Kathleen Muller almost laughed in disbelief, but the man
standing on her doorstep did not look as if he was joking.
His young face was etched with deep lines that ran up his
brow in pursuit of a receding hairline and his dull eyes
lacked the madman’s sparkle. He was holding a pleasant
enough smile, but it was straining as her pause stretched
into a full stop. No, she must have misheard. He couldn’t
have said that.
“Come again?” asked Kathleen.
“Good morning. My name is Thomas Locke. I am a private
detective and what I’m about to say may sound strange,
but it is absolutely true. I know your husband was taken
from you
recently. I was hired to return him home.” The stranger
triumphantly held up a toaster. “Reincarnation works
in mysterious ways.”
Kathleen shook her head. She hadn’t misheard. She
called back into the house.
“Leonard!”
A burly brute of a man appeared by her side. Kathleen put
an arm around his shoulder.
“Leonard, dear. Apparently you’ve died and come
back as a toaster.”
Leonard looked at his wife. He looked at the private detective.
Then he grabbed the toaster, dashed it to the ground and
came at Thomas Locke with fists raised.
***
“Hospital’s your best bet. To find the man who
can find your man, try the hospital,” said the tramp,
nodding as he considered the photo in his dirty hand. “Remember
the hurricane that hit a while back? Story goes that he
found the butterfly what started it.”
The picture was snatched from him by fingers sheathed in
a black silk glove and returned to a black leather handbag.
“The hospital you say?” queried the lady, the
contempt in her voice as barely concealed as the hard-on
in the tramp’s
trousers.
“Yep,” said the tramp, shrugging. “Sometimes
at the police station and sometimes, not often, he’s
there.”
Kirkfield Towers was a dirty grey tower block overlooking
the alleyway. The tramp pointed it out with a dirty finger
harbouring bits of woodlouse under the nail. The lady took
note of the landmark and began walking away. The tramp scampered
after her, his gaze fixated on the hypnotic swaying of the
pert, posh ass hidden beneath her tight, knee-length skirt.
“So what’s a little helpful advice worth, Miss?
A quid for a cup of tea? A tenner for dinner down the Nag’s
Head? Heh, maybe you got a little something else for a fella
who lives on the streets with only his right hand for company?”
The lady stopped and turned. The tramp’s dentally-challenged
grin dropped away and the hand he had buried beneath the
draw-string waistband of his trousers froze in mid-wank
as she pointed the gun at his head.
***
Thomas Locke lived on the fourteenth floor. There was a
sign on his door, a hand-written scrawl of black marker
on notepaper affixed with Sellotape: ‘The Office of
Lost and Found’.
She didn’t knock. She tried the door handle and when
it opened, stepped inside.
“Don’t give up on me, Leonard!” cried
an unseen voice. Little could be seen, the rancid light
seeping in
through tilted blinds hinted at stacks of boxes, but left
much in shadow. “Come on, Leonard, hang in there!”
The voice came from an adjoining room. The lady approached,
moving slowly, mindful of hidden dangers that might lurk
underfoot. She was unaware of movement behind her, the stacks
of boxes there one moment and then… there the next,
only different - slightly shorter or taller or an inch to
the right.
The visitor stepped into the doorway as a flash of electric
blue touched her surroundings. Thomas Locke was crouched
on the floor with his back to her, the focus of his attention
a battered toaster attached to a pair of jump leads.
Another spark and then Locke tossed the jump leads aside
in favour of a hammer. Two sharp clangs. A screwdriver hastily
tweaked this and that and Locke leaned back, his shoulders
tense, his breath held.
She watched. He waited.
Sproing!
The slice of toast popped up from the repaired appliance
and the lady jumped. Locke snatched it out of the air, all
the stress in his posture gone, but only for a moment. A
glance at the browned bread and his head whipped around
to face his visitor with a frown.
The lady smiled.
“Your secretary said I should come straight in,” she
said, putting aside her moment of surprise and raising a
lit cigarette to her lips.
“She should have said I was with a client,” replied
Locke.
“She must have guessed I could pay better than a toaster.”
Locke watched the smoke drifting up in front of her face.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
He got to his feet and pushed past her into the room of
boxes.
“I haven’t told you what I’m looking for.”
“You’re not looking for anything,” replied
Locke, rooting through cardboard containers at random. “You’re
looking to escape, to lose yourself. I can’t help
with that, but I can call my partner, he handles that side
of the business.”
Locke’s search amongst the boxes unearthed a mobile
phone and he lifted it to his ear.
“If you can help me find what I’m looking for
I don’t
need to go anywhere,” said the lady, handing over
a photograph. “My name is Veronica Drysdale and that
is my husband, Vincent. He went missing two nights ago.”
Veronica Drysdale sat back on the boxes behind her, crossing
her legs and letting the fingers of one hand linger around
the hem of her skirt. Locke glanced at the picture. It showed
a handsome man of middle-aged years with slick hair, parted
at the side and greying at the temples. He wore a confident
smile and a paisley cardigan.
“Sorry,” replied Locke, holding out the photograph, “I’m
already on a case.”
“If you find him, I can make it worth your while.”
