The Darkness of Bones (11 page)

Benson sipped the tepid coffee. It must have tasted bitter. He made a face just as the last sentence crawled from Jeremiah’s mouth.

“Sometimes, Mister Grazier, we never really know what hides beneath the surface of skin and bones—all that complicated machinery. All it takes is for one of the wires to shake loose, disrupt the entire process of the delicate engine.”

“I’ve known Joe most of my life. He is not a bad person.”

“Knowing a person doesn’t make him good, Mister Grazier. Didn’t God know Lucifer for quite a while, the best of buddies at one time? Then old Luc had to spoil everything by growing a tail and fucking horns.”

There was a noticeable shift in Jeremiah’s body. His face tightened.

“I don’t much care for your words, Detective Benson.”

Rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, Benson exposed massive arms that had put the fear of god into numerous suspects, over the years. Looking every part the fearsome pugilist he had once been, he placed his pork-chop hands inches from Jeremiah’s. He could have been a butcher, weighing up the best possible way to slaughter a nervous beast.

“I get a lot of complaints like that, Mister Grazier. My wife has told me the exact same thing.”

Jeremiah stiffened, but no words left his mouth.

For the next few minutes, Benson flipped the pages of his notepad, checking his notes. Occasionally, he looked at Jeremiah, and smiled.

Jeremiah did not smile back.

“You’ve been a great help to us, Mister Grazier. I want to thank you for your time. You can go now.”

Looking slightly relieved, Jeremiah stood and eased himself away from the table. Calmer now, he asked: “You
will
do your best to locate Joe, let him know that things are not always as dark as they seem? Of that, I’m entirely certain.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Mister Grazier. We are going to do our damnedest to locate your friend. Of that,
I’m
entirely certain.”

“Well? What did you make of him?” asked Benson, entering the observation room.

Jack shrugged. “Hard to determine from here. He seemed a bit nervous, but then most people are—especially when coming into contact with a big ape, like you.”

“He’s lucky we don’t hang people on looks,” laughed Benson.

“He read your notes,” replied Jack, his voice soft.

The grin on Benson’s face struggled. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“When you had your back to him, he read your notes.”

The grin returned to Benson’s face. “That time I made the coffee?”

Jack nodded.

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but that was deliberate—a little trap I hoped he’d fall for. But he didn’t. I kept him within my peripheral. He never moved once, smart arse.”

Jack sighed. “He didn’t need to. He read everything with his fingers.”

Benson burst out laughing. “His fingers? Sure it wasn’t his arse?” He laughed louder. “Jack, I think you need some rest. If
I were you, I’d—”

“Tactile perception.”

Benson shrugged his shoulders. “Tactile …?”

“Tactile perception. Blind or semi-blind people have the ability. That’s how they read Braille. When the area of the skin is brought into contact with the line of Braille being read, it has a critical relation to the efficiency with which the tactile information is passed to their brain.”

“Bullshit. What makes you such an expert on this quack theory?”

“It’s not quackery; it’s a scientific fact. I know so much about it because my mother was legally blind. She could read better with her fingers than I could with my eyes.”

Benson looked slightly annoyed and indignant. “You never told me your mother was legally blind.”

“The trained and practised fingers of a blind or semi-blind reader skim the symmetrical patterns indented on the paper, transferring to his or her conscious mind words, thoughts, ideas and emotions. The cognitive processes involved in reading scribbled writing and Braille are essentially the same.”

“You’re beginning to sound like that bastard Shaw, with all those fancy phrases. I’m still not wholly convinced.”

“If you don’t believe me, run the tape,” challenged Jack.

“Okay. I will, smart arse.”

Jack watched as Benson set the apparatus up.

“I could have been an actor, you know,” said Benson, watching the screen flicker to life. “When I was younger, I almost went for it. Had the talent.”

“Not the looks, though,” said Jack, as he watched Benson on the screen turn towards the coffee machine. Benson was right, thought Jack: he
was
watching Jeremiah from his peripheral.

“Satisfied? Not a thing. Didn’t I tell you that?” insisted Benson.

With a flick of a button on the remote control, Jack froze the picture. “There. See it?” Jack pressed the button again, and the story continued.

Benson’s face almost clung to the screen. “I didn’t see a thing.”

Jack pressed the rewind button. Two seconds later, he pressed stop, then play.

“Watch his fingers. Nothing else,” instructed Jack.

The same scene passed before Benson’s eyes. “Fingers? I don’t see no fucking movement from his—” Benson blinked. “Hold on. Go back. Hit the replay button again.”

