Cry Baby

by David Jackson

  He’s not relishing the prospect of trying to square anything with Costello, but he knows this is his own fault.

  He chin-points at Albert. ‘You get anything out of him?’

  ‘Oh sure,’ says Sheridan. ‘It was riveting. I was almost tempted to take the matchsticks out from my eyelids. Now I know everything about Einstein and some theory he had about his relatives.’

  Doyle is tempted to smile, but doesn’t want to get into further hot water with Sheridan.

  ‘What about his mother?’

  ‘Nothing about his mother specifically. Just about his relatives in general.’

  ‘No. Albert’s mother. The one he says he offed.’

  Sheridan shrugs, unfazed by her faux pas. ‘To be honest, I gave up trying to go there. Every time I steered the conversation that way, he went all weirdy on me. Scratching his head and mumbling to himself. Asking me if I was planning to shoot him, like that.’

  Doyle looks over Sheridan’s shoulder at Albert, who is counting something on his fingers. He sighs. ‘All right. Thanks, Frankie. I owe you one.’

  ‘You owe me big time. If I asked you to sleep with me, you wouldn’t be able to refuse, is how much you owe me.’

  ‘Are you gonna ask me that?’

  ‘I might, if I ever get desperate enough. See you around.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Doyle as he watches her leave. He looks across to LeBlanc and holds up his fingers to let him know he’ll be just five minutes, then heads over to Albert.

  ‘How’s it hanging, Albert?’

  Albert looks down at his pants, as if he should be able to see something hanging there.

  ‘I mean,’ says Doyle, ‘are you okay? Everything all right?’

  Albert offers him a quick glance. ‘You’ve been gone a long time. Hours.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I had work to do. You’re not my only worry tonight, believe it or not. Officer Sheridan was okay though, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘She’s a… a girl.’

  ‘What, that makes you feel uncomfortable, Albert?’

  Albert suddenly makes one of his frantic scratching motions behind his ear. Doyle is tempted to step back in case something should come flying out at him. But he wonders if he’s on to something.

  ‘You feel awkward with her? Is that it?’

  ‘Yeah. Awkward, yeah. Not comfortable. Like my mattress. That’s not comfortable either. It’s all lumpy. She’s lumpy too.’

  Doyle wonders how Sheridan would react to being called lumpy. He also wonders whether Albert is suggesting that he’d like to lie on her to compare her with his mattress.

  ‘Did that bother you, Albert? Do women make you want to do bad things?’

  Albert starts up his eye-dancing then, but Doyle presses on: ‘Does Officer Sheridan remind you of your mother?’

  Albert’s gaze suddenly locks on Doyle, and he girds himself. Tenses for a sudden and possibly violent reaction.

  But he doesn’t get one.

  ‘’Course not. My mother is smart. She knows stuff. She knows about prime numbers. Officer Sheridan thinks Isaac Newton is a singer. When I told her he was the guy with the apple, she asked if I was talking about iTunes.’

  Doyle lets out a snort of laughter, partly because of what Albert has just said about Sheridan, but also through sheer relief. He didn’t really want to delve further into any warped relationship that Albert might have had with his mother. Sigmund Freud he ain’t. In fact, he finds that whole area of walking around in people’s minds just a little disturbing.

  Doyle gestures to the chair next to the water cooler. ‘Sit down, Albert.’

  Albert slides onto the chair. Crosses his legs and interlaces his fingers. Starts rocking slightly while looking straight ahead at nothing in particular.

  ‘Listen to me,’ says Doyle. ‘This has suddenly become a really busy night. Everyone in the station house is busy. We can’t afford to assign officers to look after you every single minute. You came here for our help, right? Well, then, let us help you. Give me some information. Anything.’

  ‘I, uhm…’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I, uhm… I got some Edifix building blocks. For my birthday. I made a robot out of them. Then a house. Then a helicopter. Then another robot. Then a—’

  ‘No, Albert. Something useful, okay? Something about why you came here tonight. You told us you killed your mother. Was that the truth?’

  ‘Yes. The truth. I always tell the truth. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Tell me no secrets, tell me no lies.’

