“I suppose,” Sardis said, and held onto her mum.
“This is so intense,” Suzanne said with tears when they let go of each other.
Their smiles of ease were a welcome relief, but it didn’t last.
“Sardis, does he know who you are? Would he know that you know these things about him?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” Suzanne asked. Her eyes looked troubled.
“No, he doesn’t,” she said with more conviction. “He said I looked familiar but nothing after. He probably thinks I’m nuts after what happened.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Mum, what are we going to do?”
Suzanne didn’t hesitate to answer and stated the obvious, but not in a sure-fire way. “Go the police, I suppose. Tell them what we know.”
Sardis looked at her dubiously. “Which is?”
She thought about it for a moment, what she might say, but couldn’t come up with anything concrete or convincing. She could, however, imagine their response when she pictured herself reiterating what had happened between them: “So let me get this right, Mrs Dirkan. You are basing all this on the fact that your daughter has, sorry, what did you say it was again? Ah yes, I have it written here—‘Out Of Body Experiences.’ And you say that’s when your daughter witnesses the things he does, and by that you mean the murders. And the person in question is, let me see here, Eamon Masterson. But she never saw his face because of the masks. But she did see his face at the dental appointment. This, the same man who found the first victim and incidentally—let us not forget—saved her life. Is that what you’re telling me, Mrs Dirkan? Okay, thanks for coming in. We have your contact details if we need to get in touch. COOKOO COOKOO.”
It was absurd to think she would be taken seriously with a story like that; talking about a daughter with murderous dreams and one who identifies a killer who has eluded the authorities for all these years. And who happens to be a well-liked and well-respected member of society. Talk like that was liable to get her sanctioned. Without proof they were unlikely to do much. They probably got a lot of people sending in their suspicions. No one was going to believe them without proof.
Going to the police was out.
Suzanne was tempted to open another bottle. Her full belly and the shock of what Sardis had told her annulled its alcoholic effects. She decided against it. Sardis had had enough and there was work in the morning to consider.
“Maybe we could do something anonymously, make a call or send a letter. Do it that way?” Suzanne again suggested.
“Yeah, we could make an anonymous call, call him at work, tell him we know what he’s up to and we’re watching him.” Sardis smiled. Her natural teeth stained with the colouring of the wine highlighted their shape. The look didn’t suit her. It gave an ominous quality to her appearance.
Suzanne preferred to keep her focus on Sardis’ eyes rather than her teeth. “I meant the police. Now I know you’ve had too much to drink.” A shiver ran through her at the thought of the suggestion. “There’s no way that is going to happen. What if he figured out it was us who called? Do you want to tip him over the edge of whatever sanity he is walking behind? That is a definite big no-no.”
“We could frame him for something.” Sardis was thinking about the lime green ribbon.
“Okay, Sardis, now hand over that glass, you’re not drinking anymore of that.” Suzanne put out her hand for the glass. There was only a mouthful left in it.
Sardis retracted her arm. “I’m only saying. I’m fine, stop it, Mum.”
“You’re reading too many spy novels. What do you think we are? CIA agents or something? What else are you busily thinking there?”
“We need proof, don’t we? What if there was a way of getting some?” Sardis didn’t wait for a reply. “Hang on a sec, I want to show you something.” Sardis left the room and returned a moment later. “Now I know how this is going to sound so I’m just going to say it as it is.” Sardis handed over the lime green ribbon.
Suzanne examined it. “What’s this?”
“So, it’s not yours?”
“No, it’s not mine. What’s this about?”
“And it’s not mine. I woke up with it, pulled it from the last dream I had. It was in the woman’s hair. I don’t know exactly how I did it but I did. You said you wanted to know everything. Well, there it is.”
“My God, Sardis, you can’t be serious?”
“I know, I know how it sounds but everything I have been saying sounds impossible, so why not this? It did happen. The point is, what if I could do it again; retrieve something else that would prove it’s him like his bag or the knife he uses, something that would have his prints on it. We’d have the proof then. We could still send it anonymously with a note telling them what it is and who it belongs to. There would be evidence all over it.”
Suzanne sighed. “You just said you don’t know how you did it. Someone will probably have to die if we’re going to find out.”
Sardis thought for a moment. “What other choice do we have? We could send the ribbon to the police. That might work.”
Suzanne looked back at the lime green ribbon in her hand and thought, what harm can it do?
50:
“Play day.”
They did it. They sent it. To be more precise, Suzanne sent it, posted it the very next day on her way to work. An anonymous letter addressed to the local police station with the word URGENT scribbled in the top left-hand corner of the envelope and underscored with three lines as if the word itself did not suffice to demand attention.
She put the neatly folded lime-green ribbon in there, too, with a promise it belonged to the last known victim of the . . . Suzanne couldn’t bring herself to embrace the name the papers had given him, the Ice Scream Man. It was too frightening even to write, conjured up too many dreadful thoughts, so she opted for the less vivid, and simply wrote “serial killer.” She said to check it for the woman’s DNA. There were specks of blood on it. See if it matched the last dead woman, then go after the person responsible, Eamon Masterson, the dentist.
