The Dead I Know (17 page)

Cool metal rasped around my wrists and I was lifted to my feet.

I didn’t feel safe until I’d been locked in the back of the police van. I didn’t stop shaking until the moonlight became the blinding glare of caged fluorescent tubes in the cell at the station. They took the handcuffs. They took
my shoes, my bloodstained tie and my belt. The front of my shirt bore an inkblot of crimson. I didn’t breathe a full breath until they’d left and latched the door.

They left me there for hours. Shadows swept past the door, and occasionally they’d stop and peer in. I realized near dawn that it was the same woman checking on me, making her rounds like a nurse. Making sure I hadn’t trashed the cell or done damage to myself. I could hear faint birdsong when the door rattled and she finally came inside.

‘Morning, Aaron.’

She had a plastic bowl with warm water and a tattered white cloth. She wore blue surgical gloves.

‘It
is
Aaron, isn’t it?’

I couldn’t remember her face. Constable Nadine Price, her name tag said. The one whose jacket I’d borrowed when they found me near the café.

‘Thought I’d give you a chance to tidy yourself up before they question you. Okay?’

She wet the cloth and handed it to me. The smell of disinfectant ripped up my nose and I coughed.

‘Sorry about that. Hospital strength.’

I wiped the crust from my upper lip, dragged the cloth over my neck and collar and handed it back to her.

She rinsed it and gave it back. ‘Bit on your cheek.’

I rasped it across my face and winced. The gravel had broken the skin. I dabbed at my cheek and the cloth came away bloody. I held it in place and felt the warmth in the bruise.

‘Need a swab for forensics, I’m afraid,’ she said.

A scrape from inside my mouth, a dab from my bleeding face.

‘Is there anyone you’d like to call? Let them know where you are?’

She waited a while, staring.

I handed her the cloth and she left.

I curled into a ball on the vinyl mattress on the floor.

I rocked, ever so slightly.

Rock the baby.

But the baby will never sleep.

The door to my cell clattered and I remembered where I was and the reason I was there. Panic locked in my throat as two large and unfamiliar men carrying plastic chairs entered the room. I stood and the larger of the two instructed me to sit. I crossed my legs on the mat like a school kid. They came armed with pens, clipboards and a tape recorder. The door closed and my body started rocking of its own accord, barely moving, to the rhythm of my pulse.

The big guy started the tape, checked his watch, and told the microphone the time and date.

‘Can you state your name, please?’ he asked his clipboard.

When I didn’t respond, he looked at me. Even his eye-
-
brows – narrow, stern caterpillars – seemed intimidating.

‘Name?’ the other guy said.

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

‘Can . . . you . . . tell . . . us . . . your . . . name?’ he said, louder.

‘No use, Doug,’ the big man said, standing. ‘I’ll get someone from special services down.’

He rapped on the glass in the cell door and it was opened from the other side.

‘That was quick!’ a voice said.

They stepped into the hallway.

‘I don’t get it,’ Doug said, as he left. ‘Is it some sort of joke?’

‘Hey?’

‘How come we’re always dumped with the retards?’

The door closed on their laughter and I rocked.

Not a retard, sir.

Just a broken unit.

With nowhere to hide.

32

My ears are ringing. Always ringing. My exposed skin is spattered with remains and I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m frightened of what I won’t see. When the rain of dreck subsides, I take stock of my limbs and finally look around. David is in the velvet chair but he has turned the gun on himself. His head has become a messy flower on the pitted wall.

I was panting like a dog, a warm hand on my shoulder.

‘Steady, Aaron. It’s okay. It’s me, John.’

My eyes were wide but fuzzy-blind for several long seconds; and then I saw him in his suit and tie, his brow creased with concern.

I sighed when I recognized him, squeezed the hand on my shoulder.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

I nodded.

He helped me to my feet. ‘Can you walk?’

I hopped a few steps, my legs sleep-dead and awkward.

‘Let’s get you home,’ he murmured.

The cell door opened and the policeman let us pass.

Nobody tried to stop us as I walked through the station in my socks, into the car park and into the passenger seat of the silver Mercedes.

‘Told you drugs were no good,’ mumbled Skye from the back seat.

I looked over my shoulder at her in her school uniform, the tips of her shower-wet plaits like paintbrushes. She had her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face.

