The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  "There isn't any school!" Lucy cut in excitedly. "The place has been closed because of all the murders."

  "What?" Weaver frowned in to the rear view mirror.

  Lucy and Sarah told him a mixture of what they had heard and gleaned over the in chat rooms. History teacher implicated in the murder of a schoolgirl. Head teacher dead- murdered. He wanted to ask them how the death of the Head made them feel but drew back. The way they spoke of it suggested to him that they were viewing the whole affair as a fictional drama, an extension of TV; the reality was yet to hit home and when it did he would have to be there to pick up the pieces.

  All things considered, it was a pleasant evening leaving Weaver to muse on the resilience of children. Their estranged father was guilty of extreme violence towards their mother, although- thankfully- they had been spared the sickening details and yet they ate heartily and insisted on getting him to draw cartoon characters of their choice as well as caricatures of themselves until they were ready to sleep. Obviously stressed by it all, they needed sleep. He could have done with some himself but he had promised to call Mary.

  How strange he mused, as he pulled the scrap of paper with her neatly printed number upon it from his wallet, that we form bonds so quickly. Less than twenty-four hours before he had been ready to crash out in his bed in Brighton but now he felt obliged to call a woman with whom he had no right to form a relationship- a woman he had not seen since school years, a woman that was the sister of the boy to whom he owed his life.

  He pressed the number and waited. He listened to the ringing tone along with the renewed gust of rain against the window. It had rained continuously since the discovery of Patricia Bourne that afternoon. She answered on the third ring.

  "Hello Mary. It's David. How are you?"

  "Oh, hi," he noted the pleasure in her voice with satisfaction. "I'm alright. A bit shocked by the sight of that poor girl in the water. God, her mother must be- I can't even imagine."

  Weaver agreed. Neither could he. Could anyone?

  "It was- it was good to see you today, Mary."

  "Yes it was, wasn't it? I'm glad you called. I'd like to see you again before you go back down south." She sounded hesitant as though she too felt the conflict of the situation. He decided to voice what they obviously both felt. When they had parted late in the afternoon, she had tilted her face up to his and he had leaned down into a kiss that was both unexpected and the most natural thing to do as she had looked up at him. Her lips had tasted of the lip balm she had applied as they had walked away from Ross's, the image of Patsy Bourne still etched on their minds. As they came apart, he expected awkwardness but there was none. It was only as he drove the Beetle away that the darkness of their act occurred to him. He felt slightly appalled by the fact that he had acted out the first physical rite of love under such circumstances. How much death did a relationship need? Was it not enough that they had her brother's corpse between them without adding others? But there it was again, he told himself, good old Love and Death- bedfellows in Life with a capital ‘L’ and Art with a capital ‘A’.

  "I'd like that too but this is more than a little strange," he said. "There's Grant- always Grant- and that was the strangest first date I've ever had."

  "I know." She was quiet on the line. He pressed on: "I mean, how likely is it that you and I, connected as we are by Grant's- well- with our history and within minutes of meeting up again we see a body dragged out of the water less than a third of a mile from where-" He stopped.

  "It's totally likely, David," Mary said calmly, "because it happened. Don't expect me to discard the Twilight Zone aspects of all this. I'm the Welsh Witch, remember?"

  Weaver smiled. He enjoyed Mary's self-mocking tone. It made him feel that they were in on a private joke together and there was something vaguely comfortable and warm about that feeling. Yes. He remembered. But how much did he actually believe? It was much easier to think of the STICK IT IN YOUR EYE episode in his bathroom as a delusion; the alternative was unthinkable. And then there was the painting. He glanced at it where it leaned in the hallway, covered with a dust sheet. He had told Mary about it. What would she make of it in the flesh?

  "You should come and see this painting," he said.

  "In Brighton?" She sounded surprised.

  "No, no- it's here. I brought it with me. Paul didn't want in the studio. I can't say that I blame him either. I was freaked out by it but Paul was asleep less than ten feet away when it was painted."

  "Oh my God. That's terrifying. Poor guy."

  "Indeed." Weaver felt a wave of guilt; he hadn't really considered Paul. Instead he had buried himself in self-pity. Who could do this to him? Why? What had he done? He decided to give Paul a ring and tell him that he now realized that had been a selfish arse. Mary asked him what he thought of the things John-o had told them after their strange meeting at the river. It was like so much that had happened to him recently- it had a dreamlike quality, surreal.

  "It's difficult," he said. "Part of me wants to make connections but there is also the part that wants to dismiss John-o's- what did he call it?- warning as the paranoid fantasies of someone that spends the greater part of his day stoned."

