Waking Broken

by Huw Thomas

  But Ahmad continued. He could see an open area at the bottom of the staircase and another door beyond. There were a few boxes and other dark shapes on the floor and what looked like another light switch by the door below.

  Nervous about whether he should really proceed but unwilling to turn back, Ahmad took slow steps down the second flight of steps. He could still hear nothing and was ready to turn and run should anything suddenly come at him out of the dark. Part of him wanted to go back. But another part was intrigued by the writing on the wall. The lock also suggested the possibility of finding something interesting: something to take his mind off the realities of life.

  On the last step, Ahmad hesitated. It was even gloomier down here. It smelt unpleasant too. He could see what looked like a ladder standing in one corner, some stacks of boxes and a dark square on the floor. But there was also a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and another door just a few feet away with a light switch next to it.

  Remembering the power in the toilets, Ahmad came down off the final step and moved towards the light switch.

  But before he got there, the floor disappeared from beneath his feet.

  Ahmad fell, with no time to react. Something hit his elbow hard as he dropped. There was a rush of air. Then he met the ground again. One foot struck first and a streak of pain ripped up his leg as the limb buckled and bone broke.

  Ahmad opened his mouth to scream but, as his body crumpled to the hard ground, the impact drove the air from his lungs. The wail of agony turned to an empty gasp.

  He fell back and to the side, his shoulders thudding down as he rolled onto his back. There was a gentle crack as his skull came to a halt. For a moment, white light filled Ahmad’s head but then blackness returned. With it came waves of nausea and throbbing, pulsing, searing pain: worse than anything he had feared receiving at the hands of Leroy’s gang.

  Ahmad lay still, his eyes open and saw the dull square of light above him. He gasped a few times, trying to keep a grip on his terror and pain.

  Then he froze.

  From the darkness, he heard breathing. Not his own: that was coming in ragged, choking pants. This was deeper, different.

  Ahmad turned his head to try and locate the sound, to face whatever was coming.

  Then he saw the darkness move, something coming towards him.

  ‘No.’ The single word was muted, miserable with fear and Ahmad turned away, no longer wanting to see.

  He could sense the thing getting nearer; hear its breathing.

  There was a sharp intake of breath and then something touched him, feeling him. Ahmad choked back another cry at the same time as warmth and wetness filled his trousers.

  The fingertips reached his face. ‘Christ! You’re just a kid.’

  It took a moment for Ahmad to register what the woman had said.

  39. Stop Making Sense

  Friday 12.13pm:

  Rebecca swung her Beetle round onto the gravel in front of Haworth Manor. A couple of other cars were already parked there, as well as Paul Cash’s bright pink Rolls Royce. She stopped alongside the lurid Roller with a smile and hopped out. The blues of last night had faded away, a sense of quiet satisfaction taking their place.

  If asked, she would have found it hard to say exactly why her mood had changed. It was all to do with Danny Harper but the precise reason was another matter. His arrival at her flat this morning was unexpected. Seeing him on her doorstep came as no surprise though. She had also lacked any qualms about inviting him in.

  Despite everything, Rebecca was completely at ease with him; his presence felt entirely proper. The situation was bizarre. On one level, she knew next to nothing about him. She was aware of the outline of his life, but very little of his personal history — or even where the borders lay between the story he told and the version of his life everyone else appeared to know. However, she believed him when he said he needed her. Some things could not be faked and the strength of his feeling was obvious in both what he said and the accompanying body language. What had actually happened to him was not the same thing as the truth of his story. It was real to Danny and she trusted him.

  Rebecca closed the Beetle’s door and looked around, breathing in the cool air and letting her thoughts drift back.

  After Danny arrived, they had spent a while talking about his phone call home and the revelation his father was still alive. It was obviously an uneasy relationship. Even though Harper senior was not your average man, in many ways the conflict between domineering father and resentful son was typical. Unable to see beyond the strictures to the concern governing them, the younger Danny had bridled at doing anything his father wanted. But despite that, the bond between father and son had clearly remained strong. The shock of his father’s death appeared to have been what propelled this Danny Harper into re-evaluating and turning around his life, taking it back onto the sort of track that would have met with approval.

