Where the Birds Hide at Night

by Gareth Wiles

  ‘I’m ever so thirsty.’

  At first she glared at him, but soon a smile formed. It was a genuine smile, and Peter just knew that beyond all the crap that was going on she really did want to be with him. She walked over to the fridge and, opening it, brought out a carton of milk. Peter’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as she tried to hide a little giggle.

  * * *

  The following morning Peter peeped out of the window to see Lauren getting into the unmarked police car. It drove off, leaving the coast clear for he and Noose to exit. Noose had cleaned himself up and, forced into a pair of Lauren’s trousers like Peter, didn’t look too bad. Luckily Lauren wasn’t really the kind to sport overtly revealing skirts and tops, so some of her more generic clothing was quite suitable for them. He stepped out of the bathroom as Peter pulled away from the window and flicked his eyes over to the laptop on the kitchen table.

  ‘What?’ Noose asked him, not quite with it yet.

  ‘Take a look.’

  Noose went to the laptop, sitting down and reading with increasing perplexity what he found on the screen. ‘Barbara Davies,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Yes, released from prison just before Beth and Dani Henderson were murdered, and the woman you shagged,’ Peter explained rather joyously. Noose looked up from the screen, raising an eyebrow, to see Peter’s face beaming with excitement.

  ‘You think Barbara murdered them, to set me up?’

  ‘It’s a distinct possibility, isn’t it?!’

  ‘Is that what The Space is telling you?’ Noose snarled somewhat, highly uneasy about the deaths and his role in them.

  ‘I hear hints and whispers about it.’

  ‘Seems to me the only thing The Space is good for is giving you the security code to Lauren’s flat,’ Noose sighed. His eyes went back to the screen, reading again the news article explaining Barbara’s case all those years ago when she’d murdered Louis Sellers and James Harrington. Perhaps Peter was onto something. ‘But why, and how?’

  ‘Well as the investigating officer or whatever, you were responsible for putting her inside. Maybe she fancied some revenge,’ Peter surmised.

  Noose looked at him again and almost smiled. For the first time in a long while he had somebody on his case, somebody supporting him. Then again, Nicola Williams had given him the key to the handcuffs in hospital. He had to focus, starting to puzzle over the logistics of what Barbara would have had to do in order to frame him.

  ‘She’d have had to get some of my sperm and put it in Dani and Beth.’

  ‘Had you had sex around the time, before the decapitation girl?’

  Noose looked a little sheepish. ‘No.’

  ‘Wanked?’ Peter asked, feigning an air of studious indifference.

  ‘Probably,’ Noose reluctantly admitted. ‘A man’s needs.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I, er, I’d generally wank into a condom,’ he went on professionally, affecting a rather softer voice.

  ‘Would you now?’

  ‘I used to get these ones with a special substance in the lubrication which delayed it, you know. That way I’d last longer.’

  ‘What a night in for the modern, single middle-aged man,’ Peter chuckled. Noose frowned. ‘So, presumably you binned these instead of flushing as every good boy does?’ Noose nodded. ‘Barbara got hold of one or more of these out of your bin and, hey presto, your jizz gets inside those reluctant cadavers.’ Peter now sighed, dropping his light air. ‘That Barbara is a strong woman, I remember my encounter with her.’

  ‘Built like a brick shit house.’

  ‘Yes. I dread to think what horrors she inflicted on those poor women. And the child, so sickening.’ He turned his back on Noose and went again to the window, lowering his voice. ‘All just to frame you. She would have hired the one you did shag. Probably a prostitute.’

  Before all this ever happened, Noose had made the egotistical mistake of contemplating such attention. For somebody to want to frame him, he thought, would mean his life and work meant something. Somebody cared enough about him to go to such lengths. Of course, when it had eventually happened, it was a great ego destroyer and not the boost he had misguidedly coveted. Such things were as they are, and he could not go back and change his prior mindset. Or, perhaps he could? He looked over at Peter, the once-dead man back to life and in his life like never before. The roles were switched; he was now the one on the run with Peter as his champion. Still, Peter probably owed him that much. Noose had helped him out of trouble more times than he could remember. This was payback – not that he wanted paying back. He’d much rather have the roles switched back again as they used to be. Perhaps that’s what had drawn him to Peter in the first place, the fact he could always play the role of champion and save the downtrodden from the unthinking and bloodthirsty mass. His desire to help people, to bring justice to the similarly downtrodden, had spectacularly backfired in his face and led to the utter collapse of his entire life. And yet, the one who, for the last ten years, he’d felt he couldn’t save in the end was back and helping to save him.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ Noose mused.

