Past Darkness

by Sam Millar

  ‘That’s right. I was armed with the holy trinity of retribution: gun, determination and justification.’

  Outside the apartment, a heavy rain began to assault the window, as though a million crows on the verge of starvation had found victuals scattered in the wilderness of God’s open palm.

  Karl listened to the rain intently, almost hypnotised. He shuddered.

  ‘It was raining that night, also, just like this…’

  He reached and lifted the brandy glass to his lips. This time, he surrendered, filled his mouth with the agreeable liquid. Let it sea against his parched tongue, as if it could exorcise the bad taste of memory. Swallowed what his mouth held. Set the glass back down.

  ‘I followed Arnold when he came out of Fiddler’s Green. I followed him along the Antrim Road. Pitch-black night, as dark as the devil’s heart. Little or no traffic, human or metal. I came within arm’s length of him when he suddenly stopped dead-weight in his tracks.’

  ‘Did…did he see you?’ Naomi had been hanging on to every word, like a butcher’s hook embedded into bloody meat. Tense, she had barely moved a muscle, trapped in Karl’s dark, claustrophobic world of violence and retribution.

  ‘He’d stopped to take a piss. I walked closer; so close I could smell the stench of that piss, the booze seeping through his filthy pores, his Old Spice aftershave, the greasy Brylcreem stuck to his hair.’

  ‘You don’t have to continue, Karl. It’s okay.’

  ‘I aimed the gun at the back of his head, thinking of the evil he had perpetrated, on Mum, on me. I tried to say his name, make him turn around, face me. But my tongue refused to move. I squeezed on the trigger, gritted my teeth, waited for the explosion of brain and skull, but…I couldn’t do it. I had the bastard in my sights, and I couldn’t fucking do it.’

  Karl’s hands were trembling with anger. Knuckles white, almost popping from their fleshy enclosure.

  ‘Easy…easy, love,’ Naomi whispered. ‘You’re better than Arnold. That’s why you couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Within forty-eight hours, he had abducted little Ann and Leona, raped and murdered them in the most brutal fashion. They were out egg-painting on Easter Sunday. I could have saved them, but I was a coward.’

  ‘That’s guilt talking, Karl. You can’t change the past. Arnold murdered Ann and Leona. Not you. He was given life imprisonment for that.’

  ‘The law deemed him insane when he murdered my mother. He was put away for five years in a mental institute. Five bloody years! Can you believe that? Had he been given life at the time, he wouldn’t have been out on the streets, able to murder those two kids, twenty years later.’

  ‘The whole thing was a travesty of justice, Karl. Nothing can change that, no matter how much you persecute yourself.’

  ‘Justice? Justice had nothing to do with it. Money was the principle factor. Arnold came from one of the wealthiest families in Belfast, and to this day, I believe the so-called judge – that fucker William Pickering – had his pockets filled with blood money by Arnold’s parents for a shorter sentence.’

  Naomi held him, rocking her tired and defeated partner – her man – gently, whispering soft and calming things into his ear meant for him and no other. He closed his eyes, allowing his body to move with her gentle sways. She hummed a song, something barely audible and arcane. Something magic. Something only women know the meaning to, and hold its trust in their bosoms.

  He couldn’t remember when exactly he had fallen asleep, but he did, in her arms.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they’re going to be when you kill them.

  William Clayton (aka Billy the Kid)

  Despite the fierce storm raging unabated, Scarman had taken to a narrow vein of backroads and unventured pathways, all overgrown with wild, thorny bushes and weeds the size of menacing triffids. The rain fell like freezing ball bearings, increasing the weight of the darkness. The weather suited his purposes well.

  This nighttime world he traversed seemed void of all moving and breathing things, long abandoned by gods and good people. To Scarman, though, it was faultless. It filled him with an inexpressible sensation so wondrously sweet he felt a renewed understanding of his own destiny and footprint in life.

  After five minutes of walking, slowed and hindered constantly by the undergrowth, he came to the lone and lonely farmhouse. It waited there for him like a resigned silhouette clipped from funereal paper. The sight made him grin his wolf’s grin. He was the aggrieved party, the police, the prosecution, the expert witness, the judge, the jailor, the executioner, the undertaker. He was the hunter.