Jack pressed the button.

It
was
true. The fingers—or at least the knuckles had moved slightly. The rest of Jeremiah’s body hadn’t moved a fraction, as if he had become an ice sculpture.

“Hit it again,” said Benson, his voice softer, uncertain.

There it was. The movement, slightly eerie, like a ghost walking on a grave.

“Fuck!” Benson shuddered involuntarily. Taking the remote from Jack, he played the scene over and over again, mesmerised. “That is fucking creepy.”

“The greater the skin contact with the written line, the larger the tactile view,” explained Jack. “Plus it was nice and warm in the interrogation room. Cold fingers do not make for good reading.”

“Thanks for that belated information. Had I known old slippery tits was going to do a Liberace on me, I would have done the interrogation in the fucking fridge.”

“You didn’t mention about the material discovered at
Harris’s home?”

“Of course not. I wanted to see if Grazier could add some interesting ingredients into that particular cake, without my mentioning it. The less he—and everyone else—knows about all this at the minute, the better. According to bank statements found in Harris’s bedroom, he withdrew a large amount of money from his bank account. Ten thousand. Probably his life savings—when he wasn’t donating it to
like-minded
people. I suppose he always moaned he didn’t have a bucket to piss in, a good sob story when asking for money—oh, I almost forgot: he was issued with a passport, just over two years ago, but we couldn’t locate it.”

“Everything is pointing to Harris fleeing the country.”

“What we have to figure out is: did he flee because of loan sharks or because he thought we were getting too close to him?” said Benson, removing a cigarette from a box along with a lighter, before offering one to Jack.

“Thanks.”

Rolling the wheel of the lighter, Benson got no response. “Damn flint must be dull—a bit like my head, at the moment.”

Searching in his pocket, Jack produced a box of matches.

“Do you think he knew?” inquired Benson, taking a light.

“About?”

“Harris’s lust for children. Surely, he must have suspected something, that not everything was kosher with his best friend?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you think Grazier helped him to flee?” asked Benson.

“Flee?” replied Jack, squashing the cig on to the floor before opening the door to leave. “Time will tell if that is too generous a word to use.”

“
Y
OU DID WELL
. Stop judging yourself so harshly,” said Judith, standing by the window, watching Jeremiah’s and her own reflection in it. Rain was beginning to fall, melting against the glass.

“This afternoon was horrible in the police station. I kept having a feeling that someone else was watching me, someone a lot more dangerous than the big oafish beast.”

“Oh, someone
was
watching you. Make no mistake about that. Those mirrors aren’t put in for cosmetic reasons.”

“The big cop kept asking about Joe. This troubled me, but I was clever and remained cordial, never angry. I gave him no hint of my building fury, for that would have provided him with ammunition against me, made him suspect something.”

Rain was hitting harder against the window now, distorting Judith’s reflection. She could no longer see Jeremiah.

“You’ll be called back,” said Judith, matter-of-factly.

Jeremiah’s body jerked upwards, as if electricity had been connected to his seat, bolts of electricity tunnelling up his arse.
“Back? But I told them everything—exactly what you told me to say. Surely they think Joe simply fled, got out of the country as quickly as possible? What else could they think?”

Alternatives, you idiot
, she wanted to say.
Lots for them to choose from.

Judith studied Jeremiah, his agitated movements. She wanted to hurt him, physically, but he had grown to enjoy hurt—almost as much as she enjoyed administering it. She would have to devise other, more subtle, ways to bring the pain.

“You’re not listening to me,” said Jeremiah, his damp skin reflecting like plastic. “You said we would be alone soon. When are we getting rid of him? We’ve had him for too long. It’s dangerous.”

“Come here,” she whispered.

Obediently, Jeremiah stood, before walking slowing towards her.

“Do I detect jealousy?” she teased. “A man jealous of a boy?”

“You promised we would be alone again, the way it used to be. Please … make him leave, go away forever into the darkness.”

Judith smiled. It made her lips swell obscenely, like fat skinless snails.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

Jeremiah nodded reluctantly, as if he didn’t trust the words lodging in his mouth, as if released they would turn him into a sobbing, mumbling wreck.

“The boy has told me that he loves me,” said Judith, her eyes turning the colour of spilt ink. She could feel Jeremiah’s entire body stiffen as she placed her hand against his chest, feeling the heart banging furiously against it, seeking freedom. It felt like a frantic bird, trapped in a bony cage.

