FLICKS—chapter seven
The Railway Arms was crowded to nearly full capacity, harbouring the post-Christmas and pre-New Year's Eve refugees who were at a loss for filling in the holidays with friends and family. Ray was in particularly good form as he brought a dart home in the bull's eye of the dart board, a pint handed to him which he happily downed in three quick gulps. Sam sat on a stool at the bar, his own pint mostly untouched. Despite their current displacement, the conversations in the pub revolved around family get togethers, meals of black pudding and tender portions of moist turkey. Sam had spent most of Christmas day alone in his flat, his dreams giving him vocal glimpses of what his true bedside looked like. He'd heard his mother's soft weeping superimposed upon the sounds of the monitors, the nurses tending him talking to one another of their own plans, the constant, sad refrains of Merry Christmas where no merriment dared to remain. It had all been a endurance test, a depressing affair that Sam hoped would be over and forgotten as quick as it had arrived. He could easily relate to Gene in this regard. He took a deep swallow of his pint in respect for the comradery of his fellow man's seasonal misery.
A small white box was suddenly placed in front of him, a simple plastic red bow stuck onto the top lid. Sam frowned as he took it, Annie's warm presence beside him on the stool next to his easing some of his acknowledged unhappiness.
"It's just a little something. Go on, open it."
Sam slowly twirled the box in a circle with his fingers, the red bow catching the twinkling lights above the bar. "I can't accept this. I didn't get you anything."
"That doesn't matter. What's the point of giving if you just expect something in return? Besides, I got the impression your holidays haven't gone on too well."
"You have astounding intuition," Sam said, and he felt he welcomed the close proximity of her warmth, the gentle nudge she gave him towards positivity. Whatever she gave him as a gift would be moot, he thought. Just having her here, sitting on the stool beside him was enough to make him happy.
"Family problems?"
"You could say so. You can't exactly bring in much by way of Christmas cheer into an ICU." He followed Ray's earlier example and downed his pint quickly. He tapped on the rim of the empty glass. "Nelson, we'll have another."
"It's a good thing I've come to your rescue. Go on and open it, it won't bite you, I promise." She nudged the box towards Sam, refusing to let him get out of this.
"Okay," he said, and found he was more eager to open it than he'd originally expressed to her. He slowly opened the lid, drawing the moment of discovery out. An equally slow smile crept over his features, to end in a genuine, appreciative grin. She'd given him a watch, a heavy silver creation with an expandable metal band.
"It's a Timex," Annie said, proudly. "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. It reminded me of you."
He slipped the watch on, where it was bulky and heavy on his wrist. "I love it, Annie. Thank you. This was so thoughtful."
"I know," she said, and winked playfully at him. Sam's eyes met her soft blue assurance, and he wanted to remain there, to simply stay in this precious moment where Annie kept him focused on her. He took in the delicate curve of her hair, the gentle soft glow of her skin, and wondered just how forward would it be if he reached out to her and dared to brush her cheek with the back of his hand.
The phone sitting on the edge of the bar began to ring. Sam eyed it cautiously, noting that Nelson ignored its incessant droning, the phone mocking all sense of happiness that Sam had dared to express. He bit down on his bottom lip and broke off Annie's gaze with reluctance. Steeling himself for the worst, he picked up the phone and waited for the newest taunt from Hyde.
"Sam Tyler," he said.
"Boss?"
Chris's voice was a balm on Sam's nerves. He let out a shaky breath, not realizing he'd been holding it.
"You've got to get everyone down here," Chris said, his voice in a broken panic, all sense of relief he'd brought with him eradicated. "I mean it, Boss. There's blood everywhere, it's a right horror show."
/
Apartment 4-24B was shrouded in a near eerie silence, the usual wailing of the infant down the hall now muffled by the quiet a police presence on the building had on the place. Chris was leaning against the corridor wall, his hands on his hips and deep breaths heaving through his thin chest as though he had difficulty keeping his lungs working. An asthma attack, perhaps, Sam thought. One induced by stress.
Standing beside Chris was Ray, his own face serious and pale, the smell of sick not far from where he was standing. The pristine new orange carpet had already claimed its first stain. Ray had his hand on Chris's shoulder, both holding Chris and himself up for support.
"I couldn't do a proper forensic sweep," Chris said to Sam, apologetic. "Never seen nothing like that before. It was all I could do to use the phone."
From the amount of police hovering at the entrance to the flat it was clear that Chris's peers were having similar difficulties. Sam pushed his way past them and entered the front entrance of the flat, getting a good view of the carnage waiting for him on Marjorie Williams' battered green chesterfield.
"I couldn't stop thinking about it," Chris continued. "The way she was so callous over the dog. I figured I'd come back and give her a charge for letting her animal roam at large, maybe set up some fines for animal neglect too while I was at it. The door wasn't locked when I popped round...I opened it and got a right eyeful."
