. Unfortunately, that said, I am going to disappoint both of us by saying I am sorry I will not be able to do a blurb for you. My agent does not allow it. I must warn you that you do not have permission to use either ‘funny’ or ‘original’ – or indeed mention this correspondence in any of your future work with the exception that if said future work should make it into the best-selling list, then please do mention it, by all means. My new book, Dead Man’s Grave, is due out in March and will be available in all good book stores and competitively priced. Please enjoy the enclosed promotional clippings. They are free and yours to cherish for ever. I should mention before closing that I still have a very limited number of signed copies of my last massive seller, Forward to Darkness, available and at a competitive price, also. Furthermore, anyone buying two of my best-selling books will be sent a beautiful black and white photo of yours truly, taken by the world-famous photographer, Miles O’Rourke. A better deal for the Mullan fan would be purchasing four of my best-selling books. They get a signed photo, absolutely free.

  Yours truly, Peter T. Mullan, author of six best-selling novels including the critically acclaimed Her Deadly Son, soon to be a hit movie starring Mel Gibson (or Harrison Ford).

  PS: Yes, that really is my signature on the photo! Feel free to trade it on eBay.

  “Who’s it from, Karl?” enquired Naomi.

  “From this wanker,” said Karl, holding the large black and white photo for Naomi to view.

  “Who’s that?”

  “That is the bastard I stopped from getting a good hiding in school, numerous times. I wish now I had joined in. This is Mister Bestseller himself, Peter Mullan.”

  “Why’d he send you a photo of himself?”

  “Probably because he hadn’t one of me to send.”

  “Isn’t he the writer you went to see down in Eason’s?”

  “Yes, well … let’s not linger on the past,” said Karl, ripping both letter and photo up before making his way to the kitchen area. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Huh?” said Naomi, returning her attention back to the screen.

  “I said would you like … what the hell is that you’re watching? Are you crying? What the hell are you crying about, now? I hope it’s not because of that wanker’s letter?”

  “I’m not crying!” snapped Naomi, dabbing a Kleenex at her eyes.

  “Must be a weepy you’re watching, then. Please don’t tell me it’s Titanic, again?”

  “It’s … it’s the highest cruelty on earth,” stated Naomi, indicating the screen, while scribbling on to a notepad.

  “What is?”

  “That horrible torture. Foie gras.”

  “I love it when you speak with a French accent. Which reminds me. Wee wee, Mademoiselle. I must go to zee lava-tor-ee,” grinned Karl, doing a terrible Peter Sellers.

  “This isn’t funny. I’m writing a letter to the papers about it,” scolded Naomi. “Foie gras should be made a crime.”

  “I fully agree with whatever it is you’re talking about. What did you do with the Belfast Telegraph? There’s a couple of horse racing results I need to check …” Karl’s voice suddenly trailed off. A goose on the screen was being roughly manhandled, a ten-inch steel tube being forced down its throat. The bird was making an almost-human sound of anguish as the tube went further down its throat. It was appalling to watch, but like the scene of a car wreck, Karl’s morbid curiosity refused to allow him to draw his eyes away. “What … what’s happened to that goose?”

  Naomi sniffed. “The poor thing is being force fed with filtered corn through a metal tube placed in its esophagus.”

  “Why? Is it sick?”

  “No, of course not. The inhumane technique of gavaging – or foie gras – dates as far back as 2500 bc, when the ancient Egyptians began keeping birds for food, deliberately fattening the birds through force-feeding.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “Do you know the translation for foie gras?”

  “Fat liver?”

  “That’s right. The rich livers enlarge three or four times their normal size. It’s a supposed delicacy loved by so-called chefs and greedy connoisseurs.”

  The goose was screaming a high-pitched herr-onk onk, herr-onk onk of distress. To Karl, it sounded almost frighteningly human. It was starting to give him the shits.

  “Can’t you turn that bloody sound down just a tad, Naomi?”

  “Does it upset you?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Good,” she replied, pushing the volume up via the remote. “Everyone should hear this before they sit down to a meal!”

  Herr-onk onk, herr-onk onk, herr-onk onk, herr-onk onkkkkkkkkkkkkkk kkkk.

  “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  “This torture goes on for the last twelve to twenty-one days of the birds’ lives, before they are finally slaughtered. Can you imagine being tortured like that, screaming when no one gives a shit? Horrible horrible horrible …”

  Luck sometimes followed Karl like a dog. Sometimes it ran a little too far ahead. Other times it fell a little too far behind, but it was always within calling range, and if he paused long enough, he knew it would eventually come. Without warning, his doggy luck suddenly hit him, like a rubber band snapping against his forehead. The idea grew so large in his mind that he could think of nothing else.

