Verismo Bliss - Chapter 18

18.

The feeling in Harry’s leg stopped. There was a knocking on a door somewhere. He heard somebody calling his name. Oliver swore. Harry could feel wetness on his neck. The knocking got louder. His name was being called by a woman. He tried to call back but only a gurgle came out, and then Oliver slapped his hand over Harry’s mouth.
The door opened and Ramona Noche stepped in. For the briefest of moments Harry and Oliver stared at Ramona and Ramona stared at Harry and Oliver. Her mouth opened – Harry was unsure if she was going to speak or scream – but before anything came out, Harry, who found Oliver’s hand had dropped from his mouth, shouted, ‘Run!’
She was gone out the door like a schoolboy at the sound of the home time bell.
Oliver cursed, slapped Harry across the face and ran after her.
He wriggled on the chair with all his strength, trying, somehow, to loosen the ropes. But he was so fucking tired. Every part of his body was sore or aching or numb. The ropes were tied good. Then he saw a pair of scissors on a low shelf against the far wall. If he could jiggle himself over there, maybe he could just reach the scissors and then, maybe, just maybe, cut the ropes. Before trying to make it he listened. Through the open door he could hear feet running down (up?) stairs. He hoped Ramona was a gym junkie.
He moved himself from side to side and leaned forward. The chair wobbled and jerked a little forward, moving like some crazed automaton. He was making a lot of noise, but didn’t see that it mattered. Social housing units were full of screams, dogs barking, children crying and music blaring that was tuned out by the residents. Doors and windows closed. Don’t get involved. Not my business. Got my own problems. Hell, Oliver could be murdering Ramona on the stairs and a resident would just step over them and look the other way. He could be killing her now. This spurred him on to more effort. The people in the flat below must have thought Gwen had brought an elephant home to entertain. Every muscle in his arms and legs was aching and strained to breaking point like an elastic band ready to snap back. But he made it, he made it to the shelf, he just had to shift himself round now, so that he was facing the other way; the shelf was just about the right height, he’d be able to reach the scissors. Come on, Harry.
There was a scream from the stairwell. It was a woman’s scream. Somebody shouted at somebody else to shut the fuck up.
Harry took a deep breath. Oxygen into the lungs. Come on. He jiggled and twisted. He heard steps on the stairs, getting closer. Come on, Harry. He was nearly there, nearly fully rotated, his hands only a foot from the scissors, but would he have time to cut his bonds before Oliver came back? And then, with one big push of his legs he tipped the chair over and the apartment turned sideways. Fuck. He was facing the open doorway, knowing he was screwed - there was no way he was getting up from this position, though his fingers scrabbled about for anything that might be useful – when two feet came into the room. The feet were clad in trendy dark suede boots, with a heel that could have been used to shatter ice or walk up and down a lonely businessman’s back, but definitely not acceptable footwear for running away from a crazed killer.
‘Harry?’
Her voice sounded soft, tremulous and far away. But she was safe. She was alive. And now all she had to do was pick up the scissors from the shelf, and free him. He smiled. Then another pair of feet came into the room. These feet were in a pair of Converse All Stars, classic black and white version, and were ideally suited to the crazed loon about town for tracking down the stereotypical female victim.
‘Bollocks,’ Harry said.
He raised his eyes and looked into Ramona’s face. She looked to be in shock; feelings of concern, confusion and horror passed across her face. Oliver slammed the door shut with his foot. Somebody yelled, ‘Stop slamming that bloody door!’ Oliver pushed Ramona onto the bed, turned her over, tied her hands behind her back (shit, he probably was in the Hitler-Jugend; always prepared with rope to tie up enemies of the state), then flipped her over like a fish, so that she lay there staring at the ceiling.
‘What are you doing down there?’ Oliver asked, leaning down and putting his face next to Harry’s. ‘Let me help you there, old man.’
Oliver, with a grunt, dragged Harry and the chair to an upright position.
‘There, isn’t that better? Now you can see what’s going on.’
