3.3
Tawill looks up at me slowly as I take the seat across from her at her desk. I wasn't invited in.
"Commissioner."
"Are you here to tell me the real reason you took a week off last month?"
I resist pulling a face. "No."
"Hm." Her attention cuts back to the paperwork she was perusing. I can hardly blame her. Managing a bunch of detectives must be akin to running a camp for reformed alcoholics. Except most of us aren't reformed.
"Actually, I think I know who Needler's next victim is going to be."
That brings her attention back.
"But I can't tell you how I know."
Her lips purse. "Is it a hunch?"
I tilt my head from side to side. "Based on evidence."
"Evidence you can't show me."
I don't answer, since the answer is yes.
Tawill gives a heavy sigh. She’s wearing half-moon glasses, peering over them at me. Now, however, she takes them off, sitting back. She’s a big woman, though you don’t get the feeling it’s from any kind of slovenliness. Her skin is the smoothest I’ve ever seen, dark and rich in contrast to tightly curled blond hair cut close to her scalp. "Alright. Tell me your hunch, I'll decide what to do with it from there. Who's next?"
"Talisof," I say, name the recently arrested millionaire.
"Talisof isn't your case."
"With the nature of my case, it necessarily involves other's cases."
Tawill blinks. "Have you seen the news this morning?"
"No." I frown. I was so sure about this, with what little Needler gave away. ‘The size of someone’s wallet’, that’s what he said. Tawill picks up the remote and points it at the small TV screen hitched against the back corner of her office. It’s shaky footage, outside the courtroom. Talisof stands on the steps smiling and confident, like a man who knows he's never going back. "He was released on bail this morning," Tawill tells me. "And after how long it took to even make the arrest… people are saying it was set too low, given his means."
I spread my hands. "Then I'm right. If he's out, Needler can get him. We need to offer him protection."
Tawill raises an eyebrow. "You expect me to throw a safety net over a guy who switched out some granny’s sleep aids for cyanide just for funsies, based on your hunch?"
"Look, I'm not asking based on his character. He's a psychopath. But so is Needler."
Tawill shifts in her seat, sitting forward. "I'll get you half an hour with Talisof." She points her pen at me across the table. "The only protection he's getting is jail. The public is pissed off enough about this case without us giving him favourable treatment for no clear reason. You've got that time to get a confession out of him, otherwise he's on his own, and we'll see if you're right."
***
"I hope you know my client is only here as a courtesy. He can give you ten minutes at the most," Fielder, a small bald lawyer with low enough standards that I've had to deal with him on several murder cases, tells me.
I smile at him where he's seated next to Talisof. "Of course." Then I turn to the client. "Mr Talisof. We'd like to do you the courtesy of informing you that we have reason to believe you are the Needler's next target."
At first, he laughs, but when I stay deadpan, his expression changes. "What is this? Some amateur attempt to scare me?"
I flip a page of the folder in front of me. The victims of his. He'd masquerade as a nursing home attendant, switch their pills, then watch and wait. We suspect he was doing it over a number of years. It’s hard to account for all of the deaths, since not all of them had autopsies. Elderly people dying in nursing homes isn’t usually suspicious.
"How did those ladies die again? Cyanide, right?" I ask, then meet his eyes. They're a cold, dead blue, detracting from anything that could be handsome about his face. "Do you know how cyanide works? It binds to cells in the bloodstream, preventing them from oxygenating. And when these corrupted cells reach the heart, the brain… they don't do what they're supposed to. Effectively, the victim suffocates, all the while, breathing."
"Thank you for the science lesson, detective…" the lawyer starts.
I cut him off. "A painful way to die I'm sure we can agree. I imagine you've heard of how the Needler handles his victims? In the same way, they took theirs, but slower. He'll probably give a smaller dose of cyanide, so it takes longer. And just when you're about to finally breathe your last… well, he's called the Needler for a reason."
"This is nonsense! We're leaving…"
But Talisof hasn't said a word. And now he lifts a hand, halting his lawyer mid-stand. His eyes don't leave mine.