  “I’ve got to go out, Naomi. Shouldn’t be long,” he declared, quickly grabbing his coat.

  “But … it’s late. Look, I’ll turn this off, if it’s upsetting you, and –”

  “No! No, just keep watching it. I’ll need to ask you some questions when
I get back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery.”

  Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

  Dusk was settling into Belfast, curling cat-ways for the night. The streets were deserted – everyone already where they wanted to be – and the city was fast becoming a startlingly quiet wasteland.

  The iron smell of rain was in the warm, muggy air.

  Karl stood beneath the arch and halo of steel streetlamps before finally entering the building, a ghostly moon the only witness.

  “I had a feeling you’d return,” said Cathy, smugly. “Did you find your precious Martina? Has that particular little goose started laying more golden eggs for you again?”

  Cathy seemed to have physically deteriorated since last he saw her. Her face’s mottling had spread like an unmanageable rash, making her look ill, sallow and sweaty. Bizarrely, she was wearing a too-small bathing suit, breasts swelling above the wire-rimmed top. Below, her bottoms rode up on the insides of her thighs. Karl caught a glance of menacing-looking pubic shadow.

  “I need you to tell me about the young girls, Cathy – all of them.”

  “You like them young, eh? Plump and delicious like little naked geese? Can’t handle someone your own age, ripe like me?”

  “You know what he’s doing with them.”

  “Who?”

  “He’s fattening them up like geese to the slaughter. The first time we met, you asked me if the fat golden goose fled its cage. Remember? And a moment ago, you mentioned goose again.”

  Cathy smiled, uttering not a word.

  “You lure them here, Cathy, for him. Don’t you? All the little girls? They’ve all been here, at one time or another. Haven’t they?”

  “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  For the first time since meeting her, Karl thought he detected hesitancy in Cathy’s usual certitude of manner.

  “You don’t want to be an accessory to murder, Cathy. I believe you were trying to stop him, his sick murdering game. You were throwing little clues at me, but I was too thick to understand. I didn’t catch on at first, but I have now. Where or what is the cage?”

  “I … you should leave … I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “They found a body in Scotland. More than likely it’s Martina Ferris. Do you want that on your conscience, Cathy? Murder and torture of young girls?”

  “This could be some sort of trap, to put me back in prison.”

  “It’s no trap. I can assure you that I’m not a cop of any description – undercover or otherwise. I need this information. I need to stop him murdering more young girls. Your name won’t be brought into this. I promise you.”

  “You … you still haven’t convinced me that you’re not really an undercover cop.”

  “How the hell can I prove it to you? Go on, test me.”

  “Well … I do have a … tester. Just to prove you’re not a cop …” From a stack of battered suitcases directly to her right, she began extracting a small, metal box. Removed a tiny, fat package wrapped in cling film from the box. The package’s content was brown. Resembled a lone turd. Cathy suddenly grinned secretively at Karl.

  “What’s that?” asked Karl.

  “This? This is a the best type of lie detector test.” Her grin straightened into a knife slit.

  Rummaging through another box, she produced a wrinkled apple and a rather battered but fully functioning Victorinox Spartan Swiss army knife, expertly selecting the correct blade from the metal housing. With the blade, she beheaded the stem of the apple before flipping the fruit sideways, tunnelling halfway into its stomach, vomiting out the contents. Her movements were fluent. An expert’s touch.

  “Do you like apple pies?” she asked.

  “I don’t have time for nonsense, Cathy. Can you help me or not?” stated Karl, his patience long gone.

  “This recipe can’t be rushed. Give me that pen on the top of that suitcase,” she instructed, holding out her hand like a doctor performing an operation.

  Karl quickly located the item, handing her a yellow Bic ballpoint.

  She removed the disused pen’s blue cap before expertly biting the golden nib and extracting the inky inner via her shadowed teeth. Spat the inner out. Blew through the plastic body like a kid with a peashooter. “Perfect. No blockage.”

  “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

  “Soon!” she exclaimed, scooping out more of the fruity sludge. Repeated three more times before unwrapping the cling film from the fat package, plugging the brown waxy substance into the apple’s stomach. Entrenching the Bic’s plastic body permanently in the top of the apple, she provocatively ran her tongue along the Bic in a way that made Karl shiver in a bad way. “This is what you call a real pipe. Give me a lighter.”

  “I don’t have one. I’ve stopped smoking.”

  “You’ll find one over there, beside the shoes,” she said, watching him scout until he found it. “Good. That’s it. Bring it over.”

  “Now what?” he asked, holding the lighter.

  “Light me up,” she commanded.

  “You’re going to smoke out of that?”

