Wanting (9 page)

Adam and Langham flopped onto the sofa, but Oliver and Dane chose to sit opposite on the chairs. They went through their statements again, Langham writing them out on official police forms this time, checking his notes along the way. Dane looked ill when Langham recited what they’d done against the hay bale, but once again Langham didn’t offer any expression except one of pity that Dane had to explain it all again.

“So, Adam asked you if you’d heard the voice, right?” Langham took a sip of his Coke.

“Yes, but I didn’t hear it. I thought he was pulling my leg. You know, fucking about because it was dark and he wanted to scare me.”

“I won’t be writing this bit down, by the way,” Langham said, giving Adam his attention, “but it’s interesting. I don’t understand how it works for Oliver there, how it’s even possible to hear the voices of dead people, but he does. It’s been proven time and again with the information he receives and the results it produces. But your case, hearing someone who’s alive? Christ!”

“It’s called telepathy,” Oliver supplied. “And in Adam’s case I think there’s a touch of empathy, as well as a sense of knowing something was wrong at their return to the barn today, even when the victim was dead. In some cases, empaths—also known as telempaths—can affect the minds of others. Some people are born with their abilities, like me, but others get it later on in life, after a trauma, either to their head or a life-changing, frightening experience. Maybe even a happy experience. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, just the basics, but it’s interesting sh—stuff. They know who they’ve contacted too somehow. You had anything like that happen, Adam?”

Adam glanced at Dane, who had the grace to look sheepish. “Yes to two things. Trauma to the head and a traumatic experience or two.”

“Oh?” Oliver took a deep pull on his drink then put the glass back down on a beer mat. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

“No, I don’t mind.” But he did. Reciting that attack always left him cold. Still, he gave them the brief details and suppressed a shudder, then added the short tale about the mini-mart.

“Fascinating,” Langham said, “although I can understand you might not see it that way. Going through what you did was terrible. But hey, there’s a bright side. Hearing that man’s voice might just have been a one-off if you’re lucky.”

Adam laughed, even though he didn’t find it funny. It just seemed the right response, something you automatically did in situations like this. Laugh it off, everything’s a goddamn joke, ha-ha-ha, except it wasn’t, was it? He was the one dealing with the fallout from that crap—him and Dane. He hadn’t considered being able to hear other people in the future, either, and the thought shit the life out of him, made him feel sick.

“There’s a way to control it, you know,” Oliver said. “Exercises you can do to learn to channel them out. At least that’s the case with the dead. Just be thankful you only heard one voice, that you can’t hear several at once, all clamouring for your attention. Drives you bloody mad. Sometimes you want nothing more than to just hear your own thoughts.” He smiled kindly. “Sorry, that’s not the kind of thing you want to be hearing, is it.”

Adam smiled, suddenly wanting out of there, back to their new life before all this crap had landed on their doorstep. Or at least for Oliver and Langham to leave them there in peace. There was only so much Adam could handle, and he felt himself on the verge of breaking down. It had all been too much. To think he’d thought they were safe. Jesus.

“Right,” Langham said, holding the clipboard to his chest. “You’re free to go home, but be aware either us or other police officers will want to speak to you again. Remember, keep the voice out of it. I shouldn’t be telling you that, but I know from Oliver here it really isn’t worth the hassle you’ll get. Besides, it isn’t relevant.” He cleared his throat. “What I must tell you, though, and I’d like you to keep this to yourselves, is we have a strong suspicion this case is linked to another. You heard about the guy found at the warehouse recently?”

Adam nodded. Dane winced.

“Well, it was a similar thing. Similar way of stringing the victim up, the bald men and what have you. Usually, we wouldn’t give you information like this, but these two cases may also—and I stress
may
—be linked to the Sugar Strand case.”

Adam gulped in a deep breath. Fuck. That case had been huge, was still talked about, what with it happening so recently and involving Lower Repton. Drugs making people kill, kids going around murdering people. It was all mental. He didn’t understand how anyone could go about killing people on purpose. Wanting to. Didn’t the fear of being caught and put in prison enter their heads? Was it just something they felt they had to do, as natural as taking a piss or shit?

