Still Bleeding

by Steve Mosby

  'Shhh,' Hammond told the coffin.

  It had no effect. He wheeled it down to the larger room.

  At one end, there was a large projector screen and a single seat where he could watch his collection of movies. Various pieces rested under mounted spotlights around the walls. The newest was a sports bag, small and slumped, the security tag still in place. Hammond turned the trolley awkwardly, rotating and positioning it against the wall beside the bag.

  Then he stood back.

  Weighing the difference between the two - the contrast between the large, solid metal of the box and the tiny, crumpled bag. He felt a thrill run through him that couldn't be articulated in words. An understanding. You couldn't explain it; it was something you could only get from standing here and seeing this.

  And so he did just that, holding himself quiet and still, listening to the thumping noises from within the box. The air was tingling. His throat, still scorched from the whisky, was now almost too tight to swallow.

  It was the sound of a human being, in pain and terrified of dying. For a moment, Hammond felt the familiar tug of society: the insistent voice that told him he must care. But empathy was only a learned response, and there was power from overcoming that. He already knew the trivial lessons they taught in schools, and the knowledge on offer in this room was of a different, more honest kind. It couldn't be gained any other way. You had to touch it. When you did, everything on the surface felt safe, but everything inside tilted to a perspective you had never even dreamed was possible.

  A drink.

  But he couldn't wait. He needed to see her. He needed to touch his fingertip to her forehead, and become part of this momentous thing.

  His hands shook as they reached out to the lid. Hammond spread his arms to grip it at either end. Thumbs on the front; fingers down the side. It was terribly heavy. He had to get beneath it and push up with his whole body weight to heave it open. As the hinges turned, the smell from within wafted out in a thick, terrible cloud, and the tone of Rebecca Wingate's desperate keening became clear.

  Hammond stumbled backwards in shock.

  He realised two things very clearly. The first was that Garland hadn't allowed him to get away with anything. The second was that Rebecca Wingate's screams had not been motivated solely by a terror of death after all. But also by the rank thing that had stowed itself away with her, and was now stretching itself upright.

  * * *

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Kearney couldn't hear any sirens as he pulled up outside Arthur Hammond's house. The country lane was as empty and silent as it was when he'd been here before.

  Were they even on the way?

  He certainly wasn't going to wait around. Rebecca was in there right now, and he wasn't leaving her alone for a second longer. The nearer he'd got, the more he'd felt a pull inside him. It was as though his heart was connected to hers by a stretch of emotional fabric, and - now that he was this close - he could feel both of them beating inside his chest.

  He abandoned his car at an angle across the grass verge. Left the indicator blinking and the driver's door open, a curve of metal wedged deep into the turf.

  It was a warm, hazy afternoon, the air blurred softly by the heat. Kearney approached the gate and took hold of it. The painted metal was rough against his palms. It seemed surreal. The house beyond looked so ordinary now, with its row of potted plants outside, its arched doorway and wide windows. Somewhere up in the enormous hedge, there were even birds singing.

  Some things were so horrific that you expected them only to happen in darkness, or in dank places like the lock-up Timms had rented. Dirty old houses. And when they weren't happening directly in front of you, where it was impossible to deny them, the mind turned away from them, embracing the apparent normality.

  Are you sure…?

  But he was. It didn't matter anyway. He shook the railings, pushing them backwards into the driveway, and knew he wasn't acting on reason any more. The image of Rebecca's face filled his mind. He had been given one last chance at finding her, and he was going to take it, no matter what.

  As the gate scraped backwards, a connection was broken and he felt a slight buzz. No doubt it meant an alarm would be sounding inside the house. He would have to move quickly.

  There was a large double garage adjoining the house on the left-hand side, but the metal was sheer and tight to the ground. Probably opened by the same remote control that was meant to operate the main gate. Kearney headed across and tried the front door instead, unsurprised to find it locked. It looked too heavy to kick down, and he didn't want to break his leg trying, so he stepped back, picked up one of the potted plants and heaved it through a downstairs windows.

  The explosion shattered the peace and quiet, the sound full of sharp angles and tinkling points. When it faded, Kearney was left with the anxious, high-pitched twitter of the house alarm.

  If the police weren't coming now, they soon would be.

  The remains of the window formed jagged glass teeth around the edges. Inside, he could make out a dimly lit lounge. The pot had come to rest against the base of a red settee, and the cream carpet was now scattered with earth and flowers and glass. Kearney picked up a second pot and used it to knock shards of glass from the frame, and then he hoisted himself quickly inside.

  The alarm was much louder in here. The sound vibrated intensely, thick in the air, so that it felt like you were standing inside it. Beyond the lounge, the dark corridor was flashing with red light.

  'Hammond!' he shouted. 'Where are you?'

  But he could barely even hear himself. As he moved out into the hallway, where the noise was pure, he winced and covered his ears.

  'Hammond?'

