Either Side of Midnight : A Novel (2020)

by Stevenson, Benjamin

  Maurice was counting out on his fingers.

  ‘Don’t back out on me now.’

  Jack realised he was reciting Sam’s final text messages to Lily. He knew them by heart.

  Maurice spread his hands. ‘Sound like a stupid teenager to you?’

  He had come too close. Dropped his guard. Jack made to headbutt him, but Maurice stepped back half a step and swept Jack’s legs out with a kick. Jack fell again, the rope hitting him like a punch to the throat. Jack spun on the rope, sideways now. Felt hands on him again. Upright. Dusting his shoulders.

  ‘He knew what he was doing, but he didn’t understand it,’ Jack croaked. ‘But you do. You tried to kill him five years ago.’

  ‘That was inelegant,’ Maurice said. ‘I hadn’t planned it well enough. He was trying his best to do it himself, anyway, and just needed that little extra nudge. But I almost got caught. And you’re right, that would have been distasteful. Luckily, everyone thinks I’m unbalanced enough that I was going to use the drugs on myself.’

  ‘That’s why you calmed down. Everyone thought you were better, that you had finally dealt with your grief and moved on. You hadn’t. You were just planning something else.’

  ‘I’m actually glad I didn’t kill him the first time. It would have been too easy for him. It was missing that crucial element: I wanted him to feel what she felt. And, oh, I know everything there is to know about what she felt. What’s about to happen to you – that’s almost what I had in store for him. I had this planned out too. I know Ryan showed you my sketches. Because Lily died on her own, in her room, and no one noticed. So I wanted everyone to see this. I want people, fifty years from now, to google Sam Midford and see the awful thing he did and the man he was. A quiet death from pills, that would be too much of a rockstar death. I wanted people to hate him for what he did. So, something public. Something awful. Like I said, I had this thing all planned.’ He gestured at the park. ‘But I don’t sleep well, you see, and I recognised the lady from that awful late-night gambling show in one of those rising star articles. And, well, shit – turns out she’s Sam’s producer. It was a leap of faith that no one hosting those shows is where they want to be in life, but a good one.’

  ‘You pretended to be Tom Dwyer.’

  Maurice was almost delighted by the deception. ‘I had this idea that if I could get to him at the studio, I could do something there. But Beth was a sieve, and once I saw the opportunity . . . I couldn’t shake it. It felt right. Like justice. And then all I had to do was get her to send me scripts. I kept tipping off Channel 12 anonymously so she’d see results, feel like it was getting through. She wanted to be in Sam’s chair so much, she was only too happy to help. I had shooting schedules, episodes, staff contacts.’

  ‘The autocue operator?’

  ‘If drugs can make people better, they can make people sick.’ He shrugged. ‘I know a guy on opiates when I see one – I’ve treated enough of them. An ambo’s a junkie’s best friend, so he took kindly to me. No trouble giving him something to take him off the board when the time came. Then I just had to learn the cueing app. Even an old man like me can scroll an iPad.’

  What had Beth told him about the operator? Bit too much of this, bit too much of that. Similar to how Harry had spoken about Sam: Wrong Pills. Wrong beer. Both drugged. ‘And Dennis Slater?’ Jack probed.

  ‘He’s a pig,’ Maurice said. ‘He worked here at the carnival with Lily. That was why she and Sam broke up. Because she went off with Dennis. They say “hooked up”. And, oh man, you don’t date a carnie kid here. That’s bad press, doesn’t matter who you are. She was bullied at school for it. Sam was the worst, the things he said to her in those messages. The things Sam shared with his classmates – things she sent him.’ Maurice fought back tears. Hatred or sadness, Jack couldn’t tell. ‘She was only thirteen, Jack. Boys, what they wanted from her. By the time I got a hold of the photos it was too late to take them to the police. They all thought I was tin-foil-hat certified.’

  ‘That’s why you had to get rid of Dennis. If the police identified Lily, you were worried they might find their way down here to ask questions, and Dennis was someone who could connect the dots?’

  ‘He deserved it. She was a notch on his belt. He pulled the pin out of the grenade, tossed it to Sam, and walked away.’

