Witnesses Page 9

  * * *

  “Get away from here!” The voice from within was shrill, the words shrieked in a wobbling falsetto. “Get away!”

  Chris pounded on the door again, anger lending strength to his arm. The door rattled in its frame under his onslaught. If he hammered any harder the wood was likely to split. “Open up! Open this door right now or I swear to God I’ll kick it down!”

  “Leave me alone! Go away!”

  Chris did kick the door. Taking a step back he launched the sole of his boot against the base of the door. Wood splintered as his foot slammed into it, a crack running vertically either side of the point of impact. A scream came from inside the house.

  “Stop it! Stop it! I’ll open the goddamned door, just stop kicking it!”

  Chris stepped back once more, heard shuffling footsteps approaching the door, and then the sounds of locks clicking, chains being withdrawn. The door opened and Dilly’s mother stared at him with unconcealed hostility. “What the God-damn do you want?”

  Her bleary, red eyes gave Chris an indication of her state of sobriety even before he smelt the alcohol on her breath. “Where’s Dilly?” he asked. “What have you done with her?”

  The expression of anger on the woman’s face relaxed into a contented smirk. “Well now, wouldn’t you like to know…”

  Chris lunged for her, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her back into the hallway. She shrieked, but the sound was stifled as Chris placed his hand over her mouth. Once inside the house he kicked the door shut behind him, slamming it back into the frame.

  Dilly’s mother struggled in his arms as he frog-marched her into the lounge, saliva dampened the palm of his hand as she continued her muffled protestations. Once in the room, he threw her heavily onto the chaise-longue, and stood towering over her, fists clenched at his side.

  “Tell me.” His voice was calm, but carried a definite tone of menace. “Where is Dilly? What have you done with her?”

  “It’s none of your goddamned business!” She shouted the words at him but the aggression was not mirrored in her eyes, which instead still displayed the fear she was feeling at this intrusion, this man forcing his way into her house, this man who was threatening her. “She’s my daughter, my responsibility. It’s of no concern to you what goes on here!”

  Chris dipped his shoulders quickly, the gesture eliciting another scream from the woman, who raised her hands to ward off a potential blow. “She’s my girl,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “I have a right to know.”

  She lowered her hands and a smile crept over her lips. “Do you love her?” The tone of sarcasm she had managed to inject into such a small word was impressive. “Is she your sweetheart?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you, all right. She’s not capable of love, that one, that’s what I’ll tell you! How’d you like that? She’s not right, not right in the head!” She was warming to it now, the words flowing from her, dripping their venom all over the Persian carpet. “She doesn’t know what love is, so don’t go congratulating yourself on anything, don’t you go thinking that you have a relationship with Dilly. She’s just not capable of anything like that.”

  “Why you—”

  “Don’t you threaten me anymore, you little bastard! I know my own daughter, far better than you ever will. She probably told you how it was she was looking after me all this time. Well,” she chuckled but the sound had no humour in it, “let me tell you, it was the other way around. It was me that was looking after her, on account of how she has no idea how to live in the real world!”

  “Ma’am, you are so full of shit.”

  She laughed, a hideous cackling sound. “Yeah, you and me both. What the hell’s a feller like you doing with someone like her? You, you could have any girl you wanted, what with your fancy car and your looks. Hell, I was twenty years younger I’d have a piece of you myself!” She cackled again, Chris clenched his fists. “What are you after, boy? You want information from me, you tell me what it is about my daughter that’s got you so interested in her. Talk about Beauty and the Beast – in case you don’t know, it’s you’s supposed to be the Beast!”

  And then Chris did hit her, a punch to the face that sent her crashing back onto the chaise. When she recovered, sitting back up, tears spilled from her bloodshot eyes, tears of shock as well as pain. “You little bastard…” she hissed the words at him, “hitting a woman, a defenceless – sick – woman. Just what kind of man are you?”

