Bedlam (24 page)

At first there was silence,
then gradually into the vacuum came indistinct noises. He cocked his head, trying to establish their cause and location - knocking pipes, a distant dripping tap, the rustle of rodents in the walls, the patter of crane fly feet on the ceiling, all magnified to the point where, along with the escalating drum beat in his chest, they formed a macabre orchestra, a chilling soundtrack to his fear. The music built to a crescendo, filling his head, his whole body, until he felt the walls and floor reverberate with the din. And then, abruptly, the performance was ended with the cymbal clash of a door slamming on an upper floor.

He climbed the wooden stairs that confronted him with apprehension and a subconscious remembered step.

Step three, can’t catch me

Step five, still alive

Step eight, full of hate

Step ten, begin again

He didn’t realise her presence until he’d reached the top and glanced back to see the boy hopscotching behind him, lips silently working as he chanted the rhyme like a mantra of protection. He watched as the boy reached behind with an open hand. The little girl sat on the second step, refusing to move.

Step two, I love you

Dim emergency lighting punctuated the darkness of the next floor. A wide utilitarian corridor stretched to his left; to his right it disappeared around a corner. Water pooled the floor, reflecting his own rippled image back at him. He blinked to rid himself of the illusion, and for an instant his mind was clear of muddle and subverted imagery. The resulting clarity was just as alarming. It allowed more room for anxiety and foreboding. Both rushed to fill the space.
Inhale, exhale
. He hesitated, unsure. He called to Kit and to Nell to guide him but both were silent. Behind him the boy splashed in water, knee-high and rising.

A bright red balloon bobbed past him, drawing his eye and his attention, and he watched its journey detachedly, its progress halted by the little girl who waited at the corner. She reached out and caught the string as it teased its way through her open palm. Without a second thought he followed her.

Up another flight of stairs, and now the faded grandeur of the old place was evident. Threadbare carpet runners ran the length of the hall, waist-high wooden panelling lined the walls, and massive polished oak doors, with glass lights above, punctuated the space like sombre sentries. White light spilled out through one and cut a swathe through the darkened hall.

Running feet, giggles bursting through tightly clenched fingers, a bouncing ball with a rhythmic thud, a stick dragging along uneven
panelling ...

Clickety
clack

Step on a crack

Clickety clack

JoJo’s
back

The boy’s finger pressed gently against his lips. A soft cautionary breath whispered at his ear.

Shhhh.

Step nine, you are mine

When he stepped through the open door, they were waiting.

All of them.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The room was crowded with people, both real and imagined. All those who whispered their torments and warnings had gathered together for the final act. They slunk in corners, shifting like over-exposures on a long-forgotten film reel. Their lives, their motivations lay like transparencies placed one above the other, until all became a jumble of secrets and shadow.

Despite the spectators, despite the confusion in his head and the fear in his belly, McNeil’s whole focus was reserved only for one. His chest tightened, his throat closed and he struggled to swallow. Sudden tears pricked his eyes.

“K … Kit?”

She turned from the darkened window, golden hair shimmering, sweet smile reserved solely for him. He couldn’t believe, after all the searching, after all the disappointments, he’d finally found her.

“
JoJo,” she breathed. The softness of her tone caressed him gently, wrapped around him, and for a moment he was removed from everything, held cocooned and suspended above the maelstrom his life had become. “I lost track of the time,” she continued. “I hope you weren’t worried.”

She stepped toward him, a graceful ethereal step, and he stumbled forward, pulling her into his arms in a tight desperate embrace. His heart thudded wildly. He inhaled in short sharp
gulps. Her skin was warm and fragrant, her breath soft against him. She was real flesh and blood, not a dream or a figment of his imagination. Yet, even as he rejoiced, something stirred amongst the dark things deep in his gut and it drew him slowly back. He would do anything for her.

He was about to find out exactly what that meant.

It was Kit, and yet … it wasn’t.

She’d been missing for a year, yet she behaved like she was merely late for dinner. He raised his head and angled back, moving his hands to cradle her face. Her eyes were lacklustre, just as Nell’s had been when he’d woken her in his bed. His anxiety flooded back and the voices in his head began to snicker. He took a calming breath -
inhale, exhale
- and swung his attention to the man behind her.

“Dr Richardson? Or are we Dr Freidman today?”

“I prefer ‘Jacob’. It’s less formal, don’t you think?”

The red balloon that had held his hopes aloft burst with a bang and McNeil plummeted back to earth.

“What have you done?”

Jacob’s narrowed gaze slid to Kit. “Sit down, my dear. Joe and I have some catching up to do.” Without a sound she withdrew gently from McNeil’s embrace, her fingers slipping delicately through his as their hands pulled apart.