“Mrs. Drysdale, I’m afraid I’m not in
a position…”
“Veronica, please. Just name your price, Mr. Locke.”
She lowered her head coquettishly, subtly pushing out her
breasts and uncrossing her legs.
“Thanks,” replied Locke, “but I’m
still paying alimony from my last one-night stand.”
The seductress instantly turned into a petulant schoolgirl
and snatched the mobile phone from his hand.
“Then I’ll speak to your partner.”
‘Lafarge’ was the name above the number on the
phone’s
display. Veronica’s thumb stabbed the ‘call’ button.
She looked up to offer a triumphant grin, but her grin dropped
and her eyes went wide as the detective dived toward her.
His eyes were equally wide and fixed on the phone, his hands
grabbing her wrist, his fingers prizing her fingers free.
The struggle was brief. Locke sighed relief as he stepped
away with the phone, cancelling the call in progress. The
name ‘Lafarge’ disappeared from the screen.
“I have to find my husband, Mr. Locke,” re-stated
Veronica. Her words were losing their composure, rushing
out, abandoning
their husky tone for panicked soprano, but the gun she now
held in her gloved hands was rocky-steady. “I have
to know he’s really gone.”
Locke didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look
at the gun. He just stared back at her in silence.
She pulled the trigger.
Blood burst from Locke’s arm, forcing him to drop
the phone. He didn’t cry out, he just grit his teeth
against the pain.
“As you can see, my aim isn’t so good. That’s
why he got away.”
Veronica pulled out another cigarette and squeezed it between
her blood red lips.
She inhaled an uneven breathe and then smoothly released
the smoke. Locke reached down with his good arm and awkwardly
began searching for the phone with his fingers. It lay next
to where he’d dropped the photograph. Mr. Drysdale
was still smiling.
“Maybe you should speak to my partner,” suggested
Locke.
“Find my husband, Mr. Locke, or your partner will
find himself working alone.”
***
The bullet wound in his midriff was a septic mess, but that
didn’t concern him. His gaze remained fixed on the
roof of the park-keeper’s hut, heedless of the two
policemen staring back down at him.
“I know this corpse,” said Inspector Brock. “He
sold me my life insurance.”
“An insurance salesman?” queried Sergeant Erroll.
His superior nodded. “Bang, motive. Bet you the wife
gets a big policy payout. Bingo, prime suspect. This detecting
lark is too easy sometimes.”
Inspector Brock gave him a contemptuous glance that went
unnoticed.
“This was a good and decent man, Sergeant. He knew
the value of safeguarding your future. You don’t have
life insurance do you, Sergeant?”
“No, sir. A dead man doesn’t need money.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the crackling of the
Sergeant’s radio.
“All units, incoming reports of shots fired at Kirkfield
Towers…”
***
Veronica Drysdale staggered through her front door and slammed
it shut behind her. She fell against the polished wood finish
breathing heavily, strands of hair freed from the morning’s
seventy pound sculpting session and now stuck to the sweat
on her cheeks. She held her breath and listened for sounds
of pursuit, but heard nothing beyond the blood rushing around
her skull. Why the memory should return then was anyone’s
guess; her husband, handsome and dapper in a sleek grey
suit, stepping through the front door and cheerily calling
out: “Honey, I’m home.”
Back then, Veronica ran down the stairs to fling her arms
around her man with girlish glee. Now she sneered at the
memory and tramped into the kitchen, flicking on the lights
to banish the intrusion of night into the house and intent
on banishing her past naivety with a dose of strong, black
coffee.
While Veronica waited for the kettle to boil, she set down
her handbag and removed her gloves. Her stare dropped into
the empty mug on the worktop. She tried to keep her mind
equally empty. It refused. Was it only a week ago, it asked,
when her husband interrupted her happy retrieval of washing
from the dryer with the proposition that they have sex on
the dining table after ‘Newsnight’? Had she
really smiled and said, “Certainly, Darling” in
reply?
All too aware the answer to both those questions was yes,
Veronica switched off the kettle and grabbed a whisky bottle
from the cupboard, filling the mug and taking a swig before
drawing on a hastily lit cigarette.
“Veronica, dear,” said her husband, after their
intense, post-Newsnight intercourse on the dining table, “your
post-coital charm lacks only for a cigarette between your
sweet lips.”
“Then I shall start smoking forthwith, dear,” Veronica
had replied.
The bitter memory dumped the cigarette into the mug of whisky.
Veronica slammed her hands against the worktop, trying to
stop the shaking that threatened to loose tears from her
eyes and sobs from her mouth.
The doorbell chimed.
“Mrs. Drysdale,” called a weary voice from outside, “this
is the police. We would like to talk to you about various
people you may have killed.”
With a single, determined sniff, Veronica got a grip on
her emotions and departed the kitchen, hurrying up the stairs
and into the bedroom.
“We know you’re in there, Mrs. Drysdale!”
Veronica pulled a large suitcase out of a wardrobe and hauled
it over to the window. A sturdy drainpipe ran down the outside,
but before could she could attempt escape, another policeman
strode into view in the garden below.
“Sir! I see her, sir!” he called out.
Pulling the window shut, Veronica hurried back onto the
landing, suitcase in tow.