  His rocking is more vigorous now. Faster, like he’s on a racehorse.

  ‘How?’

  ‘How what?’

  ‘How did you kill her? With a knife? A gun? A rock? How did you do it?’

  ‘Aw, Jeez. Aw, Jeez. This is bad. Very bad.’

  ‘Come on, Albert. If you killed her, then you should be able to tell me how you did it. So what did you do? Stab her in the heart? Cut her neck open? What?’

  ‘Aw, Jeez. Can’t say, can’t say. It’s too bad. You’ll hang me. You’ll fry me in the chair.’

  Doyle lifts his face to the ceiling. This is such a waste of time, and right now time is a precious commodity.

  ‘You know what, Albert? I don’t think you killed your mother at all. I think this is all a big lie to get attention.’

  ‘No. I told you. I don’t lie. Bad things happen to people who lie. My mom told me that.’

  ‘She tell you that bad things happen to people who hold back too? People who know something wrong has happened and won’t tell the police about it? That’s a crime too, you know.’

  Albert’s rocking is frantic now. He starts tugging on his hair. Grasping at it just above his ears and twisting it so hard it looks like he could tear it out.

  ‘I did tell you about it. I told sergeant one-three-seven-one, and I told you. I always tell. Even when it’s really bad I tell. That’s why I told my Mom about Louie.’

  Uh-oh, thinks Doyle. Uh-fucking-oh.

  ‘Louie?’

  ‘Yeah. Louie. I killed him too.’

  Icy finger running down the spine time. Another killing? Really? You wanna just casually throw it into the conversation like this?

  ‘You killed Louie?’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t want to tell my Mom, but I had to. She woulda found out anyhow.’

  ‘Found out what, Albert? What happened to Louie?’

  ‘I was s’posed to look after him. When I left him he was warm, and when I came back he was cold. I didn’t look after him properly. I was bad.’

  ‘Albert, who was Louie? Was he a member of your family?’

  ‘Yeah. Family. Yeah. I was s’posed to take care of him, but I didn’t. We had to get rid of him.’

  ‘Get rid of the body? How, Albert? How did you do that?’

  ‘We… we flushed him down the toilet.’

  Doyle suddenly wants to collapse on the floor in a heap of despair.

  ‘Albert. Was Louie… was Louie a fish?’

  ‘Yeah. I had him for a whole year. Then I forgot to plug in his water heater. I needed to charge my Nintendo and I forgot to plug his heater back in. He got cold and died. It was my fault. I killed him.’

  Doyle closes his eyes and bows his head for a few seconds. Tiredness pours into his skull. Somebody please drape a blanket over me and leave me here until this is over. I want to wake up and find out that Albert has gone away and the number killer has been caught.

  He looks again at Albert. Looks at this fragile human being who is constantly on the edge of being shattered into a million tiny pieces. He watches him sway and fidget and pull at his hair in frustration at not knowing how to deal with this hostile incomprehensible world

  ‘All right, Albert,’ he says in his most soothing voice. ‘All right.’

  As he tries to restore Albert to what must count to him as some kind of normality, Doyle wonders what the penalty is in this
state for killing a fish by neglect.

  5.57 AM

  If she slept, she’s not aware of it. Perhaps a couple of minutes – nothing more. It feels like there’s just too much adrenalin in her system. As though there’s a drainage point that’s blocked somewhere so that there’s nowhere for the hormone to go. It just stays in her bloodstream, circulating. Prodding and poking fatigued organs into staying alert, just when they’re on the point of drifting off. Her brain especially. All those thoughts flashing through with reckless abandon. Giving off sparks as they collide and combine and turn into surreal images and suggestions and fears. There’s an ache in her chest, and she puts that down to the adrenalin too. The anxiety has tightened all her muscles until her ribs feel they could snap under the pressure. She dreads to think about the strain her heart is under. That’s a muscle too, right? Why should that remain unaffected? Could it be at breaking point? Is it on the verge of exploding in her chest, just as that man’s blood seemed to explode outwards, firing from his throat like some alien creature’s biological weapon?