  "But the warning was right, wasn't it?" Mary interposed. "If he hadn't had that- I don't know- vision, he wouldn't have gone looking for Tom and found him about to set someone on fire." Again, it seemed unreal to be having conversations such as these. But she was right. Unless John-o was lying. He knew John O'Connell of old and although he could be flaky and unreliable, he had never been that kind of bloke. And there was more. A boy guiding him through the streets of Cornhill towards Phillips' house. He shuddered and glanced towards the shrouded painting. Twilight Zone elements indeed. Mary asked him something.

  "You used to hang around with Tom, didn't you?"

  "Yes," Weaver laughed quietly. "We were in a band together. We were going to put real rock music back on the map. The only problem was we were shit."

  "Did Tom seem that type to you? Violent, I mean?"

  Weaver answered immediately. "Absolutely no way. He hated all that. He was all peace and love, man. Phillips though was always a sadistic bastard and I am in no way surprised that he has been doing-" He struggled. "-that. You know, if Tom had lit him up, a whole generation of the oppressed and tormented of Measton High would have raised a glass to him. He was a fucking animal."

  "And still is," Mary finished.

  Weaver deliberated for a moment and then told Mary about what had happened to Susan. He kept his voice deliberately low; the girls did not know the details of their mother's injuries and he didn't want careless telephone chat to change that blessed fact. When he had finished telling her, an unpleasant, copper tang sat at the back of his throat as though even the words themselves were sick.

  "Oh my God, David. That's awful. How could anyone do something like that?"

  Weaver grinned bitterly into the handset. "People do though, don't they? It's on the news every night. Sickness and depravity. Rape and murder. Most incidents occur in the family home- blah-blah-blah – I'm sure you've heard it all before. I suppose the only time it ever truly hits us is it’s us or someone we love that gets hurt. Then it becomes real- not just something that we can shake our heads at while chewing that night's dinner just before we switch the channel because it's putting us off our food."

  "Yes, but it seems to be affecting the whole town at the moment, doesn't it? There is something happening here, isn't there? Can you feel it?"

  "Yes, I think I can. I told John-o that I'd go with him to see Tom tomorrow," he told her. "I'm not overly keen on those places given recent experience but I think he needs the support."

  "Okay." There was a pause as they considered how to leave it. Weaver broke it. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said. As he replaced the handset, he heard a siren in the distance. That and the rain were the only sounds in Susan's apartment on the Crescent but soon the sound of the siren diminished leaving only the constant thrum of the rain.r />
  2

  In the office attached to the secure ward at Rennick Psychiatric Hospital, Julian Knight settled into the most comfortable chair and opened his book- a retrospective on the works of Carl Jung. It had been a birthday present from his daughter, Amanda. She’d hassled him continuously over the past few weeks about whether or not he had read it yet. He felt honour bound; his estrangement from his daughter being the hardest part of a messy divorce five years before. Her efforts to re-establish a relationship on various levels was touching but, at the same time, painful. The Jungian text before him was undoubtedly geared towards the professional aspects of her father. She wanted to know what he thought about the psyche, she wanted to get to know her father's views regarding the mind. A thoughtful gift but a gift that was, nevertheless, wide of the mark. He had been a Registered Mental Nurse for twenty-two years and was jaded to say the least.

  He put the book down again and sighed. He glanced at the CCTV monitors; the eerily green hued darkened rooms were a tableau of peace. As he watched, Martha passed through the shared ward, between the two rows of four beds to return to the office. She would be with him in a few moments. His groin twitched at the thought. They had been having an affair for several weeks now, allowing Julian to actually look forward to night-shifts. He was now being unfaithful to the woman for whom he had left Amanda's mother.

  What would his daughter make of that? Perhaps next year he would get a book on mid-life crisis or serial infidelity. Would Amanda still want to know what made her father tick then?

  Hence Martha. Despite her enthusiastic lovemaking – could he really call it that? – and her willingness to wear no underwear under her starched white uniform for his benefit, they didn't really have a great deal to talk about.

  The security buzzer sounded. Martha. Julian pressed the release button and Martha walked into the small office. She deliberately closed the door behind her, leaned over the desk, partly obscuring the monitors for a moment, and drew the blinds over the reception window. Only the dim green light of the CCTV screens lit the room. She turned to Julian and lifted the hem of her dress. Julian slid off the chair onto his knees before her.

  Soon they were oblivious to the monitor that showed Andrew Davies in his secure room as he sat upright in one movement as though his abdomen was comprised of cogs and wheels rather than muscles and sinew.

  *

  3

  A woman pushing a pram paused briefly at the entrance to Measton High School. She wore a massive anorak, buttoned and zipped to the chin, the hood wrapped tightly around her cheeks. Suitable attire for such a miserable night- a night on which there was no-one on the street to wonder at the wisdom of taking a baby for a walk in such conditions.

  She glanced around before trying the gate. Finding it locked she took a bunch of keys from her coat pocket, shook out the one that she had been told to use and tried the padlock. It turned easily. Looking again at the deserted road and across to the lamplit bay windows of the houses opposite, she negotiated the pram through the opening and into the darkness of the school grounds.

