Duplicity (6 page)

Chapter 13

I threw open the door to the hatch; it was heavier than I had anticipated, and so old that small pieces of aged wood flaked off in my hand. I peered down the hole in the floor at the vast blackness that lay below me. Darkness was usually calming to me, but not on this occasion. On this occasion it was unnerving, the unknown.

I took the first step down; wary of whether or not the steps would hold my weight, two, three, four. I was on the floor of the lower level. I could literally see nothing around me. The blackness from above was oblivion from this angle and it closed in on me faster than I could gather my senses.

I felt along the walls beside me for a light switch, but I was greeted by cobwebs instead. Dusting off my hands on my pants, I pulled my cell phone from my pocket to light the wall to my left, desperately searching for a source of light and sanity.

I saw the light switch beside me, and breathing a sigh of relief flicked it into the on position. The leisure battery of the boat must have been very low, as the lights would stay on for just a few seconds before flickering.

I could not have been prepared for what I saw next. In front of me in the right corner was a huge cage, and inside it, a girl. She lay there entirely unaware of my presence, probably drugged. Her clothes were stained with blood and bodily fluids, and her shirt had been torn from the chest down and was wrapped around her ankle. An ankle I assumed was no longer connected to a foot. I had no idea if she was still alive, but this was it, the finale to my gruesome journey.

I stared at her for a moment in disbelief. Her long dark hair was matted and messy. She could not have been more than 19 years old. She was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister. I was disgusted. Only a monster could do this. Could I really be that monster?

I was thankful to have learned a little more about my past, about myself, but was this what I really was? Was I really the kind of person who could take some innocent girl, hack her up and chain her up in a cage like an animal? I was on the ultimate journey of self-discovery, and I didn’t like what I was discovering.

I fell to the step behind me, and sitting for a moment, tried to decide what my next move would be. Should I just call in an anonymous tip to the police and run? Should I set her free myself? The truth was that I felt some kind of commitment to this girl. I felt I owed her something. I needed to help her, I just wasn’t sure how.

I did not really have time to decide before the girl stirred and awoke, she was facing the opposite direction of me; I slowly walked over to her, when she heard the footsteps she sat up, pulling herself into the corner of her miniscule living space.

My face must have been shaded by the shadows that eerily crept along the walls, because it was clear when I finally did become apparent to her. As soon as she saw my face she became hysterical, screaming at the top of her lungs for help, flinging her arms around, begging me to keep my distance.

I panicked, not knowing how to act and ran back upstairs to safety. I felt like it was me being tortured rather than her. I sat in the dining area and I placed my hands over my ears to drown out the girls screams, digging my nails into the side of my head. After a while, her screams stopped. She must have figured I had left.

This changed everything. I wasn’t set up, I had actually done this, and who knows what other atrocities I had committed. I questioned my sanity; I felt perfectly normal, how could this possibly be the case? I had read about cases of split personality disorder. I had even defended a client who had the condition, but nothing like this, nothing where the second personality could completely take over a physical being. I felt sick. I was a professional and a well-respected lawyer, in full control of every situation, expect my own mind and body it would appear. No wonder I never felt like I ever got a good night’s sleep.

All of the hate I had ever felt for anyone, for Johnny, for my father was in seconds re-directed to myself. It was a very surreal feeling; to hate yourself for something you couldn’t remember doing. I tried hard to recall taking this girl, but she was lost in nothingness, along with all the other supressed memories. My career would be ruined by this. A selfish notion but my practicality had come back into play.

I couldn’t focus on this right now; I had to deal with the situation that I was in before I could begin to consider the implications of my alter egos lifestyle on my own.

I had a problem. The girl downstairs obviously knew me; well she knew the other me. She had seen our faces. If she walks out of here, she walks out of here and my whole life goes down the drain. I haven’t done anything wrong. I didn’t deserve to lose my career over this. Everything I had fought for and worked so hard to achieve would be gone in the blink of an eye.

This left me two choices. I walk out of here and let her bleed to death, then she is dying not at my hands, but at his. Or I simply put her out of her misery, which would be the kinder thing to do. Neither of these options appealed to me, each one making me as bad as he is. This is what the note meant, I had to choose, but the choice is not between the light side or the dark side. The choice is between my career and sparing the life of an innocent.