  ‘You always planned to kill him? He didn’t do anything. Sam shared the photos. Did the damage. That seems . . . inelegant.’ Jack used Maurice’s own word back at him. He recalled something else Maurice had said, in Lily’s bedroom: And part of me does want you to know. Hell, you make podcasts – maybe the world should know. Maybe it will help someone else. ‘You said you wanted to make a statement by doing this on television, and maybe that was the plan at first. The photos were triggers for Sam – it was your way of haunting him, right? But they were also part of the story. Until they started getting looked at too closely, and then you had to make something tidy. And yet, you do all this, you make this statement, and now you hide? You even realised you were telling us too much. You told us to look for someone with a facial scar, even though you knew why her fingernail had come off. You used her photos to incriminate an innocent man. You’re not doing this for your daughter.’

  ‘He deserved it. If they hadn’t . . . If he wasn’t . . .’ Maurice set his jaw. ‘Everything I’ve done is for her.’

  ‘You’re working pretty hard to cover your tracks for someone who doesn’t mind getting caught. Dennis was a chance to close the loop. I’m another one. He wasn’t important enough to die, but you’ve fabricated a reason so you can make peace with what you needed to do for you. If this was really about her, if this was about Sam paying for the awful things he did, Dennis Slater wouldn’t be dead, and I wouldn’t be strung up.’ Jack thought he felt some small give in the rope on his wrist. Thin wrists were good for something. Maybe he imagined it. He kept working his hands around the rope. ‘You can let me go.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Maurice said, after a few seconds of calmly watching Jack twitch against the rope. Jack hoped he was taking stock of the situation, seeing what he’d really done, and that maybe he’d find mercy. But his tone was measured, calm. Not regretful, but accepting of where he was and what he was doing. ‘I wasn’t expecting to walk out of that TV studio – all I had was a stupid coat and hat on – but I was ready to pay that price to share her story. To make it right. But then it was chaos, and no one stopped me leaving. And the photos – I needed to probe his memories. I wanted him face to face with the worst of what he’d done. And then afterwards, they spun against Sam in a way I couldn’t have predicted. I wasn’t expecting to come home, but I did. And my family – it felt whole. I meant what I told you about living with the best pieces of her, and I like where I am now. But then Ryan had to go and get you involved. More attention down here, which I wasn’t happy with. So I saw the chance to wrap things up cleanly with Slater.’

  ‘We all bought it, too. The same sets of photos in both murders—’

  ‘Don’t use that word,’ Maurice said flatly. ‘If Lily doesn’t deserve it, they don’t either.’

  ‘Both crime scenes, then. They read like you wanted them to: that Dennis had made the images, sold them to Sam. A closed loop. You radioed Waldren. But only after you’d threatened Dennis, told him you were coming for him, to get him agitated enough to arm himself. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that you’re very convincing. He sees the red and blue lights, and thinks it’s your shadow in the parking lot. Signs his own fate by firing through the door. Suicide by cop.’

  ‘I gave him fair warning.’ Maurice smiled. ‘Cowards like him will always try and shoot you in the back, I figured, and I figured correctly. I also figured carnies are packing, but, shit, I didn’t know he had a shotgun. A bit of luck. Waldren saw what I wanted him to see and took care of it for me. I told you, Jack, I’ve spent thirteen years researching all kinds of suicides. I hated using her photos like that, but that was supposed to be the last time, enough to
send you home.’

  ‘Tell me how you coerced Sam. I need to know what words you used. You pretended to be Lily? For Sam to believe that, you must have been pushing him a long time.’

  ‘Sam’s conscience did all the work for me.’

  ‘Not really,’ Jack said, remembering how Celia described Sam’s pills: the stuff that doesn’t work, obviously. ‘When you visited Sam, to pretend you were forgiving him, I suppose – Celia told me about the visit – you swapped his medication. Those sugar pills you have. You wanted to be sure he’d be susceptible.’

