The Touch Page 2

  Samuels turned, shot an accusing glare out of the door at Phipps where he’d backed up against the opposite corridor wall, indicated the child, and asked, “Why didn’t you take him out of here?”

  But the security man only shook his head. “Didn’t want to touch anyfing. Reckoned it best to leave fings exactly as they was. Figured you wouldn’t be too long gettin’ ’ere.” And then, with a nod of his head: “You . . . you’ll find it just round the corner there.”

  “Phew!” said the younger paramedic. “Like, if that’s just baby shit, well God bless his poor little arse!”

  “I’ll see if I can find a woman to see to the kid,” Phipps said from the corridor, and made to go off. But:

  “No, you’ll wait right there!” Samuels snapped. And moving along the foot of the bed—avoiding the dark-stained trails and small brown blobs on the carpet—he turned the corner into the short leg of the L. There he saw a writing desk, a glass-topped table, two chairs . . . and something on the floor in the farthest corner of the room.

  The light in that sitting room was even worse than in the long L; flickering and buzzing, it made the room a kaleidoscope of changing shapes and shadows. But as the Inspector came to an abrupt halt, then started forward again around the table, closer to the thing slumped in the corner—and as the light flickered yet more violently before steadying up however briefly—“Jesus Christ!” he choked the words out.

  The paramedics came to flank him. The junior man carried a torch that he shone into the corner. At which Samuels stepped back on legs that were suddenly rubbery, bumped into the table, and croaked, “What the . . . what the hell is that!?”

  Down on one knee, the senior paramedic looked closer. “It can only be one thing,” he said, gaspingly. And in the light of the torch he stared at but didn’t touch a man-sized, almost man-shaped mass. “These are human or large animal remains,” he went on in little more than a whisper. “But what in God’s name . . . I mean, what could have done this to him, or it?”

  Pushing the glass table aside, Samuels forced his legs to move him forward again. But as his flinching gaze followed the torch’s beam where it moved along the length of the—body?—so his lips drew back in an involuntary snarl of horror.

  Its upper half was propped against the corner walls where they formed a right angle, while its lower half, lying flat to the floor, radiated raggedly outward. The walls behind it and the carpet beneath it were soaked black, which would be crimson under more normal lighting conditions. Its skeleton of flensed white bones lay partly hidden in or under it while its innards and viscera in general slumped or dangled externally, hanging there like various lengths of sausage or so many red and purple loaves of meat. The pulp of its brain clung to the empty skull.

  “It . . . it’s a man!” said Samuels, staggering to and fro, and beginning to breathe faster as his gorge rose. “It’s a man, and he . . . he . . . he . . .”

  “He’s inside out!” breathed the younger paramedic, beating the Inspector to it. “And look! That pipe thing is moving!”

  The “pipe thing” he was pointing his torch beam at was in fact a convulsing alimentary canal whose puckered anus suddenly opened, voiding itself in a twenty-inch surge across the carpet. At which the heart—it could only be—started up and throbbed six times with a desperate, pounding beat before fluttering to a standstill as the upper half of the mess toppled and slopped sideways down onto the floor.

  Hissing their mutual horror, the paramedics literally flew back away from the impossible thing they had witnessed, and the junior man gasped, “That thing—that bloody unnatural fucking mess—it was alive?”

  “Well, if it was,” the other found the strength to answer, “there was nothing we could have done for it.” And backing out of the short L, he tripped on something—in fact on the prone, unconscious figure of Inspector Samuels—and almost fell. And regaining his balance, in more ways than one, he said, “Get on down to the wagon. Take that security bloke with you and bring back a body bag and a stretcher. I’ll stay here, use the phone to call out a Scenes of Crime crew, and maybe a policewoman to look after the kid. But until they arrive we won’t be touching anything . . . well, except that.” And grunting his displeasure, he nudged Samuels’s sprawled figure with the toe of his boot.

