by Mark Ayre
Stars. The gun had hit James’ skull, and he tumbled to one side. It came again, and the world went fuzzy. Then both men were claiming to their feet.
Chris swung the gun once more, and this time James shoved him in the chest.
The cop went nowhere, and the arrival of several vehicles failed to distract him.
Stepping forward, Lindelof smacked James around the face. James span then felt the ground jump to grab him. He lay on his back and stared at the gun in his face.
“For Mel,” the cop whispered.
“Chris Lindelof put down the gun.”
Armed police flooded out of vehicles, jumping the fence and rushing towards the scene of the crime. James used the distraction to roll, trying to stand but Chris roared once more and lashed out with a foot, connecting with James’ stomach and sending him sprawling over. The gun was in the air, and he cried out again.
“Chris put the gun down. Put your hands on your head. It’s over. Don’t make this any worse than it has to be.”
“Any worse?”
Chris gave a strangled cry, and there was such pain on his face that James almost felt sorry for him. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he shook his head madly. James got a sense of what was about to happen.
“Don’t do this,” James said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“My daughter is dead.”
“I know, but you don’t have to—“
“I won’t get a shot off, don’t worry.”
“I know you won’t. Just put the gun down. You don’t have to—“
Chris swung the gun around, and something hit him hard in the side before James heard the pop of the gun going off. The police officer was thrown violently to the right, leaving James staring first forward at the tree by which Paul lay dead, then, as he let his head collapse to the ground, up at the sky. The beautiful blue sky.
The police began to swarm towards him, but James didn’t move, didn’t look at them. He looked at the sky and saw Megan. Saw her beautiful face and smiled at her.
Surrounded by bodies and cops he may be, but he was alive. Alive and it was all over.
Well, almost.
24
Sitting in the back of another cop car, this one taking him in the right direction, It occurred to him he might be chucked in prison for Mel’s murder but it was a thought that fluttered in then out again, like a scrap of paper caught in a stiff wind, and there was no worry attached. He was drained, tired. He had survived, but it didn’t feel like it. Prison was fine. No more than he deserved.
As it turned out, he had as strong an alibi as it was possible to have. At the estimated time of death, James had been with Detective Yang. Beyond that witnesses had seen a hooded figure enter the building shortly before Mel, and leave shortly after her supposed time of death. Five minutes after his witnessed departure from the building, they had camera footage of him walking into a corner shop. They had yet to catch the killer, but Yang was confident they would have him or her before long.
“I hear you made a call. Should we expect your hotshot lawyer?”
James looked up from his hard chair to see Yang at the door. She had a strained look on her face but was trying to smile.
“No lawyer,” he said. “I was calling—a friend.”
Megan had sounded beyond relieved to hear from him, though she denied believing he had been in any danger. He told her he wasn’t sure he would make dinner but would be there tonight. They could leave first thing in the morning. She had been so relieved she had burst into tears. Now he just wanted to see her.
Soon.
“I know you might not want to go through it all so soon—”
“It’s fine,” James said as Yang sat, setting up the tape and notepad. “Were you close?”
She didn’t look up.
“Not really. But I knew him a long time. Worked alongside him a long time. But I never suspected. Imagine that. What a wonderful detective I am.”
She gave a bitter, sarcastic smile.
“No way you could have known,” James said. “And you obviously are a good detective. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have felt so inferior. So determined to undermine you.”
“Thank you,” she said, then, wanting to brush past the kind words—“are you ready to begin?”
“Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”
After, he sat on the steps of the station and waited for his lift to arrive. Somewhere behind him, Yang was putting all his evidence together and trying to see what the picture showed. Though the likelihood still seemed to be that Davis had sent someone to murder his grandson, out of fear his role as the grass would be revealed. James wasn’t so sure about that, but he had not offered his own opinions. He was not, as Chris Lindelof had once said, a cop or even a private detective.
A car pulled up so close he almost ran over James’ toes, and the door swung open to reveal the smile of Owen.
“Still alive, then?”
“Just about. Thanks for coming.”
Owen shrugged, and James got in the car.
“Where to?”
“My place.”
They head towards his flat, James wondering why he couldn’t go straight to the hotel. Why he wouldn’t leave it.
It just wasn’t his way.
“This is it,” Owen said like a true cabbie. “What do you say I help you pack, then we go for a farewell pint?”
James looked at him.
“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re leaving. Why wouldn’t you? This place is tainted, right? Evil. You should just go, you know? After a pint I mean.”
“I can’t,” James said. “Harris’ killer is still out there.”
“You’re a strange kind of human,” Owen said. “But I respect that. The need to find the truth. To help a guy you only met once. Not sure I’d have the strength to be so good.”
“It’s not me being good,” James said. “It’s just—well, no one likes loose ends, do they?”