Gently placing her nose against his skin, she inhaled, smelling his odour, his nervousness and insecurity mixing with a slight touch of post-interrogation fear. The smell was potent and intoxicating and she had to admit it was making her slightly dizzy—dizzy like the anticipation of heroin coursing through her body. But she was pursuing other smells trapped in the grease of Jeremiah’s skin: smells of coffee, cigarettes and cheap aftershave. She could picture the big cop, standing there full of intimidation, towering over Jeremiah like a skyscraper of muscle and sinew. But it was the other smell she was chasing, the smell from the other cop, no doubt obscured behind the two-way mirror, studying Jeremiah.

Closing her eyes, Judith allowed her flared nostrils to come close to Jeremiah’s skin, hovering lightly over the texture. She stopped, just above his left cheekbone, her heart jumping slightly. It was there, the smell of the other cop, the watcher. There were other smells as well: urine, dull excrement and cheap soap. Why was that?

“Did you ask to go to the toilet during the questioning?”

The unseemly question bothered Jeremiah. His body stiffened further.

“I … yes. I needed time to think. I didn’t relieve myself. I only wanted time to get a small break from the—”

“That was stupid—and dangerous. You should never have left the interrogation room. It gave the look of avoidance. Why do you always prefer weakness over strength?”

“What was wrong with—?”

“
Sshhhhh
,” she hissed, her eyes slightly glazed. The smell was bothering her. Above all the shit, piss and cheap soap, she could detect the watcher. Had he followed Jeremiah into the toilet, suspecting something? What was it? She had smelt it before, the
watcher’s smell, but where? A distilled version, perhaps, but no doubt the same. Where?
Where?

Angrily, she pushed Jeremiah away. “You’re useless. You couldn’t even carry their smells on your pathetic skin.”

“What have I done that you’re so angry? Didn’t I do all that you asked? What’s wrong? Help me to rectify it. Please. You know I’ll do anything for you.”

Swiftly regaining her composure, Judith whispered, “They are coming, coming after us. They will get here, eventually, like a gathering storm—make no mistake about that.”

“What?” said Jeremiah, the blood draining from his exhausted face. “No, no, you’re mistaken. I fooled them. I can fool them again.”

“Fooled yourself. Not them.”

“I … I will not allow harm to come to you,” replied Jeremiah, his voice unusually strong.

She gently touched his head, reassuringly, her lips deflating into thin sharp lines.

“I know you won’t.”

I
T HAD BEEN
a rough and long day for Benson, and he wasn’t looking forward to getting home. Anne would be waiting, asking had he found Adrian, making him feel as if he were somehow responsible for their godson’s disappearance. It was a no-win situation. The story of his life. After this afternoon’s
less-than-
successful interrogation of Grazier, he felt he had somehow let himself down in front of Jack, allowing the creepy barber to fool him.

Exhausted, he opened the door of his car, only to be confronted by a shadowy figure sitting in the driver’s seat.

“You bastard! You scared the shit out of me. What the hell are you doing, lurking in my car, in the middle of the fucking night?”

“Did you check out Grazier’s statement, the one he made to the investigating team?” asked Jack.

“Yes, I did—except he never made one, according to Starsky and fucking Hutch, two pimply-faced, just-off-the-tit, so-called
detectives.”

“What?”

“They said they took hundreds of statement that week. They meant to go back to the shop because our good friend, Grazier, wasn’t there at the time, just pervy Harris.”

“They didn’t go back?” said Jack.

“Of course not. Starsky and fucking Hutch had more important things to do, like watching
The Simpsons,
the two wankers.” Benson sighed, sounding disgusted. “I tell you, Jack, the sooner I get out of this business, the better. All these new recruits do
everything
according to the book. The problem is that when the book doesn’t have an answer, they turn into fucking robots, unable to think for themselves.”

“So, Mister Grazer misled us?”

“Misled sounds too nice. The weird bastard lied through his stinking teeth. I’ll have to bring him back in again, and hit him with a few forget-me-nots, if you get my meaning,” relied Benson, punching the palm of his hand with his fist.

“Best to let him stew,” advised Jack. “He’s intelligent enough. I’m sure he knows it’s only a matter of time before we discover his lie. Hopefully, it’ll make him do something careless, something to our advantage.”

Benson smiled warily. “Why do I have a cringing feeling in my balls that you have an ulterior reason, other than Grazier, for hiding in my car in the dead of night?”

“Thought it best to ask you, face to face,” said Jack. “You probably would have hung up on me, had I phoned. I need a favour.”

Upon hearing those words, Benson groaned. “A favour? That usually means breaking the law, as far as you’re concerned. What is it this time? You want to break into the main computer
at headquarters? Steal Wilson’s lunch? C’mon, enlighten me as to your next adventure.”

