The Absent Man: A Bermuda Jones Case File (The Bermuda Jones Case Files Book 2)

by Robert Enright

  He rubbed his hand on his stubbled jaw and caught a glimpse of himself in the window, the reflection set against the blackness of the tunnel. He looked older. His skin, pale and tight, sat across a face that used to turn many a head. Bags hung from his eyes.

  He didn’t need a beer. He needed a coffee.

  And to catch the goddamn heart-stealing bastard.

  The train whizzed around the tracks, eventually alighting at St Enoch, right in the city centre. Bermuda departed and stomped up the steps of the station, ignoring the whipping chill of the evening and the bursting brightness from the streetlights that greeted him. Darkness had fallen, his eleven-minute train journey had felt longer, the night sky stealing the sun as easily as this killer had stolen those hearts. He stuffed both hands in his pockets, one of them to retrieve his phone.

  The other for his Tic Tacs.

  As two mints sloshed their way around his mouth, he held the phone to his ear, impatiently tapping his foot in a shallow puddle. After a few more rings, the phone clicked off.

  The BTCO Glasgow Office had closed for the evening.

  He stared at the screen, droplets of water splattered randomly against the glass as he contemplated calling the London office. Montgomery Black would have certainly have received Strachan’s complaint. On reflection, Bermuda decided having his arse verbally kicked wasn’t good for his increasingly downbeat mood.

  He contemplated calling Chloe. The thought of his daughter’s voice warmed his body, defying the freezing cold of the winter’s evening.

  Angela would answer the phone. Again, he decided that a verbal arse-kicking wasn’t the solution.

  He thought about calling Sophie Summers.

  Instantly, with his heart aching, he scorned himself, refusing to let his mind drift to her, to all the exquisite details of her face.

  The radiant smile.

  The beautiful eyes.

  The jet-black eyes of Barnaby!

  Bermuda shook the thought, a quick flash of the piercing, burning holes that sat in the skull of the most dangerous Other he had come across. He could still see the smirking face, lined by the three scars that marked him as a traitor.

  Barnaby had nearly destroyed all life in this world.

  Somewhere in Glasgow, in the wet, dark concrete jungle surrounding him, another force of evil was threatening humanity. It had happened before, Bermuda recalled. The news clippings from the Nexus had revealed that a series of murders that matched his case had happened years ago.

  This Absent Man had been here before.

  Bermuda ducked into a Cafe Nero, queueing patiently before stepping back out into the busy high street of Glasgow, his hands wrapped around a piping-hot flat white. The caffeine was warm and welcome, following the path well-worn by ale and Tic Tacs to his stomach. His eyes flickered around the town. The premature colours of the Christmas lights lined the gothic buildings, the festive season being forced upon the city earlier every year.

  The Christmas Square, marred by a tragic driving incident a few years previously, was bright and busy, the memory of those who had lost their lives that year being honoured by the celebration of family and fun. He strolled through the square, watching as kids battled the cold to ride the cheap, fun-fair rides while their parents partook in watered-down alcohol from the pop-up bars.

  The smell of hotdogs wafted through the rain from a small van that looked like a health code violation on wheels.

  The main event, the ice rink, encompassed most of the square, with couples and children flying by, all trying their best to outdo gravity. A few kids collided, one of them bursting into tears as panicked parents tried their best to keep their feet.

  An overweight man took a corner too quick and slammed into the barricade. A video would likely be on YouTube within minutes. Bermuda scorned the world they lived in now, where instead of reaching to the man, who looked in considerable pain, the audience reached for their phones.

  Randomly, an Other skittered through the crowd, coasting along the ice with the grace of a majestic swan. It sauntered through, its movements fluid before it cast its one jet-black eye on Bermuda and abruptly stopped.

  Bermuda nodded, as if to grant permission. He turned and headed to the exit as the Other continued its rather bizarre passion for skating.