Chris's confession sent a wave of sympathy through the squad that had arrived on the scene, and not even the loud entrance of their DCI Gene Hunt could dissipate the sombre mood that had entrenched the place. Gene Hunt slapped his leather clad hands together and rubbed them, his cheeks ruddy from the chill he had earned outside, his demeanor cheerful.
"Look alive, lads. So, what's on the plate tonight, Chris? Somebody flush away a goldfish?" He approached the flat and took a quick look over Sam's shoulder.
"Jesus," he said, recoiling.
"Did you get any information on our victim before you gave her a visit?" Sam asked Chris. "I want to know who she hung out with, if she had any current boyfriends."
"She was a tart, a freelance prozzie, you know, no pimp. Her file was fat with prostitution charges, and her latest known punter was some bloke named Roger Elkie. He owns a television and radio shop down the road. Bit of a bad sort, he's just finished doing ten for armed robbery and assault."
"Small world," Sam observed, and gave Gene a knowing look.
"He's got animal cruelty charges, which is what got me interested most. Mangled his neighbour's pigeons."
Chris' pallor was alarming, his voice shaking as he spoke. Sam took pity on him, and he put a reassuring hand on the man's shoulder. "You did a good job, Chris. Annie's downstairs, why don't you let her run you home. We can check out your lead."
Gene snorted at this. "Never mind Roger, he's got an airtight alibi. I've spent the better part of this night playing construction foreman while he put in some glorious new oak cabinets in my Mum's kitchen. Which reminds me, Sam, she gives her regards and insisted I bring along some of her freshly made biscuits for you. Pity I got hungry along the way here." Gene pursed his lips as he took in the gory sight waiting for him on the green chesterfield in front of him. "Granted, I'm currently regretting my appetite."
"There was no chance he could have slipped out, then?" Sam asked, leaving Chris and Ray to commiserate their horror and allow Annie to drive them both home. "The animal cruelty charge..."
"Was bullocks. His old lady was making pigeon pie and she used the neighbour's prize show birds for it and they was naturally pissed about it. Delicious, actually. Nobody can make a pigeon pie like Roger's mum."
Gene sighed and walked further into the flat, his arms crossed, his face pursed in an expression of both disgust and thoughtfulness. "Are you honestly telling me that mess was once a human being?"
Sam surveyed the scene, taking in the splatter patterns on the walls and ceiling of the living room and the pools of blood that had coursed from beneath the chesterfield and became burgundy rivers across the uneven tiled floor. He took a pen out of his side pocket and lifted up a blood soaked scrap of fabric from the pulpy mess that lay smeared across the couch. Though the original colour couldn't be properly discerned, the tightly packed pattern of small flowers positively identified the victim.
"Marjorie Williams was wearing this shirt when we visited her this afternoon." The sour scent of newly rotting blood nearly made him gag. It wasn't something he ever wanted to get used to. The flat was engorged with her blood, bits and pieces of her flesh and tissue were stuck on the ceiling, the small television on the floor gory with dried bits of grey matter and only just drying rivulets of blood seeping down the left side.
"She was struck repeatedly..."
"No shit, Sherlock." Gene frowned, his stolen snack of biscuits clearly not sitting well with him. "Damn. She's such a mess I can't tell if she was sitting up or sleeping this way or that way. Her head's all over the damned place."
A cold realization hit Sam, and he felt bile rising from his own gut, threatening to expose his sudden sense of fear. "Her children, where are they, the two boys?"
"Weren't no children here, sir," a uniformed policeman at the door told him.
Sam gave Gene a silent nod and then made his way cautiously down the main hallway of the flat, towards the door that presumably held the boy's bedroom. He inched his way slowly towards it, keeping his steps as silent as possible. If the killer was still in the room...
He paused at the doorway, his gun cocked. Gene was only inches behind him, and then slid to other side of the door, ready to bombard their prey with the barrels of two guns pointed at his head.
"One," Sam mouthed.
"Three," Gene loudly proclaimed, and he bashed open the door with his foot, hinges popping off and sending screws flying out of the cheap wooden frame.
Sam felt an instant flood of relief to see the room was empty of people, what belongings the boys had were placed neatly away, the room pristine and clean. Discarded milk crates housed toys for various ages, a Mr. Potato Head doll with an eye missing lay invalid on the top of one, while a James Bond Hot Wheels car with its back trunk missing lay half buried beneath a slew of Lego pieces. There was little else in the room, save for the large bunk beds that were against the far wall, two completely different personalities clearly residing within the divided space. The bottom bunk was draped with a thin, pale blue flannel blanket, the wall just above the mattress adorned with various childish drawings of a dog running through a set of country hills, a huge smiling sun looking down in approval. The upper bunk was unmade, the bedspread in actuality an old sleeping bag within which was hidden a copy of The Hobbit, opened packets of gum and an eight track cassette of The Bay City Rollers. He pushed the sleeping bag aside and found further junk hidden within the folds. A collection of dried up magic markers and a wooden ball met Sam's scrutiny. He picked up the last object, puzzling over its weight in his hand, his thumb teasing its way across the ridged grooves and dents on its surface.
