Mirror Image

by Michael Scott

  In the top right hand drawer of the desk were the photographs. They were mostly wartime snaps, but there was one which was her favorite. It showed Geoffrey as she like to remember him, tall and proud, in his full general’s uniform, wearing his Medal of Honor, President Eisenhower shaking his hand. He had always refused to have the photograph framed, saying it was too much like boasting, and when he had died, she had respected that wish.

  Abbey stared at the image, concentrating on Geoffrey’s face, remembering the young man she had known, and later the hero. He never talked about his wartime exploits, and she never asked, but she had seen a boy go away to war and watched a man come home, and when he had started awake at night, shouting and crying, she had held him until the terrors had faded.

  She looked at the image on the paper …

  … and the image looked back.

  She had never noticed how the eyes in the photograph seemed to follow her every move, how the lips twitched as if they were about to smile. Why, looking at it, she could almost imagine that she could see the chest rising and falling, the material stretching across his chest.

  Ten years a widow, and she still missed him. She missed the touch of him, so strong, so gentle, the smell of him, leather and tweed and tobacco, the feel of his skin, so soft, surprisingly soft for such a big man. And the way his moustache would tickle her face, her throat, her breasts …

  She missed him.

  But it wouldn’t be long now. She would join him soon. She wasn’t a deeply religious person, but she believed in an afterlife. She believed that they would be reunited one day soon. She believed she’d feel his arms around her, feel his breath on her face, the tweed of his jacket, hear his graveled voice.

  Soon.

  Abbey Meyers sat down at the desk in a creaking leather chair and propped up the photograph of her husband against the typewriter.

  Abbey looked at the photograph and the image looked back.

  The knife on the desk was a commando knife, made by the Ek Commando Knife Company for the American Commando Units. Geoffrey Meyers had brought it back from the war as a souvenir and had used it as a letter opener.

  Abbey looked at the photograph and the image looked back. And smiled. And called her name.

  She removed the long razor sharp knife from its sheath. It was cold and heavy in her hand as she pressed it in below and to the left of her jaw, her eyes still riveted on the image, a smile of complete satisfaction on her face as she pushed …

  * * *

  MARTIN STEPHENS HAD really wanted the new HP TouchSmart all-in-one computer, 6GB memory, 1TB hard drive with all the bells and whistles: touch screen, Blu-ray player, wireless internet. He’d also given his parents a list of the accessories he needed. He’d been quite specific about his wants, giving them the exact make and model numbers he wanted. His parents, who knew shit about computers, and had balked at the price, had opted instead for a completely different make and model made by someone he’d never even heard of before. It had half the features and programs he’d wanted and had cost a fraction of the price.

  He was disappointed, and he let them know it. He was fifteen years old, he deserved a little respect!

  Martin had sulked in his room for most of the day and eventually, when his parents went out to some gallery opening, he had settled down to remove the computer from its box and began to set it up. He was still smarting that they hadn’t gotten him what he’d wanted, when another grand or so, maybe fifteen hundred, would have been enough to buy it. For Christ’s sake, some of the kids in high school were already carrying the latest laptops, notebooks, and tablets: but that was going to be his Christmas request!

  He set up the computer and linked up the cables to the printer and then inserted the keyboard plug into the USB port in the back of the computer. The better machines now had bluetooth capabilities, and the keyboard and mouse were both wireless. He plugged in the power cable and turned on the switch. It came to life with an ascending whine, and he spent the next hour setting up the various colors and choosing the right wallpaper. Then he set about syncing files from his six month old machine to the new one. Most of what he put onto the new laptop were games, some of which he’d bought, others which he’d been given or swapped with his friends. He put them onto a directory buried a few levels down so they wouldn’t be immediately obvious to his parents should they ever look at the machine—which was highly unlikely anyway, since they weren’t really interested in him as was immediately apparent by the cheap present they’d bought him.

  However, at least now he’d be able to run some of the games that wouldn’t run on the old machine. Some of them, he knew, his parents wouldn’t fully approve of.

  Right now, his favorite was an interactive game of strip poker. High resolution girls behaved as if they were real, commenting on the game, smiling, laughing, even getting angry. A large bosomed female appeared on the screen whom he’d played against before. When she lost a hand, she removed an item of clothing and although he’d gotten her down to just her bra and panties on friends’ machines, he’d never had the chance to take her any further, principally because to take her that far took about two hours, and time had always been against him. However, he had heard lurid stories about what happened when she removed all her clothing. There were a couple of other programs which he’d heard of, but not gotten yet, which showed couples actually doing it in different positions, and now that he had an HD screen, the online porn sites were going to look so much better.

  It was close to ten when he began to play strip poker. He had changed into his boxers and a T-shirt and now lounged back in his tilting desk chair with the keyboard directly in front of him, his total concentration on the screen.

  By twelve-thirty he was beginning to pull ahead. She was again down to bra and panties and he was holding a winning hand. His eyes were also beginning to buzz and there was a throbbing headache at the back of his skull, but he couldn’t give up now, not now, not when he was so close.