  The room at the end of the corridor was brightly lit, so he made his way down there, then edged around the doorframe. A kitchen. It was all neat and clean, full of polished, space-age appliances. The counter was glowing with soft blue light. Kearney noticed the open bottle of whisky on the side, next to a squat glass with some half-melted, clear pebbles of ice at the bottom.

  Toasting himself.

  'Hammond. I'm coming for you, you sick bastard.'

  Although he could have been anywhere in the house, Kearney's instincts took him to a side door hanging ajar at the far end of the kitchen. It led through to the back of the garage, where bulbs in the ceiling were casting cups of light down onto Roger Timms's white van.

  Both of its back doors were open. Kearney crossed to the vehicle and checked inside. There was nothing there but a series of metal racks, bolted to the base of the interior, a little like a set of ladders. Something had clearly been resting on there: positioned to be rolled out for ease of access.

  Rebecca.

  Where had he taken her?

  He looked around - then spotted the silver door built into the corner at the back of the property. Kearney's gaze moved from the closed metal surface to the smooth tarmac beneath his feet.

  Just like Timms, Hammond liked to keep his unnatural interests buried under his house. A physical basement for an emotional one.

  There was a single button to call the lift. It glowed orange as he pressed it. There was a slight rumble from below, and then the clank of machinery in the wall as wheels and chains hoisted the contraption upwards.

  Is there another exit?

  If there wasn't, then Hammond must still be down there.

  The door slid open to reveal the empty metal lift. Narrow but deep. Kearney stepped inside. There were only two buttons, and he pressed the lower one.

  The door closed and the lift descended.

  In the seconds it took, images bloomed in his mind. The burned bodies of Ellis and Gilroyd, her feet curled like a baby's. The way Mike Halsall's head had been tilted to one side, gazing down. The gunshot wounds. Handcuffed wrists.

  Simon Wingate's clasped, praying hands.

  Rebecca's face.

  The door slid across again. An empty corridor.

  Kearney stepped out, moving
into a thick slab of air that stank of mildew and wet, peeling wallpaper. It was damp and unpleasant down here, like slipping your hand into the mulch of a forest after a heavy rainstorm. He half expected to see plants curling up the walls, but there were only small patches of rot. A hiss of mould that might have been sprayed onto the ragged paper.

  'Hammond?'

  No reply.

  But it wasn't quiet here, he realised: there was some kind of noise coming from the room at the end of the corridor. It was muffled and frantic. After a moment, he recognised it was a woman trying to scream, and his heart jolted like a starting gun. Before he could think, he was running down the corridor. Past dark alcoves. Under the lights that buzzed and faded as he sprinted beneath -

  We will find her…

  - and into the room, slowing down just as he reached it, but not soon enough to stop himself.

  Stupid.

  He turned as he entered. Too late, but scanning for movement anyway. There was none. It was empty.

  He saw Arthur Hammond immediately. At the far end, the man was slumped in a single chair with his back to the rest of the room. Everything in here was lit up by orange bulbs on the walls, and Hammond's body was silhouetted against them, like he was sitting in front of an open furnace, roasting alive. A part of his head was missing; the rest was on the floor and the side wall. One hand was in his lap, and the other dangled uselessly, resting against the wooden legs of the chair. Kearney could smell the gun smoke in the air.

  He looked around him. Along the base of the walls, there were exhibits on small display pedestals.

  The crying was coming from the opposite end. Ignoring Hammond for the moment, Kearney approached that end of the room. A metal coffin. The lid had been hefted backwards and leaned against the wall behind.

  When he looked inside, his vision of her was immediately blurred by tears.

  I promise you.

  Rebecca Wingate was alive, but she couldn't see him. There was black masking tape wrapped around her eyes and then the lower part of her face, beneath the nose. A small slit had been cut through where her mouth would be. Her hands were bound on her lap, and Kearney could see there was a terrible injury on her right arm. It looked as though something had taken a bite from the crook of her elbow, nearly severing the limb. But the skin around the wound seemed burnt, and he could smell it. Not a bite at all. It was the single small point at which blood had been taken from her, now stretched wide by infection.

  But she's alive.

  'You're going to be OK,' he said. She jumped from the shock of his voice. 'I'm a policeman.'

  She stopped crying, but her body was trembling. He needed to call Todd again, get an ambulance here.

  'You're going to be all right. I promise.'

  Then he heard a slight click from behind him.

  Kearney froze.

  Another smell reached him: strong and somehow even more vile than the odour of Rebecca's wounded arm. He was aware of another presence down here now. Something was standing a little way behind him. He could feel it there.

  Stupid.

  He'd been so desperate to get down here - to Rebecca - that he hadn't checked any of the blackened alcoves he ran past. And he hadn't thought carefully enough about Hammond either, he realised. It looked like suicide, but the man's hands were empty and there had been no gun on the floor. Someone had staged the scene to look that way. And the lift had still been down here when he arrived, which meant the someone was too.

  Turn around?

  The Yellow Man.