They made their way into the building, towards where James had made his home the last few months. He felt his heart pound as he went, and could not help but think of Mel on the floor, the blood spreading. Somehow it had been worse than Harris, although Harris had been kind, and Mel evil. He supposed it was the sheer brutality of it.
At his door he stopped, resting his hand on the handle and breathing deeply. Owen stopped nearby, James slightly twisted the knob, then stopped, dropped his hand.
“What’s up?” Owen asked.
“I was never quite sure on irony,” James said. “How it works I mean, the exact definition. Having ten thousand forks when all you need is a knife is not irony, right?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“But what about a man coming to take my life, and saving it when Mel turns up? Is that irony?”
Owen shrugged.
“I’m not the brightest.”
“Oh don’t say that,” James said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Besides, not everyone can be a genius. We all have different talents. Mine appears to be the ability to get myself into mysterious and deadly situations, and the luck to get out of them unharmed. Not sure that’s what I’d pick but we don’t get to choose, do we?”
“No, although I would still pick great lover if I had the chance.”
“Great lover,” James echoed, and chuckled. “See, I was going to say great actor.”
Owen raised a questioning eyebrow. He shifted a little but resisted the urge to come forward.
“What do you mean?”
“You brought me to my flat,” James said, taking the conversation a different route. Owen appeared confused.
“Yeah, that’s what you asked.”
“It was, but, how did you know where my flat was?”
“How did I—“ he searched for something clever to say. Couldn’t. For once.
“I mean after you hit me with your car, you took me back to my car at the bar. You’ve never been to my flat, and I never told you where it was, so how did you know?”
Owen c
arped a few times before shaking himself, getting back on track.
“Sounds like you’re flirting with an accusation here, James.”
“Oh, I am,” James said. “See I was thinking about who it could be. Who could have killed Harris and Tahir. I replayed everything I knew and everything I heard and I remembered the conversation we had last night.”
“What conversation was that?”
“The one where I asked you to meet me at Tahir’s. But first, I said, I had to go and see the girl I thought I loved. Remember what you said?”
“I don’t—“
“Nina. You said Nina. Only how did you know about Nina?”
“You must have mentioned her.”
“Maybe, but not in the context of dating her. I never associated her name with my breakup. Not once. You didn’t know through me, did you, Owen?”
He said nothing.
“Except, you’re not Owen, are you?” James continued. “He’s a fine construct, is he based on anyone?”
Still, Owen said nothing.
“Only criticism, and it is minor, because I never did realise—is that Owen and Ollie are quite close. Both begin with an O. Did you consider other names. Phillip maybe, or something out there—like Button. I went to school with a Button. Was a girl though so maybe not.”
Owen was breathing more heavily. His face didn’t change, and also it did. There was something there now. Sick anticipation. He was excited.
“I heard murder was like Pringles. Once you’ve popped you just can’t stop. I’ve never found it to be like that. Might have been different for you. You certainly seemed to enjoy yourself with Mel—or should that be me? How many stabs was it before you realised you’d got the wrong person?”
For a second James though Owen/ Ollie wasn’t going to answer, then he shrugged.
“Three or four, at a guess. Obviously, if I’d have realised I would have left her to it.”
James closed his eyes and sighed.
“There are so few motives, right? It could have been Davis because money is a powerful motivator, but so is jealousy, and love, right?”
“You think so?”
“I do. You never could forgive him, could you? You were in love in university, but she was cheating on you, and Harris knew, and he never told you. Did you know at the time how involved he was? I’m guessing not. Otherwise, you would have acted sooner. But when Michael was killed, Harris started reassessing his previous actions. I guess they were working together to blackmail Davis and he felt guilty that his friend was dead and he wasn’t. It made him remember the last time he was involved in blackmail. Made him feel guilty for what he had done to Andros and you, so he comes to apologise. Andros is baffled but accepts it but you, you couldn’t, could you? Couldn’t take his sorry and move on.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he whispered.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“Because you don’t get true love. The kind that suffocates. The kind that sucks you in and refuses to let go. From the second I walked into that room, my world was torn to pieces. Every second after my heart ached, my lungs were restricted. Life was hardly worth living and I only just held on.”
“That’s a healthy attitude,” James said, “You should hold on to that feeling.”
Owen chuckled and now did step forward. James held his ground and tried not to notice that Ollie had a hand behind his back. He tried not to think of how Tahir and Harris and Mel had died.
“You don’t want to mock me.”
“Oh, but I do, because it’s pathetic. Because you lost the girl you loved, but you could never find a way to let go. So when Harris came and opened up, you pretended you understood, but you didn’t, do you? He told you how he was blackmailing Davis, and he told you how he’d accidentally acquired a tape of the girl he fancied having sex with his father, and how he’d used that tape to keep her around. He poured his soul out to you, and he apologised, and you pretended you got it. But you didn’t.
“Not didn’t,” Ollie said. “Couldn’t. There was no choice. He destroyed my world. Took from me the only girl I had ever loved. I had to make him pay.”
