Sufferer's Song

by Savile, Steve

  Mike rested the blade lightly against his groin, and then pulled the knife gently, but with enough pressure to draw a thin line of blood. It stung, but that in itself was no bad thing. Tiny teeth rasped against his taut skin, bringing beads of bright red blood to the surface.

  Then he pressed that bit harder, the edge of the blade parting the tendons deeply enough to open the stark blue line that encased his femoral artery. The effect was like slicing through a high-pressure jet-spray; blood fountained.

  “No. . . No. . . Didn't tell Ben,” he moaned, clasping his fingers over the gushing wound, desperately struggling to hold back the big sleep he felt charging up behind him.

  So cold. . .

  Blood leaked out through his fingers as he pinched the loose flaps of skin together. It felt like clammy, blue-tinged pastry beneath his fingers.

  The caravan was dreadfully chilly. . . like that night. . . and there was so much blood on his hands. . . so much. . . the pain ebbed, clamped stomach muscles unclenched. . . a wave of emptiness broke over his heart. . . dizzy. . .

  He slumped back onto the mattress.

  So cold. . . so very, very cold. . . the misty shape up ahead wasn't heaven. . . so much blood on his hands. . . the caravan's ceiling, fogged. . . didn't tell Ben. . . didn’t say goodbye. . . it should be rain-

  But, by then he was already dead, another victim of the sufferer’s song.

  - 44 -

  Everything about the last twelve hours was so horribly unreal.

  Devlin had wanted to take Kristy home, sure the worst of the mess back there would have been cleared up by now, and one of the interns, sweet and well meaning enough for it, had wanted to pump her full of sedatives to dull the shock. She had put both of them off by saying that she wanted to spend some time alone, in the chapel, to get her head together. They seemed to understand, which was strange because she did not.

  The night, and now this. A horrible nightmare. Horrible. Bloody horrible. Her worst at that. Jason, fun loving, always on the go, duff film buff, Jason dead. It was unbelievable. She half expected him to come barrelling in through the chapel doors large as life and twice as boisterous, laughing at the way he had pulled one over on her this time. . . One minute they were clowning about with ideas for follow-ups on the Hexham Hell Hound and the next he was dead. Gone. And even though she recognised it for what it was, denial, Kristy simply couldn't bring herself to admit that he wouldn't be there to drive her half-demented tomorrow.

  Her first experience of anything like this, and it was so dreadfully final. She didn't feel sad so much as angry. Robbed. Kristy had a couple of phone calls to make, but didn't feel nearly up to making them. She was alone in the small chapel. Alone to think things through. To justify them, and pray. No matter that she had all but forgotten how to put her hands together for God. The musk of the red beakered votive candles was heavy in the air, the fumes barely dispersing amid the dust, its familiarity comforting despite the distance in real time since the good catholic girl's faith had lapsed. It was all so crazy.

  Unbelievable. The chapel offered itself as a life-raft while everything she touched turned to leaden despair. Just this once she had decided to take the crutch and cling to it for all she was worth.

  Well, that, at least, had been the rationale behind her coming down here in the first place, but if pressed she wouldn't have denied the possibility of a hidden agenda. Practice was always something so unhealthily different. Sat at one of the five rows of pews, Kristy couldn't see a single good reason for praying. There wasn't a great deal to thank God for, and even now she harboured a gut-loathing toward hypocrites of any and all varieties.

  She honestly did not know if she was expecting to find answers in the small recess to God, or a miracle from the alabaster Jesus with his hard-faced, cynical look and chipped ceramic crown of thorns. A down-at-heel saviour to watch over the few sheep that came beneath his wing. The statue reinforced the impression that the chapel was only a temporary loan from the fabric of the hospital, its true face hidden away for the moment.

  The light through the only window, imitation stained glass fragments shaped like the crucifixion cross, threw a many-coloured sword across the line of pews. Celtic legend had Cuchullain as the son of Lugh, God of Light, and here, in this sanctuary to a younger God, was his sword in the spirit of his father. The many hues scintillated, merging through the colours, red, angry, to blue, calm.

