by Bark, Jasper
“Doesn’t all myth start with some basis of truth?” Jimmy was really getting into this debate. It was probably the best thing he could do, under the circumstances, but it made Sam uncomfortable. Talk of ‘spirits separated from their bodies’ reminded him of Ashkan and the ruined remains of the other men.
“All myth starts as story,” said the driver. “Sometimes we call the story history, sometimes religion, eventually it all becomes myth. Beneath every myth is an ancient tale, a hidden belief that gives shape and form to every god that’s ever received a prayer on a dark and lonely night.”
“Okay, now you’re getting wa-ay deep. Does this ‘ancient belief’ have a name then?”
“It’s had many names, in every language ever spoken. Some call it ‘the Oldest Truth,’ others—the ‘Faith that Came before Man.’”
“What do you call it?”
“I don’t have to name my faith, I just have to live by it.”
Maybe turning into Sam’s street emboldened him, but it was at that point he decided to join the conversation.
“By praying for the spirits of car crash victims,” he said, with a touch of derision in his voice. “Is that how you live by this ancient faith?”
“Yes,” said the driver. “And by other acts of charity. Like picking up two young men covered in blood and carrying stolen goods, when no-one else would dream of giving them a lift.”
The driver pulled up to the kerb. Jimmy hung his head. Sam went cold all over and paid without saying another word.
“He knows,” said Jimmy. It was a warm evening, but he shivered as the mini-cab pulled away.
“He doesn’t know anything,” said Sam and hustled Jimmy indoors.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sam closed his apartment door then slumped against it. Jimmy, already in the hallway, turned and caught his eye.
No words were necessary. More passed between them in that look than either could have spoken aloud. Sam felt a cold shudder move through him as he came down from the drug . It was wearing off and so was the adrenalin that had kept him going till now.
“I’m going to go grab a shower,” Sam said, trying to keep his voice from breaking into a sob. He had to hold it together in front of Jimmy, had to be strong for him. He knew how much Jimmy needed that right now.
The scalding hot water couldn’t stop Sam from shivering as he stood beneath it and wept. Images of the footage raced through his mind, mingling with the sounds of Ashkan and his men being butchered. He wanted the water to penetrate his skull and wash them all from his brain. With each powerful sob that escaped him, he admitted the weight they exerted on his soul and how indelibly they’d marked him. He would never be rid of them.
He pulled the tie from his man bun and lathered his hair with shampoo, working it into the thick clumps of dried blood that clung to the back of his head. It dripped down his shoulders and over his arms, but it seemed to disappear before it reached shower floor. Sam told himself it was the chemicals in his shampoo, but he didn’t really believe that.
After changing into clean clothes, Sam walked from his bedroom to the living room where he found Jimmy, perched on the sofa, with his head in his hands, staring at the closed laptop on the coffee table. Jimmy’s eyes were red and his cheeks were wet with tears but he wasn’t making a sound.
Sam placed a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “You need a shower too.” He helped Jimmy to stand and he guided him to the bathroom. Jimmy was sinking into himself. Sam had known him long enough to know this wasn’t a good thing. He needed to break the spiral, or Jimmy would go under and sink into a deep depression. Sam always took control when it came to practical matters. It was his role in their relationship and, at the moment, concentrating on someone else’s troubles, helped take his mind off his own.
Sam told him to leave his clothes outside the bathroom door and collected them while Jimmy washed. Sam carried the soiled clothes out to the balcony and dumped them in the barbecue he kept out there. Already the blood stains looked old and were beginning to fade. Sam dowsed both their clothes in lighter gel and set a match to them.
As the flames consumed the clothing, Sam gazed down at Regents Canal beneath his balcony. Houseboats drifted lazily and couples walked hand in hand along the tow path, smug and content because they could afford the house prices in this part of town.
“The fuck you doing?” said Jimmy, standing at the french doors with a towel round his waist.
“What does it look like?”
“It looks like you’re burning my three hundred quid jeans!”
“What else was I supposed to do?” Sam glanced over the balcony to make certain he wasn’t in earshot of anyone, then lowered his voice. “They’re covered in blood.” Jimmy stared at him with mounting fury, not saying anything. “Blood that could link us to the lock up. If the police find a way to tie us to that we’re fucked.”
“Three hundred quid they cost me.”
“You can buy more jeans.”
“I don’t own anything that cost more than those jeans.”
“Well what were you doing spending three hundred quid on a pair of jeans?”
“You’re a fine one to fucking talk.”
“Okay, you can take a pair of my jeans, or whatever else you want. You’re going to have to borrow something of mine to get home anyway.”
“How am I going to fit into a pair of your jeans, you tall, skinny fuck?”
“Fine I’ll buy you a new pair of jeans, happy now? A three hundred quid pair of jeans that aren’t covered in blood.”
“They were a limited edition. Besides that’s not the point, I could have washed them.”
“No you couldn’t, they’ve got tests and stuff. Forensic science that can find traces in the fibres and shit, even after they’re washed.”