  The back of the house was blocked by congregations of rusting machinery, along with rotten timber felled eons ago by the eager axe and wiry muscles of promise and enthusiasm. Now, all life was gone; relegated to an era long departed and long forgotten. Neglect had finally been crowned prince and conqueror.

  Scarman approached the side of the house, populated by two rusted tractors and moss-covered equine items, soldiered side-by-side with an army of worthless tools, as ancient as anything utilised by Noah in his wooded chandlery as he waited for the great rains of judgement to burst forth.

  Edging himself up to an ageing, naked window, he peered where his eyes guided. The window belonged to a one-time bedroom, now chock-a-block with floor-to-ceiling clutter. Paper mainly. Reams of books towered in skyline formation. Magazines carpeted the floor. Yellowing newspapers suffocated ancient and rickety-looking furniture. Beyond that bedroom, the hallway; beyond the hallway, the living room, a sequence of shapes and shade. In the living room, shadows fashioned from a log-fed fire danced in crazed movements.

  Rain was sloshing against the windowpane, interrupting his voyeurism. Still, he was able to catch a measured view of the living room, and a pair of legs stretched out. The legs were almost hugging the blazing fire. A shotgun rested not too far from the legs, like a faithful hound awaiting its master’s deadly command.

  He slid back down to the ground. The wetted muck was becoming swampier. Less traction accorded for his intended deeds.

  Deadly, dark deeds.

  The rain continued its unpitying torrent. Drowning him. He almost missed the basement door, camouflaged as it was in dung and wet leaves.

  Looking all about, he schemed and weighed options, purchasing a rusted pipe, flattened and eroded by time and the elements. With this, he began to scrape away leaves and roots and dung. It was human dung. Not animal. He uprooted the dung, digging under it. Its belly glistened like something malevolent from a cursed swampland. The slimy mess clung to the pipe like a crazed dog in lockjaw. The stench was overpowering. Male in all its ugliness. Not like the young girls’. No, not like theirs at all.

  He pictured the ancient farmer eating all those filthy turnips, sprouts and spuds, shovelling them down his toothless mouth before going to the shitter, sitting down and releasing his load like an animal giving birth. He hated the farmer even more now, quickly horseshoeing the bar’s metal lip between gaps in the wooden shutters and bordering cement.

  His brute force laid siege to the primitive doors, until they eventually shuddered, then splintered into surrender. He pulled back the remains. Darkness beckoned. As he was about to enter, something bit him in the leg.

  King stood, snarling, face pulled back over its skull, red eyes wide, teeth bared and prepared for battle.

  ‘Easy boy…’ Scarman hissed, turning carefully, hoping not to spook the dog into attacking him. He clamped the rusted pipe in his fist, and readied it.

  King leapt forward, snapping at him. He threw a wild swing. The pipe hit King on the side of the head. King yelped, but came right back again, knocking the pipe from Scarman’s hand and sinking its curved teeth into the leg of his trousers. A tug-of-war ensued. Scarman pulled on the trouser leg, struggling to free it from the dog’s grip. King dug its heels in, its head tearing from side to side in a sawing motion.

  ‘Bastard!’ This time Sc
arman lashed out, landing a solid kick to King’s nose.

  The creature whimpered loudly, then turned and ran as fast as its feet could carry it.

  Shaken, Scarman entered the basement, and was immediately swallowed up.

  In front of the comfort of his fire, Francis reflected on Karl’s visit two days ago. Perhaps he shouldn’t have proffered the information about Cornelius and Martha Johnson having an affair? He had clearly seen the shock in Karl’s eyes, and also the hurt. It was the last thing he had ever wanted to do, to hurt the lad.

  ‘Damn it! You’re like an old wine vessel, bursting at the seams.’ He couldn’t stop admonishing himself. ‘Can’t keep anything in. You damn fool. If Nora still lived, you’d have had a verbal lashing from her.’