  Here we go again. Back to that episode in the car. Back to the slow-mo replay of her repeatedly plunging a stainless steel blade into flesh. Feeling each puncture as it travels through her hand and up her arm. Hearing his screams trying to compete with cries of bloodlust coming over her earpiece, but not really hearing either. It’s all just noise, just high-volume static as she does what needs to be done. And then the look in his eyes – that expression of incomprehension and terror as her gaze finally meets his. That profound questioning and pleading as she shows him the sharpness in her fingers, just before she flashes it across his neck and opens up his fountain, sets it free in a glorious spray of Technicolor – everyone go ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’, folks, because you don’t see displays like this too often.

  Did I really do that?

  She did. She knows she did. But it could have been a dream. It could have been another existence. It could have been something she was only told about. She could believe that. If she were on a psychologist’s couch and the shrink told her it was all a figment of her fervent imagination, she could accept that. She could never do such things in reality. She’s not that kind of girl. What, me get into a car with a complete stranger? Heaven forfend! Flirt with him? Get him aroused? And then – what’s that you say? – stab him to death with a kitchen knife? Oh, no, no, no. You’ve got the wrong person entirely. That’s not the way I was brought up. You need to look elsewhere if it’s murdering prick-teasing scumbags you want.

  While we’re on the topic of prick-teasing…

  That wasn’t me either. I don’t do that. I don’t take off all my clothes in front of a camera. I didn’t even do that for my husband, let alone a baby-snatching insane person. I don’t put on shows like that, because if I tried I would feel self-conscious and embarrassed and I would just come across as an awkward, fumbling amateur who doesn’t even have the body to make up for it.

  She cringes. Yes, all right, it was me. I did it. I tried to make that man all hot under the collar, even though all I probably did was to make him piss his pants laughing. Excuse me, Mr Nobby Bigcock, while I just bend at the waist in the most unnatural pose ever to retrieve that pair of lace panties I just took off for no reason whatsoever and dropped in a way that suggests I have lost all motor coordination of my fingers. That’s what it must have looked like to him. Absurdly comical rather than alluring.

  Okay, so I’m exaggerating. It wasn’t that bad, surely? Was I really that obvious?

  Maybe not. But did he betray a glimmer of interest? No. Not a word, not a murmur. Not even an ejaculation, if you’ll pardon the pun.

  But just suppose…

  Suppose it worked. What now? If my semi-naked form is now permanently etched in his mind, what’s my next step? How do I capitalize on that and move it forward?

  She has no idea. She’s not even certain it’s possible to work up a definite plan at this stage. She may just have to play it by ear. Try to sound him out. Throw in a remark here and there. ‘I hope you didn’t make a recording of me in that bathroom.’ Or, ‘I hope you don’t plan on seeing any more of me.’ That kind of thing. And then he’ll say something like, ‘What if I told you I’m very interested in doing just that?’ And then she’ll know. She’ll know he’s taken the bait, and all she’ll have to do is reel him in. Sure, that’s how it will go.

  After that internal pep-talk, she suddenly feels more confident about her strategy. I just need to go easy, she thinks. Keep up the sexual pressure. A glimpse of flesh here, an innuendo there. Nothing too overt. Not like, say, pulling my robe open and saying ‘Come and get it.’

  Not that he’d see that, of course. The camera’s back in place. He can see only what I see, and right now all that I can see is a ceiling with a big crack in it. Because, Mata Hari though I’m aspiring to be, I haven’t yet gotten around to installing a mirror on my ceiling. So you’ll have to make do with that, fella. That’s the only crack you’ll see tonight, my friend. You’ll just have to—

  And then it hits her.

  He can’t see me!

  Of course he can’t. He looks out from me. Right now he’s probably not even doing that. He’s probably taking a nap himself, or reading a magazine or something. Why would he want to devote a couple of hours to staring at a ceiling?

  So what if—

  Oh, Jesus!

  What if…

  She catches her breath, suddenly afraid of moving an inch or making the slightest sound – anything that might betray the fact she’s wide awake.