  He and Rebecca had talked the relationship through for some time. Then, exhausted by emotional speculation and dancing around their own feelings, Rebecca was struck by an idea. The short snowstorm was over at this point and she hustled Danny out of the house and into her car.

  She drove out towards the Eastern Mill bridge and parked on the verge beneath the northern flank of Beacon Ridge. There were a couple of fishermen’s cars a bit further along but otherwise they had the place to themselves. The weather was also starting to improve: a thin, watery February sunshine filtering down out of the hazy sky.

  ‘Okay,’ Harper said as they strolled along Slocombe Lane. ‘I realise the significance of coming here but why? What are we looking for?’

  Rebecca shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. It just seemed worth trying. I thought we could walk to where it happened and see if you remembered anything else.’

  Harper smiled wryly. ‘Or whether I suddenly get surrounded by a strange flickering light and sucked back into whatever alternative reality I came from?’

  ‘No!’ The flippant response generated a flash of anger on her behalf. ‘I… oh, I don’t know.’

  Rebecca turned away. Her pace increased and Harper was forced to limp at speed to keep up with her strides. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘I was joking.’

  Rebecca stopped abruptly. She turned and raised her hands as if looking for something to grab. ‘I know. Look, I’m sorry.’ She gestured helplessly. ‘This is still all so weird. Part of me doesn’t want to think about it. It’s easier if I don’t. That way I can pretend you’re just some ordinary bloke who’s come into my life. But then you tell me things like suddenly finding out your dad’s not dead after all and I start wondering what I’m dealing with.’

  Harper snorted. ‘Well, let me know if you find out.’

  Rebecca grabbed hold of his jacket with one hand, the other hovered, not sure what to do with itself. ‘Stop it! I’m not joking. That’s the problem. You tell me you don’t know what’s going on. What am I supposed to do? Do I just take everything you say on face value, not worry about it and continue as if this is normal?’

  She let go of Harper and shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to believe and, no, I’m not really sure why we’re here. But I need to do something. I don’t know if you are someone from out of The Twilight Zone or what. None of it makes sense. Maybe there is no sense to it. But I want to see the place, okay?’

  They continued along the road in silence. They walked along the side next to the river until Harper led them over to a gate. It was at the bottom of a track coming off Beacon Ridge. The mud at the junction was full of tracks: from car tyres where vehicles had used the gateway as a passing place, plus marks from various bike tyres, boots, hooves and the paws of dogs. Even if Harper had been able to recognise the tread pattern from a mountain bike that appeared to no longer exist, any trail left on Monday morning would have been obliterated long ago.

  ‘That’s where I came down from the hill,’ he told Rebecca. ‘I’d been cycling through the woods and came down here. I was on my way home.’ />
  They both stared at the track in silence then turned and followed Slocombe Lane back towards the Eastern Mill bridge. Where the road turned to the right, they entered the shade beneath the overhanging yew trees. Harper slowed as the road continued to curve. Rebecca’s Beetle was parked on the other side of the road: beyond was the bridge and the spot where the Peugeot had appeared, accelerating into the bend and onto the black ice that sent it sliding towards the man on the bicycle.

  Rebecca glanced back over her shoulder, conscious Harper was no longer keeping up. ‘Was it here?’

  ‘A little further. Not far.’

  There was no way of identifying the exact spot. Harper had been cycling with his head down until almost the last minute, concentrating on maintaining his course over the frosty gravel. By the time he was aware of the car sliding towards him it was too late to react. After that, everything was a blur: haphazard memories of flying through the air, thuds and impacts, pain, skidding across something. And waking in an ambulance wondering how he got there and what Rebecca would think.

  She found some fragments of broken glass beside the road and drew Harper’s attention to them. ‘Look, Danny. Could this be from the car?’