"Of course," I go on, "…Needler has never been wrong so far. So if you didn't do it, I suppose you have nothing to fear, and there's no reason we should need to protect you."
His eye twitches.
I turn my smile on the lawyer. "If that’s all, you're welcome to show your client out. I'm sure he has places to be."
The confession comes out two minutes later. Talisof all but begs to be kept in prison until the end of his days, and we're more than happy to oblige.
***
A long, steamy shower is my reward. I languish, face turned against the water, almost hotter than I can bear until I'm red and dizzy. It may not have been my guy, but it was his target. I'm almost sure of that. A confession, plus a psycho behind bars… it’s a good day.
And to top things off, when I got home tonight, Olivia was watching TV, so any vague concern I’d had about her absence since Saturday is relieved as well.
All in all, I'm not even thinking about alcohol tonight.
When I finally turn the water off, I can hear that it’s started raining again. Even that can’t dampen my mood. I'll fall asleep listening to it. I wrap the towel around myself, and then dry my hair with another. I'm still trying to wrap my hair up on top of my head as I step back out into my bedroom.
Everyone says don't bring work home with you, but you'd be hard-pressed to find someone in the department who doesn't. On my bedside table is a small binder on Needler. I pop off the end of a pen, holding my towel closed at my chest with the other hand, and make a small note under the copy of Talisof's arrest warrant, Who now? My hair drips on the paper as the towel unbalances from my head. I let it tumble down. I need to dry my hair anyway.
I'm staring at those two words, contemplating the options, when I first notice the small wet print on the inside of my closed bedroom door. I squint. Am I dripping that much? But I haven't left the room since coming out of the shower. So how…
I register the rain again and see the shape of the print… too big for my foot and shaped more like the back of a boot. The reality hits me with a spike of near panic. The window. He can get in…
My breath stops altogether as the cold prick pinches the tender skin at the back of my armpit. I know the presence behind me, close enough to feel the heat coming off him. I drop the pen, not moving. The needle presses a little firmer against my flesh.
Every breath scrapes the needle-point, pain by which to measure my too-fast breathing. I eye the door. Even if I could get to it, could call Olivia's name. What help is she? My gun is in the drawer on the other side of the bed.
“You’ve ruined my fun,” that voice, becoming all too familiar now, coos just behind my ear. “How are you going to fix that?” I feel the brush of his sleeve on the back of my bare arm.
I drop ideas of a daring lunge for the gun. “Why are you here?” I ask, voice trembling to a whisper.
“Why would you rather side with that filth than me?”
“I am on the side of the law.” My voice shakes in earnest this time.
"The law," he repeats with a chuckle. I have a vague impression of movement, right behind my shoulder, but then he's reaching past me, towards the bedside table. The silver mask stares back at me from where he's placed it, small droplets still sliding down the metal, onto the file. My heart quickens. If I turn around, I'll see his face. But it'll probably be the last thing I see.
Voice dipping to a whisper, I stare into the empty eyes of that mask. "Why did you kill my husband?"
“You want to know secrets, Little Shadow? This time tomorrow, join me at the cement mill. Come alone, no gun. Bring your partner, and I will kill him.”
My jaw clenches. I'd be stupid to take him up on that. Tomorrow, another dark sky. I open my mouth, but the shove takes me by surprise, throwing me sideways onto the bed. By the time I roll and look back, my bedroom door is ajar, and him and his mask are gone.
All remnants of peace are gone for the rest of the night. When I do fall into a restless sleep, I'm plagued by dreams, ranging from the almost real to the bizarre. In the former category is something sensual and dark. I wake up breathless from it in the darkest part of the night, half-convinced there's still someone in my room. But all is quiet, and the sensations of the dream linger with me long past the hour, yearning to be replayed and justified.
Sex dreams are not unusual for me. I haven't been with anyone since my husband, and even when he was alive, in those final months, intimacy became infrequent. He was seeing too much.
And though I remember the times with him vividly, the lazy Sunday afternoons, or the quick needy mornings before work, my dreams have never been of him. Usually, they're faceless.