My head fell into my hands on the table in front of me and I felt a solitary tear run down my cheek. It was the first time I had cried since I was a child, as I swore to myself to never again shed another tear. Sure I had welled up a little upon leaving the school, but I couldn’t let my tears fall. Crying got you nowhere. It didn’t bring back my mother, it did not make my father love me, it was a completely pointless waste of energy and emotion, but I couldn’t help it… After the first tear made its way down my face, they began to fall freely, like they were escaping from me after being imprisoned for years.

After twenty minutes or so of crying, I was completely dry, drained and void of emotion. I lay my head on the table in front of me, and just let my mind wander to some of the happy times I remembered from my childhood. I was in the garden with my parents and our dog. The sun was shining on my face and we all lay on the grass, laughing as we picked shapes out of the clouds. A stupid game, a mundane, normal memory, but that was what was missing from my life. Boredom.

I wondered what my life would have been like if she hadn’t have died, if my father had not become abusive and sent me to the school, if Johnny hadn’t done what he did to me. I dared bet I wouldn’t have been here right now, but I bet I wouldn’t have been as successful as I was in a career I loved either. Maybe this was my path. My destiny. Maybe I just had to suck it up and act like a man. I could not make any better of this situation, maybe I should just embrace the oddness.

The energy drained from every muscle in my body as I felt my eyes becoming tired and beginning to close. I hadn’t had my usual five cups of coffee to keep me going. If my mind had been in the right place, I would have been worried about getting caught on the boat, with a girl on the lower deck chained up, missing fingers and her a foot, but I simply had lost my fight. My mind was in a happy place in the garden, and I wanted to stay there, to forget about the world around me for a while, and so I gave into it.

Chapter 14

I was awoken suddenly with a jolt. The noise of a chain clinking nearby, I got up from my seat and peeked through the blind at the window. Two men were on the boat next to me messing around with the anchor mechanism. If their boat was anything like this one, they would be there a while maintaining it.

‘Shit!’ I thought to myself, I needed to get moving. I went to close the hatch down, deciding that leaving her to bleed to death was the easier option of the two, but when I did I noticed the light was off. I know I had left the light on when I came upstairs, fully intending to go back down there.

Someone had been here. I cautiously proceeded down the stairs through the hatch, on guard, fully expecting to be ambushed by the cops at any moment. Nothing. I knew if I turned the light on I would have to endure her screaming again, but I needed to know what I was up against, and if someone else knew my secret, I needed to know who.

I turned on the light and looked over towards the cage, and there she was. A beautiful young lady with a knife right through her back, a cowardly act to kill someone from behind when they can’t look into your eyes and portray to you their terror as the life slowly drains from their being. I had never actually seen a dead body before. Her stillness reminded me just how precious life was. I wondered if the dark Connor had done this while I was sleeping so I didn’t have to, or whether it was for pure enjoyment. Either way I don’t think I had ever felt so many emotions at once, relieved that it wasn’t done to me, and angry that I had lost control of my mind again while I slept, and nervous that even though I had no knowledge or recollection of killing this girl, my prints and DNA would be all over the scene, that is not exactly a good career move for a lawyer.

I had to clean this place up before anyone found it. I had no way to get the girl from the boat without being seen by the guys on the boat next to me, so I had no choice but to risk my life on the water with what appeared to be a very unseaworthy vessel.

I ran up to the main cabin and flicked all of the switches down, I had no idea how to drive a boat, but nothing lit up and there appeared to be no power. My plan was shot. It would seem the boat had been a permanent fixture here for some time, probably abandoned. Makes sense why my shadowy self would have chosen it.

I only had one other plan, and I really did not want to have to put it into action, but I had no choice. I ran downstairs in search of some kind of cutting instrument. Yes, I was going to have to finish off what he…I…had started and cut her into pieces to get her off the boat undetected.

I did not have time to ponder the psychological implications of this plan, or whether I would be able to physically cut up another human being, but I had no choice. It was my only way out.

I found a saw and a role of plastic bags on a shelf downstairs. No doubt I had left them there for myself, but regardless, I considered it a stroke of luck. I opened the cage door which was jammed shut with a long wooden stick, and dragged her out by her feet followed by a trail of blood.

I have read about these kinds of things every day for work, and looked at graphic pictures of crime scenes, but you can never grasp the intensity of these things unless they are actually happening to you. The actual smell of blood, the terrified look in the victim’s eyes when she realized that today was the day she was going to die. It can only be described as horrific.

