by Lee McGeorge
It shouldn’t be like this. He shouldn’t have desires or urges to hurt this girl. He shouldn’t have desires to hurt any girl. There was no justifiable reason to fantasise about violence towards her, but this wasn’t any regular fantasy, it was ideation and planning. This was something he felt on a knife-edge of doing.
Now he really had to ask the question, ‘What is happening to me?’
“There we are Mister McGovern. The money will be in your account in an hour.”
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
‘I’ll follow you home tonight and kill you,’ he thought.
He made an arrangement to withdraw all ten thousand from the bank in cash but he couldn’t do that until tomorrow. Dangerous. If the police were looking for him by then they would surely be watching his bank account.
Louisa was gorgeous and maddening. She started asking questions about his writing and what he was doing next. He wanted to leave. He needed air. He needed to get away from this girl before he snatched at her clothing and hurt her.
By the time he made it out into the street he was almost staggering and gasping for breath. He pulled at his shirt to open it and let cool air touch his skin. He leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees. He walked, then he jogged, trying to flush some of the escalating energy from his system. He started running into the local park, following the path. He slowed to a walk, struggling against this uncommon stress.
He realised where he was.
He was heading towards his old home, the home and the life that was gone. He used to rent a bedsit close to here. Ravenscourt Park. If he kept on walking he’d come to Goldhawk Road and Askew Road and... Nisha!
Nisha Khumari lived there.
Nisha.
Whore bitch Nisha.
The name... all it took was the name of a girl from the past to flash through his mind. Louisa had set the tripwire but thoughts of Nisha triggered the bomb. His hands clenched to fists, his shoulders went into a cramp his right forearm locked like it was made of steel and his eyes juddered from side to side. It was a painful, headache inducing attack of explosive stress.
What is happening?
Two teenagers approached. A black girl and a mixed race boy, both about sixteen years old. Paul forced a breath into his lungs as he looked at the girl. She was wearing dancewear. Her cleavage was on show, a public display of big, juicy teenaged tits.
A whore like Nisha.
Paul stared, stooped slightly, grimacing but with his eyes locked onto her breasts.
“What you lookin’ at?” the boy asked with menace.
Paul ignored him, his eyes locked to the girl’s cleavage. He walked towards her, made an approach. He couldn’t have Louisa in the bank but he could fuck this girl in the park.
“Hey, the fuck you doin’ man?” the boy yelled as Paul grabbed her clothing. The boy stepped between them, two hands on Paul’s chest, pushing him back. “Don’t you touch my girl, yeah?”
SMASH!
Paul threw a punch harsher and faster than he would ever imagine possible. It hit like a hammer blow to the kid’s left temple. He was falling, silent, rigid. The boy’s body didn’t bend at the waist or the knees and he fell as straight and solid as a broom handle to the pathway.
The girl screamed and tried to catch him. Paul grabbed her clothing. The sound of ripping cloth. Her bra tight in his fist as he snatched it back to rip the fabric. Push forward, get a hand inside her top. He grabbed the bare flesh of her breast, he felt her nipple against his palm and squeezed tight, his fingernails sinking into the skin like talons. His free hand grabbed her neck, clamping her throat like a vice.
“Hey!” A voice from somewhere.
A gardener was standing in plain sight. He was stood beside an odd motor vehicle, a glorified golf cart for transporting gardening equipment around the park. He was dressed in green workwear, holding a shovel, he’d been working only twenty yards away.
Paul turned to his other side, scanning his surroundings as his fingers slowly crushed the girl’s larynx. Three young kids on bicycles were stopped, watching him. One of them was taking pictures on his mobile phone.
Jesus Christ... What the fuck was he doing?
In broad daylight, in a public park he had attacked a young couple because he felt sexually frustrated? He was so blinkered, operating with such tunnel vision, that he hadn’t even bothered to scan his surroundings first. He could have attacked the girl in front of twenty policemen and wouldn’t have noticed until they put him in handcuffs.
He pulled the girl tight and squeezed his fingers into her throat as hard as he could before throwing her to the ground with the boy.
He turned and walked away. He heard the girl make a wretched cry as she inhaled. The boy could be heard breathing slowly and deeply. Unconscious. Knocked out in a single punch. Paul looked back to see the gardener running to help, the girl turning herself to a kneeling position, coughing, moaning, holding her throat with one hand. The boy wasn’t moving. The gardener was taking a mobile phone from his pocket, probably to call for police or an ambulance.
Oh fuck.
Really, what the fuck is wrong with me?
Get out of here. Get out. Get out now.
Run!
----- X -----
“Eu cunosc pe acest om,” Ciprian said, “I know this man, he’s a real piece of shit.”
The Romanian policemen were crowded around the frozen body as Ciprian, the most junior amongst them shared his knowledge. “His name is Nealla Stolojan. He made his living stealing metal with his partner Raul. They’re both heroin users. Likes to be the hardman if you know what I mean, a real fucking loser. He brought the area down.”
“He brought this area down? That is a special achievement,” another officer said.
