The Colour of the Soul

by Richard T. Burke

  “Luckily not,” Dan replied. “We were all in bed at the time. Look, we didn’t want to mention it. We knew it would be upsetting.”

  “I take it you called the police.”

  “Yeah, they were the ones who told us not to leave keys on the hall table.”

  “So they never found out who did it.”

  Her father shook his head.

  “What about the carpet? What happened there?”

  “Well, it must have been three or four days later. We came downstairs in the morning, and somebody had put ...” Dan caught his wife’s eye through the open kitchen door but didn’t complete the sentence.

  “What? What did they do?”

  “They peed in the letterbox, then just for good measure, stuffed dog shit through as well. We couldn’t get rid of the smell, so in the end, we bought a new one.”

  Annalise held a hand to her mouth. “What? All because of the car crash?”

  Dan nodded. “The man who died only lived five or six miles away. Somebody obviously identified our house. Anyway, that’s when we got the dog. The bloody thing’s totally useless, though. He’s as soft as anything.”

  “It’s all my fault.” Tears formed in the corner of Annalise’s eyes.

  Dan and Sophie Becker stood one on either side of their daughter and put their arms around her.

  “We just need you to get better,” her mother said. “There haven’t been any problems for the last few months.”

  Annalise retrieved a handkerchief from the pocket of her jeans and dabbed at her face. “No wonder Beatrice looked pissed off when she came to visit.”

  “Yeah, it’s been harder on her than it has been on us two,” her father said. “Obviously everybody at her school knows about it. We didn’t want to say more at the hospital. There was a bit of bullying and name calling until the head teacher got involved. I think they nipped it in the bud though.”

  “What the hell was I thinking? Why did I drive that damned car?”

  Her father shrugged. “Hopefully your memory will return soon. By the way, I’ve arranged a meeting with the solicitor at his offices in Steadmore tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Do the police know I’m back home?”

  “I’m sure they do by now.”

  Chapter 18

  Annalise sat on the beige sofa with a cup of tea in her hand. The sun suddenly burst through the clouds, casting a blinding shaft of sunlight through the window and highlighting the motes of dust swirling in lazy patterns across the room. She raised a hand to shield her eyes.

  Sophie leapt to her feet. “Is that too bright for you?” She tugged at the left curtain until it reached the centre point without shading Annalise from the beam. She transferred her attention to the right, plunging the lounge into a gloomy twilight.

  “Is that better? Shall I turn the light on?”

  Dan shook his head and tutted. “For goodness’ sake, will you please try to relax?” He strolled to the drawn curtains and opened the left one a fraction. A wedge of daylight cut the room in half. “There. Is that alright for everybody?”

  A slight frown worked its way across Sophie’s face. “Can I get you anything to eat?”

  Annalise shot a look at her father. “It’s okay, Mum. Just sit down for a minute.”

  Her mother perched herself on the edge of the armchair.

  “So where is Beatrice?” Annalise asked.

  Bisto raised his head at the mention of her name.

  “I think she’s working in her room,” Dan replied.

  “I’ll bring her down,” Sophie said, standing once again.

  Annalise lifted her hands in a calming gesture. “No, don’t worry. I’ll go up and talk to her in a second.”

  “We don’t allow the dog in here usually,” Dan said. “The bloody thing jumps up on the chair and tries to look out of the window.”

  Annalise bent down to stroke the animal. A sideways glance confirmed the lack of any aura. “I can’t believe you finally got one. I remember Bea and me nagging you all the time when we were younger.”

  “Yeah, Bea’s taken quite a shine to him. She even lets him sleep in her room sometimes.”

  “I seem to spend every free minute of the day hoovering up black hair,” Sophie said.

  “It’s like having another child in the family,” Dan added. “A very noisy, destructive, smelly child.” His face turned serious. “But I’m glad we bought him. I know I joke about him being a big softie, but if anybody attempted to hurt any of us, I wouldn’t want to be facing him. He hasn’t even reached his full size yet.”