Luckily, I wasn’t too focused on the grotesque images in front of me, I was too consumed by saving my career and everything I had built for myself over the years. I was a little angry that my alter ego would leave me in this predicament, but obviously my alter ego did not have the same worries about our livelihood that I had. It just confirmed to me how different we were and that this girl’s murder had not been of my doing.

The first limb was the hardest, the saw moved through her thigh much easier than expected as a small amount of blood spattered up onto my face making me close my eyes to complete the cut. It was very surreal, almost as if it wasn’t me doing it, I felt like I was watching some trashy hospital drama on some cloudy Wednesday lunch break. I went into autopilot after that, cutting and bagging as I did. It sounds bad to say that, as if I didn’t care that this was someone who was completely innocent. Someone was probably looking for this girl, and I didn’t care because I wasn’t really there. I felt nothing; I worked quickly with my mind wandering elsewhere to escape the reality of the situation.

When I had finished I cleaned every trace of blood meticulously from the floor and cage. I scrubbed for what seemed like hours to ensure there was no trace of this girl ever being here, and hauled the bags up the stairs to the main door of the living quarters.

I left the bags there and locked the door behind me to go get my car, as I did I heard a voice call out to me.

“Hey buddy, you got a temporary rental?” the man on the boat next to Destiny shouted.

“Awe, no…” I had to be very careful what I said here, they may know the owner after all. “My uncle asked me to give it a bit of a cleaning.” I smiled and nodded at them as I ventured forward to get my car, keen to depart from them. They seemed buy into my story, I was pleased that this was happening on a weekend when I was dressed somewhat casually. The chances of them buying into that story if I had been in my usual attire would have been slim. I was just hoping they had not recognized my face from my commercials.

I had to walk at a normal pace to my car as I could feel their eyes upon me, watching my every move, but I wanted to run, I wanted to run like I never had before, and scream and shout, but my poker face was first class, I had used it so many times in court. I don’t think they suspected a thing, I think they were simply nosy sailors.

I reached my car, and climbed in as quickly as I could, speeding back to the boat nearby and parking it with the trunk facing the steps of the boat for ease, almost skidding into the water from driving too fast in the wet, slippery conditions.

“Just got some rubbish to bring out!” I shouted over at the men on the boat next to me, giving them a thumbs up.

“You need a hand?” they yelled enthusiastically. Not the response I had hoped for, they were asking me if I wanted help covering up a murder without knowing it.

“No that’s ok! There’s not that much.” I prayed they would not insist as I waved and walked away. No response. I was relieved, but I had learned in my time that people rarely wanted to do something for nothing, and only offered when they felt obliged. Given the opportunity to be let off the hook, they would almost always take it.

I opened up the door and pulled the bags outside one by one, being careful not to snag the plastic on the jagged door frame. That would be a disaster, body parts falling everywhere over the deck while onlookers stood over me. I shuddered at the mere thought.  I locked up again with all of the bags around my feet and slung them over my shoulders, making sure I got them all in one go, so they would not walk over to my aid. She was quite heavy, but luckily I didn’t have far to carry her as I dropped her again to open my car.

I flung as many bags as I could fit in the trunk, and the rest in the back seat. All the while being watched by the men. It didn’t matter; I got into my car and sped off, giving them a neighbourly wave as I did. Tomorrow my car would be on EBay, it’s not like I could ever enjoy it again after this, and I would just lay low from press conferences for a while until they had time to forget my face. They hadn’t seen anything anyway. My conversation with myself was becoming ridiculous as I tried to justify my actions. In reality, there was no justification for my actions, other than cold blooded selfishness.

I drove back a few miles out and back to Bell View Farm. I guess the night prowling version of me would have to find some other place to torture his victims. My defiance was inspiring to me. Without even stopping to consider it I dumped the mystery woman’s body in the barn, setting it ablaze.

I drove just far enough away and parked on a hill to see the flames hit the night sky, illuminating it in quite a seductive manner. I watched as the blue sirens of the fire department and police pulled up. They had taken so long there was no chance of them finding any evidence. My job was complete. Turns out, I wasn’t half bad at covering a murderer’s ass, but I think I would stick to doing it in the safe, comfortable confines of a court room from now on.

I sat for a moment, watching the scale of the bonfire I had created, and wondering what my life would be like from now on. Would I spend my days wracked with guilt, drinking whiskey just to get through the day, or would I be too busy covering his tracks to save my own ass?

I drove home, and showered, and before I went to bed, I left Connor a note, just in case he decided to get up for the night.

Next time, clean up your own mess…

That night, I slept like a baby.

The End