“She was cheating on you,” James roared. “Harris or no Harris, she didn’t want you.”
“An older man took advantage of her,” he screamed. “If Harris had come to me I would have handled it better. I would have saved her from Andros. Because he kept it to himself, I walked in on them, and I lost my temper. I reacted like an idiot, and it was that what drove us apart. That ruined everything.”
Ollie was getting so worked up he was practically frothing at the mouth, but James was still trying to puzzle it out, and fighting to stay calm while it did.
“So what happened?” he said. “You found out about the Megan tape, and used it to your advantage? Blackmailed her into getting Harris into the right place at the right time so you could kill him?”
Ollie didn’t respond, he was swaying a little with his madness, a smile flickering on his lips like a light bulb on its last legs.
“Makes sense,” James said. “But why Tahir? I guessed it was to put someone else in the frame, but it only put you at greater risk having him there, didn’t it? Meant you had to come and kill him at the fair because you were worried he saw something. And Megan would have been suspect enough. No—you wanted Tahir there for a reason, didn’t you? He was important.”
Ollie’s arms were shaking, the left looking as though he was gripping whatever he had behind his back tight enough to break it. James was not sure how much longer he had, but he had to push. There was no button which would stop him.
“Who was the girl you loved, Ollie?” Still working it out. “You said she was the only girl you ever loved and it was her all through, wasn’t it? The same girl you and Harris fought over in secondary school was the girl who was sleeping with Andros in university. Harris didn’t catch Andros sleeping with a student—the student told him. That’s what made it hurt even worse, wasn’t it?”
“He never loved her,” Ollie whispered. “Not like I did. He didn’t understand her. Wouldn’t accept her as she was. He wanted to change her, but I loved her for her.”
There were tears in the mad killer’s eyes now. He was shaking even worse.
“Except it wasn’t just Harris she picked over you, was it, Ollie?” he said. “In university there was Andros, and later on there was Tahir. She was sleeping with him, wasn’t she? She was the one having the affair. That was why Tahir had to go. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Still no answer, but tears were rolling down Ollie’s cheeks.
“She knew I would do anything for her,” he whispered. “Anything.”
And she had slept with Tahir, which meant she had wanted the tape stolen from Harris which meant—
“It was Mel?”
Ollie look down, and James gave a long breath of understanding. “You were paranoid about her. Tahir, Harris, Andros, she’d proven she couldn’t be trusted. That there would always be other men. You dealt with Harris and Tahir was on your list, but you were following her. You saw us together at the cafe, and you began to panic so—“ thinking, thinking, click—“You planned to kill me the night I was kidnapped. You asked me about love in the bar, and later you followed me. I guess you didn’t plan to hit me with your car. Must have caused panic but you could have done it then. Why not? Did someone come?”
Ollie nodded.
“They saw you, so you called an ambulance. Then when you drove me home, we spoke again about love, and you found out it wasn’t Mel I loved, but Megan.”
“See,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t kill because I enjoy it. Tahir and Harris had to go, but I liked you. So when you said you weren’t in love with Mel, I let you go.”
“For a while—“ James pointed at his door. “Have a change of heart, did you?”
“Not me. I’m not the one who broke my word. You were supposed to love Megan, so why didn’t you leave with her? You kept pushing and pushing and pushing until—�
��
“It stopped being about her,” James interjected. “You were trying to protect yourself.”
“Everything I do, I do it for her.”
“Did it for her,” James corrected. “You came here to kill me and not only did you inadvertently save my life but in doing so, you killed the girl this was all for. That has to be irony.”
“Shut up,” Ollie hissed.
“No, I won’t, but you should take heed from this. Listen. It’s okay because you’ve thrown your life away over some obsession, but it’s never been about her.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course I do, it’s clear as day. Because I’ve seen the lengths people will go to take control of people they think they love. Like you, running through town slicing up every guy who comes in between you two, and how fucked up is that? But how did you think this would end? Did you think she would find out what you’ve done and fall into your arms? Because she wouldn’t have. She didn’t want you. She never wanted you so it’s lucky she’s dead because now you’ll never have to face her. Never have to accept the truth that you threw away your life for a girl who never gave a shit about you.”
The anger broke, and Ollie came forward. James didn’t move, allowing Ollie to grab him by the throat and slam him against the wall.
“Have you heard the expression, if you love someone, let them go?”
“She didn’t want letting go. You don’t understand her. She pretends to be strong, but she isn’t. She needs to be loved. She needs to be protected.”
“Maybe,” James said, “but it’s too late now.”
The knife came up, its’ glistening point aimed at James’ forehead. Still, he did not react.
“I’m trying to help you, Ollie. Your mother is worried about you. She missed her boy. Why not go to her?”
“I will,” Ollie said, “once this is done.”
James shook his head.
“Please don’t do this. Please show me you’ve only ever acted out of passion. Show me you can think things through and realise what you are doing is wrong.”