Harry looked into Oliver’s eyes. How long had Verlaine said the effects of Bliss lasted on a man? A couple of hours? Maybe if they could keep stalling him it would wear off and he might come to his senses.
Oliver sat next to Ramona and pulled her into a sitting position. She was trembling like an autumn leaf clinging for dear life to a branch, even then knowing it was just a matter of time before it would fall.
‘I know you,’ Oliver said, tapping his blade against her leg. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt under a light maroon jacket. ‘Gwen knew you. You didn’t like Gwen, did you? I think you didn’t like her for the same reason that I didn’t like your father. He was fucking her.’
She turned her head then, the mention of her father snapping her out of her stupor. ‘My father? You knew my father?’
He shrugged. ‘Briefly, but, I guess, in a way, very intimately. I think more intimately than anybody. What is more intimate than sex or friendship? Maybe only that moment of birth is more intimate, when the nurse holds the baby up. But my intimacy with your father is the last thing he knew in this world.’
She gasped, holding back a sob.
‘You were there that night. I’d followed my sister, my soul, my heart, to the antique shop and watched as that slobbering ancient greeted her with a kiss and a pat on her bottom.’ He hissed. ‘He patted her bottom. Dirty fucker. Did you know your dad was a dirty fucker? Yeah, you did. Because as I waited in the alley you came along and there was fury in your face.
‘I crouched in that passageway and waited. There was a kid there, some Indian kid fucked out of his mind, gurgling about some guy he was in love with. And you know, I was seething with so much anger, wondering what was going on in there with Gwen, that I could have killed him, even though he’d done no wrong to me. Then his eyes opened and he looked right at me, but he wasn’t seeing me, he was seeing something else, something that made him look so peaceful that I wanted a part of that. I went through his pockets and took the first pills I could find.
‘Then I heard shouting and you came storming out, slamming that door so hard that for a moment you even brought some reality into my friend’s drug world, and he watched you, then sank back to blissful oblivion.
‘My anger burned. The drug kicked in. Ah, how to explain it?’ Oliver exclaimed, standing up and flapping his arms about. ‘The first feeling is one of euphoria, as though you are a god, that you can do anything and be anything and know everything and that you are the greatest goddamn fucking human who has ever walked the earth. Hell, the only real person who is alive. It’s like Eden, man, but then comes the fall. Oh, yeah, the garden is full of snakes fucking up everything that is good with the world, my world, my creation. God banished Adam and Eve but I will kill the fucking snake.
‘What goes down after that is always a little blurred. I broke into the shop. I found your father with his cock in my sister’s mouth. I remember it felt worse seeing the way he was stroking her hair and the way she was looking up at him, like she actually liked him, even though I knew she was a fucking actor.
‘Then she was gone, screaming and shouting. And then there was blood and the man was no more. The snake had been crushed. The anger had come out of my body like lightening and it left me drained, but exultant.’
He paused and all Harry could hear was the gentle, dry sobbing of Ramona.
‘So Gwen knew?’ Harry said.
Oliver sighed. ‘We never spoke about it. Of course she knew, though she never saw.’
Harry was encouraged that Oliver appeared more lucid now. Maybe they would get out of this after all.
‘The only one I regret is the woman. She’d done nothing wrong, really, well, no more than anybody does. See, I didn’t know what I’d taken from that kid’s pocket, the stuff that had made me feel so physical. At school I was the bullied one, but this stuff it had made me angry and violent. I was vengeance writ large. It was fucking amazing. But what was it? About a week after the first incident I picked up a self-employed. It’s not something I usually do but I’d rowed with Gwen and thought I could get back at her that way. Anyway, this girl I picked up, she took a pill, a golden pill that looked the same as the ones I’d taken before, so I asked her if I could have one, and she laughed and said it wouldn’t do me any good. She told me they were called Bliss. She let me have one. I remember having sex with her, but before it was over, she was dead. I’m sorry about her.’
‘Listen,’ Harry said, ‘I’m sure with your father’s money he could get you the best lawyer. They could prove that Bliss had caused you to do the killings. You’d get a light sentence, maybe in a hospital.’
