by Chris Parker
‘Of course.’
Patrick’s eyes moistened. ‘To be honest sir, I feel useless.’ He blinked repeatedly. Tears began to flow. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Keeping it masculine, Peter thought. ‘Can he really have, you know, done something to me? Got in my head in some way that I’ll never get rid of?’
‘You are going to be all right. As you said, it’s like being at the dentist’s. It‘ll wear off.’
‘So the memory will come back? I will be able to help?’
‘You’re helping already. Just sharing how you are feeling is useful. Ethan Hall is a very unusual man, so every little scrap of information is important. And I’m sure your memory will return.’
‘What if it doesn’t?’
Treat it is as a blessing. ‘It won’t be a great loss to our case. Ethan has escaped from police custody, that’s all that matters. It will be another thing to add to the list of charges he’s going to answer for.’
‘Why didn’t he kill me?’
‘He’s not a mindless murderer. He’s more concerned with making a point, leaving an imprint, being acknowledged. That’s what he’s making us do now – we’re acknowledging how he managed to get away. And to be honest with you Patrick, he’d sooner have you wondering and worrying about how he affected your memory than simply dead. Just about anyone can kill if they’re pushed enough. He’s reminding us that he’s different from the rest.’
‘So how do we beat him?’
‘We are the biggest and best team in the land. One way or another we always win. That’s why you joined, right?’
‘Yes, sir!’ Patrick’s cheeks showed a hint of colour for the first time since Peter’s arrival. ‘And I want to get out of here as soon as possible. I want to get back to work!’
The Detective Chief Inspector stood up and let his chest swell slightly as he nodded his encouragement. Secretly his mind was racing. If Ethan Hall had permanently erased Patrick’s memory of their encounter, if he really could do that, how the hell did they get any new witnesses? How long would it take to track him down if no one could remember seeing him, if no one could report what he said or did? Could the synesthete possibly have more power than he or Marcus had realised? Dear God ...
Despite the terrifying new possibility, Peter Jones maintained his confident exterior. ‘Don’t worry, Patrick,’ he said. ‘We’ll have you back in uniform in no time. Believe me.’
12
Ethan Hall had disposed of his police jacket, tie and cap within a hundred metres of leaving the hospital. He had opened the shirt collar and rolled up the sleeves. To anyone who gave him a casual glance he didn’t look like a policeman anymore. He didn’t walk like one either. Thus, he was able to stroll through the Meadows estate without attracting any undue attention from those he passed.
Darren, the drug-addict waster who thought they were friends, had moved into a two-bedroomed end of terraced house. He still swam down amongst the lowest dredges of society. He still thought he mattered.
Ethan’s nostrils flared instinctively as he turned off the pavement towards Darren’s front door. The air wasn’t the best out here, far from it. But it was a damn sight better than inside Darren’s house.
Ethan breathed in deeply as he took the last few steps before knocking on the door. His peripheral vision clocked Darren’s pale, thin face staring briefly through the lounge window. Then he closed down eighty per cent of his olfactory system as the door opened and he stepped inside without being asked.
‘Fuck me, mate!’ Darren backed off automatically. His skin paled even more than normal. His breathing was high in his chest. When he had last spent time with Ethan he had regarded him as a harmless weirdo. He had enjoyed his companionship because he had felt superior. After all, he was the one with the contacts. The man who could scare most law-abiding people because he was at least one step across the line and could exaggerate that fact to anyone who didn’t know any better. Now Darren had a very different perspective of the man who had walked into his lounge as if he owned the place. Now everyone knew who Ethan Hall was. At least they knew what he had done – even if there were a whole range of different stories going round about how he had actually done it.
Darren locked his front door and followed the killer into his front room. He couldn’t help but glance twice at the trousers he was wearing. He forced the question back down his throat. He was sure that Ethan Hall was smiling at him even though his face hadn’t even twitched. For some reason he found that almost as frightening as staring down the barrel of a gun.
‘Ethan. Fuck me mate!’ Darren said it again because it was an easy way to make himself breathe out and because he really didn’t know what else to say without putting himself at risk.
‘Darren. You haven’t changed.’
Ethan Hall said that. He definitely said that because Darren heard it loud and clear. Even though he hadn’t seen Ethan’s face move.
‘No mate. I’m er...Well, you know how it is.’ Darren said that. Definitely. He heard his own voice. He was just struggling to feel any connection with his mouth. It was as if he was suddenly locked in a place way behind his lips. He could tell they were moving, but it felt as if they were distanced and cold. It was, he realised, a bit like how you felt after the dentist had injected you, only far, far stronger. And much worse. At least with the dentist you expected it and eventually you felt better because of it. Ethan Hall didn’t do things to make people feel better. That much Darren was sure of. He bit his lower lip. He felt nothing. Ethan smiled again.
‘Yes. I know how it is.’ Ethan sat down on the brown corduroy two-seater settee. He didn’t seem to notice the stains on it. Darren remained standing. Glued to the spot. ‘That’s why I am here,’ Ethan said, ‘because I know how it is, because you are the man who knows the people with power. You know what I mean?’