  ‘We force the truth out of her.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’ll do,’ Noose admitted, ‘if I clap eyes on the one who framed me. Woman or not, I might not be able to control myself.’

  ‘I will be there, Noose; I’ll hold you back.’

  ‘Will you?’ He stood up, pouring some water into a glass and downing it. ‘Do we even know where she’s living, anyway?’

  Peter smirked. ‘Of course we do. I took the liberty of accessing the online police files with Lauren’s password.’

  ‘Never change, do you!’

  * * *

  They had made their way on foot, which was still quite a struggle for Noose. However, he had certainly rallied around since Peter’s return and they both now crouched behind a hedge at the end of a field. The other side of the hedge lay Barbara Davies’ garden and house, and Noose’s anger had been steadily building.

  ‘I think I might kill her,’ he said calmly, getting up. Peter pulled him back down.

  ‘Steady, Noose. We don’t know for sure it’s her yet, do we? Besides, you don’t want to actually end up being a murderer, do you?’

  ‘She deserves to die after what she did.’

  Peter couldn’t very well disagree with that. He knew as soon as he came across Lucy’s killer that he’d likely kill them. No, he would definitely kill them. It was justice. But for now, they were sorting justice out for Dani and Beth Henderson and the decapitated woman. Their killer did deserve to die for what they did.

  The hedge was rather high – too high to jump over, and besides, that would draw too much attention – and it stretched at the back of dozens of houses. The two men lay flat on their stomachs and looked under it. It would be a squeeze, beset with thorns and rotting litter, but it was the only way to go. There was no turning back. What would greet them when they reached the house? Would Barbara even be in? They struggled under and kept flat as they just made it through. Unperturbed by the thorn scratches to their backs, the pair kept flat on the ground and pulled themselves along in the thick grass until they met the back of a shed. Sitting up against it, they took a breather.

  ‘So, a, er,’ Noose fumbled, wondering how best to approach the subject. Peter gave out a little yawn, which Noose caught. ‘I’m the only one who can remember you being dead?’ he asked through his own yawn.

  ‘Yup, pretty much,’ was Peter’s casual reply. He looked at Noose, grinning.

  ‘It’s mad, it’s crazy.’

  ‘It was necessary I’m afraid.’ He looked away at the hedge, twiddling his thumbs. ‘Without you present, the museum club may not have been able to bring me back.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well,’ Peter responded sheepishly, ‘you are my strongest tie to the here and now, you were the one my entity could latch onto.’

  ‘So I was like a host?’

  ‘Yes, I was like a wasp laying my eggs
in your fruity goodness,’ Peter laughed.

  ‘What about Lauren? You told her you loved her, shouldn’t she be your strongest tie or whatever?’

  ‘Things aren’t as simple as that,’ Peter shot.

  ‘They never are, are they?’ Noose sighed. ‘Those men, the museum men… They were all you.’

  Peter, not uneasy about Noose’s ponderances, nonetheless wanted to get this latest problem wrapped up, so poked his head around the shed to clock the various windows in both Barbara’s house and the houses either side. There were plenty that could potentially accommodate a spoiler of their plans. Either way, the chance had to be taken. He mouthed ‘3-2-1’ to Noose before stepping out from behind the shed and scurrying on all fours towards the house. Noose followed, keeping up with him on pure adrenalin. Soon they had reached the house and, backs against the wall, took a breather.

  ‘It’s rather unfortunate, really,’ Peter whispered.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘All this, everything that’s happened and is happening to you. You don’t deserve it.’

  ‘Don’t I? Are you sure about that?’