  “Well, I’ve always wanted a younger brother. Now, I’ve got one,” Annalise said. “Why did you call him Bisto?”

  “The day we brought him home, he chewed up a pair of my slippers. I said if he ever tried that again he’d end up as gravy. Beatrice said something about Bisto, and the name just seemed right.”

  Annalise sipped at her tea, studying the colours surrounding her mother from the corner of her eye.

  The band of light flowing around her head had turned a paler shade of blue. Patches of grey still wove their way through the blend, but the overall effect was much lighter.

  Annalise placed the empty cup on the low coffee table. “Talking of Beatrice, I think I need to have a chat with my sister, see if I can do a bit of bonding.”

  “Good idea,” Sophie said. “I’ll make a start on the evening meal. It should be ready by about six.”

  Annalise headed into the hall and towards the carpeted staircase. She stopped at the top of the stairs and pushed open the door to her own bedroom. Her eyes swept across the contents, taking in the single bed against the wall, the white chest of drawers, the sliding mirror on the built-in wardrobe, even the Disney Princess curtains which she had refused to change despite her parents’ jokes.

  Everything was in exactly the same position as she remembered it. The only difference was the absence of dirty clothes in the corner where she had tossed them after getting back from the pub on the Friday night nearly a year ago. Her mother had always made a point of not tidying up after her daughters, insisting they needed to learn how to look after themselves.

  She pulled the door closed behind her and turned left towards her sister’s room. Her hand reached for the brass handle, but she hesitated. Instead, she rapped lightly on the white painted wood. She waited a few seconds for a reply. Hearing nothing, she twisted the lever and entered. Beatrice glanced up sharply from her position in front of the wooden desk. Black wires trailed from her ears to a mobile phone, partially hidden beneath a pile of papers.

  She snatched the earbuds out. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you get back.”

  “What are you listening to?” Annalise asked.

  “Oh, you know, it’s one of those compilation albums, Now That’s What I Call Music.”

  “Do they still make those?”

  “Yes, they’re up to number ninety-nine.”

  “Any good?”

  “Some of it’s not bad. Other bits are just average. I skip past the tracks I don’t like.”

  Annalise glanced at the open screen of the laptop. “So, are you revising?”

  “Yeah. My exams start in a couple of weeks.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Okay, I suppose. It still frightens me how little I know.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do alright.”

  “But not as well as you.”

  An uneasy silence developed between the two sisters.

  “I hear things have been a bit tough recently,” Annalise said.

  “You could say that.”

  “Look, I’m sorry.”

  Beatrice twisted in the chair so that her whole body faced her sister. “What are you sorry about? Killing that man, the shit we had to put up with—literally—or waking up?”

  Annalise took a step backwards, shocked at the venom in her sister’s question. “All of it, I guess, although maybe not the waking up part.”

  Beatrice turned away. “You h
ave no idea. You lie there like sleeping beauty, and we have to deal with all the crap you’ve caused. Mum spent all her time at the hospital so she could be near you, ignoring the daughter who was still conscious and needed somebody to talk to.

  “Some people at school, quite a few actually, have nothing to do with me anymore. The ones that do, I can’t work out if it’s just because they want the latest gossip—you know, find out more about the sister of the girl in that car crash, the one in a coma, the one who killed a man, so they can tell their friends—or because they genuinely like me for who I am.

  “Even when you’re in the hospital, you dominate the lives of this family. And as if that wasn’t enough, you not only claim you’re suffering from amnesia, you can also see an aura around people. It’s not like everybody won’t be talking about you anyway. So frankly, you have good reason to be sorry.”

  “Look, Bea, the amnesia is genuine. I really have no recollection of anything that happened on that day.”

  “How convenient. The first bad thing to crop up in your perfect life and you lose all memory of it ever happening.”