  The thought of his beloved wife instantly made him feel terribly alone and melancholy. He craned a log from a side-basket, and unceremoniously dropped it into the grate. Sparks spat out at him, landing on his liver spots and withered hands. He watched the sparks die on his skin. If they caused pain, he did not submit to it, nor offer deposition.

  Standing up from the large, threadbare armchair, he removed Karl’s card from the top of the old working table. He tried the phone again. The third time today. Still not working. Power lines brought down by the storm.

  First thing in the morning, he’d call Karl, tell him about the new owner in the old house. Something not right about the man. Those eyes.

  Francis Duffy didn’t scare easily, but he had to admit to himself, the eyes had unnerved him. He was relieved when the man quickly closed the door in his face.

  Francis put the card back on the table, and walked over to the cupboard. Removed a solitary teabag and the sugar bag. Placed the teabag in the teapot. Clicked the kettle’s water into life, and went back to making himself comfortable in the armchair.

  The logs sparked, hissed and spat, lighting up the room in sporadic bursts, like a miniature fireworks display. He stared into the flames’ dancing tongues, licking at the trembling logs. They were hypnotic. He thought he saw Nora’s face in them. She was smiling at him, calling out his name.

  Francis…Francis…

  That was when he noticed the shotgun had vanished.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  My eyes have seen what my hand did.

  Robert Lowell, Dolphin

  The storm lasted throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning. It had little effect on Karl’s usual sunny disposition.

  ‘The noise last night,’ he grumbled, sipping his early morning coffee at the kitchen table. He looked like a bear forced out of hibernation. ‘Sounded like the end of the world.’

  Naomi smiled, kissed him and sat down opposite, a bowl of cereal in her hands. ‘I slept like a baby. I hardly heard the storm.’

  ‘It wasn’t the storm I was referring to, it was your bloody snoring.’

  ‘I’ll have you know, Karl Kane, I do not snore. I’m a lady.’

  ‘Then it must have been all that farting you were doing, because some sort of thundering noise was coming from you, from under the sheets as well as–’

  The front doorbell sounded. Karl and Naomi looked at each other, neither moving. A Mexican standoff.

  The bell sounded again. More insistent this time.

  Naomi sighed, stood to get up.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Karl, standing. ‘I’ll do it, like everything else around here.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that. Might come true one day.’

  Opening the front door, he was struck with surprise and weariness by the sight of Detective Chambers, notebook clutched in one hand.

  ‘I’ll have to move you into the spare room, if you keep showing up at my door, Chambers. What is it now?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘This early in the morning? Catch yourself on.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll ask the questions here. How well did you know a Francis Duffy?’

  Karl’s stomach clenched in trepidation.

  ‘What’s happened to Francis?’

  ‘He was found dead at his home in the early hours of yesterday morning. A district nurse who checks in on him occasionally discovered the body.’

  ‘Ah shit…’ Karl shook his head. ‘What…what happened?’

  ‘Initial reports suggest a burglary gone wrong. Looks like a struggle between Mister Duffy and the perpetrator ended when Mister Duffy was shot in the stomach with his own legally-held shotgun.’

  Karl could no longer hold back the rage. ‘Fuck! For all he had, some scumbag would kill him. Bastard! And to shoot him in the stomach…’

  ‘Was Mister Duffy related to you in any way?’

  ‘No…not related, more a friend of the family from many years back. What makes you think it was a burglary?’

  Chambers scribbled something into the notebook before addressing Karl. ‘The house had been ransacked, apparently. Hard to tell what was stolen. According to the report, everything seemed to be haphazardly strewn about.’

  Karl thought back to the state of the place when he had visited. It already looked like it had been ransacked.

  ‘Do the cops have any leads? Any suspects? Anything?’

  Chambers shook his head. ‘Forensic officers are still going over the scene. It’ll be some time before we hear from them.’

  ‘Any other questions? I’m going to have to make funeral arrangements for Francis, ASAP.’

  ‘Did Mister Duffy have any enemies that you know of?’

