DEATHLOOP (44 page)

When Zack phoned Brian later that day to get the gen, Brian told him that Susan had been quite convincing, and without concrete evidence from Veronica, or witness statements, it might be difficult to prove intent. Zack was surprised to notice a discernible thaw from Brian Smith. There was still a faint trace of disapproval, although Zack didn’t take it personally any more. Brian was doctrinaire and irritating, but he was an honest copper by all accounts and it was clear that he would never knowingly persecute an innocent man.

Brian sensed a humbling from Zack too, something he found extremely satisfying, nothing like a run in with the law and the threat of long term incarceration to take even the likes of the great Zack Fortune down a peg or two.

For ten days Zack stayed with Clarissa, visiting Sam every day, working on their stalled relationship, getting back to how they used to be. Sam’s movement had recovered, and the speech therapy was beginning to pay dividends. Zack had sent Veronica flowers and a note saying how sorry he was about everything and telling her to contact him, but so far there had been no communication at all. He had phoned Miriam once and left a message. She just sent back a text saying Veronica was improving but that was all, and complaining that the same boy was hanging around the hospital asking where he was.

Zack was relieved to have given Jason the slip. He knew nothing of Sam or Clarissa, so he was safe at Baker Street, but he was irritated that the warning he had given him in the restaurant had been ignored. He hadn’t spoken with Tracy since yelling at her down the phone, so he presumed she had closed ranks round her recusant and shifted her allegiance to him. Zack was pleased about that. He could think of no one better suited to fighting Jason’s corner than Tracy, so at least that was something.

Once, he met up with Rose who had popped in to see Sam, and who seemed surprised and delighted that they had made it up. She had got quite emotional with Zack in private as they left Sam’s room together, saying she was working for some automaton at Nyman’s who spouted legal rulings at every opportunity. Zack told Rose to find another job, and Rose confessed that she was thinking about it.

“But how are you Zack, how’s things?” she said, softly.

“Not too bad,” he said, “getting better.” Zack was touched by her concern, and told her that if he was ever to find honest employment elsewhere in the Metropolis, he would be on the phone to her like a shot, demanding she come and work for him. This seemed to cheer her up to some extent, but there was something final in the way she said goodbye, and as she turned away along the corridor he knew that Rose had started to cry.

Justin had been on the phone constantly once he had heard about Veronica, offering Zack support, and one day he turned up out of the blue at Sam’s beside. There was a tension for a while amongst the three men as their pecking order was tacitly rejigged, but it felt good being together again. They talked over old times and laughed at private jokes. After an hour or so, after bidding Sam farewell, Zack told Justin he would walk him down to reception and Justin knew why as well.

“What did Edward say Justin? You didn’t tell me.”

“You said you didn’t want me to tell you.”

“Yes, well I do now.”

Justin didn’t reply immediately, and Zack could see him toying with the idea of fobbing him off.

“He was critical of Clarissa mainly, asking if she was new to the game and I said I thought she was.”

“So?”

“Basically he said she’d ballsed it up, that she had managed to conjure up a previous death not a previous life which meant that your next death was imminent… or words to that effect.”

“Did he indeed?” said Zack, dispirited to hear the theory once more.

“Pure mumbo jumbo…”

“You don’t believe all this stuff do you?” said Zack.

“Look, unintentionally you might well have been led down to a very dark place by Clarissa. The subconscious is subconscious for a reason after all… but it was a mistake, acknowledge the fact and move on. Remember, old love… only those who believe in spirits will see them.”

Clarissa was out when Zack got back to Baker Street, so he dug out the by now dog-eared copy of ‘The Circle of Death’ and started to read. The text was unmistakeably Russell all right. His voice boomed out from every page. He found it interesting that Edward had a copy, because Russell’s view of past life regression was damning. Despite him being called upon to provide links and contact with the dearly departed, Russell made it clear that those who took part in past life regression in any shape or form, were asking for it. He made a distinction between a conversation between the living and the dead, and an unhealthy curiosity that sought to conjure up
our own
previous exploits in oblivion. His view was that the majority of people who practised past life regression were so unskilled and unaware of the spiritual order of things, that they should only be allowed to practise roughly once every ten years - and then with a Government health warning.