  He played on, and won the hand.

  Onscreen the woman removed her bra, revealing huge breasts tipped with large erect nipples.

  Now this was more like it!

  Martin felt himself becoming aroused, more with the tension and excitement at coming so close to winning the game than anything else.

  At one-thirty he paused the game, freezing the image on the screen, while he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. He hadn’t progressed anywhere in the past hour and he was down to his last twenty dollars. It would be absolutely frustrating to come so close and lose now.

  He stared at the image on the screen. Big, blonde and busty—his type, he nodded smugly. He’d watched a lot of online porn and he’d decided he was definitely a breast man; not that he’d ever seen a breast in real life, or should that be a real life breast? But he’d a good idea what they were like.

  Martin Stephens looked at the image and decided that she was close enough to his ideal woman. The way her eyes looked directly at you, the way her mouth was slightly parted, and the way her breasts swung. He reached out and touched the screen with his forefinger, tracing the curves of the image’s breasts. He could almost feel the flesh beneath his fingertip.

  Martin looked at the screen and the image looked back.

  And a static charge snapped from his fingertip onto the glass.

  The screen exploded.

  Red hot slivers of glass, metal, and plastic ripped into the young man, shredding his skin, peeling back the flesh of his face, his eyes, his mouth. A chunk of molten plastic caught him in the throat, burning through the skin, severing the artery, blood jetting high into the room, up the walls and across the ceiling.

  And his last conscious thought was of the smiling eyes of the blonde, busty image watching him. Yes, definitely busty, that was his type.

  53

  TIRED AND dispirited, feeling hung over even though she hadn’t finished the glass of scotch last night, Margaret Haaren read through the reports, barely paying them any
attention.

  The accidental drowning of a homeless man in a small park.

  The suicide of a lonely widow.

  The bizarre death of a teenager when his computer screen exploded.

  She was putting away the attending officer’s report on the last incident when she stopped and looked at it again. It took her a while to figure it out … and then she suddenly realized what had caught her attention: the house numbers of the second two tragedies were the same number as the Frazer house. And then she discovered that the coroner had put the time of death for all three within a couple of minutes of each other.

  Coincidence?

  Haaren had been too long on the force to believe in coincidence. She was reaching for the intercom button when there was a tap on the door and Detective Stuart Miller stepped into the room. She immediately knew by the expression on his face that something was wrong.

  “We’ve just had a call from the hospital…”

  She came slowly to her feet, heart suddenly pounding. “The young officer, Martin Moore?” she began.

  “It’s the two men,” he said carefully, his voice suddenly husky. “José Pérez went around three this morning; and Officer Martin at four.”

  “Both of them?” Margaret Haaren sank back into the chair, ashen faced. The reports before her eyes swam in unshed tears. “Thank … thank you Stuart.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said lamely, backing from the room.

  When she was alone she allowed the tears to fall. José Pérez had been a good friend for too many years; she was godmother to one of the girls. When a woman officer had been a curiosity, a rarity, something of a freak, he’d accepted her for what she was, and when she made Senior Detective in the Homicide Division, she’d requested him as her partner.

  There was a knock on the door and Stuart Miller reappeared, a mug of coffee balanced precariously on top of a sheaf of reports. The detective accepted the coffee gratefully.

  “He was a good man,” Stuart said respectfully.

  “He was a fine detective and a good friend,” Margaret said slowly. “And now we can lay three deaths at this scarred man’s door.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When she looked up her green eyes were cold, implacable. “I want the man who did this. And Jonathan Frazer knows him!”

  Silently Stuart Miller handed over the sheaf of brown folders.

  “What’s this?”

  “List of possible suspects, cross referenced with José’s old and present cases, further cross-referenced with Jonathan Frazer’s friends and business associates. The latter list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s the best we can do.”

  “Any matches?”

  “Nothing at the moment, ma’am.”

  She looked up into Miller’s brown eyes. “Frazer’s dirty, I can feel it. I want an exhaustive check into his background. Bank accounts, tax records, everything. He’s a material witness and possible suspect in a multiple murder case, we should have no problem getting the clearances.” She drank her now tepid coffee in one quick swallow. She knew what she was doing now, she had done it before: she was using work to ease the pain of her friend’s death.

  The detective leaned forward and took the mug from her desk. “We could also try leaning on him, ma’am,” he suggested quietly.

  Margaret Haaren nodded slowly. “Trust me, I haven’t ruled that out either.”

  * * *

  JONATHAN FRAZER WENT through his wife’s clothing with a fine tooth comb, and then proceeded to meticulously check through her chest of drawers, cabinets, on top of her closet, and the dressing table. He was looking for evidence of Celia’s infidelity. He was aware that if he stopped to think about what he was doing, the madness of it would strike home, and he would begin to question his own sanity.

  What was he doing?

  Why was he doing it?

  After an exhausting day, he had imagined he’d seen something in the mirror—a fantasy—and on the basis of that he had allowed all his repressed fears about his wife’s fidelity to come flooding to the surface, and now here he was pawing through her things like some cheap private investigator.

