She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “No. You’ll spend the night in a cell whilst they get hold of a better teep.”
“Ethan. I’ll stay with him.”
“OK, then. Go. I won’t stop you.”
“Damn you, Anna. We’re meant to be on the same side.”
“If OsMiTech were monitoring your communications, don’t you think there would be a good reason? You should be grateful for the fast response you got today. Humdrums wouldn’t have the police turn up that fast. If Burnfield hadn’t turned up when he did, you might be another corpse for the police to tag.”
“And what else are they monitoring besides my communication?”
Anna sighed. “You’re an asset. A valuable one. They’re looking out for you even if you choose not to look at it that way. Processes are in place. The world is cruel. You’re buffered from the worst of it.”
Jack tapped one foot against the other. She was right. He had nowhere else to go. He flicked his gaze up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
Anna waited until he brought his gaze back down to her level. “Listen, I’m trying to help. I’m your friend. I want to catch her murderer as much as you. Hurt one of us, we all hurt.”
“It’s no excuse.”
“I’m not excusing anyone, Jack. But the longer we leave this, the farther away her killer is getting.” She rested a hand on his arm and let it linger there a moment before taking it back.
“OK,” he sighed. “Do it.” And then Jack closed his eyes and settled back down into the couch.
For a fraction of a second, he sensed her fingernails scratch his forehead where they settled on the skin above his eyes, firm but gentle, the subtlest of pressures.
And then contact.
*
I was back home. The early morning light washed over the bed linen and I lay there and listened to Keeley in the shower. The sound of water dripping from her body, splashing in the tub. Her soft voice mumbling songs from the radio, and I—
Why was I crying?
Tears ran down my cheeks, stinging my eyes as I wiped them away.
I sat up and glanced at the clock. 7:15. I’d have to get up soon.
The taps were turned off and I heard Keeley step out of the tub. Her singing grew louder as she was no longer drowned by the sound of the shower.
I felt strange. Throwing the covers off, I was surprised to be dressed. An urge struck me to look out of the window and when I did, things clicked into place. Anna waved from the garden wall.
Anna was reading me. I’d forgotten. None of this was real.
Keeley strolled out from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her hair. Her naked curves glistened with the water she’d missed whilst drying, and all I wanted to do was grab her and hold her. My dead wife stared at me with love in her eyes and I was lost for words, but then I heard myself speak anyway.
“I don’t think I slept all night,” I said, without thinking.
And the scene shifted. Next day. The argument about a parenting licence had now happened. Feelings bruised on both sides.
I was back in my study. The newly arrived memory box sat on my desk. The carvings were still fresh enough to smell the oils from the tree of the dead. I glanced out of the window and saw Anna still sitting on the garden wall.
Is that so? I concentrated and found that with some effort I could pull myself out of my body and for a moment, I was behind myself looking at the back of my head. Watching myself study the surface of the memory box whilst I readied my pad and pen for the recall testimony I’d have to make once I’d finished the reading.
Then the effort to stay outside my body was too much and my vision snapped back to how it had been the first time I’d experienced this.
Anna’s voice grated through my mind like gravel on a tin roof. I didn’t respond, instead trying to keep focused on the memory itself.
The memory ran with no effort from me. I watched myself use the tools to replace my eye with the victim’s, then I was once again staring up at the office ceiling.
We skipped forward some more and sooner than I’d have liked, I was slipping backwards in Keeley’s blood. Once again, feeling her blood on my clothes, and reeling with horror at the realisation that her eyes were destroyed.
Faster. Faster. I don’t want to see this.
Time jumped. My call to the police was over as soon as I made it.
And then, on the stairs coming towards me. The killer. I shivered, tried to turn my eyes away, but I couldn’t shift their attention from the knife in his hand. I ran to the bathroom, my heart beating so fast at the thought of the imminent confrontation I worried it would bring on a heart attack.
The questions were driving me mad.
My memory had got to the part where the killer had taken his first step into the bathroom. The bleach smelt even worse in the memory than it had in real life. My vision was all over the place as the two of us fought and my heart pounded away in my chest. The adrenaline I felt was real, not some memory.
The killer spoke. “You know I’m going to have to kill you.”
My attention was on the fight and I was doing everything I could to overpower him.
Easy for Anna to say. The killer was on top of me, hands around my throat squeezing the life from me. I was going to die. It was too difficult to breathe. This was the end.
*
The memory ended and Jack jolted upright on Anna’s couch, throwing her backwards in his eagerness to be free from the violence. Instinctively, his hands reached for his neck, tearing away at a grip that wasn’t there.