He truly believed that although a glimpse of a previous life was harmless enough, a glimpse of a death was like shaking hands with the devil. (He also maintained that regression therapists often didn’t know the difference.) His view was that our deaths are not ours to document anyway, and any trespass, or any attempt to stamp our own ego onto those events will be punished. Russell claimed that this belief was documented in just about every religious tract you are ever likely to come across although the whole book was completely devoid of references.

None of this surprised Zack, but what did surprise him was that Russell seemed to think that God issued us with a task, and that task remained constant through all our lives and all our deaths. There was one primary living task and one primary dying task. The only thing that Zack could gather from Russell’s worthy tome was that knowledge of his dying task was apparently what had done for him, because according to Russell this was protected information and was enough to throw his current life out of kilter until a new death came along as a blessed relief.

But all the way through the book, just like when he was on the bridge with Russell, Zack still felt as though he was chasing a ghost, something that always turned a corner just as he was about to catch it up. Following Russell’s theory, and thinking back to the regression, he could only surmise that God had given him the task of ‘helper’ or ‘carer’ or ‘doctor’ nothing more complex than that. Despite pulling the original vision back and forth a million times, he could not dig out any covert pieces of information that might explain God’s wrath that had, according to Russell, culminated in his punishment - a life spinning madly out of control.

Did the fact that he was now aware that he had been bequeathed one of these innocuous tasks in each death warrant God’s indignation? Was this really an aberration of the natural order of things? He found it difficult to subscribe to the view because the information just seemed so inconsequential, yet there was nothing else in ‘Circle of Death’ that came anywhere near.

Zack’s life had become derailed no doubt about that. It was as though each event that came along, having the opportunity of going well or going badly, went badly as a matter of course, but after reading ‘The Circle of Death’ Zack was no wiser. He had a distant inkling that he was missing something, but what? What was this thing that he was missing?

Then he got to thinking that perhaps it was a coincidence his life had unravelled following the regression, after all it could just be his turn. He had had a continued purple patch since his first days at Cambridge, and twenty years is a pretty good innings in anyone’s scheme of things. Maybe this was it now - in the weather man’s parlance - a prolonged period of deep depression.

Finally, Zack decided that going over and over the original vision was probably the wrong thing to do. Surely if any of this knowledge had caused God such fury, the best thing all round was for Zack to try and forget it, maybe that was where he was going wrong. Clarissa had talked about taking the information back and dumping it so the memory came back erased, so he could start that process right now by trying to blot out the whole bloody thing. He phoned Justin and Clarissa to tell them what he planned to do but both had their phones switched off, so Zack phoned Sam, regretting it almost immediately.

“Jesus Christ, yesterday’s news, mate,” said Sam, who had been dozing rather pleasantly and was peeved to be jolted out of his slumber.

“Yes, well it is now,” said Zack unable to quell a boyish enthusiasm in his voice.

“Good, great, now can I get back to sleep?”

Zack had been deflated by Sam’s reaction, but when he thought about it, it didn’t really surprise him. Looking back, he realised that Sam had been embarrassed by Clarissa’s sojourn into the realms of the mystic, and coupled with Zack’s consequent problems, Zack now got the distinct impression that in some way Sam felt responsible for the whole sorry mess.

Sam had once admitted to Zack that he was putty in Clarissa’s hands, and that he was happy for her to do just about anything she wanted really, money no object. Obviously this was a throwback to Sam feeling eternally grateful that Clarissa had ever bothered with him in the first place. And it’s true that had Clarissa not come along with her skewed sense of what constituted male attractiveness, Sam would no doubt, be holed up somewhere on his tod now, with nothing better to do each night than count up his dosh courtesy of Internet banking.

