The person he was looking for appeared in the distance and he felt grateful that something else helped him focus his thoughts.
"James, wait!"
Dressed in an elegant white suit, James White had just come out of the main door of his building and was walking quickly away from them. They ran after him.
"Be careful, Aidan. He's wearing the white suit," Carol advised him.
"James, I need to talk to you. It'll only take a minute."
"Beat it, detective," James said without even looking at him. "I haven't got time to talk."
Aidan couldn't let him get away again. He had to talk with him at any price. He grabbed him by the shoulder.
"You can't do that. I only want to–"
With incredible ease, James shook off the giant holding him, and with what seemed like a simple shove, sent Aidan crashing into a parked car. Carol stopped in her tracks, watching James continue on his way at the same pace.
"Don't touch me," James warned Aidan again as he came storming back. "It's for your own good. I can't stop. I've already told you that."
"What if we walk together? I only need information."
"Have you forgotten our last meeting? Don't you understand why I jumped through the window?"
"It was a message," Carol said. "You did it to show that we're facing something that we can't understand. You couldn't tell us or that was your way of getting the message across."
"Smart girl. You should take a few classes from her."
"Who are you, James? The Blacks and Whites aren't normal people," Carol asked.
"I've already warned you that I can't tell you. Actually, I'd like to help out. Especially you, detective. I told you that you're running a great danger, but you don't pay any attention to what I say."
"The danger is yours. One of the Blacks killed my friend."
"That's wrong," James said dryly.
"How can you be so sure? Were you there?"
"No, but we can't kill, just like we can't die. In almost all respects, we're on the edge of life."
"Is that why you're sterile?"
"Yes, we can't create life. We're here to fulfil a specific function that you would never understand."
"What function is that? Explain it to us," Carol begged him.
"I'm sorry, I can't. The only thing that I can tell you is that you can't interfere with it. Nobody can. Not even me. My will is irrelevant. I'm only a pawn, condemned to obey the orders of someone else."
Aidan and Carol kept walking on either side of James. They maintained a steady pace along the street. James didn't stop or speed up. The lights were always green when they got to the pedestrian crossings and nobody got in their way. James didn't take his eyes off the street ahead.
"My wife gives you orders. Isn't that right?" Aidan asked.
"You're finally beginning to understand. Yes, Ashley is the owner of my destiny."
"Where is she? I've got to see her, James. She's my wife."
"I don't know. She knows where I am at every moment, but not the other way round. I don't have the least idea where she is."
"And Tedd and Todd? You could tell me a little about them."
"Do you know them?" James asked with amazement evident in his voice. It was the first time he'd shown any emotion since they'd met. "It's not a good idea to make any deals with them."
"I'll decide that," Aidan let him know.
"You're not listening to me, my friend. You're in danger. All the loose ends haven't been tied yet. Think it through a little, numskull. I can't give you any more clues."
"The key has to be Ashley," Carol said. "Or your relationship with her. Ashley's involved in all of this, and they've got you out of jail because you're her husband. Something's going to happen. James, please, tell us where all this is heading. Big Ben, your surnames, and everything else."
"Spit it out, dwarf," Aidan snarled, his patience wearing thin. "Tell me or I swear you'll regret it."
"Do you still believe you can scare me?" James asked. "I just told you I'm only a pawn here. There doesn't exist anyone else in the world more conscious of my own uselessness. And you think you can frighten me. I've got to think that you're still as thick as you are because of your friend's death. You're the most important piece in all of this. I've warned you about the danger. I've told you all I can. You know that your wife is part of this. And you're a detective. Use your powers of deduction that go with your job. Time is up."
They stopped speaking, while Aidan racked his brains, trying to put the pieces together in the most difficult puzzle that he'd ever seen. As they walked on, he ran every fact he knew through as many angles as his mind could imagine.
"I've arrived," James said, stopping in front of a building. "What you're about to see is the last clue I can give you."
"Why?" Carol asked. "You can do a lot more for us. I'm sure you can."
"Not now. Ashley wants to seal my destiny. When I enter this building I'll disappear forever," he said sadly. "Up there I'm going to finish in the most painful way. Life stinks."
# # #
The thin figure of Otis Cade paced nervously around his dark wheelchair as he gesticulated with his hands, running all the possibilities through his fearful mind. He was pushing himself to the limit looking for alternatives. There was always a way out, however complicated the situation was. The day before, he'd been able to give Ashley a good fright even though nothing had happened in the end. And now he couldn't permit himself any loose thinking. Time was about to finish and he needed to find a way to kill his adversary. It was a question of strategy.
A sound at the door broke his concentration and the options he was analysing crumbled away. He looked at the entrance in irritation and saw the silhouette of Ethan entering the room.
"Sorry to interrupt you," the youth excused himself on seeing the expression on Otis's face. "I wanted to say goodbye, friend."
"That's a detail," Otis replied. "I don't know if I would've resisted so much if it hadn't been for you."