Darren nodded. His head felt heavy and numb.
‘Of course you do. That’s because you have your finger on the pulse. You’ve seen the news, haven’t you?’
Darren nodded again.
‘Do you believe I killed those people?’
‘Uhm...’ The question created a tingle of sensation, like a mild electric shock, that buzzed from the back of Darren’s head to his lips. Just what was the right answer? And what was the consequence for getting it wrong?
‘Don’t be afraid, Darren. Tell me the truth.’
Easier said than done. Darren bit his lip again. He gasped as he tasted blood. He staggered back a pace, remembering suddenly the crazy, unbelievable story about Ethan Hall that he had heard some years before.
A part-time hooker had whispered to one of her friends that Ethan had abused her in the most bizarre of ways, had kept her prisoner and damaged her without even touching her. Her friend had whispered it to someone else who had whispered it to Darren. He had dismissed it as the drug-addled ramblings of a tart with no idea of who did what to her from one day to the next. But now, since the publicity about Ethan Hall, since the stories in the media, he wondered if it was true. After all if he could scalp you, cut the top of your head off without you feeling any pain, surely he could do anything?
‘C’mon, Darren. Answer the question.’
‘Well, it, er, didn’t actually say in the news that ya’d killed people. It wasn’t anything definite, y’know what I mean? It was just that you’d been arrested in connection with, y’know, some murders. And ya can’t believe everythin’ you ‘ear in the news, can ya?’
‘And?’
‘And I, er, I think you can do things the rest of us can’t understand.’
‘How right you are.’ Ethan scratched his nose with the forefinger of his right hand. Darren saw it all clearly. Suddenly his senses were working normally again.
‘How, how can I help you mate?’ It seemed the best way to move things on. Ethan Hall was a wanted man. Even he would need people to do things for him now.
Unless he could hypnotise every copper in the country to turn a blind eye.
> Somehow that thought made Darren feel even worse. Which was ridiculous given that he hated the police, given that if he had the courage he would kill one himself. At least with them, though, he knew what he was dealing with.
‘You can help me by setting up a meeting.’
‘Sure. Of course. Anything you say. Who do you want to meet?’
‘Calvin.’
Darren blinked. ‘You want to see Calvin?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you sure, mate? I mean –’
‘I’m certain.’ Ethan raised his right hand, his palm facing Darren. The movement rather than the words silenced Darren completely, robbed him of any desire to speak. ‘I am always certain,’ Ethan said. ‘Right now I’m certain you will do as I tell you, and I’m telling you to arrange a meeting. Understand?’
Darren nodded.
‘Good.’ Ethan lowered his hand. ‘So make the call. I want to see the Numbers Man.’
13
Anne-Marie was struggling to keep her secret. It was a secret about the numbers. She was struggling to keep it in, in the way she had struggled – and failed – to keep the contents of her stomach in on so many occasions in the last few months. In the way she was struggling and failing to keep her emotions in.
The callous irony gripping her tight was simply this: she was struggling to keep everything in apart from the one thing she most needed to get out. And that wasn’t going anywhere.
In fact, it was growing.
The numbers don’t lie.
That was the cold, hard fact her doctors had shared with her. Her cancer was growing, spreading. She was struggling to keep other things in because they all wanted to escape the cancer invasion. The rest of her – body and mind – was behaving now like the displaced peoples she had seen on TV, forced to flee from irresistible attack.
Why does your body do this to itself?
Anne-Marie has asked herself that question a thousand times. Somehow she had created her own killing mechanism even though she wanted to live forever. Or at least into a very old age and certainly until Marcus died.
Marcus…
She hadn’t yet told him that her condition was worsening. A part of her didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to see the look on his face when he realised he was failing to save her. The rest of her, though, was desperate for her to speak, to give herself – to give him – the chance to fight back, to regain the lost ground. After all, even displaced people returned to their homeland.
Sometimes.
Once the enemy had been driven out. That was the determining factor. It didn’t matter if everything had been destroyed, every homeland could be rebuilt as long as there was no more internal fighting. Over time it could become even better than it used to be, more suited to the present, more relevant, more courageous.
And her body was like her homeland, wasn’t it? Because the notion of homeland was more than just the place where you lived. It was as much historical and emotional as it was tangible and current. Homeland was just a body of land influenced by a range of forces, just as her physical self was. Homeland had its own boundaries that you sought to control just as you sought to control the boundaries to your physical self. Homeland was open to invasion, no matter how hard you tried to prevent it, just as your body was.
Cancer: an internal terrorist.
That was her enemy and, like all terrorists, it was brilliant at disguising itself and spreading silently, making itself known only when it was strong enough to cause serious harm. An internal terrorist feeding on her homeland, robbing her of her most precious resources, threatening to drive everything else out.
Anne-Marie was standing in the bedroom of their rented house, looking out at the valley. It made her long for the willow tree that dominated the garden of the real home they had left behind. She loved that tree. She always had. There was something about the way it grew out of the earth, reached for the sky and returned to the land with the most gentle sweep and touch. In
her mind the willow tree represented something beyond itself, something more; something that offered hope beyond the pain and fear and doubt of everyday experience.