“It probably wouldn’t even be there tomorrow. I mean it was already . . . ”
“What?”
Jimmy shook his head. Neither of them was prepared to talk about the way the blood was slowly disappearing. It was one thing too many to dwell on, or even admit.
“We’re going to have to get rid of that laptop too.”
“What?!” Jimmy’s furrowed his brow, fury building to outrage. “No way, no fucking way!”
“We have to, it’s the only other thing that connects us to the lock up. If the police find it we’re fucked, game over.”
“Why would the police find it?”
“Cos they could get a warrant and search both our places.”
“But why would they get a warrant? We didn’t commit those murders.”
“No but our DNA is all over that lock up, clothes fibres, hair, all sorts of stuff.”
“So what? You’ve just burned the clothes and our DNA isn’t on file anywhere, why would they link any of this to us? No one saw us leave or enter the place. There’s nothing that puts us in the frame.”
“There’s that laptop, with footage of three other murders on it. What if they find that and think we’re Henry Lee Lucas, massacring people and making snuff movies?”
“They won’t find it. They’re not going to investigate us!” Jimmy’s tone was becoming more and more shrill.
“But what if they do, we can’t take the chance.”
Jimmy looked for a second like he was going to reply, but chose instead to pick an earthenware table lamp off the bookshelf and throw it out the french doors with an angry scream. The lamp shattered as it hit the barbecue and knocked it over, scattering the contents. Before Sam could gather up and put out the flaming clothes, Jimmy began to sweep DVDs, Blu-Rays and books from the shelves, many of them signed collectors’ items.
Sam had only seen him like this once before, after the whole business with Jennie. He’d been angry with himself then, full of self-recrimination and he’d trashed his student digs. This was different. He’d been kidnapped, drugged, mentally tortured and was a witness to an atrocity neither of them could explain. He’d been pushed too far. They both had.
<
br /> Sam made no effort to stop Jimmy. In a way he was relieved to see Jimmy snap. It meant he didn’t have to. It was as if Jimmy was having an angry breakdown for both of them. It meant Sam didn’t have to deal with what he was feeling. He could let Jimmy vent and pick up the pieces afterwards, like he always did.
Jimmy kicked over the sofa, then sank to his knees and started to cry again, but not silently this time. The laptop sat, like a brooding presence on the coffee table, miraculously unharmed. Sam knelt down next to his friend and put an arm around his shoulders.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll keep the laptop, we’ll make the movie.”
“I need this.”
“I know.”
“We both do.”
Sam held his friend as the anger drained from him.
“This is gonna sound really strange,” Jimmy said after a pause. “But I feel like we’re supposed to do this. Like we don’t have a choice. Like it was waiting for us.”
“The laptop?”
“No the footage on it. It’s like a story that’s waiting to be told, waiting for us to tell it.”
CHAPTER SIX
“So who’s sending him these links?” said Sam.
“What?”
“Who’s sending him these links?”
Jimmy took a deep breath and heard his chest rattle. His childhood asthma always threatened to come back when he was stressed. Script meetings weren’t usually so stressful. It was normally one of the most fun parts of the film making process. Jimmy came up with ideas for the plot, Sam picked holes in them and they solved the problems together, throwing out all kinds of solutions and plot directions till they had the sucker nailed. It was how they always worked.
Only right now it wasn’t working and they weren’t enjoying it. They shouldn’t have held the meeting at Sam’s apartment, the place held too many recent memories.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters, it’s a key plot driver. It’s like having a murder mystery and never finding out who does the murder.”
“But that’s the point, you just said the key word.”
“What key word—murder?”
“No, mystery, that’s what make it so unnerving, the audience is never sure who sends him the links, we let them work it out for themselves, so they project their own fears onto it.”
“How can they work it out if we don’t know what’s happening when we write it?”
“It’s some unnamed supernatural agency then. Okay? Look you’re getting bogged down in the details before I’ve actually given you the bigger picture. Just let me outline the story, alright.”
“Alright, you’re right I’m sorry. Go on.” Sam held up his hands in apology. Jimmy cleared his throat, another indication of stress.
“So the guy’s getting anonymous links to an underground darknet site.”
“By guy you mean DC Harlow, right? The detective whose wife and child were burned alive.”
“That’s right.”
“Very Derek Raymond.”
“What?”
“The protagonist I mean, like the unnamed police officer who narrates all of Raymond’s Factory novels.”
“Oh yeah, yes, that’s it exactly.”
“So, these links take him to footage of a man being tortured to death, in some strange basement. The footage lasts about a minute or two and it’s only live for five minutes, so he can’t download it as evidence or anything. The torture gets more and more extreme and he’s forced to investigate.”
“Is he in vice or homicide?”
“Err . . . homicide, I think.”
“So he’s investigating murder, not snuff movies.”
“Right, only he hasn’t got any evidence because he’s the only one who’s seen the footage. So he decides to track down the guy in the video footage.”
“How?”
“What?”