It was murky and bleak in the forest. Miserable overhanging clouds and the leafless trees cast darkness about them. The police were up to their knees in snow and it was bitterly cold. They were staring at a face contorted into a scream then frozen solid with eyes still open. The torso was diced and splayed, the entrails stretched out and frozen in bloody rays. Ciprian had brushed away the main covering of snow then stopped when he realised the scientists would need to work the crime scene. He looked over his shoulder to see the forensic examiners assembling lights and a tented enclosure from the back of a van. They seemed to be struggling with a collapsible tent. They looked like amateurs.
Nobody would care. Nobody gave a shit if the crime scene were contaminated, or if they ever found the killer. Not for someone like Nealla Stolojan.
There most certainly was a killer. This wasn’t an accident or animal attack, it was murder, the sort of death they just don’t want to have anything to do with. Ciprian was still wet behind the ears, but the older and more experienced policemen knew exactly what they were looking at.
At the bottom of the hill another police car arrived. A large, heavy man with a bushy moustache got out. Ciprian left the crime scene when he saw who it was. Ion Lupescu, the Comisar de Poliţie and the second most important policeman in Brasov; he was the perfect person to impress if he wanted to further his career. As he left he heard one of the officers mumble, “Ass kisser,” behind him. It stung because it was true. He continued walking because he was too embarrassed to turn back.
“He was found by a man out for a walk,” Ciprian told Lupescu. “He says he was fighting with his wife, came out for some peace and quiet and tripped on the body.”
“And you know the victim?” Lupescu asked.
“I’ve arrested him twice, Sir.”
“You remember him from those arrests?”
“No Sir, I remember him from the five times he got away without arrest.”
Lupescu smiled, an expression that pulled his moustache out into a straight thick line above his mouth. “Don’t say that too eagerly, Son. People might think you had it in for him.”
The officers stepped aside for Lupescu to see the remains. “Jesus, God in heaven,” he muttered. He crouched an
d edged closer. Guts and entrails were splayed and frozen like an explosion of cartoon energy from Nealla’s abdomen.
“I suppose it could be an animal?” One of the officers remarked.
“We should be so lucky,” Lupsecu remarked. “This is a kill.” He smoothed his moustache with thumb and finger and held his chin for a few seconds. “Get a message to the Comisar-şef de Poliţie that we have an A.V.I. and tell despatch and control to mobilize all off-duty personnel. I want every man up, dressed and out here within the hour.”
“To do what, Sir?” Ciprian asked.
“To find the man that did this, Son.” Lupescu stood and panned his gaze amongst the trees. “He won’t have gone far. They never do.” Then to all of the policemen, “And nobody work alone. Everybody is paired up and weapon-ready ‘til we catch him.”
“Him, Sir?” Ciprian asked feeling like he was pushing his luck. “How do you know it’s a man?”
“Because vampires always are, Son. Because vampires always are.”
----- X -----
He was struggling. His attack on the teenagers was barely more than a few hours prior and his body still had the charge of adrenalin. His mindset was clearer but not totally calm. The violence had served as a channel, a way to expend the energy and force what had built up inside of him into the open, but it was an incomplete action. If he’d succeeded and gone all the way with the attack he would feel as clear as a bell. Instead, he held a lingering frustration. The teenage boy was still alive. The teenage girl was still unfucked.
“I have a space reserved for tonight,” Paul said back at the hostel. The girl on reception was efficient. He avoided her gaze.
“Can I see a bank or credit card, please,” she said.
“I’d like to pay cash,” Paul said.
“I still need to see a card. We don’t charge anything... unless you run up costs and leave without paying. It’s just for our security.”
“Oh... OK.” Paul handed his credit card over thinking she only wanted to look at it; a second later she swiped it through a terminal to electronically validate. Paul felt his heart lurch. The credit card of Paul McGovern was on record; an electronic breadcrumb timed and dated to right here.
Had the bodies been discovered yet? Did they have him as a suspect? Had they discovered his name? Soon enough they would learn about the English American man, who had gone missing, who had gone to the airport, who had flown to London. What if they did a sweep for his credit card? It would lead here. At some point in the future a policeman would be standing in this hostel asking about Paul McGovern, but how soon would that be? Would the police be here in the morning, in a month, in ten minutes?
Paul made a conscious decision to stay at the hostel for one night. He’d already resolved to pick up the bank loan tomorrow. If they were tracing his account they would already have that detail. He would take the risk and hope they were slow.
He made a decision to destroy his bank cards then instantly revised the plan, deciding to keep them in a secure location. Perhaps at some point in the future he could use them to create a false electronic trail, but he couldn’t risk being caught with the cards on him.
Tomorrow he would pick up the cash from the bank and figure out some way to live off the grid. More importantly, he had to get to grips with the uncontrolled rage that had consumed him today. He was supposed to be on the run and vanishing, not sexually assaulting teenage girls in the park. Now that he was in a reflective mood he tried to understand why he’d done it. It was unjustifiable and stupid, but it had happened and he’d been powerless to stop himself. This thing, this problem, had to take priority. An outburst like that would lead to his downfall.
He took up residence in a dingy bar beside the hostel and began making written plans.
