DEAD GONE

by Luca Veste

  ‘We’ll take a few questions,’ Stephens said from beside Murphy.

  Damn.

  The first few went well. Just questions about the investigation which were easily answered. Stephens did most of the talking. Murphy sought out the podgy local journo, finding him quickly, his smirking red face seemingly waiting for his gaze. He smiled at Murphy, a hand raised in the air holding a bic pen.

  ‘Russell Graves, Liverpool News. Given the recent footage that was released over the weekend, is your confidence in Detective Murphy still unwavering?’

  Murphy sat back. Lips sealed. Bit the inside of his cheek as Stephens answered.

  ‘Detective Murphy was responding to a particularly personal form of questioning which had no business being brought up. He has shown his tenacity over the past week to bring the person or persons responsible for these heinous acts off our streets.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Graves said, pushing his bottle-thick glasses up his acne-scarred nose, ‘but he hasn’t done so. The people of Liverpool deserve better than someone who can’t control himself, don’t you agree?’

  ‘There is no one better to handle this investigation. That’ll be it for today.’

  Murphy stood, his fists clenched, nails digging into his palms. He dared not release them, fearing blood would trickle down his hands.

  ‘You handled that well,’ Stephens said as they left room.

  ‘I wanted to rip the smug bastard’s nose clean off his face. Decided to wait until this is over instead.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a joke, David.’

  Murphy grunted. ‘We’re going back through the CCTV. All the normal cars came back clean, none of them could have been our guy. Going to check through the taxis, just to be certain.’

  ‘Okay. Did we get anything substantial on the psychology front?’

  ‘Not really,’ Murphy replied, scratching his beard as they waited for the lift. ‘We know what he’s doing, but no individual suspects as yet.’

  ‘The answer is at the university. It’s just finding it. If we don’t get anything in the next twenty-four hours, we’re going to have to start processing everyone.’

  Eight taxis. Two black hacks, and six private hire. Rossi was already going through the black hacks, so Murphy started on the private hire cars. Running the registration through the council records, making sure they were all registered as taxis. Rossi was clicking her pen against her teeth.

  ‘Do you have to do that?’ Murphy said, pointing towards her pen.

  She put a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘It’s just a pen. Listen, first one checked out, second one is proving more difficult. Been on hold for ages.’

  ‘A murdering taxi driver. Wouldn’t be the first one.’

  ‘Don’t you think our guy is a bit more intelligent than just a taxi driver?’

  ‘Stranger things have happened. They must have some smarts. They always seem to know every road in the city. That must take some time to learn.’

  Rossi rolled her eyes and went back to waiting.

  A few minutes later, the pen stopped clicking. Murphy watched as her face changed, tried to read what she was hearing.

  ‘And when was this … right … okay … so it was never stopped? … yeah that does seem like a mistake.’

  Murphy left his seat moving over to Rossi’s desk. Made a ‘what’s going on?’ gesture with both hands.

  ‘Thank you … no, that’s great, thanks.’ She put the phone down and swung her chair towards Murphy.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The second hackney. It’s a registered cab, but the driver is not the owner of it any longer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He sold it. Bought another one and drives that. The registration should have been moved to that new one and the old one ended. Seems that never happened. Think it will now.’

  ‘So he sold it to who?’

  Rossi pushed hair behind her ear. Murphy sighed, decided to ask Jess to pick up some hair clips for him so he could pass them on. ‘Don’t know yet. But we’ve got the name of the driver.’

  ‘Well, let’s get going then.’

  Experiment Six

  Rob was sitting down, his back against a wall, trying to work out how long he’d been in the room. Resting, before going back to work.

  The floor was concrete, rough to the touch. He leaned forward on his knees, his hands thrust out in front of him, and began to move his hands back and forth against the ground, scratching at the ties which bound his hands. He didn’t know how long he’d been going at it, only that he hadn’t exactly got very far with breaking free of his restraints. His hands were still as bound as they had been hours before.

  Rob yawned, stood up and stretched as much as was possible. The lack of light was bothering him. It seemed empty, just a hard rough floor, and ridges where the door was set in place. He went around the room again, trying to feel for any exposed brick, a nail, something he could use. The walls were smooth though, as far as he could reach around them. He got to the door, and began banging on it, using his weight to try and force it, but feeling no give in it whatsoever. He kicked out at the bottom of it in frustration, using the sole of his foot. The light trainers he was wearing weren’t up to the task, however.

  He stopped, dropping to the floor again. He began scraping the cable ties against the rough surface once again.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ he said aloud, his voice echoing in the darkness. ‘Break, you bastard.’

  A voice came from within the walls.

  ‘Robert.’ It was a whisper, hissing on the last letter of his name. ‘It’s pointless.’

  Rob stood up, the voice setting his heart off at a fast pace. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Everywhere,’ the voice answered. ‘There’s no point trying to free those hands. You won’t be here long enough to make any advantage count.’

  ‘No harm in trying. Where’s Jemma?’ Rob asked, looking around in the dark, trying to locate a specific point the voice was coming from.

  ‘All in good time. First we’re going to have a little talk.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Rob replied, walking around the room. ‘How about we talk about Jemma, about what you’ve done with her for the last eleven months?’