  Karl shook his head. ‘I really couldn’t answer that. Up until a week ago, I hadn’t seen him in years. He seemed to be living a hermit’s existence, just wanting to be left alone.’

  ‘What exactly were you doing, visiting him?’

  Karl’s face tightened. ‘The damn answer is in your question, smartarse. Visiting. Not that it’s any of your business. Anything else? I need to go.’

  ‘If you think of anything, anything you may have…forgotten, will you contact me?’

  Karl nodded. ‘Now, I really need to move it.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Chambers turned to leave just as something occured to Karl.

  ‘You haven’t told me how you figured I might have a connection with Francis.’

  The young detective stared at Karl, reluctance in his demeanour.

  ‘I…I didn’t want to tell you at this stage.’

  ‘Jesus, drop the cryptic shit, Chambers. Tell me what?’

  ‘Your business card…it was stapled to Mister Duffy’s forehead.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Of all God’s creatures, there is only one that cannot be made slave of the leash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

  Mark Twain, Notebook, 1894

  At Francis Duffy’s graveside, Karl huddled under Naomi’s umbrella, sheltering from the rain and biting wind. The combined power of the elements had successfully managed to drown out all other sounds, making it difficult for Karl to hear the minister’s message at the lowering of the coffin.

  Not that Karl paid much attention to messengers from god, but he was always fascinated by how their words could be shaped and formulated to be used for balm or bane, Hell or Heaven, salvation or ruination.

  Shit! He was beginning to sound like one of those firebrand preachers, all the words in rhyme and time, congregation sweating profusely like Madam Juicy Lucy, eyeballs rolling and scolding, winking ever-knowing.

  Francis’ lone existence was reflected in the meagre collection of onlookers, a two-hand count, which included Karl, Naomi, Chambers, the preacher, three gravediggers and a couple of stragglers from an earlier funeral.

  Why in the hell would people want to attend the funeral of someone they didn’t even know? wondered Karl, staring at the two stragglers. Is this how they get their day in? Visiting graveyards, regardless of the weather or random deceased? Do they have a little black book and compare coffins, a bit like train spotting. Was there an ent
ire industry of ghouls, lurking, searching like junkies for their next fix of death?

  Nothing would surprise him any more. He had seen too much darkness in this ghastly world, to rule anything out that could be deemed sociably acceptable.

  He looked from the stragglers to Chambers, standing with head down. When he confronted the young detective on why he was here, Chambers didn’t miss a beat:

  I’m on duty. Watching to see if the killer shows up. They do that sometimes.

  Yes, in bloody Agatha Christie novels…

  Bullshit. He was here to sneak a glance at Naomi, all dressed in black. Of that, Karl had little doubt.

  Just as his thoughts were sliding into paranoia, his mobile started bleating in his coat pocket. He hated the thought of taking his gloves off in this freezing rain, just to answer it. He didn’t want to hear echoing voices today. He got enough echoing voices in his nightmares, night after night.

  ‘Not going to turn that off, Karl?’ Naomi nudged him with her elbow. It was a demand. Not a question. ‘The minister’s looking over here. You’re interrupting his eulogy.’

  ‘Well, he should be looking upwards or downwards, not over in this direction. Anyway, he didn’t even know Francis. He’ll hardly lose any sleep over it tonight.’

  ‘Just turn it off,’ Naomi said in a not-too-happy voice. ‘So disrespectful.’

  He let it ring, more to aggravate her than anything else. After a few more seconds, it went dead.

  ‘Happy now?’ said Karl, as Naomi visibly relaxed.

  Just as he spoke, it started ringing again. Naomi glared at him. He quickly retrieved the offending device from his pocket. Glanced at the number on the screen, and then switched it off.

  ‘Who was it?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be paying attention to the minister? So disrespectful.’

  Back at the office, Karl called Tommy Naughton back.

  ‘Tommy? Sorry, I couldn’t answer your phone call earlier. I was at a funeral. No, not family, just an old neighbour. When? Now? I don’t know, Tommy, I’ve an awful lot of work to–’ Karl nodded to himself. ‘Okay, Tommy. Calm down. Yes, I’ll be there shortly.’