  “And you.”

  Karl shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

  “This isn’t a pantomime where I say oh yes you are, and you say oh no I’m not.” Her face suddenly shut down. No expression. “It looks like you can’t be trusted. My instincts were right. You are a cop. Going to arrest me for possession, Mister Pig?” Cathy oink oinked twice, close to Karl’s face, wetting his skin with spittle.

  For the longest few seconds of his life, Karl calculated his options, understanding that there was but one. He flicked the wheel, the flame skinny and sharp in the dim light. He held the flame towards her. She guided his hand closer until the flame connected to the apple’s contents, making it glow a bright orange speckled with red and black. Without warning, the flame caught the hairs on his fingers, scorching them.

  “Fuck!” Karl pulled his hand quickly away.

  Cathy sniffed the aroma of burnt flesh, smiling. “That isn’t bacon I smell? Oink! Oink!”

  Fuck you, he wanted to say, but said nothing while watching her sucking on the Bic pipe, gently but with purpose. Within seconds, the entire room was suddenly filled with the sweetness of baked apples and a less than subtle smell of something less homely, the reek cutting hard and clean to his brain.

  “My apple pies are the best,” smiled Cathy, watching him beyond lowered eyelids, smoke filtering through her chipped teeth, clinging to her face.

  Slowly opening her eyes, she proffered Karl the pipe. He reluctantly took it. Glanced at her face, the way it was imploding like a sagging balloon, before staring at the madness nesting in his hand. The Bic’s entrance was thick with Cathy’s saliva. Unappealing. Quickly obstructed it from his thoughts. Went for the jugular of the deep dive by taking a brave toke of the pipe. Coughed. Spluttered wildly. Disgorged smoke and greenish snot from his nose. Disgusted. Quickly wiped.

  “You really are new to this,” laughed Cathy. “Don’t worry. The first cut is always the deepest – and sweetish. Now, this time, inhale like you mean it; as if your very life depends upon it. Don’t waste it.”

  Reluctantly, he sucked it in, no longer trying to block its dark journey into his lungs and bloodstream. Its power hit him, right in the neck. An invisible voltage hardwired to his brain. His arms were suddenly humming with electricity. His legs felt empty, like papier mâché. He needed to sit.

  “Take another hit,” said Cathy, studying his eyes. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course … I trust … you. Very much …” he muttered, little seconds too late, his timing out of kilter. The room was slowly swooning. He closed his eyes to stop the vertigo. It took more than a moment to shake his eyes away and pull them back to Cathy. “Just … just tell me … tell me whe
re the cage is …?”

  “What a beautiful journey you’re going to have. I hope your passport and visa are all in order, Karl?” chuckled Cathy, the laugh sinister and dark.

  “Journey?” His head was becoming swampy. He could feel his face screwing inward like a bathtub draining.

  “We’re both in the same head, Karl. Don’t you understand that?”

  “Same head …” The room was swelling, in and out, breathing like a concrete lung. He could hear its heart beat. Beat. Beat. Beat. “Heart … is on fire … I need … air …”

  “Don’t stress.” Cathy’s eyes widened slightly, speckling with instant delight. She kissed him gently on the cheek, bringing her mouth to his. Her mouth widened, her sweaty face becoming flushed and big-pored. She murmured something inaudible but foul in his ear.

  Karl could smell her pungent body odour; could see his distorted reflection on the surface of the bulbous studs rooted in her tongue. To Karl, something bizarre was happening to Cathy’s lips, causing them to swell up and look like female genitalia. She pushed the bizarre lips forcefully against his. He resisted.

  “If you’re not willing to help me,” she hissed inside his mouth, “then I’m not willing to help you. If you disobey one more time, you’ll no longer be welcome. Do I make myself clear? You’ll never find the cage.”

  Karl tried to respond. “My tongue … it’s … all rub … rub … rub-beryyyyyyyyyyy.”

  “Am I clear!”

  “Yes … per … fect … ly …”

  “My apples are the best on the market,” said Cathy, placing Karl’s hand on one of her breasts. “Know why?”

  Karl shook his head, his tongue no longer forming words. He was sinking fast in dark quicksand and madness.

  “Once you’re done, you simply eat the evidence!” exclaimed Cathy, her laughter vulgar, unexpectedly loud, her other hand pushing the smouldering apple tight against his mouth, hurting his teeth. “Bite. Make the evidence vanish. We don’t want the cops arresting us. Do we?” Her eyes were suddenly wide and vacant like a window forced open.

  Karl nodded in slow motion. Opened his mouth. Bit down on the apple. It tasted like mushy sawdust. He swallowed the hot contents in his mouth. He was invulnerable.