Through the marbled glass around the front door she could
see the burly shape of the other policeman. He was joined
by his colleague. A brief conversation and they hurried
away, raising Veronica’s hopes until the unwelcome
sound of glass smashing reached her ears.
The adrenaline rushing through her system told her to run,
but her brain is demanded to know where - there was nowhere
left to go.
Veronica stood there, frozen by panic, bereft of options,
until a piece of paper born on an unfelt breeze drifted
past her feet and down the hallway, gliding along until
a gust swept it up and affixed it to the bathroom door.
***
Inspector Brock examined the discarded silk gloves on the
worktop. He picked up the handbag and emptied the contents.
A gun tumbled out alongside a set of car keys, a tube of
lipstick and a tampon.
“I’ll check upstairs,” said Sergeant Erroll,
hurrying through the kitchen behind him.
Inspector Brock nodded, lifting one of the gloves and savouring
the feel of the black fabric against his skin.
***
Veronica stared at the piece of paper stuck to the bathroom
door. It was the same notepaper, the same thick black marker,
but this was her bathroom, not ‘The Office of Lost
and Found’.
She turned the handle and pushed the door open.
Inside, the light was on. Thomas Locke sat on the toilet
with the jump-started toaster in his lap, a newspaper hiding
his modesty and a thick bandage around his head. In the
middle of his brow, blood stained the dressing where her
bullet had entered his skull.
He looked up.
“So, do you still want to find your husband?”
Sergeant Erroll took the stairs two steps at a time. He
hit the landing to see Veronica standing in the bathroom
doorway with her suitcase.
“Freeze!” he cried.
She cast him a disparaging look over her shoulder and then
stepped inside, slamming the door shut behind her.
***
Locke nodded as Veronica drove home the lock on the door.
“Yes, I should have done that.”
He philosophically tore off a couple of sheets of toilet
roll. Veronica jumped backwards and stumbled over her suitcase
as the policeman’s shoulder rammed into the other
side of the door. He only tried once, his footsteps then
hammering away along the landing.
***
Inspector Brock looked up at his colleague standing excitedly
at the top of the stairs.
“She’s up here. She’s locked herself in
the bathroom.”
Brock nodded calmly, pulling on one of Veronica’s
black silk gloves and slipping her gun into the covered
palm.
“Then she’s going nowhere.”
***
With his uninjured arm, Locke set down the paper and the
toaster and stood up with his trousers around his legs.
Veronica recoiled from the sight and then jumped at the
sound of a gunshot. It was not the first Veronica had heard
that day, but it was the first that she had not been responsible
for. It was a dull report followed by a series of dull thuds,
first from a body tumbling down stairs and then of heavy
boots climbing them.
Veronica pushed herself up against the side of the bath
and drew her knees to her chest as her hands clasped the
back of her head.
“I just wanted to be free of him.”
Yet she couldn’t stop the memories returning: Vincent
Drysdale in the shower, interrupting his tuneless singing
to call for his dear wife to come scrub his back.
And the footsteps drew nearer along the hallway, accompanied
by the deep, watery rumble of a toilet flush. When they
stopped, when the noise of the plumbing faded to minor gurgles,
when silence threatened to return and leave her with only
her husband’s foul melody, Veronica jumped to her
feet and threw open the cabinet above the sink. Her red
fingernails sought out a bottle of Paracetamol, but that
was thrown aside in favour of bleach, that was in turn discarded
in favour of razor blades.
“A bullet would be quicker,” remarked Locke,
who had pulled up his trousers and was now waiting to wash
his hands.
Veronica cast him a caustic glance before a gentle knocking
came at the door.
“I’m not here to kill you, Mrs. Drysdale,” reassured
the voice outside. “I’m here for a friend. Veronica,
he wants you back.”
The packet of razor blades tumbled from her hand into the
sink. Locke had to catch her as she fell, the colour suddenly
gone from her face. He set her down on the floor next to
the suitcase and tried to locate the sense behind her vacant
eyes.
“My partner’s waiting,” whispered Locke. “If
you never want to be found again, it’ll only take
one call.”
“He still loves you, Veronica,” called Inspector
Brock, “and
didn’t you love him too, once?”
Veronica began to shiver as the ghost from her past standing
in the bath behind her turned and accepted the wife she’d
once been into the shower with a knowing smile.
“You always come when I need you,” said Vincent
Drysdale.
“No,” whispered Veronica to herself, before
turning her desperate eyes on Locke.
“You say you can find my husband?”
Inspector Brock’s foot tapped impatiently on the floor.
The notepaper stuck to the door fluttered mockery. He tore
it off and threw it to the floor. This wasn’t getting
him anywhere. If she wouldn’t listen to reason, then
to Hell with reason.
Brock lifted the gun and aimed at where he reasoned the
door’s lock would be, but movement from within stayed
his hand. He pressed an ear up against the door and heard
the definite sound of a window opening.
***
Veronica awkwardly manhandled the suitcase out through
the bathroom’s small window. Locke held his mobile phone
to his ear and waited for it to ring. The name on the display
read ‘Lafarge’.
***
The ringing of a phone echoed around the kitchen. A hand
reached out and took Veronica’s car keys from the
worktop.