Oliver laughed. ‘You think Daddy would fuck up his Bliss research just to save his son? Besides, there are only three people who know what I’ve done, one of them won’t say anything, and the other two will be dead soon.’
Ramona made a little shrieking noise, like a mouse being squeezed by a wrestler’s hands.
‘Oliver, you’ve come down now, you can’t kill in cold blood.’
‘Well, that’s what this is for,’ he said, taking out a little golden pill.
Fuck, thought Harry. ‘Ok, listen, you can still save yourself, save Gwen. Talk to me, why did you kill Barry Penny? He loved Gwen. He never slept with her.’
Oliver slapped Harry across the face, sending a blood splatter from the semi-congealed wound on his throat across the wall. ‘I didn’t kill Barry. Barry was a good friend to me and Gwen. Look, this isn’t going to save you. I’m sorry for you, Ramona, but you did hate Gwen, and that’s reason enough, I guess. But you,’ he said, turning back to Harry, ‘were fucking her so you deserve everything.’
‘I wasn’t fucking her,’ Harry said, spitting out blood. He wasn’t sure if this statement was for Oliver, or Ramona. He didn’t want Ramona dying thinking he was screwing about with the young girl. Though what did it matter? He and Ramona weren’t a couple. But it did matter to Harry. And what mattered more was that she was going to die. He didn’t want her to die. He wanted her death even less than his own. He looked at her. She looked back. Her eyes were wet with tears and wide with horror. Harry felt absolutely useless. He wanted to save her, but his metaphorical gun was out of metaphorical bullets. Unless…he had one card left to play.
Oliver raised the pill to his lips.
‘It’s your kid.’
‘What?’
‘Gwen, she told me, the kid is yours.’
‘Bullshit. I can’t have kids.’
‘You know that for sure? Do you know why Bliss buzzes you up so much and not any other bloke? Bliss only does that on guys who are fertile. You ever been tested for fertility, Oliver?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘Didn’t see the point.’ He held the Bliss between his finger and thumb; it was almost touching his lips.
‘Go to her. Ask Her.’
‘She’s gone. Oh, shit. Gone to Raf-Med, to get rid of…’
For a moment, a beautiful moment, Harry thought he had played the winning hand, but then Oliver swallowed the tablet and said, ‘Better get this over with quickly so I can get after her and find out if it’s true.’
Oliver walked to the window and looked out over the city at night. There was stillness in the room, whilst Oliver waited for the Bliss to kick in. Harry and Ramona looked at each other. She was still petrified, but now she looked as though she was thinking, desperate for escape. She nodded at Harry’s arms. He shook his head and tugged his hands. Too tight. He nodded at her feet. She was only tied by the hands. Then he nodded at the door. She could make a run for it again. He doubted she’d get far, she hadn’t the first time, but who knew, they might get lucky and she would fall into the arms of some passing Community Cop doing the rounds.
Ramona slid her feet to the floor and managed to stand up, a little ungainly as her arms couldn’t support her balance. She backed towards the door, her eyes fixed on Oliver. Then she saw her reflection in the mirror and stopped. Oliver was smiling at her, in the reflection. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked softly.
She turned and ran, but he was on her in a flash, gripping her from behind, one arm around her waist, the other holding the knife to her throat.
‘I was going to play eeny-meeny-miny-moe with you both, to see who went first, but the lady has volunteered. You did, didn’t you?’
He held her in front of Harry. Her eyes were as wide as truck headlights. She was trembling. There was a smell of piss. Harry didn’t want to look at her, he felt ashamed, but he knew he had to. He wanted to tell her to be brave. He wanted to tell her it would be quick, that it wouldn’t hurt. But mostly he wanted to be strong enough to save her. As the knife began to press into her throat, he looked away.
‘Hey, you,’ Oliver said. ‘Watch. I want you to watch her die. Have you fucked her? Would you like to fuck her? If you don’t watch I will make it slow: very, very slow. If you watch it’ll be quick. Tell him to watch,’ he said, nudging Ramona.