  “Not much of a cop, was he,” said the younger man, making it less a question than a statement of fact.

  “He was all wind and piss,” the other agreed. “The sooner we stretcher him out of here the better. We can just thank God he’s not typical of the breed.”

  Out in the corridor, security man Phipps was well pleased to accompany the young paramedic down to the ambulance. And no one noticed that throughout the hotel the lights were all back to normal.

  As for the baby boy: he was fast asleep and snoring . . .

  1

  3:33—Again!

  What the hell was it, Scott St. John wondered, about 3:33? And always in the morning. But actually he knew what it was all about, the reason he’d woken up at this time almost every morning for the last three months and three weeks . . . and yet again that bloody number! Three, and sometimes three of them! The top prial in three-card brag—if you were a gambler and incredibly lucky—or the number of a crowd. Or, in Scott St. John’s case, his personal version of 666. And he supposed (no, he knew) that it would always be a completely unnecessary reminder of his own very personal hours, days, and weeks of hell. No, he didn’t need numbers to remind him, because he simply couldn’t forget.

  Just for a moment he looked for Kelly on her side of their bed, his bed now. But then again, he always looked for her when he woke up like this . . . even when he woke up unlike this; which is to say, normally. Not that that happened very often, not anymore.

  God, he was lonely! He was lonely and lost, and he’d been this way ever since 3:33 A.M. on that terrible Sunday.

  Scott’s mind immediately shrank away from the memory; and as an automatic reflex, hurriedly, unashamedly, knowing that he couldn’t succeed, still he tried to smother the memory and cast it out. But despite his best efforts, he knew he would never be able to cast it far enough. It had its hooks in him . . .

  He knew he’d been dreaming again, the dream he’d first had beside her hospital bed as she lay dying. And how he had cursed himself afterward, after Kelly’s weak, shrunken little fingers tightened on his, waking him out of one nightmare into another. Cursed himself, yes—in the moment after her fingers slackened off for the last time—because he’d been asleep in his chair, worn out by his three-day vigil. Three: that bloody number! But Kelly had been dosed with painkillers; she wasn’t aware of his presence there; that sudden tightening of her fingers had been an involuntary spasm, a final constriction induced by . . . well, by what?

  Perhaps, in her sedated, subconscious mind, she’d noticed Death’s stealthy approach and made one last effort to hang on to something before that grim Old Man stole her away. And feeling the pressure on his fingers, then Scott had woken up. Unthinkably painful now: to know he’d been asleep and hadn’t squeezed back to reassure her. But better Kelly’s tender-seeming, involuntary, unrequited squeeze than a death rattle. Scott had been an eight-year-old boy when his father died, but he could still remember that final, fluttering gurgle of stale, empty air. It would have been monstrously horrific to wake up to another one of those, this time from Kelly, and know that he’d remember it for the rest of his life!

  God, you morbid, maudlin bastard! he thought, meaning himself, not God. Not that Scott had much time for God either, not any longer. For after all, what kind of God would let . . .

  . . . But no, he mustn’t go there. Not again, and again, and again. Not like he’d been doing. For three months, three weeks, and (he checked his mental calendar) yes, three days! Not only that but three hours and thirty-three minutes, too! Except time had moved on and it was now 3:36.

  Scott knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep again, and so got out of bed. It wasn’t unusual; he’d stopped counting the
number of times he’d done this when he hit ninety (three times thirty, of course) because he’d suspected that he was only aggravating matters. If he surrendered to it like that, accepting it as his lot, he might have to suffer it forever. But for goodness’ sake, must he blame himself for the rest of his life for being asleep when Kelly died? Would he never, ever get a decent night’s rest again?

