Where the Birds Hide at Night (10 page)

Time passed, and Noose had fallen asleep in Peter's arms. He edged away, letting the exhausted man carry on his slumber. Lauren had settled onto a stool and seemed her usual distant self. She wasn't so much settled on the stool as fixed down, no longer pacing up and down. Peter got up off the sofa, not in need of rest like Noose, and stood still across from Lauren for a moment. He had been dead for a decade, though it could so easily have been just seconds. Time didn't exist in the waiting room. ‘How have you been?' he whispered to Lauren. For a time she didn't respond, staying fixed as if in a trance. To hear his voice again after so long was both pleasure and torment in equal amounts. The years had allowed all the unpleasantries to kind of fade, so that now all that really stood in her way was herself. She couldn't really remember specifics anymore. She'd played events over and over in her head at the time, but after a while she'd just started blocking them out. Eventually she looked up at Peter. Their eyes met, but she did not alter her stern countenance.

‘I've been plodding on,' she replied.

‘Life just passes sometimes, doesn't it.'

‘Life!' she laughed, choking briefly on what could only be a battle of suppressing any outward signs of feeling. ‘Life does just pass. It keeps on going no matter who or who isn't in it.' She looked over at Noose. ‘It was a big blow, what happened to Henry. It upset what we all had going.'

‘Are you happy, Lauren?' he outright asked her, still keeping his physical distance.

‘Are you?' she turned it back, forcing a grin.

‘I'd be happy if I could spend the rest of my life with you.'

A laugh jerked from her lips. ‘Really? So you come back after all these years, just barge right back into my life and lay that out on the table? You've got a nerve.' He kept on looking at her, desperate for her to want him. ‘Took you ten years to think that one up, did it?'

‘Do you want to know the truth?'

‘What truth?'

‘I've been dead,' he admitted, having to smile at her because even he found it a bit silly to say. ‘You won't believe me, but I've lived many times before, both in this present form and others in the past.'

‘You've lost your mind.'

‘Maybe I have.' He stepped towards her and her entire body shook, but she quickly regained her composure as he slowly sat down across from her at the table. ‘I've spent the last ten years just waiting in nothingness, waiting to return to the life I was desperate to depart.'

‘But, but,' she replied, shaking her head but somehow feeling she aught to accept what she was hearing. It did, after all, sound so familiar to her.

‘I sank so low, so utterly terrible that I felt I couldn't go on. I ended my life, Lauren, knowing full well I could never actually die forever. Always I have to come back, trapped by a
gift
of never ending life.' He put his hand on the table. She looked down at it. ‘I'm just a walking, talking corpse spouting a pile of unbelievable rubbish. I am dead.'

Lauren's hand came on the table and rested on top of his. She was trembling, and so cold. ‘You're very warm for a corpse,' she said, feeling his moist hot hand. ‘Believe me, I've touched a lot of corpses in my time.'

Peter brought his other hand out and clasped hers. ‘I've made a lot of mistakes in my time, spread a lot of poison. All I want is to live out the rest of this current life with you. I don't want to come back again, I just want one fulfilling life.'

‘And I can give you that? Really?'

‘Yes, you can.'

‘How?'

‘By just being here for me when I get back.'

She pulled her hand away. ‘Get back? You're not leaving me again?'

‘I must stop Reaping Icon, and find Lucy's killer. Only then will I be able to cut The Space off forever.'

‘And how will you manage all that?' she asked him, almost wanting to think she was just humouring him, but deep down completely buying into it all.

‘I have opened my mind back to The Space, I am whole again. Its power will allow me to achieve some things.'

‘Like wooing me?' she asked angrily, getting up and pacing again.

‘I would never trick you into anything. I couldn't live with myself if I did that.' He too stood up, walking over to the kitchen. ‘If you don't want me after all is, then that's just something I'll have to live with.' He started opening her kitchen cupboards, eyeing up the contents within.

‘What are you doing, what are you looking for?' she snapped, marching over to him and pushing his hand away from her precious units.

‘I'm ever so thirsty.'