Her voice trembled. ‘Watch.’ Than a gargled sob choked her throat of any more words.
Harry locked his eyes with her, trying not to see the flashing knife in his peripheral vision. Oliver giggled. The knife flashed under the light, pressed into her skin and Oliver’s hand tightened to bring his full force into the cut. There was a loud bang. Blood and gore splattered across Harry’s vision as though he had walked into a Pollock painting. He kept staring at Ramona. Her mouth was open in a scream, but he couldn’t hear anything, just the echo of the loud bang. There was what looked like blood and brain all over her face. Then her scream filled the room. The scream returned Harry his depleted senses. Where was Oliver? Oliver was on his back, his face blown away. Harry looked to the right and saw Adam Cannon, with a gun in his hand. He was pointing it at Ramona and telling her to shut up, but she had gone into shock and was a mass of sobs and screams.
‘Shut the fuck up, or I’ll shoot you,’ he said. But she just kept staring at Harry and screaming. Adam pushed her onto the bed, took a handkerchief from his pocket and shoved it into her mouth, stifling the noise. Then he sat at the edge of the bed and wiped his forehead that glistened with sweat.
Harry took a deep breath, regretting it immediately as his chest hurt from the effort. Had he broken a rib? The room felt strange now; with the presence of Oliver gone a force had left it. Bur what had replaced Oliver? Harry had to get his shit together. He felt relief looking at Oliver’s body, but he knew he was still wandering around a forest with no idea how he was going to get out.
‘Did your boss tell you to do that?’ Harry said, jerking his chin at Oliver.
‘Mr Falsham trusts me enough to show initiative in such matters.’
There was that public school timbre again, matching with his immaculate single breasted dark suit. Did Adam choose his suits for what he was going to do with the day? Business meeting: powder blue suit. Killing somebody: dark single breasted.
‘You make it sound like you’ve just made a business decision.’
Adam shrugged his big shoulders. ‘That’s what it was. Oliver’s always been a loose cannon, but until recently, Mr Falsham was happy to indulge his son. I think he hoped that doing some menial work at Raf-Med might give him some perspective – apparently not.’
‘Ah if only he could have been more like you. You’d make the perfect son for Falsham. Of course, he might not be too pleased when he finds you’ve killed his actual son and let his daughter get away.’
‘Was she here? You know, I really don’t think Mr Falsham is too concerned about his daughter at the moment. As for Oliver, he will never find out I killed him. Under the circumstances, though, if he did, I think he would thank me.’
‘Especially since it was Bliss that made him do the killings.’
‘Indeed, how ironic.’
Ramona groaned. She was rubbing her cheek against the bed, trying to get the gore off her face. Harry was pleased she was coming back to her senses.
‘How long have you known about Oliver?’
‘Actually I only found out tonight. To be honest I’ve had more important things to do than run around after the master’s brood. That’s the sort of thing we pay people like you to do. Except you weren’t too good at it, were you? Mr Falsham was concerned about Oliver being absent from his job and asked me to check up on him. He also had other concerns. Mr Falsham has never taken a great deal of interest in his children, believing that they would be stronger for independence, however even he had become aware of Oliver’s somewhat erratic behaviour of late. I checked up on him and found that when he was supposed to be in Leeds working, he was in Covent Garden. It didn’t take a genius to work out he might be visiting Gwendolyn, they were always very tight. So, I followed him, thinking I might kill two birds with one stone.’
‘Well, you’ve killed one.’
‘The night is young.’
Harry didn’t like the way the conversation was going. ‘Hey, how about untying me?’
Adam smiled, his teeth like rows of pearls in a pirate’s chest. ‘It seems it’s my lucky day to find three birds in a bush. You shouldn’t have been snooping around Raf-Med. And what were you doing talking to Richard Verlaine? Yes, I know about that. It was very silly of you, Mr Reed.’