  ‘I think I’ll choose the subject.’

  ‘Touchy. Why don’t you come in here, speak to me face to face. Without the gun, just two men … talking,’ Rob said, testing his own bravery. His voice faltered over the sentence however.

  There was laughter, starting out low before becoming high pitched.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Rob said, sensing a familiarity to the voice he couldn’t quite place.

  The laughter stopped. The voice changed again. ‘You don’t know me, Rob. Not me.’

  The voice was different, Rob struggling to make sense of the familiarity he had when the voice changed so often. ‘Why don’t we start off with introductions then?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, what then? You’ve locked me in a room, now you want to what? Leave me here to rot? Talk? Get it over with you fucking psycho.’

  ‘Temper, temper. Remember what I said. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your dear Jemma now would you?’

  ‘Let me see her,’ Rob demanded, his teeth coming together, grinding down at the end of his sentence.

  ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to make any demands now, do you? No, I think you need to listen and answer. Like a good boy.’

  ‘Fine. Go on.’ Rob stood with his back against the wall, willing the door to open so he could rush at it. He may have had his hands tied, but the anger he was feeling would mean he would fight his way out of the room with everything he had.

  ‘Good. Much better. Now, you went to the park tonight on the basis you would see Jemma again, correct?’ The voice asked.

  ‘You know that,’ Rob replied.

  ‘Of course. You also didn’t contact anyone about the communication we’ve had.’

  ‘Again, you
know I didn’t. Do you really think I’d have been sat here for hours if I’d told anyone?’

  ‘Perhaps. That’s a chance I have to take.’

  Rob could hear the voice louder in certain parts of the room as he walked around. ‘Speakers in the walls,’ he said. ‘Nice touch. This whole thing must be expensive.’

  The voice chuckled quietly. ‘Anything and everything can be provided for people with the means to pay for it, Robert.’

  ‘I guess so. Have you got Jemma in a room like this?’ Rob asked, thinking about the other door he’d seen earlier when he’d been led down into the basement.

  ‘My turn for questions. We’ll get to yours.’

  Rob sighed heavily. ‘Okay,’ he replied.

  ‘Now, you lost everything when Jemma disappeared. How did that feel?’

  Rob stopped walking, finding a spot in the wall where the voice was strongest. He leaned against the wall, his back aching from the hours he’d spent without proper support. ‘It felt like shit.’ He bit back a question. ‘I wanted to know why.’

  ‘And you always believed she had been taken. Even though those around you believed differently?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Interesting. That feeling you’ve been having the last eleven months, has it been getting easier to deal with, before my intervention of course?’

  Rob looked up, raising his tied hands to his eyes, rubbing at them. He thought back to the morning he’d received the first message. ‘It’s as hard after eleven months, as it was after eleven minutes. Happy?’

  ‘Come now, you went to work, you went out with friends to pubs, how hard were you finding it, honestly?’

  ‘It was devastating, is that what you want to hear? You have no idea what you’ve done.’

  ‘I’m starting to understand. You were putting on a front, yes?’

  Rob slid down the wall, unable to stand any longer. ‘I had to. I’d lost everything. I had to keep going. For her.’

  ‘For her. Yes, her. What if I told you, Robert, I have no idea where Jemma is?’

  Rob’s head snapped up. ‘What?’

  ‘What if I told you Jemma could be anywhere, and that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting her? How would that make you feel?’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. You won’t allow yourself believe that. Otherwise, all you’ve done is exchange words with a stranger, someone who has ended the lives of people. For no reason whatsoever. Jemma would still be as lost as she always was.’

  ‘You’re lying …’

  ‘Am I, Robert, how can you be sure? You have no idea of what is really going on here. You came here because I wanted you to. You went to the park because I told you to. When you think about it, Robert, you’ve not done an awful lot to find Jemma. You’ve waited around hoping for someone else to do the work for you, playing the pity card over and over. You posted something on a missing persons website, well let’s throw you a parade. It means nothing. You let your house go, your car. Your life crumbled around you, because you didn’t know how to cope without her. Pathetic.’

  ‘No. That’s not what happened. I tried.’

  ‘Please spare me. You drove around, hoping to catch sight of her. Have you spoken to the police recently, Robert? Asked them anything? I don’t think so.’

  Rob lowered his head. As much as he wanted to disagree, he knew it would be useless. ‘Why bring me here if you don’t have Jemma?’

  ‘I have a theory of why you haven’t done more, Robert.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rob said with a heavy sigh. ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘I think you know she’s already gone. You were grieving. You couldn’t move on, you couldn’t accept the fact that she was never coming back to you.’

  Rob choked back a sob, the voice saying words he didn’t want to hear.

  ‘I think after that first week, you knew,’ the voice continued. ‘Since then, you’ve been coasting along, without much effort, hoping she’d turn up and all would be well again.’

  ‘I went to that park didn’t I? That was something,’ Rob said, a single tear falling down his cheek.

  ‘Only because I told you to. You couldn’t allow yourself not to, because not doing so would accept the inevitable. She wasn’t coming back.’