  She wonders how much time she’s got. At some point it will enter his head to give her a wake-up call, reminding her that she’s got corpses to amass. But maybe not yet. He left the ball in her court. She told him she was desperate for sleep and would get back to the killing when she was good and ready. Since then he’s been silent. He hasn’t tried to interrupt her rest, and maybe he won’t for at least another hour.

  So…

  God, can I do this? Should I risk it?

  But her hand is already moving. Sneaking up on her dead-still body as if it isn’t connected to it. Her fingers touch the warm fuzziness of her robe, then slide up to the pocket. They feel the stretched outline of the fabric against the hard box contained there. They continue their way up to the mouth of the pocket, then dip smoothly inside. They plunge slowly downwards – God, this pocket seems so deep – until they touch the hard foreign object there. She takes hold of the box – tight hold for fear of dropping it – then slowly begins to withdraw it. Up, up it comes. It should be such an easy thing to do, and yet it seems the most difficult thing in the world. She keeps her eyes focused on the ceiling, willing herself not to make any sudden movement, fearful of revealing the fact that she is awake. She draws the box along her robe, unsure as to whether it has cleared the top of the pocket but needing to make sure. She brings it up as far as her hip, and only then does she move it sideways and down onto the bed.

  It’s done. Phase one is complete.

  She feels the need to suck in huge lungfuls of air, but prevents herself. Her heart is hammering against her chest, trying to push what little oxygen she allows in around her system. She feels dizzy and her stomach seems clenched like a fist.

  And now for the difficult bit.

  Fingers moving again. Back onto the robe. Up, up, up. Keeping them low so there is no danger of them being seen. They touch the swell of her left breast, then the snake of wire. They follow the lead. Careful now, careful.

  She can’t risk leaving this to blind groping. She raises her head from the pillow slightly. Just a couple of inches. Enough to look down and see what she’s doing. Her hand is almost there. Just a little more…

  She touches the brooch. Gently at first. Then she slides finger and thumb around its outer edge and grips it tightly. Holds it as firmly as she can. There must be no sudden movement.

  The pin of the brooch goes right through the lapel of the robe, but she chose not to fasten it behind because she k
new it would be there only temporarily. She thanks God now that she made that decision earlier.

  Slowly, painstakingly, she starts to pull the brooch upward, toward her face. She slides it along the cloth to keep it steady. At least a minute passes for every millimeter of travel. It’s almost imperceptible to her, so surely it must be the same on his screen?

  She loses all sense of time. In fact, she doesn’t want to know how long this is taking. She can’t rush it. It has to be done this slowly.

  But Christ it seems to be taking a fucking age to get this pin out!

  Maybe it’s already out, but she can’t see. Another fraction of an inch, just to be sure.

  Slide it along. There you go. Fingers starting to ache now, neck muscles starting to spasm.

  But now it’s out. It’s got to be. It must be clear now.

  She lets her head sink back into the pillow. Rest for a minute. We’re almost done.

  But he’ll speak soon. He’ll try to wake me up. If we’re going to do this, we have to do it now.

  She lifts her head again. Keeps her eyes fixed on the brooch as she slowly lifts it into the air. Not by much – just enough to keep it clear of her body.

  There. That’ll do.

  With her free right hand she grips the edge of the bed. Starts to pull herself across the covers. Sliding while she holds the brooch in place, her left elbow braced against the bed to keep it steady. She hopes this looks as steady to her enemy as it does to her. Hopes he’s not watching an image that’s bouncing about all over the place, making him wonder what the fuck she’s doing. If the ceiling were completely featureless he might not even notice, but there’s that damn crack up there.

  She keeps moving, inch by painful inch. Again it takes a lifetime, but finally she gets her body clear. No screaming in her ear yet.

  She licks her lips. Her mouth is so dry. Her neck, still elevated, is screaming at her to abandon this unnatural pose.

  But she can’t take her eyes off the brooch now. Not now she’s come this far. She knows as soon as she does, her hand will take its opportunity to do its own thing, like a naughty schoolboy out of sight of its teacher. She has to keep a stern watch on that hand. Keep it in line.