“Hey, it’s OK. You’re fine,” Anna said soothingly, patting him on the back. “He’s gone. You’re safe.”
Jack flicked his attention all around the apartment, checking every inch before allowing himself to believe her. One of the many dangers of memory recall, even by a skilled telepath like Anna, was that blurring line between reality and the memory. It had felt so real. His body ached again like it had landed on the bathroom floor and he’d just struggled against an attacker. And that smell of bleach was still there.
“Oh god. Did that just happen?”
He rubbed his neck, only now for the first time since the attack did he realise how tender it had become. His mouth felt like it had been without water for days, so Jack hurried to the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?” Anna said. “I can get you that.”
>
He grabbed a glass from beside the sink, filled it from the tap and drank almost the entire contents in one go.
“Thirsty,” he explained.
“I can see.”
She came into the kitchen and pressed her palms on to the granite worktop. Jack couldn’t look at her.
“It’s not your fault she’s dead.”
“Goddammit, Anna.”
“It’s not. That’s all I’m saying.”
He refilled the glass, but his initial thirst had gone so he sipped instead. “Of course it’s my fault.”
She didn’t argue. Jack had rarely seen her lost for words, but he sensed she was looking for the eggshells in an attempt to avoid stepping on any more. “It was going well—the recall. I thought you did OK.”
“Are you for real? What planet are you on? We learnt nothing we didn’t already know, and I had to go through that damned memory just to satisfy your curiosity.”
“We had to do it. It helped. You saw your attacker again. Describe him.”
“I’m not doing this now.”
“Jack, the police will call you in soon. They’ll be harder on you than I am.”
“My wife’s just died. They can go and fuck themselves.”
“Nice. You can tell the detective that when you’re locked in a cell waiting to be interviewed. Only they won’t be using a soft touch like me, they’ll have their best teep readers in to do it.”
“Like the one they brought to the house. She couldn’t even get in here.” A finger tapped the side of his head.
“They’ll have better ones. Stronger.”
Jack shook his head. “It’s not going to happen. You’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
“What the hell can I do?”
“Call somebody. OsMiTech won’t let me be interviewed again.”
“I don’t know what you think OsMiTech will do about it.”
“Think of something.”
“It sounds like you don’t want to help the police. If you become obstructive, they’re going to think you’ve something to hide.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Anna continued, “They didn’t see your intruder. They find you covered in Keeley’s blood. What are they supposed to think?”
“The forensics will find traces of him.”
“And you’ve never had people round to your house before?”
Jack’s mind raced. They couldn’t possibly believe he’d have killed his wife. “And what? I’ve staged the whole scene? To what end?”
“You had an unhappy marriage. You wanted a way out.”
“You bitch,” he said, staring at her. “Why are you saying that?”
“The police will say it. If you don’t cooperate with them, they will think you’ve something to hide. I just want to help you.”
Jack set his glass down on the counter, and then it came to him. “I’ve still got Lavinia Wei’s eye in my head. Whoever killed Keeley took the memory box, and they wanted this eye. Whatever memories are stored within it, were important enough to kill my wife for. I’m holding on to it.”
“That belongs to OsMiTech.”
“And they can have it back in a few days.”
“That’s not going to wash with them.”
“Make it wash.”
“They’re going to want to back. It’s an ongoing investigation.”
“And I haven’t finished my recall yet. It’s still my responsibility until I’ve filed my report.”
She looked at him with what Jack thought might be admiration. “You’re quite something aren’t you, Jack Winston.” She walked over to the glass doors leading out on the balcony and stood to face the view. Jack crossed the apartment and stood next to her. The view was something else with the Mersey and the Birkenhead skyline across the water. Patrol boats crisscrossed the river looking for anyone stupid enough to make an attempt to leave the district by sea. Drones flitted up and down the quays, zipping closer to any movement, inspecting and observing all the time.
Jack caught sight of himself in the reflection and for a moment his features were blurred. But then, he blinked and saw the sunken pools around his eyes and ghoulish complexion.
“It’s a good view,” he said, resting his forehead against the glass.
“I’ve always thought so.”
“I’m sorry I snapped.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Even so, I am sorry.”
“We will get the man that did this.”
“When can I go home?”
“Is that what you want to do?”
Jack paused, not really sure if he ever wanted to go back in that house again, or if he wanted to go back there and never leave again. Anna didn’t wait for an answer.
“The police will let you know when. If the time’s not right for you, there’s always here, or we can find you somewhere else.”
Anna’s HALO chirped and she smiled apologetically. “It’s OsMiTech, they’ll be waiting for an update. I need to take it.”