  “And I genuinely can see colours around people’s heads. I don’t know what it means, or why some people appear different to others.”

  “But mine’s dark, isn’t it?”

  Annalise sat down on her sister’s bed. “I only said what I saw. Dad was the one who made a joke out of it.”

  “So now it’s his fault. You should have seen how much they’ve changed over the last few weeks. One minute they’re moping about, miserable as sin, the next they’re making jokes at my expense. You’re like the prodigal daughter. You bring a whole heap of shit down on this family, then you come home, and we’re all supposed to be ecstatic.”

  Annalise clenched her fists. “It’s not exactly been a bundle of laughs for me, you know. I lost a year of my life. I’m accused of killing a man, and I can’t remember the slightest thing about it. A mad nurse tried to murder me by injecting some heart drug into my drip, and then I get an email from ...”

  Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Who? Mark?”

  “Never mind. All I’m saying is it hasn’t been easy for me either.”

  “Oh yeah? You kill somebody in a road accident and when you wake up a year later, your boyfriend is now your fiancé.”

  Annalise’s body stiffened. She hesitated a second before speaking. “So Mum and Dad told you about that?”

  “It’s been pretty much the only topic of conversation in this house for the last week or two.”

  “Then no doubt they also mentioned I turned him down.”

  “You don’t deserve him anyway.”

  Annalise stared at the tears that suddenly streamed from Beatrice’s eyes. She stood up and grabbed a wad of tissues from the box on the bedside table. She passed them over and placed a hand on her sister’s back. Beatrice’s shoulders heaved as she held her head in her hands. Annalise leaned forwards and wrapped her arms around her sister’s neck.

  Beatrice flinched at first but then slowly relaxed. She pivoted in the chair and rose shakily to her feet. Great heaving sobs erupted as she buried her face in Annalise’s shoulder.

  They clung to each other until the rise and fall of Beatrice’s breathing subsided into a slow, regular pattern. She pulled away, her skin blotchy and smeared with mucus. “I’ve ruined your top.” She grabbed another handful of tissues and passed a couple to Annalise.

  “Don’t worry about that. After a year in a coma, Mum will have caught up with all my washing.”

  Beatrice gave a short laugh that turned into another sob and continued to dab at the damp spots. “I didn’t really mean what I said. It all just came out in one go. I’m glad you’re alive.”

  “All I can say is how sorry I am that it’s been so hard on you. However this whole thing turns out, I’ll try my best to keep you out of it.”

  When she reached the door, Annalise half-turned and angled her gaze sideways. The colour of the swirling cloud around her sister’s head pulsed in a rhythmic pattern between grey and black.

  Chapter 19

  Steven held the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus. Downstairs, he could make out two figures through the open curtains of the lounge. The reflection from the glass made it impossible to determine the identity of the room’s occupants or what they were doing. That meant two of them were somewhere else in the building. He slid the viewpoint to the upstairs window. Ah yes, the girls’ rooms. No doubt the younger one would be hard at work revising for her examinations. He wondered how she was taking her sister’s miraculous recovery.

  Steven lowered the binoculars but continued to gaze at the house. A movement to the left caught his attention. An elderly man was approaching along the pavement at a slow shuffle, trailing a scruffy brown and white terrier on a long lead. The dog held back and sniffed at a wall. It examined the spot for several seconds then cocked a leg to urinate. The man carried on at the same pace, oblivious to his pet’s actions. Steven grinned as the man’s progress took up the slack, and the animal had to run to regain its balance.

  When the pair was twenty yards away, Steven shoved the electric screwdriver and the car’s original number plates onto the floor. He had purchased a set of replacement plates online after discovering a website where he didn’t need to provide his driving licence or proof that the registration number belonged to his own vehicle. All plates ordered are for show purposes only the advert had read. Yeah, right.