  It was the closest she came to seeing a miracle that morning.

  * * * * *

  So she sat, and she thought, her resolve hardening despite the cavity that had opened since leaving the chapel, despite the growing ill feeling that festered there.

  Madness or not, Jason had promised first class cavalry waiting at the other end of a phone call, and it was painfully obvious to her that she should be thinking about cashing it in.

  Kristy had come across Robin Stone's number again sifting through her pockets for ten pence to feed the slot while she tried to hold one end of an empty conversation with Spencer Abel. She hadn't given much thought to actually calling up the student world's equivalent to the Light Brigade until she finished listening to Abel's platitudes.

  “You're not thinking of doing anything stupid are you, Kristy love?” he asked before hanging up, his concern obvious.

  “No,” Kristy assured the editor, lying through her teeth. “That would be too damned easy. Just thank God this isn't America, Spencer, otherwise I'd be going down for life.”

  “What are you talking about?” A quaver?

  “Gun law, Spencer. But this isn't America so I've got to call in all the Aces I've got, staring with you.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Run the obit. For Jason, but come as close to naming names and sticking the tail on the donkey as we dare. Fuck it, go one further. We both know who it was, Jesus, even the police know, and for pity's sake Spencer, he cut Jason up. Print it all. Every last word we've got. Tell them Jason was close to cracking the Judith Kenyon thing before he was savaged by Richards’ pet Doberman’s, and now, two days later, the pathologist is playing join the dots with what's left of his body. Let Joe Public make their own decisions. For once let’s not treat them as if they are all stupid. Shit, I know this sounds stupid, but I almost forgot. The bastard broke into my place last night. Same M.O., shit all over the sofa, blood on the walls. Even left some of his sticking rats as presents.”

  “Christ girl, be careful.”

  “You know me. Just run the obit. In 3D, okay.”

  “Consider it done, even if it will mean I'm stuck in here all bloody day. We'll give Jason a send off Fleet Street would have been proud of.” Abel was quiet, thoughtful for a moment. “You want me to run it under your by-line?” He sounded more at ease now, back on the firmer ground of home territory, but the offer still surprised her. Kristy recovered well.

  “Whatever you think’s best. Just take some of your own advice and be careful Spencer, please. I don't think this fella’s read the rules. I'm going to meet up with Devlin in Westbrooke, see if the local plod have had any luck bringing Richards in. While we’re on, you might want to send Jessie down to cover Jason's autopsy. She might be able to get something out of the nurse by then, if she's come down. I'll tell you this for nothing; this place is getting me down now. I've got to get some air.”

  “Don't go knocking yourself out, Kris. At the end of the day it's just a job.”

  “You sound just like Jason.”

  * * * * *

  “Hi, Robin Stone please?”

  “No problem. I'll just go fetch her.”

  An extrapolated pause, then: “Sorry about this, she's in the bathroom trying to make herself pretty. Too much of the Good Stuff last night. Shall I get her to call you back when she’s fit?”

  “No, I'll wait.”

  “Hey, look lady, she could be all day before she's finished heaving.”

  “Then I'll wait all fucking day if I have to, but I'm going to talk to her before I
put this phone down. Okay?”

  “That's cool. Yeah, okay. I'll just go and give her another shout. You hang on there.”

  The buzz glumnk as more money was fed into the slot. A fuzzy voice. “Yeah? Who is it?”

  “Robin Stone?”

  “That's me. Who's you?”

  “Kristy French. I work with Jason Kelso at the Gazette.” Worked with, Kris. . .

  “So? What do you want me to do about it?”

  “We have to talk.”

  “I thought that's what we were doing now.”

  “Okay, if that's the way you want it. Jason's been killed, I think I'm next, and Jason said you were grade A cavalry material. Now, are we going to talk, or are you going to carry on pissing me off, because I haven't got the time to waste on tight arsed dykes.”

  A pause, then: “You've been put up to this, right? Game for a laugh, right? Who put you up to this, Jason?”

