DayMare 06
It was late in the morning when Henry finished doing the dishes that he had neglected the day before. He dried off a mug he had just cleaned and decided to pour himself another cup of coffee. After having read through all the contents of his scrapbook, he hadn't gone back to bed. He wouldn't have been able to fall asleep, anyway. Nothing he found in the scrapbook pointed towards something he had missed, so while he still had the feeling that something wasn't right, he was a bit calmer now. It was probably just his mind playing tricks on him.
He had just taken a sip from the coffee and sat down on the couch, when the phone in his bedroom rang. Setting the cup down, he looked at the clock - Alice was up earlier than he had expected. Getting up again, the brunette man went to get the phone. Arriving in his small bedroom, he picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Mr. Townshend? This is Detective Miller from the Ashfield Police Department speaking."
Swallowing nervously, Henry sat down on the bed.
"Here you go."
Henry averted his eyes from the window to look at the plastic cup being put down in front of him on the table. He had been sitting in this office for almost half an hour now, so when a policewoman asked him if he'd like something to drink, he agreed, if just to have something to divert his thoughts with. He was so tense by now, though, that he didn't really feel like touching the water given to him. He just wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. When that detective had called him earlier, he had explained that they wanted to find out if he might remember more, now that he should have calmed down again from the initial shock. He had agreed rather readily, hoping it would get the police off his back as soon as possible.
"We're sorry for making you wait, the detectives should be finished very soon with the meeting."
Henry nodded at the police officer, hoping she was right. And just as she was about to leave the office again, two persons could be seen standing in front of the door through its upper glass part. The door was opened by a bulky, balding man that Henry remembered talking to the day he had escaped that hellish nightmare. He was followed by another man, this one slimmer with unruly dirty blonde hair and a stubble that was rivaling Henry's own.
The balding man made his way towards Henry, shaking his hand while sitting down on a chair opposite him. "Hello again Mr. Townshend. I don't know if you remember me, we had a brief talk the day when your neighbour was found. I'm Detective Simons, and this is my partner Detective Miller." He gestured towards the blonde man, who also sat down.
Henry nodded, "I do." He thought he remembered Miller having been there, too.
"Well then", Simons began, "please tell us what happened on that particular day again."
Alice closed the flap of her mobile phone with a sigh. Did Henry go somewhere? That would be weird, he had been the one to suggest meeting around noon, so she guessed that meant he should be free around that time. And even if something really did come up, he would have told her about it and cancelled or postponed the tour.
So why couldn't she reach him for almost an hour now? By now the ringing of the telephone should have woken him up. Unless... 'Maybe his phone is broken or something?'
After looking at the mobile phone in her hand for a minute, thinking about what to do, Alice finally made a decision. She got up from the bed she was sitting on and put on a slightly too big pullover that covered a good part of her mini-skirt, in case the grey clouds outside the window might lead to rain, grabbed her messenger bag and left the hotel room.
No other way to find out if something was wrong with Henry's phone or if he truly was not home, than to simply go and see for herself.
Henry hadn't liked the way Detective Miller had been staring at him from the beginning he had been retelling what he already told the police back then. He had made sure not to reveal much more than the first time around, yet the other detective, Simons, simply kept asking about details he might have forgotten at that moment due to his shock. It was going in circles, and Henry didn't seem to be the only one getting bothered by this, as Miller finally seemed to have enough of the game. His questions started getting more and more aggressive, causing Henry to get agitated.
"Are you sure your memories haven't 'returned'?" The blond man had gotten up from his seat minutes ago and was now pacing the small room.
"No. As I already told you, more than once!"
"So you remember your neighbour screaming but not what happened afterwards? Not a single thing? Seems like a pretty selective memory loss to me." He stopped in front of Henry, propping his upper body up with his hands on the table, looming over the brunet.
"...That is the last thing I clearly remember. I think I wanted to go and see if she's alright, but I'm not really sure what-"
"Bullshit!"
Henry flinched at the other man's sudden outburst of anger.
Miller grabbed a manilla folder that had been lying on his side of the table, throwing it down in front of Henry. "Maybe this will help you remember then."
