The Missing

Those that kill, believe dead men tell no tales. But the dead can speak. They find a way. With my help, I get the message to the living.

The call came late on a dreary afternoon, the grey skies and drizzle of another English winter, given up on its seasons. Inside a squad car, reduced to betting on water droplets racing down the windscreen, stake-out boredom had become terminal. God, in the form of the Chief, decided to resuscitate both myself and my colleague, Steve. The radio crackled into life and the Chief got right to the point:

'Jack, it seems you have a friend that wants to see you. He's holding two people hostage, gunfire reported, someone may have been shot. We don't know. We're holding outside for the moment. Apparently he want's to talk. But only with you. Won't give a reason. Get down there, find out what's going on.'

There was no argument from me. 'I'm on it.'

'And Jack? No heroics.'

'I'm babysitting, remember?' I glanced across at Steve, who gave me the finger. 

'Just watch your step.'

My polite new partner that day, eager and fresh-faced, punched in the address. A place on the east side of London, rundown area, former docklands. We were there in under fifteen minutes.

Outside the building but around a corner in case a bullet came our way, I shouted a hello to my new and unknown friend. The barked invitation came back loud and clear with a warning to go slow and easy and no guns. Fine by me, I don't like guns. 

Our first surprise was just inside the door. I stepped over a body with Steve following a safe distance behind. I waved for him to wait and he stopped just behind the dead man, shuffling his polished toe-caps away from a still growing puddle of blood oozing out from the corpse. The corpse still held a gun.

The colour drained from Steve's face. Read and learn what you like, reality is always worse. I felt for him. Every one of my thirty years in the force bunched into a knot inside my throat. I wasn't immune. It was the same for the both of us. Concentrate on keeping the food inside your stomach. Anything but the gore and horror creeping closer to your heart and toes.

The building was old. Derelict looking, but not wholly abandoned. Someone still lived here, maybe part time. A left-over from the abandoned docks, set a little back, a former abattoir, now scheduled for redevelopment along with everything else. The dirt stained windows let in some light, the kind that stifled any real illumination, a brown wash that draped itself over the interior like a funeral cloth. 

My eyes adjusted to the gloom, and three people were staring silently back at me. A couple at the far side of a large room stood opposite a fat man, gun in hand, sitting at the centre. Together, we made a neat triangle of tense jeopardy. 

I waited. Eventually, it was the fat man who spoke up.

'What kept you? You missed all the fun,' he said, the muzzle of his gun pointing in my direction.

I shrugged. 'Heavy traffic. Sorry I'm late. I'm Detective Jack Spalding.”

'I know who you are, I called you here, remember? Who's the guy with you?'

'Sergeant Steve Marsh. We're unarmed.'

The silence returned. The gun never wavered. What was going on? I waited for the fat man to demand whatever he was going to demand and took stock.

The couple by the wall. A woman, a bright light in the darkness. Not in a good way. Stilettos, black tights, a red boob-tube, all made for poor camouflage. Even so, it was at least a splash of colour she brought to the place, a stark contrast to the overwhelming faecal brown. 

She threw back a challenge to my gaze, a mixture of defiant sexuality, before turning and burying her head on the shoulder of the man by her side. Boyfriend? Muscle? These two didn't look much like victims. They had something deeper to do with this. 

He took up her challenge, glaring, pulling her deeper into the torn leather of his jacket. A fancy jacket, the kind of expensive leather that rippled over skin like oil on water. A torn lapel hung down over a shirt gashed to the waist and spattered with blood. Gold necklace and cross, diamond earnings, Rolex, all told a story. As did the face; soft you might call it, but the jawline was strong, the eyes sharp. Angry, scared, petulant. I wasn't sure.

As interesting as this couple was, it was still the fat man at the centre of the room that was the main draw. He held the gun and had nothing much left to lose. A big man. Overweight, face heavy with sagging jowls and clothes decorated in spattered crimson that could only be blood.

Slumped in a wooden chair too small for his frame, but alert. He was smiling right at me. It was the kind of smile that told you he was done. Done with everything. In a buttoned-up but cheap looking black jacket straining against each hard-fought breath. He was a mess. Probably had always been a mess. Except for the gun. That still meant business. 

'Put the gun down, let's talk this through,' I said, talking slowly, taking my time, buying as much as I could. But I guessed it was like trying to reason with a hungry alligator. The body at our feet had been the appetizer. I didn't want us to be the main. 

Fat man didn't answer, just stared back, breathing hard and with difficulty. I didn't push him. I couldn't do much else.

The room was now filled with statues. Nothing moving except for the gun of the big man that swung lazily between us and his new pals. The wheels were turning in his head. Eventually fat man's thick eyebrows raised up and the smile widened, but it was a smile at odds with the pig-like eyes glinting from within those heavy cloaking folds of skin. Those eyes were hard, bird-like in their lack of empathy. Then he spoke.

