Chapter 1
Wipe that grin off your face, thought Paul as DCI Norton re-entered the office. You’re stupid, and you’re fat, and you couldn’t solve a murder investigation for all the money in the world, so I can do without your inane grinning right now.
“Right then Mr Sheridan,” Norton said chirpily as he sat down, “where were we?”
“Well from what I can remember,” Paul replied, “because it was quite some time ago-”
“I’ve only been gone for fifteen minutes Mr Sheridan, there’s no need to get petulant about it.”
“Petulant?” Paul tried to stay calm. “Forgive me officer – sorry, Chief Inspector – but my petulance has become increasingly frequent when I’m around you because whenever we have one of our meetings, all you tell me is that no progress is being made. I admit that the death of my wife has made me rather irritable, so you’ll just have to cut me some slack if I can’t always be as happy as you. Oh, and by the way, you were gone for thirty-five minutes, not fifteen; so I suppose that did make me petulant.” That’s got rid of your smile, you arsehole.
“I’m very sorry if you feel that the police aren’t doing a good enough job in finding your wife’s killer, Mr Sheridan, but let me assure you that we are continuing to examine every line of inquiry.”
“That’s what you always say. It’s been five months and you’ve barely turned up any positive leads.”
“I know…And unfortunately that’s why I asked you to meet with me today. I’m afraid I have to tell you that all of the available evidence, and the fact that gathering new evidence has been so difficult, is beginning to suggest that the answer to this investigation may be different from what we suspected at the outset.”
“Stop talking in police language, tell me what you mean.”
“What I mean, Mr Sheridan, is that we’re beginning to think that it wasn’t murder at all.”
“She did not kill herself!”
“Please, calm down Mr Sheridan. Aggression won’t get us anywhere…I understand that you must be grief stricken that your wife was taken away from you so suddenly and in such a brutal fashion, but you have to try and understand that from an objective viewpoint this case looks considerably more like suicide. As you know, the autopsy results said that the angle of entry of the knife was what you would expect from a self-inflicted wound-”
“It also said that it would be difficult for a woman of my wife’s build to have the strength to force a kitchen knife that size so far into her own body.”
“Yes, I realise that. But no fingerprints or DNA other than yours and your wife’s were found anywhere in your house. We made appeals on television, and nobody came forward. Do you know how unusual that is? For there to be absolutely no witnesses.”
“Well they’ve probably been gotten to by the criminal who carried this out! The criminal who you should be arresting; the one who I’ve told you about plenty of times before only to be ignored.”
“Yes…I thought this would probably come up again. Haven’t we been over this enough?”
“Excuse me, but doesn’t it seem just a slight coincidence to you that at the same time that I’m testifying against an armed robber who had an accomplice that was still at large, my wife gets stabbed to death in my house?”
“As you know full well Mr Sheridan,” replied Norton, desperately trying to show professional calmness, “we investigated that line of inquiry exhaustively and turned nothing up. All of the people who we suspected might be involved had very solid alibis for that evening.”
“Well they would, wouldn’t they?!” Paul could feel his rage growing. “And maybe you missed someone. You should have tried harder, for Christ’s sake. And anyway, what about the note? I realise that I’m not familiar with what suicide notes should look like, but I honestly don’t think that they should be cryptic and written in the victim’s own blood.”
“Believe me, it is only because of the note that this case has continued for so long. But unfortunately we are having to come to the conclusion that we may simply never know what your wife meant when she wrote ‘The Darkness wants you’. Again, we made extensive inquiries into criminal circles looking for anybody who went by any nickname that could relate to darkness, and once again found no-one. For all we know, she may not even have finished the note. One medical expert who I spoke to said that it was perfectly possible for a person to be delirious with pain and not know what they’re doing. Please, try to see the case objectively. I understand it must be incredibly difficult for someone to try to come to terms with a loved one committing suicide, but it really does look that way.”
Objectively? thought Paul. He wants me to see my wife’s death objectively? He’s more of an imbecile than I thought. “Now you listen to me. I don’t give a damn what you and your scientific boffins say. I knew my wife better than anybody else in the world. She was not the kind of person to kill herself; she was a happy person. She was happy with me and happy with her life. She did not stab herself.”
“But sometimes the person closest is the last to know.”
“Don’t you patronise me!” Paul stood up and pulled Norton halfway across the desk by his collar so they were nose to nose. “She did not kill herself!”