Not this time, however. Something like horror worms its way in as I stare at the light spilling from my door across the ceiling. This time, there was that silver mask and the echo of the voice by my ear as I slipped into the vague ecstasy that dreams can give. You want to know secrets?
***
Five pm comes too quickly. I'm staring at the clock, willing it to go slower. To give me more time to decide not to go. But if I don't… I might never know; might never have the answers I need. Might never catch Needler.
"…El? You with me?"
I blink, turning away from the clock and back to Dirk, who's staring at me as though I'm supposed to be saying something. I clear my throat. "Sorry, what?"
He frowns. "I said I’m going home. I asked if you wanted a lift home too. You caught the subway in, right?"
"Oh right," I nod, as though I had indeed heard him the first time. That’s the problem with telling a single lie. Soon, it compounds, and before you know it, you're telling lies to cover up new lies. Should I have told Dirk about the man in the alleyway, or Needler on the fire escape? Even him in my room? Should I have told him I was the one who gave the tip-off about Talisof? Probably, maybe. But I didn't.
If I tell him anything now, that will be the decision about tonight made for me. Whether I’ll admit it or not, I’ve made that decision already. I need to know. Which means I need to go. “Um, no. I think I’m gonna stay a bit.”
He watches me for another beat. “You alright?”
“I’m fine, I’m just not tired,” I lie.
He hesitates, then shrugs. “Alright. Suit yourself.”
***
I have to go. I tell myself that. Not knowing is going to kill me.
There's only one light on in the old mill grounds, high up in the scaffolding of a gantry crane. A network of rusting metal skeletons which make little sense to me further surround the crane. The light is bright and white, shining against the dark, overcast sky. I caught a taxi here this time, not wanting to risk Dirk or anyone else hearing about my car camping out in Crennick during the night again. With luck, this won't take long.
The taxi dropped me around the corner. "You sure this is where you meant, Miss?" The driver had asked me as I paid, eyeing me in the rear-vision mirror. I wore a hood pulled close over my hair, but I suppose I still didn't look the type to be hanging out in Crennick late into the night.
I thanked him and slipped out down the first dark street on my right, waiting for the taillights of the car to recede before I came back out.
Now, walking into the mill, I have to find a way up to that light. Large vat walls twice as tall as me are sunken and forgotten among the other apparatus left to die here. A handful of small red lights still blink dimly, connected to some kind of leftover power, a battery, or even solar panels probably, though now too faint to see from any distance. It’s these that indicate the metal stairs which zigzag up through the gantry.
Tilting my head up, I see a long climb on harsh metal steps above me, and none too secure looking either, with no walls but mere bare scaffolding to surround them. With one last deep breath, I start climbing.
I don't know what I expected at the top, after five flights of rattling stairs, and a wind that came from nowhere to get progressively more intense the higher up I went, to the point where I was no longer imagining the sway of the structure. Maybe I expected nothing, that this was just a wild goose chase, courtesy of Needler.
I didn't expect him to already be there, standing on the grated platform, arms resting on the pipe fence. The spotlight behind him makes me squint, hitting his back and casting his front in intense shadow. The platform is high enough to see over most of the rest of Crennick Row, and all the way southwards to the living part of the city, to the moving lights and skyscrapers that feel like a different world to this ruin.
"We're lucky it’s not raining tonight. Perfect weather," that altered voice speaks to me.
I ignore it. I'm not here for small talk. "You said you'd tell me something I wanted to know."
He doesn't answer. I step forward, my hand lifting to block out the intensity of the spotlight as it hits the side of my face. It’s mounted on a tall wire fence, one of those chain-link ones that wobbles and rattles in every breeze, the same flexibility making it almost impenetrable as well as impossible to climb. "Did my husband find Cocooner?" Finally, Needler's face lifts and the glint of his mask turns towards me within the hood. “Did Caleb kill him?”
“We see what we want to see," Needler intones, and when I'm to press again, he adds so simply and suddenly, “Your husband knew who the Cocooner was, yes."
My mouth opens and closes. I catch myself believing him without question and stop. "Then that charred body… he was Cocooner? Was it Tristan?"