  But he smiled and shook his head. ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, I don’t but it doesn’t prove anything anyway.’

  ‘Why not? Maybe there was a car that hit you. Maybe it did happen here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because even if it did happen here… it also didn’t happen here.’ Harper shook his head again. ‘Look, you know what’s happened in your life. Everything you know, it fits in with what everyone else knows. I’m the one that doesn’t fit. I know stuff I shouldn’t know: things that only make sense if my story is true. But even supposing I’m not crazy and my story is true… well, it can’t have happened here. It’s like Brendan said, I must have come from some kind of alternative life. Some parallel life that was almost the same but not quite. If I was hit by a car, it must have happened in that alternative life. Besides…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well.’ He smiled at her. ‘The only way to prove it would be if you were a forensic scientist. You’d need to analyse that glass and find fragments of my skin or blood on it to prove anything. Then you’d have to prove it was broken by me hitting it and that the accident happened here.’

  She sighed and scuffed the glass away with her foot. ‘But how…’

  ‘There’s also a more fundamental problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I was hit by the front of a car. Some of that glass is red. It’s from a tail light cluster not a headlight.’

  She laughed at that point, as the impossibility of what she was trying to prove struck home. However much she wanted to find reason in Harper’s story, there was none. Or none she could measure in any accepted way. Standing there beside a country lane with a man from a parallel existence, she laughed at the futility of trying to make sense of the situation.

  After a moment, Harper joined in with her laughter. They smiled at each other and then, without any apparent conscious decision on either part, returned to the car with her arm around his waist and his across her shoulders. Neither attempted to move apart when they reached the Beetle. Rebecca turned slightly towards Harper and he towards her. Then they were standing face-to-face, arms around each other.

  The kiss that came next followed without any pause for thought.

  It had not been a particularly long kiss but it released something. Rebecca felt relieved. It was as if an invisible barrier had evaporated. For better or for worse, something was decided. She felt lighter, strangely more in control. And quietly elated.

  The smile was still in her step as she entered Cash’s studio. The artist noticed it in her walk as much as her expression. He watched her approach through the old tack room, recording the impressions in his mind’s eye.

  Cash stood next to the huge bleached table in the centre of the stable block. With him were the arboriculturist Ron Meredith and a woman Rebecca did not recognise. The trio were studying a map.

  ‘So, you finally grace us with your presence, Miss Shah.’

  Rebecca smiled at Cash and nodded at his guests but said nothing.

  Cash raised his eyebrows. ‘Interesting time to arrive for work. No excuses for being late?’

  Rebecca shrugged lazily. ‘Well, until you give me a contract, I don’t have any set hours. I thought I’d turn up when you needed me.’

  40. Communication Breakdown

  Friday, 12.25pm:

  The two men stared at each other. Glasgow’s face was expressionless but his features taut as a mask and drained of expression. Cole’s cheeks were flushed bright red and the vein in his temple throbbed. There was fury behind each set of eyes. Both sat with jaws clamped shut, willing the other to speak.

  The ex-dancer was the first to lose patience with the silent duel. He shoved himself back from the table and sprang to his feet. His lip curled as he threw a bitter glance at the detective before turning away. He paced across the carpet to the window into the fitness studio. He leant with both hands spread against the glass and hung his head, shaking it furiously. The muscles of his shoulders tensed and he pulled one fist back as if to slam it into the glass, the knuckles shaking as he held his hand poised.

  ‘I don’ fuckin’ believe this!’ After a short battle with his self-control, Cole shoved himself away from the window and turned to stare at the policeman. ‘I don’ fuckin’ believe this.’

  Glasgow gave a curt shrug. ‘Well perhaps you should.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m telling you that’s how it is.’

  ‘I thought you was my friend!’

  ‘I thought you were mine.’

  ‘So why are you treatin’ me like this?’ Cole waved his hands in anguished appeal. ‘For fuck’s sake, Robbie: don’ mess me around. This ain’t no game, I need to know what’s goin’ on.’