  That thought was irrational, but it came anyway. And it felt true. Maybe it wasn't the same man standing there right now, but that didn't matter. They were both shadows: cast by different objects, perhaps, but standing in front of the same fire.

  Do you want to see?

  For the last six months, he'd been driven to do just that. Let me tell you the worst thing *I've* ever seen. He'd read the description of the Yellow Man series that followed, and something good had fallen into shadow inside him. Something had fled, and a sense of horror had crawled in to take its place. At first, he'd tried to resist - told himself not to - but it was hopeless: once he knew of these videos' existence, something had compelled him to seek them out. And why? Even now, he wasn't sure. In three examples of the Yellow Man, he'd still not found the answers he was searching for, but it had only made him look harder. And like a video camera pointed at a television, the question had become a tunnel. He had fallen into it, and it had led him here.

  Turn around then, he told himself.

  And he started to. But then he realised, now it had come to it, he no longer wanted to. Whatever answers might be there, he wouldn't allow them to be his final thoughts in the world.

  Instead, Kearney looked down at Rebecca Wingate. He smiled at her.

  At least there was this, he thought.

  At least, in the end, he had found her too.

  Kearney closed his eyes and waited.

  * * *

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  'This is the place?' Garland said.

  I nodded.

  We'd parked up by a small office on the outskirts of the city. I was in the first of two cars, both of them black with tinted windows, and I was sitting in the back seat with Garland. There were two men in the front, but neither were the ones I'd fought with back at the auction house. Perhaps they were in the second car, which was pulling in behind us now.

  Sarah was in that one too - not that I could see her through the glass. Back at the auction house, I'd already been confined in this one by the time they brought her out. I watched as best as I could. She walked calmly across the floor of the loading bay and clambered easily into the vehicle, without a care in the world.

  After I'd agreed to Garland's offer, he'd taken me back upstairs, and they'd brought out the laptop again in order for me to make the payment. Four hundred thousand pounds in exchange for the life of my friend.

  As I'd keyed in the information required of me, I'd wondered briefly whether I was making a mistake. Garland could just kill us both anyway and have done with it, which would make things far easier and simpler for him. But then, if he wanted the money, I was sure he'd be able to extract it from me without much effort. And if he was going to kill us, nothing I did or didn't do was going to stop that from happening.

  There was also the small detail of the figure we'd agreed on. Not five hundred thousand, but four. He wasn't taking everything, and that suggested he was leaving me - leaving us - with enough money to run.

  All that aside, I didn't have any choice but to trust him.

  The strangest thing was that, as the money vanished into the ether, I wasn't expecting a bullet in the back of my head. And I didn't get one. Garland watched the screen carefully, making sure the transfer had gone through, and then nodded to the man operating the computer. It was shut down. Then, without another word, Garland took me to the car to wait.

  And then we had driven here.

  Pro-Storage UK. Just an innocuous building with benches outside, a reception within, and then, out back, a large number of garage units. One of which contained everything I'd kept after selling the house I'd shared with Marie. It was the second time I'd been here today. The first had been earlier on this morning, before heading to the prison, when I'd dropped off the laptop and Sarah's research materials. That was what we were here to collect, but it wasn't all that we were here for.

  'Yes,' I said. 'This is the place.'

  'Well, then.'

  Garland opened the door on his side, leaving me to get out on the other by myself.

  It was a main road: there was traffic shooting past, and people outside a cafe a short distance up the street. I could have run or fought - caused a scene and tried to get out of this. But once again, there was no point. Garland still had the gun, slipped inside his jacket, and the other men were all armed as well. I wouldn't achieve anything by fighting except getting Sarah and myself killed, and maybe someone else as well.

 
; And if that was still going to happen anyway, better for something I didn't do than something that I did.

  A minute later, after I'd signed us in, we were standing in a small garage at the back of the complex. It housed everything I hadn't thrown away when I sold the house. The remnants of my old life. Never entirely gone, just pushed in here, of sight.

  'Quickly, please.'

  I nodded.

  The money had only been the first part of our deal. The second, as with all his customers, required something less tangible.

  Everybody involved has something to lose.

  I suppose you could say it required a soul.

  I pulled down a small box from the top shelf. It was very light. As I opened it, Garland stepped back slightly and put his hand inside his jacket, ready to retrieve his gun if it was needed. It was understandable. After all, I'd told him about Peter French now, so he knew what was hidden inside this box, and what I was capable of.

  Apparently, anyway. But as I stared down at the knife, it seemed absurd to think I'd done what I had. I reached down and picked it up, and my hand seemed to have no memory whatsoever of holding it before. It was a mystery to me, as was the blood still crusted slightly on the blade.

  Beneath it, an old raincoat.

  I remembered Peter French's eyes clenching shut, like he'd been shot at close range, and then the way he'd crumpled down in the hallway. He laid there on his side, the blood stretching quietly, inexorably, across the carpet from the centre of his chest. I realised what I'd done immediately. There had been no sense of satisfaction or relief. Instead, a trickle of cold had begun to spread through me.