  ‘No.’ Rob stood up, crossing the darkness towards the door. ‘No, no, no.’ He punctuated every word with a foot to the door.

  Lights blared, blinding him. He lifted his arms up to shield his eyes, slowly putting them down after a few seconds, squinting against the brightness. The hiss had disappeared.

  Rob stepped back from the door, his eyes becoming more accustomed to the light. He waited. Finally he heard movement, slight, in the distance. He heard the lock turning, the door opening slowly as if by itself. He waited for it to open wide enough for him to spring forward.

  Emptiness. Nothing was there. His brain had enough time to process this, even as he moved forward, a guttural cry escaping from him. He stopped, sensing a trap.

  Then he heard something. Coming from the room opposite.

  Singing.

  ‘Frère Jacques, frère Jacques. Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous? Sonnez les matines. Sonnez les matines. Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don.’

  He recognised the voice.

  It was her. It was Jemma.

  He stood paralysed for a moment, not knowing what to do. He looked out the door, seeing the other door opposite, and moved fast, covering the distance in seconds. All the time, he could hear the song being repeated softly from beyond the door opposite his.

  Rob began throwing his weight at the door, using his feet, his tied and bound hands to try and force it open. Sweat poured down his face, his eyes stinging as the salt reached them, as he used every last ounce of effort he had to get into the room.

  ‘Jemma. Jemma, can you hear me?’ Rob shouted. ‘Jemma, it’s me.’

  Behind him the singing stopped. He paused, trying to hear anything beyond the door, but failing to.

  ‘Jemma …’

  A movement to his side entered his vision, but he reacted too slowly, weight hitting him in the back, forcing him to the floor before he had the chance to raise his hands and break his fall properly. His face smashed against the hard floor, instant pain hitting him. Rob could feel his vision going dark, growing smaller around him. He shook his head, lifting it from the ground. He felt weight on his back, something slip round his neck.

  ‘Silly, silly boy,’ a voice whispered in his ear. ‘Far too easy. I just wanted you to hear her one last time.’

  He felt his breath being cut off, something constricting his neck.

  ‘You’ll stop breathing soon, not soon enough sadly, but soon. She’s in there, Rob, through that door. She’s been there for almost a year, with nothing but food and water for company. And the voices in her head of course. You should see her now, you wouldn’t recognise her. Astounding.’

  Rob’s hands were trapped beneath him, he tried to buck around, remove the weight that was pressed against. He lifted his legs up, but couldn’t shift it.

  ‘And you couldn’t save her, Rob. She’ll be there for a little longer, and then I’ll be done with her. Your small efforts were wasted.’

  Rob could feel himself fading. He tried to move, but all his strength was gone.

  ‘You never deserved her, Rob, you never appreciated her. You sapped her life, you were a drain. She’s going to be my masterpiece. A living death. Once I’m done with her, she’ll be unrecognisable, a zombified version of her previous self.’

  The darkness enveloped him.

  ‘Now, number six. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

  Rob came around slowly. His eyes opening and closing. Darkness replacing darkness. His mind wasn’t so fast. He couldn’t work out where he was. He thought he could hear an alarm sounding and was confused, as they didn’t have an alarm. He woke up to the radio, always had. He tried to turn over, to tell Jemma to turn it off. Annoyed his sleep had been interrupted. />
  He couldn’t move.

  ‘Hello, Robert.’

  The voice came from above. Rob tried to focus his eyes, but they wouldn’t respond, there was just darkness. He blinked. And again. Nothing.

  ‘Can you feel what’s in your hands?’

  There was something resting on his palms. He tried moving his fingers to feel what it was, but nothing happened.

  ‘Can’t have you staring at me throughout this, Robert.’

  His mind couldn’t keep up. He looked to his left, where the voice was coming from, but nothing happened.

  ‘We’re going to do a little experiment. Do you mind?’

  Rob tried to answer but his mouth wouldn’t open. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. Told his body to sit up, but it didn’t respond.

  ‘How long do you think it’ll take Rob? If I cut your foot off, how long would you last?’

  The words didn’t make sense. He was at home surely. Was the radio on? What was he tuned into? Some weird station, that seemed to know his name.

  ‘How about a leg? Or an arm.’

  Rob tried to move his head. Clear it. He didn’t understand why it wouldn’t do as it was told.

  ‘Let’s try a few fingers first.’

  Silence. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing. He was in a park. Someone had Jemma. But she was lying next to him wasn’t she?

  Pain exploded in his right side. He screamed, filling whatever was in his mouth, cutting off the noise.

  He didn’t understand.

  Why couldn’t he feel his hand anymore?

  He could smell burning, coming from below.

  ‘Just cauterising the wounds. Don’t want you bleeding out just yet.’

  The voice. He knew the voice.

  ‘This little piggy went to market …’

  He heard a snap.

  It came to him. His fingers first. Now his toes.

  Soon, he couldn’t feel his feet. Then his legs.

  By the time the feeling in his arms left him, he’d closed his eyes.

  Just darkness. Only that, nothing more.

  34

  He pulled the axe from the neck. The head toppled off the table and came to a rest near the wall. A pointless effort, the body having expired long before.