“Right, that’s it Mr Sheridan,” said Norton, trying not to show his fear, “you’ll have to leave. We can talk about this another time when you’re not so worked up, and preferably not so drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“Oh come on, I can smell it on your breath. Now get out.”
Reluctantly, Paul let go of Norton’s collar. “You’re useless,” he said, and stormed out, slamming the office door on the way.
After driving away from the police station, Paul’s adrenalin caught up with him; he was shaking with a mixture of anger and anxiety, so he pulled over at the roadside to calm himself down. Suicide? he thought. Surely she wouldn’t do that. “You wouldn’t do that, would you Sonia?” he said to the heavens.
He caught a glance of himself in the rear-view mirror, and then took a closer look. His stubble was turning into a fully fledged beard, his hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in weeks, and bags were starting to form under his eyes. Jesus, why did you go to a police station looking like this?…Oh yes, I remember. You woke up with a bastard of a hangover and so couldn’t be bothered to clean yourself up. Necking more whiskey seemed to be a better idea at the time. No wonder Norton told me to go away. Still, that doesn’t make him any less of a pretentious prick…No way in this world did my wife kill herself. And if the police won’t do anything other than sit on their fat arses, then I guess I’ll just have to do something about it myself.
A couple of minutes later he drove off with renewed vigour. He still didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, just as long as he did something positive for a change. Maybe if he did something positive he could start getting rid of his alcoholism; but probably not. Hitting the bottle had been his only salvation in the last five months. A faithful friend, always willing to make him feel better. It would probably kill him one day, but he didn’t care; he hadn’t cared about very much at all since Sonia was killed…Yes, killed. By someone else.
As Paul pulled into his driveway he saw his next door neighbours leaving their house. Brilliant, he thought sarcastically, that’s just what I could do with. More puerile conversation with Mr and Mrs Yates. He always thought of them by their surname, because they seemed so boring and serious. Still, they were pleasant enough and he greeted them with a remark about the weather before turning to go indoors.
“Hey Paul, how you doing?”
He turned back to see Francesca Yates coming out onto her driveway. Paul had always been astounded at how Mr and Mrs Yates were able to give birth to someone who was so cool. Fran was totally chilled out compared to her parents; quite fashionable too, in a grungy kind of way; and she was certainly growing up to be better looking than them.
“I’m good thanks Fran, how are you?” he replied.
“Same as ever, you know. How’ve you been lately? I don’t seem to see much of you anymore.”
“I didn’t realise that you saw a lot of me anyway,” he teased.
“You know what I mean.” She pushed him playfully on the shoulder, “I’d see you mowing your lawn, or you’d see me playing my guitar in the garden and we’d talk over the fence and stuff. Your lawn’s a mess now, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Well any time you want to jump over the fence and mow my lawn for me, feel free. I won’t object, honest. Actually there are quite a few household chores that I need doing; yes, you could be my new housekeeper.”
“I was only trying to make conversation,” she smiled, “since when did you become so sarcastic?”
“I’ve always been this sarcastic.”
“See, I’ve even forgotten that because it’s been so long since we talked.”
“Yeah, point taken. Guess I’ve been under a lot of strain lately.”
“I know that. I’m not suggesting that you should be doing cartwheels or anything. It’s just that, sometimes I find talking to you is kind of relaxing. You know what I mean?”
“Come on Francesca,” called Mr Yates, waiting by his Rover, “your grandma will moan if we’re late again.”
“Yeah,” Paul said quietly to Fran, “I think I know exactly what you mean. Now run along to daddy, little girl.”
“Less of the girl,” she laughed, “I’m sixteen in six days time, so then you’ll have to show me more respect if you know what’s good for you. Anyway, I’d better go. Talk to you soon, hopefully.”
“Yeah, I hope so too. See ya.”
Paul waved them off from his doorway and went indoors when he realised he was staring up the road long after the Rover was out of sight. Come on, Paul, get yourself together; she’s only fifteen, for crying out loud. You’d get arrested! And who’d go out with you anyway when you’re in a screwed up state like this? And then he chuckled at these inner conversations he’d been having with himself more and more frequently since Sonia had died…since she’d been murdered.
Which reminded him that he had to do something because the police’s ongoing investigations were continuing to ongo nowhere. First thing to be done: pour a large glass of whisky. One motto he now lived by was that there was an answer at the bottom of every glass.