As he spoke he put the gun on the bed and began to pull on a pair of surgical gloves. He looked around the room. ‘I think I can make this play. Oliver the crazed Covent Garden Ripper working on his next two victims. He kills the girl first, in front of the man, then starts torturing the man. But he didn’t know the man had a concealed gun. Harry, I think I can set up a narration here that will have you as a hero. Hell, you might even get a George Medal. Posthumously, of course.’
Ramona stopped wiping her cheek on the bed. Harry looked at her boots hanging over the edge of the bed. He wondered if Carr would go to her funeral. Maybe they would have a double funeral.
‘It’s nothing personal, you understand,’ Adam said, picking up the gun. ‘Well, actually in your case I might enjoy it. You are annoying. But, really, it’s just business.’ He raised the gun and slipped on the safety, before tucking it into his pocket. Harry was finding it hard to breathe. ‘It’s why I didn’t agree with the Penny thing.’ Adam moved over to Oliver’s body, crouched down and began to go though his pockets. ‘Penny was too personal. It made no business sense. Orders are orders though. I do think Mr Falsham let himself down there.’
As he was talking and going through Oliver’s pockets, Harry became aware that the door to the apartment was slowly opening. When it was half opened a head with hair the colour of soot began to emerge, followed by a pair of eager lime green eyes. It was John Khan.
‘It’s the only time I’ve known Mr Falsham make a decision based on emotions rather than cold, hard business sense.’
Jonka smiled at Harry as though he wandered into scenes like this all the time. Harry nodded his head at the scissors which were still on the shelf. Jonka nodded back and crept into the room with bare feet, his monkey boots slung around his neck.
‘And, to be honest, I still don’t even know why he wanted Penny taken out. Seemed to me the kid was a good friend to Gwendolyn. That was probably the only job I’ve done for Mr Falsham that I didn’t enjoy. Not that I enjoy killing, but if I can see the bigger picture, the reason why, then I can do it as easily as sending a memo.’ He stood up and turned round. ‘And with you two…’
Adam stopped talking. Harry was on his feet, just shaking the ropes loose. There was a kid with him, scissors in his hand. Adam had seen the kid somewhere but wasn’t sure where. Ramona was still where he’d left her. ‘Shit,’ he muttered. Why had he turned his back on the room? He reached for the gun.
Harry could hardly stand: his feet and hands felt numb from the tight ropes; his vision was blurred from the blows he had taken to the head; every breath he took was as if a hippopotamus was trampolining on his chest. But, when he saw Adam going for his gun, a surge of adrenalin went through his body. He had taken about all he could. He was dead on his feet. And that’s the way he was going to go. Dead. On his feet. He lunged forward and, through more luck and surprise than skill, he hit Adam as the gun was only half raised. There was a bang and a ricochet pinged off the wall. Harry heard somebody shouting. He heard a scream. He felt Adam’s powerful body pushing at him, but Harry clung on, like a boxer committing the illegal act of holding. Adam cursed and tried to raise the gun. Where the fuck was the kid, Harry thought. Then he crouched and, using his knees as leverage, he jerked upwards, trying to force the heavier man down. Adam tripped backwards and the two men fell noisily to the floor. Harry was operating on anger only now. He punched out at Adam. Adam was still trying to get the gun around, but Harry gripped his wrist. Harry realised that if Adam gave up on the gun he would be able to use his strength to overcome him easily. His reliance on the gun could be his undoing. Harry head butted him and Adam groaned as the sickening sound of nose cartilage cracking preceded the flow of blood. They were rolling about so close that neither could get any leverage for a good punch. But Adam’s hand that held the gun was now forcing back Harry’s. The gun was only a few inches from his face. In a few seconds his face was going to be splattered all over Adam’s nice neat suit. Harry suddenly let go of the wrist, the gun whipped against him and fired; at the same moment Harry jerked up his hand that was holding the scissors, up into Cannon’s abdomen.
And then the adrenalin and the anger were gone. His body and mind gave up and blackness came down like the final curtain on a stage play that somehow had ended with a lot of loose ends.