“Are we in danger?” he asked, stomach coiling into a hard knot—a knot he’d had inside him for such a long time. Yet he’d had a small respite from it, and now that it was back it seemed to hurt more than it had before. All his old fears came rushing back, of being involved in something he didn’t want to be in, worrying and looking over his damn shoulder all the time. Wondering if a knock on the door, even in daylight, would be someone coming to finish him off. If they didn’t, the bloody worry would. He wouldn’t be surprised if his blood pressure was fucked up, through the damn roof.

Langham shook his head. “Your names won’t be mentioned in the press, although, with us being here with you today and the discovery only being a couple of miles away, I imagine the folks around here will put two and two together. You’ll just be named as two men helping with the investigation, but we won’t be taking any chances. I’ll arrange for a police officer to stay outside your cottage until this is over or we find today’s discovery isn’t linked to Sugar Strands. Because of the way things worked with that case, we know that even though the main players were caught, some drugs may still be out there. Maybe some whacko found a stash of them, realised what they were and decided to do a bit of experimenting. Or maybe it’s nothing like that at all and the latest two cases are linked to each other but not to Sugar Strands. While there’s a chance of a disturbed individual out there—or many disturbed individuals—it’s best to err on the side of caution with you two.”

Langham shrugged. “Better to be safe than sorry, eh? There were no witnesses to the warehouse killing, so the perpetrators perhaps think they’ve got away with it. But you are our only hope of identifying the men responsible this time.” He shook his head again and lowered his clipboard to look at the statements. “About twenty of them, you said. Jesus.” He smiled brightly. “Anyway, this is as far as we can go with you for now. Oliver and I have things to do, obviously, and I’m sure”—he eyed the old-fashioned wooden cuckoo clock behind the bar—“you two are hungry and wouldn’t mind getting a good night’s sleep.”

Adam checked the time himself, surprised to see it was just past five o’clock and it was dark outside the netted windows. Those nets reminded him of his childhood home, when he’d stood at the window and peered through them, the smell of them dusty, that dust going up his nose and making him sneeze. His stomach growled. They hadn’t eaten for a few hours, and despite the afternoon’s events, he could do with a bite. When they’d discovered the body he’d thought he’d never want to eat again, but here he was, hungry. He noticed a few menus wedged in a white plastic holder on the bar.

After Langham and Oliver had given out business cards with instructions to call if they remembered anything new, the police officers left. Adam rose to get a menu. He took it back to their table.

“I’m sorry,” Dane said, his eyes watery.

“What for?” Adam frowned and sat on the chair Oliver had vacated.

“For not believing you. About the voice.” He shrugged and spread his hands in the air.

“It’s all right. I wouldn’t have believed me either.” Adam gave what he hoped was a warm smile and held back memories of how he’d thought he was going mental last night. “It gives me the bloody creeps, the thought of it happening again.”

“I hope for your sake it doesn’t.”

As though wanting to erase the events of the day, they lapsed into silence, Adam leaning closer to Dane, opening the menu out so they could browse it together. The pictures of the food were appealing, but he’d bet the real thing didn’t look anything like it when it arrived. It never did.

A few more customers came in, and Adam glanced over his shoulder at them, wishing he was them, with nothing more pressing going on other than their recent choice of whether they should stay in or go out to the pub. But he wasn’t them, was he, and he’d just have to deal with this shit hour by hour and hope he came out on the other side with his sanity. For all he knew, they had shit of their own to deal with, and coming in here was their way of escaping their troubles for a couple of hours. You just didn’t know what trials and tribulations people carried around with them.

Once Dane had made his meal choice, Adam went up to the bar to place their order and get a couple more drinks in. This time he chose pints of lager—the alcohol would help steady his nerves and relax him a little—then returned to their table to find Dane had moved over to the sofa. He looked knackered. Adam sat beside him, putting the pints on the table. The glasses were coated with condensation except for where his fingers and thumbs had been, and dribbles of fluid streaked down to the bases, pooling on the wood.

“Want to talk about it?” Dane asked.