"What are you doing?", Simons asked his partner incredulously. "You can't just show this to him now!"
"Oh yeah? Can't hurt when he has already seen it, can it?"
He opened it on a marked page, and Henry gasped at the sight. There were photos of Eileen, bruised and broken. He remembered them. He had seen them attached to an X-Ray film viewer in the Hospital World.
Miller turned some more pages, and Henry just couldn't help staring at them, paralyzed, his mind getting sucked back to those horror filled hours.
"Maybe you remember now, Mr. Townshend? Does any of this ring a bell?"
He finally stopped at a photo from the crime scene, Eileen lying on the floor in her apartment, the carpet underneath her soaked with her own blood. Henry could almost see little Walter standing close to her head, looking down sadly at her broken body. Could almost feel the world tilting as he fell to his knees opposite from the boy.
The enraged detective was practically shoving the photo into Henry's face. "How come you escaped with just a few cuts and bruises when the same attacker did this to her? Beat her up to a bloody pulp? Even broke several bones!"
Oh, Henry remembered her broken bones quite well. The sprained ankle that had hindered her from walking quickly. "Please don't go too fast, Henry! My leg hurts..." The pain written all over her face, tears threatening to spill from her eyes, while she had tried running when they were chased by the sound of a chainsaw and insane laughter. The broken arm that had hindered her from climbing ladders. "Please come back soon, yeah?" The look in her eyes whenever he'd had to leave her alone for a while, fearing that Walter might find her.
"Matt, calm down!"
Henry barely registered Simons' voice cutting Miller short.
"Don't you see what you're doing to the man?"
Miller took a step back hearing his partner's voice. Breathing heavily, he took a look at Townshend. The man looked pale. His widened eyes were staring at the folder on the table, his lower lip trembling faintly. Just as he was thinking that he might finally get something out of him now, the door to the office opened.
"Detective Miller, a word with you please."
Turning towards the door, he spotted the chief looking rather displeased at him. Hesitating for just a second, the detective threw the photo on the table and went to leave the room. The chief was waiting for him a few stepps away from the office.
"What has gotten into you, Miller?"
"It seemed like the best approach to me since we didn't get anything out of that guy using other methods. You can tell he's been lying, and now we might at least get him talking! If you just give me ten more minutes-"
"No."
Miller blinked. "What?"
"No. Don't you remember what the psychologist on-site said? You could have just triggered the man back into his trauma, and then we wouldn't get anything out of him! These things need time."
A short moment of silence followed the chief's words.
"Simons will finish the interrogation on his own."
"But-"
"No buts. I don't want you inside there until you have cooled yourself."
With that the detective was left behind, watching Henry Townshend look up as the Chief opened the door and went inside.
Oh, he wouldn't just let him off like that... He was sure that he had almost gotten the bastard to talk! No, Matthiew Miller was simply going to continue the interrogation on his own; at the crime scene itself - Henry Townshend's apartment.
See if that will help him remember.
Brandon Perkins smiled triumphantically at the door in front of him. It had taken some time and nerves, but he had managed to distract that old superindentend long enough to "borrow" a key ring with the master key for the apartments in this building from him. And it was just his luck that Townshend didn't seem to be at home. He had waited for over half an hour, ringing the bell and knocking on the door several times and no one had answered. There had also been no sounds at all coming from apartment 302 for the past fifteen minutes that he had been listening in front of the door, so he felt confident to unlock it.
But just as he had taken the keys out of his messenger bag, about to put them into the lock, someone entered the hallway he was standing in. Mentally cursing the bad timing, he put the hand holding the keys down and let it rest at his thigh, facing the interrupter – and cursed again.
Townshend's cousin was coming towards him, a surprised look on her face.
"Hey", she greeted him, once she arrived in front of him and the apartment. "Brandon, right?"
The journalist put on an easy-going smile and nodded. "Glad you remembered it."
She returned his smile for a brief moment, before asking, "You here to see Henry?"
"Yes, but he doesn't seem to be home… Or at least he isn't answering the door."
"Oh." She blinked. "So he really does seem not to be there. He wasn't answering the phone, either."