  But it had been so real. The image had been so real.

  Was it true, or just some bad-minded wish?

  Where was Edmund Talbott?

  * * *

  MANNY FELT LIKE shit.

  The only time she’d ever felt like this before was when she’d had a hit of bad hash in Paris. She dressed slowly, black T-shirt over black jeans, her every joint aching, her breasts heavy and painful, her stomach feeling bloated. On impulse she checked her calendar, but her period wasn’t due for another two weeks, so it wasn’t that … unless it was coming early, brought on by the trauma of the last few days. That was a possibility and she hadn’t had sex in about six weeks so that was out of the question.

  She stopped and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked ghastly, her face pale and wan, her eyes sunk back into her skull, dark-rimmed and bloodshot. She ran her fingers across her head. The stubble rasped loudly. She’d only had it cut a few weeks ago, and yet it seemed to be growing very quickly this time.

  She had no clear memory of her nightmare the previous night. She remembered waking as her mother, drawn by her screams, had come running into the room and turning on the light. But even then, the horrors were fading and she’d been unable to remember anything from her nightmare. She had insisted that the light be left on, and it took her a long time before sleep finally claimed her.

  She met her father in the hallway and he stopped, obviously surprised by her wretched appearance.

  “I think you should go back to bed, sweetheart,” he murmured, kissing her forehead.

  “I’m OK, Dad, just a bit whacked out after the last couple of days.” She attempted a smile. “You’re not looking so hot yourself.”

  “I didn’t sleep so well. Nightmares,” he explained.

  “So did I. Didn’t Mom tell you?”

  “I haven’t seen your mother this morning. I haven’t seen much of your mother since she came back from her surfing vacation, and when I did see her it was at your bedside at the hospital.”

  Manny stopped. “Then she didn’t tell you?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Tell me what?”

  “Last night she told me she was going up to that skiing resort in Lake Tahoe first thing this morning.”

  “She said nothing to me.” He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t know it was snowing there already.”

  Manny linked her arm through her father’s as they walked slowly downstairs. “Do I get the impression that all isn’t sweetness and light between the two of you?” She caught the blank look of dismay on his face, and continued ruefully, “I am eighteen, you know. I’m not a fool. And you don’t need to be a genius to guess that you’re both going your separate ways. And have been for a while.”

  “It’s true,” he admitted. “In the last couple of years, our differences and interests have become more and more pronounced. I’ll be forty-six next birthday. It doesn’t bother me, aging never has, maybe that’s because I worked with old things all my life. But your mother … well your mother will be thirty-eight next birthday, and she dresses and acts as if she’s ten years younger.”

  “That’s not so unusual. It’s a last-ditch attempt at retaining her youth,” Manny said with all the seriousness of an eighteen-year-old.

  “Thirty-eight is not over the hill,” Jonathan gently reminded her.

  “No spring chicken either,” she laughed. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to face her father. “But you still love her don’t you, Dad?”

  “Yes,” he said seriously, “yes I do.” He was surprised to find that he meant it.

  “Well, if you still love one another, surely you can sort out your differences,” Manny said, looking into his troubled eyes.

  He nodded. “If we both still loved one another,” he agreed.

  “But you’re not so sure if she still loves you?” Man
ny asked.

  “I’d like to think she still loves me,” he said.

  Father and daughter looked at one another. They both knew it was a lie.

  54

  “DON’T TURN around, Mr. Frazer.”

  Jonathan froze, his hands locked onto the wheel of the Volvo Estate. He had just climbed into the car and the garage door behind him was humming upwards, flooding the garage with morning light. He recognized the voice immediately. “I was wondering when you’d get in touch,” he said, glancing into the rearview mirror. Edmund Talbott’s coal-black eyes regarded him unblinkingly.

  “Things have become very difficult, Mr. Frazer,” the scarred man said quietly.

  “I know. It was all over the news this morning. Both officers you struck died,” Frazer said coldly.

  “I will not be taken into custody,” Talbott said simply.

  “Why not?”

  “Mr. Frazer, perhaps I have not explained myself fully. My family have been the guardians of the mirror for generations. It was our task to keep it inert, to keep it safe from the world, not to allow it to feed its hunger for souls and blood and human emotions. It needs those for nourishment, it needs those to survive. Eventually it would have died—if you can apply that term to it—of hunger. And we were so close, so close. It wouldn’t have happened in my lifetime, but in the next generation perhaps. It was weak, so weak.”

  “What happened?” Frazer asked, without turning around, watching the man’s eyes in the mirror.

  “It was my fault. I had to go away to a site meeting in Saudi. It should have taken no more than forty-eight hours, but it took the best part of a week. When I returned to Oxford, England, I discovered that the house had been burgled and that the mirror and a few other antiques were gone. The burglars were local lads, who knew that the house was empty. One of them did odd jobs around the garden and knew there were some antiques inside the home. That’s the official story.”