  He grabbed the map from the passenger seat, unfolded the seam and extended the paper until it obscured his head. The vehicle would not be traceable back to him, but it wouldn’t do to have somebody who could identify his face later. As a secondary measure, he turned off the interior light. There was now insufficient illumination to make out any of the writing, but he counted on the old man being too unobservant to notice.

  The man walked past the car without so much as a glance. Steven folded the map and watched through the rear-view mirror. When the dog walker ambled his way across the road towards the far pavement, Steven retrieved the binoculars from his lap.

  He calmed his breathing and forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand. He returned his focus to the upstairs bedroom. A shadow moved in front of the curtains. Somebody was walking about up there. Perhaps the girl was having a conversation with her sister. He allowed his mind to wander as he imagined the discussion between the pair. Would they have talked about the brick through the window yet? What about the dog shit through the letterbox? He had committed both acts of vandalism before he discovered she was in a coma. Maybe he should invest in those long-distance microphones that could pick up sounds through the tiny vibrations of the glass. Something like that would probably be hugely expensive if it was available at all, but the expense might be worth it. He filed the thought away for later.

  For a moment, he considered a repeat performance. Tempting though it was, the police would no doubt become involved again. He could do without the attention when there no was no long term gain towards his overall objective. He decided it was time to escalate matters and take it to the next level.

  Steven settled back in the seat and continued to study his prey.

  Chapter 20

  Annalise put down her book. The last occasion she had picked it up was nearly a year ago. For most people, that would be far too long to carry on from where they had left off. For her, however, it seemed like little more than a few weeks. She remembered the plot perfectly but could no longer concentrate on the words. Every time she stared at the page, her mind wandered. The letters went in but didn’t register on her brain. She found she had read a paragraph but had no recollection of what it was about.

  She reached across to the bedside lamp and clicked the switch. It took a while for her vision to adjust to the sudden darkness. The illumination from the streetlight a few yards down the road cast a narrow strip of brightness high on the wall. She lay on her back with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

  It was hugely f
rustrating that she was still unable to recall anything about the accident. How could she answer questions from the police if she had no memory of events? Maybe she should ask her parents to arrange a session with a hypnotherapist. What worried her about that idea was that it might uncover memories she would prefer not to remember.

  Her thoughts moved on to the conversation with her sister. After the mutual crying had stopped, Beatrice stated that she needed to get ready to go out with her friends. She ushered Annalise out of the room. Annalise didn’t want to pry by asking who the friends were—she probably wouldn’t know them anyway—and she was keen not to strain their newfound detente by coming across as overly inquisitive. Despite this, Annalise felt that a serious obstruction had been removed. Undoubtedly there was still a huge amount of work to do, but she had made the first moves to repair the relationship. If the truth be known, she resented the implication that being in a coma had been easier than facing the aftermath of that day. Beatrice had admitted she was relieved Annalise had recovered. It wasn’t much, but it was a step in the right direction.

  Annalise plumped up the pillow and rolled onto her side. It took a good hour until she was asleep.

  ***

  The smell of spilt fuel cut through her brain. The sharp tang of the petrochemical fumes tickled her throat and made her cough. She stared ahead of her at the spiderwork of cracks centred on the indentation in the windscreen. A metallic ticking sound came from somewhere under the bonnet.

  “Must get out of here before it catches fire,” a voice said from inside her skull.

  She reached for the seatbelt release, but something blocked her movement. An invisible force held her head in place, and she couldn’t look down. She fumbled blindly for the button. Another hand grasped her own. The fingers tightened, drawing out a cry of pain. Her field of view remained restricted to a narrow band straight ahead of her. She jerked her arm back, but the grip was too strong.

  “What do you want?” she called in a mounting panic. “Let me go.”

  She sensed a dark presence behind her. She tried to twist her head, but the hold tightened until it felt as if she was locked between the jaws of a vice. The shadow moved to the side of the car, and still, she was unable to rotate her neck. The figure leaned over, causing her vision to darken.