“Thank you, Kit. We won’t be long.” And as if Jacob had flicked a subliminal switch, she settled herself on her seat, exhaled with a soft sigh and her eyes drifted shut.

It was only then that McNeil became fully aware of the others in the room, the uninvited guests, the indistinct shapes that hovered in the shadows just out of reach, the hecklers, the patrons, the voyeurs, all awaiting their turn in this, the final act of Jacob’s bizarre theatre: Mather, puffed up with self-importance, Mary Cameron with her sly smile, Clarissa, lost in a cloud of nicotine, Bales, watching and waiting, the swinging corpses with bulging eyes and thumping feet, green-haired Weed, taunting him, daring him, willing him to fail. And between them all, the slavering indigo beasts that leapt from Curtis’ skin to snap at his heels.

He raised a hand to his temple as reality began to slide, and the boy pulled him back with an insistent grip, small fingers nipping fiercely, eyes darting back and forth as he peeped out fearfully from behind McNeil’s leg. He lowered a hand to reassure the boy, and as his trembling fingers skimmed the child’s tousled hair, his own frantic heartbeat slowed and his focus sharpened.

Nell was seated next to Kit. Had she been there all along? He couldn’t recall but she stared at him now with empty soulless eyes.

“Nell?” The word was barely a whisper. She gave no indication that she’d heard but he knew she had. He felt her hand on his chest, her breath within him and hope returned. His eyes lingered on her for a moment. His enduring image was of her tears falling through flames to cool his cheeks.
I hear you
, he murmured silently.

He slid his gaze around the room again. There was no one else present. The shadows were simply that, voices in his head, tormentors born out of fatigue and desperation. He had succeeded. The hard work was done. He had found them both alive. All that remained of his nightmare was Jacob. He turned his attention back to the man.

“Are they drugged?” A first question, though he had many others. They fought like recalcitrant children to be next in line.

Jacob leaned back, crossing one leg over the other, making himself comfortable in his leather club chair. He gestured with a dip of his head for McNeil to do likewise, but he baulked at the offer, unnerved by the bizarre conviviality.

“I suggest you take advantage of my hospitality while you can, Joe. You need to save your strength for later.”

“Later?”
McNeil grunted. “Is that when you resist arrest and I’m compelled to use unreasonable force?”

Jacob smiled benignly. “Is that what you’d like to do?”

“I’d like you to answer my questions.”

“For goodness sake, sit down, Detective McNeil. You’re not at the station now. I’m not one of your common low-life suspects … and you’re obviously in pain. How is the wound coming along?”

As if the man had pressed some unseen torture device, McNeil was speared with sudden white-hot searing pain and overwhelmed with the accompanying urge to curl up around it. He gasped, inhaling in frantic gulps while heat and perspiration flushed his face.
Get a grip. This isn’t real. It’s some therapist’s party trick, word association or subliminal messaging.
Jacob was just a man, a very sick individual, but nothing more, no matter what Nell might believe.

McNeil absorbed the pain and met his eye. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch,” he lied.

“Have you learned nothing?” continued Jacob.

“Huh?”

“My bite is far worse than my bark, as Nell will attest.”

Jacob smiled and McNeil’s pain sharpened. He drew in a sharp breath and re-focused. “I asked a question. I need an answer. What have you done to them?”

“I see you’re still unable to do as you’re told, Joe, to take advice, to heed a warning. Is it any wonder you find yourself in your current predicament?” Jacob shook his head reprovingly. “I’m disappointed in you, Joe. I expected to see you at the church this afternoon. I’d counted on it, actually. I had a wonderful surprise planned. But no, as usual you go your own merry way and to hell with the consequences. Poor Audrey was in such a state, and George ... well, there’s a broken man, if ever I saw one.” He leaned forward and reached for a glass. “Would you care for a snifter, Joe? I expect your throat is very dry by now, although …” his lip curled into a sneer “… on second thoughts, perhaps not. You need to keep your wits about you, don’t you?”

He poured a measure and McNeil watched as the amber liquid taunted. His throat was getting dryer by the minute. He swallowed in an attempt to lubricate it, but when that merely exacerbated the problem, he cleared his throat instead.

“It’s fortunate for you that Kit is unaware of your pathetic attempts to find her. George always was a good judge of character and he was right about you, Joe. You really aren’t good enough for her, are you?”

“He’s not that good a judge if he swallowed your line.”

“Touché,” Jacob smiled. “But then he had a little help. You’d be surprised how therapeutic the occasional counselling session is.”

“And as for pathetic attempts,” McNeil found his voice getting stronger, fortified by the dark things that twisted in his gut. “I found her. She’s sitting right there.”