  After a few more moments, Bermuda exited the square and turned right, heading back down a parade of shops. With Christmas less than six weeks away, every shop was bursting with colour, signs tacked all across their large, floor-to-ceiling windows that beckoned consumers in with promises of tremendous discounts. Shoppers danced around each other with less grace than the Otherside’s answer to Torvill. Bermuda passed a number of clothing outlets before he stepped out on the road.

  The deep blast of a horn rocked his body and caused him to leap back. The tram, a hulking metal people-carrier, glided past, sticking rigidly to the tracks that were indented into the pavement. The sides were littered with advertising boards, again, promises of severe discounts and seasonal delights.

  Bermuda’s hand shook as he finished his coffee.

  He took a moment to compose himself and then began laughing loudly. He had spent too long being called crazy to be concerned with people glaring at him with concern. As the laughter echoed out of his chest, he thought how he had been chased only a week before by a monster bigger than a bus. How six months earlier he had fought Barnaby to the death with the fate of the world on his shoulders.

  How over three years before, his fuzzy memory of the Otherside had seen him narrowly escape the deep red eyes and the screams.

  He had survived all that.

  It would be just his luck that he would get killed by a tram.

  While his laughter died down to a chuckle, his hand still shook. A flash had danced across his eyes before stepping back, images of beautiful faces he knew he couldn’t see. With a grumble he turned on his heel, facing the rain, and headed back to the hotel.

  The dark eyes of the two hooded figures, watching from separate sides of the street, had witnessed his near-death experience.

  The streetlights bounced off their white masks as they stared at Bermuda.

  Argyle stood outside the Premier Inn, his hands behind his back with one resting in the other. His broad chest, plated with armour, stood puffed out, the stance of a proud soldier. His grey eyes flickered up and down the street.

  He scorned himself for his lack of vigilance earlier.

  Argyle prided himself on his ability to sense Others, but also his strict attention. He should have seen McAllister barge into the house, but he had been distracted. He had been staring at the alleyway.

  Were they there?

  Had they finally come for him?

  Argyle shuffled uncomfortably on the spot, readjusting his stance and ensuring he stepped back as close to the wall of the hotel as possible. The last thing he wanted to do was scare a human. Being an invisible wall tended to upset people.

  The rain was relentless, smashing against the concrete city with a fury that Argyle found beautiful. At least it meant fewer people would be out.

  Perhaps it would keep the heart-stealer indoors.

  Argyle knew better. Whoever they were hunting, he knew that there would be no stopping. The only outcome was for them to find this Other.

  Bermuda could find it. Argyle knew it.

  Taking a deep breath, Argyle felt a small tinge of sorrow for his partner, who had been trying earnestly to rebuild a relationship with his child, one that had been brutalised by his gift. While Bermuda could see a different world, it blinded him from the one he wanted to build. It was a heartbreaking sacrifice, and one that he had punished himself for. His body bore the scars, physically and emotionally, be it from a needle and ink or the claws of a violent beast.

  But Bermuda never gave up.

  They would fight together until the bitter end. Argyle knew that, had witnessed it atop the grand clock tower that overlooked their city when they had felled Barnaby.

  Wh
en they had witnessed a fellow agent die in the line of duty, despite his appalling attitude.

  When the stunning woman had walked away from Bermuda.

  They still fought.

  Over the wonderful echoes of the pounding rain, Argyle could hear a raised voice, an inaudible rant from a voice rife with intoxication. He glared through the heavy downpour to the homeless man from the evening before. The group of kids who had terrorised him were nowhere to be seen, safe and warm in their homes that they held over this unfortunate human.

  He was clearly influenced by some substance, which made him as criminal as it did pathetic in the eyes of the powerful soldier who stood before him.

  The homeless man yelled and yelled at the other passers-by, for them to look in the direction he was wildly pointing.

  For them to look at the hotel.