He thought about having an emergency bag with clothes and cash locked away at a storage space. He thought about getting a home of some kind. A vacant property used as a squat would be best, but he could always take a tent or live on the street if he couldn’t find anything suitable.
Jesus. He was actually thinking of vagrancy as a legitimate option. His last home in Hammersmith had been a room barely eight feet along on each wall but at least it was a home. It was warm and secure and honest. More than that, it was a life. He shared the top floor with an Indian guy called Prakash; a student dentist of Indian origin who spoke with a cut glass English accent. They were both poor. They were both starting out. They said ‘hello’ to one another briefly when they passed on the stairs but rarely spoke beyond that. They should have been friends and would have been friends if Paul hadn’t had his head so far up his own ass. He wasn’t social, never had been, but the reality that he could soon be living on the streets made him see the missed opportunity, the potential of what he’d passed and taken for granted, the life that he should have had.
He zoned out, his mind drifting from the forward planning to thoughts of all the other opportunities he’d foolishly missed out of shyness or social avoidance. He thought of the times he was too afraid to try something. The simple risks he refused to take. The times he was too afraid to initiate a conversation or ask a question.
His eyes were closed and his mind drifted for some time. When he opened his eyes he was surprised to see his notebook in front of him. The pen was in his hand. The only word written on the page was ‘Identity’.
He came back to reality.
Identity...
He knew nothing of faking an existence except what he’d read in stories. Frederick Forsyth’s novel, The Day of the Jackal, was his most recurrent thought on the topic. The villain of that piece had searched a graveyard for the tombstone of a boy born around the same year as himself but who had died in childhood, he’d requested a copy of the dead boy’s birth certificate and used it to gain a passport. It sounded too low tech to work in real life, especially considering the technique was written before computerised records, but it was the simple audacity that captured his imagination. There had to be a way to circumvent the system, to pretend to be a real person and apply for a passport and bank accounts in order to build an identity.
At least he would have money from tomorrow. He had withdrawn as much cash as his credit and bank cards would allow, which when added to the loan would give him enough to last almost a year if he was careful.
There was a girl at the bar, someone he’d seen in the hostel. She was skinny, wearing tight jeans and a purple hippie blouse with beads and adornments sewn to the fabric. There was a man with her, Mr. Average. They took a seat at a table away from him but he found his eyes drifting to the girl.
Stop this.
Stop it before it even begins.
He went back to his notebook to try and get some ideas onto paper. He propped his head with an elbow on the table and used his hand to shield the girl from his gaze, but in his mind’s eye he was already squeezing her neck.
He thought of the mixed race girl in the park today. How good it had felt to crush her throat and see tears squeezed out of her eyes. Beautiful dusky skin.
Skin like Nisha.
His fist clenched on the thought of her name.
“Oh fuck.”
Paul felt his pen fall through his fingers. His hands were trembling. His eyes couldn’t focus properly. He realised that every muscle in his body was clenched and his teeth were clamped to breaking point.
Control... release the pressure. Control...
It didn’t release.
Jesus Christ... Calm down. Relax...
Paul saw that his trembling hand was pressed firmly against the table and the shuddering of his muscles was shaking the table top, spilling wine from the top of his glass onto his notebook.
In his head he heard the telephone conversation with her. It was a call from four months ago.
“Hi, is that Nisha?” he had asked.
“You fucking raped me, you rapist pig scum!” she screamed back.
Paul had to hold his breath and force his hand away from the table before his shak
ing either rocked it off its feet or he lifted it and threw it across the bar in rage.
“Jesus Christ. Paul. Calm down... Fucking calm down.”
No. It’s not possible to calm down. Not after what she said. Not after telling that lie. She fucked him at a party because she wanted to. She instigated it, she took him to the bedroom then claimed rape to play a silly power game and she should fucking die for it. Rape? If he saw her again he would do more than rape her. He would punish her and torture her without end. He would flay the skin from her body and roll her in salt whilst he murdered her. There was no level of pain too gratuitous to inflict onto Nisha.
His hand juddered forward and knocked his wine glass to the floor. Nobody noticed.
“Why?” Paul hissed through gritted teeth as he used his left hand to pull his right wrist against his chest. “Why is this happening? Please God, help me... Please... Ildico!”
There was a sudden drop in tension.
Ildico.
There was a counterbalance to thoughts on Nisha Khumari.
His body stopped shaking so much. He closed his eyes and forced himself to picture that counterbalance. Milky white skin. Long dark hair in a ponytail. He saw her laying in bed. She was naked, one arm draped across her breasts in concealment. Her other hand reaching out towards him. Her smile was soft, beckoning. She was naked but non-sexual. Ildico. Pure and angelic, calling him back to safety, guiding him, helping him, loving him.
Ildico.
Saviour.
----- X -----
He couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t expected to. The room had three bunk beds for six sleeping men. Most of them were young kids travelling the world, a mish-mash of accents and languages, backpacks and travel plans. An orange night-light lit the room to guide anyone making their way to the toilets that could be heard flushing every fifteen minutes or so.