"It's got a red stripe," Sam observed.
"What, you've never seen a cricket ball before?" Gene said.
He felt weak. Faint. "If you sift through the muck of what's left of Marjorie Williams, I guarantee you'll find wooden splinters from a cricket bat. That's what he used on the dog, and it's what he's used on his mother."
"Who? Not the kid—Give over, Sam, no tyke's strong enough to deliver blows like that."
Obscene though it was, Sam knew Gene was wrong in his assumption. Anger did a lot to human beings, especially the kind of rage welling within the child known to him as James. It didn't pound down doors or belittle people with words, this kind of rage shut down all other emotions, it welled up inside the body like a crackling set of explosives just waiting for its chance to have an excuse to be lit.
"I know where they are," Sam said.
/
The confines of the theater were especially suffocating in the pitch dark, all safety lights off and all that remained was the black hollow that infinity held within it. Sam's flashlight glowed across the rows of the chairs, lining them up in his sight like dark, rounded sentries. The quiet in the theater was a palpable entity, and Sam could feel his heart quicken with every step he took and every flash of his light against the rows of seats.
The main door squealed open, and Sam trained his flashlight on the two figures that had wandered through it. He held his breath as he took in the figure of a small boy with a mop of black hair, and the taller, older child he knew to be his brother James. A flash of something yellow caught Sam's eye and he shone his light on it. The cricket bat dangled in the boy's hand, its surface cracked and splintered from the various blows it had inflicted on its victims. The red stripe had all but disappeared beneath the thick layer of blood staining the wooden surface.
"Shh," Sam heard beside him.
He shone his light on the set of seats to his right, and struggled to keep it within his grip.
Two, three, no it was four. Five. Seven. Nine.
An entire row, a set of twenty or more. Behind them were an army of black haired boys with wide, frightened eyes, their lips half open in recognition.
There were a hundred. A thousand.
Shhhh...
Sam looked about him in a wild panic, his heart hammering in his chest in a staccato beat. He fought his way through the crowd of black haired boys, trying to find the one spot he was meant to be in. All around him, the horrific sounds of bones breaking, the spatter of thousands of pints of blood hitting him in the face, where he could taste its iron flavour on his tongue.
"Stoppit!" Sam shouted out at the milieu of death that had surrounded him. "STOP!"
A single chair was open, empty. Sam stared at it a long moment, not fully realizing the potential it possessed.
A hiss of wind met his ear, and instinctively he reacted. His hand grasped a thin, polished object, and he pushed against the furious force of weight that threatened to bear down on him.
"Sam!"
Gene Hunt's voice in the theater made the multitudes disappear into their soupy, thick darkness, leaving Sam alone with the boy known as James, the cricket bat held at bay, Sam's will against the force of an emotionless killing machine contained in the body of a gangly eleven year old.
"Dammit boy, what do you think you're on about!" Gene shouted. He wrenched the cricket bat from the boy's hand, a sense of horror creeping over him as he got a good look at the stains that had seeped deep into the wood. "What's all this? Why do you have this, boy? Do you know what's happened to your mother?"
The small child Sam knew had to be Georgie looked up at Gene, his dark eyes glassy with shock. He held a small finger to his lips, an urgent plea against the encroaching dark.
"Shhh," he said. "Mommy's sleeping."
"Dammit to hell," Gene said through his teeth.
Sam grabbed James by the throat and hurled him against the theater seats, his fists ready to pack a few blows on his childish face. "You son of a bitch!" he shouted at him. "How could you do such a thing? Your own mother and then your brother, too. You're a monster! A bloody monster!"
"Cool off, Sam, he's just a damned kid! He couldn't wipe snot from his nose without help, there's no way he did it..."
James gave Gene an emotionless shrug. He slumped into one of the seats near where Gene was standing, and picked at the stains beneath his fingernails.
"I like the way it sounds," he said, to no one in particular.
Sam felt sick. He could just puke. Gene stood beside James, a frown etched close on his forehead. "The way what sounds, boy?" he asked.
"The bones," James said, flat, emotionless. Cold as death. "When they break."
His usually deadened eyes flickered with sudden, unexpected emotion, one which others might mistake for pleasure. He made breaking motions with his hands and Gene Hunt visibly flinched against every sound effect.
"Crack! Crr. Crr. Crack!"