  Maurice gave a smile at that. ‘Okay, sure. I did. You know, Sam invited me there. He was doing some awful twelve-steps thing. And this one must have been confessing to those you’ve hurt or some bullshit. Same reason he wrote that letter, I reckon. And you know what he said? He said that he’d been mad at Lily for seeing someone else. That’s it! Mad. And he said that when they were messaging, and she was upset, and he was mad – that damn word again – he felt like she would do anything for him. So he asked her to. You know what he said? “Just to see if I could.”’ His face had turned into a snarl. ‘I was already planning to kill him, but that pushed it over the line for me. Lily was a teenage girl. He’s a grown man. The meds were to even the playing field. I know Sam’s medical history – prone to psychosis, depression, mood swings. So I swapped the pills when I used the bathroom.’

  ‘And you kept reminding him, didn’t you? Putting Lily in his thoughts. A few telephone calls.’ Celia: Only a few numbers I didn’t know, telemarketers. On the prompter: SOMETIMES I THINK IT’S HER WHO CALLS. ‘And you left Lily’s ring in the dressing room, right?’ Someone had seen it, which was why the whole set was buzzing about the proposal that day. But it wasn’t an engagement ring, it was Lily’s. The ring Sam had given her as a lovestruck teenager. I THINK SHE’S BEEN HERE. SHE GAVE IT BACK. ‘That’s what the photos were for. You were in his head all right. But putting the gun in his mouth is another level. I’ve been thinking about what words you’d use to kill someone. To have them make that decision, and on national television. How could he do that to his family? There’s only one way I figure he would have done it for you, like that, in public. And that’s if he didn’t have a choice. If he didn’t do it to his family, but he was doing it for them.’

  ‘Harry’s getting his money’s worth,’ Maurice said slowly. Sniffed. ‘Okay. I had to be sure he’d do it. The decision had to happen in the forty-two minutes he was on. So he needed some more pressure.’

  ‘You threatened them.’ Jack had already surmised. ‘His family.’

  ‘I told him it was him or them. Or, Lily told him, to be exact.’

  ‘That’s not a choice.’ Jack said. ‘You wanted to prove you could talk someone into killing themselves, but you didn’t give him a choice. That’s like putting a gun to someone’s head and having them shoot someone else. You’re not pulling the trigger, but you haven’t proved shit. You cheated. That’s what makes you a murderer.’

  ‘I asked you not to call me that.’ Maurice gritted his teeth. Then he relaxed, looking up at the wheel. It seemed to calm him. ‘Well, what I’m about to do to you changes that, I suppose. But this is only because I have to, understand?’ He didn’t lower his gaze as he spoke, head still tilted skywards. ‘You know, in the old days they used to hang people differently. It was only later they invented the more humane drop-execution. They used to tie people to a horse, slap it, and let it run, dragging them until they strangled to death. None of this quick neck-breaking stuff you see in the movies. Like I said, I’ve had a lot of time to do my research. Lily’s neck didn’t break. Yours won’t either.’

  And then he was walking. Past Jack, who swivelled with the balance of the rope. Managed to turn. Stretching his back, there was less pressure on his neck and he took a few unrestricted breaths. Meanwhile, Maurice was unclipping a hip-height rope, letting himself into the operator booth. Jack recalled Harry telling him all the local emergency service workers kept keys to the rides since the incident.

  ‘You saw the sketches – my measurements.’ Jack remembered the hand-drawn diagrams of the Ferris wheel Ryan had shown him. Ryan had thought it was his dad’s research. Instead, Maurice had been designing a torture device. ‘This is what I first planned for Sam. Lily lost a fingernail, begging for relief, and I wanted him to feel that. To feel that fake victory of squeezing another breath, when really it’s already over. Until I found something better. But I’d always wanted to use it. You’re the guy who gets people killed for ratings, so I think it’s fitting. That’s your narrative: you come out here and kill your own brother, before sending yourself off like the attention-grabber you are. So everyone sees you.’

  ‘Stop, please.’

  ‘Set to top speed, this wheel takes one minute forty to go around. That’s probably a minute, minute twenty in the air, and the rest on the ground. Three minutes without oxygen is enough to give you brain damage. You’ll probably pass out well before that. You’ll want to stay awake if you can, because you’ll need to hit the ground with your feet in order to get your breath back. Either way, you won’t last nearly as long the second time because there’ll be less oxygen in your blood. If you make it round a third time, you’ll have even less. And that’s if you don’t fall. But you will. And once you miss that chance to get your breath back, then you’re in the air for nearly two minutes before you get a chance to take another one. I’ll leave it on until it drags your lifeless body through the dirt.’