  Peter knew he most certainly did not, but Noose himself wasn’t so sure. Something he’d done to somebody in the past must have brought this on. If indeed Barbara Davies was the one who’d done this, then it was his fault for putting her in prison for a decade. She’d originally killed because of the one she’d loved. Was that a definite crime?

  Peter slid sideways along the wall and reached the back door, trying the handle. It was unlocked. Easing it open ever so slightly, he stuck his nose into the gap and sniffed the released air from within the house. Something didn’t smell altogether pleasant, though he wasn’t a master of smells. In fact, now he took the time to question why he’d even smelt the air in the first place. It was an animal instinct, not something he should be doing. Then again, he was an animal. At present, at least. Reluctantly he reached for that section in his mind where he had tried to force his connection to The Space, trying as he’d done when working out the key code to Lauren’s flat to harness some residual energy to aid him in his quest. Silence. He looked back at Noose, who was nodding encouragingly. Peter opened the door further and slipped inside. Noose followed, standing up straight and shutting the door behind them. They were in the kitchen, the strange smell now hitting Noose’s nostrils. It gave him a short, sharp shock as it transported him back to when that young woman posing as Sergeant Helen Douglas had pulled her finger out of his bum. The sweat of the embrace, the poo from his bum… That was the smell in this house.

  Peter looked around cautiously, though much brisker than Noose. To the elder man, this companion who’d miraculously returned to life looked that much more assured. Seemingly gone was the naive speed of his younger self, to be replaced by this world-worn carelessness that gave him the impetus to just step into a murderer’s house. Noose lost sight of him for a second as he stepped into the next room.

  ‘Oh my,’ came a call from the other room. Noose quickly followed, that smell intensifying. As he stepped into the living room, there was Barbara naked and strung up by her hands. A ball gag in her mouth and a thin wire around her neck, she shook her head violently as she caught sight of the two men. ‘She’s trying to warn us.’

  ‘Warn us about what?’

  They heard a clicking noise and looked down between Barbara’s legs just in time to see a long sharp blade fire up from a small furry pink box and straight into her vagina.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Noose yelled as blood poured from between Barbara’s legs and she moaned in agony. ‘We’ve got to get her down from there,’ Noose cried out as he stepped closer. Suddenly Barbara’s eyes widened as her head seemed to be pulled up straight. They noticed that the thin wire around her neck ran into a small box attached to the ceiling, which now began to pull the wire in. Tighter and tighter it got as Barbara’s eyes bulged more and more. And then, along with the sound of a little cog running, the wire shot back into the box with a ferocious force and cut the woman’s head clean off like it was just a piece of cheese. It dropped to the floor with a thud as her body still hung there, now quite lifeless. The two men were stunned into silence. Neither could they look at her body, nor each other. Peter stepped out of the room, his hand over his mouth, as Noose remained fixed to the spot.

  The silence was soon disrupted by a thrashing at the door as it burst open and what seemed like a dozen armed police officers poured in. Peter ascended the stairs as they wrestled Noose to the floor, gasps and cries echoing the whole house as some of the officers caught sight of the horrid scene. Peter remained unmolested as he quietly lost himself in one of the bedrooms – clearly they had come for Noose, and only Noose. What a remarkable set-up, Peter thought. To those cops, Noose had been well and truly caught in the act.

  * * *

  Noose, his hands cuffed behind his back, was led through the Myrtleville police station reception by two bulky cops. They needed to be bulky to hold him back when, coming in the opposite direction, was his ex-wife and son. Initially Noose didn’t recognise her – her hair was white and balding, her head bent permanently to the side as the ravages of her illness had taken their toll. She sat slumped in her wheelchair, son Gary pushing her as Jacobs and Douglas walked either side. Noose was seized as he tried to get to his family, recognising his son. Gary looked back, a spiteful grin quickly forming on his face.

  ‘You sick pervert,’ Gary shouted out as Williams stormed through the double doors after them, panicking.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here? They’re supposed to be in protective custody, not meeting him in reception,’ she yelled at Jacobs and Douglas. The pair frowned, Jacobs pushing Gary out of the way and taking control of Sam’s wheelchair as Douglas tried to put her arm around Gary. He, now a handsome young man, was as tall as his father and the spitting image of him back in the day.