"Of course you would've," Ethan said. "I was in your situation and I know how alone one can feel, especially at the end."
"And you beat that," Otis said, barely covering the fear that was tormenting him. "I'm going to lose and it makes me happy to be able to talk with someone before this finishes."
"That still hasn't been decided, Otis. Don't lose hope until the end."
"The end's already here, Ethan," Otis said, continuing to pace around the wheelchair. "I don't even know what to ask for my last wish."
Great sadness flowed out of Ethan Gord. He had no idea how to console Otis. For a second he regretted having come to see him. There was nothing he could do for him, and they both knew that defeat meant paying the ultimate price. Now he understood the Calvary that his opponent had had to go through, sixty-five years before, when he'd defeated him. Ethan had been so euphoric in victory that he hadn't given a thought to what price the defeated had to pay. Afterwards, he didn't want to know anything about the subsequent battles. He’d resolved to keep himself removed from the Blacks and Whites, until his son got sick and he decided to find a way to help him. Getting involved again, he'd met Otis and Ashley, the new adversaries, and discovered to his great surprise, that he could talk with someone about something that he'd always kept to himself. Ashley, as much as Otis, was grateful for his company in their lonely destiny. Ethan shared time with both, but it was with Otis that he'd formed a special friendship.
Now, only a few hours were left before the end, and although it was something he'd known from the very beginning, he felt great pity for whichever of the two was going to lose. The one he would never be able to talk with again.
In all likelihood that would be Otis. And he promised himself that he would never get as involved again with whoever occupied the wheelchairs. From now on, they could kill themselves peacefully and it wouldn’t mean anything to him.
"Good luck, my friend." Ethan embraced him. "Concentrate on what's to come."
"I'll
never forget you," Otis said sadly. "I already know what I would like."
"If it is in my hands…"
"You're going to say goodbye to her, aren't you?"
"Yes, I thought I'd go and see her," Ethan replied, not understanding what his friend had intended to say.
"Tell Ashley that she's been a great rival. And that down deep it would make me happy to see her win. Having listened to what you've told me, she sounds like a great woman. She deserves victory. I deserve what's going to happen to me."
"Don't talk like that," Ethan said. "Nobody can know…"
"I know you'll tell her what I've just told you," Otis said, sitting down in the wheelchair.
"I will," Ethan promised.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 26
James White opened the front door and entered the building calmly. Behind him, Aidan and Carol followed grimly, their muscles tense, looking around them for any sign of a Black waiting to kill James, given the fact that the man in white had announced his impending and painful death back in the street.
Aidan Zack had been inclined to go in first, but remembered that he couldn't interfere in the ongoing mayhem. Anyway, James had already shown that he could look after himself. The little man had told them plenty in their walk along the street together, and the last thing they wanted now was for James to disappear forever.
"If you know you're going to die in this place, why enter in the first place?" Aidan asked as they stopped in front of a door. "We'll help you."
"Do you think I don't know what would happen if I didn't enter?" James asked sarcastically. "I'm heading towards my own death and I don't know that I can save myself by not entering. What sort of a fool do you take me for?"
Aidan declined to answer the duplicate James White. It wasn’t surprising that he was acting like he hated everything around him, because he was close to the end of his own life. His will had vanished along with everything else it carried. They'd ordered him to enter this house and he had to do it, whether he wanted to or not. Aidan felt sorry for him and couldn't stop thinking that it was Ashley, his wife, who'd ordered James here.
This last point dismayed him more than anything else. As far as he could see, Ashley was the leader of the Whites and Otis led the others. James, therefore, was a sort of soldier who belonged to Aidan's wife's army. It didn't make any sense that she wanted to see him dead. Surely that was something that went against her own interests.
James opened the door and entered a tastelessly furnished apartment where the air was stuffy. The doors and windows had been closed for a long time. It was unoccupied.
Aidan made Carol walk behind him while he checked all the rooms. James had already told them that they couldn't kill normal people, but it was very clear that when you were in the middle of a battle there was always the likelihood of accidents happening. And unfortunately that had been the case with Lance.
"There's nobody here," he said to Carol as they went back to the living room and found James standing as still as a statue in the middle of the room.
"Whatever, happens, don't even think of touching me," he said in a serious voice. "It's for your own good. Goodbye, Aidan, remember what I warned you."
And suddenly it began.
Aidan and Carol knew that this short man dressed in a white suit had walked away from an accident that had killed dozens of people and they'd seen him jump through a sixth-storey window with their own eyes. They should have been prepared for anything, but when it started that did not help.
James proffered a chilling scream and arched his back to the point of breaking. Aidan’s first impression was that someone had stabbed him with a spear, but that was an error of judgement. There was no one else there. James bent himself forward and fell to the floor, throwing terrible punches with his bare knuckles into the carpet below, screaming desperately.