  “Don't be so bloody stupid. I've got ten pence left in the box, and I need to know if you're going to help me or not. Which is it?”

  “You're serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck.”

  Another pause, the longest yet.

  “Can you meet me?” The voice no longer fuzzy. Sharp. Thinking. “Where and when?”

  “The Union bar, no, shit, that'll be closed 'til tomorrow. Leazes Park, by the pond for four.”

  “I'll be there,” and to herself, “I hope.”

  - 45 -

  Billy came round an hour after breakfast.

  Don't wanna die, that was his first thought.

  He pressed a weak hand against his chest and felt the tightness there. The words clanged strangely, sounding hollow in his head, their echo confusing him into thinking he'd spoken them aloud, which, of course, he hadn't.

  Billy lay hunched under the mouldy-smelling covers of Pops’ crocheted quilt, staring up at the ceiling and trying desperately to swallow down the hot-sick burning hand that was reaching up his throat. The collar of his work shirt was spotted with clots of phlegm. His chin felt crusty with sores. Bad day, Billy. Bad day.

  The ceiling above him was angled slightly down towards the window at the foot of the bed, and decorated with sheets of cheap woodchip paper that had been painted over so many times the stippled effect of the woodchips was lost under the yellowed coats of emulsion. Directly above his head a spreading patch of dampness cultivated black-green spores. Bad. Bad.

  Billy remembered screaming. He remembered pigeons, but trying to dredge up other by now dulled trace memories from the fever-wracked turmoil of his mind was like listening to the playback of a blank CD: Nothing broken by the occasional burst of static escaping from the speakers.

  He knew he was sick. He'd woken up with a terrible headache and a desperate thirst that four glasses of water couldn't quench. He was sweating buckets, and if he put a hand to his forehead it felt as if he was resting it on the cooker's hot-plate. Billy Rogan was burning up from the inside out, all right. The acid indigestion he'd felt when the screams finally dried up had hardened into a serious case of heartburn, and every now and again the woodchip ceiling would swim in and out of focus with the roll of his blurring vision. Gritting his teeth against a sudden flare of pain, Billy swabbed the perspiration out of his bloodshot eyes with a wadded Kleenex.

  He closed his eyes, trying to think, to force his numb brain out of reverse and up through the gears. He was aware, vaguely, of the rhythmic dub-dub! Of blood pumping through his ears. His mind didn't want to respond. His eyes were watering, and his nose was running. He wiped the sopping Kleenex across it, trying to wipe away the thin streamers of mucus dribbling from his nose.

  Don't wanna die, he whispered, or somewhere inside his head, imagined he did.

  Billy sneezed and sniffed, drawing the watery streamers back into his nose. The sudden shock of the sneeze drove a spike deep into his foggy brain (BILLLLY! YOU FUCKIN' REEE-TARD!), and Billy struggled to sit up. The sheets were tangled around his dry mud plastered legs like restraining straps, anchoring him to the sweat-damp mattress.

  He'd fallen asleep and left the television on downstairs.

  The irrational thought-come-memory virtually popped into his head, a hand clawing up through the turgid depths, struggling to snag on to any available lifeline.

  (BILLLLY! YOU FUCKIN' REEE-TARD!!! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU???)

  That's me, he tried to say.

  What he heard was the raspy, choking hack of a very sick man, but that one line gave him something to cling on to as the next wave of delirium washed over him.

  There's trout in. . . .

  Harmless. . .

  Big Bad. . .

  Don't wanna die! ! !

  * * * * *

  Ten minutes later he was propped up on his elbows, fighting an almost overwhelming urge to sink back into the black haze where his mind whispered terrible things. During those seconds a fire would light inside his bladder, pushing molten runners through the length of his stiffening penis, but later, when he shucked off the haze, the voice of delirium and the whispers would fade, leaving him with a rapidly dwindling erection tenting out the front of his grubby jeans.

  Physically, he was stretched to a point way beyond his limits. He was starved and he was dehydrated to the point of emaciation.

  How long had he been sick?

  He didn't know.