  There was a burst of jangly music, masking the long slow groan of a machine waking up. Jack sucked in as large a breath as possible as the slack disappeared.

  Maurice was yelling over the noise. ‘Try to keep up.’

  CHAPTER 36

  Jack’s hope that he would be gently lifted into the air was quickly dispelled as the first jolt felt like it would tear his head clean off.

  He let out a tiny gasp of breath in surprise. Immediately clamped it off. That was a precious resource, he chastised, not to be wasted.

  Then he was in the air, the ground moving away, and it wasn’t like he was being lifted, lofty and high, it was like he was being pulled. As if strapped to the back of a horse. His feet paddled the air. Knock that off, Jack thought. He didn’t want to waste energy – and therefore air – struggling. He had to make it back around to the ground, and then he could reset, figure things out. The natural inertia of his suspension meant he started swinging. The rope bit in, sawed his neck – back and forth, getting wetter.

  He had no idea how long he’d been in the air. He’d had a vague idea to count seconds, but that had gone out the window the instant his feet lifted off the ground. He couldn’t look down, chin locked skywards; all he saw was blue.

  Something smacked him in the back. Cold, metallic. That must mean he was at least a third of the way around. If he was hanging straight down – he must have been tied to the bars of a carriage, and not underneath, if Maurice wanted him to complete the circle – then for him to hit the spokes, the cabin must have been above halfway, moving back towards the centre so Jack would swing back in and bounce against the frame. Was halfway too much to hope for? He couldn’t tell if he was going up or down, rope tight with gravity.

  He gagged, felt vomit dribble down his chin. Then the metal on his back was gone with a shirt-tearing scrape. This meant he’d swung back out. Two-thirds, Jack willed. Stars were bursting in his eyes, which felt as if they were ballooned with water. The sides of his vision were closing in, like looking through a tunnel.

  His left foot hit the ground first. A jarring surprise that drove his shin up into his kneecap, which slid uncomfortably. Something wrong there. Didn’t matter. Eyes open. Ambulance further away now. Police tape flapping. Maurice was standing in the control booth, watching on gleefully.

  ‘One!’ he yelled, holding up a finger.

  CHAPTER 37

  Jack felt the rope tickle his neck as it went limp on his shoulders. He gulped in huge sucks of air and risked a look at th
e carriages. His rope was trailing towards a bright pink one, which was still going down. Soon it would be at his level. And then it would go sideways, and then up. Jack briefly considered that if he could grab on to a carriage he might be able to complete a lap with less pressure on his neck. But his hands were tied. He couldn’t grab a carriage. What if he got on one?

  The thought was interrupted as the rope thrummed tight. Jack winced as he limped after it. It wasn’t going quickly, but it was constant, which meant that even if Jack could outrun the rope, every time he stumbled it pegged back any ground he’d made. He got ahead of it. Stood under the rising carriages. Took a breath, braced himself.

  Lift off.

  By halfway up the second time, he was losing consciousness. His neck was chafed, slick with blood. He was blinking in huge black spots. His tongue felt foreign, blown up and shoved back in his mouth. The black spots were getting longer now. Maybe it’d be easiest to just slip into this sleep?

  Then the ground punched both of his feet again.

  He wasn’t ready for it. Spilled onto his front, scrambled to his knees. Used a few precious seconds to catch his breath as the cabin descended. He heard Maurice yell ‘Two!’ When he got his senses back, the cabin was in front of him. Moving away. The rope started to lift off the dirt.

  Get on it.

  He rushed on all fours. Tried to stand, but the millisecond he sacrificed doing so meant the rope went taut and knocked him back down. This time it spun him on his back. His heels skittered in the dirt, peddling against the movement. Lost a shoe. The rope pressed on his throat but didn’t choke just yet.

  Keep up.

  Jack’s brain screamed. And then the rope started to go up. Gently tilting his head up, like his father’s finger levering his chin. Jack grappled it. Felt it pull, dragging him the last metre, and then his body hoisted, dust-covered and skinned. His feet lifted off the ground again.