That was it. That’s all she wrote. She couldn’t say how they came upon it, the lime green ribbon, or how they knew he was responsible. It wasn’t a very convincing letter but it was enough if they took it seriously and chose to pursue it. Someone would have at least opened it, she was sure of that, given the emphasis placed on URGENT.
Nothing had happened, and that was almost three months ago. No breaking news. No arrests. No reward. No great surprise. They must have hundreds of leads, more letters and tipoffs to get through, especially after each new murder. Maybe it was working its way up the pile. Either that or it was in some landfill by now accessorising a crumpled-up milk carton, discarded as a costly waste of time.
She wished she hadn’t been so hasty. She should have at least ensured it went to the right hands. She wasn’t thinking clearly the next morning, the police were the police, should it have mattered who received it? But about a week or so later on the six o’clock news an Inspector Hunt had made another appeal for information. He looked to be the man in charge. She had seen his face appear a few times in the past, a very anxious-looking man. It should have been addressed to him. That was her mistake.
Five long months since the last attack, five months since Sardis’ last outing. It was a waiting game now, a very unpleasant one. It could be another five months, possibly longer before his next outing. And there were no guarantees Sardis was going along for the ride, let alone be in a position to teleport proof back into her bed.
She wasn’t with her host when he murdered the old couple in their home. That had happened on a Sunday, about a year or so ago, sometime during daylight hours. She didn’t suddenly collapse on the spot to go and be with her host. It only happened through her dreams. S
he needed to be asleep. She wasn’t privy to what happened on that outing.
What Sardis knew about the old couple, pensioner’s they were, had been leaked to the press. The papers reported they were tortured over several hours. A vice-grip had been used (one of those industrial ones that could have clamped a cow’s head between its teeth should the need ever arise), to crack their brittle bones. The impending signature, something called the lollypop stick (they didn’t go into any more detail than that, Sardis knew what it was), had the engraving, “Elder-berry Crunch.” The message was clear. Nobody was safe. Everyone was a potential victim regardless of age, gender, or race. Fear in Farnham remained endemic throughout the city.
There was little in the way of trepidation back then after the night terrors diluted down into dreams. But the pressure built now with each successive night and before bedtime. It was a nervous worry Sardis had seldom experienced. The closest measure was when she acted the part of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz for her school play. It was the lead up to the matinee, a major part to play; a nervous energy that had been missing suddenly became real and continued to grow until the big day arrived. By the time it got to putting on her costume and green makeup she felt ill-prepared, and when the curtains drew back and the applause of a roomful of people resonated backstage, it rushed her to the bathroom to be sick. It was also a time when her performance and perfect imperfections achieved a standing ovation when she came to the front of the stage and took a curtsy bow. On that occasion there had been nothing to worry about.
That once perverse hush-hush hope had turned to hush-hush revolt against her host. Helen (her dreams’ mum and guardian angel), was responsible for her change of heart and she blamed the dentist for her nearly eating her dad as a main course. Besides their kin connection and what had happened to destroy them as a family there was more to communicate with those telling eyes.
When she did appear it was always the same: always in the park, always drenched in blood, her bloody head squashed between bloody arms laced over a bloody branch; always the sound of him below, her host, the Wolf-man, Eamon the dentist, out of sight huffing against her skin and taunting them with surround-sound grunts, growls, and groans. It was as if he had never left her side. The sight of her dreams’ mum, her guardian angel, never ceased to upset her.
Sometimes another woman appeared, standing behind Helen. She was older. It was just her face and shoulders in view. She would smile as if seeing Sardis for the first time but there was sadness in those eyes. She was clean and fresh in her appearance. Her hair was dripping wet. It was a stark contrast to the young, bloodied face of her guardian angel mum but as equally upsetting. Sardis knew if she could have seen the woman’s wrists and arms they would have been bloody. It was her grandmother. To see again the cause of her host’s actions shamed those “hush-hush moments of hope” right out of her. It was a sin that continued to haunt.
At first those telling eyes helped Sardis piece the puzzle together. Now they were a call for help. She knew they were asking her to do something about what had happened to them, for what had happened to all of them. Those telling eyes were asking for retribution; without it, Sardis knew they would not be able to move on to wherever it was they were supposed to be. None of the victims could.
Her thoughts formed a routine akin to memorizing lines and acting a performance before the Big Play day. She envisaged the moment his hand had swiped down the woman’s hair and the index finger constricted to hook the ribbon and drag it free. It took countless reminders to convince her that she was responsible for this. She sought to segregate the feelings when she altered the actions of her host. There had been a willingness to do something, a sense that enough was enough, a wanting to reach out and touch the woman with her aura. Slap some calmness into that toxic black smoke as he punctured her with another ruthless jab of the blade. Her aura, her energy, was an extension of herself meant to contaminate the fear. That’s when it happened. That’s when he lost control of his actions, if only for a split second. That’s when she awoke back in her bed, the energy explosive enough to release her from her host. With every passing night the same questions lingered: Will it be enough? Will tonight be the night? Who will have to die to find out?