***
Inspector Brock started on hearing the thump of the suitcase
hitting the ground outside. His finger was tight around
the pistol’s trigger, ready to blast his way inside,
when his ears alerted him to the sound of a car engine turning
over.
Brock ran to the top of the stairs. The front door was open.
The engine revved louder. He rushed down the stairs, jumping
over Sergeant Erroll’s corpse at the bottom and dashed
outside.
Veronica’s car tore out of the driveway as Brock ran
into the front garden. Without breaking stride, the policeman
raced on, vaulting the sandstone wall demarcating the Drysdale
territory and over to his own car, parked at the side of
the street.
Veronica reached the front door as the policeman sped off
in pursuit. Locke ambled up beside her, finding it difficult
to ignore the presence of the dead police sergeant in the
hallway.
Veronica noted his arrival and noted his stare was still
fixed on the corpse. She treated the dead Erroll to a cursory
glance, before turning her attention to the bloody wound
in the centre of Locke’s forehead.
“Why aren’t you dead?” she asked.
Locke didn’t answer straightaway. His gaze detached
from the corpse and searched the air about her head before
he replied.
“Lafarge. He’ll keep the police off our backs,
but there’ll be others.”
“My husband has a lot of powerful friends.”
“You have no idea. You shot him through here?”
Locke moved to the kitchen door and gestured with his head
to the dining table. Veronica walked over slowly. When she
looked into the room she could see her husband sitting there,
crossing his cutlery on the plate after finishing his meal.
He didn’t see her stepping up behind him with the
gun. She pointed the barrel at the back of her head and
closed her eyes before pulling the trigger.
The plate exploded in shards of china.
When Veronica opened her eyes, Vincent Drysdale was crawling
away along the floor, hand clutched to the side of a head
freely losing blood. Her initial reluctance to witness his
execution disappeared. Grim determination stole over her
face and she pursued him past where Locke and her future
self now stood, into the hall and on through the lounge.
Plaster exploded from the walls as her shots missed him
by inches. A picture frame shattered, the photographic memory
of their wedding now sullied by a blackened bullet hole
removing the groom’s head. It still lay on the floor,
face down, glassy shards around it, as Locke tracked the
chase out through the conservatory and into the back garden.
Vincent Drysdale stumbled through the grass, fleeing from
the light of the house where his wife stood in silhouette.
She fired again and he spasmed as the bullet tore through
his midriff.
Six feet further on was the hole in the hedge through which
Mr. Drysdale had escaped. Locke examined it, touching the
traces of blood still daubed on the brittle branches. Veronica
continued to remember.
Mr. Drysdale crawled on and she advanced, willing herself
to take the final shot. One more pull of the trigger and
he’d be gone for good. Aim for the heart. No, he hasn’t
got a heart. Aim for the head.
She aimed for the head, but he turned. He looked back her
with eyes filled with tears. He wasn’t frightened
or angry. His face, the face she once loved, expressed only
sadness and a wish that things had been different. He held
out a blood-covered hand.
She stepped forward and took the hand. A hopeful smile touched
his lips and she relented. She couldn’t do it. She
dropped the gun and fell to her knees, embracing the husband
she nearly killed.
“No!” exclaimed Veronica, abruptly. “That’s
not right! That’s not what happened!”
“That’s why we haven’t got much time,” replied
Locke. “Come on.”
He struggled through the hedge and out onto the road beyond.
***
Inspector Brock eased his foot onto the brake as the car
in front of him slowed to a halt. Brock pulled his own vehicle
up behind it. He waited for a minute, half-expecting his
quarry to bolt at any moment. They were at the side of tree-lined
road bleached and pale in the glare of Brock’s headlights,
surrounded by the black and blue of night.
Finally, Brock opened his door and stepped out. He left
the engine running, just in case. In one hand he held a
torch, in the other Veronica’s gun.
Cautiously, he approached her car. The flashlight went first,
venturing into the dark interior and over empty back seats
as Brock kept his distance and the gun trained on his line
of sight. The torch glinted off the passenger-side window
before revealing those seats to be empty too. Suspicious,
Brock stepped forward, finger tense around the pistol’s
trigger, angling the spotlight down into the foot-wells
and then again over the back seats.
Nothing. No one.
Brock swept the verge with the torch, but he knew no one
had left that car.
He whipped out his mobile phone and speed dialed a number.
“It’s me. Something strange is going on here.”
***
Veronica and Locke stood under a streetlight. Locke was
staring into space, holding Leonard the toaster under his
good arm. Veronica was wondering why they were standing
under a streetlight, but felt too uneasy to ask the question.
“I need a new gun,” she muttered.
“For they clearly bring you luck,” said Locke.
“I thought you said we didn’t have much time.”
“Time enough to wait.”
Veronica looked up and down the street. It was empty. Suburbia
asleep.
“Why come back and help me?” she asked.
“Lafarge and I had been working on Leonard’s
case for weeks. You shooting me in the head was the lucky
break we’d
been after. Let’s say I owe you one.”
“They said you were crazy.”
“I’m just a loose cannon detective playing by
my own rules.”
“And your partner?”