Forty minutes later and he was merry enough to be considerably more inspired; ideas were flowing. Half an hour after that and his first idea was in place: a blog. He logged on to his old blogspot webpage and wrote out a paragraph of text which at least made a start in getting his message heard. The title he gave was ‘Looking for the Darkness’, so that anyone who searched long and hard enough for the word ‘darkness’ (possibly in relation to criminality) should discover his page. He knew that there used to be a band of the same name which would probably get his site a lot of unwanted hits, but he couldn’t help that. The paragraph read:
Hello, my name is Paul Sheridan and I’m a Private Investigator. Recently I have been employed to look into a case involving a criminal / gang member who goes by the name of The Darkness. He has been accused of murder but nobody knows of his whereabouts. It is of the utmost importance that this person is arrested as soon as possible so that other people in society are not put at risk. Very little is known of his physical appearance but it is thought that he is also involved in other criminal activities such as armed robbery. If you know of any information concerning this individual (regardless of how trivial you think it may be) then please contact me immediately at the e-mail address that I have given below. Do not attempt to approach the individual yourself as he could be highly dangerous. Thank you for your help in this matter.
Paul wasn’t very comfortable with lying about being a PI, but if he told the truth that he couldn’t be bothered with the police anymore then nobody would e-mail him. And he actually felt quite positive that he’d finally done something for himself which might achieve results; probably the most positive he’d felt in the last five months.
He re-read the paragraph one last time to make sure it said exactly what he wanted…but he couldn’t get to the end of it. His eyes wouldn’t focus properly and the words on the screen were becoming blurry; almost melting into each other. He squinted closely at the words, and then rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times, but still he couldn’t read the text. Maybe my alcoholism has finally caught up with me. Maybe my eyes are gonna be screwed up for the rest of my life. Except he didn’t feel that drunk; and he’d never heard of alcohol addiction permanently damaging a person’s vision. He glanced around the room he was in, a little spare room where he kept his computer; not much to see really, just a chest of drawers and a very dusty carpet; but everything was in focus. So he looked back at the screen and realised the fault was with the computer, not his eyes; he probably would have figured that out earlier if he hadn’t been drinking.
About a second before he was going to switch off the computer hoping that the problem would just go away if he left it for half an hour, he saw that the melting words were starting to form an entirely different message. And as it formed, his head began to feel funny…a hazy, disconcerting feeling was creeping stealthily across his mind. He couldn’t concentrate…Just knew that he had to read this new message, whatever it was going to be…It was important…Important…Read it…Got to read it…Important.
The message said:
Now listen to me Paul. You do not understand what you are doing. People who fight me, die. People who look for me, die. And they all die slowly, in more pain than you know. Don’t do it, Paul. This will be your only warning. I do not give second chances. Sometimes, people are not meant to understand. Let it go.
Paul jolted upright as if out of a doze and immediately looked at his computer…to see his original paragraph perfectly clear on the screen. He put down the glass of whiskey. What the hell was that? he thought, surprisingly calmly given the circumstances, Surely that had to be a dream, it couldn’t be anything else…Except I know it wasn’t. I’m not sure how I know, but I know. It was real.
For fifteen minutes Paul sat very still, breathing slowly, trying not to panic about the fact that his mind had just been invaded, contemplating as rationally as possible what his next move would be – a small part of him even enjoyed the excitement; it was a change after five months of depression. He wasn’t scared of the paranormal; if anything he found it quite reassuring because it might mean that his wife was happily watching him from heaven. But what was he to do about this malevolent force that had just attacked him? Do as it said and stop looking for ‘The Darkness’? Certainly not; if he was being warned off then he was obviously getting close, so he wasn’t going to give up now. Without doubt it was a scary prospect…but then again, he didn’t start this, he just wanted to finish it.
He looked upwards and said out loud, “Okay then, whatever you are, if the experience that I just had was real, then you’re obviously a lot more powerful than I am, and I figure if you want to kill me then you probably can. But, I’m also figuring that I don’t have all that much to lose. My wife was everything to me, so if you did kill her, which I’m still not sure about, then everything I do from now on is because of you. So if you want some, come get some. Maybe you’ll find me more difficult to kill than you realise.”
He waited for a few seconds to see if there was going to be any reply, but there wasn’t. So then there were just two things left to do. Number one: put his blog on the Internet with a slight alteration so that it said The Darkness was a ‘criminal / gang member / entity’. And number two: drink that whiskey bottle dry.
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