I smiled.

I’d been remembered.

‘How did you find me?’ I asked.

‘Nadine Price is an old family friend,’ John said. ‘She called after she’d finished work this morning. Said you were in . . . in a bit of trouble.’

‘What did you do?’ Skye asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

The car fell quiet and remained that way until we pulled up at the caravan park. A fire truck blocked the entrance. They were packing up hoses. A helmeted fireman came to John’s window.

‘Have to walk from here,’ he said. ‘The truck will be another ten minutes or so.’

John thanked him.

I undid my seatbelt.

He grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye, hard.

‘You’re on bail,’ he said. ‘I gave them my assurance you’d stay in town.’

I swallowed.

‘Have you got a clean shirt? Where’s your tie?’

I felt my collar. ‘The police took it.’

‘Grab what you need. You can get changed at our place.’ He dropped my arm and I ran.

A pall of dirty smoke hung in the campground.

The van at
57
had been cordoned off with blue-and-white tape. The door was shut. The lights were out.

Around the corner, Mam’s van had gone. In its place was a slumped and charred pile of melted aluminium and tiny cubes of glass. A blackened annex wall had fallen over the steel skeleton of Mam’s armchair, and the whole pile that had once been my home hissed faintly.

Nothing had been saved. Nothing was salvageable in that distorted pile. Everything had gone, and I felt one step closer to freedom. One step closer to death.

‘Hey!’

I turned to see Tony Long running towards me.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

I ran towards the shower block, then circled back to the Bartons’ car. I slammed the door.

‘Drive!’ I howled.

The rear wheels coughed on the gravel and we were gone.

‘What was that all about? Where are your clothes?’

I caught my breath. ‘The van’s gone. Burnt to the ground.’

‘What?’

‘Who were you running from?’ Skye asked. ‘The cops?’

‘No, Tony Long. The park manager.’

John looked at me, puzzled. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Sorry, yes, I’m fine. It’s a long story.’

The car fell quiet again but the air fizzed with expectation. The Bartons were waiting for the story.

‘The sound of a shotgun woke me last night. I don’t know what time. I’d fallen out of bed and . . . I don’t know. My nose had bled. I saw the shape of somebody in the annex. A bald guy with tattoos on his head. He had a gun. He ran. That’s when I heard the screaming. Somebody had shot the guy in number
57
. Blown half his head away. I ran for the phone at the kiosk but Tony Long thought I was running from the crime and he decked me. Held me to the ground until the police arrived.’

They held their breath. I held mine. It felt like the longest story I’d ever told. Ever. I wasn’t used to the sound of my own voice.

‘Did you do it?’ John asked.

‘No! Of course not. I don’t think so. I couldn’t have done it. I don’t have a gun.’

I said those words and some part of me knew them to be true but the doubt in John Barton’s voice shook my own confidence. I
could
have killed Westy. The rage he spawned in me was monstrous. All curved white teeth and sickle claws. If that beast broke loose in my sleep, anything was possible. Anything could happen and I wouldn’t know. I
could
have killed Westy.

‘You’re shaking,’ Skye said.

I sat on my hands.

*

Mrs Barton had tears in her eyes. She hugged my head, briefly and awkwardly. I was shuffled into Skye’s bathroom and Skye was shuffled off to school. I showered and changed into one of John’s T-shirts and a pair of his tracksuit pants – there was room for two at the waist and they were mid-calf length. Slippers on my feet. The cut on my cheek was too tender to shave so the overall impression in the mirror was of an escapee or homeless person.

Mrs Barton chuckled and covered her mouth when she noticed the pants.

‘I’ll wear my coveralls.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Should have thought of that myself.’

John set me to work building caskets. I was safe from the eyes of the public and free to wrestle with my demon thoughts. Several times I looked up to find him watching me. Reading me. Studying me. I hoped he’d find the answer and let me know.

I couldn’t shirk from the task of assembling the smallest box. I knew the child was in the mortuary but I wasn’t hiding from the body, either. I knew the dead boy didn’t care, but I was sorry for the way I’d reacted. I took extra care in preparing his casket. John had set his features and I lifted him myself, felt his tiny limbs hang, and laid him in state.

‘Nice work,’ John whispered, his eyes glossy.