At first she glared at him, but soon a smile formed. It was a genuine smile, and Peter just knew that beyond all the crap that was going on she really did want to be with him. She walked over to the fridge and, opening it, brought out a carton of milk. Peter's eyes rolled into the back of his head as she tried to hide a little giggle.

* * *

The following morning Peter peeped out of the window to see Lauren getting into the unmarked police car. It drove off, leaving the coast clear for he and Noose to exit. Noose had cleaned himself up and, forced into a pair of Lauren's trousers like Peter, didn't look too bad. Luckily Lauren wasn't really the kind to sport overtly revealing skirts and tops, so some of her more generic clothing was quite suitable for them. He stepped out of the bathroom as Peter pulled away from the window and flicked his eyes over to the laptop on the kitchen table.

‘What?' Noose asked him, not quite with it yet.

‘Take a look.'

Noose went to the laptop, sitting down and reading with increasing perplexity what he found on the screen. ‘Barbara Davies,' he mumbled.

‘Yes, released from prison just before Beth and Dani Henderson were murdered, and the woman you shagged,' Peter explained rather joyously. Noose looked up from the screen, raising an eyebrow, to see Peter's face beaming with excitement.

‘You think Barbara murdered them, to set me up?'

‘It's a distinct possibility, isn't it?!'

‘Is that what The Space is telling you?' Noose snarled somewhat, highly uneasy about the deaths and his role in them.

‘I hear hints and whispers about it.'

‘Seems to me the only thing The Space is good for is giving you the security code to Lauren's flat,' Noose sighed. His eyes went back to the screen, reading again the news article explaining Barbara's case all those years ago when she'd murdered Louis Sellers and James Harrington. Perhaps Peter was onto something. ‘But why, and how?'

‘Well as the investigating officer or whatever,
you
were responsible for putting her inside. Maybe she fancied some revenge,' Peter surmised.

Noose looked at him again and almost smiled. For the first time in a long while he had somebody on his case, somebody supporting him. Then again, Nicola Williams
had
given him the key to the handcuffs in hospital. He had to focus, starting to puzzle over the logistics of what Barbara would have had to do in order to frame him.

‘She'd have had to get some of my sperm and put it in Dani and Beth.'

‘Had you had sex around the time, before the decapitation girl?'

Noose looked a little sheepish. ‘No.'

‘Wanked?' Peter asked, feigning an air of studious indifference.

‘Probably,' Noose reluctantly admitted. ‘A man's needs.' He rubbed his eyes. ‘I, er, I'd generally wank into a condom,' he went on professionally, affecting a rather softer voice.

‘Would you now?'

‘I used to get these ones with a special substance in the lubrication which delayed it, you know. That way I'd last longer.'

‘What a night in for the modern, single middle-aged man,' Peter chuckled. Noose frowned. ‘So, presumably you binned these instead of flushing as every good boy does?' Noose nodded. ‘Barbara got hold of one or more of these out of your bin and, hey presto, your jizz gets inside those reluctant cadavers.' Peter now sighed, dropping his light air. ‘That Barbara is a strong woman, I remember my encounter with her.'

‘Built like a brick shit house.'

‘Yes. I dread to think what horrors she inflicted on those poor women. And the child, so sickening.' He turned his back on Noose and went again to the window, lowering his voice. ‘All just to frame you. She would have hired the one you did shag. Probably a prostitute.'

Before all this ever happened, Noose had made the egotistical mistake of contemplating such attention. For somebody to want to frame him, he thought, would mean his life and work meant something. Somebody cared enough about him to go to such lengths. Of course, when it had eventually happened, it was a great ego destroyer and not the boost he had misguidedly coveted. Such things were as they are, and he could not go back and change his prior mindset. Or, perhaps he could? He looked over at Peter, the once-dead man back to life and in his life like never before. The roles were switched; he was now the one on the run with Peter as his champion. Still, Peter probably owed him that much. Noose had helped him out of trouble more times than he could remember. This was payback – not that he wanted paying back. He'd much rather have the roles switched back again as they used to be. Perhaps that's what had drawn him to Peter in the first place, the fact he could always play the role of champion and save the downtrodden from the unthinking and bloodthirsty mass. His desire to help people, to bring justice to the similarly downtrodden, had spectacularly backfired in his face and led to the utter collapse of his entire life. And yet, the one who, for the last ten years, he'd felt he couldn't save in the end was back and helping to save him.