Veronica waited for a handful of long seconds before realising
she wasn’t going to get answer. Unconsciously, she
pulled out a cigarette and lit up. It was almost at her
lips when she realised what she was doing, her instincts
still slave to her husband’s desires. She was about
to throw the cigarette aside in disgust when Locke grabbed
her hand. She turned to him in askance, only to see him
staring strangely at the cigarette’s glowing tip.
“That’s what we’ve been waiting for,” he
said.
Still gripping her hand, Locke set off at a trot. Veronica,
confused, let herself be dragged along after him, tottering
along on her high heels as Locke explained.
“A wisp of smoke is the result of a billion coincidences:
The beat of a butterfly’s wings…”
Two weeks ago in Ecuador, a butterfly alighting on a delicate
rose.
“A woman’s choice of red underwear.”
That morning, Veronica attaching stockings to a crimson
garter belt.
“A man happily drinking a wine he’s always hated.”
That very moment, on the other side of town, Kathleen Muller
staring at her partner as he raises a glass to toast their
anniversary.
“And, just around the corner…”
Locke flashed Veronica a wild grin as they turned a corner
and came across a bag lady pushing a pram filled with scavenged
trash. The sight of a hapless kitten also tucked up inside
disturbed Veronica.
“Forty-eight, seventeen, thirty-three, eight,” muttered
the old lady.
Locke greeted her with a smile that she didn’t notice,
too busy with her counting and pram-pushing. Locke walked
alongside, scanning her scavenged bric-a-brac. Veronica
couldn’t guess why he snatched out the dog collar,
but the grin on Locke’s face suggested this was the
breakthrough he’d been looking for.
***
“Here, Benjie, boy,” called out Locke. “Heel, woof, bark.”
Veronica trailed behind him, wondering now why she was following this madman
into a misty wood as the hour approached midnight.
A bark in the distance set Locke running. Veronica didn’t hurry after him,
finding navigation of the woodland floor treacherous enough at walking pace.
When she caught up with him, Locke was using his good arm to dig away the soil
around a pale hand sticking up through the earth. A dog hampered his attempts
by trying to lick his hands and face until he produced the collar and slipped
it around the dog’s neck.
“Now go home, boy. Go home, Benjie.”
The dog stared at him, barked and then ran off in the direction of Locke’s
pointed finger.
Free of interference, Locke continued digging. Veronica edged closer, unsteady
on her high heels in the mud. The breath caught in her throat when Locke cleared
away the dirt covering her husband’s face.
“My God,” she said, “he is dead.”
“We’re looking for your husband,” replied Locke, dismissively, “not
a corpse.”
“But this is…”
Her protest was cut off by headlights searching through the trees. Locke grabbed
her hand and dragged her from the scene.
***
Inspector Brock’s shadow fell over the shallow grave, his car behind him,
the engine rumbling patiently.
“Yes, they’ve been here,” he reported into his mobile phone.
The reply was drowned out by the rumble turning into a roar. Brock spun around
to see the headlights sweep away, his car turning in reverse before hitting first
gear and turning again, leaving the Inspector to watch two red tail lights escape
away into the darkness.
***
The headlights drew expanding circles on the garage door and then went dark as
Veronica turned off the ignition. Locke was already out of the car, striding
to the front door of the adjacent house with the contents of the glove-box in
hand.
Veronica exited from the driver’s side and followed, briefly lamenting
the filth that now covered her shoes.
“We found him,” she said, repeating the point she’d made during
their
drive. “He’s dead. It’s over.”
One by one, Locke tossed aside Brock’s papers until he was left with only
a few sweet wrappers between his fingers. He let them go to a capricious breeze
that carried them across the small front lawn and into the face of a cheery plaster
gnome.
Locke picked up the gnome and revealed a key sitting underneath.
***
“I think I could enjoy being in prison,” said Veronica as Locke surged
up the stairs of Brock’s house. She followed, her gait unrushed and relaxed,
a great weight lifted from her shoulders. “After him, institutionalised
abuse would be a breeze.”
Veronica found Locke in one of the bedrooms.
“Maybe I’ll skip the country,” she continued. “Go to
Cuba. I
don’t think they’ve agreed an extradition treaty.”
She watched Locke rifle through the policeman’s wardrobe with a playful
smile on her face. Her eyebrows raised in surprise when he unearthed a security
box and carried it over to the bed.
“You’re ignoring me, aren’t you?” she said.
“Give me three numbers. Random numbers. Now. Don’t think.”
“Err, forty-eight, seventeen, thirty-three.”
Locke spun the combination lock three times before hitting the catch. The lid
sprung open. Inside was a stack of papers Locke proceeded to examine. Veronica
sidled up to him and peered over his shoulder.
“Isn’t it about time I paid you for your services?”
She slipped her hands under his coat, but he ignored her, wincing only when she
brushed the bullet wound in his arm.
Her efforts frustrated, Veronica pouted and then smiled mischievously. She darted
a hand into his pocket and snatched his phone.
“Maybe I should pay Mr. Lafarge instead?”
Locke spun around, fear revealing the whites of his eyes.
“No!”