Despite his own weariness, Jack couldn’t resist a tired smile.

“I need you to let me into the old Graham building.”

Relief crept on to Benson’s face. “You hide in my car like an assassin, just to ask me for a grand tour of the Graham building? Strange—earlier today, Wilson released a memo stating that the investigation into the corpse found in the orphanage was now completed, and that no more man-hours were to be wasted on it.”

“That was a quick and thorough investigation,” said Jack, disgusted. “Another unsolved murder quickly cooked for the books, swept under the carpet.”

“Dead homeless people don’t vote, you understand?” Benson grinned. “Anyway, I don’t see a problem with letting you in for an hour or so. How does tomorrow morning, early, sound?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight? Like now, in the fucking dark? There’s no electricity in that place. Surely it can wait until the morning?”

Jack eased over to the passenger seat. “I’ve torches in the back of my car, two streets away.” He patted the driver’s seat. “Besides, sometimes the dark can be more revealing than the light.”

“What a fucking dump,” said Benson, pulling up at the main gate of the Graham building. “Shitty looking during the day, but at night it looks even more fucked up. Are you sure you can’t wait until the morning?”

But Jack was already exiting the car, his torch smearing the darkness with its chalky beam. A large chain coiled itself tightly against the ornate gates, laughingly preventing intruders from
entering. A lock, the size of an apple, was intertwined with the chain. It looked impressive, the security—though not to Jack.

“I know,” quipped Benson, as if reading Jack’s thoughts. “All you have to do is go to the back wall and fall through to the fucking basement, just like Charlie Stanton.”

Benson removed a key from his pocket, and, within seconds, the coil of chain fell to the ground, noisily.

“Do you mind telling me what this is all about?” asked Benson as both men walked up the winding, dilapidated path leading to the front entrance.

“In all honesty, Harry? Nothing. Perhaps I’m just clutching at straws. I’ve covered ever single place where Adrian could be, and when I heard that the homeless man was trying to find shelter in this godforsaken place, well …”

They entered through the hall of the building, the torches’ powerful beams guiding them.

“Careful,” advised Benson. “The place is riddled with woodworm. I almost went through one of the fucking floors, yesterday. Scared the shit out of myself. And that was with plenty of light.”

In the breathing darkness, the sprawling nature of the empty building came together in a rush, like two hands cupping. The building reeked of rotten cabbage. The pong was overpowering, with a constant curious stench, like a sprawling slum district under threat of a deluge of open sewage.

“This is where old Charlie found the praying fruit,” announced Benson, as they entered the one-time laundry room. “Forensics did their usual stellar job of finding sweet fuck all. Though to be fair to that lazy bunch of bastards, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that Citizen Charlie went through any clothing in the room, destroying and stealing what he could. He didn’t strike
me as an upstanding member of the community, old Charlie.”

“You shouldn’t assume the victim was gay,” said Jack, trying not to allow Benson’s homophobia to irritate him.

“A big fucking dildo up his arse and he wasn’t a fruit? What was he doing, then? Clearing the wax from his ears?”

Exiting the laundry room, they turned left, into the main dormitory. It was completely bare of all contents, with the exception of tiny piles of excrement camped throughout the enormous room.

“Nice, eh? The biggest shit hole in town,” smirked Benson. “Who said homeless people weren’t house-trained? What a fucking stench.”

Despondency was seeping into Jack as each room revealed nothing. The old building was deeply depressing. He had witnessed the inside of prisons more homely than this and wondered what it had been like for the children forced to reside here.

“Had enough of the magical mystery tour?” asked Benson. “If we stay any longer, it’ll be daylight, and you really don’t want to see this place in all its glory. Trust me on that.”

“I just want to check out the last couple of rooms. Then that’s the end of it. It was good to get it out of my system, Harry, even if we found nothing.”

Benson nodded, and removed a cigarette and lighter from his pocket.

“Want one?” offered Benson.

“No, not right now. I want to check the rooms out first.”

“You don’t mind if I stop for a smoke? I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.” Benson rolled the lighter’s wheel. It failed to spark. “I don’t believe this shit.”

“Here,” Jack handed him a box of matches. “Keep them.”

Proceeding down the corridor, Jack turned left into a large room, the words “Control Room” stencilled above the entrance. Like every other room, it was practically bare, as if swarms of human locusts had ascended, stripping it of everything but a few withered posters and pages attached to the walls, and an old rusted bed frame securely bolted to the floor.