  And he almost told her, almost let her know exactly what kind of man he was. The Beast? Ha! If she only knew. He decided not to, though. There was still a chance he wouldn’t actually kill her after he was done here. A small chance, but a chance nonetheless. Instead, he asked once more. “Where’s Dilly?”

  She wiped the tears from her face, sniffed loudly. When she spoke, her voice was calm and measured. “Where she belongs. Where she should have been long years since. Things like her shouldn’t be wandering round with normal people. She’s always been strange, different, God knows how I’ve put up with her for so long, God knows how I managed to produce something like that. I can’t believe she’s my own kin. Just lately, though – since she met you – it’s been getting worse. Seeing dead people? Pah! It’s just the madness that’s always been there coming to the fore.”

  “You’re rambling and I ain’t got time to listen to this.”

  “Oh, you’ll listen to me! Looking in your eyes I got me a feeling I’m not long for this world. If these are gonna be my last words I’m gonna make sure they’re good ‘uns. You need to know some home truths, feller, before you climb up on your white horse and go rescuing your damsel in distress. Whatever you see in that girl, you got it wrong. I just think you ought to know, wouldn’t want you getting carried away by some romantic notions—”

  “I ain’t taking lectures from a drunk. Now you tell me where she’s gone or I’ll be forced into doing some more persuading.” Chris raised a clenched fist, leant forward to emphasise the act.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. Much good it’ll do you. She’s gone to Lynchburg. My beautiful daughter, the woman you so obviously love, is now in the care of the Virginia State Epileptic Colony – or whatever it is they’re calling it these days. That’s where they send the feeble-minded and, Lord alone knows, the girl ticks that box.”

  Chris slowly lowered his arm. “You sent your own daughter to an asylum?”

  She didn’t answer, simply averted her eyes from him, dipping her head as if hearing the words spoken aloud had finally made her realise what she had done. Nothing to be proud of there.

  “You can’t just—”

  “Oh yes I can. And I did! I signed the papers, it’s all legal and above board. I’m her legal guardian, I get to make decisions about her, not you, not anyone, me – just me. Dilly’s not right in the head. She could be a danger to herself and to me. I’m not well, I couldn’t have her here in that, that… state!”

  “The state you drove her to, you old bitch! That girl gave up her life to look after you and this is what happens, this is how you repay her…”

  Again, no reply was forthcoming, Dilly’s mother slipped into a sullen silence. Exasperated, Chris turned away from her, walked over to the window. Hands on hips, he stared out through the net curtains.

  Dilly’s mother rearranged her dress, ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it. Already the side of her face was beginning to swell where Chris had hit her. “What you thinking on, Mister?” she finally said. “Wondering whether or not to hit me again?”

  Slowly, Chris turned to face her. She was unable to see him clearly, silhouetted as he was against the window. “No,” he replied, taking a step towards her, “but you’re close. Truth is, I was deciding whether or not to kill you.”

  Dilly’s mother screamed once more.

  * * *

  The rising sun turns the sky a deep orange. You walk along the Esplanade, past the World War One Monument, the sun lending a wa
rmth to its cold, grey facade. The view from here is spectacular, looking out across the ocean to the island beyond. This morning, however, it is difficult to appreciate it.

  You spot an empty bench farther along the Esplanade, and make your way over to it. Once settled, you take a cigarette from your coat pocket and light up. You take a deep draw, relishing the heat and the sting of the smoke as it hits your throat.

  You lean back on the bench and close your eyes. You are out here this early to clear your mind. In the same way that the torrential rains have cleared the atmosphere, so you wish to empty your head of all the thoughts and images that are crowded into it. No easy task. Even your dreams are infected by them, infiltrated by scenes of death and destruction. It is a good night when you dream of the bridge. The feelings of contentment associated with your night-time journeys across that dusty landscape are a source of relief for you.

  Your dreams last night were of the shopping mall. The sensations of claustrophobia and panic they evoked in you were enough to wake you from your slumber, sweating, your heart pounding in your chest.