  There was a clock on the dresser, but he couldn't tell what the lights meant any more than he could explain the unquenchable fire burning in his throat.

  The light seeping in through the lace curtains cast dull, sepia tinged circles over the doors of the old wardrobe and the threadbare carpet at its foot.

  He knew he ought to try and move, but the vacuum swirling around inside had left him so weak. He desperately needed to drink something. Water. Billy clung to the thought of the stuff.

  His clothes were stiff with thick dried-on mud cakes. He wasn't wearing anything on his feet; Billy was racked by a series of small but uncontrollable shivers that seemed to corkscrew up from somewhere past his aching feet and into his skull.

  When they subsided, he tried to stand.

  His legs folded under him, and he collapsed into a disjointed sprawl on the carpet. The aching fire scalded his throat, dragging nails through the raw, arid flesh. He crawled as best he could manage, thinking about the water in the bathroom taps. He dragged himself forward, clawing an inch by precious inch, his legs kicking out feebly. Billy used them like flippers, squirming them around to push his weight one step further.

  The real light in the room was dim, but the lack of light on the landing made it darker still, almost to the winter night black of the bad place.

  At the head of the stairs he tried to call out, but the croak that came out of his cracked lips was no more than the feeble whisper he had managed when he claimed his name -- How long ago?

  It was impossible to tell.

  Using his left hand, Billy clawed at a piece of skirting breaking away from the wall, and pulled himself forward another precious inch. The room spun crazily, then settled, looking horribly bleached of colour. He drew his trembling, weak legs in under him and placed his heavy hands on the floor to push himself up, but didn't have the strength left to stand. Trying to force his muscles to work simply made him dizzy. With what little strength he had left, Billy continued to crawl, pushing himself forward weakly with his legs, again.

  Every few seconds a lancing pain would shoot up his spasming left arm, into his shoulder. His legs might have been made of lead with jelly bones for all the good they were. He felt none of the sensations coming up from them, but forced himself on, because the only alternative was to lie down and die.

  Somewhere between the landing and the sink he descended into the blackest of hazes.

  * * * * *

  Pain trickled into Billy's darkness.

  He shied away from it, frightened of the returning life it threatened.

  Light grey followed the haze.

  He co
ughed feebly, his whole body wracked by a fresh wave of agony. He struggled to open his eyes, expecting nothing, but curious to see the angel that had woken him. They fluttered open, lashes gummy with sleep, seeing only a meaningless wash of colour.

  He was lying on his back, the strength fled at last from his body.

  Don't wanna die, he thought reasonably as the darkness rose up to reclaim him.

  * * * * *

  Awareness returned, an unwelcome guest.

  Slowly, the images began to gain substance. He was lying on the bathroom floor, a puppet with his strings cut out from above his head by a vengeful knife.

  The side panel of the bath tub squeaked piteously against the weight of his back; like the twittering of mice. Billy felt the once strong muscles of his arm quivering like jelly, twitching as he strained to force movement out of the limb. He saw the chrome of the taps above the begrimed enamel of the bath, out of reach above his head. Might as well be in Africa, his mind taunted. He bit down on his lip, perspiration running down into the shallow valleys formed by his sunken eyes. He tried to move, fingers lifting up to an agonizing inch from the faucet before flopping back to the floor like five pounds of dead fish, and gave in to screaming.

  * * * * *

  He sobbed, gritting his teeth until the pain ebbed again.

  Billy flexed his fingers. He was crying, sweat and tears mingling freely on his cheeks. He wiped his eyes; crying wasn't going to get him out of this. He needed Pops. A bead of sweat trickled down from his hairline, and ran, stinging, into the corner of his eye. Pops would know what to do. Pops would know what was wrong with him and how to put it right. Better fixed with a kiss than a plaster, like he said.

  Billy wriggled around until he felt his back brace against the cold hard enamel of the tub, and started to push against it. The angel of pain continued to scour his system. One second he was burning up, the next the Hell let loose in his blood was freezing over. Billy was tired, so very, very tired. Part of him wanted desperately to sink back into the murky haze, and sleep.