A wry smile appeared on Jack’s face. “They’ll steal everything unless it’s bolted down.”

“Control Room keys must
never
be carried outside the Control Room” stated one of the dusty pages. “Failure in this regard will result in disciplinary action.”

Someone had scribbled something directly beneath the order. Jack could make out the words “fuck off” and “wanker”, but the rest of the rebellious wording was illegible.

Directing the beam of light over the rest of the walls, Jack concentrated it on scribbles of handwriting, hoping to recognise the writing or perhaps a coded message. A couple of times, the beam faded, and he cursed himself for not having checked the batteries in his haste to get to this monstrosity of a building.

“Don’t go dead on me, now,” he whispered, just as the batteries did just that. “Damn it!” The room was plunged into a choking darkness and, for some inexplicable reason, Jack suddenly felt vulnerable, like a child lost in a haunted house.

Quickly stabbing his hand into his pockets, he frantically searched for his matches, before remembering.

“Harry!” he shouted, feeling puerile, disorientated. “
Harry!
”

“What?” responded Benson’s echoing voice. “What the fuck is it now?”

“Light! I need some light! Battery is dead!”

Even from the distance, Jack could hear Benson mumbling about not even being able to have a smoke in peace.

“Where are you?” shouted Benson, walking down the corridor. “Which fucking room?”

“The control room! Near the very end of the corridor.” Jack’s voice quietened as he heard Benson’s footsteps nearing; saw the beam from his friend’s torch slice through the darkness.

Suddenly, tiny beams of light oozed through the wall, ghostly, like the eyes of dead creatures, landing on Jack’s waist, forming a slithering belt, before disappearing into the night.

“Harry? Harry! I’m in here, next door, in the control room. There’s a sign above the door.”

“Okay, okay, I hear you; but it’s impossible to see any signs,” mumbled Benson, defensively. A few seconds later, he appeared at the door of the control room. “Have you finished playing hide and fucking seek? Can we go now?”

“I want you to go back in, next door, and shine the torch against the wall, just like you did a moment ago.”

“Have you lost it? If you think for one minute that I am going back in there, just to shine the—”

“Stop the moaning, and do as I ask,” hissed Jack, his voice bringing a heavy silence to the room.

Benson glared at his ex-partner before reluctantly complying. “This had better be fucking good, Jack. I’ve had enough of this shit.”

A few seconds later, Jack could hear Benson stomp his way through the adjacent room like a big kid newly chastised by a parent.

Nothing. The control room sat in total darkness. Jack wondered if he had been hallucinating, all the strain and fatigue taking their toll.

Defeated, he shouted in to Benson that it was okay, to forget about it. “It was nothing, Harry, just my tired eyes playing
tricks.”

Benson muffled a reply. “I haven’t been able to turn the damned torch on. Didn’t you check the batteries in these—hold on … there! It’s back on! Any luck?”

“Hold it right there, Harry! Hold it right there!” Light was seeping through the wall, like an old movie projector, dust motes dancing on the beams.

Tracing the light, Jack pressed his fingers against the entrance holes, feeling them fitting perfectly against his skin.

“Can you see my fingers, Harry?”

“Of course I can fucking see them. What the hell are you playing at?”

“Don’t move that light. I’m coming in.”

Moving quickly and as carefully as possible, Jack groped the walls for direction, all the way into the next room.

“What’s this all about?” asked Benson.

“Could be nothing—could be a million things,” replied Jack. “Scan the light along the wall, just where those holes are.”

Benson ran the beam along the wall, slowly, as if removing paint. There were ten holes, in all.

“Okay. The wall has holes. So what? So have I,” said Benson, flippantly.

“Those holes aren’t accidental,” said Jack. “Too evenly distributed, too elaborate.” Brushing his hand along the floor, removing grime and dust, Jack slowly revealed what the years had tried to hide. “Scuff marks … harsh imprints. Probably from chairs.”

Benson shrugged his shoulders. “And?”

“Give me your torch. Look through any of those holes. I’m going next door. Tell me what you see.”

Seconds later, Benson watched the light from the torch
reveal the one item of interest to Jack: the bed.

“I still don’t get it,” mumbled Benson, just as Jack made an appearance back in the room.

“Voyeurs.”

“Peeping fucking Toms?” said Benson, spitting out the dust from his mouth. “Are you sure? How can you be certain?”

Jack’s face was bleached white. Even in the smothering darkness, Benson could see that quite clearly. More worrying to Benson was Jack’s lack of response. His ex-partner had said nothing; and in saying nothing, he said everything.