‘Hello.’
‘Gina, I’m going to need your help. I did something terrible, years ago, and it’s coming back for me. You have to?—’
The call ended. Whatever Briggs had been pulled off the case for, it was bigger than him just knowing the victim. She stared at her phone as Jacob waved to her from the other side of the car park.You have to – what?What did he need her to do? Briggs had compromised himself to save her in the past. Could she do the same for him?
ELEVEN
HOMELESS MAN
Certain things happen in life that play on your mind. I remember the things I said to my wife, just before she threw me out. I told her she was a controlling bitch. My sharp outbursts didn’t end there. I told my nephew what a talentless twit he was when he showed me his music performances that he’d uploaded to YouTube. Not to mention how I fell onto Aunt Alice’s main table at her seventieth birthday party, bringing the whole four-tiered cake crashing to the floor.
I’ve had a long time to think about all my wrongs and bad behaviours in this godforsaken damp warehouse. Yes, I was wrong. My wife wasn’t controlling. My nephew wasn’t talentless – he’s an amazing young man and I know he’ll go far in life, but here, in my heart, I know I took his shine away and that’s why I’ll never go home. My wife, my nephew and Aunt Alice all deserve better than me. The pain of my past isn’t a good enough excuse for all the times I was an absolute arsehole. That is why I’m sitting here watching a rat scurrying across an abandoned warehouse floor.
I hear the sloshing of water downstairs. It must be raining. I didn’t think it was raining. I throw the empty white rum bottle to one side. White rum – what the hell have I become? It was allI could pilfer from the corner shop. I don’t even enjoy the stuff so it shows how sick I am. My wife used to love a white rum and Coke.
I shiver as I remember why I am this way. Sometimes a person does something so bad that there is no redemption. If they never get punished, they start punishing themselves. That’s where I am. I am the deliverer of punishments to me, and I intend to make myself suffer until I die.
After staggering towards my filing drawers, something the previous occupants of the building must have deemed worthless enough to leave behind, I pull out the letters that I’ve written. If I die, maybe someone will read them. I’d speak to people but they find me scary.
I’ve often caught my reflection in restaurant windows just as I’m about to bin-dive and I’ve also seen my manic features become subdued when I’ve shot up in the town centre loos. The pains and bloating in my stomach, and the yellowing of my skin and eyes tell me my liver is done for, but I will not see a doctor. I don’t want my wife, my nephew or Aunt Alice to ever know what became of me.
My eyes water up a lot but I never cry. I remind myself that I don’t deserve pity, not even my own. I am exactly where I should be.
As I slide the cabinet open, I see that my letters are still safe. One day, when I don’t wake up, my wife, nephew and Aunt Alice will know I’m sorry for everything I put them through.
I squint before glancing along the long building, vacuous areas now only separated by occasional pillars. The wall at the far end has a missing window, one of the only windows where the board has been smashed rendering the building open to the elements and I can’t see rain. The window was like that when I got here. There is another broken board downstairs which I smashed in to get access.
I shouldn’t have come back to where it all started; I’m just torturing myself. If I look through that window, I will see the building and I can almost pinpoint the room behind the brick façade that looks like it’s shouting at me, telling me that it knows what I did. It knows what we did, or what we omitted to do. I talk to one of the others from my past, now and again, but it’s getting rarer. He doesn’t want to know and once a year seems a struggle for him. We share this burden though and I have something else I need to share with him, and soon.
Three days ago, I thought I saw you, but you’re dead. I recognised what I could see of your nose, your eyes and your build as you stared at me. You were far away, a flash of a person in the distance, there one minute gone the next, half shrouded in a cap. Are you a ghost? Have you come back to haunt me or us? If you have, it’s working. You won. Were you merely wearing a mask with his photo printed on it or was I seeing things? My memory and perception of surroundings isn’t exactly reliable.
Another thing that confuses me is that it’s definitely not raining, so why is there a whooshing sound downstairs? Maybe I left the tap on.
I reach the concrete stairs. If I make it down them, I’m going to stay down there. As I take a few steps, I lose my footing and slip down several until I manage to get hold of myself. It’s safer to descend the rest of them while shuffling on my bottom. Eventually I’m there so I stagger towards the whooshing with my hands held out to catch a potential fall. It always amazes me how much effort I put in to stay alive when I don’t even care about being alive. I don’t like pain. If I die, I just want to fall asleep and slip away.
As I nudge the door open to reveal the room at the end, I hear a voice that sends chills through me, but I can’t see anyone. The room is pitch-black but my gaze catches a green glow at the one end. ‘Who’s there?’ I step in and the door slams.
Heavy footsteps walk clunkily towards me. I go to turn back – to run through the door but my legs are like jelly and the darkness has made me even less steady on my feet. I’m totally disorientated. With my hands held out, I try to feel for a wall, or even the door I came through, but finding it is impossible.
The green glow comes closer and someone slaps me. I feel like I’m being attacked by bats and they keep coming back. That’s when my legs are pulled from beneath me and my upper body crashes to the stone floor. He, she, whoever – they’re dragging me. I go to yell but I can’t catch my breath, then something hard cracks against my face and nose, rendering me still. The alcohol still courses through me but I feel pain like never before. So much for alcohol numbing everything. I’m being hoisted up and my ankles are stuck together. Blood rushes to my head as I’m dangling on the end of a rope in a dark room?
Something is being wheeled underneath me, then whoosh. I hit the water and the only way is down. My lungs feel like they’re bursting. I need to get out. I wriggle and squirm, but it’s no good. My strength is all but gone. I’m sorry, is all I can think in my head as my last thoughts go to my wife, my nephew and Aunt Alice. I really did love you all but the ghosts of my past eventually came for me and now I must go.
TWELVE
JUSTINE
‘You know what, whoever sent that message is probably just jealous of your lovely life, hun. Don’t let them get you down.’ Pia passed Justine a steaming cup of chamomile tea. ‘Drink that. It’ll make you feel better and you’ll probably sleep well when you get home. Who needs nasties like sleeping tablets when nature provides?’
Justine wiped her red-raw nose and spotted Pia checking the time on her phone. ‘I don’t know if someone would do that. I don’t think I’ve upset anyone. It’s him. I don’t trust him.’
‘Look, people do horrible things all the time. I was reading this thing on Facebook earlier – anonymous, obviously.’
‘Or made up?’ Justine raised her brows.
‘Maybe but the point is still there. It could happen. This person, made up or real, was asking if they were in the wrong as they were sending similar messages to a woman they hated, just to upset her and come between the woman and her husband. Have you upset anyone lately? Think hard. It could be something and nothing. You know how stupidly tetchy people get over nothing.’
‘No, I don’t think so. I argued with the woman living at number five because she took my bin instead of hers again, andshe always throws things in it without bagging first. I think she does it on purpose so that she doesn’t have to clean hers and we get ours cleaned every month.’ Justine frowned at the absurdity of what Pia was suggesting. ‘I don’t think she’d send me that message.’