“You found my husband,” purred Veronica, finding Lafarge’s
name in
the phone’s address-book. “It’s only fair someone gets paid.”
When Locke grabbed for the phone this time, Veronica was ready. She stepped back
and coyly dropped it down inside her top. Locke’s dismay was met by a lascivious
smile.
“Okay, okay,” said Locke. “I do the finding, you can pay me.
Lafarge… works
differently. He loses things. He takes away, so… he has to give you something
in return.”
“That sounds like a good deal.”
“If someone gave you syphilis would you think that was a good deal? Besides,
I
haven’t found your husband yet.”
“But…”
Locke handed her a document from the security box.
“One of your husband’s insurance policies. Read the small print.”
Veronica, bemused, began reading. Her expression slowly transformed from confusion
to boredom and, gradually, to outright disbelief.
“This can’t be…”
“Your husband isn’t who you think he is, Mrs. Drysdale. Come, there’s
another dead person you need to meet.”
***
Thomas Locke stood on the doorstep of a pebble-dashed semi-detached house with
Leonard the Toaster under his arm and Veronica by his side. All trace of her
studied poise and dress was gone, stolen away by a senseless series of events
that had dragged her through hedges and woods and finally to the door of a stranger’s
house.
Locke pressed the doorbell. It began to play ‘Greensleeves’.
A large man in a woollen jumper opened the door. He held a glass of wine in his
hand. The easy smile on the podgy face suggested it had already drunk a number
of refills.
“Hello? Yes?” he said.
Locke didn’t answer him. Instead he turned to Veronica.
“Mrs. Drysdale, this is your husband. Now I’m done.”
He turned and began to walk away down the path. Veronica grabbed him by the arm.
She offered an apologetic smile to the man at the door before hissing at Locke, “That
is not my husband.”
Locke blinked and turned back to the man in question.
“Have you or have you not recently survived a near death experience?” he
asked.
The big man slowly shook his head.
“Oh,” said Locke, suddenly deflated.
Veronica lowered her eyebrows to stare angry daggers at Locke. A light, chiming
voice came from inside the house.
“I think they’re here to see me, Gavin. Show them in, please.”
Gavin obligingly stepped aside. Locke led the way into a brightly lit living
room, Veronica trailing behind, trying not to associate herself too closely to
the oddball detective. They stepped into a semi-circle of people. Some were sat
on dining chairs, others crammed onto a settee, yet more stood in front of a
fireplace bricked up in order to harbour an electric heater. Above them a banner
said ‘Welcome Home’. ‘Get Well Soon’ cards lined the
mantelpiece, but the centre of attention was a delicately-featured woman of middle-aged
years occupying an upright armchair. She smiled at Locke and Veronica.
“Clearly I misread my newspaper,” said Locke, remaining solemn. “It
was Mrs. Rose, not Mr. Rose. I stand corrected. Veronica, this is your husband.”
Veronica stared at him, not even considering his lunatic assertion, but trying
instead to fathom why she’d followed him this far. Hushed whispers circulated
as the guests tried to work out what was going on.
“Mr. Locke, isn’t it?” asked Mrs. Rose, her words soft, but
authoritative
enough to silence the room. “I think you owe everyone an explanation.”
Locke took a deep breath and surveyed his audience, lingering on Veronica longest
of all.
“My name is Thomas Locke,” he announced. “I am a private detective
and what I’m about to say may sound strange, but it is absolutely true.
Once upon a time, two years ago, there was a man called Leonard Muller who tried
driving home through a fearsome storm. All he could see were sheets of driving
rain, so he didn’t see the fallen tree in the road ahead until it was too
late. He died that night, but some part of him remained, desperate to make it
home. So desperate, part of him did come back… as this toaster.”
Locke lifted up the aforementioned appliance. While he talked, a guest rose from
his seat and moved to the door. Locke glanced over at the man and their eyes
met, sharing a memory of a beating doled out that very morning.
“Leonard hired my partner and I to find his wife,” continued Locke. “We
did, but we also found her husband, alive and well, standing next to her.”
That husband now stood by the door, grinning.
“I didn’t understand why until Mrs. Drysdale shot me in the head
a few hours later. I travelled that fabled tunnel of light, felt its promise
of peace…” Locke’s
voice trailed off, his eyes closed in remembrance of that moment’s respite. “Then
I was forced to come back.”
Locke’s eyes flicked open and he looked about at those in the room once
more.
“I came back knowing exactly what kind of life insurance Mrs. Drysdale’s
husband sold.”
The door edged open and Inspector Brock stepped inside. The key turned in the
lock behind him.
“Elizabeth Rose died of a tragic asthma attack two days ago,” continued
Locke.
“She saw the tunnel of light and was welcomed to the other side by her
late Mum and Dad, but in her wake someone else came back. Someone shot dead,
but with
an insurance policy that promised a new life would be provided in the event of
death. Someone like the impostor who now inhabits the body of Leonard Muller.”
Locke turned his accusing stare on the man by the door, but it was the Inspector
beside him that responded.
“Or someone like me,” said Brock.
Veronica looked around at the policeman, registering shock at both his presence
and his agreement with Locke.
“Or me,” suggested an old lady on the sofa.