  You take another drag on your cigarette, blow the smoke out in a plume that hangs in the still air around you.

  You sigh, and settle back onto the bench. The distant roar of jet engines makes you glance upwards and you see the aeroplane, high above, moving slowly across the sky. The sunlight catches its metallic body and causes a flare that for all the world looks like an explosion. Despite the warmness and humidity, you feel an icy chill run through your body.

  You get up from the bench. An early start at work then. As you walk along the Esplanade, an old woman shuffles past you, bent over with arthritis. You squint in the bright sunlight, rub your eyes even to clear them. The old woman appears to be shimmering, her outline limned in what looks like the heat mirage that hangs over roads on a hot day. As she shuffles past, you see that it is not the woman herself who shimmers, rather something that seems to be clinging to her body. There appears to be colour within the haze surrounding her; the bright early morning sunshine makes it difficult to discern clearly, but it looks black. You rub your forehead. Too much work, too much stress. The woman shuffles on past, and you are filled with a sense of melancholy, though why this should be you do not know.

  * * *

  Dave awakened from dreams of aeroplanes crashing to the ground with a start. The imagery of his dream was intense enough to make him sit up in bed, to make him cry out in alarm. Heart pounding, the sound of his blood rushing audible, he felt the chill of the air in his bedroom against the sweat that covered his body.

  “Shit…” he managed to croak, and felt the wave of nausea spread up from his stomach. He took deep breaths, trying stop the inevitable, but the spinning sensation in his head hampered his efforts. He tried to focus on a stationary object but was unable to locate one, what with the room pitching and yawing around him the way it was.

  He swung his legs out of bed and stood up. He immediately collapsed back onto the bed as the room tipped up in front of him, throwing him backwards. Lying on the bed did nothing to stop the spinning of the room. He’d felt light-headed when he’d retired to bed. A not entirely unpleasant feeling, it had to be said, but what he was experiencing now was the evil twin of that sensation.

  Another wave threatened to crash through his body, but a deep breath broke it into small ripples. The sensations they created were far from pleasant, but the impulse to run to the bathroom had been abated. Dave took another deep breath, this one more of a sigh.

  “Oh Glenfiddich, how I hate thee…”

  He’d been pissed when he’d left the pub with Mickey, but that hadn’t stopped him unscrewing the lid of the single malt when he’d finally staggered home. Somehow, he’d managed to find the bedroom, get undressed and climb under the covers. Instinct, he thought, not for the first time, was a truly wonderful thing. Developed through millennia of evolution, but rooted deep in the reptile brain (the whisky had opened up his philosophical valves and the bullshit was starting to flow freely) – the same part of the brain that remembered life as an ape, sleeping in trees, the risk of falling from a branch ever-present, memories of such accidents haunting the subconscious, becoming dreams of falling, somehow getting tangled up with other shit lurking in the subconscious and becoming dreams of aeroplanes falling…

  Dave belched, grimaced at the acidic taste of old alcohol that filled his mouth. Christ, he thought, no wonder they use it to pickle things. He belched again, and this time the associated flavours forced the issue with respect to the trip to the bathroom. At the very least he needed a drink of water to wash his mouth out, to get rid of the foul taste that had taken up residence in there.

  Slowly, he sat up on the bed and pushed himself into a standing position. The merry-go-round was still revolving, but the ride appeared to be coming to an end; the movement of the room around him was gradually slowing to a halt.

  Reaching the door, he fumbled for the light switch then screwed his eyes shut as the room was illuminated. The light was a bare bulb hanging from a length of flex; there was nothing as sophisticated as a shade to reduce the glare. Dave groaned and pulled the bedroom door open. Light spilled from the bedroom to illuminate the upstairs passageway, cast shadows from the radiator and bookcase that stood at the top of the stairs. He shuffled along the threadbare carpet, shivering as the sweat further cooled on his body. Nausea danced a tango in his stomach, exacerbated by his movements and his bladder, thus far a silent partner in these proceedings, awakened suddenly, impressing its fullness upon his lower abdomen.