“How does he track down the guy?”
“He’s policeman, he uses facial recognition software.”
“Do they have that in the Met?”
“I dunno?”
“How does he use it if he doesn’t have a picture of the guy’s face? He can’t download any of the footage remember.”
“Oh yeah, well he uses a police artist to reconstruct the guy’s face from memory then he goes through mug shots.”
“So the guy in footage has a criminal record?”
“Yes, nothing too big, just petty theft or something.”
“And just to be clear, this footage that DC Harlow is getting, that’s the footage that we’ve got on the laptop right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, that can be edited in easily enough. We’ll have to be careful not to show too much of their faces though.”
“Right, back to the plot though.”
“Sorry, go on.”
Jimmy took a big pull on his latte and considered stopping for a cigarette. Probably not a good idea when his chest was so tight. “So, in the meantime, Harlow’s contacted by this woman, a real looker.”
“Strawberry blond?”
“Exactly, just like in the footage. So this woman, let’s call her Nadine, she’s been having these really vivid dreams, night after night, about someone being tortured to death in a basement. She’s so convinced it’s real, she goes to see Harlow about it. He asks her to identify the guy in her dreams and shows her some mug shots. She picks out the same guy he’s been seeing in the darknet links.”
“And these dreams she’s having, that’s more of the footage that we can splice in, right?”
“You catch on fast.”
“Glad you notice.”
“So now Harlow’s got enough to go to his superiors with.”
“Really? A bunch of dreams and darknet links no one else has seen? That’s pretty flimsy evidence.”
“Okay, well let’s say his boss owes him a favour or two and he calls it in, in spite of his boss’s scepticism. He tracks down this guy . . . ”
“Finally.”
“Shut up. He tracks down this guy to a dodgy cab office or something, only to find he’s alive and well. Not dead, not tortured, not anything and not in any kind of trouble either.”
“Right.”
“So Harlow is hauled over the coals by his boss and we find out someone higher up in the Met has it in for him; the only person looking out for Harlow was his boss. If that’s not bad enough, two days later the body of the guy in the footage turns up, obviously tortured to death. The footage was somehow predicting the future. Then Harlow finds himself in the frame for the murder.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would anyone think Harlow had tortured this guy to death?”
“Departmental corruption, someone upstairs has it in for him, like I said, and they find traces of his DNA at the scene, probably planted. So he’s suspended without pay, pending a full investigation. Then, the same mysterious source starts sending links to his home computer. Once again it’s footage of someone getting tortured to death in the same strange basement, only it’s not just some random guy he doesn’t know, this time it’s Nadine who’s getting tortured. Meanwhile, Nadine has been having more dreams too.”
“Let me guess, she’s having dreams of Harlow getting tortured to death.”
“Yes she is. She’s really freaked out about this, she tries to call Harlow but he’s not at work.”
‘Because of the suspension.”
“Yes, then she has an argument with her landlord and she gets kicked out of her flat. Harlow is really concerned about Nadine, all he wants to do is save her, but when he comes round to warn her about the clip, she’s not there. The only way they have of warning one another is to locate the basement, the self-same basement that represents their future and the grisly fate that potentially awaits them.”
“So how do they find the basement then?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“I thought you said
you had it all sorted.”
“I do have it sorted, I just gave you a premise, a concept and a way to use the footage cheaply and simply in a feature length film. It’s got a central cast of three people with a few supporting roles and only four locations. What more do you want?”
Sam exhaled heavily and looked up at the ceiling. He didn’t seem enthused.
“I dunno,” he said. “It’s all a bit . . . ”
“A bit what?”
“It’s all a bit . . . so what?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what that means.”
“I just don’t get you sometimes. You’ve been difficult from the minute I got here. What is up with you at the moment?”
“I just don’t understand why this Harlow is so concerned about Nadine towards the end?”
“Because of his backstory, because of the wife and kid that he lost. He wants to save her because he couldn’t save them.”
“Does loss make you fixate on things like that, on helping a virtual stranger?”
“No, but guilt can. If you feel you’ve let someone down badly enough, then helping someone who’s in a similar predicament, even a total stranger, can make you feel better about yourself, even save you from yourself. It’s about redemption isn’t it?”
Jimmy ground his teeth and looked down at the floor. He realised his fists were clenched. He had a sudden mental image of Jennie. The way she used to tuck her hair behind her ear with her little finger when she was trying to concentrate on something. It felt like a blow to the solar plexus.
His breathing got faster. He looked up and caught Sam’s eye. Sam read his expression straight away. “Mate, I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“I need a cigarette,” he said and stalked out onto the balcony.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jimmy leaned on the balcony railing and gazed down into the canal as the final rays of sunlight fled the sky. He took one last drag of his cigarette and flicked the butt towards the towpath, admiring the sudden cascade of sparks as it hit the ground.
He needed Sam on board with this project. He couldn’t let it go, not now. He had too much invested in it emotionally. He wasn’t sure why it meant so much to him, but it gripped him like no other project before.