‘Why do you do this for me?’ I asked.

John sniffed. ‘What?’

‘Why do you keep picking me up when I fall down? Why are you so generous? How can you trust me the way you do?’

He dabbed his eyes and left the coolroom. ‘I don’t know, Aaron. Maybe I’m a gullible fool.’

After crustless sandwiches and pumpkin soup, John drove me to town and I shopped for toiletries and clothes – more white shirts, a tracksuit, and boxer shorts bright enough to make an undertaker proud. He smiled when he saw them and offered to pay. When I refused, he stuffed a wad of cash in my hand.

‘Payday,’ he said.

I left the shop with a pocket full of change and my dignity intact.

‘You missed your licence test yesterday,’ he said on the way home.

‘I’m . . . I’m sorry about that. Sorry about how I reacted.’

He lifted a shoulder. ‘You’re here. You did what you needed to do.’

Shot an irritating neighbour? Spent a night in the clink? Burned my home down?

‘I don’t know what you have planned for this evening but you are welcome to stay in the spare room.’

I showed him my palm. ‘You’re doing it again! Why? What have I done to deserve this kindness?’

He smiled. ‘Is that a yes or a no?’

I snorted and shook my head. ‘It’s a yes. Thank you.’

He nodded and the van went quiet except for my shopping bags rustling quietly at my feet.

‘There’s no simple answer,’ John said to the windscreen. ‘You understand death.’

He looked at my eyes. ‘You know death and it disturbs you, yet you look it in the face. I’ve seen you run from it
only to find your balance and come back for more. They’re the hallmarks of someone who values life. If you didn’t feel the death or it . . . fascinated you . . . I’d be concerned.’

My face burned. I thought about Amanda Creen’s hair. I thought about Taylor.

‘I may yet be proven wrong but right here, right now, I think you’re worth the effort.’

I bowed my head and let the tears flow. They tickled the sides of my nose and crashed onto the plastic bags.

‘Do you snore?’ Skye asked at the dinner table. ‘You snore and I’ll come in and pour a bucket of ice on your head.’

Mrs Barton levelled a finger at her daughter. ‘You’ll do no such thing. You go anywhere near Aaron and you’ll find yourself sleeping in the mortuary. Do you understand?’

‘If he snores, Aaron can sleep with the dead,’ Skye mumbled.

‘I don’t think I snore,’ I said. ‘Sorry in advance if I do.’

‘What about your nightmares?’ Skye said.

Her father shushed her.

‘And your sleepwalking! Dad, have you got any rope?’

‘Enough!’ John snapped. ‘Leave the poor lad alone, Skye. We’ll sort it out. You don’t need to worry about anything. You hear a noise, you go back to sleep, okay?’

‘Not likely,’ she muttered.

I could tell from the look on John’s face that he was wondering what he had done, what he had brought into his home.

‘Thank you,’ I said, for the hundredth time. ‘I’m sorry to turn your world upside down like this. I’ll find a place to stay tomorrow.’

‘Turn
our
world upside down?’ Mrs Barton blurted. ‘Have a look at what’s left of
your
world. It’s no trouble at all. Stay as long as you need. You won’t be sitting idle, mind you. Don’t be surprised if Mr Barton wakes you in the middle of the night to go and fetch a body.’

I flashed a smile. I hoped he would wake me, but doubted it. I liked the idea of collecting the dead in the dark. Easy to be discreet after nightfall. That would almost make us an emergency service. The ambulance would whisk away the living; we’d whisk away the rest. The kernel of dread in my guts was fed by Skye’s fears. What if I did wake? What if I did scream? What if I couldn’t sit idle even in my sleep?

33

I
LAY ON THE CLEAN
linen in the spare bedroom, too frightened to sleep, too frightened to let myself go. Dressed in a scratchy new T-shirt and lurid boxer shorts, I rolled and breathed and tried to hide from the insomniac chatter in my head.

I could have killed Dale West. Would have killed him in another place or another time where death was more common and expected. I could sleepwalk, why not sleep
maim,
sleep
strangle
or sleep
shoot
? Perhaps jail would be the safest place for me. Maybe a few years behind bars was all I needed to grow out of this madness. Like a bedwetter with a plastic sheet, I fantasised about a night of uninterrupted sleep.