“Or any one of us,” said a young man on a dining chair.
Veronica looked around at the assemblage in horror. Only Gavin Rose shared her
confusion, but a nod from Mrs. Rose lead to Inspector Brock taking her husband
to one side and silencing him with a practised sleeper hold.
“I am glad you brought her back to me, Mr. Locke,” said Mrs. Rose.
“No,” whispered Veronica, staring at this strange woman and feeling
a chill
of recognition.
“But she would have returned sooner or later. You’ve killed people,
Veronica.
Me, Inspector Brock’s young partner. Mr. Locke here seems to have been
the lucky one. They’re hunting for you, Veronica, and no one else will
take you in. No one else can protect you. No one except me.”
“No,” said Veronica, shaking her head, “I won’t go back.”
Mrs. Rose stood and Brock passed her Veronica’s gun.
“Kill me again if it’ll make you feel better.”
Veronica tried to back away, but Leonard was behind her, blocking her exit. She
trembled as Mrs. Rose took her hand and caressed it. The gun was pressed into
her sweaty palm and her fingers were forced to close around the handle. Mrs.
Rose lifted the gun until Veronica was staring down the sight at the pale woman’s
forehead.
Her finger touched the trigger. If she believed that this was her husband, she
also had to believe that killing him again would achieve nothing. He would come
back.
She would never be free.
Veronica pulled away and bundled past Leonard to the door. He snatched away the
key, but she wasn’t interested in that. She backed into the corner and
put the gun to her temple. This was the only way out. The only escape.
“You have a policy too,” said Mrs. Rose. “Sooner or later…”
Mrs. Rose opened her arms for an embrace.
Veronica stared at her in horror. A feeling of vertigo sent her senses swimming.
She was teetering on the precipice and all these people were here to watch her
fall. All except Thomas Locke. He was whispering to his toaster.
Veronica threw the gun aside and pulled violently at the handle of the locked
door, screaming to be let out. Mrs. Rose nodded to Leonard, who held Veronica
aside with an arm while he slid the key into the lock. When the door opened,
she ran from the house, her heels clattering away down the path.
“I’ll be waiting,” said Mrs. Rose softly, before turning to
Thomas
Locke. “There’s always a queue to come back, Mr. Locke. Those with
the cheaper policies, they aren’t picky about who they end up as. They
don’t care too much what state they’re in.”
Locke flashed glances at the pack of reincarnated vultures that began to crowd
in around him.
“Before I vacate this body,” he said, “the real Leonard has
a message
he wishes to pass on to this usurper.”
He caught the fake Leonard with a stare and then clubbed him around the side
of the head with the toaster. Locke dived for the door, but Mr. Drysdale’s
assembled clients were on him before he managed another step.
***
Veronica was slumped against the gatepost. Her arms held her knees up against
her chest so her bowed head could sob over her stockings. She could hear Locke’s
cries behind her. If she had looked around, she would have seen his hand reach
out through the open door. But she didn’t look. She didn’t see him
dragged back inside. She didn’t even hear the door slam shut. Veronica
was lost to the world around her, trying to find a sanctuary in the depths of
her own mind that she couldn’t find in the world outside.
When his cries of pain came they drowned out the voice inside her head that pleaded
for escape. She covered her ears, but the cries were too loud. She screamed,
but when her breath ran out, Locke’s torment continued.
Veronica threw her head back and stared up at the sky, at the infinite blackness
of sky and stars that told of an endless universe. An endless universe in which
he would always find her.
When Veronica looked down again she saw another light, glinting up from her cleavage.
It was Locke’s phone, deposited there back at Brock’s house. Her
mind empty and numb, she retrieved it and her fingers began working of their
own accord. She selected a number from the address book and pressed the ‘call’ button.
The phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
Each ring was swallowed up by the silence of the night before the next came,
sharp and insistent, only to be lost again, same as the last.
Veronica lost count of the rings. No voice came from the other end of the phone.
It just rang until she pressed the ‘cancel’ button. By then she had
got her reply. He stood over her. The shape of a man, but with features and dress
indiscernible from shadow.
“When can I go?” she asked him.
He said nothing.
“I loved him. I did. He was my everything.”
He said nothing.
“Then everything changed. Suddenly. The tumble dryer broke and… why
should that change anything? Why should I love my husband one moment and then
the next
moment…? Ten years and I hadn’t thought of anything. Everything in
my head came from him. Everything he said, I did. I never thought, I never questioned.
I loved him unconditionally, but then the tumble dryer broke and his… his
spell broke too. Until that moment I didn’t exist. I was just a puppet,
mindless, empty… happy. Then I wasn’t. I woke up. I realised I did
not love him, I hated him for what he’d done to me.”
Veronica looked to the house.
“He’ll always find me, won’t he? In this world or the next,
I’ll
never be free, but… Your partner said you could lose things. Lose things
so they can never be found?”
Lafarge nodded.
Veronica hung her head and weighed up the options she had left. What was there
for her in this world anyway? Everything she’d had, everything she’d
known was all down to him. There was only one way she could be free.
Veronica looked up at Lafarge with the same bitter resolve that had murdered
her husband.