  And yet it wasn’t only memories of Kelly that caused Scott to start awake. It was also the dream, and the hour of darkness when he dreamed it: a time that had significance other than the moment of her death. He felt quite sure of that without knowing why. But occasionally, and always briefly, he would recall some small detail of the dream, only to have it slip away as soon as he was awake, like a word on the tip of his tongue that refused to come. Not that there was ever anything that might indicate a guilty conscience—nothing particularly frightening or morbid, either—and certainly nothing of the so-called supernatural, which in any case he didn’t believe in. And so, while he blamed himself for failing to maintain his watch as Kelly passed away, Scott was grateful that he couldn’t be censured for the unknown and therefore incurable wasting disease that had taken her from him.

  And so his dream—this recurrent yet unremembered dream—wasn’t a guilt thing or even a genuine nightmare. But it was something weird, for sure. Weird enough to do this to him, this waking up at 3:33 thing, anyway.

  And even as he mulled it over, there it was yet again, or at least a part of it: like that word on the tip of his tongue, or more properly a scene on the rim of his mind:

  A splinter or shaft of light—a dart of golden light, yes—speeding through a dark place, the darkest place imaginable, toward . . . what? Was that a face? A clock face, maybe? A clock showing 3:33, just hanging there in a dark void? Or could it be a dart-board, with the dart speeding home to (what else but) the triple three? Ah, but then, in another moment, the dart slowing down—swerving to and fro, this way and that, oddly curious—before finally directing itself toward Scott. Seeking him out, yes, and sentient!

  Scott twitched involuntarily, started, and broke the spell. And as quickly as it had come the memory slipped from his mind, leaving him frowning, frustrated, and asking himself, as he had asked so many times before: Now what the hell is this? A total breakdown of my short-term memory, or what?

  Or was it just that he was still half asleep?

  He went into the bathroom, put the light on, stared at his face, all haggard in the mirror. Running the cold water tap, he splashed himself more surely awake, then watched the water drip from his chin into the bowl. And: Lord, what a mess! he thought. Scott, my lad, you’re one totally fucked-up mess! You should see a counsellor or a shrink; or, since you never believed in such, you should do it yourself: simply pull yourself together and go back to work while there’s still a job waiting for you.

  Well, if the job was still waiting for him . . .

  The local newsagent opened up at 5:45, so Scott must do without cigarettes until then. Good, because lately he had been smoking far too many. Accepting and yet despising his addiction, it had become a trick of his to string a pack out through the evening, so that he smoked his last one before going to bed. Which meant he couldn’t smoke in the morning until he could buy more. Which also meant that he could usually be seen walking the streets at all kinds of ridiculous hours—like now.

  He must look like a bum, he thought: bleary-eyed, unwashed and unshaven, his collar turned up and his hands thrust deep in his overcoat pockets, trudging through a North London shopping district, with pages from yesterday’s newspapers flapping down the wind tunnel of dreary-looking facades. Worse still, he felt like a bum, or what he imagined bums felt like. Self-pity? Well, probably. But he hadn’t turned to drink yet. Not yet, anyway.

  The dawn chorus had started up just as he’d left his house in a pleasant residential area maybe half a mile farther north. There were trees, shrubs, and tall hedges there, where the birds had built their nests in March and raised their young in April. The newcomers, full grown now, were as active as the young of whatever species; always first awake, they were ever hungry. Scott’s house (just his now) had luxuriant ivy clinging to the front wall as high as the upper windows. Several house sparrow families were in residence, and the young ones had just commenced chirping themselves awake as he’d shut the door behind him.

  Scott and Kelly hadn’t had any chicks. She wasn’t able and had blamed herself. It had seemed a real shame at the time, but it hadn’t hurt their love. And as it now turned out . . .

  But there he went again. His thoughts had a life all their own and seemed uncontrollable, venturing where he really didn’t want to go. But it was unavoidable. And damn, he felt even more like a bum because he’d been thinking how fortunate it was that they’d had no kids! Yet surely it was fortunate because he knew he could never have coped, not without Kelly. Or maybe he would have coped, knowing they were parts of her. Of course he would. God, how he wished he could stop thinking!