Only she had chosen to walk away from the willow tree. As if by changing location you can leave bad things behind. As if you can escape from yourself, your memories and your cancer, by simply changing house. That, of course, was nonsense. It didn’t matter where you went or how far you travelled, you could never escape the influence of your homeland. When all else was stripped away, you and it were inseparable.
Just like her and Marcus.
Inseparable.
For better or worse.
14
Numbers destroyed doubt.
That was what Calvin Brent believed.
He believed in the power of numbers. If the numbers added up, everything was good. Numbers were a form of truth that couldn’t be denied. Two plus two equalled four. Four plus four equalled eight. And so on and so on. The more money you made, the richer you were. The more people you killed the more power you had. Especially when the right people knew about it.
Any way you looked at it numbers were the ultimate measure and since he had been in charge, since his dad had been put away courtesy of that scumbag Peter Jones, everything was adding up better than ever before.
Now Calvin Brent sat back in his chair, looked at his unexpected visitor, and tried to make sense of just what was going on. He tried to make two and two equal four. He tried to make the numbers add up. For the first time he was struggling to make it happen. He kept his face stone cold and emotionless. He knew that sooner or later the numbers would fall into line.
‘So,’ Ethan Hall said, ‘the bottom line is I can help you if you help me.’
Calvin Brent had followed the Ethan Hall media story with a mixture of fascination and bewilderment. Darren was, and always had been, the most minor sort of player in Brent’s world. He was an amoeba in a sea filled with sharks. Yet Brent did not dismiss people like Darren as easily as others did – as easily as his father had. Calvin was the Numbers Man. He knew that everything grew out of the lowest common denominator. He knew that a million was just the term used to describe a collection of many smaller things joined together. Big things were the result of controlling and bringing together a wide range of amoeba to create a powerful whole. Amoeba were the building blocks of power.
So Calvin had never been dismissive of Darren, but neither had he any desire to turn him into something more. He served the Numbers Man just fine as he was: the smallest fraction in a most complicated sum.
Calvin had been surprised, then, when, as Ethan Hall’s fame grew, Darren started spreading it around that they were big mates. If the stories about Hall were even half true, he was clearly a big fish – a most unusual big fish – and such creatures didn’t buddy-up with amoeba. Yet just one hour ago Darren had called him saying that not only had Ethan Hall escaped from police custody, he actually wanted a meeting. Calvin couldn’t help but wonder if Darren had been taking too much of the stuff he should have been selling, but he said ‘Yes’ on the off-chance. And the calculated gamble had paid off.
Numbers, Calvin thought, they rule the world.
Only as he looked at Ethan Hall, things were not quite adding up.
‘I don’t doubt that I could help you if I chose to,’ he said finally, ‘but I don’t see any way you can be of use to me.’
‘Haven’t you read the papers or watched the TV?’ Ethan’s lips curled into what was either a smile or a snarl, Calvin couldn’t tell. In fact he realised he was struggling to process anything at his usual speed. He took confidence, though, from the fact that his confusion was well hidden behind his poker face. And he was an outstanding poker player. No one beat him. Ever.
‘You know who I am, right?’ Calvin didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You’re a freak the police have already grabbed once. I’m a professional and I’ve never been arrested. I have contacts that stretch from here to the other side of the world. You’re on y
our own. You’re wanted and isolated and out of your depth. All the numbers are on my side. So don’t come to me thinking you’re someone special.’
‘I wasn’t thinking.’ Ethan’s lips curled again. ‘I was looking.’
‘And?’
‘We should play cards sometime. You would find it an experience. Now,’ Ethan clapped his hands once, ‘suppose I show you just how special I am, make you realise how I can actually help you, and then tell you what I need in return.’
Calvin wanted to be angry. He wanted to call in one of the guys to slap the freak’s face off his shoulders, maybe break a few bones, and see how smug he was then. Only he couldn’t feel the emotion. He couldn’t feel anything. He just heard himself say, ‘I’ll give you one chance.’
‘Of course you will.’ Ethan looked around the room as if something was missing and then said, ‘I can make people do things. I can make them do anything in fact. Bring one of your boys in and give him a gun. I’ll show you how very special I am.’
‘Matt!’ The shout was out of Calvin’s mouth in an instant, as if released automatically by Ethan’s words. Within seconds a burly, shaven-headed man wearing black jeans and a black tee shirt came through the door.
‘Boss?’
‘I need you for an experiment.’ Calvin reached into his desk drawer and took out a heavy, black pistol. Matt looked from it to his boss and then across to Ethan.
‘Here,’ Calvin offered the weapon. The large man took it slowly. He kept his finger well away from the trigger.
‘Face me,’ Ethan ordered.
The man did as he was told. His eyes locked onto Ethan’s.
‘Raise the gun and point it at my face.’
It took less than a second.
‘Good. Now wrap your finger around the trigger as if you are going to try to shoot me. Let’s have no waiting around, no reason to guard against this now Matt. Don’t make this difficult or impossible for yourself now, just try it.’