  Glasgow shook his head: compared to Cole his voice was level and calm but there was a tension in his tone that betrayed his frustration. ‘Look, you should know better. You know it doesn’t work like that. I can’t feed you information so you can go off on your own personal crusade. This thing is bigger than me and you. I’m your friend but I’m also a copper and there are occasions when that fact has to come first. This is one of them. This is serious, Nelson. This isn’t one of those times when I can bend the rules to suit your needs.’

  He sighed and made an attempt at a conciliatory smile. ‘Look, think about it from my side will you? This is a serious investigation. We can’t afford to have people like you running around trying to sort things out your way. We’ve got to get evidence and that means keeping it clean.’

  ‘People like me?’ Cole bridled. ‘What are you sayin’, Robbie? Your uniform make you a different class of person does it?’ He gave a hiss of disgust. ‘You might wear a uniform but we’re not that different you and me. Don’ you forget that.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  The smaller man shook his head. ‘I won’t get in your way,’ he pleaded.

  ‘No?’ Glasgow smiled. ‘What you mean is if you find out who the bastard is first, no one will ever see him again.’

  Cole looked away before shrugging reluctantly. ‘Yeah? And what’s wrong with that.’

  Glasgow sighed. ‘What’s wrong is what happens if the poor bastard you get hold of isn’t the right guy? Besides, apart from whatever happens to anyone you get hold of, the fact is, if you get it wrong, the real villain would still be out there. He might keep doing his thing and more girls will go missing.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ve got to do it right and that means getting the evidence. It might take time but that way, when we get the bastard behind this, we’ll know he’s the right one. We need to be able to prove it; if we can do that, we can make sure he never gets out again.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Cole snorted. ‘So what’s chang
ed since Wednesday? You didn’t seem to be takin’ it seriously then. I was the one sayin’ somethin’ was up. You tried tellin’ me there was no information: nothin’ to build a case on.’

  ‘Yeah…’ Glasgow sighed. ‘And part of the reason I took it seriously was from what you told me. That’s why I played along when your guys caught that journalist snooping around Stacey’s flat. But there have been a few other developments since then.’ He shrugged and shook his head. ‘We’re taking it seriously now: believe me. And it’s not just me involved; there’s others working on it. Plus I’ve got people looking over my shoulder, which is another reason I’ve got to make sure we do this properly.’

  Cole sneered. ‘So what it boils down to is you’ve got to keep your nose clean and pretend to be a good copper while the big boys are watchin’. Time to ditch your friends and impress the boss is it?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’ Glasgow refused to rise to the bait. ‘We’ve got leads we’re working on and if I start spilling information that results in you running around playing vigilante the whole thing could get fucked up.’

  ‘Is that right? You’re workin’ on leads? Well whoopee, but what the fuck have you actually done?’

  Glasgow closed his eyes, pressing his hands down on the table. He ignored Cole and took a long, deep breath, holding it silently.

  ‘Well?’ demanded the redhead. ‘Have you arrested anyone? Have you solved the crime, found the bodies? What have you lot done? Tell me, what evidence have you collected, what progress have you made? Tell me.’

  Glasgow pushed his chair back from the table. He shook his arms, smoothing out the sleeves of his suit and then put his hands behind his head. He pursed his lips and gave Cole a level stare. ‘You want a report on our progress?’ he said.

  Cole gave a petulant shrug. ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Glasgow. ‘I’ll tell you what I know. What I know is that I’ve heard suggestions of women going missing. Most of them, but not all, are prostitutes who work the streets. But what I also know is we’ve only got three cases of women officially reported missing. Two are local working girls: girls who’ve turned to prostitution to pay for drug habits but have still got contact with their families. One has two children. The third woman isn’t even from here. She’s a Latvian immigrant who was living with an abusive husband in Birmingham. She was given the address of a woman’s refuge here and bought a ticket for a train from Birmingham on Sunday night.’