It was looming close. That subtle itchy sensation was growing inside of her. It had started two or three days ago when a warm, uneasy buzz had formed deep within her gut. Guardian Mum and Grandmother were appearing each night too, more than in the past. Their eyes had less to tell, still and sad, and dare she think it: Warning. There was one other thing Sardis figured bolstered her hunch: The weekend was coming.
In bed, she thought about how she would take control of her aura. Concentrate the energy and spread it through his blood, muscle, and tissue and snatch some real proof back to her bed the first chance she got. She wasn’t sure if she would sleep. Bedtime was beginning to feel a lot like Play-day. But she did sleep, and soundly, up to a point.
51:
“Everyone turned pale and sick,
“As news spread of the lollipop stick.”
Sometimes thoughts happen unexpectedly. They can happen in dreams and nightmares, forced to the surface from the bottom of the deep blue unconscious. Something your eyes have seen time and again but the brain doesn’t piece it together. A minnow in a vast sea of intelligence swims to the surface and makes a ripple, a link is made, and that changes everything. This is what happened to Tony O’Callaghan.
Tony woke with a jolt from a less-than-peaceful sleep. Something troubled him, something that required his urgent attention. An epiphany, perhaps, it sure felt like one. The experience was sudden and striking but the realisation wasn’t quite there.
It’d been six months since Tony saw first-hand what had happened to the couple when he’d met with Marcus. He still saw every detail in his memory, as though it had happened yesterday. His mind struggled to switch the images off throughout the day, but at night the images taunted him with nightmares:
On a hot sunny day Tony is parched. The sun is relentlessly beating down and he is soaked in sweat. He is standing in an unfamiliar place. It is bright. The sun’s rays are bouncing up from a barren, yellow ground. It is impossible to read landmarks of any kind. There is nowhere to go to find relief from the burning sun. His mind is working frantically, trying to figure out where he is and how he got there. He fears the mid-day sun could soon kill him if he doesn’t find respite. He lifts his right arm up to block out the sun and its associated brightness to get a position of his whereabouts.
When his arm is about face level, he sees that he is holding an ice cream on a stick in his hand, one that he hadn’t been aware of. His eyes are fixed to it. He can feel the cold on his fingers where he holds onto the thin stick and longs to take a bite. He relishes the moment and takes a small nip from the top left. In his mouth, it feels like the best, most refreshing ice cream he has ever tasted. He closes his eyes to savour the taste and he knows that this ice cream has saved his life and that he will be safe. Ice cream has never tasted this good.
He opens his eyes expecting to now know where he is, but instead he sees that the ice cream is bleeding where he has taken the bite. The blood is oozing down the left side of the ice cream like a shotgun wound to the head and is dripping onto his fingers. Pitiful eyes blink open within the surface of the ice cream, wondering why it had just been bitten. Then a mouth opens at its centre. The ice cream begins to scream. Blood is now pouring from underneath the screaming ice cream, soaking his hand and trickling down his arm. The stick Tony holds in his hand is no longer the thin stick he started off with. Tony sees that he is holding onto the shaft of the lollipop stick.
The only difference between the nightmares was the type of ice cream Tony bit into.
On this occasion, on this night, it was different. The nightmare lasted longer:
When Tony saw that he was holding onto the shaft of the lollipop stick, he notices
there is an engraving that is depicting the flavour (something he was not aware of in previous nightmares). The letters begin to darken and crack and shimmer. The blaring sun, once so blindingly bright, has now disappeared. The only light that exists is a lava-like substance that is flowing underneath the crust of the lollipop stick and pulsing like a heartbeat. The flavour is spelt out: Raspberry Ripple. The lava-like substance begins to bubble through the cracks and distort the lettering but it does not run down the shaft and onto his hand as the blood had done. Instead, the substance begins to subside back into the lollipop stick and the crust begins to reform and darken above the pulsing flow of lava to spell a second flavour. This time it reads, Choc Ice. The lava-like substance once again begins to bubble through the cracks and distort the lettering and, once again, it does not run down onto his hand as the blood had done. Again the substance begins to subside back into the lollipop stick. The crust begins to scab over and the remaining light turns to darkness. Left alone in that darkness, a haunting image from a grainy old photo shakes him from his sleep.
Tony’s stomach felt like it was churning butter when the haunting image from a grainy old photo made him sit up and pay attention. He wondered about what his niggling mind was trying to tell him, not quite getting it, and came to the conclusion that if it went to the trouble of waking him up, then he owed it to himself to find out.
The Ice Scream Man Page 38