  To look at the armour-plated soldier who stood valiantly by the front door, clear as day.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The blood was warm, a thick stream of it sliding down his arm as he held it aloft. In his hand, the heart had come to a stop, the final beats petering out like a song as it quietens to its finish.

  The heart had belonged to Rosie Seeley, a young blond student who had been enamoured by his charm.

  She lay across the back of the sofa, her hands reaching for the front door to her modest studio apartment. Her tears were still wet down her face as she had struggled. Unlike the others, who had simply cried, frozen, or wet themselves when he ‘turned’, this one had fought back.

  A swift knee to his groin and a dash to the door.

  It had been admirable.

  Pointless. But admirable.

  After shaking off the shock of her battle for self-preservation, Kevin Parker had stomped after her, wrenching her short blond hair and snapping her head back before hurling her away from her freedom. She had collided hard with the coffee table, the modest furnishing collapsing under her weight and shooting a jagged piece of wood into her thigh.

  She had screamed, but the sounds were choked from her by his powerful hand, the fingers wrapping around her throat and squeezing like a boa constrictor. She could feel the life leaving her, his eyes, now black and embedded in a monstrously distorted face, bored into her, searching.

  Not for her.

  For someone else.

  As he had lifted her petite frame from the ground, he had gazed at her, contemplating. She had no idea; all she had known was a warm stream of urine began to trickle down her legs, dripping gently onto the wooden floor. In an instant, she had been slammed facedown onto the hard wooden ridge that ran along the back of the sofa.

  Moments later, she had felt the skin of her back being punctured. The pain had been breathtaking as she felt his knuckles slam against her spinal cord, the vertebrae cracking as she had lost all feeling in her body.

  Shock had washed over her as she lay motionless.

  The last thing she had felt was his fingers on her heart before her consciousness, like her life, was literally snatched from her.

  Now, in the shoddy light cascading from the cheap bulb above, Kevin admired the life source. It gleamed; a thick layer of blood coated it like a toffee apple.

  This one should be enough.

  It had to be.

  Silently, he stepped away from the motionless body of the young lady. She had told him things about her life – things of little consequence. He had been stood in her store, a quaint florist on the outskirts of the city, staring intently at the roses when she had approached. He had charmed her.

  Selected her.

  With his fingers grasping the very essence of life, Kevin Park stepped through the blood which was pooling across the floor, and had turned the back of the sofa are darker shade of blue.

  Rosie’s eyes were wide open but saw nothing.

  Her final moments had been spent in terror.

  As had hers, he told himself. The one that he demanded from them. The one that they needed to return to him.

  Careful not the use his fingers, Kevin slid his hand back into his sleeve and unlatched the door. A concerned neighbour cowered behind his own door as the classically handsome man left the flat where he had heard the commotion.

  The screaming.

  His right arm, from the elbow to the fingertip, was coated in scarlet.

  His fingers encased a young woman’s heart like a makeshift rib cage.

  With measured steps, he exited the building to make his delivery, leaving behind a body that had been ripped open and a discovery that would rip many lives apart.

  Bermuda sat in his hotel room, his bare legs stretched across the bed. The television screen was alive with colour, with some program about rich people looking to invest money humming annoyingly in the background. He had hoped it would take his mind off of the case – the two dead women and the likely discovery of another this evening. The evidence suggesting this had happened before.

  The growing list of employees of the Glasgow Police Service that hated his guts.

  He sighed, sliding off the bed and heading across the purple-and-white identikit Premier Inn room. The rain clattered against the window of his sixth-floor room. The desk before him was littered with local leaflets, all offering authentic Scottish experiences and cuisine. To the left of them, the shards of glass from the night before.

  His mind flashed to McAllister, the two run-ins he had had with her that day as well as the terrible sexual encounter the night before.

  The unsexy cherry on a very shitty cake.