  But suddenly, a welcome distraction: the newsagent’s shop, where Scott the automaton had ended up almost without noticing. And it was open. He entered and found a frazzled-looking woman, her hair still in curlers, behind the counter. She was checking accounts while her tubby, bald-headed husband separated out the morning delivery of magazines and daily newspapers onto shelves that divided the floor space into twin aisles.

  The woman, recognizing Scott and knowing his needs, had calculated the cost even before he’d picked up a newspaper and named his brand of cigarettes. Of course she knew him; this was probably his twelfth, or more likely his thirteenth (that three again), morning in a row. Paying up, he was about to leave when he noticed another customer in the back of the shop: a smartly dressed young woman who had stepped into view in his aisle.

  Scott knew her, at least by sight: he had seen her before, and not only here in this shop. What’s more, there was a certain something about her. She had the kind of looks that, before he met Kelly, would have turned his head . . . but that on the other hand would as quickly have caused him to think twice. Because a woman like this was surely not alone in the world. She couldn’t be said to be beautiful, but attractive? Oh, yes—albeit in an indefinable way—and there was definitely mystery, and a sort of magnetism, too, in her every movement.

  And she was looking at him, at Scott the bum.

  Suddenly aware—reminded of his unkempt if not actually disreputable appearance—Scott turned up his collar more yet, sank down into his coat, left the shop, and paused in the street to light a cigarette; where a moment later he felt the touch of a hand on his arm. A very gentle touch that brought with it the merest hint of some unrecognized, subtle perfume. Or perhaps it was simply her breath when she said, “I’m so sorry. I know it’s none of my business and I really don’t mean to intrude, but . . . she must have been a very wonderful human being.”

  Scott’s jaw fell open; he also dropped his cigarette, felt himself beginning to bend to pick it up, caught himself just in time. That much of a bum he wasn’t. But looking at her standing so close, he wondered: was it really that obvious? He had heard about psychics who could read you like that. Your aura or something.

  “It’s very obvious, yes,” she said, as if she were reading his thoughts. “To me it is, anyway. It’s very clear, written in your face, your . . . demeanour? You are—how do you say it?—radiating your sorrow. I can feel it washing outward from you.”

  Finally he found his voice. “Do I . . . do I know you? Maybe you knew Kelly? Have I met you before somewhere? I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to remem—”

  “No,” she quickly, quietly cut him off, then glanced nervously up and down the street. “We’ve never met face-to-face and shouldn’t be speaking even now. But I sensed you from afar, and I found you here and watched you. Your pain has spoken for you; so much pain that I felt I must make myself known, perhaps too soon.”

  “What?” said Scott, drawing back from her until he came up against the newsagent’s w
indow. “What are you saying?”

  “We’ve never met,” she said again, “but you do know me, or you should, or you will.” And moving closer she whispered, “You are One, I am Two, and soon we’ll be Three. Can you understand? I can see in your face that you can’t. I don’t quite understand myself, so perhaps we both still need time.”

  A crazy woman! Scott thought.

  The early morning traffic was starting to move now. A taxi pulled up at the curb; the driver wound down his window, leaned out, and said, “Miss?”

  Scott’s crazy woman nodded, half turned away from him, and then turned back. “If anyone asks strange questions, try not to say anything. If you sense anything strange, keep your distance but try to explore it. Do think about what has happened to you, your loss, but think coldly, without anger, pain, or passion. Do not search for me; when it’s time, I’ll find you. As for Three: it only seems to be a question, but might just as easily be the answer.”

  Before Scott could say anything in return, she touched his hand, this time his flesh and not just his coat sleeve. He felt an almost electric tingle—static electricity, obviously—at which he jerked a very little and blinked. And still speechless he watched her cross the pavement to the taxi.

  But as she seated herself and before closing the door, she looked at him one last time and said, “Scott, promise me you’ll be very careful.”

  With which she closed the door and was gone . . .