“And who brought you to her? Let’s face it, Joe, you’re a detective, a good one, so I’m led to believe, and yet it took almost a year and a nudge from me to encourage you to look in the right direction.”

McNeil turned his head. Nell stared straight ahead, blank eyes, expressionless face, yet there was something in there, something inside that reached out to him.

“Nell led me here.” His tone was softened by gratitude but wrapped in confusion. Both girls, alive - but not quite. The vibe he was getting from Nell was unsettling. He sensed her torment. It matched his own.

“No, Joe. Nell helped, I’ll grant you that. She baited the trap, loaded the dart and sweetened the pill. But think again, who really led you here?”

Fear exuded from the boy and McNeil mopped it up.

No …
noooo …

Don’t tell.

Mustn’t tell.

Never tell.

The childish whisper curled in McNeil’s mind, awakening the others, the voices that waited their turn, sometimes silent but always there. They crowded, jostling for attention. Vibrant images and emotions fought their way out, hot tears on stained muddy cheeks, small fingers gripped tightly to soiled and pungent rags. The rancid odour stung his nose. Dogs barked, puppies yapped, men argued, low and menacing. A rough hand grabbed at his collar, and he was powerless and helpless, suspended above the chaos while the world carried on without him.

His heartbeat accelerated, and although he craved the comfort of Kit’s embrace, his eyes strayed instinctively to Nell.
Help me
, he pleaded silently. This time there was nothing, as if she, too, awaited his answer with baited breath.

“Bales.”
The name burst from him and the boy shuddered at his side. He jammed his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose with shaking fingers and tried hard to concentrate. It was all in his head, building, swelling, gathering momentum, like water poised to burst the dam, with only one small boy to hold it back. “Bales brought me here,” he stammered. “He dragged me from my family and gave me to you.”

“Not quite.” Jacob smiled indulgently.

McNeil’s eyes shot open. “I remember. I remember it all.”

“No, you don’t, Joe. If you did, you’d know that all of this is your fault.” He gestured with an open hand to the two young women. “Bales may have kicked the first stone but
you
are responsible for the resulting landslide.”

I warned you.

You didn’t listen.

This is
all your fault.

“My fault?”
McNeil swung his gaze between Kit and Nell. He recalled Nell’s words: “You are responsible for all of this.” He still didn’t understand.

“Think again, Joe. Bales didn’t drag you from the bosom of your loving family, did he? Bales saved you. The only mistake Bales made was in thinking that he could keep you.”

Sweet milky puppy breath and soft warm bodies nestled alongside him. Bales, in the kitchen, clattering dishes and humming out of tune. Baked beans and sausages, out of a tin, but warm and filling. Jam on his cheeks and mud on his knees. A rough hand, gentle on his head, as tears were wiped with a ragged cloth. But there was more, and it helter-skeltered in to scour away the warm fragmented memory.

Turning away, McNeil drew a harsh breath. His hands shook. His ribs ached. He eyed the chair, but rejected it with a scowl when Jacob raised his glass and the melting ice rattled tauntingly.

“Sit down, Joe. We have a way to go yet. The girls wouldn’t want me to be inhospitable, and I’m sure they’re just as interested as I am in your memories.”

“What have you done to them?” McNeil’s voice was forced past a parched throat. He ignored the lure of the glass and swung his gaze back to Kit. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to reassure himself that she was real, not just another of his distorted daytime nightmares. Ghosts and shadows, that’s what Dennis would have called
them. He’d have put the whole episode down to some jumbled consequence of drugs or alcohol, or both. Maybe he was right.

“I’ve kept them safe, safe from the horrors of the world, Joe. Just imagine if you could close your eyes and forget that any of the last twelve months had ever happened, that Kit had never disappeared, that you hadn’t turned to the bottle for consolation, and you hadn’t jeopardised your career and friendships. Imagine that, Joe.
A new dawn, a new day, a new life. The ills of the world would be much improved if we didn’t have regret and remorse weighing us all down.”

“Is that what you’ve done to them? Wiped their memories? Is that what Nell meant?”

“Not just to them, Joe, and I prefer to call it editing. I’ve spent my whole career refining the skill. There were others, successes and failures, but the girls are something else entirely. I must admit Nell does lack discipline. She learns and adapts. She challenges my authority, and although I find her efforts amusing, she is nevertheless outliving her usefulness. Good twin, bad twin - perfect material. It’s such a shame I can’t publish my work.”

McNeil swept his gaze around the darkened room. He’d faced many dangerous situations in his career but the sense of foreboding building within him warned of a far greater threat.
“Others?”

“Benjamin
Rath was so misunderstood. I’ve followed his research. He was, in fact, a genius, a man ahead of his time. He delved into the darkest reaches of the mind. He just needed a little longer to perfect his craft.”