“Then lose him. Give me whatever you want, but take him somewhere no one
will
ever hear from him again.”
The wind rose suddenly. It howled down the street and bore with it leaves and
debris that forced Veronica to close her eyes. Something fluttered into her face.
She clawed it away and the wind dropped.
Veronica opened her eyes. She was alone once more. She looked down at the piece
of ragged notepaper in her hand. It was written with that familiar black marker,
but this time all it said was: ‘Deal’.
Then came the scream.
It was louder and more chilling than anything Locke had managed and it brought
Veronica to her feet. She looked up the path to the Rose house and saw the door
was open. Despite the fear that set her heart thumping in her chest, she advanced
up the path.
She was almost at the doorstep when Leonard staggered out. His scream turned
into a whistle and then silence as his mouth closed up, his fearful eyes staring
at her before they too disappeared into a blank sheet of skin. He dropped to
the ground, convulsing, starved of breath and minutes from death.
Veronica walked on, stepping inside the house and into a living room cast in
disarray. A dining chair missing two legs stood lopsided on ragged strips of
floral carpet. The banner was severed, leaving only the word ‘Home’ hanging
on the wall. The young man who’d spoken before was now crouched in the
corner, hands clutching his head as he muttered to himself and rocked back and
forth. The old woman sat pale and still on the sofa. Gavin Rose was still unconscious
in the corner, but he had been robbed of clothes.
Veronica stepped over a body holding a knife in its own chest and into a small
pile of dust that dispersed under her shoe. A figure, frozen rigid, watched her
pass with unnervingly mobile eyes. Another made a grab for her, but without form
or substance it passed right through her. Its anguished cry went as noticed as
its presence.
Locke sat at the bottom of the stairs, tending bruises and bloody wounds. He
didn’t acknowledge Veronica’s arrival, so she began climbing the
steps.
Lafarge was at the top, still no more than a shadow despite the lights. A guttural
cry preceded Brock plunging through the black shape and stumbling down the topmost
steps in surprise.
Lafarge moved on. When Veronica reached Brock, he was staring at his fingertips,
which were disintegrating before his eyes.
“But I’m covered,” he said, “I can come back…”
Neither of them believed it. Veronica reached out. When her finger touched him,
he dissolved into a shower of embers.
“Veronica!” screamed a voice from up ahead.
She ran into a bedroom where Mrs. Rose was held fast before Lafarge, his black
arm around her throat, tears fluid on her cheeks.
“I loved you,” cried Mrs. Rose, “yet you called him?”
Lafarge’s blackness began to spread. It leaked into the corners of the
room, touching the shadows and causing them to grow.
Veronica stared at the woman who was her husband.
“Yeah, I’m a lousy wife. Goodbye, Vincent.”
Mrs. Rose tried to scream again, but the onrushing blackness filled her mouth,
covered her face, consumed everything in the room until nothing was left but
blackness.
***
The blackness departed reluctantly as Kathleen Muller opened her eyes. She rubbed
feeling into her face and pulled herself upright on the settee. Sunlight was
streaming in through the gap between the drawn curtains. For a moment she thought
that the doorbell was the remnant of a dream, but then it rang again.
“If you’ve forgotten your keys after I’ve spent the whole night
worrying,
Leonard,” muttered Kathleen as she staggered up to the front door.
She unlocked it, pulled it open and found nobody standing there.
She blinked away some more tiredness and leant forward to check if anyone was
hiding out of sight. Nope, no one.
It was only when she began to close the door that she noticed the dented toaster
sitting on the doorstep.
Locke and Veronica watched from the pavement, crouched down behind a hedge. They
watched Kathleen cautiously pick up the toaster and then, with one last suspicious
glance up and down the street, retreat back inside.
***
“Do you think she’ll ever believe it’s him?” asked Veronica,
standing up and joining Locke in walking back toward the Office of Lost and Found.
“Maybe,” he replied, “when he starts burning love hearts across
all
her toast.”
They walked on in silence for a while.
“Did you really find the butterfly that started that hurricane?” asked
Veronica.
“I found a butterfly,” replied Locke, “turned out it had an
alibi.”
Veronica nodded. The silence returned until she mustered the courage to challenge
Locke.
“He didn’t give me anything, you know. And nothing’s different,
except
of course he’s gone. I feel exactly the same.”
Locke shook his head with a weary wisdom.
“Appearances can be deceptive.” He looked up at a sky of fading orange
and burgeoning blue against which aeroplanes drew lines of white and distant
birds
circled and flew. “Trust me, once you’ve met Lafarge, everything
changes.”
He walked on, but Veronica lingered a moment. She stared upwards and fancied
she saw one of those birds swallow up a passing Boeing 747, but quickly dismissed
the notion and hurried on after her oddball private detective.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vincent was eighteen when he wrote his first novel and has, to date,
completed a further three, in addition to half a dozen screenplays.
None of these have been published and now he's reached thirty, he
is wondering whether all those years in front of a keyboard might
have been better spent drinking and shagging like his contemporaries.
He tells himself that drinking and shagging can't be all it's cracked
up to be, but has his doubts. He also makes short films and often
cripples himself trying to play sports. He does surprisingly little
with computers for a living.
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