'Okay, we can talk. Sure, let's talk. The bastard at your feet, he tried to shake me down, along with his two pals over there'. He waved his gun towards Boobs and Big Mac, over by the wall. 'Thought they could extort money from me. From ME! Stupid bastards. I was in their game before they was born.'

'So you shot him?'

'Yeah, so we had a little fight. With his dumb ass muscle and the bimbo over there. I know what you're thinking. Sure I'm fat. But I can handle myself. The pile of shit at your feet pulled a gun. He got a shot off, so did I. My aim was better, as you can see.'

Lifting his left hand from his right shoulder he revealed a spreading dark patch of blood on his shirt just below the collar bone. 

'But yeah, the bastard still managed to hit me. No way was I about to roll over and sell out this place. It's mine. Always has been. He knew that. He thought to waste me. Him and his palls over there. Well, they thought wrong'.

I tried some flattery.

'They underestimated you.' I told him. 'They shouldn't have done that. Listen, I hear you, but this is where it ends. Okay, he pulled a gun, it's self defence, I can see that.' I kicked the dead man's gun from his hand to prove it. It skidded across the wooden floor, clattering loud in the silent tension of the air. 'So why not get out while you could? Why call the cops? Why call for for me, personally? Why hold these two hostage? What's the deal?'

'Because I'm too old and too fat to run. Those two dumbasses buy me time. I ain't got much time. And I hear things. I hear you're an okay cop. I think I can trust you to do something for me. I want you to know some things, set the record straight.'

'What things?' 

'Strange things. Things you wouldn't believe. This place. You know what it was?'

'Yeah, I know, an abattoir, what about it?'

'I used to work here. Back in the day, when I was with the boys, you know?

The pit in my stomach began to open up again. I glanced at the Steve next to me. He hadn't a clue. 

I tried another angle. 'That was then. Things have changed, they're different now,' I said, with a confidence I didn't have. 

He wasn't convinced. 'Things don't change. Things remain. They come back.' The smile had vanished. 'Maybe you'd get a bonus. Get promoted. Who knows? Maybe in return, I'll get some peace. I want you to tell them I'm sorry.' 

I was confused. “Them”? The pit in my stomach was still empty, the alligator waiting. I let him continue.

'See that mirror? Behind me? It's been in that wall from the day this place was built. I see things. I've done things too, you know? Things it has seen. I can't be seeing them any more. Not any more, you understand? Tell them I'm sorry, you understand?'

I didn't. I didn't want to understand. He was smiling that dead smile again.

'Believe me, you will understand. Look under the floor.'

His hand moved fast. The gun up. I reacted too late. 'Stop!!

Thrust deep into the folds of skin beneath his jaw, he paused for a moment, repeating, 'under the floor,' and pulled the trigger. An instant later my new partner lost his breakfast along with his innocence. Fat man's head exploded, the remnants sagging back over a shredded stump of a neck. Blood gushed up from the twitching torso in a sudden fountain of spray before subsiding as quickly as it formed. The body lay still. The woman's scream high above the sounds of retching. 

The police, hearing the shot, stormed in and took over, taking the muscle and his girl away. We walked away, needed time to recover. 

Later, once the clean-up team had done, we came back. The place still stank. 

'You know what I want to do?'

'Check under the floorboards...' Steve answered. No longer fresh, tarnished, still here. He was learning.

I moved over to the back wall, to the mirror where the fat man's conscience must have reflected back at him over the years. Small bit's of bone and brain tissue clung where it had splattered, the snail-like trails of dried blood leading to the fragments of his skull. The cleanup team hadn't touched the walls. 

The silver backing behind the glass was mostly gone with age, leaving just cracked and mottled tracery. But it was still reflective. Like looking at the surface of some stagnant pond, dank and dark with decay, where you couldn't quite see what was hiding. What might be watching.

Then, as if I had missed a step on the stairs, my heart jumped into my throat. Something was inside. Something was slithering in the darkness of the mirror...or behind me?

Behind me was Steve, behind him were... shapes. Of moving, dark things... shadows of people, grimacing, tortured faces, silently screaming, shifting, indistinct. 

Transfixed, I stared at the unfolding horror. There came more. Four, then five. Each materializing, coming closer. Coming for us.

I spun around... 

Nothing was there. Just Steve staring back at me.

'What's up, Boss? You seen a ghost?' He said, smile fading as he took in my expression. 

I didn't answer. I couldn't, having forgotten to breathe. Forcing a breath, I swallowed and turned back to face the mirror. 

It was just a mirror. The two of us, standing, reflected. Nothing else. 

My imagination getting the better of me, that was it. I almost believed myself. But then I remembered the fat man's tale of who, of what, he had been, what he might have done. 

Unspeakable things. Covered up. Buried. Forgotten. Now I knew what he had meant. What he had been saying. His victims were here. 

I managed to speak. 

'Call in the team.' I croaked, staring down at the wooden floor, then at Steve. 'That's why the bastard held onto this place. Get in the team to get these floorboards up. They're right under here, under our feet. We have to reopen the files of the missing. Find the relatives. It'll be closure. At least it'll be that. Let's get the hell out of here.'