Carol held on to Aidan, who watched horrified at whatever was tormenting James. He must have been poisoned or something like that, Aidan thought. There was no sign of anyone else in the room. Whatever was happening appeared to be his own internal battle.
The screams were getting louder. James was exchanging one impossible painful position for the next, his small body shaking violently. Then suddenly he lifted himself onto his knees, with suffering written across his face. He was putting unbelievable pressure on his jaw. He extended his left arm and realized that it wasn't his, then it fractured on its own. Aidan and Carol heard the crack ring through the room and watched horrified as the arm stretched further. It grew a few centimetres, losing hair as it did.
James rolled on the carpet as more bones cracked inside him. He was no longer screaming; exhausted groans limped out of his mouth when he had enough strength. His legs had suffered the same fate as his arms. They had been broken from the inside, then stretched and begun to set again. They'd outgrown the length of his trousers. The hair had also disappeared and in the end his white suit began to rip on not being able to support the new body within. Between pants and atrocious convulsions, James took off his shoes and threw them away. The hair on his head had grown, and was now hanging halfway down his back.
"My God!" Carol exclaimed gripping Aidan's hand for dear life. "What's happening? We've got to help him."
"He warned us to stay out of it," Aidan reminded her. "We can't do anything for him."
He hugged Carol against his chest, trying to keep her from watching the unfolding horror.
James's body continued deforming itself before rebuilding. His head was partially covered by a blond mane, his lips were fleshier, his nose flatter and as with the rest of his body, he had less hair. His eyebrows were no longer bushy, his voice, expressed in groans and sobs, was sharper, the tone different, there was little doubt that his throat had undergone the same changes. Aidan stared at his chest and understood suddenly that he was transforming into a woman.
A very tall woman.
Silence filled the room. The two witnesses didn't dare breathe, as they continued to watch the transformation on the carpet. A few minutes had passed since James White had moved. Then the body moved slowly, and stood up, looking around the room, frowning.
In front of the amazed eyes of the couple, a nude woman, as tall as Aidan, turned around and looked at them. Instinctively she crouched, collected the ripped pieces of the white suit on the floor and covered herself as best she could.
"Who are you?" she asked, frightened.
"Don't you know us?" Carol asked.
"Don't worry about us," Aidan said trying to reassure her. "Here, cover yourself with this."
He gave her his coat and she grabbed it quickly and covered herself. Aidan recognized her face as soon as he saw it, and the idea that was forming in his head began to make more sense. She was the same as Helen Black, except for the colour of her hair and her eyes. Those belonged to the Whites.
"I'm a policeman. My name's Aidan. What's your name?"
"Helen, Helen White," she answered without deliberating.
And then everything made sense to Aidan. The truth stormed through his mind with frightening speed. He went over the details that he knew and they all started fitting together. Just as James White had told them, his transformation into Helen White had been a clue. The other had been a sentence, when James had explained that his will didn't matter because he was only Ashley's pawn. Then, Aidan couldn't have imagined that James had been talking literally.
"You aren't James White?" Carol wanted to know, still in the dark as to what had happened.
"No," Aidan answered walking up to Helen. "James has gone forever, just like he said he would."
"How can he be a woman now? I don't get it."
"Listen carefully, Carol. He isn't a woman. This is a lady, or better said, a queen."
Carol sounded more confused. "A queen? What are you talking about?"
"She is a white queen," Aidan explained patiently. "James was a pawn. It's incredible, but we have been watching a game of chess."
# # #
"Anyone who paid that amount of money for this piece of rubbish needs a shrink," Dylan Blair said to no one in particular. "And on top of that, paying a price like this says on the label the buyer should be shot."
The people around him were shocked by the millionaire's comments, as he studied the painting hanging before him, unaware of the ruckus he was causing with his sharp criticism.
"Your problem is that you don't know how to appreciate art," an angry woman standing near him said. "But that doesn't surprise me given the little education you've had."
"As far as education's concerned you're probably right, but I can assure you that I appreciate art," Dylan said without taking his eyes off the painting. "I'll give you an example. Some people steal, while others work… and so on. Without going any deeper, I made a deal in order to make my fortune, which makes me deserving of figuring in the lowest strata of humanity. But someone capable of finishing a painting in such a grotesque way, of drawing absurd scribble like this, and getting people to pay millions for it is a canon artist of the highest level. That person without any doubt is a master of a special art, swindling."
The woman was furious and battling to control more than just her words. "I find your opinion uneducated and expressed in a very offensive way."
"You're not paying any attention to me, madam," Dylan said, waving his hands in the air. "I'm somewhat more unbearable than usual when I feel frustrated. Do you understand? I've sold my soul to the devil to be where I am today, and now it turns out that this subject has been able to do the same vomiting over a canvas. At last, I'm going to do that to him. There's no going back."
"To tell the truth I don't like the painting either," a small man wearing glasses that were too large for him said. "This impolite individual is right. It seems nothing more than diarrhoea on canvas."
The Big Ben mystery Page 24