  His eyes ran past the cheap, hotel-provided hairdryer affixed to the wall and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. As soon as he had returned to the hotel, he had been greeted by Argyle, who had seemed on edge. While he had checked in with his partner, he had noticed the grey, pupilless eyes flicking from street to street as if he was expecting someone.

  Or something.

  The drunk homeless man had returned, screaming about guardian angels and medieval knights of some description. Of large men in suits of armour. Of hooded warriors that stalked the alleyways. Of bright, white masks.

  Bermuda had dismissed it as inebriation.

  Sweet, sweet inebriation.

  As soon as he had entered the hotel room he had stripped off, his drenched clothes being strategically balled up and tossed into the corner of the room. He had stood in the shower for over twenty minutes, the water hitting him at a surprisingly powerful rate. Bermuda’s mind raced to the day he had had, leaping from moment to moment. Arriving at the crime scene, the venture to the Necropolis. Tobias and his creepy loose skin. The BTCO Scotland Office and its bizarre inhabitant. The run-in with Strachan.

  A hell of a day.

  Most confusing of all, that while the near entirety of it had been spent being pummelled by water, Bermuda had stepped in and willingly stood under more.

  Now he stood glaring at his ink-covered body in the mirror. Through various sources and his own research, he had spent thousands of pounds on his ink work. The symbols and incantations, many written in the criss-cross scrawl that he had seen in the archives under Vincent’s watchful eye, kept him safe.

  Physically or mentally.

  Either way, he looked at them, agreeing that in the eyes of Angela, he must have seemed mental. No wonder she had taken his daughter from him and run from their marriage.

  No wonder Sophie had left as well.

  His brow furrowed in frustration, deploring himself for immortalising her as ‘the one that got away.’ His toned body had filled out slightly over the last six months, the result of quitting smoking and Argyle forcing at least some combat training.

  Across his chest, the ink ruptured into three jagged scars.

  A reminder of the violent beast upon the Cutty Sark and his trip through the roof of the boat.

  And a further reminder of how only six months earlier, his body wasn’t healing as it did now.

  He had almost forgotten his condition, losing himself in the labyrinth of the case. His body was
changing. He could feel it. It was that feeling you have when you have a trapped nerve, the sudden, uncontrollable jolt within your skin, like something blocking a vein.

  Something dark and vulgar lurked within him.

  He could feel it invading every part of his body.

  Calling to him.

  Demanding him.

  A few days ago he had hurtled off of a thirty-foot bridge and shattered his ribs and his collarbone. His bones had healed completely. With a shudder, he rolled his shoulder, feeling zero effects of the drop that should have ended his life.

  The Otherside wouldn’t allow it.

  It fixed him.

  So at some point, it could claim him.

  With a grunt, he threw on his jeans and a T-shirt. He pulled on another pair of Converse – red ones this time – and yanked a thick woollen jumper over his head. His still damp coat wrapped around him, protecting him from the elements and the dangers hidden in the shadows. The inside pocket shook with Tic Tacs against his e-cigarette.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he told his reflection, as his wet beanie hat flattened his hair as he stomped through the door and out into the wet Glasgow night.

  His cab rumbled to a stop at the bottom of the hill, the Necropolis spanning the rise like a gothic painting. Bermuda paid the driver who had treated him to an impromptu talking tour of the city as they had coasted through the streets, his thick accent making his descriptions undecipherable. Bermuda had nodded politely, instead gazing out through the window and wondering which building the Absent Man would be in.

  Who would be losing their heart this evening?

  As the cab indicated and pulled away into the freezing night, Bermuda shuddered, wrapping his arms around his body and wishing he had an ale in his hand.

  ‘You seem cold.’ Argyle’s words were the opposite.

  ‘No shit,’ Bermuda responded before turning and entering through the thick metal gate and ascending the twisted concrete path that slithered its way through the graveyard.

  The tombstones shot out of the ground, each one a dark pillar against the moonlight. They walked across the land of the dead, each step crunching on the fallen leaves that had given up for the winter.