Adam shook his head. His throat was strained from so much talking.

“Me neither.” Dane sighed. “Seems like I’m all talked out.”

“Me too. Throat’s dry as a nun’s chuff.”

Dane chuckled, and they sipped their lagers. Adam’s mind was surprisingly blank. He was numb and seemed unable to process anything, so he watched the other customers then took in the sight of horse brasses mounted on the wall in between pictures of what he could only assume was Lower Repton years ago. The same road with the same cottages, only the painting of Pickett’s Inn showed a considerably less decrepit building with a proud roof and walls that stood ramrod straight instead of the slouching ones of today.

Their meals arrived, simple fare of steak and kidney pie and chips, and Adam ate without tasting, without thinking of anything at all except jabbing his fork into the food and bringing it to his mouth.

Once full, they stood in unison then left the inn with a nod and a wave to the owners. Outside, the air had turned crisper than it had been when they’d arrived, and Adam hunched his shoulders, raising the collar of his jacket over his ears. It didn’t do much to ward off the chill, but it wasn’t like they had far to go before they were inside and warm again. They crossed the deserted road, the darkness behind their cottage creepy-looking, a vast expanse that seemingly never ended. Why hadn’t he noticed that when they’d come to view the cottage for the first time? He thought of the barn hidden in the distance and blocked it out, determined to get home and make a cup of tea, watch a bit of TV with Dane. Curtains closed, the world shut out.

They reached home and went inside. Now it felt familiar, like a home should. Welcoming. The warmth was lovely, and he shrugged off his coat, letting the air embrace him. Adam supposed this place would feel like home after the crap of today, his mind clinging to what he knew and loved, what made him comfortable, instead of concentrating on what could happen in the future. He hadn’t planned to acknowledge the gravity of what Langham had told him, but as he drew one of the living room curtains across, he spotted a car pulling up outside, the headlamps dousing and the interior light going on. Langham had stuck to his promise of a police guard, then.

Adam closed the other curtain then turned. It was best to just forget the copper was out there and try to have a normal evening.

Dane stared blankly at the drapes. He looked pale, drawn and totally wiped out. “It’ll be all right, you know.”

Adam wondered if that assurance was meant for him or Dane, but it didn’t much matter.

“Hope so,” he said. “You want some tea?”

Dane nodded and took off his jacket. He hung it on a hook in the hall on his way to the kitchen. It was going to be a long night, Adam knew it, the pair of them watching TV but not taking anything in, then going to bed, hoping for sleep that would probably remain elusive.

Fuck it. Just fuck it.

* * * *

Adam stared at the ceiling, the covers drawn up to his chin. Dane snored beside him, and Adam envied him the respite, unless he was dreaming about it all. Somehow, though, Dane was able to block things out, not let them affect him. Mind you, the way he’d looked earlier, maybe this time he’d been touched deeper than usual. He hadn’t said much all evening, but then again, Adam hadn’t offered anything in the way of stimulating conversation either. He’d lost himself in a TV drama, and for that hour and a half he hadn’t thought of anything but what had been happening on the screen. Once it had finished, though… Shit, the image of that dead guy had come tromping back, stamping its mark all over his mind in its size twelves. Left an indelible imprint, too, as if the first one hadn’t been enough.

He sighed and stared at the cream slice of illumination coming in from the hallway. Yeah, he’d been spooked enough to leave the landing light on, not wanting the demons of the night to come and get him. Yet they were here anyway, in his head, flickering like so much badly spliced movie footage, one scene cutting to the next in jagged pieces.

Maybe if he went through it from beginning to end he’d make more sense of it, instead of the out-of-sync imagery he’d been experiencing so far. Maybe if he dissected it, went through all the possibilities, it would all go away. Or at least fade, giving him a façade of peace. And it would be a façade, wouldn’t it? Him pretending everything would be all right because he’d disguised it all with something else, like re-plastering over a huge crack in the wall. If the crack wasn’t fixed underneath, it was still a crack no matter what covered it, wasn’t it, and eventually, as it grew bigger, the new plaster would flake off, crumbling until it revealed the original wound.