  Julie Pedlar remembered the way well-enough; it seemed as though she had been that sullen, often harangued teenager that scowled from class to class only yesterday. Even then, at fourteen, she had been overweight and conscious of the shapely figures of the other girls in her year but there was nothing she could do. Her mother's culinary expertise extended to chips with everything except on Fridays when you could have whatever you liked. From the chippie. Her skin had also suffered. She remembered agreeing to have sex with Lee Harper behind the bike sheds, dimly aware that his friends were watching but not really caring. Even then she had wanted nothing more than to be wanted, to feel liked. She hadn't changed much in the years between. The baleful stares as she went to the Post Office to cash her giro or in the corner shop where she bought her fags, not to mention the other mothers waiting for their oh-so-perfect brats to come out of the junior school back when Shaun was too young to make his own way home. She knew people backed away from her hard face but who could blame her for being so defensive?

  She’d always been treated like dogshit.

  She had to be- what had he said?- strong minded. Yes. She was. She always had been. Given the life she had led before Shaun had paved the way for her to get her own council house, given the pissheads her mother would allow to look after her when she was at Bingo, given the laughter as Lee Harper had told his mates that he was going to go and puke now that he had fucked her and then scrub his dick with bleach, given the sight of his friends handing over the money that they had bet him that he wouldn't do it…

  She’d done a lot that she wasn't proud of but- fuck it- the world had done enough to her too. So what if she had sucked Ryan Jacob's cock for ten cigarettes? The jibes, the insults, the cold and cruel mutterings from the staffroom still inhabited this place. These corridors, locked, empty and dark held the memories of a miserable teenage in which even the teachers had hated her and weren’t they supposed to care?

  Except for him. He had told her that she was attractive. At the mere thought of their afternoon together, she felt a fire light her lower stomach, a feeling that she had not had there since that public fuck behind the bike sheds.

  She was no fool. She knew in her mind that she was ugly, that she was repulsive to many, if not most, men. But Callaghan had made her feel like a beauty queen. She trundled past the Gym towards the Science block struggling to remember all of the wonderful things that he had said to her but it all seemed to be lost in a swirl of heavy breathing and the panting that had occurred later. Every time she thought of his words she saw him heaving away on top of her, his large body red and slick from exertion. He had given her a first orgasm through intercourse (her first with a partner) before using his mouth on her and bringing her another and another. Then he had been ready to go again and she had screamed in ecstasy enough for Shaun, downstairs watching The Simpson's, to call upstairs and ask if she was alright. Alright? She had felt like screaming downstairs that she was alright for the first time in her life. But she hadn't. Callaghan had presented her with something that would keep her mouth busy for while.

  For a brief moment, her head cleared. She felt panic. What was she doing here at this time of night? She had a mental image of his leering face mouthing words that she could not remember, his bloated, pink and fuzzy belly and his breath that had smelled of- and then it was gone, replaced with the elation that his words had given to her. The words themselves would not return but she had an image of herself, her beautiful self, smiling and accepted, clear of skin and slim at the waist. The words had held promise and, despite her extreme cynicism regarding the world and its treatment of Julie Pedlar, she had believed him beyond any doubt.

  She stopped outside the Science Block. This had not been built when she had been at school- it was new, the Governors' pride and joy. She reached into the pram and took out the first gallon container and began to trail its stinking contents around the building. When that one was empty she went to get another. There were eight in total. On container number three she spilled some of its contents into the pram. She thought vaguely that petrol probably wasn't good for Tyler but she would worry about that later. She had left Tyler safely in the care of her son Shaun; he knew how to look after Tyler.

  With all but the final container spent, she took a house brick from the pram and threw it through the window. The smash was followed immediately by the claxon wail of the alarm, impossibly loud, seeming to fill the whole world as it bounced back at her from the Gymnasium and the administration building. She had to be quick. The Fire brigade would be along soon. She emptied the contents of the container through the window, petrol splashing back at her and stinging her eyes, burning her nostrils. She threw the empty container to the side and pulled the oily rag from her pocket.

  Despite the rain her lighter lit the rag first time.

  She tossed it through the window hearing a faint- fooh- as it ignited petrol. She ran back to her pram
and pushed it back the way she had come. Less than a minute later she was out of the gates. That was all it took. An explosion shattered the suburban night behind her. By the time people came out of their houses, an orange hue hung above the school and they hardly noticed the young mother hurrying by to get out of the rain.

  The flames soon reached the preparation room and chemical store and then the conflagration truly began. Despite the dampness of the air, the burning rooftop reached out with fiery fingers to the neighbouring gymnasium. It was not long before that too was ablaze. By the time Julie crossed the Old Bridge, the sounds of sirens filled the air. Turning back in the general direction of the school, she saw with satisfaction the warm glow of the fire in the night sky above the intervening streets