4:30 PM
At first he thought the drumming was coming from outside on the street, but then he realised it came from somewhere behind his eyes. Dennis woke without remembering why he’d fallen asleep on the couch and—oh my god—the pain in the back of his neck was real enough. Leaning into the arm of the sofa whilst sleeping was not a smart move.
He blinked away the dreams, still lingering, and brought his hand to his face. The HALO, a three-year-old model he’d bought from Cheryl at work, had a tiny hairline crack running through its surface but still worked, just about. New models were expensive and besides why would he need one? Impressing people for the sake of impressing them wasn’t his style. Keeping a low profile was one of those unspoken rules of the organisation. The HALO detected his arm’s motion and displayed the time. Four thirty p.m.
Dennis twisted upright and leant back into his chair. His first thought was the thing had glitched: his next that he would be fired from the supermarket. He was four hours late for his shift, and his mean bitch of a supervisor would delight in bringing him down a peg or two before firing him. Although the pay wasn’t great, it was a safe job and gave him enough to live off.
Sniffing, he stood and quickly sat down again; his balance was all off like he’d been drinking.
Give yourself a minute. You can do this.
And he closed his eyes and listened. His mother had bequeathed the small two-bedroomed house to him. With no siblings to share with, and his dad long dead, it was his to do with as he pleased. He’d never much liked Southport, and he’d considered selling up and moving on. But, after looking into it, he’d changed his mind. Too much hassle and he hated the idea of the sales tax feeding the government’s coffers. He’d keep hold of it, thank you very much: he liked his money.
Which brought his thinking in a circular way, back to the noises in the house—or lack thereof. His lodger was out.
He stood and listened at the open door of the lounge just to be sure. Alex kept himself to himself. This was the lodger he wanted. It was a small house and much as he needed the money he didn’t want to sacrifice his living space to a stranger. And Alex was a stranger in so many ways. He’d turned up one day, even before Dennis had had the chance to place the advert in the corner shop’s window. Serendipitous in the extreme, but his mum had taught him never to look a gift horse in the mouth and he was offering just the right amount of money and promised he wouldn’t be a problem.
And there was something Dennis liked about the stranger—almost familiar. Dennis had offered him the front bedroom, with it being the largest of the two it seemed fair to let his lodger take it. After all, Dennis was getting the reassurance that the lodger wouldn’t be getting in his way in the rest of the house.
But things never went as smoothly as all that—another lesson he could have learnt from his dad if he’d chosen to listen. Alex liked his music loud. A mixture of new trance and garage classics, stuff he’d have liked himself if only it came on a
t a suitable time and not when he was trying to get to sleep. On a couple of occasions recently, he’d come back from a night-shift at the supermarket to find an irate neighbour banging on the front door, demanding the music be turned down. He didn’t much like his neighbours so although a part of him was pleased that his lodger had caused them some disturbance, he was also wary of the threats that ‘next time it will be the police’.
“Alex?” he called up the stairs. No reply. He was unlikely to be asleep at this time of day. Alex was normally the first out of the house and the last to return.
He stepped on the first tread and winced at the creaking wood. Why he should feel so apprehensive in his own property confused him, but butterflies danced in his stomach. He focused his hearing on the floor above him, but there was nothing.
“Alex?” he shouted this time. “Do you want a tea?”
Silence.
He hurried up the stairs, taking two at a time, eager to get this over with. Alex’s room was on the front of the house, above the lounge. Dennis had the room at the back of the house—smaller, but with the advantage of a nice view of the field behind the building. The bathroom door was open, and despite knowing it must be empty, he stuck his head in and double-checked. The aches in his head still pressed on him from all angles and he rummaged in the medicine cabinet for a headache pill. He found one and swallowed it dry.
Alex owed him two months’ rent. He’d asked him about it when he’d last seen him—a couple of nights ago—but Alex had shrugged and shuffled back up to his room, whence the music thumped out again. The last time he’d been late with the payments, an envelope with a wad of cash had been left on the kitchen table with a note apologising. A repetition of that scene hadn’t yet happened, and it had continued to gnaw away at Dennis these last few days. He might not need the money to pay a mortgage, but for God’s sake, the man was getting the room dirt cheap anyway. To delay paying his due was a slap in the face—pure rudeness.
Dennis gripped the handle of Alex’s bedroom door and he hesitated, confused.
It’s the flu. Making me woolly.
And without further consideration, he opened the door and stepped into the bedroom. Dennis hadn’t been inside the room for weeks—he’d had no reason to, so what he saw upset him.
The Remnant Keeper (Tombs Rising Book 1) Page 6