Once Zack had made the decision to try and move on from all the weirdness and just put it behind him, he felt better, to the extent that he decided to go home. But as his car turned into the end of the street he saw Jason prowling up and down drinking from a can of lager, so he drove past him unseen, and headed to Islington.

Tracy was decidedly frosty when she begrudgingly allowed him a few minutes of her time between two other appointments. He was expecting this, and although he didn’t feel obligated to apologise for shouting at her, he felt if he didn’t, they would get nowhere.

“I lost my temper, I’m sorry, I thought Veronica was about to die, so I was a little distracted.”

Tracy leant back making her chair squeak even more.

“Why don’t you get that chair fixed? Doesn’t it drive you mad?”

“Not as much as some of my clients…” said Tracy.

“And I asked for that, didn’t I?”

“Er… yes… you did.”

“How’s Jason?”

“Depressed.”

“And he’s not the only one… he’s stalking me Tracy. I’ve told him to leave me alone, but he won’t listen.”

“So? What can I do about it?”

“Tell him what an injunction means, let’s start with that.”

Tracy shrugged and looked thoughtful. “He’s got serious problems this kid. To be honest, I don’t know if he’s fit to plead.”

“That bad?”

“I think so, but of course he won’t have it.”

“Can you get him assessed?”

“Well yes, but that would require some kind of co-operation… look, okay this is going to sound a bit… peculiar maybe,” she said, clocking Zack bracing himself for more weirdness, “but I get the impression that this whole thing is a set up.”

Zack looked confused. “You mean he actually
wants
to go down?”

“No,” said Tracy, wondering quite how she could put this, “but sometimes… I think he only did it to make contact with you.”

For a few moments they stared at each other, Zack silenced by the implications and struggling with them.

“He said someone had mentioned your name in a children’s home.”

“Yes, that’s what he told me.”

“My interpretation is that in his solitary state he felt he’d come across some modern day folk hero and he decided he wanted to make contact with this Superman and become his friend. I know it sounds crazy, and I might have got it completely wrong…”

“So okay, what do we do about it?” said Zack, not prepared to discuss it any more.

“Well I’ll have a word with him if you like, but whether I’ll get anywhere is another matter.”

“I appreciate that, thanks,” said Zack, getting up and hovering at the door.

“How’s Veronica?”

“Lucky.”

“And Sam?”

“He’s coming out at the weekend.”

“Some good news at last,” said Tracy.

“Careful now, let’s not speak too soon.”

Zack sat in his car for nearly an hour watching people up and down Upper Street. It was a sunny day but he couldn’t enjoy it, he felt assaulted by the sun, as though it was burrowing into him seizing on all his bad bits, yanking them out and laying them down on the pavement for everyone to see.

Recent events had done more than just unsettle him, they had thrown into question just about every facet of who he thought he was. He had made a new decision to put all the madness behind him but it hadn’t escaped him that he had tried to do that a couple of times before and got nowhere. He felt like Gulliver, pegged down by restraints, and every time he managed to release one of them, another would swiftly be anchored in its place to render him once again helpless.

When his phone rang it startled him so much he let out an involuntary yell.

“Veronica… how are you?” There was silence for a few moments. “Hello?”

“Yes, just…”

“How’s things?”

“You haven’t been in to see me.”

“You told me not to.”

There was a long pause then they both started speaking at once.

“I know.”

“I just thought…”

They stopped then Veronica continued.

“I think we need we need to clear this up, don’t you?”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Sometimes and especially now…” she said quietly, “I wish I’d never met you.”

“Yeah, well, join the club,” said Zack. “Just about everyone says that to me in the end.”

Later, as Zack made his way up to Veronica’s ward through the bleak hospital corridors, he prayed Jason would not be lurking around ready to pounce. He had no appetite to initiate legal proceedings, he just wanted Jason to get the picture and to disappear. Thankfully, there was no sign. Maybe he’d made himself so unpopular security had issued him with a direct ban, he could but hope.