‘So, what do we do now?' Noose mused.

‘We force the truth out of her.'

‘I don't know what I'll do,' Noose admitted, ‘if I clap eyes on the one who framed me. Woman or not, I might not be able to control myself.'

‘I will be there, Noose; I'll hold you back.'

‘Will you?' He stood up, pouring some water into a glass and downing it. ‘Do we even know where she's living, anyway?'

Peter smirked. ‘Of course we do. I took the liberty of accessing the online police files with Lauren's password.'

‘Never change, do you!'

* * *

They had made their way on foot, which was still quite a struggle for Noose. However, he had certainly rallied around since Peter's return and they both now crouched behind a hedge at the end of a field. The other side of the hedge lay Barbara Davies' garden and house, and Noose's anger had been steadily building.

‘I think I might kill her,' he said calmly, getting up. Peter pulled him back down.

‘Steady, Noose. We don't know for sure it's her yet, do we? Besides, you don't want to actually end up being a murderer, do you?'

‘She deserves to die after what she did.'

Peter couldn't very well disagree with that. He knew as soon as he came across Lucy's killer that he'd likely kill them. No, he would definitely kill them. It was justice. But for now, they were sorting justice out for Dani and Beth Henderson and the decapitated woman. Their killer did deserve to die for what they did.

The hedge was rather high – too high to jump over, and besides, that would draw too much attention – and it stretched at the back of dozens of houses. The two men lay flat on their stomachs and looked under it. It would be a squeeze, beset with thorns and rotting litter, but it was the only way to go. There was no turning back. What would greet them when they reached the house? Would Barbara even be in? They struggled under and kept flat as they just made it through. Unperturbed by the thorn scratches to their backs, the pair kept flat on the ground and pulled themselves along in the thick grass until they met the back of a shed. Sitting up against it, they took a breather.

‘So, a, er,' Noose fumbled, wondering how best to approach the subject. Peter gave out a little yawn, which Noose caught. ‘I'm the only one who can remember you being dead?' he asked through his own yawn.

‘Yup, pretty much,' was Peter's casual reply. He looked at Noose, grinning.

‘It's mad, it's crazy.'

‘It was necessary I'm afraid.' He looked away at the hedge, twiddling his thumbs. ‘Without you present, the museum club may not have been able to bring me back.'

‘Why?'

‘Well,' Peter responded sheepishly, ‘you are my strongest tie to the here and now, you were the one my entity could latch onto.'

‘So I was like a host?'

‘Yes, I was like a wasp laying my eggs in your fruity goodness,' Peter laughed.

‘What about Lauren? You told her you loved her, shouldn't she be your strongest tie or whatever?'

‘Things aren't as simple as that,' Peter shot.

‘They never are, are they?' Noose sighed. ‘Those men, the museum men… They were all
you
.'

Peter, not uneasy about Noose's ponderances, nonetheless wanted to get this latest problem wrapped up, so poked his head around the shed to clock the various windows in both Barbara's house and the houses either side. There were plenty that could potentially accommodate a spoiler of their plans. Either way, the chance had to be taken. He mouthed ‘3-2-1' to Noose before stepping out from behind the shed and scurrying on all fours towards the house. Noose followed, keeping up with him on pure adrenalin. Soon they had reached the house and, backs against the wall, took a breather.

‘It's rather unfortunate, really,' Peter whispered.

‘What is?'

‘All this, everything that's happened and is happening to you. You don't deserve it.'

‘Don't I? Are you sure about that?'

Peter knew he most certainly did not, but Noose himself wasn't so sure. Something he'd done to somebody in the past must have brought this on. If indeed Barbara Davies was the one who'd done this, then it was his fault for putting her in prison for a decade. She'd originally killed because of the one she'd loved. Was that a definite crime?