  ‘Son,’ Noose cried, struggling in the tight grip of his guards and unable to look upon his ex-wife.

  ‘I’m not your son, murderer pedophile scumbag,’ Gary replied with increasing venom. Noose could no longer plead his innocence – he’d had enough. He stopped struggling and went limp, slipping from the grip of the officers and falling to his knees. ‘Look what you’ve done to my mum, you vile worthless creature,’ Gary carried on, lashing out at his dad with his foot. Williams leapt to block the kick, getting caught across her knees. She too fell as Jacobs made a grab for Gary and wrestled him away.

  ‘What has happened to you?’ Noose mumbled towards Sam, still unable to look at her. ‘How did I cause this?’ She remained silent, her jaw fixed shut by the disease afflicting her.

  ‘You abandoned her, she didn’t want to live anymore,’ Gary yelled as Jacobs led him off. Douglas quickly pushed Sam away as Williams turned around on her knees to face Noose.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Henry,’ she whispered, pausing for a moment as their eyes met. Noose sniffed away his fit of tears as she almost placed a hand on his. The officers pulled him to his feet and she too got up. ‘She’s suffering from a rare degenerative disease. You didn’t cause that.’

  ‘My son thinks I did,’ were the last words Noose spoke as he was taken away. From that moment on he decided it best he never spoke again.

  * * *

  To scribble and scrape and

  Untangle the trap as

  Intangible taught systems

  Lie unredeemed in confusion,

  There appears a decision to be made -

  Pour your everything.

  ALEX’S RISE

  Never one to normally blow his own trumpet, Alex nonetheless felt incredibly full of himself as he strode up to the Edwards’ house and knocked on the door. Inside, Ruby and Arthur had spent the last few days following the news about Alex’s miraculous walk-out of prison. Now, with that knock at the door, their tenuous bubble had just been burst. The blinds twitched as Alex knocked again.

  ‘There’s a crowd outside,’ Ruby whispered to Arthur from the window. He, sitting
on the sofa, kept his eyes fixed on the TV.

  ‘I just don’t know what overcame me,’ the guard from the prison explained in an interview on the news. ‘I just cannot reason why we all stood aside and let him get out.’

  ‘Could it be he exerted some form of mind-control over you?’ asked Newsman Richard Hart.

  ‘It almost felt like I believed in him somehow, that he was doing it for me.’

  Richard turned to the camera and, with the unerring devotion he’d paid to his craft for the last fifteen years, delivered in a monotonous fawn: ‘Something truly remarkable is unfolding in our country. Not so very long ago we had the televised suicide of Neville Jeffries, purporting to be following the word of Peter Smith and The Great Collective. Now, Alex – the man convicted of murdering our Prime Minister – claims to be a part of this Great Collective. What is it, and how might we all reap the benefits?’

  ‘I’ll just reap what I’ve sown, thank you very much,’ was Arthur’s response, ‘down on the allotment.’

  Again the knock came at the door. Louder this time. ‘I know you’re in there,’ Alex called out.

  ‘Katie’s not here,’ Ruby yelled back. ‘Go away.’

  ‘I’m not here to see Katie.’

  ‘Well we don’t flippin’ well wanna see you,’ Arthur grunted.

  ‘Locks cannot stop me. Open up, and an expensive repair bill can be avoided.’

  At this half-hearted attempt at menace, Arthur smelt the spending of money and so leapt to his feet and rushed to the door. He unlocked it and opened it slowly. Alex walked straight in, pushing Arthur aside, and locked the door behind him.

  ‘What do you want?’ Ruby fumed, pointing her finger at the young man.

  ‘Firstly, I want to apologise,’ he said sincerely, lowering his head and looking up at the gobsmacked couple. ‘I’m completely innocent, I never killed the Prime Minister.’

  ‘To be honest, we never believed you did,’ Arthur admitted, going to sit down again. ‘You always were a weak sort of lad,’ he carried on, putting his feet up on the sofa. Alex merely smiled at this.