  The bathroom door was open and Dave staggered in, yanking on the pull cord for the light as he did so. The light blinked and flickered into life, throwing its harsh, white illumination over the small room. Dave blinked again, felt the stirrings of a headache behind his eyes. Fluid excretion took priority over fluid ingestion, and he scuttled to the toilet, quickly lifting the seat and wondering, yet again, why, as a man living on his own, he still persisted in putting the seat down. ‘Cos you were dragged up proper, he thought to himself as the stream arced out of him to splash into the water below, bringing with it an immense feeling of relief. Dave actually sighed.

  Job done, he flushed and turned to the sink. A quick splash of water to rinse his hands (dragged up proper, indeed) and then a quick, headache-exacerbating head-dip under the cold tap to rinse out his mouth. A few spits later, he drank deeply of the cold water, relishing the feel of it flowing down his oesophagus.

  He stood up, feeling decidedly more human than he had done when awakened from his dream of falling. The shock of the cold water had stirred sensations in his stomach, however, that threatened to spill over – possibly quite literally - into something else.

  He stepped back from the sink and turned to open the small wall-mounted medicine cabinet. The cabinet was mirrored, and as he reached to open it, he saw his reflection. Impossibly, he looked even worse than he felt: hair a tangled mess, deep, dark bags – the darkness accentuated by the deathly pallor of the face behind them - beneath bleary, reddened eyes, spots already erupting from a nose bearing a few too many ruptured blood vessels than would be deemed entirely healthy in a man of his age.

  “Shit,” he said, the word serving both as a demonstration of the emotions he was currently experiencing and an apt description of what he was seeing. So much meaning in such a short word.

  He pulled open the door of the cabinet, failed to catch the roll of adhesive plaster that fell out as he did so. He reached in and withdrew the battered cardboard box containing the Alka-Seltzer. Grabbing the small wooden knob on the mirrored door, he paused.

  This is where I see the reflection of the serial killer/monster standing behind me, he thought. Swing the door shut and there it is, preferably accompanied by a crashing major chord. He smiled at the thought. Nothing like putting the willies up yourself in the middle of the night, all alone in the house…

  And then, all of a sudden, it didn’t seem so funny. A feeling of real dread filled
him and he froze, unable to close the door of the cabinet. Fuck’s sake, pull yourself together. The pain in his head pulsed once, twice, reminding him it was there.

  He’s going to be there. Gary fucking Wallace is going to be there, standing behind me when I close this door. I’m going to see his reflection in the mirror and then…

  Tears filled his eyes. Real tears. He was crying because he was scared – but what exactly was he scared of? The ghost of a soldier who, for some reason, had decided to haunt him? Just analysing it, however, brought home to him how ridiculous he was being. Fresh resolve filled him. “Sod this for a game of…” The words tailed off even as he was speaking them, as he realised the irony of what he was saying, but provided the impetus for him to slam shut the cabinet door. The mirror swung back into view to reveal…

  His own pallid face staring back at him from an otherwise empty bathroom. His shoulders slumped as relief filled him. “You knob,” he told himself, out loud. “Stupid bastard…”

  He turned back to the sink and filled the small plastic cup he kept there just for occasions like this. He half filled it with cold water. He popped two tablets into it and watched them begin to fizz and dissolve. He wiped away the tears from his eyes, tears he now decided were a result of embarrassment, and his delicate condition, rather than actual fear. “Stupid bastard,” he repeated, just in case he hadn’t heard himself the first time. The tablets dissolved, and he swigged back the water in three large gulps.

  He replaced the cup on the edge of the sink, grimacing slightly when it fell off to clatter in the bowl. Leaving it there, he headed back to his bedroom, yanking the light cord rather too aggressively on his second attempt at grasping it.