His face turns away again, tilting down towards the mill grounds hidden from me. "I can't spell out every answer for you, Little Shadow."
My teeth grate together. "So that’s it? Why did I need to come out here for that?"
"Oh, I’ll show you what you're really here for."
To that ominous statement, I take a step back. But then he's holding something out to me. Binoculars. I put my back to the light enough so as not to need to squint as Needler points down towards the vats. "Take a look."
Eying his mask and his blackened mouth suspiciously, I step up to the low pipe fence. When this place was operational, workers probably had to wear harnesses, strapped every step of their way to the framework. Not now the fence feels too low, Needler, too close. I edge back along the fence, out of his reach, before I bring the binoculars to my eyes. At first, I see nothing, just a vat crusted with long-dried cement. Then I move to the other, larger one, further back from the crane.
There's movement, caught over the edge of the lip. I halt and backtrack, see the flicker of movement again. I wait, adjusting the sights, and a beat later I'm shocked to see an old man in the vat, his hair white, balding on top. He's wearing one of those white plastic gowns, walking further into the centre and so into my field of view. I trace his trajectory, getting to a gurney before he does. The gurney has a blue sheet, and someone under it.
Reflexively, I lower the binoculars, reaching for my gun, but it’s not there.
Needler is in front of me, arms spread to either fence, blocking me in as I turn for the stairs. “I haven’t suddenly become an asset. Stay. Look.”
"Who is he?" I ask.
"Look again. You'll see."
With no choice, I turn back, lifting the binoculars. The first thing I look for is the gurney, and the person on it. But now, fixing the focus on it this time, I see it’s no person. Just a mannequin in a hospital cap. I let air out through my lips. No victim, no real one anyway. But still. The old man has a tool kit which he opens to a glint of metal. He moves slowly, joltingly, showing his age.
"He used to be known as Carver. One of the original psychopaths that cropped up after the Crennick explosion. He'd been in prison thirty years. Released last week on compassionate grounds. He's dying."
"It’s just a mannequin," I say, still watching. He's pulled back the sheet from the mannequin’s leg.
“Does he look like a retired killer to you? He's practising. Brushing up.”
As he takes the saw to the plastic leg, I stop watching. I turn to face Needler. He's behind me, blocking the spotlight now. “You’re going to kill him now. Tonight." It’s not time, too early, barely months since the last.
Needler shrugs. "He doesn't have long. So neither do I."
“Why kill him? He can go back for the rest of his life now.”
“He’s not going to get better. The law had its chance. It failed.”
I shift from foot to foot, eying the stairs. I step towards them, and he swiftly steps in my way. "You're not going to let me leave until you're done," I realise.
“Well, you’ve proven that you can’t be trusted with delicate information.”
"I did the right thing." I step slowly around, my back now to the chain-link fence. But he's watching… that eerie mask following my movements even if his body stays still.
“Your 'right thing' sees men and women who have never shown compassion in their lives mercy, just because it’s suddenly their turn. He’s sick. He always will be.”
“You’re sick.”
His lips quirk. I make a dash for it. Even before he catches me, before his arm snakes around my waist, I know I won't make it. The chain-link fence sways and rattles, catching me as my back comes up against it. His fist braces against my collarbone, twisted in my jumper. I'm expecting the prick of another syringe—blackness. Instead, he catches me by the chin, tilting my face up, the wire links catching in my hair, and kisses me.
His tongue pushes deep, the pressure of his mouth against mine keeping my teeth open. He tastes of aniseed, sweet and strong. For the briefest of moments, I forget, and by the time I've remembered, it’s too late to take it back. That pliancy can't be forgotten now. Nonetheless, I shove him back, breathless.
He smiles, the black around his mouth all the more smudged now. "Looks like I'm not the only sick one."
The taste of aniseed stays with me. Then there’s something else. My hand raises to my lips as the bitter taste rests in the back of my throat, sliding lower. My lips feel numb. "What…" I start to ask, then have to catch myself in a stumble, fingers twining in the links.
"I only stab people I don't like very much," he tells me with a sinister smile. "You're about to have the best sleep you've ever had."