Good to know.
"Weird… He usually wouldn't go anywhere without cancelling a date."
"You had a date?", he asked, raising a dark brow.
"Yeah, he wanted to show me around town... well, that blows." The girl sighed, rubbing the back of her head with a slightly confused look. "Wonder where he went off to..."
When Brandon didn't comment on that, she sighed and continued, "Seems like I'll have to find something else to do until he's back."
That would have been the perfect opportunity to engage her in another conversation and try to get some information out of her – but as it was, the key in his hand seemed like a more promising way to get information, especially with the girl's lack of knowledge about the murders in mind. So instead of offering to show her around, he simply replied, "Sorry to hear that. Hope we'll have more luck later... You know what, I'll leave him a message under the door and let him know we were here." That would give him an excuse to stay behind.
"Right, good idea... Well, guess I'll be off again, then." When there came no other response, she added a quick "Bye" and turned back to the way she came from.
"Bye", the journalist replied, watching her leave the hallway around a corner. 'Finally.' He really didn't want to lose such an opportunity, and who knew how much time he had left until Townshend returned... He faced the door again, moving the keys towards the lock.
'Well, that went kinda awkward...', Alice mused as she turned the corner. She hadn't really known how to act around that Brandon guy, since Henry didn't seem to be on good terms with him, and seeing him at Henry's place had taken her by surprise. He seemed nice enough, though, so Henry's reaction the day before really looked kind of odd... Now that she thought about it, hadn't Brandon seemed like he knew what was going on with Henry? That thought made her stop. He'd even correctly guessed about her checking on Henry... maybe that was the reason why Henry didn't want her to be around Brandon? Maybe he feared Brandon might tell her what was going on? She had to admit that she was probably stretching it quite a bit, but the possibility was there...
Alice turned around again, feeling a little guilty. She had promised Henry not to push him into revealing what was going on, but that might be just too good an opportunity to find something out without having to bother Henry himself...
She turned the corner, only to stop dead again when she saw Brandon unlocking Henry's apartment. Quickly collecting herself, she continued walking towards him. "Hey!" Hearing her voice, the man faced her with a surprised look, before quickly pulling the door open and entering the apartment. Alice picked up speed and ran towards the door, and just as Brandon was about to close it behind him, she managed to put her right foot in before the door could snap shut, her leather boot catching most of the impact. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"
She heard the man sigh audibly, before the pressure against her boot lessened. Pushing the door open, she saw him simply going further into what looked to be the living room. Face turned into a frown, she followed him.
As soon as she had stepped over the threshold, Alice noticed some kind of oppressive atmosphere lingering in the room. The further in she went, the heavier it seemed to get. She had only taken a few steps into the apartment, when she felt dizzy all of the sudden. Staggering a bit, she supported herself on a counter to her left that seperated a kitchen from the living room.
"Alright there?"
Alice blinked repeatedly, shaking her head to clear it when she heard Brandon's voice. "Yeah..." She straightened herself and turned to the direction his voice came from.
"You're bleeding..." Brandon was frowning slightly, pointing a finger at his nose.
Alice touched the skin under her own nose and whe she moved her hand back, there really was blood on it. "Oh...", she replied, staring stupidly at her bloody fingers.
The man moved next to her and after a few seconds something white was held in front of her face. "Here."
"Thanks." She took the offered roll of paper towels and tore one of, holding it to her nose.
A few moments passed in silence, each of them keeping their eyes on the other. The dizziness had eased a bit and when she was sure that the bleeding had stopped, Alice removed the paper towel from her face. She let her free hand rest on her waist and and put on a determined face. "I believe you have some explanations to do, Mister."
-Chapter 6 end-
A/N: Oh my... I'm terribly sorry for the extremely long wait. 2011 (and -so far- 2012 as well) has been a rather bad year, a lot of things happened that robbed me of my motivation to do anything creative.
I can't say how long the next update will take, since I'm actually quite surprised myself that I managed to finish this chapter in one go today, but I really hope it won't take another year *cough*.
So, sorry again, and a big Thank You to everyone who still keeps following this fanfic, even despite the unanounced hiatus! :)
